mm ROUND ABOUT PIGCflDILLY I TfT?»»TTTTTTT»TTTT»TT»ifTV»T»»VT»TT»»»T U;SC*«3 %Bf\QWPTON' IX; fifZc/?Avi> _^ft« \6UCKINC TH^v r HT*Y i nrHHHHPv r 'HP T Y^ i,i H^ ■ H I H /-;•'.. :>y^ mm ?.®B> ■ ■WHB WKe WW ■■ H 1 $?£& ■■"■ ■ ■ ■1 ■ ■■ u J^ ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY AND PALL MALL. Round About Piccadilly And Pall Mall ; OR, A RAMBLE FROM THE HA YMARKET TO HYDE PARK CONSISTING OF A RETROSPECT OF THE VARIOUS CHANGES THAT LIAVE OCCURRED IN THE COURT END OF LONDON. BY HENRY B. WHEATLEY. " Piccadilly ! shops, palaces, bustle, and breeze, The whirring of wheels, and the murmur of trees, By daylight, or nightlight, — or noisy, or stilly, Whatever my mood is, I love Piccadilly." Frederick Lockkk. LONDON : SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE. 1870. [The right of Translation is reserved.] CONTENTS. Preface j x xl CHAP. I. Introduction t 2 2 Piccadilly Hall— Origin of the name — Shaver's Hall — Statuaries— Houses at Hyde Park Corner. [I. Piccadilly Houses 23— 45 Early Inhabitants— The Albany — Mansions opposite the Green Park — Apsley House — Egyptian Hall. III. Burlington House 46— Si Original Builder — The Earls of Burlington — The Old Building — the New House and Colonnade — Duke of Portland — Henry Cavendish — The Royal Society — Royal Academy — Queensberry House — Uxbridge House — Wade's House — Old Burlington Street — Cork Street — Savile Row. IV. Clarendon House 82 — 93 Lord Chancellor Clarendon — Duke of Albemarle — Sale of the House and its Demolition. V. Devonshire House 94 — 102 Berkeley House — Devonshire House — Lansdowne House — Berkeley Square — Hay Hill. VI. St. James's Church 103— no The Church — Persons Buried there — Rectors. VII. The Streets on the South Side of Piccadilly 1 11 — 173 The Haymarket — Theatre Royal — Suffolk Street — Her Majesty's Theatre — St. James's Street — Berkshire House — Cleveland House— Bridgewater House — Cleve- land Square — Cleveland Row — Cleveland Court — St. James's Place — Park Place — Bennet Street — Arlington Street — Grosvenor Place. a — 3 vi CONTENTS. CHAP. HAGE VIII. The Streets on the North Side of Piccadilly 174—212 Great Windmill Street — Regent Street — Swallow Street — Sackville Street— Bond Street— Clifford Street- Conduit Street— Bruton Street— Grafton Street — Albe- marle Street — Dover Street — Berkeley Street — Stratton Street — Bolton Street — Clarges Street — Half Moon Street — May Fair — Chesterfield House — Down Street — Park Lane — Hamilton Place. IX. Hyde Park 213 — 254 Hyde Park Corner — St. George's Hospital — Deer — Races —Sale of the Park— The Ring— Rotten Row— The Ser- pentine — Encampments — Reviews — Duels — Trees — Kensington Gardens — The Palace. X. Green Park and St. James's Park 255— 2S3 Green Park — Constitution Hill — St. James's Park — Water — Rosamond's Pond — Duck Island — Game of Pall Mall — The Mall —Trees— Birdcage Walk— The Parade- Horse Guards — Spring Gardens. XL St. James's and Buckingham Palaces 284 — 317 St. James's Hospital — King's Manor House — Palace — Chapel Royal — German Chapel — Royal Library — Stable- Yard — Buckingham Palace — Mulberry Gardens — Goring House — Arlington House — Buckingham House —Queen's House — Palace — The King's Library — Marble Arch — Tart Hall. XII. Pall Mall 318—354 St. James's Field — The Rookery — Old Clubs — Early Inhabitants — Marlborough House — Schomberg House — New Clubs — Carlton House — Warwick House. — North Side : Dodsley — Alderman Boydell — British Institution. XIII. St. James's Square 355 — 385 First Called "The Piazza" — Early Inhabitants — Duke of Ormond — Norfolk House — State of the Square — St. James's Market — Charles Street — York Street — Jermyn Street — King Street — "Willis's Rooms" — Bury Street — Duke Street. Index 387 — 405 LIST OF WOODCUTS. Frontispiece. Hyde Park Corner in 1800. A copy of Plate 95 in Thomas Malton's Picturesque Tour through the Cities of London and Westminster. 1. Plan of part of the Parish of St. James's about 1720. A reduction of a portion of the plan of the parish in Strype's edition of Stovv's London, said to be taken " from the last survey, with cor- rections." It is given in the edition of 1720, and, with a few alterations, in that of 1755, but no date can be definitely fixed, as it is not perfectly accurate. The Haymarket Opera House, commenced in 1703, is not marked, but Carlton House, built in 1709, and not so called until 17 14, is figured in it. 25. Melbourne or York House, now "The Albany." 33. Hertford House (formerly Barrymore House) before 1851. From an etching by J. P. Malcolm, dated 1807. 38. Old Apsley House from Hyde Park. Reduced from an engraving by F. Vivares, dated 1828. 46. The Front of Burlington House in 1868. From a photograph taken in 1868. 46. Old Burlington House about 1700. Copied from an engraving in Les Delices de la Grande Bretagne, Leyden, 1707, which is the same on smaller scale as the print in Kip's The'dtre de la Grande Bretagne. 52. The Colonnade of Burlington House (taken down in 1868). From a photograph taken in 1868. 53. Piccadilly Wall of Burlington House (taken down in 1868). Reduced from a drawing made by Mr. Joseph Eedes a few weeks before the wall was pulled down. 74. QUEENSBERRY HOUSE. From an engraving of the house, built in 1721 by J. Leoni, in the fifth volume of the Crowle Pennant (British Museum Print Room). 76. Burlington Gardens and Uxbridge House. From an undated engraving printed about 1800. 78. Marshal Wade's House in Old Burlington Street. From Colen Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus. viii LIST OF WOODCUTS. PAGE 82. Clarendon House, 1667-83. From J. T. Smith's copy (published in 1798) of a rare contemporary print. 94. Devonshire House, 1808. From an etching by J. P. Malcolm, published in 180S. 116. Old Haymarket Theatre, closed in 1820. Copied from an engraving in Robert Wilkinson's Londina Illustrate, which is dated 1815. 125. Entrance to the Opera House previous to the year 1820. Copied from an engraving in Wilkinson's Londina, which is dated 1816. 205. Chesterfield House, built in 1748. 216. St. George's Hospital, after R. Wilson, R.A., 1746. 233. The Cheesecake House, taken down about 1835. From an engraving in the Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1801. 259. Ranger's Lodge in the Green Park. Copied from an engraving dated 1791. 260. Constitution Hill in 1748. Copied from a portion of a curious contemporary view of the fireworks exhibited in the Green Park on occasion of the Peace of Aix-la- Chapelle, on November 7, 1748. 261. St. James's Park in the Reign of Charles II. Reduced from the plan of the Park in Kip's Thedtre de la Grande Bretag>ie, undated, but probably printed soon after 1700. 265. Rosamond's Pond, after Hogarth. . From an engraving published for S. Ireland, in 1799. 284. St. James's Palace and Park. Copied from an undated engraving, probably printed about 1700, or soon after. 287 St. James's Palace. This view of the gate and street front of the palace is taken from Leigh Hunt's Tozun, vol. ii., 1848, p. 292, where it is dated 1650. 306. Buckingham House in 1748. Copied from a portion of a curious contemporary view of the fireworks exhibited in the Green Park on occasion of the Peace of Aix-la- Chapelle on November 7, 174S. 332. Schomberg House. Showing the house as it appeared before the east wing was rebuilt by Messrs. Harding. 342. The Screen of Carlton House. From an engraving published by Ackermann in 1809. 355. St. James's Square about 1727. A reduced copy of an undated engraving by Sutton Nicholls. PREFACE Every large city has a history which is not apparent to the men of business and of pleasure who frequent its streets, but which will reveal itself to the diligent seeker after unwritten traditions and documentary records. London, the largest and busiest of cities, has been for centuries the stage upon which the-chief acts in the drama of England's history have been enacted, and if all the actors could be brought before us, a motley group of great and small would assuredly be presented to our sight ; and even a record in detail of these actors and their homes and deeds must necessarily bear a miscellaneous character as well. Every old house has a tale to tell to those who will turn aside to listen, but the majority are too much occupied with the present to care about these stories of the past ; and to those who are constantly treading on ground made sacred by the historical scenes which have been enacted there, the influence of the daily contact obscures all its interest. London has grown and is growing to so huge a size, 1 that a complete 1 On all sides the town is daily extending before our eyes. With Brompton marked in the South Kensington maps as the centre of London, x PRE FA CE. account of its history is more than one man can suc- cessfully grapple with, and it is only by dividing it into parts, and describing each part separately in detail, that justice can be done to the subject as a whole. London is an a^o-reo-ation of towns and villages that have little in common the one with the other. Each has its distinct history, and the west knows little or nothing of the east, and the north as little of the south. I have chosen for my subject a portion of the aggregated mass which is second to none in the inte- rest of its associations. It has been from its proximity to the court, frequented by the ruling powers in state and general society for about two centuries. In former times society, or the " world," consisted of a small circle of persons who were almost all known to one another, and lived within this district. Society has now overflowed these limits, but they still comprehend one of the chief centres of London. Theodore Hook was in the habit of saying that London pa? r excellence was bounded on the north by Piccadilly, on the south by Pall Mall, on the east by the Haymarket, and on the west by St. James's Street. This region, with the addition of the district to the north of Piccadilly, extending through May Fair to Hyde Park Corner, and with Hyde, the Green, and it is difficult to bring ourselves to believe, that at the beginning of the century Belgravia was a country place. The once popular writer Samuel Pratt, the author of Sympathy, in a letter, dated 1813, speaks of " a retired spot called Belgrave Place, Pimlico, the street containing hardly more than a single house." PREFACE. xi St. James's Parks, is the one with which these pages are concerned. I have drawn my facts from many sources, and have referred to almost every book published on London topography. Nearly all these works, with the exception of Strype's edition of Stow's Survey and Cunningham's Handbook? are very untrustworthy and misleading, more especially Pennant's London, which, though a favourite authority, is full of blunders. As it has been the fashion to copy Pennant, most of these mistakes have been perpetuated by succeeding writers, and, probably, some of them will never die. The woodcuts that illustrate the book are mostly delineations of places and buildings now altered or passed away, and they have been copied from contem- porary engravings. They are necessarily of varied merit, but all are trustworthy records of a past that would otherwise be forgotten. It is my pleasing duty to thank those friends who have kindly assisted me in my inquiries, more especi- ally the Rev. Scott Surtees, Rector of Sprotburgh ; Mr. W. H. Spilsbury, librarian of Lincoln's Inn ; and Mr. George Buzzard, vestry clerk of St. James's parish. 2 When we consider the vast amount of information, extending over so large an area, contained in this valuable work, we cannot but greatly admire its extreme accuracy. Every modern writer on London must feel the benefits he has received from it, and I gladly acknowledge how deeply I am indebted to it. ERRATA. Page 27, line 29, for " George II." read " George III. ■• J 59> n 33> dele "learned editor and." .. 180, ,, 25, for " Gay " read " Gray. " .. 216, ,, \, for" T\\xvc\o\v" read" Thurloe." t-*^ - t, - - — fr* E «** *" £• = "** ™ "P SJ fl ^ r-,o . ^ r _y. ? V 7 - - I— h-- l"-j ■_ :. T- — " ^- r" ^ — ^ ~ hi *■* -- ~ t- r"* -~ '— '— 7- — „~ — v x ~ - — — — 7 ™ 7. ! :/■ n ">/.X ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. In the olden times a universal fear was felt, both by the governors and the governed, that the large cities would over- grow themselves ; and we find in the reign of Elizabeth, and even as late as that of Charles II., that various Acts of Parliament were passed in the vain attempt to prevent the increase of buildings in London. The erection of new houses was prohibited and new residents were not permitted to arrive. Country gentlemen were forbidden by proclamation to leave their family seats and take up their residence in the City ; and these edicts were not allowed to become a dead letter, for, in 1632, a squire from the county of Sussex, and, moreover, a bachelor, was fined 1,000/. for stopping too long in London. Thomas Fuller showed himself wiser than his contemporaries when he wrote thus of the inevitable increase of the metropolis : — " Some have suspected the declining of the lustre thereof, because of late it vergeth so much west- ward, increasing in buildings in Covent Garden, &c. But by their favour (to disprove their fear) it will be found to burnish round about to every point of the compass, with new struc- tures daily added thereunto." x The framers of these proclamations and Acts of Parlia- 1 Fuller's Worthies, ed. 1840, vol. ii. p. 333. 1 2 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. ment would have cause for surprise now if they were allowed to walk again in the streets of London. If, in the sixteenth century, when it consisted of little more than the present " City," they thought it too large, what would their thoughts of it be now in the nineteenth ? As some excuse for what appears to us an absurd fear, we must remember that London formerly was much larger in proportion to the other cities of the empire than it is at present. Notwithstanding these restrictive laws, London continued to increase, and the City was gradually joined to Charing Cross and Westminster. The highway of the Strand was paved about 1385 from Temple Bar to the Savoy, but it went no farther till the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, when the grand old mansions by the side of the Thames were still considered out of town. We constantly express surprise at the present rapid growth of the outskirts of London, but the transformation of the fields of St. James's into squares and streets was not less surprising ; and when the relative numbers of population are considered, the increase of London in Tyburnia, Belgravia, and the outskirts, during the present century, can hardly be considered as exceeding in comparison the enormous growth of the whole western part of London, which began soon after the Restoration. On the return of Charles II. to take possession of his kingdom, the noblemen and gentlemen who followed him found their old mansions unsuited to their wants, which had been largely increased by long residence abroad, and at once a strong tide set in towards the west. Lord Clarendon was one of the first to change his habitation, and he built his new house looking down upon the palace of St. James's. Large numbers followed him, and streets arose as if by magic. 2 As shown by Macaulay in his History of England, the population of London in the days of Charles II. was seventeen times greater than the population of Bristol or Norwich, which towns were then second in im- portance to the capital. It is now little more than six times the popula- tion of Manchester or Liverpool. INTRODUCTION. 3 The district chosen for illustration in the following pages extends from the Hay market in the east, to Grosvenor Place in the west, and Piccadilly may be considered as forming its backbone or main thoroughfare. The whole of this part of London was, previous to the Restoration, nothing but fields, and the streets, which are now crowded with traffic, were then but lanes or roads, running between green hedges. If we look at Faithorne's map of London (1658), we shall find a country road marked " from Knightsbridge unto Piccadilly Hall," — this is the present Piccadilly. South of this is a road from Charing Cross to St. James's Palace, now called Pall Mall, with two rows of trees on its north side in St. James's Fields, and an alley where was played the game of Pall Mall. St. James's Park is shown with trees dotted about it, and Goring House, and another house unnamed, at its west end, with the Mulberry Garden behind them. St. James's Street has a few houses at the south end of its east side, and its west side is occupied by the gardens of Barkeshire House. The Haymarkethas a hedge on the west side, and walls on the east side. A few houses stand at the south-west corner, where it joins Pall Mall, and the Gaming- House is at the north-east corner. Opposite is Windmill Street, with houses on both sides, all the way up to " the way to Paddington," now Oxford Street. We shall start upon our stroll along Piccadilly, turning into the streets which lie to the north and south of it, and then pass into Hyde Park and return along the Green and St. James's Parks to Pall Mall and St. James's Square. From this place we soon arrive again at the spot from which we first set out. Divisions of this sort must necessarily be arbitrary. The boundaries of a parish cannot well be followed, because we should then have to take one side of a street and to leave out the other ; and so, when the arbitrary line has to be drawn, the reader must not be too critical and severe upon the writer who draws it. Mr. Cunningham supposes that there were two places of 4 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. entertainment close together, namely, Piccadilly Hall and Shaver's Hall, but this I think very improbable. I believe that Piccadilly Hall was a private house and not a public place, but that the district, having obtained the name of Piccadilly, the Gaming-House was also called Piccadilly. The following are my reasons for forming this opinion : — Piccadilly Hall belonged to Robert Baker, of the parish of St. Martin's -in -the -Fields, whose last will was dated April 14, 1623, and the house was still in the possession of his widow in 1641 ; but in June, 163 1, we find by the Calendar of State Papers that Lady Shrewsbury occupied the house : "June 24, 163 1. Richard Wainwright and others to Sec. Dorchester. This day at Lady Shrewsbury's house, at Piccadilly Hall, in the parish of St. Martin, there was mass said by Capt. George Popham, priest. Richard Wainwright apprehended him, with the assistance of Edward Corbett, constable of the parish ; carrying him to the Attorney- General at Somerset House, he made an escape, and was received by the friars." 3 Piccadilly was originally the name of a district, and not of a street ; thus the Haymarket was described as being situated in Piccadilly, and so also was Windmill Street. The origin of the name appears to be wrapt in impene- trable mystery, and the various attempts to solve it are nearly all alike unsatisfactory. The earliest conjectural etymology is to be found in Thomas Blount's Glossographia, of which the first edition was published in 1656. The passage is as follows : — " Pickadil (a Belg. Pickedillekens, i.e. Lacinia, Teut. Pickedel), the round hem, or the several divisions set together about the skirt of a garment, or other thing ; also a kinde of stiff collar, made in fashion of a Band. Hence, perhaps, that famous ordinary near St. James, called Pickadilly, took denomination ; because it was then the outmost or skirt house of the suburbs that way. Others say it took name from this : that one Higgins, a tailor, who built it, got most of his estate by Pickadilles, which, in the last age, were much worn 3 Cat. of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1631-33, p. 89. INTRODUCTION. 5 in England." In the second and later editions of his work, Blount omitted the passage which contained what was apparently his own conjecture, viz., "because it was then the outmost or skirt house of the suburbs that way." This is, I think, the most probable of the two derivations, for Higgins and his collars appear to have been a pure myth. We do not find any mention of them elsewhere, and we know that the house was built by Robert Baker, in whose possession, and in that of his wife, it remained for some years. It is possible, though not probable, that Baker may have had some- thing to do with piccadils, but there is absolutely not a single tittle of evidence to connect the name of the place with that of the collar. Another theory has been started of late years, which is, that the name relates to the position of the ground on which the place is built, that it is, in fact, a peaked hill ; and in support of this, it is said that the various places in the country that bear the same name are all on high ground. 4 This is a very unsatisfactory derivation, although it is certainly curious that there should be places in Wales, Lancashire, and the Chiltern Hills, with so strange a name as Piccadilly. A question of much importance in the discussion is whether Piccadilly Hall took its name from the district, or the district from the Hall. In Cunningham's Handbook it is stated that the earliest mention of the place is to be found in the first edition of Gerarde's Herbal, which is dated as early as 1597. Now, had this been the case, it would have been a strong argument in favour of the former of the two hypotheses, because it is an earlier date than that of the first mention either of the collar or of the Gaming-House. I have looked for the passage referred to in the first edition of Gerarde ; but it is not to be found there. It is, however, in the second and third editions, edited by Thomas Johnson, which are dated respectively 1633 and 1636, and occurs in the chapter on the Buglosse, in the following words : — " These do grow in gardens everywhere. The Lang de Beefe growes wilde in many places, as betweene Redriffe and Deptford, by the 4 Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, vol. 9. 1 866. 6 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. waterie ditch sides. The little wild Buglosse grows upon the drie ditch bankes about Pickadilla, and almost everywhere." In the first edition, the only note of the plant's locality is contained in the words, " These do grow everywhere." This, of course, takes off nearly forty years from the recorded antiquity of the name, and the passage is only interesting as an early, though not the earliest, mention of the place. The Gaming-House was opened about the year 1634 by the barber of the Lord Chamberlain, Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. It consisted of a tennis-court, an ordi- nary, and an upper and lower bowling-green, which were frequented by most of the fashionable men of the day. James Howell, on March 5, 1634, and George Garrard, on June 24, 1635, both mention the place in their correspondence with Thomas, Earl of Strafford, then Lord Deputy of Ireland. James Howell writes, "There was a difference like to fly high betwixt my Lord Chamberlain and my Lord of Leicester, about a Bowling-Green that my Lord Chamberlain had given his Barber leave to set up, in lieu of that in the Common Garden, in the field under my Lord of Leicester's house ; but the matter, after some ado, is taken up." 5 Garrard, speaking of the same place, says : — " Since the Spring Garden was put down, we have, by a servant of the Lord Chamberlain's, a new Spring Garden, erected in the Fields behind the Meuse, where is built a fair house, and two Bowling-Greens, made to entertain Gamesters and Bowlers at an excessive rate ; for I believe it hath cost him above four thousand pounds, a dear undertaking for a Gentleman Barber. My Lord Chamberlain much frequents that place, where they bowl great matches." 6 The Gaming-House got the name of Shaver's Hall, as is described in the following letter from George Garrard to Edward, Viscount Conway and Killultagh, dated May 30, 1636: — " Simme Austbiston's house is newly christened. It is called Shaver's Hall, as other neighbouring places there- about are nicknamed Tart Hall, Pickadell Hall. At first, 5 Strafford's Letters and Dispatches, vol. i., 1739, p. 377. 6 Ibid. p. 435. INTRODUCTION. 7 no conceit there was of the builder's being a barber, but it came upon my Lord of Dunbar's losing of ^3,000 at one sitting, whereon they said a northern lord was shaved there ; but now, putting both together, I fear it will be a nickname of the place — as Nick and Froth is at Petworth — as long as the house stands. My Lord Chamberlain knows not of [it] yet ; but he'll chafe abominably when he comes to know it." 7 Here Garrard distinctly states that the Gaming-House was a separate building from Piccadilly Hall. The last sentence of the letter gains a meaning for us when we remember that the Earl of Pembroke was a very quarrelsome man, of whom Ant. Wood says : — " He did not refrain to break many wiser heads than his own." In 1641, Lord Clarendon describes himself as going to this place, by which time it appears to have gained the name of Piccadilly, from its locality, for, as the description answers so completely to the Gaming-House, it can hardly have been Piccadilly Hall. " In the afternoon of the same day (when the conference had been in the painted chamber upon the Court of York), Mr. Hyde going to a place called Piccadilly (which was a fair house for entertainment and gaming, with handsome gravel walks with shade, and where were an upper and lower bowling-green, whither very many of the nobility and gentry of the best quality resorted, both for exercise and conversation), as soon as ever he came into the ground, the Earl of Bedford came to him." 8 About this time, Sir John Suckling, who poisoned himself at Paris in 1641, was a constant visitor. Aubrey thus describes him : — " He was the greatest gallant of his time, and the greatest gamester, both for bowling and cards, so that no shopkeeper would trust him for sixpence. (He was one of the best bowlers of his time in England. He played at cards rarely well, and did use to practise by himselfe a-bed, and there studyed the best way of managing the cards. Mem. His sisters comeing to the Peccadillo bowling-green crying, 7 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1635-36, p. 462. b Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, ed. 1826, vol. i. p. 422. 8 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. for feare he should lose all [their] portions)." 9 Suckling wrote of himself : — " Who priz'd black eyes or a lucky hit At bowls above all the trophies of wit." Many men lost their fortunes at this place, and Richard Flecknoe, in a poem dated 1656, "on the occasion of his being left alone in the Mulberry Garden, to wait on all the ladies of the times," complains that the men of London neglected the women, so that he goes on to say, — " Your country squire I far more admire, For he goes to the Park and the gardens." He says of the Londoners : — ■ " But we behold Them daily more bold And their lands to coyn they distil ye, And then with the money You see how they run ye To loose it at Piccadilly." l0 Phil. Porter, a spendthrift of the Restoration, laments his separation from the pleasures of London life, and specially mentions the Tennis Court, a place that existed up to the year 1866 in James Street, Haymarket : — " Farewell, my dearest Piccadilly, Notorious for good dinners ; Oh, what a Tennis Court was there ! Alas ! too good for sinners." " In an undated map of London, by T. Porter, 12 in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, the Gaming-House is marked at the north-east corner of the Haymarket, and the house at the corner of Windmill Street is called " Pecadilly Hall." There is every reason to believe that, at this time, the district, and not the hall merely, was known as Piccadilly. Mr. Cunning- 9 Aubrey's Lives (Letters from the Bodleian, 1813, vol. ii. p. 545). 10 Epigrams of all Sorts. London, 1670, p. 89. 11 Wit and Drollery : Jovial Poems. London, 1682, pp. 36-40. 12 " The newest and exactest mapp of the most famous citties : London and Westminster with their suburbs and the manner of their streets. . . By T. Porter." Its date is probably about 1640. INTRODUCTION. 9 ham found the following entry in the Burial Register of St. Martin's under the date of 1636 : — " 26 Aug. Mulier ignota e Piccadilly sep ta - fait." In the following year certain houses round about were ordered to be destroyed. Garrard writes to Strafford, on February 7, as follows : — " A sentence in the Star Chamber this term hath demolished all the houses about Piccadilly ; by midsummer they must be pulled down, which have stood since the 13th of King James ; they are found to be great nuisances, and much foul the spring of water which pass by those houses to Whitehall and the City." 13 In 1640 Mrs. Mary Baker, widow, paid certain moneys to the overseers of St. Mar- tin's parish, on account " of certaine groundes neere the Winde Mill at the cawsey head, builded upon by her late husband deceased, and now usually called Pickadilly." Mrs. Baker sold the property to Captain Edward Panton, a successful gambler, and also one of Titus Oates's infamous gang of false swearers, whose name remains in Panton Street and Panton Square. In a survey made in the year 1650 the Gaming-House is fully described, and is said to be situated at Pickadilley: — "All that Tenem 1 - called Shaver's Hall, strongly built w th - Brick and covered with lead, consistinge of one Large Seller, commodiously devided into 6 Roomes, and over the same fower fair Roomes, 10 stepps in ascent from y e ground, at 3 seurall wayes to the goeinge into the said house, all very well paved w tk Purbeck stone well fitted and joynted, and above stayres in the first story 4 spacious Roomes ; also out of one of the said Roomes one faire Belcony, opening w th - a pleasant prospect southwards to the Bowling Alleyes ; and in the second story 6 Roomes, and over the same a fair walk leaded and inclosed w th - Rayles, very curiously carved and wrought ; alsoe one very fay r stayr case, very strong and curiously wrought, leadinge from the bottome of the said house, very conveniently and pleasantly upp into all the said Roomes, and upp to one Leaded walk at the topp of the said house ; as alsoe adioyninge to a wall on the west part thereof, one shedd devided into 6 Roomes, and adioyninge to the north part, one Rainge consisting 13 Strafford's Letters and Dispatches, vol. ii., 1739, p. 150. io ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. of 3 Large Roomes used for Kitchens, and one other room used for a coale house, and over the Kitchens 2 Lofts devided into faire chambers ; as alsoe one faire Tennis Court, very strongly built w th - Brick and covered with Tyle, well accommodated with all things fitting for the same ; as alsoe one Tenement thereunto adioyninge, consisting of 3 Roomes below stayres and 3 Roomes above stayres ; alsoe at the gate or comeing in to the Upper Bowlinge Alley, one Parlour Lodge, consisting of one faire Roome at each side of the gate ; as alsoe one faire pair of stayres w th - 12 stepps of Descent leading down into the Lower Bowlinge Alley, 2 wayes, and meeting at the bottom in a faire Roome under the Highway or footpath leading between the 2 Bowlinge Alleys, between two brick walls east and west, and the lower ground, one fair bowling alley and one orchard wall, planted w th - seurall choyce of fruite trees ; as also one pleasant banquetting house and one other faire and pleasant Roome, called the greene Roome, and one other Conduit house and 2 other Turretts adioyninge to the walls, consisting of 2 Roomes in each of them, one above the other. The ground whereon the said buildings stand, together w th - 2 fayre Bowling Alleyes, Orchard gardens, gravily walks, and other green walks and courts and courtyards, containinge, by estimacon, 3 acres and \ lyeing betweene a Road way leading from Charinge Crosse to Knightsbridge west, and a high way leadinge from Charinge Crosse towards So-hoe, abutting on the Earl of Suffolk's brick wall south, and a way leading from St. Gyles to Knightsbridge west, now in the occupacon of Captayne Geeres, and is worth per ann. clii." 14 The following extracts from the Interregnum Order Book may either refer to Piccadilly Hall or to Shaver's Hall : — "Aug. 1, 1650. — That the comonly called Pick a dillie bee assigned unto Coll. Birkstead for the quartering of soe manie of his souldiers as hee shall thinke fitt." 14 " A Survey [made in 1650] of Certain Lands and Tenements scituate and being at Pickadilley, the Blue Muse, and others thereunto adioyninge " (No. 73 of the Augmentation Records). Quoted in Cunningham's Hand- book of London, vol. ii. p. 738. INTRO D UCTION. 1 1 "Nov. 30, 1650. — That the house of the Lord of Thanett in Aldersgate, and likewise the house Pickadilly, bee both made use of for the quartering of 200 soldiers in each, for which houses a reasonable rent is to be paid, and especial care is to be taken that noe spoil bee done to the said houses by the souldiers quartered in them." 15 In Howel's Londinppolis (1657) Piccadilly is referred to as " full of fair houses round about ; " and Evelyn, in his diary under date July 31, 1662, writes: — "I sat with the Commissioners about reforming buildings and streets of London, and we ordered the paving of the way from St. James's north which was a quagmire, also of the Haymarket about Piqudillo, and agreed upon instructions to be printed and published for the better keeping the streets clean." In the Calendar of State Papers l6 note is made under date February 9, 1661, of" Information [given] by Sir Sam. Morland of a meeting of 14 or 16 Fifth Monarchy Men held two or three times a week at the Maiden Head Tavern, Piccadilly, and request for a warrant for Capt. Wharton to apprehend them." Eleven tokens, issued by shopkeepers living in Piccadilly, are described in J. Y. Akerman's Tradesmen 's Tokens, 11 and as there are considerable varieties in the spelling of the name, it will be well to give them here : — 1662. Robert Beard in Pakadilla. 1665. Richard Groome in Pickadilly. 1666. Nathaniel Robins at the Hay Market in Pickadilla. 1666. Richard Thorp, grocer, in Pickadilly. 1668. John Vaughan in Pickadilly. 1670. William Hill in Pickadilly. Four undated tokens are as follows : — William Flindell in Peckadille. Edw. Gillney in Pickedille. Will. Vesey, at the Garden House, neare Piccadilly. Joh. Walker, Sugar Loaf, Picadilly. 15 Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, VI. p. 229. 16 Domestic Series, 1660-61, p. 506. 17 8vo. London, 1849. i2 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Piccadilly Street first occurs in the rate-books of St. Martin's Parish in 1673. In summing up the results of the inquiry, we find, from the foregoing facts, that there was a district named Piccadilly, and that the principal house in it was called Piccadilly Hall. We also find that the Gaming-House or Shaver's Hall was called Piccadilly from its locality. There is posi- tively no evidence of the origin of the name, and nothing satisfactory to connect it with the fashionable collar of the early part of the seventeenth century ; but Garrard, in his letter of 1636, seems to hint at some such connection when he speaks of " Pickadell Hall " being a nickname. The writers of the time are full of references to the pick- adil, and the following quotations, extending from 161 1 to 1653, show how much attention was paid to this article of dress : — 161 1. Cotgrave says: — " Piccadilles, the severall divi- sions or peeces fastened together about the brimme of the collar of a doublet," &c. 1614. Barnaby Rich, in his satire on The Honestie of this Age, says : — " But he that some fortie or fifty yeares sithens should have asked after a Pickadilly, I wonder who could have understood him, or could have told what a Pickadilly had beene, either fish or flesh." 161 5. In Overbury's New Characters : — "The next morn- ing his man (in actu or potentia) enjoies his pickadels. His landresse is then shrewdly troubled in fitting him a ruffe, his perpetuall badge." In this year, on a visit of James I. to the University of Oxford, an order was issued by the Vice-Chancellor prohibit- ing their use. " Leave it, scholar, leave it and take it not in snuff, For he that wears no pickadel, by law may wear a ruff." 18 Ben Jonson frequently mentions this collar, and spells it picardill. Gifford supposes that he believed it to be derived 18 RUGGLE'S Ignoramus. INTRODUCTION. 13 from the place Picardy, when it really is a diminutive of picca, a spear-head, which it was supposed to resemble. In the Devil is an Ass (1616) : — " Pug. Although I am not, in due symmetry, the man Of that proportion — or, in rule Of Physic, of the just complexion ; Or of that truth of Picardill in clothes, To boast a sovereignty o'er ladies ; yet I know to do my turns, sweet mistress." In the Underwoods : — "Be at their visits, see them squeamish sick Ready to cast at one whose band sits ill, And then leap mad on a neat picardill." Barnaby Rich, in The Irish Hubbub, or the EnglisJi Hue and Crie (16 19), states that the Irish had no pride in their apparel till they learned it from the English ; " they knew not what to make of a Piccadilly." Thomas Middleton, in his play The World Tost at Tennis (1620), applies the name to some tool of the tailor, and not to a collar : — "Scholar. So likewise, by His deep instructive and his mystic tools, The tailor comes to be rhetorical. ***** By his needle he understands ironia, That with one eye looks two ways at once ; Metonymia ever at his finger's ends ; Some call his pickadill synecdoche, But I think rather that should be his yard." Fletcher refers to the collar in his play The Pilgrim (1621):— " First Outlaw. Do you want a band, sir? This is a coarse wearing. {Puts the halter on him.) 'Twill sit but scurvily upon this collar ; But patience is as good as a French pickadel." H ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Minsheu, in his Dictionary (1627), describes it as " pick- adill, G. Piccadillee, a peece fastened about the top of the coller of a doublet." The piccadill was not merely a portion of man's apparel, but was also used by women. Drayton thus speaks of them : — " And in her fashion she is likewise thus, In every thing she must be monstrous ; Her picadell above her crowne up beares, Her fardingale is set above her eares." 19 In the first extract we see the time of their introduction, and in the last, the date of which is 1653, that of their decline. " 161 2. And among the rest, yellow starch, the invention and foyl of jaundice complexions, with great cut-work bands, and piccadillies (thing that hath since lost the name) crouded in, and flourished among us, Mrs. Turner being nominated to be the first contriver, happily in England, but the original came out of France, which fashion and colour did set off their lean and sallow countenances." 20 The humble name, Piccadilly, seems to have possessed a great power of vitality, for it gradually superseded the other names which had been given to different parts of the entire road from the Haymarket to Hyde Park Corner. At first it was confined to the present Coventry Street, which is so called after Coventry House, then the residence of the Right Hon. Henry Coventry, Ambassador to Sweden, and Secretary of State in Charles II.'s reign. The garden wall of this house ran along part of Panton Street and Oxenden Street, and extended from the Gaming-House at the corner of the Haymarket to Hedge Lane. In an advertisement in the London Gazette, July 30, 1674, 21 Mr. Secretary Coventry's house is referred to as in Piccadilly. In 1708 Hatton describes Piccadilly as situated between Coventry Street and 19 Drayton's Poems (Mooncalf), p. 235. *° Arthur Wilson's Life of James I. (Kennett's England, vol. ii. p. 6S8.) 21 No. 908. INTRO D UCTION i 5 the end of the Haymarket ; the rest of the road being called Portugal Street, in honour of Queen Catharine of Braganza ; but in the Act for erecting St. James's into a parish (1685), the churchyard is described as fronting " towards Piccadilly Street, alias Portugal Street." Portugal Street remained the official name until about 1750, but many years previously Piccadilly had popularly superseded it. As early as 1709 (April 18) the Tatler, in a notice of Mayfair, speaks of the " upper part of Piccadilly." In Strype's edition of Stow's Survey (1720) and in Seymour's Survey (1734) the whole street is referred to as Piccadilly. In Cox's Magna Britannia (1724) there is a little uncertainty — for Bond Street and Albe- marle Street are described as near Piccadilly, but Berkeley Street as in Portugal Street. The turnpike which in 1721 was removed to Hyde Park Corner was, previously to that time, situated at the end of Berkeley Street, and all beyond was the great Western Road, which was without a pavement. This portion of the street, if such it might be called, was for years in a very bad and dangerous state, coaches being frequently either overturned in it or stopped by highwaymen. In 1692 Sir Robert Atkyns, Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Speaker of the House of Lords, was living at Kensington, and on the first of March, the day appointed for a conference between the Lords and Commons, he did not make his appearance, and the Lords were obliged to choose a temporary Speaker in the Duke of Somerset. Sir Robert Atkyns's non-atten- dance is explained in the following passage from the Lords' Journals : — " A message was sent to the House of Commons by Sir Miles Cook and Sir Adam Ottley : To let the Commons know that the Speaker of the House of Lords, living two miles out of town, and the badness of the roads at this present, was the only occasion of their Lordships not coming to the conference at the time appointed." 22 Forty years after this the passage seems to have been w Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, vol. vii. p. 396. 16 ROUXD ABOUT PICCADILLY. as difficult, for Lord Hervey, writing to his mother from Kensington in November, 1736, says, "The road between this place and London is grown so infamously bad that we live here in the same solitude as we should do if cast on a rock in the middle of the ocean, and all the Londoners tell us there is between them and us a great impassable gulf of mud. There are two roads through the park, but the new one is so convex, and the old one so concave, that by this extreme of faults they agree in the common one of being, like the high road, impassable." The overflow of waters after heavy rains was very great in the hollow now occupied by the Marquis of Hertford's mansion (No. 105). In December, 1726, the carriage of the Ambassador from Morocco was nearly overturned at this place, and the daughter of Baron Hartoff was almost killed by the upset of the Baron's carriage. 23 The author of a History and Present State of the British Islands, published in 1743, refers to the same state of things. He says : " This being one of the great roads from Exeter and the west of England, the pavement is for the most part miserably broken and hazardous to ride upon, as it is in most of the streets leading to the great roads." Horace Walpole, writing in 1750, says that, as he was sitting in his dining-room in Arlington Street, one night at eleven o'clock, he heard a loud cry of " Stop thief ! " On inquiry, he found that a highwayman had attacked a postchaise in Piccadilly not fifty yards from his house, and adds that, although the attempt was unsuccessful, the man escaped. 24 The present Piccadilly consists of two parts : the one from the Haymarket to the Green Park is a street of shops ; the other, from Berkeley Street to Hyde Park, is gradually becoming a terrace of aristocratic mansions. For many years no houses were built to the west of Berkeley House, and the ground was occupied by the ware- houses of various statuaries, as in the New Road of the present 23 Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, vol. iv. 328. 24 Walpole's Correspondence, 1840, vol. ii. p. yrf. INTRODUCTION. 17 day. Horace Walpole refers to this place in a letter to Sir Horace Mann (June 6, 1746), when he writes : "I am much obliged to you for the care you take in sending my eagle by my commodore-cousin, but I hope it will not be till after his expedition. I know the extent of his genius ; he would hoist it overboard on the prospect of an engagement, and think he could buy me another at Hyde Park Corner with the prize- money ; like the Roman tar that told his crew, that if they broke the antique Corinthian statues, they should find new ones." 25 Ralph says : " Sorry I am that the shops and yards of the statuaries in Piccadilly afford a judicious foreigner such flagrant opportunities to arraign and condemn our taste. Among a hundred statues, you shall hardly see one even tolerable, either in design or execution ; nay, even the copies of the antique are so monstrously wretched, that one can hardly guess at their originals. 26 Robert Lloyd wrote, in 1757, a short poem entitled The Cits Country Box, in which he describes the progress of a citizen's new villa, and the taste displayed in it, and closes the description of the garden thus : — " And now from Hyde Park Corner come The gods of Athens and of Rome. Here squabby Cupids take their places, With Venus and the clumsy Graces : Apollo there, with aim so clever, Stretches his leaden bow for ever ; And thus without the pow'r to fly, Stands fix'd a tip-toe Mercury." n Soon after this, certain mansions were built on the site of some of these yards. " Piccadilly, the houses of which over- look the beautiful Green Park, as well as that of St. James's, bids fair to be in time a street of Palaces ; several fine houses of persons of condition being built and building there, instead of many very mean ones pulled down to give room for them ; 25 Walpole's Corresfionde?ice, 1840, vol. ii. p. 125. 26 Ralph's Crit. Review of Public Buildings, ed. 1783, p. 185. 27 Lloyd's Poetical Works, 1774, vol. i. 2 1 8 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. and the good taste for so happy a situation still increasing." 2S The leaden figure yard of John Van Nost, a Dutch sculptor, who came to England with William III., stood on ground now occupied by number 105 Piccadilly, and other houses. His effects were sold after his death on March 1, 171 1, and the premises were described as standing near " The Queen's Mead House," in Hyde Park Road. In 17 13 there is an advertise- ment by the widow of Nost in the Guardian (No. 60, May 20,) of this place — " Whereas, there remains several extraordinary fine things belonging to the late famous sculptor Mr. John Nost, viz. : fine inlaid marble tables, marble chimney pieces, figures, &c, she designing to go beyond sea, will dispose of them at reasonable rates, at her house near Hide Park, where attendance will be daily given." Dickenson's manu- factory stood on the site of Gloucester House (No. 137), Carpenter's on the site of Cambridge House (No. 94), and Manning's at the west corner of Whitehorse Street, on the site of No. 96, Piccadilly. Walpole, writing to George Montagu in 1759 (November 8), says, " I stared to-day at Piccadilly like a country squire ; there are twenty new stone houses ; at first I concluded that all the grooms that used to live there had got estates and built palaces." Between the years 1761 and 1764, the Dilettanti Society projected a building in Piccadilly on the model of the Temple of Pola. Two sites were proposed, the one between Devon- shire and Bath Houses, and the other on the west side of Cambridge House. The project, however, came to nought, and the Society is still without a house. Horace Walpole was rather satirical on the supposed qualification for member- ship of this distinguished society. In a letter to Sir H. Mann (April 14, 1743), he says, "For which the nominal qualifica- tion is having been in Italy, and the real one being drunk : the two chiefs are Lord Middlesex and Sir Francis Dashwood, who were seldom sober the whole time they were in Italy." The western end of Piccadilly was originally an outgrowth from Knightsbridge, and several houses were built between 2a Defoe's Tour thrd Great Britain, ed. 1761, vol. ii. p. 103. INTRODUCTION. 19 Hyde Park Corner and Park Lane during the Commonwealth, the leases of which were afterwards granted to James Hamil- ton. Mr. Cunningham found in the overseer's accounts for St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, under the date of 1655, the following entry : — " Received for the rent of the cottages at Hyde Park Corner." For many years a cluster of mean houses existed, where palaces have now arisen, one of these being the cele- brated public-house called the " Pillars of Hercules," a sign formerly much used for inns on the outskirts of towns, from a supposed analogy of their position to the famous Hercules Pillars which guarded the Straits of Gibraltar. This house is mentioned in Wycherley's Plain Dealer (1676), and was in great repute amongst country gentlemen visiting London. Here Fielding makes Squire Western in Tom Jones put up, on his visit to London. The Marquis of Granby, who died in 1770, was a constant visitor, and many military men patronized it. In 1772, when Sheridan had his first duel with Captain Thomas Mathews about his future wife, then Miss Linley, they went to Hyde Park, but, being observed, they retired to the " Hercules Pillars," and afterwards went to Covent Garden, where, at the " Castle " tavern, Henrietta Street, the duel took place. The " Pillars of Hercules " was standing as late as the year 1797. Besides this public-house, there were several others, viz. "The Golden Lion," "The Red Lion," "The Horse-Shoe," " The Running Horse," " The Swan," " The Barley Mow," and " The Triumphal Car." These houses were much visited on Sundays, about the middle of the last century, and those near the park were specially patronized by the soldiers on review days. At one of these small taverns Steele and Savage dined one day, and, as the former had no money to pay the reckoning, he dictated a pamphlet to Savage, who had to go out and sell it, which he did with difficulty, and then only obtained two guineas for it. Besides these public-houses, there stood about this spot, at the end of the seventeenth, and beginning of the eighteenth, 20 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. century, a place of entertainment called " Winstanley's Water Theatre." Henry Winstanley, of Littlebury, Essex, its founder, was a man of property, and would appear to have been a very curious character. In 1696 he undertook to erect the first Eddystone Lighthouse, which was a very whimsical structure. This building was destroyed by the great storm on November 26, 1703, and Winstanley, who had gone there to superintend some repairs, was lost in it. In his house at Littlebury he had contrived a number of mechanical devices to astonish his visi- tors : thus, if an old slipper lying in the middle of the floor was kicked, a ghost started up before the kicker ; if a certain chair was sat in, a couple of arms would immediately clasp the sitter, so that he could not disengage himself ; if the unfortunate visitor sat in an arbour by the side of a canal, he was set afloat into the middle of the water. The waterworks at Hyde Park were exhibited for some years after the death of their contriver. In the Guardian for April 23, 17 13 (No. 37), is the following advertisement of the performances to take place: — "The famous Water Theatre of the late ingenious Mr. Winstanly is now open'd, and shewn for the benefit of his widow, every evening between 5 and 6 of the clock ; there are the greatest curiosities in waterworks, the like never perform'd by any ; and several new additions will be shewn this evening that were never seen before. Box, 2s. 6d. ; Pit, 2s. ; First Gallery, is. 6d. ; Upper Gallery, 6d. Con- veniences for coaches to be out of the way. This is at the lower end of Picadilly, towards Hide Park, and is known by a windmill on the top of it." In the next month there were great doings at this place, as will be seen by the following advertisement : — " At the request of several persons of quality that came on Thursday last to the mathematical Water Theatre of the late ingenious Mr. Winstanly, when the house was full that they could not come in, this present day (May 14) between 5 and 6 a clock, will be given to the spectator as before : 6 sorts of wine and brandy, to drink the queen's health, all coming out of the barrel, with bisket and spaw water ; and, as peace is inlarged, there will be added Claret, INTRODUCTION. 21 Pale Ale, Stout, and water playing out of the head of the barrel when it is in the pulley. The house will be par- ticularly adorned this night with several new figures and machines, playing of water, and fire mingling with water, and a flying dragon, casting out of his mouth at the same time a large stream of water with fire, and perfumes, and water playing out of great burning flames, and a prospect of the coaches going to Hide Park in cascades of water. . . . His house at Littlebery, in Essex, is now in compleat order, and both are shown for the benefit of his widow." {Guar- dian, No. 55.) The several prices were raised on this occasion. Hyde Park Corner formerly extended farther than it does at present. In J. Rocque's Plan of London and Westminster, dated 1746, it reaches from the turnpike to Dover Street. On the site of the mean houses formerly standing here, a terrace was built from designs by the Adams, which originally was raised some feet above the road, but was lowered soon after the year 18 10. Piccadilly, with its trees and views over the Green Park, forms the most charming road in London. It is almost our only " Boulevard," and its beauty should induce us to plant more trees in the roadways of our streets. The view looking from end to end is specially effective at night, from the length and beautiful curve of the lamps that are presented to the eye. The author of the Beauties of England and Wales 29 thus writes of it in 18 19 : — "The enchanting views which in every quarter attract the eye, form such an assemblage of pictur- esque beauty as is seldom to be met with at the entrance of a vast and populous city. The toll-houses with their multi- plicity of lamps add greatly to the variety of the scene." Though this author considered the toll-houses as ornamental, we may presume that the view is much improved by their removal. In the last century the road was not lighted in the summer, and there is a curious letter extant from the Board 29 Vol. 10 (cont. of Part 3, p. 619). ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. of Green Cloth to Sir Christopher Wren, in which he is informed that William III. had bought a number of lamps for the purpose of lighting the road from Whitehall to Kensington, and Sir Christopher is directed to erect a shed at Kensington in order that the lights might be taken down and put away during the summer, so as to be ready for their Majesties' use in the winter. Having thus introduced our subject, we will, in the next chapter make note of some of the inhabitants of the houses in Piccadilly. CHAPTER II. PICCADILLY HOUSES. " O'er Piccadilly's pavement glide, With palaces to grace its side, Till Bond Street, with its lamps a-blaze, Concludes the journey of three days." — W. Whitehead. Most of the streets of London are rich in pleasant memories, and Piccadilly is no exception to the rule, for it is especially- associated with the names of celebrated men. Lord Chancellor Clarendon, the Earl of Burlington, Lord Berkeley of Stratton, Sir William Petty, the founder of political economy, and Verrio, the painter, were among the earliest inhabitants. Dr. Berkeley, the gentle Bishop of Cloyne, lived for a short time in the street: of him Atterbury said : — " So much under- standing, knowledge, innocence, and humility, I should have thought confined to angels, had I never seen this gentleman ;" and Atterbury was not his only admirer, for Pope ascribes — " To Berkeley every virtue under heaven." When young Fox and his friend Fitzpatrick lodged at an oilman's named Mackie, in Piccadilly, a member of Brookes's mentioned the fact at the club one day, and said that the two young men would ruin the poor oilman in a short time, but Selwyn answered : " On the contrary, so far from ruining him, they will make Mackie's fortune, for he will have the credit of having the finest pickles in his house of any man in London." 1 In 1771 Fox's father, Lord Holland, was living in the street. The magnificent William Beckford, 1 Selwy7i and his Contemporaries, vol. i. pp. 19, 20. 24 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. author of Vathek, and possessor of Fonthill, lived here for a short time. The Margrave of Anspach, nephew of Queen Caroline, who sold his State to Prussia, and married the eccentric Lady Craven, possessed a house in Piccadilly, from 1796 to 1 8 10. John Closterman, the portrait-painter, who was employed by Riley to paint the draperies to his pictures, lived at Richardson's Hotel in this street. The numbering of the street commences at the east end of the north side, and after passing on to Hyde Park Corner, returns on the south side to the Haymarket. We will, there- fore, follow this numbering, and pass the celebrated silk- mercers, Swan and Edgar, the head of which firm, Mr. William Edgar, lately died worth 300,000/. ; Mr. Quaritch's old book-shop ; and the office of Mr. Denman, the introducer of Greek wines. About here was a house formerly numbered 22, where, in 1780, Italian Fantoccini acted various pieces, mostly of an operatic character. The programme states that " the room is neatly fitted up, kept warm, and will be illuminated with wax." 2 At the beginning of the century an important debating- society called the " Athenian Lyceum " was held in the same room. 3 No. 28 is St. James's Hall, the most elegant place of entertainment in London. The first public dinner given here was on June 2, 1858, to Mr. F. Petit Smith, as a recognition of his services in bringing the system of screw propulsion into general use, on which occasion Robert Stephenson occupied the chair. On the 20th of July of the same year, a banquet was given to the late Charles Kean, the Duke of Newcastle being the chairman on the occasion. St. James's Hall is the favourite home of miscellaneous concerts, the principal being the " Monday Popular," which have done so much to improve the public taste for music. The Christy Minstrels provide all the year round a less refined, but extremely popular, entertainment. Besides the exhibition of various celebrities, such as General Tom Thumb, the hall has been the scene of 2 Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, V., pp. 52-3. 3 There is a picture of a meeting in Ackermann's Microcosm of London, vol. i. p. 223. PICCADILLY HOUSES. 25 many large meetings, one in particular being that held by the Americans in London, in consequence of the assassina- tion of President Lincoln. Numbers 38-39 are occupied by Messrs. Leuchars, whose elegant new shop-front is worthy of notice. Next door, at the corner of Sackville Street, is the hat-shop of Messrs. Lincoln and Bennett, on the site of which was formerly the house of Sir William Petty. A letter of his to Pepys is dated, " Piccadilly, Sept. 1687," and he died in the following December. No. 41, at the opposite corner of Sackville Street, is occupied by Fores's print-shop and sporting repository, which was long famous for its caricatures. About here lived Verrio, the painter, in 1675 and 1676. George Selwyn lived in Piccadilly in 1746-47. In July, 1746, a letter was directed to him "in Piccadilly opposite St. James's Church," and in March, 1747, "at Mr. Lane's, Piccadilly." Melbourne or Tors: House, now " The Albasy." In 1708 Hatton describes "Naked Boy Alley" as "on the north-west side of Piccadilly, almost against St. James's 26 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Church." A few doors further on is the "Albany :" on the site of which originally stood three houses, with agreeable gardens. The one to the west was inhabited, in 1675, by Sir Thomas Clarges, and is described in the London Gazette as " near Burlington House above Piccadilly." In the year 1708, the house which Hatton, in his Nczv View of London, calls " a stately new building," was occupied by the Venetian Ambas- sador, and in 17 15 Sir John Clarges lived in it. The house to the east was inhabited by Lady Stanhope, and afterwards by the Countess of Denbigh. The other house was to the east of these two, and fronted the street. It was inhabited by the Earl of Sunderland, and is referred to in an advertise- ment in the Tatlcr (January 1709-10), of a coach "to be seen at Mr. Carne's, at the ' Three Cornish Daws,' over against my Lord Sunderland's, in Piccadilly." This was Charles Spencer, third Earl of Sunderland, son of the treacherous Sunderland, who is called by Queen Anne, in a letter to her sister (1688), " the subtillest workingest villain that is on the face of the earth," and of his wife, Anne Digby, whom Queen Anne also calls "the greatest jade that ever was." It would appear that subsequently Lord Sunderland bought the other two houses, and united them into one with his own. Here he collected, at a cost of at least 30,000/., a magnificent library, which formed the nucleus of the famous one at Blenheim. He built a grand room for the reception of his books, which is described in the following passage : — " Next to Burlington House is the Earl of Sunderland's, with a high wall likewise before it, which hides it from the street, and tho' it be inferior to the former in many other respects, yet the library is look'd upon as one of the compleatest in England, whether we regard the beauty of the building, or the books that fill it. This edifice is an hundred and fifty foot in length, divided into five apartments, having an upper and a lower range of windows and galleries that go round the whole for the con- veniency of taking down the books. It was collected chiefly by the late Lord Sunderland, who left no place unsearched to replenish it with the most valuable books, and among the PICCADILLY HOUSES. 27 rest here is a greater variety of editions of the classicks than is to be met with in any other library." 4 In 1733 the Earldom of Sunderland was merged in the Dukedom of Marlborough, and in 1734 Sunderland House was conveyed to the Hon. John Spencer. " On Tuesday last the estates of his Grace Charles, Duke of Marlborough, in Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire, together with Sunderland House, in Piccadilly, were in due form conveyed to the Hon. John Spencer, his Grace's only brother, pursuant to the last will and testament of the late Duke of Marlborough." 5 The house came subsequently into the possession of Stephen Fox, second Lord Holland, and brother of Charles James Fox, who sold it in 1770 to the first Viscount Melbourne. Lord Melbourne rebuilt it from the designs of Sir William Chambers, and spent large sums upon its decoration. The ceiling of the ball-room was painted by Cipriani, and those of other rooms by F. Wheatley and Rebecca. The house was hidden from the street by a wall, which is thus noticed by Ralph: — "The screen before Lord Melbourne's appears diminutive beside that of Burlington House, but that is in reality a merit, according to the proverb which prefers the least of two evils. In fact, it is much less calculated than the other to excite the ideas of murder and robbery in the pas- sengers, and is much less productive of insult and danger to unprotected females, who may pass that way after dark. The pediment over the gate is heavy, and the house deserves neither censure nor praise." 6 tLord Melbourne exchanged this house with Prince Frede- rick, Duke of York and Albany, the second son of George II., for the mansion of the latter at Whitehall, now Dover House. After living here for some years, the Duke of York deserted the place, and it was converted into chambers for fashionable single men. The gardens were built over to add to the 4 History and Present State of the British Islands, 1743, vol. ii. p. 134. 5 Daily Courant, Jan. 21, 1734, quoted in Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany, vol. i. p. 430. 6 Critical Review of Public Buildings, ed. 1783, p. 192. 28 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. accommodation, and the name of Albany was given to it from the Duke's second title. The building was sometimes styled Piccadilly House and sometimes Melbourne House. In Horwood's Plan of London, dated 1809, the mansion is called York House, and the buildings in the garden, the Albany. The divisions of this place are distinguished by letters of the alphabet, of which A is given to the mansion. The following shows the order in which the letters are arranged : F G H I K A Piccadilly. Many celebrated men have lived in these chambers. The set A 2 formerly belonged to Viscount Althorpe, who in 1830 convened here a meeting of the Whig party, at which Lord Brougham spoke. In 18 14 Lord Byron wrote his Lara in these chambers, the taking of which he thus mentions in his Journal (March 28) : — " This night got into my new apart- ments, rented of Lord Althorpe on a lease of seven years. Spacious, and room for my books and sabres. In the house, too, another advantage." In a letter to Moore, dated April 9, 1814, Byron thus writes: — "Viscount Althorpe is about to be married, and I have gotten his spacious bachelor apart- ments." He did not stay here long, for in March, 18 15, having himself married, he moved to Piccadilly. At A 4 lived the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, the accomplished Governor of Bombay, in 1843-46. George Canning lived at A 5 in 1810. Thomas George Fonnereau, the author of the Diary of a Dutiful Son, lived at A 11 in 1843-44. Lord Webb Seymour was at D 5 in 18 10 ; and Lord Macaulay PICCADILLY HOUSES. 29 wrote the earlier half of his History of England at E 1, in the years 1843-46. The set F 3 was inhabited by Tom Dun- combe in 1844-46, and by Lord Macaulay in 1847-50. Sir Robert Smirke was at H 1 in 1807-10; and Lord Glenelg, better known as Charles Grant, who was Colonial Secretary and President of the Board of Control, lived at H 4 from 1845 to his death in i.866. Lord Valentia, the traveller, was at H 5 in 1 8 10 ; and Sir William Gell, of Pompeii, at I 2 in the same year. Henry Luttrell, the author of the once celebrated Advice to Julia, lived at I 5 in 1822-29. The good-natured " Monk " Lewis lived at K 1 for some years. At a dinner in Lewis's chambers, Lord Byron told one of the authors of the Rejected Addresses that he had determined not to go there again, adding, " I never will dine with a middle-aged man who fills up his table with young ensigns, and has looking- glass panels to his book-cases." 7 Next door is Burlington House, which is separately de- scribed in the next chapter. No. 6j is the " New Whitehorse Cellar," the glory of which has departed since the introduc- tion of railways. In the good old coaching days this place presented a very gay and busy scene. The "Three Kings " inn stood on the site of No. 75, now the antiquarian book-shop of Mr. Hotten. From this inn- yard General Palmer started the first Bath mail-coach. At the gateway were two columns, which were supposed to be the only remains of the once famous Clarendon House. No. yy, at the corner of Berkeley Street, is now the " St. James's Hotel," where the Royal Society Club met on Thursdays to dine when they left the " Thatched House," and before they went to " Willis's Rooms." It was built on the site of the old " Gloster Coffee-house and Hotel," a famous house, for many years kept by the family of Dale. No. y8, on the opposite side of Berkeley Street, is Devon- shire House, described in Chapter V. Sir Francis Burdett was living at No. 80 in 18 10, when he was taken to the Tower by the Serjeant-at-Arms. He barri- 7 Rejected Addresses, 1839, p. 18 (note). 30 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. caded his house for two days, but, on April 9, entrance was obtained, and his captors found him going through the ridicu- lous farce of teaching his child Magna Charta. In the riots that ensued the Life Guards charged the mob, from which they obtained the name of " Piccadilly Butchers." Windham, in his Diary] refers to this occurrence, and says, " Found Life Guards hunted by and hunting the mob ; good deal of dis- turbance." On June 22 Sir Francis was released from the Tower, and he managed, with the help of Henry Bickersteth, afterwards Lord Langdale, to get away quietly by water, thus greatly disappointing his ardent partisans, who had formed themselves into a committee and announced the ceremonial to be observed on his coming out of prison, for the purpose of conducting him to his house. Towards the afternoon of the day the whole line of streets from the Tower to Stratton Street were filled with people, windows were crowded, and scaffolding was erected in Piccadilly. Banners with such devices as " Magna Charta," " Trial by Jury," " The Constitution," and " Burdett for Ever," had been prepared, and their bearers were naturally disappointed at the fiasco. The people would not be done out of their sight, and the procession reached Piccadilly about eight o'clock. The street was cleared by ten o'clock, but the mob went about, exclaim- ing, " Light up," and the result was a general illumination by all those who wished to save their windows from being smashed. Sir Francis Burdett died on January 23, 1844, of a broken heart from the loss of his wife, who had died only thirteen days before. No 81 (at the corner of Bolton Row) was formerly occu- pied by " Watier's Club." This club was originally established by Messrs. John Maddocks and Calvert, and Lord Headfort, in 1807, for harmonic meetings. It became the resort of all the fine gentlemen of the day, and cards and dice superseded catches and glees. High play at macao was gradually intro- duced, and Raikes, in his Diary, speaks strongly of the ruin produced. " None of the dead reached the average age of man, and those who have survived may always look back to PICCADILLY HOUSES. 31 the life at ' Watier's' as the source of their ruin." 8 The club was kept by Watier, the Prince of Wales's cook, and Labourie was the cook who made the place celebrated for its dinners. Brummell was the supreme dictator. One day, when he had lost considerably, he called to the waiter, with a tragic air, for a flat candlestick and a pistol, upon which one of the mem- bers (Bob Bligh, a madman) produced from his coat-pocket two loaded pistols, and placing them on the table, said, " Mr. Brummell, if you really wish to put a period to your existence, I am extremely happy to offer you the means without troubling the waiter." The Duke of York and Lord Byron were members. The club did not endure for twelve years altogether, and died a natural death in 18 19, when the house was taken by a set of blacklegs, who instituted a common bank for gambling. No. 82, Bath House, was originally built by the celebrated William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, who was living here in 1764. Sir Charles Hanbury Williams wrote many bitter verses on the Earl. One of them was the following epitaph : — "Written on the Earl of Bath's Door in Piccadilly. " Here dead to fame lives patriot Will, His grave a lordly seat, His title proves his Epitaph, His robes his winding-sheet." Horace Walpole, who had no love for his father's old enemy, notes that grass grows " just before my Lord Bath's door, whom nobody will visit." 9 General Pulteney, only surviving brother of Lord Bath, and inheritor of his fortune, died here on the 26th of October, 1767, three years only after the Earl's death. Sir William Pulteney was the solitary inhabitant of the house for many years, and at his death it was let to the Duke of Portland for eight years. The garden was large, with a stone basin of water in the centre, and extended nearly into Curzon Street. The house was rebuilt 6 Diary, vol. iii. pp. 85-88. 9 Walpole 's Correspondence, 184.0, vol. ii. p. 123. 32 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. in 1 82 1 by Alexander Baring, who was created Lord Abh- burton in 1835. He was for eighteen years the head of the great house of Baring Brothers, of which the Due de Richelieu said in 18 18, "There are six great powers in Europe, — England, France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Baring Brothers." The mansion is now inhabited by the present Lord Ashburton. No. 89, the corner-house of Half-Moon Street, is now Barrett's Brush Warehouse. Madame D'Arblay lived here at the close of her life, when it was occupied by a linendraper. No. 94, Cambridge House. This was originally Egremont House, and afterwards Cholmondeley House. It is thus noticed in the year 1761 : — "The last house built in Picca- dilly is the Earl of Egremont's. It is of stone, and, tho' not much adorned, is elegant, and well situated for a town- house, having a fine view over the Green Park, which would be still more extended if the houses on each side were set farther back." 10 Charles, second Earl of Egremont, who had been a member of George Grenville's administration, died in this house on August 31, 1763. George, the third Earl, was still living here in 1793, and the Marquis of Cholmondeley was in possession in 1822-29. H.R.H. the late Duke of Cambridge succeeded the Marquis, and died here on July 8, 1850, in which year Lord Palmerston took the house, and lived in it till his death. During his premiership it was the head- quarters of the Liberal party and of the fashion of the metropolis. Frederick Locker writes : — " From Primrose balcony, long ages ago, ' Old 0.' sat at gaze, — who now passes below ? A frolicsome statesman, the man of the day, A laughing philosopher, gallant and gay ; No hero of story more manfully trod, Full of years, full of fame, and the world at his nod. Heu annifugaces / The wise and the silly, — Old P. or old Q., — we must quit Piccadilly." There was at one time a talk of the house being destroyed, 10 London and its Environs Described. 6 vols. 8 vo. 1761. PICCADILLY HOUSES. 33 and a Roman Catholic cathedral built on its site ; but it is now transformed into the " Naval and Military Club." No. 96 is at the corner of Whitehorse Street. Mr. Charles Dumergue, Surgeon-Dentist to the Royal Family, lived in this bay-fronted house at the beginning of the present century, when it was called No. 15, Piccadilly West. 11 Hertford House (formerly .Bakrymuke House) before 1851. No. 105, Hertford House. This handsome mansion was originally built by Novosielski about the year 1780, on the site of John Van Nost's figure yard, for the Earl of Barry- more, and was left unfinished on the death of that nobleman, after which Sir Robert Smirke added a Grecian Doric porch. It was burnt, and, after being repaired, was opened as the " Old Pulteney Hotel." Here, in 18 14, the Emperor of Russia stopped during his stay in London, and on the 6th of June he showed himself to the people from the balcony within a few minutes of his arrival. The Emperor was accompanied by " The double numbering of Piccadilly, and the distinction between East and West, was continued down to about the year 1816. 34 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. his sister, the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg, who made it her object to disgust the Princess Charlotte with the Prince of Orange, then in England as a suitor for her hand. The Duchess invited the Prince to dine with her when he was to dance in public with the Princess, and made him drunk with champagne. The Princess was naturally disgusted, and an opportunity was soon found by the Duchess to introduce Prince Leopold to her, and she was not long in making up her mind to prefer him to the unfortunate Prince of Orange. 12 In 1823 the house was still the "Pulteney Hotel ; " but in 1829 it was in the possession of the Marquis of Hertford. In 185 1 the old building was partially pulled down, and rebuilt with Portland stone. The character of the front was retained, but much improved, and raised some fourteen feet, and the interior was entirely re-arranged. Although still in the possession of the Marquis of Hertford, the house is uninhabited. On the site of No. 106 stood the old inn called "The Greyhound," which was bought by William, sixth Earl of Coventry, in 1764, soon after his second marriage, from Sir Hugh Hunlock, for 10,000 guineas, subject to a ground-rent of 75/. per annum. The Earl, whose first wife was Maria, the eldest Miss Gunning, built on the old site a new house, in which he died in 1809. George, seventh Earl of Coventry, was living here in 1829. It afterwards became the "Coventry House Club, which was closed in March, 1854." No. 107 belonged to Nathan Meyer Rothschild, Austrian Consul-General, who was the third son of Meyer Anselm, the founder of the house of Rothschild. He gave grand banquets, but his whole soul was in his business, and he cared for nothing else. He told the great composer, Spohr, that the only music he loved was the rattling of money. Prince Puckler Muskau (whose travels were so amusingly cut up in the Quarterly Review) called on him one day at his office, in St. Swithin's Lane, when he was busy. Rothschild nodded to the Prince, and asked him to take a chair, but he, not thinking he was treated with sufficient consideration, observed : '-' Kox. Amelia Murray's Recollections jrom 1S03 to 1837, p. 51. PICCADILLY HOUSES. 35 " You did not, p3rhaps, hear that I am Prince Puckler Muskau ? " " Very well," answered Rothschild ; " take two chairs." He died in 1836, and left a life-interest in his house to his widow, who lived here for some years after. Sir Thomas Lawrence lived at a house numbered 22, in 1797. It was a few doors from the Earl of Coventry's, which was then numbered 29. Next door, then numbered 23, lived Sir William Hamilton, from 1730 to 1803, when he died. Wraxall relates how Lady Hamilton danced the Tarentella in the year 1801, at this house, before a very select party. No 135 stands back from the road, and is called Piccadilly Square, a curious name for a single house. The handsome corner-house of Down Street was the resi- dence of the late Mr. Henry Thomas Hope, for whom it was built in 1848-49, at a cost of 30,000/., under the joint superin- tendence of Monsieur Dusillion and Professor Donaldson as architects. The ornamental work was designed by a French- man ; and the handsome iron railing was cast in Paris. The angle where the Piccadilly and Down Street fronts meet is cut off, and the whole building is faced with Caen stone, with panels of decorative marbles in the piers between the windows. It has been sold by the Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Hope's son- in-law, to the "Junior Athenaeum Club," which has now entered into possession. No. 137, Gloucester House, at the corner of Park Lane, was purchased by H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester, on his marriage with his cousin the Princess Mary. It was formerly occupied by the Earl of Elgin, who exhibited here the >Elgin marbles, which were removed from hence to Burlington House, at a cost of 1,500/. It is now the residence of H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge. Nos. 138 and 139 were originally one house, in which lived the late Duke of Queensberry. The door and hall of No. 138 is level with the street, and there was formerly a flight of steps from the first floor to the street, constructed for the convenience of the Duke in his latter days, and they 36 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. were not removed for some time after his death. Jack Radford, the Duke's faithful groom, remained on horseback under his window, always ready to carry about messages to any one he remarked in the street, as he sat with a parasol over his head, ogling the female passers-by. He was one of the last noblemen who kept a running footman. Once, when he was about engaging one, he made the man put on his livery and run up and down Piccadilly. The Duke watched the proceedings from his balcony, and called out : " That will do, you will suit me very well." The fellow answered : " And so your livery does me ; " and then ran off, and was never heard of again. Old Q. was very fond of London, and seldom went into the country ; a friend asked him whether he did not find town empty in September, and he answered : " Yes, but it is fuller than the country." Horace Walpole was of the same opinion, for, in a letter to Mann, he says : " Dull as London is in summer, there is always more company in it than in any one place in the country." The Duke died in 1806, at the great age of 86. " The King, God bless him ! gave a whew / Two Dukes just dead ! a third gone too ! What! What! Could nothing save old Q., The Star of Piccadilly ? " Mr. Fuller, the surgeon of Piccadilly, for some years attended the Duke, who paid him a large salary to keep him alive, but did not leave him anything at his death, although he left money to all the male members of his household. Mr. Fuller, from 1803 to 18 10, slept 1,215 nights in the Duke's room, and made 9,340 visits of two hours each. He commenced an action against the executors for compensation, and laid his claim at 10,000/. The jury gave him a verdict for 7,500/. Lord Byron went to live at No. 139 in March, 1815, where he spent his early married life, and composed Parisina and the Siege of CorintJi. He dated his letters from " 13, Piccadilly Terrace," and described the house as "the Duchess of Devon's." He was living here when he was separated from his wife. PICCADILLY HOUSES. 37 No. 142 was the family residence of the late Lord Willoughby d'Eresby. The lease, which is held from the Crown for a term of forty years at a low rent, was sold, in 1866, for the large sum of 24,700/. No. 145 is Northampton House, where the late Marquis, as President of the Royal Society, gave his celebrated soirees to the elite of London society. Nos. 146 and 147 were thrown into one, and a handsome building erected by Charles Alexandre de Calonne, the celebrated Prime Minister and Comptroller of the Finances in France, from which country he fled in the year 1787. He furnished the house in a superb style, and was building a magnificent gallery for his fine collection of pictures when the Revolution broke out. He went at once to Coblentz to join the French princes and nobility, and mortgaged his property in order to assist them. His collection was sold by auction in March, 1795. He was a good-natured easy man, willing to oblige any one, and, it is said, that when Louis XVI. required a certain thing of him, he answered, " If what your Majesty requires is possible I engage it is already done, if it is im- possible it shall be done." Calonne's house has been entirely destroyed to make room for the new houses of Sir Edmund Antrobus and Baron Lionel Rothschild. The latter is a hand- some building of Portland stone, designed by Marsh Nelson, which towers over and dwarfs the adjoining Apsley House. The principal staircase and landings are of marble. Apsley House was built by Henry Lord Chancellor Apsley, afterwards second Earl of Bathurst, between the years 1 77 1 and 1778, from a design by the Messrs. Adam. The building was not a very handsome one, but Lord Campbell considers its erection as the most memorable act in the life of one of the least distinguished of the Chancellors. The site of the house was occupied by the old Ranger's lodge and an apple-stall. It is reported that one day George II. recognized an old soldier, named Allen, as having served at the battle of Dettingen, and gave him this piece of ground at Hyde Park Corner, where his wife kept a stall, 38 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. which is marked in a print dated 1766. Lord Bathurst had a controversy with this woman, and she filed a bill against him, on which he gave her a considerable sum of money to relinquish her claim. It was observed at the time that " here is a suit by one old woman against another, and the Chancellor has been beaten in his own court ! " 13 OlD ArSLJ£Y HoU:E FRO.J HiDB PARE. The Marquis Wellesley purchased the house and was living in it in 18 10. Afterwards it came into the possession of the Duke of Wellington, when it was remodelled and greatly enlarged. The old red brick house was cased with Bath stone, by S. and B. Wyatt, at a cost of 130,000/. for all the alterations. During the Reform Bill riots, in 1832, the windows were broken, and bullet-proof iron blinds were set up by the Duke, who used to point to them as an evidence of the gratitude of the mob. The French Ambassador, Count d'Adhemar, lived in Piccadilly, near Hyde Park Corner, in the year 1786. 13 Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. v. p. 449. PICCADILLY HOUSES. 39 Sir John Irwin lived in an elegant house opposite the Green Park, before his great extravagance obliged him to fly to France. This general was a great favourite with George III., who once observed to him, "They tell me, Sir John, that you love a glass of wine." " Those," replied Irwin, " who so informed your Majesty, have done me great injustice, — they should have said a bottle." He was very magnificent in his displays when Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, and at one of the entertainments that he gave to the Lord-Lieutenant, in 1781, at Dublin, he provided as a principal piece in the dessert a representation of the siege of Gibraltar, in which the besiegers threw sugar-plums against the walls. This toy alone cost 1,500/. Following the numbering, we now cross the road and pro- ceed from west to east. The Ranger's Lodge, in the Green Park, which was cleared away in the year 1841, was formerly No. 150, Piccadilly. It was for the pleasure of living in this house, opposite to his friend, the Duke of Queensberry, that George Selwyn was anxious to obtain the Deputy-Rangership of the Park. 14 No. 155 is the old " Whitehorse Cellar." Strype, in 1720, mentions a " Whitehorse Cellar " in this street. No. 168 is now Reece's Medical Hall, which was formerly in the western wing of the Egyptian Hall. This was the shop of J. Owen, the publisher of Burke's Letter to a Noble Lord, who acted very disgracefully towards the orator, and pirated several of his tracts. No. 169 is now Ridgway's, the publisher. Here was the shop of Wright, the publisher of the Anti-Jacobin, and the resort of the friends of the Ministry, as Debrett's was of the Opposition. The bibliographer, Upcott, was an assistant in Wright's shop, and is said to have been the amanuensis to the writers in the Anti-Jacobin. When Owen failed, the editors of the Anti-Jacobin took his house " and gave it up to Wright, reserving to themselves the first floor, to which a communica- 14 See Chapter X., on the Green Park, for a further notice of the Lodge, and for a view of it as it appeared from the Park. 40 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. tion was opened through Wright's shop." 15 Gifford, the editor of the Anti- Jacobin, wrote an " Epistle to Peter Pindar, " ending thus : — " For me — why shouldest thou abortive toil, Waste the poor remnant of thy sputtering oil, In filth and falsehood ? Ignorant and absurd ! Pause from thy pains and take my closing word ; Thou can'st not think, nor have I power to tell, How much I scorn and loathe thee — so farewell." Walcot was so galled at these lines that he rushed into Wright's shop when he saw Gifford enter, and aimed a blow at his head with a cudgel ; a stander-by seized Walcot's arm and bundled him into the street, where he was rolled in the gutter. No. 170 is the Egyptian Hall. In 1812 this building was erected at a cost of 16,000/., from a design by G. F. Robinson, which was partly an imitation of the great Temple of Dendera, Upper Egypt. It was decorated with figures of Isis and Osiris by L. Gahagan. The Hall was built to receive Bullock's Liverpool Museum, which had been exhibited since 1805 in the room originally occupied by Astley for his evening per- formance of horsemanship. Astley's Amphitheatre at Lambeth was not roofed in until 1780, and, therefore, was not suited for anything but day exhibitions. Bullock attempted to combine instruction with amusement, and his exhibitions, among which were those illustrating Lapland and Ancient and Modern Mexico, were carefully got up. The following extract fully describes the place : " This museum contains curiosities not only from Africa but from North and South America, amphibious animals in great variety, with fishes, insects, shells, zoophytes, minerals, &c, ad infinitum, besides the Pantherion intended to display the whole of the known quadrupeds, in a state of preservation hitherto unattempted. For this purpose the visitor is introduced through a basaltic cavern, similar to the Giant's Causeway, or Fingal's Cave, in the Isle of Staffa, to an Indian hut. This hut is situated in a tropical forest, in which most of the quadrupeds described by 15 Edinburgh Review, vol. cviii. p. 111. PICCADILLY HOUSES. 41 naturalists are to be seen, with models from nature of the trees and other vegetable productions of the torrid climes, remarkable for the beauty of their fruit or foliage." l6 In 18 16 Bullock purchased, of the Government, Napoleon's Travelling Carriage (which was taken at Waterloo and is now at Madame Tussaud's Exhibition), after it had been kept for some time at Carlton House, and afterwards at the King's Mews. The rush of visitors was very great, and as many as 800,000 people are said to have gone to see it. The Museum of Natural History was exhibited till 18 19, when it was sold for the small sum of 9,974/. 1 3-r., although it originally cost 30,000/. Among the various exhibitions which have been shown at this popular place of entertainment are the following : — The model of the Pyramids and other Egyptian monu- ments, as described by Belzoni, in 1821. Haydon's picture of the " Mock Election," which was bought by George IV. for 800 guineas, to the great joy of the painter, in 1828. The Siamese Twins in 1829 ; who have again in 1869, after forty years, exhibited themselves here. Catlin's North American Gallery in 1841. Sir George Hayter's Picture of the " First Reformed Parliament" in 1843. The Eureka, a machine for composing Latin hexameter verses, in 1845. General Tom Thumb (Charles S. Stratton), born in 1832, was exhibited here in 1846, by Barnum, at the same time that Haydon's two pictures, " The Burning of Rome by Nero," and " The Banishment of Aristides," were being shown in another room. On Easter Monday only twenty-two persons went to see the pictures, and we find the following entry in the painter's diary : — " They rush by thousands to see Tom Thumb. They push, they fight, they scream, they faint, they cry help and murder ! and oh ! and ah ! They see my bills, my boards, my caravans, and don't read them. Their eyes are open but their sense is shut. It is an insanity, a rabies, 16 Hughson'S Walks Through London, 1817, vol ii. p. 273. 42 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. a madness, a furor, a dream!" Again, on the 2ist of April is another outburst of the disappointed man : — " Tom Thumb had 12,000 people last week. B. R. Haydon 1335 (the 2- a little girl). Exquisite taste of the English people ! " 17 The "What is it ?" which turned out to be a dwarf dressed in bear's skin, was exhibited in 1846. In 1848, the first of the moving panoramas, " Banvard's Mississippi," was brought here. It was " said " that the canvas was three miles in length. In 1850 it was followed by " Fremont's Overland Route to California," and by " Bonomi's Nile." On March 15, 1852, Albert Smith gave his entertainment of the " Ascent of Mont Blanc," for the first time, and con- tinued it for several years. He afterwards visited China, and brought out a Chinese entertainment, but this was not so successful as the popular " Mont Blanc." Albert Smith was succeeded by various conjurors and miscellaneous entertainers. In 1866 poor Artemus Ward came here for a short time, and amused a large number of visitors by the account of his travels in Mormonland. The Earl of Dudley very liberally exhibited his magnificent gallery of pictures for several years in one of the rooms free of charge to all who might walk in ; and of late several picture and water-colour exhibitions have been opened in the rooms. Benjamin Stillingfleet, the celebrated naturalist, who is described by Gray as living in a garret in order that he might be able to support some near relations, died at his lodgings opposite to Burlington House on December 15, 1771, at the age of sixty-nine. It was his blue worsted stockings that gave the name " blue stocking" to the ladies of Mrs. Montagu's coterie. Also opposite to Burlington House, Almon, the Whig pub- lisher, carried on his business. He published the celebrated Letters in Favour of Wilkes, on the Doctrine of Libels, War- rants, and Seizure of Papers, in 1764, and was proceeded against by Government for their publication. They are 17 Life of Haydon, 1853, vol. iii. pp. 308, 309. PICCADILLY HOUSES. 43 usually attributed to Lord Temple, but Mr. Parkes supposes them to be the work of Sir Philip Francis. During his stay in India, Francis, according to an anonymous Letter to Edmund Burke (1782) was "constantly furnishing his agents here with myriads of lying squibs for the daily papers, and overloading with pamphlets, that common sink of filth and faction, the shop of Almon and Debrett, in Piccadilly." 18 Debrett succeeded Almon about this time. No. 176 is Grange's well-known fruit-shop. The next door (No. 177) was formerly the shop of William Pickering, the publisher of many works which have done honour, in their typographical beauty, to the Chiswick press of Whittingham. It is now occupied by Mr. Toovey, the bookseller, whose stock is rich in examples of magnificent binding. The house was rebuilt in 1866, and is unquestionably the ugliest building in Piccadilly, although it is inhabited by a fine-art club (the Burlington). No. 178 was the shop of the well- known bookseller Thomas Thorpe, who took it of Martin Stockdale, the successor of the better known John Stockdale : " For Stockdale's shelves contented to compose, The humbler poetry of lying prose." 19 Mr. Thorpe was for many years one of the chief among the small knot of booksellers who may be especially called dealers in rare books, and the voluminous catalogues he published remain a monument of the indefatigable industry of himself and his sons. The house was pulled down a few years ago, and incorporated with Miller's lamp warehouse. Nos. 1 8 1- 183 are occupied by Fortnum and Mason's cele- brated Italian warehouse, where was bought " the jar of honey from Mount Hybla " that Leigh Hunt discoursed upon. This house, which is a very creditable specimen of street architecture, was built from a design copied from a mansion at Padua. No. 187 is in the occupation of Messrs. Hatchard, the famous church-publishers and booksellers. 18 Parkes's Life of Francis, vol. ii. p. 204. 19 Political Eclogues (Rolliad), 1795, p. 202. 44 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. No. 191 was for many years occupied by an old-established firm of auctioneers, first started by Stewart, who was suc- ceeded by Wheatley and Adlard. It was then Wheatley alone, Fletcher and Wheatley, Fletcher alone, and, lastly, Puttick and Simpson. These auction-rooms were principally devoted to the sale of books, and among the celebrated libraries sold there may be mentioned Brand's in 1806, and the Rev. Theodore Williams's choice collection in 1825. The whole of the latter library was beautifully bound in morocco by Lewis and Clarke, with the collector's monogram and crest on the sides. Here also were sold the celebrated collection of Rembrandt's Etchings belonging to the Right Hon. Reginald Pole Carew, several parts of the famous Heber Collection of Books, and the Anatomical Museums of Heaviside and Joshua Brookes. The business of Messrs. Puttick and Simpson has been removed to Leicester Square, to the house which some years back was the Western Literary Institution, and had been, in the last century, inhabited by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The old Vestry Hall was found inadequate for the wants of the parish, and a new hall was commenced in 1861. This red brick building consists of two stories, and forms a good equipoise to the Rectory House on the opposite side of the church. The pump which stands here was erected in accord- ance with the will of Barber Beaumont. No. 197 is the Rectory House, built on the site of the old rectory, where resided the celebrated men who have held the living, one of the longest residents being the eminent Dr. Samuel Clarke. Nos. 203-6, the Museum of Practical Geology. This admirable institution, with which is united the Royal School of Mines, was removed from Craig's Court, Charing Cross, in 1 85 1, and the building was opened by the late Prince Consort on Monday, May 12. The Piccadilly front, which is faced with stone, has no entrance, — that is in Jermyn Street, where there is a brick front with stone dressings. The large gallery, which is filled with valuable geological specimens, is of very noble proportions— 95 feet long by 55 feet wide, and 32 feet PICCADILLY HOUSES. 4.5 high to the springing of the roof. The architect of this build- ing was Mr. James Pennethorne, and the cost of its erection was 30,000/. No. 221. "The White Bear Inn " is a very old place of entertainment, which was in existence with the same sign in the year 1685, as is proved by the following extract from the sexton's book of St. Martin's parish, under the date of June 8, 1685:— "Ann Hill, in Piccadilly, next the 'White Bear.'" Here died Luke Sullivan, the engraver of Hogarth's " March to Finchley." Another engraver, J. B. Chatelain, who was a very improvident man, also died at this inn in 1744. He etched and engraved for a Mr. Toms, and received one shilling an hour for his work ; but he was so idle that, at the end of the first half-hour, he frequently demanded his sixpence, and then went to an alehouse to spend it. Benjamin West, the Quaker President of the Royal Academy, who refused a knighthood, because, according to some, his religious scruples would not allow it, or, according to others, because he wished to be created a baronet, lodged here on the first night of his arrival in England from America. Another old inn, the " Black Bear," existed nearly oppo- site, but was taken down in 1820 to make room for the north side of Regent Circus. 46 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. CHAPTER III. B URLING TON HO USE. Old Bdrlington House about 1700. THE site of Burlington House, at the time of the Restoration, was pure country, and consisted entirely of pasture-land ; but between the years 1664 and 1667 a great change took place, and three large mansions were built upon what was then a portion of St. James's Fields. The Lord Chancellor Clarendon erected a house opposite to St. James's Street, and Lords Berkeley and Burlington built theirs on either side of him — BURLINGTON HOUSE. 47 Lord Berkeley on the west, and Lord Burlington on the east. Although the Earl of Burlington was living at this house in the year 1668, it is not quite clear whether it had not previously been in the possession of Sir John Denham, the poet of Cooper's Hill. The small amount of information which we have regarding the earliest history of the house is obtained from Pepys, and he twice speaks of Sir John Denham as having built it. It is possible, as Sir John held the office of Surveyor-General of his Majesty's Buildings, that he may have superintended the building of the house for the Earl of Burlington. On the other hand, it is not improbable that, as Sir John was about to marry the pretty Margaret Brook, he might have wished to build a mansion fit to receive her. A sudden cloud, however, came over all his prospects. He married the lady on May 25, 1665, but in the following year we know that she was the mistress of the Duke of York, and was scandalizing Evelyn and Pepys by her public behaviour towards him. She did not long continue in this position, for on November the 10th, 1666, she was taken dangerously ill, and died on January the 6th, 1666-67. It was generally believed at the time that her death was occasioned by poison, but Pepys does not tell us by whom it was supposed to have been administered. Hamilton, in his Memoirs of Grammont, however, distinctly accuses Denham himself of the murder. He says: — "As no person entertained any doubt of his having poisoned her, the populace of his neighbourhood had a design of tearing him to pieces as soon as he should come abroad ; but he shut himself up to bewail her death, until their fury was appeased by a magnificent funeral, at which he distributed four times more burnt wine than had ever been drank at any burial in England." Another slander of the time attributed Lady Denham's death to the jealousy of the Duchess of York. Denham himself did not long survive his wife, for in March, 1668, he died insane. Richard Boyle, second Earl of Cork, and first Earl of Burlington, otherwise Bridlington co. York, was the first 4§ ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. occupier of the house. He was son of the great Earl of Cork, and brother of the celebrated Robert Boyle, but, although little is known of his history, these relationships are not his only claims to our notice, for we find him during the civil wars loyal to his king, whom he supplied both with money and with troops. He afterwards promoted the Restora- tion with his utmost endeavours, for which he was rewarded in the year 1664 by being created Earl of Burlington. He married Elizabeth, the sole daughter and heiress of Henry Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, and it was this lady that Pepys describes as " a very fine-speaking lady." " Thence to my Lord Burlington's house, the first time I ever was there, it being the house built by Sir John Denham, next to Clarendon House. . . . Here I first saw and saluted my Lady Burlington, a very fine-speaking lady and a good woman, but old, and not handsome ; but a brave woman. . . . Here I also, standing by a candle that was brought for sealing a letter, do set my periwigg a-fire, which made such an odd noise, nobody could tell what it was till they saw the flame, my back being to the table." 1 One of the Earl and Countess's daughters married Lawrence Hyde, second son of the first Earl of Clarendon, and another, Lord Hinchingbroke, the son of the celebrated Earl of Sandwich. The Earl of Burlington died in 1697, at an advanced age, and was succeeded by his grandson, Charles Boyle, who only enjoyed the title seven years, and died in 1704. His son, then only nine years old^ succeeded him as third Earl, and it is with his occupation that the chief historical interest of the house commences. He was a munificent patron of the arts, and genius of every kind was sure of his support, but authors and artists more especially found in him a steady friend. " See generous Burlington." 2 Pope, Gay, and many others echo his praises, and Walpole 1 Diary, Sept. 28th, 1668. - Gay's Congratulatory Poem to Pope (Carruther'S Life of Pope, 1S57, p. 199.) BURLINGTON HOUSE. 49 says of him : " Never was protection and great wealth more judiciously diffused, than by this great person, who had every quality of a genius and artist except envy. . . . Nor was his munificence confined to himself and his own houses and gardens. He spent great sums in contributing to public works ; and was known to choose that the expense should fall on himself rather than that his country should be deprived of some beautiful edifices." 3 The refined tastes of the Earl of Burlington were cultivated in his earliest youth. Before he attained his majority he had travelled much in Italy, and had there acquired his taste for architecture by viewing and studying the grand relics of antiquity, and the noble works of Palladio. These foreign travels brought forth fruit soon after his return to England. " While you, my lord, bid stately piles ascend." 4 It was his desire to build in London a palace after the manner of those he had seen in Italy, and for that purpose he instructed Colen Campbell, the architect, to plan a new house for him. Before describing what were the alterations intended, it will be necessary to take a glance at the old building ; and this we are able to do, as L. Knyff has sketched, and J. Kip engraved, a very excellent representation of it. This engraving is not dated, but as the house is stated to be in the possession of Charles, Earl of Burlington, Lord High Treasurer of Ire- land, it must have been printed somewhere between the years 1702 and 1704, and the drawing itself must have been made at the very beginning of the century, little more than thirty years after the house was first erected. 3 It was built of red brick, and had two principal floors, the first floor with thirteen windows along the front, and the ground-floor with twelve windows, six being on either side of the entrance door. There 3 Walpole'S Anecdotes of Painters, ed. Dallaway, 1827, vol. iv. p. 216. 4 Gay's Epistle to the Earl of Burlington. 5 The woodcut at the head of this chapter is taken from a brilliant copy of a reduction of this engraving in the Delices de la Grande Bretagne, Leide, 1707. 4 50 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. was also a garret-floor, with nine windows in the roof. The ends of the building projected forward, and formed two wings : the whole appearing to have been a large comfort- able old house. There were two small buildings in the front, joining the house at one end and the Piccadilly wall at the other. Before this wall was a row of trees, which, with the addition of posts, divided the foot from the carriage-way. The gardens, which extended back to a good distance, con- tained a plantation of trees, and all the walls were covered with fruit-trees. Beyond the garden wall at the back were fields, in one of which stood Trinity Chapel. 6 This was a chapel originally erected on wheels at the camp on Hounslow Heath, in the reign of James II., in which mass was daily performed. At the Revolution the chapel was removed to this spot, and reconsecrated for the Protestant service. In 1725, when Conduit Street was built, the present chapel was erected on its south side. The Frenchman, Misson, thus refers to it: — "The late King James built a large handsome chappel, all of carpenters' and joyners' work, with a very pretty steeple, which might be taken to pieces and carry'd to the camp, or anywhere else at his pleasure. At present 'tis fixed, and the established form of service performed in it as in other churches." 7 A silly story was promulgated by Horace Walpole, that Lord Burlington built his house so far out of town because he was determined to have no building beyond him. 8 This we know is absurd, as Clarendon and Berkeley Houses were built at the same time, and both were to the west of Bur- lington House, and therefore farther in the country. Pennant, and many other writers, follow Walpole in the dissemination of this ridiculous fiction ; but Pennant is so unfortunate as to 6 This is shown in the woodcut at the head of this chapter. 7 MlSSON'S Travels over England, p. 31. 8 Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Dallaway, vol. iv. p. 218 (note). Walpole makes another blunder when he says that Richard, Earl of Burlington, " new-fronted his house in Piccadilly, built by his father." It was built by his great-grandfather. BURLINGTON HOUSE. 51 fall into two blunders in one paragraph ; for he says that Piccadilly was completed in 1642 as far as Berkeley Street, and in the same breath that Lord Burlington built his house because no one should build beyond him. About fifty years after the first erection, the whole place was altered as we now see it. 9 The old house was not destroyed, but a coating of stone entirely changed the south front. The design, which is very elegant and well-proportioned, is taken from the palace of Count Viericati at Vicenza, by Palladio. " While Burlington's proportioned columns rise, Does not he stand the gaze of envious eyes ? Doors, windows, are condemn'd by passing fools, Who know not that they damn Palladio's rules." 10 The credit of the improvements has been usually given to the third Earl of Burlington, but evidently by mistake, for Colen Campbell claims them as his own in the third volume of his Vitruvius Britannicus, published in 1725, and if his claim had been false, we cannot doubt but that the Earl would have contradicted it. Campbell writes : — " The following designs of my invention are contained in two single and one double plate. In the first you have the general plan of the House and Offices ; the Stables were built by another Architect before I had the honour of being called to his Lordship's service, which obliged me to make the offices opposite conformable to them. The front of the house, the conjunction from thence to the offices, the great gate and street wall, were all designed and executed by me. In the double plate you have the principal front, where a bold rustick basement supports a regular Ionick collonade of f columns, 2 feet diameter. The line is closed with two towers, adorned with two Venetian windows in front, and two niches in flank, fronting each other, where the noble patron has prepar'd the statues of Palladio and Jones, in honour of an art of which 9 The alterations appear to have been completed in the year 17 16, as that date is still to be seen above the Earl's arms on the top of the leaden rain-water pipes at each end of the building. 10 Gay's Epistle to the Right Hon. Paul Metkuen. 52 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. he is the support and ornament. In the next plate you have the great Gate, adorned with 4! columns of the Dorick order, 2 feet diameter, agreeable to the colonade in the Court." Walpole says that Campbell " assumes to himself the new front of Burlington House and the gateway, but as he takes no credit for the colonnade, which is in a style very superior to his designs, we may safely conclude it was the Earl's own." 11 The Colonnade op Burlington Bouse (taken down in 1868). This elegant colonnade has been the theme for much, and perhaps exaggerated, praise. Walpole was enraptured with it, and Sir William Chambers considered it and the house as specimens of " one of the finest pieces of architecture in Europe." It is the most characteristic portion of the whole structure, and it is impossible not to regret that so charming an erection should now be a thing of the past. At the same time people of taste are greatly indebted to Mr. Beresford Hope, who, by his timely appeal to Lord John Manners, has saved it from being sold as old stone. 12 It is to " Anecdotes of Painti7ig, ed. Dallaway, vol. iv. p. 218 (note). 12 The numbered stones are now deposited in Battersea Park ; but it is to be hoped that they will not be allowed to remain there for ever, but will be re-erected in some suitable place as soon as possible. BURLINGTON HOUSE. 53 be hoped that it will be erected in a suitable position in one of the London parks, where it would serve as a shelter from rain and sun. Perhaps the most suitable position would be the Kensington end of the Broad Walk in Kensington Gardens. Piccadilly "Wall of Burlington House (taken down in 1868). The brick wall which fronted Piccadilly has not had justice done to it, "ugly" and "old" being the favourite adjectives applied to it. 13 " In London many of our noblemen's palaces appear from the streets like prisons or gloomy convents ; nothing is seen but high black walls, with one, two, or three ponderous castle gates, in one of which there is a hole for the conveyance of those who aspire to get in, or wish to creep out. If a coach arrives, the whole gate is indeed opened, but this is a work of time and hard labour ; the more so, as the porter exerts his strength to shut it again immediately, either in discharge of his duty, or for some other reasons. Few inhabitants of this city suspect, and certainly few strangers ever knew, that behind an old brick wall in Piccadilly there is, notwithstanding its faults, one of the finest pieces of architecture in Europe ; and many very considerable, some even magnificent, buildings might be mentioned that were never seen by any but the friends of the families they belong to, or by such as are curious enough to peep into every out-of-the-way place they happen to find in their way." 14 13 Malcolm was especially indignant with the wall, for he says : — " As this noble family have fortified themselves within a most tremendous wall, I have never had in my power to see the house fairly." — Londinium Redivivitm, vol. iv. p. 330. 14 Sir William Chambers's Civil Architecture, ed. Gwilt, p. 350. 54 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Ralph, who calls Burlington wall "the most expensive wall in England," praises it strongly, though he points out as a defect that it diverged from the straight line, and that the two sides of the central gate were on different angles ; this, however, seems to me to have been its chief merit, as it gave to the whole a distinctive character, and brought out the gateway with great effect. Ralph's remarks- on " Burlington's Palladian Gates," as Swift calls them, are as follows : — " We must now pass into Piccadilly, where we shall be entertained with a sight of the most expensive wall in England ; I mean that before Burlington House. Nothing material can be objected to it, and much may be said in its praise. It is certain the height is wonderfully well propor- tioned to the length, and the decorations are both simple and magnificent. The grand entrance is august and beautiful, and by covering the house entirely from the eye, gives pleasure and surprize at the opening of the whole front with the area before it at once. If anything can be found fault with in this structure, it is that the wall itself is not exactly on a line ; that the columns of the gate are merely ornamental and support nothing at all ; that the rustick hath not all the propriety in the world for a palace ; and that the main body of the pile is hardly equal to the outside. But these may be rather imaginations of mine than real imperfections ; for which reason I submit them to the consideration of wiser heads." 13 At the beginning of the eighteenth century this house was the only one in London pretending to purity in its architecture, and we know that when the buildings were finished they attracted much attention. The iron railings in front of the wall were painted with ultramarine, which at that time must have cost a guinea an ounce, and they soon became one of the sights of the town. Great was the praise lavished upon the noble owner. Pope asks " Who plants like Bathurst and who builds like Boyle ?" 15 Ralph's Critical Review of Public Buildings, ed. 1783, p. 191. BURLINGTON HOUSE. 55 And Gay, after lamenting the passing away of the great houses that once lined the Thames, triumphantly sings — " Yet Burlington's fair palace still remains j Beauty within, without, proportion, reigns. Beneath his eye declining art revives, The wall with animated pictures lives ; There Handel strikes the strings, the melting strain Transports the soul, and thrills through every vein ; There oft I enter (but with cleaner shoes), For Burlington's beloved by ev'ry muse." The animated pictures here referred to, still exist, but the awkward naked figures of Marco and Sebastian Ricci, and Sir James Thornhill, certainly do not adorn either the walls or the ceilings. Although the house was greatly praised, satire was by no means silent. The internal arrangement was much criticised and severely censured in an epigram which has been attributed to Lord Chesterfield and also to John Lord Hervey : 16 " Possess'd of one great hall for state, Without a room to sleep or eat ; How well you build let flattery tell, And all the world how ill you dwell." In Dallaway's edition of Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting™ this epigram is said to have been made on the Earl's villa at Chiswick, built in imitation of Palladio's chef-d'eeuvre, the Villa Capra near Vicenza. It is merely a paraphrase of Martial : 18 " Atria longa patent : sed nee ccenantibus usquam Nee somno locus est : quam bene non habitas ! " Blenheim Palace has also been ridiculed in a like imita- tion : " Thanks, sir, cried I, 'tis very fine ; But where d'ye sleep and where d'ye dine ? I find by all you have been telling, That 'tis a house but not a dwelling." 16 Letters of the Countess of Suffolk, 1824, vol. i. p. 385. 17 Vol. 4, p. 220. 18 Book 12, Ep. 50. 56 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. There is no doubt that the house was open to this censure, as it can have been little suited for the occupations and wants of a comfortable private life. The rooms on the ground-floor are small and common- place, and those on the first-floor form a suite of show-rooms. From the head of the staircase the visitor enters a richly ornamented saloon, on the west-side of which there is a small room leading into the banquetting-room ; on the east-side is another room leading into the ball-room, which extends from the front to the back of the mansion. All the rooms were richly ornamented, and the ceilings of the banquetting and ball-rooms were magnificently gilt. 19 The mahogany doors are very massive and beautiful specimens of carpentry work, and the marble mantel-pieces are distinguished by their elegant proportions and sculptured ornaments. In 1724 Hogarth attacked Lord Burlington and his friends in a plate called the Taste of the Town, the title of which was afterwards changed to Masquerades and Operas, Burlington Gate, and is now known as " the small masquerade ticket." In this, Burlington Gate is represented with Kent on the pedi- ment brandishing pallet and pencils, and Michael Angelo and Raphael below him. There are three figures in front of the gate : the one in the middle, pointing up at Kent, is Lord Burlington ; Campbell is on one side of him, but the other man is not known. 20 Hogarth is supposed to have been urged to make this sketch by Sir John Thornhill, who was annoyed at Kent having been preferred to him as painter to George II., at Kensington Palace. Hogarth made a larger sketch of the gate, which he entitled the Man of Taste. Kent is represented in the same position, but the word Taste appears in large 19 Like everything else about the house, which is thoroughly well done, the gold has been laid on very thickly ; and when the ceiling of the ball- room was lately washed by the Linnean Society, it regained what must have been its original brilliancy. 20 It is a curious coincidence, now that the Royal Academy of Arts have opened their galleries at Burlington House, that Hogarth has written on the front of the gate, " Accademy of Arts." BURLINGTON HOUSE. 57 capitals on the pediment. In front is a scaffold, on which Pope, with his back to the spectator, is seen vigorously whitewashing the front and defiling the passengers beneath, more especially the Duke of Chandos, who holds his hat above his head to save himself. 21 The Earl of Burlington is represented as a labourer going up a ladder. The Earl was only twenty years of age when, in 17 15, he invited Handel, who had been five years in England, to his house. Handel accepted the hospitable invitation and remained at Burlington House till 1718, when he undertook the direction of the Duke of Chandos's Chapel, at Cannons. At Burlington House Handel was able to dispose of his time as he wished, and he here met some of the greatest men of the day ; among whom Pope, Gay, and Dr. Arbuthnot, who was himself a musical composer as well as an author, were constant visitors. During these three years' sojourn Handel composed three operas, viz. Amadis, Theseus, and Pastor Fidor 2 With such guests around the Earl's well-spread table the evenings must have passed rapidly by — " Luxurious lobster nights, farewell For sober studious days ; And Burlington's delicious meal For salads, tarts, and peas." 23 Lord Burlington sent Gay into Devonshire to regain his health, and the poet addressed an epistle to the Earl, upon his journey. In I7i6the Earl met William Kent, the painter, architect, and landscape-gardener, in Italy, brought him to England, and lodged him in his house, where he remained till his death in 1748, when the Earl buried him in the family vault at Chiswick. During these two-and-thirty years the Earl 21 This is a severe but just satire on Pope's example of false taste in his Epistle on Taste, where he criticises the Duke as Timon. It appears that Pope was afraid of Hogarth, for the painter is not alluded to in any of the poet's works. 22 Hawkins's History of Music, vol. v. pp. 270-1. 23 Pope's Farewell to London, 17 15. 58 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. frequently assisted the architect in his designs, and Walpole says of Lord Burlington, " though his own designs were more chaste and classic than Kent's, he entertained him in his house till his death, and was more studious to extend his friend's fame than his own." 24 Gay, in his Epistle to the Right Hon. Paul Methuen, thus lauds Kent — " Why didst thou, Kent, forego thy native land, To emulate in picture Raphael's hand ? Think'st thou for this to raise thy name at home ? Go back, adorn the palaces of Rome ; There on the walls let thy just labours shine, And Raphael live again in thy design. Yet stay awhile ; call all thy genius forth, For Burlington unbiass'd knows thy worth ; His judgment in thy master-strokes can trace Titian's strong fire, and Guido's softer grace ; But oh, consider, ere thy works appear ! Canst thou, unhurt, the tongue of envy hear ? Censure will blame, her breath was ever spent To blast the laurels of the eminent." In spite of this fine encomium his incapacity as a painter was displayed in his altar-piece for St. Clement's Church, so severely ridiculed by Hogarth. In 1720-21 Lord Burlington married Lady Dorothy Savile, daughter of William, Marquis of Halifax, and granddaughter of the great " Trimmer." This lady seems to have entered into her husband's feelings and love for the Fine Arts. " She drew in crayons, and succeeded admirably in likenesses, but working with too much rapidity did not do justice to her genius. She had an uncommon talent, too, for caricature." 25 Swift says of her : — " Pallas, you give yourself strange airs ; But sure you'll find it hard to spoil The taste and sense of one that bears The name of Saville and of Boyle." 26 21 Walpole'S Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Dallaway, vol. iv. p. 217. 25 Ibid. vol. iv. p. 222. 26 Swift's Works, ed. 1824, vol. xiii. p. 380. BURLINGTON HOUSE. 59 There is a curious anecdote of Swift's first meeting with the Countess. Being in London he went to dine with the newly- married Earl of Burlington, who neither introduced his wife nor mentioned her name, willing, it is supposed, to have some diversion. After dinner the Dean said, " Lady Burlington, I hear you can sing : sing me a song." The lady thought this very unceremonious and refused, when Swift said she should sing, or he would make her. " Why, madam, I suppose you take me for one of your poor hedge parsons ; sing when I bid you." The Earl laughed at this freedom, but the lady was so vexed that she burst into tears and retired. Swift's first words on seeing her again were, " Pray, madam, are you as proud and as ill-natured now as when I saw you last." To which she answered, with great good-humour, "No, Mr. Dean, I will sing to you, if you please." From this time Swift conceived a great esteem for the lady. 27 In the celebrated feud at the Italian Opera in 1727, between the two female singers, Cuzzoni and Faustina, Lady Burlington was the chief of the Faustina party, in opposition to Lady Pembroke, the leader of the adherents of Cuzzoni, who went so far as to catcall Faustina, on which proceeding an epigram was made at the time : " Old poets sing that beasts did dance Whenever Orpheus play'd : So to Faustina's charming voice Wise Pembroke's asses bray'd." 28 Lord Hervey hated Lady Burlington, and lost no oppor- tunity of damaging her reputation. He states in his Memoirs of the Reign of George II., that she was in love with the Duke of Grafton, and remained at Court as lady of the bedchamber to Queen Caroline, when her husband threw up his appoint- ments, in order to be near him. Lord Hervey alludes to this in his Poetical Epistle to the Queen, thus : — 27 Mrs. Pilkington's Memoirs, Dublin, 1749, vol. i. p. 89. 28 Hawkins's History of Music, vol. v. p. 312. 60 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. " Let Pembroke still. . . . And Dame Palladio, insolent and bold, Like her own chairman, whistle, stamp, and scold ; Her quiet still preserv'd, though lost her fame, As free from ev'ry punishment as shame ; Her worn-out huntsman frequent may she hold ; Nor to her mason husband be it told That she with capital Corinthian grac'd Has finish'd his in the Ionic taste." In 1744, Mademoiselle Eva Maria Violette, the celebrated dancer, came to England, with the object of obtaining an engagement at the Opera House. She brought with her recommendations from the Empress Theresa, and an intro- duction from the Countess of Stahremberg to the Countess of Burlington, who treated her with great kindness, and soon after invited her to take up her residence at Burlington House. She soon became very popular, and her movements were even mixed up with the politics of the day. On one occasion she was advertised for three dances, and danced but two. Lord Bury and some young men of fashion began a riot, and wanted to send for her from Burlington House. On her next appearance it was feared she would be hissed, and Mr. Pelham, the Prime Minister, not wishing the Marquis of Hartington, Lady Burlington's son-in-law, to be offended, and in order that he might secure her a good reception, desired the Duke of Newcastle to request Lord Bury, who was one of his lords, not to hiss. 29 The tickets for Violette's benefits were designed by Kent and engraved by Vertue. When she married Garrick, in 1749, the Countess displayed her fondness for her by presenting her with a marriage portion of 6,000/. Back- biting busybodies, who could not understand the generous characters of the Burlingtons, whispered and made themselves believe that Violette was an illegitimate daughter of the Earl. As, however, all who came in contact with the charming dancer seem to have loved her, it is not wonderful that Lady Burlington should have acted as she did. 29 Walpole'S Leitets, 1840, vol. ii. p. 289 (note). BURLINGTON HOUSE. 61 The Earl and Countess suffered a severe affliction in the unfortunate marriage of their eldest daughter, on whom Sir Charles Hanbury Williams wrote the lines, — " Behold, one moment, Dorothea's fate ! In fortune opulent, by lineage great ; In manners gentle, rich in ev'ry grace, And youth sat blooming in her heav'nly face. By nature docile, and by art improv'd ; Nay more, she lov'd, with tenderness she lov'd, The faithless Polydore : yet all these charms Could not one night confine him to her arms ; But left in all the hell of love and grief, From death, alone, she hop'd to find relief; The milder tyrant, death, corrects her fate, Receives her at his ever-open gate : There dries her tears, and bids her sigh no more, And shuts out life, and love, and Polydore." Lady Dorothy Boyle married, in 1741, George, Earl of Euston, the eldest son of Charles, second Duke of Grafton, and a man of the most odious character. She died in 1742 from the effects of her husband's brutality, and her mother distributed to the friends of the family, copies of the portrait of her now at the Duke of Devonshire's at Chiswick, with the following inscription, said to have been written by Pope : — "LADY DOROTHY BOYLE. Born, May the 14th, 1724. She was the comfort and joy of her parents, the delight of all who knew her angelick temper, and the admiration of all who saw her beauty. She was married October the 10th, I74i,and delivered (by death) from misery, May the 2nd, 1742. This print was taken from a picture, drawn by memory seven weeks after her death, by her most affectionate mother, DOROTHY BURLINGTON." 30 The Earl appears to have lived very quietly during the latter part of his life, and in December, 1753, he died in his 30 Walpole'S Letters, 1840, vol. i. pp. 78, 2S7, 361. 62 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. fifty-eighth year, when the title became extinct. He gained the esteem and respect of all who knew him. Pope says, — " You, too, proceed ! make falling arts your care, Erect new wonders, and the old repair ; Jones and Palladio to themselves restore, And be whate'er Vitruvius was before : Till kings call forth the ideas of your mind, (Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd), Bid harbours open, public ways extend, Bid temples worthier of the God ascend : Bid the broad arch the dangerous flood contain, The mole projected break the roaring main ; Back to his bounds, their subject sea command, And roll obedient rivers through the land ; These honours, Peace to happy Britain brings ; These are imperial works and worthy kings." Johnson is very unfair both to Lord Burlington and to Pope when he says, " Except Lord Bathurst, none of Pope's noble friends were such as that a good man would wish to have his intimacy with them known to posterity : he can derive little honour from the notice of Cobham, Burlington, or Bolingbroke." The Doctor here, as on many other occasions, did not know what he was talking about. Lord Burlington deserves our respect and esteem, for though he had no taste for Gothic architecture, and was insensible to the genius of Vanbrugh, he loved and understood art at a time when few knew anything about it, and whatever he did, he did well. The building of Burlington House must have cost an immense sum of money, and it doubtless crippled his resources, for we find in a letter of Alderman Barber to Swift (dated March 13, 1737-8,) that "My Lord Burlington is now selling in one article 9,000/. a year in Ireland, for 200,000/., which won't pay his debts." 31 On the death of the Earl of Burlington this house, together with the villa at Chiswick, 32 came into the possession of the 31 Swift's Wo?-ks, ed. Scott, 1824, vol. xix. p. 129. 32 Fox died at this celebrated villa, as did Canning twenty years afterwards. BURLINGTON HOUSE. 63 Cavendish family, owing to the marriage, in 1748, of William Marquis of Hartington, afterwards fourth Duke of Devonshire, to Charlotte, the youngest of the three daughters of the Earl of Burlington. Thus were united the two great families of the Cavendishes and the Boyles, families that have produced, besides warriors, statesmen, and accomplished men and women, two of the chief scientific men of the country, viz. Robert Boyle and Henry Cavendish. Eighteen years subse- quent to this marriage, William Henry, third Duke of Portland, married Dorothy, the only daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, and in consequence of the marriage made this house his residence for many years. On the death of the Marquis of Rockingham, the Duke became, in 1782, the chief of the Whigs. He was not much known when Fox chose him as Prime Minister, and some wicked wit called him " A fit block to hang whigs on." Byron in later times says : — " And old dame Portland fills the place of Pitt." Constant meetings of the Whig party were held at Burlington House, and Burke, Fox, Francis, Windham and Sheridan were frequent visitors. It was at a meeting in this house on June the 9th, that Burke declaimed against Fox for his Jacobin principles, but for some time before the final dis- ruption of the party the Duke of Portland was very vacillating in his conduct. When at last the old Whigs coalesced with Pitt, a great change necessarily took place, and the names of Pitt and his friends replace Fox and his, among the visitors. The Duke lived here during both his ministries, the first in 1783, the second in 1807. In 1782 Burlington House was the head-quarters of the Whig, and in 1807 of the Tory Party. The Duke was a great sufferer, and when he became Premier in 1807 he was only enabled to support the fatigues of office by the use of opiates. In the east wing, over what were then occupied as stables, lived, during his early life, the great chemist Henry Cavendish. At this time he was only allowed a small income by his father, who was not himself a rich man, and it was said that when he 64 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. went to the dinners at the " Royal Society Club " he never had more money in his possession than the exact five shillings that was required to pay the reckoning, which amount was given him by his father. By the time he arrived at middle life he became the possessor of an immense fortune, but not having the slightest notion of the value of money, he was unable to use it. He died worth 1,157,000/., and Biot epigrammatically calls him " Le plus riche de tous les savans, et probablement aussi le plus savant de tous les riches." Many anecdotes are related of his oddities, his shyness in the presence of men, and his hatred of women. A boiled leg of mutton was a favourite dish of his. He once ordered one when he expected a few scientific friends to dine with him, and on his housekeeper suggesting that he would want some- thing more, he answered, " Then get two." The anecdotes that evince his utter ignorance of the value of money are the most numerous. He had a balance of many thousand pounds lying for some years at his bankers', and they waited on him to know whether he would not wish some of it to be invested, but he only rather ungraciously said, " Do as you like, but don't bother me, or I shall remove my account." A poor but learned man was once recommended to him as deserving of a small pension, when he asked, " Well, well, a cheque for ten thousand pounds, would that do ? " He seldom went out except to the " Royal Society Club," and now and then to the christenings of his young relations at Burlington and Devon- shire houses. On these occasions he was informed that it was usual to give something to the nurse, so he would dive his hand into his pocket and give her a handful of guineas without counting them. This eccentric, however, made some of the most brilliant discoveries of the eighteenth century, and Sir Humphry Davy thus speaks of him in one of his lectures : " Since the death of Newton, if I may be permitted to give an opinion, England has sustained no scientific loss so great as that of Cavendish. Like his great predecessor he died full of years and of glory. His name will be an object of more veneration in future ages than at the present moment. Though it was BURLINGTON HOUSE. 65 unknown in the busy scenes of life, or in the popular discussions of the day, it will remain illustrious in the annals of science, which are as imperishable as that nature to which they belong ; and it will be an immortal honour to his house, to his age and to his country." 83 Burlington House with its blank wall has always been a tempting object for the projector of " improvements." Gwynn in the middle of the eighteenth century would thus deal with it : " The ground on which Burlington House stands is laid out into elegant streets which form the following communica- tions, viz. : from Burlington Street, to Pall Mall ; from Piccadilly through Saville Row, into Conduit Street ; and from Piccadilly through Cork Street, to Conduit Street Chapel, (which chapel is disencumbered.) The demolition of Burlington House may be thought an extraordinary proposi- tion ; but when it is considered what a prodigious improve- ment will be made in those streets about Burlington Gardens, which are at present very inconveniently situated, that the rents of those very streets will be considerably augmented, and that the publick will lose nothing in point of elegance, but the removal of the dead wall in Piccadilly ; every objection that may be made to this alteration, it is imagined, will entirely vanish." 3i In the year 1815, the house was sold by the Duke of Devonshire, to his uncle, Lord George Cavendish, for 75,000/., and rumour was rife as to the alterations that were about to be made. The following appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine at the time : — " Burlington House has been sold by auction for 75,200/. The purchaser is supposed to be a nobleman, who means to make this princely mansion his own residence, without any alteration in its present magnificent order or structure." 33 " A great number of workmen have been of late employed in pulling down the offices and wings 83 Lecture, 18 10. Davy's Life of Davy, 1836, vol. 1. p. 222. 34 J. Gwynn's London and Westminster Improved, 1766, p. 82. 35 Vol. lxxxv. 1, p. 368 (April, 181 5). 66 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. of Burlington House, great part of which Lord G. Cavendish is about to rebuild upon a new plan, with a view to greater space in the apartments. The heavy wall of the Court Yard in Piccadilly is to be removed, and a row of handsome houses built in its stead. Streets are also to be formed at the sides of the Court Yard." 86 " As Burlington House, Piccadilly, the chcf-cfceuvre of the celebrated Lord of that name, who was so eminently skilled in the ' fascinating ' study and practice of Architecture, has now been disrobed of many of its internal adornments (preparatory, some think, to the whole pile giving way ; others say no ; and may the noes prevail !), it may be satisfactory to the admirers of the noble pile, to be informed that the ' architect ' has lately taken every detail by sketches for the purpose of carrying on the thread of his architectural progress in its due order ; and at the same time, of preserving, in some degree, this example of professional skill in high life, that it may not wholly pass away unheeded and forgotten." 37 Lord George Cavendish did not make such a sweeping change as was expected, and he left the wall and colonnade as they were. However, he made great alterations in the in- terior of the house, and converted the riding-house and stables into a dwelling, and built other stables behind the east side of the colonnade. The chief change was the building of the Burlington Arcade, on ground at the west side of the site, and the proposal for its formation is thus amusingly commented on in the Gentleman's Magazine : — " It is said that after numerous deliberations, Lord George Cavendish has determined to appropriate a proportion of the grounds connected with Burlington House for the gratification of the publick, and to give employment to industrious females. A line has been marked out at the west end, extending north and south, in which will be a covered way or promenade from Piccadilly into Cork Street. This covered way will contain a double line of shops, for the sale of jewellery and other 36 Vol. lxxxv. i, p. 640 (June, 1815). ' J1 Vol. lxxxv. 2, p 231-2 Sept. 1815). BURLINGTON HOUSE. 67 fancy articles, and above will be suites of rooms. What first gave birth to the idea was the great annoyance to which the garden is subject from the inhabitants of a neighbouring street throwing oyster-shells, &c, over the wall. The intended erections will prevent these nuisances in future and also block out their view of so delightful a place." 38 Samuel Ware, the architect of Chesterfield House, who had been apprenticed to a chimney-sweep, when a boy, was the architect employed by Lord George Cavendish. The arcade, which was built in 18 19, has been a good speculation, and is said to produce 4,000/. a year to the Cavendish family, and to be sub-let for more than double that amount. At the time of the Napoleonic wars the St. James's Volunteers mustered in the courtyard of Burlington House by permission of the Duke of Portland. The corps were one thousand strong, and Lord Amherst, afterwards Ambassador to China, was their Colonel. Leigh Hunt was one of the members, and he gossips about their doings in his Saunter through the West End. The courtyard and garden have been the favourite drilling-grounds of several of the rifle corps of the present day. On the eventful 20th of June, 18 14, this house was the scene of a brilliant fete given by the members of " White's Club " to the allied sovereigns then in London. The whole of the garden was enclosed by tents, and in the evening of that day these august personages and the Prince Regent sat down to a banquet, at which nearly two thousand persons are said to have been present. The cost was 9,489/. 2s. 6d., and as large a sum was probably lost from the persons of the guests, for certain of the swell mob obtained admission and made a good harvest. On the eleventh of July of the same year a dinner was given to the Duke of Wellington at this house by gentlemen connected with India, and an address was presented by them to him. Warren Hastings presided on this occasion. In 181 5-16 the Elgin marbles were sheltered in a large M Vol. Ixxxvii. 2, p. 272 iSept. 1817). 63 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. shed in the courtyard during the debates in Parliament respecting their purchase by the nation. The Earl of Elgin, then Ambassador at Constantinople, had obtained a firman from the Turkish Government in 1801, allowing him to remove the remains of the Parthenon. In 18 16 they were purchased by Act of Parliament for 35,000/., although their cost to Lord Elgin had been more than double that amount, viz. 74,000/. The great authority, Payne Knight, pooh-pooh'd them, but Canova praised them ; Haydon got excited about them, and wrote forcibly against what he called " a malevolent coterie of classical despotic dilettanti." When Nollekens, the sculptor, heard that the Government hesitated in the purchase, he offered 30,000/. for them himself, rather than that they should be lost to England. In 18 18 Burlington House was again the head-quarters of the Whig party, and Sir Samuel Romilly, when a candidate for the representation of Westminster, addressed the electors in the courtyard. After his election the whole of the super- numeraries of Drury Lane Theatre came to form a procession in order to chair him, but when he found out the object of their visit he quietly left the house unobserved. The earldom of Burlington was revived in 1831 in the person of Lord George Cavendish, who was then seventy-one years of age. He was the second son of the fourth Duke of Devonshire, and grandson of the last Earl of Burlington. In 1854 the Cavendishes sold the house and gardens to Government for 140,000/., that is, double its price in 18 15, but still a small sum when we consider the extent of the ground and its situation. It was at first doubtful to what purpose the house would be applied, and rumours were circulated that one of the Royal Family was to inhabit it. An exhibition of designs for cavalry barracks was opened in the rooms, and as this afforded the public an opportunity of satisfying their curiosity regarding what was behind the brick wall, crowds flocked to see it. A fancy-fair was after- wards held in the grounds. BURLINGTON HOUSE. 69 The University of London was allowed the temporary use of the building, but in 1857, the Government wishing to obtain the whole of Somerset House for its own use as offices, offered apartments in Burlington House to the Royal Society, the Society of Antiquaries, the Geological Society, and the Royal Astronomical Society. The Royal Society alone accepted the offer, the other societies preferring to stay where they were. When the Royal Society took possession of the mansion they found that there was more room than they required, and, therefore, intimated to the Linnean and Chemical Socie- ties that an application to Government for accommodation would most probably be successful. On the occupation of the house by the three societies, the University of London was removed into the east wing. The west wing, which was fitted up as kitchens and servants' bedrooms, was altered into a meeting-room for the Royal Society, and another room, connecting this with the house, was built. These rooms were also used by the University for their examinations. Ever since the first purchase of Burlington House by Parliament, various schemes have been proposed for the purpose of making the best use of the ground at its disposal. Questions were continually being asked. In June, 1857, Sir John Trelawney suggested that the " ugly screen " should be pulled down, but Sir Benjamin Hall pointed out that the public would then see the stables and out-houses. Mr. Beresford Hope proposed to raise the house "two or three storeys," and to build over the garden. 39 In July, 1858, Sir William Fraser asked the First Commissioner of Works whether he would consider a plan for removing the wall, when Lord John Manners answered that Lord Elcho had submitted a design which had for its object the removal of the wall, but nothing could be done because of the larger question of appropriation of the ground. In 1859, Lord Derby's Govern- ment proposed to dispossess the Royal Academy of their 39 Hansard, vol. cxlvi. col. Si. 70 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. rooms in the National Gallery building, and Messrs. Banks and Barry were appointed to prepare plans, showing how the entire area of Burlington House and its gardens might best be made available for the location of the representatives of Science and Art. It was ascertained that the Royal Academy were ready to accept a portion of the site, and would conform to the general block plan, and erect a building at their own cost, for which purpose they appointed Sir Charles Barry as their architect. The whole area was to contain two great courts with a grand thoroughfare through them from Piccadilly to Burlington Gardens. The Academy were to have the ground of two-thirds of the Piccadilly front, and the whole of the western side of the first of the two great courts. The eastern wing was to be occupied by the scientific societies. The front was designed by Barry, and consisted of three parts divided by turrets, and with turrets at each end of the facade. The central wall space was occupied by three bays of windows, and the wings by niches elaborately treated and occupied by statues. The lower part of the central division was occupied by three great archways for carriages leading into the court. 40 A change of Government unfortunately put all these plans aside. Lord Palmerston's Ministry proposed building a National Gallery at the back of the present house, but the House of Commons would not allow the pictures to be removed from Trafalgar Square. In 1866 Earl Russell's Ministry made arrangements for the erection of a building for the University of London, to front Burlington Gardens. Lord Derby's Ministry in the same year leased the mansion to the Royal Academy, and also the ground between it and the University, for the purpose of erecting galleries which should adjoin the house. The Academicians appointed Mr. Sydney Smirke as their architect to carry out this proposal. A plan was designed by Messrs. Banks and Barry for a building fronting Piccadilly, with wings 40 Life of Sir Charles Barry, pp. 282-3. BURLINGTON HOUSE. 71 in the courtyard, for the accommodation of those learned societies which were already in occupation and of those still remaining at Somerset House. On the 5th of September, 1866, the destruction of the wall fronting Burlington Gardens, and the digging of the founda- tions for the new building of the University of London, were commenced. At the beginning of 1867 the buildings for the galleries of the Royal Academy were begun ; and in June, 1868, the east wing, the stables, and the bricks of the outer wall in Piccadilly were sold by auction, preparatory to the clearing of the site. The present arrangement is unfortunately without that unity of design which is so pleasing to the artistic eye, and it is therefore impossible not to regret the failure of the plan of 1859, which appears to have been well devised. Either all the buildings should have been swept away and the ground laid out to the best advantage, or the house and courtyard should have been left intact, and the buildings erected on the site of the gardens should have been kept separate, with the front towards Burlington Gardens. Nevertheless the building fronting Piccadilly, when carried out according to the plans of Messrs. Banks and Barry, will be handsome, and a great improvement to the street ; and the building of the University, now that it is finished, with its profuse ornamentation and handsome statues of the great men of the past, is one of the most striking architectural facades in London. The Royal Academy intend to raise the centre of the main building by adding a false storey to be occupied by seven niches for statues, in order to make it harmonize with the front buildings. It is difficult to say how this will look, but as the chief charm of the house was its exquisite proportions, we cannot be very sanguine of the effect of the proposed alterations. The galleries which have been built behind the house are admir- able in every way, and thoroughly suited to the purposes for which they were erected. Few mansions possess an interest equal to that which sur- rounds Burlington House. It was one of the first in London 72 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. in which a true architectural taste was exhibited, and it has remained as a monument of the magnificence of former times. It is now nearly two hundred years since it was first built, and during that time it has been associated with all that is great in history, politics, art, literature, and science. The historical characters of the reign of Charles II. and succeeding sovereigns have been gathered beneath its walls ; the stars of music and literature, the Handels and the Popes, have congregated here ; the political leaders, the Burkes, the Pitts and the Foxes, have here discussed the affairs of nations. Here have been collected together the greatest philosophers of the country, and in the future the spot is to become the abode, not only of Science but of Art. The following lines are an extract from a contribution to the Builder, the writer of which was evidently interested in the associations of Bur- lington House, and he has brought back to us in his lines the names of some of those celebrities who in past times walked in its once quiet precincts : — "GHOSTS IN PICCADILLY. " ' To be sold, the handsome Entrance Gateway, and admired Stone erection of the Colonnades at Burlington House.' — Advertisement. " 'Tis the place, — and all around it, as of old, the shadows fall Upon colonnade and mansion with a smoke-begrimed wall. Stalwart porter, looking gloomy, while reclining at the gate, Dost thou muse upon the old time, or the future contemplate ? ' I for olden times care little, and at trifles am not daunted ; The source of all my misery is to guard a house that's haunted By the ghosts of the departed, who at eve, when I'm a-napping, At my door and at my casement so continually are rapping. Jostling, pushing, quick they enter, for they're all in wondrous haste To revisit scenes so pleasant, where they met the " Alan of Taste." With swords, gold lace and ruffles, and their coats of brilliant hue, They lounge about the courtyard — a strange and motley crew. BURLINGTON HOUSE. 73 There's Pope, the wasp of Twickenham, with Arbuthnot and Gay, Bygone times and scenes recalling, as arm-in-arm they stray. Of Handel — mighty master — of his sad and solemn strain, Of " Burlington's fair palace " and its famed " delicious meal," Of balls and routs and junketings, fond mem'ries o'er them steal. Horace Walpole, smiling blandly, vows, " The colonnade, so bright, Was the handiwork of fairies, and they built it in a night." Mutters Swift, who's rather surly, " Manners put it up for sale, Till Hope 41 came to the rescue and ' told a flattering tale ' Of its graceful form and beauty, and declared 'twould be a scandal To destroy such an art-relic — he'd believe it of a Vandal ! " So gravely walking, softly talking, every topic they recall That reminds them of the mansion with a smoke-begrimed wall, Until chanticleer he crows, — they vanish somewhat flutter'd, And round about the gateway a chorus loud is uttered : " Oh, Sydney Smirke and Barry ! oh, Banks and Pennethorne ! A worthy task's before you, to excel its present form." ' " Ten Acres Field at the back of the gardens of Burlington House was built over about the year 17 16, just previous to the building of New Bond Street. The two principal streets were named after the titles of the Earl of Burlington and Cork. 4 ' 3 Queensberry House, one of the first buildings erected, was designed by J. Leoni, in 172 1, for Charles Douglas, third 41 " He must protest against the Vandalism which, for the sake of a few pounds, would destroy an interesting work of art."- — Speech of A. J. Beresford Hope, M.P., in the House of Commons, June 5, 1868. 42 Burlington Street was at first called Nowell Street, as appears by the rate-books of St. James's parish for the years 1729 and 173 1 ; but in the book for 1733 the name " Burlington " replaces that of "Nowell." This is a very curious fact, which has not, I think, been noted before. I take this opportunity of thanking Mr. Buzzard, the vestry-clerk, for his kindness in assisting me by a search in these books. 74 ROUXD ABOUT PICCADILLY. Duke of Oueensberry, the patron of the poet Gay. It was a handsome elevation, and is highly praised by Ralph : — - " I can find no other fault with the late Duke of Queens- berry's house in Vigo Lane, but that it is badly situated over against a dead wall, and in a lane that is unworthy of so grand a building. To which we may add, that it wants wings, and must ever do so, because there is not room to make so neces- sary and graceful an addition. This fabric is evidently in the style of Inigo Jones, and not at all unworthy the school of that great master. A beautiful imitation is of abundantly more value than a bad original ; and he that could copy excellences so well, could not want a great deal of his own." 43 ■" Critical Review of Public Buildings, ed. 1783, p. 195. BURLINGTON HOUSE. 75 Here Gay lived for several years, and here he died on the 4th of December, 1732 :— " Blest be the great, for those they take away And those they left me, for they left me Gay ; Left me to see neglected genius bloom, Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb : Of all thy blameless life the sole return My verse, and Oueensberry weeping o'er the urn." The Duchess of Oueensberry (Prior's Kitty), who was the granddaughter of the great Earl of Clarendon, died in this house in the year 1777. She was very odd and eccentric, both in her dress and manners. She quarrelled with the Court about Gay and gave herself great airs. At one of her balls in 1764, Lord Lorn, George Selwyn, and Horace Walpole, find- ing the dancing room very cold, retired into a side-room and sat down comfortably by the fire. When the Duchess saw this she said nothing, but sent for a smith to take off the hinges of the door. The little party took this tolerably broad hint and left the room, when the smith discontinued his job. 44 She never changed her costume, but dressed according to the fashion in vogue when she was young. W. Whitehead addressed the following lines to her : — " Say, shall a bard in these late times Dare to address his trivial rhymes To her whom Prior, Pope, and Gay, And every bard, who breath'd a lay Of happier vein, was fond to choose The patroness of every muse ? Say, can we hope that you, the theme Of partial Swift's severe esteem, You, who have borne meridian rays, And triumph'd in poetic blaze, Ev'n with indulgence should receive The fainter gleams of ebbing eve ? He will, and boldly say in print, That 't was your grace who gave the hint ; Who told him that the present scene Of dress, and each preposterous fashion, 44 Walpole to Lord Hertford, March 11, 1764. 76 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Flow'd from supineness in the men And not from female inclination. That women were obliged to try All stratagems to catch the eye, And many a wild vagary play To gain attention any way. 'Twas merely cunning in the fair. — - This may be true — but have a care, Your grace will contradict in part, Your own assertion, and my song, Whose beauty, undisguis'd by art, Has charm'd so much, and charm'd so Ion?. " «P* i 3^»^^faii& Burlington Gardens and Uxbridge House. In 1764 the old Duchess, through her influence, obtained BURLINGTON HOUSE. 77 a silk gown for Thurlow, who had not been seven years at the bar, and was then undistinguished as a counsel. Oueensberry House was afterwards purchased by the Earl of Uxbridge, when it took the name of Uxbridge House. In 1792 it was rebuilt by John Vardy, of the Board of Works, who was assisted in the south front by Joseph Bonomi, A.R.A. Henry William Paget, Earl of Uxbridge, " the first cavalry officer in the world," who was created Marquis of Anglesey in 181 5, and died in 1854, was the last occupier of the house. At his death it was sold to the directors of the Bank of England, who opened here their Western Branch, and added a portico to the doorway. Uxbridge House is situated at the south-east corner of Old Burlington Street, and on the west side of this same street Lord Burlington built, in 1723, a house, which attracted much attention, for Field-Marshal the Right Hon. George Wade. Wade died on March 14, 1748, at the age of eighty, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where Roubilliac erected a monument to his memory. It is said that the great sculptor used to stand before this, his noblest work, and weep that it was placed too high to be appreciated. Wade's house was supposed to be handsomer without than comfortable within, and Lord Chesterfield recommended the Marshal to take a lodging over the way that he might see its beauties. The other story which has been told of this house, about its being too small to live in, and too large to hang to a watch-chain, really belongs to the villa at Chiswick. Horace Walpole went to see the house when it was sold after the' Marshal's death, and he thus describes it in a letter to George Montagu (May 18, 1748) : — "It is worse contrived on the inside than is con- ceivable, all to humour the beauty of the front. ... It is literally true that all the direction he (Wade) gave my Lord Burlington was, to have a place for a large cartoon of Rubens that he had bought in Flanders ; but my lord found it neces- sary to have so many correspondent doors, that there was no room at last for the picture ; and the Marshal was forced to sell the picture to my father : it is now at Houghton." The 78 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. house has been entirely altered, so as now to be undistinguish- able. In Colen Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicas, where there Marshal Wadis'^ Hon si. in Old .Boklington Street. is a view of the front, 45 it is said to have been situated in " Great Burlington Street," but Walpole and most other writers tell us that it was in Cork Street. The rate-books of the parish, however, prove Campbell to have been right, for we there find Wade rated for a house in Burlington Street. 4j Vol. iii. plate 10. A reduction of this engraving is given above. BURLINGTON HOUSE. 79 Ralph thus describes the architectural effect : — " The late General Wade's house in Cork Street is a structure which, though small, is one of the best things among the modern or lately erected buildings. The general design or plan is pompous and expensive ; indeed, the whole house is one continued cluster of ornament ; and yet there is nobody can say there is too much, or that he desires to have any part removed out of the way. Let me add, it is the only fabric in miniature I ever saw where decorations were perfectly proportioned to the space they were to fill, and did not, by their multiplicity, or some other mistake, incumber the whole." i6 In 1729 Colonel Ligonier and Charles Dartiquenave, the well-known glutton, were living in Old Burlington Street. The poet Akenside lived and died here. The great Whig, Vassall, Lord Holland, lived in this street about the years 1831-37, and Cockerell, the architect, lived at No. 8, in 1829. Other noblemen not much known to fame have at different times occupied some of the houses. Dr. Arbuthnot, of whom Swift said he could do everything but walk, lived in Cork Street between the years 1729 and 1735. Here Mrs. Masham, the supplanter of the Duchess of Marlborough in the favour of Queen Anne, died ; and here in 1752, after the death of his wife, Dr. Johnson, with Mrs. Williams, dined nearly every Sunday at the house of Mr. Diamond, an apothecary. William Thomas Brande, the celebrated chemist, lectured at Dr. Hooper's Medical Theatre in this street in 1808. The old-established tavern of the sign of the " Blue Posts " was long famous for its dinners, chops and punch, and as the haunt of literary men. It was a favourite resort of the publisher Blackwood, the famous Ebony, where he saw the London contributors to Maga. Burlington Charity School-house, situated in Boyle Street, at the end of Old Burlington Street, was built about the year 1720, on ground granted by Lord Burlington, whose 40 Critical Review of Public Buildings, ed. 1793, P- '94- So ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. wife took great interest in the institution. The school was originally founded in 1699, for the maintaining, clothing, and educating sixty girls belonging to or residing in the parish of St. James's. Savile Row, named after Lord Burlington's wife, Lady Dorothy Savile, was built about the year 1733. This was once a very fashionable place, but is now almost entirely inhabited by eminent physicians and surgeons, who occupy nearly every house in the street. Sheridan died at No. 14, in 1814, and Henrietta, Countess of Suffolk, at No. 17, in 1816. The large corner house of Savile Row and New Burlington Street, lately rebuilt by Messrs. Landon and Gledhill, was long occupied by Lord Braybrook, the editor of Pepyss Diary. The row is occasionally roused from its quietness by the crowds who come to see the handsome illuminations exhibited by Messrs. Poole, the tailors. At the end of Savile Row, with its front looking up the street, is an old-fashioned brick house, with a centre and wings built by Lord Burlington. Though the exterior is not very pleasing to the eye, the interior is handsomely decorated in the same style as Burlington House ; the egg-border, that is so prominent in the large house, is here found surrounding the doors and fireplaces. Lord Burlington built this as a garden or tea-house at the end of his garden, which formerly extended as far as here. The house afterwards came into the possession of Messrs. Squibb, the auctioneers, who built out a large auction-room, which was used at one time as a private theatre. Horace Walpole, writing on July 23, 1790, says: — " I went to carry my niece Sophia Walpole home last night from her mother's, and I found Little Burlington Street blocked up by coaches. Lord Barrymore, his sister Lady Caroline, and Mrs. Goodall the actress, were performing the Beaux Stratagem in Squib's auction-room, which his lordship has converted into a theatre." 47 The court by the side of the house, leading through into Mill Street and Conduit Street, 47 Miss Berry's Journal, vol. L, 1865, p. 206. BURLINGTON HOUSE. 81 belongs to the house, and is called Savile Place. It was originally a pathway to St. George's Church. 4S Old Burlington Street was formerly called Great Burling- ton Street, and the Little Burlington Street referred to by Walpole is now called New Burlington Street. In the latter lived for many years the famous old Lady Cork, widow of Edmund, seventh Earl of Cork, who was, up to her death in 1840, one of the best-known people in town. She was often to be seen walking slowly along Savile Row, laying hold of the railings as an assistance to her progress. At her house might be met all the lions of the season, and it mattered little to her whether they were celebrated or only notorious. In Miss Berry's Diary, under the date June 11, 181 1, occurs the following entry : — " Went to Lady Cork's, a curious party, where, by way of something to do, she had had Thelwall reading Milton's Invocation to Light so abominably as to amuse or shock all the company." 48 This house is now in the possession of Messrs. Rushworth, Abbott and Co., the auctioneers who succeeded Messrs. Squibb, and I take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to Mr. Rushworth, who very courteously gave me the information which is contained in the above description. ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. CHAPTER IV. CLARENDON HOUSE. Clarendon Hodse, 1667-1683. THERE is not in the history of England a more melancholy instance of the instability of human greatness than is to be found in the fall of Lord Chancellor Clarendon ; and this melancholy picture is heightened in its effect by the fate of the house which that unfortunate man built at so great a sacrifice of his fortune. The history of Clarendon House is CLARENDON HOUSE. 83 perhaps unparalleled. Within the short space of twenty years the ground upon which it was built was granted to the Earl — the mansion rose from the surrounding fields a solid mass of masonry — was inhabited by several noblemen — and, finally, was totally destroyed to make room for rows of streets. The Earl appears to have been infatuated in his wish to build a palace for his residence, and his misguided proceeding in this matter, more than anything else, hastened his fall. He thereby made enemies of the populace, and under this cover his unprincipled enemies at Court were enabled to gratify their hatred of him. A large tract of land was granted to Lord Clarendon by letters patent (dated 13 June, 1664). " Our will and pleasure is, That (upon surrender to be made to us by our most dear Mother, y e Queene and her trustees, our right trusty and right wellbeloved Cousin and Councellor, Henry Earle of St. Albans, and his trustees, and S r William Poultney and his trustees, of their severall and respective estates, trusts, termes and interests of, in, and unto one close, called Stone- bridge-close, containing eleven acres, abutting upon the high- way leading to Hyde Parke on y e south, on a messuage or tenement in y e occupacon of John Emblyn on y e north, on a little brooke on y e west, and on a close called Pennylesse Banke on y e east : one other close, called y e Pennylesse Banke containing nine acres and a halfe, abutting on Stone- bridge west, on a close called y e Stone Conduit on y e east, on y e highway leading to Hyde Parke on the south, and y e said messuage or tenement in y e - occupacon of John Emblyn north ; and one other close called y e Stone Conduit Close, abutting on y e said Pennylesse Banke on y e west, on a close called Swallow Close on y e east, on y e highway leading into Hyde Park on y e south, and on y e fields where y e citty conduit stands, on y e north, containing nine acres, lying near St. James in y e parish of St. Martin's in y e Fields, in our county of Midd x , part of y e demeasne lands of our mannor or Bayliff- wicke of St. James afores d , which surrender wee hereby declare, will and doe attest ; ) you forthwith prepare a Bill for 84 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. our R 11 signa r , to passe our Great Seale, containing our Royall Grant of all y e s d closes and premises, to bee surrendered as afores d , with their appurtenances, unto our r c trusty and r l well-beloved Cousin and Councellor Edward Earle of Clarendon Our High Chancellor of England, and to Henry Lord Cornbury, son and heire apparent to our s d High Chan- cellor, and to y e heirs and assignes of our s d High Chancellor, for ever to be hold of us, our heirs and successours, as of our mannour of East Greenwich, in free and comon soccage. " And you are [to] insert in y e s d Bill all such non-obstantes and clauses as shall be requisite to make our s d grant most full and effectual. And &c. y e 13th of June 1664. " By &c. H. B. 1 " To S r Geoffrey Palmer." It is difficult to say what was the extent of this grant. It appears to have extended east as far as the present Swallow Street, but we cannot guess how much of " the highway leading to Hyde Park " to the westward was included in it. The Chancellor chose a portion of the land directly opposite St. James's Street as the site of his house, and the building was at once commenced. On the 7th of March, 1666, a lease of the Conduit Mead, on which were afterwards built New Bond Street, Conduit Street, Brook Street, &c, was granted by the City of London for ninety-nine years, at a nominal rent of eight pounds a year. The Earl purchased the stones which had been intended for the repair of the old Cathedral of St. Paul's, and employed 300 men on the works. The people, wearied by the plague and an unsuccessful war, were incensed against him for this expenditure of money, and, in truth, the building of Clarendon House was undertaken at an unfortunate time. As the Prime Minister, the populace singled him out to bear the whole brunt of their rage ; and when the news came that the Dutch were at Gravesend, they 1 From the State Paper Office. Warrant Book, 7, quoted in Lister's Life of Clarendon, vol. iii. pp. 525-6. CLARENDON HOUSE. 85 broke the windows of Clarendon House, and painted a gibbet on the gate, with the following lines beneath it : — " Three sights to be seen, Dunkirk, Tangiers, and a barren Queen." It was particularly unjust to lay the blame of the Queen's barrenness upon Clarendon, for he is known to have opposed the marriage of Charles with Catharine of Braganza, on account of the probability that she would not bear children. The house was nicknamed Dunkirk House, because it was supposed that Clarendon took payment from France, for negotiating the sale of Dunkirk ; Holland House, because the people said he had received a bribe from the Dutch ; and Tangier Hall, because of their dissatisfaction at the acquisition of that place. The small poets of the day were busy in writing scurrilous verses upon Clarendon. The following are some of them : — "On the Lord Chancellor H — e's Disgrace and Banishment by King Charles II. " Pride, Lust, Ambition, and the People's hate, The kingdom's broker, ruin of the State, Dunkirk's sad loss, divider of the fleet, Tangier's compounder for a barren sheet : This shrub of gentry marry'd to the crown, His daughter to the Heir, is tumbled down ; God will revenge, too, for the stones he took From aged Paul's to make a nest for Rooks." Clarendon's House Wanning, by Andrew Marvell, is not worth quoting, but the following are two of the stanzas : — " And hence like Pharaoh that Israel prest To make mortar and brick, yet allow'd them no straw, He car'd not tho' Egypt's ten plagues us distrest, So he could to build, but make Policy Law. The Scotch forts and Dunkirk, but that they were sold, He would have demolish'd to raise up his walls ; Nay, ev'n Tangier have sent back for the mould, But that he had nearer the stones of St. Paul's." 86 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. At the end are these lines : — " Upon his House. " Here lie the sacred bones Of Paul beguilded of his stones : Here lie golden Briberies, The price of ruined families : The Cavaliers Debenter Wall, Fix'd on an eccentric Basis ; Here's Dunkirk Town and Tangier Hall, The Queen's marriage and all ; The Dutchman's Tcmplum Pads." In the following verses the author puns on the family name of Clarendon : — " Lo ! his whole ambition already divides The sceptre between the Stuarts and the Hydes. Behold, in the depth of our plague and wars, He built him a palace out-braves the stars ; Which house (we Dunkirk, he Clarendon names,) Looks down with shame upon St. James ; But 'tis not his golden globe that will save him ; Being less than the custom-house farmers gave him ; His chapel for consecration calls, Whose sacrilege plundered the stones from Paul's. When Queen Dido landed she bought as much ground As the Hyde of a lusty fat bull would surround ; But when the said Hyde was cut into thongs, A city and kingdom to Hyde belongs ; So here in court, church and country, far and wide, Here's nought to be seen but Hyde! Hyde ! Hyde ! Of old, and where law the kingdom divides, 'Twas our Hydes of land, 'tis now land of Hydes." 2 We gain much information about Clarendon House from the Diaries of Pepys and Evelyn. The following are extracts from these books, arranged in chronological order : — " Dined at the Lord Chancellor's, where was the Duke of Ormond, Earl of Cork, and Bishop of Winchester. After dinner, my Lord Chancellor and his lady carried me in their coach to see their palace (for he now lived at Worcester House 2 MS. Poem quoted in Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature. CLARENDON HOUSE. 87 in the Strand) building at the upper end of St. James's Street, and to project the garden." 3 " Rode into the beginning of my Lord Chancellor's new house, near St. James's, which common people have already- called Dunkirke House, from their opinion of his having a good bribe for the selling of that town. And very noble, I believe, it will be. Near that is my Lord Barkeley beginning another on one side, and Sir J. Denham on the other." 4 " Upon Wednesday last I went to London, and spent the whole afternoon in viewing my Lord Chancellor's new house [Clarendon House, built by Mr. Pratt ; since quite demolished by Sir Thomas Bond, &c, who purchased it to build a street of tenements to his undoing. — J. E.], if it be not a solecism to give a palace so vulgar a name. My incessant business had till that moment prevented my passionate desires of seeing it since it was one stone advanced : but I was plainly astonished when I beheld what a progress was made. Let me speak ingenuously ; I went with prejudice and a critical spirit, incident to those who fancy they know anything in art. I acnowledge to your Lordship that I have never seen a nobler pile : my old friend and fellow traveller (co-habitant and con- temporary at Rome) has perfectly acquitted himself. It is, without hyperboles, the best contrived, the most useful, graceful and magnificent house in England, — I except not Audley-end ; which, though larger, and full of gaudy and barbarous orna- ments, does not gratify judicious spectators. As I said, my Lord : here is state and use, solidity and beauty most symme- trically combined together ; seriously there is nothing abroad pleases better ; nothing at home approaches it. I have no design, my Lord, to gratify the architect, beyond what I am obliged as a professed honourer of virtue, wheresoever 'tis conspicuous ; but when I had seriously contemplated every room (for I went into them all, from the cellar to the platform on the roof), seen how well and judiciously the walls were erected, the arches cut and turned, the timber braced, their 3 John Evelyn's Diary, Oct. 15, 1664. 4 Pepys's Diary, Feb. 18, 1664-5. 88 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. scantlings and contignations disposed, I was incredibly- satisfied, and do acknowledge myself to have much improved by what I observed. What shall I add more ? rumpatur invidia ; I pronounce it the first palace in England, deserving all I have said of it, and a better encomiast. May that great and illustrious person, whose large and ample heart has honoured his country with so glorious a structure, and, by an example worthy of himself, showed our nobility how they ought indeed to build, and value their qualities, live many long years to enjoy it ; and when he shall have passed to that upper building not made with hands, may his posterity (as you, my Lord) inherit his goodness, this palace, and all other circumstance of his grandeur, to consummate their felicity." 5 " Went to see Clarendon House, now almost finished, a goodly pile to see to, but had many defects as to the architec- ture, yet placed most gracefully. After this I waited on the Lord Chancellor, who was now at Berkshire House, since the burning of London." 6 " My Lord Chancellor showed me all his newly-finished and furnished palace and library ; then we went to take the air in Hyde Park." 7 " To my Lord Chancellor at Clarendon House. — Mightily pleased with the noblenesse of this house, and the brave pictures, which indeed is very noble." 8 " They all say that he is but a poor man, not worth above 3,000/. a year in land ; but this I cannot believe ; and all do blame him for having built so great a house, till he had got a better estate." 9 " To visit the late Lord Chancellor. I found him in his gout wheel-chair, and seeing the gates setting up towards the 5 Letter from John Evelyn to Lord Cornbury, dated, " Sayes Court, 20 Jan., 1665-6." — Diary and Correspondence, \o\. iii. ed. 1852, pp. 177-8. 6 Evelyn's Diary, Nov. 28, 1666. 7 Ditto, April 26, 1667. 8 Pepys's Diary, May 10, 1667. 9 Ditto, August 26, 1667. CLARENDON HOUSE. 89 north and the fields. He looked and spake very disconsolately. After some while deploring his condition to me, I took my leave. Next morning I heard he was gone ; though I am persuaded that, had he gone sooner, though but to Cornbury, and there lain quiet, it would have satisfied the Parliament. That which exasperated them was his presuming to stay and contest the accusation as long as it was possible ; and they were on the point of sending him to the Tower." 10 " I dined with my Lord Cornbury at Clarendon House, now bravely furnished, especially with the pictures of most of our ancient and modern wits, poets, philosophers, famous and learned Englishmen ; which collection of the Chancellor's I much commended, and gave his lordship a catalogue of more to be added." n When the Grand Duke Cosmo III. travelled in England in the year 1669, he went to see the mansion, and his secretary thus describes it : — " After dinner his Highness went to see the house lately built by the Lord Chancellor, my Lord Hyde, Duke of Clarendon, father-in-law of the Duke of York, to which the people, with whom he has incurred great odium, have given the name of Dunkirk House. ... It is in an advantageous situation, which increases its magnificence, being in front of a wide street leading down to St. James's Palace, which is directly opposite to it. Its form is square ; on the outside, from being embellished with stone ornaments, regularly dis- posed according to the rules of architecture, it is extremely light and cheerful, and in the interior, commodious and sumptuous. From the inner part you descend into the garden, surrounded, in its whole extent, by walls which support flourishing espaliers, formed of various fruit-trees ; these render the view very agreeable, although the garden has no other ornament than compartments of earth filled with low and beautiful parterres and spacious walks ; over which, in order to keep them smooth and level, they roll 10 Evelyn's Diary, Dec. 9, 1667. " Ditto, Dec. 20, 1668. 90 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. certain heavy cylindrical stones, to keep the grass down. At present this house, in consequence of the contumacy of the Lord Chancellor, who has been banished from the kingdom, is incorporated with the royal domains and is at the king's disposal." 12 The architect, Pratt, deceived Clarendon in the expense of building, for he estimated it at less than 20,000/., though it really cost 50,000/. The Earl of Orrery, writing to Clarendon on the 22nd of March, 1666, says : " But now that Clarendon House is finished, be pleased (if at least you dare) to let me know whether my L d Chancellor of England, who sayd it should cost him 20,000/., or my L d Orrery, who said it would cost him 40,000/., was more in y e right." It is difficult to understand why even 50,000/. could cripple him so much as it seems to have done, because the land granted to him extended from Swallow Close towards Hyde Park, and he must have received money from Lords Berkeley and Burlington for the land on which they built. In Echard's History of England is the following curious account of the building : — " This house was built in the Chancellor's absence in the Plague year, principally at the charge of the Vintners' Company, who, designing to monopolise his favour, made it abundantly more large and magnificent than ever he intended or desired. And I have been assured by an unques- tionable hand that when he came to see the case of that house, he rather submitted than consented, and with a sigh said, ' This house will one day be my ruin! " 13 When the house was finished, Clarendon was allowed little time to enjoy it. In August, 1667, he was deprived of the Great Seal, and soon after (November 29) was forced to fly the kingdom. Evelyn has left us a melancholy picture of the old man sitting moodily in the garden of his newly- finished house just before his flight. Clarendon wrote an affecting letter from Calais to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, resigning his office of chancellor : — 12 Travels of Cosmo III, 1821, pp. 293-4. 13 Vol. iii. 1 7 18, p. 192. CLARENDON HOUSE. 91 " Good Mr. Vice-Chancellor, — " HAVING found it necessary to transport myselfe out of England, and not knowing when it will please God that I shall returne againe, it becomes me to take care that the University may not be without the service of a person better able to be of use to them then I am like to be ; and I doe therefore hereby surrender the office of Chancellor into the hands of the said University, to the end that they make choyce of some other person better qualified to assist and protect them than I am, I am sure he can never be more affectionate to it. I desire you, as the last suite I am like to make to you, to believe that I doe not fly my country for guilt ; and how passionately soever I am pursued, that I have not done anything to make the University ashamed of me, or to repent the good opinion they had once of me ; and though I must have noe farther mention in your publique devotions (which I have alwayes exceedingly valued), I hope I shall be alwayes remembred in your private prayers as, " Good Mr. Vice-Chancellor, " Your affectionate Servant, " Calice, this ^ T Dec. 1667. CLARENDON." 14 The Earl's affairs were not at first considered desperate, and hopes of his speedy return were entertained. In his letters he continually refers to his house ; in one to his son, Lord Cornbury, dated from Moulines, 1671, he talks of selling it, but this was not done till after his death. The house was leased to the Duke of Ormonde, who was living in it in the year 1670. Shortly after the death of Clarendon in exile (December 9, 1674), the house was sold for 25,000/. by his sons, Lord Corn- bury and Lawrence Hyde, afterwards Earl of Rochester, to Christopher, second Duke of Albemarle, who lived in it for some time. " Brave Abdael o'er the prophet's school was placed, Abdael, with all his father's virtue graced." 15 14 Macray'S Annals of the Bodleian Library, 1868, p. 323. 13 Absalom and Achitophel, part 2. 92 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. When the Duke purchased it, he changed its name to Albemarle House, and new letters patent were granted (dated November 10, 1677), ratifying the ground to him and his heirs and assigns for ever. 16 The young Duke, however, soon ran through his old father's estate, and was obliged to sell the house to the highest bidder. He ruined his health by drinking, and was " burnt to a coal with hot liquor." 17 He was sent out to Jamaica as governor, and Sir Hans Sloane accompanied him as medical attendant. His object in getting this office was to weigh up a rich Spanish galleon, sunk near the island ; in which undertaking he was successful, and exaggerated rumours came over to England of his having discovered a silver mine. He died, however, in 1688, before he could return home, and his widow is said to have cheated the other partners in the scheme, and brought the whole of the money to England. She went mad, and determined she would marry no one but the great Turk. Ralph, first Duke of Montagu, wooed and married her in the disguise of that important individual, when he confined her, and made use of her money to build Montagu House, afterwards the British Museum. Sir Thomas Bond, of Peckham, and other specu- lators, bought Albemarle House for 35,000/., and in its place reared four new streets, viz., Dover Street, Albemarle Street, Bond Street, called after the chief contractor, and Stafford Street. It is said that a larger sum was realized by the sale of the old materials than was paid for the house. One of the last glimpses we get of the falling building is in Evelyn's Diary, where we see that noble-minded man passing it with averted gaze, so that there might be no need for conversation with his companion, the second Earl of Clarendon, on the melancholy record of his father's folly. " I returned to town in a coach with the Earl 'of Clarendon : when passing by the glorious palace of his father, built but a few years before, which they were now demolishing, being sold to certain undertakers, I turned my head the contrary way till the coach had gone 16 Gentleman's Magazine, vol. Ixxxi. part 2, p. 601. 17 Ellis Correspondence, 1829, vol. i. p. 64. CLARENDON HOUSE. 93 past it, lest I might minister occasion of speaking of it ; which must needs have grieved him, that in so short a time their pomp was fallen." ls "After dinner I walked to survey the sad demolition of Clarendon House, that costly and only sumptuous palace of the late Lord Chancellor Hyde, where I have often been so cheerful with him, and sometimes so sad. . . . The Chancellor gone and dying in exile, the Earl, his successor, sold that which cost 50,000/. building, to the young Duke of Albemarle for 25,000/., to pay debts which how contracted remains yet a mystery, his son being no way a prodigal. Some imagine the Duchess, his daughter, had been chargeable to him. How- ever it were, this stately palace is decreed to ruin, to support the prodigious waste the Duke of Albemarle had made of his estate since the old man died. He sold it to the highest bidder, and it fell to certain rich bankers and mechanics, who gave for it and the ground about it 35,000/. ; they design a new town, as it were, and a most magnificent piazza (i.e. square). It is said they have already materials towards it with what they sold of the house alone, more worth than what they paid for it. See the vicissitudes of earthly things ! I was astonished at this demolition, nor less at the little army of labourers and artificers levelling the ground, laying founda- tions, and contriving great buildings at an expense of 200,000/., if they perfect their design." 19 The mansion was of great size, and consisted of a centre with two wings. There were two principal floors and an attic story surmounted by a balustrade, with a small tower in the centre. The wall that ran along Piccadilly was a low one with a handsome gateway. The house must have possessed a certain grandeur from its very size, but its loss has been more than compensated, and its site is better occupied, by the streets that now fill its place. 18 Evelyn's Diary, June 19, 1683. I9 Ditto, Sept. 18, 1683. 94 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. CHAPTER V. DEVONSHIRE HOUSE. ,.#** Devonshire House, 1808. The present mansion stands on the site of Hay Hill Farm (the only remains of which are to be found in the names of the streets near, viz., Hay Hill, Hill Street, and Farm Street), and replaced, in 1733, an older house. This was Berkeley House, which was erected in 1665, by Hugh May, 1 for Sir John Berkeley, of Bruton, created Lord Berkeley, of Stratton, and was the third mansion built in Piccadilly, in the middle of the seventeenth century. Lord Berkeley was raised to the peerage in 1658, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and in 1674, 1 The building is wrongly attributed to Inigo Jones in Defoe's Tour through Great Britain, 2nd ed. 1738, vol. ii. p. 113. DEVONSHIRE HOUSE. 95 Ambassador to France. Evelyn describes the old house, which cost nearly 30,000/. building, but he is able to praise little except the gardens, which extended over the ground now occupied by Lansdowne House and Berkeley Square, and appear to have been very beautiful. Evelyn thus writes : " I dined at Lord John Berkeley's, newly arrived out of Ireland, where he had been Deputy ; it was in his new house, or rather palace ; for I am assured it stood him in near 30,000/. It is very well built, and has many noble rooms, but they are not very convenient, consisting but of one corps de Logis ; they are all rooms of state, without closets. The staircase is of cedar, the furniture is princely : the kitchen and stables are ill-placed, and the corridor worse, having no report to the wings they join to. For the rest, the fore-court is noble, so are the stables ; and above all, the gardens, which are incom- parable by reason of the inequality of the ground, and a pretty piscina. The holly hedges on the terrace I advised the planting of. The porticos are in imitation of a house described by Palladio ; but it happens to be the worst in his book, though my good friend Mr. Hugh May, his lordship's architect, effected it." 3 Lord Berkeley died in 1678, and in 1684 two new streets (Berkeley Street and Stratton Street) were built on a portion of the gardens by his widow, under the directions of John Evelyn : — " I went to advise and give directions about the building two streets in Berkeley Gardens, reserving the house and as much of the garden as the breadth of the house. In the meantime I could not but deplore that sweet place (by far the most noble gardens, courts, and accommodations, stately porticos, &c, anywhere about the town) should be so much straitened and turned into tenements. But that magnifi- cent pile, and gardens contiguous to it, built by the late Lord Chancellor Clarendon, being all demolished, and designed for piazzas and buildings, was some excuse for my Lady Berkeley's resolution of letting out her ground also for so excessive a price as was offered, advancing near 1000/ per 2 Diary, Sept. 25, 1672. 96 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. annum in mere ground rents ; to such a mad intemperance was the age come of building about a city, by far too dis- proportionate already to the nation : I having in my time seen it almost as large again as it was within my memory." 3 In 1695, the Princess Anne, who was then on bad terms with her brother-in-law, William III., lived here with her husband, till the death of her sister the Queen Mary, in the same year. "After she removed to Berkeley House, the minister of St. James's was commanded not to show her the respect that was due to the royal family, which he refused to obey in respect to their majesties (as he sent them word), knowing the near relation she had to them." i William, first Duke of Devonshire, bought the house at the beginning of 1697, and on March 31st William III. dined with him in it. The first and second Dukes both died in the house ; the former in 1707, and the latter in 1727. Dr. White Kennet, the Whig Dean of Peterborough, and afterwards bishop of the same place, preached the first Duke's funeral sermon, on September 5th, 1707, which gave great offence at the time, and caused Pope to write those severe lines in the Imitations of Horace : — " When servile chaplains cry, that birth and place Indue a Peer with honour, truth and grace, Look in that breast, most dirty D — ! be fair ; Say can you find out one such lodger there ? " The Duke had offended public taste, the year before his death, by erecting a monument in the church of Latimers, in Buckinghamshire, to the memory of his mistress, Miss Campion, the singer, with a Latin inscription, setting forth her virtue and Christian piety. The original mansion was burnt down through the care- lessness of workmen, who were employed in its repair on the 1 6th of October, 1733. Although the library, picture- gallery, and much of the furniture was saved, the loss was 3 Evelyn's Diary, June 12, 16S4. 4 Burnet's Own Time, 1833, vol. iv. p. 164 (note by Lord Dartmouth). DEVONSHIRE HOUSE. 97 estimated at above 30,000/. The Prince of Wales and many persons of distinction were present at the fire, and a body of guards, commanded by the Earl of Albemarle, helped to save the goods from being plundered by the mob. A fine statue of Britannia, in white marble, which cost 3,500/., fell from the front of the house a few days after the fire, and was broken to pieces. The present mansion was erected after a design of William Kent's, by William, the third Duke of Devonshire, at a cost of 20,000/, including 1,000/. presented by the Duke to the artist for his plans. The house does little credit to the taste of the architect, and the public should be grateful that a brick wall hides a portion of its ugliness from their gaze. The following description is taken from a book published in 1743, but it appears to refer to the old house : — " Berkley or Devonshire House is situated on the north side of Portugal Street, having a large court before it, and the offices, with which it has communication by bending galleries and piazzas, like those of Buckingham House, form the wings. The front of the house is adorned with stone pilasters, entablature, and pitch'd pediment of the Corinthian order, under which is the figure of Britannia, fine carv'd ; the hall and staircase are adorn'd with original paintings ; the apart- ments well dispos'd, magnificent, and richly furnish'd." 3 Ralph's account refers to the new building : — " But the Duke of Devonshire's is one of those which present a horrid blank of wall, chearless and unsocial by day, and terrible by night. It is strange that this taste should ever have obtained among our nobility and especially in the present instance. Would it be credible, if the fact did not put it out of controversy, that any man of taste, fashion, and figure would prefer the solitary grandeur of enclosing himself in a jail, to the enjoy- ment of the first view in Britain, which he might possess by throwing down this execrable brick screen ? The public, how - ever, have nothing to regret in losing the sight of Devonshire s History and Present State of the British Islands, vol. ii. p. 109. 7 9 8 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. House. It is spacious, and so are the East India Company's warehouses ; and both are equally deserving praise." 6 The fourth Duke of Devonshire, K.G., Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, died on October 2, 1764, at the early age of forty- four. He was the chief of the coalition against Lord Bute, and was called by the Princess Dowager of Wales, the " Prince of the Whigs." The fifth Duke of Devonshire, whom Horace Walpole calls the first match in England, married the celebrated Duchess Georgiana. Here she reigned over her brilliant court, which consisted of nearly all the wit and fashion of the day. All bowed down before her, and when she was pre- sented at Court it was said that " a new grace " had arrived. She set the fashion in dress, and introduced a simple and elegant style in place of the ugly hoop. Her rank, beauty, and fascination of manner all united to draw around her one of the most brilliant of circles. Among the constant visitors at her house were George IV. when Prince of Wales, Fox, Sheridan, and Selwyn. When Fox was returned to Parlia- ment for Westminster, it was principally owing to the exer- tions of the Duchess of Devonshire, who visited, with her sister, Lady Duncannon, afterwards Countess of Besborough, the humblest of the electors, and dazzled them with her beauty. The following ballad on her proceedings was sung about the streets : — " A Piccadilly beauty Went out on canvassing duty To help the great distresses Of poor little Carlo Khan. The butchers and the bakers, The grocers, undertakers, The milliners and toymen, All vote for Carlo Khan." When the Duchess gave a butcher a kiss in order to gain his vote, the following was written : — 6 Critical Review of Public Buildings, ed. 1783, p. 183. DEVONSHIRE HOUSE. 99 " Condemn not, prudes, fair Devon's plan In giving Steel a kiss In such a cause, for such a man She could not do amiss." Another gallant poet sings : — " Array'd in matchless beauty, Devon's fair In Fox's favour takes a zealous part ; But oh ! where'er the pilferer comes beware, She supplicates a vote and steals a heart." In the Rolliad, the beauties of the Duchess and her attendant graces are duly chronicled : — " Avaunt ye profane ! the fair pageantry moves : An entry of Venus, led on by the loves ! Behold how the urchins round Devonshire press ! For orders, submissive, her eyes they address : She assumes her command with a diffident smile, And leads thus attended, the pride of the Isle. Oh ! now for the pencil of Guido ! to trace, Of Keppel the features, of Waldegrave the grace ; Of Fitzroy the bloom, the May morning to vie, Of Sefton the air, of Duncannon the eye ; Of Loftus the smiles (though with preference proud, She gives ten to her husband for one to the crowd), Of Portland the manner, that steals on the breast, But is too much her own to be caught or expressed ; The charms that with sentiment Bouverie blends, The fairest of forms and the truest of friends ; The look that in Warburton, humble and chaste, Speaks candour and truth and discretion and taste, Or with equal expression in Horton combined, Vivacity's dimples with reason refined." 7 It was said that these ladies were the most lovely portraits that ever appeared upon a canvas. During the panic that took possession of the world of London at the time of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Devonshire House was thought to be insecure, and was garrisoned by soldiers. The Duchess did not, therefore, venture to remain in it after dusk, and she took refuge at the house of Lord 7 Rolliad {Poetical Miscellanies), 1795, PP- io2 "3- ioo ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Clermont in Berkeley Square, where she slept for some nights on a sofa in the drawing-room. She died at Devonshire House on March 30, 1806. In 1840 the external double flight of stairs which led to the first floor was cleared away, and the principal entrance was replaced by a window. The house contains a magnificent library, and a curious collection of clocks and watches, formed by the late Duke. Tn the ball-room of this house was acted before the Queen and Prince Albert, on May 16, 185 1, for the benefit of the Guild of Literature and Art, Lord Lytton's play, Not so bad as zve seem. The actors were eminent literary men and artists, among whom were Messrs. Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Augustus Egg, R. Home, the author of Orion, (an epic originally pub- lished at the small price of one farthing,) Douglas Jerrold, Mark Lemon, Frank Stone, John Tenniel, &c. The tickets were five pounds each, for which vouchers were obtained by direct application to the Duke of Devonshire. Lansdowne House, the gardens of which join those of Devonshire House, was not built till the middle of the eighteenth century. It was commenced by the Earl of Bute, from the design of Robert Adam. In 1765 Lord Bute sold the unfinished house to William, Earl of Shelburne, for 22,500/., by which he was supposed to have lost 3,000/. Lord Shelburne covered it in and otherwise completed it, having done which he gave a housewarming on Monday, August 1, 1768. Lord Shelburne was nicknamed " Malagrida " by Junius, after the celebrated Italian Jesuit, who was strangled and burnt at Lisbon in 1761. This gave rise to the blunder of Goldsmith's, who expressed his surprise to the Earl that he was thus called, " because Malagrida was a very good sort of man." The Earl was generally considered insincere, and George III. called him the "Jesuit of Berkeley Square." Dr. Priestley was librarian and literary companion to the Earl, with whom he lived at this house during the winters of seven years. Lord Brougham, in his Life of Priestley, con- siders this fact as the greatest glory of the house. " With DEVONSHIRE HOUSE. 101 whatever difference of sentiment statesmen may at any time view Lansdowne House, the lovers of science in the latest ages will gaze with veneration on that magnificent pile, careless of its architectural beauties, but grateful for the light which its illustrious founder caused to beam from thence over the whole range of natural knowledge ; and after the structure shall have yielded to the fate of all human works, the ground on which it once stood, consecrated to far other recollections than those of conquest or of power, will be visited by the pilgrim of philosophy with a deeper fervour than any that fills the bosom near the Forum or the Capitol of ancient Rome." 8 Talleyrand, ex-Bishop of Autun, when he came to Eng- land, in 1792, was a constant visitor here, and the third Marquis of Lansdowne told Sir Henry Bulwer, that he remembered him dining at the house frequently, and the impression he made on him was that of a particularly pale and particularly silent man. 9 Berkeley Square, of which Lansdowne House is the chief ornament, was built in 1698, and called after Lord Berkeley, of Stratton. The centre of the square was planted about the middle of the last century, with shrubs and trees. The statue of George III., by Wilton, was erected in 1766, and lately a drinking fountain has been placed at the south end of the enclosure. Lady Mary Wortley Montague died in Berkeley Square, in 1762, shortly after her return to England. About 1782, Mrs. Robinson lived here under the protection of C. J. Fox. Her affairs afterwards became involved, and she was forced to leave the country to get out of the way of her creditors. The second Earl of Chatham lived at No. 6. At this house his brother, William Pitt, then Prime Minister, received, in 1784, a deputation from the City of London, who brought him his letters of freedom, and attended him to a banquet given in his honour, at the Hall of the Grocers' Company. 8 Brougham's Life of Priestley {Men of Letters, 1845, vol. i. p. 417). 9 Sir H. Bulwer's Historical Characters, 1867, vol. ii. io2 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. No. 7 is occupied by the great confectioners, Messrs Gunter. Horace Walpole moved to No. n, in 1779, from Arlington Street, and died here in 1797. He left the house to his niece, Lady Waldegrave, who was living in it in 1800. Lord Brougham lived at No. 21, from 1835 to 1837; and at No. 48, from 1 83 1 to 1833. No. 44 was built by Kent, for Lady Isabella Finch. The staircase of the house is highly praised by Walpole. No. 45. Here on November 22, 1774, the great Lord Clive, while a prey to depression of spirits, caused by his sense of the ingratitude of his country, made away with himself. Lord Clive was called by the elder Pitt " a heaven- born general, who without experience surpassed all the officers of his time." The house is now in the possession of the Earl of Powis, Clive's descendant. On Hay Hill, in 1554, there was a severe skirmish between Queen Mary's troops and the insurgents, under Sir Thomas Wyatt, the younger, who was defeated and beheaded on Tower Hill. His head was brought to the scene of his treason, and exhibited on the gallows, at Hay Hill, on the 1 ith of April, and was stolen from them soon afterwards. A later piece of history connects this place with George IV., when Prince of Wales, and his brother, the Duke of York, who were stopped here and robbed by highwaymen. In 1617 "the waste ground, called Hay Hill, near Hyde Park," was granted to Hector Johnston, for service to the Electress Palatine. 10 10 Calendar of State Papers, James I, 1611-1618, p. 452. ( io3 ) CHAPTER VI. ST. JAMES'S CHURCH. DURING the reign of Charles II. the neighbourhood of Piccadilly had grown so rapidly that a church was required for the increased number of inhabitants. St. James's Church was built by Sir Christopher Wren, on ground belonging to Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, who married the Dowager Queen Henrietta Maria, and died on January 2, 1683-4, before the building was finished. He was far from being an estimable man, and in Grammont's memoirs, he is said to have kept a good table at Paris, " while his master was starving at Brussels, and the Queen Dowager, his mistress, lived not over well in France." The original cost of the church was 7,00c)/., 1 and 5,000/. extra for finishing it, which expense was defrayed by Lord St. Albans, and the other inhabitants. The letters patent (dated May 31st, 1684) were issued by Charles II. ; but before the church was finished, James filled his brother's place, and it was consecrated on July 13, 1685, by Henry Compton, Bishop of London. It was constituted by Statute (1 Jac. II., cap. 22, A.D. 1685) a separate parish from St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and the rectory was built on the site 1 " The sum of seven thousand pounds or more hath been expended, part whereof is yet a debt unpaid, and the said steeple is yet unfinished, and no house [is] provided for the habitation of a minister to officiate in the said church, which will occasion a greater expense." — Act I. Jac. II. cap. 22. 104 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. of a house belonging to Lord Jermyn. The first rector was Dr. Tenison, and the first churchwardens John Haynes, carpenter, and William Nott, bookbinder. The exterior of the church, which can hardly be con- sidered as handsome, has been praised as well as abused. Hatton, in his New View of London, says, " 'Tis a beautiful structure, both in and outsides ; " and in Strype's edition of Stow's Survey (1720) appears the following rather unde- served praise : — "The steeple lately finished with a fine spire, which adds much splendour to this end of the town, and serves as a landmark." This steeple was not the work of Wren, but was built a few years later than the body of the church, from a design supplied by a carpenter in the parish named Wilcox, and chosen in preference to that of Wren, because the cost of its erection was estimated at 100/. less. 2 On the other, or depreciatory side, Malcolm observes, " The walls, and even the tower, are brick : What more need be said of their deformity ? " When the church was originally built, it was made to front Jermyn Street, which was then a superior street to Piccadilly; 3 and in the centre of the building, opposite York Street, there was a handsome door, with bold trusses and entablature. This was bricked up in 1856, but a gate in the railings, which still remains, shows its position. There was originally a doorway on the north side, but this was removed in 1803. I n a plate of St. James's Square, printed about the beginning of the eighteenth century, four pinnacles are shown at the corners of the tower, which have now been swept away. 4 In 1856, a dingy wall fronting Piccadilly was taken down, and replaced by the present dwarf wall and iron railings. The interior is the glory of the church, and Wren was justly proud of what he considered to be one of his best works. The Corinthian columns are not shams, as is so often the 2 The cost of its erection, according to Strype, was 397/. 3 " Whereas a church and steeple have been lately built in or near to a street called Jermyn Street." — Act 1. Jac. II. 4 A reduced copy of this engraving is prefixed to chapter 13. ST. JAMES'S CHURCH. 105 case, for the entire support of the roof is due to them. James Elmes, in his Life of Wren, praises this beautiful principle highly, and says: — "The construction of the roof . . . . is singularly ingenious and economical, both of room and mate- rial. It is not too much praise to say that it is the most novel, scientific, and satisfactory as to results of any roof in existence .... The simplicity, strength, and beauty of this admirable roof is a perfect study of construction and archi- tectural economy ; containing the principles of action and counteraction, so necessary for durability in the greatest per- fection." Sir Christopher Wren himself thus speaks of it in a letter to a friend, dated 1708 : — " I can hardly think it practicable to make a single room so capacious, with pews and galleries, as to hold above two thousand persons, and all to hear the service, and both to hear distinctly and see the preacher. I endeavoured to effect this in building the parish church of St. James's, Westminster, which I presume is the most capacious with these qualifications that hath yet been built ; and yet at a solemn time, when the church was much crowded, I could not discern from a gallery that two thousand were present. In this church I mention, though very broad, and the nave arched, yet as there are no walls of a second order, nor lantherns, nor buttresses, but the whole roof rests upon the pillars, as do also the galleries ; I think it may be found beautiful and convenient, and as such the cheapest of any form I could invent." s Here is what Evelyn says of the church : — " I went to see the new church at St. James's, elegantly built ; the altar was especially adorned, the white marble enclosure curiously and richly carved, the flowers and garlands about the walls by Mr. Gibbons, in wood ; a pelican with her young at her breast, just over the altar, in the carved compartment and border environing the purple velvet fringed with I. H. S., richly embroidered ; and most noble plate, were given by Sir R. Geere, to the value (as was said) of 200/. There was no altar 5 Wren's Pareiitalia, p. 320. 106 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. anywhere in England, nor has there been any abroad, more handsomely adorned." 6 The subject of the principal group of Grinling Gibbons's carving over the altar is " The Pelican in her Piety," typical of our Saviour shedding his blood for sinners. It was thoroughly restored by G. Lock and G. Kent, in 1846. The enclosure of the altar is of white marble, as were formerly the scrolls, which have been replaced by bronze. The marble font, also by Gibbons, is a very beautiful work, and originally had a cover, which is shown in Vertue's plate 7 of it ; but about the year 1800 it was said to have been stolen, and was subsequently seen hanging up as a sign to a spirit-shop. 8 The original altar furniture and communion plate were given by Sir Robert Geer, and in the year 1738, the Prince of Wales presented draperies of crimson velvet, embroidered with gold, and trimmed with gold fringe, for the altar, pulpit, and reading-desk, which were valued at 700/. The great clock was given by Henry Massey, and the clock within the church by Anthony Plewit. The original dial of the clock, and the vane, were gilded and painted by Mr. Highmore, his Majesty's Serjeant Painter. The organ built for James II. 's Popish Chapel, at Whitehall, was given by Queen Mary, to the church, in 1691. The carvings on the case were by Gibbons. Raphael Courteville, gentleman of the chapel, in the reign of Charles II., was the first organist, in which appointment he was succeeded by his son, also named Raphael, who was the reputed author of the Gazetteer, a paper in defence of Sir Robert Walpole's administration. The Opposition nick- named him Court-evil, and in the Westminster Journal, No. 54 (Dec. 4th, 1742), a fictitious letter is subscribed, " Ralph Court-evil, Organ-blower, Essayist and Historio- grapher." 9 6 Evelyn's Diary, Dec. 7th, 1684. 7 Vetusta Momtmcnta, vol. i. plate 3 (1747). 8 Brayley's Londiniana, ii. 282. 9 Hawkins's History of Music, vol. v. p. 16. ST. JAMES'S CHURCH. 107 In January, 1762, a fire broke out in the vaults of the church, and two hundred coffins and their contents were con- sumed. In 1804, the building was "repaired and beautified," at a cost of 11,000/., when the pews, reading-desk, and pulpit, were renewed. In 1809, Mr. Blackler proposed a copy of Raphael's "Transfiguration" for the handsome double-stoned window at the end of the chancel, above the altar-screen. It was also proposed to put up a glass-painting, after Mr. Martin's design, representing the baptism of our Saviour in Jordan ; neither of these schemes were carried into effect ; but in 1846, the east window was filled with stained and painted glass by Wailes, of Newcastle, at a cost of 1,000/. This is part of a design to fill gradually all the windows with stained glass. In 1818, a monu- ment was erected to Margaret Bruce, widow of James Hamilton, which consists of a female reading, sculptured by Westmacott. The church was greatly improved in 1856, at a cost of 3,000/. The old stairs and projections were cleared away and the interior restored to its original state, by which room was made for two hundred new sittings. In 1866, it was again cleansed and redecorated, and two sun-burners were fixed in the ceiling. Being situated in one of the best parts of town, this church has always been noted for its fashionable congregations. Van- brugh makes Lord Foppington, in the Relapse, give as his reason for attending it, that " there's much the best company." " Saint James's noon-day bell for prayers had toll'd, And coaches to the Patron's levee roll'd, When Doris rose." l0 The author of the History and Present State of the British Islands ("i 743) is very severe on the behaviour of members of the congregation. "There is no church in town to which so many of the nobility and people of quality resort as this, where they make but too splendid an appearance, for the congregation seem to be taken up more with viewing 10 Gay's Tea Table. 10S ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. and contemplating each other's dress and equipage, than in paying their devotions to the Divine Being they pretend to adore ; and (as has been frequently observed already) it is usual to see this set of people bowing to their neighbours, with a Glory be to the Father, or a Lord have mercy in their mouths : and, indeed, our modern churches in general have more the air of Theatres than Temples, surrounded with easy seats and galleries, where the audience sit judges of the preacher's oratory and action, or the fashion of each other's cloaths, an amusement they give into, one day in seven, because it is the custom of their country ; and there are then no plays or operas ; no other places for the good company to assemble and display their gallantry : the ladies shew surprizing memories on this occasion, being able to relate at their return home what cloaths every woman of figure had on from head to foot, the fineness of the lace, and the colour of every ribbon worn in the assembly, outdoing even that celebrated prelate, who, 'tis said, could remember every sign in the longest street he passed." 11 Many are the celebrated persons who have been buried here, and the following is a chronological list of some of them : — 1686-7. Charles Cotton, the friend of Isaac Walton. 1689. Dr. William Sydenham, the famous physician, who is buried in the aisle near the south door. 1693. William Vandevelde the elder. 1696. James Huysman the painter. 1701. Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe. 1704. Henry Sydney, Earl of Romney, who is buried in the south aisle ' near the south door. 1707. William Vandevelde the younger. 1723. Thomas D'Urfey, the song writer, to whom a tablet, with the inscription " Honest Tom D'Urfey," was erected on the Jermyn Street entrance of the church by Sir Richard Steele. This was, however, taken down some years ago as unsuited to the sanctity of the place. D'Urfey was buried at the expense of the Duke of Dorset. J734-5- J orin Arbuthnot, M.D., the witty author of John Butt. 11 Vol. ii. p. 135. ST. JAMES'S CHURCH. 109 1743. Michael Dahl the Swedish painter. 1749. Frederick William de la Rochefoucault, Earl of Lifford. 1770. Dr. Mark Akenside the poet. 1 771. Benjamin Stillingfleet. His monument, by John Bacon, in the church, was erected by Edward Hawke Locker. 1 716. Matthias Vento, musical composer. 1788. Mrs. Delany. 1797. James Dodsley the bookseller. 1803. Christie the auctioneer. 1 8 10. Duke of Oueensberry, who was buried in the chancel. 18 15. James Gillray. 1819. G. H. Harlow the painter. 1833. Sir John Malcolm. Besides the above who were buried here, two very celebrated men were baptized in the church, — they were the polite Earl of Chesterfield and the great Earl of Chatham. The rectory of this church has always been considered a prize, and many celebrated churchmen have enjoyed it ; several of them have subsequently been created Bishops. The following is a complete list of the fourteen rectors, from Archbishop Tenison to the present occupier of the position : — 16S5. Thomas Tenison, D.D., who was made Bishop of London in 1691, translated to the Archbishopric of Canterbury in 1694, and died Dec. 14, 171 5. 1692. Peter Birch, D.D., the son-in-law of Waller the poet. He was appointed by the Bishop of London, but Dr. Wake was presented by the King, and, on a trial in the Court of King's Bench, Birch was obliged to resign. 1695. William Wake, D.D., Bishop of Lincoln in 1705, and translated to Canterbury in 1716. He died November 24, 1737. 1706. Charles Trimnell, D.D., Bishop of Norwich in 1707, translated to Winchester in 1721. He died in 1723. 1709. Samuel Clarke, D.D., who died in 1729 in the fifty-fourth year of his age. Dr. Clarke published a Collection of Psalms and Hymns for the use of the Church, with an alteration in the forms of Doxology which produced a great disturbance. 1729. Robert Tyrrwhit, D.D. He resigned in 1733. 1733. Thomas Seeker, D.C.L. He was made Bishop of Bristol in 1734, and translated to Oxford in 1737, but he did not resign this living till 1750, when he was made Dean of St. Paul's. In 1758 he was translated to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. He died in 1768. no ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. 1750. Charles Moss, D.D. He resigned in 1759 on being transferred to the Rectory of St. George's, Hanover Square. In 1766 he was made Bishop of St. David's, and translated to Bath and Wells in 1774. He died April 13, 1802. 1759. Samuel Nicolls, LL.D. He died Nov. n, 1763. 1764. William Parker, D.D. He died Nov. 18, 1799. 1802. Gerrard Andrewes, D.D. He was made Dean of Canterbury in 1809, and refused the Bishopric of Chester in 1812. He died June 2, 1825. 1825. John Giffard Ward, M.A., made Dean of Lincoln in 1845. 1845. John Jackson, D.D.: Bishop of Lincoln 1853, and Bishop of London 1868. 1853. John Edward Kempe, M.A., Prebendary of St. Paul's, Chaplain to the Queen, and present Rector. ( III ) CHAPTER VII. THE STREETS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. The Haymarket derives its name from St. James's Market for the sale of hay and straw, which was held here from the reign of Elizabeth till the year 1830, when, by Act of Parlia- ment, it was removed to Cumberland Market, Regent's Park. The Haymarket was early built upon, and there is a token of "James Warren in the Hay Market," with the date of 1664, registered in Akerman's work on Tradesmen's Tokens, but the street was not paved till the year 1692, previous to which date the hay and straw carts had paid no toll. At this time, how- ever, sixpence was levied on a load of hay, and twopence on a load of straw. In Strype's edition of Stow's Survey (1720) the Haymarket is described as " a spacious street of great resort, full of inns and houses of entertainment, especially on the west side." Among these were the " Black Horse," " White Horse," " Nag's Head," the " Cock," the " Phoenix," the " Unicorn," and the " Blue Posts." «The latter was one of the most frequented, and we find that in February, 1685-6, Henry Wharton, brother of Thomas, Marquis of Wharton, killed Lieut. Moxon in a drunken squabble there, and in 1695 a Mr. Hurst and a Mr. Moon quarrelled in the same place. They drew their swords as they came out, and Moon was killed in the fray. 1 Men of quality also resided in the street : the Duke of Florence's Minister was here in December, 1688, and the Earl of Scarborough occupied a house in 1698. In the Tatler for 1 ELLIS Correspondence, 1829, vol. i. p. 40. 112 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. September, 1710, we find the following advertisement: — "A small parcel of pictures belonging to a person of quality, lately deceased, will be sold by auction at the late Dutchess of Devonshire's house, in the Haymarket, near Piccadilly." In 171 1 a fire broke out in the house of Sir William Wyndham. His family had a narrow escape, and he lost 10,000/., besides 6,000/. he had given for the house ; his wife, at the same time, losing one thousand pounds' worth of clothes. The Duke of Dorset's house was in this street, and here was born his son, the celebrated Lord Viscount Sackville, one of those to whom the authorship of the Letters of Junius has been attributed, who was dismissed from the army for his alleged cowardice at the Battle of Minden. Henry Croke, Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College, died in the Haymarket on November 17, 1680. Sir Samuel Garth, the physician and poet, lived on the east side of the street, the sixth door from the top, from 1699 to 1703. Next door, lower down, lived Mrs. Anne Oldfield, the celebrated actress, from 17 14 to 1726. The Government of the day wanted a poem to be written on the Battle of Blenheim, and Halifax mentioned Addison, as one fitted to write it, to the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, who sent Henry Boyle, afterwards Lord Carleton, to him. Addison was then living in an attic over a small shop in this street, and there he wrote The Campaign. Afterwards Pope, filled with enthusiasm, took Walter Harte to see the room. George Morland, the painter, the eldest son of Henry Robert Morland, an artist and picture-dealer, was born in the Haymarket on June 26, 1763. His father, who was a worth- less creature, kept him a prisoner in a garret, and, trading on his talent, set him to paint pictures while he was yet a child. John Broughton, for eighteen years the champion boxer of England, kept a public-house between the Haymarket theatre and Cockspur Street, with the sign of his own portrait. His first patron was the Duke of Cumberland, who took him on the continent and showed him the Grenadier Guards at Berlin, all of whom Broughton expressed himself ready to fight. STREETS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 113 Lord Eldon was a frequenter of the "George" coffee-house,, which was situated at the upper end of the street. Several dark scenes have been acted in this street. Thomas Thynne of Longleat, ancestor of the Marquis of Bath, was murdered in his coach near the bottom of the Haymarket by assassins hired by Charles John, Count Konigsmark, on February 12, 1681-2. The wretched tools were caught, and hanged near the spot on the 10th of March following, but the principal was allowed to escape. He was the elder brother of the Count Konigsmark who made love to the wife of George I., and thereby lost his own life, and rendered the remainder of the princess's miserable. Thynne was called Tom of Ten Thou- sand from his large fortune of ten thousand pounds a year ; but although rich in money, he was not supposed to be over- burdened with brains, and Rochester alludes to him thus : — " Who'd be a wit in Dryden's cudgel'd skin ? Or who'd be rich and senseless like Tom [Thynne] ? '' He was at first a friend of the Duke of York, but, on a quarrel between them, he attached himself to Monmouth. When the latter made his progress, in 1GS0, through the west of England, Thynne received him at his seat with great splendour. " But hospitable treats did most commend Wise Issacher, his wealthy western friend.'' 2 The cause of Thynne's murder was this : Konigsmark, being poor, wished to obtain the hand of the greatest match in England, viz. Lady Ogle, Lady Elizabeth Percy's daughter, and the sole heiress of the nth Earl of Northumberland, but he was rejected for Thynne, a wealthy man and a member of Parliament, and he thought by getting his rival out of the way he might yet succeed in marrying her. Lady Ogle is supposed to have repented her marriage with Thynne, and she fled from him to Holland. As might be expected, this atrocious murder created a great sensation at the time. Monmouth had been driving with Thynne in Hyde Park, and had only 2 Absalom and Achitophcl. 8 U4 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. left his carnage about an hour before the outrage was committed, and in a Grub Street broadside, " Murder un- paralleled," quoted by Sir Walter Scott, 3 this fact is referred to thus : — " But heaven did presently find out What with great care he could not do ; 'Twas well he was the coach gone out Or he might have been murdered too ; For they, who did this squire kill, Would fear the blood of none to spill." In the south aisle of Westminster Abbey there is a monument to Thynne, with a bas-relief representation of the event depicted upon it. The widow afterwards married the proud Duke of Somerset, and became a favourite of Queen Anne. She was hated by the Tories, and Swift very unjustly hinted in his Windsor Prophecy that she had had a hand in her husband's murder. " And, dear England, if aught I understond, Beware of carrots from Northumberlond : Carrots sown Thynne and deep a root may get, If so be they are in Somer set : Their Conyngs mark thou ; for I have been told, They assassin when young and poison when old." The Duchess, naturally, never forgave this, and it is said that when Swift was to have been made Bishop of Hereford, she hurried to the Queen, and on her knees begged with tears that she would refuse her consent. The Haymarket was the scene of another outrage in the same reign. Sir John Coventry made a remark in the House of Commons, reflecting upon the king's conduct towards certain actresses, which was said to have been the first time Charles had been personally attacked, and he was irt consequence much affronted. One day, when Coventry was passing the corner of Suffolk Street, some creatures of the Duke of Monmouth set upon him and slit his nose. Coventry stood up against a wall 3 Dryden'S Works, vol. ix. p. 292 (note). STREETS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 115 and defended himself bravely. Andrew Marvell wrote some of his doggerel on the occasion : — " Upon the Cutting of Sir John Coventry's Nose. " I sing a woefull ditty, Of a wound that long will smart-a, And given (more is the pity) In the realme of Magna Chart a. Youth, youth, thou hadst better been slaine by thy foes Than live to be hanged for cutting a nose. ***** O ye Haymarket hectors, How were you thus charmed To turne the base dissectors Of one poor nose unarmed ? " 4 Parliament at once set to work to pass the Coventry Act, which made cutting and maiming a capital offence. This was shutting the stable-door after the steed was stolen, and could have given little satisfaction to Coventry ; but he was fortunate in having his nose so sewn up that the scar was hardly to be seen. Thynne's murderers were hanged on the spot where their crime was committed, and a Frenchman named Gardell, who murdered a woman, was also hanged in the Haymarket. Joseph Baretti, the author of the Spanish and Italian Diction- aries, and friend of Johnson, nearly escaped hanging too. He stabbed a man in a broil in this street on Oct. 3, 1769, and was brought up to take his trial for murder, but was acquitted, as having acted in self-defence. Johnson, Burke, Garrick, and Beauclerk, came forward in his time of need, and bore witness to his character. In James Street, a small turning out of the Haymarket, stands the ancient Tennis Court, which is the only remaining portion of the old Gaming House, Shaver's Hall, and tradition says that Charles II and James II. frequently walked up the Haymarket on their way to play tennis there. In this street was also Hickford's Great Dancing Room, described as "over 4 Marvell's Works, vol. i. p. xxxix. n6 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. against the Tennis Court," where subscription concerts of instrumental and vocal music were given, about the year 171 3. The fame of the street has been much enhanced by the two theatres for the lyric and regular drama, which stand nearly opposite to one another at its lower end. Old Haymarket Theatre, closed in 1820. The Theatre Royal, or the little theatre in the Haymarket, was built in 1720, at a cost of 1,000/., and 500/. for scenery, by John Potter, a carpenter, who leased the " King's Head Inn," for the performance of French plays. The following is the original advertisement: — "December 15, 1721 : At the new theatre in the Haymarket, between Little Suffolk Street and James Street, which is now completely finished, will be performed a French comedy, as soon as the rest of the actors arrive from Paris, who are duly expected." It was opened on December 29, 1721, and the company performed under the THE HAYM ARRET THEATRE. 117 designation of " The French Comedians of his Grace the Duke of Montague," but they were not very successful. In January, 1723, an aged danseuse made her appearance in a youthful part, as appears by the following advertise- ment : — " At the new Theatre, right over against the Opera House in the Haymarket, on Monday January 28, will be acted the Half -pay Officers with Hobb's Wedding ; the Widow Rich, performed by the celebrated Peggy Fryar, aged 71, for her benefit, who dances the Bashful Country Maid and the Irish Trot, and played but once since the days of King Charles, and taught three queens to dance." 5 In 1726, Lavinia Beswick alias Fenton (the original Polly of the Beggar's Opera, and afterwards Duchess of Bolton,) played the parish girl in Gay's mock heroic piece, What dye call it ? but little else is recorded in the history of the theatre till 1733, when Theophilus Cibber collected some of the principal deserters from the Drury Lane Company, who styled themselves the " Comedians of His Majesty's Revels." They acted for a single season, after which they returned to the larger theatre. During this short period the company gave a performance of the Provoked Husband for the benefit of John Dennis, by which he gained 100/. Poets whom he had ridiculed took compassion on the veteran, and Pope wrote a prologue, in which he likens the critic to Belisarius. Savage did his part by returning thanks, but when the brutal old man heard his lines he swore " they could be no one's but that fool Savage's." The fool, however, revenged himself by a stinging epigram : — " Say what revenge on Dennis can be had ? Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad. On one so poor you cannot take the law, On one so old your sword you scorn to draw. Uncaged, then, let the harmless monster rage, Secure in dulness, madness, want, and age." In 1735 Henry Fielding opened the house with what he called The Great Mogul's Company, by whom were acted 5 Weekly "Journal, Jan. 26, 1723, quoted in Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, vol. i. p. 466. u8 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. several of his own pieces. In the following year a great blow was struck at this, and other minor theatres, by the passing of the Licensing Act (10 George II., chap. 28), which caused them to close. However, in 1738 the Haymarket Theatre was opened by a French company, who were forced to give up their attempt by the violence of the public. French plays were again unsuccessful ten years afterwards. Various attempts were made to perform plays in spite of the Act to the con- trary : thus Theophilus Cibber opened the theatre as "Cibber's Academy," and Foote successfully battled with the authorities, being at last allowed to do as he pleased in peace. Macklin and certain of the discontented actors from Drury Lane came here, and as money could not be taken at the door, the public were admitted by tickets delivered by Mr. Macklin. To evade the provisions of the Licensing Act the entertainment was commenced with a concert. Foote joined the secession and appeared as Othello to Macklin's Iago. On February 6, 1744, was announced "A Concert, after which Othello, Othello by a gentleman, being his first appearance on any stage. The character of Othello will be dressed after the custom of his country." Foote was not very successful, but he soon discovered his special forte, by acting Bayes in the Rehearsal, into which character he introduced imitations of people of con- sequence. He now undertook the management of the theatre, which he continued for thirty years, and on April 22, 1747, announced : — " At the Theatre in the Haymarket this day will be performed a Concert of Music, with which will be given gratis, a new entertainment called the Diversions of the Morning, to which will be added a farce taken from the Old Batchelor, called the Credulous Husband, Fondlewife by Mr. Foote ; with an Epilogue to be spoken by the B — d — d Coffee House. To begin at 7." 6 The theatre was crowded, but the constables arrived, and put the law in force by stopping the performance. Foote, however, was not to be 6 General Advertiser, quoted by Forster in Quartcrty Review, vol. xcv. p. 502. THE HAYMARKET THEATRE. 119 daunted, and on the 24th instant appeared the following advertisement: — " On Saturday noon, exactly at 12 o'clock, at the new Theatre in the Haymarket, Mr. Foote begs the favour of his friends to come and drink a dish of chocolate with him, and 'tis hoped there will be a great deal of comedy and some joyous spirits ; he will endeavour to make the morning as diverting as possible. Tickets for this entertain- ment to be had at George's Coffee House, Temple Bar, without which no person will be admitted. N.B. Sir Dilbury Diddle will be there, and Lady Betty Frisk has absolutely promised." 7 The theatre was crowded, when Foote came forward and said he would instruct some young performers while chocolate was being prepared. The chocolate of course never was ready, nor was the tea, that soon afterwards replaced it in the bills : " At the request of several persons who are desirous of spending an hour with Mr. Foote, but find the time inconvenient, instead of chocolate in the morning, Mr. Foote's friends are desired to drink a dish of tea with him at half-an-hour past 6 in the evening." 8 In the following season he brought out a new entertainment, in which he introduced Orator Henley, Cock the auctioneer, and a justice of the peace for Westminster. This he called an Auction of Pictures : — " At his Auction Room, late the little theatre in the Haymarket, Mr. Foote will exhibit a choice collection of pictures," &c. In January, 1749, the Duke of Montagu contrived a monstrous hoax, which was completely successful. It was announced in the papers thus : — " At the new Theatre in the Haymarket, on Monday next, the 1 6th instant, to be seen a person who performs the several most surprizing things following, viz. : First, he takes a common walking-cane from any of the spectators, and thereon plays the musick of every instrument now in use, and likewise sings to surprizing perfection. Secondly, he presents 7 Quarterly Review, vol. xcv. p. 503. 8 Ibid. vol. xcv. p. 505. 120 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. you with a common wine-bottle, which any of the spectators may first examine ; this bottle is placed on a table in the middle of the stage, and he (without any equivocation) goes into it in sight of all the spectators, and sings in it : during his stay in the bottle, any person may handle it, and see plainly that it does not exceed a common tavern bottle. Those on the stage or in the boxes may come in masked habits (if agreeable to them), and the performer (if desired) will inform them who they are. Stage, Js. 6d. ; Boxes, $s. ; Pit, 3.?. ; Gallery, 2s. To begin at half an hour after six o'clock. £3* Tickets to be had at the Theatre. ' . " The per- formance continues about two hours and a half. N.B. If any Gentlemen or Ladies, after the above performances (either singly or in company, in or out of mask) are desirous of seeing a representation of any deceased person, such as husband or wife, sister or brother, or any intimate friend of either sex, (upon making a gratuity to the Performer) they shall be gratified, seeing and conversing with them for some minutes as if alive. Likewise (if desired) he will tell you your most secret thoughts in your past life, and give you a full view of persons who have injured you, whether dead or alive. For those gentlemen and ladies who are desirous of seeing this last part, there is a private room provided. These perform- ances have been seen by most of the crown'd heads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, and never appear'd publick anywhere but once ; but will wait of any at their houses, and perform as above, for five pounds each time. JSr 7 There will be a proper guard to keep the house in due decorum." 9 The man -who was engaged to perform the wonder was a poor Scotchman, who had some office about the India Office. 10 The gullibility of the public appears to have no bounds, and on the night fixed for the performance, the theatre was crowded with people, among whom were a large number of lords and ladies. As might be expected, the conjuror did not get into the bottle, but ran away instead, and the audience were so 9 Foundling Hospital for Wit, No. vi., 1749, p. 49. 10 Quarterly Review, vol. xxxiv. p. 232 notej. THE HAYMARKET THEATRE. 121 disgusted that they almost entirely destroyed the interior of the theatre, and made a bonfire in the street of the pro- perties. This affair, of course, created a great deal of talk, and the disappointed audience had to bear much " roasting." The following lines appeared in one of the papers : — " When conjurors the quality can bubble, And get their gold with very little trouble, By putting giddy lies in publick papers — As jumping in quart bottles, — such like vapours ; And further yet, if we the matter strain, Wou'd pipe a tune upon a walking-cane ; Nay, more surprizing tricks ! he swore he'd show Grannums who dy'd a hundred years ago : — 'Tis whimsical enough, what think ye, Sirs ? The quality can ne'er be conjurors, — The de'el a bit ; — no, let me speak in brief, The audience fools, the conjuror a thief." " Mozart, then a musical prodigy of eight years old, played at the little Theatre in February, 1765, with his sister, who was four years older. 12 Foote was a great favourite with the Royal Family. The Duke of York, brother of George III., on his return from the continent in 1766, is said to have gone first to his mother, then to the King, and then to Foote, who accompanied him to Lord Mexborough's seat. This was an unfortunate visit for Foote, as he broke his leg while riding a too spirited horse. Another of the actor's Royal friends was the foolish Duke of Cumberland, who, coming one night into the Green Room at the Haymarket, exclaimed, " Well, Foote, here I am, ready, as usual, to swallow all your good things." The answer he received was not flattering. " Really, your Royal Highness must have an excellent digestion, for you never bring any up again." After his accident, Foote was so fortunate as to obtain, through the influence of the Duke of York, a patent for his theatre, by which he was licensed to act plays from the 14th 11 Foundling Hospital for Wit, No. vi., 1749, p. 52. 12 Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, vol. iv., p. 385. 122 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. May to the 14th September, during the term of his life. The house was open during the winter months for entertain- ments of all kinds, which were of such a character as not to interfere with the patent rights of the winter theatres. It was not until the Act (6 and 7 Vict.) destroying these rights was passed, that the Haymarket was allowed to continue open for the acting of plays all the year round. Foote bought the lease of the house from Potter's executors, and he then greatly improved and almost rebuilt it, decorating the inside in the Chinese style, then much in vogue. The house was opened on the 14th of May, 1767, having been constituted a Theatre Royal. About this time, a play, entitled The Tailors, a Tragedy for Warm Weather, which thirty years afterwards was the cause of a riot at this theatre, was sent from Dodsley's shop anonymously to Foote, who acted it in July, 1767. In 1768, Signor Spinacuta, the celebrated rope-dancer, astonished the sightseers of London, and outdid the recent achievements of Blondin, Leotard, and Olmar, by dancing on a high rope, with two boys tied to his feet. Two years afterwards, one Maddox performed some wonderful feats of agility with such success, that he made 11,000/. in one season. In 1772, Foote brought out the Nabob, which drew great crowds, but greatly offended some of the wealthy East Indians. Sir Matthew White and General Richard Smith are said to have called in Suffolk Street, in order to chastise the satirist ; but Foote exonerated himself so completely to their satisfaction, and was so agreeable, that they stayed to dine with him. A few years after this, a great trouble over- took the actor. Jackson, a miserable creature of the Duchess of Kingston, libelled him with inveterate frequency, and stirred up a row in his theatre. Foote, however, appealed to the audience, and summoned his libeller to the Court of King's Bench. A discarded coachman brought charges, which were no sooner stated, than they were demolished, and Foote was completely exonerated. His friends rallied round him, and rank and fashion crowded to his theatre. The THE HAYMARKET THEATRE. 123 King himself came at this time, on which occasion one of the plays {The Contract, by Dr. Thomas Franklin) was damned ; and as Foote lighted his Majesty to his chair, he was asked who was the unfortunate author, to which he answered, " One of your Majesty's chaplains, and [it is] dull enough to have been written by a bishop." Owing to the burning down of the Opera House opposite, Italian Operas were performed here in the spring of 1790, as they had been in 1740 and 1745. In 1793, the Drury Lane Company played here, while their theatre was being rebuilt. It was during the period they were acting that a terrible accident took place, which created a great sensation at the time. On February 3rd, 1794, the crowd at the doors being very great, three or four persons fell down at the pit entrance, when sixteen men and women were trampled to death, and twenty taken up with broken limbs. The King was present at the time, but he and the majority of the audience knew nothing of the catastrophe till they had left the theatre. This melancholy accident may be repeated at any time, for its cause still exists. The only means of entering the pit is by a descent of several steps ; and if, when there is a crowd, one of the first among them should fall, those behind will be almost certain to fall over him. In 1777, George Colman took Foote's lease. He died in 1795, and was succeeded by his son, George Colman, the younger, who sold half his share in 1805. Colman was succeeded in the management by Thomas Dibdin. On the 15th August, 1805, there was a great riot, occasioned by the proposed performance of The Tailors, a Tragedy for Warm Weather, which gave great offence to certain members of that trade. When the entertainment was announced, Dowton, for whose benefit the piece was to be acted, and Winston, one of the proprietors, received numerous threatening letters ; and on the night, the theatre was besieged without, and crowded within by noisy mobs, who would allow nothing to be proceeded with. A magistrate was summoned, who swore in special constables to assist the Bow Street officers, and a 124 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. company of Life Guards was also sent for to give them assistance. Between thirty and forty of the most riotous were taken into custody, and, on examination, were all found to be tailors. The present theatre was built from the designs of Nash, in 1820, at a cost of 18,000/. It was opened on July 4, 1821, with a performance of Sheridan's Rivals. The original building, which was a queer old place, remained by the side of the new one while it was building, and was closed on the 14th October, 1820, with King Lear. The relative positions of the old and new theatres are shown in a plate in Wilkinson's Londinia Illustrata, vol 2. This little house, although at various times struggling against great difficulties, has always been able to hold its own in competition with the larger theatres. A great number of the most celebrated actors and actresses have made their debut here. Mrs. Abington, John Edwin, Miss Farren, after- wards Countess of Derby, Elliston, Liston, Henderson, and Jack Bannister, all made their first bow to a London audience at this theatre. William Thomas Lewis, more generally known as Gentleman Lewis, acted here from 1776 to 1781. Of late years the acting of Mr. Macready has added a lustre to the house, and later still Mr. Sothern's successful impersonation of the celebrated Lord Dundreary has increased the repute of the theatre. Mr. Benjamin Webster concluded his management in 1853, after sixteen years' tenancy, and was succeeded by Mr. J. B. Buckstone, the present manager. It is a curious fact, this theatre was not lighted with gas until April, 1853, owing to a prejudice of the proprietor, the late Mrs. Morris, who bound the lessee to continue the lighting of the house with oil. 13 Suffolk Street is situated at the back of the Haymarket, and contains the house of the manager of the theatre. It was originally built about the year 1664, on ground upon which stood a large house belonging to the Earls of Suffolk. The 13 Notes and Queries, second series, vol. v. p. 459. THE HAY MARKET THEATRE. 125 present street has been rebuilt, but stands on the site of the old one. Some of the houses have pretentions to architectural elegance. Sir Philip Howard lived here from 1665 to 1672, and Moll Davis from 1667 to 1674, when she removed to St. James's Square. Thomas Stanley, the editor of sEschj'tt/s, died here in 1678. Hester Vanhomrigh (Vanessa) lived in this street with her mother when they were visited by Dean Swift. Adam Smith lodged here in one of his London sojournings. Lord Winchelsea was living at No. 7, in 1829, when he was challenged by the Duke of Wellington. James Barry lived at No. 29 from 1773 to 1776. In George I.'s reign one Corticelli kept an Italian ware- house at the upper end of the street, which was much frequented by people of fashion for raffles, purchases, and gallant meeting's. 14 Entrance to the Opera House previous to the Year 1820. 14 Horace Walpole, quoted in Miller's Fly Leaves, second series, 1855, p. 111. 126 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Opposite to the little Theatre stood, till the disastrous fire of the sixth of December, 1867, the Opera House, known at different times of its history as the Queen's Theatre, the King's Theatre, and Her Majesty's Theatre. 15 At the beginning of the eighteenth century the celebrated actor Betterton and his company, who had been performing with success at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, found that building too small for them to compete with the Drury Lane company. At this juncture Sir John Vanbrugh, backed by the " Kit-Cat Club," proposed to build a grand theatre in the Haymarket, on the site of White Horse Yard, and of the " Phcenix " and " Unicorn " Inns, and for that purpose raised a subscription of thirty thousand pounds from three hundred persons of rank, each subscriber putting down one hundred pounds, in return for which he was to be admitted without payment at any time of performance. The first stone was laid in 1703 by the celebrated toast, the beautiful Lady Sunderland, second daughter of the great Duke of Marl- borough, and on the stone was inscribed, in her honour, the words : " The little Whig." The following lines were engraved on one of the glasses of the " Kit-Cat Club : " — " All nature's charms in Sunderland appear, Bright as her eyes, and as her reason clear ; Yet still their force, to men not safely known, Seems undiscovered to herself alone." Sir John Vanbrugh was the sole architect, and must have pushed the works on with the greatest rapidity, for on Easter Monday, April 9, 1705, the theatre was opened with a perform- ance of Dryden's Indian Emperor. Congreve joined Vanbrugh in the management, and it was thought that with two such dramatists to write for it, and with such actors as Betterton and his company to act for it, united to the site and elegance of the building, no other theatre could possibly compete with it. But 15 The early history of the Opera House is chiefly taken from Burney's History of Music, and differs in several particulars from Colley Cibber's account in his Apology. THE HAYMARKET OPERA HOUSE. 127 it was soon found that the house was totally unfitted for hearing, as all principles of acoustics had been sacrificed to architectural effect, and scarcely one word in ten could be heard by the audience. On April 24 was performed The Consul- tation, a farce, followed by an Indian Pastoral called the Loves of Ergasto, set to music by Giacomo Greber. Betterton's company returned to Lincoln's Inn Fields on July 20, and con- tinued there till the Queen's Theatre was entirely finished. On Oct. 30 they opened it with Vanbrugh's comedy, the Con- federacy. Vanbrugh was soon sick of the whole affair, and made over the management to Owen MacSwiney, who, how- ever, did not retain it long, but became afterwards keeper of the King's Mews, and died in 1754, when he left his fortune to his mistress, Peg Woffington. In January, 1708, Betterton and his company abandoned the theatre, and joined their rivals at Drury Lane. In this month the Opera company opened the theatre, under the management of Owen MacSwiney. In December, the great singer, Niccolini — who is praised by Steele and Addison in the Tatlcr and Spectator — made his first appearance. At this time the Italian singers sang Italian words, and the English, English words, which absurd arrangement laid the performers open to much just satire. In September, 1709, a strong company from Drury Lane (including Betterton, Wilks, Estcourt, Cibber, Doggett, and Mrs. Oldfield,) was engaged to act till the end of October, when the opera of Camilla was performed. In 17 10 the two companies of comedians and singers continued to act and sing alternately. In the January of this year was performed Almahide, the first opera sung wholly in Italian. In November the company of players returned to Drury Lane, and left the Opera House entirely to the lyric drama. Aaron Hill, a great projector, and one of those who are " everything by turns, and nothing long," undertook the management in the year 1710, when he applied to Handel to write for the theatre, and the result was the opera of Rinaldo, which the great composer finished within a fortnight. 128 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. This proved a great success, and was the first of a long series of operas composed by Handel. Hill soon after quarrelled with the Lord Chamberlain, which brought his theatrical career to an end. In 171 1, John James Heidegger, a native of Zurich, usually called the Swiss Count, became connected with the management, and remained so till about 1738. This man was originally a domestic servant, but when nearly fifty years of age he attended a nobleman to England as companion, and was so fortunate as to insinuate himself into the good graces of people of fashion. He was very successful in his endeavours to add to their pleasures, and was the first to introduce ridottos and masquerades. So high was his repu- tation in these matters that the nobility were in the habit of asking his advice in the arrangement of their own enter- tainments. " Thou, Heidegger ! the English Taste hast found, And rul'st the mob of quality with sound. In Lent, if masquerades displease the town, Call 'em Ridottos, and they still go down. Go on, Prince Phiz ! to please the British Nation, Call thy next masquerade a convocation." 16 Heidegger, when asked in company what nation had the greatest ingenuity, answered, " The Swiss ! I came to Eng- land without a farthing, where I gain 5,000/. a year, and spend it ; now I defy the cleverest of you to do the same in Switzerland." Heidegger was an exceedingly ugly man, and he laid a wager with Lord Chesterfield, which he won, that the peer could not, within a given time, produce an uglier face than his. He would not allow a portrait to be taken of himself, but the Duke of Montagu obtained his likeness by means of a trick. One day the Duke made Heidegger dead drunk, and introduced the daughter of Mrs. Salmon, the celebrated wax-figure maker, who took a cast of his face, 16 Bramston's Man of Taste (DODSLEV'S Collection of Poems, vol. i. P- 2 93)- THE HAYMARKET OPERA HOUSE. 129 from which a mask was made. The Duke carried on the joke by engaging a man of Heidegger's figure to wear this mask and to dress up like the manager, so as to appear at a masquerade which was to be given before the King, under the management of Heidegger. The consequent confusion, and mirth to those in the secret, was great The opera season was brought to a close on June 29, 17 17, and no Italian operas were again performed till 1720. In this year the principal nobility and gentry formed themselves into a Royal Academy of Music, for the performance of operas, to be produced under the direction of Handel. A fund of 50,000/. (to which George I. gave 1,000/.) was subscribed, and the affairs of the society were managed by a governor (Thomas, Duke of Newcastle), a deputy-governor (Lord Bingley), and twenty directors, amongst whom were the Earl of Burlington, Sir John Vanbrugh, and General Wade. Handel, Bononcini, and Ariosti composed the operas, and a violent feud divided society as to the comparative merits of the two first composers. Dr. Byrom ridicules these dissensions in the lines : — " Some say, compar'd to Bononcini, That Mynheer Handel's but a ninny ; Others aver that he to Handel Is scarcely fit to hold a candle. Strange all this difference should be, 'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee." Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, and daughter of the great Duke, in 1723 settled 500/. a year on Bononcini, with the provision that he should not compose for the Academy. The Earl of Burlington observed to Dr. Arbuthnot that " after the performance of an opera by Bononcini or Atillio, the proceeding to one of Handel's may be compared to going from Arabia Petraea to Arabia Felix, or from barren rocks to spontaneous fertility." Bramston makes his Man of Taste say : — " Without Italian, or without an ear, To Bononcini's music I adhere.'' 130 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Another famous feud in 1727 greatly damaged the affairs of the Opera. It was that between the friends of the two rival female singers, Faustina and Cuzzoni, who were called by Handel " the daughters of Peelzebub," which at last had grown to such dimensions that it was necessary to put an end to it at all risk ; so the directors devised a plan by which one of the parties should be defeated. Lady Pembroke, the chief of the Cuzzoni faction, had made that singer swear that she would not sing for less than Faustina ; so when a new contract was necessary, the directors offered her one guinea less than they gave to Faustina, and she was thus forced to leave England. Ambrose Phillips wrote the following lines on her departure : — " Little syren of the stage, Charmer of an idle age, Empty warbler, breathing lyre, Wanton gale of fond desire ; Bane of every manly heart ; O, too pleasing in thy strain, Hence to southern climes again ; Tuneful mischief, vocal spell, To this island bid farewell ; Leave us as we ought to be, Leave the Britons, rough and free." On one occasion Sir Robert Walpole's wife gave a grand concert at her house to all the rank and fashion of the town, and among the singers were Cuzzoni and Faustina. The difficulty of precedence soon arose ; if Faustina were asked to sing first, Cuzzoni would not sing at all, and if Cuzzoni were asked first, Faustina would not sing. In this dilemma Lady Walpole adopted a ruse by which her company should hear both singers, though she herself would be deprived of the pleasure. She managed to inveigle Faustina out of the room to a distant part of the house, by which time was allowed for Cuzzoni to sing a song, and when she returned, she adopted the same expedient with Cuzzoni. In 1728 the whole of the money subscribed eight years before was exhausted, and meetings were held to consider THE HA YMA RKE T OPERA HO USE. 1 3 1 what should be done in order to continue the operas ; the result of the deliberations, however, was that the Academy was broken up, and the house closed till December, 1729. Handel now engaged with Heidegger to carry on the opera at their own risk. About this time Handel commenced the composition of his oratorios, and on May 2, 1732, Esther was performed here. In the following year there was a renewal of the unfortunate misunderstanding between Handel and Senesino. The nobility supported the singer, and opened a subscription for Italian operas at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields : — " By singing peers upheld on either hand." " In 1732 Frederick Prince of Wales gave a grand entertain- ment to the nobility at the Opera House. In 1734 Handel's engagement with Heidegger terminated, and in October he began a season in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the opposition, with Farinelli, returning to the Haymarket. In the next few years Handel lost a large sum of money, and in 1738 a performance was given for his benefit at the Opera House, by which he gained 800/. Heidegger now was unable to obtain sufficient subscribers to allow him to carry on the opera, and in 1739 Handel hired the theatre for the perform- ance of his oratorios. In October, 174.1, the Opera was opened by the Earl of Middlesex, as patentee and sole director, who was afterwards joined by several noblemen and men of fashion. In 1742 a new subscription was begun ; there were thirty subscribers at two hundred pounds each, but they had to pay money over and above the amount subscribed. Horace Walpole and his friend Conway took a share between them. In 1749 there was a magnificent masquerade, to which George II. went, disguised in an old-fashioned English habit. One of the masks, not knowing him, desired the King to hold his cup of tea, which much pleased his Majesty. Lord Delawarr was dressed as Queen Elizabeth's porter, and the 17 Ditnciad, Book iv. 1. 49. 132 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. notorious Miss Chudleigh appeared as Iphigenia, but with so little clothing that Walpole thought she was more like Andromeda. 18 In 1766, a new plan was adopted of having a double company, one to perform serious, and the other comic operas. On October 10th, 1768, a magnificent masquerade was given by the King of Denmark, at which about 2,500 persons were present, and the jewels worn by the visitors were estimated to be worth two millions of money. The ball was opened by the King of Denmark and the Duchess of Ancaster.. The Duke of Richmond was dressed as a farmer, and his Duchess as the beautiful Fatima, wife of the deputy to the Grand Vizier, described in the letters of Lady Mary Montagu (April, 17 17). One lady was dressed to represent both night and day. Her right side was gold and white, to represent the sun, and on her left side were the moon and stars in silver, on a black ground. In 1 77 1, Mademoiselle Heinel turned the heads of the town by her dancing, which totally eclipsed the glory of the music. About the same time the elder and younger Vestris, Le Picq, and other celebrated dancers, were also performing here. In 1778, Sheridan and Harris became joint purchasers of the theatre, for the large sum of 22,000/., subject to a yearly rent of 1,270/. In the following year, Harris assigned his share to Sheridan, who shortly afterwards disposed of it to Mr. Taylor. In 1779, the Knights of the Bath gave a magnificent ball to the nobility and persons of distinction, which was opened by the Duke of Cumberland and Lady Augusta Campbell. A hot supper, provided by Weltzie, the confectioner of St. James's Street, was supplied at twelve o'clock ; the plate used on the occasion being lent by the King and Queen. In 1782, Novosielski altered the theatre, and shaped the fiat sides to form a horse-shoe. Wraxall 19 relates that Lord 18 Walpole'S Correspondence, 1840, vol. ii. pp. 269-70. 19 Historical Memoirs, 1836, vol. i. p. 346. THE HAYMARKET OPERA HOUSE. 133 North and Fox met behind the scenes one morning, to talk over a Parliamentary junction between them. The former was accompanied by Brummell, father of the Beau, and the latter by Sheridan, then director of the opera. The theatre was unfortunately burnt down on the evening of June 17th, 1789, between ten and eleven ; and, as is usual on such occasions, the cause of the fire was not discovered. The Authors of the Rejected Addresses attribute its destruction to the national enemy, Napoleon I. : — " Base Buonaparte^ fill'd with deadly ire, Sets, one by one, our playhouses on fire. Some years ago he pounced with deadly glee on The Opera House, then burnt down the Pantheon." An Italian, the husband of Signora Carnivali, who had been in the employment of Gallini, the manager, was suspected of having set the theatre on fire, to revenge a grudge, but it is not probable that he had anything to do with it. 20 Walpole thought there was no occasion to rebuild it, as the nation had long been tired of operas ; and, in a letter to a friend, says, " Dancing protracted their existence for some time, but the room after was the real support of both, and was like what has been said of your sex, that they never speak their true meaning, but in the postscript of their letters." The theatre, however, was at once rebuilt, from a design by Novosielski, and the,foundation-stone was laid on April 3rd, 1790, by the Earl of Buckinghamshire. This stone, the dimensions of which were 2 feet 1 inch long, I foot if inch wide, and 1 foot deep, was found by the workmen employed in clearing the foundations in May, 1868, in the north wall of the box corridor on the centre line of the auditorium, under the opening, leading from the hall to the pit corridor, at a depth of 2 feet 3 inches below the paving of the hall. The inscriptions are: — On the top: — "The first stone of this new theatre was laid on the 3rd of April, 1790, in the 30th year of the reign of King George III., by the Right 20 In Smith's Historical and Literary Curiosities, there is an engrav- ing of the exterior from a drawing by Capon. 134 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Hon. John Hobart, Earl of Buckingham — Auctor pretiosa facit." On the front: — "The King's theatre in the Hay- market; first built in 1703." On the right end: — "But un- fortunately destroyed by fire on the 17th of June, 1789." On the back : — "Prevalebit justitia." In a cavity beneath the stone, were also found the following coins: — a guinea, 1788, a half- guinea, 1789; a shilling, 1787 ; a sixpence, 1787 ; a fourpenny- piece, 17S6; a threepenny-piece, 1772; a twopenny-piece, 1786 ; and a silver penny-piece, 1786. The new house, which was finished in 1791, was one of the finest theatres in the world. The stage was too small and very inconvenient, but the auditorium, as left by Novosielski, was in reality larger than that of the celebrated Sea/a at Milan, although the contrary is frequently stated. 21 Its acoustic properties were unrivalled, thus contrasting favour- ably with the first building. Michael Kelly said it was the best theatre he had ever sung at, not excepting the St. Carlos at Naples. This distinguishing feature was chiefly obtained by constructing the ceiling and box-fronts of thin boards, and thus none of the sound was lost. When the building was finished the Lord Chamberlain would not license it. In February, 1791, the Italian Opera company removed to the Pantheon, in Oxford Street, which was converted into a theatre, but in the next month performances took place in the Haymarket, for William Windham writes, under date March 26, 1791 : " From dinner we all went to the Opera House in the Haymarket, where for the first time they per- formed for money, the singers, to avoid the Act, coming in their own dresses and confining themselves to the airs." ~ 2 On September 22, 1791, the Drury Lane company opened the theatre. On January 26, 1793, operas were commenced under the joint management of Michael Kelly and Signor Storace, Sheridan being the lessee by arrangement with Taylor. In the season 1795-6 part of the walls of the theatre were blown down. 21 Builder, Dec. 14, 1S67. p. 903. 22 Diary, p. 219. THE HAYMARKET OPERA HOUSE. 135 The ballet gave offence to many, and Windham, writing on December 9, 1797, after seeing Bacchus and Ariadne, says : " We have advanced to the point of seeing people dance naked ;" and in March, 1800, he went with the intention of hissing the dance. Others, however, approved of the dancing, and in June, 1805, there was a riot in consequence of a part of the ballet being omitted from the lateness of the hour on Saturday night. The military were called in, and 5,000/. worth of property was destroyed. The manager identified some of the ringleaders and commenced actions against them for damages. In 1803 W 7 illiam Taylor, the sole owner, sold a third of the property for 13,335/. to Francis Goold, an Irishman and founder of the " Union Club," who was to be sole conductor and manager. In 1804 Taylor assigned a further share to Goold, who died in 1807, and then Taylor resumed the manage- ment. Taylor, who had been originally a banker's clerk, was a curious character, and very fond of practical jokes and hoaxes. He was always in difficulties, and Ebers, the book- seller, frequently advanced him money to carry on the opera. For many years he never lived out of the rules of the King's Bench, and was in the habit of saying that he never could have managed the theatre if he had not been in prison. In those days the discipline was not very strict, and Taylor con- stantly stole away into the country. On one occasion he even went to Hull, and stood for the borough. Mr. Waters, the executor of Goold, took the management, and, in 18 14, the house was sold, when it was bought by Waters for 35,000/. In 18 16, however, it was resold by order of the Lord Chancellor, and purchased by Waters for 70,150/., who mortgaged it to Mr. Chambers, the banker. Chambers subsequently became the sole proprietor, and, as a consequence, was soon afterwards a bankrupt. In 1821 Mr. Ebers became the tenant, and managed the opera till 1823, when he transferred his lease to Signor Benelli for the season. In 1824-5 he again became lessee, but, finding it a losing concern, he soon after, in 1827, relinquished it, and 136 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Laporte, the French actor, took the management of the theatre. Nash and G. Repton decorated and improved the house in 1820, when the colonnade was erected and the basso relievo added on the Haymarket front by B. Bubb. In 1825 alterations and repairs were made at a cost of between four and five thousand pounds, which included the rebuilding of the north wall. In 1829 Donzelli, the magnificent tenor, made his first appearance as Roderic Dhu, in La Donna del Lago, and was received with rapture. In 183 1, the wonderful Rubini, king of tenors, joined the company, and on June 3 of the same year, Paganini gave his first concert at the Opera House with great success. In 1832 Mr. Monck Mason rented the theatre for 16,000/., with the hope of raising the character of the opera ; but he failed, and in the following season Laporte again resumed the management. In 1835 Benjamin Lumley, a young solicitor just commencing business, assisted Laporte, professionally, and obtained his release from the Fleet prison. In the next year Laporte desired him to undertake the financial department of the theatre, which he did. In 1840 Laporte determined to break up the league which the singers had entered into that they should all be engaged together, and fixed on Tamburini as the scapegoat. The case was taken up by the young men of fashion, especially those who tenanted the omnibus-box, and a row was nightly continued till Laporte was forced to give in. " Then all the gentlefolks flew in a rage, And they jumped from the omnibus on to the stage, Lords, Squires, and Knights, they came down to the lights In their opera-hats, and their opera-tights." 23 One of the Ingoldsby Legends, from which these lines are taken, is entitled : " A Row in an Omnibus (Box) : a Legend of the Haymarket." " Doldrum the manager sits in his chair, With a gloomy brow and dissatisfied air, 23 Ingoldsby Legends. THE HAYMARKET OPERA HOUSE. 137 And he says as he slaps his hand on his knee, I'll have nothing to do with Fiddle-de-dee ! But Fiddle-de-dee sings clear and loud, And his trills and his quavers astonish the crowd ; Such a singer as he You'll nowhere see, They'll all be screaming for Fiddle-de-dee ! Though Fiddle-de-dee sings loud and clear, And his tones are sweet, yet his terms are dear. The glove won't fit ! The deuce a bit. Stalls, which have ever since been gradually encroaching upon the pit, almost driving it out of existence, were introduced by Laporte, but a space was left open from the back of the pit to within a few feet of the orchestra, which was a favourite lounge of the fashionables of that day, and was called " Fop's Alley." In the autumn of 1841 Laporte died, and Lumley, who was one of his executors, became sole manager, his reign commencing with the season of 1842. In 1845 Lumley purchased the house from the assignees of Mr. Chambers for 105,000/., and in the following year the theatre was renovated and the interior newly decorated, at a cost of 10,000/. The drop-scene was painted by the late Clarkson Stanfield, R.A. One of the chief features of the season of 1845 was the grand Pas dc Quatre, danced by Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, Cerito, and Lucille Grahn, four great dancers, who were got together at the cost of infinite trouble to the manager. Warning of the troubles in the future was given by the resignation of Sir Michael Costa in 1846. In the following year occurred the great secession led by Mario, Grisi, Persiani, and Tamburini, who migrated to the new Opera House at Covent Garden, and left the old house scarcely any singer of note, except the great Lablache, who stuck to it to the last. In 1847 Jenny Lind came over to England, and made her first appearance before an enthusiastic audience, who always crowded the theatre to overflowing whenever she appeared. In 1848 the Jenny Lind 138 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. mania was renewed, but in the following year she retired from the stage, and gave four farewell performances. In July, 1849, the great Madame Sontag, Countess de Rossi, re-appeared with the greatest eclat after twenty-one years' absence from the stage. She also sang during the seasons of 1850 and 1 85 1. Madame Pasta also made a re-appearance in July, 1850. Lumley lost 20,000/. by his management of the French opera during the seasons 1850-51, 1851-52. The season of 1852 at Her Majesty's was a melancholy one, as it was spoilt by the breaking off the engagement of Mdlle. Wagner. The house was closed during 1853, and not re-opened till 1856, after Covent Garden Theatre was burnt down. Lord Ward (now Earl Dudley) bought up the various encumbrances, and at this time had acquired a larger interest in the theatre than the proprietor himself. Lumley therefore made over the lease to Lord Ward, who granted him an under-lease. The theatre opened in 1856 with the favourite Piccolomini and Mdlle. Wagner. In 1856 the magnificent tenor, Giuglini, was added to the company, and in the following year the superb prima donna Mdlle. Titiens strengthened the house by her adherence to it. On the 10th of August, 1858, Mr. Lumley's connection with the theatre ceased, and the establishment passed wholly into the hands of Lord Ward. In i860 it was opened by Mr. E. T. Smith, who was soon succeeded in the management by Mr. J. H. Mapleson. This gentleman has ever since catered for the public pleasure and amusement with the greatest success. He has brought out several new singers, the latest and greatest being the universal favourite Mdlle Nillsson, and has introduced, among other things, Gounod's Faust to an English audience. On the evening of December 6, 1867, Her Majesty's Theatre was entirely destroyed by fire. It has since been rebuilt by Messrs. Trollope at a cost of 27,767/. The whole history of this celebrated house has been an unfortunate one, and almost every one who has been connected with the management has been either ruined or has lost lanre sums of ST. JAMES'S STREET. 139 money. The legal condition of the property, therefore, had been for years in a confused tangle. It is astonishing, con- sidering the difficulties of the post of manager of a theatre, to find so many men of wealth and position who are willing to undertake the onerous duty. By no means the lightest of his tasks is to soothe the jealous feelings of the artists. Michael Kelly complains of the difficulty he had in inducing Signora Grassini and Mrs. Billington to sing together. Laporte had similar trouble with Cerito and Taglioni. Cerito complained one day of a box which had been given to her on the upper tier, and said that she was " much too young to be exalted to the skies before her proper time." Laporte, who had given a box on the same tier to Taglioni, replied that he " had clone his best, but possibly he had been wrong in placing the lady in the same level (le mime rang) with Mademoiselle Taglioni." 24 After passing the Haymarket and Regent Circus, there are four turnings off Piccadilly before we arrive at St. James's Street. First comes Eagle Place, called by Hatton and Strype Eagle Street, then Church Place called Church Lane by Strype, who, writing in 1720, speaks of it as newly built, then Duke Street, the notice of which concludes the chapter on St. James's Square, and lastly Villiers Place. St. James's Street has been the very heart of London life for nearly two hundred years, and it would require the pen of a Thackeray to do justice to the glories of this street of streets. The road was in existence many years before the street was built, and there were a few houses grouped at its south end, opposite St. James's Palace. The Sieur de la Serre, His- toriographer of France, who came over in the suite of Marie de Medicis, in describing the palace says : " Its great gate has a long street in front, reaching almost out of sight, seemingly joining to the fields." " 5 Robert Seymour, in his Survey of London and Westminster (1734), 26 describes St. James's Street as " a spacious street with very good houses well inhabited by 24 Lumley's Reminiscences of the Opera, 1864, p. 8. 25 Pyne's Royal Residences, vol. iii. p. 8. 26 Volume ii. I4Q ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. gentry : at the upper end of which towards the road are the best, having before them a tarrass walk, ascended by steps, with a freestone pavement." Some thirty years after, the street was levelled, and the following remarks appeared in a newspaper of the time : — " Our sensible forefathers, in framing the streets of this great city, preferred utility to ornament ; and in St. James's Street they were very industrious that the paving of that uneven ground should not prejudice the property of any individual. Their wiser sons have wished to reverse this practice, and have been full as industrious in conforming the buildings to the Scotch paving. The descent from the upper to the lower end of this street being so very steep, has brought very whimsical distresses upon many of the inhabitants — some of the ground-floors that were almost level with the street, are now eight, nine, and some ten steps, and those very steep, from the ground ; while others, to which you used to ascend by three or four steps, are as many below the surface. Cellars are now above the ground, and some gentlemen are forced to dive into their own parlours. Many laughable accidents too have happened from this new method of turning the world upside-down : some persons, not thinking of the late altera- tions, attempting to knock at their own door, have frequently tumbled up their new-erected steps, while others who have been used to ascend to their threshold have as often, for the same reason, tumbled down ; and their fall had been the greater from their lifting up their legs to ascend as usual. An old gouty friend of mine complains heavily ; he has lain, he says, upon the ground-floor for these ten years, and he chose the house he lives in because there was no step to the door ; and now he is obliged to mount at least nine before he can get into his bed-chamber, and the entrance into his house is at the one pair of stairs. A neighbour too complains he has lost a good lodger because he refused to lower the price of his first floor, which the gentleman insisted he ought, as the lodgings are now up two pair of stairs. Many of the street doors are not above five feet high ; and the owners, when ST. JAMES'S STREET. 141 they enter their houses, seem as if they were going into a dog-kennel rather than their own habitations." 27 From its first building this street has had a history, and great people have inhabited it. Edmund Waller, the poet, lived in his own house on the west side of the street from 1660 to his death, in 1687. William, Lord Viscount Brouncker, an eminent mathematician, and the first President of the Royal Society from 1662 to 1677, died at his house in St. James's Street, on April 5, 1684. Brouncker was chan- cellor to Charles II.'s Queen, and a commissioner of the Admiralty. He is constantly referred to by Pepys, who did not like him much, and calls him " cunning." Lord Rochester, in one of his poems dated 1678, refers to a famous perfumer's shop in this street with the sign of the Cross, where the ladies flocked to buy gloves, powder, and essences. Charles, Duke of Bolton, lived in St. James's Street in 1698-9, as did Henry Somerset, second Duke of Beaufort, and Sir Thomas Thynne, Lord Viscount Weymouth, in 1708. Sir Christopher Wren died in the street on February 25, 1723, and Alexander Pope lived " at Mr. Digby's next door to y e ' Golden Ball,' on y e second terras." Sir Richard Steele lived in a house opposite Park Place from 17 14 to 1724, when he retired to Wales, as Swift says, "in peril of a thousand jails." It was not, however, till the middle of the eighteenth century that the street shone out with all its brilliancy. Here were to be met all the rank, fashion, and beauty of the metropolis. Sheridan sings of — " The Campus Martius of St. James's Street, Where the beaux' cavalry pace to and fro Before they take the field in Rotten Row ; Where Brookes's Blues and Weltze's Light Dragoons Dismount in files and ogle in platoons." 28 Tickell's clever lines, supposed to have been written by Charles Fox to his friend Lord John Townshend, in which he 27 Letter by Anti-Procustes in the Londoti Chronicle, Aug. 15, 1765, quoted in Malcolm's Anecdotes of London, 1810, vol. ii. p. 398. 28 MOORE'S Life of Sheridan, ed. 1827, vol. i. p. 336. H2 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. regrets " The long-lost pleasures of St. James's Street," are well worth quoting here : — " But come, dear Jack, all martial as thou art, With spruce cockade, heroically smart ; Come and once more together let us greet The long-lost pleasures of St. James's Street. Enough o'er stubbles have I deigned to tread ; Too long wert thou at anchor at Spithead. Come, happy friend ! to hail thy wished return, Nor vulgar fire, nor venal light shall burn ; From gentle bosoms purer flames shall rise, And keener ardours flash from beauty's eyes. Methinks I see thee now resume thy stand, Pride of Fop Alley, though a little tanned. What tender joy the gazing nymphs disclose ! How pine with envy the neglected beaux ! With many a feeble frown and struggling smile, Fondly reprove thy too adventurous toil ; And seem with reprehensive love to say, — Dear Mr. Townshend, wherefore didst thou stray? Soon as to Brookes's thence thy footsteps bend, What gratulations thy approach attend ! See Gibbon rap his box ; auspicious sign That classic compliment and wit combine. See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise, And friendship give what cruel health denies. Important Townshend ! what can thee withstand ? The lingering black-ball lags in Boothby's hand. E'en Draper checks the sentimental sigh, And Smith, without an oath, suspends the dye. That night, to festive wit and friendship due, That night thy Charles's board shall welcome you, Salads that shame ragouts, shall woo thy taste ; Deep shalt thou delve in Weltjie's motley paste. Derby shall send, if not his plate, his cooks, And know I've bought the best champagne from Brookes, From liberal Brookes, whose speculative skill Is hasty credit and a distant bill ; Who, nursed in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade, Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid. On that auspicious night, supremely graced With chosen guests, the pride of liberal taste ; ST. JAMES S STREET. 143 Not in contentious heat, nor maddening strife, Not with the busy ills, nor cares of life, We'll waste the fleeting hours ; far happier themes Shall claim each thought and chase ambition's dreams. Each beauty that sublimity can boast He best shall tell, who still unites them most. Of wit, of taste, of fancy, we'll debate, If Sheridan for once be not too late. But scarce a thought to ministers we'll spare, Unless on Polish politics with Hare. Good-natured Devon ! oft shall then appear The cool complacence of thy friendly sneer. Oft shall Fitzpatrick's wit, and Stanhope's ease, And Burgoyne's manly sense unite to please. And while each guest attends our varied feats Of scattered covies and retreating fleets, Me shall they wish some better sport to gain And thee more glory from the next campaign." Fox, who in his later days was negligent and slovenly in his attire, was, when young, one of the greatest swells of the day ; and Beau Fox was to be seen " strutting up and down St. James's Street, in a suit of French embroidery, a little silk hat, red-heeled shoes, and a bouquet nearly large enough for a maypole." 29 St. James's Street has been the scene of half the anecdotes of high life. Some of them are better left unrelated ; for many of the habitues of this quarter were not very particular in their conduct. " And there insatiate yet with folly's sport, That polish'd sin-worn fragment of the court, The shade of Queensb'ry should with Clermont meet, Ogling and hobbling down St. James's Street." 30 But although in the old times there was more open profligacy than would be tolerated in the present day, there was also more joyousness and abandon of spirit. What would now be thought of our legislators acting as William Windham relates that he and his friends acted one night as they returned from 29 B. C. Walpole's Life of Fox, 1806. p. 24. 30 Imperial Epistle from Kien Long, 1795 {School of Satire, p. 76). 144 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. the House of Commons ? — " We were boyish enough to amuse ourselves with throwing stones at each other during our pro- gress through the Park, and oranges when we came in St. James's Street." sl It was in St. James's Street, on the evening of the 6th of December, 1670, that the Duke of Ormonde was seized and nearly murdered by the infamous Colonel Blood, as he was riding home in his carriage to Clarendon House. Maclean, the fashionable highwayman, was well known in this street, where he had a lodging opposite " White's Club." Amongst the numerous people he waylaid and robbed was Horace Walpole. He was caught out at last, owing to his selling a laced waistcoat to a pawnbroker, who happened to carry it to the very person who had just before sold the lace. He reaped the reward of his deeds by being hanged in 1750 ; but he appears to have been so popular that 3,000 persons went to see him on the first Sunday after his condemnation. On this occasion he fainted away twice from the heat of his cell. Mrs. Letitia Pilkington, the wit and friend of Swift, after separation from her husband, the Rev. Matthew Pilkington, attempted to gain a living by opening a small shop opposite " White's," for the purpose of selling pamphlets and prints, which she bought with her last five guineas. She was soon, however, obliged to leave, and take cheaper lodgings. 32 Ridley, the bookseller, sold some of the trumpery quack medicines of the notorious Sir John Hill ; and the tincture of sage and balsam of honey were so successful, that he took as much as 30/. per week by their sale. The jokes that have been uttered in St. James's Street by the saunterers along its pavement would probably fill a goodly volume, but, unfortunately, most of them have died with their authors and utterers. Beau Brummell, when in disgrace, was walking with a friend in St. James's Street. On his companion bowing to the Prince of Wales, Brummell put 31 Diary, p. 135. 32 Memoirs. Dublin, 1749 ; vol. ii. p. 9. ST. JAITESS STREET. 145 on an innocent look, and asked, in an audible whisper, who his fat friend was. One of Lord Chelmsford's bon-mots is asso- ciated with this street. He was walking here one day when he was accosted by a stranger with, " Mr. Birch, I believe ? " to which the noble lord answered, " If you believe that, sir, you'll believe anything." We will now saunter up and down the street, and chat over the houses that have a history. No. 1, at the corner of Pall Mall, is Sams's well-known shop, where are to be seen the portraits of celebrated men about town. At No. 8 lived Lord Byron when the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers was published. He went there in October, 181 1, and remained till the middle of the next year. No. 16 is the banking-house of Messrs. Herries, Farquhar, and Co. Robert Herries, the founder of the bank, was the originator of the useful system of circular letters of credit, for the issuing of which he opened an office in St. James's Street. Nos. 26, 27, are now occupied by the upholstery shop of the famous Banting the corpulent. The house numbered 26 was, some years ago, a gaming-club, called the " Athenaeum," one of the chief hells in London. It was kept by Messrs. Bond, who in a few years realized an immense fortune. No. 28 is " Boodle's Club," which was named the " Savoir Vivre." Gibbon and Wilberforce were both members. The latter says that " the first time I went to ' Boodle's ' I won twenty-five guineas of the Duke of Norfolk." Mason mentions it in the Heroic Epistle to Sir Win. Chambers : — " So when some John his dull invention racks To rival Boodle's dinners or Almack's, Three uncouth legs of mutton shock our eyes, Three roasted geese, three butter'd apple pies." The following lampoon was addressed to the Duke of Oueensberry : — " Consult the equestrian bard, wise Chiron Beever, Or Dr. Heber's learned Sybil leaves : And they, true members of the Scavoir vivre, Will tell the wondrous things that love receives." 33 33 Selwyn and his Contemporaries, vol. iv. p. 375. 10 146 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. No. 29 was the print-shop of Miss Humphry, the good friend and indulgent landlady of Gillray, whose caricatures were exhibited in the window. These engravings attracted so great a crowd that the pedestrian was usually forced to quit the pavement for the carriage-way as he passed the house. Gillray himself lived here, and from his window saw the men he was so successful in caricaturing. In a state of insanity he threw himself out of an upstairs window, and died of the wounds. No. 32 was inhabited for some years by the well-known bookseller, Robert Triphook, who assisted Sir Walter Scott in some of his literary work, and collected information for the Pirate. Byron's friend, Cam Hobhouse, afterwards Lord Broughton, lodged over his shop, which was a rendezvous of literary men. Nos. 37, 38, are now occupied by "White's Club-house." " At White's the harness'd chairman idly stands And swings around his waist his tingling hands." 34 The club was originally established as a chocolate-house, about the year 1698, and was situated near the bottom of the west side of the street, on the site of " Arthur's Club-house." It was removed in 1755 to the present house, the front of which was designed by James Wyatt. Various alterations Avere made by Lockyer in 1850, when the four bas-reliefs of the seasons were added, from the designs of George Scharf, jun. " White's " continued to be a public resort for some years. The Tatlcr (1709) opens with the information that " all accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment shall be under the article of ' White's Chocolate-house.' " In another place the editor informs his readers that he cannot send a man "to 'White's' under sixpence." On April 28, 1733, the house was entirely destroyed by fire, in consequence of which, Arthur, the proprietor and founder of " Arthur's Club," moved to " Gaunt's Coffee-house," next the " St. James's Coffee-house," where he begged the noblemen and 34 GAY'S Trivia, Book 2. ST. JAMES'S STREET. 147 gentlemen would " favour him with their company as usual." George II. and the Prince of Wales were spectators of the fire, which destroyed much valuable property, and the collec- tion of paintings belonging to Sir Andrew Fountaine, valued at 3,000/. Soon after the fire the house was rebuilt, and turned into a private club, although the old name was con- tinued for some years. In 1745 Selwyn's letters were directed to him " at ' White's Chocolate-house.' " The place was early notorious as the haunt of gamblers. Swift says it was "the common rendezvous of infamous and noble cullies;" and Pope introduces it into the Dunciad: — " Or chain'd at White's amidst the Doctors sit, Teach oaths to gamesters and to nobles wit." Considering that the word " Doctors" was a cant term for false dice, the lines do not rate highly the respectability of its frequenters. Jansen, the gamester, cheated the Duke of Bedford out of an immense sum of money ; and Pope writes : — " Or when a Duke to Jansen punts at White's." Hogarth introduces a room at " White's " into the sixth picture of the " Rake's Progress," where the fire is discovered while the gamblers are busy at their cards. The party present is not a select one, for a highwayman is seen sitting by the fire. The outside of the house is brought into the fourth picture, where the Rake is arrested as he goes to Court. It was in order to keep out the common herd of gamblers that the club was formed, but the change did not result in a higher tone of morality. A contemporary hand draws the Modern Fine Gentleman as a detestable creature, who takes his recreation at this club : — " From hence to White's our virtuous Cato flies : There sits with countenance erect and wise, And talks of games and whist, and pigtail pies : Plays all the night, nor doubts each law to break, Himself unknowingly has helped to make ; 148 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Trembling and anxious, stakes his utmost groat, Peeps o'er his cards, and looks as if he thought ; Next morn disowns the losses of the night, Because the fool would fain be thought a bite." 35 Bramston makes his Man of Taste express himself thus : — " Had I whole counties, I to White's would go, And set land, woods, and rivers, at a throw. But should I meet with an unlucky run, And at a throw be gloriously undone ; My debts of honour I'd discharge the first, Let all my lawful creditors be curs'd : My title would preserve me from arrest, And seizing hired horses is a jest." 36 The club was long noted as a gambling-house, the games played being chiefly hazard and faro ; but when Almack's was started the worst gamblers went off there, — " From White's we'll move the expensive scene.'' Besides play, there was a rage for bets at the club. Walpole relates a story that has often been repeated. A man dropped down before the door and was carried inside ; the club at once made bets whether he was dead or not, and when the surgeon was about to bleed him, the wagerers for his death interposed, and said it would affect the fairness of the bet. Walpole calls this a good story, and we can only hope that, like many another good story, it is not true. For some years there appear to have been two clubs, the old and the young ; but in what the difference consisted, and when the two were united, I cannot find out. Mr. Cunningham says that the earliest record in the club is a book of rules and list of members " of the Old Club at White's." Dodington writes in his diary, under date January 8, 1754, "I went to 'White's' to a ballot for increasing the Old Club, which passed in the negative, 34 to 10." The Right Hon. Richard Rigby, writing to Selwyn 12th March, 1765, says, "The Old Club 35 Foundling Hospital for Wit, No. 4, 1763, p. 47. 36 DoDSLEY's Collection of Poems, 1770, vol. i. p. 294. ST. JAMES'S STREET. 149 flourishes very much, and the young one has been better attended than of late years ; but the deep play is removed to ' Almack's,' where you will certainly follow it." " White's Club " appears to have been jealous of its new rival, for the Earl of Carlisle writes to Selwyn (Jan. 9, 1768) : " I wish you would put up the Marquis of Kildare at the Young Club, and afterwards at 'Almack's,' but take care he is not put up first at ' Almack's,' as that excludes him from ' White's.' If you think you have not sufficient interest at the Young Club, get some other person to do it." On February 15, 1769, the following rule was made by the Old Club : " It was this night agreed by a majority of nineteen balls, that every member of this club who is in the billiard-room at the time supper is declared upon table shall pay his reckoning, if he does not sup at the Young Club." By the above extracts it would appear that the two clubs were kept quite distinct, although they seem to have been held in the same house. Probably as the Old Club was very select and small in its members, the Young Club was considered as an adjunct from which it could be replenished as members died or resigned. Again, it is probable that when, in 1780, the numbers were raised to three hundred, the Young Club was swallowed up and the distinction done away with. Walpole and his friends Selwyn and Williams composed a coat of arms for the two clubs at White's which is thus described : — " Vert (for card-table) between two parolis proper on a chevron table ; (for hazard table) two rouleaus in saltire between two dice proper in a canton sable ; a white ball (for election) argent. Supporters : an old knave of clubs on the dexter, a young knave on the sinister side, both accoutred proper. Crest : issuing out of an Earl's coronet (Lord Dar- lington) an arm shaking a dice-box, all proper. Motto (alluding to the crest) : ' Cogit amor nummi! The arms encircled by a claret-bottle ticket by way of order." 37 The Club was at one time almost exclusively Tory, and 37 Walpole s Letters, 1840, vol. iii. p. 214. 150 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. the whipper-in of that party could always find his men here, as the Whig whipper-in could find his at "Brookes's;" but nevertheless the elite of the Whigs were always members. The club lost its political character on the formation of the " Carlton," and it is now only aristocratic. The famous bay- window remains the chief fashionable morning lounge of select London men. Among its former celebrated members may be noted the Earl of Chesterfield, Bubb Dodington, Henry Pelham, George Selwyn, Colley Cibber, Fox, Wllberforce, Pitt, handsome Jack St. Leger, and Lord Rodney. When the younger Crebillon's infamous novel, The Sofa, was published, Lord Chesterfield received three hundred copies, which he sold at the club. Pelham, when Prime Minister, is said to have divided his time between his office and this club. In 1752 Governor George Morton Pitt's house in Arlington Street was broken into, and Horace Walpole, then living next door, headed a party who sought for the robbers. They found one, and Walpole, wishing to share his glory with his friend, sent to the club for Selwyn, to whom the drawer delivered the message in a hollow trembling voice : " Mr. Selwyn, Mr. Walpole's compliments to you, and he has got a housebreaker for you." S8 Charles Townshend had an animated dispute one evening at Earl Gower's with Selwyn, and after the party broke up he drove him in his chariot to "White's." On bidding Townshend good-night Selwyn said, " Remember this is the first set down you have given me to-day." Sir George Rodney, when in France, in great want of money, was offered a post of rank in the French navy, by the Duke de Biron, to which offer Rodney replied : — " Monsieur le Due, it is true that my distresses have driven me from my country, but no temptation can estrange me from her service ; had this offer been voluntary on your part, I should have considered it an insult ; but I am glad that it proceeds from a source that can do no wrong." He sent Lady Rodney over to open a subscription among his friends at "White's," but the 38 Walpole's Correspondence, 1S40, vol. ii. p. 424. ST. JAMES'S STREET. 151 scheme failed. However, brighter days soon shone on him. John Clerk, of Eldin, who had never been to sea, communi- cated his celebrated invention of the manoeuvre for breaking the line to Rodney ; by the use of which that great Admiral gained his victory over the French fleet, commanded by De Grasse, in 1782. On George III.'s recovery in 1789, the club gave a ball at the " Pantheon," when the price of tickets was three guineas and a half. In 18 14, the club gave a fete to the Allies, at Burlington House, which cost 9,849/. 2s. 6d., and a dinner to the Duke of Wellington, over which 2,480/. 10s. gd. was spent. The present members of the club are still the elite of society, and among them, many of the bearers of aristocratic names are the descendants of the old and original members. Arthur was the first proprietor that we know anything about, for White is a mere name to us. On the death of Arthur, Robert Mackreth, the well-known " Bob," who married his daughter, became the proprietor, but he soon gave the club up to his relation, Mr. Chambers, nicknamed the " Cheru- bim," and was elected a Member of Parliament, through the influence of Horace Walpole's nephew, Lord Orford, who had borrowed money of him. Bob was ten years member for Castle Rising, and twenty-two years member for Ashburton, and was knighted in 1795. It was said that Sir Thomas Rumbold, Governor of Madras, was, in early life, a waiter at " White's ; " but this could hardly have been the case, for, at the age of sixteen, he began his career in India, as a writer to Fort St. George. Nevertheless, an epigram, attributed to Lord Camden, was written on the supposed circum- stance : — " When Bob Mackreth served Arthur's crew, ' Rumbold,' he cried, ' come, black my shoe.' And Rumbold answered, ' Yea, Bob.' But now returned from India's land He scorns t'obey the proud command, And boldly answers, ' Na, Bob.' " No. 41, York Chambers. The poet Campbell lived here 152 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. during the years 1830- 1840, as also did Captain James Mangles, R.N., from 1829 to 1836. No. 50 was formerly " Crockford's Club." Crockford was originally the proprietor of a fish-shop, on the Strand side of Temple Bar, then a " leg " at Newmarket, then a keeper of hells in London ; finally, he set up this great pande- monium, " with a hazard bank, by which he won all the dis- posable money of the men of fashion in London, which was supposed to be near two millions." 89 It was a gorgeous hell, where Crockford presided at a desk — ready to lend to the losers. The house was built in 1827, B. and P. Wyatt being the architects. The Duke of Wellington, Prince Polignac, Talleyrand, Pozzo di Borgo, Esterhazy, D'Orsay, and Horace Twiss were all members, and the great Ude was the cook. This chef of chefs was cook to the Duke of York, on whose death he pathetically exclaimed, "Ah, mon pauvre Due! how much you will miss me where you are gone ! " Crockford retired in 1840, and soon after died worth 700,000/., after having lost as large a sum in mining and other speculations. His death was accelerated by fears as to the issue of the " Derby." The gambling set at " Crockford's," like that at " White's," gained a very unamiable reputation for insensibility. Raikes relates how, in 1832, Mr. Robert Smith was seized with cholera in the morning, and died at eleven o'clock at night ; and adds, " Even the set at ' Crock- ford's ' was for a moment electrified by the sudden cata- strophe." When Crockford died, in 1844, the club-house was sold, and in 1849 the interior was redecorated, and opened for the " Military, Naval, and County Service Club." This club had but a short life, for the year 185 1 saw it brought to a close. The house has since been occupied by the " Wellington Dining-rooms " and the " St. George's Club," and is now unoccupied. Next door to "Crockford's" and the corner house of 39 Raikes'S Diary, vol. iv. p. 393. ST. JAMES'S STREET. 153 Bennett Street, was, some thirty or forty years ago, a gaming- house called " Raggett's Junior," kept by one Ephraim Bond. This hell, which was founded in Duke Street, St. James's, was afterwards moved to No. 26, St. James's Street, and then transferred to this house, now occupied by the " Wellington Dining-rooms." In 1800, Lord Nelson lived at No. 54. Nos. 57, 58. The "New University Club" was established in 1864, to accommodate the waiters for election into the older university clubs. This elegant Gothic building was commenced in 1865, from the design of Mr. Waterhouse, and was finished in May, 1868. It has two fronts, the one in Arlington Street and the other in St. James's Street ; the latter is built of Portland stone, with the arms of the various colleges carved upon it ; and the former of white brick, with stone dressings. No. 60 is "Brookes's Club." This club was originally established in 1764 by Almack, in Pall Mall, on the site lately occupied by the British Institution. It was noted for its deep play, and references to it are numerous in the memoirs of the day. Horace Walpole says the members played only for rouleaus of 50/. each, and 10,000/. in specie was generally on the table. In 1770, when Fox was a Lord of the Admiralty in Lord North's Government, he paid so much more attention to play than to business, that the clerks were forced to wait upon him at his clubs, where, with pen in one hand and cards in the other, he signed warrants and orders. He lost immense sums of money, and, in fact, preferred losing to not playing at all. The following monorhymic verses give an amusing picture of Fox : — "At Almack's of pigeons I'm told there are flocks, But it's thought the completest is one Mr. Fox. If he touches a card, if he rattles the box, Away fly the guineas of this Mr. Fox. He has met, I'm afraid, with so many hard knocks, That cash is not plenty with this Mr. Fox. In gaming, 'tis said, he's the stoutest of cocks ; No man can play deeper than this Mr. Fox. 154 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. ye hawks, sure your hearts must be harder than rocks, If you win without pity from this Mr. Fox. And he always must lose, for the strongest of locks Cannot keep any money for this Mr. Fox. No doubt such behaviour exceedingly shocks All the friends and acquaintance of this Mr. Fox ; And they wish from their souls they could put in the stocks, And make an example of this Mr. Fox. He's exceedingly curious in coats and in frocks, So the tailor's a pigeon to this Mr. Fox ; Nay, his clothes and his shirts, and her ladyship's smocks, Would be pawned for a guinea by this Mr. Fox. He delights much in hunting, though fat as an ox ; 1 pity the horses of this Mr. Fox. They are, probable, most of them lame in the hocks, Such a heavy-made fellow is this Mr. Fox." 40 One year after the opening of the club, Almack built the Assembly Rooms in King Street (now " Willis's "), and in 1778, Brookes, a wine-merchant and money-lender, took "Almack's," and removed the club to St. James's Street. The old house still continued to be occupied as a club, and was known as " Goosetrees." The new house was built at Brookes's expense, from the designs of Henry Holland, the architect. The Right Hon. Thomas Townshend, afterwards Viscount Sidney, wrote to Selwyn, in October, 177S : — " Brookes's new house is to be opened in a week or ten days." Brookes retired from the club soon after it was built, because it did not answer, and he died poor in 1782. Sheridan wrote the following lines on seeing the funeral of the old proprietor of the club : — " Alas ! that Brookes, returned to dust, Should pay at length the debt that we, Averse to parchment, mortgage, trust, Shall pay when forced, — as well as he. And die so poor, too ! He whose trade Such profit cleared by draught and deed, 40 Unpublished Verses, quoted in George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, iii. p. 159. There is an incorrect version printed in the Notes and Queries, vol. x. p. 123. ST. JAMES'S STREET. 155 Though pigeons called him murmuring Brookes, And dipped their bills in him at need. At length his last conveyance see, Each witness mournful as a brother, To think that this world's mortgagee Must suffer judgment in another ! Where no appeals to courts can rest, Reversing a supreme decree ; But each decision stands confessed A final precedent in re." 41 Among the celebrated men who were members of the club were Burke, Garrick, David Hume, Horace Walpole, Gibbon, who rated highly the enjoyment to be had there, Sheridan, Wilberforce, Pitt, Fox, Windham, Sir Philip Francis, George Selwyn, Dunning, Lord Ashburton, Duke of Oueensberry, George IV. when Prince of Wales, Topham Beauclerk, Sir Joshua Reynolds. Beauclerk, in 1773, writing to the Earl of Charlemont, says: — "Would you imagine that Sir Joshua Reynolds is extremely anxious to be a member of ' Almack's ? ' You see what noble ambition will make a man attempt." Lord Crewe, the husband of the celebrated Mrs. Crewe, was an original member of Brookes's, and at the time of his death, in 1829, had been connected with it for sixty-five years. The number of members has always been strictly limited, and in an election one black ball excludes. Selwyn took advantage of this privilege to keep Sheridan out, and it was only by a ruse of the Prince of Wales that the brilliant wit was elected. On one occasion, Tarleton and Jack Payne, proposed by the Prince of Wales, were blackballed, which so offended him that, in 1788, in conjunction with his brother the Duke of York, he founded " Weltzie's Club," on the west side of the street, in opposition to the old club. Brookes's has always been the special rendezvous of the Whigs, and it still continues to be so. A few days after Pitt's first speech on the 26th February, 1781, in the House of Commons, Fox brought him to the club, where he was at 41 Richardson's Recollections of the Last Half Century, 1856, vol. ii. p. 209. 156 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. once elected a member. After becoming Prime Minister, he rarely went there, but he paid his subscriptions till his death. Only three years after his election, that is, on the 28th of February, 1784, he was attacked, as he returned from a city banquet, by a body of ruffians and hired bullies outside the club. He succeeded with great difficulty in escaping into " White's." " Ah ! why Mahon's disastrous fate record ? Alas ! how fear can change the fiercest lord ! See the sad sequel of the Grocers' treat ; — Behold him darting up St. James's Street ? Pelted and scar'd by Brookes's hellish sprites, And vainly fluttering round the door of White's." 42 Sir Philip Francis withdrew his name from the club on the publication of Taylor's Junius Identified, although he had been a member for many years. The talk frequently turned upon Junius, and he did not like to be questioned on the point. Sir James Graham withdrew in 1834, after having been a member for twenty-four years. Lord Palmerston having long been a Tory, was not elected a member until 1830. There were never many radicals in the club, but O'Connell was a member. He was not popular, and was sent to Coventry when he vituperated the Whigs. In 1788, when George III. was attacked with insanity, a gloom was spread over the kingdom ; but at Brookes's exulta- tions only were heard, and it was a frequent practice for the card-players to cry out, " I play the lunatic," instead of, " I play the King," even in the presence of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. On the recovery of the King, however, this club, as well as " White's," gave a ball. The Opposition ladies would not go to "White's" ball, and the ladies who supported Government doubted whether or not to accept the invitations from " Brookes's." The clubs of St. James's were hot-beds of gambling ; and when, in 178 1, Mansfield, the Solicitor-General, brought in a Bill for the prevention of certain abuses practised on Sunday, 42 Political Eclogues (Rolliad, 1795, P- 2 4°)- ST. JAMES'S STREET. 157 Martin, M.P. for Tewkesbury, very justly asked why " the Gaming-houses, which were open every Sunday, in the immediate vicinity of St. James's, had not attracted the notice of the learned framer of the Bill." Many of the members were singularly unfortunate at play ; and " Lord Egremont was convinced by reflection, aided by his subsequent ex- perience of the world, that there was at that time some unfair confederacy among some of the players, and that the great losers, especially Mr. Fox, were actually duped and cheated." 43 In the year 1799, four players, whose united property was supposed to be worth two millions sterling, lost every farthing they possessed. In May, 1781, when Lord Cholmondeley, the friend of George IV., by whom he was made a Marquis, and Sir Willoughby Aston, started a bank at Brookes's, Fox and Fitzpatrick, considering them as intruders, attacked them, broke their bank, and won 4,000/. Fox at once sent for his tradesmen and paid them as far as the money would go ; but other creditors hearing of his good fortune, beset him, and put an execution into his house. Lord Cholmondeley was more fortunate in later years ; for Raikes tells us that he was one of four who set up the faro bank, which ruined half the town. Mr. Thompson, of Grosvenor Square, and Lord Cholmondeley, each realized between three and four thousand pounds. In Ackermann's Microcosm of London, it is stated that there was no billiard-table, and that hazard was seldom played, but that " the present fashionable games are quinze, whist, piquet, and maccaw." Fox lived for several years in a house adjoining Brookes's, from which, in May, 1 78 1 , one of his creditors seized and cleared out his property, which Walpole did not think worth removing. When Walpole returned, full of the scene which he had just witnessed, he was surprised to find sauntering before his door Fox himself, who chatted with perfect sang-froid on his Marriage Bill. Fox was always in want of money, and borrowed right and left ; even the waiters at the clubs became 43 Lewis's Administrations of Great Britain, 1864, p. 8 (note}. 158 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. his creditors for small sums, and the chairmen of St. James's Street importuned him for the payment of arrears. 44 Fox was still living here in 1788, when, on November 24th, he was sent for from the Continent by his party, to take part in the Regency debates. He at once returned to England, and performed the journey of eight hundred miles in nine days, which was then considered a great wonder. 43 No. 62 was long known as Betty's Fruit Shop, a favourite lounge of the men of fashion and gossips of the day — " There, at one glance, the royal eye shall meet Each varied beauty of St. James's Street ; Stout Talbot there shall ply with hackney chair, And patriot Betty fix her fruit-shop there." 46 Mrs. Elizabeth Neale was the queen of applewomen ; she knew all that was passing in the world, and had a wonderful knowledge of family history. Her manners were pleasing, and her conversation abounded with anecdote, so that there is no cause for wonder at her popularity. When Walpole and his party went to Vauxhall, in 1750, Betty accompanied them with hampers of strawberries and cherries. She died on the 30th of August, 1797, aged 67, at her house in Park Place, fourteen years after she had retired from business. No. 63 was Peyrault, Pierault or Pero's Bagnio, set up about the year 1699, when it became a very fashionable place. The prices were 2s. 6d. for a cold bath, and $s. for a warm one. The house is now occupied by " Fenton's Hotel." No. 64, " The Cocoa Tree Private Club," was formerly the famous chocolate-house of the same name, known in Queen Anne's reign as the resort of the Tories and Jacobites, and then situated in Pall Mall. Defoe writes, "A Whig will no more go to the ' Cocoa Tree,' or ' Ozinda's,' than a Tory will be seen at the coffee-house of St. James's." The following extract from Mrs. Pilkington's Memoirs gives 44 Selwyn and his Contemporaries, ii. 224. 45 Wraxall's Posthumous Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 193. 46 Heroic Epistle to Sir Wm. Chambers, 1773. ST. JAMES'S STREET. 159 a good picture of the life of a young man of the period : — " Well then, said he, I'll tell you how I pass the day. . . I rise about nine, drink coffee, not that I like it, but it gives a man the air of a politician ; for the same reason I always read the news. Then I dress, and about twelve go to the ' Cocoa Tree,' where I talk treason ; from thence to ' St. James's Coffee House,' where I praise the ministry ; then to ' White's,' where I talk gallantry ; so by three I return home to dinner : after that I read about an hour and digest the book and the dinner together ; then I go to the opera or play, Vauxhall or Ranelagh, according to the season of the year, and from thence home to supper, and about twelve to bed." Soon after this the house was turned into a private club. Gibbon thus describes the appearance of the members in the year 1762.: — "This respectable body, of which I have the honour of being a member, affords every evening a sight truly English. Twenty or thirty perhaps of the first men in the kingdom in point of fortune and fashion supping at little tables covered with a napkin in the middle of a coffee-room, upon a bit of cold meat or a sandwich, and drinking a glass of punch. At present we are full of kings' counsellors and lords of the bed- chamber, who, having jumped into the ministry, make a very singular medley of their old principles and language with their modern ones." The club was a favourite resort of George IV. when Prince of Wales, and Lord Byron also was a member. Nos. 69, 70, is " Arthur's Club," which was rebuilt in the year 1825, from the designs of Thomas Hopper. It was founded by Arthur, the proprietor of "White's," who died in June, 1761. A great change has taken place of late years in the houses on the west side of the Pall Mall end of the street. One of the houses pulled down to make room for the " Conservative Club " was formerly occupied by Elmsley, the learned editor and bookseller. Gibbon lodged here, and he has left on record that he "was proud and happy if [he] could prevail on Elmsley to enliven the dulness of the evening." The great historian died at these lodgings on the 16th of January, 1794. 160 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. At " Parsloe's Coffee-house" "Johnson's Club" was held before it was removed to the "Thatched House." Here were the head-quarters of the celebrated chess club of which the great player, Philidor, was a member. He frequently played blindfold two or three games at once. The famous " Thatched House Tavern " stood on part of the ground of the " Conservative Club," and also on that occupied by the " Civil Service Club," the name of which, in consideration of its position, has been changed to the " Thatched House Club." " If you have London still at heart, We'll make a small one here by art ; The difference is not much between St. James's Park and Stephen's Green; And Dawson Street will serve as well To lead you thither as Pall Mall, Nor want a passage through the palace To choke your sight and raise your malice ; The Deanery-house may well be match'd Under correction with the Thatch'd." The "Thatched House" was a favourite meeting-place for convivial societies. The " Brothers' Club," a literary society which preceded the " Scriblerus Club," consisting of Swift, Arbuthnot, Harley, St. John, and the Tory magnates, met here in 1713 ; they also met at " Ozinda's Coffee-house," and removed to the " Star and Garter" in Pall Mall, on account of the expense of the " Thatched House." The " Dilettanti Society," established in 1734 by Viscount Harcourt, the second Duke of Dorset, Sir Francis Dashwood, and other noblemen and gentlemen, to the number of fifty, met here until the house was pulled down. " The members dine together six times a year, on Sundays, without guests ; and one of the penalties is a fine of one guinea to any member who calls the Society a club." Mathias says that " the pre- sident (of the day) is invested with a Roman toga, in a sort of consular pomp ; " i7 but if this ever really was the custom, it 47 Pursuits of Literature, 1798, p. 68 (note). ! ST. JAMES'S STREET. 161 is not now in use. The Society has gained a great name, although it has done little of late years. In 1764 it sent out an expedition to Asia Minor, and in 18 14, another to the Levant. The Society's beautiful collection of portraits by Reynolds, Lawrence, &c, was formerly kept at the "Thatched House," but they are at present at " Willis's," in King Street, where the Society now meet. The earlier portraits were painted by George Knapton, who took Sir Francis Dashwood in the habit of St. Francis, paying his devotions to a figure of the Venus de' Medici. The " Catch Club," established by the nobility and gentry for the improvement of vocal harmony, and of which Lord Sandwich was president, met at the " Thatched House " in 1762. "Johnson's Club" removed here from " Parsloe's " on February 26, 1799. The "Royal Society Club " transferred their dinners from " Freemasons' Tavern " to the " Thatched House" in 1857, when the Royal Society removed from Somerset House to Burlington House. The host of " Free- masons' Tavern " was loth to lose the club, and offered to supply carriages to drive the members and their friends to Burlington House, in time for the evening meetings of the Society. Lord Campbell, in his Life of Lord Thurloiv, gives an amusing anecdote of the rough Chancellor's wit. In the debates on the regency, a certain prim peer, noted for his attention to etiquette, having cited pompously some resolu- tions passed by a party of noblemen and gentlemen at the " Thatched House," Lord Thurlow, on rising, said, " As to what the noble lord in the red riband told us he had heard in the alehouse," &c. 48 Beneath the tavern front was a range of low-built shops, including that of Felix Rowland, the fashionable hair-dresser, who made a fortune by the sale of his macassar oil. Through the tavern was a passage to Thatched House Court, where Mrs. Delany lived from 1769 to 177 1, in which latter year she 48 Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, v. 643. II 162 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. moved to St. James's Place. In a letter to the Viscountess Andover, dated June 3, 1771, she writes: — "I suppose your ladyship cannot be ignorant of so important a transaction as the present possessor of the ' little Thatch ' having purchased some old walls in St. James's Place, in order to remove thither by the end of July." In a letter (January, 1769) she speaks of " my hut in Little St. James's Street." The " Conservative Club," designed by George Basevi and Sydney Smirke, was opened on the 19th of February, 1845. " Gaunt's Coffee-house" was the last house but one at the south-west corner. Here Arthur moved when " White's " was burnt. " St. James's Coffee-house," the head-quarters of the Whigs, as the " Cocoa-Tree " was of the Tories, was the corner house opposite the Palace. Steele opens the Tatlcr (1709) with the information that "Foreign and Domestic News you will have from St. James's Coffee-house." This place was the scene of one of those atrocious deeds so common in the last century. The Baron de Lingsivy, in 1776, ran a French officer through the body, because he laughed when the baron chose to be grave. Goldsmith and some of his friends occasionally dined here, and the charming poem Retaliation was originated at one of these meetings. " Of old, when Scarron his companions invited, Each guest brought his dish and the feast was united : If our landlord supplies us with beef and with fish, Let each guest bring himself, and he brings the best dish." Dr. Joseph Warton frequently breakfasted here, when he was surrounded by officers who listened with attention and plea- sure to his remarks on military matters. The house was burnt on January 23, 1813. When certain required alterations are made in Pall Mall, the two houses at the bottom of St. James's Street will be cleared away, and the " Thatched House Club" will remain the last house in the street. STREETS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 163 Opposite to St. James's Palace stood Berkshire House, the residence of the Howards, Earls of Berkshire. It was a large building, with outhouses and gardens, that extended some way up the road afterwards known as St. James's Street. Lord Chancellor Clarendon rented the house, and lived in it in 1666, after he left Worcester House, and before he took possession of Clarendon House in Piccadilly. Charles II. bought the house in August, 1670, from the Earl of Berkshire, and gave it to his mistress, the Duchess of Cleveland, who built Cleveland House on a part of the site ; the rest of the ground she sold, and houses were built upon it. One of these was inhabited by the Earl of Nottingham, whose chaplain was the celebrated Wm. Wotton. Charles Fitzroy, Duke of Cleveland and Southampton, succeeded his mother, who died in 1709, in the occupation of the house. At his death in 1730 it was bought by Scroop Egerton, the first Duke of Bridgewater, in whose family it has remained since that time. It was at this time called sometimes Bridge- water, and sometimes Cleveland House. Charles Jervas, the portrait-painter and friend of Pope, died here in 1739. The poet praises the painter highly in one of his Epistles : — " Whether thy hand strike out some free design, Where life awakes, and dawns at every line ; Or blend in beauteous tints the colour'd mass, And from the canvas call the mimic face, Read these instructive leaves. . . . ***** Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line ; New graces yearly like thy works display, Soft without weakness, without glaring gay.'' Pope knew very little about painting, although he wished to be a painter himself, and Walpole tells a different tale, when he describes Jervas as deficient in drawing, colouring, composition, and power of catching a likeness. He was, however, the fashion, made money, and was characterized in the Tatlcr as "the last great painter that Italy has sent us." 1 64 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Now his works are little esteemed, and he is best known to us as the successful translator of Don Quixote. Cleveland House was altered in 1795 by Francis, third Duke of Bridge- water, who died unmarried in 1803. On his death the duke- dom became extinct, but the house and magnificent gallery of pictures was left to his nephew, George Marquis of Stafford, afterwards Duke of Sutherland, with reversion to the Marquis's second son, Lord Francis Egerton. Lord Francis was created Earl of Ellesmere in 1846, and in the following year he built the present beautiful mansion, known as Bridgewater House, from the designs of Sir Charles Barry. Cleveland Row, Cleveland Square, and Cleveland Court all take their name from the old house. Bridgewater House is the chief building in Cleveland Square; in the opposite house lived for some years the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, first Lord of the Admiralty in 1806. He here collected his superb library, so rich in editiones principes, Aldines, and early printed books generally, which he left to the nation, and which now, with its elegant bindings, forms the choicest portion of the magni- ficent library at the British Museum. The library was on the first floor of the house and was contained in two handsome rooms, the largest and principal facing the Green Park. Lord Castlereagh lived in the Square in i8co. The great Admiral Rodney lived in Cleveland Row in 1772, previous to his departure with the expedition to the West Indies. Another great sailor, Sir Sidney Smith, lived at No. 5 in 18 10, the same house in which Theodore Hook was afterwards a resident. Lord George Gordon lived in the Row in 1785. There is a letter of his to the Marquis of Carmarthen, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in the British Museum, dated from here on May 14, in which he asks for the protection of Government against those who threaten his life. The naval physician, Sir Gilbert Blane, lived at No. 4 in 1809, and remained there till 1820, when he removed to Sackville Street. Lord Grenville, the Prime Minister, and brother of Thomas Grenville and the Duke of Buckingham, lived at No. 15 from 1796 to 1801. Mr. Coppock, STREETS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 165 the great election manager of the Liberals, lived at No. 3 for some years. Out of Cleveland Row runs a small alley, by name Russell Court, formerly occupied by Bulmer's celebrated printing- office, which was opened for the express purpose of printing Alderman Boydell's grand edition of Shakspeare. The first number of this magnificent work appeared in January, 1791, and may be considered as forming an era in the history of the art of printing, an art which had sunk in England to a very low level. By the production, however, of his fine edition of Milton, William Bulmer placed his name by the side of Didot, Bodoni, and Ibarra. Bulmer, and Nicol the bookseller, were constantly annoyed by the connoisseurs who, upon seeing the productions of the Shakspeare Press, would say, " This is very well, but what is it to the printing of Bodoni ? " so they concocted a hoax called the " Bodoni hum." Bulmer set up four pages of Cicero's Offices in a large octavo form completely resembling Bodoni's type, which Nicol showed to some of his customers, who exclaimed at its beauty and said, " To what a perfection does this man mean to carry the art of printing. Why, this surpasses all his former excellence." All were anxious to obtain copies, when Nicol told them that Mr. Bodoni had an agent in town, and if they would turn to the bottom of the last page of the specimen they would find his address, which was as follows : " W. Bulmer and Co., Shakspeare Press." 49 Bulmer was a friend of the critic Gifford, who was pay- master of the Board of Gentlemen Pensioners of which Bulmer was a member, and Gifford amused himself with writing notes in verse to his friend when his salary was due ; the following is one of these : — "Dear Bulmer, "May 5, 1819. " Did but the proofs of Shirley's Plays Return as quick as Quarter-days, ,* 9 Dibdin's Bibliographical Decameron, iii. 4S4. 166 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. How would my friend Tom Turner chuckle, And you give thanks on either knuckle ! But pardon ! I will speed them faster ; Meanwhile to appease your wrath, my master, You shall receive (before the others! Your April salary and your Brother's." ?0 The Right Hon. Sir Paul Methuen, son of Methuen the negotiator of the famous Portuguese Treaty of 1703, lived in Cleveland Court in 1734. Gay mentions him in his Con- gratulatory Poem to Pope, " First I see Methuen, of sincerest mind.'' Colonel John Sehvyn, aide-de-camp to the great Duke of Marlborough and afterwards Treasurer of the Household to George II. when Prince of Wales, had a house in the Court. His wife was bedchamber woman to Queen Caroline, and a great friend of Sir Robert Walpole. Their house was the scene of the memorable quarrel between Sir Robert and Lord Townshend, when the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State became so excited that they seized each other by the throat, and might have proceeded further if Henry Pelham had not fortunately come in and reconciled them. The celebrated wit, George Selwyn, lived in the same house as his father, the Colonel, for many years. He is described in the Ro Iliad as a man possessed of " A plenteous magazine of retail wit Vamp'd up at leisure for some future hit ; Cut for suppos'd occasions, like the trade, Where old new things for every shape are made. To this assortment well prepar'd at home, No human chance unfitted e'er can come : No accident, however strange or queer, But meets its ready well-kept comment here." George James Williams, better known as Gilly Williams, one of Selwyn's friends, died at his house in Cleveland Court, on November 28th, 1805. 50 Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, vi. 37. STREETS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 167 It is to be hoped that most of these houses will be shortly cleared away,, as a continued view from Pall Mall into the Green Park is much wanted.. Among the late Sir Charles Barry's schemes for the improvement, of London, was one in which he proposed .to clear away the obstructions at the east end of Pall Mall, in order to open up. a road into the Green Park, through Cleveland Row. This plan was sketched out at the time that the Marble Arch was about to be moved from Buckingham Palace, and Barry proposed that it should be placed in the Green Park, between Stafford and Bridgewater Houses ; in fact, the position of the latter was fixed in distinct relation to this plan. It is much to be regretted that the scheme fell to the ground. St. James's Place, one of the oddest built streets in London, was commenced about the year 1694, and has been inhabited by many celebrated men. Addison lived here in 1710, before his marriage with the Countess of Warwick. Eustace Budgell, who was his second-cousin and amanuensis, lodged with him. ParnelL.the beloved friend of Swift, Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, lived in this street for a short time. His wife, to whom he wrote the song — " My days have been so wondrous free,'' died soon after their marriage, and he did not long survive her. Pope's friend, William Cleland, lived here, as did another of his friends, James Craggs, the Secretary of State, who died at his house in 1720. White Kennett, Bishop of Peterborough, died here on December 19th, 1728. John. Wilkes lived, in 1756, in "elegant lodgings at a Mrs. Murray's." Colonel Bodens, an immense man, immortalized by Junius's ironical reference to his agility, died in this street in 1762. The Right Hon. Richard Rigby was living here in 1767, when he removed from the Pay Office. Mrs. Delany lived in this place in 1749, and also from 1771 to her death in 1788. Fanny Burney dates from Mrs. Delany's house, in August, 1785. Among the brilliant circle of friends that surrounded Mrs. Delany, were Mrs. Montagu ; Mrs. Chapone ; 1 68 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. the Countess of Bute, daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ; Mrs. Carter ; Hannah More ; Mrs. Boscawen ; Soame Jenyns ; Lord North ; Horace Walpole, &c. Lady Hill, the widow of the notorious quack, Sir John Hill, M.D., lived here in 1780, and Warren Hastings in 1787. Henry Grattan was also an inhabitant of the place, and Sir Francis Burdett died here in 1844. Molly Lepel, Lady Hervey, built a house in 1747, looking into the Park, from the designs of Henry Flitcroft, the architect of the Church of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, and Woburn Abbey. She did not live long to enjoy her pleasant house, but died in September, 1768. On her death, Lord Byron's uncle, the Earl of Carlisle, took possession ; he writes to Selwyn on the 19th of October, 1768 : — " I agree with you, it is very extravagant to give two hundred a year to see a cow under my windows, but still, I am very happy to have the house, and hope you will like the present owner as well as you did the last one." 51 It was subsequently the residence of the Earl of Moira, afterwards Marquis of Hastings. Later the house was divided into two. Spencer House is a handsome stone building, designed by J. Vardy, about the year 1760, for Mr. John Spencer, afterwards the first Earl Spencer. It has two fronts, one in St. James's Place, and the other, which is the principal one, facing the Green Park. On the pediment of the latter front are figures by Michael H. Spong, a Dane. George, second Earl Spencer, K.G., formed his magnificent library, which Renouard calls " the richest private collection in Europe," in less than twenty-four years. The greater number of these superb books, so fully described by Dr. Dibdin, are deposited at Althorpe. Captain Basil Hall, the author of various popular books of travel, lived at No. 4, in 1831. Roger Wilbraham, the book-collector, was at No. 1 1, from 1796 to 1800. The beautiful actress, Mrs. Robinson, who captivated George IV. in the character of Perdita in the Winter s Talc, lodged at No. 14, in 1796. No. 22 was for nearly fifty years 51 Selwyn and his Contemporaries, ii. 335-6. STREETS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 169 the residence of Samuel Rogers, the poet, during which time it was one of the rendezvous of literary and fashionable society, as most of the lions of the season were invited by the banker poet to his celebrated breakfasts. When Rogers, in 1803, took the house, which had formerly belonged to the Duke of St. Albans, he had it altered and nearly rebuilt. He collected around him during his long life a fine collection of pictures and drawings, and other works of art, which were distributed by auction after his death, in 1855. He patronized Stothard, who charmingly illustrated many of his poems. When the Duke of Wellington was showing the Waterloo Shield, he was asked who designed it, to which he replied, " Ward and Green." Rogers interposed " Stothard," on which the Duke said, " Ah ! yes ; Stoddart." 52 By the side of this house is a pathway into the Green Park, which was formerly open. The gate is now locked, and a writer in the Notes and Queries, who used it daily between the years 18 10 and 1823, asks by "whose authority this con- venient passage has been closed." 53 At No. 23 lived, from 1822 to 1832, Sir John William Lubbock, Bart., the banker, and for some years treasurer to the Royal Society. Park Place was built in 1683, and it is mentioned as a new street in the Act creating the parish of St. James's (1 Jac. II. 1685, cap. 22). David Hume, when Under-Secretary of State, in 1769, lived in this street, and William Pitt retired to a small house here in 1801, when he resigned the Treasury. Lord Byron lived at No. 4, Bennet Street, in the years 1813-14, when he composed the Giaour, Bride of Abydos, and Corsair. In his letters Byron sometimes called the street Benedictine Street. Another poet, Richard Glover, M.P., better known as Leonidas Glover, dwelt at No. 9. Arlington Street was built in the year 1689, on ground granted in 1681 by Charles II. to Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington. Its name has deceived many writers on London, 52 Leslie's An tod. Recollections. 5 '' 2nd Series, vol. i. p. 356. 170 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. who have wrongly supposed that it was built on the site of Arlington House. 54 Cunningham says that Lord Arlington sold the ground to Mr. Pym, " who for many years inhabited one of the largest houses in this street, and in whose family the ground still remains!" The "high buildings," as Roger North calls them, were at once inhabited by people of quality. The neglected Duchess of Buckingham, widow of the profli- gate Duke, and daughter of Fairfax, lived here from 1692 to 1694. The following noblemen were living in this street in 1698 : — Lord Brook, Earl of Kingston, Lord Guildford, Lord Cholmondeley, and Earl of Peterborough. In 1708 all these still remained, except the last named, and one of the natural sons of Charles II., the Duke of Richmond, was added to the number of residents. In 1706 the Earl of Kingston was created Marquis of Dorchester, and in an advertisement in the Tatler (August, 1710) his house is referred to : — " In Arlington Street, next door to the Marquis of Dorchester, is a large house to be let, with a garden and a door into the park." This house remained in the family till 1770, when it was sold by the second Duke of Kingston for 16,850/. It was here that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, then a fashionable toast, lived with her father before her marriage. Lords Chol- mondeley and Guildford, and the Duke of Richmond, were still in the street in 1724. William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, lived in a house on the west side of the street in 171 5, and continued in it till he moved to his house in Piccadilly. Sir Robert Walpole lived next door to his rival Pulteney, in 17 16, and continued in the house till 1742, when he moved to No. 5. It was afterwards rebuilt by Kent, and inhabited by Henry Pelham. John Lord Carteret, Earl of Granville, lived for some years in the last house on the west, or Green Park side of the street. After enumerating the four last names, which consist of two Prime Ministers and two Secretaries of State, we see the force of Horace Walpole's remark, that it 54 Malcolm (London, vol. iv. p. 328) is greatly in error when he writes, "Arlington Gardens comprised the ground now occupied by Arlington Street, part of the Green Park and part of St. James's Park." STREETS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 171 was tlie Ministerial street. Writing to George Montagu (December I, 1768), he says : — "I like your letter, and have been looking at my next door but one. The ground story is built, and the side walls will certainly be raised another floor before you think of arriving. I fear nothing for you but the noise of workmen, and of this street in front, and Piccadilly on the other side. If you can bear such a constant hammering and hurricane, it will rejoice me to have you so near me ; and then I think I must see you oftener than I have done these ten years. Nothing can be more dignified than this position. From my earliest memory Arlington Street has been the Ministerial street. The Duke of Grafton is actually coming into the house of Mr. Pelham, which my Lord President is quitting, and which occupies, too, the ground on which my father lived ; and Lord Weymouth has just taken the Duke of Dorset's; yet you and I, I doubt, shall always live on the wrong side of. the way." 5S William Gerard Hamilton lived here in 1779 ; and Walpole, in a letter to Lady Ossory, referring to the effects of a storm on New Year's day of this year, mentions that " one of the Gothic towers at Lady Pomfret's house (now Single Speech Hamil- ton's), in my street, fell through the roof, and not a thought of it remains." No. 5. Horace Walpole lived in this house from 1742 until 1779, when he removed to Berkeley Square. The first four of these years he dwelt with his father, who left him the house. A curious incident in Walpole's life occurred in 1771, when his house was broken open without any of his servants being disturbed. All the locks were forced off his drawers, cabinets, &c, and the contents were scattered about, but nothing was taken away. No. 16. The Duke of Rutland, through whose influence, brought to bear upon Sir James Lowther, Pitt was first returned to Parliament, was living in this house in 1824. In 1826 it was lent to the Duke of York, who died in it on January 5, 1827. 55 Walpole's Letters, ed. 1840, vol. v. p. 227. i72 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. No. 17 was built by Kent, on the site of Sir Robert Walpole's first house, and inhabited by Pelham, who was succeeded by the Duke of Grafton. It afterwards came into the possession of the Earl of Yarborough. No. 20. The town house of the Marquises of Salisbury, which is now being rebuilt. In April, 1786, George III., Queen Charlotte, and the Princess Royal, stood sponsors to the daughter of the first Marquis and Marchioness, when a grand christening took place at this house. The child was named Georgiana Charlotte Augusta, and became afterwards the second wife of Henry Wellesley, first Lord Cowley. The Marchioness, well known as " Old Sarum," was for years one of the leaders of fashion in the metropolis. For her Sunday receptions and suppers, which attracted to her house all the most distinguished society in London, no cards were sent out, but verbal invitations were given. A writer in the New llofitJdy Magazine for 1821, says: — "The man of fashion .... lounges at the subscription house, and votes Sunday a complete bore until it is time to drop in at the Marchioness's in Arlington Street." It is unnecessary to mention the numerous noblemen who have inhabited the other houses, but it is worthy of note that Charles J. Fox lived in the street for a short time, as did Richard Rigby. Lord and Lady Nelson were here in the winter of 1800-1, and the celebrated chemist Brande was born in the street. We now pass the Green Park, and come to Grosvenor Place, which was built in 1767, much to the annoyance of George III. The ground could have been bought for the Crown for 20,000/., but George Grenville would not buy it, and it fell into the hands of the builders. Anne, Countess of Upper Ossory, the correspondent of Horace Walpole, died here on February 23, 1804. She had been the wife of the notorious Duke of Grafton, but was divorced from him on account of his vicious life. George, third Earl of Egremont, the patron of Haydon, who says of him, " Lord Egremont goes about helping everybody who wants it," lived for some STREETS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 173 years at No. 4. No 12 was the town house of the Earls of Carlisle. Sir Henry Hardinge, afterwards Lord Viscount Hardinge, and Commander-in-Chief, lived at No. 32 in 1824. Sir James Graham, the " weathercock " Minister, lived for many years at No. 46. The appearance of this place has been completely changed within the last few years by the extensive alterations made by the late Marquis of Westminster, who has erected noble blocks of houses in place of the old-fashioned buildings that former! v stood on the ground. 174 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. CHAPTER VIII. THE STREETS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. Great Windmill Street is figured in Faithorne's map, with houses on both sides, as far as the Oxford Road, and the Windmill from which it derived its name, is there marked. In 1671, the Windmill Fields are mentioned in a Proclamation (April 7th). One of the early inhabitants of this street, was Colonel Charles Godfrey, who married Arabella Churchill, the mistress of James II., and was living here in the year 1683. Sir John Shadwell, the physician, and son of the poet, was in the street in 1729; but its most celebrated inhabitant was Dr. William Hunter, who lived and died in a large house on the east side. Having accumulated sufficient property to secure his ease and independence, he devoted his wealth to the foundation of an Anatomical School. For this purpose he purchased ground, and built a house in Great Windmill Street, to which he removed in 1770. The museum, besides a large collection of anatomical preparations, contained fossils, and other subjects of natural history, a noble library of classics, and a cabinet of ancient medals, of which a catalogue was published in 1783, by Dr. Combe. Dr. Hunter had an attack of gout a few weeks before his death, on apparent recovery from which he delivered a lecture, that exhausted him, and brought on a paralytic seizure. He expired on March 30th, 1783, and was buried in St. James's Church. His museum was bequeathed by him temporarily to Dr. STREETS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 175 Matthew Baillie, and ultimately to the University of Glasgow, with money to augment and support it. In 1773, John Hunter began to deliver lectures on surgery at his brother's house, which the pupils of St. George's Hospital were allowed to attend gratuitously. Anatomical lectures were delivered, and dissections carried on here as late as 183 1, in connection with the school of that Hospital. The church of St. Peter, on the east side of the street, which accommodates 650 persons, was erected in 1861, from the designs of R. Brandon, at an outlay for the building and furniture of 5,500/. The land on which it is built cost 6,000/., a large sum, which is at the rate of more than 50,000/ per acre. The money was subscribed by the inhabitants of St. James's Parish, principally by the aristocracy, the late Lord Derby being a munificent subscriber. Opposite to Carlton Palace were several low streets, which were cleared away to make room for Waterloo Place, and Regent Street, 1 as a grand vista in front of the Palace ; but no sooner were they got rid of, and the new street built, than the Palace itself was razed to the ground. The largest of this nest was St. Albans Street, called after the Earl of St. Albans, who occupied a house close by in St. James's Square. Dean Swift lodged here in 1710, and Strype, in 1720, describes it as a " handsome well-built street." Here lived Holland the printseller, for whom James Gillray, when young, made drawings, and at whose house he lived. At the time of the great Westminster election, when Fox was a candidate, many of his processions were formed in St. Albans Street, in front of the heir-apparent's house. In these demonstrations, the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, and other ladies of ' haut-ton,' took an active part. They were each dressed in a blue riding habit, with tan gloves, and a fox's brush in the hat or bonnet, from which costume they were called the blue and buff squadron. The building of Regent Street was commenced in 18 13, 1 As the larger part of Regent Street is to the north of Piccadilly, it has been thought better to place it all in this chapter and not to divide it. 176 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. under the direction of John Nash. He was originally a car- penter employed at the Brighton Pavilion, where he attracted the favourable notice of the Prince of Wales, who gave him the appointment of architect to the Board of Works. With all its faults, Regent Street was an immense improvement to the West End, which had long required such a street. It was intended to have carried it straight down from Portland Place, and the great sewer is so constructed, but owing to a disagreement between Nash and Sir James Langham, the crooked street named Langham Place was built to connect them. 2 Portland Place was not originally a thoroughfare, but was terminated at the south end by Foley House, and at the north end by an open railing looking over the fields towards the New Road. 3 Afterwards, Park Crescent was built, and Upper Portland Place added. It required a bold man to disturb the quiet of the aristocratic inhabitants, who used to promenade the street in dishabille ; and Nash would not have succeeded if he had not been backed by his master, the Prince Regent. When Lord Foley built his house he stipulated with the Duke of Portland, the ground landlord, that no other building should be erected on the estate to the north. When buildings were rising all around, the Duke found this prohibi- tion distasteful ; but Adams, the architect, helped him out of his difficulty by building Portland Place the width of Foley House. This was in the year 1778. The Quadrant grew out of a change of plan, owing to the erection of the County Fire Office, by Robert Abraham, in 1 8 19, and was by far the most elegant portion of the whole street. It is still a very beautiful street, although shorn of its columns, which gave it so distinctive a character. The view looking down the street has been marred by the in- tensely ugly roof of St. James's Hall, with its numberless ventilators, which towers over the houses. When the arcade 2 The Builder, 1S63, p. 703. 3 Horace Walpole calls it " the most regular square in London." MS. Notes on Pennant^ quoted in Miller's Fly Leaves, second series, 1855, p. 111. STREETS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 177 was destroyed, the columns were put up for sale on Novem- ber 7, 1848, and a few of them sold to private individuals for 7/. 10s. each, but the remainder were cleared away without having found a purchaser. They were made of iron, and were cast at the Carron Foundry — each weighed 35 cwt. 18 lbs., and cost thirty-five guineas. Nash purchased the ground on which the Quadrant was built at a very high rate, and was ruined, by the undertaking. He inaugurated the reign of stucco, which is now, happily, almost a thing of the past ; and some wit, at the time, made the following epigram on his achievement : — " Augustus, at Rome, was for building renowned, And of marble he left what of brick he had found ; But is not our Nash too a very great master? He finds us all brick, and leaves us all plaster. 4 On the west side of Regent Street are two chapels, which add to its architectural effect. The one in the upper portion of the street is now called Hanover Church, and was built by the late Royal Academician Cockerell, in imitation of the Temple of Minerva Polias at Priene, at a cost of 16,180/. It was consecrated on June 20th, 1825. Ruskin is unnecessarily severe upon the pillars of the portico, which, from the intro- duction of fillets between the rolls of the base, he says, " look as if they were standing on a pile of pewter collecting- plates. 5 St. Philip's Chapel, built after the designs of Sir William Chambers, by G. S. Repton, is a copy of the choragic monu- ment of Lysicrates, also called the Lantern of Demosthenes, at Athens. Owing to the position of the chapel, the altar has been placed at the west end, instead of the east. All Souls' Church, in Langham Place, although nicknamed the " extinguisher church " from its odd steeple, looks well, and forms a finish to the upper part of the street, but its effect has been injured by the erection of the " Langham Hotel," which has completely overshadowed it. 4 Quarterly Review, vol. xxxiv. (1826) p. 193. 5 Stones of Venice, vol. i. p. 275. 12 178 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. In the lower part of Regent Street Nash built two houses, with a courtyard in front ; of these he kept the south one for himself. The gallery, which is now occupied by the Gallery of Illustration, was a very beautiful room when the house was in his possession. After Nash left the house, Rainey, the auctioneer and estate agent, took it. It was during his tenancy that the plans and models for the Nelson Monument in Trafalgar Square were exhibited. The Gallery of Illustra- tion succeeded the auction-room, and the favourite moving dioramas of the Overland Route and Ocean Mail were ex- hibited here. The Gallery has still retained its name under the succeeding reign of light drawing-room comedy and vaudeville, which Mr. and Mrs. German Reed and Mr. John Parry have made peculiarly their own. The other house was formerly occupied by the " Parthenon Club," and has lately been the temporary home of the " New Carlton Club." Sir Robert Thomas Wilson lived at No. 18 in the years 1822-29. This celebrated general incurred the displeasure of the Prince Regent by the part he took in the escape of Lavalette, in 1 8 1 5 ; and was dismissed from the army for his conduct at the funeral of Queen Caroline, in 1821. He was, however, soon reinstated in his position. The foundation-stone of the present " Junior United Service Club-house," at the corner of Charles Street, was laid on March 29, 1855, by the Earl of Orkney, on which occasion he used the same mallet as that employed by Charles II. to lay the foundation of St. Paul's. This mallet was presented by Sir Christopher Wren to the " Masonic Lodge of Antiquity," of which he was grand-master. The building, which is faced with Bath stone, was erected by Messrs. Nelson and Innes, architects, at a cost of about 50,000/. The former mansion, which stood on the same ground, was raised as a portion of the general design of Regent Street, when it was originally built, and was first occupied by the " Senior United Service Club." Waterloo Place, which forms the lower part of Regent Street, is one of the handsomest openings in London. The STREETS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 179 Guards' Memorial, consisting of the figures of three Guards- men, surmounted by the statue of Honour by J. Bell, was erected in 1859-60. Nash proposed to place here a fountain, surrounded by columns, and covered with a dome, but he was perhaps fortunately overruled in his design. On returning to Piccadilly, we come to Air Street, which was in existence in the year 1659, when, according to Mr. Cunningham, it was the most westerly street in London. Piccadilly Place is a short passage of no interest, leading into Little Vine Street, where was the studio of the once famous statuary Scheemakers, in which Joseph Nollekens was placed in his thirteenth year. The Watch-house was pulled down in 1868, and is now being rebuilt on a much larger scale. Swallow Street was named from Swallow Close, a part of the Crown lands granted to Lord Chancellor Clarendon. It was formerly a long street, extending from Piccadilly to Glasshouse Street, and then up to the Oxford Road, but the greater part of it was included in the present Regent Street. Major Foubert, in Charles II. 's reign, moved his Riding Academy from the Military-yard, behind Leicester House, where it had been founded by Henry Prince of Wales, to Swallow Street, opposite where Conduit Street is situated, and his name is still retained in Foubert Passage, Regent Street. A small portion of the upper end of Swallow Street, by Oxford Street, still remains as Swallow Passage, and Swallow Place. The Presbyterian Chapel in this street is one of the oldest Scotch Meeting-houses in London. It was founded early in the eighteenth century, by the Rev. James Anderson, who purchased the chapel from a congregation of French Protestants, that had occupied it since 1692. Mr. Anderson petitioned the Lords of the Treasury for a new lease in 1729, which was granted, and the report of Phill. Gybbon, Surveyor- General, dated April 25th, 1729, on the petition, is printed in the Notes and Queries for January 19th, 1856. Gwynne proposed, in his London and Westminster Improved (1766), to widen Swallow Street, so as to terminate well with St. James's Church. Near Sackville Street, and in Piccadilly, was Maggot's i So ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Court, which is described in Seymour's Survey (1734) as " a handsome place, with a freestone pavement ; and has a passage into Little Swallow Street." Sackville Street was built about the year 1679, and is celebrated for being the longest street in London without a turning. It has also another peculiarity, in that it does not contain a single lamp-post ; the lamps with which the street is lighted, spring from the walls of the houses instead. This street has been inhabited by a large number of eminent men. Sir William Petty, the earliest Political Economist, lived and died in his house, which was at the east corner of this street and Piccadilly. The celebrated " Literary Club " of Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and other great men, met at Prince's in this street, when they left the "Turk's Head " in Gerrard Street, in 1783, on account of its being turned into a private house. When Fox's property was seized at his lodgings in St. James's Street, he was forced to take refuge for a few days or weeks at the house of a friend in this street, a Mr. Moore. G Miss Vansittart, Maid of Honour to the Princess Dowager of Wales, had a house here, to which the Earl of Bute was a constant visitor in 1766; from it he often went in Miss Vansittart's sedan chair to Carlton House. Mr. Hamilton Campbell, who had a house in this street, was a friend of Gay, and was visited by him here. Dr. Joseph W r arton had lodgings here in 1792 ; and in the following year the Earl of Cavan, John second Lord Boringdon, Sir Thomas Egerton, first Lord Grey de Wilton, and the Hon. Mrs. Darner, were living here. Mrs. Darner was the only child of Field-Marshal Conway, and cousin of Horace Walpole. She married the Hon. John Darner in 1767, an extravagant man, who scattered a princely fortune in a few years, and died by his own hand in 1776. He left behind him a wardrobe, which was sold by auction for 15,000/. Mrs. Damer was a most accomplished woman, and was piqued to become a sculptor by some remarks of David Hume. She studied in Italy and 6 Wraxall'S Posthumous Memoirs, vol. i. p. 239. SACKVILLE STREET. 181 Spain, and is thus complimented by Dr. Darwin, on two of her busts : — " Long with soft touch shall Darner's chisel charm, With grace delight us, and with beauty warm ; Forster's fine form shall hearts unborn engage, And Melbourne's smile endear another age.'' She was a devoted Whig, and assisted the Duchess of Devonshire and Mrs. Crewe in their canvass of Westminster for Fox, one of three men she adored, the other two being Nelson and Napoleon. Dr. Warren, the famous physician, lived in Sackville Street, and Mrs. Inchbald, who loved him silently, often walked here at night, in order to see the light in his window. Leigh Hunt appears to have been as enthusiastic as the lady ; for he tells us that he has walked up the street more than once, so that he might tread in the footsteps of Mrs. Inchbald. 7 Charles Kemble lived at No. 5, in 18 19; Lord Bloomfield at No. 6, in 1829; and Lieut.-Colonel Robert Torrens, the political economist, at No. 7, in 1831. Sir Gilbert Blane, the celebrated naval physician, lived at No. 8, in 1822-29, after he left Cleveland Row. In 1782 he was present with Rodney in the Formidable, and by his side on April 12th, when that great Admiral took the French vessel Ville de Paris. In the severe duel between these two great ships, a bantam cock on board the Formidable showed its interest in the scene by crowing and clapping its wings as each broadside was poured into the Ville de Paris. Sir Henry Hardinge, the great General, afterwards Lord Hardinge, was at No. 16, in 1822 ; and Joshua Brookes, the founder of the celebrated Medical Museum, lived at No. 18, in 1 83 1. Sir Benjamin Brodie occupied No. 22, from 1802 till 18 1 8, when he removed to No. 20, Savile Row, where he remained until his death. Robert, Lord Hawkesbury, M.P., son of the first Earl of Liverpool, and afterwards second Earl and Prime Minister, was living at No. 29, in 1800- 1802, and Sir Everard Home resided for many years at No. 30. Arthur Young, the cele- 7 Saunter Through the West End, p. 72. 182 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. brated agriculturist, occupied No. 32, in 1802 ; Dr. Blane, No. 33^ from 1796 to 1802 ; and the Earl of Cavan, No. 39, in 1796. Dr. Prout, the celebrated physician, was living at No. 40, in 1825, and he stayed in the house till his death. We thus see that Sackville Street has been greatly distinguished by its inhabitants. Bond Street was built in 1686, and called after Sir Thomas Bond, of Peckham, Comptroller of the Household to the Queen Mother, and one of the purchasers of Albemarle House. He was a favourite of James II., whom he followed into exile. In 1708, it is described by Hatton, in his New View of London, as " a fine new street, mostly inhabited by nobility and gentry, between Portugal Street. . . . and the Fields," and Lords Abington, Anglesey, and Coningsby, are noted as living here. These three noble lords were still in- habitants in 1724. It is curious that, as early as the year 17 17, " Bond Street loungers" are spoken of in the Weekly Journal (June 1). Many renowned people of all kinds, statesmen, fashionables, and authors, have lived and died in this street. The cele- brated Charles Jenkinson, afterwards first Earl of Liverpool, dated from here in 1756, as did the elder William Pitt in 1766. Grafton House was situated not far from where the Claren- don Hotel stands now ; and here lived Charles second Duke of Grafton, and Augustus Henry, third Duke, who had to bear the hot invective of Junius. His mistress, the notorious Nancy Parsons, was the daughter of a tailor in this street. George Selwyn was in " lodgings opposite y e Duke of Graf- ton's in Old Bond Street," in 175 1. Sir Luke Schaub, a Swiss by birth, who had been English Envoy at Madrid, and Minister in France, till superseded by old Horatio Walpole, in consequence of the machinations of Lord Townshend, lived in this street in 1746. At his death, in 1758, his fine gallery of pictures was sold by auction, and they fetched good prices. One of these pictures, Sigismunda, painted by Furino, but attributed to Correggio, was bought by Sir Thomas Sebright, for 404/. 5s. Its only interest to us BOND STREET. 183 now is that its sale for so high a price provoked Hogarth to paint his fine picture of " Sigismunda," in order to show that he was a better painter than " an old master." Sir Richard, afterwards Lord Grosvenor, ordered it ; but when it was finished, refused to retain it, because he did not like to have it always before his eyes. Hogarth therefore kept it and con- tented himself with writing these lines : — " Nay, 'tis so moving, that the knight Can't even bear it in his sight : Then who would tears so dearly buy As give four hundred pounds to cry ? I own he chose the prudent part, Rather to break his word than heart : And yet, methinks, 'tis ticklish dealing, With one so delicate in feeling." The notorious Countess of Macclesfield occupied a house in Bond Street, where she was besieged by her reputed son, Richard Savage. Here she died on the nth of October, 1753. The Hon. Thomas Hervey, the half-cracked friend of Johnson, who used his wife so badly, lived here in 1763. The Doctor tried to mediate between husband and wife when they were about to separate, and wrote a letter of expostulation to Hervey. Boswell lodged in Bond Street, in 1769, and on the 16th of October gave a dinner to Johnson, Reynolds, Gold- smith, and Garrick. This dinner he describes in his life of Johnson, and Mr. Frith has lately painted the scene, taking as his subject the time when the party is supposed to have just assembled together. There is poor Goldsmith strutting about in his bloom-coloured coat, made by John Filby at the " Harrow," in Water Lane, and Garrick and Johnson joking him on his absurd appearance. The poet of the seasons lodged in this street. Mrs. Piozzi says, " So charming Thomson writes from his lodgings at a milliner's in Bond Street, where he seldom rose early enough to see the sun do more than glisten on the opposite windows of the street." 8 8 Journey Through Italy. 1 84 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Gibbon, when young and fresh from Lausanne, saw little to enjoy in London, where he found " crowds without com- pany, and dissipation without pleasure." In 1760 he lodged in this street, and studied in the midst of the fashionable world around him ; he says, " While coaches were rattling through Bond Street I have passed many solitary evenings in my lodgings with my books." Richard West, the friend of Gray, moved here from the Temple, when he wrote to the poet, " I lived in the Temple till I was sick of it. It is certain at least that I can study the law here as well as I could there." Archibald Bower, the author of the History of the Popes, died in Bond Street, in 1766. The house of Mrs. Miller, described in Tom Jones, was in this street, and here Mr. Allworthy lodged. In 1700, the site of New Bond Street, and the adjoining streets, Conduit Street, Brook Street, &c, was an open field, called the Conduit Mead, containing twenty-seven acres, and belonging to the City of London. Not many years before that date, a thief, who had stolen a silver mug from Dr. Sydenham's house, in Pall Mall, got away, and was lost in the bushes about Bond Street. About the year 1716, Lord Burlington commenced build- ing on the ground at the back of his mansion, and the lessees of the Conduit Mead followed his example, raising several streets, in this open field. 9 On June 1st, 17 17, the Weekly Journal announced that "the new buildings between Bond Street and Mary-le-bone go on with all possible diligence ; and the houses even let and sell before they are built. They are already in great forwardness." One of the earliest inhabitants was Austin, the famous pieman, who is referred to by Henry Carey, in his Disser- 9 An Examination of the Conduct of several Comptrollers of the City ■of London, in relation to the City's Estate called Conduit-Mead now New Bond Street, &r=c., wherein the reasoning of those officers to induce the City to let new leases thereof now, being upwards of twenty years before the expiration of the present lease, is refitted, and the true design of the whole disclosed. By a Person acquainted with the Estate and Proceedings. London, 1743. 8vo. BOND STREET. 185 tation on Dumpling, as a disciple of Braund the cook. " The plague and fatigue of dependence and attendance which calls me to the Court end of the town were insupportable, but for the relief I find at Austin's, your ingenious and grateful disciple, who has adorned New Bond Street with your graceful effigies." Mrs. Delany, when Mrs. Pendarves, lived in New Bond Street, in the year 173 1, soon after it was first built. Bennet Langton, the friend of Johnson, lodged at Mr. Roth well's, perfumer, in New Bond Street, in 1767. He was tall, thin, and long-faced, and was likened to a stork standing on one leg near the shore, in Raffaelle's cartoon of the miraculous draught of fishes. 10 Johnson was proud of his accomplished friend, and once said, " The earth does not bear a worthier man than Bennet Langton." The following memoranda relate to some of the houses in Old Bond Street : — The two houses, numbers 13 and 14, have been handsomely rebuilt to form one architectural whole, by Mr. Truefitt, the hairdresser of the Burlington Arcade, to whose shop they form a front. Robert Triphook, the bookseller, opened a shop at No. 23, after he left St. James's Street. He died in 1868, at the Charterhouse, in his eighty-seventh year. Sir Thomas Law- rence lived at No. 24, which is now occupied by Messrs. Atkinson, the perfumers, and by the Arundel Society. No. 25, now Benson's the watchmaker, was formerly Sir William Call's Banking-House. The new shop-front of Port- land stone, with Lizard serpentine columns and pilasters, is handsome. No. 27 was formerly Ebers's Library. The late proprietor, Ebers, lost 44,080/. by the Haymarket Opera in seven years. Sir Thomas Lawrence, when he was elected president of the Royal Academy, removed from No. 24 to a house then numbered 29. No. 41. Sterne used to lodge in Pall Mall, but in his last 10 Best's Personal and Literary Memorials, 1829-, p. 62. 1 86 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. two or three visits to London he lodged on the first floor of this house, which was then occupied as a bag-wig maker's shop, and here he died on the iSth of March, 1768, in the presence of a hired nurse and a footman sent to inquire after his health. The scene of his death is described in a work written by this footman, which is quoted by Isaac Disraeli in his Literary Miscellanies. The title of the book is as fol- lows : — " Travels in various parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, by John Macdonald, 1790." Sterne was quietly buried at Bayswater, but his body is said to have been stolen, and was recognized on a dissecting-table, at Cambridge, by a friend, who fainted at the sight. It is also said that the landlady sold it to pay the rent, but this is very improbable. No. 16, New Bond Street, is " Long's Hotel." Sir Walter Scott was here in 181 5. " Stevens's Hotel," at No. 18, was a favourite haunt of Byron's. Haydon's picture of " Napoleon at St. Helena," painted for Sir Robert Peel, was exhibited at No. 21, in 1831. Words- worth wrote a sonnet on it : — " Haydon ! let worthier judges praise the skill Here by thy pencil shown in truth of lines And charm of colours ; / applaud those signs Of thought, that give the true poetic thrill ; That unencumbered whole of blank and still, Sky without cloud — ocean without a wave ; And the one man that laboured to enslave The world, sole-standing high on the bare hill — Back turned, arms folded, the unapparent face Tinged, we may fancy, in this dreary place, With light reflected from the invisible sun Set, like his fortunes ; but not set for aye Like them. The unguilty Power pursues his way, And before him doth dawn perpetual run." No. 29, now occupied by Messrs. T. and W. Boone, the eminent booksellers, has been a book-shop for 136 years, that is, ever since it was built. The first possessor of the premises, in 1734, was John Brindley, the publisher of the well-known set of Brindley's Classics. He was succeeded by J. Robson, who BOND STREET. 1S7 bought a portion of the Evelyn Library about the year 1767. In March, April, and May, 1789, he sold by auction the grand library of Maffei Pinelli, which occupied sixty days in the selling. The sale took place "at the Great Room, opposite the chapel, in Conduit Street," but this room was connected with the back premises of the Bond Street House. Messrs. Robson and Clark were succeeded, about 1809, by Nornaville and Fell, who, in 1830, made way for the Boones. Nos. 34 and 35. Mr. Basil Woodd's wine-cellars have been built on the site of an old hostelry, named the " Black Horse." The workmen employed in digging the foundations came upon the remains of the conduit, from which Conduit Street derives its name. Lord Nelson lived at No. 96, in 1798, and at No. 141 the year before. At No. 116, Miss Clark, the grand-daughter of Colonel Frederick, son of Theodore, ex-King of Corsica, painted minia- ture portraits about the beginning of the century. The dash- ing general, Sir Thomas Picton, G.C.B., lived at No. 146, in the years 1797- 1800. He fell at the head of the third division of the British army, at the battle of Waterloo, on June 18th, 1815. Thomas Pitt Lord Camelford, great-grandson of Governor Pitt and great-nephew of the first Earl of Chatham, lived for some years at No. 148, which was kept by a grocer. In 1804 he died at this house, after his duel with Mr. Best, in which he was fatally wounded. Lord Camelford was almost a madman and was a terror to quiet people. In 1801, when a general illu- mination took place to celebrate the return of peace, he was living in these lodgings, but nothing would induce him to suffer lights to be put in his windows. The landlord argued with him, but he remained inexorable, and the consequence was that the windows were broken by the mob. This incensed him and he went out with a cudgel and fought till he was overpowered by numbers, rolled in the gutter, and forced to retreat in a deplorable condition. No. 156 is occupied by the famous goldsmiths and jewel- lers, Hunt and Roskell, formerly the equally well-known 188 ROUXD ABOUT PICCADILLY. firm of Storr and Mortimer; No. 160 is the warehouse for the sale of Copeland's china, and No. 169 is the " Clarendon Hotel." There is a story which connects the name of Charles James Fox with Bond Street. That statesman, when walk- ing here one day with the Prince of AYales, laid him a wager that he would see more cats than he did in their walk. Fox knowing that cats like sunshine, took the sunny side of the street and counted thirteen, while the Prince on the shady side saw none. Cats may seem an odd link of association between two great statesmen, but Lord Oxford, when travel- ling in his coach with Swift, amused himself by counting the poultry on the road, and whichever of the two first counted thirty-one, or^saw a cat, or an old woman before the other, won the game. On one occasion, when they were engaged in this diverting occupation, Lord Bolingbroke overtook them and got into Lord Oxford's coach, with the intention of talk- ing over political questions, but Oxford interrupted him, and cried out, " Swift, I'm up, there's a cat." Bolingbroke was so disgusted at this levity that he returned to his own carriage. Swift refers to these amusements when he writes, — " Tis (let me see) three years and more, (October next it will be four,) Since Harley bid me first attend, And chose me for an humble friend ; Would take me in his coach to chat, And question me of this and that ; As ' What's o'clock ? ' and ' How's the wind ? ' ' Whose chariot's that we left behind ? ' Or gravely try to read the lines Writ underneath the country signs. ***** Such tattle often entertains My Lord and me as far as Staines." Charles Lyttelton, Bishop of Carlisle, a member of " John- son's Club," and President of the " Society of Antiquaries," died at his house in Clifford Street, on December 22nd ; 1768. A " Debating Club" was held at the " Clifford Street STREETS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 1S9 Coffee-house, at the corner of Bond Street, about the year 1788. Canning, Mackintosh, Richard Sharpe, and Lord Charles Townshend, were among the chief debaters. William Mitford, the historian, lived at No. 4, Clifford Street, for many years. Dr. Addington, the father of Lord Sidmouth, lived at No. 7, as did his son the Prime Minister. A letter from the Duke of Wellington, when Sir Arthur Wellesley, to the Right Hon. William Windham, is dated from No. 14. Conduit Street was so called after a conduit of water that was once on the ground. We are told that General Oglethorpe, who died in 1785, frequently shot woodcocks in the fields now covered by these streets. The reason why the General's name always appears to this story, is because he was known as the best shot of his day of birds on the wing. George Canning lived in the street in the years 1802-3. The " Princess of Wales Tavern " was the resort of literary men. Here, in 1772, David Williams suggested a fund for the relief of literary men, which, after great discouragement, was at last started, and is now the " Royal Literary Fund." Bruton Street was called after Sir John Berkeley, of Bruton, the owner of Berkeley House, and has been a fashion- able street for many years. The celebrated Duke of Argyll died here in 1734. " Yes, Sir, on great Argyle I often wait, At charming Sudbrook or in Bruton Street." " In later years Sheridan lived here. No. 16 is the town house of the Earls of Granville. Grafton Street takes its name from Grafton House in Bond Street. Here Fox lived when he was Foreign Secretary in 1783, and here he entertained Ambassadors and distinguished foreigners. The celebrated Admiral Earl Howe, known among the sailors as " Black Dick," from his dark complexion, lived and died at No. 3. He was a great favourite of George III., and also a friend of Benjamin Franklin. The 11 Sir C. H. Williams' Works, 1822, vol. i. p. 31. igo ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. latter visited him and held conferences on American affairs, under the cloak of playing chess with Mrs. Howe, the sister of the Earl. William Scott, Lord Stowell, the great Admiralty Judge, and brother of Lord Eldon, lived at No. II. The Right Hon. George Tierney lived at No. 20 in 18 10. He fought a duel with Pitt in 1798, and became leader of the "Whig opposition on the death of Mr. Ponsonby. Mrs. Fitz- herbert occupied No. 24, in the year 1796. Albemarle Street was named after Albemarle House, which formerly stood on its site. It was commenced about 1684, but was not finished for some years. It is thus described in the " Act for erecting a new Parish, to be called the Parish of St. James" (I Jac. II., cap. xxii., 1685) : — "A certain piece or parcel of ground whereon some stables and tenements are erected, now or late in the tenure or occupation of Sir Thomas Bond, of Peckham, in the county of Surrey, Baronet, and Thomas Bond, Esq., youngest son of the said Sir Thomas Bond, their assign or assigns, tenant or undertenants, con- taining in front next the said street forty feet, and in depth backward seventy-five feet, a little more or less, abutting on the said street north." Hatton, in his New View of London (1708), describes it as " a street of excellent new building, inhabited by persons of quality, between the fields and Portugal Street," and mentions the following three noblemen as living there : Lord Orkney, Lord Paulet, and Lord Portmore. The two first were still there in 1724. Miss Anne Long, sister of Sir James Long, of Draycot, and friend of Swift, was living here in 171 1. She was a great beauty, and one of the toasts of the " Kit-Cat Club." The Earl of Wharton wrote the lines for her glass, which were as follows : — " Fill the glass ; let hautboys sound, While bright Longy ; s health goes round : With eternal beauty blest, Ever blooming, still the best, Drink your glass and think the rest." The Earl of Grantham, Chamberlain to the Princess of ALBEMARLE STREET. 191 Wales, had a house on the east side, at which the Prince of Wales (afterwards George II.) kept his Court in 1717, after his quarrel with the old King, though his levees were slenderly attended. In the next year he went to Leicester House. Dr. Berkeley, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, lodged, when in London in 1724, 1725, and 1726, at Mr. Fox's, an apothe- cary. In August, 1726, he left this lodging. In 1763, a man named Wildman kept a tavern at the house formerly belonging to Lord Waldegrave, which was much frequented by the Opposition, who subsequently established a club called the " Coterie," for the purpose of keeping the party united ; but no political business was trans- acted at any of the meetings. In the History of the late Minority (1766), a list is given of the members, in all one hundred and forty-nine, among whom are the Dukes of Devon- shire, Newcastle, Bolton, Grafton, and Portland, Marquis of Rockingham, Earls Temple, Cornwallis, Albemarle, &c. When the party was disheartened and broken up, the club dwindled away. In 1764, Earl Temple published a pamphlet, entitled A Letter from Albemarle Street, to the " Cocoa Tree" The "Cocoa Tree" was the ministerial club in St. James's Street. Richard Glover, the author of Leonidas, died in Albemarle Street, in 1785. Fox lived for a short time on the west side, a little way up from Piccadilly. Gibbon visited the celebrated Due de Nivernois, statesman and author, at his lodgings in this street, in January, 1763. The Neapolitan Ambassador was here in 1793, and in 1797 the following noblemen were living in this street : — Lord Monson, Lord Gower, the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Thanet, Lord SufField, also the Countess of Bective, Lady Archer, and the Bishop of Winchester. No. 7 was formerly Grillion's Hotel. Here Louis XVIII. resided after his expulsion from France, in 18 14. The cele- brated " Roxburgh Club," founded in commemoration of the immense price realized for the Valdarfer Boccaccio, at the 192 ROUXD ABOUT PICCADILLY. Duke of Roxburgh's sale, held their dinners here, as -well as at the Clarendon, in 1817. " Grillion's Club" was founded in 1805. The members dined together every Wednesday during the Parliamentary Session. The Earl of Dudley, Sir Robert H. Inglis, Agar Ellis, Lord F. Leveson Gower, Sir James Graham, &c., were among the members. Nos. 19, 20, are occupied by the Clarendon Hotel, one of the chief hotels in London, which extends over a large space of ground, and has a handsome garden. Here "Johnson's Club" held its centenary in September, 1864. No. 21. This striking building is occupied by the Royal Institution of Great Britain, which was indebted for its origin to the noblemen and gentlemen composing the Society for bettering the condition of the poor, at whose meetings the plan of its foundation was first formed. The first meeting of the founders of the Association took place at the house of Sir Joseph Banks, on March 9th, 1799; and on the 13th of January following, it was incorporated by Royal Charter. Count Rumford was the original proposer of the Society, and one of those most anxious for its success, to which he greatly contributed. On its foundation its designs were much narrower than those it afterwards included. It was to be an " Institution for diffusing the knowledge and facilitating the general intro- duction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements ; and for teaching, by courses of philosophical lectures and experi- ments, the application of science to the common purposes of life." The following extract shows that this mechanical and practical view of its objects was carried out for some years : — " Here is also the Society's house for the encouragement of improvements in arts and manufactures, or the Royal Institu- tion. The front of this house is barricaded by double windows, to prevent the entrance of cold in winter, and heat in summer. Here is a room for experimental dinners, and a kitchen fitted up upon the late Count Rumford's plan. Adjoining this is a large work-shop, in which a number of coppersmiths, braziers, &c, are employed, and over this a large room for the reception ALBEMARLE STREET. 193 of such models of machinery as may be presented to the Institution. They have also a Printing Office, &c." 12 It is to the laboratory that the Royal Institution owes its chief glory ; from the foundation of that, chemistry dates one of its principal epochs. Since then the history of the insti- tution has been the history of the discoveries of Davy, Faraday, and Tyndall. Davy came to London in 1801, at the request of Rumford, and gave his first lecture in the same year. His appearance was uncouth, though his features were good, and a lady is said to have observed that his eyes were made for something besides poring over crucibles. The connection of Faraday, one of the greatest philosophers of any time, with this institution added a lustre to its already high fame, which had been raised by Davy, Dr. Thomas Young, Dalton, and Brande. Chemistry, although the chief, has not been the only science fostered here, for Roget, Grant, Rymer Jones, Carpenter, Gull, Wharton Jones, Huxley, Owen, and Marshall have all filled the chair of physiology founded by Mr. John Fuller in 1833. Besides science, literature has not been forgotten — Coleridge delivered here his lectures on Poetry, and Sydney Smith his, on Moral Philosophy. The architectural character of the house, which consists in fourteen fluted Corinthian columns, was added in 1838, by Mr. Vulliamy, at a cost of 500/. No. 23. "The Alfred Club House" was established in the year 1808, and for some years was in a very flourishing condi- tion, but it gradually decayed and was broken up about fifteen years ago. Lords Byron, Valentia, and Ward, and Sir Robert Peel were among the members. Byron mentions it as an agreeable evening lounge in his early days. The clergy used to muster in force here, and when Lord Alvanley, the joker, was asked whether he was still a member, he replied, " Not exactly : I stood it as long as I could, but when the seven- teenth bishop was proposed I gave in. I really could not enter the place without being put in mind of my catechism." There was a story that Canning, whilst at the zenith of his 12 D. HUGHSON's Walks Through London, 181 7, vol. ii. p. 244. 13 194 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. fame, dropped in at a house-dinner of twelve or fourteen, stayed out the evening, and made himself very agreeable without any one of the party suspecting who he was. Joseph Planta, the principal librarian of the British Museum, lived at No. 25 in 1829. No. 26 was inhabited in 1800 by the Earl of Bective, and in 1829 by Sir Richard Blagden. Chevalier Brinkman, the Swedish Ambassador, occupied No. 28 in 1 8 10. No. 50. The great publisher, John Murray's, since 1812. " Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times, Patron and Publisher of rhymes, For thee the bard up Pindus climbs, My Murray." His drawing-room was, for some years, the afternoon resort of his literary friends, and Byron speaks of " Murray's four o'clock visitors." In January, 1807, and February, 1808, at the time of the publication of his Hours of Idleness, Byron dated from " Dorant's Hotel " in this street, and a few years later, according to Mr. Jesse, he composed the greater part of the Corsair while walking up and down the street. 13 Dover Street was named after Henry Jermyn, Earl of Dover, nephew and heir of Henry, Earl of St. Albans, who owned the ground, and had a house on the east side of the street. This was the Jermyn so frequently mentioned in Grammont's Memoirs, with whom most of the ladies of Charles II's court were in love. Richard Flecknoe wrote an epigram "To Mr. Henry Jermyn on their demanding why he had no higher titles," — " Still noble, gallant, generous, and brave, What more of titles would these people have ? Harry Jermin's name alone, affords As great and lowd a sound as any Lord's." u The following entry occurs in the Ellis Correspondence?* 13 Memorials of London, vol. i. p. 19. 14 Epigrams of all Sorts, Lond. 1670, p. 32. 15 Vol. ii. 1829, p. 187. DOVER STREET. 195 under date September, 1688: "Two nights ago, the Lord Dover's house, in Albemarle Buildings, was robbed, and a great quantity of plate taken." John Evelyn moved into a house on the east side in 1699. Amongst his many claims to our gratitude is this one, that he drew Grinling Gibbons out of obscurity and introduced him to powerful patrons. The carving that attracted Evelyn's attention went to Cannons. The Earl of Carbery lived in this street in 1698, as did Lords Berkeley, Conway, Gore and Wharton in 1708. The latter nobleman lived here till his death, in 171 5, when he was succeeded by his son, the first and last Duke of Wharton, a worthless genius, who was, Pope says, — " A tyrant to the wife his heart approves, A rebel to the very king he loves." He was outlawed for high treason in 1729, and died two years afterwards. Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, lived and died in Dover Street. Here he collected his magnificent library, which was largely added to by his son Edward, the second earl, who raised the number of volumes to forty thousand. After the latter's death in 1741 his widow parted with the library. The manuscripts were bought by Government for the British Museum for 10,000/., and Thomas Osborne, the bookseller, gave 13,000/. for the books, which had cost at least 18,000/. for the binding alone. The speculation, however, was far from being a profitable one to the bookseller. Humphry Wanley, author of the Wonders of the Little World, and an assistant in the Bodleian Library from 1696 to 1700, was librarian to the first Earl, and lived with him at this house. Wanley was no favourite with Hearne, who, in his diary, calls him " a very illiterate silly fellow." " O Wanley, whence com'st thou with shorten'd hair And visage, from thy shelves, with dust besprent ? " 16 The Countess of Yarmouth, mistress of George II., 16 Gay's Epistle to Pope, ep. 18. 196 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. removed to this street when George III. went to St. James's Palace in 1760. Dr. Arbuthnot, the witty author of the History of John Bull, inhabited a house on the west side of the street from 17 14 to 1721. The " Literary Club " moved to Le Teller's in this street from Prince's in Sackville Street, and remained until 1792, when they went to Parsloe's in St. James's Street. Miss Reynolds, the sister of Sir Joshua, dwelt here after her brother's death. Lord Grenville and Admiral Sir Charles Hardy, Master of Greenwich Hospital, were two other in- habitants of note. The Earl of Ormond lived at No. 20 in 1800. No. 21 was inhabited for some years by the celebrated physician, Dr. William Heberden, who died at this house in 1801. The Spanish Ambassador was here in 18 10. Dr. John Ayrton Paris, President of the College of Physicians and author of Philosophy in Sport made Science in Earnest, was at No. 28 in the years 1822-1844 ; and John Nash, the architect, designed Regent Street and the Regent's Park, at No. 29, where he was living from 1800 to 1823. No. 30 is Ashburnham House, the mansion of the Earls of Ashburnham. Prince Lieven, the Russian Ambassador, lived here in the years 1 824-1 829. Dr. Warren, the celebrated physician, lived at No. 35, and was succeeded by Samuel and Lady Elizabeth Whitbread. No. 2)7 is Ely House, the town residence of the Bishops of Ely. Peter, seventh Lord King, the biographer of John Locke, lived at No. 38. Berkeley Street was one of the two streets built by Lady Berkeley in 1684 under the directions of John Evelyn. It is described by Hatton in 1708 "as the first street from Berkley House toward Pickadilly." Pope lived at No. 9, and was succeeded by General Bulkeley, who died about 18 15. Mr. Chaworth was carried to a house in this street after his duel with Lord Byron, the great-uncle of the poet, at the " Star and Garter Tavern " in Pall Mall on the 24th January, 1765. STREETS OX THE NORTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 197 Stratton Street was the other street built by Lady Berkeley of Stratton, and in an undated MS. plan among the King's Prints in the British Museum it is called " Little Barkley Street." In the list of London residences of the nobility in 1698-9, printed in the Notes and Queries, is the following : " Lord Willowby of Brook, in Stratton Street by Devonshire House." The Hon. George Berkeley, the second husband of Henrietta, Countess of Suffolk, dated from this street in August, 1735. Thomas Coutts, the banker, was living at No. 1, the large corner house, in 1797, and bequeathed it at his death to his widow, afterwards Duchess of St. Albans. It is now the residence of his granddaughter, Miss Burdett Coutts. Coutts married firstly, in 1760, a housemaid named Betty Starkey, and secondly, in 1815, Miss Harriet Mellon, the actress. This lady once dressed up as Morgiana, and, dancing into the drawing-room, presented a dagger to every breast, but when she confronted Nollekens the sculptor, who had acquired the credit of being considered a miser, Fuseli cried out, " Strike, strike, there's no fear ; Nolly was never known to bleed." Coutts surrounded himself with a large circle of acquaint- ances, and was famous for his good dinners. George III. transferred his account from Coutts's bank when he found that the banker had lent 100,000/. to his son-in-law, Sir Francis Burdett, to pay the expenses of the Westminster election. Coutts died in 1822, and left his immense property to his widow. William Gifford was living at No. 7 in 1797, and Roger Wilbraham, the book collector, whose fine library was espe- cially rich in Italian and Spanish works, at No. 11 in 1822-29. Thomas Graham, Lord Lynedoch, G.C.B., the hero of Barossa, lived and died at No. 12. Bolton Street was built about the year 1699, and was then the most westerly street in London. It is thus described by Hatton : " Bolton Str., the most westerly in London between the road to Knightsbridge south and the fields north." The celebrated Earl of Peterborough lived here from 198 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. 1 7 10 to 1724, when the poet Pope was one of his visitors. The Earl, who gained battles against all the known rules of warfare, was more like a hero of romance than an Englishman of the eighteenth century. Walpole likens him to Amadis ; but, besides his bravery and gallantry, he was a man of great wit. He was so great a traveller that he was said to have seen more kings and more postilions than any other man in Europe. There is an amusing anecdote of Peterborough, in which he contrasts himself with Marlborough. He was one day mistaken by a mob for the Duke, who was then in disfavour, and extricated himself from his awkward posi- tion by calling out, " Gentlemen, I can convince you by two reasons that I am not the Duke of Marlborough. In the first place I have only five guineas in my pocket ; and, secondly, here they are at your service," with which he threw his purse among them. — " So throwing sixpence to them, ' There, there, there, Take that,' cry'd Peterborough, with a sneer, — ' Now if you think I'm he, the devil's in it.' " " In 1762 Charles Edward, the young Pretender, is said to have lain in concealment in one of the houses in Bolton Street. The Right Hon. George Grenville, the Prime Minister who lost us America by his stubborn conduct in regard to the Stamp Act, lived in this street, and died here in 1770. His son, the first Marquis of Buckingham, lived here during the time his house in Pall Mall was let to the Duke of Gordon. " George in whose subtle brain, if Fame say true, Full-fraught with wars, the fatal stamp act grew ; Great financier ! stupendous calculator ! — But George the son is twenty-one times greater ! " 18 Clarges Street. Towards the close of the seventeenth century Sir Thomas Clarges, the brother-in-law of Monk, 17 Peter Pindar's Works, vol. ii. p. 300. 18 Roiliad, 1795, p. 129. STREETS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY. 199 first Duke of Albermarle, let a considerable piece of ground adjoining Clarges House to Thomas Neale, groom-porter to the King, on condition that he laid out 10,000/. in building on it. Neale, however, held the ground for ten years without fulfilling his engagement and died insolvent, owing 800/. or eight years' rent to Sir Walter, the son and heir of Sir Thomas Clarges. When the ground returned to the posses- sion of Sir Walter, he built the present street, of which twelve houses were finished in 1717. Eleven were let, and Earl Ferrers, Lord Archibald Hamilton, and Lord Forester were among the inhabitants. Mrs. Delany, when Mrs. Pendarves, and also after her marriage with Dr. Delany, lived in this street from 1742 to 1744. The impetuous old admiral, Earl St. Vincent, lived here, as did also Miss O'Neil, the actress, on the west side. W. T. Brande, the celebrated chemist, lived at No. 2 in 1822-23 ; and Lord Macaulay was at No. 3 in April, 1839, when he wrote his letter to Mr. Gladstone on the question of Church and State. Lord Nelson's Lady Hamilton lived at No. n in 1804, 1805 an d 1806, and the Countess of Stanhope occupied the same house from 1807 to 1829. Edmund Kean lived at No. 12 from 18 16 to 1824, and kept a tame puma in his house. William Mitford, the Grecian historian, dwelt at No. 14, in the years 1810-22 ; curiously enough he succeeded the Roman historian, Gibbon, as Colonel of Hampshire Militia. Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, the great linguist and learned translator of Epictetus, when in London, lived on the first floor of No. 20 till the death of her landlady, on which she took lodgings in Chapel Street, May Fair. She then moved to No. 21 in this street, where she lived during the various winters, till her death on the 19th of February, 1806. Half Moon Street was built in 1730, and takes its name from a public-house at the corner, which was there in 1759. In 1768 Boswell lodged in this street on his visit to London, and here he entertained Dr. Johnson, Dr. Robertson, Baretti, and other literati. No. 1. t Madame D'Arblay lived at this corner house 200 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. during the last few years of her life. It was then a linen- draper's shop, and is now a brush and mat manufactory. Pope, the actor, lived at No. 5, and his first wife, the cele- brated actress (formerly Miss Young), died at the house on the 1 8th of June, 1803, aged 26. The celebrated physician, Dr. Samuel Merriman, occupied No. 26 from 18 13 to 1825 ; and John Gait, the novelist, was at No. 29 in 1830. William Hazlitt, the essayist, lodged at No. 40 for a short time. He came from Down Street in 1827, and went to Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, in 1829. From the end of Half Moon Street we are led into May Fair. The site of this fashionable neighbourhood was for- merly nothing but fields, in one of which, Brookfield, was held annually for many years, the celebrated St. James's Fair, which commenced on May-day, and continued for fourteen days. Leave was granted to the Hospital of St. James's by Edward I., to hold an annual fair, which was suppressed soon after the Restoration, " by reason of the looseness and de- bauchery which was there committed," and was afterwards removed here in 1688. Eleven years after this the following advertisement appeared in the Postman : — "These are to give notice, that on the 1st day of May next, will begin the Fair at the east end of Hide Park, near Bartlet House, and continue for fifteen days after. The two first days of which will be for the sale of Leather and live Cattle ; and care is and will be taken to make the ways leading to it, as well as the ground on which it is kept, much more convenient than formerly for persons of quality that are pleased to resort thither." 19 The playing, gaming, and drinking gave rise to quarrels and disorderly tumults, and the grand jury of Westminster, in November, 1708, presented it as a public nuisance. In the Tatler of April 18th, 1709, we find — "advices from the upper end of Piccadilly say that May Fair is utterly abolished, and we hear Mr. Pinkethman has removed his ingenious company 19 April 6, 1699, No. 597, quoted in J. T. Smith's Streets 0/ London, vol i. p. 14. MA V FAIR. 20 1 of strollers to Greenwich." On April 21st, 1709, plays, gam- ing-booths, and musical booths were all abolished by public proclamation. The Tatler (May 25) makes himself merry over the disperson of the properties of the fair : he says a tame elephant can be obtained at a reasonable rate — " a tiger will sell almost as cheap as an ox, and I am credibly informed a man may purchase a cat with three legs for very near the value of one with four." Houses were built about this time on part of the ground, but they do- not seem to have answered at first. In 1743 they are thus referred to, — "Between Portugal Street in the south and Grosvenor Buildings in the north, was a great open space, bordering on Hyde Park towards the west, where, not long since, May Fair (now suppressed) was held, and which still retains the name of May Fair. Here some enterprising people ventured to build, hoping for the like success as those met with, who had built more to the eastward ; but most of the buildings are running to ruin, some unfinished, and very few inhabited. But as this was formerly the case with the new buildings in Little Lincoln's Inn Fields and Red Lyon Fields, the first undertakers whereof were ruin'd, I'm inclin'd to think that May Fair will e'er long rise into buildings not much inferior to those of Gros- venor Square and Hanover Buildings that lie to the north- ward of it, having the advantage of the neighbourhood of Hyde Park, and lying not so far from St. James's as Gros- venor and Hanover Squares do." 20 The new streets soon, however, seem to have become fashionable, for in Defoe's Tour it is said, " Several fine new streets, as Hill Street, Charles Street, &c, are built near Berkeley Square and May Fair, in a place which herds and herdsmen, very few years ago, only inhabited. But now the residence of many of the first gentry, equally splendid and convenient." 21 Less respectable people than herdsmen once lived here ; for in October, 1723, Jack Sheppard took a lodg- ing in the house of a Mr. Charles, in May Fair. About the 20 History and Present State of the British Islands, vol. ii. p. 101. 21 Ed. 1 761, vol. ii. p. 103. 202 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. middle of the eighteenth century, the fair was revived with a mountebank's stage and various other amusements ; here, among other notorieties, was " Tiddy-doll," the peripatetic seller of gingerbread, who is immortalized by Hogarth in his representation of the " Idle Apprentice executed at Tyburn." On the site of part of Carrington Street, stood the " Dog and Duck," an old wooden public-house, noted for the sale of " Right Lincoln Ale," behind which was a sheet of water 200 feet square, surrounded by a willow-shaded gravel walk ten feet wide. This was the notorious ducking pond, to which visitors were allowed to bring their dogs to assist at the capture of some unfortunate duck. Twopence was charged by the proprietor for a ticket of admission, but the amount was allowed in the reckoning ; and in a handbill, dated 1748, the reason of such charge is said to be in order to keep out " such as are not liked." The fair was not finally abolished until late in the reign of George III., when the sixth Earl of Coventry, who lived close by and was disturbed by the uproar, obtained its abolition. The principal streets in May Fair are Curzon Street, Chesterfield Street, Hertford Street, Great Stanhope Street, and Queen Street. In Curzon Street, opposite May Fair Chapel, was " the Rev. Alexander Keith's Chapel," where marriages were performed (it is impossible to say solemnized) in the same manner as that which has made the Fleet Prison notorious. Here the Duke of Kingston married Miss Chudleigh (her first husband being still alive), and in 1752, James, fourth Duke of Hamilton, married the youngest of the two beautiful Miss Gunnings, a bed-curtain ring being used on the occasion. Keith was in the habit of advertising in the newspapers, but the Marriage Act in 1753 put an end to his iniquitous trade. Here is one of his advertisements — " To prevent mistakes the little new chapel in May Fair, near Hyde Park Corner, is in the corner house opposite to the city side of the great chapel ; and within ten yards of it. The minister and clerk live in the same corner house where the little chapel is ; and the licence on a crown stamp, minister MAY FAIR. 203 and clerk's fees, together with the certificate, amount to one guinea, as heretofore at any hour, till four in the afternoon, and that it may be better known, there is a porch at the door like a country church porch." 22 It has been absurdly stated that George, Prince of Wales, afterwards George III., was married to Hannah Lightfoot by Keith at his chapel in 1759, Edward, Duke of York, the Prince's brother, being a witness. George, Lord Macartney, Ambassador to China, lived and died in Curzon Street. Madame Vestris lived at No. 1, in 1822-23. No. 8 was for many years one of the chief rallying points of literary society, when it was inhabited by the Misses Berry. At No. 14 resided, from 1796 to 1800, Richard Stone- hewer, private secretary to the Duke of Grafton, and Historio- grapher Royal, in 1782. Through his interest his friend Gray obtained the Regius Professorship of Modern History at Cam- bridge in 1768. Sir Henry Halford lived for several years at No. 16. He was the son of Dr. J. Vaughan, and changed his name to Halford, in 1809, on the death. of a cousin of his mother's. He was physician to four successive Sovereigns of Great Britain (George III., George IV., William IV., and Queen Victoria), and President of the College of Physicians till his death in March, 1844. In an attic of No. 24 Sir Francis Chantrey lived when a young man. H.R.H. the Princess Sophia Matilda was living at No. 30 in the years 1822-29. George Selwyn lived in Chesterfield Street in 1766, and Beau Brummell occupied No. 4 in the same street for some years. He was here visited by George IV., who often stayed to dinner with him. The Marquis of Wellesley, then Earl of Mornington, lived in Hertford Street, in the years 1788-97, as did Mrs. Jordan, when under the protection of the Duke of Clarence. George III.'s brother, the Duke of Cumberland, was married to Anne, widow of Colonel Christopher Horton, and daughter of Simon, Lord Irnham, afterwards Earl of Carhampton, at the lady's house, in this street. At No. 10 lived General Burgoyne, 22 J. H. Jesse's Memorials of London, 1847, vol. i. p. 55. 204 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. author of the Heiress ; after him Sheridan occupied the house from 1796 to 1800, and he was succeeded by John Dent, the great book collector. The Right Hon. Robert Dundas lived at No. 23, in 18 10, and the Right Hon. Charles Bathurst, in the same house in 1822. Charles, first Earl of Liverpool, father of the Prime Minister, and better known as Mr. Jenkinson, died at No. 25, in the year 1808. The Dowager Countess of Liverpool was living in the same house in the years 1822-24. Henry Bickersteth, afterwards Lord Lang- dale, lived at No. 36, in 1829, and Granville Penn next door (No. 37) in 1822-24. Great Stanhope Street, a short but important and aristo- cratic street, was built by the polite Earl of Chesterfield, on ground belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. Several celebrated persons have lived here ; two of the most noted being Sir Robert Peel and Lord Palmerston. At No. 1 lived Lord Southampton in 1796 ; the Duke of Bedford in 1 8 10, and the third Earl of Bathurst in 1822. The latter was the son of Lord Chancellor Apsley, the builder of Apsley House, and grandson of the first Earl of Bathurst, who was a friend of Pope. Viscount Cremorne lived at No. 3 for several years. At No. 4, was the Earl of Mansfield in 1823 ; the Marquis of Exeter in 1829 ; and Lord Brougham in 1834. Lord Palmerston lived at No. 9, from 18 14 to 1843 ; and for many years No. 10 was occupied by Bamber Gascoigne, the maternal grandfather of the present Marquis of Salisbury. " Fame says (but Fame a sland'rer stands confess'd) Dick his own sprats, like Bamber Gascoigne, dress'd." The great Minister, Sir Robert Peel, lived for a few years at No. 12. In the drawing-room of this house he was married in 1820, to Miss Floyd. Colonel Barre, the celebrated Whig statesman, who was supposed by some to be the author of the Letters of Junius, lived for a few years in this same house, where he died in 1802. The street still keeps up its character, and is at present inhabited by a Duke, an Earl, a Countess, a Baron, and other titled personages. CHESTERFIELD HOUSE. 105 Sheridan lived at No. 5, Queen Street, in 18 10, and Dr. Merriman at No. 13, from 1796 to 18 10. At No. 20 lived, in 1824, the well-known Radical Member of Parliament, T. S. Duncombe, called the pet of Finsbury and honest Tom, though the publication of his Memoirs leaves it very doubtful whether he was justly entitled to the latter honourable title. The Right Hon. Sir Robert Adair, the celebrated diplomatist, lived for some years at No. 22, where he died in 1855. Beau Brummell, when he left Chesterfield Street, moved to No. 13, Chapel Street, from which house he fled to France in 18 16. Kitty Fisher, the notorious beauty, who made so much noise in her own day but is only known to ours by her portrait, painted by Reynolds, lived in Carrington Street. Chesterfield Hods Bdilt in 1746 The chief glory of May Fair is the fine mansion, Chester- field House, in South Audley Street, which was built by Isaac Ware for the great Earl of Chesterfield. Its present position, surrounded by streets and houses, is very different from what it was one hundred and twenty years ago. The Earl's friends were surprised at his having chosen so desolate a ao6 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. place, and he himself said that he required a house-dog, as he had situated his house among thieves and murderers. This, however, was soon changed, for Chesterfield House became a centre, and the fashionable world came and settled round it. Although the exterior of the house is pretentious and without elegance, the interior is fine, and the Earl was justly proud of it. He watched its progress with the greatest interest, and wrote lovingly about it to his friends. In July, 1748, he wrote to the Marquise de Monconseil, and told her that, he had then no house, as he had left his old one, and his new one was not ready. In six weeks he hoped to be in the new mansion, and he told the lady that all the rooms were to be furnished a la Francaisc. In September he wrote to the same lady and expatiated on the charms of his boudoir, which, he told her, was so called "a non boudare" on the same principle as hiais a non lucendo, for it was impossible to be bored in such a room. He was proud of the large courtyard in front and the large garden behind, two things rare in London though then common in Paris. In March, 1749, he writes to his friend Solomon Dayrolles : "I have yet finished nothing but my boudoir and my library ; the former is the gayest and most cheerful room in England, the latter the best." This library is a handsome room looking out upon the garden. The bookcases, which do not exceed half the height of the walls of the room, are painted white, and above them were a series of portraits of celebrated authors let into white ornamental frames in the walls. Over the fire- place was Shakspeare, by Zucchero ; the others were Chaucer, Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Milton, Sir John Denham, Butler, Waller, Cowley, Earl of Dorset, Rochester, Dryden, Wycherley, Congreve, Otway, Prior, Addison, Pope, Rowe, and Swift. The suite of rooms was elegantly furnished with silk hangings and ornamented in the French taste, but each had its distinctive feature, and its special colour. One room had a large looking-glass made up of pieces, but with all the joins painted over with cupids and roses ; another had its candle-branches constructed to represent gilt tasselled CHESTERFIELD HOUSE. 207 ropes. The Italian drawing-room, besides its splendid glass chandelier, had a noble marble mantelpiece with standing figures. We can picture to ourselves the gay company who came to the house-warming, in February, 1752, sauntering through the rooms, and gazing at the pictures on the walls by Titian, Guido, Rubens, Poussin, Caracci, Salvator Rosa, Canaletti, Yoly, Lely, and Vandyke, and the numberless other objects set before them for their admiration. The great feature of the mansion still remains to be mentioned, and that is the marble staircase with its grand columns, which Lord Chesterfield purchased at the sale of Cannons when that magnificent mansion of the Duke of Chandos was pulled down. The iron-work of the staircase is very beautiful, and the C monogram suiting the name of Chesterfield as well as Chandos, the Earl's coronet only was required to be added above the monogram. On the first floor is the music-room, fitted up with an elegant organ and ornaments illustrative of the beautiful art. The Earl's pride in his house is shown in his will, where he enjoins that if any succeeding Earl attempts to sell or let it, or any part of its offices and gardens, the possession shall pass away from him to the next heir. This entail has probably been broken, as, twenty years ago, the house was let to the present Duke of Abercorn, who lived in it up to 1869, in which year it was sold by Lord Chesterfield to Mr. Magniac for 150,000/. Lord Chesterfield built this house, as well as Great Stanhope Street, on ground belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, and he ever afterwards owed them a grudge for what he considered their exorbitant demands. This feeling is exhibited in his will, where he inserted the following clause : " In case my godson, Philip Stanhope, shall at any time hereinafter keep or be concerned in keeping any racehorses or pack of hounds, or reside one night at Newmarket, that infamous seminary of iniquity and ill- manners, during the course of the races there ; or shall resort to the said races ; or shall lose in any one day at any game or bet whatsoever, the sum of 500/., then, in any of the 2o8 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. cases aforesaid, it is my express will that he, my said godson, shall forfeit and pay out of my estate the sum of 5,000/. to and for the use of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster." Chesterfield declared that he inserted these names because he was certain that if the penalty was incurred they would be sure to claim it. 23 The Earl of Chesterfield, as well as Ambrose Phillips, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and John Wilkes, were all buried in Grosvenor Chapel. Lord Chesterfield desired in his will that he should be buried in the next burying-ground to the place where he should die, and that the whole expense of his funeral should not exceed one hundred pounds. His body was afterwards removed to the family burial-place in Shelford Church, Nottinghamshire. General Paoli and Sir W T illiam Jones both lived in South Audley Street, where Louis XVIII. and Charles X., when at different times exiles in this country, resided in the same house. Egalite, Duke of Orleans, when he visited this country at an earlier period, lived close by. Alderman Sir Matthew Wood had a house at No. 7J ". Queen Caroline took up her abode here on her first arrival from Italy, and showed herself to the mob from the balcony. Shepherd's Market is built on the spot where May Fair was held, and takes its name from a Mr. Shepherd who lived in the low white house on the north side of Curzon Street, and was rated to the poor in 1708. This part of the town was formerly so little esteemed that, in 1750, the freehold of this mansion and gardens was offered for sale at the small sum of 500/. On the death of Lady Reade, Lord Carhampton bought it for 500/., and, after making improvements, sold it to Lord Wharncliffe, then Mr. Stuart Wortley, M.P., for 1 2,000/. u We now return to Piccadilly, and the next outlet is 23 Cunningham's Handbook of London. There is an article on Chesterfield House in the Athenaum for August 28, 1869, but the writer is mistaken in supposing that the place is to be pulled down. 24 J. T. Smiths Antiquarian Ramble in the Streets of London, vol. i. pp. 14, 15- PARK LANE. 209 Whitehorse Street, which has no history, and all that can be said of Engine Street is that it is on the site of one of the figure-yards. Down Street comes next. The corner house of Piccadilly on the east side is occupied by the "Junior Athenaeum Club," who have, perhaps, the most elegant club-house in London. They bought it from Mrs. Hope for 54,65c/., 25 and in addition they have to pay a ground rent of 590/. When this house was in the possession of Mr. Hope, who built it, he was very anxious to get rid of the old public-house at the west corner of the street, but the proprietor would not stir. It was pulled down with some other houses in Piccadilly (Bramah's being one) in May, 1869, and some handsome new buildings will probably rise on the site. William Hazlitt moved to lodgings in this street from No. 9, Southampton Buildings, in the year 1824. It was here that Mr. Patmore met Charles Lamb for the first time. Park Lane was long known as Tyburn Lane from its leading to Tyburn turnpike. Gloucester House, the large corner house of Piccadilly, which is very much in the way, and adds to the inconvenience of the entry to Park Lane, was so called from having been the residence of H. R. H. the late Duke of Gloucester, and is now occupied by H. R. H. the Duke of Cambridge. It was formerly inhabited by Lord Elgin, and here were placed the Elgin Marbles on their arrival in this country. Byron in English Bards and Scotch Revieivers calls it " a stone shop " and — " general mart For all the mutilated works of art." Wilkie obtained an order to see the marbles and Haydon went with him. The latter says — " I felt the future ; I foretold that they would prove themselves the finest things on earth, that they would overturn the false beau-ideal, where nature was nothing, and establish the true beau-ideal of which nature alone is the basis." Haydon afterwards got a ticket for him- 25 At p. 35 it is incorrectly stated that the house was sold by the Duke of Newcastle. 2io ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. self and hurried to Fuseli, whom he fired up with his enthu- siasm. The two went together, and Fuseli strode about, saying, " De Greeks were Godes ! De Greeks were Godes ! " 26 Lord Elgin, when ambassador at the Porte, in 1800, tried, ineffectually, to obtain the co-operation of Government in his aim to benefit art. He established, however, at his own ex- pense, six moulders and artists at Athens, and finding how the works were being destroyed by the Turks, who pounded up the sculpture for lime to build houses, and by travellers, who chipped off pieces to bring home, he applied to the Porte to allow him to take the figures away. After five years of constant anxieties and disappointments they were conveyed to the Piraeus and embarked. In fair weather the pilot ran the ship on a rock and all went down to the bottom. Hamilton, Lord Elgin's secretary, did not despair even now ; he hired divers from the coast of Asia Minor, and every case was recovered and brought safely to England. Few visitors to the British Museum who look at the marbles, think of the difficulties that the public-spirited nobleman, to whom we owe them, had to undergo. He was first maligned for disturbing them, and Byron joined in this cry. Then the dilettanti tried to prove that their antiquity and claims to art were not high, and lastly the nation bought them at so small a sum that Lord Elgin lost between 16,000/. and 17,000/. by them. Charles William, third Marquis of Londonderry, Am- bassador to Vienna, and half-brother of the celebrated Minis- ter, lived at Holdernesse House in 1836. Dorchester House was named after the Darners, Earls of Dorchester. Francis Charles, Marquis of Hertford, the favourite of George IV., who married Maria Fagniani, died here in 1842. The present elegant mansion, which is one of the chief ornaments of London, was built for R. S. Holford, Esq., by Lewis Vulliamy. The interior is worthy of the exterior and the grand staircase is entirely of marble. In this house is preserved a most superb library of rare and costly books. 2(5 Haydon'S Autobiography, vol. i. pp. 85, S6. HAMILTON PLACE. 211 The garden wall of the Marquis of Westminster, in Upper Grosvenor Street (Grosvenor House), occupies a con- siderable portion of Park Lane. It was formerly Gloucester House, and inhabited by the Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III. Among other celebrities who have lived in Park Lane are Warren Hastings in 1790- 1797, and a succeed- ing Governor of India, the Earl of Mornington, who was created Marquis of Wellesley in 1796; Mrs. Fitzherbert, who was married in her drawing-room to the Prince of Wales on December 21st, 1785 ; the Hon. Mrs. Damer, during the winter months, from 181 8 to her death in 1828. Lord Lytton lived at No. 1 about the time of the publi- cation of his Zanoni. Richard Sharp, the conversationalist, lived at No. 23, from 1822 to 1834. Mackintosh termed him the best critic he knew, and Byron always bore testimony to his ability. He made a fortune in commercial pursuits, and died worth 250,000/. Hamilton Place was built in 1805, by Adams, on the site of Hamilton Street, which was called after James Hamilton, Ranger of Hyde Park in the reign of Charles II., and brother of ' la belle ' Hamilton. The old street consisted of twenty small houses and two or three larger ones, which were all pulled down to make room for the present Place. The following is a list of some of the various inhabitants of the handsome houses in this impasse : — No. 1. Lord Montgomery lived here in 18 10, but Lord Chancellor Eldon built the present house and lived in it till his death in 1838. It still remains the town mansion of the present Earl of Eldon. No. 2. John, sixth Duke of Bedford, K.G., was the first inhabitant of this house ; he left in 18 19, and was succeeded by Earl Gower, afterwards first Marquis of Stafford, and first Duke of Sutherland. His widow, the Duchess and Countess of Sutherland, still lived here in 1836. The Right Hon. Thomas Grenville was here from 1840 to 1846, and the Duke of Argyll from 1847 to 1850. No. 3. Edmund Boyle, Eighth Earl of Cork and Orrery, 212 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. occupied this house from 1810 to 1850, but Lord Foley lived here in 1822. The present inhabitant is the Earl of Dalkeith. No. 4. The Earl Lucan was here in 18 10 and the Duke of Wellington in 18 14. On the 1st of July a deputation of the House of Commons waited on the Duke with an address of thanks. He afterwards went to the House to return his thanks in person, and on his appearance all the members rose and received him with cheers. Lord Grenville lived here in 1822, Messrs. P. C. and Henry Labouchere in 1823-29, and Henry Bevan, the banker, from 1840 to 1848. No. 5. The Earl of Buckinghamshire lived here from 1 8 10 to 1829, after which it became, and still remains, the town house of the Marquises of Conyngham. No. 6. The Right Hon. John Sullivan occupied this house in 1 8 10, and was succeeded by the Earl of Belmore. Lord Montague was here in 1829, the Earl of Home in 1843, Lord Southampton in 1847, and W. A. J. Munro, who possessed a fine collection of pictures, in 1848. The present inhabitant is the Hon. Butler Johnston Munro. No. 7. Richard Boyle, Earl of Shannon, lived here from 1 8 10 to 1822, and was succeeded by Philip John Miles, who possessed a fine collection of pictures of the Italian School. William Miles, M.P., was here from 1840 to 1850. When Hamilton Place was first laid out, the leases from the Crown were taken on the understanding that it should never be made a thoroughfare, but owing to the want of a better entry into Park Lane it has been proposed to open up this place and carry the road through the gardens at the end. An Act of Parliament has been passed to carry this scheme into execution, and, at the same time, it is proposed to pull down the houses on the east side in order to make the road the requisite width. ( 213 ) CHAPTER IX. HYDE PARK. Having now walked to the end of Piccadilly, we arrive at Hyde Park Corner. This is the great western approach to London, and the Frenchman who directed his letter to the Duke of Wellington at Apsley House to "No. I, London," hit off very happily its chief characteristic. London, however, is increasing so rapidly, and in its increase is swallowing up with such immense appetite, but so little digestion, all the suburbs, that it is difficult now to say where it begins and where it ends. The " Corner " has long been a celebrated place. It was here that Sir Thomas Wyatt planted his ordnance when he made his unsuccessful attempt upon London in 1554 ; and in the following century, when the citizens of London were resist- ing their king with all the power they possessed, and when even women, " From ladies down to oyster wenches," ' assisted in the erection of ramparts round the metropolis, a fort with four bastions was thrown up at Hyde Park Corner, in order to oppose the threatened approach of the Royal army in 1642. The turnpike, which originally stood at the end of Berkeley Street, was removed in 1721 to Hyde Park Corner, and here it remained till October, 1825, when it was sold and cleared away. 2 1 Hudibras, part ii. canto 2. 2 In Hone's Every Day Book there is a woodcut of the condemned toll-gate as it appeared when sold by auction. 214 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. The present entrance to Hyde Park, which consists of a triple archway combined with a fluted Ionic screen designed by Decimus Burton, was completed in 1828 : the frieze is by- Archibald Henning, and the gates by Messrs. Bramah. The triumphal arch opposite was built about the same time, and is an adaptation of the Arch of Titus at Rome. It was originally intended as a private entrance to Buckingham Palace, and in contemporary engravings is called the entrance or lodge to the King's Palace ; and in the Penny Magazine for 1832 "George IV.'s gate;" but the road from Constitution Hill was subsequently turned to allow of public access. " This is the entrance, the triumphal arch Which, 'tis said, will be probably finish'd in March, (And compared with the elegant gates of Hyde Park May justly be term'd tasteless, gloomy, and dark'." 3 It is now better known as the Wellington Arch, from the colossal equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, by Matthew Cotes Wyatt, which was erected on its summit in the year 1846. The old soldier was pleased to see from the window of his house this monument of the estimation in which he was held by his country, but all the art critics were opposed to its being placed in so inappropriate a position. As, however, the huge mass has been raised to so great a height, it is likely to remain there for many years to come. A little time before the completion of the statue, and while it was still at the artist's studio, the body of the horse was fitted up as a refectory, and twelve gentlemen sat down within it, and drank to the health of Mr. Wyatt in what must have been a rather uncomfortable position. 4 In the last century Sir John Soane made a design for an entrance into Hyde Park from Piccadilly, the cost of which was estimated at 10,000/. It was approved by George III. and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1796, but its erection was 3 The Palace that N\as]h Built, by I. Hume. i:mo. London (1829 ?). 4 Richardson's Recollections of the Last Half Century, 1856, vol. ii. p. 209. HYDE PARK. 215 postponed on account .of the expense. Sir John proposed a similar entrance for St. James's Park on the opposite side of the street, and afterwards designed a connection between the two, the whole being intended as a monument to com- memorate the victories of Trafalgar and Waterloo ; but the present entrances are in every way superior to these elaborate but rather ugly designs by Soane. 5 It has been proposed by Mr. H. S. Snell that the entrance gateway to Hyde Park should be shifted so as to open directly upon Rotten Row and the Lady's Mile. By this means the gates would be seen better from Piccadilly, and that pressing want, a relief to Park Lane, would be obtained by the creation of a public roadway passing by Apsley House and Hamilton Gardens, and leading into Park Lane at Stanhope Gate. 6 Near by Hyde Park Sir Samuel Morland, the projector, had a country house, which he called his hut, where he exhibited all kinds of curious absurdities : — "And dear Sir Samuel's next device ; Whether it be a pump or table, Glass house or any other bauble." 7 Some of his inventions were important and valuable, and among these was the speaking-trumpet, which he called Tuba Stentorphonica. Butler introduces it into Hudibras as follows :- — " I heard a formidable voice, Loud as the Stentorphonic noise." This trumpet, in length four and a half feet, was tried in St. James's Park in 1670, and was heard at the distance of nearly half a mile. A large one, sixteen feet long, was heard over the sea at Deal, between two and three miles off. 8 5 Engravings of these designs are in Sir John Soane's Designs for Public and Private Buildings, fol. Lond. 1832. 6 The Builder, 1867, pp. 153, 237. 7 Poems on Stale Affairs, ed. 1703, vol. i. p. 133. 8 Notes and Queries, 3rd series, x. p. 295. :i6 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Sir Samuel was one of Thurlow's under-secretaries, and was intrusted with secrets by Cromwell's government, which he betrayed to Charles II. Pepys says he was looked on as a knave though the king honoured him. 9 Two years of the early life of a more celebrated man than Morland were spent at Mr. Dean's academy, which was situated near Hyde Park Corner. This was the poet Pope, who when here assisted at the getting up of a play founded on an adventure in Homer, in which the gardener acted the part of Ajax. St. George's Hospital, aiier R. Wilson, H.A., 1746 On the site of St. George's Hospital, but fronting towards Hyde Park, stood Lanesborough House, the country resi- 9 Morland wrote an autobiographical letter to Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, in exculpation of his conduct. This letter is preserved among the Lambeth MSS., and is printed in the Appendix to Letters on Science in England, edited by J. O. HALLIWELL. 1841. HYDE PARK. 217 dence of Theophilus, first Lord Lanesborough, who inscribed on its front the following distich : — " It is my delight to be Both in town and country." This nobleman was extremely fond of dancing, and Pope ridicules him as — " Sober Lanesborough dancing with the gout ;" but if he was an absurd man in many respects, he did a public benefit when he caused the upper gallery round the dome of St. Paul's to be gilded at his own expense. St. George's Hospital was founded by some dissentient governors of the Westminster Infirmary, which was originally founded in Petty France in the year 17 19, and was the first hospital for the sick supported by voluntary contributions. In 1724 the Infirmary was removed to Chappell Street, but more room being required, two places were proposed ; the one being some houses belonging to a Mr. Green, and the other Lanesborough House. The majority of the governors were in favour of the former, but the minority and the medical officers seceded in 1733 and took Lanesborough House, which was opened for the reception of patients on Jan. 1, 1733-34. It was soon found to be too small, and wings were added to the old house. In 1825 it was decided that an entirely new house should be erected, and the rebuilding was forthwith commenced by William Wilkins, R.A., in the rear of the old hospital, and was finished in 1834. In 1851 the south wing was extended at its western end, and in 1859 the north and south wings were raised a story. Many of the most distin- guished men of the profession have been connected with this hospital. William Cheselden was surgeon from 1733 to 1738 ; John Hunter from 1768 to 1793 ; Sir Everard Home from 1793 to 1829; Sir Benjamin Brodie from 1808 to 1840. Dr. Benjamin Hoadly, the son of the well-known Bishop of Bangor, and the author of the Suspicions Husband, was physician from 1735 to 1 75 1 ; Dr. Mathew Baillie from 1787 218 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. to 1800; and Dr. Thomas Young from 181 1 to 1829. The great physician Dr. William Hunter was a surgical pupil at this hospital in 1741 ; and here died his still more celebrated brother, John Hunter, of disease of the heart on the 16th of October, 1793. The world-renowned Tattersall's Repository was established in 1793, in the rear of St. George's Hospital, by Richard Tattersall, the Duke of Kingston's training-groom, who died here in 1795. This place, so long known as " the Corner," stood on the verge of the Five Fields, now covered by the fashionable district of Belgravia. When the Marquis of Westminster made his extensive clearings, Tattersall's was removed to a spot lying near the junction of the Brompton and Kensington Roads, where an ugly building has been erected for its reception. Adjoining the Hospital at St. George's Place, at No. 4, died, on November 9, 1809, Paul Sandby, one of the founders of the English school of water-colour painting and an original Royal Academician. John Liston, the celebrated actor, lived for several years at No. 14, where he died on March 22, 1846. As we now pass Hyde Park Corner and Knightsbridge, it is difficult to picture to ourselves the retired country-place which was formerly infested with footpads. Knightsbridge (called after the manor of Neate or Neyte) was for many years a very dangerous place, and the little inns round about were frequented by highwaymen. In November, 1774, two men were executed at Tyburn for robbing the Knightsbridge stage-coach. 10 The popular estimation in which the place was held is seen in the following extract from the MS. addi- tions to Mr. Nichols's copy of Norden's Speculum Britannia} 1 " Kingesbridge, commonly called Stone Bridge, is near Hyde Park Corner, where I wish no good man to walk too late, unless he can make his partie good." Hyde Park occupies the site of the ancient manor of 10 GcntlemcnCs Magazine, 1774, p. 592. 11 Quoted in Wilkinson's Londina Ilhisirata, vol. i. HYDE PARK. 219 Hyde, 12 which formerly belonged to the monastery of St Peter at Westminster, by whose chiefs the ground was en- closed. In the year 1536, Henry VIII. exchanged the priory of Hurley in Berkshire with the monks of Westminster for the two manors of Hyde and Neyte. From an early period the Park was fenced in for the pro- tection of the deer, which were frequently hunted. In 1550 Edward VI. invited the French Ambassador and the Com- missioners then in London to conclude the peace with France to enjoy the sport ; 1S and in Elizabeth's reign, the Duke John Casimir, K.G., son of Frederick III., Elector Palatine, and brother of the reigning Elector Lewis VI., then visiting Eng- land, was taken to divert himself in the Park. Here in February, 1578, "he killed a barren doe with his pece .... from amongst ccc. other deere." u John Norden, the topographer, thus describes the place about this time : — " Hyde Parke, substantially impayled with a fayre lodge and princelye standes therein. It is a stately parke, and full of fayre game. The right honorab. lo : Huns- don, Lord Chamberlayne to her Majestie, maister of the game." 15 The game was kept with great strictness, and in October, 1 619, some deerstealers were executed at Hyde Park Gate, and with them a poor labourer, who was hired for is. 4c/. to hold their dogs. 16 In January, 1625, a warrant was sent to the keeper of Hyde Park to cause three brace of bucks to be taken to Marybone Park, to supply the scarcity caused by the great rain there ; and another warrant to the master of the toils for 12 There is a popular, but altogether erroneous notice, that Hyde Park takes its name from Lord Chancellor Hyde (Lord Clarendon). 13 Tytler's England under Edward VI. and Mary, 2 vols. 8vo, 1839, vol. i. p. 288. 14 Letter from Gilbert Talbot and his wife to the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. — Lodge's Illustrations of Brit. Hist.\ 1791, vol. ii. p. 205. 13 Speculum Britannia?, Harl. MS., No. 570, fol. 30. 16 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1619-23, p. 88. 220 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. the toils to be sent to Hyde Park, so that this might be performed. 17 Charles I. wished the Park to be walled in, but his troubles prevented him from carrying out his intention, and it was not until after the year 1670 that a wall was erected round it. On the return of James I. from Scotland, in September, 1 61 7, he was met in Hyde Park as he came from Windsor, by the lord mayor and aldermen, and about 400 citizens. In this reign the Park had become a public resort ; and Ben Jonson, in the prologue to his comedy, The Staple of News, which was first acted in the year 1625, thus refers to the scene which was daily to be seen there : — " Alas ! what is it to his scene, to know How many coaches in Hyde Park did show Last spring." Henry Rich, a favourite of James I., and afterwards Earl of Holland, was appointed Keeper in 161 2, and he apparently suggested the subject of James Shirley's play, entitled Hyde Park, a Comcdie, which was licensed in April, 1632, and first printed in 1637. The author, in his dedication to Lord Holland, says : — " The comedy in the title is a part of your lordship's command which heretofore graced and made happy by your smile, when it was presented after a long silence upon first opening of the Park, is come abroad to kiss your lordship's hand." 18 Several of the scenes are laid in the Park, and a pleasing picture of its beauty is drawn by the author. The nightingale is heard, and Lord Bonvile says (Act iii. scene 1) : — " Lady, you are welcome to the spring ; the Park Looks fresher to salute you : how the birds On every tree sing, with more cheerfulness At your access, as if they prophesied Nature would die, and resign her providence To you, fit only to succeed her." The Park at this time was a country place, entirely cut off 17 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1623-25, p. 445. 18 Dramatic Works, ed. Dvce, 1833, vol. ii. HYDE PARK. 221 from the town, and Charles I. and his nobility frequented it on account of the freshness of the air. Horse and foot races became frequent, and it was to witness one of these that the characters in Shirley's play were drawn together. The following song, in the fourth act, is curious as giving the names of some of the race-horses : — " Come, Muses all, that dwell nigh the fountain Made by the winged horse's heel, Which firk'd with his rider over each mountain ; Let me your galloping raptures feel. I do not sing of fleas or frogs, Nor of the well-mouth'd hunting dogs. Let me be just, all praises must Be given to well-breath'd Jilian Thrust. Young Constable and Kill Deer's famous, The Cat, the Mouse, and Neddy Gray ; With nimble Peggybrig, you cannot shame us, With Spaniard nor with Spinola. Hill-climbing White Rose praise doth not lack, Handsome Dunbar and Yellow Jack; But if I be just, all praises must Be given to well-breath'd Jilian Thrust. Sure-spurred Sloven, true-running Robin, Of Young Shaver I do not say less, Strawberry Soavi, and let Spider pop in, Fine Brackley, and brave Lurching Bess. Victorious too was Herring Shotteu, And Spit-ill's- Arse is not forgotten ; But if I be just, all honour must Be given to well-breath'd Jilian Thrust. Lusty George, and, gentlemen, hark yet, To winning Mackarel, fine-mouth'd Freak Bay Tarrall that won the cup at Newmarket, Thundering Tempest, Black Dragon eke. Precious Sweet Lips I do not lose, Nor Toby with his golden shoes ; But if I be just, all honour must Be given to well-breath'd Jilian Thrust. When this play was acted in 1668, Pepys tells us that horses were brought on the stage ; so that the realistic practice in 222 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. the sensational plays of the present day is not without old precedent. In March, 1635, articles of agreement were entered into between John Prettyman and John Havers to run a match with two of their horses for 100/. each, on April 25, between nine and ten in the forenoon, to start together " at the upper lodge in Hyde Park, and to run the usual way from thence over the lower bridge unto the ending place at the Park gate. 19 The races are referred to in The Jovial Crew ; or, The Merry Beggars, by Richard Brome, a play acted in 1641, and printed in 1652. Tyburn, situated at the north-east corner of the Park, was for many years the chief place of execution for criminals, and Roger de Wendover relates that William Fitzosbert or Long- beard was executed there in the year 1196. There is in the Crowle Pennant a representation of Queen Henrietta Maria doing penance under the gallows at Tyburn ; and it was long believed that she walked barefoot through the Park to that place, in obedience to the direction of her confessor. The Queen always denied the truth of this report ; and it does seem exceedingly improbable that she should have demeaned herself so far. The Park being Crown property was sold by order of Parliament in 1652, for about 17,000/., in three lots, the pur- chasers being Richard Wilcox, John Tracy, and Anthony Deane. Deane paid 9,020/. 8s. 2d. for what was called the Banqueting House division, Tyburn Meadows, the middle division, &c, " with that small portion of ground taken out of the parke, and used as a fortification called Parke Corner." Richard Wilcox gave 4,141/ lis. for the gravel-pit division, and John Tracy 3,906/ js. 6d. for the Kensington division. 20 19 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1634-35, p. 605. 20 The full particulars of the three lots are printed in Thomas Smith's Historical Recollections of Hyde Park, 1836, pp. 6-9. The origin of the name Bayswater is found in the Inventory as " Bayard's Watering." In A Plan of the Palace, Gardens, and Town of Kensington, by J. Rocque, a place in the Oxford Road, nearly opposite the head of the Serpentine, is marked as Bafs Watering. HYDE PARK. 223 Although the Park was thus sold it still continued to be frequented by the people, but all riders were made to pay for the privilege of taking the air in it. To the great disgust of those who were taxed, one shilling was charged for every carriage, and sixpence for every horse, that entered the Park. Evelyn calls the imposer of this fine " a sordid fellow." 21 The same author, in a little tract which he wrote under the disguise of a Frenchman and entitled A Character of England, 165 1, gives a very unflattering description of the frequenters of the Park at this time. It is as follows : — " I did frequently in the spring accompany my Lord N into a field near the town, which they call Hyde Parke — the place not unpleasant and which they use as our course ; but with nothing that order, equipage, and splendour, being such an assembly of wretched jades and hackney coaches as next a regiment of carremen, there is nothing approaches the re- semblance. This Parke was (it seems) used by the late king and nobility for the freshness of the air and the goodly pro- spect ; but it is that which now (besides all other excises) they pay for here in England, though it be free in all the world beside ; every coach and horse which enters buying his mouth- ful, and permission of the publicane who has purchased it, for which the entrance is guarded with porters and long staves." ~~ The following interesting letter shows the Park three years later, when Cromwell and his family were among the visitors : — "It is sayd on all handes y l Mrs. Garrard is very shortly to marry her old servant Mr. Heveningham, whose son, they say, died about f rs of a yeare since, and that is his incentive to marriage ; all y l family is very well, as their freq 1 being in Hyde parke doth verifie, where still also I see Mrs. Bard's faire eyes. Yesterday each coach (& I believe there were 1500) payd 2s. 6d., and each horse is., but y e benefit accrewes to a brace of cittizens who have taken y e herbage of y e parke of Mr. Deane, to w ch they adde this excise of beauty : there was a hurlinge in y e paddocke-course by Cornish gentlemen for 21 Diary, April nth, 1653. 22 Evelyn's Miscellaneous Works, 1825, p. 165. 224 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. y e greate solemnity of y e daye w ch indeed (to use ray Lord protectors word) was great : when my Lord protectors coach came into y e parke w th Col. Ingoldsby and my lord's daughters onely (3 of them all in greene-a), the coaches and horses flocked about them like some miracle, but they galloped (after y e mode court-pace now, and w ch they all use where-ever they goe) round and round y e parke, and all y l great multitude hunted them and caught them still at y e turne like a hare, and then made a lane with all reverent haste for them, and soe after them againe, that I never saw y e like in my life." 23 It is a great mistake to suppose that, during the Common- wealth, there was no outward gaiety or frivolity. In 1656 was published a work entitled The Yellow Book : or, a Serious Letter sent by a Private Christian to the Lady Consideration, the first of May, 1656, which she is desired to communicate in Hide Park to the Gallants of the Times a little after sun-set ; also a brief account of the names of some vain persons that intend to be there, whose company the new Ladies are desired to forbear. Among the ladies expected to be present in the park were " Mrs. Dust, Madam Spot, and my Lady Paint." 2i Cromwell was a frequent visitor to the Park, from which he twice narrowly escaped with his life. In October, 1654, he went there for a drive, accompanied by Thurloe and a few gentlemen and servants. After dining at the lodge, he, on his return, put the secretary inside and took a fancy to drive the coach home himself. Henry Oldenburgh, agent to England from the Republic of Lower Saxony during the Common- wealth, who was afterwards, in Charles II.'s reign, Secretary to the Royal Society, had presented Cromwell six German horses, which, on this occasion, the Protector tried to drive. He got on very well at first, but, using the whip too freely, he irritated the spirited horses, and they ran away. He was soon dashed to the ground, and, to add to his danger, a pistol 23 Letter of J. B. to Mr. Scudamore, London, 2 Maii, 1654. — Notes and Queries, 2nd series, vol. iv. p. 187. 24 Notes and Queries, 2nd series, vol. vii. p. 395. HYDE PARK. 225 went off in his pocket as he fell. He was taken home and bled, and rapidly got well again. " But Noll, a rank rider, gets first in the saddle, And made her show tricks and curvate and rebound : She quickly perceiv'd that he rode widdle-waddle, And like his coach-horses, threw his highness to ground.'"-"' About a year and a half after this escapade he wonderfully escaped from a plot for his assassination, which had been well arranged to be carried out within the Park. Horse-races were not allowed during the Commonwealth, but coach-races appear to have found favour with the people, and Evelyn went to see one in the Park on May 20th, 1658. Although the Puritans had the power to prohibit certain sports, they were not able to make the mass of the people despise amusements. All classes went a-maying, and in May, 1654, a grand hurling match took place here at which Cromwell and many of his Council were present. There were fifty Cornish gentlemen on one side who wore red caps, and fifty on the other who wore white. The ball used on the occasion was silver, and became the property of the winning side. 20 At the Restoration the men who had purchased the Park from the Parliament found themselves in an awkward predica- ment, for of course the sale was held to be invalid. Among the various petitions presented to the King was one from John Tracy, who " was thirty-eight years a merchant in the United Provinces, and returning in 1652 was drawn in to buy Crown lands in Hyde Park worth 7,000/., and in Lord Craven's lord- ship of Combe worth 2,100/., but was never engaged in hostility, and preserved the timber and planted the ground thus preserved [and he] begs therefore a grant of two houses, which he built on the road at Knightsbridge to secure him from ruin." 27 James Reade, servant to the Duke of Gloucester, petitioned 2-1 Political Ballads, ed. WlLKiNS, i860, vol. i. p. 160. 2ti Moderate Intelligencer, 26 April to 3 May, 1654. 27 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1660-61, p. 295. 15 226 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. " for a grant of the house and demesnes at Acton, formerly- held by Mr. Barkstead, late Lieutenant of the Tower, worth 60/. a year, and of the keeping of lodge and gate of Hyde Park now held by Deane, who was the cause of his sufferings. [His claims are that he] has been often imprisoned, was fed sixteen weeks on bread and water, and was two years and three quarters in the Tower in heavy irons and without light." 28 Charles II. granted the office of keeper of the Park to his brother Henry, Duke of Gloucester, who died on the 24th September, 1660, only four months after the grant had been made out. 29 In November of the same year the office of keeper or ranger was granted to James Hamilton, one of the grooms of the Bedchamber. The daily fee to be received by the ranger was not large, in fact, was only eightpence, 30 but he made money by the letting of certain houses and farms in the Park. In December, 1664, Hamilton was granted a lease for thirty-one years of certain messuages and tenements at a rent of 1 as - ., "with the covenant that he shall make leases thereof to purchasers to be appointed at half the improved rents." 31 In May of the following year a grant of fifty-five acres at the north-west corner of the Park was made to Hamilton and to George Birch, on condition that the land was planted with choice apple-trees, and that half the apples were delivered for the king's household. 32 In 1671 the "herbage and pannage, and the conies," were granted to Hamilton, " and the wood cut, 28 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1660-61, p. 171. 29 George Roper, who was appointed in the reign of Edward VI., is the first keeper on record. In 1554 the office was divided, and Francis was appointed one of the keepers. In the sixteenth year of Elizabeth's reign Henry Carey Lord Hunsdon was granted the office, in which he was succeeded by Sir Edmund Carey. In 1607 Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, was given the custody of the Park, and on his death in 161 2 it was granted for life to Sir Henry Rich, afterwards created Earl of Holland, and beheaded in 1649. 30 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1660-61, pp. 77, 36S. 31 Ibid., 1664-65, p. 127. 32 Ibid., 1664, pp. 361, 383. HYDE PARK. 227 or to be cut for the browes of the deer, commonly called browsewood." 33 It was not till after the year 1670 that the Park was surrounded by a brick wall, and replenished with deer. The greater part of it was a wild and unfrequented waste. In 1675, when Charles II. resolved to found a royal observatory, Hyde Park was one of the places proposed for its site, but Wren recommended Greenwich, and his wish was carried into execution. The Ring, which was the constant resort of all the gallantry of the court, and " the rendezvous of magnificence and beauty," 34 was a small enclosure of trees, round which the carriages circulated. When, therefore, we read that a foot- race was run three times round the Park, it only means three times round the Ring. The writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are full of allusions to the glories of Hyde Park. Phil. Porter, when leaving London, with regret says — " Farewell the glory of Hyde Park, Which was to me so dear, Ah ! since I can't enjoy it more, Would I were buried there." 35 As Charles II. was fond of being out of doors, he spent most of his time in walking in St. James's Park and riding in Hyde Park, and wherever the King went his Court were sure to follow. Evelyn speaks of the " innumerable appearance of gallants and rich coaches," 36 and in a ballad of the year 1670, entitled News from Hide Park, we are informed that, " Of all parts of England, Hide Park hath the name For coaches and horses and persons of fame." 37 But for all this praise the coaches were very clumsy and un- comfortable, and the Count de Grammont gained great eclat 33 Thirtieth Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Records, p. 367. 34 Grammont's Memoirs. 35 Wit and Drollery, 1682, pp. 36-40. 36 Diary, May 1, 1661. 37 Roxburgh Ballads, ii. 379 (B.M.) 228 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. by having an elegant and magnificent calash made in France at a cost of 2,000 louis. When the coach came over he pre- sented it to the King, and all the Court were lost in admira- tion of its beauty. The Queen rode in it for the first time in company with the Duchess of York. Lady Castlemaine seeing them in it desired the King to lend it to her to appear in Hyde Park on the first fine day. Miss Stewart entertained the same wish, and required it on the same day. The King was perplexed, but Miss Stewart gained the day, much to the rage and mortification of Lady Castlemaine. No doubt Gay accurately describes the behaviour of the crowd of fashionables who slowly passed and repassed along the dusty road which furnished Pope with a simile, — " Sooner shall grass in Hyde Park Circus grow." M Gay writes : — " Was it for this I sparkled at the Play, And loiter'd in the Ring whole hours away? When if thy chariot in the circle shone, Our mutual passion by our looks was known. Through the gay crowd my watchful glances flew, Where'er I pass thy grateful eyes pursue." 39 The Grand Duke Cosmo, when in England in 1669, was a frequent visitor to the Park, and it is thus described in his Travels : — " Hyde Park is a large and spacious meadow, in which many carriages of ladies and gentlemen assemble in the evening, to enjoy the agreeableness of the place ; which, how- ever, was greatly diminished by the Protector Cromwell, who, in order to render the vicinity of London more open, cut down the elms which were planted there in rows. The king and queen are often there, and the duke and duchess, towards whom at the first meeting, and no more, all persons shew the usual marks of respect, which are afterwards omitted, although they should chance to meet again ever so often, every one being at full liberty, and under no restraint j9 r Rape of the Lock, canto iv. 1. 117. Gay's Araminta, an Elegy. HYDE PARK. 229 whatever ; and to prevent the confusion and disorder which might arise from the great number of lackies and footmen, these are not permitted to enter Hyde Park, but stop at the gate waiting for their masters." 40 The Frenchman Misson, writing in the reign of William III., thus pictured the place and the company: — "Here the people of fashion take the diversion of the Ring ; in a pretty high place which lies very open, they have surrounded a circumference of two or three hundred paces diameter with a sorry kind of ballustrade, or rather, with poles plac'd upon stakes, but three foot from the ground ; and the coaches drive round and round this. When they have turn'd for some time round one way, they face about and turn t'other : so rowls the world." 41 Although the Ring has disappeared, the polite world of the reign of Queen Victoria acts in the same way as did the world of the last century. It has the whole Park spread out for its use, but it fixes on one portion only, and amuses itself day by day by riding backwards and forwards along this social treadmill. A later writer describes the same scene : — ■ " When the spring advances and the summer comes on, as it usually does before the Parliament rises, which keeps the quality in town, they grow weary of their winter diversions, and we see most of them assembling on a fine evening, either at the Ring in Hyde Park, or in the Mall at St. James's, and it is not unusual for them to come from the Ring to walk in the Mall. The Ring in Hyde Park is shaded by fine lofty trees, and the dust laid by water-carts, when the dryness of the season requires it ; and here we frequently see four or five lines of noblemen's and gentlemen's coaches, rolling gently round the Ring in all their gayest equipage, some moving this way, others that, which makes a very splendid shew. Here they have an opportunity of being personally known to each other, of enquiring after each other's health, and of forming an opinion of what is most decent and becoming in 40 Travels of Cosmo III., 1821, p. 174. 41 MlSSON's Travels over England, 1719, p. 126. 230 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. life ; at the same time they have an opportunity of taking the air, enjoying the beauty of a fine evening, and improving their healths : and thus we observe the animal and vegetable world as well as the human species, at the return of the spring, displaying all their charms ; plants and flowers discovering a thousand beauties to our eyes, while the feather'd race gratify another sense with their harmonious notes. But to return to the company at the Ring : after they have driven round about an hour or two, and taken a particular view of the whole company, they are frequently set down at the Mall, in St. James's Park." 42 Colley Cibber tells us in his Apology that ladies of quality frequently fetched Kynaston, the famous actor of female parts, when the theatre was over, and drove him in the Park in his stage costume as one of themselves. Many of the ladies were not very prudish in what they said and did here. The Duchess of Cleveland once cried out to Wycherley that he was a rascal, using at the same time some very strong language. Tom Brown tells of the gallant ladies in gilt coaches with rich liveries, who laughed and sung and tickled each other as they rode along. 43 It would appear that the company often remained in the Ring till after dark, for Dr. William King, in his Art of Love, speaks of the lights that were to be seen at a distance : — " Sometimes in wilder groves by chariots drawn They view the noble stag and tripping fawn. On Hyde Park's circles, if you chance to gaze, The lights revolving strike you with amaze." 44 In 1695 hackney coaches were prohibited from entering the Park, owing to some persons having driven there in masks and annoyed the more aristocratic company. The restriction has been continued to the present day. The Ring has now entirely disappeared, though its name is still retained in that of the Ring Road. The place itself 42 1743, History and Present State of the British Islands, vol. ii. p. 339. 4i Tom Brown's Works, ed. 1760, vol. iii. 44 King's Works, vol. iii. p. 126. HYDE PARK. 231 remained till the beginning of the present century, and is shown in the plans of the Park. 43 Rotten Row and the Lady's Mile have replaced the Ring. In Rhodes's plan of the Park 16 these two roads to the south of the Serpentine are marked ; the one is called the " King's Road," and the other the " Coach Road," through the Park. When William III. bought Kensington House, he had a royal road made through St. James's and Hyde Parks, straight to his Palace. In 1734 it was made, as now, of loose material, to prevent the annoyance experienced by the royal family at Kensington from the dust of the road. This road was after- wards specially kept for the convenience of riders ; but in 1764, Rhodes delineates one or two coaches among the horse- men. Many absurd etymologies have been proposed for the name, but the most probable is the apparent one, that it is called after the rotten soil of which it is composed. Sheridan's lines on one of the " habituees " of the Row are as applicable now as when he wrote them : " Then behind, all my hair is done up in a plat, And so like a comet's, tucked under my hat. Then I mount on my palfrey as gay as a lark, And follow'd by John take the dust in Hyde Park.'' 47 Of its kind, perhaps there is no finer sight anywhere to be seen than the company in Rotten Row on a fine morning in 45 Mr. Peter Cunningham supposes the Ring to have been partly destroyed at the making of the Serpentine, but I believe he is mistaken, for the place, as shown in the plans, was some little distance from the water. The Ring is marked in a Plan of Hyde Park as it was in 1725, copied from a Plan of the Parish of St. George, Hanover Square, and printed in Lysons' Environs of London (vol. ii. pt. 2). Either this plan is wrongly dated, or it was intended to show how the piece of water was to be made, for the Serpentine, which was not commenced until about 1730, is laid down in it. 46 Plans and Elevations of the Royal Palace and Gardens at Kensing- ton, Hyde Park, Gr'e., Surveyed in the year 1762, by Joshua Rhodes, and engravd by George Bickliam, 1764. This fine map, in eight sheets, is among the King's maps in the British Museum. 47 MOORE'S Life of Sheridan, vol. i. p. 239. 232 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. the season, unless it is the company in the drive a little later in the day. Here are the beauty, rank, and fashion of the kingdom, mixed with representatives of a lower stratum of society. Some are riding, some are walking, and men are leaning on the railings and ogling their friends and ac- quaintances. Rotten Row is deserted on a Sunday, but the Ring Road usually has its complement of carriages on that day, though it was formerly more frequented than now. An engraving of 1804 by Pugh, shows a very great concourse of horsemen and promenaders ; and Gay, in his Epistle to the Earl of Burlington, writes : — " 'Twas on the day when City dames repair To take their weekly dose of Hide Park air, When forth we trot ; no carts the road infest, For still on Sundays country horses rest." The road on the north of the Serpentine, which now leads to Kensington Gardens, formerly turned off and passed to the east of a small cluster of cottages, which, with the old Powder Magazine and Guard House, still remain, and led round and back to Cumberland Gate. Where the road now runs in front of the Receiving House of the Royal Humane Society, stood, till about the year 1836, a picturesque cottage and garden, which was long famous as a refreshment house. 48 It was called the " Moated House," " Minced Pie House," the " Cheesecake House," or the " Cake House," and was most probably Mrs. Price's, " where are incomparable syllabubs ; " 49 Price's Lodge, which is mentioned in the evidence at the Coroner's inquest on the Duke of Hamilton's and Lord Mohun's duel ; the lodge house, and farther back the "Grave Maurice's Head," 50 was famous in James I.'s reign for cheese- 48 In the Vernon Collection there is a small picture of this cottage by Nasmyth. It has been engraved in the Art Journal, 1853, p. 282. 49 Journey to London in 1698 : Dr. William King's Original Works, ed. 1776, vol. i. p. 194. 30 This Grave or Count Maurice was Maurice of Nassau, son of William the Silent, and great-uncle of our William III. He was popular in England, and, curiously enough, there are still two public-houses in London with the siirn of " The Grave Maurice." HYDE PARK. 233 cakes, tarts, and syllabubs. In Shirley's Hyde Park, one of the characters says (Act 4, sc. 1) : — " I have sent my footman To the Maurice for a bottle ;" The Cheeseoj iUbE, IAE.BN DOWN 4.BOT3T 18o5. and another (Act 4, sc. 3) believes the wine is good, because " it comes from his Excellence' head." Although it is probable that " Price's Lodge " and the " Grave Maurice's Head " were the same as the " Minced Pie House," which was not destroyed till some thirty years ago, a doubt is thrown over the matter by a quotation from the Daily Post (April 20th, 1733) in CiinningJiam's Handbook, which is as follows : — " The old Lodge in Hyde Park, together with part of the grove, is to be taken down in order to compleat the Serpentine River." In the garden of this old timber and plaster cottage, and also by the water, stood the Receiving House of the Royal Humane Society (built in 1794), which was destroyed about 1834, when the present classic building was erected by D. Burton. A little cluster of buildings still remains, and by them is a slight eminence, which is dignified with the name of Buckden Hill. 234 ROUXD ABOUT PICCADILLY. One of these buildings is an old-fashioned house (Hyde Park Lodge), which some seventy years ago was occupied during the summer months by Mr. T. Bidwell, deputy-ranger of Hyde Park. At that time this part of the Park was very secluded, and Mr. Bidwell was in the habit of walking to and from town with a blunderbuss under his arm. He would get up early in the morning, and with his gun, and attended by three large dogs, proceed to turn all tramps out of the Park. Fishing-parties were frequently made up here, but it was not safe for any one to walk from the Lodge late in the evening without an escort of soldiers from the barracks situated close by. The soldiers, however, had the credit of nearly murdering Mr. Bidwell's nephew. Mr. John Bidwell was returning one night from the Lodge, when he was seized, robbed, bound hand and foot, and thrown into the Serpentine. Fortunately, the perpetrators of the deed were disturbed, and did not throw Mr. Bidwell far enough into the water to drown him. Thomas Hearne, the water-colour artist, was a friend of Mr. Bidwell's, and often stayed with him, or at the cottage close by, where he made some charming drawings of these houses. 51 The Park abounds with springs, which for many years sup- plied the inhabitants of Westminster with water. On May 22, 1 63 1, these people petitioned, and complained that the keeper of the Park had withdrawn the supply from them : — " Petition of all the Inhabitants of the City of Westminster to the King. — All the water which serves the said city, as well for the use and health of the people, as also for cleansing and clearing the city, has its beginning from the springs and wastes of the park of Marylebone and Tyburn, and is thence con- veyed in pipes through Hyde Park. This water is now taken from them by the keepers of Hyde Park, under pretence that 51 These drawings are in the possession of Mrs. N. Surtees, the daughter of the late Mr. Thomas Bidwell, of the Foreign Office, and granddaughter of the deputy-ranger. To this lady and her family I am greatly indebted for their kindness in lending me the drawings, also for the information contained above. HYDE PARK. 235 the ponds there lack water for the king's deer, which ponds petitioners know to be full [They] pray that the examina- tion thereof may be referred to the Lord Chamberlain, High Steward of Westminster." 52 In 1663 all the waters and conduits in the Park were granted to Thomas Haines on a lease of ninety-nine years, but in George II.'s reign, when it was decided to form one large piece of water, the lease was repurchased by the Crown. In 1708, when Hatton published his New View of London, the author thus describes Hyde Park Water as " a fine water rising in Hide Park near Kensington Gravel-Pits, whence it runs to a conduit near the Duke of Buckingham's garden wall, and from thence 'tis conveyed in wood pipes to the several houses in the part of the town which they serve." S3 The curious old conduit which stands within the Park railing near Knightsbridge, is the only remaining relic of these structures that once supplied London with its water. In 1730, at the suggestion of Queen Caroline, all the ponds were united into the handsome piece of water called the Serpentine River. It was contrived by Charles Wither, Surveyor-General of his Majesty's woods, &c, who employed 200 men in the works. After his death it was continued by Mr. Kimberley, and completed by him in 1733. Its name seems inappropriate to us now, because it does not answer to our notion of a winding stream : — " Through the open plains out-stretching wide, In serpent error rivers flow ;'' but when it was projected it was considered a great innova- tion, for heretofore all canals had been perfectly straight. Daines Barrington, in a letter printed in the A rcJiccologia, u on the progress of gardening, relates how Lord Bathurst told him that he was the first to deviate from the straight line in a brook which he had widened near Colebrook, and that Lord Strafford, who was plenipotentiary at the peace of Utrecht, 52 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1631-33, p. 53. bi Page 7S6. 34 Vol. vii. p. 127. 236 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. when paying him a visit, asked him to own fairly that it would have cost very little more to have made it quite straight. A small stream of water, which rose at Hampstead and passed through Bayswater, was led into the Serpentine, near the " Cake House," but when that was cleared away, and the present road made, the stream was cut away, and the loss of water supplied by the Chelsea Waterworks from the Thames. There was formerly a small piece of water at the east end of the Serpentine, extending to the place where the " Albert Gate " is now situated, and the road in the Park passed over a bridge which crossed this water. The waterfall at the east end of the Serpentine was made in 1820 ; and the handsome stone bridge which divides Hyde Park from Ken- sington Gardens was erected in 1826, by Rennie. Great complaints of the state of the Serpentine have been made at various times, and in 1869 the water was drawn off in order that the bed of the lake might be improved. It was intended at first to reduce the depth and lay down concrete over the bottom, as has been done to the ornamental waters in St. James's and Regent's Parks, but the expense of this was found to be too great, and, moreover, the numerous springs interfered with the carrying out this intention. It is now proposed to divert certain drains which ran into the water, and to put down a layer of gravel over the whole bed. In August, 1814, during the rejoicings of the grand jubilee for the peace, there was a mimic fleet on the Serpentine. The vessels were made to perform several manoeuvres, one of which was a naval engagement, in imitation of Nelson's stratagem in the battle of the Nile ; there was also an action between the British and American frigates, and at night some of the vessels were blown up and others disabled. Shows and drinking-booths were erected in the Park, and the fair was kept up for some days. In one of the tents was a press, at which certain pamphlets were printed, one of which was a list of crowned heads and other distinguished persons who visited London in June, 18 14. The following is a facsimile of a ticket given at one of the drinking-booths : — HYDE PARK = 37 iHnnorantJum. Glory to him that caiiscth Peace. Bought on the Memorable 1st of August, 18 14, by Public Auction, at Hyde Park Fair, of Giles He.mens, No. 5, Denmark Street, Soho, Lot *• d - A Pint of Beer included, which was drank at his Booth, THE HAND AND HAMMER, NEAR THE HORSE RIDE, Top of the Nortli side of the Serpentine River. DUTY PAID BY THE BUYER. N.B. Most Money for HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE. - Smith & Davy, Printers, 17, Queen Street, Seven Dials. In 1838, at the Queen's Coronation, another fair was held in the Park. In 185 1, at the time of the Great Exhibition, there was a handsome vessel at anchor, which was called the Prince of Wales's frigate. The size and convenient position of Hyde Park have pointed it out as peculiarly suited for the encampment of troops at times when the city was supposed to be in danger. In December, 1648, the army under Fairfax marched on to London in opposition to the wish of the Parliament, who were about to come to terms with Charles I. When the army arrived it was separated about the town, but the larger part were encamped in the Park. In 1665, during the time of the plague, the troops, under the command of Monk, were en- camped here ; and if we can believe the ballads of the time, the soldiers suffered from disease, cold, and damp, and were ill-fed into the bargain. They were heartily glad to get out of the Park and back again to the city. One of the ballads is thus entitled, " Hide Park Camp Limn'd out to the life, 238 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. truly and impartially for the information and satisfaction of such as were not eye-witnesses of the souldiers sad sufferings in that never-to-be-forgotten year of our lord God one thousand six hundred sixty-five. Written by a fellow-souldier and sufferer in the said camp." 55 In July and August, 171 5, there were fears of an invasion by the Pretender, and the horse and foot guards were, there- fore, encamped here, and a train of artillery was sent from the Tower to join them. In the Crowle Pennant™ there is a plate entitled " A Prospect of the Camp at Hyde Park," dedicated to the Earl of Cadogan by J. Cole, the engraver, which is curious in that it shows the string of ponds that were in the Park before the Serpentine was made. On August 1st, the anniversary of the accession of George I., there were rejoicings, and the soldiers appear to have had plenty of opportunities for refreshing themselves, as in the Prospect mentioned above, there are 154 sutlers' booths marked. In May, 1722, George I. received information from the Regent Orleans of France of a conspiracy against his throne, in consequence of which — " Orders are given that a camp be form'd, Least by surprize the city should be storm'd. rs7 The household troops were ordered out for encampment : — " Our warlike sons their prancing coursers stride, And to Hyde Park with martial fury ride, Where, joyn'd to th' foot, a glorious camp they make, Whose very sight wou'd make the enemy quake." 57 Pope, in a letter to his friend the Hon. Robert Digby, pictures the amusements of the camp : — " Women of quality are all turned followers of the camp in Hyde Park this year, whither all the town resort to magnificent entertainments given by the officers, &c. The Scythian ladies that dwelt in the waggons 55 British Museum, - 1,6 Vol. xiii. {British Museum Print Room). 57 A Rambtc thro' Hyde Park; or, the Humours of the Camp. A Poem. London, 1722. HYDE PARK. 239 of war were not more closely attached to the luggage. The matrons, like those of Sparta, attend their sons to the field, to be witnesses of their glorious deeds ; and the maidens, with all their charms display'd, provoke the spirit of the soldiers : tea and coffee supply the place of Lacedemonian black broth. This camp seems crown'd with perpetual victory, for every sun rises in the thunder of cannon to set in the music of violins." A few years after — in March, 1739 — troops of horse and foot were encamped here ; but the chief encampment was that in 1780, when the country was in a panic on account of the Gordon Riots, and when about 30,000 men of the marching regiments and militia were brought together. Paul Sandby made several sketches of the humours of the place. Amongst them is the Filbert Merchant, who is selling his fruit out of the panniers of his donkey ; and the Tormented Collier — but the joke of this is not apparent. Besides the encampments, and sometimes in connection with them, there have been held here many reviews. On March 28, 1569, the Pensioners on horseback were mustered before Queen Elizabeth. Cromwell reviewed his celebrated Ironsides in this Park, and in April, 1660, the militia and auxiliaries of the City of London were exercised before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, who were in the Park in all their official finery. On the 4th of July, 1663, a spectacle was got up to do honour to Mons. Comminges, the French Ambassador, which is thus referred to by the rival diarists, Evelyn and Pepys : — " I saw his Majesty's Guards, being of horse and foot 4,000, led by the general, the Duke of Albemarle, in extraordinary equipage and gallantry, consisting of gentlemen of quality and veteran soldiers, excellently clad, mounted and ordered, drawn up in battalia before their Majesties in Hyde Park, where the old Earl of Cleaveland trailed a pike and led the right hand file in a foot company commanded by the Lord Wentworth his son ; a worthy spectacle and example, being both of them old and valiant soldiers. This was to show the 240 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. French Ambassador, Monsieur Comminges, there being a great assembly of coaches, &c, in the park." 58 Pepys takes another view of the same sight : " Yet me- thought all these gay men are not the soldiers that must do the King's business, it being such as these that lost the old King all he had, and were beat by the most ordinary fellows that could be." 39 In September, 1668, the guards were mustered under the command of their colonel, the Duke of Monmouth. The King and the Duke of York attended, and with them were about 1,000 coaches. On the 21st of May, 1669, there was a review, at which Charles II., James, and Prince Rupert were present. The grand Duke Cosmo was among the visitors on this occa- sion. 60 In March, 1686, about 6,000 horse and foot were re- viewed by James II. On June nth, 1722, the household troops, who were then encamped, were reviewed by George I. After the review the King was magnificently entertained by the commanding officer, the Earl of Cadogan, in a pavilion which had been formerly taken from the Grand Vizier by Prince Eugene. Besides these reviews there have been many others that are not worthy of note; but in 1799 and 1803, when, in the great struggle with Napoleon, the enthusiasm of the country was at its height, George III. had the proud satisfaction of reviewing large bodies of volunteer soldiers, then called Armed Associations. Of the first review, on the King's birthday (June 4th, 1799) Lord Eldon spoke in his old age as the finest sight that he had ever beheld. The great lawyer was not also a great soldier, for on this occasion, as he had not risen out of the awkward squad, he was present in " mufti." Thomas Erskine, afterwards Lord Erskine, was colonel of the Temple Corps, and on the King asking him the name of his regiment answered, " The Devil's Own," a name given to them by Sheridan. The Lincoln's Inn Corps were nicknamed by the 58 John Evelyn's Diary, July 4, 1663. 59 Pepys' Diary, July 4, 1663. cu Travels, 1821, pp. 304-307. HYDE PARK. 241 mob, "The Devil's Invincibles." In the volunteer movement of our day the lawyers of all the inns have been wise enough to unite, and have taken to themselves the old name of " Devil's Own," of which they seem to be specially proud. There is a picture of this review, in which the troops are shown as passing in front of the King, who was stationed with his staff looking towards Park Lane. On May 15th, 1800, George III. reviewed the Grenadier Guards in the Park, when a gentleman near him received a musket- ball in his thigh, which was supposed to have been intended for the King, who was shot at again on the evening of the same day at Drury Lane Theatre. On July 22nd, 1 801, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York reviewed some of the volunteers. On October 26th, 1803, the King reviewed 12,400 volunteers in presence of about 200,000 spectators ; and on the 28th another review took place, of 15,000 men. These frequent reviews much injured the grass, and in consequence the open part of the Park became little better than a sandy plain. The reviews were therefore discontinued, and the ground was covered with mud from the bed of the Serpentine, and grass sown over it. Since the revival of the volunteer movement the Queen has reviewed several large bodies of riflemen here, but there is again a strong feeling prevalent as to the inexpediency of putting the Park to such a use. One of the most interesting events that Londoners have been privileged to witness during recent years has been the passage of the Princess of Wales through their city. On this occasion, March 10th, 1863, Hyde Park was filled with volunteers waiting to salute the young Princess and her husband. Hyde Park was a favourite resort of duellists from the reign of Henry VIII. to the year 1822, and Fielding calls it, in his Amelia, " the field of blood." Most of the duels fought here have had no record left of them, but a few are worth a passing word. In February, 1685-6, Henry, Duke of Grafton, 16 242 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. the natural son of Charles II., fought with the Hon. John Talbot, second son of the eleventh Earl of Shrewsbury and his infamous wife, the paramour of the Duke of Buckingham. The Duke killed Talbot, who had commenced the quarrel by using very irritating language. The most • important duel was fought on November 15, 17 1 2, between James, Duke of Hamilton, the chief of the Tories, and Charles, Lord Mohun, who had both married nieces of Gerard, Earl of Macclesfield ; and the quarrel grew out of a lawsuit between them. The principals were both killed, and Colonel Hamilton, the Duke's second, accused General Macartney, the other second, on oath, of having stabbed the Duke over his (the Colonel's) shoulder, and there is a drawing in the Crowle Pennant 61 in which Macartney is delineated so doing. Mohun's death was no loss to the world, but Parnell says of Hamilton : — " What courage, sense, and faith with Brandon fell." The Duke left a widow, so that Thackeray, who introduces the duel in his Esmond, wanders from historical accuracy when he makes him about to marry the heroine Beatrice. On November 16, 1763, John Wilkes and Samuel Martin, Secretary of the Treasury, met here on account of a para- graph in the North Briton, in which Martin was stigmatized as a " low fellow and dirty tool of power." Churchill, the friend of Wilkes, gibbets him in his poem, the Duellist : — " Should some villain, in support And zeal for a despairing court — Placing in craft his confidence, To do a deed of deepest shame ; Whilst filthy lucre is his aim — Should such a wretch, with sword or knife, Contrive to practise 'gainst the life Of one who, honoured through the land, For freedom made a glorious stand, Whose chief, perhaps his only, crime Is (if plain truth at such a time 61 Vol. v. (British Museum.) HYDE PARK. 243 May dare his sentiments to tell^, That he his country loved too well : May he — but words are all too weak The feelings of my heart to speak — May he — oh, for a noble curse Which might his marrow pierce, The general contempt engage And be the Martin of his age ! " Martin went to Paris after the duel, and Wilkes followed him soon afterwards, called upon him, " and talked with his usual freedom for an hour, as if their acquaintance had never been interrupted by a quarrel." 62 Lord Thurlow, then the leading counsel for the appellant in the great Douglas trial, fought a duel in 1770 with Mr. Andrew Stewart, agent for the Duke of Hamilton. The cause of quarrel was the severe manner in which Thurlow had spoken of Stewart, who called him to account for his animadversions. The encounter was bloodless, and was thus reported in the Scots Magazine : "On Sunday morning, January 14, the parties met with swords and pistols in Hyde Park, one of them having for his second his 'brother Colonel S., and the other having for his, Mr. L., member for a city in Kent. Having discharged pistols at ten yards distance without effect, they drew their swords, but the seconds interposed and put an end to the affair." Thurlow did not lose his appetite on the morning of his duel, for he is reported to have stopped at a tavern at Hyde Park Corner and there eaten an enormous breakfast. The same cause, its secluded character, which made the Park popular with duellists, pointed it out as a good field for highwaymen. In 1749 Horace Walpole was here robbed by the notorious McLean, and narrowly escaped being killed by the accidental going-off of the highwayman's pistol, which stunned him and grazed the skin from his cheek-bone. 63 Before taking leave of these tales of blood it will be 62 Walpole's Letters, 1859, vol. ix. p. 506. 6a Ibid., 1840, vol. ii. p. 307 (note). 244 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. necessary to mention the place of execution for military criminals, which was situated close to where the Marble Arch now stands and opposite Tyburn gate, which stood on the site of Connaught Place. In an old map the spot is marked with this grim legend — " where soldiers are shot." Several of the erections in the Park are no great ornament to it, though we should, perhaps, be sorry to see some of them swept away, as they are relics of old times. In 1768 the Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III., erected a Riding House, which retained his name till it was taken down about 1824. In 1806 it was purchased from the Duke by the nation for 1,000/. and was occupied as the head-quarters of the West- minster Volunteer Cavalry. This building stood near Grosvenor Gate, and as it was not handsome in itself and had a number of wretched sheds attached to it, it offended the eyes of the public, and especially those of the Earl Grosvenor, who, in 1807, petitioned the Lords of the Treasury to allow him to take it down, and build at his own expense a lodge according to any plan prescribed by the Government. A Report was made, but the Earl's generous proposition was rejected. The absurd statue known as the Achilles, on which the large sum of 10,000/., subscribed by the ladies of England to do honour to Wellington, was wasted, is no ornament to the Park. It is eighteen feet high, and was cast from twelve twenty-four-pounder cannon taken at Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo. It was copied from one of the antique statues on the Monte Cavallo at Rome, and the name of Achilles is a complete mistake. It was erected in 1822. As the scaffolding still surrounds the National Memorial to the Prince Consort, it is difficult to say whether it will be an ornament to the Park or the reverse. Its position is appropriate however, as it looks over the ground where stood the great Exhibition of 185 1. This has been the parent of a wearying train of exhibitions, but it was in itself, from its novelty and from the mixture of nations among the crowds that thronged it, a most enchanting place, the visit to which will never be forgotten by those who were fortunate enough HYDE PARK. 245 to enjoy it It seemed as if "the Palace made of windows" had risen out of the earth by magic. " But yesterday a naked sod The dandies sneered from Rotten Row And canter'd o'er it to and fro ; And see 'tis done ! As though 'twere by a wizard's rod A blazing arch of lucid glass Leaps like a fountain from the grass To meet the sun ! " 64 A very handsome Gothic drinking-fountain has been lately erected on the north side of the Park near the little gate opposite Stanhope Place. It is from the design of Mr. Robert Keirle, and cost 1,200/., which sum was defrayed by the munificence of the Maharajah of Vizianagram. Of late years much attention has been paid to the improve- ment and ornamentation of the parks and the gardens that run along the Park Lane side of Hyde Park ; and those between Rotten Row and the Lady's Mile, from Prince's Gate to Hyde Park Corner, are beautiful to look at in all seasons of the year, but all must regret the little attention that is paid to the timber. Trees wear out and die, but they are either not replaced or replaced by a plantation of wretched- looking twigs. The study of forest-trees is too much neglected in England, for it is not adapted to the spirit of the nineteenth century. The man who plants, as Cicero says, works for his successors : " Arbores serit diligens agricola, quarum aspiciet nunquam ipse baccam ; " and Dr. Johnson, following him, amplifies the idea thus : — " There is a frightful interval between the seed and timber. He that calculates the growth of trees, has the unwelcome remembrance of the shortness of life driven hard upon him. He knows that he is doing what will never benefit himself; and when he rejoices to see the stem arise, is disposed to repine that another shall cut it down." Besides their incalculable value, trees form the chief beauty of nature, and we want another Evelyn to 6 * Thackeray's May-Day Ode {Miscellanies, 1855, vol. i. p. 39) 246 ROUXD ABOUT PICCADILLY. arise, to teach us how to plant. This man was one of the worthiest of England's worthies, and we now feel the benefit of his lifelong endeavour to encourage the plantation of trees. Woods had been destroyed to an alarming extent, more especially during the time of the civil wars. Fears were entertained for the continued supply of timber for the use of the navy, and Evelyn was requested by the Royal Society to draw up answers to some queries propounded by the Govern- ment. The result was Sj'ha, or Discourse of Forest Trees, a work which had immense influence on two centuries of England's history. Evelyn was an enthusiastic planter, and believed that the blessing of long life would be given to the man who planted trees ; in proof of which view he quoted from Isaiah the verse — " The days of a tree are the days of my people." M He wrote in 1661 : — Fumifugium : or tlie Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoak of London dissipated, in which work he proposed the plantation of trees and fragrant shrubs so as to counteract the evils of the smoke, which had even then begun to make themselves felt. There was formerly a magnificent double avenue of walnut- trees on the Park Lane side of the Park, which extended from Cumberland Gate nearly to Hyde Park Corner. This was formed and planted in 1724, at the same time that Grosvenor Gate was erected. Nearly opposite to Mount Street the avenues were joined by a double ring of trees, which surrounded the reservoir of the Chelsea waterworks. When the great war was at its height there was a large demand for wood to make stocks for the soldiers' muskets, and about eighteen hundred of these fine trees were ruthlessly destroyed for this purpose. Avenues have been since planted south of the reservoir, which is now laid out as a garden. A part of the avenue had been previously threatened with destruction, by a plan in which it was proposed to build a huge pile of buildings for the Foot- Guards on the ground near Apsley House. 65 Chap. lxv. v. 22. HYDE PARK. 247 We cannot better conclude this account of Hyde Park than with a notice of its gates. In 16 10 30/. was paid to George Baynard, for the repairs of lodges and pales, 06 and in 1635 a new lodge was built at the cost of the large sum of 800/. CT Grosvenor Gate was opened in 1724, Stanhope Gate about 1760, and Cumberland Gate about 1774-5. The marble arch was moved to the latter place when the alterations were made in Buckingham Palace. Several new gates have more recently been opened on the south side. Albert Gate was made in 1841, on the site of the Cannon Brewery, at Knightsbridge. The iron gates were set up in 1845, and the two stags brought from the Ranger's Lodge in the Green Park. The immense mansion on the east side of the gate formerly belonged to Hudson, the railway king, and is now occupied by the French Embassy. Queen's Gate, Prince's Gate, and Alexandra Gate have been since opened to accommodate the owners of the mansions that have grown up since the exhibition of 185 1, on the South Kensington or Gore House Estate. About the year 1826, the old brick walls along Piccadilly, Park Lane, Knightsbridge, and the Bayswater Road were taken down and replaced by iron railings. These remained till 1866, when they were destroyed by the mob, who at- tempted to get into the Park, in the July of that year. New railings of a handsomer and more substantial kind have now been erected, and if the mob ever feel inclined to break the law again, they will find the destruction of them rather a difficult matter. No other city can boast of such beautiful public walks as are to be found in Kensington Gardens. When the fine trees are in leaf in the fresh spring it is almost impossible for the visitor to imagine himself so near the metropolis as he really is. The Gardens had been gradually enlarged by encroachments 66 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1603-10, p. 617. 67 Ibid., 1635, p. 492. 243 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. upon Hyde Park, and the public at the time had just cause of complaint, but their descendants have been the gainers since these encroachments have been restored to them by the throw- ing open of the gardens. In 1652, the house and grounds belonged to Heneage Finch, who became Solicitor-General at the Restoration, and was afterwards Lord Chancellor and Earl of Nottingham. He was called by his contempo- raries Old Dismal from his tediousness and rueful counten- ance. His character, said to be drawn by Dryden, is not very flattering : — " At the bar abusive, on the bench unable ; Knave on the woolsack, fop at councill table." 68 In March, 1662, a grant was made to Finch, "of that ditch or fence which divides Hyde Park from his own lands, with the trees, &c. thereto belonging, 10 feet by 150 roods, from the south highway leading to Kensington, to the north highway leading to Acton, with the disparking the same. 69 This was not a very great encroachment, and the house and gardens then only occupied about twenty-six acres. William III. purchased Nottingham House, as it was then called, from Daniel, second Earl of Nottingham, the son of the Chancellor, in 1 691, on account of the burning of part of Whitehall. The gardens were laid out by order of the King, in the artificial taste then in vogue ; the yews were cut, and holly hedges taught to imitate the lines, angles, bastions, scarps, and counterscarps of regular fortifications, and the result was known as the Siege of Troy. In an account of London Gardens, written in 1691, by J. Gibson, and printed in the Archceologia,™ those at Kensington are thus described : " Kensington Gardens are not great nor abounding with fine plants. The orange, lemon, myrtles, and what other trees they had there in summer were all removed to Mr. London's and Mr. Wise's greenhouse, at Brompton Park, a little mile 68 From a fly-leaf, Notes and Queries, 3rd series, xii. p. 224. r ' 9 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1661-62, p. 320. 70 Vol. xii., 1796, pp. 181-192. HYDE PARK. 249 from them. But the walks and grass laid very fine, and they were digging up a flat of four or five acres to enlarge the garden." George London was apprentice to Rose, the Royal Gardener, and at the Revolution, was appointed Superinten- dent of the Royal Gardens. His reputation was very great, and he acted as a kind of Director-General of the Gardens of England, most of which he visited once or twice a year. Henry Wise was gardener to Queen Anne, and Deputy- Ranger of Hyde Park, and he laid out the grounds at Blenheim. The Brompton Nursery was a very large and celebrated establishment, and was founded by London in connection with Cooke, Lucre, and Field. Two of the part- ners died and the third sold his share to Wise. The stock of plants was immense, and was estimated to be worth more than 40,000/., even if the plants were only valued at one penny a piece. 71 Queen Anne and Prince George of Denmark were as attached to the palace and gardens as William and Mary had been : — " Or Kensington, sweet air and blest retreat Of him that owns a sovereign though most great." n Anne added to the gardens, and a contemporary writer 73 says, " Her Majesty has been pleased lately to plant near thirty acres more towards the north, separated from the rest by a stately greenhouse not yet finished ; upon this spot is near 100 men dayly at work." The Temple or Banqueting House to the north of the palace was built by order of the Queen from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. It is to Queen Caroline, the wife of George II., that we owe the gardens as they are at present. She added 300 acres of ground and formed the round pond and the beautiful vistas of trees that radiate from it. Each of these avenues had its distinct name, as Old Pond Walk, Bayswater Walk, &c- 71 BOWACK'S Antiquities of Middlesex, 1705. 72 Dr. William King's Art of Love {Works, vol. hi. p. 126). 73 Bowack. 250 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. The groves were filled with squirrels, and a large number of tortoises, presented to the Queen by the Doge of Genoa, were distributed about the grounds. Bridgman was the gardener employed in planning out the alterations, and we cannot too highly praise the result of his labours. He invented the sunk fosse that divides the Park from the Gardens ; the novelty became very popular, and was called a ha-ha, from the exclamation of surprise that was supposed to issue from the lips of the pedestrian as he came upon so unexpected a stoppage to his walk. This fosse was partly filled up at its southern end in 1868. The gardens were opened to the public on Saturdays when the court went to Richmond, but the company were expected to appear in full dress. On Sundays the Queen held a court after morning service, and an elegant rendezvous took place upon the green or lawn in front of the palace. On the death of George II. the court ceased to reside here and the gardens were thrown open to the public. Tickell thus describes the garden and the promenaders in his poem entitled Kensington Garden : — " Where Kensington high o'er the neighb'ring lands, Midst greens and sweets, a regal fabric stands, And sees each spring, luxuriant in her bowers, A snow of blossoms and a wild of flowers, The dames of Britain oft in crowds repair To groves and lawns, and unpolluted air. Here, while the town in damps and darkness lies, They breathe in sunshine and see azure skies ; Each walk, with robes of various dyes bespread, Seems from afar a moving tulip -bed, Where rich brocades and glossy damask glow, And chints, the rival of the show'ry bow.'' 74 Faulkner, in his History of Kensington™ says, " The great south walk leading to the palace is crowded on Sunday mornings in the spring and summer with a display of all the 74 Uodsley's Colkction of Poems, 1770, vol. i. pp. 41-60. 75 Page 571. HYDE PARK. 251 beauty and fashion of the great metropolis, and affords a most pleasing spectacle not to be equalled in Europe." If we are to believe the following lines by Sheridan, the bcau-monde considered the beauty of the gardens as a disadvantage, because it made them think of the " odious " country : — " In Kensington Gardens to stroll up and down, You know was the fashion before you left town : The thing's well enough when allowance is made For the size of the trees, and the depth of the shade ; But the spread of their leaves such a shelter affords To those noisy impertinent creatures called birds, Whose ridiculous chirruping ruins the scene, Brings the countiy before me, and gives me the spleen. Yet though 'tis too rural — to come near the mark, We all herd in one walk, and that nearest the Park ; There with ease we may see, as we pass by the wicket, The chimneys of Knightsbridge and footmen at cricket. I must tho', in justice, declare that the grass, Which, worn by our feet, is diminish'd apace, In a little time more will be brown and as flat As the sand at Vauxhall or as Ranelagh mat. Improving thus fast, perhaps by degrees, We may see rolls and butter spread under the trees, With a small pretty band in each seat of the walk, To play little tunes and enliven our talk." Kensington Gardens still continue to be a favourite place of resort, and a more charming spot for promenading it would be impossible to find. When the garden of the picturesque ivy-covered lodge near the bridge is rich with flowers it is especially attractive. Alterations and improvements have been made in the Gardens at various times by Capability Brown, Humphry Repton, and W. Aiton ; but the greatest change has been made of late years by the alterations at the head of the Serpentine, where a stone terrace with ornamental figures and balustrades comprising several basins and fountains has been erected. The statue of Dr. Jenner, which was originally put 25 2 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. up in Trafalgar Square, has been removed to the east side of this place. Unfortunately every change is not an improvement, and one of the beautiful alleys has been spoilt by the erection of an ugly obelisk to the memory of the great African traveller, Speke. If the quiet beauty of Kensington Gardens is to be destroyed, and they are to be transformed into a sort of walhalla of monuments, it would be well for us to know its destination ; but if this obelisk is the only one to be allowed, it is difficult to guess why Speke should be singled out for the honour. Deer remained in the Gardens for some time after the commencement of the present century, and we cannot but express surprise when we are told by Mr. Thomas Smith 7li that foxes were hunted here at the end of the last century. Mr. Smith found a minute of the Board of Green Cloth, dated 1798, in which a pension is granted to Sarah Gray, widow, in consideration of the loss of her husband, who was acci- dentally shot by the keepers while hunting foxes. Kensington Palace was the favourite residence of William III., who held his court here. As he suffered from asthma, he required to live in a pure air, and Kensington was " the only retreat near London [that] he was pleas'd with." Queen Mary died of small-pox in the palace in December, 1694, when her body was embalmed and conveyed from Kensington to her apartments at Whitehall. King William died here himself also in March, 1702, and Queen Anne and her husband, Prince George of Denmark, came to live here on the death of the King. The Palace and Gardens were settled upon the Prince, but he died in October, 1708, six years before his wife. Sir Richard Steele, as one of the Prince's attendants, sat by his corpse, and received an annuity of 100/. from the widowed Queen. Here died Queen Anne on August 1st, 17 14, Queen Caroline on November 20th, 1737, and George II. on October 25th, 1760. George was the last king who inhabited the palace. 76 Recollections of Hyde Park, 1836, p. 39. HYDE PARK. 253 William III. made great alterations in the house, and nearly rebuilt it from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, surveyor-general, and Nicholas Hawksmoor, clerk of the works. Kent designed the east front, the cupola room, and grand staircase, the walls and ceilings of which he also painted. The good fortune of Kent raised the ire of the com- petitors whom he passed in the race. He was the fashion, and was allowed to exhibit at Kensington his talents as an architect, a painter, and a landscape gardener. In the last capacity he was accomplished, in the first he was passable, but in the second he was positively beneath contempt, and was successfully ridiculed by Hogarth, who caricatured his absurd altar-piece for St. Clement's Church. When Kensington was given up as a palace, it was in- habited by various members of the royal family. The late Duke of Sussex for many years occupied apartments in the palace, where, as President of the Royal Society, he gave receptions to men of science and scholars. Here he collected his magnificent library, which was so specially rich in Bibles. Queen Caroline, the unfortunate wife of George IV., lived here for a short time, as did the Duke and Duchess of Kent. Her present Majesty was born here in 18 19, and Lord Eldon's official duties as Lord Chancellor called him to Kensington Palace in order to be in attendance at the birth of the Princess. On his return home he took down Shakspeare and recited these appropriate verses from Henry VIII.: — " This royal infant — heaven still move about her ! — Though in her cradle, yet now promises Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings, Which time shall bring to ripeness : — she shall be, But few now living can behold that goodness — A pattern to all princes living with her, And all that shall succeed. . . . " 77 The Princess was privately christened by the Archbishop of Canterbury on June 24, 1819. "It was believed that the 77 W. H. Bennet'S Note-Books of a Law Reporter. 254 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Duke of Kent wished to name his child Elizabeth, that being a popular name with the English people ; but the Prince Regent, who was not kind to his brothers, gave notice that he should stand in person as one godfather, and that the Emperor of Russia was to be another. At the ceremony of baptism, when asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury to name the infant, the Prince Regent gave only the name of Alexandrina ; the Duke requested one other name might be added — ' Give her the mother's also then ; but,' he added, ' it cannot precede that of the Emperor.' The Queen on her accession commanded that she should be proclaimed as Victoria only." 78 The Princess was still living here with her mother the Duchess of Kent, when, at the death of her uncle William IV., the throne devolved upon her, and here she held, in 1836, her first Council. We now return to Hyde Park Corner, and crossing Piccadilly, enter the Green Park, concerning which we shall discourse in the next chapter. 78 Hon. Amelia Murray's Recollections from 1803 to 1837, p. 63. 255 ) CHAPTER X. GREEN PARK AND ST. JAMES'S PARK. PREVIOUS to the Restoration the Green Park, sometimes called Upper St. James's Park, was nothing but a large uncultivated meadow, and it remained little more for many- years after that event. The Park was originally much larger than it is now : for when Buckingham House came into the possession of George III., he reduced the size of the public park in order to add to that of his own gardens. In an old view of Constitu- tion Hill in the year 1 735, it is shown as a grass mound with cows and deer grazing upon it. In a view of the fireworks of 1748 the Hill is delineated as a road right across the Park, so that about a quarter of the entire area must have been taken off by the King in 1767. There was at this time a fence between St. James's and the Green Parks, with a gate opening upon Constitution Hill. There is now no water in the Green Park, but previous to the year 1856 (when it was filled up) there was at the north- east corner one of the reservoirs of the Chelsea Waterworks, which contained 1,500,000 gallons of water. In 1725 there were two rows of trees closely planted round this basin, which was called the Queen's Walk ; and in 1735, when the famous Rosamond's Pond in St. James's Park was cleaned out by a Welshman named Hugh Robarts, those who were disappointed in their desire to drown themselves there were recommended to go to the piece of water in the adjoining 256 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. park. The following placard was affixed to one of the trees : " This is to give notice to all broken hearts, such as are unable to survive the loss of their lovers, and are come to a resolution to die, that an engineer from Flintshire having cruelly under- taken to disturb the waters of Rosamond's Pond in this Park, gentlemen and ladies cannot be accommodated there as formerly. And whereas certain daughters of Eve have been since tempted to make use of the Serpentine and other rivers, some whereof have met with disappointments ; this is therefore to certify all persons whatsoever labouring under the circum- stances aforesaid that the basin in the Upper or Green Park is a most commodious piece of water, in admirable order, and of a depth sufficient to answer the ends of all sizes and conditions. Wherefore all persons applying themselves thereto, will be sure to meet with satisfaction." * This was a sorry jest on what, sad to say, often did take place. On November ioth, 1816, the unfortunate Harriet Westbrook, Shelley's first wife, put an end to her poverty and misery by throwing herself into this basin. The poet, whose soul, according to his friends, was all purity and beauty, basely deserted her, and leaving the poor girl to starve, went off with Mary Wolstonecroft Godwin. 2 At the west end of this piece of water there was a wretched spout, intended to do duty as a fountain. At the beginning of the present century the spout was very small, but about the year 1825 it was raised to a much greater height. In 1839 the basin was reconstructed ; the whole was cemented, and an iron railing set up in order to prevent people from falling in, and at a later date, viz. in 1856, already mentioned, the whole was filled up and made part of the grassy slope of the Park. Besides this there was a small pond in the hollow opposite Coventry House, and behind the Ranger's Lodge, which, as well as the more noted piece of water in St. James's Park, was called Rosamond's Pond. There was formerly a wall along the Piccadilly side of the Park, against which ballads were sold by day and robberies 1 Malcolms London, iv. 243. 2 Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, vol. v. p. 374. GREEN PARK. 257 committed by night ; Pennant says, " but in many places are rows of benevolent railings which afford a most elegant view." 3 At the time the Ranger's Lodge was cleared away, various alterations were made. The Park was thoroughly drained, and its use by cattle, which up to that time grazed there, was no longer allowed. At the same period the Government desired to widen the roadway of Piccadilly ; and Sir Charles Barry, being consulted on the subject, carried out the idea by bringing into the street the row of plane-trees, which now so much improve the west end of the road. 4 It was his wish to have made other changes, and especially to have constructed a broad flight of steps leading direct down to the Park. This Park, although it is so well situated, has not been laid out with the taste that might with advantage have been expended upon it. It ought also to have a grand opening towards Pall Mall, and Sir Charles Barry proposed a scheme by which this could be done, and made a design, in which the Marble Arch was to form the entrance to the Park. It was proposed in the Builder? to lay out the whole Park, as a monument to the late Prince Consort, with terraces, fountains and statues. The writer thought that thus we might obtain a " grande place," in lieu of what he is pleased to call an ugly meadow. He would have had placed here the statues of all the great men of the nation, with the monument to the Prince dominating over them. The Green Park has been a favourite place for the display of fireworks at times of national rejoicings. One of the grandest of these took place at the conclusion of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. A handsome building was erected for the purpose, in the centre of which was a music-gallery, led up to by a flight of steps, and on each side was an arcade, connecting it with two pavilions. On the 7th of November, 1748, it was 3 London, 1790, p. 120. 4 An Act was passed— 7 & 8 Vict. c. 88, 9 August, 1844— "To widen and improve Piccadilly" (between Bolton Street and Park Lane). The portion of the Green Park added to the street was severed from the parish of St. Martin's and added to St. George's. 5 March 22, 1062, p. 201; April 12, p. 2S6. 17 258 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. seen in all its glory ; there were various allegorical devices, such as Peace, attended by Neptune and Mars, and an illumi- nation of the King giving Peace to Britannia. On the summit of the centre of the erection was a pole fifty feet high, on which was a burning light, thirty-two feet in diameter, made to represent the sun. It unfortunately happened in the course of the proceedings that one of the pavilions caught fire, and all hands were required to pull down the arcade, or the music- gallery would have been burnt. In 1 8 14 was erected the revolving Temple of Concord, invented by Sir William Congreve. It was a large block build- ing with transparencies by the Royal Academician Howard. It was surrounded by a circle, in which were scaffolding and stands erected for the convenience of the visitors. Over these were painted the names of Wellington and the other great generals of the period. The whole was illuminated, and fireworks were shown from it on the great day of rejoicing— August 1st. On May 29th, 1856, handsome fireworks were exhibited in the Green, Hyde, and Victoria Parks, from half-past nine to twelve o'clock at night, in commemoration of the peace at the termination of the Crimean War. The upper part of the Green Park, just behind Arlington Street, was the scene of the celebrated duel between William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, and Lord Hervey, which took place on January 25th, 1 73 1, when both the combatants were slightly wounded. The cause of the duel was a pamphlet, which contained a violent personal attack upon Pulteney, who, believing it to be written by Hervey, answered it, and remarked malignantly upon the poor lord's personal appear- ance. Sir C. Hanbury Williams refers to the encounter in his Ode to the Earl of Bath :— " Lord Fanny once Did play the dunce, And challenged you to fight ; And he so stood To lose his blood, But had a dreadful fright.'' GREEN PARK. 259 Near the bottom of the east side of the Park formerly stood an old one-storied brick building-, which was called " the Queen's Library." It was built about the year 1736, for Queen Caroline, and was pulled down when the Duke of York built his mansion in the stable-yard, which is now Stafford House, Ranger's Lodge in the Green Pars and the town residence of the Duke of Sutherland. Another building in the Park, which has passed away, was the Deputy- Ranger's Lodge. It stood opposite Down Street, and was built in 1768 by Robert Adam. In 1773, Selwyn was in hopes that he might have been appointed to the Deputy-Rangership, and the chief cause of his wishing for the position was that he might be near his friend, the Duke of Queensberry, who lived nearly opposite to the lodge. Lord William Gordon, second son of the third Duke of Gordon, and brother-in-law of Jane, Duchess of Gordon, Pitt's beautiful ally, was appointed Deputy-Ranger of St. James's and Hyde Parks in 1778, and lived in the lodge till his death, in 1823. He made much of his garden, which was laid out with taste, and contained a small hermitage. At Lord William's death this lodge was >6o ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. doomed to destruction ; but his widow was allowed to keep possession of it during her life ; and when she died in 1841, it was taken down, and the space occupied by the house and gardens was added to the Park. The building was not hand- some ; in fact Ralph says that " the enormity of balcony which environs it looks like the outriggers to an Indian canoe, to prevent it from oversetting ; " the large view, however, of the south front, published in 1778, has a pleasing effect, though for this it is perhaps indebted to the rural surroundings. On the east side of the Park are three handsome mansions that give it an additional beauty : these are Spencer House, which stands well on its rustic basement, Bridgewater House, and Stafford House. The gardens of these and all the other houses on this side join the Park. m*&£ Constitution Hill in 1748. Constitution Hill formerly ran across the Green Park, but it is now a fine road between the gardens of Buckingham Palace and the Park. It was the scene of the meeting of Charles II. and his brother James, when the former made his happy reply to the expression of the Duke of York's fears for his safety : — " No kind of danger, James, for I am sure no man in England will take away my life to make you king." In the same place the life of her Majesty has been three times attacked by cowardly ruffians: by Oxford on June 10, 1840; ST. JAMES'S PARA'. 261 by Francis on May 30, 1842 ; and by Hamilton on May 19, 1849. The great statesman, Sir Robert Peel, was thrown from his horse at the upper end of the road on the 9th of June, 1850, and received the injury that caused his death shortly afterwards. I ---'IP \srHh, / : e'f^if; •^•~- ;?;•■»*'. i Cleveland House. 2 St. James's Palace. 3 The Mall. 4 The Canal. 7 Horse Guards. 5 Rosamond's Pond. 8 Tilt Yard. 6 Decoy and Duck Island. 9 Cock Pit. 10 Admiralty. St. James's Park in the Reign of Charles II. The south side of the Green Park joins St. James's Park. This was first formed, walled in, and stocked with deer by Henry VIII., previously to whose reign it was little better than a wild undrained field, with a few huts scattered about it. The Park was gradually improved in subsequent reigns, but it was not laid out with any taste till after the Resto- 262 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. ration, when its true history begins ; nevertheless it has its interesting associations of an earlier date. On May 8, 1539, when fear was entertained of an invasion, fifteen thousand citizens mustered at Mile End and passed through London to Westminster, where they marched round the Park, returning through Holborn. In Queen Elizabeth's reign there was a Keeper of the Ponds " in the Park at Westminster," 6 and water-fowl appear to have been kept in them from that time. In James I.'s reign there were several orange and other fine trees in different parts of the Park. Prince Henry, when living at St. James's House, took pleasure in planting, and Charles I., as he walked on the eventful 30th of January from St. James's to his scaffold at Whitehall, is said to have pointed out to those who attended him, one of the trees planted by his brother. In 1658, on the night that Cromwell died, there was a fearful storm in London, when several of the Park trees were torn up by their roots. When Charles II. was restored to his kingdom, one of the first things he took in hand was the beautification of St. James's Park. The canal was made, with a decoy for the water-fowl at the east end of it, avenues of trees were planted, and the Mall formed. John Evelyn, in his Fumifugium (1661), particularly recommends the plantation of lime-trees as an antidote to the evils of London smoke on account of their fragrance, and it is sup- posed that the limes in St. James's Park were planted in consequence of his suggestion. Tom Brown speaks of the odoriferous park of St. James's. When these various alterations were made, the Park assumed an entirely different appearance to that which it had before, and probably Dr. King was right when he wrote — " The fate of things is always in the dark : What cavalier would know St. James's Park ? '' Charles II. made the Park, and no one is so completely 6 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1 547-1 580, p. 458. ST. JAMES'S PARK. 263 associated with it as he is ; he was fond of sauntering about, and was here able to find most of his amusements ; he' could play at pall-mall, or talk with his mistresses at their windows, or feed his ducks at the decoy. This easiness and accessibility made the King a favourite with his subjects, and at his death, so universal was the grief, that North, in his Examen, tells us that it was rare to see a person walking in the streets with dry eyes. The formation of the canal was the greatest improvement, and we will therefore notice it first. The works were car- ried on with great spirit, and some three hundred men were employed in making it. Rows of trees were planted on its banks, and the sight of the general change in the appearance induced the poet Waller to write some lines " on St. James's Park, as lately improv'd by his Majesty," in which he likens it to the garden of Eden : — " For future shade, young trees upon the banks Of the new stream appear in even ranks : The voice of Orpheus, or Amphion's hand, I n better order could not make them stand. May they increase as fast, and spread their boughs, As the high fame of their great owner grows ! May he live long enough to see them all Dark shadows cast, and as his palace tall." The poet then imagines he sees gallants dancing by the river side, ladies angling, and lovers walking in the shade, and hears music from the boats. He concludes his poem with an address to Charles, thus — " Reform these nations, and improve them more Than this fair park, from what it was before ! " In the winter, when the water of the canal was frozen over, there was a good opportunity for the cavaliers to introduce the pastime of skating, which they had learnt in Holland. Evelyn and Pepys went to marvel at the new sight : the former admires " the strange and wonderful dexterity of the sliders on the new canal, in St. James's Park, performed by divers 264 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. gentlemen, and others, with schects after the manner of the Hollanders ; with what swiftness they pass, how suddenly they stop in full career upon the ice ;" 7 and Pepys says he "did see people sliding with their skeates, which is a very pretty art." 8 This recreation does not seem to have spread very rapidly at first, for Swift, writing to Stella, in 1710, tells her of the rabble " sliding with skates, if you know what they are." One day Pepys follows the Duke of York, and is grieved to see him go on to the unsafe ice — " though the ice was broken and dangerous, yet he would go slide upon his scates, which I do not like, but he slides very well." 9 At the south side of the west end of the canal was the once famous Rosamond's Pond, long known as the favourite scene for the suicide of unfortunate lovers. The origin of the name is unknown, but we find it thus called in 161 2. On the 3rd of October, in that year, 400/. was paid out of the Ex- chequer " towards the charge of making and bringing a current of water from Hyde Park, in a vault of brick arched over, to fall into Rosamond's Pond, at St. James's Park, with other charges in making the head of the said Pond, and clean- ing the passages and sluices." 10 It was a sequestered spot as shown in the drawing of Hogarth, engraved on the next page, and in one engraved by J. T. Smith ; but Chatelain's view, which marks its junction by a dyke with the canal, has a more cheerful appearance. Pope writes, — " This the blest lover shall for Venus take, And send up vows from Rosamunda's lake." In the Tatler (No. 61), Strephon tells his mistress that he will "wait upon her . . . near Rosamond's Pond, and then the sylvan deities and rural powers of the place, sacred to love, the mover of all noble hearts, should hear his vows repeated by the streams and echoes." In a later number of that paper (No. 171), Philander desires Clarinda to meet him here, pro- ' Evelyn's Diary, Dec. 1. 1662. B Pepys's Diary, Dec. 1, 1662. 9 Ibid., Dec. 15, 1662. 10 Devon's Issues of the Exchequer (Pell Records), 1836, p. 150. ST. JAMES'S PARK. 265 testing, that in case she would not do so, she might see his body floating on the lake of love. As might be guessed, the reputation of the place did not stand very high, for in Southerne's The Maid's Last Prayer (1693), Granger remarks that he did not see Lady Trickett at Rosamond's Pond, and she answers, " Me ! fie, fie, a married woman there, Mr. Granger!" In 1735, the pond was cleaned out by Hugh Roberts, who had invented a machine for emptying canals, and was filled up in 1770, when several alterations were made by " Capability " Brown. -'lill i'S^WS*''*"'" " " " iISp ^ ^i&iibj WaHeF':- -«sSii< SHlSsilS" -- ; : : :--- HSkE§ ^S&SfllJ? •£ '-. =5 BSflHBil* 1 ^^^ so^^lA taSffll^^ - -"B Bill ilSifill ^^^^^^^3^^^^ps^i^^s At the east end of the canal, was a decoy or swampy retreat for the ducks, called Duck Island, of which place the celebrated " litterateur," St. Evremond, was appointed Go- vernor by Charles II. The duties were probably not very onerous, but a salary was attached to the office. Edward Storey, who gave his name to Storey's Gate, was paid 8/. gs. for " wyer and other things used about the decoy, and for 266 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. ioo baskets for the ducks ; " and 9/. \os. "for money paid to sundry workmen for setting the reeds and polles round the decoy and wyering it." n Andrew Marvell refers to this hobby of Charles, in his verses entitled Royal Resolutions : — " I'll have a fine pond with a pretty decoy, Where many strange fowl shall feed and enjoy, And still in their language quack, Vive le roy." V2 Evelyn, in his diary (February 9th, 1664-5), describes the manners and customs of the inhabitants : — " The park was at this time stored with numerous flocks of several sorts of or- dinary and extraordinary wild fowl, breeding about the decoy . . . here were withy-potts or nests for the wild fowle to lay their eggs in, a little above the surface of the water." There was a house on the island, and William III. built a tea-drinking room, which is marked in a plan made in 1734, and engraved by J. T. Smith in 1807. In 1743 the place is thus described : — " About the middle of it [the Park] runs a canal 2,800 foot in length and 100 in breadth, and near it are several other waters which form an island, that has a good cover for the breeding and harbouring wild ducks and other water fowl : on the island, also, is a pretty house and garden, scarce visible to the company in the Park." 13 The old gossip- ing Princess Amelia was in the habit of taking tea in the summer-house, and George Colman's mother, sister of the Countess of Bath, and widow of the British Resident at the Court of Tuscany, lived at the house close by." Walpole, in one of his letters to Sir Horace Mann (February 9th, 175 1), informs his correspondent that " my Lord Pomfret is made ranger of the parks, and by consequence my lady is Queen of the Duck Island." Soon after this, that is in 1770, the !' CUNNINGHAM'S Handbook of London. 12 Marvell'S Works, vol. iii. p. 345. 13 History and Present State of the British Islands, vol. ii. p. 70. 14 Colman's Random Records, i. 31. ST. JAMES'S PARK. 267 Duck Island and all its surroundings was improved off the face of the earth, and the wondering fish and mistrustful fowl that Dryden refers to were left to take care of themselves. " Beyond the court flows in the admitted tide, Where in new depths the wondering fishes glide : Here in a royal bed the waters sleep ; When tired at sea within this bay they creep. Here the mistrustful fowl no harm suspects, So safe are all things which our king protects." In James I.'s reign the Park was ornamented with walks, fountains, and waterworks, with " orange trees and other foreign fruits." It was also stocked with deer, and " two Indian beasts," cranes, swans, ducks and other fowl, and houses were erected for the deer and game. In February, 1608, deer were chosen "to be sent from St. James's Park to the French King." 15 On November 13th, 16 12, Viscount Rochester, afterwards Earl of Somerset, was paid 22/. 13s. ^d. out of the Exchequer, " for charges of fowl and wild beasts, in the park of St. James's, and in the Spring Gardens, in the months of July, August and September." 16 In 1623, among the presents sent from Spain when Prince Charles was courting the Infanta, were an elephant and some camels, which were kept in the Park. 17 Henry Peacham mentions among the sights of London — " Saint James his ginney hens, the cassawarway, moreover, The Beaver i' the Parke (strange beast as ere man saw) Downe-shearing willowes with teeth as sharpe as a hand-saw." 18 The part of the Park, now called the Enclosure, was staked off from the walks by Charles II., for the purpose of pro- tecting the deer and other animals. Evelyn in his diary, under date February 9th, 1664-5, names deer of several coun- tries, red, white and spotted like leopards, roebucks, stags, antelopes, guinea goats, Arabian sheep, &c, as being all here ; 15 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1603-1610, p. 410. 16 Devon's Issues of the Exchequer {Pell Records), 1836, p. 152. 17 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1623-1625, p. 13. 18 Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, vol. vii. p. 41. 268 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. and two years before he had written thus to Thomas Chiffinch, the King's factotum so well limned by Scott in Pevcril of the Peak : — " To this I would have added in another register the names and portraitures of all the exotic and rare beasts and fowls which have at any time been presented to his Majesty, and which are daily sent to his paradise at St. James's Park." Monconys, the traveller, when in England in the year 1663, went to see these birds and animals, among which he mentions a pelican. Charles caused some acorns of the Boscobel oak to be set in the garden of St. James's, and was in the habit of watering them himself ; he also planted rows of trees, and set apart one of the alleys thus formed for the purposes of the game of pall-mall, at which he was an adept. The old Pall- mall in St. James's Fields was out of repair, and was about to be destroyed in order that St. James's Square might be laid out, and therefore another place was required. Pall-mall was a popular game in the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries, and few large towns were without a mall, or prepared ground, where it could be played ; but it has now been so long out of use, that no satisfactory account of the game can be found. It was, probably, introduced into Eng- land from Scotland on the accession of James VI. to the English throne, for the King names it among other exercises as suited for his son Henry, who was afterwards Prince of Wales : — " But the exercises that I would have you to use (although but moderately, not making a craft of them) are running, leaping, wrastling, fencing, dancing, and playing at the caitch or tennise, archerie, palle maille, and such like other faire and pleasant field-games." 19 About the same time (1598) Sir R. Dallington, in his Method of Travel, marvels that the sport was not introduced into England. " Among all the exercises of France, I preferre none before the palle maille, both because it is a gentlemanlike sport, not violent, and yeelds good occasion and opportunity of discourse, as they walke from the one marke to the other. I marvell, among 19 BamXtKov Awpov, book iii. (JAMES I.'S Works, 1616, p. 185). .ST. JAMES'S PARK. 269 many more apish and foolish toyes, which wee have brought out of France, that wee have not brought this sport also into England." Unfortunately no rules of the game have come down to us, so that we cannot tell how many players were required, or how many strokes were' allowed before the ball passed successfully under one of the hoops, but from old dictionaries and drawings, we are able to gather the following particulars : A long alley was prepared for the game, by being made smooth, and then surrounded by a low wooden border, which was marked so as to show the position of the balls. Each player had a mallet between three and four feet in length, and a round box-wood ball of between two and three inches in diameter, and his object was to drive his ball through a hoop about two feet high and two inches wide, called " The Pass," of which there were two, one at each end of the mall. Force and skill were both required in the player, who had to make the ball skate along the ground with great speed, and yet to be careful that he did not strike it in such a manner as to raise it from the ground. This is shown by the following lines of Charles Cotton : — " But playing with the boy at mall (I rue the time and ever shall), I struck the ball, I know not how, (For that is not the play, you know,) A pretty height into the air." 20 The mall in St. James's Park was nearly half a mile in length, and was kept with the greatest care. Pepys tells us how he went to talk with the keeper of the mall, and how he learned the manner of mixing the earth for the floor, over which powdered cockle-shells were strewn. All this required such constant attention that a special person was employed, who was called the cockle-strewer. In the dry weather the surface was apt to turn to dust, and consequently impede the flight of the ball. At the end of the mall was a gallery for the spectators to sit and view the game. All these things 3 " The Scoffer Scoffl. 270 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. made it the finest mall in Europe. 21 Waller, in his poem on the Park, thus describes the place and the chief actor : — " Here, a well-polished mall gives us joy, To see our prince his matchless force employ. No sooner has he touch'd the flying ball, But 'tis already more than half the mall : And such a fury from his arm has got, As from a smoaking culverin 'twere shot." Although the game was no longer played, the border of wood remained round the mall for many years, and the hoop at the west end continued in its place till it was cleared away in the beginning of the reign of George III. All the avenues from Spring Gardens to Buckingham Palace are now indis- criminately called the Mall. 22 As the fashionable world now rides, drives and walks in Hyde Park, so it walked in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in St. James's Park. Sorbiere, the French traveller, who was in England about the year 1665, after describing the company at the Ring, adds, " Sometimes they alight and go into St. James's, that is like the Tuillery at Paris, and usually 21 " The Palaces of the King, viz. Whitehall and St. James's (to which is joyned a small, but delightful Park, so called, in which is a Pal Mai, said to be the best in Christendom), the first being the residence of his Sacred Majesty, whose walls are washed by the Thames, the other of his Royal Highness James, Duke of York." — 1673, Richard Blome, Brit 'a imia, P- 150- 22 Since writing the above I have found a paper by Mr. Albert Way, " On the Game of Pall Mall," in the Archaeological Journal, vol. xi. (1854), pp. 253-260, but it contains nothing that necessitates any alteration in my description. Although Mr. Way has gathered together much curious information about the game, he is unable to explain how it was played, and he even thinks it possible that the representations of the play in Knight's London and Pictorial History of England might be correct. These figures represent some men attempting to strike a ball through a ring suspended to a tall pole. Whatever game this may have been, we can say decidedly that it could not have been pall-mall. Mr. Way's paper is illustrated by a figure of a mallet and ball found in the house of the late Mr. Benjamin Vulliamy, at No. 68, Pall Mali ST. JAMES'S PARK. 271 walk fast there. 23 Dryden's severe satire upon Lord Shaftes- bury is said to have been suggested by Charles II. to the poet, when they were walking together in the Mall. Dryden entitled his poem The Medal, because a medal had been struck on the occasion of Lord Shaftesbury's acquittal of the charge of high treason, which his partisans wore on their breasts. Evelyn, in his curious inventory of a lady's extravagant attire in 1690, entitled Mundus Muliebris, or The Ladies Drawing Room unlocked, and her Toilet spread,^ thus describes some of the walkers : — " Three manteaus. nor can madam less Provision have for due undress ; Nor demy sultane, spagnolet, Nor fringe to sweep the mall forget." A sultane was a gown trimmed with buttons and loops, and a spagnolet a kind of narrow-sleeved gown. The Frenchman Misson describes the place a few years after- wards : — " The time for good company is at noon, in the fine days of winter, and very late at night in hot days in summer. On Holydays and Sundays, the common people take their walks thither in whole shoals." 25 The Mall continued to be a fashionable promenade until the commencement of the present century, but its glory has now entirely departed. The follow- ing extracts show its condition in the middle of the last century : — " But what renders St. James's Park one of the most delightful scenes in nature is that variety of living objects we meet with here ; for besides the deer and wild-fowl, common to other parks, besides the water, fine walks, and the elegant buildings that surround it, hither the politest part of the British nation of both sexes frequently resort in the spring, to take the benefit of the evening air, and enjoy the most agreeable conversation imaginable : and those who have a taste for nautical musick, and the shining equipage of the soldiery, will find their eyes and ears agreeably entertain'd 23 Sorbiere's Voyage to England, Lond. 1709, p. 69. 24 Miscellaneous Works, 1825, p. 703. 25 I7I9,Misson's Travels over England, p. 206. 272 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. by the Horse and Foot Guards almost every morning." e6 " The Mall in St. James's Park, a fine shady walk about half a mile in length, that runs parallel to the Palace and the King's Gardens. Here they have a better opportunity of joining companies and enjoying each other's conversation than they had in their coaches at the Ring, and here having walk'd as long as there is any glimpse of day-light, they retire to their houses." 27 No plebeians then mixed in the amusements of the aristocracy, and the Mall was the rendezvous of the gay and gallant who walked here to see and be seen, and to criticize each other, but on Sundays the Park was given up to the people. " On Sundays and other holydays . . . every walk, every publick garden and path near the town are crowded with the common people, and no place more than the Park, for which reason I presume the quality are seldom seen there on a Sunday, though the meanest of them are so well dress'd at these times that nobody need be asham'd of their company on that account : you will see every apprentice, every porter and cobler in as good cloth and linnen as their betters, and it must be a very poor woman that has not a suit of mantua silk or something equal to it, to appear abroad in on holydays. It is not to be conceiv'd what an alteration this change of dress, and the air they assume, makes in them at these times : they are now no more these cringing slaves you saw them in their several employments the day before ; they seem to value themselves on being citizens of this great town, and to appre- hend they are people of importance, when they are a little remov'd from the scene of their daily labour." 28 Swift, when in London, walked every day in the Park, and writing in 171 1, says, " When I pass the Mall in the evening, it is prodigious to see the number of ladies walking there." These ladies are introduced by Gay into his Trivia : — " The ladies, gaily dress'd, the Mall adorn With various dyes and paint the sunny morn ; " 26 1743, Hist, and Present State of the British Islands, vol. ii. p. 71. 21 Ibid., p. 339-40. 88 Ibid., p. 363. ST. JAMES'S PARK. 273 and as ladies are not likely to walk alone, Pope introduces the other sex — " Some feel no flames but at the Court or Ball, And others hunt white aprons on the Mall." Horace Walpole, in a letter to George Montagu (June 23, 1750) relates how he and Lady Caroline Petersham went to Vauxhall, and how they gathered together their party in the Mall. His description gives a capital idea of the easy way in which the upper classes monopolized the Park ; but a very few years after, all was completely changed. In the middle of the eighteenth century was to be seen among the gay throng in the Park, a man who has drawn his own picture for us thus : " Short, rather plump than emaciated, notwithstanding his complaints ; about five foot five inches ; fair wig ; lightish cloth coat, all black besides ; one hand generally in his bosom, the other a cane in it, which he leans upon under the skirts of his coat usually, that it may imperceptibly serve him as a support, when attacked by sudden tremors or startings, and dizziness, which too frequently attack him, but, thank God, not so often as formerly : looking directly foreright, as passers-by would imagine, but observing all that stirs on either hand of him without moving his short neck, hardly ever turning back ; of a light brown complexion, teeth not yet failing him ; smoothish faced and ruddy cheeked ; at sometimes looking to be about sixty-five, at other times much younger ; a regular even pace, stealing away ground, rather than seeming to rid it ; a gray eye, too often over- clouded by mistiness from the head, by chance lively, very lively it will be, if he have hope of seeing a lady whom he loves and honours : his eye always on the ladies." 29 This little man was the celebrated novelist, Samuel Richardson. He carried on a correspondence with Lady Bradshaigh, who wrote under the name of Mrs. Belfour. This lady asked the author whether he ever walked in the Park, and he answered, that with the hope of seeing her he would walk three or four 2y Samuel Richardson's Correspondence, 1804, vol iv. pp. 290-1. 18 274 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. hours there every day for the space of a week. After a certain time, and when many letters had passed between the two, mostly about Clarissa, the lady threw off her disguise ; probably, she thought she had sufficiently tried the worthy man's patience. She writes : — " I passed you four times last Saturday in the Park, knew you by your own description, at least three hundred yards off, walking in the .Park, between the trees and the Mall ; and had an opportunity of surveying you unobserved, your eyes being engaged amongst the multi- tude, looking, as I knew, for a certain gill-o'-the-wisp, who, I have a notion, escaped being known by you, tho' not your notice, for you looked at me every time we passed ; but I put on so unconcerned a countenance, that I am almost sure I deceived you." 30 We get a glimpse of the last days of the Mall in the Rolliad, — " Lo ! in the West the sun's broad orb display^ O'er the Queen's Palace, lengthens every shade : See the last loiterers now the Mall resign ; E'en poets go, that they may seem to dine : Yet fasting, here I linger to complain." Posterity seldom does justice to the good points in the characters of bad men, and Charles II. has not been suffi- ciently credited with his many encouragements to science, and his interest in it. Sorbiere praises him for having " caused a famous chymist to be brought from Paris, for whom he has built a very fine elaboratory in St. James's Park," 31 and also he " hath erected a tall pile in this park, the better to make use of Telescopes, with which Sir Robert Murray shew'd me Saturn and the satellites of Jupiter." 32 Sorbiere, in another place, praises Sir Robert Moray highly. " It was a wonderful, or rather a very edifying, thing to find a person imploy'd in matters of State, and of such excellent merit, and one who had been engaged a great part of his life in warlike com- mands, and the affairs of the Cabinet, apply himself in making 30 Page 367. 31 Sorbiere's Voyage to England, Lond. 1709, p. 33. 32 Ibid., p. 17. ST. JAMES'S PARK. 275 machines in St. James's Park and adjusting Telescopes. All this we have seen him do with great application, and undoubtedly to the confusion of most of the courtiers, who never mind the stars and think it a dishonour to concern themselves with anything but inventing of new fashions." 33 Monconys also, when in England, in 1663, was shown the telescope by Lord Brouncker, the first President of the Royal Society. Cosmo III., in 1669, was also taken to see it. Pepys relates, that on the nth of August, 1664, Lords Castlehaven and Arran ran down and killed a buck in this Park, when the King was a spectator of the sport. On February 19th, 1666-67, Evelyn refers to a wrestling-match for 1,000/., between western and northern men, when the former won. On the 17th of December, 1684, three Asiatic horses were exhibited before the King, the Duke of York, and the Prince of Denmark, when they trotted like does, as if they did not feel the ground. In December, 173 1, a man engaged to hop five hundred yards in fifty hops, in the Park, and performed the feat in forty-six. When Prince George joined the Prince of Orange, his wife, the Princess Anne, fled from Whitehall, and the Earl of Middlesex (Lord Buckhurst) con- ducted her to the coach, which was waiting for her in the Park. In November, 1697, when William III. returned from Holland, he made a public entry into London, and St. James's Park was lined with four battalions of Foot Guards, who fired three volleys as a salute. In Queen Anne's reign one Nicholas Wilson proposed a scheme for raising money by levying a tax on the frequenters of St. James's Park, and explains his proposal as follows : — " Every body knows the vast crowd of people that frequent St. James's Park, some for their diversion, others making it a highway to which they do not contribute any thing. Her Maj tie being at a great expense every year for ornamenting and keeping it in repaire, if she would be pleased to give orders that none should enter in y e Park excepting forringe ministers, nobility, members of Parlam 1 dureing y e session, 33 Sorbiere'S Voyage, p. 30. 276 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. her houshold, y e souldiers, &c, without paying a halfpenny a peise, it will raise a very great summe." 84 In August, 1780, at the time of the public terror caused by the Gordon Riots, the Park was the scene of a very pretty sight. The regiments of Guards were encamped here, and both sides of the canal, from the Queen's House to the Horse Guards, were covered with tents and troops. In the King's Collection of Prints in the British Museum there are a couple of drawings by Captain Davies, showing the encampment as it appeared on June 20, 1780. In 1798 new barracks near the wall in James's Street were commenced. On June 21, 1 8 10, the Park was cleared at 5 P.M., and the gates locked, as it was expected that Sir Francis Burdett would be drawn from the Tower in cavalcade. In 1 8 1 4, on the occasion of the visit of the allied sovereigns to England, great preparations were made in this Park. A bridge built according to the Chinese taste of the day, and surmounted by a pagoda consisting of seven pyramidal stories, was erected over the water. This pagoda was illuminated with gas, and from it fixed and missile fire- works were exhibited on the first night of the fete, but it unfor- tunately caught fire and caused the death of several of the people employed in the management of the fireworks. At the same time the canal was covered with handsome boats, and the margin of the water was surrounded by booths. The trees in the Mall were lighted up with lamps and Chinese lanterns, and a balloon was sent up from the lawn in front of Buckingham House. There is a good story told of Canova which relates to this Chinese bridge. He was asked what had chiefly impressed him in England, and he answered that he was most struck to find this bridge to be the work of the English Government, and Waterloo Bridge that of a few private men. The various avenues in the different parts of the Park obtained distinguishing names, as Duke Humphry's Walk, and the Jacobite Walk, which were also called respectively the Green Walk and the Close Walk. The trees that once 34 Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, vol. iv. p. 351. ST. J A MESS PARK. 277 gave a beauty to the place have now nearly all disappeared, and they have been replaced by young saplings, so that it will be many a year before the Mall again makes a handsome appearance. The trees were greatly damaged by the fearful storm of November, 1703, which Congreve describes as more dreadful than any within the memory of man. 35 Daines Barrington wrote a paper " On tJie sudden decay of several trees in St. James's Park," 36 in which he considers the destruction of those round Rosamond's Pond to be accounted for by the filling up of that piece of water ; because the roots seeking for moisture had grown entirely on the water side, and, therefore, when the pond was filled up they died from want of sufficient moisture. In 1824 a report was drawn up by W. S. Macleay on the state of the elm-trees, 37 in which he states that, on examining these trees, he found that they were rapidly disappearing, owing to the attacks of a species of beetle, the Hylesinus dcstmctor of Fabricius, or Scolytns destructor of Latreille, an insect peculiar to the elm. These creatures are very rapid in their work of destruction. In 1780 an insect of the same family made its appearance in the pine-forests of the Hartz, and was neglected. Three years after, whole forests had disappeared, and for want of fuel an end was nearly put to the mining operations of that extensive range of country. 38 "The elm-trees in St. James's Park Were daily losing all their bark, At which whoever look'd, or From which whoever broke a piece, He might the excavations trace Of Scolytns destructor. The ranger, knowing not what jaws The insect uses when he gnaws, as Berkeley's Literary Relics, 1789, p. 332. 3b Miscellanies, 1781, p. 170. 37 Edinburgh Phil. Journal, vol. xi. pp. 123-129. 3S The late Charles Waterton, the distinguished naturalist, contended that the insect never attacked the healthy tree. — HOBSON'S Waterton, his Plome Habits and Handiwork, 1867, p. 56. 278 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Thought such tree-royal killing By soldiers' bayonets must be done, As if the guardsmen every one Had not enough of drilling." 39 The Park was lighted by gas-lamps in 1822, when the gates were closed at ten o'clock, in consequence of which the following lines were stuck up on one of the trees — " The trees in the park Are illumined with gas, But after it's dark No creatures can pass. Ye sensible wights Who govern our fates, Extinguish your lights Or open your gates." 40 In the years 1826-28 the Park was much improved, and the present enclosure planned out by Nash for George IV. The ornamental water was altered from the former straight canal to the present pretty lake. Previous to this time the enclosure was little more than a long field surrounded by a wooden railing, into which no person was allowed to trespass. The lake was emptied out and the bottom laid down with concrete in 1857, when the present bridge was erected. The wooden bridge, which was built in 18 14, remained till the alterations in 1827, when it was cleared away, so that for thirty years there was no communication between the two sides of the water but by a ferry. Although the present bridge is ugly in itself, the view from it is very beautiful. The thickly-wooded aits and the boats and valuable waterfowl of the Ornitho- logical Society upon the water make an agreeable sylvan scene. On looking to the east we see the Horse Guards, and the new Foreign and India Offices towering over the fore- ground of water and green trees, while to the south-east, as a more distant background, rise the towers of the Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. 39 Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, vol. vii. p. 147. M J. T. Smith's Antiquarian Ramble in the Streets of London, 1S46, vol. i. p. 102. ST. JAMES'S PARK. 279 Birdcage Walk and the avenues within the railings by its side contain some of the best trees in the Park. Birdcage is a corruption of Boccage or Avenue ; and Storey's Gate, at the Westminster end of it, takes its name, as was before stated, from Edward Storey, who was employed by Charles II. on some of the work in the Park. Bishop Warburton, in a letter to his follower Hurd, happily hit off some of the peculiarities of the place. " I would recommend to our good friend Mason a voyage now and then with me round the Park. What can afford nobler hints for pastoral than the cows and the milk- women at your entrance from Spring Gardens ? As you advance, you have noble subjects for Comedy and Farce from one end of the Mall to the other ; not to say satire, to which our worthy friend has a kind of propensity. As you turn to the left you soon arrive at Rosamond's Pond, long consecrated, to disastrous love and Elegiac poetry. The Birdcage Walk, which you enter next, speaks its own influence and inspires you with the gentle spirit of Madrigal and Sonnet When we come to Duck Island, we have a double chance for success in the Georgic or Didactic poetry, as the governor of it, Stephen Duck, can both instruct our friend in the breed of the wild fowl and lend him of his genius to sing their generations." The carriage-way in the Birdcage Walk was long exclu- sively confined to the members of the Royal Family and to the Duke of St. Alban's as Hereditary Grand Falconer, but it was opened to the public in 1828. The Parade is a handsome open space where the troops are inspected ; in it are two pieces of ordnance : the one is a Turkish cannon within a chevaux-de-frise fence, taken by the British troops at Alexandria in Egypt, during the Revolution- ary War ; the other, called the Prince Regent's Bomb, is a mortar resting on a large dragon, which was left by the French when defeated at the siege of Cadiz, July 22, 18 12, and presented by the Cortes to the Prince Regent. It was made to throw shells to the great distance of three miles, and did actually throw to three miles and a half. There formerly 28o ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. stood at the end of the canal a brass statue of a gladiator, copied by Le Sueur from an antique of Agasias Desitheus of Ephesus, in the Borghese Palace at Rome. This statue was removed to Hampton Court by Queen Anne, and to the private grounds of Windsor Castle by George IV. Before Charles II. made the canal there was a piece of water or ditch across the parade, over which the road passed by a bridge. The chief buildings that overlook the Parade are the Admiralty, the Horse Guards, the Treasury, and the Foreign and India Offices. The Admiralty was built about the year 1726, on the site of Wallingford House, the mansion of the Villiers, Dukes of Buckingham. Archbishop Usher saw the execution of Charles I. from the roof of the house ; and the body of the poet Cowley lay in state there. The building was sold to the Crown in 1680. There was an ugly building occupied by the Horse Guards in the reign of Charles II., but the present one was built from the design of Kent in 175 1, at a cost of 30,000/. It has much merit, and is probably Kent's best work ; but many of the details are exceedingly poor, and its general effect is injured by the central archway, which is much too small, and is satirized by Hogarth on that account. The old Tilt Yard attached to the palace of Whitehall was on a portion of the site of the Horse Guards. Here tournaments were held, and a magnificent one took place in January, 1581, in honour of the commissioners sent from France to propose a marriage between Queen Elizabeth and the worthless Duke of Anjou. The Treasury, a stone building of three stories, of which the lower is Tuscan, the second Doric, and the upper floor Ionic, was erected in 1733, and is only a portion of a rather handsome front designed by Kent, but not carried out. Between the Treasury and the Horse Guards is Dover House, built by Payne for Sir Mathew Featherstonhaugh, and well known from the odd appearance of its front to Whitehall. It has also been known by the names of Mel- bourne House and York House. ST. JAMES'S PARK. 281 The great building erected for the Foreign and India Offices is imposing from its size, but the general flatness of its wall and its small unrecessed windows peculiarly unfit it for a climate such as ours. The figures that ornament the India Office are all too big for their niches, and have the ludicrous effect of being uncomfortably crowded in their position. The interior of these offices is particularly hand- some ; but when we look at the outside, which in one position has the appearance of leaning to one side, we almost regret the plain and simple State Paper Office that stood on a part of its site. Spring Gardens was a small enclosed place taken out of the Park and attached to the palace at Whitehall. The name arose from a spring of water which is thus described by the traveller Hentzner in 1598 : "In a garden joining to this palace there is a. jet d'cau with a sun-dial, at which, while strangers are looking, a quantity of water, forced by a wheel, which the gardener turns at a distance through a number of little pipes, plentifully sprinkles those that are standing round." Keepers were appointed to take charge of the gardens, but the public were allowed to amuse themselves in them, and they became a favourite lounge of the quality in the reign of Charles I. In March, 1647, it was ordered that the keeper of the Spring Gardens should admit no person " on the Lord's day, or any of the public fast days." A few years later it was entirely closed and the gay world had to content itself with the Mulberry Garden. In A Character of England, 165 1, after describing the drive in Hyde Park, Evelyn goes on to say, " The manner is, as the company returns, to alight at the Spring Garden so called, in order to the parke as our Thuilleries is to the course ; the inclosure not disagreeable, for the solemness of the grove, the warbling of the birds, and as it opens into the spacious walks at St. James's ; but the company walk in it at such a rate, as you would think all the ladies were so many Atalantases con- tending with their wooers ; and, my lord, there was no appear- ance that I should prove the Hippomenes, who could with 282 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. very much ado keep pace with them ; but as fast as they run, they stay there so long, as if they wanted not time to finish the race, for it is usuall here to find some of the young com- pany till midnight ; and the thickets of the garden seem to be contrived to all advantages of gallantry, after they have been refreshed with the collation, which is here seldome omitted, at a certain cabaret in the middle of this paradise, where the forbidden fruites are certain trifling tartes, neates- tongues, salacious meates, and bad Rhenish, for which the gallants pay sauce, as indeed they do at all such houses throughout England ; for they think it a piece of frugality beneath them to bargaine or accompt for what they eat in any place, however unreasonably imposed upon ; but thus those mean fellows are (as I told your Lordship) inriched ; begger and insult over the gentlemen." 41 The price paid at the ordinary in Charles I.'s reign was six shillings, that is four shillings more than was allowed by the King's proclama- tion to be charged elsewhere. 42 At the Restoration the entertainments were moved to the new Spring Garden at Fox Hall, afterwards called Vauxhall. The original place was styled Old Spring Gardens, and houses were built on a part of the site. Prince Rupert died on the 29th of November, 1682, at his house in Spring Gardens, where he had lived for eight years. One of the houses looking into the Park was built by Craggs, the Secretary of State and friend of " Pope. Colley Cibber lived here near the " Bull Head Tavern," next door to which Milton had lived while he wrote his Defcnsio. In the year 1S18 John Penn, in concert with some friends, founded the Outinian or Matrimonial Society. The first meetings were held at 190 Piccadilly, and afterwards lectures were delivered at Mr. Penn's house, No. 10, New Street, Spring Gardens. There is a lithograph showing the Spring Gardens end of St. James's Park, which has the following inscription: "The Portico, Spring Gardens, No. 10, New u Evelyn's Miscellaneous Works, 1825, p. 165. 42 Strafford Papers, i. 262. ST. JAMES'S PARK. 283 Street (the only Portico) belonging to J. Penn, Esq., with the company assembled, as it appears during the delivery of the Outinian Lectures every Saturday throughout the season." Records of the Origin and Proceedings of the Outinian Society, were printed in 18 18. Spring Gardens, owing to its vicinity to the Court, was formerly allowed as a sanctuary for debtors who wished to escape the troublesome attention of their creditors. The pastoral character of the place, as exhibited in the cows and milkwomen noted by Bishop Warburton, still con- tinues and gives it its most special feature. The passage to Charing Cross was granted in 1699, by William III., and it ought now to be made a handsome opening. From the Park we pass on in the next chapter to the palaces of St. James and Buckingham. 284 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. CHAPTER XT. ST. JAMES'S AND BUCKINGHAM PALACES. St. James's Palace and Pake. St. James's Palace 1 was originally a hospital for fourteen leprous maidens, dedicated to St. James, and appears to have been founded by citizens of London, previous to the Conquest. 1 For much information relating to St. James's Palace I have to thank my friend W. H. Spilsbury, Esq., who very kindly lent me a MS. volume of collections made by the late Thomas Moule. ST. JAMES'S PALACE. 285 Eight brethren were afterwards added to the Institution, whose duty it was to perform divine service. The hospital is mentioned in a manuscript, in the Cottonian Library, as early as the year 1100, and is said to have been "rebuilt in the reign of Henry III., when it was made subject to a master, who from time to time resisted the claims of the Abbot of Westminster in his attempts to assume the jurisdiction over it." ~ In the thirty-fifth year of this King's reign, the master and convent granted to Richard de Wendover, for the sum of thirty marks, that one chaplain should celebrate a mass for his soul in their hospital for ever. 3 The dissensions between the Convent and the Abbey of Westminster were put an end to in the reign of Henry VI., when the custody of the hospital was given to the heads of Eton College. In this same reign Lord Cromwell, to save himself from the violence of the great Earl of Warwick, was lodged at St. James's Hospital ; as is explained in the following passage from one of the Paston Letters: — " Ij dayes afore the writyng of this L'r there was langage betwene my Lordes of Warr [Richard Nevile, Earl of Warwick] and Cromwell [Henry Stanhope, Lord Cromwell] afore the Kyng, in somoch as the Lord Cromwell wold have excused hym self of all the steryng or moevyng of the male journey of Seynt Albones, of the whiche excuse makyng my Lord of Warr' had knolege and in hast wasse w l the Kyng and sware by his othe that the Lord Cromwell said not trouth but that he was begynnerof all y l journey at Seynt Albones and so betwene my said ij Lords of Warr' and Cromwell ther is all y is day grugyng in somoch as the Erie of Shrouesbury [John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury] hath loged hym at y e Hospitall of Seynt James beside the Mewes be the Lord Cromwells desire for his sauf gard." 4 The Hospital continued till the twenty-third year of the reign of Henry VIII., when the King obtained it in exchange 3 PYNE's Royal Residences, vol. iii. p. 1. 3 R. NEWCOURT'S Repertorhcm, 1708, vol. i. p. 662. 4 Letter from Henry Windsor to John Booking and William Worcester (July 20, 1455, 33 K. Hy. VI.) — FENN's Paston Letters, 1787, vol. i. p. no. 286 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. for lands in Chattisham in the county of Suffolk, and pensioned off the inmates. Henry rebuilt the house, and tradition says that Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, gave, the design ; at all events, the building took place at the time of the King's marriage with Anne Boleyn ; and, in honour of it, loveknots were sculptured over some of the arched doorways. The following quotation contains Stow's account of the place : — "West from this cross [Charing Cross] stood sometime an hospital of St. James, consisting of two hides of land, with the appurtenances in the parish of St. Margaret, in Westminster, and founded by the citizens of London, before the time of any man's memory, for fourteen sisters, maidens, that were leprous, living chastely and honestly in divine service. After- wards divers citizens of London gave five and fifty pounds rent thereunto, and then were adjoined eight brethren to minister divine service there. After this, also, sundry devout men of London gave to this hospital four hides of land in the field of Westminster, and in Hendon, Calcote, and Hamsted eighty acres of land and wood, &c. King Edward I. confirmed those gifts and granted a fair to be kept on the eve of St. James, the day, the morrow, and four days following, in the eighteenth of his reign. The hospital was surrendered to Henry VIII. in the twenty-third of his reign : the sisters being compounded with, were allowed pensions for the term of their lives ; and the King built there a goodly manor, annexing thereunto a park, closed about with a wall of brick, now called St. James's Park, serving indifferently to the said manor, and to the manor or palace of White hall. South from Charing Cross on the right hand, are divers fair houses lately built before the park, then a large tilt-yard for noblemen, and other, to exercise themselves in justing, turning and fighting at barriers." 5 The newly built palace was called the King's Manor of St. James, and from that time to the burning of Whitehall, it formed a kind of supplementary royal palace, at which the King or Queen occasionally resided, but which was more frequently inhabited by the junior members of the royal family. 5 1603, John Stow's Survey of London, rpt. 1842, p. 168. ST. JAMES'S PALACE. >8 7 St. James's Palace. In July, 1536, Henry Fitz Roy, Duke of Richmond, K.G., son of Henry VIII. by Elizabeth Blount, widow of Gilbert, Lord Talbois, died here at the age of sixteen. He married Mary, daughter of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, and sister of the poet Earl of Surrey. In September, 1553, the new Queen Mary removed from the Tower to St. James's, where she frequently resided during the whole of her reign. She was here when the treaty of peace was signed between England and France, in which Calais was surrendered to the latter. On the 17th of November, 1558, the Queen died at St. James's, and her body lay in state in the Privy Chamber for some days, and was then buried in Henry VI I. 's chapel ; her heart having been previously interred in the chapel of the manor house. Queen Elizabeth frequently retired to St. James's, and in September, 1561, she came from Enfield, when great preparations were made for her progress. From Islington to St. James's the hedges were cut down, and the ditches filled up in order to make a way for her to pass. The Queen's favourite, Sir Robert Dudley, K.G., and Master of the Horse, was created Earl of Leicester, by her Majesty, on Michaelmas day, 1564, at St. James's House. On the 17th November, 1584, she returned from her progress to her manor house, where the citizens of London welcomed her at night with torches, &c. In July, 1588, she removed here from Richmond, and remained till the end of September, 288 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. during which time the invincible Armada made its attempted descent upon our shores. Philip of Spain had left his poor wife all to herself at St. James's to die of a broken heart, though he wished to come to England again and share the throne with her successor. Mr. Motley gives us an amusing instance of the ignorance of this despicable bigot : — " Again a despatch of Mendoza to the King contained the intelligence that Queen Elizabeth was, at the date of the letter, residing at St. James's. Philip, who had no objection to display his knowledge of English affairs — as became the man who had already been almost sovereign of England and meant to be entirely so — supplied a piece of information in an apostille to this dispatch : ' St. James is a house of recreation,' he said, ' which was once a monastery. There is a park between it and the palace which is called Huytal, but why it is called Huytal I am sure I don't know.' His researches in the English language had not enabled him to recognise the adjective and substantive, out of which the abstruse com- pound White-hall (Huytal) was formed." 6 On the nth of July, 1603, a proclamation was issued by James I., relating to his Coronation. He ordered in it that the fair " used to be kept in the feilds neere our house of St. James and City of Westminster, commonly called St. James' Fair," should be put off for eight or ten days, because, if it should be held " at the tyme accustomed, being the very instant of our Coronation, [it] could not but draw resort of people to that place much more unfit to be neer our court and trayne, than such as by former proclamations are restrayned." 7 In 1604, St. James's was appointed as the residence of Prince Henry, the eldest son of James I., and the stables and barns were rebuilt. In May, 1610, the King presented the house and manor to the Prince of Wales, and Inigo Jones, who was appointed surveyor of the works, made various alterations and improvements in the interior. Here the fi The United Netherlands, vol. ii. p. 460. 7 RYMER'S Fccdera, 1715, vol. xvi. p. 527. ST. JAMES'S PALACE. 289 Prince gathered round him a brilliant court of noble youths, and his levees were more largely attended than those of his father, but this did not last long, for in November, 161 2, at the early age of nineteen, the young man died, not without suspicion of being poisoned by Somerset. Immediately after his death a mad youth rushed into the house naked, and pre- tended to be the ghost of the late Prince. 8 The body lay in state till December 7th, when it was taken to Westminster Abbey. The popular grief for the loss of the accomplished young Prince was very great, and two thousand mourners followed at his funeral. His debts were found to be 9,000/., but his property was worth more, the medals and coins alone being valued at 3,000/. In July, 1613, the sum of 60/. was paid to Thomas Hamlyn " for enlarging, with three sets of pipes, the new organ at St. James's, and for making the same organ one note deeper ; " that amount appearing to be due to him in the list of the late Prince's debts. 9 On the death of Henry, his brother, Prince Charles, took up his residence at St. James's, where he remained till the death of his father. In December, 161 8, he was insulted by an attack upon his house, which is thus noticed in the Calendar of State Papers : — " Relation of an affront committed by the Deputy Sheriff and Bailiffs of Middlesex and 200 and 300 apprentices, by rushing into the Prince's house at St. James's, in search of Thomas Geare, a debtor, who fled there for refuge." 10 They demanded him from Sir John Vaughan, the comptroller of the household, and not obtaining their wish, attacked the latter as he was getting into his coach. In 1623, great preparations were made for the reception of the Infanta, who was coming over to marry the Prince, and the Spanish Ambassador went to survey the house, when he ordered a new chapel to be built by Inigo Jones. 11 In the 8 Calendar of Stale Papers, Domestic Series, 1611-1618, p. 156. 9 Devon's Issues of the Exchequer, Pell Records, 1836, p. 169. lu Domestic Series, 161 1- 18, p. 604. 11 Ibid., 1619-23, p. 576. 19 2QO ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. same year, a part of the clock tower was carried away by lightning. 1 ' 2 Although, on Charles's accession to the Throne, he went to Whitehall Palace, he frequently retired for a time to St. James's. His Queen took a fancy to the place, and most of their children were born there — Charles, on May 29th, 1630, when a star appeared at noonday ; which important event was commemorated by the striking of a medal ; Mary, who afterwards married the Prince of Orange, and was mother of William III., on November 4th, 1632 ; James, on October 14th, 1633, when medals were scattered to the populace at the Gatehouse ; and Elizabeth, on December 28th, 1635. In 1626 the establishment of the Queen, Henrietta Maria, was so large, that it cost 240/. a day ; but great complaints were made, and the French servants were packed back to France, whereat the French King was greatly incensed, and orders were given by him to seize all English ships in the ports of France. These French servants appear to have been a dirty set, and much to have offended the housekeeper of St. James's, who sent word to the King that they " had so defiled that house, as a week's work would not make it clene." 13 In 1638 Marie de Medicis, the mother of Henrietta Maria, arrived in England, and took up her residence at St. James's. In the train of the Queen was the historiographer of France, the Sieur de la Serre, who describes the palace in very favourable terms, as very ancient, very magnificent, and extremely con- venient. The size of the building seems to have struck him especially, for he says : — " To express the great number of chambers, all covered with tapestry, and superbly garnished with all sorts of furniture, where the Court was to be lodged, without reckoning the other apartments which were reserved, and of which M. le Vise, de Fabroni had one of the principal, would be impossible. You shall only know that the Sieur Labat, who continued to execute the office of quartermaster, had liberty to mark with his chalk fifty separate chambers '- Domestic Series, 1623-25, p. 30. 13 Harl. MS. 383 (Ellis's Orginal Letters, 1825, vol. iii. p. 247.) ST. JAMES'S PALACE. 291 of entire apartments, and the whole were furnished by the particular commands of the Queen of Great Britain, who seemed to convert all her ordinary diversions into continual cares and attention to give all sorts of satisfaction to the Queen her mother ; and this vast expense on so great a quantity of rich furniture, shewed anew the riches and power of a great monarch, since in only one of his pleasure houses there was sufficient room to lodge commodiously the greatest queen in the whole world, with her whole court." 14 The Queen's visit was a grand and stately affair, for she was visited by the ambassadors and waited upon by deputations, but only three years later she came to St. James's under very different circumstances : her son and Richelieu had banished her from France, and she took refuge in her daughter's country. The people, however, were not now pleased to see her, and threatened the palace of St. James's, where the Pope's agent, Rosetti, was sheltered by the Queen. The Commons petitioned for her removal out of the kingdom, and voted 10,000/. for that purpose, to which the King is said to have added another 10,000/. Hereupon the Earl of Arundel was ordered to attend her to Cologne. Lilly, the astrologer, says, " I beheld the old queen-mother of France departing from London ; sad spectacle of mortality it was, and produced tears from my eyes, and from many other beholders, to see an aged, lean, decrepit, poor Queen, ready for her grave, necessitated to depart hence, having no place of residence in the world left her, but where the courtesy of her hard fortune had assigned it. She had been the only stately and magnificent woman of Europe ; wife to the greatest king that ever lived in France ; mother unto one king and unto two queens." 13 Troubles were fast rising to swallow up Charles and his family, so that he had no power to help his mother-in-law, who died of want at Cologne in 1642. In 1643 Mary, Countess of Dorset, took charge of the younger children of Charles I. at St. James's, where they 11 Pvne's Royal Residences, vol. iii. p. 12. 15 Lilly's Life and Death of Charles I. 292 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. remained for three years. In 1646 the Princess Elizabeth and Prince Henry were under the care of Algernon, Earl of Northumberland, who procured the care of them for his sister, the Countess of Leicester, when they were removed to Penshurst. On April 20, 1648, the Duke of York escaped from St. James's in female dress, and was conveyed by Sir John Denham to his mother and the Prince of Wales in France. In the following January the King was brought a prisoner from Windsor to this palace, and here spent the last days of his life. All regal ceremony was now abolished, and the King's attendants were all soldiers, who treated him with great brutality. On the day before his execution he took an affectionate leave of his younger children, and on the memorable morning he walked across the Park to the scaffold at Whitehall. On the first of February his body was removed to St. James's, where it was embalmed and laid in a coffin, to be seen of the people. Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Norwich, Lord Goring, Lord Capel, and Sir John Owen were also prisoners at St. James's, and were executed soon after their king. Owen thanked the court for sentencing him to be beheaded with such noble lords, and told them he feared they would have hanged him. After the death of Charles, the greater part of his private property was sold for the benefit of the State. This included one of the finest collection of art-treasures ever brought together. La Serre describes the garden of St. James's as " bounded on one side by a long covered gallery, grated in the front, where one may see the rarest wonders of Italy, in a great number of stone and bronze statues ; and as the king to whom they belong never finds any of these works too dear, although, by being unequalled, they are inestimable, they are brought to London from all parts of the world as to a fair, where there is always a successful sale." 16 Peacham says, " The King caused a whole army of the old foreign emperors, captains, and senators, all at once to land on his coasts, to 16 Pyxe's Royal Residences, vol. iii. p. 13. ST. JAMES'S PALACE. 293 do him homage in his palaces of St. James's and Somerset House." Charles employed Panzani, who was recommended to him by Cardinal Barbarini, as his agent to procure the finest pictures, statues, and works of art to be found in Italy, and the Cardinal gave all his assistance, hoping thereby to gain the King over to the Roman Catholic Church. In a letter to Mazarin he thus expresses his feelings on the subject: — "The statues go on excellently, nor shall I hesi- tate to rob Rome of her most valuable ornaments, if, in exchange, we might be so happy as to have the King of England among those princes who submit to the Apostolic See." » The nucleus of the King's collection consisted of the pictures and statues bequeathed to him by his brother Henry, and it was rapidly increased by large purchases and gifts. The pictures sold from St. James's must have been very fine, for, even under the peculiar circumstances of their sale, they fetched 12,049/. 4 s - The collection consisted of works by Raf- faelle, Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio, Giulio Romano, Tintoretto, Guido, Holbein, Albert Durer, &c. General Monk took up his quarters at " St. James's House " while his plans for the Restoration were still unde- cided. On February 22, 1659-60, after the dissolution of the Rump, Sir John Granville had a meeting with Monk, at nine o'clock at night, when he brought a message from the King, which at length settled the question of his return. Sir John was afterwards created Earl of Bath, appointed Keeper of St. James's Park, and given apartments in the Palace. After the Restoration, the Duke of York took possession of St. James's Palace, and it was supposed by some that he was better housed than his brother at Whitehall. Here most of his children were born — the Princess Mary in 1662, and the Princess Anne in 1664. In November, 1667, James fell ill of the small-pox, when St. James's was a sad house, and the gallery doors were locked up. On the 31st of March, 1671, Anne, Duchess of York, the daughter of Clarendon, died in 17 Pyne's Royal Residences, p. 16. 294 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. the Palace. The Princess Mary was married to the Prince of Orange in November, 1677, at eleven o'clock at night, in the Chapel Royal ; and on July 28, 1683, the Princess Anne was married in the same place to Prince George of Denmark, when they took up their residence at St. James's. James II. lodged here on the night before his coronation, viz., the 22nd of April, 1685, and passed through the Park to Whitehall on the morning of the twenty-third. Several persons had apartments in the palace during Charles II.'s reign, besides the Duke of York, and among them were Lord Brouncker, the mathematician and first president of the Royal Society, who lived in the Engine Court, and Purcell, the great English composer, who lived in a suite of apartments to which access was obtained by a winding staircase in the clock- tower. Dryden frequently visited the latter, and sometimes made use of his rooms as a sanctuary when he was in debt. He could walk in the palace gardens and under the shadow of the limes in the Mall with safety ; so that he was glad to avail himself of the security of his friend's residence, and he often stayed there for weeks together. During Charles's reign a daily dinner was prepared for the chaplains at the palace. The King one day notified his in- tention of dining with them, and Dr. South by his ready wit preserved the dinners from being abolished. It was his turn to say grace, and instead of the regular formula, which was, " God save the King and bless the dinner," he said, " God bless the King and save the dinner." Charles at once cried out, "And it shall be saved." When James II. succeeded to the crown he went to live at Whitehall Palace, but he frequently stayed at St. James's. In December, 1685, the Court was held here, on account of the building going on on the garden side of Whitehall. In April of the following year it was removed back again to Whitehall. On June 9, 1688, the Queen was taken to St. James's, and on the following day James Francis Edward, afterwards known as the Pretender, was born in the Old Bedchamber. The room was situated at the east end of the south front, and the ST. JAMES'S PALACE. 295 peculiarity of its formation gave rise to unfounded reports that the Prince was not really the son of the King and Queen. Bishop Burnet appears to have firmly believed in the " warm- ing-pan plot." The room had three doors, one leading to a private staircase at the head of the bed, and two windows opposite the bed ; it was pulled down previous to the altera- tions made in the year 1822. When William III. arrived in London in 1688, his father- in-law offered him St. James's Palace, which he accepted, hinting, however, at the same time, that James himself could not leave the neighbouring palace of Whitehall too quickly. On the 2 1st of December the peers assembled at St. James's to thank the Prince for his conduct, and on the 26th William summoned the Commons who had sat in Charles II. 's time to meet him here. William and Mary only occasionally stayed here ; and in 1690 Prince George and the Princess Anne took up their residence in the Palace, which was afterwards (in 1696) given to the Princess. On April 23, 1702, the coronation day of Queen Anne, she left St. James's in the morning, and returned to it after dining in Westminster Hall. The standards taken at the battle of Blenheim were brought from the Tower on January 3, 1705, and carried through the Strand and Pall Mall to the gate of St. James's Palace ; from whence they were taken through the Park to Westminster Hall, where they were deposited as trophies. " How with bloody French rags he has litterd poor Westminster Hall, O slovenly John Duke of Marlborough." On November 5, 17 12, the Queen's guards made a bon- fire at the grand gate and there burnt the Pretender in effigy. Queen Anne frequently held her court in this palace, especially after the death of her husband, when Kensington Palace became very distasteful to her. On the 1st of August, 17 14, died the poor Queen, who, though happy in having a husband she loved, experienced more trouble in the married state than falls to the lot of most women. She is said to have had seventeen or nineteen children, but Sandford only registers 296 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. twelve. Of these, four were miscarriages, four still-born, three died soon after birth, and one only lived to die at the age of eleven. That was the Duke of Gloucester. On the Queen's death the Lords of the Privy Council met at St. James's, when they proclaimed the Elector George, King of Great Britain. The celebrated wit, Dr. Arbuthnot, was appointed physician in ordinary to the Queen in 1709, and occupied apartments in the Palace ; but on her death he was obliged to quit them. Bishop Burnet also lodged here. From the time that Whitehall was burnt until 1761, when Buckingham House was purchased for Queen Charlotte, St. James's Palace was the only London residence of the Kings of England, who were probably the most shabbily housed of any of the monarchs of Europe. " Her poor to palaces Britannia brings, St. James's Hospital may serve for kings." IB A French writer, remarking on the Mews at Charing Cross, observes that " the royal stables have the air of a palace, and the royal palace has the air of a stable." The title of " Court of St. James's " carried a weight that its external appearance certainly did not warrant ; but Pennant says of it, that " un- creditable as the outside may look, it is said to be the most commodious for regal parade of any in Europe." 19 When the dissolute Christian VII., King of Denmark, came to England to marry the unfortunate Caroline Matilda, youngest sister of George III., he was lodged in apartments in the stable-yard. His favourite, Count Holcke, whom Walpole calls a " complete jackanapes," exclaimed, on seeing the exterior, " This will never do, — it is not fit to lodge a Christian" but the interior satisfied him better. George III. was not pleased with the King's visit, but the populace went mad with enthusiasm for him. 18 Bramston'S Man of Taste (Dodsley's Collection of Poems, vol. i. p. 290I. 19 Pennant's London, 1790. p. 109. ST. JAMES'S PALACE. 297 It was thought that Whitehall would have been rebuilt after the fire, but years passed without anything being done, and at last the idea was entirely given up. On September 18th, 17 14, George I. and his son, the Prince of Wales, landed at Greenwich, and on the 20th made a public entry through the City of London to St. James's, attended by above two hundred coaches. The King and his mistresses took up their residence at the palace, as did the Prince and Princess of Wales, who, however, were not long to stay there. On November 2nd, 17 17, George William, the second son of the Prince, was born at St. James's, and on the 28th the child was baptized ; this was the occasion of a complete rupture between the King and his son. The Prince wished his uncle, the Bishop of Osnaburg and Duke of York, to stand godfather, but the King wished the Duke of Newcastle to stand with him. This irritated the Prince, who disliked the Duke, and he so far forgot himself, as to threaten him in the presence of the King, who ordered his son to leave the palace. On the 24th of December, the Gazette notified that the King would not receive at his Court any one who should visit the Prince of Wales. A reconciliation, however, was patched up in the year 1720. In 1725 the country was menaced with invasion by the Pretender, and the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Common Council presented a loyal address to the King, which so pleased him, that he asked them all to come and dine with him at St. James's Palace. The Ministers of State and others of the nobility were asked to meet them, so that great honour was done on this occasion to the city magnates. The three mistresses of George I., the Duchess of Kendal, the Countess of Darlington, and Miss Anne Brett, daughter of the Countess of Macclesfield, all had apartments in the Palace. There is a story told that illustrates the imperious airs of the last of these three women. When the King had gone on his last journey to Hanover, Miss Brett ordered a door to be broken through the wall of her apartments into the garden where the young princesses were in the habit of walking. 298 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. The Princess Anne ordered the door to be bricked up, and the mistress again ordered it to be re-opened ; but her triumph was of short duration, for as the King never returned, she was forced to leave the Palace altogether. In George II.'s reign Mrs. Howard occupied the Duchess of Kendal's rooms. On December 3rd, 1728, Frederick, Prince of Wales, then one-and-twenty years of age, arrived in England for the first time, and came to the Palace. In February, 173 1, a printing-press was set up in the Palace, and several of the princes learnt the art of printing under the direction of Samuel Palmer, the author of a history of the art. In 1732, the Duke of Cumberland, who was then in his twelfth year, displayed his military taste by raising a company of soldiers, formed from among the sons of the courtiers ; of this company the Duke was the corporal, and his brother the Prince of Wales presented him with a pair of handsome drums. These young soldiers were called " the Duke's Lilli- putian Regiment," and were regularly exercised every morning in the garden of St. James's. On the 27th of April the regiment had a good opportunity of exhibiting itself, for on that night, Dryden's play, The Indian Emperor, was performed in the grand ball-room by some of the young nobility of both sexes, when the Duke relieved and posted his men on duty at the end of every act. Hogarth painted a picture of the scene. Mr. Pointz, the tutor to this young prince, had rooms over the gateway of the Palace, and they were once the stage on which was acted a very striking scene. The great Earl of Peterborough, feeling that death was coming on him, deter- mined to perform a tardy act of justice in acknowledging his marriage with the singer, Anastasia Robinson. " O soothe me with some soft Italian air, Let harmony compose my tortur'd ear ! When Anastatia's voice commands the strain, The melting warble thrills through ev'ry vein ; Thought stands suspense, and silence pleas'd attends, While in her notes the heav'nly choir descends." 20 Gay's Epistle to Wm. Pultcncy. ST. JAMES'S PALACE. 299 In 1732 he fixed a day for all his nearest relations to meet him in the rooms of Mr. Pointz, who had married his niece, and when all had assembled he described in glowing terms the woman to whom he owed the best and happiest hours of his life, and then led Anastasia forth and presented her as that woman and his devoted wife. She was taken completely by surprise, and the suddenness of the announcement caused her to swoon. In March, 1734, the Prince of Orange came over to marry the Princess Royal, and on the 14th the nuptials were celebrated in the Chapel Royal. On that occasion a wooden gallery was erected in the Friary Court by the German Chapel, which remained for some weeks, and annoyed the old Duchess of Marlborough, who wondered " when her neighbour George would take away his orange chest." On April 27th, 1736, the Prince of Wales was married to the Princess Augusta, of Saxe-Gotha, in the Chapel Royal, and on July 31st of the following year, the Prince hurried his wife from Hampton Court, where the Court were staying, to St. James's at eight o'clock in the evening, and at eleven o'clock she was delivered of the Princess Augusta. The King was very much incensed at his son's conduct, and ordered him to leave the Palace whenever the Princess could be removed. Their apartments were given to the Duke of Cumberland. This Prince obtained the name of the " butcher," from his supposed cruelty at the Battle of Culloden, but the charges against him do not appear to have been well founded, and he always had the character of a humane man among those who knew him well. Henry Constantine, better known as " Dog," Jennings, says of him — " The Culloden Duke of Cumberland was a great prig ; a martinet, very disagreeable and trouble- some to the young officers of that day by his regulations, his alterations and his frequent changes ; however, after the affair of Closter Seven, when he had for the first time tasted of adversity, he began to think for himself, and ever after con- tinued a great man." In November, 1737, Queen Caroline was taken ill at her 300 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Library in the Green Park, where she had breakfasted, and within twelve days she died at St. James's Palace. The King was greatly afflicted at the death of his wife, and sought con- solation in the card-parties of his mistress the Countess of Yarmouth, who had apartments on the ground floor. George III. removed to St. James's on his accession to the throne in October, 1760, and in September, 1761, he was married to the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz, in the Chapel Royal. In the same month they were crowned at Westminster Abbey, on which occasion the King and Queen went from St. James's in sedan chairs, the company following in coaches. On the Princess's arrival in London, when she first caught sight of the gloomy walls of this Palace, she trembled slightly, and seeing the beautiful Duchess of Argyle (Elizabeth Gunning) smile at her fears, she exclaimed, "You may laugh, for you have been married twice, but to me it is no joke." 21 From 1762 the King and his family lived almost entirely at Buckingham House, and St. James's Palace was kept specially for court purposes. On the 2nd of August, 1786, as George III. was alighting from his carriage at the garden door of the Palace opposite Marlborough House, he was attacked by Peg Nicholson, who attempted to stab him. In October, 1793, the King ordered a room to be built in the Engine Court for the officers of the Guards on duty, and ordered a daily table of nine covers in the first course, and nine covers in the second course, with dessert, wine, &c, at a cost of 7,000/. per annum, to be provided out of the privy purse. In the riots of 1795, the mob broke up the King's state carriage, in which he had come from the Houses of Parliament, in Pall Mall, opposite the Palace. In April of this year the Princess Caroline of Brunswick arrived at the Palace, and on the 8th was married in the Chapel Royal to the Prince of Wales. On the nth of 21 Jesse's George III, vol. i. p. 97. ST. JAMES'S PALACE. 301 February, 1796, their child, the Princess Charlotte of Wales, was christened in the drawing-room of St. James's Palace. On the night of the 21st of January, 1809, there was a large fire in the east wing of the Palace, when the King's and Queen's private apartments, those of the Duke of Cambridge, part of the Armoury and part of the Queen's Chapel, were destroyed. The Duke of Cumberland's apartments which overlooked Cleveland Row, on the 13th of May, 18 10, were the scene of a murderous assault which created a great sensation at the time. The Duke was awakened at dead of night by a sabre- blow from an unknown hand, and when the servants went to the room of Sellis, the Duke's valet, they found he had cut his throat ; it was therefore supposed that he had attempted to assassinate his master, but being frustrated had escaped to his own room and made away with himself. In 1814 the Prussian General Blucher lodged on the west side of the Ambassadors' Court, and he was in the habit of sitting at the window and bowing to the people as he con- tentedly smoked his pipe. " People in England had a notion that ' old Blucher,' as they called him, was a coarse, rough old fellow ; but it was not so, and when receiving his friends his manners were perfectly well-bred, with a pleasant mixture of heartiness in them. He must have been a handsome man when young, and had well-shaped aristocratic hands, and small and delicately curled ears." 22 In 1822 some alterations were made in the Palace, and the archway leading into the Ambassadors' Court was con- structed. To do this the canteen which occupied the site had to be cleared away. George IV. fitted up the state apart- ments in an elegant manner in the year 1824. The Chapel Royal is an oblong square building, with no archi- tectural feature excepting the ornamental roof. It is said to be the same chapel as that which belonged to the old hospital, and from its connection with royalty it is exempt from all episcopal jurisdiction. When the Court was kept at St. James's 22 Brownlow's Reminiscences of a Septuagenarian, p. 141-2. 302 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. the chapel was, as might be expected, a fashionable resort, and Lady Mary Montagu, writing to her daughter, the Countess of Bath, says, " I confess I remember to have dressed for St. James's Chapel with the same thoughts your daughters will have for the opera." This kind of thing offended Bishop Burnet, who complained to the Princess Anne of the ogling of the ladies, and asked that the pews might be raised. The Bishop's remonstrance gave rise to a ballad which commences thus : — " When Burnet perceived that the beautiful dames, Who flock'd to the chapel of hilly St. James, On their lovers the kindest of looks did bestow, And smil'd not on him as he bellow'd below ; To the princess he went, With pious intent, The dangerous ill in the church to prevent." The sermons of the preachers in this chapel have not always been free from flattery, and George III. issued an order, soon after he came to the throne, prohibiting any of his clergy, who should preach before him, from paying him compliments in their discourses. He told Dr. Thomas Wilson, who had spoken of him with fulsome adulation, that he came to the chapel " to hear the praises of God and not his own." This same Dr. Wilson afterwards became a Wilkesite, and erected a marble statue of Mrs. Macaulay, the republican historian, in his church at Walbrook, while she was still alive. It is an ancient custom for an offering of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to be made on the altar of the Chapel Royal, on the feast of the Epiphany, or Twelfth-Day, in imitation of the offerings of the Magi. Formerly the King, attended by knights of the various orders, made the offerings in person, but the ceremony is now performed by proxy. In the course of the service, and after the Nicene Creed, the offerings, in three bags, are presented by two gentlemen who represent her Majesty, and received at the altar by the clergymen officiating. 23 23 Archaologia, vol. v. p. 300. ST. JAMES'S PALACE. 303 The German Chapel, situated in the Friary Court, and ad- joining Marlborough House, is said to have been built by Inigo Jones, for the use of Queen Henrietta Maria, and the Roman Catholic service was performed in it for some years. It has also been stated that the chapel was fitted up for the Queen of Charles II., but this is very doubtful, as the description given of the Queen's Chapel, in the Archduke Cosmo's travels, appears to refer to the interior of the Palace, and not to so pro- minent a building as the German Chapel. When the Roman Catholic service was discontinued the chapel was occupied by Dutch and French Protestant congregations ; but in 1781, the German Lutheran Chapel, which had been founded in the Palace some eighty years before by Queen Anne and Prince George of Denmark, was transferred there. Queen Caroline presented to the chapel an organ and altar picture by Ramberg, of "Christ in Gethsemane." In 1 831, William IV. gave a larger and better organ, and a picture by Bendixen, of the " Widow's Mite." 2i The Royal Library was founded by Henry VI II., and added to by Elizabeth and James I. The latter transferred the books from Whitehall to this Palace about the year 1608, and appointed as keeper Patrick Young, who was, according to Anthony Wood, the most eminent Grecian of his time. John Leland and Roger Ascham had been former keepers. Young classified the books and made a catalogue, by express command of the King. He also frequently journeyed to the Continent for the purpose of purchasing additions for the Library. In 1649, Young was dismissed from his office by the Parliament, and the Library would, most probably, have shared the fate of the King's picture-gallery, and been sold, had not Selden induced his friend Wnitelock to apply for the office of keeper. The Library was thus saved, though many of the books appear to have been stolen. The Parliament voted " that the Lord Whitelock be desired and authorized to take upon him- self the care and custody of the library at St. James's House, 24 J. S. Burn's History of Foreign Protestant Refugees in England, 1846, p. 235. 304 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. and of all the books, manuscripts, and medals that are in and belong to the said library, that the same may be safely kept and preserved ; and to recover all such as have been embezzled or taken out of the same." 25 At the Restoration the missing books were sought after and collected together, and among the state papers are " Memoranda relative to the library at St. James's ; the great value of its former contents, especially in medals and MSS., the importance of recovery of those now missing, of making perfect catalogues of the contents, and not dismissing the present librarian, who alone knows what is missing, till he has given an account thereof." 26 This librarian was Thomas Ross, who petitioned the King in 1661 " for a present supply," complaining " that ever since his Majesty's arrival [he] has been at the expense of recovering many of his books and transporting them to St. James's library, besides those which he purchased at Isleworth of Mrs. Morice, and he and three others at his charges have been two months employed to take a catalogue of them, but he has received no supply nor subsistence." 27 In 1665, Peter de Cardonnel petitioned " for a reversion of Sir Patrick Young's place in St. James's library, having been too late to obtain the place, which would have given him subsistence and employment suitable to his genius, and for an annuity mean- while ; [and for having] spent 20,000/. still unpaid in the late King's service." 28 Henry Justel was made keeper of the King's Library about 1681, with a salary of 200/. per annum. He held the office till his death in 1693, when he was suc- ceeded by the great scholar, Richard Bentley, who was dragged into a controversy about the genuineness of the Epistles of PJialaris with the Hon. Charles Boyle, a puppet worked by the Christ Church wits, or, as Swift more delicately puts it, — " clad in a suit of armour which had been given him by all the gods." Boyle attacked Bentley in a very ungentle- 21 Pyne's History of the Royal Residences, vol. iii. p. 18. ' 2B Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1660-61, p. 460. 27 Ibid., p. 62. 28 Ibid., 1665-66, p. 144. ST. JAMES'S PALACE. 305 manly manner for his conduct with regard to the loan of one of the King's MSS. of Phalaris, which conduct was satis- factorily explained by Bentley. Swift rushed into the quarrel and wrote his celebrated Battle of the Books, which is entitled A Full and True Account of the Battle of the Books fought last Friday between the ancient and modern Books in St. James's Library. These attacks upon our greatest critic stung him up to write his memorable Dissertation and Narrative. The Library was presented to the British Museum by George II. in 1757. The Stable-yard was originally occupied by the stables of the Palace, on the confines of which and at the edge of the Green Park was a small house called the Queen's Library. This was commenced by Queen Caroline, and finished in October, 1737. It was designed and decorated by Kent, and was occasionally used by the Royal family, but at the beginning of the present century it was used as a lumber- room. In October, 18 15, the Duke of York's library was moved here from the Horse Guards. About this time, on its site, and also on the site of a house the last London residence of Charles James Fox, to which his body was brought from Chiswick previous to his burial in Westminster Abbey — was built York House. The Duke of York did not live to inhabit his mansion, and at his death, the lease and premises were purchased by Government for 81,913/., the price at which it had been valued by two referees. In 1827 the Royal Society were informed that the Government contemplated appro- priating a portion of the house to the use of the society. The Council, who were much pressed for room at Somerset House, accepted the offer; but a change was made, and the house was sold in December for 72,000/. to the Marquess of Stafford, who finished it after designs by Benjamin Wyatt. The building, now called Stafford, or Sutherland House, pre- sents a noble appearance from its position and general good proportions, but it makes but a poor figure as a work of art by the side of its beautiful neighbour, Bridgewater House. 20 306 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. The interior, however, is considered by many to be one of the finest in London. Opposite the east side of Stafford House is Clarence House, built for William IV. when Duke of Clarence. Here lived the Duchess of Kent. From St. James's we cross the Park to Buckingham Palace, the modern residence of Royalty. The site was formerly occupied by Goring House, and by the once famous Mulberry Gardens. These latter were planted in the year 1608, for the culture of silkworms, in order to carry out a scheme entertained by James I. of encouraging the manufacture of English silks. In July, 1628, a grant was made to Walter, Lord Aston, of the Buckingham House in 17-id. custody of "his Majesty's Mulberry Garden at St. James's, and of the silkworms and houses thereunto appertaining, with the yearly fee of 60/. during his life and that of his son and heir apparent, on surrender of Jasper Stallenge." 29 The Gardens, so far as their original object was concerned, soon proved a failure, and they were turned into a public place of entertainment, which was famous for several years. Evelyn went there on the 10th of May, 1654, and thus notices the visit in his diary : — " My Lady Gerrard treated us at Mulberry 59 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1628-29, p. 192. BUCKINGHAM PALACE. 307 Garden, now the only place of refreshment about the town for persons of the best quality to be exceedingly cheated at ; Cromwell and his partisans having shut up and seized on Spring Garden, which till now had been the usual rendezvous for the ladies and Gallants at this season." After the Restora- tion the gardens became very popular, and they are constantly referred to in the plays and novels of the time. One of the scenes in Wycherley's Love in a Wood, or St. James s Park, is laid in " the dining-room in Mulberry Garden House ; " and when Mrs. Pinchwife, in his Country Wife, asks her sister-in- law, " Where are the best fields and woods to walk in in London ? " Alithea answers her, " Why, sister, the Mulberry Garden and St. James's Park ! " Sir Charles Sedley called one of his comedies The Mulberry Garden, in the first scene of the fourth act of which, two of the female characters hide themselves in one of the arbours, where they overhear their lovers talking about them in a manner that considerably hurts their pride. Pepys does not appear, from the following passage in his diary, to have held the place in much estima- tion : — " To the Mulberry Garden, where I never was before ; and find it a very silly place, worse than Spring Garden, and but little company, only a wilderness here, that is somewhat pretty." 30 Dryden was a frequent visitor, and Malone quotes one who says, " I have ate tarts with him and Madam Reeve at the Mulberry Garden." 31 His companion was Mrs. Anne Reeve, the original performer of Amaryllis in the Rehearsal. Mathias refers to this incident when he writes : — " Nor he, whose essence wit and taste approved, Forget the mulberry tarts that Dryden loved." 32 George, Lord Goring, afterwards Earl of Norwich, purchased the keepership of the Mulberry Garden from Lord Aston for 800/., and lived in Goring House, which adjoined the Garden, about the year 1630. He left England during the Rebellion, :t " PEPYS'S Diary, May 19, 1668. M Dryden's Prose Workshy E. MALONE, 1800 [Life), vol. i. p. 400. 3 ' J Pursuits of Literature, pt. iv. 3o8 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. and his house was occupied in 1646 by the Speaker of the House of Commons. When he returned at the Restoration he again inhabited Goring House, but lived only a short time in it, for he died in 1662 ; and his son sold it to Henry Bennet, afterwards Earl of Arlington. This was the statesman who is so well known to us by the portrait representing him with a plaster covering a wound across the nose, which he had received when he joined the King's army at Oxford in 1644. He was often made a joke of by Buckingham and the courtiers on account of his slow formal manner. Evelyn visited Goring House in March, 1665, and describes it as " ill-built, but . . . capable of being made a pretty villa." Pepys waited on Lord Arlington here in July, 1666. In 1672, on the death of the second Earl of Norwich, of the Goring family, the Mulberry Garden, which adjoined Goring House, was granted by Charles II. to the Earl of Arlington. In September, 1674, the house was burnt down, and Evelyn thus refers to the accident : " I went to see the great loss that Lord Arlington had sustained by fire at Goring House, this night consumed to the ground, with exceeding loss of hangings, plate, rare pictures, and cabinets ; hardly anything was saved of the best and most princely furniture that any subject had in England. My Lord and Lady were both absent at the Bath." ^ The Earl rebuilt his house and called it Arlington House. Charles Dryden, the son of " Glorious John," wrote a Latin poem on the beauties of the new house and gardens, which was translated by Samuel Boyse. 34 The charming situation is praised, for " No rattling wheel disturbs the peaceful ground, Or wounds the ear with any jarring sound." The Green-house is thus described, — " High in the midst appears a rising ground, With greens and ballustrades inclos'd around ; Here a new wonder stops the wandering sight, 33 John Evelyn's Diary, Sept. 21, 1674.. 34 Xichols"s Select Collection of Poems, 1780, vol. ii. pp. 156-16S. BUCKINGHAM PALACE. 309 A dome whose walls and roof transmit the light; Here foreign plants and trees exotic thrive, And in the cold unfriendly climate live." The house also comes in for its share of praise, — " And that fair fabrick which our wondering eyes So lately saw from humble ruins rise, And mock the rage of the devouring flame ! A noble structure and a fairer frame ! Whose beauties long shall charm succeeding days, And tell posterity the founder's praise." The Earl's only child, Lady Isabella Bennet, married Henry Fitzroy, first Duke of Grafton, and the natural son of Charles II., much against the wish of his mother, the Duchess of Cleveland. There is a letter extant from the latter to Danby, dated from Paris, 1675, in which she thanks the Lord Treasurer for his endeavours to prevent the match. The Duke and Duchess lived with the Earl of Arlington, at this house, where the second Duke of Grafton was born. Lord Arlington figures in the second part of Absalom and AdiitopJiel as Eliab, and his son-in-law is named Othriel — " Eliab our next labour does invite, And hard the task to do Eliab right. Long with the royal wanderer he roved, And firm in all the turns of fortune proved. Such ancient service and desert so large, Well claimed the royal household for his charge. His age with only one mild heiress blessed, In all the bloom of smiling nature dressed ; And blessed again, to see his flower allied To David's stock, and made young Othriel's bride." On the death of Arlington, in 1685, the house descended to the Duchess, who let it to the first Duke of Devonshire. In Gibson's account of London Gardens, written in 1691, and published in the Arcliceologia for 1796, 35 it is described as being in the possession of the Duke. " Arlington Garden, being now in the hands of my lord of Devonshire, is a fair plat, with good walks, both airy and shady. There are six of a5 Vol. xii. pp. 181-192. 310 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. the greatest earthen pots that are anywhere else, being at least two feet over within the edge, but they stand abroad, and have nothing in them, but the tree holly-oke, an indifferent plant which grows well enough in the ground. Their green- house is very well and their greenyard excels, but their greens were not so bright and clean as farther off in the country, as if they suffered something from the smutty air of the town." The Duchess of Grafton sold the house, in 1698, to John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave and Marquis of Normanby, who was afterwards created Duke of the county of Buckingham — " Sharp-judging Adriel the muses' friend, Himself a muse in Sanhedrim's debate, True to his prince, but not a slave of state, Whom David's love with honours did adorn, That from his disobedient son were torn.'' The last two lines refer to Charles having conferred the government of Hull and lieutenancy of Yorkshire upon Mulgrave, when he took them from his son, the Duke of Monmouth. The Duke of Buckingham was not satisfied with the old house, and he therefore, in 1703, rebuilt it after the designs of Colen Campbell, 36 and gave it the name of Buckingham House : — " A princely palace on that space does rise, Where Sedley's noble muse found mulberries.'' Pope, in a letter to the Duke, styles the mansion " a country house in the summer, and a town house in the winter." The same idea seems to have struck the noble owner, for on the garden front, under figures of the four seasons, were the words Rus in Urbe in golden characters. The house was a good specimen of a handsome English mansion, and it is much praised by Ralph, who observes that it " attracts more eyes, and has more admirers than almost any other about town." The front towards the Mall was 3 * Cunningham says " Captain Wynde or Wynne, a native of Bergen- op-Zoom.'' BUCKINGHAM PALACE. 311 surmounted by four figures of Mercury, Secrecy, Equity, and Liberty, beneath which were the words, Sic Siti Letantur Lares, in golden letters. Two wings were connected with the house by colonnades, and a fountain played in the court-yard, which was separated from the Park by a handsome railing and gate. The Duke gives a very elaborate description of his new house, in a letter to his friend the Duke of Shrewsbury, and the account of terraces and galleries, and of country views, is very agreeable. On one side " a wall, covered with roses and jassemine, is low to admit the view of a meadow full of cattle just under it," and beneath the window of the owner's private closet, " is a wilderness full of blackbirds and nightin- gales." But the Duke is obliged to conclude his glowing account with the humiliating remark : " I am oftener missing a pretty gallery in the old house I pulled down, than pleased with a salon which I built in its stead tho' a thousand times better in all manner of respects." 37 The Duke of Buckingham was a frequenter of Mary-le-bone House, a gaming-place, where most of the London sharpers assembled, and which stood on the site of the present Regent's Park. The Duke gave a dinner to these "gentry" at the conclusion of each season, and proposed as a parting toast : — " May as many of us as remain unhanged next spring meet here again." Bucking- ham is alluded to in the line — " Some Dukes at Marybone bowl time away." Marylebone Garden is represented as the scene of one of th debauches of Macheath in the Beggar s Opera. The Duke of Buckingham died at Buckingham House in 1720-21, at the age of seventy-five. His third wife and widow, Catherine, the natural daughter of James II. and Catherine Sedley, and granddaughter of Sir Charles Sedley, who wrote the Mulberry Garden, lived on in the house for some years after his death. She was a very arrogant woman, and gave herself airs as if she was of the blood royal. On the anni- versary of her grandfather, Charles I.'s martyrdom, she sat, 37 Buckingham's Works, ed. 1753, vol. ii. pp. 218-226. 312 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. dressed in deep mourning, in the great drawing-room, in a chair of state, attended by her women. She was considered for a time as the head of the Jacobites, and laboured for the return of her brother the Pretender. " And first old haughty Buckingham he tried, To all her weaknesses his arts applied, Flatter'd her vanity, and swell'd her pride ; Took care no loyal words should e'er offend her, And pity'd the unfortunate Pretender." 3S There is reason to believe that she had no cause for her pride, because her mother, the Countess of Dorchester, told her that she was the daughter, not of James II., but of Colonel Graham, a fashionable man of his day. There can now be but little doubt that Pope's celebrated character of Atossa {Moral Essays, Ep. II.) was intended for this Duchess, and not, as was long supposed, for the old Duchess of Marl- borough. 39 " Scarce once herself, by turns all womankind ! Who, with herself or others, from her birth Finds all her life one warfare upon earth : Shines in exposing knaves, and painting fools, Yet is whate'er she hates and ridicules." The Duchess was friendly with Pope, who assisted her in many ways, among others in the production of her husband's works, but she quarrelled with him about the year 1729. The poet tried to make up the quarrel, and wrote an epitaph on the young Duke, but the Duchess was inexorable, and would not allow the epitaph to be inscribed on the tomb. " Offend her, and she knows not to forgive, Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live." The Prince and Princess of Wales wished to purchase the house in 1723, but the Duchess required 60,000/., which was more than they cared to give, and she continued to live in it. John, Lord Hervey, in a letter to Lady Mary Wortley iS 1743, Sir C. Hanbury Williams's Works, 1S22, vol. i. p. 50. ai See Athencrum, No. 1710, Aug. 4, i860. BUCKINGHAM PALACE. 313 Montagu, dated April 15, 1743, says that the Duchess of Buckingham " has left me Buckingham House, with all the furniture and all the plate, for my life ; but I am so well lodged where I am, that I have no thought of removing." Lord Hervey died in the following August, so that the house could never have belonged to him, but came into the pos- session of Sir Charles Herbert Sheffield, the Duke's natural son. In 1 76 1, Buckingham House was bought from Sir Charles for 21,000/., as a residence for George III, and Queen Charlotte ; and in May of the following year they took up their residence there. In June, 1763, the Queen persuaded the King to stay for a few days at St. James's, and when he came back on the night of his birthday (June 6) she led him to a window, and the shutters being thrown back, a brilliant illumination in the grounds was exhibited, which had been contrived by the Queen. There was a temple and a bridge, with transparencies, and fifty musicians in an orchestra. About this time the gardens were greatly enlarged by the addition of a part of the Green Park, and alterations were made in their arrangement by ' Capability ' Brown. In the last century there was a scientific warfare on the subject of lightning conductors. A committee of the Royal Society, on which were Henry Cavendish and Benjamin Franklin, recommended the adoption of pointed conductors, and they were set up at the powder magazine at Purfleet and at the Queen's house. Benjamin Wilson, the only dissenting member of the committee, however, was in favour of blunt conductors, and in 1777 he had influence enough to get the pointed ones taken down from Buckingham House, and blunt ones put in their place. " While you, great George, for safety hunt, And sharp conductors change for blunt, The empire's out of joint. Franklin a wiser course pursues, And all your thunder fearless views, By keeping to the poi7it. " 10 40 Franklin's Works, by Sparks, 1844, vol. i. p. 342. 314 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. The King's magnificent library was formed in 1765, by the purchase of Consul Smith's library at Venice, which con- sisted of 63,000 volumes, for 130,000/. George III. greatly added to this nucleus, but he directed his librarian never to bid against a scholar or collector of moderate fortune. 41 The library was much appreciated by Dr. Johnson, who often visited it, and assisted in its formation by the instructions he gave to Mr. Barnard, the librarian. It was in this library that the Doctor, in February, 1767, had the celebrated inter- view with George III., of which he was so particularly proud. He often gave his friends an account of the conversation that took place, and of the attention paid to him by the King. George III. took the greatest interest in his library, though it was, perhaps, more as a bibliographer than as a student. Sir Walter Scott tells us of his delight when he discovered, by inspection, that he possessed an earlier copy of Caxton's Troy Book than that belonging to the Duke of Roxburgh. '- Not a day passed without his going into the binding-room, and the interest he felt in the covers of his books is noted by Dr. Wolcot :— " No man binds books so well as George the Third : By thirst of leather glory spurr'd At bookbinders he oft is seen to laugh, And wondrous is the King in sheep or calf.'' 43 Frederick Augusta Barnard, the King's librarian, was sup- posed to be an illegitimate son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and therefore the King's brother." The library was removed from Buckingham House to Windsor Castle, in 1805, and on the death of the King, was presented to the nation by George IV. It is now one of the chief features in London's greatest glory, the British Museum. In 1777, Garrick was desired to read a play at Bucking- ham House, before the King and Queen, and he chose his own 41 Jesse's George III., vol. ii. p. 64. 4 '-' Scott's Misc. Prose Works, vol. iv. p. 325. 4:i Peter Pindar's Works, 1794, vol. ii. p. 79. 44 Ue Qutncev's Works, 1863, vol. xiv., p. 168-9. BUCKINGHAM PALACE. 31 5 farce of Lctlic, in which he introduced the character of an ungrateful Jew. He afterwards said he found the coldness of the distinguished audience very depressing, for it was as if a wet blanket had been thrown over him. In 1775, Buckingham House was settled upon the Queen, in lieu of Somerset House, and was usually called the Queen's House. It was here she held her Drawing-Rooms, and the King his Councils, and they lived quietly for many years in this unostentatious house, where all their children, excepting George IV., were born, and where several of them were married. When the house came into the King's possession, the colonnades connecting the wings with it were filled in with brickwork, and windows pierced through ; but otherwise very little alteration was made until George IV. thought he would transform it into a palace. He knew that Parliament would never grant money for an entirely new building, and therefore alterations were commenced in 1825, by Nash. In 1827, 1828, and 1829, 334,481/. was paid for building, and then 160,000/. was still owing. This money was wasted upon a building which was ugly in itself, but doubly ugly from the shape of the old house having been followed in its re- construction. Nash acknowledged that he did not expect the dome, which was likened to an inverted slop-basin, 45 would have been seen from the Park-side, and he also allowed that he did not expect the wings to have looked so bad. When the building was finished, the wings were altered and the Marble Arch was added. " These are the wings which by estimate round Are said to have cost forty thousand pound, And which not quite according with Royalty's taste, Are doom'd to come down and be laid into waste." One might have imagined that nothing could be uglier than 45 " This is the beautiful ball in the cup Which the tasteful committee in wisdom set up On the top of the palace that N[as]h built." — The Palace that N[as]h Built, by I. Hume. i2ino. London [1829 ?]. 316 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Nash's building, but Mr. Blore has succeeded in proving that— " The force of bad taste could still further go In the new side which joins the other two." It was in 1847 that the appearance of the palace was thus completely changed by the erection of the present facade by Mr. Blore, in front of, and connecting the two wings, by which means an inner court-yard has been formed. These changes necessitated the removal of the Marble Arch, which was re- erected at Cumberland Gate, Hyde Park. In the Art Journal for March, 1868, there is a very curious account of what the Marble Arch was intended to be, and how wofully its beauty has been destroyed. George IV. wished it to be a monument to Nelson ; and in accordance with this wish Flaxman designed for it colossal statues and bas-reliefs, all of which were sculptured in marble at great expense. A seated figure of Britannia, with spear and shield, on the latter of which was a head of Nelson, was to be placed on the top of the arch, and was to be supported by winged Victories and colossal figures round. George IV. died ; Nash was removed from his office ; and the marble statues were given away to save the expense of stone figures being cut. Britannia, turned into Minerva by chipping Nelson's head off her shield, was set up over the keeper's entrance to the Royal Academy, at the east end of the National Gallery. The Victories and three of the Colossal figures were placed in niches under the portico. The bas-reliefs were placed along the facade of the palace and are now hidden by Blore's front. It is not known where the other statues went to. The solid brass scroll-work, which was intended to fill up the arch over the gate, remained in the Government stores till it was quite black, and then no one knowing what it was, was sold as old iron to some lucky Jew. During her Majesty's reign, many extensive alterations have been made in Buckingham Palace ; but although large sums have been spent upon it, its appearance is peculiarly BUCKINGHAM PALACE. 317 mean and ugly, and it has become a laughing-stock to foreigners, and a disgrace to the country. Between Buckingham House and the houses in James Street, Westminster, stood Tart Hall, which was built in the year 1638, by Nicholas Stone, for Alathea, wife of Thomas, twentieth Earl of Arundel, the collector of the Arundelian Marbles. After her death it became the property of her second son, Sir William Howard, afterwards Viscount Stafford, who fell a victim to the vile Popish Plot, and was beheaded in 1680. How this house obtained its odd name it is difficult to tell, unless it had anything to do with the tarts sold at the Mulberry Gardens close by ; the key to its origin seems lost in the same way as the names of Piccadilly and Pimlico remain an enigma to us. In Cox's Magna Britannia (1724) it is called Stafford House. Stafford Row, which is now itself swept away, was built on the site of the garden of the house. 3 i8 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY CHAPTER XII. PALL MALL. " In town let me live, then, in town let me die ; For in truth I can't relish the country, not I. If one must have a villa in summer to dwell, Oh, give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall." — Charles Morris. St. James's Field adjoined the Park, and remained a large open space until after the Restoration, when the present street, Pall Mall, St. James's Square, and various other streets were built upon it. The place where the game of Pall Mall was played, and from which the street takes its name, was formed about the year 1630. It was situated on the site of the south side of St. James's Square, and on either side of it was a row of elm- trees, numbering altogether one hundred and forty, which are valued at seventy pounds in the survey of the Commissioners for the Crown Lands in 1650. About 1630 one David Mallard, shoemaker to the King, erected a dwelling-house on a piece of ground in St. James's Field, which had been taken previously by a Frenchman named John Bonnealle, " under pretence of making a Pall Mall." Mallard, or Mallock, as he is also called, was ordered to demolish it, and he undertook to do so by Candlemas Day, 1632. 1 In March of that year the King expressed his pleasure that, the house being taken, the garden should be 1 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1631-33, p. 240. PALL MALL.. 319 suffered to remain entire, " with the trees and pales about it, to the benefit of the poor widow that possesses it." - In September, 1635, a grant was made to Archibald Lumsden "for sole furnishing of all the malls, bowls, scoops, and other necessaries for the game of Pall Mall within his grounds in St. James's Fields, and that such as resort there shall pay him such sums of money as are according to the ancient order of the game." 3 In 1660 Isabella, the daughter of this Lumsden, petitioned for one of the tenements in St. James's Field, " as promised to her father, who spent 425/. 14s. in keeping up the sport of Pall Mall." Attached to the petition is an account of this sum expended " for the late King in bowls, malls, and scopes, 1632 to 1635," 4 &c. There had long been a highway between St. James's and Charing Cross, with a few houses at its east end, but it was not until the Restoration that a street was laid out. A grant was made to Dan O'Neale, groom of the bedchamber, and to John Denham, surveyor of the works, " of a piece of ground 1,400 feet in length and twenty-three in breadth, between St. James's Park and Pall Mall." This is endorsed, " Our warrant for the building of the new street to St. James's." 5 This street was called Catherine Street in honour of the Queen, Catherine of Braganza, but it was more generally known by the name of Pall Mall Street, which it took from the avenue next to it. About this time Charles laid out the Pall Mall in the Park, and the street was very generally called the Old Pall Mall. There were originally clusters of houses on the south side of the road. The Rookery formed one of a group of small monkish buildings, belonging to Westminster monastery, which stood at the east end of Pall Mall, but were swept away at the Reformation. There is a tradition that in one of these places there was a forge erected for Henry VI., when he attempted to fill his empty coffers by an unsuccessful 2 Calendar of Stale Papers, Domestic Series, 1631-33, p. 286. 3 Ibid. 1635, p. 404- 4 Ibid., 1660-61, p. 292. 5 Ibid., p. 203. 3 20 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. search for the philosopher's stone. In Henry VIII.'s reign the celebrated Erasmus resided there by the King's favour. At the other end of the road near the Palace was a collection of low-roofed buildings, tenanted by the choristers of the Chapel Royal. John Kingston, a disciple of Orlando Gibbons, and the first master of Dr. Blow, lived in one of these cottages. Musical entertainments were given in his apartments by certain amateurs, and at these Oliver Cromwell, to whom Kingston was organist, was frequently a visitor. On one occasion Sir Roger L'Estrange happened to be among the players, and as he did not at once depart when Cromwell dropped in, the Cavaliers dubbed him, " Oliver's fiddler." In a postscript to Dryden's Elegy on Cromwell, reprinted by some wretched scribbler in order to damage the great poet, are these lines : — " A rogue like Hodge am I, the world well know it, Hodge was his fiddler, and I, John, his poet.'' 6 In Absalom and AchitopJicl, part 2, Sir Roger, under the name of Sheva, appears in more favourable colours : — " Than Sheva none more loyal zeal have shown, Wakeful as Judah's lion for the crown; Who for that cause still combats in his age, For which his youth with danger did engage." Samuel Morland petitioned, in 1660, for the "restoration of a house, garden, stables, &c, in Pall Mall, whereon he spent 500/., and was forced on the coming in of the Rump to part with it to Colonel Berry for less than 100/." 7 The road running from St. James's to Charing Cross was very rural before the street was made and the houses built. On its north side was an avenue of trees, forming the Pall Mall, and on the south the low wall of the Park over which stretched the branches of the large oak-trees ; but all this was changed by the buildings after the Restoration. 6 Dryden's Works, ed. Scott, 1808, vol. ix. p. 5. 7 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1660-61, p. 293. PALL MALL. 321 The new street 8 soon became a fashionable place, and many of the courtiers and some of the King's mistresses took up their residence in it. Nell Gwynn was one of the earliest of these residents. Dr. Sydenham, the eminent physician, occupied a house in Pall Mall, from 1658 until his death in 1689. He held three pieces of land here by lease, dated July 7th, 1664, from the Earl of St. Alban's. Samuel Haworth, M.D., physician to James II., when Duke of York, and noted in his day as an attempter of consumption cures, had lodgings in Pall Mall, in 1682. He advertised in the London Gazette, that he was " every afternoon to be spoken with at his lodgings, in Pall Mall, at Mr. Haselington's, next door to the Cabinet, near the Haymarket." The great Barrow lived in this street in 1 69 1, the year after he took his degree of Doctor of Divinity, and the year before he was nominated to the mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge. Robert Fielding, the once celebrated beau, called by Charles II. handsome Fielding, and in the Tatler entitled " Orlando the Fair," occupied lodgings in Pall Mall. His fortune being in a bad state, he here married Mary Wadsworth, under the supposi- tion that she was a rich widow, with a fortune of 20,000/. After he found out that he had been duped, he married the Duchess of Cleveland, but she soon grew tired of him, and offered Mary Wadsworth 200/. down, and 100/. a year for fifteen years, if she would prove the first marriage. He was tried for bigamy and found guilty, but was pardoned by Queen Anne. Mrs. Anne Oldfield, the eminent actress, was born in Pall Mall, in the year 1683. When she died in 1730, her body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and she was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey. In the year 1688, about the time of the Revolution, the Earl of Peterborough saw a canary that piped twenty times, at a coffee-house, in Pall Mall, and he tried to purchase it for 8 The name of Catherine Street never took root, and was at last given up. In the Act for erecting the parish of St. James, 1685, it is described as " Catherine Street alias Pall Mall Street." 21 322 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Lady Sandwich, but the owner was rich and she would not part with it. The Earl was determined to have the bird, and he succeeded in changing it for one marked just in the same way. Some while after he called on the woman, and said he supposed she was now sorry she had not accepted his offer. " No, no," she replied, " if your lordship will believe me (as I am a Christian, it is true), it has moped and moped, and never once opened its pretty lips since the day that the poor King went away." This story, with new names and places, has lately appeared in a French newspaper. Joseph Clark, the English posture-master, lived in Pall Mall for some years. He was a well-made man, but had such power over his body, that he was able to exhibit, in his person, every species of deformity and dislocation. He puzzled all the tailors of the town, and deceived the surgeons, who thought his deformity was incurable. Mullens, the famous surgeon of the day, was so shocked at his state, that he would not even attempt a cure. A paper upon him was published in the Philosophical Transactions of July, 1698. 9 Jean Baptiste Monnoyer, the eminent flower-painter, who was brought to England by the Duke of Montagu, to em- bellish Montagu House (now the British Museum), died in Pall Mall, in 1699. Lord Bolingbroke took a house here in 1723, on his return from exile, when Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, and the other wits congregated round him. Mrs. Delany, when Mrs. Pendarves, lived in Pall Mall, in 1729, and was again lodging in the same street, in 1746-7. Beckett, the bookseller, had his shop here, and Garrick was a constant visitor to it. Mrs. Frances Abington, the comic actress, so often painted by Reynolds, lived in Pall Mall during her latter years, and Quin had lodgings on the second floor of one of the houses, when he was engaged at Carlton House, in teaching Prince George, afterwards George III., the art of elocution. Sir Richard Steele lodged for a short time at a perfumer's ; and Sterne also lodged in Pall Mall when he visited London, 9 Vol. xx. p. 262. PALL MALL. 323 until within a year or two of his death, when he changed his residence to Bond Street. Fielding makes Tom Jones and Nightingale come here, when compelled to leave Mrs. Miller's lodgings in Bond Street. Gibbon lived in Pall Mall for a short time, and the. great Earl of Chatham dwelt in the street in 1770. Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser lived here in 1779. He brought certain charges against Admiral Keppel, the popular favourite, and in con- sequence, was held up to public obloquy. Although suffering from wounds received in the service of his country, his house was attacked and destroyed by the mob, and his furniture taken into the neighbouring square and burnt. Lord George Sackville, the third son of the first Duke of Dorset, and father of the fifth and last Duke, who changed his name to Germaine, in 1770, lived in Pall Mall in 1780-81. He was disgraced for his conduct after the battle of Minden, degraded from his rank of General, and struck off the list of Privy Councillors. In the following reign George III. took him into favour, made him Secretary of State for the American colonies, and raised him to the peerage as Viscount Sackville. Defoe, writing in 1703, says, " I am lodged in the street called Pall Mall, the ordinary residence of all strangers, because of its vicinity to the Queen's Palace, the Park, the Parliament House, the Theatres, and the Chocolate and Coffee-houses, where the best company frequent." Soon after this Gay described the street in glowing colours : — " Oh, bear me to the paths of fair Pell Mell. Safe are thy pavements, grateful is thy smell ! At distance rolls along the gilded coach, Nor sturdy carmen on thy walks encroach. No lets would bar thy ways were chairs deny'd, The soft supports of laziness and pride ; Shops breathe perfume, thro' sashes ribbons glow, The mutual arms of ladies and the beau." There is, however, another side to the picture, and the author goes on — 324 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. " Yet still e'en here, when rains the passage hide, Oft the loose stone spirts up a muddy tide Beneath thy careless foot ; and from on high Where masons mount the ladder, fragments fly : Mortar and crumbled lime in show'rs descend, And o'er thy head destructive tiles impend." It was to remedy this state of things that a Committee of the House of Commons was formed in 1757, consisting of Lord Trenham, Sir Francis Dashwood, Bubb Dodington, and General Oglethorpe. The following are their Resolutions : — " Resolved — That it is the opinion of this Committee, that an experiment be made by new paving, enlightening, cleansing, and keeping in repair for the future, the street called Pall Mall, with Purbeck pavement of seven inches deep, and flat at bottom, by estimation 9,309 square yards ; and eighty obelisks with lamps be erected for the better enlightening the said street. " Resolved — That it is the opinion of this Committee that the inhabitants of Pall Mall be exempted from the charge of paving, enlightening, cleansing and keeping in repair the said street, before their respective houses ; and from the penalties incurred by neglecting the same. " Resolved — That it is the opinion of this Committee, that for the future, the expense of paving, cleansing, enlightening, and keeping in repair, the said street, be defrayed by a pound rate upon the inhabitants of the said street only." 10 Dodington was the moving spirit on this Committee, and the following passage is found in his Diary: 11 — "Saw several of my neighbours about the pavement and sent them away pretty well satisfied." A few years before this improvement, in 1733, a curious instance of the manners of our forefathers occurred here. Four women ran a race at three o'clock in the afternoon, from one end of the street to the other. In calling up the picture of Pall Mall in the olden time we must not forget a very important feature displayed in its 10 Commons Journals, May 3, 1 751, vol. xxvi. p. 215. 11 Page 117 (1785). PALL MALL. 325 stand for sedan chairs by Marlborough House. In September, 1634, Sir Sanders Duncombe procured a licence, allowing him for fourteen years the sole privilege of using, putting forth, and letting for hire " within the cities of London and West- minster, and the suburbs and precincts thereof, certain covered chairs, the like whereof being used in many parts beyond the seas, for carrying of people in the streets, prevents the unnecessary use of coaches in those places." The preamble states that the streets of London were then so encumbered and pestered with the unnecessary multitude of coaches, that his Majesty's subjects were exposed to peril and danger. 12 These convenient vehicles, after passing through a short period of obloquy, continued for many years to be very popular, and the favourite sign of " The Two Chairmen " still lingers among the taverns in the west end. On George III.'s birthday (June 4th, 1790), another novelty was exhibited in this neighbourhood. Sixteen entirely new mail-coaches, drawn by as many sets of blood-horses, paraded from the manufactory at Mill Bank, along Pall Mall, before the Palace, and up St. James's Street to the General Post Office. The first exhibition of Winsor's system of lighting the streets with gas took place on the King's birthday, 1807, and was made in a row of lamps in front of the colonnade before Carlton House. The first public experiments on gas were made at the Lyceum Theatre in 1803, and Finsbury Square was the first public place in which the lighting was adopted ; Grosvenor Square being the last. There was much opposition to its general adoption, and in 1809, Sir Humphry Davy gave it as his opinion that it would be as easy to bring down a bit of the moon as to light London with gas. " God of the winds and Ether's boundless waste, Thee I invoke ! oh, puff my bold design ; Prompt the bright thought and swell th' harmonious line ; 12 Thirtieth Annual Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Records, 1869, p. 362. 326 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Uphold my pinions, and my verse inspire With Winsor's patent gas, or wind of fire ; In whose pure blaze thy embryo form enroll'd, The dark enlightens and enchafes the cold." ' 3 The clubs of Pall Mall have always been celebrated, although the old ones have only their name in common with the luxurious houses that now form the chief feature of the street. Pepys, in 1660 (July 26), tells us that he "went to Wood's at the Pell Mell (our old house for clubbing), and there we spent till ten at night." The " Star and Garter " was a favourite place for clubs to meet. Swift was a member of one there in 1712, and Selwyn, Gilly Williams, and others of that set, were members of another that met there in 1763. A club of Nottinghamshire gentlemen dined there about 1765, when two of the members quarrelled and fought a deadly duel. These members were William, the fifth Lord Byron, and his friend and neighbour, William Chaworth of Annesley, who had a frivolous dispute relating to the protection of game, and being mad with drink, fought in a room of the house by the light of a single candle. Lord Byron killed Chaworth, and in consequence was tried by his peers, and found guilty of manslaughter by a majority of 1 14 against 4. He was, however, discharged on claiming the benefit of the statute of Edward VI., and lived afterwards in great seclusion. The " Liberty," or " Rump-steak Club," which con- sisted of five dukes, one marquis, fifteen earls, three viscounts and three barons, all in opposition to Sir Robert Walpole, met every Tuesday during the Parliamentary Session, at the " King's Arms," which was situated on the north side, where the opera colonnade now is. The " Kit-Cat Club " met at the same place. The " World," a club of which Lord Chesterfield was a member, met at the " King's Head," a tavern from which Steele dates in 1709. About this same time "The George" was a place of fashionable resort, and was frequented by Addison ; Swift, Prior, and the other wits went to the " Smyrna Coffee-house," which is referred to in the Tatlcr 13 Rejected Addresses, ed. 1839, p. 114. PALL MALL. ZV (No. 78) — " The seat of learning is now removed from the corner of the chimney on the left hand towards the window to the round table in the middle of the floor over against the fire ; a revolution much lamented by the porters and chairmen who were edified through a pane of glass that remained broken all the last summer." " Giles's Coffee-house " was situated near the Palace, and was in vogue at the beginning of the eighteenth century. There are now only two public-houses in Pall Mall, and *they will probably be improved away shortly ; but formerly the street was plentifully supplied with taverns. Among these were the "Hercules Pillars" in 1667, and the "Tree" in 1700. In September of the latter year, the fol- lowing advertisement appeared in the Tatlcr : — " Lost from the 'Tree' in Pall Mall, two Irish Dogs, belonging to the pack of London . . . supposed to be gone to the Bath by instinct for cure." The south side of Pall Mall has always been the best, in consequence of the gardens of the houses leading down to the royal garden. A portion of the Park was divided off to form a garden to the Palace, which is thus described in the .Act for erecting St. James's parish (1685; : — " And from thence [St. James's Gate] to the said Pall Mall Street, comprehending all the houses, buildings, and yards backwards to the wall which incloses that part of St. James's Park which has been lately made into a garden, extending to a house inhabited by Anthony Verreo, painter, lately in the 'occupation of one Leonard Girle, gardener." The painter greatly improved the place and made it " a very delicious paradise." Evelyn has drawn a picture in a few words of an incident in the life of Charles II. that has perhaps taken a greater hold upon the popular memory than any other of his habits. " I walked with the King through St. James's Park to the garden, where I both saw and heard a very familiar discourse between Mrs. Nelly, as they call an impudent comedian, she looking out of her garden on a terrace at the top of the wall." It is frequently stated that the gardens of the Pall Mall houses came down to the Park and that Charles stood in the Mall ; 328 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. but it will be seen from the above quotation that that is not correct. When Carlton House became the property of the Prince of Wales, this garden was added to his residence. In making the tour of Pall Mall from west to east we come first to Marlborough House, which was built by Sir Chris- topher Wren on the site of the Old Friary and other buildings which were pulled down in order to clear the ground. It was said that the great Duke of Marlborough chose Wren as his architect in order to spite Vanbrugh, who had annoyed him by his manner of proceeding at Blenheim. The Queen gave the land and cut off a portion of the royal garden, 14 but the building cost the Duke between forty and fifty thousand pounds. Pennant says that the country paid for it, but the Duchess, who may be considered as a better authority, declared that every farthing came out of her husband's pocket 15 At the north-east angle of the building is a stone on which is inscribed, " Laid by her Grace the Duchess of Marlborough, May 24 and June 4, 1709." Wren was not successful in house-building, and the interior of Marlborough House is sacrificed to outward effect. Mr. Kerr gives the following amusing account of the inconvenient arrangement of its offices : " Now the kitchen of Marlborough House is on the ground level. The dining-room is on the ground-level also. But to carry the dinner across the entrance court and in at the front door would never do. To carry it round by the garden and in at the saloon door would never do. We might contrive a third route, thus : along the colonnade, in at the library window (or sash-door rather), and so through the rooms and main thoroughfares ; but this, although really the best that could be accomplished on the ground level, is still a jest. The actual route was this : first, downstairs to the 14 Notice of the grant of this ground, and " of the house and premises demised by King Charles II. to trustees of the late Queen Catherine," to the trustees of the Duchess of Marlborough, will be found in the Thirtieth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, 1869, pp. 452, 463. 15 By the grant it was stipulated that the lessees should spend 12,000/. in rebuildings, besides 2,000/. paid for the surrender of an old lease. PALL MALL. 3^9 basement ; secondly, through the basement corridors (pro- bably dark as Palladian basement corridors generally were) ; thirdly, upstairs again by any one of the three equally awkward means ; and fourthly, so on to the dining-room in a manner (whichever of the three stairs might be preferred) still as awkward as the rest. And why all this inconvenience ? Merely, it would seem, because the idea fixed itself in the architect's mind that the kitchen would make a good wing. That the kitchen must form an obtrusive and sham two-story house, with a sham reflection opposite, was no matter ; that its windows must look out upon the entrance court, and that it must actually have a door opening into the court (under a sham loggia), were acceptable conditions ; that the unhappy footmen, for a hundred years or more, must stumble down- stairs and upstairs, and through infinite tortuosities besides, with the soup-tureens and baron of beef, was not to be helped ; let the kitchen be a wing, and it was a wing ! Such was Palladian plan." 16 On the death of Queen Anne in August, 17 14, the Duke of Marlborough made a public entry into London attended by above two hundred gentlemen and a train of coaches. Eight years after this he was followed by a still grander procession, but he was then a corpse. The cavalcade, which was increased by troops drawn from the camp in Hyde Park, moved along St. James's Park to Hyde Park Corner, and from thence through Piccadilly and Pall Mall and by Charing Cross to Westminster Abbey, where he was buried with great pomp. The Duchess died at Marlborough House in 1744, and was buried with the remains of her husband, which were removed from the Abbey to the chapel at Blenheim. With all her faults she was a devoted wife, but she observed that there was no great merit in that, for she had the hand- somest, the most accomplished, and bravest man in Europe for her husband. She was not, however, blind to his faults, and told her daughter, Lady Sunderland, that she knew them better than he did himself. One day the Duke returned 16 R. Kerr, The Gentleman's House, 1S65, p. 423. 330 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. from Queen Anne and told the Duchess that he thanked God, with all his faults, neither avarice nor ambition could be laid to his charge. At which she bit her tongue almost through to prevent smiling in his face. Although she was eighty-four years old at the time of her death, she kept her vigour to the last, and when she was told that she must either submit to be blistered or to die, she started in her bed and cried out, " I won't be blistered and I won't die." Cibber, in his Apology, speaks in the strongest terms of the Duchess's beauty. " I remember, about twenty years after, when the same lady had given the world four of the loveliest daughters that ever were gazed on, even after they were become the reigning toasts of every party of pleasure, their still lovely mother had at the same time her votaries, and her health very often took the lead in those involuntary triumphs of beauty." After the Duke's death, the Duchess was very anxious to make a better entrance into Pall Mall, but Sir Robert Walpole, to annoy her, bought up the houses, for which she was in treaty in 1733, and thus, frustrated her favourite scheme. The third Duke added an upper story and improved the ground floor, when he let it to the Princess Charlotte ; on his death, in 1817, it was bought by the crown for the Princess and Prince Leopold, but unhappily the former died before the purchase was completed. The Prince, however, lived in the house for some years. The Dowager Queen Adelaide took up her residence here on the death of William IV., and continued to inhabit it during the rest of her life, which terminated in 1849. In 1850 the house was settled upon the Prince of Wales, but as he would not require it for some years, it was granted in 185 1 to the newly formed Department of Science and Art till such time as it should be required. The Vernon Collection and the English pictures. of the National Gallery were exhibited here till they were removed to the South Kensington Museum. On the marriage of the Prince of Wales some alterations were made in the house in order to render it suitable for the reception of the Prince and Princess. Amongst the magnificent schemes PALL MALL. 331 indulged in by George IV., was one for forming a long gallery- uniting Carlton Palace with Marlborough House and St. James's Palace. Blandford Court, or Place, which consisted of two houses with an iron gate to the street, was situated about this part of Pall Mall. Next door to Marlborough House lived Charles Abbot, afterwards created Lord Colchester, the friend of Addington, who, as Speaker of the House of Commons, gave his casting vote in favour of the impeachment of Lord Melville. A few doors farther on is a small house occupied by the " Guards' Club," which was founded for the accommodation of the officers of the household brigades. Next to this stands the " Oxford and Cambridge Club," a handsome building, erected in 1838 by Sir Robert and Sydney Smirke. Nell Gvvynn lived from 1 67 1 to her death in 1687 at a house afterwards rebuilt by the celebrated physician, Dr. Heberden. Nell moved here from a house on the opposite side of the street, and she would not accept the lease from her royal lover until it was conveyed to her free. The house is numbered 79, and was lately occupied by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, but is now a part of the War Office. Another mistress of Charles II. lived in one of the houses on the south side, built by his agents ; this was Mrs. Mary Knight, the singer. Anne, daughter of William Duke of Hamilton, and wife of Robert Carnegy, Earl of Southesk, who figures in Grammont's memoirs in an amusing though not very creditable manner, lived here in [671. Hortensia Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin, another celebrated woman of the court of Charles and James, lived in one of these houses. This eccentric niece of the great Cardinal ran away from her still more eccentric husband, and came to England in 1675. St. Evremond paid her great attention, and visited her daily. On one occasion he wrote her funeral oration, which he read to her at her particular desire. Sir William Temple was living, in 1681, two doors to the 332 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. eastward of Nell Gwyn. Catharine Viscountess Ranelagh's house was next door to Temple's, and here the great philo- sopher, Robert Boyle — " the father of chemistry, and brother of the Earl of Cork," — lived with his sister from 1668 till the time of their death, in 1691. The brother and sister were completely devoted to each other, and they were not divided in their death, for she died on the twenty-third of December, and he survived a bare week, dying on the thirtieth. Burnet says — "he was highly charitable, and was a mortified and self-denied man, that delighted in nothing so much as in doing good." 3ERO HonsE. Schomberg House, now a part of the War Office, is a good specimen of the fine old mansions of the last century, although its symmetry has been destroyed by the alteration of the east wing, which was rebuilt by Messrs. Harding. It is supposed to have been built for the celebrated Duke of Schomberg, the favourite of William III., who was killed at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, but it was not finished till some years after his death. His second son, Meinhardt, the third Duke, who, in accordance with the odd limitation of the patent, succeeded his younger brother, died in 17 19, when PALL MALL. 333 the title became extinct. The house then came into the possession of Meinhardt's daughter, Frederica, who married, first, the Earl of Holdernesse, and afterwards Benjamin Mildmay, created Earl of Fitzwalter in 1730. The great Duke Schomberg was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and Swift, thinking that a monument should be erected to his memory, wrote to Lady Holdernesse and Lord Fitzwalter, asking them for fifty pounds for that purpose, but they took no notice of his application. Swift was very wroth, and put up a tablet at his own expense, when he took occasion to allude to the ingratitude of the great man's heirs. This brought the Dean into disfavour at court, for the Envoy of Prussia, who had married a granddaughter of Schomberg, complained to the King and Queen of the insult. In 1760, on the accession of George III., his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, removed here from St. James's Palace. The Duke did not remain long, and soon after the Earl of Holdernesse sold the mansion to John Astley, the portrait- painter, for 5,000/., who divided it into three parts, retaining the centre for himself. On the roof he built a small suite of chambers, which were accessible by a private staircase, with a door in the wainscot, which he called his country house. These various alterations cost him an additional 5,000/. In early life Astley was very poor. He was a fellow-pupil of Reynolds at Hudson's, and the two afterwards met at Rome, and were frequently together. On one occasion a party of young students was formed to go out into the country ; they became very hot, and all took off their coats but Astley. The reason for his reluctance to disrobing was apparent when he at last took off his coat, for a foaming waterfall was displayed on his back, to the great surprise and amusement of his com- panions. He had made his waistcoat out of one of his land- scapes. Astley gained his position in life by marrying a rich lady, who, at her death, settled 5,000/. a year upon him. This good fortune gained him the name of " Lucky Beau Astley." He lived in great style and maintained a splendid table. 334 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Richard Cosway, the celebrated miniature-painter — " Fie, Cosway ! I"m ashamed to say Thou own'st the title of R.A."— " succeeded Astley in the occupation of the centre of the house. Whatever Dr. Wolcot may have said, Cosway managed to make a large fortune by portrait-painting, and he gathered around him a fine collection of the works of the old masters. His beautiful wife, the daughter of an hotel-keeper at Leghorn, became a leader of fashionable society in London and Paris. She was a good musician, as well as a painter, though Wolcot slights her : "If madam cannot make a shirt, Or mend, or from it wash the dirt, Better than paint, the poet for thee feels — Or take a stitch up in thy stocking (Which for a wife is very shocking), I pity the condition of thy heels." 17 In his later years Cosway supposed himself to be in communication with the spirit world, and at a Royal Academy dinner he informed a brother academician that he had had a visit from Mr. Pitt, who had died four years before. His friend asked what Pitt had said ; Cosway answered, " Why, upon entering the room he expressed himself prodigiously hurt that during his residence on earth he had not encouraged my talents." 18 Mrs. Cosway left her husband in 1804 to become the superior of a religious house at Lyons, but paid a final visit to England in 1821 to place a monument over his grave. The notorious quack, Dr. James Graham, was at Schom- berg House for a short time with his Celestial Bed. He stationed two servants in scarlet cloaks with long staffs at the door, who invited patients to enter. In 1782 a lecture, supposed to have been delivered by Hebe Vestina, the rosy goddess of youth and health, was published and " sold at 17 Peter Pindar's Odes {Works, vol. i. p. 35, 1794). 18 Nollekens and his Times, vol. ii. p. 406. PALL MALL. 335 the Temple of Hymen in Pall Mall." The " goddess " who discoursed, from a pedestal, this farrago of nonsense and obscenity, was Emma Harte, who afterwards married Sir William Hamilton in 1791, and became the bane of Nelson. In a book on Earth-bathing, published in 1793, Dr. Graham describes himself as " formerly sole institutor, proprietor, and director of the Temple of Health in the Adelphi and in Pall Mall." The Doctor tried hard to make the public believe in these baths. On one occasion he and a young woman, after divesting themselves of their clothing, were interred up to their chins and remained in the earth for six hours. Their heads, which were dressed and powdered, only were to be seen during the operation. Robert Bowyer, miniature-painter to Queen Charlotte, col- lected at Schomberg House a large gallery of engravings and paintings to illustrate the History of England, which he called the Historic Gallery. It proved unsuccessful, and he applied for assistance to Parliament, who passed an Act empowering him to dispose of it by lottery, which he did in 1807. The celebrated Bowyer's Bible was illustrated by him at a cost of upwards of 3,000/. The seven original folio volumes of Macklin's Bible were enlarged into forty-five volumes by the insertion of drawings and engravings illustrating the contents of the sacred volume. Thomas Payne, the famous bookseller and son of honest Tom Payne, moved, in 1806, to Schomberg House from his old shop at the Mews Gate, where the National Gallery now stands. Messrs. Payne and Foss succeeded him and occupied the house for many years, till their retirement from business. The immense library of Richard Heber, which consumed two years (1834-6) in selling, was consigned to them for sale. They catalogued the library, and apportioned its sale between the three book auctioneers, Sotheby, Evans, and Wheatley. Gainsborough, who, besides being a great painter, was an agreeable man full of fun and frolic, lived in the western wing from 1777 till his death in 1788. He once dined with Dr. Johnson at Garrick's, and was so struck with the old 336 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Doctor's contortions that he declared he could not hold his head still, sleeping or waking, for the space of a calendar month. Near the end of the last century Messrs. Dyde and Scribe converted the east wing into a place of business. They were succeeded by Mr. Harding, during whose lifetime George III. and the Princesses made it a custom to visit the shop for their various purchases. On these occasions the old King took great interest in the things shown to him, and as the shop was closed during the visit, the Princesses wandered behind the counter to gratify their curiosity. 19 Few old mansions have been so intimately connected with the arts of the country as Schomberg House. The rank, beauty, and talent of the kingdom visited it in order to have their features depicted by Astley, Cosway, and, greatest of all, by Gains- borough. James Christie, the great auctioneer, lived next door to his friend Gainsborough, where he died in 1803. He was a tall man, with elegant and persuasive manners, which he brought to bear with such skill upon his business that he gained the honourable title of the Prince of Auctioneers. He was friendly with Reynolds and Gainsborough, and the latter was a constant visitor both at his table and at his sales. His son and successor moved to the opposite side of the way, previous to his final change to the present auction-rooms in King Street, St. James's. The plain brick building, behind an iron railing, which now forms a part of the War Office, and was previously the Ordnance Office, was originally built by Brickingham for the Duke of York, brother of George III. It afterwards became the residence of Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, at whose death it was sold and turned into a subscription club. This Duke was a very worthless and profligate prince. After having seduced and basely deserted the Countess Grosvenor, he married the widow of Christopher Horton without the knowledge of his brother George III. He led the Prince of 19 Builder, 1853, No. 517, p. 3. PALL MALL. 337 Wales into dissipation, and kept a faro bank at his house for the Prince's amusement. A few doors eastward is a stone-fronted house, now also a part of the War Office. It was built by Sir John Soane for George Grenville, Earl Temple, and first Marquis of Bucking- ham, who let it, in 1788, to Alexander, Duke of Gordon, the husband of Pitt's celebrated Duchess. The house remained in the possession of the Buckingham family till the sale of their property in 1848. Next door to Buckingham House is the " Carlton Club," founded in 1831 by the Duke of Wellington and his political friends. The first meetings of the club were held in Charles Street, St. James's, but were afterwards moved to Lord Kensington's house in Carlton Gardens. In 1836 a new house, now entirely destroyed, was built by Sir Robert Smirke. Ten years after it was found necessary to enlarge the club, and a design by Sydney Smirke, founded on one of the palaces at Venice, was decided upon, when the present right-hand wing was at once commenced by the side of the old house. In 1854 the whole of the original building was pulled down, and the present mansion finished. During the time of the rebuilding, Buckingham House was taken for the use of the club, and connected with the right wing. It was at first prophesied that the polished granite columns would not last in the London atmosphere, but these prophecies have been falsified, and the granite has worn far better than the Caen stone of which the front is built. The " Reform Club" was founded in 1830 by the exertions of Edward Ellice, Henry Warburton, and Joseph Hume. In 1837 designs were sent in for a new building. Sir Charles Barry's design, founded partly on the Farnese Palace, the work of Michael Angelo, was chosen, and the present house was the result. The chief fault of the exterior consists in the large number of small windows which cut up the fronts. Barry would have liked to have made the upper windows more important, but he was not able from the exigencies of the case. In the original plan the central portion was intended 22 338 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. for an open court, but was afterwards covered in, and con- verted into the present central hall. The "Travellers' Club" originated in a suggestion of Lord Castlereagh's soon after the peace of 1814. His object was to give accommodation to distinguished foreigners during their stay in England. The club soon became famous for its whist-players, and Talleyrand, when in London, was always one among them. " Uniting, in short, in tongue, headpiece, and pen, The very great powers of three very great men : Talleyrand, — who will never drive down Piccadilly more To the ' Travellers' Club House ! ' — Charles Phillips, and Phillimore." 20 No person was considered eligible who had not travelled out of the British Isles to a distance of at least 1,000 miles from London in a direct line. But in the present age of rapid and general travelling, this cannot be considered as any great feat. In 1829 Sir Charles Barry's design for the present building was chosen in a select competition, and in 1832 it was completed. It gained for the architect a great reputation, and still remains one of the most charming bits of archi- tecture in London, though now much spoilt by being covered with paint, so that the stone has the appearance of stucco. The street front was said to be a mere copy of Raffaelle's Pandolfini Palace at Florence, but this is not a fact, as the two buildings are very different. The effect of the garden front has been seriously injured by the erection of a smoking-room in the roof. The success of the "United Service Club" suggested the formation of others on the same plan, and it was thought that the men of peace should be united as well as the men of war. In furtherance of this idea the "Athenaeum Club " was instituted in 1823 as an association of men of science, letters, and arts, and noblemen and gentlemen of intellectual tastes. The first meetings were held in the rooms of the Royal Institution, and Faraday acted for a short time as honorary 20 Ingoldsby Legends, 2nd Series, p. 70. PALL MALL. 339 secretary. In 1829 the present house was built from the designs of Decimus Burton at a cost of 35,000/. The exterior is extremely plain, with little ornament except the frieze, which was copied from that of the Parthenon. Over the portico is a handsome statue of Minerva, by Baily. The hall and staircase are of very noble proportions, and the drawing- room, which occupies the whole of the Waterloo Place front, on the first floor, is one of the finest rooms in London. The house was opened on the 8th of February, 1830, and in the first year ladies were admitted every Wednesday night during the season. On these occasions the company enjoyed very agreeable soirees, which were greatly appreciated by the late Mr. Walker, author of the Original, in which work he refers to them. The chief glory of the club is its magnificent library. The " United Service," to the success of which reference has just been made, was the first of the great clubs which are now so numerous. After the conclusion of the war with France, the many officers who were thrown upon the town felt the want of some place of resort, and this club was the result. The " United Service Club" was first formed in Charles Street, Regent Street, and occupied the house afterwards pos- sessed by the "Junior United Service Club." The continuous series of clubs, which form the chief feature of Pall Mall, stand on ground formerly occupied by Carlton House and gardens, Pall Mall Court, 31 and several houses, all of which have been swept entirely away. John Julius Angerstein, an opulent Russian merchant, lived at a house numbered 100, which stood on a part of the ground of the " Reform Club." Here he brought together his mag- nificent collection of forty-two pictures, which formed the 21 " About the middle of this street is Pall Mall Court, a very neat place, with fair new built houses fit for gentlemen, the back windows pleasantly opening into the Prince's Garden. This Court hath a hand- some freestone pavement, and at the entrance there are iron bars made open, with the door of the same to shut up at nights for the security of the inhabitants." — 1734, Robert Seymour's Survey of London and West- minster, vol. ii. 34° ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. nucleus of our National Gallery. All who love to study these masterpieces of art should bless the memory of Sir George Beaumont, who may be considered as the founder of the national collection. He allowed it to be announced that he would present the more valuable of his pictures to the nation, whenever it was decided to commence a National Gallery. This offer determined the Government to purchase the Angerstein collection, which they did in 1824 for 57,000/. They also took the lease of his house, and the pictures were exhibited in Pall Mall till 1837, when they were transferred to the present building in Trafalgar Square. On the site of a part of the " Carlton Club " were Evans's well-known auction-rooms, where were sold the greater number of the celebrated libraries, which have been dispersed since the sale of the Roxburgh Library, at which Evans first used his hammer. The worthless George Bubb Dodington, the Bubo of Pope — " A false, suspicious friend was he, As all the world can tell ; He flatter'd Walpole at Whitehall And damn'd him in Pall Mall—" M lived in a large mansion in front of Carlton House, which was pulled down when that building was opened up to Pall Mall. R. Seymour, in his Survey, 1734, gives a very unflattering sketch of the house : — " The new house of Mr. Dodington, built after the Italian manner, which, as an ingenious architect says, has at first view the aspect of a bottle glass house, by the chimneys being collected into one stack placed in the vertex of the roof." When Dodington was the favourite of Frederick Prince of Wales, he was allowed to make a door out of his house into Carlton Gardens, but when, through the influence of Lord Chesterfield, he lost that favour, the Prince shut up the door and changed all the locks in his house, to which he had before given Dodington keys : 22 1740, Sir C. Hanbury Williams's Works, 1S22, vol. i. p. iS. PALL MALL. 341 " For the Torys will never receive such a scrub, And no Whig at court will be civil to Bub." 23 This man was the laughing-stock of his contemporaries for his clumsy grandeur. When he gave an audience to his friends and dependants, he made a practice of seating himself in state, habited in his dress suit and star. He was one of the blasphemous and debauched fraternity who held their orgies at Medmenham Abbey, near Marlow, and yet poverty forced Thomson to stoop so low as to dedicate one of the Seasons (Summer) to him, and to flatter him thus, — " O Dodington ! attend my rural song ; Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line, And teach me to deserve thy just applause." John, first Earl of Egmont, the founder of the colony of Georgia, lived near Dodington. Robert Seymour, in his Survey (1734), says: " Somewhat farther is a house which, if not remarkably magnificent, is very pleasing to the spectator, and has something in it of that elegance and propriety which accompany every word and action of its owner." John, second Earl of Egmont, First Lord of the Admiralty in the Grenville and Rockingham Administration, lived in the same house, which was attacked by Wilkes's mob, in 1768. He was the father of the unfortunate Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval. Carlton House was originally built in 1709, on a "parcel of the Royal Garden, near St. James's Palace," 24 by Henry 23 1740, Sir C. H anbury Williams's Works, vol. i. p. 25. 24 Warrant dated Oct. 20, 1709. "For Henry Boyle, Esquire, one of the principal Secretaries of State. Grant of a piece of ground being parcel of the royal garden near S. James's Palace, and all that the wood- work or wilderness adjoining to the said garden being on the east side thereof, and all the houses, yards, gardens, ground, edifices, buildings, and other the appurtenances to the same belonging, now or lately enjoyed or possessed by Boyle, all which premises were formerly taken out of S. James's Park, and are situate in the parishes of S. Martin-in-the- Fields and S. James, Westminster, and contain 9 a. 1 r. ip. (the abuttals whereof are particularly described) ; excepting thereout an oblong piece of ground situate on the north side of the woodwork or wilderness near adjoining to Warwick House, measuring in length, from east to west, 1 1 2 feet, and in depth 46 feet. To hold the same from the date hereof 342 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Boyle, created Baron Carleton in 17 14. He was grandson of the first Earl of Cork, and took a distinguished part in politics, being successively Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary of State, and President of the Council. On his death in 1725, the house and grounds descended to his nephew, the third Earl of Burlington. Kent, the Earl's protege, planned the gardens in imitation of those laid out at Twickenham by Pope, to whom we certainly owe much, as the first introducer of a more natural system of gardening. The Scbees of Cabliois Hmje i.^i.en dowm in 1827. In an article in the Guardian (No. 173), Pope ridicules the fashionable taste for " verdant sculpture," by giving a list of some to be disposed of by a town gardener, viz. : "Adam and for thirty-one years, at the yearly rent of 35/., Boyle having laid out 2,853/. for improvements." — Thirtieth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, 1869, p. 470. rALL MALL. 343 Eve in yew, Adam a little shattered by the fall of the tree of knowledge in the great storm, Eve and the serpent very flourishing," &c, and very happily concludes thus : — " He also cutteth family pieces of men, women, and children, so that any gentlemen may have his lady's effigies in myrtle — Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine and thy children as olive branches round thy table." Kent's labours made Carlton Gardens, which were very extensive, and stretched from Spring Gardens to the garden of Marlborough House, the most beautiful about London. The Earl of Burlington gave the house to his mother. She sold it, in 1732, for 7,000/., to Lord Chesterfield, who bought it for Frederick, Prince of Wales. The Prince lived here for some years, and was particularly fond of the grounds. In the summer, he usually breakfasted under a marquee, on the lawn. His son, afterwards George III., lived here in his youth, and was taught elocution by the actor, Quin, who was proud of the praise bestowed on his pupil, when the King read his first speech. The Princess Dowager of Wales lived at Carlton House, till her death, in February, 1772. The Earl of Bute constantly visited her in the evening, in the sedan chair of Miss Vansittart, the maid of honour. At this time the house had an entrance in St. James's Park, but was hid by houses from Pall Mall. Opposite to St. Alban's Street was Stone- Cutter's Alley, 2S which led from Pall Mall to Carlton House. It was proposed, however, in 1767, to clear these houses away, and the architect, J. Adam, made a design for a handsome gateway, with a width of one hundred and eighty-four feet, but nothing was done till the house came into the possession of George, Prince of Wales, in 1783. Then a complete alteration was made under the direction of Henry Holland, the architect. The interior was rebuilt, the brick exterior was 25 " Over against St. Alban's Street is Stonecutter's Alley, paved with Freestone, which leads into Warwick Street, and likewise to the back gate of the King's garden, for the conveniency of Mr. George London, her late Majesty's principal gardener, there inhabiting in a neat and pleasant house." — 1720, Strype's Stow. 344 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. coated with stone, and a portico of Corinthian columns was added. The houses in front were pulled down and replaced by an open Ionic screen, which, being too near the house, completely spoilt the effect of the otherwise handsome portico. Sheridan called it the Pillory, and Bonomi ridiculed it in an epigram, — u Care colonne, che fate qua ? Non sapiamo, in verita." Which Prince Hoare paraphrased into — " Dear little columns, all in a row, What do you do there ? Indeed we don't know." When Carlton House was pulled down, these pillars of the screen were taken to Buckingham Palace, and the columns of the portico now form the portico of the National Gallery. Immense sums of money were spent on the building and decorations, which were handsome, but in a very corrupt style. Adjoining the house was a conservatory of florid Gothic, with stained-glass windows, containing the arms of the sovereigns of England and the Princes of Wales. The staircase was of a peculiar form, but so badly secured at the foundation that it had to be taken down and rebuilt. In the upper rooms was a very complete armoury, containing the dresses and armour of all times and countries, and sets of uniforms, from a general to a private, of all the European States. Among the swords were those of Bayard, Hampden, and Marlborough, and the dress swords of Louis XIV. and Charles II. The house also contained a very fine collection of pictures, principally of the Flemish School. George IV. lived in Carlton House, or Palace, as Prince of Wales, Regent, and King. On the 8th of February, 1790, he held here his first state levee ; and on the 26th of February, 1 81 1, his first levee as Regent. The Prince gathered round him almost all the wit and fashion of the time, and during the many years that he occupied it, Carlton House was the scene PALL MALL. 345 of much gaiety and of many brilliant entertainments. On one occasion the Prince proposed the health of the famous wit and beauty, Mrs. Crewe (wife of J. Crewe, of Crewe Hall, for thirty-eight years Member of Parliament for Cheshire, and then created Lord Crewe), in this form : — " Buff and Blue And Mrs. Crewe ; " she promptly returned the compliment by giving "Buff and Blue And all of you." These favourite Whig colours, in which men and women of that faith constantly dressed, are now almost passed away, and only linger on the cover of the Edinburgh Review. Mrs. Crewe was so beautiful, that Madame D'Arblay said she " uglified " everything near her, and C. J. Fox thus elegantly refers to her charms : — " Where the loveliest expression to feature is join'd, By nature's most delicate pencil design'd : Where blushes unbidden, and smiles without art, Speak the sweetness and feeling that dwells in the heart." On one occasion Sir Walter Scott dined with the Prince, who proposed as a toast " The Author of Waverley" at the same time looking significantly at Scott. The " Great Unknown " turned it off, and joined vociferously in the cheering. In November, 1803, the Prince of Wales gave a grand entertainment to his Excellency Elfi Bey, when he told him that he had in his stud an Egyptian horse that would dismount the best horseman in his retinue. The Bey said that it should be tried the next day ; and at two o'clock, the Prince, and a brilliant assembly, met in the riding-house to see what would happen. The horse was brought in : its eyes were fiery and enraged, and it was in a rampant and ungovernable state ; but in an instant, Mahomet Aga, Elfi Bey's principal officer, vaulted on the back of the animal, which plunged and ex- 346 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. hibited its ferocity and passion to no purpose, for the Mame- luke kept his seat through all, and in about twenty minutes, to the surprise of the company, the rider had subdued the horse completely. 26 In 1 8 1 1 the Regent gave a magnificent fete to upwards of two thousand of the aristocracy, as well as to the French princes and emigrant nobility. The public were admitted for some days afterwards to view the superb arrangements. They largely availed themselves of the privilege, and the crowds were so immense that many accidents occurred. Warwick House, now pulled down, was connected with the gardens of Carlton House, and had its entrance in Warwick Street. It took its name from Sir Philip Warwick, to whom a lease was granted by Charles II. In Anne's reign the lease was renewed to Thomas, Earl of Sussex. 27 Here lived the 26 Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, vol. v. p. 211. 27 Aug. 20, 1705. " For Thomas, Earl of Sussex, and Anne, Countess of Sussex, his wife. Lease of the mansion house called Warwick House, and the ground on which the same is erected, situate within the parishes of S. Martin-in-the-Fields and S. James, Westminster, co. Middlesex, by the old wall of S. James's Park, on part of the ground heretofore used for a common way leading from Charing Cross to the palace of S. James, and extending in length from the place where a gate formerly was near the aforesaid wall, towards the said palace on the west, 230 feet or there- abouts, unto a place where a certain passage called the Welch Exchange sometime was, and in breadth from the park wall aforesaid on the south to the wall built on the north of the aforesaid way, 62 feet or thereabouts. To hold the same from Michaelmas, 1722 (or other sooner determination of the lease granted by King Charles II. of the same premises to Sir Philip Warwick, knight), for the term of 32 years and a half, at the yearly rent of 40 shillings. Lease also of a piece of ground heretofore part of the said old highway leading from Charing Cross to S. James's Palace, under S. James's Park wall, and now inclosed within the wall of the garden belonging to Warwick House, containing in front or breadth 20 feet or thereabouts, and in depth 40 feet or thereabouts, abutting upon the said Warwick garden towards the east, upon the old wall of S. James's Park towards the south, and upon other part of the said old highway towards the west and north, lying and being within the said parishes of S. Martin-in-the-Fields and S. James, Westminster. To hold the same from Michaelmas, 1740 (or other sooner determination of several terms of 60 years and 20 years, granted by King Charles II. to the trustees of PALL MALL. 347 Princess Charlotte, who, in July, 1814, left it in a hackney- coach in order to see her mother in Connaught Place. The next morning she was conveyed back to Carlton House, and two years after, on May 2, 18 16, she was married there to Prince Leopold. Carlton House narrowly escaped destruction in 1824, for on the 8th of June a fire broke out in one of the sitting-rooms, which was entirely destroyed, and with it some of the valuable pictures. Three years after this the whole place was pulled down. " The mandate pass'd, the axe applied, The woodman's efforts echoed wide ; The toppling elm-trees fell around, And cumbrous ruin strew'd the ground." M Before concluding our account of the house, we may add an anecdote of Sir Philip Francis, who was at one time on very friendly terms with the Prince. In one of his fits of rudeness, Sir Philip one day walked to Carlton House, and disdaining the usual method of proceeding, knocked loudly at the door with a large stick. The next day, Colonel McMahon, the Prince's confidential managing man, met Sir Philip in the street, and stopping him, exclaimed with much earnestness, " Upon my word, Francis, you must try to keep Sir Philip in order. Do you know he has been knocking at the Prince's door with his stick, and making such a noise because he was not admitted, that we thought we should never get him away ? " E9 In place of the beautiful gardens and noble trees, have arisen Carlton Terrace, and the " Athenaeum " and " United Service " clubs. The opening of the south portion of Waterloo Place occupies the exact position of the front of Carlton House. Henry, late Earl of S. Alban's), for the term of 13 years and a half, at the yearly rent of 40 shillings." — Thirtieth Report of the Deputy Keeper oj the Public Records, 1869, p. 381. 29 Emigration of the Rooks from Carlton Gardens, 1827 (Hone's Table Book, vol. i. p. 690). 88 Parkes'S Life of Francis, vol. ii. p. 266, note. 348 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. The riding-house and stables of Carlton House remained under the name of Carlton Ride until a few years ago, when they were demolished in order to continue the terrace accord- ing to the original design. Here were kept for some years the public records of the kingdom. The Duke of York's Column, at the head of the steps leading down into the Park, was designed by Benj. Wyatt, and erected between the years 1830 and 1833. The column, of Scotch granite, is 124 feet high; and the bronze statue, by Sir Richard Westmacott, fourteen feet high. The whole expense of this frightful erection was defrayed by public subscriptions. At a house opposite Market Lane, and to the east of Carlton House, the annual exhibitions of the Royal Academy were held from 1768 to 1780. In the latter year the present Somerset House was finished, and the Academy had rooms set aside for its use in the new buildings. 30 We now cross over to the north side of Pall Mall, and return from east to west. Close by the Opera House, and at the corner of St. Alban's Street, Michael Kelly, the manager and wine-merchant, opened a musical saloon, which became a fashionable lounge. It was, however, a very unprofitable investment for Kelly, who, according to Sheridan, " imported his music and composed his wines." Although the wit spoke disrespectfully of the wine, he did not mind getting drunk with it. On one occasion he was engaged to go to Windsor with the Prince of Wales, and, in order to be on the spot, Kelly lent him his bedroom over the shop. However, Sheridan drank so much that he was unfit to get up the next morning, and the Prince, after sending over for him twice, was obliged to go without him. A few doors on was the house in which lived Sir Cecil W r ray, and his widow after him. " Sir Cecil's taste both for poetry and small-beer are well known, as is the present unfinished state of his newly-fronted house in Pall 30 There is a woodcut of the front of this house in Sandby's History of the Royal Academy, vol. i. PALL MALL. 349 Mall." 31 Sir Cecil was the Court candidate who opposed Fox at the celebrated Westminster election of 1784, and he naturally came in for a great deal of abuse. He is thus summed up in the Rolliad: — " Turn next to the candidates : At such a crisis, We've a right to observe on their virtues or vices. Hood founds, and with justice to most apprehensions, In years of fair services, manly pretensions ; But his party to change, and his friend to betray, By some are held better pretensions in Wray." 32 The following is one of the election squibs issued by the popular party : — " The gallant Lord Hood to his country is dear ; His voters like Charley's make excellent cheer : But who has been able to taste the small beer Of Sir Cecil Wray ? Then come every free, every generous soul, That loves a fine girl and a full-flowing bowl, Come here in a body, and all of you poll 'Gainst Sir Cecil Wray. In vain all the arts of the Court are let loose, The electors of Westminster never will choose To run down a Fox and set up a Goose, Like Sir Cecil Wray." Among those who voted for the Court candidate were the following celebrated men : — John Hunter, Dr. Heberden, Soame Jenyns, Jonas Hanway, and Wilkes. Sir Lloyd, afterwards Lord, Kenyon, slept in his stables a sufficient number of nights in order to qualify himself to vote for Wray, because his house was not within the limits of the borough. After forty days' polling Hood and Fox were returned as members. A few doors farther on lived, from 1796 to 1800, N. B. Halhed, the eminent orientalist, and author of A Code of 31 The Rolliad, 1795, P- x 9> note. 32 Political Miscellanies, 1795, pp. 96-97. 35 o ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Gentoo Laws. At No. 25, Sir Walter Scott once lodged. Several old houses have been cleared away to make room for the handsome building of the New Carlton Club. The Army and Navy Club was founded by Sir Edward Barnes and some officers from India, who first proposed to establish an army club, but on applying to the Duke of Wel- lington for his support, they found he would only give it on condition that the navy was included. The present house was built in 1848, from the designs of Messrs. Parnell and Smith, which were selected in an open competition. The elevation is based on the Comaro Palace on the Grand Canal at Venice, but differs materially from it. In the Builder™ there is a copy of one of the rejected designs, which is a most amazing specimen of ornate Gothic. A building made up almost entirely of buttresses and pinnacles would be so extremely inappropriate to the purposes of a club, and so out of place in Pall Mall, that we cannot be too thankful to the committee for rejecting such a design. One of the houses taken down to make room for the club was Lord de Mauley's, formerly inhabited by Nell Gwynn, and her looking-glass is now preserved in the visitors' dining-room. Robert Vernon, the generous donor of the beautiful gallery of pictures known by his name, died at his residence, No. 50, on the 22nd of May, 1849. No. 51, the house with the archway leading into Pall Mall Place, was occupied from 1735 to 1764 by the celebrated bookseller, Robert Dodsley, who called his shop " The Tully's Head." It was the resort of most of the literary men of the day, and here would have been seen Johnson and Burke, Young and Akenside, Horace Walpole, the Wartons, and other men of note. Dodsley began life as a footman to Charles Dartiquenave, a natural son of Charles II., who was Paymaster of the Board of Works and a member of the Kit- Cat Club. Dodsley was not ashamed of his humble origin, and he told Johnson, — " I knew Dartneuf, for I was his foot- 33 May 22, 1847, p. 243. PALL MALL. 35 r man." Dartiquenave was a famous glutton, and is introduced in conversation with Apicius in Lord Lyttleton's Nineteenth Dialogue of the Dead. Pope also celebrated his taste : — " Each mortal has his pleasure ; none deny Scarsdale his bottle, Darty his ham pye." There are two anecdotes of this man which illustrate his master passion, and do not show him off in a very agreeable light. He one day observed a fishmonger's boy carrying home a fine turbot, which he amused himself by striking against every post he met. This conduct was a serious crime in the eyes of the lover of ham-pie, and he therefore followed the boy and explained his conduct to his master, at the same time insisting on his being severely punished. On another occasion Dartiquenave was engaged to dine with a brother gourmand for the express purpose of eating the produce of a very fine plum-tree, remarkable for the richness, delicacy, and great scarcity of its fruit, for there were but two plums on the tree. It was agreed that in order to enjoy the fruit to the greatest advantage they should proceed to the garden when they had dined and each gather and eat his plum. Before dinner, however, was ended, Dartiquenave made an excuse, and slunk out of the room, hastening to the tree, from which he had the baseness to pluck and eat both the plums. 34 Dodsley's house was afterwards inhabited by George Nicol, bookseller to the King, who prepared the catalogue of the Roxburgh Library. Next door, to the west, was the house where Almack's Club was established in 1764. This club was afterwards managed by Brookes, who removed it to St. James's Street. The house was then taken by Alderman John Boydell, " a name which all lovers of art have learned to reverence," 35 when he conceived the design of raising an English school of painting by employing artists to illustrate the plays of Shakspeare. Some envious friend published 34 Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, vol. i. p. 64. 35 Cunningham's British Painters, vol. i. p. 299. 352 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. the following jcu-cTcsprit in one of the papers of the time : — " Old Father Time, as Ovid sings, Is a great eater up of things, And, without salt or mustard, Will gulp you down a castle wall As easily as at Guildhall An alderman eats custard. But Boydell, careful of his fame, By grafting it on Shakspeare's name Shall beat his neighbour hollow : For to the bard of Avon's stream Old Time has said with Polypheme, You'll be the last I'll swallow." Romney undertook to paint the first picture, and chose The Tempest. I. Disraeli, in his Literary Character, gives an interesting account of the fever of his imagination, and depres- sion of his spirits, while he was employed upon this work. Few connoisseurs enter into the feelings of the painter, for they look only at the result, — the outside, and think nothing of the aspiration of the artist, in his endeavour to reach his ideal. The following letter from Romney to a friend, expresses eloquently his feeling while employed on the picture : — " My dear Friend, — " Your kindness in rejoicing so heartily at the birth of my picture has given me great satisfaction. There has been an anxiety labouring in my mind the greatest part of the last twelve months, and at times it had nearly overwhelmed me. I thought I should absolutely have sunk in despair. Oh ! what a kind friend is in those times ! I thank God, whatever my picture may be, I can say this much, I am a greater philosopher and a better Christian." Boydell, who brought forward Woollett and other artists, and raised the fame of England for engraving, was almost ruined by this public spirit. He intended to have left the PALL MALL. 353 Shakspeare Gallery to the nation, but he was forced to dispose of it by public lottery, which took place on the 28th of January, 1805. The principal prize, which consisted of the gallery and many of the pictures, was drawn by Mr. Tassie, the sculptor of Leicester Square, who sold his acquisition by auction in the following May, for 10,237/. The lease of the house for sixty-three years, was bought for 4,400/., 3G by several noblemen and gentlemen, who, under the auspices of George III., founded the British Institution, which was opened on the 1 8th of January, 1806. This valuable society, which held two exhibitions annually, one of living painters, and the other of old masters, has now unfortunately terminated its existence. The Trustees are said to have a balance of 15,000/ ; and if they had taken any trouble to obtain an additional 2,000/., they might have secured for 17,000/ pos- session of the house in perpetuity ; instead of doing this they gave up the property, and in 1868 the house was pulled down by the " Gymnastic Club," which now occupies the new building by which it has been replaced. In place of the front with its alto relievo of Shakspeare, between Poetry and Painting, by Thomas Banks, R.A., which cost five hun- dred guineas, there has arisen a poor castellated elevation. The system of exhibiting the works of the great masters was commenced in the summer of 18 13, and created a great sensation. The first exhibition consisted entirely of Reynolds's pictures, and the second of those of Hogarth, Zoffany, Gains- borough, and Wilson. This annual collection was very delightful to art-lovers, who thus had an opportunity of gradually seeing most of the great works in the private collections of Great Britain. One day in 1843, Haydon went to the British Institution to finish off one of his large pictures, which was placed in the south room, and he did what he says no mortal ever did before : that is, broiled a chop on the coals and ate it with a glass of spring water. He adds, it was "where all that were illustrious and great have walked on those splendid nights we used to have : — Davy, Wilkie, 36 Autobiography, 1853, vol. iii. p. 244. 23 354 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Talma, Lamb, Hazlitt, Beaumont, Madame de Stael, Talley- rand, Canning, Wellington, Lady Jersey, and my own love Mary." S7 Pall Mall is at present the handsomest street in London, and when the War Office is rebuilt, its south side will be one continuous row of palaces. The north is gradually following the lead of the south side, and the building just erected for the " New Carlton Club " is the latest addition to it. It now only wants to be opened up to the Green Park, through Cleve- land Row, to complete the grandeur of its coup-d'ail. a7 Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, vol. viii. p. 97. ( 355 ) CHAPTER XIII. ST. JAMES'S SQL/ARE. FASHIONABLE neighbourhoods are continually changing, but this square is an exception to the rule, as it has been for two centuries one of the most aristocratic places in London. At the Restoration, the site was a quiet and unfrequented place, forming part of St. James's Fields. In August, 1662, a duel took place there at eleven o'clock in the morning, when Henry Jermyn was one of the combatants. 1 About the year 1663, the square appears to have been planned out by the Earl of St. Alban's, to whom the ground belonged, and who lived in a large house in the fields. The French traveller Monconys was in England at that time, and describes St. James's Fields as about to be destroyed. 2 In the following year a warrant was issued for the grant of the ground upon which the houses were to be built. — " Sept. 23, 1664. Warrant for a grant to Baptist May and Abraham Cowley on nomination of the Earl of St. Albans of several parcels of ground in Pall Mall described, on rental of 80/., for building thereon a square of 13 or 14 great and good houses ; also of the common highway lying between the houses in south Pall Mall Street and St. 1 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1661-62, p. 463. 2 1663. — " Apres avoir quitte" M. d'Aubigny, je fus chercher M. Oldem- bourg, logd au vieux mail, qui est situe" au coste d'une grandissime place qui peut estre quatre fois la place Royale, et deux fois Bellecour : elle appartient au Milor St. Alban, qui y va faire des bastiments, qui la destruiront." — Journal des Voyages de M. de Monconys, Seconde partie. 4to, Paris, 1677, p. 11. s 356 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY James's Park wall on rental of 40/., with proviso of erecting no building thereon that should cause annoyance to the inhabitants. The said grant is made because persons were unwilling to build such great houses on any terms save that of inheritance, and the former leases recapitulated were only for years." 3 The newly erected square was called the Piazza, as appears by the Rent-Roil of the Earl of St. Alban's, dated 1676. 4 This use of the Italian word in its original meaning is curious, as the arcades at the Piazza, Covent Garden, built about the year 1634, gave rise to the popular notion that a piazza must necessarily be an arcade. The square soon lost this name, and obtained its present one, leaving the sole glory of the Italian word to Covent Garden, as Byron says : — " For bating Covent Garden I can hit on No place that's called Piazza in Great Britain." The square was at once occupied by the residences of the chief nobility and gentry, as is seen by the lists from the St. Martin's Rate-Books given by Mr. Cunningham in his Handbook, and also from the Rent -Roll of Lord St. Alban's mentioned before. The present numbering commences with the house on the east side, which is the north corner of Charles Street. In 1676 there were living on the east side the following men of note : Lewis de Duras, Marquis of Blanquefort, a naturalized Frenchman, who was created Baron Duras of Holdenby, and afterwards succeeded his father-in-law as Earl of Feversham. He was a nephew of the great Turenne, but had none of his distinguished relative's military genius, for he proved himself a sorry soldier when he commanded James II. 's troops against the Duke of Monmouth at the Battle of Sedgemoor. He is thus praised in the second part of Absalom and Achitoplicl — " Even envy must consent to Helon's worth ; Whose soul, though Egypt glories in his birth, 1 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1664-5, P- ] 5- 4 British Museum, Add. MSS., No. 22,063. ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 357 Could for our captive ark its zeal retain, And Pharaoh's altars in their pomp disdain : To slight his gods was small, with nobler pride He all the allurements of his court defied ; " but Swift calls him " a very dull old fellow." 3 Aubrey de Vere, twentieth and last Earl of Oxford, and Colonel of the Horse Guards, who were called after him the Oxford Blues, lived here till his death, on the 12th of March, 1702, at the age of eighty. This man was a great blackguard, for he deceived an actress, supposed to have been Mrs. Daven- port, by a false marriage. 6 He came to her lodgings attended by a clergyman and a witness, who turned out afterwards to be his lordship's trumpeter and kettle-drummer. The unfor- tunate woman threw herself at the King's (Charles II.) feet to supplicate for redress for the outrage, but all she could obtain was an annuity of 300/., the receipt of which caused her to leave the stage. Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, lived here for a few years, and the ground of his house was conveyed to him in 1665. In 1698-99 Anthony Grey, Earl of Kent, occupied a house on this side of the square, and in 1708 his son Henry, first Marquis of Kent, had succeeded him. In 1698-99 Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, the Prime Minister, was living here, and in T708 his son Charles, the third Earl, had taken his place. In 1709 the body of William Bentinck, Earl of Portland, the Dutch favourite of William III., lay in state at his house here. In 17 10 the pictures of Baron Schutz, Envoy of Hanover, were sold after his death at his house, also on the east side of the square. The north side was chiefly occupied by two large houses situated on either side of York Street. The house on the east side was the residence in 1676 and 1677 of the French Ambassador. Mr. Cunningham states in his Handbook that 5 Notes on the Characters of the Court of Queen Anne. 6 The actress is sometimes said to be Mrs. Marshall, but this appears to be a mistake.— See Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, vol. vi. p. 461. 3,8 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. this was Barillon, but unless the house was the official embassy, and inhabited by successive ambassadors, he must be mistaken, for Barillon did not come over to this country till August, 1677, and I find by Lord St. Alban's Rent-Roll that the person who was living in the house in 1676 was Antoine Courtin, the predecessor of Barillon. 7 " His Ex. Monseigneur Curtein, the French Ambassador, payeth for his Ldsps. house scituate on the north side of Yorke Street, by the yeare by quarterly payments, 400/." 8 This rent appears exceedingly high, although the house was a very large one. In 1698, however, Ormonde House was taken for three years for the Count de Tallard, French Ambassador, at a still higher rent, viz., 600/. per annum. Barillon usually has the sole credit of bribing our statesmen, but Courtin wrote in 1677 to the French court, urging that money should be sent to him to distribute among the members of Parliament, because Spain and the Emperor had sent money to bribe the other side. This house was after- wards occupied by Henry Sydney, Earl of Romney, who was the brother of Algernon Sydney, and the handsomest man at Charles II. 's Court. In Grammont's Memoirs he is called the " handsome Sidney," but it is also said that he had not " sufficient vivacity to support the impression which his figure made." He was at one time greatly in love with the Duke of York's first wife, who is said to have encouraged his attentions. In 1679, when Envoy to Holland, he commenced his intimacy with the Prince of Orange, who, soon after his accession to the 7 A complete list of Foreign Ambassadors to the English Court is much required by historical investigators. I made various inquiries for such a list, but could not learn of one, till, through the courtesy of Mr. Alfred Kingston, of the Public Record Office, I was referred to the Gentle- man's Magazine (vol. xiv., 1840, pp. 483, 608), for a " Catalogue of French Ambassadors to England," by John Holmes ; but this, though valuable in its way, is unfortunately wrong in the present instance, for in it Courtin is placed between 1665 and 1667, and not in 1676-7, when he undoubtedly was here, as appears by the letters in Sir John Dalrymple's Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, 1790, vol. i. * B. M., Add. MSS., No. 22,063. , ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 359 English throne, created him Earl of Romney. In November, 1695, William went to supper with the Earl in order to view the fireworks, which were exhibited in the square. Evelyn (under date November 13th, 1695) thus refers to the sight : — " Famous fireworks and very chargeable, the King being returned from his progress. . . . These fireworks were showed before Lord Romney's, Master of the Ordnance, in St. James's great square, where the King stood." The crowd on this occasion was very great, and the King's Guards encompassed the square. On December 2nd, 1697, the King again went to see the fireworks, which were exhibited here in commemoration of the peace. There is an engraving of the grand erection for the exhibition of these fireworks designed by Sir Martin Beckman, which consisted of " 1,000 sky rockets, from four to six pounds weight, 200 balloons, 2,400 pumps with stars, 1,000 cones, 7,000 reports, 15,000 swarms, 400 light balls, 22 rocket chests, each containing 60 rockets from one to four pounders." Swift, in his remarks on Burnet's Memoirs, sums up the Earl's character in very uncom- plimentary terms ; he calls him " an idle, drunken, ignorant rake, without sense, truth, or honour." He died here in 1704. In 1720 this house was occupied by Charles, fourth Lord Cornwallis, who married Charlotte, the daughter of Richard, Earl of Arran, and granddaughter of the great Duke of Ormonde. Afterwards it came into the possession of the Spanish Ambassador, when the adjoining chapel in York Street was attached to the house as a place of worship for the . embassy. This chapel was afterwards let to several congregations, and in 18 17 the doctrines of Swedenborg were taught there. It is now a Church of England chapel, but the Castle of Castile is still to be seen on the front. At the beginning of the present century Josiah Wedgwood, the celebrated potter, had his show-rooms in this house, where were exhibited the beautiful designs of Flaxman in porcelain. This great sculptor, when he became celebrated, was not ashamed of his early work for the Wedgwoods. Later the 360 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. " Erectheum Club," celebrated for its good dinners, was founded here by Sir John Dean Paul the banker. The celebrated Duke of Ormonde, who fought bravely for Charles I. and followed Charles II. into exile, lived in the house on the opposite side of York Street. The record of his occupancy remains in the name of Ormond Yard at the back of the house. Dryden draws the character of Ormonde in glowing colours : — " In this short file Barzillai first appears — Barzillai, crowned with honour and with years. Long since, the rising rebels he withstood In regions waste beyond the Jordan's flood : Unfortunately brave to buoy the state ; But sinking underneath his master's fate ; In exile with his godlike prince he mourned ; For him he suffered and with him returned. The court he practised, not the courtier's art : Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart, Which well the noblest objects knew to choose, The fighting warrior and recording muse. His bed could once a fruitful issue boast ; Now more than half a father's name is lost. His eldest hope, with every grace adorned, By me, so heaven will have it, always mourned, And always honoured, snatched in manhood's prime By unequal fates and providence's crime : Yet not before the goal of honour won, All parts fulfilled of subject and of son : Swift was the race, but short the time to run." Ormonde's son, Thomas, Earl of Ossory, was a handsome and accomplished man, who died before his father, to the Duke's great grief. He bravely said, however, " Since he had borne the death of his King he could support that of his child, and would rather have his dead son than any living son in Christendom." The Earl appears to have deserved his father's love, for when the Duke of Buckingham was supposed to have hired Blood to assassinate Ormonde, he taxed him with the crime in the presence of the King, and told him that if his father came to a violent end he should be ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 361 at no loss to guess the author, and he would pistol him even behind the King's chair, adding, " This I tell you in the King's presence, that you may be sure I shall keep my word." On another occasion, when the Earl of Shaftesbury attacked Ormonde as one of the conspiracy in the Popish Plot, Ossory gallantly pleaded his father's cause, and so showed Shaftesbury * up that he was forced to retract his accusation. Although the Duke remained always loyal to his King, he was treated with very little consideration by James II. on his accession to the Crown. Macaulay describes in the following passage the King's treatment of him, and his reception by the people, who pressed to see him as he returned to his London mansion : — " Ormond was politely informed that his services were no longer needed in Ireland, and was invited to repair to Whitehall, and to perform the functions of lord steward. He dutifully submitted, but did not affect to deny that the new arrangements wounded his feelings deeply. On the eve of his departure he gave a magnificent banquet at Kilmainham Hospital, then just completed, to the officers of the garrison of Dublin. After dinner he rose, filled a goblet to the brim with wine, and holding it up, asked whether he had spilt one drop. ' No, gentlemen ; whatever the courtiers may say, I am not yet sunk into dotage. My hand does not fail me yet ; and my hand is not steadier than my heart. To the health of King James ! ' Such was the last farewell of Ormond to Ireland. He left the administration in the hands of Lords Justices, and repaired to London, where he was received with unusual marks of public respect. Many persons of rank went forth to meet him on the road. A long train of equipages followed him into St. James's Square, where his mansion stood ; and the square was thronged by a multitude which greeted him with loud acclamations." 9 James, second Duke of Ormonde, and son of the Earl of Ossory, succeeded his grandfather in the possession of this mansion in 1688, but in 17 15 he was attainted of high treason, and in 17 19 the house was sold for 7,500/. It was bought 9 Macaulay's History of England, vol. i. pp. 448-9. 362 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. by the Duke of Chandos, who, on coming into possession, discontinued the building of a house on the north side of Cavendish Square which he had commenced when he com- pleted the mansion of Cannons. Besides these two houses there were others on the north side, inhabited, in 1676, by Henry, second Earl of Clarendon, his brother, Laurence Hyde, George Fitzroy, Duke of Northumberland, Sir Cyril Wyche, and Thomas Herbert, eighth Earl of Pembroke, K.G. The Earl of Clarendon, when he was Lord Cornbury, assisted his father, the great Chancellor, who put great trust in him on account of his discreetness. He opposed the court because of the treatment his father received. Hyde became afterwards Earl of Rochester. He was a very smooth man, and made his court dexterously. Dryden panegyrizes him thus, — " Hushai, the friend of David in distress ; In public storms, of manly steadfastness ; By foreign treatises he informed his youth, And joined experience to his native truth." The Duke of Northumberland was a natural son of Charles II., by the Duchess of Cleveland. He married Catherine, daughter of Thomas Wheatley, Esq., and widow of Thomas Lucy, of Charlcote, in Warwickshire, in March, 1685-86. The King greatly disapproved of the match, and the Duke of Grafton, Northumberland's brother, smuggled the new-married pair out of the country, to be away from the King's displeasure, but the two Dukes soon returned, leaving the Duchess at a convent in Nieuport, Flanders. Sir Cyril Wyche was the second son of Sir Peter Wyche, English Ambassador at Constantinople. He was born in that city, and was named after the Patriarch Cyril. He was President of the Royal Society, in 1683, and also Secretary for Ireland. He married the niece of John Evelyn, and died in 1707. The Earl of Pembroke, President of the Royal Society, filled the offices of Lord High Admiral and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, besides others of great trust and importance. He seldom attended the meetings of the Royal Society, but ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 363 communicated papers on mechanical subjects. As well as being a statesman, the Earl was distinguished for his love of virtu and old books. " He buys for Topham drawings and designs, For Pembroke, statues, dirty gods, and coins." The poet does not do justice to the peer, whose collection of antiquities was unrivalled, and whose library was one of the first and finest collected by an individual. Maittaire dedicated his Annates TypograpJiici to the Earl. Queen Caroline went to a fete at his house in the square, on the 2nd of August, 1729. Before passing on to the west side, we will catalogue the inhabitants of the houses numbered 1 to 11. No. 1. This house, now occupied as the chief west end branch of the London and Westminster Bank, was formerly inhabited by the Earl of Dartmouth, and by Lord Grantham, who, in 1833, succeeded as Earl De Grey. No. 2. Here lived " brave " Admiral Boscawen, the third son of Hugh, first Viscount Falmouth. He converted some French cannon, which he had captured in the action under Lord Anson, off Cape Finisterre, into street posts, before his door, and they are still to be seen in their old position. The house remains in the possession of the Boscawen family, its present occupant being Lord Viscount Falmouth. No. 3 was the mansion of the Dukes of Leeds. Thomas, fourth Duke, and K.G., married Lady Mary Godolphin, and his porter wrote some doggerel on the happy event, which Johnson was fond of repeating. The old Doctor considered the second stanza to comprise all the advantages that wealth can give : — " When the Duke of Leeds shall married be To a fine young lady of high quality, How happy will that gentlewoman be In his Grace of Leeds' good company. She shall have all that's fine and fair, And the best of silk and satin shall wear ; And ride in a coach to take the air, And have a house in St. James's Square." 364 ROUXD ABOUT PICCADILLY. Philip Yorke, third Earl of Hardwicke, son of Charles Yorke, the unfortunate Lord Chancellor, for a day, lived here for some years. The sixth Duke of Leeds lived in the house, and was succeeded by Mr. Sackville Lane Fox, who married his only daughter. No. 4 was the town house of the late Earl De Grey, which contained his fine collection of pictures, including por- traits by Van Dyck. The Earl formerly lived at No. 1, but his family had inhabited this house for many years. No. 6. Bristol House was originally inhabited by John Hervey, the first Earl of Bristol of that family. Here lived John, Lord Hervey, the Sporus of Pope, and husband of the beautiful Molly Lepell. " P. Let Sporus tremble — " A. What ! that thing of silk, Sporus ! that mere white curd of ass's milk ? Satire or sense, alas ! can Sporus feel ? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel ? " Augustus, third Earl of Bristol, second son of Lord Hervey, and first husband of Miss Chudleigh, afterwards Duchess of Kingston, died at this house on the 22nd of December, 1779. The present inhabitant of the house is the third Marquis of Bristol. No. 8 was nightly thronged by men of distinction, when it was occupied by the Earl and Countess of Blessington, at whose brilliant receptions politics, law, literature, and art were repre- sented by their chief professors. Among the celebrities who might have been seen there were Canning, Castlereagh, Grey, Burdett, Lansdowne, Palmerston, Brougham, Scarlett, Erskine, Jekyll, Rogers, Moore, Lawrence, Wilkie, and Kemble. In May, 1829, Lord Blessington died, and at his death the house was given up. Dr. Dionysius Lardner, the originator of Lardner's Cyclopedia, lived at this house in the years 1834, 1835, and 1836. He is introduced by Warren into his Ten Thousand a Year as Diabolus Gander, and was satirized by ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 365 Thackeray as Dr. Dioclesian Larner. " My father was not a juke nor aven a markis, and see, nevertheliss, to what a pitch I am come. I spare no expinse ; I'm the iditor of a cople of pariodicals ; I dthrive about in me carridge ; I dine wid the lords of the land ; and why — in the name of the piper that pleed before Moses, why ? Because I'm a litherary man. Because I'm Docthor Larner, in fact, and mimber of every society in and out of Europe." 10 The late Earl of Derby, K.G., when Lord Stanley, lived at this house in 1850. No. 9. Hugh, fourth Duke of Northumberland, lived here in 1822, and Hudson Gurney from 1824 to his death in 1864. The latter was the grandson of David Barclay, the banker and brewer, and was for half a century the head of the great family of Gurneys of Norwich. In early life he travelled on the continent with his friend the Earl of Aberdeen, and made a translation of " Cupid and Psyche," from the Golden Ass of Apuleius. He was a member in six successive Parliaments, and his house became the resort of the elite of political and literary society. He collected a fine library, and boasted that he had read out of all the books. He died shortly before the break-up of the firm of Overend, Gurney & Co., and was said to have died worth two millions of money. At No. 10, lived, in 1836, Ada, the daughter of Lord Byron and wife of Lord King, afterwards Earl of Lovelace. "Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child ! Ada ! sole daughter of my house and heart ? When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled, And then we parted — not as now we part, But with a hope My daughter ! with thy name this song begun ; My daughter ! with thy name thus much shall end ; I see thee not, — I hear thee not, — but none Can be so wrapped in thee ; thou art the friend To whom the shadows of far years extend : 10 Memoirs of Yelloivplush (Thackeray's Miscellanies, 1856, vol. ii. p. 150). 366 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold, My voice shall with thy future visions blend, And reach into thy heart, — when mine is cold, — A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould." No 1 1 is famous as the residence of John, third Duke of Roxburgh, the celebrated bibliomaniac, who in early life fell in love with the Princess Christina of Mecklenburg. When the Princess's younger sister, Sophia Charlotte, was fixed on as the future Queen of England, it was made a provision that the elder sister should not unite herself to a British subject, so that the lovers had to break off their engagement, and they both died unmarried. In May and July, 1812, the Duke's magnificent library was sold by auction in the dining-room of the house, by Evans, and forty-two days were occupied in its sale. The dispersion of this superb collection, which contained fine specimens of the early printers, and of old English poetry, forms one of the chief eras in bibliographical history. The total number of articles was 10,120, and the total proceeds were 23,397/. IOS - &d- The great lot of the sale was the first edition of Boccaccio's Decameron, printed by Valdarfer in 1471, "the most notorious book in existence." Before 1740 Lord Sunderland had seen it, and Lord Oxford had wished for it, but an ancestor of the Duke of Roxburgh's secured it for one hundred guineas, a price which Marchand in his Histoire de VImprimerie mentions as immense. At this sale the book was expected to fetch 1,000/., but all were taken by surprise when the fight commenced between Earl Spencer and the Marquis of Blandford. The Earl's last bid was 2,250/., but the Marquis quietly added 10/., and the contest ended. Out of this sale grew the " Roxburgh Club," at whose dinners the first toast was, " Bibliomania all over the world," the second, " The immortal memory of Christopher Valdarfer," and the tenth, " The memory of John, Duke of Roxburgh." Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough bought the house for 18,000/., and died in it on the 13th of December, 1818. By his will he directed that it should be sold after his death. The Right Hon. William Windham lived here, and the club which now occupies ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 367 the house was named the " Windham Club," after that high- minded statesman. On the west side, in 1676, lived George Saville, Viscount Halifax, afterwards Marquis, who died in 1695. Burnet says of this celebrated Trimmer, that " no side trusted him ; " but Macaulay has praised him in his most glowing terms. The second Marquis also lived here. Sir Allen Apsley, the brother of the celebrated Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson, died in his house on the 15th of October, 1683. He supported the King's side in the Civil Wars, and was successively Governor of Exeter and Barnstaple, but nevertheless he maintained a strict friend- ship with his sister and her husband, Colonel Hutchinson, who were zealous Parliamentarians. Sir Allen's son, Sir Peter Apsley, also lived here, as did his grandson, Allen, Earl of Bathurst. Lord Bathurst was a man of elegant tastes and jovial manners. He lived to see his son Lord Chancellor, and, according to Lord Campbell, he and Sir Thomas More's father were the only men who ever enjoyed that pleasure. This son was a great contrast to his father, and Lord Bathurst once said, when Lord Apsley retired after supper, " Now that the old gentleman has gone to bed, let us be merry and enjoy ourselves." He was a friend of Pope and the wits of the day ; and in the debate in the House of Lords on the Bills of Pains and Penalties against Bishop Atterbury, he made a very happy attack upon the occupants of the episcopal bench. He said, " I can hardly account for the inveterate malice some persons bear to the learned and ingenious Bishop of Rochester, unless they are possessed of the infatuation of the wild Indians, who fondly believe they will inherit not only the spoils but even the abilities of any great enemy they kill." He was fond of rural amuse- ments, and planted a large number of trees at his country seat — " Who plants like Bathurst ? " He was an example of Evelyn's theory, that planters are likely to live to an old age, for he lived sixty-four years with 368 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. his cousin and wife Catherine, daughter of Sir Peter Apsley. Pope visited Martha Blount in this square, probably at Lord Bathurst's. Arabella Churchill, sister of the Duke of Marlborough, mistress of the Duke of York and mother of the Duke of Berwick, was here for a short time, and next door to her lived Moll Davis, the mistress of the King. Near them was Arthur, first Earl of Essex, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and the Hon. Thomas Jermyn, whose lease from the Earl of St. Alban's was dated 1670. In 1678, Charles Sackville, sixth Earl of Dorset, K.G., the possessor of Knowle, lived here. Horace Walpole says of him, " He was the finest gentleman in the voluptuous court of Charles II. and in the gloomy one of William. He had as much wit as his first master, or his contemporaries Buckingham and Rochester, without the royal want of feeling, the Duke's want of principles, or the Earl's want of thought." When Lord Buckhurst he wrote the famous " Song written at sea, in the first Dutch war, the night before an engagement," beginning — " To all you ladies now at land We men at sea indite ; But first would have you understand How hard it is to write ; The muses now and Neptune too We must implore to write to you." He was created Earl of Middlesex in return for giving up Nell Gwynn to the King, who " Gave him an Earldom to resign his bitch." " In 1680 Sir Joseph Williamson, Secretary of State and Presi- dent of the Royal Society in succession to Lord Brouncker, lived in the house formerly inhabited by Arabella Churchill. In January, 1685-6, when Catherine Sedley was created Countess of Dorchester, and sent from court at the instigation of the Queen, she came here. " Her house is furnishing very 11 State Poems. ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 369 fine in St. James's Square, and a seat taken for her in the new consecrated St. Ann's Church." le Nell Gwynn's house is described by Pennant as "the first good house on the left of the square as one entered from Pall Mall." It was pulled down to make room for the "Army and Navy Club." At No. 12, lived the brave soldier Sir Jeffrey Amherst, Lord Amherst, when Commander-in-Chief, in which office he was succeeded by the Duke of York in 1795. On the death of Amherst the house was taken by William Lygon, created Lord Beauchamp in 1806, and Earl Beauchamp in 1815, one year before his death. His widow lived for some years in the house, until it was taken by the " London Library," who removed here from Pall Mall. This admirable and well- managed institution is second only to the library of the British Museum in the valuable aid it holds out to the literary man. The Statistical Society and Institute of Actuaries also have apartments in the house. No. 13 is Lichfield House, the handsome stone front of which was designed by James Stuart, the author of the Antiquities of Athens (from which he gained his name of Athenian), for the first Viscount Anson, whose son was created Earl of Lichfield. In 18 10 it was in the possession of Edward Boehm, whose wife was a leader of fashion. " It was the carnival, as I have said Some six-and-thirty stanzas back, and so Laura the usual preparations made, Which you do when your mind's made up to go To-night to Mrs. Boehm's masquerade, Spectator or partaker in the show ; The only difference known between the cases Is — here, we have six weeks of 'varnished faces." Mrs. Boehm gave a grand dinner to the Prince Regent on the evening of the 20th of June, 1815, and Lord and Lady Castlereagh were among the guests. Major Henry Percy, who brought despatches from the Duke of Wellington con- 12 1685-6, Ellis Correspondence, 1829, vol. i. p. 92. 24 37o ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. taining the news of the victory at Waterloo, dashed up to Lord Castlereagh's door at No. 16, in a postchaise-and-four, on this same evening, but not finding him there came here at once. 13 The despatches were read in an inner room, and after a while the Prince came out, " and said with much feeling, words to this effect : — ' It is a glorious victory, and we must rejoice at it ; but the loss of life has been fearful, and /have lost many friends ; ' and while he spoke the tears ran down his cheeks." 14 The Prince then displayed the three French eagles that Percy had brought from the balcony of the house, to certify to the public that a great victory had been won. Soon after this the house was rented by the Earl of Lich- field to the Duke of Bedford, and the notorious Lichfield House compact between the Whigs and O'Connell was formed here in 1835. The "Army and Navy Club" took the house for a short time, before it moved to its new mansion in Pall Mall. Nos. 14, 15, are now occupied by the "East India United Service Club," originally founded in 1848. No. 15 was lately rebuilt and added to No. 14, the original house of the club, and the whole refronted. Sir Philip Francis, the supposed author of Junius, moved to No. 14 in 1791. In a letter to a friend, he says : — " I have removed into a very convenient house in St. James's Square, where I believe I am at anchor for life. The name of the situation sounds well ; but you would be much mistaken in 13 Major Percy drove first to the office of the Secretary at War (Earl Bathurst), then to the Earl's house, where the despatches were opened and read, then to Lord Castlereagh's, and lastly to Mrs. Boehm's. The Govern- ment were expecting a despatch, and several members of the Cabinet dined with Lord Bathurst in order to be on the spot when it arrived. The com- pany broke up, but still lingered on the pavement, until they heard a shout, which was soon followed by the arrival of Major Percy. They went into the house and read the papers before sending them on to Lord Castlereagh and the Prince Regent. — See Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, vol. vi. p. 449. 14 COUNTESS Brownlow'S Reminiscences of a Septuagenarian, p. 119. .ST. JAMES'S SQUARE 371 concluding that I lived in a palace." 15 He lived here till his death in 18 18, and by his will he directed that his library and private papers should remain in the house so long as his widow and second wife continued to reside in it. His son, Philip Francis, having the reversionary interest, the library was sold at his death by arrangement between Lady Francis and the grandchildren of Sir Philip. This house was hired of Lady Francis by Queen Caroline, at the time of her trial in 1820, and from here she went in state daily to the House of Peers, whilst the bill of pains and penalties was in progress. The " Free Trade Club," instituted by Cobden, and of which Messrs. Bright, George Thompson, and C. P. Villiers were members, occupied the house in 1850. That greatest of political time-servers, Lord Chancellor Thurlow, lived at No. 15 in the years 1796- 1800. " The rugged Thurlow, who with sullen scowl, In surly mood, at friend and foe will growl ; Of proud prerogative the stern support, Defends the entrance of great George's court 'Gainst factious Whigs. . . . " 16 The following receipt is no caricature, but sober truth : — " How TO make A Chancellor. — Take a man of great abilities, with a heart as black as his countenance. Let him possess a rough inflexibility, without the least tincture of generosity or affection, and be as manly as oaths and ill manners can make him. He should be a man who will act politically with all parties, hating and deriding every one of the individuals which compose them." 17 At No. 16, the corner house of King Street, lived the statesman Lord Castlereagh, afterwards Marquis of London- derry. Worry and hard work at last took effect upon the mind of this amiable man, who appears to have been loved by all who knew him, and he died by his own hand on the 15 Parkes'S Life of Frauds, vol. ii. p. 295. 16 Criticisms on the Rolliad, 1795, p. 169. 17 Political Receipt Book for 1784 (Rolliad, 1795, P- 47)- 372 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. 1 2th of August, 1822, at his country seat, North Cray, Kent. His remains were brought up to town, and buried in West- minster Abbey, when the streets were crowded with people. To the eternal disgrace of Englishmen, when the body was taken from the hearse, a shout of exultation and triumph swelled out from the assembled multitudes. Few Ministers were ever so unpopular as Lord Castlereagh, and his windows were frequently smashed by the rabble. " One night, when an excited mob attacked his house, paving-stones were break- ing his windows, and dashing across the drawing-room, to the imminent risk of the destruction of the furniture, he quietly mixed with the crowd, till a person whispered, ' You are known, and had better, go in.' He did so, and then went to the drawing-room, where, with the utmost composure, he closed the shutters of the four windows, a shower of stones falling around him." 18 Allan Cunningham gives an interesting anecdote of Lord Castlereagh, and his cousin, the Hon. Mrs. Darner, who was a strong Whig. His lordship promised to make Sir Alexander Johnston Chief Justice and President of Ceylon, which, when Mrs. Damer heard, she sarcastically remarked to Sir Alexander, " The fellow will cheat you ; he is a Tory." Soon afterwards, Castlereagh sent express to Johnston, whose commission was drawn out and the great seal affixed to it late at night. On the following morning Castlereagh fought his duel with Canning. Sir Alexander waited on him soon afterwards, and, while expressing his thanks, remarked on his fortitude the night previous. His lordship said he had a reason ; for if he had fallen before the great seal was set to the commission, the appointment would have been lost, and his cousin would have said, " The fellow, sir, was a cheat ; he was a Tory." When Mrs. Damer heard this, tears came into her eyes, and she said, " Go to my cousin, and say I have wronged him ; that I love his manli- ness and regard for honour, and that I wish to renew our intercourse of friendship." 19 18 COUNTESS Brownlow's Reminiscences of a Septuagenarian,^. 193. 19 Cunningham's British Sculptors, vol. iii. p. 271. ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 373 The Right Hon. William Grenville, who was called to the Upper House of Parliament as Lord Grenville in 1790, in order that Pitt might have a leader there more trustworthy than Lord Thurlow, lived at No. 17, from 1789 to 1794. The Marquis and Duke of Cleveland was in the same house in 1829, and it is still inhabited by the present Duke. At No. 19 lived, in 1822, the Duke of St. Alban's. It is now the town residence of the Bishops of Winchester. The south side has always been of little account, but in 1708, Charles, Lord Ossulston, afterwards Earl of Tankerville, lived there, and his son, the second Earl, was still living in the house in 1732, when his staircase was painted by Amiconi. A painter named Morland, grandfather of George Morland, also lived on the south side. This side has now been vastly improved by the erection of the " New Carlton Club." No. 21 at the south-east corner of the square is Norfolk House, the town residence of the Dukes of Norfolk, from 1684 to the present time. The old house (St. Alban's House), in which Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Alban's, lived till his death, still exists behind the house, which fronts the square. The hereditary Prince of Tuscany, afterwards Cosmo III., was lent this house when he visited England in 1669. His recep- tion is thus described : — " About two hours before sunset, his Highness alighted at the house of my Lord Henry Germain, Earl of St. Alban's, chamberlain to the Queen Mother, which had been prepared for him by Colonel Gascoyne. At the door he found waiting to receive him, Mr. Henry Germain, first equerry to the Duke of York, who, in the absence of his uncle,, officiated as master of the house, attending him up stairs." 20 Before the Prince went away, he exhibited some fireworks before St. Alban's House, apparently much to the satisfaction of the populace. — " In order to celebrate the king's birthday with some especial tokens of joy, his Highness caused to be constructed in the open place before the Earl of St. Alban's house, in which his highness lodged, a machine with different fanciful artificial fireworks and squibs, which, as far as the 20 Travels of Cosmo III., 1821, p. 163. 374 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. shortness of the time and the skill of the artist permitted, were well contrived, and, during a great part of the night served to amuse the populace, who flocked thither in great numbers to see them, and to participate in the liberality of the Prince, who, for their greater gratification, distributed among them several casks of Italian wine and beer, which called forth increased applause, seconded by discharges of harquebuses and carbines, which were let off by the individuals of his Highness's court." 21 The present Norfolk House was erected after the designs of R. Brettingham, in 1742, and the portico was added 100 years afterwards, in 1842. When Frederick, Prince of Wales, was ordered to quit St. James's Palace by George II., he rented this house of the Duke of Norfolk, and inhabited it while Carlton House was prepared for his reception. On May 24th, 1738, George III. was born here, in a state bed now preserved at Worksop. On March 24th, 1739, Edward, Duke of York, was also born here. No. 22 is the town residence of the Bishops of London, and has been so from about the year 1720, before which time London House was situated in Aldersgate Street. In 1734, Dr. Rawlinson, the non-juring titular Bishop of London, rented that house. No. 23. The town house of the late and present Earls of Derby. The Dutch Ambassador was living in the square in 1697, in which year he made a large bonfire (consisting of 140 pitch barrels) before his house, on the occasion of the thanks- giving day appointed by the States General for the peace. There were fireworks, trumpets, and two hogsheads of wine, which were kept continually running amongst the common people. The Duke of Hamilton was taken to his house in the square when wounded in his famous duel with Lord Mohun, on the 15th of November, 171 2, and died soon afterwards. There were other celebrated inhabitants, the position of whose 21 Travels of Costno III., p. 371. ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 375 houses I am unable to identify ; among them are the follow- ing : — Sir Robert Walpole, the great Minister, who lived here in 1734 before he removed to his official residence in Downing Street in the following year. Sir John Hobart, afterwards first Lord Hobart and Earl of Buckinghamshire, who had a house in the square, to which his sister, Lady Suffolk, the mistress of George II., went when she left St. James's Place in 1734. The great Minister, William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, who lived in St. James's Square for some years from 1 757- In 1 76 1 -2, Philip Francis acted as amanuensis to Pitt, writing despatches in Latin and English to his dictation. Lady Francis thus describes the way in which the day was passed : — " His manner of attending there was to come early in the morning to Lord C.'s house in St. James's Square, where he was shown into the library, and found his breakfast and the work of the day ; and I have heard him say that he was so happy in having the command of the books unmolested (for sometimes he had long intervals of leisure, when his pen was not required), that he probably from those agreeable remem- brances retained all his life a partiality for St. James's Square, in which, as soon as his circumstances permitted him, he bought a house." - Mr. Parkes relates several anecdotes of this time. Pitt was debating with two of his colleagues on a Cabinet question, and being urged to give his reasons for differing with them, cried out, " My lords, the reasons why I consider the measure injudicious, are so obvious that I wonder you should be required to be told them. I will venture to assert they will occur to that youth. Speak, Francis : have you heard the question ? Tell their lordships why I object to their pro- posals." Francis's reasons were satisfactory to the great man, and he exclaimed : — " I told you how it would be, you cannot artswer a boy!" On another occasion a question arose as to the gender of some Latin word, and Pitt said : — " Ask the St. Paul's boy," who answered correctly. 23 22 Parkes's Life of Francis, vol. ii. p. 417. 23 Ibid., vol. i. pp. 52, 53. 376 RObND ABOUT PICCADILLY. George, second Earl of Macclesfield, P.R.S., and son of the Lord Chancellor Macclesfield. He was a good mathe- matician and astronomer, and in 175 1 was the principal agent in carrying through the House of Lords the bill for the reformation of the Calendar. This caused him to become very unpopular, and when his son was standing a contested election at Oxford, one of the mob cried out : — " Give us back, you rascal, those eleven days which your father stole from us." He died March 17, 1764, and crowds of people visited his house in the square when he lay in state. Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, who assisted Macclesfield in the passing of the Calendar Bill, also lived here. In 1793 the great Governor-General of India, Warren Hastings, lived in the square for about a year, at the same time as his great enemy, Francis, was also living there. The poet Cowper thus addresses his old schoolfellow : — " Hastings ! I knew thee young, and of a mind, While young, humane, conversable and kind ; Nor can I well believe thee, gentle then, Now grown a villain and the worst of men : But rather some suspect, who have oppressed And worried thee, as not themselves the best." The eminent diplomatist William Eden, first Lord Auck- land, also lived here in 1793. He belonged originally to the Opposition, but in 1785 took office under Pitt, and negotiated a commercial treaty with France. His desertion was resented by his party, and Lord Surrey and Fox both attacked him in the House of Commons. " To all you young men, who are famous for changing, From party to party continually ranging, I tell you the place of all places to breed in, For maggots of corruption, 's the heart of Billy Eden. Then give him a place, O dearest Billy Pitt O ! If he can't have a whole one, O give a little bit O ! " 24 Although inhabited by some of the chief nobility and gentry, the centre of the square was long left in a most 24 Rolliad {Political Miscellanies), 1795, p. io8r .ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 377 disgraceful state, and the refuse of kitchens and dead animals were for years thrown into it. Macaulay describes its condition in the chapter on the state of London in his History of England : — " St. James's Square was a receptacle for all the offal and cinders, for all the dead cats and dead dogs of Westminster. At one time a cudgel-player kept the ring there. At another time an impudent squatter settled himself there, and built a shed for rubbish under the windows of the gilded saloons, in which the first magnates of the realm, Norfolks, Ormonds, Kents, and Pembrokes, gave banquets and balls. It was not till these nuisances had lasted through a whole generation, and till much had been written about them, that the inhabitants applied to Parliament for permission to put up rails and to plant trees." 25 Not only was the centre of the square for many years the dustheap and dunghill of the parish, but bullies were allowed to take up their station there without let or hindrance. In the Evening Post of March 23rd, 173 1, is the following entry j — " On Saturday night last, William Bellamy (alias Vinegar), whose father formerly kept the ring in St. James's Square for cudgel-playing, was committed to the Gate house by Justice Lambert for several robberies on the highway." A coach- maker also erected a shed, in which he put heaps of wood and other things. In February, 1725-6, the inhabitants of the east, north, and west sides petitioned to be allowed to rate themselves in order to cleanse and adorn the square. A bill was passed, and in 1727 a basin of water filled from York Buildings was opened in the middle of the square, with a pleasure-boat, and railings round it. Out of the midst of the water a pedestal, intended for a statue of William III., was erected in accordance with the legacy of Samuel Travers, dated July 6th, 1724. Three years previously, the Chevalier De David, a pupil of Bernini, endeavoured to procure a sub- scription of 2,500/. for the erection of an equestrian statue of George I., to be designed by himself ; but only obtaining 100/. he relinquished the idea, and returned the money to the 25 Hist. ofEng., 1849, vo1 - i- P- 359- 378 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. subscribers. 26 The state of the square is thus described in 1732 : — " St. James's Square, which is neatly paved with heading-stone all over, in which there is a most curious bason (in most places 7 foot deep), which is oval, and 150 feet diameter. In the centre thereof is a pedestal about 15 feet square, for a statue of King William III. on horseback: the whole is invironed with iron rails, octagonal or 8 square, and at each angle without the rails is a stone pillar about 9 foot high, and a lamp at the top. The gravel walk within the rails is in breadth from each angle to the margin of the bason, about 26 foot. All which was done at the expense of the nobility and gentry inhabiting the east, west and north sides of the square, who obtained an Act of Parliament for the performance thereof." 27 The ornamentation of the square appears to have been thought a great deal of, and is thus described a few years afterwards : — " In the middle of the square is lately made a noble bason, with a gravel walk round it, the whole enclos'd with a pallisade of iron, and the rest of the square is so artificially pitch'd with rough square stones of about two hands breadth, that no dirt or water ever stands on it ; only about four foot from the houses are broad, flat stones, defended by posts for the conveniency of walking." 28 In a large view of the square of about the same date, all this is represented, but in the middle of the water is a small fountain. 29 The bequest of Samuel Travers was overlooked for many years, until the money was found in the list of unclaimed dividends, when the horse of the present equestrian statue was modelled by Bacon from a favourite one of George III. It was cast in brass and set up in 1808. In the riots of 1780, the keys of Newgate were thrown into the water by the mob, and were not found till some years after. The pond remained for 26 Malcolm's London, vol. iv. p. 326. 27 New Remarks of London ; or, a Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, collected by the Company of Parish Clerks. i2mo. p. 264. 28 History and Present State of the British Islands, vol. ii. p. 130. 29 A reduced copy of this view is given at the beginning of the chapter. ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 379 about a century, and was not filled up until after the year 1840. Besides the celebrities who have lived here, Dr. Johnson may be noted as in some way connected with the place, for he told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he walked round the square, in company with Richard Savage, one night for several hours for want of a lodging ; when at last the two separated, they pledged each other to stand by their country. The names of its inhabitants prove how important a place St. James's Square has been for more than two centuries. In 1734, there were living here, four dukes, eight earls, one baron, and a prime minister ; 30 and to further show the estima- tion in which it was, Richardson places here the residence of his hero, Sir Charles Grandison, the pink of every gentlemanly perfection according to some, and an insufferable prig accord- ing to others. Although sundry clubs and societies, a bank, and an insurance office have succeeded in establishing them- selves here, the place still retains its aristocratic character, for there are at present living in it three dukes, one marquis, three earls, one viscount, two bishops, one baron, two baronets, and three Knights of the Garter, besides right honourables, members of parliament, &c. Before concluding it will be well to notice some of the surroundings of the square. St. James's Market was proclaimed on the 27th of Sep- tember, 1664, to be kept on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, in St. James's Fields. Soon afterwards buildings were erected, and Hatton, in 1708, describes it as " the greatest market at this end of the town for butchers and poulterers." Fifteen years subsequent it is thus described : — " St. James's Market, which lies between the Square and the Haymarket, is well replenished with the best of flesh, poultry, fish, and garden stuff that can be met with, but usually a fourth dearer than in the markets about the City of London, most of the 30 Dukes of Norfolk, Southampton, Kent, and Chandos ; Earls of Pembroke, Essex, Chesterfield, Stafford, Bristol, Bredalbane, Tankerville, and Wilmington ; Lord Bathurst, Sir Robert Walpole. — Seymour's Survey. / 3So ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. provisions being brought from thence, and bought up here by the stewards of people of quality, who spare no price to furnish their lords' houses with what is nice and delicate." 31 " St. James's sends the veal." 32 Mrs. Oldfield, the celebrated actress, who was born in 1683, was found by Farquhar in a tavern (the Mitre) in this market kept by her aunt, Mrs. Voss, reciting plays to her friends. She was a beauty with a musical voice, and soon took the world by storm, setting the fashion in dress. She is the Flavia of the Tatler and the Narcissa of Pope. When she died in 1730, her body lay in state. The fair Quakeress, Hannah Lightfoot, who is supposed by some to have been married to George III., but whose existence, according to Mr. Thorns, is very doubtful, lived in 1754 at a house in a continuation of Market Street, that is, if she ever did live at all. This once important place was de- stroyed by the formation of Regent Street, but there is still a little of it left. There are five outlets to St. James's Square : two, George Street and John Street (perhaps the smallest streets in London), leading into Pall Mall ; one, York Street, leading into Jermyn Street; one, Charles Street, leading into the Hay- market ; and one, King Street, leading into St. James's Street. Charles Street was built in 1673, and named after the reigning King. Aubrey de Vere, twentieth Earl of Oxford, who soon after moved into St. James's Square, Robert Rich, second Earl of Holland, John, first Lord Belasyse, and Thomas, Lord Clifford, were living here in that year. In 1698-9, John Moore, Bishop of Norwich, occupied a house in the street. Edmund Burke had a small lodging for some years here, where the poet Crabbe was first introduced to the great orator. James Wardrop, M.D., surgeon to George IV., with whom he was a great favourite, lived for many years at No. 2. In addition to his eminence as a doctor, he was a 31 1743, History and Present State of the British Islands, vol. ii. p. 130. 32 Gay's Trivia, Book ii. ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 381 good judge of pictures and horses, and could tell a story well. He founded a hospital of his own, which foreign visitors considered as one of the chief sights for them to see. He declined a baronetcy, and for the last thirty-five years of his life never mixed in professional society. He was looked upon with dislike and distrust by the heads of the profession, partly from his conduct, and from the authorship of certain intercepted letters. He died in February, 1869, aged eighty- seven, at this house. The Right Hon. George Canning lived at No. 4 in 1796, and at the same time John Hoppner, R.A., portrait-painter to the Prince Regent, was at No. 18. One day Colonel M'Mahon ordered the porter at Carlton House to send for the Prince's painter and get the rails repainted, when the man sent off for Hoppner. The Prince visited Hoppner once, and seeing the artist's fine portrait of Pitt on the easel cried out, "Ah ! ah ! there he is with his d — d obstinate face." 33 York Street, called after James, Duke of York, was originally monopolized by the garden walls of the two great houses in the square, the Duke of Ormonde's and the Earl of Romney's, and it is not much altered now. This street leads into Jermyn Street opposite St. James's Church. Jermyn Street was built about the year 1667, and called after Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Alban's. It soon became a very fashionable street, and had among its early inhabitants La belle Stewart, Duchess of Richmond, Colonel Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, and Simon Verelst the painter. Sir Isaac Newton lived in this street at the com- mencement of his quarrel with Flamstead, the Astronomer Royal, and before he went to St. Martin's Street. James Craggs, the Secretary of State who succeeded Addison, lived here. He died in 1720, at the early age of thirty-five, and Pope wrote an epitaph for his monument in Westminster : — " Statesman, yet friend to truth ! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear ! a3 Haydon'S Autobiography, vol. i. p. 58. 382 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. Who broke no promise, served no private end, Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend, Ennobled by himself, by all approved, Prais'd, wept, and honour'd, by the muse he loVd." The poet Gray, when he visited London, lodged in Jermyn Street, either at a hosier's named Roberts or at an oilman's (Frisby) ; both houses were at the east end, but on opposite sides of the way. Another poet, Shenstone, lodged here when he came to town. Mrs. Delany, when Mrs. Pendarves, was here in 1741. William Pitt, the great Commoner, lived in this street in 1763. On the 25th of August his lodging was the scene of a meeting between himself and Lord Bute. Lord Bute was sent by George III. to treat with Pitt about the formation of a Ministry to succeed George Grenville's. Dr. William Hunter commenced the formation of his magni- ficent museum at his house in this street, before he moved to Windmill Street. Major Baggs, cousin of Sir Philip Francis, died at his lodgings in Jermyn Street in 1790, at the age of seventy. He was a well-known gambler and racing man, and fought eleven duels. He once won 17,000/. at hazard, and at one time was worth 100,000/. ; he is said to have ruined forty persons by play. Sir Thomas Lawrence lodged at No. 42, in 1790. He was succeeded by Sir Martin Archer Shee, who afterwards succeeded him in the presidential chair of the Royal Academy. Shee lived in these lodgings until 1796. No. j6 is the " St. James's Hotel." When Sir Walter Scott returned from his tour to the continent in 1832, he stayed here for three weeks, and on the 7th of July he left it to return to Scotland and to die. King Street was built in 1673. It is well known as containing the St. James's Theatre, Willis's Rooms, and Christie and Manson's auction-rooms. Saville, Lord Halifax, was an early inhabitant, and Charlotte Smith, the once celebrated novelist and sonneteer, was born in the street. The present Emperor of the French lived at No. ic. in 1848. ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 383 The Society of Arts have put up one of their medallions to mark the house. St. James's Theatre was built by Beazley for Braham, the great tenor, and was opened in December, 1835. It has never been very successful. Kenney told Alfred Bunn that he had been in the green-room one night, and on hearing Braham say he was proud of his pit, had gone round and counted it, when he found that there were seven- teen persons present. French plays have usually been acted here, and it was the scene of the triumphs of Mdlle. Rachel ; within the last year or so crowded houses have witnessed the acting of Ravel and Schneider. Willis's Rooms are well known as the scene of numerous grand balls. Here, for many years, were held the select assemblies known as " Almack's." The rooms were planned by Robert Mylne, and were opened in February, 1765. The original scheme consisted of a ten-guinea subscription, for which in return a ball and supper were given once a week for twelve weeks. On the opening night the Duke of Cumber- land was present, but the general attendance was not large. The ceilings were dripping with wet, owing to the hurry with which the building had been finished ; but to give the public confidence, Almack, the proprietor, absurdly advertised that hot bricks and boiling water had been used in the building. In March, 1765, Gilly Williams wrote to Selwyn : — " Our female Almack's flourishes beyond description. . . . Almack's Scotch face in a bag wig, waiting at supper, would divert you, as would his lady in sack, making tea and curtseying to the duchesses." Five years after (on May 6, 1770,) Walpole tells George Montagu, — " There is a new institution that begins to make, and if it proceeds, will make a considerable noise. It is a club of both sexes, to be erected at Almack's, on the model of that of the men at White's. Mrs. Fitzroy, Lady Pembroke, Mrs. Meynel, Lady Molyneux, Miss Pelham, and Miss Loyd are the foundresses. I am ashamed to say I am of so young and fashionable a society." The Hon. Mrs. Boscawen, in a letter to Mrs. Delany, gives a description of this female club, the numbers of which were to extend to 384 ROUND ABOUT PICCADILLY. two hundred. The first fourteen members settled the rules ; one of these was, that the ladies should nominate and choose the men, and the men the ladies. 3i Almack's niece married Willis, who succeeded to the business on the retirement of Almack. The present pro- prietor, Mr. Thomas Willis, is his grandson. Bury Street (or Berry Street as it ought to be spelt) was built about the year 1672, and called after a Mr. Berry, the landlord of most of the houses, who died in 1735, over one hundred years old. Sir Richard Steele lived from 1707 to 1710 in a house since pulled down. In a letter to Mrs. Scurlock, before his marriage to her, he writes, " I believe it would not be amiss if some time this afternoon you took a coach or chair and went to see a house next door to Lady Berkeley's towards St. James's Street, which is to let." A few days after Steele wrote to his mother-in-law to tell her that he had taken the house and hoped she would live with him and his wife. In his various notes to his wife he gives the direction differently. "At her house 3rd door from Germain Street, left hand in Berry Street." " Third door right hand in Berry Street." " At her house the last house but two on the left hand Berry Street, St. James's." A Mrs. Vanderput was Steele's landlady, and she was naturally anxious for the arrears of rent, which the author was never very well able to pay. Dean Swift took a lodging in Bury Street in 17 10. " I have the first floor, a dining-room and bed-chamber, at eight shillings a week, plaguy dear." In 1726 he was again in lodgings in this street. Daniel O'Connell lived at No. 19 in 1826, and the poet Moore lodged at No. 33 in his visits to London. Duke Street, famous as the first street in which a pave- ment was laid down for walkers, leads us back into Piccadilly, from which place we originally started. Sir Carr Scrope, on whom Rochester wrote some scurrilous lines, lived at the north end of the east side from 1679 to 1683. Edmund 84 Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany, 2nd Series, vol. i. p. 261. .ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. 385 Burke was at No. 6 in 1793, and at No. 25 in the following year. The poet Campbell lived between the years 1830 and 1840 at the Sussex Chambers in this street. On the east side there is a yard formerly occupied by one house with a handsome garden. This was inhabited by the Duke of Shrewsbury at the beginning of the eighteenth century. With our return to Piccadilly through Duke Street our rambles in the Court District of London are ended. Imperfect and selective as are the collections here gathered together, I hope they may not be considered an inadequate summary of the interesting memorials and events of the past, which cluster so thickly around the houses and streets of this part of town ; or as an unworthy chapter in the history of that London, so rich in its varied associations, which Cowper praises thus : — " Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaim'd The fairest capital of all the world. ***** Where finds Philosophy her eagle eye ? ***** In London. Where her implements exact ? ***** In London. Where has commerce such a mart, So thronged, so drain'd and so supplied As London — opulent, enlarg'd and still Increasing London ? Babylon of old, Not more the glory of the Earth than she, A more accomplish'd world's chief glory now." 25 INDEX. Page Abbot, Right Hon. Charles 331 Abington, Mrs., in Pall Mall 322 Achilles' Statue in Hyde Park 244 Adair, Sir Robert 205 Adam, Robert, architect of Lans- downe House 100 Addington, Dr 189 Addison in the Haymarket 112 — in St. James's Place 167 Adelaide, Queen, at Marlborough House 330 Adhemar, Count d' 38 Admiralty, the 280 Air Street 1 79 Akenside, Dr. Mark 79, 109 Akerman's Tradesmen's Tokens 1 1 Albany, the 26-29 Albemarle, Christopher, second Duke of. 92 Albemarle House 92 Albemarle Street 190-194 Albert Gate, Hyde Park 247 Albert, Prince Consort, Memorial in Hyde Park 244 " Alfred Club House" 193 All Souls' Church 177 " Almack's Assembly Rooms, "154, 383 " Almack's Gaming Club," 148, 149, 153, 351 Almon, the Whig publisher 42 Althorpe, Viscount 28 Alvanley's, Lord, joke against the " Alfred " 193 Ambassadors, Foreign 358 Amelia, Princess 266 Amherst, Lord 369 Ancaster, Duchess of, at a mas- querade 132 Anderson, Rev. James 179 Andrewes, Dr. Gerrard, rector of St. James's no Page Angerstein, John Julius, in Pall Mall 339 Anglesey, Marquis of 77 Anne, Queen, at P>erkeley House, 96 at St. James's Palace 295 her additions to Kensington Gardens 249 Anson, Viscount 369 Anspach, Margrave of 24 Anti-Jacobin Review 39 Antrobus, Sir Edmund 37 Apsley House 37, 38, 213 Apsley, Lord Chancellor 37, 204, 367 Apsley, Sir Allen 367 Arbuthnot, Dr. John, 79, 10S, 196, 296 Argyll, Duke of 189 Arlington, Henry Bennet, Earl of 308, 357 Arlington House 308-3 10 Arlington Street 169-172 " Army and Navy Club," 350, 369, 371 Arthur, proprietor of "Whites," 146, 151, 162 "Arthur's Club," 159 Arundel, Countess of 317 Arundel, Earl of 291 Ashburnham House 196 Ashburton, Alexander, first Lord, 32 Astley, John, at Schomberg House 333 Aston, Sir Willoughby, at "Brookes's" 157 Aston, Walter Lord 306 " Athenaeum Club " 338, 339 " Athenaeum Gaming Club" 145 " Athenaeum Club, Junior " 35, 209 Athenian Lyceum in Piccadilly 24 Atkyns, Sir Robert 15 Atossa, Pope's character of 312 Auckland, Lord 376 Audley Street, South 205 388 INDEX. Page Austbiston, Simme 6 Austin the pieman 184 Bacon's, John, monument of B. Stillingfleet 109 Baggs, Major, the gambler 382 Baker, Mrs. Mary 9 Baker, Robert, the proprietor of Piccadilly Hall 4 Ballet at the Opera House 135, 137 Bank of England, Western Branch, 77 Banks and Barry, architects of the new buildings at Burlington House 70 Banks, Sir Joseph 192 Banks's, Thomas, alto relievo of Shakspeare 353 Banting's shop 145 Banvard's panorama of the Mis- sissippi 42 Barberini, Cardinal 293 Baretti, Joseph 115 Barillon, French ambassador 358 Baring, Brothers, the sixth power in Europe 32 Barkley Street, Little 197 "Barley Mow" at Hyde Park Corner 19 Barnard, F. A., King's Librarian 314 Barracks, designs for Cavalry 68 Barre, Colonel 204 Barrow, Dr., in Pall Mall 321 Barry's, Sir Charles, design for the Royal Academy 70 proposal for an opening into the Green Park 167 proposals for improving the Green Park 257 Barry, James 125 Barrymore, Earl of. 33, 80 Bartlet House 200 Bath House, Piccadilly 31 Bath, Knights of the, their ball at the Opera House 132 Bath Mail Coach started by Pal- mer 29 Bath, W. Pulteney, Earl of 31, 170 his duel with Lord Hervey . 258 Bathurst, Allen, Earl of. 367 Bathurst, Henry, second Earl of 37, 204, 367 Bathurst, Right Hon. Charles 204 Bayswater, origin of the name 222 Beauchamp, Earl 369 Beaufort, second Duke of 141 Beaumont, Barber 44 Page Beaumont, Sir George 340 Beckett the bookseller 322 Beckford, William, in Piccadilly 23 Bective, Earl of 194 Bellamy, William 377 Belzoni on the Pyramids 41 Benelli, Signer 135 Benson's shop-front 185 Bentley, Richard, Royal Librarian 304 Berkeley, G., Bishop of Cloyne, 23, 191 Berkeley, Hon. George 197 Berkeley, Lord, of Stratton 94 Berkeley House 94 burnt down 96 Berkeley Square 101 Berkeley Street 95, 196 Berkshire House 88, 163 Berry, the Misses 203 Besborough, Countess of 98 Bets at " White's " 148 Betterton 126 Betty's fruit-shop 158 Bidwell, Mr. T., deputy ranger of Hyde Park 234 Birch, Dr. Peter, rector of St. James's 109 Birdcage Walk 279 " Black Bear " 45 " Black Horse," Bond Street 187 " Black Horse," Haymarket m Blackler's copy of Raphael's " Transfiguration " 107 Blackwood the publisher 79 Blagden, Sir Richard 194 Bland ford Court or Place 331 Blane, Sir Gilbert 164, 181, 182 Blenheim Palace 55 Blessington, Earl and Countess of 364 Bligh, Bob, at " Watier's Club" 31 Blood's, Colonel, attack on the Duke of Ormonde 144 Bloomfield, Lord 181 Blore's additions to Buckingham Palace 316 Blount's, Thomas, etymology of Piccadilly 4 Blucher at St. James's Palace 301 " Blue Posts," Haymarket Ill " Blue Posts" Tavern, Cork Street 79 Boccaccio, Valdarfer's, sale of, 191, 366 Bodens, Colonel 167 "Bodonihum" 165 Boehm, Mrs 369 Bolingbroke, Lord 188, 322 Bolton, Charles, Duke of 141 Bolton Street 197, 198 INDEX. 389 Page Bond, Messrs., keepers of gam- bling houses 145, 153 Bond, Sir Thomas 92, 1S2, 190 Bond Street 182-188 Bond Street loungers in 1717 182 Bonnealle, John 318 Bonomi, Joseph 77 Bonomi's Panorama of the Nile 42 Bononcini at the Opera House 129 " Boodle's Club " 145 Boone, T. and W 186 Boscawen, Admiral 363 Boswell in Bond Street 183 in Half Moon Street 199 Bottle hoax at the Haymarket Theatre 1 1 9 Bower, Archibald 184 Bowling-greens at Piccadilly 6- 10 Bowyer, Robert, at Schomberg House 335 Boydell's, Alderman, Shakspeare Gallery 35 1-353 edition of Shakspeare 165 Boyle's, Hon. Charles, attack upon Bentley 304 Boyle, Lady Dorothy 61 Boyle, Henry, Lord Carleton 341 Boyle, Robert, in Pall Mall 332 Boyle Street 79 Braham, John 383 Brande, W. T 79, 172, 199 Braund the cook 185 Braybrook, Lord So Brett, Miss, George L's mistress 297 Bridgewater House 163, 164 Bridgman the gardener 250 Brindley, John 186 Brinkman, Chevalier 194 Bristol House, St. James's Square 364 Britannia, statue of, at Devon- shire House 97 British Institution 353 Brodie, Sir Benjamin 181, 217 Brookes, Joshua 181 " Brookes's Club " 153-157, 351 Brookfield, May Fair 200 "Brothers' Club " 160 Brougham, Lord 102, 204 on Priestley 100 Broughton, John, champion boxer 112 Broughton, Lord, in St. James's Street 146 Brouncker, Wm. Viscount, in St. James's Street 141 at St. James's Palace 294 Brummell, Beau 31, 145, 203, 250 Page Bruton Street 189 Buckden Hill, Hyde Park 233 Buckhurst, Lord 275, 368 Buckingham, Duchess of 170 Buckingham, first Marquis of 198 Buckingham, John Sheffield, Duke of. 310-31 1 Buckingham, Catherine, Duchess of 3"i 3!2 Buckingham House, Pall Mall 337 Buckingham Palace 306-317 Buckinghamshire, Earl of 133 Buckstone, J. B 124 Budgell, Eustace 167 Bulkeley, General 196 Bullock's Museum 40 Buhner's Printing-office 165 Burdett, Sir Francis 29, 168, 197 Burgoyne, General 203 Burke, Edmund, in Charles Street 380 in Duke Street 385 Burlington, Richard, first Earl of 47 Charles, second Earl of 48 Richard, third Earl of 48 ■ a munificent patron 48 travels in Italy 49 alters Burlington House 51 marries Lady Dorothy Savile 58 — builds Marshal Wade's house 77 opinion of Handel's music 129 death 62 George, Earl of 65 Burlington, Dorothy, Countess of 58 Burlington, Elizabeth, Countess of 48 Burlington Arcade 66 Burlington Charity School House 79 Burlington House 46-73 Burlington (New) Street 81 Burlington (Old) Street 73, 77 Burnet's complaint of the conduct of the ladies at the Chapel Royal 302 Bumey's History of Music (note) 126 Burney, Fanny 32, 167, 199 Bute, Earl of 100, 180, 343 Bury Street 384 Byrom, Dr., on the dissensions at the Opera House 129 Byron's, fifth Lord, duel with Mr. Chaworth 326 Byron, Lord, in the Albany 28 in Albemarle Street 194 in Bennet Street 169 39° INDEX. Page Byron in Piccadilly 36 in St. James's Street 145 "Cake House," Hyde Park 232-233 Calendar, Bill for the Reformation of the 376 Call's Banking-house 185 Calonne, Charles Alexandre de 37 Cambridge, Duke of 35 Cambridge House, Piccadilly 32 Camden's, Lord, epigram on Rum- bold 1 5 1 Camelford, Lord 187 Campbell's, Colen, designs for Burlington House 51 Campbell, Hamilton 180 Campbell, Thomas 151, 385 Campion, Miss 96 Canal in St. James's Park 263 Canary, story of a 321 Canning, George 28, 189, 193, 381 Cannon Brewery, Knightsbridge 247 Cannons, staircase from, at Ches- terfield House 207 Canova's remark on the Chinese bridge in St. James's Park 276 Cardonnel, Peter de 304 Carleton, Henry Lord 112 Carlisle, Earl of, in St. James's Place 168 on "White's" 149 "Carlton Club " 337 "Carlton (New) Club" 178, 373 Carlton House 341-347 Carlton Ride 348 Carnivali, Signor 133 Caroline's, Queen, additions to Kensington Gardens 249 ■ death in 1737 300 Caroline, Queen (of Brunswick) 208, 371 Carpenter's figure-yard 18 Carrington Street 202, 205 Carter, Elizabeth 199 Castlereagh, Lord 164, 371 "Catch Club" 161 Catharine of Braganza 85 Catherine Street, or Pall Mall 319, 321 Catlin's North American Gallery 41 Cats in Bond Street 188 Cavan, Earl of 182 Cavendish, Henry 61, Cavendish, Lord George 65 Cerito the dancer 137, 139 Chambers, proprietor of the Opera House 135 Chambers, proprietor of "White's" 151 Page Chambers, Sir William, on Bur- lington House 53 Chandos, Duke of 57, 362 Chantrey, Sir Francis 203 Chapel Royal, St. James's 301 offerings on Twelfth Day 302 Chapel Street, May Fair 205 Charles I. at St. James's Pa- lace 289, 290, 292 Charles II., his beautification of St. James's Park 262 his encouragement to science 274 in St. James's Park 327 his reply to James, Duke of York 260 Charles X. of Fiance 208 Charles Street, St. James's Square 380 Charlotte, Princess, at Carlton House 347 at Marlborough House 330 Charlotte, Queen, at Buckingham House 313 Chatelain, J. B 45 Chatham, great Earl of, 109, 182,, 323, 375, 382 Chatham, second Earl of 101 Chaworth's, William, duel with Lord Byron 196, 326 "Cheesecake House," Hyde Park, 232, 233 Chelmsford, Lord 145 Chemical Society at Burlington House 69 "Cherubim " at " White's " 151 Chess-club at Parsloe's 160 Chesterfield, Earl of 77, 109, 205, 208 Chesterfield House 205-208 Chesterfield Street 203 Chinese bridge in St. James's Park 276 Chiswick Villa 55, 77 Cholmondeley House 32 Cholmondeley, Marquis of, at " Brookes's " 157 Christian VII. at St. James's Pa- lace 296 Christie, James, the auctioneer, 109, 336 Chudleigh, Miss, at a masquerade 132 Church Place 139 Churchill, Arabella 368 Cibber, Colley 126 (note), 282 on the Duchess of Marl- borough 330 Cibber, Theophilus 117, 118 " Civil Service Club " 160 Clarence House '306 INDEX. 39i Page "Clarendon Hotel" 188, 192 Clarendon House 82-93 two columns from 29 Clarendon's, Lord Chancellor, visit to Piccadilly 7 at Berkshire House 163 his unpopularity 84 his disgrace 90 letter to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University 91 his death 91 Clarendon, second Earl of 189, 362 Clarges, Sir John 26 Clarges, Sir Thomas 26, 199 Clarges, Sir Walter 199 Clarges Street 198, 199 Clark, Joseph, t the posture-master 322 Clark, Miss 187 Clarke, Dr. Samuel, Rector of St. James's 109 Cleland, William, in St. James's Place 167 Clerk's, John, naval tactics 151 Clermont, Lord, in Berkeley Square 100 Cleveland, Duchess of 163, 230, 321 Cleveland, Charles, Duke of 163 Cleveland, Dukes of 373 Cleveland House 163 Clifford Street 188 Clive, Lord, in Berkeley Square . 102 Closterman, John 24 Clubs of Pall Mall 326, 337 Coach-races in Hyde Park 225 " Cock," the, in the Haymarket . in Cockerell, the architect 79 "Cocoa Tree" chocolate-house, 158, 191 " Cocoa Tree Club " 158, 191 Colchester, Lord 331 Colman, George 123 Colman, George, the Younger 123 Comedians of his Majesty's Revels 117 Conduit Mead 84, 184 Conduit Street 187, 1S9 Congreve, William 126 "Conservative Club" 159, 160, 162 Constitution Hill 255, 260 Copeland's china warehouse 188 Coppock, Mr., in Cleveland Row 164 Cork, Countess of 81 Cork Street 79 Cornbury, Lord 89, 362 Cornwallis, Lord 359 Corticelli, Italian warehouseman. 125 Cosmo III. at Clarendon House . 89 Page Cosmo III. at Lord St. Alban's . 373 Cosway, Richard, at Schomberg House 334 Cosway, Mrs 334 " Coterie," the, Club 191 Cotgrave's description of picca- dilles 12 Cotton, Charles 108 Courteville, Raphael 106 Courtin, Antoine, French Am- bassador 358 Coutts, Miss Burdett 197 Coutts, Thomas, the banker 197 Covent Garden Opera House 137 Coventry Act 1 15 Coventry, Earls of 34 Coventry House 14 "Coventry House Club " 34 Coventry, Right Hon. Henry 14 Coventry, Sir John 1 14 Coventry, sixth Earl of 202 Cowley, Abraham 355 Craggs, Secretary 167, 282, 381 Crebillon's Sofa 150 Crewe, Lord, an original member of " Brookes's " 155 Crewe, Mrs 345 " Crockford's Club " 182 Croke, Henry 1 12 Cromwell, Henry Stanhope, Lord 285 Cromwell, Oliver, in Hyde Park 224 Cumberland, Ernest, Duke of, and his valet Sellis 301 Cumberland, Henry Frederick, Duke of 121, 203, 336 Cumberland, William Augustus, Duke of, his Lilliputian regi- ment 298 at St. James's Palace 299 at Schomberg House 333 Cumberland Market Ill Curzon Street 202, 203, 208 Cuzzoni and Faustina feud at the Italian Opera 59, 130 Dahl, Michael 109 Damer, Hon. Mrs 180, 211, 392 D'Arblay, Madame 32, 167, 199 Dartiquenave, Charles 79, 350 Dash wood, Sir Francis, in the habit of St. Francis 161 Davenport, Mrs 357 David, Chevalier de 377 Davis, Moll 125, 368 Davy, Sir H., on Cavendish 64 392 INDEX. Page Davy, Sir H, at the Royal Insti- tution 193 on gas-lighting 325 Dean's, Sir., Academy 216 Debrett the bookseller 43 Deer in Hyde Park 219 in Kensington Gardens 252 in St. James's Park 261, 267 De Grey, Earl 363, 364 Delany, Mrs., 109, 161, 162, 167, 185, 199, 322, 382 Delawarr, Lord, at a masquerade, 131 Denbigh, Countess of 26 Denham, Sir John, and his wife . 47 Denman, wine merchant 24 Denmark, King of, at a masque- rade 132 Dennis's, John, benefit at the Haymarket 1 17 Dent, John 204 " Devil's Own " Volunteer Corps, 240 Devonshire, Duchess of, in the Haymarket 1 12 Georgiana, Duchess of 98, 175 Devonshire House 94-100 Devonshire, William, first Duke of 96, 3°9 William, third Duke of 97 William, fourth Duke of .... 63, 98 William, fifth Duke of 98 William, sixth Duke of. 100 Dibdin, Thomas 123 Dickenson's figure-yard 18 Dilettanti Society 160, 161 ■ its proposed house in Pic- cadilly 18 Dodington, George Bubb, in Pall Mall 324, 340 Dodsley, James, buried in St. James's Church 109 Dodsley's, Robert, shop, 350 " Dog and Duck " public-house . 202 Donzelli, the tenor 136 " Dorant's Hotel" 194 Dorchester House 210 Dorset, Duke of 1 12 Dorset, Mary, Countess of, 291 Dorset, sixth Earl 275, 368 Dover, Earl of. 194 Dover House, Whitehall 280 Dover Street 194-196 Down Street 209 Drayton's, M., allusion to a pica- dell 14 Dryden, Charles, on Arlington House 308 Page Dryden, John, at St. James's Palace 294 at the Mulberry Garden 307 his Medal. 271 Duck Island, St. James's Park, 265 Ducking-pond, May Fair 202 Dudley, Earl, connection with the Opera House 138 his picture-gallery 42 Duels in Hyde Park 241-243 Duke Street 139, 384 Dumergue, Charles j^ Dunbar's, Lord, loss at Shaver's Hall 7 Duncannon, Lady 98 Duncombe, Tom 29, 205 Dundas, Rt. Hon. Robert 204 Dunkirk House 85 Duras, Lewis de, Marquis of Blanquefort 356 D'Urfey, Tom 108 Dutch Ambassador 374 Dyde and Scribe's in Pall Mall 336 Eagle Place 139 "East India United Service Club " 370 Ebers, manager of the Opera House 135 his library in Bond Street 185 Echard, L., on Clarendon House, 90 Eddystone Lighthouse, Winstan- ley's 20 Egmont, Earls of, in Pall Mall 341 Egremont, Earls of 32 Egremont House 32 Egremont, third Earl of. 172 Egyptian Hall 40-42 Eldon, Lord Chancellor, 113, 211, 240, 253 Elfi Bey 345 Elgin Marbles 35, 67, 209, 210 Elizabeth, Queen, at St. James's 287 Ellesmere, Earl of 164 Elm trees in St. James's Park 277 Elmsley, P., in St. James's Street 159 Elphinstone, Mountstuart 28 Ely House 196 Encampment in St. James's Park 276 Encampments in Hyde Park 237-239 Enclosure, St. James's Park 267, 278 Engine Street 209 Erasmus at the " Rookery " 320 Erskine, Lord 240 Essex, Earl of 368 Eureka, the 41 INDEX. 393 Page Evans's auction-rooms 340 Evelyn, John, in Dover Street 195 his interest in the growth of trees 245, 246 Exhibition of 185 1 244 Fairs in Hyde Park •. 236, 237 Faithorne's Map of London, 1658, referred to 3 Fantoccini, Italian, in 1780 24 Faraday, Michael 193 Farinelli at the Italian Opera 131 Faustina and Cuzzoni feud 130 Fenton, Lavinia Beswick, alias 117 Fenton's Hotel 158 Feversham, Earl of. 356 Fielding, Beau, in Pall Mall 321, 322 Fielding, Henry, at the Haymarket 1 1 7 his Tom Jones 184, 323 Finch, Heneage 248 Finch, Lady Isabella 102 Fireworks in the Green Park 257, 258 in St. James's Square, 359, 373, 374 in St. James's Park 276 Fisher, Kitty 205 Fitzherbert, Mrs 190, 211 Fitzpatrick in Piccaddly 23 Flaxman at Wedgwood's 359 statues for Marble Arch 316 Flecknoe, Richard, on Piccadilly 8 Fletcher's, J., allusion to pickadels 13 Florence's, Duke of, Minister ill Foley House 176 Fonnereau, T. G 28 Foote at the Haymarket Theatre 118 Footman, running 36 Fop's Alley 137 Foreign Office 281 Fores's print-shop 25 Fortnum and Mason 43 Foubert, Major 179 Fountain, drinking, in Hyde Park 245 Fountaine's, Sir Andrew, pictures 147 Fox, C. J., in Albemarle Street . 191 in Arlington Street 172 in Grafton Street 189 in Piccadilly 23 in Sackville Street 180 in St. James's Street 141, 143, 153, 157 in the stable-yard St. James's 305 his meeting with Lord North at the Opera House 133 and the Prince of Wales 188 his Westminster Election 98 Fox Hall or Vauxhall 282 Francis, Sir Philip, r. , ,- ^ 43 ' I56 ' 347 > 37°, 375 Franklin, B 189, 313 Franklin's, Dr. T., play The Contract 123 Frederick, Prince of Wales, at Carlton House 343 at Norfolk House 374 at the Opera House 131 at St. James's Palace 298 his marriage 299 at the fire at " White's " 147 "Freemason's Tavern" 161 " Free Trade Club " 371 Fremont's Overland Route to Ca- lifornia 42 French plays at the Haymarket Theatre 116, 118 at St. James's Theatre 383 Friary Court 303 Friary, Old 328 Fryar, Peggy 117 Fuller, Thomas, on the increase of London 1 Fuller the surgeon 36 Gainsborough in Pall Mall 335 Gallery of Illustration 178 Gallini, manager of the Opera House 133 Gait, John 200 Gaming-house 3 Gardell hanged in the Haymarket 115 Garrard, G., on the Gaming- House 6, 9 Garrard, Mrs 223 Garrick at Buckingham House 314 Garrick, Mrs 60 Garth, Sir Samuel 112 Gas-lighting, introduction of 325 in St. James's Park 276, 278 Haymarket Theatre not lighted with gas till 1853 124 Gascoigne, Bamber 204 " Gaunt's Coffee-house " 146, 162 Gay at Queensberry House 75 on Burlington House 55 on William Kent 58 Geare, Thomas 289 Geere, Sir R 105 Geeres, Captain 10 Gell, Sir William 29 Gentleman's Magazine on Burling- ton House 65 George I. at St. James's Palace . 297 394 INDEX. Page George I., mistresses of 297 George II. at a masquerade 131 at the fire at " White's" 147 when Prince of Wales, in Albemarle Street 191 at St. James's Palace 297 George III. born at Norfolk House 374 his marriage to Queen Char- lotte 300 attacked by Peg Nicholson . 300 his interest in his books 314 at Messrs. Dyde and Scribe's 336 his insanity made a joke of at " Brookes's " 156 his statue, in Berkeley Square 101 George IV. at " Brookes's" 155 at Carlton House 343 _ 345 robbed on Hay Hill 102 married to Princess Caroline 300 rebuilds Buckingham Palace 315 "George Coffee-house" 113 George Street, St. James's Square 380 "George," the, in Pall Mall 326 Gerarde's Herbal, reference in, to Piccadilly 5 German Chapel, St. James's 303 Gibbon in Bond Street 184 at the "Cocoa Tree" 159 in Pall Mall 323 in St. James's Street 159 Gibbons, Grinling 195 carving in St. James's Church 105 the font 106 Gifford, William 40, 165, 197 " Giles's Coffee-house" 327 Gillray, James 109, 146, 175 Girle, Leonard 327 Giuglini the tenor 138 Glenelg, Lord 29 " Gloster Coffee-house " 29 Gloucester's, Duke of, Riding- house, Hyde Park 244 Gloucester, William Fred., Duke of 35 Gloucester House, Park Lane, 35, 209 Gloucester House, Upper Gros- venor Street 211 Glover, "Leonidas" 169, 191 Godfrey, Colonel Charles 174 "Golden Lion" at Hyde Park Corner 19 Goldsmith's Retaliation 162 Goold, Francis, manager of the Opera House 135 " Goosetree's Club" 154 Page Gordon, Lord George, in Cleve- land Row 164 Gordon, Lord W'illiam 259 Gordon Riots 99 Goring, George, Lord 307 Goring House 306 Gounod's "Faust" 138 Grafton, first Duke of, at Arling- ton House 309 his duel with the Hon. John Talbot 242 Grafton, second Duke of 182 Grafton, third Duke of 182 — ■ — in Arlington Street 17 2 Grafton House 182 Grafton Street 189, 190 Graham, Dr. James, at Schom- berg House 334 Graham, Sir James 173 Grammont's present of a calash to Charles II 227 Granby, Marquis of. 19 Grange's fruit-shop 43 Grantham, Earl of" 190 Granville, Sir John 293 Granville, John, Earl of, in Ar- lington Street 170 Granville, Earls of 189 Grattan, Henry, in St. James's Place 168 . Gray the poet 203, 382 Great Mogul's Company 117 Greber, Giacomo 127 Green Park 255, 261 Grenville, Right Hon. George 198 Grenville, Right Hon. Thos. 164, 211 Grenville, Lord 164, 196, 373 "Greyhound" in Piccadilly 34 " Grillion's Club " 192 "Grillion's Hotel" 191 Grosvenor Chapel 208 Grosvenor House 211 Grosvenor Place 17 2 " Guards' Club " 331 Guards' Memorial 179 Gunters the confectioners 102 Gurney, Hudson 365 Gwynn's proposal to widen Swal- low Street... 179 to destroy Burlington House 65 Gwynn, Nell 321, 327, 331, 350, 368, 369 " Gymnastic Club " 353 Hackney Coaches not allowed in Hyde Park 230 INDEX. 395 Page Half Moon Street 199, 200 Halford, Sir Henry 203 Halhed, N. B 349 Halifax, George Saville, Marquis of 367, 382 Hall, Captain Basil 168 Hamilton's, Duke of, duel with Lord Mohun 242, 374 Hamilton's, Duke of, marriage to Miss Gunning 202 Hamilton, James, ranger of Hyde Park 211, 226 his houses at Hyde Park Corner 19 Hamilton, "Single Speech," in Arlington Street 1 71 Hamilton, Sir William 35 Hamilton, Lady 35, 199, 335 Hamilton, Margaret, monument to 107 Hamilton Place 211, 212 Hamlyn, Thomas, organ-builder 289 Handel at Burlington House 57 at the Haymarket Opera House 127, 129 his benefit 131 his oratorios 131 Hanover Church 177 Harding's shop in Pall Mall 332, 336 Hardinge, Sir Henry 173, 181 Hardwicke, Earl of. 364 Hardy, Sir Charles 196 Harleian Library and MSS 195 Harlow, G. H 109 Harris, lessee of the Opera House 132 Hartz pine-forests 277 Hastings, Marquis of 168 Hastings, Warren 168, 211, 376 Hatchard's shop 43 Haworth, Dr. Samuel, in Pall Mall 32 1 Hay Hill 102 Hay Hill Farm 94 Haydon at the British Institution 353 and the Elgin Marbles 209 his " Mock Election " 41 his " Napoleon " 186 his two pictures at the Egyp- tian Hall 41 Hayter's, Sir G., picture at the Egyptian Hall 41 Haymarket m-139 Haymarket Opera House 126-139 Haymarket Theatre _..i 16-124 Hazlitt, William 200, 209 Heberden, Dr. William 196, 331 Heidegger, J. J., manager of the Opera House 128, 131 Heinel, Mdlle., the dancer 132 Henrietta Maria at Paris 103 at St. James's Palace 290 at Tyburn 222 Henry, Prince of Wales, at St. James's Palace 288 his death 289 Henry VI. 's forge 319 Henry VIII. at St. James's Palace, 285-286 Her Majesty's Theatre 126-139 "Hercules' Pillars" in Pall Mall 327 Hemes' Banking-house 145 Hertford, Marquis of 210 Hertford House 33 Hertford Street 203 Hervey, John Lord 312, 364 his duel with William Pul- teney 258 his hatred of Lady Bur- lington 59 Hervey, Lady, in St. James's Place _ 168 Hervey, Hon. Thomas 183 Hickford's great dancing-room 115 Higgins, the supposed seller of pickadils 4 Hill, Aaron 127 Hill's, Sir John, quack medicines, 144 Hill, Lady, widow of Sir John D. Hill _ 168 Hobhouse, J. Cam 146 Hogarth's caricatures of Burling- ton House 56 his " Sigismunda " 183 his representation of ' 'White's "147 Holcke's, Count, witticism 296 Holdernesse House 210 Holford, R. S 210 Holland, Earl of, keeper of Hyde Park 220 Holland, Henry, first Lord, in Piccadilly 23 Holland, Stephen, second Lord . 27 Holland, Vassall, Lord 79 Holland the printseller 175 Holland, Henry, architect of " Brookes's " 154 Holland House 85 Home, Sir Everard 181 Hook, Theodore, in Cleveland Row 1 64 Hooper's, Dr., medical theatre 79 Hope, Beresford, on Burlington House 69, 73 Hope, Henry Thomas 35 396 INDEX. Hopper, Thomas, architect of " Arthur's Club " 159 Hoppner, John, R.A 381 Horse Guards 280 Horse-races in Hyde Park 221, 222 "Horse-shoe" at Hyde Park Corner 19 Howard, Mrs., at St. James's Palace _ 298 Howard, Sir Philip 125 Howe, Admiral Earl 189 Howell, James, on the gaming- house 6 mention of Piccadilly 1 1 Humane Society's receivinghouse, Hyde Park 232, 233 Hume, David, in Park Place 169 Humphry's, Miss, print-shop 146 Hunlock, Sir Hugh 34 Hunt and Roskel'l 187 Hunt, Leigh, as a volunteer 67 his " jar of honey " 43 Hunter, Dr. 'William 174, 218, 382 Hunter, John 175, 217, 218 Hurling-match in Hyde Park, 223, 225 Plurst, Mr., in the Haymarket Ill Huysman, James 108 Hyde, manor of ._ 219 Hyde's, Mr. (afterwards Lord Clarendon), visit to Piccadilly . 7 Hyde, pun on the name 86 Hyde Park 213-254 keepers of - 220, 226 Hyde Park Corner 213 the statuaries at 17 public-houses at 19 Hvde Park Lodge 234 Hyde Park Road 18 Inchbald, Mrs 181 India Office 281 Irwin, Sir John 39 Jackson, Dr. John, rector of St. James's no James II., escape from St. James's Palace in 1648, when Duke of York 292 his residence there after the Restoration 293 James Street, Haymarket 1 15 Jansen the gambler 147 Tenner, Dr., statue of 251 Jermyn, Henry 194 Jermyn, Hon. Thomas 368 Page Jermyn Street 104, 381, 382 Jervas, Charles, at Bridgewater House 163 John Street, St. James's Square 380 Johnson, Dr., at Buckingham House 314 on Lord Burlington 62 in Cork Street 79 in St. James's Square 379 "Johnson's Club" 161, 180, 192, 196 Johnston, Hector 102 Johnston, Sir Alexander 372 Jones, Inigo 289 Jones, Sir William 208 Jonson's, Ben, references to picar- dills 13 Jordan, Mrs 203 Justel, Henry, Royal Librarian 304 Kean's, Charles, banquet 24 Kean, Edmund 199 Keith's Rev. Alexander, chapel 202 Kelly's, Michael, music-shop _... 348 at the Opera House 134, 139 Kemble, Charles 181 Kempe, J. E., rector of St. James's no Kennett, Dr. White 96, 167 Kensington Gardens 247-252 Kensington Palace 252 Kent, Earl of _ 357 Kent, William 56, 57, 97,1 02, 253, 342 Kenyon's, Lord, vote at the West- minster election 349 King, Lord 196 King Street, St. James's 382 " King's Arms," in Pall Mall 326 " King's Head," in Pall Mall 326 "King's Head Inn," in the Hay- market 116 Kingston, Duke of 170 Kingston's, Duke of, marriage to Miss Chudleigh 202 Kingston, Duchess of, at a mas- querade 132 and Foote 122 Kingston, John, organist to Oliver Cromwell 320 Kip's view of Burlington House . 49 " Kit-Cat Club" in Pall Mall 326 Knapton, George, painter 161 Knight, Mrs. Mary, in Pall Mall. 331 Kiiightsbridge a dangerous place. 218 Konigsmark, Charles, Count 113 Kynaston, the actor, in Hyde Park 230 INDEX. 397 Pa S e Lady's Mile, Hyde Park 215, 231 Lanesborough House 216 Lanesborough, Theophilus, first Lord 2 1 7 Langdale, Lord 204 Langham Place 176 Langton, Bennet 185 Lansdowne House IOO Laporte, manager of the Opera House 136, 137 Lardner, Dr. Dionysius 364 La Serre, Sieur de, on St. James's Street 139 on St. James's Palace 290, 292 Lawrence, Sir Thomas 35, 185, 382 Leeds, Duke of 363 Leicester, Earl of. 287 Leoni, J., architect of Queensberry House „ 73 Leopold, King of the Belgians 34 Lepel, Molly 168 L'Estrange, Sir Roger 320 Le Sueur's " Gladiator " 280 Leuchars' shop 25 Lewis, "Gentleman" 124 Lewis, "Monk," in the Albany . 29 " Liberty Club " in Pall Mall 326 Library, Royal, St. James's 303 Lichfield House 369 Lieven, Prince 196 Lifford, Earl of 109 Lightfoot, Hannah 203, 380 Lightning-conductors at Bucking- ham House 313 Ligonier, Colonel 79 Lilly, the astrologer, on Marie de Medicis 291 Lincoln's, A., assassination ; meet- ing of Americans 25 Lincoln's Inn Fields, theatre in .- 131 Lincoln and Bennett 25 Lind, Jenny 137 Lingsivy, Baron de, at the "St. James's Coffee-house " 162 Linnean Society at Burlington House 56, 69 Liston, John, the actor 218 Literary Fund .„ 189 Littlebery, in Essex 21 Liverpool, Earl of 204 Liverpool, Earls of 181, 182 Lloyd's, R., Cit's Country Box 17 Locker's, F., lines on Lord Palm- erston 32 Lockyer alters "White's" 146 Page London and Wise's Brompton Nursery _ 249 London, increase of. 1, 96 country gentlemen forbidden to reside in 1 relative size to other English towns 2 impetus given to its growth by the Restoration 2 fortification of, in 1642 213 London Library 369 Londonderry, third Marquis of 210 Long, Miss Anne 190 "Long's Hotel" 186 Louis XVIII 191, 208 Lovelace, Ada, Countess of 365 Lubbock, Sir J. W 169 Lumley, B., manager of the Opera House 136-138 Lumsden, Archibald 319 Luttrell, Henry ...„ 29 Lynedoch, Lord 197 Lyttelton, Bishop Charles 188 Lytton, Lord 211 his Not so Bad as We Seem 100 Macartney, Lord George 203 Macaulay, Lord, in the Albany 29 in Clarges Street 199 his description of the Duke ofOrmond 361 on the state of St. James's Square 377 Macclesfield, Countess of 183 Macclesfield, Earl of 376 Macdonald's, John, travels 186 Mackie the oilman 23 Macklin at the Haymarket Theatre 118 Mackreth, Robert 151 Maclean the highwayman 144, 243 Macready the actor 124 MacSwiney, Owen 127 Maddox at the Haymarket Theatre 122 Maggot's Court 180 ' ' Maidenhead Tavern, " Piccadilly 1 1 Mail Coaches 325 Malcolm, Sir John 109 Mall in St. James's Park 269-274 Mallard, David, shoemaker 318 Mangles, Capt. James 152 Manning's figure-yard 18 Mapleson, J. PL, manager of the Opera House 138 Marble Arch 167, 247, 316 398 INDEX. Page Marie de Medicis at St. James's Palace 290, 291 Marlborough, Duke of 329, 3S1 Marlborough, Sarah, Duchess of 329 Marlborough, Henrietta, Duchess of 129 Marlborough House 328-330 Marshall, Mrs 357 Martin, Mr., on the Gaming-houses of St. James's 157 Martin's, S., duel with Wilkes 242 Mary-le-bone House 311 Mary I., Queen, at St. James's Palace 287 Masham, Mrs 79 Mason, Monck 136 Mathias on the Dilettanti Society 160 Maurice's (Grave) Head, Hyde Park 233 May, Baptist 355 May, Hugh, architect of Berkeley House 94 May Fair 200-208 May Fair marriages 202 Mazarin, Duchess of 331 Melbourne, first Viscount 27 Melbourne House, now the Albany 26-29 Melbourne House, Whitehall 280 Mellon, Harriet 197 Merriman, Dr. Samuel 200, 205 Methuen, Sir Paul 166 Mews at Charing Cross likened to a Palace 296 Middlesex, Charles, Earl of 275, 368 Middlesex, Earl of, director of the Opera 131 Middleton's, T. , allusion to a pickadill 13 Miles, Philip John 212 " Military, Naval, and County Service Club " 152 Military Yard 179 Miller's lamp warehouse 43 Milton, John 282 •' Minced-pie House," Hyde Park, 232, 233 Minsheu's description of a pickadill 14 Mitford, William 189, 199 Moira, Earl of 168 Monconys the traveller 355 Monk, General, at St. James's Palace 293 Monmouth, Duke of 113 Monnoyer, Jean Baptiste, died in Pall Mall 322 Montagu, Ralph, first Duke of 92 Page Montagu, Duke of. 117, 119, 128 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 101, 170, 208 Montagu House 92 Moon, Mr., in the Haymarket 1 1 1 Moore the poet 384 Moray, Sir Robert 274 Morland, grandfather of George Morland 373 Morland, George, born in the Haymarket 112 Morland, Sir Samuel 215, 320 his speaking trumpet 215 information of a meeting of Fifth Monarchy Men 1 1 Moss, Dr. Charles, rector of St. James's 1 10 Moxon, Lieut m Mozart at the Haymarket Theatre 12 1 Mulberry Gardens 306-307 Mullens the surgeon 322 Munro, W. A. J 212 Murray, John 194 Museum of Practical Geology 44 Nabob, the 122 " Nag's Head," the 11 1 Naked Boy Alley 25 Napoleon's travelling-carriage 41 Napoleon III. in King Street, St. James's 382 Nash, John 196 builder of Regent Street 176 his house in Regent Street 1 78 builder of the Haymarket Theatre 124 improver of the Opera House 1 36 rebuilder of Buckingham Palace 315 National Gallery 340 " Naval and Military Club " 33 Neale, Mrs. Elizabeth, the fruit- erer 158 Neale, Thomas, groom-porter 199 Nelson, Lord 153, 172, 187 Newcastle, Duke of, godfather to George II. 's second son 297 Newgate, keys of, in the water of St. James's Square 378 Newton, Sir Isaac, in Jermyn Street 381 Niccolini the singer 127 Nicol, George, bookseller 35 1 Nicolls, Dr. Samuel, rector of St. James's 1 10 Nillsson, the prima donna 138 INDEX. 399 Page Nivernois, Due de 191 Nollekens the sculptor 197 and the Elgin marbles 68 Norfolk House, St. James's Square 373, 374 Nornaville and Fell, booksellers, 187 North, Lord, and Fox ; their meeting at the Opera House 133 Northampton House 37 Northumberland, Fitzroy Duke of 362 Norwich, Earl of. 307 Nost's, J. Van, figure-yard 18 Nottingham, Earl of 248 Nottingham House 248 Novosielski, architect of Barry- more House 33 alterer of the Opera House . 132 its rebuilder 133 Nowell Street, now Old Burling- ton Street 73 Observatory proposed for Hyde Park 227 O'Connell, Daniel 156, 384 Ogle, Lady, wifeofThynne 113 Oglethorpe, General 189 Oglethorpe, Sir Theophilus 108 Oldenburg, Duchess of, at Pul- teney Hotel in 1814 34 Oldenburgh, Henry 224 Oldfield, Mrs. Anne 112, 321, 380 O'Neil, Miss 199 Opera House, Haymarket 126-139 Operas, Italian, at the Haymarket Theatre 123 Orange, Prince of. 34, 299 Ordinary at Spring Gardens 282 Ordnance Office 336 Orleans, Egalite, Duke of 208 Ormond, Duke of, at Clarendon House 91 in St. James's Square 360-361 attacked by Blood 144 Ormond, second Duke of 361 Ormond Yard 360 Ornithological Society's water- fowl 278 Orrery, Earl of, on Clarendon House 90 Ossory, Anne, Countess of Upper 172 Ossory, Thomas, Earl of 360 Outinian or Matrimonial Society, 282 Overbury's, Sir T., allusion to pickadels 12 Page Owen, Sir John, at St. James's Palace 292 Owen's, J., book-shop 39 Oxford, Aubrey, twentieth Earl of 357, 380 Oxford, Edward, Earl of 195 Oxford, Robert, Earl of. 185, 195 " Oxford and Cambridge Club " 331 Paganini's concert at the Opera House 136 Pall Mall Court 339 Pall Mall, the game 268-270, 318 Pall Mall, the street 318-354 Palliser, Sir Hugh, in Pall Mall, 323 Palmer's, General, Bath mail- coach 29 Palmerston, Lord, 32, 156, 204 Pantheon, ball given there by "White's" 151 Panton, Captain Edward 9 Paoli, General 208 Parade, St. James's Park 279 Paris, Dr. John Ayrton 196 Park Lane 209-2 11 Park Place „ 158, 169 Parker, Dr. William, rector of St. James's no Parnell in St. James's Place 167 " Parsloe's Coffee-house " 160 Parsons, Nancy 182 ' ' Parthenon Club " 1 78 Pasta, Madame 138 Payne, Thomas, the bookseller 335 Peace rejoicings in 1814 236, 276 Peel, Sir Robert 204, 261 Pelham, Henry, in Arlington Street 170, 172 at "White's" 150 Pembroke, Lady 130 Pembroke, Philip, Earl of, Lord Chamberlain 6 Pembroke, Thomas, Earl of 362 Penn, Granville 204 Penn, John 282 Pennant's blunders 5 1 Pepys at Burlington House 48 Percy, Major, bearer of the news of the Battle of Waterloo 370 Peterborough, Earl of 197, 298, 321 Petty, Sir William 25, 180 Philidor the chess-player 160 Philip II. of Spain 288 Phillips, Ambrose 130, 208 "Phoenix Inn," in the Hay- market in, 126 4oo INDEX. Page Piazza, the — St. James's Square so called 356 Piccadilly, origin of the name 4 its various spellings 11 houses demolished in 1637 9 superseded Portugal Street 15 bad state of the road 15 statuaries' yards near Hyde Park Corner 17 — — building of new mansions 17 terrace built by the Adams in 1S10 21, 36 beauty of its situation 21 lighting of the road 22 double numbering 33 Piccadilly, places so called, in the country 5 Piccadilly, streets on the north side of 174-212 Piccadilly, streets on the south side of 111-173 " Piccadilly butchers " 30 Piccadilly Hall 4 Piccadilly Houses 23-45 Piccadilly Place 179 Piccadilly Square 35 Piccadilly Terrace 21, 36 Piccolomini the prima donna 138 Pickadill, references to the collar 12-14 a tailor's tool 13 Pickering's, William, shop 43 Picton, Sir Thomas 187 Pierault's Bagnio 158 Pilkington, Mrs. Letitia 144 "Pillars of Hercules" at Hyde Park Corner 19 Pinelli Library 187 Pinkethman the showman 200 Pitt, George Morton 150 Pitt, William _ 101 at Brookes's 155 in Park Place 169 his portrait by Hoppner 381 Planta, Joseph 194 Pointz's, Mr., apartments at St. James's Palace 298 Pomfret, Lord and Lady 266 Poole, Messrs., the tailors 80 Pope in Berkeley Street 196 at Hyde Park Corner 216 in St. James's Street 141 Pope the actor and his wife 200 Porter, Phil 8, 227 Porter's, T. , map of London, about 1640 8 Page Portico, Spring Gardens 282 Portland, Earl of. 357 Portland, William Henry, third Duke of, at Burlington House . 63 Portland Place 176 Portugal Street, the old name of Piccadilly 15 Potter, John 116 Powis, Earl of 102 Pratt, architect of Clarendon House 87, 90 Presbyterian Chapel, Swallow Street™ 179 Pretender, the Young 198 Price's Lodge, Hyde Park 232 Priestley, Dr., at Lansdowne House 100 " Princess of Wales Tavern " 189 Prout, Dr 182 Puckler Muskau, Prince 34 Pulteney, General 31 " Pulteney Hotel, Old" ^ Pulteney's, William, duel with Lord Hervey 258 Pulteney, Sir William 31 Pureed at St. James's Palace 294 Puttick and Simpson's auction rooms 44 Quadrant, the 176 Quaritch's book-shop 24 Queen Street, May Fair 205 Queen's Library, St. James's 259, 305 Queen's Mead House 18 Queen's Walk, Green Park 255 Queensberry, Charles, third Duke of 73 Queensberry, Charles, fourth Duke of 35, i°9, 143. H5 Queensberry, Duchess of 75 Queensberry House, Burlington Gardens 73 Queensberry House, Piccadilly 35 Quin in Pall Mall 322 Race by women in Pall Mall 324 Races in Hyde Park 221 Radford, Jack 36 " Raggett's Junior " 153 Rainey the auctioneer 178 Ranelagh, Viscountess, in Pall Mall 332 Ranger's Lodge, Green Park 39, 257, 259 Reade, James 225 Rectory House, St. James's 44 INDEX. 401 " Red Lion,'' at Hyde Park Corner 19 Reece's Medical Hall 39 Reeve, Mrs. Anne 307 "Reform Club" 337 Regent Street 175-178 Reviews in Hyde Park 239-241 Reynolds, Miss 196 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, a member of"Almack's" 155 Ricci, Marco and Sebastian 55 Rich's, B., allusion to pickadels, 12, 13 Richardson, the novelist, in St. James's Park 273 , his Sir Charles Grandison . 379 " Richardson's Hotel " 24 Richmond, Duke and Duchess of, at a masquerade 132 Richmond, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of 287 Ridgway's shop 39 Ridley the bookseller 144 Rigby, Richard 148, 167, 172 Ring, the, in Hyde Park 227-230 Ring Road, Hyde Park 232 Robinson's, Anastasia, marriage to the Earl of Peterborough 298 Robinson, Perdita, in Berkeley Square 101 in St. James's Place 168 Robson, J., bookseller 186 Rochester, Hyde, Earl of 91, 362 Rochester, Wilmot, Earl of... 113, 141 Rodney, Lord 164, 181, 192 Rogers, Samuel, in St. James's Place 169 Romilly, Sir Samuel 68 Romney, Earl of 108, 358 Rookery, the 319 Rosamond's Pond, Green Park 256 Rosamond's Pond, St. James's Park 255, 264 Rosetti, the Pope's agent 291 Ross, Thomas, royal librarian 304 Rothschild, Baron Lionel 37 Rothschild, Nathan Meyer 34 Rotten Row 231 Roubilliac's statue of Wade 77 Rowland, Felix, the hair-dresser. 161 Roxburgh, Duke of, the biblio- maniac 366 " Roxburgh Club " 191, 366 Royal Academy 56, 69, 71, 348 Royal Academy of Music 129 Royal Garden, St. James's 327, 341 Royal Institution 192, 193 Page Royal Society at Burlington House 69 offered apartments a Y ork House 305 " Royal Society Club " 29, 161 Rubini the tenor 136 Rumbold, Sir Thomas 151 Rumford, Count 192 "Rump Steak Club," in Pall Mall 326 " Running Horse," at Hyde Park Corner 19 Rupert, Prince 282 Rushworths, Messrs., in Savile Row 80 Russell Court, Cleveland Row 165 Russia, Emperor of, at " Pulteney Hotel" in 1814 33 Rutland, Duke of. 171 Sackville, Lord Viscount, 112, 323 Sackville Street 180-182 St. Alban's, Earl of, rent-roll 356 and St. James's Church 103 St. Alban's, Duke of 279 St. Alban's, Duchess of 197 St. Alban's House 373 St. Alban's Street 175 St. Evremond 265, 331 " St. George's Club " 152 St. George's Hospital 216, 217 St. George's Place 218 St. James's Church 103-110 " St. James's Coffee-house " 162 St. James's Fair 200, 286, 288 St. James's Fields 318, 355 St. James's Hall 24 St. James's Hospital 284, 285 " St. James's Hotel," Piccadilly. 29 " St. James's Hotel," in Jermyn Street 382 St. James's Market in, 379 St. James's Palace 284-305 St. James's Parish constituted 103 St. James's Park 261-283 St. James's Place 167-169 St. James's Street 139-162 St. James's Square 355~ 3^5 St. James's Theatre 383 St. Peter, Church of, Windmill Street 175 St. Philip's Chapel 177 St. Vincent, Earl 199 Salisbury House 172 Salisbury, Marchioness of 172 Sams's shop in St. James's Street 145 Sandby, Paul 218 26 402 IXDEX. Page Savage, Richard 19, 117, 183 Savile Place 81 Savile Row So Scarborough, Earl of 1 1 1 Scharf, George 146 Schaub, Sir Luke 182 Schomberg's, Frederick Armand, Duke of, monument 333 Schomberg, Dukes of. 33 2_ 333 Schomberg House 33 2_ 336 School of Mines 44 Schutz, Baron 357 Scott, Sir Walter 345, 350, 382 Scrope, Sir Carr 384 Seeker, Dr. Thomas, Rector of St. James's 109 Sedan Chairs 325 Sedley, Catherine 368 Sedley's, Sir Charles, Mulberry Garden 307 Sehvyn, George , 23, 25, 39, 147, 150, 155, 166, 182, 203, 259 Sehvyn, Col. John 166 Senesino at the Italian Opera 131 Serpentine in Hyde Park 235-236 Seymour, Lord Webb 28 Shachvell, Sir John 174 Shaftesbury, first Earl of 271 Shakspeare Gallery 35 1—353 Shakspeare Press 165 Sharp, "Conversation" 211 Shaver's Hall 4 description of 9 — : — how it obtained its name 6 its Tennis Court 8, 115 Shee, Sir Martin Archer 382 Shelburne, William, Earl of 100 Shenstone the poet 382 Shepherd's Market 208 Sheppard, Jack, in May Fair 201 Sheridan, R. B., 19, 80, 132, 134, 141, 154, 189, 204, 348 Shirley's play of Hyde Park 220 Shrewsbury, Duke of 385 Shrewsbury, Lady, at Piccadilly Hall 4 Siamese Twins 41 Sidmouth, Lord 189 Skating, introduction of. 263, 264 Sloane, Sir Hans 92 Smirke, Sir Robert 29 Smirke, Sydney, architect of the Royal Academy 70 Smith, Adam 125 Smith's, Albert, " Mont Blanc " and "China" 42 Page Smith, Charlotte 382 Smith's, Consul, library 314 Smith, E. T 138 Smith's, F. Petit, public dinner 24 Smith's, Robert, death 152 Smith, Sir Sidney, in Cleveland Row 164 " Smyrna Coffee-house " 326 Snell's, H. S., proposal of en- trance to Hyde Park 215 Soane's, Sir John, designs for the entrance to Hyde Park 214 Somerset, Duchess of 114 Sontag, Madame 138 Sophia Matilda, Princess 203 Sothern's Lord Dundreary 124 South, Dr., at St. James's 294 Southesk, Countess of 331 Spanish ambassador in St. James's Square 359 Speke's obelisk in Kensington Gardens 252 Spencer House 168 Spinacuta the rope-dancer 122 Spring Gardens 281 Squibbs the auctioneers 80 Stable-yard, St. James's 305 Stafford, Viscount 317 Stafford House, Stable-yard 305 Stafford House, or Tart Hall 317 Stallenge, Jasper 306 Stalls at the Opera House 137 Stanhope, Countess of 199 Stanhope, Lady 26 Stanhope Street, Great 204 Stanley, Thomas 125 " Star and Garter," Pall Mall 326 State Paper Office 281 Statuaries in Piccadilly 16 Steele, Sir Richard 19, 141, 252, 322, 384 Sterne in Bond Street 185 in Pall Mall 322 " Stevens's Hotel " 186 Stewart the auctioneer 44 Stillingfleet, Benjamin 42, 109 Stockdale's book-shop 43 Stone-Cutters' Alley 343 Stonehewer, Richard 203 Storey, Edward 265, 279 Storey's Gate 265, 279 Storr and Mortimer 188 Stothard's Waterloo Shield 169 Stowell, Lord 190 Stratton Street 95, 197 Stuart, "Athenian" 369 INDEX. 403 Suckling, Sir John, a visitor at Piccadilly 7 Suffolk, Henrietta, Countess of 80, 298, 375 Suffolk Street 124, 125 Sullivan, Luke 45 Sunderland, Earl of 357 Sunderland House 26 Sunderland, Lady 126 Sussex Chambers 385 Sussex, Duke of, at Kensington Palace 253 Sutherland House 305 Swallow Close 83 Swallow Street 179 "Swan," at Hyde Park Corner . 19 Swan and Edgar's shop 24 Swift, Dean 125, 147,. 160, 175, 305, 384 and Lady Burlington 58 and Lord Oxford 188 • and the Schomberg monu- ment 333 and the Duchess of Somerset 1 14 Sydenham, Dr 108, 184, 321 Sydney, Henry 108, 358 Taglioni the dancer 137, 139 Tailors, The ; a Tragedy for Warm Weather 122, 123 Tallard, Count de, French Am- bassador 358 Talleyrand at Lansdowne House 101 at the "Travellers' Club" 338 Tamburini the baritone 136 Tangier Hall 85 Tankerville, Earls of 373 Tart Hall 316 Tassie, Mr., the sculptor 353 Tatler at " White's " 146 Tattersall's Repository 218 Taylor, William, proprietor of the Opera House 132, 135 Telescope in St. James's Park 275 Temple of Concord in the Green Park 258 Temple, Sir William, in Pall Mall 331 Ten Acres' Field 73 Tenison, Dr., rector of St. James's Church 109 Tennis Court in James Street S, 115 "Thatched House Club " 160, 162 Thatched House Court 161 "Thatched House Tavern" 160 Thompson, Mr., at " Brookes's " 157 Page Thomson the poet 183 Thornhill, Sir James 55, 56 Thorpe, Thomas, bookseller 43 " Three Cornish Crows," in Pic- cadilly 26 "Three Kings' Inn," in Picca- dilly 29 Thumb, Tom, at Egyptian Hall. 41 at St. James's Hall 24 Thurlow, Lord Chancellor 77, 161, 243, 371 Thynne's, Thomas, murder 113 " Tiddy-doll," the gingerbread seller 202 Tiernev, Right Hon. George 190 Tilt Yard, Whitehall 280 Titiens the prima donna 138 Tom of Ten Thousand — Thomas Thynne 113 Toovey's shop 43 Torrens, Colonel 181 Townshend, Charles, and Selwyn 150 Townshend, Lord John 141 Townshend's, Lord, quarrel with Sir Robert Walpole 166 Tracy, John 222, 225 " Travellers' Club " 338 Travers's, Samuel, bequest 377 Treasury, the 280 Tree, the, in Pall Mall 327 Trees in Hyde Park 245 in St. James's Park, 262, 276-279 Trimnell, Dr. Charles, rector of St. James's 109 Trinity Chapel 50 Triphook, Robert 146, 185 " Triumphal Car " at Hyde Park Corner 19 Truefitt's shop 185 Turner, Mrs. the introducer of" piccadils 14 Turnpike in Piccadilly removed to Hyde Park Corner in 1721 15 Tyburn 222 Tyburn Lane 209 Tyrrwhit, Dr. Robert, rector of St. James's 109 Ude the cook 152 " Unicorn Inn," Haymarket m, 126 " United Service Club " 1 78, 338, 339 " United Service Club, Junior" . 178 " University Club, New" 153 Upcott the bibliographer 39 Uxbridge House 77 4 135. !44, 3 6 6 " Windham Club" 367 Windmill Street, Great 174, 175 Winstanley's, H., whimsies 20 water theatre 20 Page Woffington, Peg 127 Wolcott's, Dr., quarrel with Gif- ford 40 Wood's, at the Pell Mell 326 Wood, Sir Matthew 208 Woodd's, Basil, wine-cellars 187 Worcester House 163 Wordsworth's Sonnet on Hay- dons' 's Picture of Napoleon 186 " World " Club, the 326 Wray, Sir Cecil, in Pall Mall 348 Wren, Sir C, architect of St. James's Church 103 in St. James's Street 141 Wright, publisher of the Anti- Jacobin 39 Wyatt, B. and P., architects of " Crockford's " 152 Wyatt, James, architect of "White's" 146 Wyatt, Sir Thomas 102, 213 Wyche, Sir Cyril 362 Wycherley's Plain Dealer 19 Wyndham, Sir William, in the Haymarket 112 Yarborough, Earl of 172 Yarmouth, Countess of 195 York Chambers 15 1 York, Edward, Duke of. 12 1 York, Frederick, Duke of, 27, 102, 171 York's, Duke of, column 348 York House, now the Albany 26-29 York House, St. James's 305 York House, Whitehall 280 York Street 357, 380, 381 Young, Arthur 181 Young, Patrick, Royal Librarian 303 THE END. 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