No Gentlemen or Ladies to be admitted with nails in their
shoes.[33]
For the information of the collectors of Bunbury’s prints, I beg to
state that there is in Mrs. Banks’s collection of visiting cards, etc.,
in the British Museum, a small etching said to have been his very first
attempt when at Westminster School. It represents a fellow riding a hog,
brandishing a birch-broom by way of a baster, with another at a short
distance, hallooing.
As Mr. Walpole is silent as to Jonathan Richardson’s place of interment,
the biographical collector will find the following inscription in the
burial-ground behind the Foundling Hospital, belonging to the parish of
St. George the Martyr:--
Elizabeth Richardson,
Died 24th Dec. 1767,
Aged 74 years.
Jonathan Richardson,
Died 10th June, 1771,
Aged 77; both of this parish.[34]
1771.
The gaiety during the merry month of May was to me most delightful; my
feet, though I knew nothing of the positions, kept pace with those of the
blooming milkmaids, who danced round their garlands of massive plate,
hired from the silversmiths to the amount of several hundreds of pounds,
for the purpose of placing round an obelisk, covered with silk fixed upon
a chairman’s horse. The most showy flowers of the season were arranged
so as to fill up the openings between the dishes, plates, butter-boats,
cream-jugs, and tankards. This obelisk was carried by two chairmen in
gold-laced hats, six or more handsome milkmaids in pink and blue gowns,
drawn through the pocket-holes, for they had one on either side: yellow
or scarlet petticoats, neatly quilted, high-heeled shoes, mob-caps, with
lappets of lace resting on their shoulders; nosegays in their bosoms,
and flat Woffington hats, covered with ribbons of every colour. But what
crowned the whole of the display was a magnificent silver tea-urn which
surmounted the obelisk, the stand of which was profusely decorated with
scarlet tulips. A smart, slender fellow of a fiddler, commonly wearing
a sky-blue coat, with his hat profusely covered with ribbons, attended;
and the master of the group was accompanied by a constable, to protect
the plate from too close a pressure of the crowd, when the maids danced
before the doors of his customers.[35]
One of the subjects selected by Mr. Jonathan Tyers, for the artists who
decorated the boxes for supper-parties in Vauxhall Gardens,[36] was that
of Milkmaids on May-day. In that picture (which, with the rest painted
by Hayman and his pupils, has lately disappeared) the garland of plate
was carried by a man on his head; and the milkmaids, who danced to the
music of a wooden-legged fiddler, were extremely elegant. They had
ruffled cuffs, and their gowns were not drawn through their pocket-holes
as in my time; their hats were flat, and not unlike that worn by Peg
Woffington, but bore a nearer shape to those now in use by some of the
fish-women at Billingsgate. In Captain M. Laroon’s _Cries of London_,
published by Tempest, there is a female entitled “A Merry Milkmaid.”[37]
She is dancing with a small garland of plate upon her head; and from her
dress I conclude that the Captain either made his drawing in the latter
part of King William III.’s reign, or at the commencement of that of
Queen Anne.
1772.
My dear mother’s declining state of health urged my father to consult Dr.
Armstrong,[38] who recommended her to rise early and take milk at the
cowhouse. I was her companion then; and I well remember that, after we
had passed Portland Chapel, there were fields all the way on either side.
The highway was irregular, with here and there a bank of separation;
and that when we had crossed the New Road, there was a turnstile (called
in an early plan, which I have seen since, “The White House”), at the
entrance of a meadow leading to a little old public-house, the sign of
the “Queen’s Head and Artichoke”: it was much weather-beaten, though
perhaps once a tolerably good portrait of Queen Elizabeth. The house was
reported to have been kept by one of Her Majesty’s gardeners.[39]
A little beyond a nest of small houses contiguous, was another turnstile
opening also into fields, over which we walked to the Jew’s Harp House,
Tavern and Tea Gardens.[40] It consisted of a large upper room, ascended
by an outside staircase, for the accommodation of the company on ball
nights; and in this room large parties dined. At the south front of
these premises was a large semicircular enclosure with boxes for tea and
ale drinkers, guarded by deal-board soldiers between every box, painted
in proper colours. In the centre of this opening were tables and seats
placed for the smokers. On the eastern side of the house there was a
trapball-ground; the western side served for a tennis-hall; there were
also public and private skittle-grounds. Behind this tavern were several
small tenements, with a pretty good portion of ground to each. On the
south of the tea-gardens a number of summer-houses and gardens, fitted up
in the truest Cockney taste; for on many of these castellated edifices
wooden cannons were placed; and at the entrance of each domain, of about
the twentieth part of an acre, the old inscription of “Steel-traps and
spring-guns _all over_ these grounds,” with an “N.B. Dogs trespassing
will be shot.”
In these rural retreats the tenant was usually seen on Sunday evening
in a bright scarlet waistcoat, ruffled shirt, and silver shoe-buckles,
comfortably taking his tea with his family, honouring a Seven-Dial friend
with a nod on his peregrination to the famed Wells of Kilburn. Willan’s
farm,[41] the extent of my mother’s walk, stood at about a quarter of a
mile south; and I remember that the room in which she sat to take the
milk was called “Queen Elizabeth’s Kitchen,” and that there was some
stained glass in the windows.
On our return we crossed the New Road; and, after passing the back of
Marylebone Gardens,[42] entered London immediately behind the elegant
mansions on the north side of Cavendish Square. This Square was enclosed
by a dwarf brick wall, surmounted by heavy wooden railing. Harley Fields
had for years been resorted to by thousands of people, to hear the
celebrated Mr. George Whitefield, whose wish, like that of Wesley, when
preaching on execution days at Kennington Common, was to catch the ears
of the idlers. I should have noticed Kendall’s farm,[43] which in 1746
belonged to a farmer of the name of Bilson, a pretty large one, where I
have seen eight or ten immense hay-ricks all on a row; it stood on the
site of the commencement of the present Osnaburg Street, nearly opposite
the “Green Man,” originally called the “Farthing Pie House.”[44]
[Illustration: “SING _TANTARARA_--VAUXHALL! VAUXHALL!”]
To the honour of our climate, which is often abused, perhaps no country
can produce instances of longevity equal to those of England of this
year, viz.:--at 100, 2; 101, 5; 102, 6; 103, 3; 105, 4; 106, 3; 107, 4;
108, 5; 109, 4; 110, 2; 111, 2; 112, 3; 114, 1; 118, 1; 125, Rice, a
cooper in Southwark; 133, Mrs. Keithe, at Newnham, in Gloucestershire;
138, the widow Chun, at Ophurst, near Lichfield.[45]
1773.
The “Mother Red-cap,” at Kentish Town, was a house of no small terror
to travellers in former times. This house was lately taken down, and
another inn built on its site; however, the old sign of “Mother Red-cap”
is preserved on the new building. It has been stated that Mother Red-cap
was the “Mother Damnable” of Kentish Town in early days; and that it was
at her house the notorious “Moll Cut-purse,” the highway-woman of the
time of Oliver Cromwell, dismounted and frequently lodged.[46]
As few persons possess so retentive a memory as myself, I make no doubt
that many will be pleased with my recollections of the state of Tottenham
Court Road at this time. I shall commence at St. Giles’s churchyard, in
the northern wall of which there was a gateway of red and brown brick.
Over this gate, under its pediment, was a carved composition of the Last
Judgment, not borrowed from Michael Angelo, but from the workings of
the brain of some ship-carver.[47] This was and is still admired by the
generality of ignorant observers, as much as Mr. Charles Smith[48] the
sculptor’s “Love among the Roses” is by the well-informed; and, perhaps,
a more correct assertion was never made than that by the late worthy Rev.
James Bean,[49] when speaking of an itinerant musician, “that bad music
was as agreeable to a bad ear as that of Corelli or Pergolesi was to
persons who understood the science.”
At this gate stood for many years an eccentric but inoffensive old man
called “Simon,” some account of whom will be found in a future page.
Nearly on the site of the new gate, in which this _basso relievo_ has
been most conspicuously placed, stood a very small old house towards
Denmark Street, tottering for several years whenever a heavy carriage
rolled through the street, to the great terror of those who were at the
time passing by.
I must not forget to observe that I recollect the building of most of the
houses at the north end of New Compton Street (Dean Street and Compton
Street, Soho, were named in compliment to Bishop Compton, Dean of St.
Paul’s, who held the living of St. Anne), and I also remember a row of
six small almshouses, surrounded by a dwarf brick wall, standing in the
middle of High Street.[50]
On the left-hand of High Street, passing on to Tottenham Court Road,
there were four handsomely finished brick houses, with grotesque masks
on the key-stones above the first-floor windows, probably erected in
the reign of Queen Anne. These houses have lately been rebuilt without
the masks; fortunately my reader may be gratified with a sight of such
ornaments in Queen Square, Westminster.[51] There is a set of engravings
of masks, of a small quarto size, considered as the designs of Michael
Angelo; and in the sale of Mr. Moser, the first keeper of the Royal
Academy, which took place at Hutchinson’s in 1783, were several plaster
casts, considered to be taken from models by him. The next object of
notoriety is a large circular boundary stone, let into the pavement in
the middle of the highway, exactly where Oxford Street and Tottenham
Court Road meet in a right angle. When the charity boys of St. Giles’s
parish walk the boundaries, those who have deserved flogging are whipped
at this stone, in order that, as they grow up, they may remember the
place, and be competent to give evidence should any dispute arise with
the adjoining parishes. Near this stone stood St. Giles’s Pound.[52]
Two old houses stood near this spot on the eastern side of the street,
where the entrance gates of Meux’s brewery have been erected: between the
second-floor windows of one of them the following inscription was cut in
stone: “Opposite this house stood St. Giles’s Pound.” This spot has been
rendered popular by a song, attributed to the pen of a Mr. Thompson, an
actor of the Drury Lane Company:
“On Newgate steps Jack Chance was found,
Bred up near St. Giles’s Pound.”[53]
The ground behind the north-west end of Russell Street was occupied by a
farm occupied by two old maiden sisters of the name of Capper. They wore
riding-habits, and men’s hats; one rode an old grey mare, and it was her
spiteful delight to ride with a large pair of shears after boys who were
flying their kites, purposely to cut their strings; the other sister’s
business was to seize the clothes of the lads who trespassed on their
premises to bathe.[54]
From Capper’s farm were several straggling houses; but the principal part
of the ground to the “King’s Head,” at the end of the road, was unbuilt
upon. The “Old King’s Head” forms a side object in Hogarth’s beautiful
and celebrated picture of the “March to Finchley,” which may be seen with
other fine specimens of art in the Foundling Hospital, for the charitable
donation of one shilling.
I shall now recommence on the left-hand side of the road, noticing that
on the front of the first house, No. 1, in Oxford Street, near the
second-floor windows, is the following inscription cut in stone: OXFORD
STREET, 1725. In Aggas’s plan of London, engraved in the beginning of the
reign of Queen Elizabeth, the commencement of this street is designated
“The Waye to Uxbridge”; farther on in the same plan the highway is called
“Oxford Road.” Hanway Street, better known by the vulgar people under
the name of HANOVER YARD, was at this time the resort of the highest
fashion for mercery and other articles of dress. The public-house, the
sign of the “Blue Posts,” at the corner of Hanway Street, in Tottenham
Court Road, was once kept by a man of the name of Sturges, deep in the
knowledge of chess, upon which game he published a little work, as is
acknowledged on his tombstone in St. James’s burial-ground, Hampstead
Road.[55] From the “Blue Posts” the houses were irregularly built to a
large space called Gresse’s Gardens, thence to Windmill Street, strongly
recommended by physicians for the salubrity of the air. The premises
occupied by the French charity children were held by the founders of the
Middlesex Hospital, which were established in 1755, where the patients
remained until the present building was erected in Charles Street.
Colvill Court, parallel with Windmill Street northward, was built in
1766; and Goodge Street,[56] farther on, was, I conjecture, erected
much about the same time. Mr. Whitefield’s chapel was built in 1754,
upon the site of an immense pond, called THE LITTLE SEA. This pond, so
called, is inserted in Pine and Tinney’s plan of London, published in
1742, and also in the large one issued by the same persons in 1746.[57]
Beyond the chapel[58] the four dwellings, then called “Paradise Row,”
almost terminated the houses on that side. A turnstile opened into
Crab-tree Fields.[59] They extended to the “Adam and Eve” public-house,
the original appearance of which Hogarth has also introduced into his
picture of the “March to Finchley.” It was at this house that the famous
pugilistic skill of Broughton and Slack was publicly exhibited, upon an
uncovered stage, in a yard open to the North Road.[60]
[Illustration: GEORGE WHITEFIELD
“Fain would I die preaching.”]
The rare and beautiful etching of the before-mentioned picture by Hogarth
was the production of Luke Sullivan,[61] a native of Ireland, but how
he acquired his knowledge of art I have not been able to learn; most
probably he was of Dame Nature’s school, where pupils can be taught
gratis the whole twenty-four hours of every day as long as the world
lasts. Sullivan’s talents were not confined to the art of engraving;
he was, in my humble opinion, the most extraordinary of all miniature
painters. I have three or four of his productions, one of which was so
particularly fine, that I could almost say I have it on my retina at
this moment. It was the portrait of a most lovely woman as to features,
flesh, and blood. She was dressed in a pale green silk gown, lapelled
with straw-coloured satin; and in order to keep up a sweetness of tone,
the artist had placed primroses in her stomacher; the sky was of a warm
green, which blended harmoniously with the carnations of her complexion;
her hair was jet, and her necklace of pearls.
Lord Orford, whose early attachment to the sleepy-eyed beauties of King
Charles II.’s Court, and those with the lascivious leer of that of Louis
XIV., as may be inferred by their numerous portraits in the cabinets at
Strawberry Hill, would no doubt have preferred his favourites, Cooper
and Petitot--names eternally, and many times unjustly, extolled by the
admirers of their works to the injury of our artists, whose talents
equal, if not surpass, those of every country put together, in, I think
I may say, every branch of the fine arts. Upon this too general opinion
of the pre-eminence of Petitot, I have now and then had a battle with Mr.
Paul Fischer, the miniature painter, who certainly has produced some most
highly finished and excellent likenesses of the Royal Family and several
persons of fashion, particularly of King George IV. and Sir Wathen
Waller, Bart.[62]
Notwithstanding Tottenham Court Road was so infested by the lowest order,
who kept what they called a Gooseberry Fair,[63] it was famous at certain
times of the year, particularly in summer, for its booths of regular
theatrical performers, who deserted the empty benches of Drury Lane
Theatre, under the mismanagement of Mr. Fleetwood,[64] and condescended
to admit the audience at sixpence each. Mr. Yates, and several other
eminent performers, had their names painted on their booths.
The whole of the ground north from Capper’s farm, at the back of the
British Museum, so often mentioned as being frequented by duellists, was
in irregular patches, many fields with turnstiles. The pipes of the New
River Company were propped up in several parts to the height of six and
eight feet, so that persons walked under them to gather watercresses,
which grew in great abundance and perfection, or to visit the “Brothers’
Steps,” well known to the Londoners. Of these steps there are many
traditionary stories; the one generally believed is, that two brothers
were in love with a lady, who would not declare a preference for either,
but coolly sat upon a bank to witness the termination of a duel, which
proved fatal to both. The bank, it is said, on which she sat, and the
footmarks of the brothers when pacing the ground, never produced grass
again. The fact is that these steps were so often trodden that it was
impossible for the grass to grow. I have frequently passed over them;
they were in a field on the site of Mr. Martin’s chapel, or very nearly
so, and not on the spot as communicated to Miss Porter, who has written
an entertaining novel on the subject.[65]
Aubrey, in his _Miscellanies_, states: “The last summer, on the day of
St. John Baptist (1694), I accidentally was walking in the pasture behind
Montague House; it was twelve o’clock. I saw there about two or three and
twenty young women, most of them well habited, on their knees very busie,
as if they had been weeding. I could not presently learn what the matter
was; at last a young man told me that they were looking for a coal under
the root of a plantain to put under their heads that night, and they
should dream who would be their husbands. It was to be found that day and
hour.”[66]
[Illustration: JOHN RANN
“Sixteen String Jack.”]
1774.
I well remember when, in my eighth year, my father’s playfellow, Mr.
Joseph Nollekens, leading me by the hand to the end of John Street, to
see the notorious terror of the king’s highways, John Rann, commonly
called Sixteen-string Jack, on his way to execution at Tyburn, for
robbing Dr. Bell, Chaplain to the Princess Amelia, in Gunnesbury Lane.
The Doctor died a Prebendary of Westminster. It was pretty generally
reported that the sixteen strings worn by this freebooter at his
knees were in allusion to the number of times he had been acquitted.
Fortunately for the Boswell illustrators, there is an etched portrait
of him; for, be it known, thief as he was, he had the honour of being
recorded by Dr. Johnson.[67] Rann was a smart fellow, a great favourite
with a certain description of _ladies_, and had been coachman to Lord
Sandwich, when his Lordship resided in the south-east corner-house of
Bedford Row. The malefactor’s coat was a bright pea-green; he had an
immense nosegay, which he had received from the hand of one of the frail
sisterhood, whose practice it was in those days to present flowers to
their favourites from the steps of St. Sepulchre’s church, as the
last token of what they called their attachment to the condemned,[68]
whose worldly accounts were generally brought to a close at Tyburn, in
consequence of their associating with abandoned characters. On our return
home, Mr. Nollekens, stooping close to my ear, assured me that, had his
father-in-law, Mr. Justice Welch, been high constable, we could have
walked all the way to Tyburn by the side of the cart.[69]
At this time houses in High Street, Marylebone, particularly on the
western side, continued to be inhabited by families who kept their
coaches, and who considered themselves as living in the country, and
perhaps their family affairs were as well known as they could have been
had they resided at Kilburn.[70] In Marylebone, great and wealthy people
of former days could hardly stir an inch without being noticed; indeed,
so lately as the year 1728, the _Daily Journal_ assured the public that
“many persons arrived in London from their country-houses in Marylebone”;
and the same publication, dated October 15th, conveys the following
intelligence:--
“The Right Hon. Sir Robert Walpole comes to town this day from Chelsea.”
The following lines were inserted by the late Sir William Musgrave, in
his _Adversaria_ (No. 5721):--
“Sir Robert Walpole in great haste
Cryed, ‘Where’s my fellow gone?’
It was answered by a man of taste,
‘Your fellow, Sir, there’s none.’”
One Sunday morning my mother allowed me, before we entered the little
church[71] in High Street, Marylebone, to stand to see the young
gentlemen of Mr. Fountayne’s boarding-school cross the road, while the
bell was chiming for sacred duties. I remember well a summer’s sun shone
with full refulgence at the time, and my youthful eyes were dazzled with
the various colours of the dresses of the youths, who walked two and
two, some in pea-green, others sky-blue, and several in the brightest
scarlet; many of them wore gold-laced hats, while the flowing locks of
others, at that time allowed to remain uncut at schools, fell over
their shoulders. To the best of my recollection, the scholars amounted
to about one hundred. As the pleasurable and often idle scenes of my
schoolboy days are pictured upon my retina whenever Crouch End, or the
name of my venerable master, Norton,[72] are mentioned, and as others may
feel similar delight with respect to the places at which they received
their early education, I shall endeavour to gratify a few of my readers
by a description of the house and playground of Mr. Fountayne’s academy.
For this purpose it may not be irrelevant to notice something of the
antiquity of that once splendid mansion, in which so many persons have
passed their early and innocent hours.
Topographers who mention Marylebone Park inform us that foreign
ambassadors were in the time of Queen Elizabeth and James I. amused there
by hunting, and that the oldest parts of this school were the remains of
the palace in which they were entertained. The earliest topographical
representation which I am enabled to instance, is a drawing made by
Joslin, dated 1700, formerly in the possession of his Grace the Duke
of Buckingham, of which I published an etching. It comprehends the
field-gate and palace, its surrounding walls and adjacent buildings in
Marylebone to the south-west, including a large mansion, which in all
probability had been Oxford House, the grand receptacle of the Harleian
Library. Fortune, I am sorry to say, has not favoured me with the power
of continuing the declining history of the palace to the period at which
it became an academy, nor can I discover the time in which Monsieur de
la Place first occupied it.[73] A daughter of De la Place married the
Rev. Mr. Fountayne,[74] whose name the school retained until its final
demolition in 1791, at which period I remember seeing the large stone
balls taken from the brick piers of the gates.
Of this house, when a school, I recollect a miserably executed plate
by Roberts, probably for some magazine; there is also a quarto plate
displaying a knowledge in perspective, engraved by G. T. Parkyns, from
a drawing by J. C. Barrow;[75] but the most interesting, and I must
consider the most correct, are four drawings made by Michael Angelo
Rooker,[76] formerly in my possession, but now in the illustrated copy
of Pennant’s _London_ in the British Museum.[77] These have enabled me
to insert the following description of a few parts of the mansion.
The first drawing is a view of the principal and original front of the
palace, or manor-house, with other buildings open to the playground;
it was immediately within the wall on the east side of the road, then
standing upon the site of the present Devonshire Mews. This house
consisted of an immense body and two wings, a projecting porch in
the front, and an enormously deep dormer roof, supported by numerous
cantilevers, in the centre of which there was, within a very bold
pediment, a shield surmounted by foliage with labels below it. The second
drawing exhibits the back, or garden front, which consisted of a flat
face with a bay window at each end, glazed in quarries;[78] the wall of
the back front terminated with five gables. In the midst of some shrubs
stands a tall, lusty gentleman dressed in black, with a white Busby-wig
and a three-cornered hat, possibly intended for the figure of the Rev.
Mr. Fountayne, as he is directing the gardener to distribute some plants.
The third drawing, which is taken from the hall, exhibits the grand
staircase, the first flight of which consisted of sixteen steps; the
hand-rails were supported with richly carved perforated foliage, from its
style, probably of the period of Inigo Jones. The fourth drawing consists
of the decorations of the staircase, which was tessellated. This mansion
was wholly of brick, and surmounted by a large turret containing the
clock and bell. Mr. Fountayne was noticed by Handel as well as Clarke,
the celebrated Greek scholar.[79] These gentlemen frequently indulged
in musical parties, which were attended by persons of rank and worth, as
well as fashion and folly.
[Illustration: LONDON BEGGARS