_Sir John Vanbrugh_ (Vol. viii., pp. 65. 160. 232.).--Are not your
correspondents on the wrong scent as regards the birthplace of Sir John
Vanbrugh? In the memoir prefixed to the collection of his _Plays_, 2 vols.
12mo., 1759, it is said:
"Sir John Vanbrugh, an eminent dramatic writer, son of Mr. Giles
Vanbrugh of London, merchant, was born in the parish of St. Stephen's,
Walbrook, in 1666. The family of Vanbrugh were for many years merchants
of great credit and reputation at Antwerp, and came into England in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth, on account of the persecution for religion."
Mr. Cunningham (_Handbook of London_, p. 282.) speaks of _William_
Vanderbergh, the supposed father of Sir John, as residing in
Lawrence-Poultney Lane in 1677. He refers to Strype's map of Walbrook and
Dowgate wards, and _A Collection of the Names of the Merchants living in
and about the City of London_, 12mo. 1677.
The writer of the notice of Sir John Vanbrugh in Chambers' _Cyclopaedia of
English Literature_, vol. i. p. 597., says:
"Vanbrugh was the son of a successful sugar-baker, who rose to be an
esquire, and comptroller of the treasury chamber, besides marrying the
daughter of Sir Dudley Carlton. It is doubtful whether the dramatist
was born in the French Bastile, or the parish of St. Stephen's,
Walbrook. The time of his birth was about the year 1666, when Louis
XIV. declared war against England. It is certain he was in France at
the age of nineteen, and remained there some years."
The family vault of the Vanbrughs is certainly in St. Stephen's Church,
Walbrook, where Sir John was buried on the 30th of March, 1726.