In old-world London, Leicester Square played a much more important part
than it does to-day. It was then the chosen refuge of royalty and the home
of wit and genius. Time was when it glittered with throngs of
lace-bedizened gallants; when it trembled beneath the chariot-wheels of
Beauty and Fashion; when it re-echoed with the cries of jostling chairmen
and link-boys; when it was trodden by the feet of the greatest men of a
great epoch--Newton and Swift, Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a host of
others more or less distinguished. Mr. Tom Taylor, in his interesting work
entitled "Leicester Square," tells us that the vicissitudes of a London
quarter generally tend downwards through a regular series of decades. It
is first fashionable; then it is professional; then it becomes a favourite
locality for hotels and lodging-houses; then the industrial element
predominates, and then not infrequently a still lower depth is reached.
Leicester Square has been no exception to this rule. Its reputation in
fact was becoming very shady indeed, when the improvement of its central
inclosure gave it somewhat of a start upwards and turned attention to its
early history.
Of old, many of these grand doings took place at Leicester House, which
was the first house in the Square. It was built by Robert Sidney, Earl of
Leicester, a staunch Royalist, somewhere about 1636. His sons, Viscount
Lisle and the famous Algernon Sidney, grew up less of Royalists than he
was; and to Leicester House, with the sanction and welcome of its head,
came many of the more prominent Republicans of the day, Vane and Neville,
Milton and Bradshaw, Ludlow and Lambert. The cream of history lies not so
much in a bare notation of facts as in the little touches of nature and
manners which reproduce for us the actual human life of a former age, and
much of this may be gleaned from the history of the Sidneys. They were an
interesting family, alike from their rank, their talents, their personal
beauty, and the vicissitudes of their fortunes. The Countess was a clever
managing woman; and her letters to her absent lord when ambassador in
France convey to us many pleasant details of the home-life at Leicester
House. Still more charming is it to read the pretty little billets
addressed to the Earl by his elder girls. Of these six beautiful daughters
of the house of Sidney, four were married and two died in the dawn of
early womanhood. Of the younger of these, Lady Elizabeth, the father has a
touching entry in his journal. After narrating her death, he adds: "She
had to the last the most angelical countenance and beauty, and the most
heavenly disposition and temper of mind that I think were ever seen in so
young a creature."
With her death the merry happy family life at Leicester House drew to a
close. The active bustling mother, whose influence had brought the
different jarring chords into harmony, died a few mouths afterwards; and
the busy years as they sped onwards, while consummating the fall of
Charles and consolidating the power of Cromwell, also put great and
growing disunion between the Sidney brothers. At the Restoration, Algernon
was in exile; Lord Lisle's stormy temper had alienated him from his
father; the Earl's favourite son-in-law was dead; of the three who
remained he was neither proud nor fond; and lonely and sick at heart, he
grew weary of the splendid home from which the fair faces of his handsome
children had gone for ever, and made preparations to leave it. He was
presented to Charles II.; and immediately afterwards retired to Penshurst
in Kent; and Leicester House was let, first to the ambassadors of the
United Provinces; and then to a more remarkable tenant, Elizabeth Stewart,
the ill-fated Princess and Queen of Bohemia. She had left England in 1613
a lovely happy girl, the bride of the man she loved, life stretching all
rainbow-hued before her. She returned to it a weary haggard woman of
sixty-five, who had drunk to the dregs of every possible cup of
disappointment and sorrow. Her presence was very unwelcome, as that of the
unfortunate often is. Charles II., her nephew, was very loath indeed to
have the pleasure of receiving her as a guest; but she returned to London
whether he would or not, and Leicester house was taken for her. There she
languished for a few months in feeble and broken health, and there, on the
anniversary of her wedding-day, she died.
The house immediately to the west of Leicester House belonged to the
Marquis of Aylesbury; but in 1698 it was occupied by the Marquis of
Caermarthen, who was appointed by King William III. cicerone and guide to
Peter the Great when he came in the January of that year to visit England.
Peter's great qualities have long been done full justice to; but in the
far-off January of 1698 he appeared to the English as by no means a very
august-looking potentate; he had the manners and appearance of an unkempt
barbarian, and his pastimes were those of a coal-heaver. His favourite
exercise in the mornings was to run a barrow through and through Evelyn's
trim holly-hedges at Deptford; and the state in which he left his pretty
house there is not to be described. His chief pleasure, when the duties of
the day were over, was to drink all night with the Marquis in his house at
Leicester Fields, the favourite tipple of the two distinguished topers
being brandy spiced with pepper; or sack, of which the Czar is reported to
have drunk eight bottles one day after dinner. Among other sights in
London, the Marquis took him to see Westminster Hall in full term. "Who
are all these men in wigs and gowns?" he asked. "Lawyers," was the answer.
"Lawyers!" he exclaimed. "Why, I have only two in my dominions, and when I
get back, I intend to hang one of them."
In January 1712 Leicester House, which was then occupied by the imperial
resident, received another distinguished visitor in the person of Prince
Eugene, one of the greatest captains of the age. In appearance he was a
little sallow wizened old man, with one shoulder higher than the other. A
soldier of fortune, whose origin was so humble as to be unknown, his
laurels were stained neither by rapacity nor self-seeking; and in all the
vicissitudes of his eventful life he bore himself like a hero, and a
gentleman in the truest and fullest acceptation of the word. Dean Swift
was also at this time in lodgings in Leicester Fields, noting with clear
acute unpitying vision the foibles and failings of all around him, and
writing to Stella from time to time after his cynical fashion, "how the
world is going mad after Prince Eugene, and how he went to court also, but
could not see him, the crowd was so great."
A labyrinth of courts, inns, and stable-yards had gradually filled up the
space between the royal mews and Leicester Fields; and between 1680 and
1700 several new streets were opened through these; one reason for the
opening of them being the great influx of French refugees into London, on
the occasion of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Many of
these exiles settled in and around Leicester Fields, and for their use
several chapels were built. The neighbourhood has ever since been a resort
of French immigrants.
In one of these streets opening into Leicester Square, St. Martin's
Street, Sir Isaac Newton lived for the last sixteen years of his life. The
house in which he lived looks dingy enough now; but in those days it was
considered a very good residence indeed, and Like Leicester House was
frequented by the best company in the fashionable world. The genius and
reputation of its master attracted scientific and learned visitors; and
the beauty of his niece, Mrs. Catharine Barton, drew to her feet all the
more distinguished wits and beaux of the time.
Between 1717 and 1760 Leicester House became what Pennant calls "the
pouting-place of princes," being for almost all that time in the
occupation of a Prince of Wales who was living in fierce opposition to the
reigning king. In 1718 the Prince of Wales having had a furious quarrel
with his father George I., on the occasion of the christening of the
Prince's son George William, left St. James's, and took Leicester House at
a yearly rent of five hundred pounds; and until he succeeded to the throne
in 1727, it was his town residence.
Here he held his court--a court not by any means strait-laced; a gay
little court at first; a court whose selfish intrigues and wild frolics
and madcap adventures and humdrum monotony live for us still in the
sparkling pages of Horace Walpole; or are painted in with vivid clearness
of touch and execution, but with a darker brush, by Hervey, Pope's Lord
Fanny, who was a favourite with his mistress the handsome accomplished
Caroline, Princess of Wales. Piloted by one or other of these exact
historians, we enter the chamber of the gentlewomen-in-waiting, and are
introduced to the maids-of-honour, to fair Mary Lepell, to charming Mrs.
Bellenden, to pensive, gentle Mrs. Howard. We see them eat Westphalia ham
of a morning, and then set out with their royal master for a
helter-skelter ride over hedges and ditches, on borrowed hacks. No wonder
Pope pitied them; and on their return, who should they fall in with but
that great poet himself! They are good to him in their way, these saucy
charming maids-of-honour, and so they take the frail little man under
their protection and give him his dinner; and then he finishes off the
day, he tells us, by walking three hours in the moonlight with Mary
Lepell. We can imagine the affected compliments he paid her and the
burlesque love he made to her; and the fun she and her sister
maids-of-honour would have laughing over it all, when she went back to
Leicester House and he returned to his pretty villa at Twickenham.
As the Prince grew older his court became more and more dull, till at last
it was almost deserted, when on the 14th of June 1727 the loungers in its
half-empty chambers were roused by sudden news--George I. was dead; and
Leicester House was thronged by a sudden rush of obsequious courtiers,
among whom was the late king's prime-minister, bluff, jolly, coarse Sir
Robert Walpole. No one paid any attention to him, for every one knew that
his disgrace was sealed; the new king had never been at any pains to
conceal his dislike to him. Sir Robert, however, knew better; he was quite
well aware who was to be the real ruler of England now; and he knew that
the Princess Caroline had already accepted him, just as she accepted La
Walmoden and her good Howard; and so all alone in his corner he chuckled
to himself as he saw the crowd of sycophants elbow and jostle and push
poor Lady Walpole as she tried to make her way to the royal feet. Caroline
saw it too, and with a flash of half-scornful mischief lighting up her
shrewd eyes, said with a smile: "Sure, there I see a friend." Instantly
the human stream parted, and made way for her Ladyship.
In 1728 Frederick, the eldest son of George and Caroline, arrived from
Hanover, where he had remained since his birth in 1707. It was a fatal
mistake; he came to England a stranger to his parents, and with his place
in their hearts already filled by his brother. It was inevitable that
where there was no mutual love, distrust and alienation should come, as in
no long time they did, with the result that the same pitiful drama was
played out again on the same stage. In 1743 Frederick Prince of Wales took
Leicester House and held his receptions there. He was fond of gaiety, and
had a succession of balls, masques, plays, and supper-parties. His tastes,
as was natural considering his rearing, were foreign, and Leicester House
was much frequented by foreigners of every grade. Desnoyers the
dancing-master was a favourite habitue, as was also the charlatan
St-Germain. In the midst of all this fiddling and buffoonery the Prince
fell ill; but not so seriously as to cause uneasiness to any one around
him; consequently all the world was taken by surprise when he suddenly
died one morning in the arms of his friend the dancing-master. After his
death his widow remained at Leicester House, and like a sensible woman as
she was, made her peace with the king her father-in-law, who ever
afterwards shewed himself very kind and friendly to her.
In October 1760 George III. was proclaimed king; and again a crowd of
courtiers thronged to Leicester House to kiss the hand of the new
sovereign. For six years longer the Princess of Wales continued to live at
Leicester House; and there in 1765 her youngest son died, and the
following year she removed to Carlton House.
While the quarrel between George II. and Frederick was at its fiercest,
the central inclosure of Leicester Square was re-arranged very elegantly
according to the taste of the day; and an equestrian statue of George I.,
which had belonged to the first Duke of Chandos and had been bought at the
sale of his effects, was set up in front of Leicester House, where it
remained, a dazzling object at first, in all the glory of gilding, which
passed with the populace for gold; but latterly a most wretched relic of
the past, an eyesore, which was removed in 1874 in the course of Baron
Grant's improvements.
Leicester Square had other tenants beside Sir Isaac Newton, compared with
whom courtiers and gallants and fine gentlemen and ladies look very small
indeed. Hogarth lived in this street, and so did Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Hogarth's house was the last but two on the east side of the Square. Here
he established himself, a young struggling man, with Jane Thornhill, the
wife with whom he had made a stolen love-match. In this house, with the
quaint sign of the Golden Head over the door, he worked, not as painters
generally do, at a multitude of detached pieces, but depicting with his
vivid brush a whole series of popular allegories on canvas. When he became
rich, as in process of time he did, he had a house at Chiswick; but he
still retained the Golden Head as his town-house, and in 1764 returned to
it to die.
In No. 47 Sir Joshua Reynolds lived, and painted those charming portraits
which have immortalised for us all that was most beautiful and famous in
his epoch. He was a kindly genial lovable man, fond of society, and with a
liking for display. He had a wonderful carriage, with the four seasons
curiously painted in on the panels, and the wheels ornamented with carved
foliage and gilding. The servants in attendance on this chariot wore
silver-laced liveries; and as he had no time to drive in it himself, he
made his sister take a daily airing in it, much to her discomfort, for she
was a homely little lady with very simple tastes. He was a great dinner
giver; and as it was his custom to ask every pleasant person he met
without any regard to the preparation made to receive them, it may be
conjectured that there was often a want of the commonest requisites of the
dinner-table. Even knives, forks, and glasses could not always be procured
at first. But although his dinners partook very much of the nature of
unceremonious scrambles, they were thoroughly enjoyable. Whatever was
awanting, there was always cheerfulness and the pleasant kindly
interchange of thought. In July 1792 Sir Joshua died in his own house in
Leicester Square; and within a few hours of his death, an obituary notice
of him was written by Burke, the manuscript of which was blotted with his
tears.
In No. 28, on the eastern side of the Square, the celebrated anatomist
John Hunter lived. Like most distinguished men of the day, he sat to Sir
Joshua Reynolds for his portrait; but was so restless and preoccupied that
he made a very bad sitter. At last one day he fell into a reverie. The
happy moment had come; Sir Joshua, with his instinctive tact, caught the
expression and presented to us the great surgeon in one of his most
characteristic attitudes. The other celebrated surgeons, Cruickshank and
Charles Bell, also lived in this Square. The house in which Bell resided
for many years was large and ruinous, and had once been inhabited by
Speaker Onslow. Here he set up his Museum, and began to lecture on
anatomy, having for a long time, he writes, scarcely forty pupils to
lecture to.
During all the later portion of its history Leicester Square has been
famous for shows. In 1771 Sir Ashton Lever exhibited a large and curious
Museum in Leicester House. In 1796 Charles Dibdin built at Nos. 2 and 3,
on the east side of Leicester Square, a small theatre in which he gave an
entertainment consisting of an interesting medley of anecdote and song. In
1787 Miss Linwood opened her gallery of pictures in needlework, an
exhibition which lasted forty-seven years, for the last thirty-five of
which it was exhibited at Savile House, a building which was destroyed by
fire in 1865.
After Miss Linwood's, one of the best shows in Leicester Square was
Burford's Panorama, which is now numbered with the things that were, its
site being occupied by a French chapel and school. In 1851 a new show was
inaugurated by Mr. Wylde the geographer. It consisted of a monster globe
sixty feet in diameter, which occupied the central dome of a building
erected in the garden of the Square. The world was figured in relief on
the inside of it, and it was viewed from several galleries at different
elevations. It was exhibited for ten years, and was then taken down by its
proprietor, owing to a dispute concerning the ownership of the garden. Out
of this case, which was decided in 1867, the proceedings originated which
resulted in the purchase and renovation of the garden by Baron Grant, who
having once more made it trim and neat, handed it over to the Board of
Works.--_Chambers's Journal._