We have already shown pretty clearly, how high is the opinion we
entertain of the value of our able contributor Mr. Peter Cunningham's
amusing _Handbook for London_, by the insertion of numerous Notes _upon_
his first edition. We will now give our readers an opportunity of
judging how much the second edition, which is just published, has been
improved through the further researches of that gentleman, by giving
them a few Notes _from_ it, consisting entirely of new matter, and very
curious withal. When we add that the work is now enriched by a very
copious Index of Names, it will readily be seen how much the value and
utility of the book has been increased.
_Hanover Square._--"The statue of William Pitt, by Sir Francis Chantrey,
set up in the year 1831, is of bronze, and cost 7000l. I was present at
its erection with Sir Francis Chantrey and my father, who was Chantrey's
assistant. The statue was placed on its pedestal between seven and eight
in the morning, and while the workmen were away at their breakfasts, a
rope was thrown round the neck of the figure, and a vigorous attempt
made by several sturdy Reformers to pull it down. When word of what they
were about was brought to my father, he exclaimed, with a smile {436}
upon his face, 'The cramps are leaded, and they may pull to doomsday.'
The cramps are the iron bolts fastening the statue to the pedestal. The
attempt was soon abandoned."
_Hyde Park Corner._--"There were cottages here in 1655; and the middle
of the reign of George II. till the erection of Apsely House, the small
entrance gateway was flanked on its east site by a poor tenement known
as 'Allen's stall.' Allen, whose wife kept a moveable apple-stall at the
park entrance, was recognised by George II. as an old soldier at the
battle of Dettingen, and asked (so pleased was the King at meeting the
veteran) 'what he could do for him.' Allen, after some hesitation, asked
for a piece of ground for a permanent apple-stall at Hyde Park Corner,
and a grant was made to him of a piece of ground which his children
afterwards sold to Apsley, Lord Bathurst. Mr. Crace has a careful
drawing of the Hyde Park Corner, showing Allen's stall and the Hercules'
Pillars."
_Pall Mall._--"Mr. Fox told Mr. Rogers, that Sydenham was sitting at his
window looking on the Mall, with his pipe in his mouth and a silver
tankard before him, when a fellow made a snatch at the tankard, and ran
off with it. Nor was he overtaken, said Fox, before he got among the
bushes in Bond Street, and there they lost him."
_Lansdowne House._--"The iron bars at the two ends of Lansdowne Passage
(a near cut from Curzon Street to Hay Hill) were put up late in the last
century, in consequence of a mounted highwayman, who had committed a
robbery in Piccadilly, having escaped from his pursuers through this
narrow passage by riding his horse up the steps. This anecdote was told
by the late Thomas Grenville to Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis. It occurred
while George Grenville was Minister, the robber passing his residence in
Bolton Street full gallop."
_Newcastle House._--"The old and expensive custom of 'vails-giving,'
received its death-glow at Newcastle House. Sir Timothy Waldo, on his
way from the Duke's dinner table to his carriage, put a crown into the
hand of the cook, who returned it, saying: 'Sir, I do not take silver.'
'Don't you, indeed?' said Sir Timothy, putting it in his pocket; 'then I
do not give gold.' Hanway's 'Eight Letters to the Duke of ----,' had
their origin in Sir Timothy's complaint."
_Red Lion Square._--"The benevolent Jonas Hanway, the traveller, lived
and died (1786) in a house in Red Lion Square, the principal rooms of
which he decorated with paintings and emblematical devices, 'in a
style,' says his biographer, 'peculiar to himself.' 'I found,' he used
to say, when speaking of these ornaments, 'that my countrymen and women
were not _au fait_ in the art of conversation, and that instead of
recurring to their cards, when the discourse began to flag, the minutes
between the time of assembling and the placing the card-tables are spent
in an irksome suspense. To relieve this vacuum in social intercourse and
prevent cards from engrossing the whole of my visitors' minds, I have
presented them with objects the most attractive I could imagine--and
when that fails there are the cards.' Hanway was the first man who
ventured to walk the streets of London with an umbrella over his head.
After carrying one near thirty years, he saw them come into general
use."
_Downing Street._--"Baron Bothmar's house was part of the forfeited
property of Lee, Lord Lichfield, who retired with James II., to whom he
was Master of the Horse. At the beginning of the present century there
was no other official residence in the street than the house which
belonged, by right of office, to the First Lord of the Treasury, but by
degrees one house was bought after another: first the Foreign Office,
increased afterwards by three other houses; then the Colonial Office;
then the house in the north corner, which was the Judge Advocate's,
since added to the Colonial Office; then a house for the Chancellor of
the Exchequer; and lastly, a whole row of lodging-houses, chiefly for
Scotch and Irish members."
_Whitehall._--"King Charles I. was executed on a scaffold erected in
front of the Banqueting House, towards the park. The warrant directs
that he should be executed 'in the open street before Whitehall.' Lord
Leicester tells us in his Journal, that he was 'beheaded at Whitehall
Gate.' Dugdale, in his _Diary_, that he was 'beheaded at the gate of
Whitehall;' and a single sheet of the time reserved in the British
Museum, that 'the King was beheaded at Whitehall Gate.' There cannot,
therefore, be a doubt that the scaffold was erected in front of the
building facing the present Horse Guards. We now come to the next point
which has excited some discussion. It appears from Herbert's minute
account of the King's last moments, that 'the King was led all along the
galleries and Banqueting House, and there was a passage _broken through
the wall_, by which the king passed unto the scaffold.' This seems
particular enough, and leads, it is said, to a conclusion that the
scaffold was erected on the north side. Where the passage was broken
through, one thing is certain, the scaffold was erected on the west
side, or, in other words, 'in the open street,' now called Whitehall;
and that the King, as Ludlow relates in his Memoirs, 'was conducted to
the scaffold out of the window of the Banqueting House.' Ludlow, who
tells us this, was one of the regicides, and what he states, simply and
straightforwardly, is confirmed by any engraving of the execution,
published at Amsterdam in the same year, and by the following memorandum
of Vertue's on the copy of Terasson's large engraving of the Banqueting
House, preserved in the library of the Society of Antiquaries:--'It is,
according to the truest reports, said that out of this window King
Charles went upon the scaffold to be beheaded, the window-frame being
taken out purposely to make the passage on to the scaffold, which is
equal to the landing-place of the hall within side.' The window marked
by Vertue belonged to a small building abutting from the north side of
the present Banqueting House. From this window, then the King stept upon
the scaffold."
We shall probably next week indulge in a few QUERIES which have
suggested themselves to us, and to which Mr. Cunningham will perhaps be
good enough to reply.
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