Wanderings in Piccadilly
Mayfair and
Pall Mall
[Illustration: GARDENS OF CARLTON HOUSE IN 1784.]
Wanderings in London
Piccadilly, Mayfair
and Pall Mall
BY
E. BERESFORD CHANCELLOR, M.A.
F.R. Hist: Soc:
Author of
“THE SQUARES OF LONDON,” ETC.
WITH
TWENTY ILLUSTRATIONS OF OLD LONDON
(Four of them in Colour)
JAMES POTT & CO.
NEW YORK
1909
WANDERINGS IN LONDON
PICCADILLY, MAYFAIR
AND PALL MALL
To facilitate the “Wanderings”
of inexperienced pilgrims, more
especially of those from America, a
MAP OF THE DISTRICT
will be found within the two covers
of the book; that in the front giving
the more eastern, and that in the
back the more western limits of the
district concerned.
WARD & CO.
COLOUR PRINTERS
33 & 34 Craven Street
CHARING CROSS
LONDON, W.C.
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE
Old London vanishes, another London takes its place; the interesting
old spots associated with the leisurely life and refinement of the
century that has gone, are being swept away one by one. In many ways we
would welcome a return of those dear old days, with their appreciation
of the _belles lettres_ and the fine arts, and with all their oddities
and quaint customs, but they have gone for ever. They played their part
in the development of the national life: to us they are but memories.
We owe no small debt of gratitude, however, to those who--like the
author--amidst all the changes that are taking place, have tried to
keep alive for us with pen and pencil, a remembrance of a period so
different from our own. Especially, perhaps, will many of our American
cousins recognise this debt when in their migrations they try to hunt
up places of interest connected with their English forbears.
Mr. Chancellor is most happy as he takes us round the old streets
and houses, and gives--as it were--almost personal introductions to
the quaint and interesting people who inhabited them. His pages are
sentient with living personages, and as we read we forget the years
that have rolled away, while we enjoy the laugh and quip with the
interesting old characters which are met with at every turn and corner.
To begin one’s peregrinations at the corner of Bond Street and
Piccadilly seems at first sight a little arbitrary, but one soon
realises that in starting from “Stewart’s,” and keeping within a
half-mile radius of this centre, one is really covering by far the most
interesting portion of the West End; while the old shop, which--during
more than two centuries--has given its name to this corner of Bond
Street, and which, as Mr. Chancellor declares, is to Americans one of
the best known spots in Europe, is in itself a most interesting link
with the past and present.
The Author, and the Publishers, acknowledge with thanks their
indebtedness to Edward Gardner, Esq., for kind permission to reproduce
six views of Old London from his unique Collection of Drawings and
Prints.
Contents.
CHAPTER I.--PICCADILLY. PAGE
Stewart’s Corner--Albemarle Street--Dover Street--The
White Horse Cellar--Hatchett’s Restaurant--Berkeley
Street--Devonshire House--Stratton
Street--Bolton Street--Bath House--The Clubs of
Piccadilly--Clarges Street--Half Moon Street--Cambridge
House--Ritz Hotel--Down Street--Gloucester
House--“Old Q.” 1 to 28
CHAPTER II.--ST. JAMES’S STREET & PALL MALL.
The Green Park--Constitution Hill--Cleveland
Row--St. James’s Palace--Arlington Street--St.
James’s Street--The Clubs of St. James’s Street--Chocolate
Houses--King Street--Pall Mall--Pall
Mall Clubs--Pall Mall Taverns--Carlton House 29 to 56
CHAPTER III.--THE HAYMARKET, ST. JAMES’S
SQUARE AND PICCADILLY (EAST).
The Haymarket--The Haymarket Theatre--Suffolk
Street--The Opera House--His Majesty’s Theatre--St.
James’s Square--Jermyn Street--St. James’s
Church--Piccadilly Circus--Pickadilla Hall--Piccadilly
East--Quaritch’s--The Albany--Burlington
House, Burlington Arcade 57 to 83
CHAPTER IV.--BOND STREET.
Bond Street--Famous Residents--Prince of Wales’s
Coffee House--Burlington Street--Burlington
Gardens--Vigo Street--Clifford Street--Savile Row--Cork
Street--Conduit Street--Maddox Street--George
Street--Hanover Square--St. George’s
Church--Brook Street--Grosvenor Street--Bruton
Street--Grafton Street--Hay Hill--Berkeley
Square 84 to 114
CHAPTER V.--MAYFAIR.
Sir Richard Grosvenor and the Westminster Property--Origin
of “Mayfair”--Davies Street--Grosvenor
Square--North and South Audley Streets--Park
Street--Norfolk Street--Upper Brook Street--Upper
Grosvenor Street--Mount Street--Charles
Street--Curzon Street--Curzon Chapel--Hertford
and Chesterfield Streets--Lesser Streets of Mayfair--Park
Lane--Tyburn Lane--Great Houses in Park
Lane--Hamilton Place--Mayfair, the Home of
Fashion 115 to 140
PRESS OPINIONS.
“A good little book for pilgrims, ‘more especially,’ as it states,
‘those from America,’ who wish to recognise the multitude of
distinguished ghosts who crowd the district dealt with.”--_Graphic._
“Always readable and interesting. The chief attraction of the book,
which, by the way, is charmingly ‘got up,’ is to be found in the
twenty plate illustrations of Old London streets and houses. Four are
successful reproductions in colour.”--_Antiquarian._
“In this pretty little book ... these notes on the heart of the West
End are made to gyrate round Stewart’s Tea Rooms at the corner of Bond
Street, called ‘Stewart’s Corner.’ The publisher seems to have felt
that to assume this shop to be the hub of the best part of London is
sufficiently remarkable to require explanation, so he writes:--‘To
begin one’s peregrinations at the corner of Bond Street and Piccadilly
seems at first sight a little arbitrary, but one soon realizes that
in starting from “Stewart’s” and keeping within a half-mile radius of
this centre, one is really covering by far the most interesting portion
of the West End.’ The plates, which are mostly reproductions of old
prints, are singularly interesting (especially the coloured ones), and
are themselves worth the price of the book.”--_Athenæum._
“Mr. Chancellor guides the reader round the old streets and houses,
introducing him personally, as it were, to the quaint and interesting
people who inhabited them.”--_The Queen._
“A little book gathering up in a quite popular way some of the
associations of the district, with many illustrations of it as it
appeared in the past.”--_“Times” Literary Supplement._
“The author of ‘The Squares of London’ has in a high degree the
faculties of selection and concentration, and in his hundred and
fifty pages he has been able to tell us so much and to tell it so
well.”--_Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News._
“There is no lack of interest, past and present, in the district about
which our author discourses. Piccadilly is notorious for its ‘ghosts’;
and St. James’s Street, Park Lane, Grosvenor Square, Pall Mall,
Albemarle Street, to name a few places at random, have an abundant
population of the same kind. This little volume, which is judiciously
illustrated, makes good reading.”--_The Spectator._
“A pretty little book this, with charming illustrations of the West End
in days of old, four of them in colour. The pages are rich in brief
anecdote, as well as topographical details of interest.”--_The Lady’s
Pictorial._
“It is just the book for the Londoner who is always interested in the
old spots that are being swept away one by one; and the novice who
knows nothing of the subject will be fascinated by these pictures of
former days.”--_Methodist Times._
“Those who are interested in this class of literature will find Mr.
Chancellor’s book interesting, all the more so if they have some
acquaintance with the English literature of the last two centuries.
The area covered is large, but there is no lack of interest, past
and present, in our author’s discoursings about it. The volume is
judiciously illustrated.”--_Catholic Times._
“Pictures of St. James’s Street in George the Third’s reign, the palace
at the foot in the days of the Stuarts, Carlton House during the
Regency, together with various old inns, mansions, and other vanished
buildings, combine to make an illustrated gallery of a departed
era.”--_The Bookseller._
“Famous streets, famous buildings, famous men. Mr. Chancellor
catalogues them in an agreeable literary form, with plenty of notes and
incidents and historic origins.”--_The Globe._
“Mr. Chancellor’s small volume is among the best. It has a real
literary flavour, and is full of reminiscences of times long past.
The twenty illustrations of old London (four of them in colour) are
particularly well chosen.”--_Publishers’ Circular._
“A compact memorial volume like this is of special value. We are
conducted round the fine old streets and famous houses, and are given
almost personal introductions to the famous and quaint folk who
inhabited them.”--_Christian Commonwealth._
“In hunting up places of interest connected with our forbears, the
author has endeavoured, and successfully, to keep alive for us a
remembrance of a past period.”--_Broad Arrow._
“A pleasant sketch describing the West End of London in the eighteenth
and the early part of the nineteenth century, drawing a vivid picture
of life in that part of London at that time, and giving details
concerning many famous buildings.”--_Record._
“This charming little work must needs be invaluable to all lovers of
London, among whom the author reckons our American cousins, for whose
more especial benefit he has given a map of the district in two parts,
one representing the Eastern and the other the Western limits of his
rambles.”--_Western Morning News._
“Mr. Chancellor recalls many historical facts about these old streets
and houses, re-peopling them with English men and women of long ago,
telling anecdotes and gossiping in pleasantest manner.”--_Yorkshire
Daily Post._
“There is much to be learned from these pages how these parts of London
came to be built, and why the streets bear various strange names, of
which Maddox is one.”--_Nottingham Guardian._
“The author of ‘The Squares of London’ has undoubtedly done a great
deal to keep alive for us, with a ready and able pen, memories of the
old London which are tending to become less and less distinct with the
march of time and the rush of new ideas.”--_Huddersfield Examiner._
“The book is full of delightful gossip regarding the clubs, theatres,
and great houses of past and present times.”--_The Northern Whig._
“A capital and interesting book of its kind, full of pleasant
reminiscences of the days of the leisurely life and refinement of the
century that has gone.”--_Manchester Evening News._
“The volume is well illustrated, and the reproductions from old prints
and drawings of mansions which have altogether disappeared--as, for
instance, Northumberland House, with its famous lion--are particularly
interesting.”--_Glasgow Herald._
“This admirable book is packed full of historical and biographical
information, retailed in the pleasantest possible manner.”--_Liverpool
Daily Courier._
“Mr. Chancellor is an excellent cicerone in describing for us
the old streets and houses and the quaint people who inhabited
them.”--_Yorkshire Herald._
“With this little book in his pocket (where it will hardly reveal
itself), or on his table, the visitor to London can add greatly to his
enjoyment.”--_Aberdeen Journal._
“A delightful little guide to the localities mentioned.”--_Aberdeen
Free Press._
“With this book in the coat pocket--to glance at in convenient
corners--one could spend some pleasant hours.”--_Bolton Journal._
List of Plates.
GARDENS OF CARLTON HOUSE IN 1784 _To face Title_
STEWART’S CORNER _To face page_ 2
*CLARENDON HOUSE 8
*THE WHITE HORSE CELLAR (HATCHETT’S RESTAURANT),
PICCADILLY 12
(_From a Drawing by George Cruickshank._)
THE GLOUCESTER COFFEE HOUSE, PICCADILLY 14
THE GATES OF HYDE PARK IN 1756 27
(_From a Drawing by Jones._)
THE TURNPIKE AT HYDE PARK CORNER 28
ST. JAMES’S STREET, WHITE’S CLUB, AND BROOKS’S
CLUB 36
ST. JAMES’S PALACE 44
CARLTON HOUSE (_George IV. proclaimed King_) 52
THE OPERA HOUSE COLONNADE, PALL MALL, AND
CARLTON HOUSE SCREEN 64
ST. JAMES’S SQUARE 68
*“THE BULL AND MOUTH,” PICCADILLY 75
LOWER REGENT STREET, FROM PICCADILLY CIRCUS,
WITH CARLTON HOUSE AND SCREEN 76
“THE WHITE BEAR,” FORMERLY “THE FLEECE,”
PICCADILLY 78
THE PICCADILLY HOTEL 79
DENMAN HOUSE, PICCADILLY 81
OLD BURLINGTON HOUSE, PICCADILLY 82
*LONG’S HOTEL, BOND STREET 87
*“THE WESTERN EXCHANGE,” OLD BOND STREET 91
*THE MAY FAIR IN 1716 115
THE ENTRANCE TO PICCADILLY, AT HYDE PARK
CORNER, WITH ST. GEORGE’S HOSPITAL 139
*From the Collection of Edward Gardner, Esq.
CHAPTER I.
_PICCADILLY._
“_By night or by day, whether noisy or stilly,
Whatever my mood is--I love Piccadilly._”
LOCKER-LAMPSON.
Dr. Johnson in one of his rhetorical flights said that Charing Cross
was practically the centre of the universe. “I think,” he observed to
Boswell, on a celebrated occasion, “the full tide of human existence
is at Charing Cross.” Theodore Hook, on the other hand, considered
that that small area in St. James’s, bounded by Piccadilly and Pall
Mall, St. James’s Street and Waterloo Place, was the acme of fashion,
and contained within itself all that was best worth cultivating in the
Metropolis.
Like all generalizations, neither of these dicta will bear the test
of logical analysis. Hook’s favourite quarter has undergone many a
change, and its present-day equivalent is more likely to be found in
that larger area known to all the world as Mayfair. Similarly, although
much of the tide of human existence still flows past the spot where
Queen Eleanor’s body rested for the last time, on its way to the Abbey,
that tide flows as fully and with as much noisy vehemence past half a
hundred other crowded spots in London. It is probable, however, that
at no one point does it surge and rage (to carry on the metaphor),
with greater force than at the spot where Piccadilly and Bond Street
join. At this spot stands “Stewart’s”--famed all the world over. I say
“Stewart’s,” as I should say in Venice, “Florian’s,” or in New York,
“Delmonico’s”; for there are certain famous establishments in all great
cities which require no more specific designation.
Who is there, indeed, that knows not Stewart’s? It has been presiding
over this corner for the last two hundred years and more. It must be
the oldest baker’s and confectioner’s business in London, beside which
even such ancient houses as “Birch’s” or “Gunter’s” are comparatively
modern. To-day it bears upon its rebuilt front, the date of its
establishment--1688, and the massive foundations and old brickwork,
which were brought to light during the recent rebuilding, fully support
the theory that this was one of the original buildings erected by Sir
Thomas Bond on the site of Clarendon House, when he laid out the street
which bears his name.
Let us take this shop, as characteristic of many others, and try to
recall what it may have witnessed in the lapse of years. In its early
days it was, no doubt, too much occupied with its own affairs to take
much note of great personages or historic events; but after it had
settled down, so to speak, and had become, as it did, the purveyor of
the staff of life to the Coffee-houses that had sprung up around it, it
may be supposed to have given an eye, now and then, to the interesting
men and beautiful women who passed by, or who made it a rendezvous
while some of them waited for those who were spending or making
fortunes in the gambling hells of St. James’s Street hard by.
[Illustration:_Stewart’s Corner
Old Bond Sᵗ & Piccadilly_
REBVILT 1907.]
The Augustan age is here! Can that little shrivelled body limping
along, having just come from its lodging in Berkeley Street, contain
the great mind of Alexander Pope? Surely ’tis he, having but this
moment penned a letter to Martha Blount, or put the finishing touches
to his “Farewell to London.” He is probably on his way to visit my
lord Burlington, whose home (the precursor of the later mansion built
by his great grandson, and now known by the massive buildings of the
modern Burlington House), is close by. Horace Walpole tells us that
when asked why he built his mansion so far _out of town_, the first
Earl replied, “Because he was determined to have no building beyond
him!” _Credite posteri!_ but he meant, and should have added, “to the
north,” which is, in itself, wonderful enough for us to realize now,
for Clarendon House and Berkeley House were already in existence to
the west. Could it have been Pope, who asked the question? It seems
likely, for we remember the anecdote of the irate gentleman who being
in the poet’s company and required to give a definition of “a point of
interrogation,” replied “that it was a little crooked thing that asked
questions!”
And then that fine looking man in the full bottomed wig, can that
be Mr. Addison of the _Spectator_, fresh from his lodgings in the
Haymarket hard by, and still glowing in the reflected glory of “The
Campaign?” None other. And lo! here is the handsome face of his hero,
who “taught the doubtful battle where to rage,” as he hobbles along
(he will soon be off to Bath to try and cure his gout)--fit indeed,
_monstrari digito_, for other things besides his military glory. He
will not turn in at Stewart’s we may be sure, for if the “tears of
dotage” have not yet begun to flow, at least he is learning to save
his money.
Here, too, comes jolly Dick Steele; he has just been into a coffee
house to pen a line of excuse to his “dearest Prue,” in Kensington
Square, and is on his way to a jollification with some of his boon
companions; forgetful of his “Apology,” and hardly living up to the
ethics of his “Christian Hero.” Still with all his faults, a pleasanter
figure to meet than that dark-faced, dissatisfied-looking man in
clerical attire. That is the redoubtable Dean Swift himself, one of
the great geniuses, not only of his own day, but of all time. He knows
this part of the town as well as he knows all the turns and twists of
contemporary politics; and has probably come from his rooms in Ryder
Street almost opposite. Wherever he is he will be penning that famous
“Journal to Stella,” or plotting and planning with the heads of the
Opposition--and there is no clearer or more potent brain among them.
If he goes into the St. James’ Coffee House, or White’s Chocolate
House, “the most fashionable hell in London,” or trudges further east
to Willis’s, in Bow Street, be sure there will be plenty to note his
strange manner and call him “the mad parson!” Perchance he may be
taking the air to prepare himself for that particular dinner with my
Lord Abercorn when there smoked upon the board the “fine fat haunch of
venison, that smelt rarely on one side,” which he mentions, with such
gusto, in his journal; or perhaps he is setting out on one of his long
rambles to Chelsea to dine with the Dean of Carlisle, or to sup with
Lord Mountjoy at Kensington Gravel Pits.
An observant traveller who visited London about this period, remarks
that “Most of the streets are wonderfully well lighted, for in front
of each house hangs a lantern or a large globe of glass, inside of
which is placed a lamp which burns all night.” The light which hung
before “Stewart’s” must have illuminated the face of many a “toast,”
many a “Macaroni,” as they came up Bond Street, and sometimes that
of one of those terrible “mohocks.” My Lord Mohun, not yet dreaming
of his sanguinary and fatal encounter with his grace of Hamilton,
but sufficiently notorious for that mysterious affair when Mountfort
the player fell mortally wounded near his lodging in Norfolk Street;
the eccentric Duke of Wharton, who once sent a bear to his tutor as
an appropriate concomitant to his “bearish conduct”; who, marrying
at sixteen, became a sort of Jacobite hero, and showed by some of
his writings in “The True Briton,” what gifts he had squandered by a
riotous life; and who finally ended his career in a Bernardine Convent,
“the scorn and wonder of our days,” as Pope writes, “a sad outcast of
each church and state.” Hervey, the “Sporus” of the same bitter pen,
having dragged himself for a space from the Court, of which he was so
characteristic an ornament, and from the company of the Princess who
secretly loved him. Perhaps he will to-morrow fight, behind Arlington
House, hard by, with Pulteney, who called him “a thing below contempt.”
That slip of the foot at the critical moment saved the “thin-spun
life,” and like so many protagonists in such encounters, the whilom
enemies embrace, with more fervour on Pulteney’s part than on that of
“My Lord” who but bows in silence and withdraws.
And then what a galaxy of beauty reflects the light from that “lantern
or large globe of glass!” Here is Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, not very
much affected by the virulent lines of the “wicked wasp of Twickenham”;
the lovely Molly Lepel, who married Lord Hervey, and whom Lady Suffolk
loved so much; Mary Bellenden, afterwards Mrs. Campbell, another of
those maids of honour whom Gay and Prior sung, and Swift and Arbuthnot
undertook to prove the best wives, although we remember that the
coachman at Leicester House solemnly forbade his son ever to think of
any of them in so tender a way! Here, too, is Lady Mary Coke, who was
used to almost regard herself as a royal widow, on the death of Edward
Duke of York--for which “mealy faced boy” she had a “_tendre_”; the
Duchess of Queensberry, Prior’s “Kitty ever fair,” whom Walpole thought
looked “(by twilight) like a young beauty of an old-fashioned century,”
and who died in Savile Row, in 1777, “of a surfeit of cherries.”
The list might be indefinitely extended, but “_Anni labuntur_” and
other centuries are hurrying us along, bringing new faces in their
train; George Selwyn with his witty talk and mania for executions; he
is off now, probably to see John Rann, or “Sixteen-stringed Jack,” as
he was called, strung up at Tyburn tree--my Lord Pembroke accompanies
him, and the cronies chancing to meet a lot of young chimney sweeps
who beg for money, Selwyn suddenly addresses them solemnly with the
words “I have often heard of the sovereignty of the people. I suppose
your highnesses are in Court mourning;” Charles James Fox, the most
eminent of those “sons of faro,” who having lost his last penny and
consoled himself by reading Homer in the small hours, is thinking of
a “passover” to the Continent, which, as Selwyn says, will _not_ be
relished by the Jews; Lord March may also be seen, the wicked “old Q”
of many a notorious story; and Hare--“the hare with many friends,” as
his acquaintances nick-named him; and then the dandies of a later day;
Alvanley, who succeeded Selwyn as a wit and almost rivalled Brummell as
a dandy; “Ball” Hughes and “Teapot” Crawfurd; Lord Yarmouth and Prince
Esterhazy; Jack Lee, and the great Brummell himself, who has cut the
Regent and is thinking of bringing the old king into fashion!
These, and how many others, have not passed by that corner in
Piccadilly where Stewart’s stands; they are but the ghosts of the
beauties and exquisites of a bygone day that loiter there--for in this
strenuous age no one dawdles--all is hurry and confusion, and the idle
stroller, other than Thespian, is almost a thing of the past. Let
us for the moment try to imitate our forbears and “take a walk down
Piccadilly.”
What changes have not taken place in this street of streets! It was
known by the quaint name it still bears as early as 1633, for Gerarde
in his famous Herbal, mentions “the wild bu-glosse,” that “grows about
the drie ditch-bankes about Pickadilla.” This is not the place to go
into the mysteries of nomenclature, and many have been the theories as
to the origin of the name; but that is probably the correct solution
which traces it to the ruffs called Pickadils, worn by the gallants
of James’s and Charles’s time. Blount in his “Glossography” (1656)
thus speaks of the matter: “A Pickadil is that round hem, or the
several divisions set together about the skirt of a garment or other
thing; also a kind of stiff collar, made in fashion of a band. Hence,
perhaps, the famous ordinary near St. James’s, called Pickadilly, took
denomination, because it was then the utmost, or skirt house of the
suburbs, that way.”
Thus Blount, and I think we may leave it at that. We shall return later
on to the “famous ordinary,” which was known as Pickadilla Hall, and
was situated at the north-east corner of the Haymarket: now we are on
our way west, like the wise men of old.[1]
[Sidenote: ALBEMARLE STREET.]
The first tributary street we come to is Albemarle Street, formed, at
the same time as Bond Street, about 1684, by Sir Thomas Bond, on the
site of Clarendon House, which the great Lord Clarendon built from the
designs of Pratt, according to Evelyn, on ground which had been granted
him by Charles II., in 1664. The Diarist had “never seen a nobler
pile,” and he had every opportunity for criticising it thoroughly as,
on one occasion, the Chancellor himself showed him all over it; and the
extant views of it fully confirm Evelyn’s enthusiasm. The populace,
however, saw in the great place the results of bribery and corruption,
and Dunkirk House, Holland House, and Tangier House, were titles
freely applied to it. On Clarendon’s death, the house was sold (1675)
to the second duke of Albemarle (the son of the great Monk) for £26,000
(it had cost £40,000 originally). In consequence of extravagance in
all sorts of ways, however, its new owner was not long able to keep
it, and he in turn sold it, it is said, for £20,000, to Sir Thomas
Bond, who pulled it down and built Albemarle Street (then called
Albemarle Buildings), and Bond Street on its site. Evelyn, on September
18th, 1683, notes that he “walked to survey the sad demolition of
Clarendon House, that costly and only sumptuous palace of the late Lord
Chancellor Hyde,” “where,” he adds, “I have often been so cheerful with
him and sometimes so sad.”
[Illustration: CLARENDON HOVSE
(_From a print of the period._)]
Albemarle Street, “of excellent new buildings, inhabited by persons of
quality,” as the New View of London (1708) describes it, has had some
interesting inhabitants. Here, in 1712, Sir William Wyndham and his
family escaped in their night clothes from the fire that destroyed his
house, for which he had given £6,000, as he told Swift, when many rare
pictures and other valuables were destroyed; here, in Lord Grantham’s
house, lived for a time the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II.,
until he moved to Leicester House. Bishop Berkeley was lodging at
Mr. Fox’s (an apothecary’s) in this street, from 1724 to 1726, as he
records in his “Literary Relics,” and Sir Richard Mead, who formed that
fine collection of drawings subsequently added to the Royal Collection,
resided here in 1720.
Many years later the Duc de Nivernois was lodging in the street, and
here received on one occasion Gibbon “more as a man of letters than as
a man of fashion,” much to the latter’s chagrin. Lord Bute, another
minister who became, as Clarendon had done, an object of popular
hatred, was living here in 1764; and there is a story told by Lord
Malmesbury, that when a Mr. Calvert asked in the House of Commons
“Where is Athens? What is become of Lacedæmon?” some member of the
Opposition called out that “they had gone to Albemarle Street.”
It is obviously possible to do little more than mention the names
of some of the other distinguished residents in Albemarle Street.
Here lived Zoffany, the painter, who executed, about this period, a
portrait of Wilkes, “looking--no, squinting--at his daughter,” as
Walpole records: Robert Adam, the architect of so many fine dwellings,
died here, in 1792, and his brother James two years later, at No. 13;
Charles James Fox was living here when Rogers first knew him; Sir
James Mackintosh was at No. 26, on his return from India in 1811, and
“Leonidas” Glover, died in a house here, in 1785.
Albemarle Street has been noted for its hotels. Here was Dorant’s,
where Byron stayed, when he was publishing his “Hours of Idleness”; and
the famous Grillion’s, where Louis XVIII. in exile held his Court.
The name of Byron brings us appropriately enough to No. 50, Albemarle
Street--for here the great publishing firm of Murray, so closely
connected with his name, has been settled since John Murray removed
hither from Fleet Street, in 1812.
The columnar façade of the Royal Institution, the work of Vulliamy,
forms a curiously solemn note in Albemarle Street, but its importance
as a great scientific centre more than justifies its severe, almost
melancholy, appearance.
[Sidenote: DOVER STREET.]
Dover Street, to which we come a few steps further west, was built
about 1686, and was named after Henry Jermyn, Lord Dover. He lived
in a house which was subsequently advertised for sale in the “Daily
Journal” for January, 1727. It would appear that after his death his
widow had been residing here, for the notice indicates that the cause
of the sale was that lady’s decease. Mention is particularly made of
a beautiful staircase painted by Laguerre, as well as “all manner of
conveniences for a great family.” The house was on the east side, and
not far from it, Evelyn came to dwell in 1699, having taken the lease
of a residence on the same side of the street. That mad Duke of Wharton
whom I have already mentioned, also lived in Dover Street, “in a most
sumptuous building, finely finished and furnished”; so did the great
Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, as well as his son, the second Earl,
who married the heiress of the Duke of Newcastle. Pope used to stay
here as a guest at this time; and as Arbuthnot was also living in the
same street these two friends would often, we are to suppose, discuss
that “half pint of claret” which the latter humorously told Pope, he
could still afford. Another of this coterie, Bolingbroke, was wont to
lodge at “Mr. Chetwynd’s,” as Gay informs Swift, probably with a view
to a philosophic, albeit, a merry meeting there. Sir William Wyndham
was also a former resident; so was Miss Reynolds, the sister of Sir
Joshua, whom Johnson used to visit; Lord King, the biographer of Locke;
Archdeacon Coxe, who wrote ponderous tomes about Sir Robert Walpole
and the House of Austria, and Nash, the architect, who built the more
imposing portion of Regent Street.
But the two most interesting houses were (for one has disappeared,
and its site is covered by a mushroom block of red brick flats, and
although the other still remains, it is empty and will probably soon go
the way of all old buildings) Ashburnham House and Ely House.
The former, with its gateway and lodge designed by Robert Adam in 1773,
was the town house of the Earls of Ashburnham, but others beside that
family occasionally inhabited it, and for a time it was the Russian
Embassy; Prince Lieven being the first ambassador residing here, and
Pozzo di Borgo the last.
Ely House, designed by Sir Robert Taylor, has been, since 1772, the
town residence of the Bishops of Ely, and was conveyed to that See in
exchange for Ely Place, Holborn.
Dover Street has always been rather famous for its hotels, and in
this respect at least, its reputation is well sustained. Le Telier’s
was one of the older ones, and is notable as being the house to which
the Literary Club moved from Sackville Street, before going into St.
James’s Street.
[Sidenote: THE WHITE HORSE CELLAR.]
Just before we reach Berkeley Street, we come to Hatchett’s Restaurant,
the old “White Horse Cellar,” so named from the emblem in the crest of
the House of Hanover. The old original “White Horse Cellar,” whence
in the good old days the coaches left on their way to the west, stood
nearly opposite, close to Arlington Street. As may be seen from old
sporting prints, the outside of the original house was covered on
particular occasions with oil lights of various colours--lights
which many a jaded traveller must have seen with pleasure, and many
a fresh one left with regret. One of these occasions was the King’s
birthday, when the coachmen and guards donned new scarlet liveries, and
even the coaches were touched up. Sir Vincent Cotton, Capt. Probyn,
Lord Worcester and Sir Thomas Jones were among the amateur whips who
frequently handled the ribbons and tooled their coaches down the
intricacies of Piccadilly; and we can quite believe Hazlitt when he
says that “the finest sight in the metropolis is the setting off of the
mail coaches from Piccadilly.”
[Illustration: THE WHITE HORSE CELLAR--HATCHETT’S RESTAURANT--PICCADILLY
(_From a Drawing by George Cruikshank._)]
How many of us would not have given a good round sum to have seen Mr.
Pickwick laboriously climb on to the top of the vehicle which was to
carry him to Bath, or Sam Weller’s surprise when he observed the name
of “Pickwick” painted on the coach door; or “the young man of the name
of Guppy,” meeting Esther Summerson here on her arrival in London one
foggy afternoon in November; or Jerry Hawthorn “fairly knocked up by
all the excitement, getting into the coach”--being one of six inside,
“what time his friends shake him by the hand, whilst the Jews hang
round with oranges, knives and sealing wax, whilst the guard is closing
the door.” All we can do is to rehabilitate the scene of the former
from Dickens’s pen; and to imagine ourselves watching the latter in
Cruickshank’s drawing.
Another hostelry from which coaches departed on their long journeys was
the “Gloucester Coffee House,” kept by one Dale, which stood where the
Berkeley Hotel, formerly known as the St. James’s Hotel, is now; and
“The Green Man and Still” was yet another house of call for the coaches
that went westward.
[Sidenote: BERKELEY STREET.]
Berkeley Street, formerly known as Berkeley Row, boasts one or two
interesting residents in the past. Here Cosway dwelt, and it was here
that he first attracted the notice of the Prince of Wales, whose
portrait he “drew in little” so often and so successfully. In the same
house, too, had previously lived Shackleton, the portrait painter; and
it was to a residence here that Mr. Chaworth was carried after his duel
with Lord Byron (the great uncle of _the_ Lord Byron), which took place
at the “Star and Garter,” in Pall Mall, over a dispute as to the best
way of preserving game. Lord Byron, the survivor, underwent his trial
in Westminster Hall, but was acquitted, and a certain French traveller,
M. Grosley, who was present at the trial, saw his lordship a few days
later taking part in the debate on the Regency Bill, as if nothing had
happened.
[Sidenote: DEVONSHIRE HOUSE.]
The long front of Devonshire House, with its fine gates, which were
originally at the Duke’s place at Chiswick, now faces us. It was
erected from the designs of Kent, for the third Duke of Devonshire, two
years after Berkeley House had been burnt down (in 1733). Its beautiful
grounds are only divided from those of Lansdowne House by Lansdowne
Passage, a short cut, sunk below the ground level, from Curzon Street
to Hay Hill. There are iron bars at each end of this passage, and
probably few people know why they were placed there. As a matter of
fact, they were put up in consequence of a mounted highwayman in
the eighteenth century, after having got away from Piccadilly with
some booty, riding his horse through this passage and up the steps at
the end. Thomas Grenville is the authority for this anecdote, and the
robber was seen galloping past his residence in Bolton Street.
[Illustration: THE GLOUCESTER COFFEE HOUSE, PICCADILLY.]
Devonshire House is one of the great houses of London, and is full of
Art treasures, a list of which alone would fill a volume; particularly
remarkable is the collection of drawings by the old masters, which
includes the original “Liber Veritatis” of Claude de Lorraine; and a
superb collection of engravings by Marc Antonio--to mention but these.
In the library is the great Kemble collection of old plays, including
the first four folios of Shakespeare’s works, &c., which the sixth Duke
bought for £2,000. What are they not worth now?
The portico replaced, in 1840, the old entrance which was by a flight
of steps on each side; and among the other improvements made by the
sixth Duke was the addition of a fine marble staircase up which all the
great ones of several generations have passed, from the days when the
beautiful Duchess welcomed Fox here, and the Prince Regent, “surrounded
by the first Whig families in the country,” stood to see the apotheosis
of the “man of the people” after the Westminster election, to days
within memory, when Dickens and his friends acted here for charity.
[Sidenote: STRATTON STREET.]
Beyond Devonshire House is Stratton Street, which is, of course, named
after Lord Berkeley, the hero of Stratton fight. Although there have
been one or two interesting people living in this street in the past,
such as Campbell, the poet, who was here in 1802; James Douglas, the
author of “Nenia Britannica”; and Lord Lynedoch, who was second in
command in the Peninsula, the chief interest attaching to it is the
fact that at No. 1, which belonged to Coutts, the banker, and looks on
to Piccadilly, lived for many years, until her death quite recently,
the venerable Baroness Burdett-Coutts. The house next door, No. 80,
Piccadilly, with its old-fashioned front and painted glass windows to
the ground floor rooms, was for many years the residence of her father,
Sir Francis Burdett, and it was from here that, in 1810, he was taken
to the Tower. For two days he successfully barricaded himself in the
house, but entrance being eventually forced, he was found, somewhat
theatrically, teaching one of his children Magna Charta. The riots
consequent on this incarceration are mentioned at length in many of the
letters and diaries of the period; and the soldiers, for their share in
suppressing them, were termed “Piccadilly Butchers.”
The house next door (No. 81) stands on the site of the celebrated
Watier’s Club, established in 1807. Watier had been cook to the Prince
of Wales, and although his gastronomic skill was unquestionable, and
although Brummell was the presiding genius (or, was it because of
that fact?), the club, which had been the ruin of many a member, only
existed for about 12 years, according to Gronow, whose well-known story
of its origin, may be repeated here:--
“Upon one occasion some gentlemen of both White’s and Brookes’s had the
honour to dine with the Prince Regent, and, during the conversation,
the Prince inquired what sort of dinner they got at their clubs, upon
which Sir Thomas Stepney, one of the guests, observed, ‘that their
dinners were always the same, the eternal joints or beefsteaks, the
boiled fowl with oyster sauce, and an apple-tart; this is what we have
at our clubs, and very monotonous fare it is.’ The Prince, without
further remark, rang the bell for his cook, Watier, and in the presence
of those who dined at the Royal table, asked him whether he would take
a house and organize a dinner-club. Watier assented, and named Madison,
the Prince’s page, manager, and Labourie, from the Royal kitchen, the
cook.”
It was here that once, on Brummell’s calling with a tragic air to a
waiter to bring a pistol, for he had been losing heavily, one of the
members, Bob Leigh, who proved to be mad, said, “Mr. Brummell, if you
really wish to put an end to your existence, I am extremely happy to
offer you the means,” at the same time producing two loaded pistols
from his pockets and laying them on the table; and here, too, Jack
Bouverie threw his bowl of counters at the head of Raikes who had been
making some ill-timed jests at his losses.
[Sidenote: BOLTON STREET.]
Bolton Street here joins Piccadilly. Formed in 1699, it was described
by Hatton, a few years later, as “the most westerly street in London,
between the road to Knightsbridge, south, and the Fields, north.” Here
both Martha and Theresa Blount once lived, and were called the “Young
Ladies in Bolton Street” by their admirer, Pope. The poet not only
visited them here, but was also occasionally the guest of the eccentric
Earl of Peterborough, who lived in the same street for fourteen years,
from 1710. George Grenville, also resided in Bolton Street, as did
another politician, Lord Melbourne; and at least three notable ladies
are connected with this vicinity, Fanny Burney (Madame D’Arblay),
who came to live in the street in 1818, shortly after the death of
General D’Arblay, and was visited by Scott and Rogers and many another
fashionable and literary notabilities; Mrs. Delany, who lived in the
adjoining Bolton Row in 1753; and Mrs. Vesey, whose evening parties
probably kept the quieter denizens of the street awake o’nights.
If, as is sometimes reported, Prince Charles Edward really did pay a
visit to London in 1760, and was present at the Coronation, then he set
out for the Abbey from a house in Bolton Street, for here he is said to
have lodged, without even “the semblance of a kingly crown” about his
brows.
[Sidenote: BATH HOUSE.]
When Horace Walpole, who loved not his father’s old enemy, Lord Bath,
wrote on one occasion that “the grass grows just before my Lord Bath’s
door, whom nobody will visit,” he indicated the large house still known
as Bath House which occupies much of the western side of Bolton Street,
and which was originally built by William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, on
whom so many bitter epigrams were written, and whose parsimony was so
notorious. As an example of the former, I may remind the reader of
those lines “written on the Earl of Bath’s door in Piccadilly,” by Sir
Charles Hanbury Williams, which run thus:
“_Here dead to fame lives patriot Will,
His grave a lordly seat,
His title proves his epitaph,
His robes his winding sheet._”
As a proof of the latter, is extant the story that having visited
Holkham, and forgetting to tip the servants, a pang of conscience
spurred his lordship to send back a horseman six miles, _with half a
crown_. An even better illustration of his ostentation and meanness
combined is preserved by George Colman, who relates that when driving
through the lodge gates of his country house, word would be given to
halt; the outriders repeated the order, the coachman pulled up his four
horses, and from the becoronetted carriage, William Pulteney, Earl of
Bath, Viscount Pulteney, of Evington, Baron of Hedon, P.C., F.R.S.,
etc., etc., would stretch forth his arm and drop into the palm of the
curtseying gatekeeper--_a halfpenny_!
After Lord Bath’s death, his brother and inheritor of his vast fortune,
occupied Bath House for three years, when he also departing to the
land of shades (Charon got but small tips from these _Adelphi_ it may
be presumed), the place was let to the Duke of Portland. In 1821,
Alexander Baring bought it and rebuilt the mansion. He was created
Lord Ashburton fourteen years later, and was the head of the great
banking house, which the Duc de Richelieu once said was the sixth great
power in Europe. Under the Ashburton _régime_, Carlyle, who was more
friendly with Lady Ashburton than Mrs. Carlyle always approved of, was
a frequent visitor here. In our days it has been the town house of
the millionaire Baron Hirsch, and is now the residence of Sir Julius
Wernher, so that it would appear to have always been associated with
worldly riches and well-known names.
[Sidenote: CLUBS OF PICCADILLY.]
At this point begins that remarkable series of clubs for which
Piccadilly is almost as famous as Pall Mall; indeed, between the
United Empire Club at No. 84, and the Lyceum, at No. 128, there are
a good baker’s dozen of these “assemblies of good fellows, meeting
under certain conditions,” as Dr. Johnson defined them. Those in this
quarter of the town are for the most part comparatively modern, and I
believe I am right in saying that not one of their names will be found
included in Timbs’ interesting work on “Clubs and Club Life.” It would
form but monotonous reading to set them all down here, and I should
be arrogating to myself by doing so the functions of the compiler of
Directories were I to attempt it, but as we go along, one or two will
require a word chiefly from the fact of their inhabiting houses which
are otherwise interesting.
[Sidenote: CLARGES STREET.]
Clarges Street, however, for a moment, intervenes before we come to one
of them. It was formed between 1716 and 1718, by Sir Walter Clarges,
on ground adjoining Clarges House, the residence of his father, Sir
Thomas, who, it will be remembered, was the brother-in-law of the great
Duke of Albemarle. Like all the streets in this neighbourhood, it is
connected with many a well-known name; Mrs. Delany, the friend of
George III. and Queen Charlotte; Miss O’Neil, the beautiful actress,
who nearly extinguished Mrs. Charles Kemble, and created a _furore_ by
her rendering of “Juliet” at the Dublin theatre; Edmund Kean, whom no
one could extinguish, and who is said to have kept a tame puma in his
house; the beautiful Emma Hart, better known as Lady Hamilton; William
Mitford, who wrote the story of Grecian prowess, and was himself a
Colonel of Militia; Mrs. Carter, that learned lady, who introduced
Epictetus to the unlearned; and Lord Macaulay, who remembered
everything, and was called by Lord Melbourne “a book in breeches,”
highly to the amusement of Queen Victoria. These are some of the great
ones who have left their record on the houses in Clarges Street.
[Sidenote: HALF MOON STREET.]
Half Moon Street, close by, which takes its name from an old inn with
this sign, one of the many public houses which at one time congregated
in this quarter, of which the “Hercules Pillars,” the “Swan,” the
“Golden Lion,” the “Horse Shoe,” the “Barleymow,” and the “White
Horse,” may be mentioned--was formed about 1730. Boswell once lodged
here, and on his own shewing, gave admirable dinners, “and some
claret,” to such as Hume and Franklin; Garrick and Oglethorpe. Madame
D’Arblay’s last residence was also here, over a linen-draper’s shop;
and here, “in a little, projecting window,” might once have been seen
“all day long, book in hand, with lively gestures and bright eyes,” the
poet Shelley; so that someone said he only wanted a pan of water and
some fresh turf “to look like a young lady’s bird, hanging outside for
air and song.” Here, too, it was, while stepping into her carriage,
that the notorious Lola Montes, was arrested in 1849, on a charge of
bigamy.
[Sidenote: CAMBRIDGE HOUSE.]
For a moment a break in the succession of tributary streets, gives us
pause to return to some of the more interesting houses in Piccadilly
itself; and one of the most noticeable of these is that once known as
Cambridge House, but now as the Naval and Military or “In and Out”
Club, the latter colloquial designation having its simple origin in
the large “In” and “Out” directions for drivers, at its two entrances.
This fine house has had at least four names, for, besides those given,
it was originally known as Egremont House, and later as Cholmondeley
House. It took its first title from the second Earl of Egremont, who
died here in 1763 “of an apoplexy, which from his figure was reasonably
to be expected,” writes Lord Chesterfield. The third Earl, whom Mrs.
Delany thought “a pretty man,” and even Horace Walpole allowed to be
handsome, also lived here for a time. The name of the house was changed
to Cholmondeley House when the first Marquis of Cholmondeley was
residing here. He had been Chamberlain to the Prince of Wales in 1795,
and was, after George IV.’s accession, Lord Steward of the Household;
he died in 1827, and some years later the old Duke of Cambridge (father
of the late Duke) came to reside here, when the designation of the
house was again changed to that of its owner.
Many are the good stories told of His Royal Highness and his habit
(like Lord Dudley’s) of “thinking aloud,” particularly in church--such
as his audible remark, when the parson had uttered the words “Let us
pray,” of “By all means;” his “No, no, I don’t mind tithes, but can’t
stand half,” when the clergyman had read the text as to the expediency
of giving half of one’s possessions to the poor; and his common-sense
view of the non-efficacy of a certain prayer for rain: “No good--shan’t
get rain while the wind’s in this quarter;” and so on.
On his death in 1850, the Duke was succeeded in the occupancy of the
house by a man who was also the hero of many excellent “mots”--Lord
Palmerston.
“_The frolicsome statesman, the man of the day
A laughing philosopher, gallant and gay_,”
as Locker-Lampson called him. It is said that much of Palmerston’s
popularity was due to the splendid functions which took place under
Lady Palmerston’s auspices in this fine mansion. At his death there was
some idea of pulling down the house to make room for a Roman Catholic
Cathedral, but happily the scheme fell to the ground, and the place
is, with some additions necessary to the club which occupies it, in
practically the same state as when the royal Duke thought aloud in its
chambers, or the Prime Minister nonchalantly sauntered through its
gates.
[Sidenote: OTHER PICCADILLY CLUBS.]
Passing the Junior Naval and Military Club at No. 96, the Badminton
at No. 100, and the massive buildings of the Junior Constitutional,
representing Nos. 101 to 104, Piccadilly, we come to a beautiful house,
now the home of the Isthmian Club, which removed here from its premises
opposite Berkeley Street, now absorbed by the magnificent Ritz Hotel.
This residence, No. 95, was originally known as Barrymore House,
having been built in 1780, by Novosielski, for the Earl of Barrymore,
on a site once occupied by the workshop of that Van Nost, who was
responsible for the statue of George I. formerly in Grosvenor Square.
Lord Barrymore was the eldest of those three brothers and one sister,
who earned for themselves the unflattering _sobriquets_ of Hellgate,
Cripplegate, Newgate, and Billingsgate--the second being in allusion
to one of the brothers who was lame, and the last, to the sister whose
command of strong language was “extensive and peculiar.” Gambling and
general profligacy--by the way “profligate” might have summed up the
whole family--brought Lord Barrymore to great distress, and Raikes
records in his Diary that when the peer wished to give a dinner, he
had perforce--_à la_ Dick Steele--to dress up the bailiffs, who were
perpetually in the house, in his own liveries and get them to wait at
table!
It is hardly surprising to learn that the house was left unfinished at
the death of this unsavoury personage, and subsequently Smirke added
the porch. After a fire had occurred here--the curious thing being that
it did not happen in Barrymore’s lifetime--the place was repaired and
opened as the “Old Pulteney Hotel,” and here it was that the Emperor of
Russia stayed, when the allied Sovereigns were in this country in 1814.
After its day as an hotel, the Marquis of Hertford purchased the house,
and greatly improved, but practically never occupied it. This was the
third Lord Hertford, who married that Maria Fagniani, about whose
paternity George Selwyn and Old Q. could never satisfactorily agree,
and who is so largely responsible for the magnificent art collection
which Sir Richard Wallace left to the nation.
Next door, divided by a narrow passage, is No. 106, which is now
known as the “St. James’s Club.” Built on the site of an old inn
called “The Greyhound,” by the sixth Earl of Coventry, “the grave
young lord,” as Walpole calls him--who, by the bye, married one of
the beautiful Gunnings, who killed herself, ’tis said, by trying to
improve the loveliness that Nature had given her. Here he died in 1809;
his successor to the title also lived here, and, after his decease
in 1831, it became the headquarters of the “Coventry House Club” (or
the “Ambassadors’”), which was, however, closed in 1854. The house
next door is also a club--“The Savile”--one of the literary clubs of
modern London. In the old days, it was the home of the famous Nathan
Rothschild, who made a great _coup_ over the Battle of Waterloo, and
once told Spohr that the only music he cared for was the chink of money!
As we loiter along, the trees of the Green Park attract us, and the
gradual widening of the thoroughfare as we approach Hyde Park Corner,
an improvement made but a few years since, gives an additional effect
to the _coup d’œil_ that here presents itself. That curious object
over there, a sort of high shelf standing on two iron supports, has
exercised many a mind as to its uses. Perhaps not many people are aware
that the solution is to be found on a plate affixed to the object
itself, the words of which are as follows: “On the suggestion of R. A.
Slaney, Esq., who for 26 years represented Shrewsbury in Parliament,
this porters’ rest was erected in 1861 by the Vestry of St. George,
Hanover Square, for the benefit of porters and others carrying burdens.
As a relic of a past period in London’s history it is hoped that the
people will aid in its preservation.” But we must return to our bricks
and mortar and the associations connected with them.
[Sidenote: DOWN STREET.]
Now we are at the corner of Down Street, which leads directly to
Mayfair; and here (in No. 116, Piccadilly) is now the Junior Athenæum
Club, but known in earlier days as Hope House, which H. T. Hope, the
author of “Anastasius” and the creator of “Deepdene,” at Dorking--built
in 1848-9, at a cost of £80,000.
When a stranger is brought to this point and shewn the narrow way
dividing the club from the adjoining houses, and is told that it is
Park Lane (_see page 134_) he probably, being ignorant of locality,
receives a shock, having in mind the celebrity of this part of the town
and the fine houses which he has been taught to believe exist in it.
But this narrow street _is_ technically the commencement of Park Lane,
and does much to account for the somewhat inappropriate title by which
this fashionable thoroughfare is known.
The tenuity of this connecting neck, between Piccadilly and Park Lane
proper (if I may so term it), is still more accentuated by the huge
block of flats now being erected on the site of Gloucester House,
until recently the well-known residence of the late Duke of Cambridge.
Formerly this was the town house of that Lord Elgin who is famous as
having acquired the marvellous collection of antique marbles over which
poor Haydon was so enthusiastic, and here these treasures of antiquity
were for a time to be seen. The house took its name from the Duke of
Gloucester, who bought it in 1816, when he married his cousin the
Princess Mary, one of the many children of George III.
[Illustration: THE GATES OF HYDE PARK IN 1756.
(_From a Drawing by Jones._)]
When Gloucester House was still in existence the two adjoining
mansions, Nos. 138 and 139, stood out in the glory of their stone
façades, from the old brick house which receded somewhat from the road,
but now they in their turn threaten to become dwarfed by the huge
erection which towers above them.
These two houses were originally one, and here lived that “wicked old
Q.”--the Duke of Queensberry, whose manner of life was so notorious.
Here the old profligate sat under a sunshade in fine weather to ogle
the girls who passed by, and to send by his groom Radford, many an
impertinent message to the more attractive of them. Here this “Star of
Piccadilly” on one occasion, while engaging a running footman (he was
one of the last to keep this former appendage to noble state), made the
man put on his livery and run up and down in front of the house, and
finding him suitable, told him so, when the rogue replied, “and your
livery will suit me,” and making a mock bow, bolted, and was seen no
more!
It may be well, as we are now at the end of Piccadilly proper (for,
although the houses on the other side of Hamilton Place, among which
is that famous “No. 1, London,” as someone once called Apsley House,
where the great Wellington lived, and put up the celebrated iron
shutters, now removed, are given in Directories as in Piccadilly,
they should more properly be considered as at Hyde Park Corner), to
end our perambulation at the house of one who was so pre-eminently a
Londoner as “Old Q.” I wish we could have done so in better company,
and inasmuch as Lord Byron once resided at No. 139, then called, “13,
Piccadilly Terrace,” we do so, for although his lordship, apart from
his remarkable genius, was not a pattern of morality, he compares
well with the nobleman whose only redeeming merits were that he was
no fool and loved London as he probably loved few things. When in
town once in September, a friend asked Lord Queensberry if he did not
find it empty. “Yes,” he replied, “but ’tis fuller than the country;”
and there is little doubt but that even in those early days, no place
could have been selected for anyone to better enjoy the life of London
than that spot where the tide of humanity met, at the junction of
Piccadilly and Park Lane, with almost as full a force as we have seen
it do at the corner of Piccadilly and Old Bond Street, where Stewart’s,
hoary with antiquity (but to-day one of the most artistic buildings
in the neighbourhood), stands, and where those keenest judges in the
world--our American cousins--love to foregather, on the spot that is
perhaps better known to them than any other in London.
The Piccadilly Turnpike, which is such a feature in contemporary prints
of this part of the West End, was removed in 1721 from the end of
Berkeley Street to Hyde Park Corner. It remained here till 1825, in
October of which year it was sold and removed.
[Illustration: THE TURNPIKE AT HYDE PARK CORNER, 1706.]