_THE HAYMARKET, ST. JAMES’S SQUARE, AND PICCADILLY (EAST)._
“_A spacious street of great resort._”--STRYPE.
[Sidenote: THE HAYMARKET.]
The Haymarket is one of those thoroughfares whose names speak for
themselves. To-day, it is true, it has little the appearance of that
which its title indicates, and it is, therefore, all the pleasanter
to find its older uses recalled in its present denomination. The
curious thing is that the St. James’s hay-market, which was held close
by, so early as the days of Elizabeth, should have survived to so
comparatively recently as the reign of William IV.; yet it was not till
1830, that the Act was passed which removed the market to the vicinity
of Regent’s Park. That the Haymarket was long an important thoroughfare
is evidenced by Strype, who calls it “a spacious street of great
resort, full of inns and places of entertainment, especially on the
west side.”
Let us first see what were the “inns” which clustered here in such
profusion that a solemn topographer should have thought it necessary
to specifically mention them. The names of some of them have survived,
and I find, appropriately enough, “The Nag’s Head,” “The White Horse,”
“The Black Horse,” and “The Cock,” as well as “The Phœnix” (that
perennial fowl), “The Unicorn” (that hardly less ubiquitous animal),
and “The Blue Posts,” one of the best known of them all. If we look at
a plan of this locality, dated 1755, we shall see that the west side
of the street was riddled with small alleys or yards, some of which
were part and parcel of the taverns that once congregated here. Thus,
nearly at the bottom, on the site of the Carlton Hotel, was Phœnix Inn
Yard; next to it, where His Majesty’s Theatre now stands, the yard of
“The White Horse”; “The Cock” Yard was about half-way up, and “The
Nag’s Head” Yard next it. At the back of these, approached from Pall
Mall by two streets, known as St. Alban’s, and Market Streets, was the
St. James’s Market itself, since replaced by an extension of Regent
Street and Waterloo Place. “Black Horse” Yard was nearly at the top of
the Haymarket, where the continuation of Jermyn Street now runs, and
practically on the site of the Piccadilly Station of the Tube Railway;
while where Charles Street crosses the Haymarket on its western side
was formerly a small passage, known as Six Bell Alley.
“The Blue Posts” Tavern was at No. 59, and was long a favourite resort.
Otway mentions it in one of his plays; so does Bishop Cartwright in his
diary; and in contemporary newspapers are accounts of those affrays
which so frequently disturbed the harmony of these places of recreation.
“The Cock” was probably identical with the tavern bearing this sign
in Suffolk Street close by, which Pepys mentions, and which it is
likely had something to do with the origin of the name of the adjacent
Cockspur Street; while the other taverns must have often afforded
refreshment to the various notable people, who once resided in the
Haymarket.
One of the greatest of these, who we know loved to take his ease at
his inn, was Addison, who, while lodging in an attic over a small shop
here, wrote “The Campaign,” at the request of the Government. One day,
in after years, a little deformed man with eloquent eyes, fired with
enthusiasm, brought a friend to this same attic, and mounting the three
pair of stairs, opened the door of the small room, and exclaimed, “In
this garret Addison wrote his ‘Campaign’”--it was Pope pointing out the
workshop of genius to Harte.
Among various past notable residents, Sir Samuel Garth stands for
physic in the Haymarket; his house, from 1699 to 1703, being the
sixth door from the top, on the east side; and histrionic art is well
represented by Mrs. Oldfield, who was residing close by, from 1714 to
1726. Garth was a poet besides being a physician, and in the former
_rôle_ ridiculed apothecaries, about whom he must have known more
than most men, in his well-known “Dispensary,” a poem which appeared
in the year he came to live here. Nance Oldfield, if not of blameless
life, was indisputably a great actress, and I believe the only one who
lies in the Abbey, where her remains were buried with much pomp and
circumstance.
Painting, as is appropriate in a street which to-day boasts a number
of well-known picture shops, is represented by George Morland, who was
born here in 1763. The inequality of his work is characteristic of
the ups and downs of his reckless life; at one time he was producing
masterpieces, at another he was dashing off pot-boilers and tavern
signs. One wonders if among the latter was that sign which Broughton,
the pugilist, hung outside his public-house between the Haymarket and
Cockspur Street, and which represented the champion boxer himself “in
his habit as he lived.”
Nearly at the top of the street on the east side is an old
tobacconist’s shop (who does not know Fribourg’s?) which, in
appearance, carries us back to Georgian days, and shows how much has
been lost in picturesqueness by the modern methods of shop-building.
Wishart’s, another tobacconist’s, which has, however, unfortunately
disappeared, must have looked very much then as Fribourg’s continues
to do to-day. But the Haymarket has undergone such a metamorphosis
that the latter is the only survival of a past day, if we except the
portico of the Haymarket Theatre; and now that a Tube Railway Station
has invaded the street, the last touch has been given to it in the way
of modernity.
It is, however, appropriate that the spot in which Nance Oldfield
once lived should be so associated with the “vagabonds” as is this
thoroughfare, for here are the Haymarket Theatre, and His Majesty’s,
which latter stands partly on the site of that Haymarket Opera House,
Queen’s Theatre, King’s Theatre, and Her Majesty’s Theatre--to give it
all its various names--which most of us remember.
[Sidenote: THE HAYMARKET THEATRE.]
I will say a word about the Haymarket Theatre first, because it still
exists, and by its porticoed front helps to recall the Haymarket itself
of earlier days.
The present theatre, as we shall see, followed an earlier one which
stood not actually on its site, but on ground adjoining it, as may be
seen from an old view of this portion of the Haymarket.
This play-house was originally intended for use during the summer,
and in consequence of there being a more important theatre then in
existence (on the site of His Majesty’s), it was known as “The Little
Theatre in the Haymarket.” Built at the not extravagant cost of
£1,500, by one John Potter, it was opened on December 29th, 1721, by
a French Company, who styled themselves “The Duke of Montagu’s French
Comedians.” Their initial piece does not seem to have been a success;
and later “The Female Fop” (which Sandford says he wrote in a few
weeks, when but fifteen years of age), died a natural death after only
a few nights’ performance, although it served its purpose in helping to
inaugurate the new venture.
Some years later--to be precise, in 1735--the play-house was taken by
a company bearing the strange title of “The Great Mogul’s Company,”
and here Fielding’s “Pasquin” and “Historical Register” were given.
These plays never pretended to be anything but satires, and it is
interesting to know that their performance occasioned the passing of
“The Licensing Act,” which first gave the Lord Chamberlain that power
of veto over plays, the exercise of which has been the cause of so much
heart-burning ever since; and which, at the time, was the cause of many
amusing attempts at evasion, particularly by Theophilus Cibber, one of
the earlier managers, and Foote, whose invitation to the public “to
drink a dish of chocolate with him” could hardly have misled even the
most unsophisticated of country cousins.
For three years from 1744, Macklin managed the theatre, and was then
succeeded by Foote, who continued to run the house, off and on, for
no less than thirty successful years. With his “Devil on Two Sticks”
he is said to have cleared between three and four thousand pounds, of
which, by the bye, little or nothing was left at the end of the year.
Foote, indeed, had a remarkable aptitude for squandering money, and the
motto which he had placed in his carriage: “Iterum, iterum, iterumque,”
had a new significance given it by his perpetually renewed attempts to
replace the money that had taken unto itself wings!
In 1766, a patent was passed for the establishment of a new theatre
here, for Foote; and in the following year it was made a “Royal
Theatre.” Just ten years later Foote sold his interest in the house to
the elder Colman, on the apparently splendid terms of an annuity of
£1,600, and permission to play as often and when he liked to the extent
of a further £400 a year. But although one can understand Dr. Johnson’s
wonder as to what Colman was going to make out of it, the arrangement
turned out well for him, as Foote died within a year, and played only
three times.
Colman was succeeded in his management by his son, whose first season
commenced in 1790, and who, fifteen years later, sold half his share to
Messrs. Morris and Winston. Later, the well-known Thomas Dibdin took
over the concern, and it was during his management that, on August
15th, 1805, occurred a great riot here, organised by members of the
sartorial trade, who took exception to the performance of a piece
entitled “The Tailors, a Tragedy for Warm Weather,” as reflecting on
their calling. To such a height, indeed, did matters come that special
constables and a company of the Life Guards were requisitioned to
assist the regular Bow Street officers.
Some years later--to be precise, in 1820--the present play-house,
whose historian is the well-known actor-manager, Mr. Cyril Maude--was
erected, from the designs of Nash, at a cost of £18,000; the earlier
theatre remained open until the larger house was finished, when it
closed, on October 14th, 1820, with a performance of “King Lear.”
I may remind the reader that such great exponents of the Thespian art,
as Mrs. Abington, Miss Farren, Edwin, Elliston, Bannister, Henderson,
and “Gentleman Lewis” have all acted at the original house; while the
great names of Macready, Webster, and Buckstone, besides Sothern, the
Bancrofts, Mr. Tree, and Mr. Cyril Maude in our own days, are among
those closely associated with the present theatre.
It was of the Haymarket Theatre that the story is told that that
inveterate punster H. J. Byron was once asked (I believe by Lady--then
Mrs.--Bancroft) to give a motto to be placed over the pay-office, when
he immediately suggested “So much for Booking ’em” as an appropriate
heading!
[Sidenote: SUFFOLK STREET.]
Suffolk Street, running partly behind the play-house, is one of the
older streets in this neighbourhood, having been formed in 1664, on the
site once occupied by the town house of the Earls of Suffolk. Although
the present street is relatively modern, its lines follow those of the
older one. At its Pall Mall eastern corner stands the United University
Club in its stately rebuilt magnificence, but the street is connected
more intimately with Art than Letters, being the home of the Society
of British Artists. Once it echoed to the tread of Swift, when he came
to visit Vanessa, who for a time lodged here with her mother. Adam
Smith was a former resident, as was Moll Davis, for whom the King
furnished a house here, before her apotheosis in St. James’s Square
hard by, as Pepys tells us; and when the Italian Corticelli had his
town house here, frequented, in the days of George I., for raffles and
assignations, the little thoroughfare must have presented a gay and
gallant sight, with which its present-day solemn respectability cannot
have much in common.
But perhaps Suffolk Street is chiefly interesting, particularly just
now, when Free Trade and Protection are again rivals for our suffrages,
as being the last home of Richard Cobden; for here he died in lodgings,
at No. 23, on April 2nd, 1865. A memorial tablet marks the house where
the great Free Trader breathed his last, and whither he had come only a
few weeks previously.
[Sidenote: THE OPERA HOUSE, & HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE.]
On the other side of the Haymarket a very important change has
occurred, owing to the demolition of the old theatre, and the erection
on its the present house, as well as the building of the Carlton Hotel,
which did away with the colonnade, once the noticeable feature of this
corner of the Haymarket and Pall Mall.
[Illustration: The Opera House Colonnade. PALL MALL EAST. Carlton House
Screen.]
This old play-house, which, as we have seen, went through many changes
of nomenclature, was the work of Sir John Vanbrugh, who was backed
by a sum of £30,000, subscribed by 300 people, who had in return a
right of free entrance to any of the performances. The lovely Lady
Sunderland, Marlborough’s daughter, laid the first stone, in 1703,
the theatre being completed two years later, when it was opened with
a performance of “The Indian Emperor,” by Dryden. Unfortunately,
however, Vanbrugh appears to have thought more of its architectural
beauties than its acoustic properties, for not the combined management
of Vanbrugh and Congreve (who had joined the poet-architect in the
concern), nor the acting of the great Betterton and the company that
came with him from Lincoln’s Inn Fields, could make Dryden’s lines or
Vanbrugh’s conceits heard even by a tithe of the audience.
Vanbrugh was succeeded in the management by Owen MacSwiney, under whom
an Opera Company, including the famous Niccolini, gave a series of
performances here. A year later, Betterton, who had betaken himself to
the rival camp at Drury Lane, was lured back and engaged to act for a
month with a strong company supporting him. After this the house was
again given over to opera, and Aaron Hill became manager, in 1710. He
it was who made overtures to Handel to write the lyrics of an opera,
the result being “Rinaldo,” which the master is said to have composed
in a couple of weeks.
In the following year Heidegger, whose name is to be found in the
“Dunciad,” and who was Master of the Revels to George I.--fancy the
solemn Hanoverian revelling!--became manager.
From 1717 to 1720, no Italian operas were performed in the Haymarket,
but in the latter year a number of noblemen and gentlemen combined to
start a society chiefly devoted to the performance of Handel’s works,
although Bononcini was also employed, hence arising that celebrated
feud between the adherents of “Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”
There is on record another great feud between the partisans of the two
rival singers Cuzzoni and Faustina, which eventually resulted in the
former leaving this country, cheered, if she could be, by some lines by
Ambrose Phillips, who termed her the “charmer of an idle age,” although
the management of the Opera House had not much reason to echo this
flattering sentiment.
Later, the opera having fallen into some financial difficulties, Handel
and Heidegger determined to carry it on on their own responsibility.
From this time, 1734, when Handel’s partnership with Heidegger ended,
to 1782, the Opera House was the scene of all sorts of entertainments,
from Handel’s operas and Mlle. Hemel’s dancing, to the ball given by
the Knights of the Bath, in 1779, and the masquerade of thirty years
earlier, when George II. appeared in an “old-fashioned English habit”
(an excellent disguise), and Miss Chudleigh, with next to nothing on,
reminded the scandalised Horace Walpole of Andromeda, rather than the
Iphigenia whom she was supposed to represent.
Some years after the alterations to the theatre, when it was under
the management of Gallini, a disastrous fire occurred there, which
practically destroyed it, but phœnix-like, a new building quickly arose
on its site, although many people, Walpole among them, thought that
it was a useless expenditure, as the days of opera appeared to have
departed for ever. The new house was designed by Novosielski, and
Lord Buckinghamshire laid the first stone, in April, 1790, it being
completed in the following year. Later, Michael Kelly and Storace
managed it jointly when Sheridan and Taylor were the lessees.
Although principally used either as a theatre or opera house, an
innovation was attempted, in 1787, by the introduction of ballets, one
of which, entitled “Bacchus and Ariadne,” seems to have been anything
but adapted _virginibus puerisque_; and it was a question whether
the presentation of it or its withdrawal would cause the greater
indignation!
The names of Goold, the founder of the Union Club, and Taylor, who was
perennially in difficulties, Waters and Ebers, Laporte and Lumley,
under the last of whom that great quartette composed of Taglioni,
Grisi, Grehn, and Cerito performed; and Smith and Mapleson, are among
those who figured at various times as _impresarios_ here; while the
singers whose voices once echoed through that vast auditorium were such
as Jenny Lind and Sontag, Pasta and Tietjens, Mario and Tamburini.
A second great fire, on December 6th, 1867, again destroyed the
building, which was subsequently re-erected with its principal
frontage in Pall Mall, at a great cost; this in its turn we have seen
disappear, and the new “His Majesty’s Theatre” rise on its site, with
its chief entrance in the Haymarket, and a long frontage to Charles
Street. Luckily, the old arcade is embodied in the new building, and
here are still to be seen those dear little shops that look so clean
and prosperous and yet so diminutive--like a sort of Tom Thumbs among
business establishments!
At the north corner of Charles Street and Regent Street is the Junior
United Service Club, in which, report hath it, that a certain part of
the dining-room, frequented by the older members, is known as “Rotten
Row”; while across Waterloo Place (or really the continuation of Regent
Street) is yet another Club--the Caledonian--housed in the former
residence of the late Lord Waterford.
[Sidenote: ST. JAMES’S SQUARE.]
A few steps further and we are in the heart of St. James’s Square. Here
history and legend will run away with us if I do not restrain my pen,
for every house has an interesting history; each has been the abode of
some famous personage.
Here, in the south-east corner, is the long front of Norfolk House,
the residence of the last six Dukes of Norfolk; behind it still stands
the old house, used principally as a lumber-room, in which George
III., and his brother, the Duke of York, were born, what time the
mansion was lent to Frederick, Prince of Wales, by an accommodating
Duke. The Bishop of London’s official town residence, whither the Duke
of Hamilton, after his celebrated duel with Lord Mohun, was carried,
is next door, nestling between the ducal abode and Lord Derby’s
iron-balustraded mansion. Commerce has invaded the Square, for, at the
opposite corner, is a Bank, and next to it Lord Falmouth’s house, which
has some old cannon as posts planted in the pavement before it.
[Illustration: ST. JAMES’S SQUARE IN 1760.]
In Lord Cowper’s, No. 4, is that magnificent room designed by Lord
Burlington, which is a wonder to those who see it for the first time.
This is one of the few houses in the Square which has remained in the
hands of a single family since the Square was formed by Lord St.
Alban’s, in Charles II.’s day. Lord Strafford’s house is next door;
and on the other side it is flanked by Lord Bristol’s, another of the
houses to which one family has steadfastly adhered.
It is curious, having this in view, and remembering the aristocratic
traditions associated with the Square, to find so many of the houses
now turned to alien uses. Clubs--the Windham, the Sports, the Portland,
the Nimrod, the East India, and the Army and Navy--occupy no less
than half a dozen of them; the London Library is housed in a rebuilt
structure on the site of the former residence of Admiral, the Earl
of Torrington; and an art gallery peers out of the corner premises
abutting on King Street.
Members of the great families of Sunderland, Portland, Halifax,
Legge, Hyde, Devonshire, etc., besides those I have mentioned, have
all resided here; so, too, did the wonderful old Lady Newburgh, who
remembered I don’t know how many sovereigns, and was a friend of one
of the most unfortunate, Charles I.; the first Lord Palmerston, who
married an heiress under romantic circumstances; Sir Allen Apsley, who
was Treasurer to the Duke of York, and who on one occasion received the
future James II. as a guest beneath his roof “for one night only,” as
they say in theatrical circles; Sir Cyril Wyche, who was a President
of the Royal Society; Sir John Duncombe, a former Chancellor of the
Exchequer; _and_ Sir Charles Grandison; besides Ambassadors from nearly
all the courts of Europe.
No; it is to the past that we must turn to find even this most
select of Squares in its glory. When all the great houses were
standing--Cleveland House (now represented by a huge and incongruous
block of flats), Lord Jermyn’s fine mansion, on the site of the
Portland Club, and Mr. Guinness’s residence, and Ossulston House, where
the Bank and Lord Falmouth’s now stand--an additional distinction must
have been given the Square, especially when we remember the great and
beautiful residents who were then to be seen in its precincts.
The history of this Square is a particularly fascinating one; but
it can be but lightly touched on here.[2] As we have seen, a king
was born in its chief house, so, at a later day, a queen was to be
observed driving from another residence, that of the notable Sir Philip
Francis, to take her trial at Westminster, and a curious print of the
period shows Queen Caroline in her carriage surrounded by a vast crowd
leaving No. 17, which house, together with its next door neighbour, was
subsequently to be demolished to make room for the East India Club.
Another notable residence is No. 20, the only example in the Square,
but a fine one, of Robert Adam’s work. It was for many years the home
of the Watkin Williams Wynn family, for one of whom it was built, in
1772, until recently, when it passed into Lord Strathmore’s possession.
But not always have the residents been of noble birth or irreproachable
morals, and as we again emerge into Pall Mall by the Army and Navy
Club’s gorgeous buildings--the work of Parnell, and standing on the
spot where once the famous Raggett, the proprietor of White’s, opened
the unsuccessful Union Club--we are reminded that in a small house
on part of its site once lived that Moll Davis, the actress, whose
singing of an old ballad attracted the questionable attentions of
Charles II. The footsteps of the Merry Monarch must have often echoed
in the Square, where the siren dwelt, and where also lived so many of
his friends and acquaintances. Other footsteps have been heard here;
those of Johnson and Savage, who, cold and hungry, passed a whole night
wandering round the central garden with its statue of King William III.
(which was so unconscionable a time in getting itself erected), while
they settled the affairs of the nation and dreamed of that immortality
which one, at least, was to attain.
By the bye, that open space, formerly a mere rubbish heap, has seen
many vicissitudes. Once it had a considerable piece of water within
its enclosure, and was octagonal in shape; earlier still it was merely
enclosed by posts and rails in a most uncompromising square; to-day it
is, to use a much-loved 18th century word, an “umbrageous” garden.
The present inhabitants would be sufficiently startled if Mr. Brock
were to suggest a display of fireworks there; but in past days this
was a regular concomitant to any great public rejoicings, and many
of the influential residents interested themselves in these “_feux
d’artifice_.” The victory of the Boyne, the capture of Namur, the Peace
of Ryswick were some of the more notable occasions for, as contemporary
prints assure us, really remarkable efforts in pyrotechnic display.
But we must quit St. James’s Square, with its historic memories,
its ghosts of the great and beautiful; its houses built by the
Brettinghams, Storys, Barebones, and Friths, and decorated by the
Adams, the Kauffmanns, the Ciprianis, and the Amiconis of a past day;
and to do so let us retrace our steps to its north side, where York
Street will lead us into Jermyn Street.
[Sidenote: JERMYN STREET.]
It is not difficult to trace the name of York Street to the Duke of
York, who afterwards became an unpopular king; but it requires some
effort of the imagination to connect with Apple-tree Yard, in the same
street, that orchard of apple-trees for which this spot was famous in
the reign of Charles I.
When the Spanish Ambassador was living in St. James’s Square, the
chapel connected with the Embassy was situated in York Street, and
the building, with the arms of Castile upon it, was standing till so
recently as 1877.
Jermyn Street, into which we now turn, is famous. It is as
characteristically redolent of the West End as (say) Leadenhall Street
is of the East. All sorts and conditions of interesting people have
lived or lodged in it; Marlborough, when yet John Churchill, and only a
colonel; the Duchess of Richmond, known to readers of De Grammont and
students of the later Carolean days, as _La Belle Stuart_; the haughty
Countess of Northumberland; Secretary Craggs and Bishop Berkeley, and
Lord Carteret; to say nothing of Verelst, the painter, of whose vanity
so many stories are told by Walpole. The great Sir Isaac Newton, until
he went to Chelsea; Shenstone, when he could tear himself away from
his beloved “Leasowes”; and Gray, who, as Johnson said, would go down
to posterity with a thinner volume under his arm than any of the great
poets, also resided in Jermyn Street. The latter lodged at Roberts’,
the hosiers, or Frisby’s, the oilman’s, as he found convenient (paying
not more than half a guinea a week for his rooms), just as Bishop
Berkeley had done at an earlier day at Burdon’s, with its sign of “The
Golden Globe.”
In the nineteenth century the street may have been enlivened by the
jokes of Sidney Smith or the gentle caroling of Tom Moore, for they
both sojourned here, the one at No. 81, in 1811, the other at No.
58, fourteen years later. But a greater than either once stayed for
a short space in the street; for at one of the many hotels which
have flourished and faded here, the great Sir Walter remained for
three weeks, after his return from the Continent; and here he lay in
that waking dream which had but one dominant expression in its dull
monotony, the unconquerable desire to be once again in his “ain hame,”
and to hear the busy Tweed rippling over its stones.
[Sidenote: ST. JAMES’S CHURCH.]
In spite of much rebuilding there yet remains one object here which
will help to recall us to the past--the Church of St. James’s, which
fronts both Jermyn Street and Piccadilly. It was erected by Henry
Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, soon after he had begun the development of
his neighbouring property. Wren had a hand in it, when it was commenced
in 1680, but he concentrated his efforts on the interior, which is
extraordinarily light and spacious. Grinling Gibbons was responsible
for the beautiful marble font and a portion of the altar; and the
organ was originally made for James II. Its rectors have occasionally
attained high preferment, no less than three--Tenison, the first; Wake,
the second, and Secker, at a later date, reaching the Archbishopric.
Interesting things have happened in this church. Once the minister was
ordered not to lay the text on the cushion (as was then the custom)
of the Princess Anne, who used to attend here when she was living at
Berkeley House, nor “to take any more notice of her than other people,”
as old Sarah of Marlborough indignantly records; but the rector refused
to do this without an order in writing, which the Crown did not think
it expedient to give; Defoe was scandalised at the charges made here
for a seat, “where it costs one almost as dear as to see a play”; and
in the churchyard Gibbon once stumbled and sprained his foot, but he
is careful to particularise the time of the mishap, “between the hours
of one and two in the afternoon,” so that there need be no shaking of
heads. Gibbon, who was nothing if not “genteel,” selected his church
well, for Vanbrugh, in his “Relapse,” makes Lord Foppington say that he
always attended St. James’s for “there’s much the best company!”
[Illustration: “THE BULL AND MOUTH,” PICCADILLY.]
The church and the churchyard in which Gibbon slipped, are so full
of illustrious dead, that it would seem, indeed, a difficult matter
to pass through them without stumbling against some “pointed clay.”
Here lies Cotton, who shares the fame of the “Compleat Angler” with
his friend Walton; Tom D’Urfey, who made up those “pills to purge
melancholy” which so many have found a pleasant enough prescription;
the artist Van der Velde, the royal marine painter, who knew the trick
of marine painting if anyone did; Dahl and Haysman, the portraitists,
and Harlowe, who reproduced the trial scene of Queen Katherine. Mrs.
Delany was laid to rest here, so was Mark Akenside, who died in Old
Burlington Street; Dodsley, the great Pall Mall bookseller; Gillray,
who caricatured a whole generation, and “Old Q,” who scandalised
another, and so on; while the great Chatham, and Chesterfield--that
“glass of fashion”--were both held at the font which Grinling Gibbons
had adorned.
[Sidenote: PICCADILLY CIRCUS.]
If we continue westward along Jermyn Street we shall come to St.
James’s Street, which we have already traversed, and if eastward, to
the Haymarket, which we have but recently left; let us therefore go up
the little passage by the side of the church, and find ourselves in the
full bustle of that part of Piccadilly which we have till now neglected.
Piccadilly Circus is one of the sights of London. It is the
starting-point of at least four great thoroughfares. To the west lies
Piccadilly; to the east, Coventry Street, leading to Leicester Square;
to the north-west runs Regent Street; to the north-east, Shaftesbury
Avenue; while (lower) Regent Street, leading to Waterloo Place, lies
south.
“_That gentle hill which goeth
Down from the ‘County’ to the Palace gate_,”
as Tom Hood called it, contained several other landmarks which have
disappeared, among them, the church on the right hand going towards
Pall Mall, and “The Bull and Mouth,” at the top south-east corner,
whence the “Age” coach, tooled by the Duke of Beaufort, used to leave
on its journey westward. Later the “Bull and Mouth” was known as “The
Spread Eagle,” established in 1820, and now it fulfils some part of its
former rôle by being converted into a railway receiving office.
Whether by day, when the flower girls sit around the base of Gilbert’s
“Cupid,” (a “cold pastoral” indeed, in his exposed situation, aiming
his arrow at the luggage on the cabs or the passengers on the omnibuses
as they pass and repass his happy hunting-ground); or by night,
as Yoshima Markino would possibly prefer, when the lamps from the
Trocadero or the Criterion are dimly perceived through a fog, or are
almost indecently glaring in a clear sky (if ever London has a clear
sky above it), Piccadilly Circus is a sight, I always think, to wonder
at. It is a perpetual eddy of many waters. If not unhasting, certainly
unresting are the passengers on those streams which flow in from so
many points and seek so many exits. Here the denizens of Soho emerge
to their farthest western limits; here the West End, in electric
broughams, comes to the outskirts of its own country. Theatre and
music-hall are here “at grips” with their opposition entertainments.
Everything comes in time to Piccadilly Circus. The man strolling out
from the play in evening dress and crush hat may be hailed by a friend
in ulster and shooting boots, whose hansom is the last stage of a
journey from the Hebrides or the Himalayas; the east and the west meet
here on common ground for that amusement which would seem to be taken
in anything but the sad spirit predicated of it by Continental nations.
[Illustration: LOWER REGENT STREET, FROM PICCADILLY CIRCUS, WITH
CARLTON HOUSE AND SCREEN. Site of “Bull and Mouth.”]
And then for the stranger there is such a pleasant commingling of the
old and the new at this point. The wilds of Soho, with its historic
Square, its streets that defy the most exact logical definition, its
church, its memories of Dr. Manette and the sweet Lucy; Leicester
Square where once was a royal palace, and the homes of Reynolds,
and Hunter, and Hogarth, and our one and only Sir Isaac; and where
the Empire, and the Alhambra (awhile the home of that most dreary
Panopticon) compete nightly with all the bravery of illumination and
gigantic “chuckers out.”
In Regent Street, which had its genesis in the Prince Regent’s desire
for a fine thoroughfare between Carlton House and his residence in
Regent’s Park, and the making of which did away with as much dirt and
squalor as Shaftesbury Avenue has attempted to do in our own day,
Nash’s magnificent sweep is now, alas! interrupted by Mr. Norman Shaw’s
splendid “Piccadilly Hotel,” the elevation of which shows the design
adopted for the rebuilding of the Quadrant. The once famous colonnade
has long since disappeared; but in the Haymarket, the Theatre, and
Fribourg’s delightful old shop still show what it once looked like. And
then with these we have the _dernier cri_ of His Majesty’s Theatre, the
Tube railway station, and the roar of the motor ’bus.
If we can but escape from these leviathans of the road, let us beat a
hasty retreat from beneath Cupid’s bended bow and outstretched leg, and
make our way back by Piccadilly to Stewart’s corner, from whence we
first started on our perambulation.
At the Circus we are nearly on the site of that famous gaming-house,
known as Pickadilla Hall, of which the earliest mention appears to have
occurred in 1623, when it was in the possession of one Robert Baker,
whose widow sold it to that somewhat notorious Colonel Panton, who was
associated with Titus Oates, and whose name survives in Panton Street.
He it was who built Panton Square, where the Comedy Theatre now stands,
in one of the houses of which, in 1762, the Ambassador of Morocco cut
off his servant’s head because the latter had displeased his sable
Excellency in some trivial matter, with the result that the resentful
envoy and his retinue received a sound thrashing from an infuriated mob
which got wind of the circumstance.
[Sidenote: PICCADILLY EAST.]
Even in those early days a good deal of trouble was taken to keep
Piccadilly, that is, as far as Sackville Street (for the remaining
portion was then known as Portugal Street or the “way to Reading”),
well paved, and free from contamination in other ways, as Evelyn’s
Diary and Burton’s Parliamentary Journals attest.
By a plan, dated 1720, we can see that then, as now, several small
alleys led into, what in the plan is termed German Street. There was
on the south side Salter’s Court, and--appropriately as being in the
vicinity of Pickadilla Hall--Fleece Yard; and Eagle Street and King’s
Arms Yard between St. James’s Church and Duke Street. On the north
side Shug Lane is given as on part of the site of Regent Street, and
leading to “Marybone Street”; Bear Alley, a few steps further west,
probably where stood “The White Bear,” formerly known as the “Fleece”
Inn, one of the busiest of the old coaching houses, and dating from
the middle of the 17th century. Here West, the painter, stayed on his
arrival in London from America; and Luke Sulivan and Chatelain,
the engravers, both died, the latter only having taken lodgings here on
the previous night. And Magget’s Lane is given beyond Air Street and
close to Swallow Street.
[Illustration: THE “WHITE BEAR” (FORMERLY THE “FLEECE” INN),
PICCADILLY.]
[Illustration: THE PICCADILLY HOTEL.
(_Built on the site of St. James’s Hall_)]
The Arts have been, till recently, well represented in Piccadilly, for
nearly opposite to Burlington House, to which we shall shortly come,
is the building of the Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and
close by was, till the other day, St. James’s Hall, where the best
of good music was unable to wean the public from their fireside or
their theatre stalls in sufficient numbers to make it pay; and so that
star-bedizened ceiling and orientally decorated Hall is no more, but
is now succeeded by the splendid front of the new “Piccadilly Hotel,”
the latest, and architecturally the most interesting and original of
the many fine hotels that have sprung up in London during the last few
years. Indeed, “the Piccadilly,” as, I suppose, it will be familiarly
called, is, both inside and out, a remarkable example of the palatial
character which modern luxury seems to demand in the building and
management of latter-day hotels. As I have said, some old land-marks
had to make way for it; but what’s not destroyed by Time’s devouring
hand?
[Sidenote: QUARITCH’S.]
Even Quaritch’s, the bookseller’s (now removed to Grafton Street),
known as well to American and foreign bibliophiles as to ourselves,
has been turned to other uses! Who that loves books didn’t know the
great Quaritch and his top hat, as distinctive as Napoleon’s grey coat
or Wellington’s duck trousers? Indeed, Quaritch was the Napoleon or
Wellington, which you will, of booksellers, and Sotheby’s his chosen
field of battle, where in great contests, he suffered no defeats. That
hat, crushed on his head, and so old that it was not to be easily
recognised as ever having been of silk, was one day placed beneath a
glass flower-cover by a daughter wrought to despair at the inefficacy
of repeated admonitions, and the conqueror recognised at last that it
had become merely a relic!
With the disappearance of St. James’s Hall and Quaritch’s, Piccadilly
would seem to be losing all touch with past times, did not Hatchard’s
Book Shop, Fores’ Print Shop, Lincoln & Bennett’s, Denman’s,[3] and
Stewart’s still remain to crystallise in their well-known names those
past days of which, say what we will, we seem to be losing grip with
every succeeding year.
[Sidenote: THE ALBANY, PICCADILLY.]
This fine old house, which has, since 1804, been divided into suites of
apartments for single men, was designed by Chambers. In 1770, it was
sold by the second Lord Holland to Lord Melbourne, who subsequently
exchanged it with the Duke of York for Melbourne House, Whitehall. In
Lord Holland’s time it was called Piccadilly House, and a previous
mansion on the same site had been known as Sunderland House.
[Illustration: DENMAN HOUSE, PICCADILLY.
(_The Vignette shows the old building, No. 20, rebuilt 1903_).]
It is altogether cloistral, and the curious covered passageway running
through from Piccadilly to Burlington Gardens, from which suites of
rooms are reached, helps to give it that seclusion which Macaulay, one
of its most notable inhabitants, delighted in. It combined what he best
liked--“a college life at the West End of London.” The various suites
are numbered in blocks; thus, Macaulay’s was No. 1 E, on the second
floor, where the earlier volumes of the great history were written;
“Monk” Lewis lived in No. 61 K.; George Canning at No. 5 A. Lord Byron
and Lord Lytton both had sets of chambers here, and the former enters
in his journal for March 28th, 1814, the fact that on that day he took
possession of the rooms, rented from Lord Althorp for seven years.
It was from here that he set out to be married to Miss Milbanke on a
fateful day for them both, January 2nd, 1815. Lytton, at a later date,
occupied the same apartments, and wrote many of his novels here. Lady
Lytton once told a friend that she had heard from him that he was here
“with Solitude”; but, paying her lord and master an unexpected visit,
she found “Solitude” gowned in white muslin and sitting on his knee!
[Sidenote: BURLINGTON HOUSE.]
Close to Bond Street is shown on the plan of 1720 the large building
of old Burlington House. The illustration, taken from an old print of
the period, gives an excellent view of it, with its ample courtyard
in front and its extensive gardens behind. Think of the site of this
being at the time of the Restoration nothing but pasture land! Pepys
says that Denham, who wrote those two immortal lines on the Thames,
and who is said by De Grammont to have poisoned his wife (who, if such
a proceeding could be justified, would seem to have given her lord
every reason, by her conduct with the Duke of York), built the house.
Denham does not appear to have ever lived in it, however; its original
occupier being the first Earl of Burlington, and it was when once
visiting him here that Pepys, in endeavouring to seal a letter, set his
periwig on fire, as readers of his diary will remember.
The glory of the mansion commenced with the third Earl of Burlington,
that munificent patron of art and practical architect, whose praises
Pope and Gay and Walpole were never tired of singing. He it was who
rebuilt the place essentially as it is to-day, the chief portion of
the design being due, however, to Colin Campbell. The semi-circular
colonnade which originally flanked the house, as well as the long wall,
according to Ralph, the most expensive in England, with its three
entrances facing Piccadilly, were taken down in 1868.
When, in process of time, the place came into the possession of the
Cavendishes, they sold it, in 1854, to the Government for £140,000.
For a time it seemed uncertain to what purpose it would be relegated,
and all sorts of suggestions were made. Finally it was added to by
new buildings in Burlington Gardens, for the use of the University
of London, and by a new façade facing Piccadilly. Now-a-days several
learned Societies have their headquarters in portions of the
extensive buildings, but to “the man in the street” Burlington House
spells the Royal Academy, the council of which obtained a lease of
their building in 1866.
[Illustration: OLD BURLINGTON HOUSE AND GARDENS, PICCADILLY.]
Now let us find our way back again to Piccadilly by the easy route,
especially in wet weather, of the Burlington Arcade--a sort of _Passage
des Princes_ of London--designed for Lord George Cavendish, in 1818,
which tradition says was originally intended as a covered court to
prevent dirt and rubbish from being thrown on the walks of Burlington
House gardens.
One could, of course, go loitering over reams of paper in Piccadilly,
for nearly every house or its site has had a history; every stone
has echoed the footsteps of the illustrious and interesting for many
a generation. All the great pageants of London have passed between
its shops and houses into the night. And now, as we turn into the
bustle of its chief and richest artery, let us exclaim with Phil
Porter:--“Farewell, my dearest Piccadilly.”