FAMOUS HOUSES AND LITERARY SHRINES OF LONDON
[Illustration: SAM. JOHNSON]
FAMOUS HOUSES AND
LITERARY SHRINES
OF LONDON
BY A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK
WITH SEVENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
BY FREDERICK ADCOCK
AND 16 PORTRAITS
LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 1912
_All rights reserved_
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
PREFATORY NOTE
Nothing could well be deader or emptier than an unoccupied house of whose
former inhabitants we have no knowledge; and it is impossible to take a
real interest in a house now occupied by strangers, even though it was
aforetime the residence of some famous man, unless we are acquainted with
that man's personality, and know what he thought and did and said whilst
he was living there. I have attempted to do little more than supply that
information here as the complement of my brother's drawings, and to this
end have been less concerned to give my own descriptions and opinions than
to bring together opinions and descriptions that were written by such
famous residents themselves or by guests and visitors who saw and knew
them. As far as possible I have quoted from contemporary Diaries and
Memoirs, especially from letters that were written in or to these houses,
or from Journals that their tenants kept whilst they dwelt there,
supplementing all this with a narrative of incidents and events that might
help to recreate the life and recapture the atmosphere that belonged to
such places in the days that have made them memorable. Whenever I have
adventured into any general biography, or expressed any personal opinion,
it has been merely with the object of adding so much of history and
character as would serve to fill in the outline of a man's portrait, give
it a sufficient fulness and colour of life, and throw into clear relief
the space of time that he passed in some particular house that can still
be seen in a London street.
I think I have throughout made due acknowledgment to the authors of
various volumes of _Recollections_ and _Table Talk_ from which I have
drawn anecdotes and pen-portraits, and I should like to mention at the
outset that for biographical facts and much else I have been particularly
indebted to such books as Elwin and Courthope's edition of the _Poems and
Letters of Pope_; Austin Dobson's _William Hogarth_, and H. B. Wheatley's
_Hogarth's London_; Boswell's _Johnson_, of course, and Forster's _Lives
of Goldsmith_ and of _Dickens_; Gilchrist's _Life of Blake_; Leslie's and
Holmes's _Lives of Constable_; Arthur B. Chamberlain's _George Romney_;
Lord Houghton's _Life and Letters of Keats_, and Buxton Forman's _Complete
Works of John Keats_; Leigh Hunt's _Autobiography_; De Quincey's _English
Opium Eater_; Hogg's and Peacock's _Memoirs of Shelley_; Carew Hazlitt's
_Memoirs of Hazlitt_; Blackman's _Life of Day_; Byron's _Journals and
Letters_, and Lewis Bettany's useful compilation from them, _The
Confessions of Lord Byron_; Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, and Scott's
_Journal_; Talfourd's and Ainger's _Lives of Lamb_, and Lamb's _Letters_;
Walter Jerrold's _Life of Thomas Hood_; Cross's _Life of George Eliot_;
Sir William Armstrong's _Life of Turner_, and Lewis Hind's _Turner's
Golden Visions_; Joseph Knight's _Rossetti_; Froude's _Thomas Carlyle_,
and W. H. Wylie's _Carlyle, The Man and His Books_; Allingham's _Diary_;
E. R. and J. Pennell's _Life of Whistler_; Trollope's _Thackeray_, and
Lady Thackeray Ritchie's prefaces to the Centenary Edition of Thackeray's
works.
A. ST. J. A.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. SOME CELEBRATED COCKNEYS 1
II. SHAKESPEARE IN LONDON 10
III. WHERE POPE STAYED AT BATTERSEA 26
IV. HOGARTH 36
V. GOLDSMITH, REYNOLDS, AND SOME OF THEIR CIRCLE 52
VI. HOMES AND HAUNTS OF JOHNSON AND BOSWELL 89
VII. BLAKE AND FLAXMAN 118
VIII. A HAMPSTEAD GROUP 140
IX. ROUND ABOUT SOHO AGAIN 167
X. A PHILOSOPHER, TWO POETS, AND A NOVELIST 187
XI. CHARLES LAMB 207
XII. ST. JOHN'S WOOD AND WIMBLEDON 233
XIII. CHELSEA MEMORIES 255
XIV. THACKERAY 296
XV. DICKENS 314
XVI. CONCLUSION 328
PORTRAITS
DR. JOHNSON _Frontispiece_
_From an engraving by T. TROTTER after a
drawing from life_
JOHN MILTON _Facing p._ 4
_From a miniature by FAITHORNE_
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE " 16
_From an engraving by SCRIVEN after the
Chandos portrait_
ALEXANDER POPE " 33
_From an engraving by J. POSSELWHITE after
the picture by HUDSON_
OLIVER GOLDSMITH " 81
_After a drawing by SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS_
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS " 96
_From an engraving after his own portrait_
JAMES BOSWELL " 102
_From an engraving by W. HALL after a sketch
by LAWRENCE_
JOHN KEATS " 144
_From a drawing by W. HILTON_
THOMAS DE QUINCEY " 176
_From an engraving by W. H. MOORE_
LORD BYRON " 193
_From a painting by THOMAS PHILLIPS, R.A._
CHARLES LAMB " 224
_From the painting by WILLIAM HAZLITT_
THOMAS HOOD " 241
_From an engraving by W. H. SMITH_
THOMAS CARLYLE " 280
_From a painting by SIR JOHN MILLAIS_
W. M. THACKERAY " 305
_From a pencil sketch by COUNT D'ORSAY_
CHARLES DICKENS " 320
_From a black and white drawing by BAUGHIET, 1858_
ROBERT BROWNING " 338
_From a photograph_
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
St. Saviour's, Southwark Cathedral xvi
The Gateway, Middle Temple 6
Chaucer's Tomb, Westminster Abbey 8
Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster Abbey 11
St. Olave's Churchyard, Silver Street 17
Bartholomew Close, Smithfield 21
The Last Bulk Shop, Clare Market 25
Pope's House, Battersea 29
Pope, Mawson's Row, Chiswick 37
Sir James Thornhill, 75 Dean Street 42
Hogarth's House, Chiswick 45
The Bay Window, Hogarth's House 49
Sir Isaac Newton's House, St. Martin's Street, W.C. 53
Sir Joshua Reynolds's House, Great Newport Street 57
The Staircase, 47 Leicester Square 59
Sir Benjamin West's House, Newman Street 61
Gainsborough's House, Pall Mall 65
Sheridan's House, Savile Row 69
Pump Court, Temple 73
Richardson's House, North End, Fulham 75
Goldsmith's House, Canonbury 77
2 Brick Court, The Temple 83
Stairs up to Second Floor, 2 Brick Court 85
Goldsmith's Grave 87
Entrance to Staple Inn 91
Dr. Johnson's House, Gough Square 99
Johnson's Corner, "The Cheshire Cheese" 107
Where Boswell first met Johnson 111
Boswell's House, Great Queen Street 115
Blake's House, Soho 121
Blake, 23 Hercules Road 125
Blake's House, South Moulton Street 127
Flaxman's House, Buckingham Street, Euston Road 137
Romney's House, Hampstead 141
Constable, Charlotte Street 145
Joanna Baillie, Windmill Hill, Hampstead 147
Stanfield's House, Hampstead 151
"The Upper Flask," from the Bowling Green 153
Keats' House, Hampstead 157
Constable's House, Hampstead 161
George du Maurier's Grave, Hampstead 165
De Quincey's House, Soho 171
Shelley's House, Poland Street, W. 175
Shelley, Marchmont Street 179
Hazlitt's House, Frith Street 183
Thomas Day, 36 Wellclose Square 189
Byron, 4 Bennet Street, St. James's 195
Coleridge, Addison Bridge Place 201
Will's Coffee House, Russell Street 217
Lamb, Colebrooke Row 219
Lamb's Cottage, Edmonton 229
Tom Hood's House, St. John's Wood 237
Charles Dibdin, 34 Arlington Road 243
George Eliot, Wimbledon Park 247
George Eliot's House, Chelsea 251
Queen's House, Cheyne Walk 257
Whistler, 96 Cheyne Walk 263
Turner's House, Cheyne Walk 269
Carlyle, Ampton Street 277
Carlyle's House, Cheyne Row 283
Leigh Hunt's House, Chelsea 289
Leigh Hunt, 16 Rowan Road, Hammersmith 295
The Charterhouse, from the Square 297
Thackeray's House, Kensington 301
Lamb Building, Temple, from the Cloisters 307
Dickens, Johnson Street, Camden Town 315
Dickens's House, Doughty Street 319
Thurloe's Lodgings, 24 Old Square, Lincoln's Inn 329
Captain Marryat, Duke Street, St. James's 333
Benjamin Franklin's House, Craven Street 335
Cruikshank, 263 Hampstead Road 337
George Morland, "The Bull Inn," Highgate 339
Rogers, St. James's Place, from Green Park 341
Borrow's House, Hereford Square 345
[Illustration: ST. SAVIOUR'S. SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL.]
FAMOUS LONDON HOUSES
CHAPTER I
SOME CELEBRATED COCKNEYS
You cannot stir the ground of London anywhere but straightway it flowers
into romance. Read the inscriptions on the crumbling tombs of our early
merchant princes and adventurers in some of the old City churches, and it
glimmers upon you that if ever the history of London's commercial rise and
progress gets adequately written it will read like a series of stories out
of the _Arabian Nights_. Think what dashing and magnificent figures, what
tales of dark plottings, fierce warfare, and glorious heroisms must
brighten and darken the pages of any political history of London; and even
more glamorous, more intensely and humanly alive, would be a social
history of London, beginning perhaps in those days of the fourteenth
century when Langland was living in Cornhill and writing his _Vision of
Piers Plowman_, or farther back still, in Richard the First's time, when
that fine spirit, the first of English demagogues, William Fitzosbert, was
haranguing the folkmoot in St. Paul's Churchyard, urging them to resist
the tyrannic taxations of the Lord Mayor and his Court of wealthy
Aldermen--a passion for justice that brought him into such danger that he
and certain of his friends had to seek sanctuary, and barricaded
themselves in Bow Church. The church was fired by order of a bishop who
had no sympathy with reformers, and Fitzosbert and his friends, breaking
out through the flames, were stabbed and struck down in Cheapside, hustled
to the Tower, hastily tried and sentenced, dragged out by the heels
through the streets, and hanged at Smithfield. I have always thought this
would make a good, live starting-point, and had I but world enough and
time I would sooner write that history than anything else.
No need to hunt after topics when you are writing about London; they come
to you. The air is full of them. The very names of the streets are
cabalistic words. Once you know London, myriads of great spirits may be
called from the vasty deep by sight or sound of such names as Fleet
Street, Strand, Whitehall, Drury Lane, The Temple, Newgate Street,
Aldersgate, Lombard Street, Cloth Fair, Paternoster Row, Holborn,
Bishopsgate, and a hundred others. You have only to walk into Whitefriars
Street and see "Hanging-sword Alley" inscribed on the wall of a court at
the top of a narrow flight of steps, and all Alsatia rises again around
you, as Ilion rose like a mist to the music of Apollo's playing. Loiter
along Cornhill in the right mood and Thomas Archer's house shall rebuild
itself for you at the corner of Pope's Head Alley, where he started the
first English newspaper in 1603, and you will wonder why nobody writes a
full history of London journalism.
As for literary London--every other street you traverse is haunted with
memories of poets, novelists, and men of letters, and it is some of the
obscurest of these associations that are the most curiously fascinating. I
have a vivid, youthful remembrance of a tumble-down, red-tiled shop near
the end of Leathersellers' Buildings which I satisfied myself was the
identical place in which Robert Bloomfield worked as a shoemaker's
assistant; Devereux Court still retains something of the Grecian
Coffee-house that used to be frequented by Addison and Steele, but I knew
the Court first, and am still drawn to it most, as the site of that
vanished Tom's Coffee-house where Akenside often spent his winter
evenings; and if I had my choice of bringing visibly back out of
nothingness one of the old Charing Cross houses, it would be the butcher's
shop that was kept by the uncle who adopted Prior in his boyhood.
Plenty of unpleasant things have been said about London, but never by her
own children, or such children of her adoption as Johnson and Dickens.
Says Hobbes, who was born at Malmesbury, "London has a great belly, but no
palate," and Bishop Stubbs (a native of Knaresborough) more recently
described it as "always the purse, seldom the head, and never the heart of
England." Later still an eminent speaker, quoting this fantastic dictum of
Stubbs's, went a step further and informed his audience that "not many men
eminent in literature have been born in London"; a statement so
demonstrably inaccurate that one may safely undertake to show that at
least as many men eminent in literature, to say nothing of art and
science, have been born in London as in any other half-dozen towns of the
kingdom put together.
To begin with, the morning star of our literature, Geoffrey Chaucer, was
born in Thames Street, not far from the wharf where, after he was married
and had leased a home for himself in Aldgate, he held office as a
Comptroller of Customs, and the pen that was presently to write the
_Canterbury Tales_ "moved over bills of lading." The "poets' poet,"
Spenser, was born in East Smithfield, by the Tower, and in his
_Prothalamion_ speaks of his birthplace affectionately as--
"Merry London, my most kindly nurse,
That to me gave this life's first native source,
Though from another place I take my name."
Ben Jonson was born in Hartshorn Lane, Charing Cross; four of his
contemporary dramatists, Fletcher, Webster, Shirley and Middleton, were
also Londoners by birth; Sir Thomas Browne, author of the _Religio
Medici_, was born in the parish of St. Michael-le-Quern, in the very heart
of the city; and Bread Street, Cheapside, is hallowed by the fact that
Milton had his birth there.
Dr. Donne, the son of a London merchant, was also born within a stone's
throw of Cheapside; and his disciple, Cowley, came into the world in Fleet
Street, at the corner of Chancery Lane. But Cowley was a renegade; he
acquired an unnatural preference for the country, and not only held that
"God the first garden made, and the first city Cain," but ended a poem in
praise of nature and a quiet life with--
"Methinks I see
The monster London laugh at me;
I should at thee too, foolish city,
If it were fit to laugh at misery;
But thy estate I pity.
Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost."
[Illustration: JOHN MILTON]
The daintiest of our lyrists, Herrick, was born over his father's shop in
Cheapside, and you may take it he was only playing with poetical fancies
when, in some lines to his friend Endymion Porter, he praised the country
with its "nut-brown mirth and russet wit," and again when, in a set of
verses on "The Country Life," he assured his brother he was "thrice and
above blest," because he could--
"Leave the city, for exchange, to see
The country's sweet simplicity."
If you want to find him in earnest, turn to that enraptured outburst of
his on "His Return to London"--
"Ravished in spirit I come, nay more I fly
To thee, blessed place of my nativity!...
O place! O people! manners framed to please
All nations, customs, kindreds, languages!
I am a free-born Roman; suffer then
That I amongst you live a citizen.
London my home is, though by hard fate sent
Into a long and irksome banishment;
Yet since called back, henceforward let me be,
O native country! repossessed by thee;
For rather than I'll to the West return,
I'll beg of thee first here to have mine urn."
There speaks the true Cockney; he would sooner be dead in London than
alive in the West of England. Even Lamb's love of London was scarcely
greater than that.
[Illustration: THE GATEWAY. MIDDLE TEMPLE.]
It was fitting that Pope, essentially a town poet, should be born in
Lombard Street. In the next thoroughfare, Cornhill, Gray was born; and,
son of a butcher, Defoe began life in the parish of St. Giles's,
Cripplegate. Shakespeare was an alien, but Bacon was born at York House,
in the Strand; which, to my thinking, is the strongest argument in favour
of the theory that he wrote the plays. Churchill was born at Vine Street,
Westminster; Keats in Moorfields; and, staunchest and one of the most
incorrigible Londoners of them all, Charles Lamb in Crown Office Row,
Temple. He refers, in one of his essays, to Hare Court, in the Temple, and
says: "It was a gloomy, churchyard-like court, with three trees and a
pump in it. I was born near it, and used to drink at that pump when I was
a Rechabite of six years old." The pump is no longer there, only one half
of Hare Court remains as it was in Lamb's day, and Crown Office Row has
been rebuilt. His homes in Mitre Court Buildings and Inner Temple Lane
have vanished also; but the Temple is still rich in reminiscences of him.
Paper Buildings, King's Bench Walk, Harcourt Buildings, the fountain near
Garden Court, the old Elizabethan Hall, in which tradition says
Shakespeare read one of his plays to Queen Elizabeth--these and the
church, the gardens, the winding lanes and quaint byways of the Temple,
made up, as he said, his earliest recollections. "I repeat to this day,"
he writes, "no verses to myself more frequently, or with kindlier emotion,
than those of Spenser, where he speaks of this spot--
'There when they came whereas those bricky towers
The which on Themmes broad aged back doth ride,
Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers,
There whylome wont the Templar knights to bide,
Till they decayed through pride.'"
And, "indeed," he adds, "it is the most elegant spot in the metropolis."
[Illustration: CHAUCER'S TOMB. WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
But his letters and essays are full of his love of London. "I don't care
much," he wrote to Wordsworth, "if I never see a mountain. I have passed
all my days in London, until I have formed as many and intense local
attachments as any of your mountaineers can have done with dead Nature....
I often shed tears in the motley Strand from fulness of joy in so much
life." Again, "Fleet Street and the Strand," he writes to Manning, "are
better places to live in for good and all than amidst Skiddaw." After he
had removed to Edmonton, on account of his sister's health, it was to
Wordsworth he wrote, saying how he pined to be back again in London: "In
dreams I am in Fleet Market, but I wake and cry to sleep again.... Oh,
never let the lying poets be believed who 'tice men from the cheerful
haunts of streets.... A garden was the primitive prison, till man, with
Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it. Thence
followed Babylon, Nineveh, Venice, London.... I would live in London
shirtless, bookless."
But to get back to our catalogue of birthplaces--Blake was born in Broad
Street, near Golden Square; Byron in Holles Street; Hood in the Poultry,
within sight of the Mansion House; Dante and Christina Rossetti were
Londoners born; so were Swinburne, Browning, Philip Bourke Marston, John
Stuart Mill, Ruskin, Turner, Holman Hunt, Sir Arthur Sullivan--but if we
go outside literary Londoners this chapter will end only with the book.
Moreover, my purpose is not so much to talk of authors and artists who
were born in London, as to give some record of the still surviving houses
in which many of them lived; whether they had their birth here or not, the
majority of them came here to live and work, for, so far as England is
concerned, there is more than a grain of truth in Lamb's enthusiastic
boast that "London is the only fostering soil of genius."