PICCADILLY, BOND STREET, AND ALBERT GATE.
Wonderful changes have been made at Hyde Park Corner within a few years.
Many have considered that this was one of the most effective
architectural bits in London. For here was the great archway with the
avenue beyond, while facing it was the elegant screen or colonnade,
through which was seen the Park and the procession of carriages and
promenaders. A dreadful and ungainly alteration has been made. A sort of
unmeaning triangular slope has been cleared, the arch has been carted
away and placed at an extraordinary and unmeaning angle. The space has
been cut up in roadways, with triangular or rather mutton-chop-shaped
“refuges,” in one of which an equestrian statue of the Duke of
Wellington has been set up. The bold irregularity of the
whole--barbarous almost--causes a feeling of despair, for no amount of
statues or decoration will cure the original radical defect. What must
be lamented most is the injury to the beautiful open colonnade, designed
by Mr. Decimus Burton to stand at the side of a street, and to be faced
by other buildings. Now it looks too poor and mean to flank such a vast
open _place_. Yet a little knowledge and care would have secured an
effective arrangement. The arch should have been left where it was, even
though it stood isolated. It was a monument. The mischief is now done,
and seems irreparable.
Through the screen we can see among the trees the great bronze statue
erected “by the ladies of England “ in honour of the conqueror of
Waterloo. Since the days of its being cast there has always been
irreverent jesting at the expense of the particular “ladies of England”
who had chosen to offer this nude figure as a token of their admiration.
Mr. Croker, however, once, reviewing a Frenchman’s account of a visit to
London, thus vindicated the fair dames:--“Let it be known,” he says,
“that the ladies of England had nothing to do with the selection of this
brazen image. Both are the work, as we believe, of a self-elected
committee, in which we doubt whether there was a single lady; and the
whole affair was got up, we have heard, by the artist and half a dozen
_dilettanti_, who cared little about the ladies or Wellington, or a
triumphal monument, but were enraptured at the idea of erecting in
London the copy of a statue which they had admired at Rome.”
Close beside is the house of the “Iron Duke.” A few “oldest inhabitants”
will recall how remorselessly, after all his windows had been broken by
the mob, he kept his iron shutters down until the day of his death, a
span of five-and-twenty years, once pointing to them significantly when
the crowd attended him home with flattering shouts. It was a fine
rebuke.
Here we come to the Byron statue, a sort of schoolboy, in jacket and
trousers, sitting on a triangular lump of metal, with a poorish dog.
This is surely not the ideal of the noble poet. Instead of stopping with
a reverential gaze and thinking of Childe Harold, we only wonder what
this queer bit of pantomime signifies. The pedestal has been likened to
“a cake of Pears’ soap.” It is the work of the once famous Belt, who
obtained the commission from a committee of noblemen and gentlemen of
taste. At the trial it was contended that one Verheyden had furnished
the design, or the drawing of the design, and there was much fury of
contention, cross-examination, etc., on this point. Those who wish to
see what this Verheyden could do, may study the two graceful female
figures over the door of the handsome New Water-colour Exhibition
building in Piccadilly, and which were actually carved “_in situ_,” as
it is called--a difficult feat.
Towards Knightsbridge we note the two large mansions which flank the
entrance to the Park. One of them, long left untenanted, obtained the
sobriquet of Gibraltar, because “it was never taken.” Here the once
famous speculator Hudson lived, an extraordinary instance of financial
reverse and romance. The story of “the Railway King,” as he was called,
illustrated the meanness of fashionable life, and there were many tales
circulated of the flatteries and homage of great ladies. Forgotten now
are the jests that used to circulate as to the sayings and doings of his
spouse, whose extraordinary and original “derangement of epitaphs” were
better even than those of her famous prototype. This millionaire’s fall
was as sudden and rapid as his rise. By a curious coincidence, one of
the great houses close by in Grosvenor Place, the one built for the
residence of the Marquis of Westminster, but never occupied by him, was
tenanted during the French war by another gigantic speculator--Dr.
Strousberg, also a Railway King--the crash of whose fall resounded
through Europe. The Albert Gate Mansion is now the French Embassy.
These two large houses are associated with Lady Morgan in a pleasant
way. When she came to live in William Street, about the time of the
Coronation, Mr. Cubitt had just taken the Belgravian district in hand,
but the road presented a very different aspect from what it does now.
There was no entrance to the park here, nor was it needed, as no one
wanted to enter, save Lady Morgan herself--with her a good reason.
There was the great Cannon Brewery, with a smoking chimney;
public-houses, too, galore, as indeed there are now; such are true
Tories, and never move or change. “I must have a new gate,” she
declared, “where the ‘Fox and Bull’ pothouse now stands. There is a
rural air over the whole that is pretty. What I want is a gate where the
old sewer tap now moulders, and flanks a ditch of filth and infection. A
sort of little rustic bridge should be over it, which would not be
without its picturesque effect.” Lord Duncannon, of the “Woods and
Forests,” was appealed to, but declined to grant the favour, on the
ground of the block at Hyde Park Corner--“It would not be desirable to
establish another thoroughfare near it.” What an amusing book could be
written on the sapient reasons offered by public men for not undertaking
schemes, commencing with Lord Palmerston’s wise prophecy as to the Suez
Canal!
More interesting is it still to pass on a little beyond to Albert
Terrace, one of the most charming _locales_ in London as to its rearward
view, though the front is dusty and noisy, and perhaps disagreeable. But
in the mornings, you may look out on the park as on your own grounds.
Here used to reside Charles Reade, the author of “It’s Never Too Late to
Mend,” one of the men of genius of the day, though he once mystified his
friends and others by the strange inscription along his garden wall--I
well remember reading with astonishment the large letters on the
parapet--“Naboth’s Vineyard”: a protest against the ground landlord, who
coveted his tenement “hugely for the detriment thereof,” and its
re-creation in the shape of Belgravian terraces. Now one of those
_monstre_ ranges of building to hold innumerable tenants, and which are
in such favour, is being erected. By-and-by the whole of the
old-fashioned little terrace, with its pleasant gardens, will disappear.
Returning to the Corner, we pass Hamilton Place, recently--yet it seems
long ago--a _cul de sac_, and no vulgar thoroughfare. What a contention
was raised by the invaded fashionables when it was proposed to throw it
open to general traffic! Now the waggons and cabs trundle through the
sacred precinct, and one hardly credits the fact that it was so lately a
gloomy and deserted inclosure. Here lived the old Chancellor Eldon, who,
for so august a personage, was plagued in a most amusing way during the
Queen’s Trial. The Government had agreed to find her a town house in
default of a palace, and her friends maliciously selected one in
Hamilton Place, next door to the Chancellor. The horror and anguish of
the old gentleman may be conceived, since the noble lady was always
attended home by shouting mobs, and appeared at the windows while her
friend, Alderman Wood, made speeches. He wrote to the Government to say
that if this was allowed he would be driven from his house and his
office at the same time. The Government gave directions accordingly; but
the Queen’s friends seemed to be bent on his annoyance, and proposed a
subscription to purchase that house and no other. The poor Chancellor
had actually to buy it, as the only way to save himself from
persecution, though he was lucky enough to re-sell it again without
loss.
It may be noted that there are some survivals in London which almost
savour of feudal times. All may notice those “bars” which are maintained
in certain districts, fashionable, or formerly fashionable, and which
are kept strictly select, the guardians severely refusing passage to the
heavily-laden waggon or market cart that desires to pass through; none
of this class are admitted but have business in the inclosure. This is
like one of the nobles’ privileges on the eve of the French Revolution.
More strange is it to find that on a certain day in the year His Grace
of Bedford closes his “bars” altogether at Gordon Square, Gower Street,
and other points of that district, and luggage-laden cabs, making for
Euston and King’s Cross, have to get round by circuitous roads as best
they can. This is done to keep the right “alive,” but it seems a
monstrous thing. Once this private property has been turned into a
public street, the privilege of private property should cease, as the
inhabitants pay rates for the use of the road.[2]
A glimpse of Park Lane, of its strange fountain, is “a sorrow for ever,”
painful to the eye in spite of its Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton,
presided over by the flaming gilt female blowing hard at her trumpet.
The last is the peccant part, and were she removed the three poets might
look dignified and respectable. Of all ugly things in the metropolis,
drinking fountains offer the largest variety. There our professors of
deformity revel, and the more pretentious and costly the attempt, the
greater hideousness is the result. The idea generally is to produce
something imposing and architectural, a sort of temple or building, if
possible--ridiculous when it is considered that a little cheap “squirt”
of water, dribbling into a basin, is the entire aim and end. You have
all the apparatus of a grand “fountain,” only without the gush of water.
There is a pretty marble boy’s figure in St. James’s Park, by Jackson,
close to Queen Anne’s Gate. For years, however, it has been
[Illustration: ACROSS THE HALL, DORCHESTER HOUSE.]
allowed to remain in a mutilated state, the nose having dropped off.
There is another by Dalou, of yet more artistic pretension, behind the
Royal Exchange in the City. It represents a fleshly woman, wrought in
marble, who is busy with the old maternal office of suckling her child,
oddly suggestive to the wayfarer who is slaking his thirst below. As one
passes it, it recalls the facetious W. S. Gilbert’s pathetic chorus in
“Iolanthe”:--
“Had that refreshment been denied
Then your Strephon must have died.”
The ingenious artist, a refugee, I believe, in the Commune days,
introduced the school of Carpeaux among us, but did not receive the full
patronage he merited. One of these most terrible combinations is that
temple in the Sanctuary at Westminster--a mixture of mosaics, marble,
and metal, ever grimy and slimy and squalid. There is, however, one
artistic work, in Berkeley Square, well worthy the attention of
amateurs. This, a graceful female figure, represented as pouring the
water from a vase--the work of a well-known sculptor, Munro. But the
statue is rather decayed and what marble could stand our weather?
By-and-by the features, fingers, etc., will drop away.
Park Lane, with its stately mansions and choice collection of noble
owners, is a charming thoroughfare, and suggests, a little, portions of
the Champs Elysées. The houses on the whole are poor and old-fashioned,
ingeniously altered and shaped to modern use, with a ludicrous
disproportion to the enormous sums paid for them, and which is in truth
paid for the situation. It will be noticed what shifts are resorted to
to gain room and make the most of the precious ground, the “areas,” as
they may be called, being generally covered in and turned into kitchens,
over which a garden is laid out. In foreign countries, palaces, or
noblemen’s “hôtels,” would be reared on each site. Here is the Earl of
Dudley’s bright, smiling mansion,[3] with a colonnade and verandahs,
with those of the Marquis of Londonderry, the Duke of Westminster, and
other grand seigneurs. An amusing work might be made, setting out the
stories of these houses and their tenants, and no doubt there is at this
moment some Greville or Raikes, busy putting down notes and anecdotes.
One of the finest and most architectural mansions in London is the
Italian villa of Mr. Holford, Dorchester House, to be found here. This
elegantly designed structure is favoured by its situation on a “tongue”
of land, and is enriched internally by some splendid monumental
chimney-pieces, the work of the accomplished but ill-fated Steevens,
whose story we shall relate further on.
Returning into Piccadilly, a few doors from the Duke of Cambridge’s
mansion, Gloucester House, we note a curious arrangement, a sort of
landing in front of a doorway, with a green door, like that of a
cupboard, on a level with the street. This was associated with “Old Q,”
the famous old _roué_, the Duke of Queensberry, whose house it was. This
disreputable person lived to a vast age, till he could not walk, when a
machine was devised that let him down, Bath-chair and all, to the
street; and this cupboard contained the apparatus.[4] Another
arrangement was the keeping a servant mounted on a pony by the
curbstone. At a signal from “Old Q,” when anyone passed that he wished
to see and talk with, or wished to know more of, the menial cantered off
in pursuit.
[Illustration: THE RED DRAWING ROOM, DORCHESTER HOUSE.]
There are other houses hard by which illustrate curious mutations of
life. Here, for instance, is a handsome mansion, built by Mr. Beresford
Hope for his private residence, and from the designs of a French
architect, one of the rare specimens in town. In time it passed from his
hands, and is now the Junior Athenæum Club. Further on, an imposing
stone mansion, crescent-shaped in its façade, and of classical
character, was, I believe, built by the late “Marquis of Steyne”--or
Hertford, rather--at, of course, great cost, and equally, of course,
never inhabited by him. For thirty or forty years, I believe, it
remained in this ghostly condition, until his strange, eccentric course
came to a close, and more rational successors arrived. Passing on, we
reach Cambridge House, once the mansion of the ever-popular Palmerston.
There is something dignified, yet unpretending, in this house, not to
say classical; it seems suited to a prime minister. Here were those
parties and receptions, where the adroit hostess was supposed to have
the art of cementing political ties. It is now a club, and enormous
additions have been made on the ground behind. Few know that it was in
this row that the Hamiltons and Lord Nelson lodged when they came to
London, and where the hero’s weakness was exhibited in most open and
unbecoming manner, which has been good-naturedly glossed over by his
countrymen.
The White Horse Cellar, a most interesting old place for its traditions,
lingered on, bow windows and all, till a few years back. The revival of
the old coaching days saved it. But now it has been fashioned into a new
modern hotel. There is hardly a more exhilarating and original spectacle
to be seen than occurs here in the full “swing” of the season, at the
close of a summer’s day, between six and seven o’clock. At this time
gather elegants in glossy hats and frock-coats with waists, ebony sticks
with silver knobs, like miniature “black rods;” together with wiry
elderly gentlemen, like the curious water-colour portraits that used to
be seen in Sams’ old shop at the foot of St. James’s Street. A few years
ago “Sams” was swept away, with all his curious water-colour noblemen in
tight trousers and strange hats, and a vast Dutch house has taken its
place. The coach seers are all well shaven, and wear check cravats. Some
stand on the steps, others on the _pavé_. Less aristocratic beings
cluster there too, straws in the mouth, or emerge from the cellar below.
Now the clock hand is within a quarter of an inch of the hour, and hark!
the faint winding of a horn from the Knightsbridge direction, then
another nearer, from the Strand side. The coaches are coming up true to
their time--to a minute. There they are--the bright yellow, the dark,
the grey panelled: the policeman puts back the traffic; up they roll,
well laden; ladies bright and cheerful; the scarlet guard; the coachman
confident and secure, and bringing up his team with exquisite nicety, as
a river steamer captain puts his vessel alongside. What fine horses and
fine harness! Coachman, copper-coloured by the sun and the dusty roads
of Dorking, flings down his reins and strides in, as if every second
was precious, to keep some appointment in the office. The metal ladder
is put up, the ladies assisted down. It has been a delicious day among
the velvet greens of Dorking.[5]
The large detached building near St. James’s Hall, erst the shop of
Attenborough--name of good and evil omen to many--had become a haunt for
exhibitions. The first was in the “old days,” that is what time the
wonderful Sarah brought over all her models and pictures, and with a
pleasing, harmless vanity exhibited them. The scene of her first
reception there comes back on us--the wiry creature, leaning on her
crutch stick, flanked by a certain lad, receiving the company. The
curious specimen of the Parisian confidential man-servant--exactly like
those on the stage--who took the tickets--was interesting in his way. He
gave the idea that he knew secrets, and, better still, could be trusted
with them. The motley nature of the crowds was also amusing; consisting
of “swells,” artists, press, all in a jumble. Not undramatic was the
meeting of the tall German Ambassador and the diva. There was a
theatrical trickiness in the show, though there were one or two works at
the most that were of extraordinary merit--the Drowned Boy, and the
heads of Girardin and Busnach.
On a balmy morning there is nothing more agreeable than a walk in the
Green Park, and the happy mortals, or immortals, who own the houses that
look into it--Salisburys, Ellesmeres, Spencers, _e tutti quanti_--may be
envied as you walk. There are a few trees, and there are generally some
lazy mortals seated on the green chairs under their shade, and perhaps
sleeping. We look up at the house that seems all bow-window, and call up
“old Rogers,” who was there but yesterday, with his breakfasts, his
exquisitely choice pictures, his epicurean tastes, his social life,
which he may be said to have created, and his stories, which in his old
age and decay he used to repeat in a strange formal way, and always in
the same words.[6] After his death, when he was an enormous age, he was
of course speedily forgotten; his treasures, more speedily still, were
sold by auction, with his elegant house.
Nothing more piteous can be conceived than the closing years of a
veteran breakfast giver. Crabb Robinson describes his final efforts in
this line with a sort of dismal but doubting satisfaction. The _rôle_ of
professional breakfast and dinner giver--_i.e._, of one who wishes to
have a reputation for these things--must be an unsatisfactory one, and
bring but poor return. It is ever recurring, and the thing has to be
done over again; for, alas! nothing is so true as that _the stomach has
no memory_.
We may glance up Bond Street, the Rue de la Paix of London, at the house
occupied by Messrs. Agnew. Bond Street is specially devoted to the craze
for picture exhibitions, where there are a half-dozen, including the
Grosvenor and Doré Galleries. The portico of the Grosvenor Gallery was
originally that of some palace in Italy, and is admired for its
elegance. It was purchased by the owner, and set up here. In the South
Kensington Museum is the screen and balcony of a church, a beautiful
work, which had been torn down and condemned, and was rescued in the
same manner. Here is found the home of the Fine Art Society; and above,
Goupil’s, a model of elegance. Note the bronze decorations of the era
and the rich tone of the interior. In Bond Street, too, is Long’s Hotel,
lately rebuilt, an historic house, celebrated in fashion and fiction.
There is an old novel called “Six Weeks at Long’s,” and it is probably
the scene of the fight between Nickleby and Sir Mulberry Hawk. Opposite,
where a number of new shops stand, used to be the Clarendon, a
fashionable dining place forty years ago.
At the corner of Grafton Street stands a big house, unpretending and
old-fashioned. Here, at “No. 22A,” resides Henry Irving, the favourite
and fashionable tragedian. His rooms are rich and luxurious, as becomes
so conspicuous a person. In Bond Street we find the agents who enabled
the impoverished aristocrat to enjoy the pleasures of the theatre, for
here has flourished time out of mind the great “Mitchell.” The annals of
the Mitchell House might be about as interesting as those of the
Christies. It was Mitchell who introduced the French plays, and engaged
the famous Ballerinas. His shop even to this hour preserves the old
tradition, and the windows are filled with the graceful lithographs,
after Chalon and D’Orsay, of Mario, Grisi, Cerito, Taglioni, together
with little plastic figures of Tamburini, Paganini, and other artists.
It is enough to look at one of the _figurantes_ to see what an
exquisite art dancing was in these old exploded days. It was then
literally the poetry of motion. There is now motion enough, but no
poetry. The ghosts of these personages must haunt this place. There are
still on sale here that curious series of likenesses of his
contemporaries executed by D’Orsay, a vast number. They are clever, but
amateurish, and not such rigid, literal likenesses as the photographers
have accustomed us to.
Returning to Piccadilly we pass into the regions that branch away, Duke
Street, Bury Street, King Street, and the rest, and enter Bachelor Land,
where every old house has been furbished up, and made to take the shape
of apartments for gentlemen. The class of persons who lodge here are
notoriously _exigeant_--old gentlemen coming to town to enjoy
themselves, and requiring all their comforts to precede them. Apartment
letting here, therefore, becomes almost scientific, and would astonish
the rude operators elsewhere. The retired butler and retired lady’s
maid, who have joined their fortunes, “work like horses.” The
grandfather of Brummel, the dandy, was a retired servant of Lord
Liverpool’s, and kept one of these lodging houses in Bury Street.
Here, in King Street, is Christie’s--which has been, however, more
disastrous than Crockford’s to many an artistic gull. Never can be
forgotten the ridiculous displays at one or two of the famous picture
sales five or six years ago. Within the last twenty years there have
been great days at “Christie’s,” when on the “view” days the streets
were blocked with carriages, and the _dilettanti_, in a sort of mad
fervour, gaped, and raved, and bid for works whose value is now admitted
to be about a quarter of what was then paid. Not to be forgotten was the
spectacle and pressure of the perspiring, enthusiastic, and ignorant
dowager, with her daughters, pushing her way round and staring at the
works; and the grave, subdued excitement of the courteous administrators
of the place, who felt how much was at stake. There were other field
days, when the noble Dudley contended for the great Sèvres jars and won
them at ten thousand guineas. It would also be a history of human folly,
and infatuation of cracked amateurs, who nibbled away their fortune, in
confidence of their own precious judgment, when all they bought was to
“fetch double hereafter.”
This rather grimed waste of brick wall on the south side of King Street
is “Willis’s Rooms,” familiar enough; but it is not so well known that
here used to be held the old “Almack’s” balls. They were instituted a
full century ago as gambling and dancing rooms. There is a pleasant
old-fashioned flavour in the term “The Rooms,” and there are “the Rooms”
still at Bath, and at York. These are of a pleasing rococo pattern, rich
and florid, and the design is of the good old spacious school, now
extinct. “Willis’s Rooms” is the sole survival of such things in London.
Some years ago we had the Hanover Square Rooms, of the same kind, long
since converted into a club. The rooms in King Street are enriched with
florid old stucco, but it has been coloured, to suit the tastes of the
day, with execrable feeling. Almack was originally one MacCall, a Scot,
who came to “Town,” and thinking his name somewhat too provincial,
reversed the syllables. Close by is the St. James’s Theatre, built by
Braham, and where, till the hour of her death, his daughter, Lady
Waldegrave, had her box. This pretty house has since been enlarged after
the modern fashion, and a balcony added; and the observer may note that
the ceiling and the portion of the auditorium nearest the stage, with
the panelling of the boxes, belongs to the old theatre.
Hard by is the picturesquely-placed old Palace of St. James’s, which,
however, has been sorely maimed by later improvements; witness the
“skimpy” colonnade in its court. The really effective bit is the
old-fashioned gateway, with its towers of fine, rubicund brick, hard as
stone, as ripe in colour and crusted as old port. It is a welcome,
familiar object, well proportioned, with a Dutch quaintness and effect
in its belfry. How pleasant and satisfactory it is may be conceived by
simply imagining it away from the bottom of St. James’s Street. Some
fifty years ago it was suggested to George IV., by his Minister, that
the whole Palace should be sold, and pulled down, to supply resources
for building ugly Buckingham Palace! Mr. Whistler has noted the gaiety
of the scene, and has done an etching of the lively, cheerful view.
Every passer-by avails himself of the services of the pleasant, cheerful
clock, and its agreeable unpretending chimes. Our old friend the tower
is all for practical use, his cupola sheltering the bells, his gate for
passage, his dial for telling time. And what a right well-proportioned,
conspicuous dial it is! It is seen at once that the building was
intended for it, and it for the building, whereas in numberless
so-called clock towers the clock face seems to have been merely “stuck
on” as an afterthought, or a hole made in which a dial was inserted.
There is art in so simple a thing as this.
Few undertakings have been more ridiculed or sneered at than the quarter
of Regent Street which was for a time one of the boldest and most daring
schemes in the way of building that could be conceived. It has always
been the fashion to speak of the plaster palaces, and the pretence of
the architecture, but there can be no doubt that Waterloo Place, the
Quadrant, and the houses of Regent Street are the most effective and
gayest portions of London. The general design is admirable, and the
Quadrant is particularly graceful and original. Waterloo Place and the
terrace and steps leading into the Park are picturesque and foreign.
Even the Insurance Office, with its piazza, closing the vista afar off,
could not be spared. The two blocks on each side passing Carlton House
Terrace are singularly effective. The
[Illustration: STATUE OF SIDNEY HERBERT, BY FOLEY.]
conception had a perfect airiness and magnificence; and we may be
certain forms the ideal of London for persons at a distance. It is
curious to think that within living memory there was a stately palace
standing where the terraces now are--the well-known Carlton House, which
displayed an open colonnade somewhat of the pattern of the Duke of
Westminster’s house in Grosvenor Street. The problem set to the
architect, Nash, was to make an attractive thoroughfare up to Portland
Place, and thus join the new Regent’s Park with the Green Park. The
Quadrant within living memory was far more imposing than it is now,
owing to the lofty colonnade which ran in front of the shops. This,
however, was found to interfere with trade and public order; it was
accordingly removed: the line of the parapet may be still followed along
the walls.[7] The cost of this important work was very little, scarcely
a million and a half, which included all charges, purchase of ground,
and goodwill, and the return in annual rentals was put at about
thirty-five thousand pounds, which at three per cent, was a fair
investment for so important a scheme. For his own residence the
architect designed the old Gallery of Illustration, with its courtyard
in front, which contained a long, well-designed gallery at the back,
still to be seen, intended for the display of architectural objects. It
is now a Club. The variety of patterns displayed in Regent Street does
credit to the imagination of the designers; and the curious in styles
will have no difficulty in identifying some houses that are the work of
Sir John Soane, and which exhibit his special oddities. The impetuous
Pugin used to describe the whole as “a nest of monstrosities.”