WILLIS’S ROOMS--THE PALACES.
Returning now from these delightful suburban walks, we find ourselves
once more at the West End. The London traveller, if he but learn the
habit of diligently using his eyes as he walks, is certain to find at
every turn something to entertain him, or something novel that he has
not before observed. On the other hand, by cultivating incurious habits,
the careless observer will come to look on the streets as merely tedious
places of passage from one point to another--and the more speedily the
monotonous transit is effected the happier he is.
Lately, passing through King Street, St. James’s, I paused before a
familiar building, passed by thousands in their daily rounds without its
exciting speculation or notice. Yet what curious memories it excites!
“CHINNOCK, GALSWORTHY, AND CHINNOCK ... To be sold ... fifty-five years’
lease ... 8,000 square feet, etc.” And had it actually come to this? Set
out, too, upon an ominous black board hung on the old wall! And this the
once-famous Almack’s! It had been offered already for sale in April on a
fixed day, but the bidders were not sufficient; and so we have come to
Chinnock, Galsworthy, and Chinnock, as per board, who are willing to
treat with private parties. Shade of Lady Jersey! Shade of Lady
Tankerville! Ghost of Princess Lieven! and spirit of the Iron Duke, once
refused admission because he had not on a white cravat or the suitable
breeches!
It was in King Street, St. James’s. Here was the long, well-grimed,
dingy waste of bricks, prison-like, and recalling Mrs. Cornelys’ old
rooms, now a chapel, close to Soho Square. Yet that Newgate-looking
structure, how it contrasted with the brilliant festivals inside! A
hundred and fifteen years of gaieties and revels--such is the exact life
of Willis’s Rooms. We must feel sorry that they are now to “go,” for
they are the last surviving “Rooms,” as they are called, of the good old
pattern left in London. For a time we had the old Hanover Square Rooms
for concerts and dances; good _rococo_ things; but they have been
nibbled away into a sort of club or hotel. But behind that old dingy
waste of wall what balls, festivals, charity dinners, bazaars!
It was in 1765 that a Scot who came up to London conceived the design of
erecting fashionable rooms on the pattern of the casinos abroad. His
name was McCall, the syllables of which he ingeniously reversed into the
celebrated “Almack”; and he brought his countryman, the renowned Neil
Gow, from Edinburgh, to lend the music. The building was erected
hurriedly, from the designs of Robert Mylne, of course another Scot, who
had built Blackfriars Bridge. On the opening night, in February, the
rooms were half empty, for the fashionable world was suffering from
colds and was afraid to go. The walls were imperfectly dried, and the
rich ceilings were dripping; though Almack protested that hot bricks and
boiling water had been used in the structure. The place, however, grew
into fashion, and at the suppers, Almack himself, “with his broad Scotch
face and in a bag-wig,” was seen attending; while his wife, in a sack,
“made tea and curtseys to our duchesses.” This worthy man died in 1781.
How Almack’s passed to Willis is not clear. The Willises were a musical
firm in their day. Gambling was carried on in the Rooms, and enormous
sums were lost and won in a night. Its greatest days, however, were
during the Regency, when the famous “Almack’s Balls” were given under
the haughty control of “Ladies patronesses,” the Jersey, the Lieven, and
others, and when the most exclusive system was in vogue. Gronow and
Raikes tell many stories of the arrogance of these dames, when to obtain
a “voucher” became a matter of favour and delicacy. The Almack’s Balls
were continued in some shape, and under less exclusive conditions, until
recently, when they were finally given up.
It is a curious feeling to enter and promenade through these forlorn and
ghostly chambers. The doors stand open, and we can wander in and up the
grand stone stair--the banisters oddly encased in crimson velvet.
Everything is laid out on a noble, spacious scale. Gloomy and even
dismal now seems the great ball-room on the first-floor--scene of so
many “festival dinners” and dances--with its fine chimney-piece,
floridly embroidered ceilings, “set-off,” as it was fancied, with
hideous modern colouring, now faded and inexpressibly shabby. The old
scheme was white and gold. But here are still the fine old English
mirrors, with their garlands and carvings; and the tall pillars behind
which Neil Gow and his fiddlers played; and the chandeliers, of Venetian
glass apparently, with their chains and lustres and bulbous drops,
elegant enough. Here are all the old-fashioned “rout” seats and chairs
and tables huddled together and piled up on top of one another. Many a
“bad quarter of an hour” has been spent here whilst awaiting nervously
the chairman’s signal to “reply to the toast”; and here is the very spot
where I once sat “peppering,” as it is called, in an
[Illustration: GRAND STAIRCASE, BUCKINGHAM PALACE. (_From a Photo by_
MR. E. KING.)]
unpleasant mood of suspense; the long tables spreading away and crowded
with unfeeling diners, hundreds “feeding like one,” who would desire
nothing better than a “break-down.” It is a curious, agitating feeling
when, on a sudden hush, one has to rise with a “Mr. Chairman!” For a
second every face is turned to see and wonder, and ask whose the face is
seen indistinctly afar off.
Below is the “concert-room,” a fine, well-proportioned apartment. Around
are many vast chambers: one where the gambling went on, and Charles Fox
and Lord Carlisle lost huge sums. It is difficult to give an idea of the
dismal impression left as we promenade these ghostly chambers. On the
walls are a score and more of portraits--all of the one “Kit-kat” size,
many by a forgotten artist--Knapton. These represent members of the
still existing “Dilettante Society,” who used to meet in one of the
rooms. Three of these pictures, of a large size, and exhibiting
full-length groups, were the work of Sir Joshua, and are to be seen in
the National Gallery. A history of this elegant club, which has
published splendid folios, has been written by my friend, the late Sir
F. Pollock.
And so we come out into old King Street again, to read once more on the
prosaic board that the whole will be sold as “a going concern,” with its
licence, goodwill, etc., and that this and a great deal more may be
learned from the worthy auctioneers aforesaid.
There are plenty of these ghostly chambers in London, and the feeling on
disturbing their antique solitude is a curious one. It is specially
present when we invade the repose of the now disused PALACES, some of
which are interesting places enough, but have a particularly forlorn and
faded air.
No building has been so rudely, even coarsely, treated as the venerable
old Palace, St. James’s, whose gate tower is so interesting and piquant
a monument. Portions have been burnt and re-built; but the
“restorations” seem always to have been carried out on the meanest and
shabbiest fashion. Witness the meagre, skimpy colonnade in the
courtyard; the wretched brickwork; the poor, “starved” rooms; the
tottering chimneys “stuck on” outside, and the patched air of the whole.
The old chambers within, though spacious and imposing enough, are
strangely dingy, and seem not to have been painted or “refreshed” for a
century. The place looks as though it were abandoned altogether, which
no doubt it is. Yet a small sum judiciously laid out in the way of
trimming or restoration would do much; were even mullioned windows
substituted for the present unsightly and incongruous “sashes.”
Hard by is that great modern pile, Buckingham Palace, the work of George
IV., which took the place of the pleasant old Buckingham House, which,
as we can see from the prints, was something after the pattern of
Marlborough House. This lumbering, uninteresting mass, though built of
stone, is made more unattractive still by being painted over, owing to
the decay of the material. Within there are many vast chambers of state
which, on rare occasions of high festival, are lit up and crowded with
rank, beauty, and fashion. The ball-room is a fine and richly-decorated
apartment, and the grand staircase is “monumental” enough. No one who
has not visited them can have an idea of the size, or apparent size at
least, of the gardens and pleasure grounds behind, which have been
artfully protected from vulgar observation by large raised banks and
thick planting. It is a pity that this sacred preserve is not, as in
continental cities, opened to the crowd; it would be an addition to the
few _agréments_ of London. It is now almost forgotten that in front of
the palace, before the erection of the present façade, stood the Marble
Arch, that curious freak of George IV., who, however, intended that it
should be enriched with a spirited group on the top. The present
situation, where it is useful as an omnibus station, seems unsuitable.
[Illustration: MILLAIS’S STUDIO.]
Another of these old derelict places is Kensington Palace. This, with
its “dependences,” still remains a very “lively” bit of architecture,
rather original in its design; the irregular façade being judiciously
broken up. The various offices, stables, guard-houses, etc., even the
little entrance gate on the Kensington Road, have a welcome piquancy,
and are most effective in their way. Here we have the true old-fashioned
tone. A portion is inhabited; and, with the pretty gardens, has the air
of a flourishing country house; but the state chambers are all chilly,
darkened, and given over to desolation. It is truly a pity that these
fine old places could not be utilized as picture galleries or museums,
like Hampton Court; the very fact of free circulation, and the visits of
the public, would preserve them and save them from rusting away.[29]
The wanderer or walker in London will find a district close by the
Palace very welcome and pleasing--the well-known Campden Hill. For a
spot so embedded in town it has a curious _rural_ note of its own, an
old-fashioned air, as though it declined altogether to go with the
times. The air, too, is tempered and softened; there are numbers of
pretty places, with their spreading grounds, old trees, and older
villas. Those persons who have been fortunate enough to secure ground
here in good time are to be envied. The curious part is that it is
bounded all round by the most uninviting prosaic districts--on one side
by the frowsy Notting Hill Gate, on the other by the common high road to
Hammersmith, all crowded with omnibuses and carts. But ascend the gentle
hill, from whatever direction, and you find yourself puzzled by the
antique simplicity and suburban air of the place. Of course there are
eyesores and blemishes--the dreadful waterworks in the very centre, to
say nothing of numerous modern “Follies,” fantastic freaks in the way of
enormously tall houses, and other monstrosities. Coming up the broad
cross road which joins Notting Hill and Kensington, we ascend a sort of
sheltered lane, with all sorts of ancient tenements, somewhat “shaky,”
each with its garden and enclosing wall, such as one might encounter at
Kew or Chiswick. Many of these have been judiciously adapted and added
to by the thriving artist or _littérateur_. This portion may be called
the _town_ side of Campden Hill; and here are also the modern builders’
terraces.
[Illustration: ALMA TADEMA’S FORMER STUDIO.]
Here stands the modern Campden House; but a far more interesting
structure is the old, “Little Campden House,” with its heavy roof and
eaves, and old-fashioned air, but with an abandoned look, presenting no
tangible idea to the present generation, yet in its day it and its
enterprising owner furnished much talk and speculation in artistic
circles. Mr. Wooler was passionately fond of theatricals, and the
private theatre in his house became celebrated, the owner himself
gravitating towards the genuine stage.
A striking evidence of the luxury of our time is found in the
magnificent, and even sumptuous, workshops in which our painters pursue
their labours. This was prompted by the great artistic revival which
occurred nearly twenty years ago, when there was the “sensation”
auctions at “Christie’s,” and the works of modern artists were fetching
enormous prices. All the great painters designed and built themselves
these luxurious temples. Unluckily, many of lesser light, and lesser
ability, followed the example, often with disastrous results. The craze
abated; prices have fallen rapidly, and numbers of these handsome
structures now stand tenantless. Holland Park, and the district
adjoining Melbury Road, etc., is the locality favoured; and there is
undoubtedly a kind of old-fashioned, semi-rural tone about the place
that justifies the selection. There are also a few in St. John’s Wood.
The House of the President of the Royal Academy is, as might be expected
from one of such taste and training, the most striking and effective.
Here we see the effect of a marked personality; and there is even
something sympathetic in the structure. It has often been described, by
Mrs. Haweis and others; but more as though it were some glittering
museum, of whose treasures an inventory is given. As we stand before it,
in Holland Park Road, we are struck by the fashion in which it
harmonizes with the locality; the sequestered lane, the old-fashioned
scraps of garden, where the good old trees live and thrive, and the
lingering old houses. There is a kind of gentle tone over the scene, and
a pleasant, retired air. The house, though not large, has an air of
monumental solidity; severe in style, built of bricks, which are
beautiful from their rich and almost roseate hue--though we are inclined
to make a somewhat diffident protest against the overhanging room,
supported on iron columns, which has lately been projected at one side.
This somewhat enfeebles the solid and stately air of the whole. Behind
there is a delightful garden, not walled round, or “trimmed” up, but
separated by a hedge or paling from the road. There are old trees and
grass, and a general rustic _laissez faire_.
The interior is a poetical dream, Oriental or Moorish in its
magnificence. With exquisite art the studio is planned as the “note” or
central feature of the whole; the stairs, the halls, and vestibule all
prepare the visitor for the main attraction.
[Illustration: HERKOMER’S STUDIO.]
“Turning aside,” says Mrs. Haweis, “from the foot of the stairs, we pass
through peacock-green arches, with deep gold incisions, into the third
Hall, called of Narcissus, which strikes a full deep chord of colour,
and deepens the impression of antique magnificence. A bronze statuette
of the fair son of Cephisus, from that in the Naples Museum, stands in
the midst of it. Here the walls are deepest sea-blue tiles, that shades
make dark; the floor is pallid (the well-known mosaic of the Cæsars’
palaces), and casts up shimmering reflected lights upon the
greeny-silver ceiling, like water itself. The delicate tracery of the
lattices brought bodily from the East, and which rise to right and left,
having the complexity and colour of the skeleton of a leaf, and guarded
by glass outside; the fine alhacen of carved wood which lines the
central alcove facing us, with its four rare Persian enamels of women’s
figures, and its shelves of Persian plates; the brilliant little windows
that break the sunshine into scarlet and gold and azure flame; the
snow-white columns of marble that stand against red at every angle; the
fountain that patters and sings in its pool of chrysolite water--most
perfect colophon to all the colours and the outer heat. We wander round
and enjoy the toss of its one white jet from a bed of water wherein
descending ridges, step-wise, have the semblance of the emerald facets
of a great green stone.
“The hall takes the form of a Greek cross, with slender columns as
aforesaid at the angles, set against rose-red slabs. But the entrance is
flanked with columns of a larger girth, made of red marble, with golden
capitals. The walls are lined with Syrian azulejos of soft and varying
blue and white arranged in panels, surmounted by a broad frieze, as yet
unfinished, designed by Walter Crane, in a beautiful running pattern of
fawns and vines, carried out in gold Venice mosaic. Above it rise
courses of black and white marble, and above again the golden dome.
“Over the entrance we see the overhanging black of the Zenana we have
not yet visited, that Eastern nest that juts like a closed-in balcony
high up the wall. Between it and the doorway lies a great purple panel
blazoned with a verse of the _Koran_ in Arabic, and through the arch we
see the distant staircase winding beyond the purple shadows of the
intervening hall.”
The studio itself is of a business-like, practical sort, though it is
stored with choice treasures and inspiring bits of antique colour. In
short, the artistic feeling of the accomplished man who prompted the
whole is felt everywhere.
There is a good deal of the “peacock blue,” and other colouring that
combines with it. This somewhat “barbaric” scheme of colour is scarcely
suited to our country; and the rich tint is likely enough to fade, or
grow darker and yet darker, with time. We select this studio as a
typical one, though it exceeds its fellows in magnificence and eastern
_luxe_.[30]
At Palace Gate, at the entrance to Kensington, Sir John Millais has his
studio, in a substantial house, designed by Mr. Hardwicke. The studio,
however, is a simple building, attached to the house. Mr. Alma Tadema’s
studio was an old house in Porchester Terrace, on the banks of the
canal, which he had fitted up and adapted to his purposes. He has now,
however, built himself a new one. Mr. Hubert Herkomer’s is down at his
well-known artistic colony at Bushey.
INDEX.
Adam, the Brothers, 39
Adelphi, The, 40
All-Hallows Staining Church, destroyed, 214
All-Hallows Barking, Church of, described, 216
All Saints’ Church, Margaret St., described, 240
Amen Court, St. Paul’s, sequestered enclosure of, 144
Anne’s, St., Church, Soho, and its Associations, 73
Austin Friars, House destroyed in, 167
Barn Elms at Putney, 275
Barnard’s Inn, 105
Barry, the Painter, his Adelphi Pictures, 48
Bartholomew’s, St., rudely treated, 221;
“Blacksmiths’ Forge and Fringe Factory,” 222;
judiciously restored, 224
Bell Tavern, The Old, 177
Berkeley Square, 172
Billett’s “Maids of Honour” cakes, 280
Blackheath, its “Paragons,” etc., 291
“Blew Coat” School, The, 19
Bow Steeple, 234
Brewers’ Hall, The, described, 208
Brick, Proper Treatment of, 258
Bride’s, St., Steeple, Story connected with, 233
Burlington House, described, 163
Campden Hill and its old Houses, 29
Canonbury Tower, 253
Carlyle, Thomas, Visit to, before his death, 269;
his House, 269
Catholic Churches in London, 241
Changes in London by demolition, and rebuilding, 152
Chapels, The Embassy, 241
Charterhouse, The, 249
Chelsea, “Modern Antiques” at, 270
Chelsea, Old Church of, 270
Chelsea “Physick Garden,” The, 271
Chelsea, Sketch of, a few years ago, 266
Chenery, Mr., A tenant in Clement’s Inn, 100
Cheshire Cheese Tavern, The, Account of, 190
Chesterfield House, 161
Chiswick Church and Old Houses, 277
Christ’s Hospital, Public supping at, 250
City, Charm of exploring, 195
City Companies, Vast number of, 209
Clapham, Church Row, 219
Clement Danes, St., Romantic View of, 234
Clement’s Inn, its Garden House, 100
Clifford’s Inn, described, 99
Clock Tower, The, 25
Cock Tavern, The Fleet Street, Account of, 185
College Street, Westminster, picturesque, 18
Covent Garden and St. Paul’s Church, 52
Cripplegate Church, 202, 212
Crosby Hall, fine Oriel Window in, 229
Cornelys’ Rooms, Mrs., now a Chapel, 241
Cremorne Gardens, Sketch of, 269
Cromwell House, 146
Dane’s Inn, 101
Devonshire House, 161
“Dickens in London,” Various associations, 115;
His Wooden Midshipman, 116;
His sketches of the Inns of Court, 117;
His residences in London, 118
Dining Halls in the Old Inns of Court, 107
Doorways, Old, Various specimens of, described, 260;
Old Carved, in Carey Street, 100
Drapers’ Hall, 210
Dublin, Old Houses in, 216
Dyers’ Hall, 209
Edmonton, Fine specimens of Brick at, 288
Eltham, 287
Ely Chapel, District round, 217;
The Old Bell, 217;
Palace of the Bishop, 217;
Sold to Government, 218;
Precarious condition of the Chapel, 219
Emanuel Hospital, Westminster, 20
Essex Head Tavern, 194
Fairfax House, Putney, 148
Farm Street Chapel, 248
Fitzroy Square, 175
Forster, John, Scene at his house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 93
“Fox-under-the-Hill” Tavern and Dickens, 47
Fulham, “Bishop’s Walk,” at 274;
Old Houses and Church, 272
Furnival’s Inn, Holborn, 104
Garrick’s House in Southampton Street, Strand, 51
George Street, Hanover Square, 172
George’s, St., Cathedral, Southwark, 242
George Tavern, Boro’, 180
Golden Square, 170
Gough Square, Johnson’s House in, 193
Gray’s Inn, 112
Greenwich, described, 286
Hampton Court, described, 285
Hammersmith Mall, 275
Hampstead and Highgate, Charms of, 288
Hanover Square, described, 159
Hans Place, Antique tone of, 258
Helen’s, St., Church, 230
Highgate, Walk to, 290
Hogarth House, described, 278
Howe’s House, Mr., at Isleworth, 283
Hyde Park, described, 78
Inns, Old, “The Flask,” 289;
“Jack Straw’s Castle,” 290;
“The Spaniards,” associated with “Pickwick”, 290
Isleworth, 283
Islington, Old-fashioned air of, 255
“Jack Straw’s Castle”, 181
James’s, St., Palace, Gateway, and Dial, 80
Kensington House, 155;
and Palace, 297
Kew Palace, 278
King’s Head Tavern, Boro’, 178
Kingston Market Place and Inns, 283
Lamb, C., his house in Colebrooke Row, described, 257
Laurence Pountney Hill, a Picturesque Enclosure, 204
Law Courts, The, criticised, 130
Leadenhall Street, Old House in, described, 157
Leicester Square, Statue in, 136
Leven’s, Lord, House, at Roehampton, 291
Lincoln’s Inn, Old Gateway, 98
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Old Taverns near, 96;
Fine Houses in, 92
London Relics, Fate of, 132
Magnus’, St., Tower, Poetical effect of, 132
Mansions, Old, in London, 154
Marble Arch, The, 297
Martin’s St., Lane, 70
Mary Woolnoth, St., 237
Masque of Flowers in Gray’s Inn, 113
Mitre Tavern, The, 192
Monuments in Westminster Abbey described, 28
Morden College, Blackheath, 291
Mortimer Street, Richly decorated Houses in, 157
National Gallery, The, its Pictures and Painters criticised, 57
Nightingale Monument in Westminster Abbey, 31
New River, The, 256;
its pleasingly erratic course, 257
Newton’s House, Leicester Square, 163
Olave’s, St., Hart Street, 212
Oratory, The, described, 245
Painter Stainers’ Hall, 209
Palace, St. James’s, described, 296;
Buckingham Palace and Gardens, 295
Pantheon, The, 171
Paradise Row, 271
Parliament, Houses of, described, 20
Paul Pindar’s, Sir, House, 159
Peacock Room, The, (note) 302
Photographing London Relics, Society for, 166
Post Office, General, View from, 233
“Private Prayer,” Result of opening a Church for, (note) 237
Pugin, the Architect, 242
Putney Bridge, Old, 272
Paul’s, St., Cathedral, 134;
Dome of, 137;
Monuments in described, 141;
Railings round, 143;
Reredos, 139
Quadrant, The, Regent Street, 90
Queen Square, 170
Raleigh House, Brixton, 150
Regent Street, Its merits, 89
Richmond, Its Green, and Maid of Honour Row, and Old Palace, 281
Richmond Playhouse, 282
River at Charing Cross, 127
Rolls Chapel, Beautiful Tomb in, 226
Roman Bath, and Roman Remains, 49
Rooks in London, 112
Roubiliac, The Sculptor, and his Work, 30
Sadler’s Wells Theatre, 256
Saviour’s, St., Southwark, 226
Savoy Chapel, 215
Scarsdale House, Kensington, 168
Severn, M., on “Sketching in London”, 127
Soane Collection in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 94
Soho Square, 171;
Chapel near, 241
Somerset House, 126
Square, St. James’s, 174
Squares, Old London, 170
Staple Inn described, 102
Steeples, Eccentric, 238
Steevens, Alfred, Sad Story of, 139;
Specimen of his art in the railings of British Museum, 265
Stephen’s, St., Walbrook, 234
Sterne, Ghastly Story connected with, 75
Street Names, Origin of, 55
Studios, Some--Herkomer’s, 312;
Sir F. Leighton’s, 300;
Sir John Millais’s, 302
Sundial, Negro, in Clement’s Inn, 101
Tablets on Celebrated Houses, 165
Teddington, 284
Temple, Inns in the, described, 109
The “Antients” in the old Inns of Court, 103
Theodore of Corsica, his story, 73
Tottenham, 288
Tradescants, House of, 166
Trumpeter House, Richmond, 282
Tyrrel Monument, 34
Vanbrugh, the architect, and his work, 68
Vauxhall, Figure-heads at, 270
Wade, Marshal, Grotesque Monument to, 45
Wandsworth Manor House, 145
“Warwick Arms,” The Old, 175
Waterloo Bridge, Praise of, by a French critic, 123;
and the Embankment, 122;
The Toll-keeper and Dickens, 125
Wellington Monument, St. Paul’s, History of, 139
Westminster Abbey described, 26
Westminster Hall, 23
White Hart Tavern, Boro’, 178
Whittington’s House, 199
Willis’s Rooms and its associations, 293
Woffington’s Almshouses at Teddington, 284
Wren, Sir C., his Churches, 232;
Steeples, 233
York House and Gate, 46
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This has turned out a singularly accurate prophecy. Chippendale’s
work now fetches an enormous sum whenever it appears at a sale by
auction. It lately brought close on £30.
[2] Few are aware of the number of these mediæval obstructions, of
which there are some 250 in London. “In most parishes there are two
or three; in some the number reaches thirty or forty. The whole
metropolitan area is dotted with them. There are nine in Marylebone;
thirty in St. Pancras, principally on the Camden Estate and Crown
property. St. George’s, Hanover Square, has a dozen; St. Mary,
Islington, twenty; St. Giles’s, Camberwell, sixteen. There are four
each in St. James and St. John, Clerkenwell, in Chelsea, and in
Woolwich. Paddington has five; but the number increases, sometimes by
leaps and bounds, until we reach such totals as 27 for Wandsworth, 28
for Lewisham, and 36 for Fulham. Poplar has only one, but it reconciles
the deficiency to its self-respect by levying a toll. The privilege of
shutting out vehicles is highly prized in some parts of St. Pancras,
and highly paid for. It makes a substantial addition to the rent, and
it constitutes a sort of permanent charge on the rates, in the form of
payment on the original cost of the roads.”
[3] Of the wealth of the late Earl an incidental proof carelessly
escaped on the occasion of the fire at Cortachy Castle, when it was
stated that his lordship had brought sixty servants and some four or
five thousand pounds’ worth of furniture for this summer excursion,
just as an ordinary family would take a few articles to complete the
furnishing of a house taken at the seaside! Further, it was mentioned
that fifty sovereigns belonging to her ladyship were saved; they had
been left on her table just as “the gentle reader” himself might leave
some pence on the chimney-piece.
[4] But, as I write, this memorial is being removed, and the whole
façade is being cased with stone.
[5] Lately died Selby, the Liston-faced coachman, with his low-crowned
hat, who drove to Brighton and back in the surprisingly short time of
seven hours 51 minutes, for a wager. His funeral was an extraordinary
spectacle, followed by more than a score of coaches, laden with
wreaths, and driven by “the fancy.” This recalls the interment of “Tom
Moody.”
[6] Mr. Dickens used to relate how, at one of his last dinners when
in this senile state, the servant, who had the whole _répertoire_ by
heart, would suggest and prompt. “Tell the gentlemen, sir, about Mr.
Selwyn and the Duke of Queensberry, sir,” etc., on which the old man,
set a-going like some musical-box, would start off on his narrative. He
was a sad spectacle.
Nose and chin to shame a knocker,
Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker.
One of the best stories told to us by Mr. Dickens in a railway
carriage--unpublished, too--we must repeat; but the voice cannot
be supplied: it was that of Justice Stareleigh, as given at the
“readings,” very slow and funereal:--
“The Honour-a-ble Augustus Stanhope, one of the most fashionable
bloods of his day, fell in love with the lovely Miss Beauclerk, who
did not re-turn his passion. He bribed her maid to secrete him in her
cheea--mber. When she came up to attire herself for a ball, he emerged
from his concealment. She looked at him fixedly. ‘Why don’t you begin?’
she asked, after a pause. She took him for the ’airdresser!”
[7] It was in December, 1848, that the Quadrant colonnade, “one of the
most elegant architectural features of the Metropolis,” and certainly
an effective addition to the pretentious glories of Regent Street, was
removed. There were, however, sound utilitarian reasons for the step,
the colonnade being the resort and shelter of disorderly characters at
night. Each of the columns, it was stated by the auctioneer, who sold
them in lots, weighed 35 cwt., and had cost £35 to put up. There were
270 in all, and 144 realized about £1,000. These now form unsuspected
portions of other buildings in various parts of the country.
[8] Lately, passing near Camden Town, I noticed a crowd staring
vacantly at the top of a very lofty old tree, and was delighted to
note an immense nest in process of construction, with a couple of the
“inky-coated” on solemn guard.
[9] In the room in which I now write he has often sat, and often has it
re-echoed to his jocund laugh. His paper-knife and paper weight marked
C. D. are beside me. His ghost should flutter near at hand.
[10] The architect of the bridge, Sir John Rennie, gives a curious
account of the plans that were proposed towards the beginning of this
century for the improvement of the river:--“A committee,” he tells
us, “called the Committee of Taste, was appointed, in order to design
such improvements as were imperatively required in the neighbourhood
of Charing Cross, the Strand, and Holborn and Oxford Street. This
Committee consisted of the late Lord Farnborough, John Wilson Croker,
Sir John Soane, Sir Robert Smirke, Nash, and others. To its labours
we are indebted for Trafalgar Square and the improvements in the
Strand, Cockspur Street, the Haymarket, the old Opera House, and those
between Oxford Street and Holborn, which are really very good, and the
architecture, although not altogether faultless, is nevertheless, taken
as a whole, very effective; in fact, nothing like these improvements
has been effected since. The new street from Waterloo Bridge to Oxford
Street, undertaken soon after, has been a miserable failure; instead of
taking a direct line, they availed themselves as far as they could of
the old miserable intervening streets, so that this thoroughfare, which
ought to have been one of the best in London, is now one of the worst,
and the increase in the value of the property on each side has been
very little. But if this street had been made in a straight line, and
of ample width, the shops and buildings on both sides would have been
of a superior character, and would have yielded far higher rents, which
would have gone a long way towards paying part of the expenses, if not
the whole.
“About this time Sir F. Trench, who moved in the most fashionable
circles, and was a great amateur in architecture and fine arts, was
seized and enraptured with the idea of constructing quays along the
banks of the Thames between Whitehall and Blackfriars Bridge, and
converting the space so recovered from the shore of the Thames into
a handsome carriage-drive and promenade ornamented with gardens and
fountains. He applied to the late Mr. Philip Wyatt and myself to assist
him in preparing the designs and in obtaining an Act of Parliament
to carry it into effect. Trench said he had no doubt that sufficient
money would be obtained. He accordingly, with his great influence
and indefatigable activity, formed a committee of the highest class;
neither were the ladies excluded; amongst others, the beautiful
Duchess of Rutland took the greatest interest in the undertaking,
and at the first meeting, which took place at Her Grace’s house, she
was unanimously voted to the chair, and conducted everything in the
most business-like manner. Lord Palmerston, then Secretary for War,
took a leading part, and it is singular that many years later his
Lordship, then Premier, should have proposed a similar measure, and
the continuation of the coal duties for carrying it into effect, which
was adopted; but when we proposed the undertaking and the mode of
raising the funds, notwithstanding our powerful committee, the idea was
considered chimerical. For this and other reasons the project fell to
the ground.”
[11] As the great Duke was the first to pay the halfpenny toll, it
might be interesting to know who was the last passenger to pay it; for,
of course, there must have been a halfpenny received which was the
last. I understand that the late Mr. Thomas Purnell--whose incisive
criticisms in the _Athenæum_ some years, “fluttered the dovecots” of
the dramatists, and which were signed “Q.”--claimed the distinction of
being positively the last passenger that paid the halfpenny.
[12] A piece of Irish wit may be quoted here. It was proposed to erect
a monument to a well-known Dublin physician in one of the public
cemeteries, and the inscription was debated. Some one suggested this of
Wren’s!
[13] There has been an enemy working underground during the past
years--an ogre more wholesale and omnivorous than has yet appeared.
This arises out of the burrowing of the underground lines in the
City--the grand teredo, such as bored its way to the Mansion House
Station from the Tower. It has been stated “that there has been no such
general demolition since the days of the Great Fire. _No less than 130
houses, some of them the oldest in London, and two of the City halls,
have been pulled down in order to construct the new thoroughfare which
continues Gracechurch Street to Tower Hill._ The general destruction
is added to by the tunnelling of the link line from the Tower to the
Mansion House.”
[14] With such rapidity are the blows struck, and so capricious too is
the spoiler in his work, now hurrying on, now suspending altogether,
that it becomes difficult to bring the record “up to date,” as it were.
[15] It was sold “in lots” in 1882 for about £10,000; the grand marble
staircase, which cost £11,000, went to Madame Tussaud’s for £1,000,
where a portion may be seen. The massive gilt _grille_, or railing
that faced the street, cost £3,500, and was bought for Sandown for 300
guineas. Being all levelled and cleared the ground was laid out and
sold, when it was found there was room for seventy-five houses.
[16] Many will have noted the curious iron posts fixed in the ground in
front of one of the corner houses. These are real cannon, captured in
one of Admiral Keppel’s victories, and presented to his family.
[17] Since writing the above, the “White Hart” has been demolished.
[18] “The fate of the Cock Tavern was decided yesterday, when a special
jury at the Recorder’s Court in the Guildhall awarded £9,000 for the
freehold, and nearly £11,000 to the lessee and occupier, in all about
£20,000. It was proved that the profits were £2,000 a year. A casual
visitor would have great difficulty in believing the fact. The ancient
dinner haunt was a small, dingy snuggery, greasy with the steam of
fifty thousand dinners. It hardly seated a score guests, and served
nothing but steaks, chops, and kidneys with ale and stout for liquor.
Counsel for the lessee, in addressing the court on the amount of award,
said he had himself seen only that day three of Her Majesty’s judges
at luncheon hour in the neighbouring law court sitting over their chop
and pewter of London stout in The Cock. The only articles reserved in
the old place are the mantelpiece, a massive work in oak, of the time
of James I., and the sign of the house, which was carved by Grinling
Gibbons.”
[19] A sympathetic frequenter of the “Cheshire Cheese” has sent me a
glowing account of its alternations, which I can cordially endorse.
“The ‘Cheese’ is really the last of our old taverns, conducted on
genuine principles, which one wishes to cherish. When genial spring
has brought forward vegetation the waiter’s cheerful intimation that
‘Asparagus is on, sir,’ recalls the fact forcibly to your notice. When
later, ‘’Am and peas’ can be secured, the vision of early summer is
perfect, and is not even disturbed by boiled beans and bacon. In the
hot, sultry days, cool salads are appropriate, and when these disappear
there is a closing in of daylight and a general warning that the year
is past its prime. Then does the ‘Cheese’ draw its blinds and light
its gas, stoke up its fires and announce its great puddings. Yet,
further ahead, when raw November days come upon us, the savoury smell
of Irish stew--that fine winter lining for the hungry--pervades the
place, and so the season goes round. Of all the changes brought about
by the rolling year, however, none is so popular as the advent of
the pudding, though it means frost, and damp, and cold winds. _The_
pudding (italics for ‘the,’ please) has no rival in size or quality.
Its glories have been sung in every country, even the _Fort Worth Texas
Gazette_ having something to say on the subject. The pudding ranges
from fifty to sixty, seventy, and eighty pounds weight, and gossip has
it that in the dim past the rare dish was constructed to proportions
of a hundredweight. It is composed of a fine light crust in a huge
china basin, and there are entombed therein beefsteaks, kidneys,
oysters, larks, mushrooms, and wondrous spices and gravies, the secret
of which is known only to the compounder. The boiling process takes
about sixteen to twenty hours, and the smell on a windy day has been
known to reach as far as the Stock Exchange. The process of carving
the pudding on Wednesdays and Saturdays when it is served is as solemn
a ceremony as the cutting of the mistletoe with the golden sickle of
the Druids. The late proprietor, Mr. Beaufoy A. Moore, could be with
difficulty restrained from rising from his bed when stricken down
with illness to drive to the ‘Cheese’ and serve out the pudding. No
one, he believed, could do it with such judicious care and judgment
as he did. The dining-room is fitted with rows of wooden benches and
wooden tables without the slightest pretence of show. But the cloths
are white and clean, and the cutlery bright, while the china service
is of that ancient and undemonstrative blue design which delighted our
forefathers, and is known as the willow pattern. The glasses are large,
thick, and heavy, and might be used with effect in an argument. But
the silver is silver, not Brummagem, and has seen more service than
would destroy half the property of modern public-houses. On the walls
hang three prominent objects (in addition to the usual advertisements
of brands of champagnes and clarets), viz., a barometer, a print of
Dr. Johnson, and an old oil painting by Wageman, representing the
interior of the room with a gentleman trying his steak with his knife,
a waiter holding up a port wine cork in the well-known attitude ‘two
with you’; and a cat rubbing her oleaginous hide in anxious expectation
against the leg of the settle. This picture, like one in the bar, is
an heirloom, or rather a fixture, which cannot be sold, but must pass
from landlord to landlord. The fireplaces are huge and commodious,
capable of holding a hundredweight of coal at a time. On a cold
winter’s day, when their genial warmth penetrates every portion of
the room, and the merry flames dance and leap after each other up the
capacious chimney space, a man listens to the howling wind without,
or hears the rain pattering on the paved courts. Here gather poets,
painters, lawyers, barristers, preachers, journalists, stockbrokers,
musicians, town councillors, and vestrymen, with just a _soupçon_ of
sporting celebrities, and a decided dash of the impecunious ‘Have
beens.’ The latter represent in the ‘Cheese’ colony the Irish division
in Parliament. Up-stairs there are extensive ranges of kitchens,
where burnt sacrifices are being perpetually offered up in the shape
of mutton and beef; a dining room, and a smoke-room, dark-panelled
and cosy, where a man may forget the world and be lost to it during
a much-coveted midday rest. The privileged few who are allowed to go
into the wondrous cellars--redolent of sawdust, cobweb-coated, and
covered with dust--wander amidst avenues of wine-bins with wonder and
astonishment at the space occupied underground as compared with the
upper regions.”
[20] They gave an entertainment on St. Luke’s Day, and we find that on
May 17th, 1635, Mr. Inigo Jones, the King’s surveyor, was invited to
dinner, and very willingly came and dined with the company. Some of the
invitations have the signature of Verrio and Sir Godfrey Kneller. The
ancient pictures on the wall are mostly gifts from the painters, who
were living men of the company. One of the minutes in the books has
justly furnished considerable entertainment from its quaint simplicity:
“On the 10th March, 1673,” is pronounced this censure: “That the
painter of Joseph and Pottifer’s Wife and the Fowre Elements be fined
£3 6s. 8d. for such bad work.”
[21] It may be added that the difficulties in getting admission to see
old monuments in London seem insuperable. As a general rule they are
rarely open--or open at awkward hours. No one about appears to know
where the person in charge is to be found, and he is usually “out,”
being busy with other functions. The old City Halls are jealously
guarded, and we recall how shocked the old lady housekeeper was at
one of these places when admission was proposed. Application must be
made to high officials, who, however, are gracious enough in according
permission. The result, however, is long delay and loss of opportunity.
[22] It was thus that passing by St. Magnus’s on one Sunday afternoon,
the door open, the organ pealing out, we expected the usual “Sunday
service” in the City, with its dozen or so of congregation--the few
old women, the sleeping old men, who had turned in for the purpose.
Who could have thought of realizing so perfectly the traditional Swift
story of “Dearly Beloved Roger”? For there was literally the minister
and his clerk, reading and responding, the pew-opener sitting by the
door, and not a soul besides! The pew-opener rose, making a piteously
imploring, despairing appeal to remain; the incumbent glanced over,
half-ashamed--but the intruder fled!
[23] Some time ago there was a controversy in the papers as to the
propriety of opening the churches, City and others, “for private
prayer.” Mr. Brook, the rector of this pretty church of St. Mary
Woolnoth, gave his experiences of an experiment he made in this way.
“The abuse,” he said, “of the privilege had been very great, though
certainly, by reason of constant watchfulness, not as bad as it used
to be. Your readers will scarcely believe it when I mention that
dozens and dozens of times men and women have actually made a public
convenience of the sacred building; others have come in and stripped
themselves nearly naked in the darker corners, for what reason no one
can say; others come for the sole purpose of altercation with the
attendant, and one lately even struck and seriously hurt her; indeed,
if it were not for the friendly policeman on the neighbouring point,
such incidents would be of daily occurrence. It was only a few weeks
since a child was born on the mat in the entrance of the church, though
this is not so common as it used to be in days gone by; and when I
first became rector of the parish the church, between one and two
o’clock, was regularly used as a luncheon room.”
[24] This relic is now on the eve of being demolished.
[25] All his visions therefore faded away: the “cloud-capp’d towers and
gorgeous palaces” dwindled gradually and shrank: prose, and questions
of convenience, took the place of this baseless fabric of a vision.
[26] A prelate once applied to Pugin for a design for a new church. It
was to be very large, he said, the neighbourhood being very populous;
it must be very handsome, as a fine Protestant church was close by; and
it must be _very cheap_--they were very poor, in fact had only £--.
_When could they expect the design?_ The architect wrote back promptly:
“My dear Lord, say thirty shillings more, and have a tower and spire at
once. A. W. P.”
[27] As a specimen of the unconsidered artistic trifles to be found
in London by those who search for them, the simple railing that runs
outside in front of the _grille_ of the British Museum is worth a
moment’s attention. The low posts, or standards, are capped with a
little sitting lion, exceedingly quaint and spirited in design. This
has often been sketched or hastily modelled by the sculptor, for it
is the work of the unfortunate Alfred Steevens, who is only now being
appreciated as he deserves to be.
[28] On the old familiar green cover of “Pickwick,” Mr. Pickwick is
shown seated in a punt, fishing, and in the background is seen the old
Putney Church, with the quaint bridge.
[29] “There is one apartment,” says a visitor, “looking out on an
old-fashioned garden of circular laurel-beds and well-groomed hedges,
which has interest as the nursery of Queen Victoria--now bare like the
rest, save that it contains the toys that amused our Queen’s childhood.
Here they repose, a little dusty to be sure, but not much the worse for
their sixty and odd years of life. On the mantelpiece is a headless
horsewoman who still keeps her seat; in a box, carefully folded in
tissue paper, is a doll clothed in a muslin dress of fine quality,
with a delicately-worked lace cap tied under the chin, almost hiding
her bright fluffy hair. Then against the wall stands a three-masted,
fully-rigged ship, six feet long, its last voyage done. By the side of
the vessel is a large red doll’s house of many furnished rooms, with a
kitchen, containing a well-stocked dresser and a miniature wooden cook
who had fallen on her face, on whom I took pity and seated before the
kitchen range. I left the nursery, and soon came to the room where the
Queen was born--an apartment of mirrors, with paper (one of the few
rooms with wall decoration intact) of a pleasing tint, picked out with
an heraldic device. Hard by is found the apartment where the Archbishop
of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham kicked their heels till the timid
attendant could make up her mind to rouse the sleeping Princess, and
tell her she was Queen of England.”
[30] Many years ago the town was excited by the description of a room
which that clever, erratic artist, Mr. Whistler, had designed and
painted for a gentleman of fortune, Mr. Neyland. It was known as “the
Peacock Room,” and is all painted in blues and gold, after the pattern
of tints in the peacock’s tail. The dado is blue on a gold ground, and
above it the scheme is reversed, being gold on a blue ground. This rich
and gorgeous arrangement is now, probably enough, somewhat faded.