CHAPTER XXXI.

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

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.

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.

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.

“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.