CHAPTER V.
MAYFAIR.
“Gay mansions with supper-rooms and dancing-rooms—
full of light and music.”—Carlyle, “Sartor Resartus.”
Compared with London as a whole, Mayfair is quite a small quarter; but regarded as a congeries of innumerable streets, and two large squares, it is an extensive and intricate area, and a summer’s day might well be exhausted before we had investigated all the twists and turns of its maze-like complexity.
It is true that its northern half has some sort of method due to Sir Richard Grosvenor’s development of the great Westminster property, of which Grosvenor Square is the key-note; but its southern portion is, with here and there an exception, wanting in logical form, and threatens, I fear, to make the perambulation of it somewhat confusing to those to whom London is a sort of terra incognita.
It will be well to take Grosvenor Square as our starting-point, but before we set out a word must be said about the name, which is generic to the whole area. It almost speaks for itself; and is derived from that “Fair” formerly held here during the first fortnight in May, and dating from the time of James II. Unlike our conception of fairs, however, this one was instituted specifically “for musick, showes, drinking, gaming, raffling, lotteries, stage-plays, and drolls,” and appears to have had nothing to do with the traffic and barter with which we are accustomed to associate these fast disappearing institutions. Nor was it merely the resort of the profanum vulgus; the nobility and gentry, we are told, made a point of frequenting it; and the fields in which it was held,—for then all this part was occupied by meadows and open ground—must have presented a gay appearance, with its booths and shows, surrounded by a brilliantly dressed throng, brought into still greater prominence by the more soberly attired crowd which surrounded it.
The “May Fair” continued as a regular institution until 1708, when it was put a stop to, chiefly on account of the disorders arising from it, and the questionable company that attended its equally questionable exhibitions; but partly on account, no doubt, of the erection of houses and the formation of streets, which began about this time. It, however, died hard, and was intermittently revived, in gradually lessening form; prize-fighting, boxing, and bull-baiting taking the place of “stage-plays and musick,” till nearly the end of the 18th century, when it ceased altogether to exist, and left only its name as evidence of its former vitality.
DAVIES STREET.
Before entering Grosvenor Square, Davies Street has a particular interest in that it takes its name from that Mary Davies, daughter of Alexander Davies, of Ebury, who married Sir Thomas Grosvenor, and through whom the bulk of this great property came into the possession of the Westminster family.
At its Oxford Street end, Davies Street practically forms one with South Molton Lane, which at the beginning of the 18th century rejoiced in the not very euphonious designation of Shug Lane. There is, however, little to delay us here, unless we have a mind to glance into the modern church of St. Anselm, designed by Messrs. Balfour and Thackeray Turner, in the Byzantine style, and opened about eleven years since. I may, however, remind the reader that “Joe” Manton, the great gunmaker, carried on business at Nos. 24 and 25; and also that Tom Moore was living in the street, in 1817.
Turning into Brook Street, let us enter Grosvenor Square at its north-east corner.
GROSVENOR SQUARE.
Grosvenor Square is the largest (it is about six acres in extent) and, in some respects, the most fashionable of London’s “quadrates.” It was formed in 1695, by that great builder Sir Richard Grosvenor, who employed Kent, the celebrated landscape gardener, to lay out the central enclosure, in which once stood the statue of George I. by Van Nost. It was on this spot that the citizens of London, when setting up those defences against the Royalists, in 1642, on which we found them engaged when we were wandering in the Green Park, erected an earthwork, known as Oliver’s Mound, from which we may probably infer the personal superintendence of the future Protector, or at least his rapidly growing influence.
As to-day nearly every house in Grosvenor Square is occupied by some influential or notable individual, so in the past has, practically, each been the home of an interesting personality. The great Earl of Chesterfield was living here in 1733, until he moved to the new mansion he had erected for himself facing the Park, and here it was that Johnson was “repulsed from his doors” or “waited in his outward rooms.” Chesterfield, it will be remembered, married the daughter (she was then termed the niece) of that ill-favoured mistress of George I., Melusina de Schulemberg, created by her royal admirer, Duchess of Kendal, who, by the bye, also resided in the Square. The Marquis of Rockingham, once for a short time Prime Minister, died here in 1782, and Lord North, another Prime Minister, just ten years later, after he had left his former residence in Grosvenor Street, where we have already met with him.
Besides these two first ministers of the Crown, politics have been represented by a number of other well-known names, from which I can but pick out those of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, who was here for half a dozen years; the Earl of Harrowby, at whose house—formerly No. 39, but now 44—the Cato Street conspirators hoped to make a holocaust of the entire Government; Lord Canning, in 1841, and another member of the same gifted family, Lord Stratford de Redclyffe, who died here in 1880, and whose effigy may be seen beside that of Lord Canning in the Abbey. Thomas Raikes, who was called by the wits “Phœbus Apollo,” because he rose in the east and set in the west—an allusion to his dual connection with the City and Mayfair—was one of Grosvenor Square’s past inhabitants of interest. Raikes is now remembered by his diary, a valuable record of his times, and his correspondence and friendship with Wellington, but his brother Robert, the initiator of Sunday Schools, carved out a name, aere perennius, for himself, and by its reflected light Thomas is also partially illuminated. That curious compound of genius and eccentricity, William Beckford, who wrote “Vathek” in three days and nights without intermission, and, what is more, wrote it in French, also lived here, at No. 22. Here was housed a portion of that extraordinary collection of pictures, books, furniture, and bric-a-brac which came, through the marriage of Miss Beckford with the Duke of Hamilton, into the possession of the latter; and the dispersal of which, in the eighties, was the sensation of the season, and crowded Christie’s and Sotheby’s with a wondering and envying throng.
Beckford used to be visited here by Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton, two of the very few people he would ever admit to view the wonders of Fonthill, his Wiltshire seat, from the doors of which fairy palace he once repulsed George IV. himself. Apropos there is a story of a man forcing his way into Fonthill by some subterfuge, and being entertained en grand seigneur by the owner. When, however, the hour for retiring came, Beckford led him to the front door, and wished him good-night, adding that he had better be careful of the bloodhounds. The wretched man then realised that he was alone in a vast Park with no companions but his host’s formidable guardians, and he is said to have passed the night in the first tree he could climb.
A story is a story, but this one has carried us many a mile from Grosvenor Square. One connected with the Square itself, however, tells how Dr. Johnson once knocked down a sturdy beggar in its precincts, what time probably the great Cham of literature was on his way to visit his friends, the Thrales, who lived here for a time, until the death of Henry Thrale, in 1781. The town house of the Stanley family was in this Square till 1832, when they removed to St. James’s Square, and here Lord Derby married Miss Farren, in 1797, in the same year in which John Wilkes, who was then residing at No. 30 (now No. 35), died. Sir Stamford Raffles, Lord Granville, Lord Shaftesbury, the philanthropist, and Sir John Beaumont, are among the many other notable people who have helped to shed lustre upon Grosvenor Square. The Square has been twice renumbered, with the exception of the east side, where the owners made such successful efforts to preserve the original numbering that even parochial authority gave way before them. Once, at an earlier day, the inhabitants made an equally strenuous but less defensible attempt to contest innovation; and it was not till 1842, credite posteri, that the Square was lighted with gas, it being the last important place in London to be so illuminated.
NORTH AND SOUTH AUDLEY STREETS.
At the north-west corner of the Square is North Audley Street, taking its name from Hugh Audley, while its continuation at the south-west, where it finally debouches into Curzon Street, is known as South Audley Street. Its most important mansion, one of the most beautiful in London, is Chesterfield House, facing Hyde Park through Stanhope Street. It was built by the great Earl of Chesterfield in 1749, Ware being the architect. Although it still preserves its fine courtyard, its fair proportions at the back, where its gardens formerly extended down the better part of Curzon Street, have been greatly curtailed by the erection of houses. The mansion itself, however, with its wonderful drawing-room, its library, where Lord Chesterfield lounged or wrote his celebrated “Letters to his Son,” which Johnson criticised so pithily and so severely—its marble staircase and Ionic portico, both of which came from Canons, and gave the Earl the opportunity for a mild jest about his “canonical pillars,” still remain. In 1869, Mr. Magniac gave the enormous sum of £175,000 for the place, and here housed his wonderful collections; but these have gone the way (Christie’s way) of all beautiful things, and to-day Lord Burton owns the place.
But Chesterfield House is not the only fine mansion in Audley Street, for, at No. 8, is Alington House, now Lord Alington’s, but formerly known as Cambridge House, where, in 1826, the Duke of York, brother of George IV. was living.
In another mansion, formerly called Bute House, once lived during the earlier years of George III.’s reign, and died in 1792, that Earl of Bute whose unpopularity I have before mentioned, and whose intimate friendship with the Princess Dowager of Wales (the widow of “Fritz,” and mother of George III.) gave rise to so many ill-natured and probably quite erroneous reports. Home, who wrote the now forgotten tragedy of “Douglas,” and who was a close friend of Lord Bute, was living in South Audley Street at the same time. Home was naturally a gifted man, but was also one of those who experienced the unhappy fate of being over-eulogized by an uncritical generation, and Shakespeare’s fame was deemed to totter before his work. What he is now probably best remembered by is the famous reply of Dr. Johnson, to whom one of Home’s admirers quoted with enthusiasm his line: “Who rules o’er freemen should himself be free.” “Why, sir,” replied Johnson, “one might as well say: ‘Who kills fat oxen, should himself be fat!’”
Close to St. Mark’s church in North Audley Street, lived, at various times, quite a bevy of notable ladies. Maria Edgeworth was one of these, and Lady Suffolk another, and Mary and Agnes Berry, before they went to reside in Curzon Street, where we shall presently meet with them.
All sorts and conditions of interesting people have resided in South Audley Street. Regardless of chronology, let me set down some of their names at random, commencing appropriately with a great church dignitary, Archbishop Markham, who died here in 1807; then, there was General Paoli, the Corsican patriot; Sir William Jones, famous for his learning, and Westmacott for his perpetuation in stone of many a learned one; Lord John Russell, Prime Minister, reformer, author, what you will; and Holcroft, whose name as a dramatist is forgotten for ever; Queen Caroline, that injudicious but badly used woman, who, on her arrival from Italy in 1820, stayed at the house of Wood, who championed her cause; Baron Bunsen, the clear-sighted diplomatist, and Louis XVIII., that gastronomic monarch, and his brother, Charles X., who, under the evil guidance of Prince Polignac, lost a throne that had cost so many lives and so much money to recover.
PARK STREET.
Park Street runs parallel with Audley Street. Formerly known as Hyde Park Street, it was one of the later developments of this part of the town, although it was formed anterior to 1768, in which year the actress Nelly O’Brien is stated to have died in it. A very different person also lived here (in No. 113) at a later day, in the person of that Lydia White, who, till the end of her life, delighted to gather around her the lions of the day. One of the last of these to visit her was Scott, who records in his diary that, on November 13th, 1826, he “found her extended on a couch, frightfully swelled, unable to stir, rouged, jesting, and dying.” Harness, writing to Dyce, at an earlier period, tells an anecdote illustrating her readiness of repartee:—“At one of Miss Lydia White’s small and most agreeable dinners in Park Street, the company (most of them, except the hostess, being Whigs) were discussing in rather a querulous strain the desperate prospects of their party. ‘Yes,’ said Sydney Smith, ‘we are in a most deplorable condition; we must do something to help ourselves; I think we had better sacrifice a Tory virgin.’ This was pointedly addressed to Lydia White, who, at once catching and applying the allusion to Iphigenia, answered, ‘I believe there is nothing the Whigs would not do to raise the wind.’” This “really clever creature,” as Sir Walter calls her, died at her house here in 1827. Sir Humphrey Davy also came to live here, from Grosvenor Street, in 1825, and remained a resident till his death, two years after that of Miss Lydia; and Richard Ford, who made a guide-book to Spain, a permanent work of literary charm, was another of the street’s past notable inhabitants.
GREEN STREET.
A few steps southward will bring us to Green Street, in which stands Hampden House, now the residence of the Duke of Abercorn.
No. 56 Green Street was formerly known as the “bow-window house,” and here Miss Farren, who afterwards became Countess of Derby, once resided, and gave those suppers to “all the pleasantest people in London,” which Hume, Walpole, and Lord Berwick have recorded. Sydney Smith died in Green Street, at Miss Farren’s old house, in 1845, and here it was that he once told his doctor that he felt so feeble that if anyone were to put a pin into his hand he would not have strength enough to stick it into a Dissenter!
NORFOLK STREET.
Between Green Street and Park Lane intervenes the little Norfolk Street, at a house in which Lord William Russell was barbarously done to death by his valet in 1840. Here Lady Hesketh, the friend of Cowper; Sir James Mackintosh; and, later, Lord Overstone, the millionaire banker, resided.
UPPER BROOK STREET.
A little further on is Upper Brook Street, where once lived Lord George Gordon, famous for his connection with the anti-Catholic riots, which, had not George III. acted with splendid promptitude, might have resulted in a holocaust of London. Here also resided George Grenville, the statesman and creator of that marvellous library which is, to-day, one of the wonders of the British Museum; Mrs. Damer, the talented friend of Horace Walpole, for whom she executed the Eagle which once stood in the Tribune at Strawberry Hill; and Hamilton, of “single speech” fame.
UPPER GROSVENOR STREET.
As Upper Brook Street joins the north side of Grosvenor Square with Park Lane, so Upper Grosvenor Street leads directly from its southern side to that latter-day synonym for worldly riches.
Here lived such notable people as Lord Erskine, the great lawyer, Sir Robert Peel, and also Lord Crewe, who appears to have moved hither from Grosvenor Street, or, as we ought to say, Lower Grosvenor Street. But the chief feature of the street is Grosvenor House, the well-known residence of the Duke of Westminster, the fine screen and gates of which, designed by Candy, were put up in 1842, and form a curious break in the otherwise unbroken regularity of the houses. I shall have something to say about Grosvenor House, when we come to Park Lane; so that now we need not interrupt our walk, which in a moment will bring us to Mount Street, taking its name from “Oliver’s Mound,” formerly in Grosvenor Square.
MOUNT STREET.
Mount Street dates from about 1740, but since then it has been wholly rebuilt with red-brick structures, the majority of which are now shops, with flats above them, and thus preserves nothing of its earlier character, when such as Lady Mary Coke, the compiler of a most valuable and delightful diary, Fanny Burney (Madame D’Arblay), whose work in the same direction is, known to all the world, and Sir Henry Holland, who has also left us his reminiscences, lived in it.
From Mount Street we pass easily, by way of South Audley Street, to that congeries of thoroughfares, which lie between Berkeley Square and Park Lane.
ALDFORD STREET.
If we take those on the east, we shall first come to Aldford Street, which was known for a century and a half (until 1886) as Chapel Street. Much of the street has been rebuilt, and therefore some of its intrinsic interest has disappeared, notably the house in which Beau Brummell once lived, and where he was wont to receive the Prince Regent at those “petits soupers,” and at those wonderful ceremonies of the toilet, the details of which Captain Jesse has recorded with so much gusto. But a greater than Brummell was once a resident in Aldford Street, for, at No. 23, the poet Shelley was staying in the same year (1813) in which we have encountered him in Half Moon Street. Beyond this solitary celebrity, however, there is nothing to delay our passing on to South Street, which runs parallel to Aldford Street in a southerly direction.
SOUTH STREET.
This street was formed about 1737, and till nearly the middle of the 18th century, the chapel attached to the Portuguese Embassy (formerly at 74, South Audley Street), where Garrick was married, was situated in it.
Brummell once lived here (at No. 24), and so did, in 1837, Lord Melbourne (at No. 39), while among other names of note connected with it mention may be made of Charles James Fox, Lord and Lady Holland, and John Allen, so indissolubly connected with the annals of Holland House; Mademoiselle d’Este, the daughter of the Duke of Sussex; the Duke of Orleans, better known as Philippe Egalité, and Miss Florence Nightingale whose name is a household word in two hemispheres.
DEANERY AND TILNEY STREETS.
Deanery Street passes by the side of Dorchester House (which I must leave for notice till we reach Park Lane) to Tilney Street. The former, a small serpentining thoroughfare, takes its name from the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who are the ground-landlords, and to whom Lord Chesterfield made an amusing reference in his will. It was first called “Dean and Chapter Street,” and was formed at the same time as South Street.
Tilney Street is perhaps chiefly remembered as the residence of Mrs. Fitzherbert, whose house was at the corner facing Park Lane, the bow windows of which still indicate it. Here it was that, in June, 1800, after their temporary separation, Mrs. Fitzherbert and her husband, George, Prince of Wales, were openly reconciled at a public breakfast, which “proclaimed to the fashionable world of London that her relations with the Prince were resumed on the old footing.”
Soame Jenyns also lived in Tilney Street, and died there in 1787. Forgotten nowadays, he was in his time a prolific writer, and his style was considered as a model of clearness and ease. His epigram on Johnson is generally supposed to have been the only ill-natured thing he ever produced; here it is:—
“Here lies Sam Johnson. Reader, have a care;
Tread lightly, lest you wake a sleeping bear.
Religious, moral, generous, and humane
He was; but self-sufficient, proud and vain;
Fond of, and overbearing in, dispute;
A Christian and a scholar—but a brute!”
What would Miss Jenkins and Miss Pinkerton have said?
GREAT STANHOPE STREET.
At least two Prime Ministers have lived in Great Stanhope Street—Lord Palmerston, from 1814 to 1843, before he went to Piccadilly; and Sir Robert Peel, for five years from 1820; while Lord Brougham is given as residing at No. 4, in 1834, in occupancy of which house he had been preceded, respectively, by Lords Mansfield and Exeter.
To these may be added the names of two military veterans. Lord Raglan, in 1853, and Viscount Hardinge, who died at No. 15, three years later; as well as Colonel Barré, who lived at No. 12, where he died, in 1802.
Before proceeding into Curzon Street, let us return by way of South Audley Street, and turn into Waverton Street, which forms the west side of a species of gridiron of thoroughfares, of which Farm Street is the north side and Charles Street the south.
FARM STREET.
Farm Street is one of the thoroughfares that took their names from their association with those agricultural pursuits which we have nowadays such difficulty in associating with this fashionable neighbourhood. This “common pasturage” and the “milk maids” formerly connected with it, have been recently brought vividly to mind by the action of the “milk ladies” of St. James’s Park, the lineal descendants of those of Mayfair, who successfully resisted an attempt to deprive them of their rights.
A Jesuit Church stands in Farm Street, that of the Immaculate Conception, which, it is interesting to remember, was the first regular church possessed by the Jesuits in London after their expulsion from Somerset House and St. James’s under Charles I.
JOHN STREET.
John Street, laid out about 1730, running at right angles, connects Farm Street with Hill Street, and also possesses a church; in this case the well-known Berkeley Chapel, built about 1750, of which Sydney Smith and, later, Cary, the translator of Dante, were former incumbents. The chapel has been twice redecorated, in 1874 and 1895; and, apart from its associations, is worth a visit, if only to see the memorial window placed there to the memory of the late Duke of Clarence.
HILL STREET.
Hill Street, formed about 1742, probably takes its name from some inequality of the ground, more pronounced when all this part was fields than now when building development has been responsible for a generally levelling process.
Mrs. Montagu lived in Hill Street, while she was building for herself the fine mansion in Portman Square, where she covered the walls with birds’ feathers and “wanton Cupids,” and once a year entertained the chimney-sweeps of the district.
Another resident was that Admiral Byng, whose infamous execution called forth a well-known sarcasm from Voltaire; while others who lived here in the past were Lord Camden, the great Lord Chief Justice; Lord Brougham, before he received his title; the Earl of Malmesbury, whose four volumes of entertaining memoirs record his diplomatic experiences and successes at half the courts of Europe; and Lords Lyttelton and Carlisle, both poets of distinctly minor attainments. Other names might be added; but to be exhaustive would be to hamper the wings of imagination.
HAYES STREET.
Passing by Hayes Street, now used as mews by the exigencies of fashion, and where, at the corner, a public-house with its sign bearing the inscription, “I am the only running Footman,” will recall to our minds this former appendage to fashionable state, of which “Old Q.” was the last to make use, we come to Charles Street, thus named after Charles, Earl of Falmouth, a brother of Lord Berkeley, the ground-landlord.
CHARLES STREET.
This is the last of what I call “the gridiron,” and is generally known as Charles Street, Berkeley Square, from its entering the square at its south-west corner.
Royalty in the person of William IV., when Duke of Clarence, has been represented in this street; while Sydney Smith, when he was incumbent of Berkeley Chapel close by, was residing here, at No. 33, the house in which the daughter of Lord Hervey was burnt to death, in 1815. It was about the purchase of this house that Smith once wrote “the lawyers discovered some flaw in the title about the time of the Norman Conquest, but, thinking the parties must have disappeared in the quarrels of York and Lancaster, I waived the objection!”
Among other residents I find the names of Lord Ellenborough, once Governor-General of India; Beau Brummell, at No. 42, in 1792; Lady Grenville, after the death of her husband, the Prime Minister; and Bulwer Lytton. The latter, in 1839, fitted up his house in a most lavish style, and one of the rooms was made to represent, as closely as might be, one of the chambers in Pompeii. James Smith, one of the authors of the “Rejected Addresses,” has left an amusing account of a visit he once paid here.
CURZON STREET.
A few steps brings us into Curzon Street. It is curious to notice the difference between the two ends of this fashionable thoroughfare, or rather it was till the Duke of Marlborough set up his splendid mansion amidst the small shops and public-houses which distinguish the eastern part, where Bolton, Clarges, and Half Moon Streets dwindle away into it, and Lansdowne Passage forms an exiguous connection between it and Berkeley Street.
Once the street was known as Mayfair Row; its present designation being derived from the family name of Lord Howe, the owner of the property. If we except Sunderland House, the Duke of Marlborough’s, (apropos of which the story is told that Queen Victoria once informed the Duke she had never been in Curzon Street, so prescribed are frequently the peregrinations of sovereigns) the chief mansion is Crewe House, the residence of the Earl of Crewe. Until comparatively recently it was known as Wharncliffe House, having been acquired by Mr. J. Stuart Wortley for £12,000, in 1818, and continuing in his family (later ennobled by the Barony of Wharncliffe) till its present owner bought it at a very different figure. Originally, in 1708, Mr. Edward Shepherd, who built Shepherd’s Market opposite, in 1735, lived here; and, in 1750, it was purchased by Lord Carhampton for £500, if one can possibly believe in the adequacy of so small a sum to buy anything in such a neighbourhood!
So many illustrious people have lived and died in Curzon Street that pages might easily be filled with their names; but a few must here suffice, and appropriately, as living once at No. 1, since demolished, I find that great actress, Madame Vestris; and at No. 8, the celebrated Miss Berrys, who both died here in 1852, and lie buried in Petersham churchyard. Their house was once taken by Baron Bunsen, who records moving into it in 1841. Sir Henry Holford, the surgeon, who was one of those who gazed on the actual features of Charles I. when that monarch’s coffin was opened, and who left an interesting account of the circumstance, died at a house in Curzon Street, in 1844; and at No. 19, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, drew his last breath, in 1882.
Other residents whose names may be set down were Lord Marchmont, the friend of Pope; Mason, the poet; and Francis Chantry, the sculptor, long before he became famous; Lord Macartney, whose mission to China is to be found recorded in a bulky volume, and who, according to Walpole, occupied here a “charming house—cheap as old clothes,” which once belonged to Lord Carteret.
Opposite Crewe House stands Curzon Chapel, or, as it is as often called, Mayfair Chapel. The original structure dated from 1730, but it was subsequently rebuilt, although it is so plain and ugly that it could not possibly have been improved by the process.
The chapel is notorious for those illegal marriages conducted by the Rev. Alexander Keith, until the scandal was put an end to here by his being unfrocked in 1742. But this action on the part of a justly incensed church did not deter him from carrying on the same practices at another chapel, which he inaugurated close by. What the Church was unable to do, the Law effected, and the subsequent passing of the Marriage Act, in 1754, finally put a stop to Mr. Keith’s illicit activity. It is said that when told that the Bishops would stop his illegal marriages, he replied, “Let them; and I’ll buy two or three acres of ground, and by God, I’ll under-bury them all!”
Of those who took advantage of this short cut to wedlock were the Duke of Chandos, who was married (if the word can be permitted in such a connection) to Mrs. Anne Jeffrey, in 1744; Lord Strange and Lucy Smith, two years later; Lord Kensington and Rachel Hill, in 1749; and Lord George Bentinck and Mary Davies, in 1753.
The year before this last match, occurred the best-remembered of these “splicings,” when the Duke of Hamilton was wedded at half-past twelve o’clock at night to the beautiful Elizabeth Gunning, who lived to be the wife of two and the mother of four dukes. Horace Walpole has left a vivid account of the ceremony, in which a ring torn from a curtain replaced that circlet of gold which is recognised as the more usual type of matrimonial bondage.
HERTFORD AND CHESTERFIELD STREETS.
Hertford Street, formed about 1764, now almost rivals Wimpole Street in the numbers of the medical profession who reside in it; but at an earlier day it was the home of politicians, with here and there a soldier, and here and there a poet; while it was in a house here that the Duke of Cumberland, brother of George III., was married to Mrs. Horton, in 1771.
Sheridan had one of his many residences here, at No. 10, in 1793, and Lord Charlemont, whose wife’s name continues (in booksellers’ catalogues) to be erroneously connected with a notorious translation of Voltaire’s “Pucelle,” was living in the street in 1766. So, too, were Lord Goderich, and the Earl of Mornington, some years later; and, in 1792, died here General Burgoyne, whose surrender to the American forces at Saratoga precipitated that independence which the United States soon after obtained.
The first Earl of Liverpool, father of the Prime Minister, died here in 1808; and Earl Grey was living in this street in 1799; while other politicians who have been former residents were Robert Dundas and Charles Bathurst, Lord Langdale and Bulwer Lytton, the last of whom lived at No. 36 from 1831 to 1834, and here wrote “Paul Clifford,” “The Last Days of Pompeii,” “Rienzi,” “Alice,” and “Ernest Maltravers.” Lord Sandwich, the well-known “Jemmy Twitcher,” died at No. 11, in 1792, and “Capability Brown,” the great landscape gardener, at another house here, nine years earlier. But perhaps the street’s chief claim to remembrance is the fact that Edward Jenner resided at No. 14, for some years, from about the beginning of 1803. Contrary to expectation, his fees fell off on his setting up here, and, together with the excessive rent he was obliged to pay, and the additional expenses of London life, he found it impossible to continue to reside here. A tablet now marks the house where this benefactor to the human race once fought his double fight against disease and poverty!
Chesterfield Street joins Chesterfield Gardens, which stand on the site of the once ample grounds of Chesterfield House. George Selwyn dates many of his letters from one of the houses in this street; while Beau Brummell was residing in another, No. 4, till 1810, and here he was visited often enough by the Prince of Wales, who sometimes remained so late that he was compelled, says Jesse, to insist on Brummell giving him a quiet dinner, which not uncommonly ended in a midnight debauch.
PARK LANE.
Park Lane stands alone among the streets of London. In that it has only one side, and looks directly into one of London’s Parks, it might at first seem to have some analogy to the western end of Piccadilly; but Piccadilly is made up of clubs, with here and there a business establishment and—except at Hyde Park Corner itself—private houses but sparsely scattered down it; whereas Park Lane practically consists of the mansions of the wealthy. So much so is this the case, indeed, that it has latterly become synonymous with worldly riches, and is now the objective at which Socialistic and democratic stump orators level their sarcasms from their convenient vantage ground within the park railings; what time the law in helmet and white gloves smiles tolerantly, and the plutocrats lunch unmoved.
It will be well to start from its northern end, where it joins Oxford Street, or the Tyburn Road, as it was once called, for Park Lane used formerly to be known as Tyburn Lane, and close by the Marble Arch—permanently at rest after its journey from the front of Buckingham Palace—was Tyburn Tree, where the end of innumerable malefactors drew crowds of excited and unseemly witnesses.
It is somewhat anomalous that this “glass of fashion” among streets should have been, so comparatively recently as 1769, connected with such gruesome associations; but it is also equally difficult to imagine it as the dreary, unkept by-way which it was during the Augustan age, when millionaires were not; and the petrol of the motor was not smelt in the road.
GREAT HOUSES OF PARK LANE.
The first of the great mansions we come to is Brook House, which stands at the corner of Upper Brook Street. It was designed by Wyatt, and was for many years the residence of Lord Tweedmouth, and noted for the receptions held here, when the Liberal Party indulged in its revels.
A step and we come to Dudley House, built by the late Lord Dudley, and once the casket that contained many of those wonders of art which this most princely of peers loved to gather around him.
At the corner of Upper Grosvenor Street stands a sort of magnificent temple dedicated to music and the fine arts. This is the concert or ballroom which the late Duke of Westminster, apparently regardless of architectural symmetry, added to Grosvenor House, which is seen behind it. It reminds me of nothing so much as a beautiful pearl which has succeeded in emerging from the parent shell, but not wholly detaching itself from the parental ligaments.
As we have seen, the entrance to Grosvenor House is in Park Street; but I said nothing about the mansion then, because it seems to belong, as does its vast garden extending to Mount Street, to Park Lane. The residence, which was known as Gloucester House, at the time when the Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III., acquired it in 1761, is, of course, one of the great, as differentiated from merely large, houses of London, and it contains a collection of pictures and works of art which a millionaire would have to exhaust his fortune in purchasing, and which could only be adequately described by a Waagen or a Smith.
Just beyond South Street stands what I suppose few people, having regard to both its exterior and interior, will deny to be the finest private residence in London—Dorchester House, which was erected by Vulliamy, in the Italian Renaissance style, for the late Mr. Holford. Surrounded as it is by every conceivable kind of architectural experiment, it may be deemed out of place; but, taken by itself, it is a perfect reproduction on a lavish scale of those Italian palaces to which the blue sky of the South forms the one necessary background. The interior is commensurate, both in size and detail, with its commanding exterior, and only the pen of the late Mlle. de la Ramée (“Ouida”) could do justice to the marble staircase. The art collection housed here is extraordinarily fine, while the yearly exhibitions of Old Masters at Burlington House are seldom without one or more examples from among the masterpieces which hang on the walls of Dorchester House.
It has frequently been let, sometimes as when the Shahzada was there, for a short period; sometimes, as now, when it has become the residence of the Hon. Whitelaw Reid, the United States Ambassador, for a term of years. Its perfection of taste and its rare and beautiful contents remind me that, appropriately enough, the Marquis of Hertford, whose name is indissolubly associated with such things, died here in 1842.
At the south corner of Stanhope Street we come to the last of the great houses of Park Lane—Londonderry House, now the residence of the Marquis of Londonderry, but formerly known as Holdernesse House, it having been erected by the Wyatts in 1850, on the site of the former town house of the Earls of Holdernesse.
Next door to Londonderry House is quite a small house of somewhat elaborate design. This was built on the site of another residence, by Mr. Whittaker Wright, whose name is remembered in connection with a notorious trial a few years since, and who, “immemor sepulcri,” as Horace says, built a house which he was never destined to enjoy, somewhat as in earlier days Baron Grant erected a palace in Kensington which was demolished before it was occupied.
At this point Park Lane splits itself into two thoroughfares, the smaller being Park Lane proper, and by its tenuity giving some raison d’étre for its designation, the latter being known as Hamilton Place, which takes its name from that Hamilton who was Ranger of Hyde Park during the reign of Charles II., and who erected a number of small houses here in what was then but a cul de sac, on ground which formed an integral part of the park itself.
HAMILTON PLACE.
The houses in this street were rebuilt by Adam in 1809, but it was not till about sixty years later that the street was carried through to Park Lane, and became its chief outlet into Piccadilly.
The mansion (No. 1) at the corner of Piccadilly was built by Lord Chancellor Eldon when he left Bedford Square, and here he died in 1838. Next door was occupied, from 1810 to 1819, by the Duke of Bedford, who moved here from Great Stanhope Street; while later residents include Earl Gower, afterwards Duke of Sutherland, the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, and the Duke of Argyll.
THE ENTRANCE TO PICCADILLY AT HYDE PARK CORNER, WITH ST. GEORGE’S HOSPITAL.
At No. 4, the great Duke of Wellington was living in 1814, while yet Apsley House was in the occupation of his brother, the Marquis Wellesley. Others who have lived here include the Earl of Lucan, in 1810, and Lord Grenville, twelve years later. In our own day it has been the town residence of the Earl of Northbrook, the head of the Baring family and some time Governor-General of India.
Mr. Leopold de Rothschild’s beautiful house (No. 5), which looks directly on to the park and has a view up Park Lane, was, from 1810 to 1825, the residence of the Earl of Buckinghamshire, and many years later, of the Marquis Conyngham.
One of London’s rare if not always beautiful statues stands at the junction of Park Lane and Hamilton Place. Utility has been combined with decoration in this case, for it also forms a fountain, presided over by the Muses of Tragedy, Comedy, and History—not Farce, as might have been expected, unless there be some subtly ironical meaning hidden in the otherwise illogical collocation. Above stand, in evident wonderment, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton, in marble, and on the summit Fame puffs industriously at her trumpet. Thornycroft was responsible for this work, which was erected in 1875, at the cost of £5,000, the money being provided from the estate of an old lady who died intestate and without heirs.
Before we finally quit Park Lane one or two of its former interesting residents must receive a short word of notice. Thus, at the corner of Upper Grosvenor Street—at that time known as No. 1, Grosvenor Gate—Disraeli was living, from 1839 till 1873; and friend and brother novelist and politician, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, was residing in 1842 at what was known as No. 1 Park Lane, during which period “Zanoni” was published.
The names of Warren Hastings, Richard Sharp, and Lady Palmerston are also connected, cum multis aliis, with this famed street; and in one of those houses which look on to the Lane, but which have their entrances in other streets—in this case Seamore Place—lived the gorgeous Lady Blessington (1832-6), after her departure from St. James’s Square and before her final apotheosis in Kensington Gore. The white-painted semi-circular front of her former residence at the corner of Pitt’s Head Mews, may still be seen; and it will not take a great stretch of the imagination to picture that beautiful and talented woman surrounded by all that extravagance and luxury could suggest, sitting upon its balcony, and penning those short stories, or editing those wonderful “books of beauty,” which formed the fashionable literary pabulum of early Victorian days.
Within a radius of half a mile from Stewart’s corner of Old Bond Street we have traversed that part of the town which is associated pre-eminently with the fashionable, and in a lesser degree with the literary and artistic, traditions of two centuries of London life. Compared with the innumerable memories which its stones evoke, the area covered is a relatively small one, but had space here been less restricted, one might have gone on wandering over acres of paper while setting down the names of persons and places, and lingering over the stories and anecdotes with which they are connected.