ADELPHI TERRACE IN GARRICK'S TIME.
Before leaving this part of the neighbourhood, it should be observed that at Durham Rents, which was at the back of Durham House, there was a book-shop early in the sixteenth century, as we see by the following announcement:—"The Myrroure of Owre Lady, Fynyshed and Imprynted in the Suburbes of the Famous Citye of London, without Temple Barre, by me Richard Fawkes, dwellynge in Durresme Rents, or else in Powles Church Yard, at the Synge of the A.B.C., 1530." On December 9, 1614, Thomas Wilson, traveller, author, and statesman, granted a lease to James Bovy, Serjeant of the Cellar, of "the Sill House, in the Strand, near Durham House." And, on October 1, 1618, there was recorded an indenture of sale from "Sir Thomas Wilson, of Hertford, now residing in St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, of a dwelling-house, garden, etc., in St Martin's-in-the-Fields, between Durham House, Britain's Burse, York House, and the River, to Wm. Roo, of London, for £374." Wilson, who was knighted in this year, was employed in obtaining admissions, that were sufficient to condemn him, from Sir Walter Raleigh, then a prisoner in the Tower. Twenty-eight days after the date of the indenture of sale of Wilson's property, near Durham House, Raleigh was executed. A year later, Sir Thomas Wilson, in a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, writes from "my house in Duresme Yard," and sends a list of ambassadors and other people residing there. Wilson, who was a man of considerable learning, and a traveller, translated from the Spanish the Diana of George de Montemayor (the Portugese poet and romance writer, 1520-1562), the source to which Shakespeare went for several of the incidents in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. He entered the service of Robert Cecil in 1605. He was the keeper of the records at Whitehall from 1606 to the year of his death, 1629. He is the Wilson referred as "ye keeper of ye burse," quoted in the rules for the New Exchange in the preceding chapter.
The overcrowding of the New Exchange was a source of much annoyance to the inhabitants of Durham Yard, who made formal complaint of their grievances. As a result, an Order in Council, dated May 4, 1638, was made by the Inner Star Chamber, as follows:—"The Lords being made acquainted that, over the New Exchange, called Britain's Burse, there are divers families inhabiting as inmates, and that adjoining the wall of the Court of Durham House, there are sheds employed as eating rooms and for other uses, to the great annoyance of the inhabitants, and danger of infection. It was ordered that the Lord Privy Seal and Lord Newburgh, Chancellor of the Duchy, should call before them the inhabitants of the said places, and take order for their removal, and if they find any of the said persons obstinate should certify their names."
FOOTNOTES:
[18] "Richard, or Dick Talbot, as he was familiarly called, was descended from an ancient family of English extraction, who had early settled in Ireland. He commenced life as a profligate and ended it as a bigot. Clarendon informs us that he was the person selected to assassinate Cromwell, and that he willingly undertook to execute the deed; at another time, we find him cruelly and impudently insisting on his intimacy with Anne Hyde, in order to prevent her union with the Duke of York. In person he was far above the common stature, and was extremely graceful and well-made. He possessed considerable knowledge of the world, and had early been introduced into the best society. To his friends he is said to have been generous and obliging, and it was much to his credit, that at the Revolution no offers could induce him to desert the King's interests. His conduct in Ireland at that period is a matter of history. He strenuously espoused the cause of James; but, as his capacity was inferior to his zeal, and as he had more personal courage than military genius, his services were of little avail. 'From the time of the battle of the Boyne,' says the Duke of Berwick, 'he sunk prodigiously, and became as irresolute in his mind as unwieldy in his person.' He died at Limerick, 5th August, 1691. Andrew Marvell says, in his Advice to a Painter[19]:—
'Next, Talbot must by his great master stand,
Laden with folly, flesh, and ill-got land;
He's of a size indeed to fill a porch,
But ne'er can make a pillar of the church.
His sword is all his argument, not his book;
Although no scholar, he can act the cook,
And will cut throats again, if he be paid;
In the Irish shambles he first learnt the trade.'"
[19] The Court of England under the Stuarts, Jesse, ed. 1855, vol. iii., p. 237.
[20] Jesse, vol. iii., pp. 233-236.