In the spring of 1781, Graham removed from the comparative quiet of the Adelphi to more aristocratic quarters in Schomberg House—part of the existing War Office—in Pall Mall. His charges were slightly lower than in the Adelphi, the use of his "celestial bed" costing but fifty pounds. In November, 1782, his property was seized for debt, and was advertised for sale on December 20, and the following days. He made his misfortunes an opportunity for advertisement, bought in most of his goods, and threatened one publication with an action for libel for having published "an incorrect, mutilated, and nonsensical farrago, which they impudently and falsely call Dr Graham's celebrated lecture on generation." In March, 1783, he announced that the "High Priestess of his Temple delivered lectures to ladies, and that the rosy, athletic, and truly Gigantic Goddess of Health and of Hymen, on the Celestial Throne," took part in the lectures. Graham's London career practically ceased in 1783. Ten years later he described himself, in a book on earth-bathing, as "formerly sole institutor, proprietor, and director of the Temple of Health in the Adelphi and in Pall Mall." His earth-bathing consisted of remaining without clothing in the earth six hours at a time, for eight days in succession, and for twelve hours on the ninth day. In 1791, Graham and a young woman, at Newcastle, "stripped into their first suits," and "were each interred up to the chin, their heads beautifully dressed and powdered, appearing not unlike two fine full-grown cauliflowers."

Graham subsequently became a religious enthusiast, took to opium, and was confined in his own house in Edinburgh as a lunatic. A few months before his death, he made an affidavit, in which he stated that from the last day of December 1792, to January 15, 1793, he neither ate, drank, nor took anything but cold water, sustaining life by wearing cut-up turfs against his naked body, and by rubbing his limbs with his own nervous æthereal balsam. He died suddenly at his house, opposite the Archers' Hall, Edinburgh, on June 23, 1794. Graham, though a quack, and possibly a madman, was not without some knowledge. He was against flesh-eating and excess in alcohol, and believed in cold bathing, open windows, sleeping on mattresses, and other points of severe hygiene; at one time, he stated, he never ate more than the worth of four or six pence a day. He asserted that all diseases were caused by wearing too much clothing, and he wore no woollen clothes. Southey saw this "half knave, half enthusiast" thrice, once in his mud-bath. He says that latterly Graham "would madden himself with opium, rush into the streets, and strip himself to clothe the first beggar he met." [43]

At Osborn's Hotel, which still exists, under the name of the Adelphi Hotel, at the corner of John and Adam Streets, the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands died, from small-pox, in 1824. Rhio-Rhio was the son and successor of the first king, Tamehameha, who placed the Islands under British protection. The Queen died on July 8. "The King," said a contemporary print, "in the midst of this deep sorrow manifests a firmness of mind which has penetrated everybody about him with a feeling of respect. Though very anxious to express his grief in the manner of his country, and to show the marks of deference which are usually paid to the dead there, he submits, with good sense and patience, to every suggestion which our habits dictate." The King died, at the same place, on September 14. The visit of King Tamehameha and his consort to England gave rise to the popular song, "The King of the Cannibal Islands." This hotel was originally called "The Adelphi New Tavern and Coffee-House," and was opened in October, 1777, "being completely fitted up in the most elegant and convenient manner for the entertainment of noblemen and gentlemen." Gibbon, writing to Lord Sheffield on August 8, 1787, from the Adelphi Hotel, imparts a piece of "Intelligence extraordinary. This day (August the seventh) the celebrated E.G. arrived with a numerous retinue (one servant). We hear that he has brought over from Lausanne the remainder of his History for immediate publication." In 1813, George Crabbe, the poet, and his wife stayed in the Adelphi during a visit to London. Dr Thomas Munro, Turner's patron, resided here, and on April 22, 1827, Thomas Rowlandson, the famous caricaturist, died here. Isaac D'Israeli, the author of Curiosities of Literature, and father of the Earl of Beaconsfield, stayed at Osborn's Hotel after his wedding tour, in 1802.

It is generally supposed that Benjamin Disraeli was born in the Adelphi. The authority for this statement is Lord Barrington, who, during the Earl of Beaconsfield's last illness, questioned him on the point. "I was born in the Adelphi," was the reply, "and I may say in a library. My father was not rich when he married. He took a suite of apartments in the Adelphi, and he possessed a large collection of books; all the rooms were covered with them, including that in which I was born." Mr Wheatley, however, says that "careful investigation has left little doubt that this was not the case, as Isaac D'Israeli had left the Adelphi"—where he had a lease of the first floor of No. 2 James Street—"for King's Road (now Theobald's Road) before the birth of Benjamin."

In James Street, on the second floor of No. 1, there lived and died a celebrated character, Thomas Hill (1760-1840), the book-collector and patron of Bloomfield and Kirke White. He was the fussy, good-natured Hull of Theodore Hook's novel, Gilbert Gurney (1836). More notable still, he was the original of Paul Pry, in Poole's comedy (1825). Paul Pry is an idle, inquisitive, meddle-some fellow who, without any occupation of his own, is for ever thrusting himself upon other people with the apology, "I hope I don't intrude." John Liston (1776-1846) was the first stage representative of the character, and the part was frequently acted by the late John Lawrence Toole. "Tommy" Hill, as he was familiarly called, always boasted that he had whatever was wanted: "Cards, sir? Pooh! pooh! Nonsense! thousands of packs in the house." Planché says of him: "His spécialité was the accurate information he could impart on all the petty details of the domestic economy of his friends, the contents of their wardrobes, their pantries, the number of pots of preserve in their store-closets, and of the table-napkins in their linen-presses, the dates of their births and marriages, the amounts of their tradesmen's bills, and whether paid weekly or quarterly. He had been on the press, and was connected with the Morning Chronicle. He used to drive Mathews crazy by ferreting out his whereabouts when he left London, and popping the information in some paper."

THE STRAND FRONT OF NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE.

Two of the most celebrated literary names connected with the Adelphi are Thomas Hood and Charles Dickens. Hood, soon after his marriage in 1824, lived in chambers at No. 2 Robert Street, his acquaintanceship at that time including Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, and De Quincey. His association with the Adelphi continued until the end of his career, for his Magazine, established in 1844—the year before his death—was published from No. 1 Adam Street. Dickens knew the Adelphi well. As a boy he frequented its underground passages, and, later on, he used Osborn's Hotel (the Adelphi Hotel) for a scene in Pickwick.[44] He is recording his own experiences when, in David Copperfield, he says: "I was fond of wandering about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place, with those dark arches. I see myself emerging one evening from some of these arches, on a little public-house close to the river, with an open space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing; to look at whom, I sat down upon a bench. I wonder what they thought of me!" This was also the scene of the meeting of the Micawbers and Copperfield prior to the departure of the impecunious Wilkins for Australia: "The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and where protruding wooden rooms over-hung the river. The family, as emigrants, being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford, attracted so many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in their room. It was one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the tide flowing underneath.... I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They had departed, in a boat, as early as five o'clock. It was a wonderful instance to me of the gap such partings make, that although my association of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden stairs dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted, now that they were gone." [45]

This "little, dirty, tumble-down public-house" of Dickens was the "Fox-under-the-Hill." It stood at the bottom of Ivy Lane. The ram-shackle building disappeared with the formation of the Victoria Embankment and Gardens, but the passage in question still remains, and, although it is not noticed by the thousands of people who walk by it daily, Ivy Lane is one of the most interesting bits of old London. Stow, in his Survey, alludes to it thus: "Ivy Bridge, in the High Street, which had a way under it leading to the Thames, the like as sometime had the Strand Bridge, is now taken down, but the lane remaineth as afore; or better, and parteth the liberty of the Duchy (of Lancaster) and the city of Westminster on that south-side." Strype adds that the lane was "very bad and almost impassable." As it was very narrow, and the descent was steep, its inconvenience is easily understood. The passage is still here, but, at the river end, it is enclosed by gates. Ivy Bridge, or Pier, was the landing-place for the halfpenny steamboats which plied between the Strand and London Bridge. Here a lamentable explosion, by which many people were killed, occurred in August, 1847, on the Cricket, and, soon afterwards, the "Fox" landing-stage was disused.