This famous water-gate has had its vicissitudes. In 1767, there was a proposal for its removal, but, fortunately, this act of vandalism was not allowed to take place. The suggestion gave rise to various protests, one of which took the following form:—
"Sacred
to the Memory and Reputation of
INIGO JONES.
Let no Hand attempt to remove me:
A Mind improved by Taste
Will consider me as a bulwark
To controul the Waves,
Repel the Flood,
And buffet the Western Blasts that annoy
The Inhabitant.
I am the only perfect Building of the Kind
In England;
An search Europe thro', none excell me.
Who
Seek to destroy me,
Repentance shall o'er-take.
Genius shall hunt them from Society,
Contempt shall mark them for her own."
Whether the sinful souls who had thought to execute their fell purpose ever repented or were hunted "from Society," is not recorded. Another satire was in more lively strain:—
"A strange hubble bubble
Confusion and trouble
Has been about York Buildings Gate;
And some gentlemen swear
It shall not stand there,
It's a thing, above all, that they hate.
Tho' 'twas Inigo Jones
Plan'd the piling these stones,
And superb is the architecture;
But alas! some so say
It does stand in the way
Of one that's a Terras director.
Must this building at length
Render up all its strength,
That's withstood the tempestuous billows;
Even rain, storms of hail,
Stood secure from each gale,
To please some testy old fellows.
Last Wedn'sday at night
With all malice and spite
Poor Inigo's fame they did sully;
Till a member arose
And opposed his foes
Verbatim he spoke like a Tully.
Some the cause did maintain,
That it should there remain,
Or where can we go helter-skelter?
At a time when it rains,
Without trouble or pains
The ladies go there for a shelter.
And from Phœbus's Rays,
In hot, sultry days,
To be free from intenseness of heat;
Such a prospect it gains
O'er the river of Thames,
There's not a more pleasing retreat.
T.B."
The gate had become so neglected in 1823 that it was necessary to repair the roof and stone-work and to renew the iron-work. This was done at a cost of £300, defrayed by a rate levied on the occupants of York Buildings. Thirteen years later, however, I find a complaint that the gate had been allowed "from neglect, to be almost smothered in river mud." Again, in 1854, it was said to be "in a ruinous state"—a view of the case which is somewhat exaggerated, for the gate is still in wonderful preservation, considering its age and the destructive nature of the London climate. The gate, and the terrace behind, are now under the control of the London County Council. It is a pity that the "stairs" are so hidden in the hollow of the gardens, but this cannot be avoided. The terrace, which leads from Villiers Street to York Buildings, with an entrance from Buckingham Street, is well-kept, and, very properly, it is only open during the day.
In the frontispiece to this volume, and in some of the other illustrations, there is to be seen, to the left of the water-gate, a strange-looking "octangular structure, about seventy feet high, with small round loopholes as windows." This is the tower of some works which were made in the twenty-seventh year of King Charles II. for the supply of water from the silvery Thames to the inhabitants of the west end. Many of the wooden pipes through which the water was conveyed have been excavated from time to time in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, and other places. In 1688, there were forty-eight shares in the company. After the Scotch rebellion in 1715, the company invested large sums in purchasing forfeited estates, which no Scot would buy. Bankruptcy followed, and, in 1783, the Scotch estates were sold for £102,537.[59] A curious description of the works is given in the Foreigner's Guide to London for 1720: "Here you see a high wooden tower and a water-engine of a new invention, that draws out of the Thames above three tons of water in one minute, by means of the steam arising from water boiling in a great copper, a continual fire being kept to that purpose; the steam being compressed and condensed, moves, by its evaporation, and strikes a counterpoise, which counterpoise striking another, at last moves a great beam, which, by its motion of going up and down, draws water from the river which mounts through great iron pipes to the height of the tower, discharging itself there into a deep leaden cistern; and thence falling through other large iron pipes, fills them that are laid along the streets, and so continuing to run through wooden pipes as far as Mar-bone fields, falls there into a large pond or reservoir, from whence the new buildings near Hanover Square, and many thousand houses, are supplied with water. This machine is certainly a great curiosity, and though it be not so large as that of Marly in France, yet, considering its smallness in comparison with that, and the little charge it was built and kept with, and the quantity of water it draws, its use and benefit is much beyond that." This steam-engine was not in use after 1731, but it was shown for some years later as a curiosity. The cost of working the machine, "and some other reasons concurring, made its proprietors, the York Buildings Waterworks Company, lay aside the design; and no doubt but the inhabitants of this neighbourhood are very glad of it, for its working, which was by sea-coal, was attended with so much smoke, that it not only must pollute the air thereabouts, but spoil the furniture."[60]
THE DRAWING-ROOM, NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE.
Buckingham Street is hallowed by the memory of many celebrities. Here, at the last house on the west facing the river (since rebuilt, and now numbered 14), Samuel Pepys lived from 1684 to 1700. Pepys, unfortunately, had finished his Diary in 1669, or we should have had some quaint observations from him in reference to his residence here. The house had been occupied previously by his great friend, William Hewer, at whose residence in Clapham the genial gossip died in 1703. No. 14 was the home of William Etty, R.A., from the summer of 1824 until shortly before his death in 1849. He first occupied the ground floor, but he moved to the top rooms, as he loved to watch the sunsets over the Thames. The ebb and flow of the river, he declared, was like life, and "the view from Lambeth to the Abbey not unlike Venice. Here he invited Thomas Stothard, the famous painter, to breakfast at nine o'clock, when there is a good light to see my Venetian studies of colour, which are all hung round the room where I breakfast." In these rooms, "the artists of two generations have assembled—Fuseli, Flaxman, Holland, Constable, and Hilton—then Turner, Maclise, Dyce, Herbert, and all the younger race."[61] Clarkson Stanfield, the landscape painter, who designed some beautiful scenery for Drury Lane and painted a drop-scene for Dickens, occupied the lower rooms for some years.