Some it was seen appeared quite romantic,
While the poor stall-girls seemed nearly frantic.
In two short hours it was a blaze
Which took some years to build and raise
Grand Alexandra's noble Dome,
Alas! all vanished the Ninth of June.
The Pantheon, mentioned in the previous volume, though shorn of its early glories, was still a feature of London in the 'sixties, and "Jack Easel," in January, 1862, describes a visit to the Pantheon, "once dedicated to the Tragic Muse, now a temple of all the gods," combining a bazaar, an aviary and a picture gallery, chiefly frequented by ladies—"Belindas in Balmorals." The pictures were a very mixed lot, including King Alfred and the Cakes, Actæon, and the Dead Body of King Harold. But the Pantheon in its last days was chiefly remarkable for an assemblage of wondrous knick-knacks, cheap bijouterie, antique vases, antimacassars, Buhl caskets, bonbonnières, china candlesticks, cheese-cakes, daguerreotypes, decanters, Gothic go-carts, German glass, rag dolls and ratafia.
Tattersall's
Of more robust interest is the elegy in April, 1865, on the "Transit of Tattersall's," when the old mart for selling horses in Grosvenor Place at the side of St. George's Hospital, founded by "Old Tatt," was pulled down and a move made to Knightsbridge Green. "Old Tatt," originally studgroom to the Duke of Kingston, leased the premises at Hyde Park Corner from the Earl of Grosvenor in 1766, set up as a horse auctioneer, and founded his fortunes by the purchase for £2,500 of the famous racer Highflyer from Lord Bolingbroke:—