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.