Bloomsbury Square, though now rapidly becoming simply a square of offices and business premises generally, was, in the time of Charles I, the most fashionable and most admired Square in London. Pope, later, alludes to it in the following couplet:
"In Palace yard, at nine, you'll find me there—
At ten, for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury Square—"
Here, in less ancient days, lived the great judge, Lord Mansfield, whose house was burned during the Gordon Riots, in 1780; the mob threw his pictures, valuable books, and manuscripts, out of the windows and made a bonfire of them, while he and his wife escaped for their lives by the back of the building. Sir Hans Sloane, the founder of the British Museum, lived at one time in this square; also, Sir Richard Steele, who, giving here a grand entertainment during financial distresses, was waited on by bailiffs disguised as lacqueys; and, finally, Isaac d'Israeli, the father of Lord Beaconsfield: who wrote his Curiosities of Literature at No. 6. "His only amusement," says his son, who, as an infant, used to toddle round the square with his nursemaid, "was to ramble about the booksellers' shops," still so frequent in this vicinity. About 1760, the square was still so countrified that the Duchess of Bedford used to send out cards to her guests, inviting them to Bedford House to "take tea and walk in the fields"; while their coachmen "were regaled with the perfume of the flower-beds of the gardens in Great Russell Street." Within the enclosure is now a bronze statue of Charles James Fox, by Westmacott.
These old London squares, with their tall plane trees, their luxuriant and well-ordered garden enclosures, convey a delightful sense, even now, of leisure and repose. No one in Bloomsbury, Tavistock, or Russell Squares would imagine that behind those green masses of foliage,—beyond the blue mist into which they melt so picturesquely,—lies that great "cauldron" or "fermenting vat," as Carlyle would say, of busy London. Yet it is there, but a stone's throw, indeed, away. In the squares the birds twitter and chirp; vistas of entwined branches, leafy glades, hide the glaring continuity of the streets and houses; you might think yourself in some suburban haunt of peace. Even the rumble of the wheels in neighbouring Southampton Row and Holborn seems, in Russell Square in summer, like a soothing tune "to rock a child asleep." You feel in the world, yet not of it; close to the "mighty pulse of the machine," yet in your garden enclosed, and at rest.... And in the back gardens of the houses themselves (for some of the old mansions yet have gardens, entered occasionally from side streets by mysterious Jekyll and Hyde doorways) it is the same. I know a "backyard" that still boasts its mulberry tree, bursting its fat green buds gaily in the spring; and another that can flaunt, when "soft April wakes," its hedge of fragrant lilac. The "daughters of the varying year" deign to notice us even in Bloomsbury, though they may not, perhaps, condescend to stay with us quite so long. (But then we do not ourselves, as a rule, pay such long visits in London as in the country.) Still, the crocus "breaks like fire" at our feet in the spring; the graceful bells of the foxglove usher us pleasantly into the autumn; and in London, imprisoned in brick, who shall say how we love our "prison flower?"
The literary associations of Bloomsbury are yet another feature of its charm. Though Russell Square and its surroundings generally are being gradually rebuilt and improved, yet in some places you can still see the actual old houses standing that, in the century's early years, were the homes of celebrated men. Thus, No. 65 in Russell Square was the abode of Sir Thomas Lawrence, the painter, and here he received the distinguished sitters, the eminent men and fair ladies who have made his name famous. Here, for instance, at this common-place house door, while the Russian general Platoff was having his portrait painted inside, were posted his attendant Cossacks, "mounted" says an eye-witness, "on their small white horses, with their long spears grounded," standing as sentinels at the door of the great painter. Lawrence died here in 1830, and the house is not in essentials altered since his day. At No. 5 in the square lived, from 1856 to 1862, Frederick Denison Maurice, the "Christian Socialist," and here he held his famous "prophetic breakfasts." At No. 56 Mary Russell Mitford stayed in 1836. The house near by—No. 66—is a curious survival of the days when Bloomsbury was a centre of fashion. Its enormous size, its palatial reception rooms, its tall corridors, now deserted and solitary except for a few colossal statues in niches, all suggest the glare of light, the sound of music, the rustle of fine dresses that filled it in old days. Hawthorne and Dickens suggested that old houses felt and suffered; the same idea intrudes itself upon us here. The rusted iron arches that used in the old days to support lamps,—now darkened,—still hang here and there in Bloomsbury streets; and, in some cases the actual iron torch-extinguishers that were used when sedan chairs were in fashion, remain to tell their story of ancient grandeur. Nothing is in its way more plaintive than an old and desolate house of this kind; its glory departed, its decorations falling to decay, its "garden" a wilderness of walls, roofs, and broken bottles, its rooms, even, perchance, in course of being broken up into solicitors' or other offices. Bloomsbury Square, indeed—the square nearest to Holborn—has, in this way, entirely merged into offices, the residents being practically ousted. But Russell Square, despite the new Russell Hotel that rises palatially along its north-eastern block, and despite the large Pitman's School of Shorthand at its south-eastern corner, is still almost entirely residential. None of its modern innovations can altogether abolish or destroy the spirit and feeling of Thackeray that it breathes. Here lived old Osborne, the purse-proud banker; there is going on old Sedley's sale; I can see the packing-cases, the "loafers" and the vans at this moment; and here, by these very prosaic green square railings, is Amelia, sad and black garbed, looking with tear-filled eyes for her boy George. Now that she comes into the light, I see that she is only a nurse from one of the Great Ormond Street or Queen Square hospitals, or, perhaps, a "Salvation Army" lassie; but for the moment she was Amelia, poke-bonnet and all, to the life. Even the historic square railings are just the same as when Thackeray drew them, and Amelia beside them, in ch. 50 of Vanity Fair. The numerous pupils of Pitman's Shorthand Institute now flock, unprotected, down Southampton Row, where little Amelia and her kind, in the early years of the century, walked, followed by "Black Sambo," with an enormous cane. Little Amelia, whose simple strolls in the square were guarded by the beadle; and before whose door, when asleep, "the watchman sang the hours." The big houses—their fireplaces and ceilings often decorated by Adam, their "powder-closets," curious relics of Queen Anne's time, still existing, in many cases, behind the drawing-rooms—yet flaunt their enormous kitchens, laundries, and basements, fitted with endless bedrooms and offices for butlers and retainers, such as old Mr. Sedley's "Black Sambo" and his tribe. They are out of date in this region now, but the Bedford estate will not remodel them entirely so long as their outer walls are solid; and that these mansions existed long before the modern jerry-building days, their firm walls give abundant proof.
But change is at work everywhere in this region. Flats ascending to a terrific height are erected in every direction; of these "Bedford Court," with its foreign-looking inner glazed courtyard is the most outwardly picturesque. It does not seem long since the "gates and bars" went; and soon, no doubt, a new Electric Railway will continue its tunnels and stations along Southampton Row from Holborn to King's Cross.
The principal reason, of course, for the modern unfashionableness of Bloomsbury is to be found in its inhabitants; it is, practically, a city of cheap boarding-houses. It will be interesting to see how the big new Russell Hotel in Russell-Square will affect these. Though boarding-houses are vetoed in the big squares, they abound everywhere else. They are chiefly frequented by Americans and Germans, who, through the late summer and autumn, throng the streets, generally discoverable by their red "Baedekers," no less than by their speech. It is, in fact, in July or August, more common, just here, to hear German spoken than English. London, it has been ascertained, attracts now a greater number of tourists than any other place in the world, and these tourists mostly lodge in Bloomsbury. The theatrical world, also, lives largely about here—it is so convenient for the theatres; but it prefers, for its part, private lodgings, or flats. Yet, even with all this yearly influx from other nations, Bloomsbury is wonderfully little known to the world of shops or of fashion. Oxford Circus is only distant ten minutes from the Russell Hotel, yet "where is Russell Square?" is no uncommon question, even in a shop as big as Peter Robinson's. "Where is Russell Square?" is, indeed, an almost classical question; for it was made in so august a place as the House of Commons, by so omniscient a being as Mr. Croker. It is crushing—but so it is. You might as well, in the world's eyes, live at Fulham or Kennington Park. "Why do you live so far away?" is a question constantly asked of the Bloomsbury resident by people from distant Battersea or Campden Hill, whom it would be useless to try to undeceive. "The very absence of any knowledge of this locality," said a noted wit, "is accounted a mark of high breeding." Among those who have spoken despitefully of Bloomsbury is Mr. Gladstone. Sir Algernon West records a conversation about Panizzi, and his "sad, ill days before his death," "which Mr. Gladstone attributed greatly to the fact of his living in Bloomsbury Square." But, with all respect to Mr. Gladstone, it may be submitted that Panizzi would have died anywhere, while, on the other hand, he could not have lived anywhere except in his beloved Museum-land. Bloomsbury, too, is Whig territory, and it was too bad of Mr. Gladstone to identify it with the Inferno.
Its social glory may have passed away from Bloomsbury, but pathetic little scenes from a lower strata of life daily enact themselves here before our eyes. For the poor we have, indeed, always with us. Here, for instance, to a certain humble street corner, has come for many years an old blind man who sells collar-studs. He arrives punctually every morning, led along carefully by his wife. Once arrived, his mode of procedure is always the same.
He first goes to an iron railing attached to an uninviting blind wall, and proceeds, with a key, to extract thence a rickety wooden seat, padlocked on to the railing. This he takes to his accustomed spot, an old hoarding of ancient date, where he is allowed by sufferance of the authorities; when the hoarding is removed, the old man will lose his means of living unless he find another haunt. His wife helps him across the road, and leaves him to sit patiently all day, east wind, wet, or shine, selling studs. At five o'clock she again appears to fetch him home to tea. Once I witnessed a little domestic drama between the two. It arose thus. The old man had been talking one day to another woman,—a decrepit old waif she was,—and, when the wife returned, the poor old husband had to expiate his flirtation sorely. His wife "let him have it" all the way over the return crossing, undeterred by passing 'buses, or cabmens' jeers, from "speaking her mind"; and she was still hard at it, to judge from her thin shoulders and her gesticulations, as they passed out of sight together into the foggy night.