The Rev. J. B. Owen, M.A., Vicar of St. Jude’s Church, Chelsea, in an admirable lecture delivered by him in 1862, in the Vestry Hall, King’s Road, related the following anecdote:—“An Hebrew friend amused and puzzled me with a sentiment he had once given at a festival of one of the London Guilds. Being pressed for a toast, he gave ‘The Queen of the Jews, and of no other nation.’ Many conjectures were hazarded, as wide of the mark as Jezebel and the Queen of Sheba. The company confessed themselves beaten, and at last my friend gave the answer—‘Queen Victoria.’ But this only darkened the enigma more than ever. After some time, he said, J. (or I.) E. W. S. makes Ireland, England, Wales, and Scotland, and J. E. W. S. spells Jews, and makes Victoria ‘Queen of the Jews, and of no other nation.’”
“England,” said Mr. Owen, “owes a great national debt of amends to their Hebrew brethren. For several centuries they were bought and sold as chattels, plundered and exiled, as if they were outlaws. In the sixteenth year of Edward I. all the Jews in England were imprisoned, and though they redeemed themselves for a vast sum, three years after, the fraudulent tyrant banished them all; and they remained in banishment 364 years, till the rough justice of old Oliver Cromwell restored them to their trade and worship. The proverb ‘worth a Jew’s eye’ alludes to the barbarities practiced on the Jews, whose money was commonly extorted from them by drawing their teeth, or putting out their eyes. There are no judgments in Scripture more terrible than those denounced against the oppressors of Judah. We may be thankful that we have lived to witness the last vestige of injustice to our Hebrew fellow-citizens erased from our statutes. Have we also honestly received the social and religious interests of the Jews into the unreserved sympathy of Christian hearts?”
Francis Hargrave, Esq., a barrister, resided in York Place, (the houses of which are now nearly all converted into shops, and which is situated near to the Jews’ Burial Ground), for a considerable period. He particularly distinguished himself in the Habeas Corpus case of James Somerset, a negro, for whom he was counsel, and his argument was the occasion of a precedent being established for the freedom of slaves the moment they set foot on English land. He possessed a very extensive and most valuable library, which Parliament purchased for £8000, in order that it might be placed in the British Museum. He died here in 1821, aged 80.
Sydenham Edwards, Esq., F.L.S., an eminent botanical draughtsman, lived in Charles Street, Queen’s Elm, and afterwards removed to Barrossa Place, where he died in 1819. The Flora Londinensis, Rees’ Encyclopædia, &c., were greatly indebted to his masterly pencil.
CHURCH STREET.
Alexander Stephens, Esq., built and resided in Park House, Upper Church Street, for a great many years. He was the author of several popular works, was born at Elgin, about 1757, and completed his education at the University of Aberdeen, which he left at the early age of 18 years, for the purpose of proceeding to the West India Islands, principally with a view to add to his stock of useful information and knowledge of the world. Mr. Stephens purchased a Commission in the 84th regiment, but never joined in consequence of the sudden reduction of that corps. At the age of 21, he entered himself a member of the Middle Temple, where he continued his vigorous pursuit of legal studies for several years. His earliest production was “Jamaica,” a descriptive poem; and his next, published within a few years afterwards, “The Temple,” a kind of law journal. But of his printed works, undoubtedly, the most approved are the volumes of the “Public Characters;” also a “Life of John Horne Took,” and the “History of the Wars, which arose out of the French Revolution.”
The industry of Mr. Stephens in the collection of the materials for his biographical works has not often been surpassed. He was accustomed to commit to paper the most trifling memoranda illustrative of the history of any eminent individual the moment they were communicated to him.
Mr. Stephens enjoyed the confidential friendship of the late Duke of Kent, and was in habits of unreserved intimacy with many other distinguished characters of the age. He was related to the Duke of Roxburgh, whose claim to that title he pleaded with memorable success in the House of Lords.
Although generally of retired habits, Mr. Stephens often felt interested in the parochial concerns of Chelsea, and distinguished himself by the manliness and zeal with which he supported measures which to him appeared likely to prove beneficial.
Mr. Stephens wrote much and well for the periodical press. The pages of the Analytical Review abound in important articles from his pen. To the Monthly Magazine, also, he was a frequent contributor. Besides the composition of papers on the Belles Lettres, he was in the habit of furnishing biographical notices for that journal. In extent of information touching the lives and actions of the cotemporary generation, he was equalled by few writers of his age. Mr. Stephens’s sound constitution was gradually impaired by intense study, added to the immoderate use of coldiam, on the efficacy of which he placed implicit reliance. For the last two years of his life he suffered severely from the gout, and at last died somewhat suddenly at his house in Upper Church Street, in 1821, aged 64, and was interred in the burial ground attached to St. Luke’s Church.