Next in my recollection to Grosvenor House, but after a considerable interval, comes Stafford House. This is a more pretentious building than the other; built by the Duke of York and bought by the Duke of Sutherland, with a hall and staircase designed by Barry, perfect in proportion, and so harmonious in colouring that its purple and yellow scagliola might deceive the very elect into the belief that it is marble. There, as at Grosvenor House, were wealth and splendour and the highest rank; a hospitable host and a handsome hostess; but the peculiar feeling of welcome, which distinguished Grosvenor House, was lacking, and the aspect of the whole place, on an evening of entertainment, was rather that of a mob than of a party.
Northumberland House at Charing Cross, the abode of the historic Percys, had disappeared before I came to London, yielding place to Northumberland Avenue; but there were plenty of "Houses" left. Near where the Percys had flourished, the Duke of Buccleuch, a magnifico of the patriarchal type, kept court at Montagu House, and Londoners have not yet forgotten that, when the Thames Embankment was proposed, he suggested that the new thoroughfare should be deflected, so that it might not interfere with the ducal garden running down to the river. In the famous Picture-Gallery of Bridgewater House, Lord Beaconsfield harangued his disconsolate supporters after the disastrous election of 1880, and predicted that Conservative revival which he did not live to see. Close by at Spencer House, a beautiful specimen of the decorative work of the Brothers Adam, the Liberal Party used to gather round the host, who looked like a Van Dyke. Another of their resorts was Devonshire House, which Horace Walpole pronounced "good and plain as the Duke of Devonshire who built it." There the 7th Duke, who was a mathematician and a scholar, but no lover of society, used to hide behind the door in sheer terror of his guests, while his son, Lord Hartington, afterwards 8th Duke, gazed with ill-concealed aversion on his political supporters. Lansdowne House was, as it still is, a Palace of Art, with all the dignity and amenity of a country house, planted in the very heart of London. During the last quarter of a century the creation of Liberal Unionism has made it the headquarters of a political party; but, at the time of which I write, it was only a place of select and beautiful entertaining.
Apsley House, the abode of "The Son of Waterloo," could not, in my time, be reckoned a social centre, but was chiefly interesting as a museum of Wellington relics. Norfolk House was, as it is, the headquarters of Roman Catholic society, and there, in 1880, was seen the unique sight of Matthew Arnold doing obeisance to Cardinal Newman at an evening party.[25] Dorchester House, architecturally considered, is beyond doubt the grandest thing in London; in those days occupied by the accomplished Mr. Holford, who built it, and now let to the American Ambassador. Chesterfield House, with its arcaded staircase of marble and bronze from the dismantled palace of the Dukes of Chandos at Edgeware, was built by the fourth Lord Chesterfield, as he tells us, "among the fields;" and contains the library in which he wrote his famous letters to his son. Holland House, so long the acknowledged sanctuary of the Whig party, still stands amid its terraces and gardens, though its hayfields have, I fear, fallen into the builders' hands. Macaulay's Essay, if nothing else, will always preserve it from oblivion.
I have written so far about these "Houses," because in virtue of their imposing characteristics they formed, as it were, an inner, if not the innermost, circle round Marlborough House. But of course Society did not dwell exclusively in "Houses," and any social chronicler of the period which I am describing will have to include in his survey the long stretch of Piccadilly, dividing the "W." from the "S.W." district. On the upper side of it, Portman Square, Grosvenor Square, Berkeley Square, the Grosvenor Streets and Brook Streets, Curzon Street, Charles Street, Hill Street; and below, St. James's Square and Carlton House Terrace, Grosvenor Place, Belgrave Square and Eaton Square, Lowndes Square and Chesham Place. Following Piccadilly westward into Kensington, we come to Lowther Lodge, Norman Shaw's most successful work, then beginning its social career on the coming of age of the present Speaker,[26] April 1st, 1876. Below it, Prince's Gate and Queen's Gate and Prince's Gardens, and all the wilds of South Kensington, then half reclaimed; and that low-lying territory, not even half reclaimed, which, under Lord Cadogan's skilful management, has of late years developed into a "residential quarter" of high repute. Fill all these streets, and a dozen others like them, with rank and wealth and fashion, youth and beauty, pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence, and you have described the concentric circles of which Marlborough House was the heart. Sydney Smith, no mean authority on the social capacities of London, held that "the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Hyde Park, enclosed more intelligence and ability, to say nothing of wealth and beauty, than the world had ever collected in such a space before." This was very well for Sydney (who lived in Green Street); but he flourished when Belgravia had barely been discovered, when South Kensington was undreamed-of; and, above all, before the Heir Apparent had fixed his abode in Pall Mall. Had he lived till 1863, he would have had to enlarge his mental borders.
Of the delightful women and beautiful girls who adorned Society when I first knew it, I will not speak. A sacred awe makes me mute. The "Professional Beauties" and "Frisky Matrons" who disgraced it, have, I hope, long since repented, and it would be unkind to revive their names. The "Smart Men," old and young, the "cheery boys," the "dancing dogs,"—the Hugo Bohuns and the Freddy Du Canes—can be imagined as easily as described. They were, in the main, very good fellows; friendly, sociable, and obliging; but their most ardent admirers would scarcely call them interesting; and the companionship of a club or a ballroom seemed rather vapid when compared with Oxford:—
"The madness and the melody, the singing youth that went there,
The shining, unforgettable, imperial days we spent there."
But here and there, swimming rare in the vast whirlpool of Society, one used to encounter remarkable faces. Most remarkable was the face of Lord Beaconsfield,—past seventy, though nobody knows how much; with his black-dyed hair in painful contrast to the corpse-like pallor of his face; with his Blue Ribbon and diamond Star; and the piercing eyes which still bespoke his unconquerable vitality.
Sometimes Mr. Gladstone was to be seen, with his white tie working round toward the back of his neck, and a rose in his button-hole, looking like a rather unwilling captive in the hands of Mrs. Gladstone, who moved through the social crush with that queenlike dignity of bearing which had distinguished her ever since the days when she and her sister, Lady Lyttelton, were "the beautiful Miss Glynnes." Robert Lowe, not yet Lord Sherbrooke, was a celebrity who might often be seen in Society,—a noteworthy figure with his ruddy face, snow-white hair, and purblind gaze. The first Lord Lytton—Bulwer-Lytton, the novelist—was dead before I came to London; but his brilliant son, "Owen Meredith," in the intervals of official employment abroad, was an interesting figure in Society; curled and oiled and decorated, with a countenance of Semitic type.