In 1756, as we may see by a water-colour drawing by Jones (Crace Collection, Port. x. 39), the Piccadilly entrance to Hyde Park consisted only of wooden gates, and so it remained until the present entrance was made from designs by Decimus Burton in 1827. This is a screen of fluted Ionic columns, supporting an entablature. This is divided into three arched entrances for carriages, and two for foot passengers. The frieze, which represents a naval and military triumph, was designed by Henning—and if it were finished as he wanted it, with groups of statuary on the top, it would be very fine. By the way, talking of statuary at this spot, in “A New Guide to London,” 1726, p. 83, we find: “If you please, you may see a great many Statues at the Statuaries at Hyde-Park Corner.”
Visible from this entrance is the Achilles Statue—the first public nude statue in England. A great deal of rubbish has been talked about this statue, especially in attributing its original to Pheidias. Whoever was its sculptor, it was a marble statue which formed part of a group on the Quirinal Hill at Rome—which has been christened Achilles for no particular reason, but that it seemed applicable to a monument from the ladies of England to the hero of the day, the great Duke of Wellington. The Pope gave the casts, the Ordnance Office found the metal from captured French cannon, the Government gave the site, and yet it cost £10,000 before it was erected. True, Westmacott furnished it with a sword and shield which were not in the original, and part of the Park wall had to be taken down in order to get it into the Park, an event which took place on June 18, 1822 (the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo). But its beauties were not to be shown on that occasion, as weighing about 33 tons, it required a lot of fixing—but it was unveiled on July 14th. The height of this statue is more than 18 feet—and with the mound, base, plinth, pedestal and statue, it is 36 feet high from the road level. It was soon found necessary to surround it with an iron balustrade, as it became a favourite play place of the little gamins of the Park. On the pedestal is the following inscription:—
TO ARTHUR, DUKE OF WELLINGTON,
AND HIS BRAVE COMPANIONS IN ARMS,
THIS STATUE OF ACHILLES,
CAST FROM CANNON TAKEN ON THE VICTORIES OF
SALAMANCA, VITTORIA, TOULOUSE,
AND WATERLOO,
IS INSCRIBED
BY THEIR COUNTRYWOMEN.
PLACED ON THIS SPOT
ON THE XVIIITH OF JUNE MDCCCXXII
BY COMMAND OF
HIS MAJESTY GEORGE IV.
This statue was lampooned and caricatured very considerably, but both are somewhat too broad for reproduction nowadays.
Let us now take a walk round the Park—outside—beginning on the North side. All along the Park, till we come to Tyburn, was open fields and market gardens, except the mortuary chapel and cemetery of St. George’s, Hanover Square, and its concomitant, St. George’s Terrace, which we see in Sandby’s camp picture of “The Toilet.” This burial ground was enclosed and consecrated in 1764, and comprises an area of about four acres. It is popularly supposed that Laurence Sterne is buried here—and if you do not believe it, there is a tombstone to testify to the fact. It is near the centre of the west wall of the cemetery, and it bears the following inscription:—
Alas, poor Yorick.
Near to this Place
Lies the body of
The Reverend Laurence Sterne.
Dyed September 13, 1768,
Aged 53 years.
Ah! Molliter, ossa quiescant.
If a sound head, warm heart and breast humane,
Unsully’d worth, and soul without a stain,
If mental powers could ever justly claim
The well-won tribute of immortal fame,
Sterne was the Man who, with gigantic stride,
Mow’d down luxuriant follies far and wide.
Yet, what though keenest knowledge of mankind,
Unseal’d to him the springs that move the mind,
What did it boot him? Ridicul’d, abus’d,
By foes insulted, and by prudes accus’d.
In his, mild reader, view thy future fate,
Like him despise what ’twere a sin to hate.
This monumental stone was erected to the memory of the deceased by two Brother Masons, for, although he did not live to be a member of their Society, yet all his incomparable performances evidently prove him to have acted by Rule and Square; they rejoice in this opportunity of perpetuating his high and unapproachable character to after ages. W. & S.
If we analyze the above, and search out the truth of it, we find that Sterne died on March 18th, and was buried in the cemetery on March 22nd, being followed to the grave by only two persons, his publisher, Becket, and Mr. Salt, of the India House. It is, and was, currently believed that two nights after his burial his body was exhumed by the body-snatchers, or “Resurrection Men,” as they were called, and by them sold to M. Collignon, Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge: and the story goes on to show, how among the scientific people the Professor invited to witness his demonstration, there was one who had been personally acquainted with Sterne, and who fainted with horror at the sight of his corpse being thus anatomized. That this story is true is more than probable—exhumation being rife—so much so, that in the St. James’s Chronicle, Nov. 24-26, 1767, it is thus recorded of this very Cemetery: “The Burying-Ground in Oxford Road, belonging to the Parish of St. George’s, Hanover Square, having been lately robbed of several dead Bodies, a Watch was placed there, attended by a large Mastiff Dog, notwithstanding which, on Sunday last, some Villains found Means to steal out another dead Body, and carried off the very Dog.”
Ann Radcliffe, the novelist, who died in 1823, was also buried here.