The houses in Lincoln's Inn Fields built by Inigo Jones are in Arch Row (the western side), and may still be distinguished. Pennant speaks of one of them as being "Lindesey House, once the seat of the Earls of Lindesey, and of their descendants, the Dukes of Ancaster." They are probably still a great deal more handsome inside, and more convenient, than any of the flimsy modern houses preferred to them; but London has grown so large, that everybody who can afford it lives at the fashionable outskirts for the fresh air. It is probable that Inigo's houses created an ambition of good building in this quarter. Pepys speaks of a Mr. Povey's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields as a miracle of elegance and comfort. His description of it is characteristic of the snug and wondering Pepys.
"Thence (that is to say, from chapel and the ladies) with Mr. Povey home to dinner; where extraordinary cheer. And after dinner up and down to see his house. And in a word, methinks, for his perspective in the little closet; his room floored above with woods of several colours, like, but above the best cabinet-work I ever saw; his grotto and vault, with his bottles of wine, and a well therein to keep them cool; his furniture of all sorts; his bath at the top of the house, good pictures, and his manners of eating and drinking; do surpass all that ever I did see of one man in all my life."[199]
The Country and City Mouse, in Pope's imitation of Horace, go
To a tall house near Lincoln's Inn,
which had
Palladian walls, Venetian doors,
Grotesco roofs, and stucco floors.
The house of a late architect (Sir John Soane) is observable in Holborn Row (the north side of the square), and has a singular but pleasing effect, though not quite desirable perhaps in this northern climate, where light and sun are in request. It presents a case of stone, added to the original front, and comprising a balcony and arcade. Shrubs and plate-glass complete the taste of its appearance. On the opposite side of the way (called Portugal Row, most likely from our connection with Portugal in Charles the Second's time), the inhabitant of the above house had the pleasure, we believe, of contemplating his own work in the handsome front and portico of Surgeon's College. This mode of giving a new front to a house, and fetching it out into a portico, is an ingenious way of getting up an ornament to the metropolis at little expense. Surgeons' College, instead of being two or three old houses with a new face, looks like a separate building. In Portugal Row sometime lived Sir Richard Fanshawe, in whose quaint translation of the Camoens there is occasionally more genuine poetry, than in the less unequal version of Mickle. This accomplished person was recalled from an embassy in Spain, on the ground that he had signed a treaty without authority; which was fact; but the suspicious necessity of finding some honourable way of removing Lord Sandwich from his command in the navy, induced Lady Fanshawe and others to conclude that he was sacrificed to that convenience. He died on the intended day of his return, of a violent fever, aggravated, not improbably, perhaps caused, by this awkward close of his mission: for such things have been, with men of sensitive imaginations. His wife, a very frank and cordial woman, has left interesting memoirs of him, in which she countenances a clamour of that day, that Lord Sandwich was a coward. She adds, "He neither understood the custom of the (Spanish) court, nor the language, nor indeed anything but a vicious life; and thus (addressing her children) was he shuffled into your father's employment, to reap the benefit of his five years' negotiation."[200] We quote this passage here, because Lord Sandwich was himself an inhabitant of Lincoln's Inn Fields. His want of courage (a charge shamefully bandied to and fro between officers at that time) is surely not to be taken for granted upon the word of his enemies, considering the testimonies borne in his favour by the Duke of York and others, and his numerous successes against the enemy. It is possible, however, that the pleasures of Charles's court might have done him no good. Sandwich had been one of Cromwell's council. He appears afterwards to have been a gallant of Lady Castlemaine's; was a great courtier; and probably had as little principle as most public men of that age. Pepys, who was his relation, describes him as being a lute-player.
On Lady Fanshawe's return to England, she took a house for twenty-one years in Holborn Row (the north side of the Fields), where the contemplation of the houses opposite must have been very sad. Her account of the circumstances under which she returned is of a melancholy interest.
"I had not," she says, "God is my witness, above twenty-five doubloons by me at my husband's death, to bring home a family of three score servants, but was forced to sell one thousand pounds' worth of our own plate, and to spend the Queen's present of two thousand doubloons in my journey to England, not owing nor leaving one shilling debt in Spain, I thank God; nor did my husband leave any debt at home, which every ambassador cannot say. Neither did these circumstances following prevail to mend my condition, much less found I that compassion I expected upon the view of myself, that had lost at once my husband, and fortune in him, with my son, but twelve months old, in my arms, four daughters, the eldest but thirteen years of age, with the body of my dear husband daily in my sight for near six months together, and a distressed family, all to be by me in honour and honesty provided for; and, to add to my afflictions, neither persons sent to conduct me, nor pass, nor ship, nor money to carry me one thousand miles, but some few letters of compliment from the chief ministers, bidding 'God help me!' as they do to beggars, and they might have added, 'they had nothing for me,' with great truth. But God did hear, and see, and help me, and brought my soul out of trouble; and, by his blessed providence, I and you live, move, and have our being, and I humbly pray God that that blessed providence may ever relieve our wants, Amen."[201]