CHAPTER XXXI.
WILLIS’S ROOMS—THE PALACES.
RETURNING now from these delightful suburban walks, we find ourselves once more at the West End. The London traveller, if he but learn the habit of diligently using his eyes as he walks, is certain to find at every turn something to entertain him, or something novel that he has not before observed. On the other hand, by cultivating incurious habits, the careless observer will come to look on the streets as merely tedious places of passage from one point to another—and the more speedily the monotonous transit is effected the happier he is.
Lately, passing through King Street, St. James’s, I paused before a familiar building, passed by thousands in their daily rounds without its exciting speculation or notice. Yet what curious memories it excites! “Chinnock, Galsworthy, and Chinnock ... To be sold ... fifty-five years’ lease ... 8,000 square feet, etc.” And had it actually come to this? Set out, too, upon an ominous black board hung on the old wall! And this the once-famous Almack’s! It had been offered already for sale in April on a fixed day, but the bidders were not sufficient; and so we have come to Chinnock, Galsworthy, and Chinnock, as per board, who are willing to treat with private parties. Shade of Lady Jersey! Shade of Lady Tankerville! Ghost of Princess Lieven! and spirit of the Iron Duke, once refused admission because he had not on a white cravat or the suitable breeches!
It was in King Street, St. James’s. Here was the long, well-grimed, dingy waste of bricks, prison-like, and recalling Mrs. Cornelys’ old rooms, now a chapel, close to Soho Square. Yet that Newgate-looking structure, how it contrasted with the brilliant festivals inside! A hundred and fifteen years of gaieties and revels—such is the exact life of Willis’s Rooms. We must feel sorry that they are now to “go,” for they are the last surviving “Rooms,” as they are called, of the good old pattern left in London. For a time we had the old Hanover Square Rooms for concerts and dances; good rococo things; but they have been nibbled away into a sort of club or hotel. But behind that old dingy waste of wall what balls, festivals, charity dinners, bazaars!
It was in 1765 that a Scot who came up to London conceived the design of erecting fashionable rooms on the pattern of the casinos abroad. His name was McCall, the syllables of which he ingeniously reversed into the celebrated “Almack”; and he brought his countryman, the renowned Neil Gow, from Edinburgh, to lend the music. The building was erected hurriedly, from the designs of Robert Mylne, of course another Scot, who had built Blackfriars Bridge. On the opening night, in February, the rooms were half empty, for the fashionable world was suffering from colds and was afraid to go. The walls were imperfectly dried, and the rich ceilings were dripping; though Almack protested that hot bricks and boiling water had been used in the structure. The place, however, grew into fashion, and at the suppers, Almack himself, “with his broad Scotch face and in a bag-wig,” was seen attending; while his wife, in a sack, “made tea and curtseys to our duchesses.” This worthy man died in 1781. How Almack’s passed to Willis is not clear. The Willises were a musical firm in their day. Gambling was carried on in the Rooms, and enormous sums were lost and won in a night. Its greatest days, however, were during the Regency, when the famous “Almack’s Balls” were given under the haughty control of “Ladies patronesses,” the Jersey, the Lieven, and others, and when the most exclusive system was in vogue. Gronow and Raikes tell many stories of the arrogance of these dames, when to obtain a “voucher” became a matter of favour and delicacy. The Almack’s Balls were continued in some shape, and under less exclusive conditions, until recently, when they were finally given up.
It is a curious feeling to enter and promenade through these forlorn and ghostly chambers. The doors stand open, and we can wander in and up the grand stone stair—the banisters oddly encased in crimson velvet. Everything is laid out on a noble, spacious scale. Gloomy and even dismal now seems the great ball-room on the first-floor—scene of so many “festival dinners” and dances—with its fine chimney-piece, floridly embroidered ceilings, “set-off,” as it was fancied, with hideous modern colouring, now faded and inexpressibly shabby. The old scheme was white and gold. But here are still the fine old English mirrors, with their garlands and carvings; and the tall pillars behind which Neil Gow and his fiddlers played; and the chandeliers, of Venetian glass apparently, with their chains and lustres and bulbous drops, elegant enough. Here are all the old-fashioned “rout” seats and chairs and tables huddled together and piled up on top of one another. Many a “bad quarter of an hour” has been spent here whilst awaiting nervously the chairman’s signal to “reply to the toast”; and here is the very spot where I once sat “peppering,” as it is called, in an
GRAND STAIRCASE, BUCKINGHAM PALACE. (From a Photo by Mr. E. King.)