The large bare and gaunt structure in Sardinia Street is the old Embassy Chapel, which dates from the seventeenth century, and the sanctuary portion of which is held to be the work of Inigo Jones. Its large vaulted ceiling is certainly in his manner, and suggests the arcades at Covent Garden. The faded old gilding and foreign decorations of the interior, the painted pillars and capitals, and the curious tiers of galleries, like the stern of a Spanish argosy, are interesting; and we call up the turbulent nights of the Gordon Riots, when it was sacked and set on fire. In one of the houses opposite Franklin lodged, with a pious Catholic widow, when he was pursuing his trade as a humble printer. The side of the Fields adjoining the chapel has a particular interest from the stately houses before alluded to. We may note the large, well-carved roses and fleur-de-lys which ornament them, and Inigo’s favourite type of stone pilasters and capitals on a brick ground. The finest and most picturesque old house to be seen in London, close by, in Great Queen Street, is also his work, and almost as he left it. The roof and the enriched capitals and bold cornices are very striking; but the lower portion has long been a shop, which makes the whole look insecure. At the corner of this street, and looking into the Fields, is the great mansion of the notorious and intriguing old Duke of Newcastle, with its courtyard in front and sweeping flight of steps—a very striking pile, with its fine stairs and stately and spacious apartments, now devoted to offices. A few doors lower down we are arrested by a large open paved courtyard, with two enormous piers capped by gigantic vases of the most massive and florid kind. Here there now appear to be two houses; but a second glance shows us that this is another imposing mansion, with a handsomely designed front, which the moderns have cut up into two: it was, in fact, the residence of the Lindseys, Earls and Dukes of Ancaster. Another mansion of theirs, even larger, is still to be seen on the Chelsea Embankment, close to Battersea Bridge. Often from familiarly we overlook much that is interesting; but this house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields proclaims its ancient significance in a striking way. Next to it is a granite mansion of the Lord Burlington era, with an elegant and original semicircular portico, also divided into two houses.
There is a house here which has associations connected with Charles Dickens, interesting and even romantic. This was the residence of John Forster, so well described by Charles Dickens in his will as “my trusty friend.” The happy propriety of this word will not be questioned by any one who knew John Forster well. I have many a letter of his before me, addressed from this handsome residence from 1855 to 1860, the palmy days, when he and his friend were full of ardour and of plans, in the “full swing,” as it is called, of success and reputation. This house, No. 58, may be known by its handsome exterior and architectural portico. Here, surrounded by his well-selected books, were gathered the most celebrated littérateurs of the day, and notably the bright and amiable “Boz.” It was in 1844 that, hurrying home from Switzerland, he fixed a particular night at these chambers for the reading of the “Chimes.” This came round on a Monday, December 2nd, when a number of his friends were assembled to hear the charming little story read aloud by its gifted author, of which Mr. Forster writes in the Life, “No detail remains in my memory, and all are now dead who were present at it, excepting only Mr. Carlyle and myself.” These words were written in 1873—but very soon Mr. Carlyle followed, and after Carlyle the amiable writer himself.
Maclise sketched the scene, brilliant in its pencil outlines, every stroke full of character, and the whole pervaded by a gentle humour. “It will tell the reader all he can wish to know. He will see of whom the party consisted, and may be assured, with allowance for a touch of caricature, to which I may claim to be considered myself as the chief victim, that in the grave attention of Carlyle, the eager interest of Stanfield and Maclise, the keen look of poor Laman Blanchard, Fox’s rapt solemnity, Jerrold’s skyward gaze, the tears of Harness and Dyce, the characteristic points of the scene are sufficiently rendered.” Thus wrote Forster of the scene. Nothing, too, is more gracefully romantic than the figure of the inspired young author reading his work, a slight “halo” round his head; and though the “trusty” owner of the rooms makes good-natured protest against the mode in which he has been dealt with, it is impossible not to recognise the likeness.
John Forster was the last of the cultured, refined school of literary men, well trained by a rigorous course in all the schools—journalism, politics, biography, theatrical and artistic criticism. No man had a nicer taste in all matters of art. His judgment of a player, a poem, a book, a picture, was ever excellent, fortified by judicious remark and reasons that were a ready instruction. Most of all, he was one of the heartiest appreciators of humour, and of a good thing. I shall not forget, as a choice entertainment, how he one night read aloud to a small circle, Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour, with such fine elocution and excellent dramatic power, principally bringing out the Kitely passages, which he himself had performed on some famous occasions. It was simply masterly. This same spirit directed him in the qualification of his taste for pictures, rare MSS., bindings, books, sketches, and the like.
SIR JOHN SOANE’S MUSEUM.
On the opposite side of the Fields is the strange Soane Collection, given to the public under eccentric conditions, which seem contrived to discourage all access. Capriciously selected days, during certain months of the year, as capriciously selected, ensure that no one, without inquiry or trouble, can ascertain the proper time for a visit. Not more than twenty persons are to be admitted at a time, and none at all on rainy days. Such are, or at least were, the testator’s rules.
Through this museum and the strange crowded miscellany which is packed into it, one must always wander with mixed feelings of astonishment, puzzle, amusement, pity, bewilderment and admiration. At times we might be looking at the choicest cabinets of a dainty collection, so elegant and precious are the things collected; at another, at the heterogeneous gathering found in a marine dealer’s shop. This is the secret of the extraordinary feeling as we go from room to room. It is a museum in a private house. Every inch of space, every corner, every bit of wall is literally “stuck over” with scraps and odds and ends of sculpture and fragments. All seem to have been as fish to the owner’s net. Medals, coins, casts, drawings, engravings, models in cork and in wood, books, paintings, broken bits of sculpture, stained glass, sarcophagi, “cinerary urns,” bronzes, gems, Etruscan vases, MSS., busts, with a hundred oddities, are all gathered into the heterogeneous mass. This variety is what gives the collection its charm, everything is so conveniently placed under the eye: a contrast to the ennui of wandering through vast halls, as we have to do in great public museums, where you stare but do not look; while there is such an air of snugness, that the whole has a charm of its own, not to say fascination. You walk through a private house. Some of the pictures have the highest merit, such as Hogarth’s fine series of the “Election,” which are interesting as having been in the possession of Garrick, and purchased at Mrs. Garrick’s sale in 1823 for 1,650 guineas—a great price then. There are fine Canalettis and Turners, and many pleasing pictures by inferior artists. Of course the great attraction is the famous Belzoni sarcophagus, purchased for £2,000.
But with all these evidences of good taste there is an extraordinary mixture of fantastic, if not eccentric, things, which seems incredible in a man thus cultivated. Thus, on the basement floor there is a sort of theatrical or Vauxhall imitation of a monk’s cell, contrived by some arrangement of old stones and tawdry stained glass, of the yellow tint which was in high fashion for hall lamps and greenhouses forty or fifty years ago, and so delighted was the owner with his contrivance that he thus expatiated on the result:—