The front of the
HOTEL,
which name it bears, having been originally designed for that purpose, may from the grandeur of its windows, its statues, bassi relievi, and other decorations, be justly considered as the first modern architectural ornament of the town. Here a room, whose spacious dimensions, (being seventy-five feet by thirty-three,) and elegant decorations, adapt it in a distinguished manner for scenes of numerous and polished society, is appropriated to the use of the public balls. Its coved ceiling is enriched with three circular paintings of Aurora,
Urania, and Night, from the pencil of Reinagle, who has also graced the walls with paintings of dancing nymphs. Beside the eight beautiful lustres, branches of lights are held by four statues from the designs of Bacon.
Uniting under the same roof, every convenience for the gratification of taste, and the amusement of the mind, a coffee room handsomely furnished and supplied with all the London papers, affords the gentlemen of the town and country as well as the stranger, to whom its door is open, an agreeable and commodious resort, while on the opposite side a spacious bookseller’s shop furnishes the literary enquirer with a series of all the new publications.
Adjoining the hotel, a small theatre built also by Mr. Johnson, neatly and
commodiously fitted up, nearly on the plan of the London houses, furnishes the inhabitants of Leicester with a more complete display of the dramatic art than they had before enjoyed, and has been the means of gratifying them by the talents of several performers of the first rate excellence. The popular pieces of the London stage, are here every season represented in a manner pleasing to the town and honorable to the manager.
Proceeding thro’ a street which now only nominally retains a trace of the monkish establishments that formerly occupied its ground, being called Friar Lane, we observe a charity school, for 35 boys and 30 girls, erected 1791, belonging to the parish of St. Martin. At the farther and less handsome end of this street is the Meeting House of the General Baptists.
Passing down the New Street, part of the scite of the monastery of the Grey Friars, we arrive at