The staircase, too, with its spiral balusters, as seen through the doorway, retained its ancient air.
Narcissus Luttrell died here on the 26th of June, 1732, and was buried at Chelsea on the 6th of July following; where Francis Luttrell (presumed to be his son) was also buried on the 3rd of September, 1740. Shaftesbury House then passed into the occupation of Mr. Sergeant Wynne, who died on the 17th of May, 1765; and from him it descended to his eldest son, Mr. Edward Wynne, the author of ‘Eunomus: a Dialogue concerning the Law and Constitution of England, with an Essay on Dialogue,’ 4 vols. 8vo; and other works, chiefly of a legal nature. He died a bachelor, at Little Chelsea, on the 27th of December, 1784; and his brother, the Rev. Luttrell Wynne, of All Souls, Oxford, inherited Shaftesbury House,
and the valuable library which Mr. Luttrell, his father, and brother, had accumulated. The house he alienated to William Virtue, from whom, as before mentioned, it was purchased by the parish of St. George’s, Hanover Square, in 1787; and the library formed a twelve-days’ sale, by Messrs. Leigh and Sotheby, commencing on the 6th of March, 1786. The auction-catalogue contained 2788 lots; and some idea of the value may be formed from the circumstance, that nine of the first seventeen lots sold for no less a sum than £32 7s., and that four lots of old newspapers, Nos. 25, 26, 27, and 28, were knocked down at £18 5s. No. ‘376, a collection of old plays, by Gascoigne, White, Windet, Decker, &c., 21 vols,’ brought £38 17s.; and No. 644, Milton’s ‘Eiconoclastes,’ with MS. notes, supposed to be written by Milton, was bought by Waldron for 2s., who afterwards gave it to Dr. Farmer. Dr. Dibdin declares, that “never was a precious collection of English history and poetry so wretchedly detailed to the public in an auction-catalogue” as that of Mr. Wynne’s library; and yet it will be seen that it must have realised a considerable sum of money. He mentions, that “a great number of the poetical tracts were disposed of, previous to the sale, to Dr. Farmer, who gave not more than forty guineas for them.”
CHAPTER III.
from little chelsea to walham green.
After what has been said respecting Shaftesbury House, it may be supposed that its associations with the memory of remarkable individuals are exhausted. This is very far from being the case; and a long period in its history, from 1635 to 1699, remains to be filled up, which, however, must be done by conjecture: although so many circumstances are upon record, that it is not impossible others can be produced to complete a chain of evidence that may establish among those who have been inmates of the additional Workhouse of St. George’s, Hanover Square—startling as the assertion may appear—two of the most illustrious individuals in the annals of this country; of one of whom Bishop Burnet observed, [110] that his “loss is lamented by all learned men;” the other, a man whose “great and distinguishing knowledge was the knowledge of human nature or the powers and operations of the mind, in which he went further, and spoke clearer, than all other writers who preceded him, and whose ‘Essay on the
Human Understanding’ is the best book of logic in the world.” After this, I need scarcely add that Boyle and Locke are the illustrious individuals referred to.
The amiable John Evelyn, in his ‘Diary,’ mentions his visiting Mr. Boyle at Chelsea, on the 9th March, 1661, in company “with that excellent person and philosopher, Sir Robert Murray,” where they “saw divers effects of the eolipile for weighing air.” And in the same year M. de Monconys, a French traveller in England, says, “L’après diné je fus avec M. Oldenburg, [111] et mon fils, à deux milles de Londres en carosse pour cinq chelins à un village nommé le petit Chelsey, voir M. Boyle.” Now at this period there probably was no other house at Little Chelsea of sufficient importance to be the residence of the Hon. Robert Boyle, where he could receive strangers in his laboratory and show them his great telescope; and, moreover, notwithstanding what has been said to prove the impossibility of Locke having visited Lord Shaftesbury on this spot, local tradition continues to assert that Locke’s work on the ‘Human Understanding’ was commenced in the retirement of one of the summer-houses of Lord Shaftesbury’s residence. This certainly may have been the case if we regard Locke as a visitor to his brother philosopher, Boyle, and admit his tenancy of the mansion previous to that of Lord Shaftesbury, to whom Locke, it is very probable, communicated the circumstance, and which might have indirectly led to his lordship’s purchase of the premises. Be that as it may, it is an interesting association, with something more than mere fancy for its
support, to contemplate a communion between two of the master-minds of the age, and the influence which their conversation possibly had upon that of the other.