To return to Mr Smith and St James's Park. After his Restoration, Charles the Second, who, as worthy Thomas Blount says in his Boscobel, had been hunted to and fro like a "partridge upon the mountains," became very casanier, decidedly stay-at-home, in his habits, and cared little to absent himself from London and its vicinity. He had had buffeting and wandering enough in his youth, and, on ascending the throne of his unfortunate father, he thought of little besides making himself comfortable in his capital, careless of expense, which, even in his greatest need, he seems never to have calculated. He planted the avenues of the park, made a canal and an aviary for rare birds, which gave the name to Bird-Cage Walk. Amongst other freaks, and to provide for a witty Frenchman who amused him, he erected Duck Island into a government. Charles de St Denis, seigneur of St Evremond, who had been banished from France for a satire on Cardinal Mazarine, was the first and, it is believed, the last governor. He drew the salary attached to the appointment, which was certainly a more lucrative than honourable one for a man of his talents and reputation. According to Evelyn, Charles stored the park with "numerous flocks of fowle. There were also deer of several countries—white, spotted like leopards; antelopes, as elk, red deer, roebucks, staggs, Guinea grates, Arabian sheep," &c. In the Mall, also made by him, Charles played at ball and took his daily walk. "Here," says Colley Cibber, "Charles was often seen amid crowds of spectators, feeding his ducks and playing with his dogs, affable even with the meanest of his subjects." Mr Smith regrets the diminished affability and less accessible mood of sovereigns of the nineteenth century, although he admits that the populace of France and England are at the present day too rude for it to be advisable that kings and queens should walk amongst them with the easy familiarity of the second Charles. Of that there can be very little doubt. Even Charles, whose dislike of ceremony and restraint, and love of gossip and new faces, were cause, at least as much as any desire for popularity, that he thus mingled with the mob, occasionally experienced the disagreeables of his undignified manner of life. Aubrey the credulous, Mr Smith tells us, relates in his Miscellanies the following anecdote of an incident that occurred in the Park. "Avise Evans had a fungous nose, and said that it was revealed to him that the king's hand would cure him: and at the first coming of King Charles II. into St James's Park, he kissed the king's hand, and rubbed his nose with it, which disturbed the king, but cured him." It was whilst walking on the Mall that the pretended Popish plot of Oates and Bedloe was announced to Charles. "On the 12th of August 1678," says Hume, "one Kirby, a chemist, accosted the king as he was walking in the Park. 'Sir,' said he, 'keep within the company; your enemies have a design upon your life, and you may be shot in this very walk.' Being asked the reason of these strange speeches, he said that two men, called Grove and Pickering, had engaged to shoot the king, and Sir George Wakeman, the queen's physician, to poison him." Charles, unlike his grandfather, the timid James, was little apprehensive of assassination, and, when sauntering in the Park, preferred the society of two or three intimates to the attendance of a retinue. On one occasion, however, as a biographer has recorded, an impudent barber startled him from his usual happy insouciance. Accustomed to chat familiarly with his good-humoured master, the chin-scraper ventured to observe, whilst operating upon that of the king, that he considered no officer of the court had a more important trust than himself. "Why so, friend?" inquired the king. "Why," replied the barber, "I could cut your majesty's throat whenever I chose." Charles started up in consternation, swore that the very thought was treason, and the indiscreet man of razors was deprived of his delicate charge.
In the Daily Post for October 31st, 1728, is an order of the Board of Green Cloth for clearing St James's Park of the shoe-cleaners and other vagrants, and sending them to the House of Correction. This reminds us of what has often excited our surprise, the absence from the streets of London of an humble but very useful class of professionals, who abound in many continental towns, in all French ones of any size. Abundant ingenuity is displayed in London in the discovery and invention of strange and out-of-the-way employments. Men convert themselves into "animated sandwiches" by back and breastplates of board, encase themselves in gigantic bottles to set forth the merits of some famed specific or potent elixir, or walk about with advertisements printed on their coats, peripatetic fly-sheets, extolling the comfort and economy of halfpenny steamers, and of omnibuses at a penny a mile. Some sweep crossings, others hold horses; but none of the vast number of needy industrials who strain their wits to devise new means of obtaining their daily ration and nightly shelter, have as yet taken pattern by the French décrotteur and German stiefel-wichser, and provided themselves for stock in trade with a three-legged stool, a brace of brushes, and a bottle of blacking. No one has been at Paris without finding the great convenience of the ateliers de décrottage which abound in the passages and in the more frequented of the streets, where, for three or four sous, the lounger who has had boots and trousers bemired by rapid cab or lumbering diligence, is brushed and polished with unparalleled rapidity and dexterity. But a very moderate capital is required for the establishment of these temples of cleanliness, and we recommend the subject to the consideration of decayed railway "stags."
"Duke Street Chapel, with a flight of steps leading to the Park, formed originally a wing of the mansion of the notorious Judge Jeffries. The house was built by him, and James the Second, as a mark of especial favour, allowed him to make an entry to the Park by the steps alluded to. The son of Jeffries inhabited it for a short time." It was this son and successor of the infamous Jeffries, who, with a party of rakes and debauchees, mohocks as they were at that time called, insulted the remains of the poet Dryden, and the grief of his widow. They happened to pass through Gerrard Street, Soho, when Dryden's remains were about to be conveyed from his house, No. 43, in that street, to Westminster Abbey. Although it was in the daytime, Jeffries was drunk; he swore that Dryden should not be buried in so shabby a manner, (eighteen mourning coaches waited to form the procession,) and that he would see due honour done to his remains. After frightening Lady Elizabeth, who was ill in bed, into a fainting fit, these aristocratic ruffians stopped the funeral, and sent the body to an undertaker in Cheapside. The bishop waited several hours in Westminster Abbey, and at last went away. When Jeffries became sober, he had forgotten all about the matter, and refused to have any thing to do with the interment. The corpse lay unburied for three weeks. At last the benevolent Dr Garth had it taken to the College of Physicians, got up a subscription for the expenses of the funeral, and followed the body to Westminster Abbey. The poet's son challenged Jeffries, but Jeffries showed the white feather, and, to avoid personal chastisement, kept carefully out of the way for three years, when Charles Dryden was drowned near Windsor.
Mr Smith is most indulgent to the blunders and blockheadism of our modern architects and monument-makers, far too much so, indeed, when he speaks approvingly of Trafalgar Square and its handsome fountains, and without positive disapprobation of the vile collection of clumsy buildings and ill-executed ornament defacing that site. There has been a deal of ink spilt upon this subject, and we have no intention of adding to the quantity, especially as there is no chance that any flow of fluid, however unlimited, shall blot out the square and its absurdities. But we defy any Englishman, with the smallest pretensions to taste, to pass Charing Cross without feelings of shame and disgust at the mismanagement and ignorance there manifest. Such an accumulation of clumsiness was surely never before witnessed. The wretched National Gallery with its absurd dome, crushed beneath the tall and symmetrical proportions of St Martin's portico, overtopped even by the private dwelling-houses in its vicinity; the dirty, ill-devised, and worse-executed fountains, with their would-be-gracefully curved basins, the steps and parapets, which give the whole place the appearance of an exaggerated child's toy. Well may foreigners shrug their shoulders, and smile at the public buildings of the great capital of Britain. A fatality attends all our efforts in that way. In regard to architecture and ornament, we pay more and are worse served than any body else. So habituated are we to failure in this respect, that when a public building is completed, scaffolding removed, and a fair view obtained, we wonder and exult if it is found free from glaring defects, and in no way particularly obnoxious to censure. As to its proving a thing to be proud of, to be gazed at and admired, and to be spoken of out of England, or even in England, after the fuss and ceremony of its inauguration is over, we never dream of such a thing. The negative merit of having avoided the ridiculous and the grotesque, is subject for satisfaction, almost for pride. Assuredly we love not to exalt other countries at the expense of our own, to draw invidious comparisons between things English and things foreign. But the difference between public buildings of modern erection in London and in Paris is so immense, that it can escape no one. Take, for instance, the Paris Bourse and the London Exchange. The former, it has been objected, is out of character; a Greek temple is no fitting rendezvous for the sons of commerce; a less classic fane were more appropriate for the discussion of exchanges, for sales of cotton and muscovado. The objection, according to us, is flimsy and absurd, and must have originated with some Vandalic and prejudiced booby, with whom consistency was a monomania. Nevertheless we will, for argument's sake, admit its validity. Is that a reason that the traders and capitalists of London should meet in a building which, for heaviness and exaggerated solidity, rivals a South American Inquisition? Do the Barings and the Rothschilds anticipate an attack upon their strong boxes, and intend to stand a siege within the massive walls of the Royal Exchange? Assuredly the narrow doorways may easily be defended; for a time, at least, the ponderous walls will mock the cannonade. The curse of heaviness is upon our architects. There is total want of grace, and lightness, and airiness in all their works. Behold our new Senate House! Do its florid beauties and overdone decorations, unsparingly as they have been lavished, and convenient as they will doubtless be found as receptacles for bird's nests, contrast favourably with the elegant and dignified simplicity of the Chamber of Deputies? The two, it will be said, cannot be assimilated: the vast difference of size precludes a comparison. We reply, that the buildings are for the same purpose; but were they not, proportion at least should be observed. The Parliament House is far too low for its length. Want of elevation is the common fault, both in the ideas and in the productions of our architects.
Are we more successful in statues than in buildings? Mr Smith has some sensible remarks on this score. Speaking of the equestrian statue of George III. in Cockspur Street, he says, that "critics object to the cocked hat and tie-wig in the royal figure; but, some ages hence, these abused parts will be the most valuable in the whole statue. It may very reasonably be asked, why an English gentleman should be represented in the dress of a Roman tribune? Let the man appear, even in a statue, in his habit as he lived; and whatever we may say, posterity will be grateful to us. We should like to know exactly the ordinary walking-dress of Cæsar or Brutus, and how they wore their hair; and we should not complain if they had cocked hats or periwigs, if we knew them to be exact copies of nature." It is certain that modern physiognomy rarely harmonises with ancient costume. What is to be said of the aspect of the "first gentleman of Europe," wrapped in his horsecloth, and astride on his bare-backed steed, in the aforesaid Square of Trafalgar? Assuredly nothing in commendation. There are portraits of Napoleon in classic drapery, and, even with his classically correct countenance, he looks a very ordinary, under-sized Roman. But, in his grey capote and small cocked hat, the characteristic is preserved, and we at once think of, and wonder at, the hero of Austerlitz and Marengo.
Leicester Square, as Mr Smith justly observes, has more the appearance of the Grande Place of some continental city than of a London square. The headquarters and chief rendezvous of aliens, especially of Frenchmen, it bears numerous and unmistakeable marks of its foreign occupancy. French hotels and restaurants replace taverns and chop-houses. French names are seen above shops; promises of French, German, and Spanish conversation, are read in the windows; and grimy-visaged, hirsute individuals, in plaited pantaloons and garments of eccentric cut, saunter, cigar in mouth, over the shabby pavement. It is curious to remark the different tone and station taken by English in Paris and French in London. In the former capital, nothing is too good for the intruding islanders. In the best and most expensive season, they throng thither, and strut about like lords of the soil, perfectly at home, and careless of the opinions of the people amongst whom they have condescended to come. The best houses are for their use; the most expensive shops are favoured with their custom; and if occasionally tormented by a troublesome consciousness of paying dearly for their importance, they easily console themselves by a malediction on the French voleurs, who thus take advantage of their long purses and open hands. How different is it with the Frenchman in London! He comes over, for the most part, at the dullest time of the year, in the autumn, when the town is foggy, and dreary, and empty; when the Parks are deserted, shutters shut, the theatres dull, and exhibitions closed. He has certain vague apprehensions of the tremendous expense entailed by a visit to the English capital. To avoid this, he makes a toil of a pleasure; wearies himself with economical calculations; and creeps into some inferior hotel or dull lodging-house, tempted by low prices and foreign announcements. We find French deputies abiding in Cranbourn Street, and counts contenting themselves with a garret at Pagliano's. Thence they perambulate westwards; and ignorant, or not choosing to remember, that London is out of town, and that they have selected the very worst possible season to visit it, they greatly marvel at the paucity of equipages, at the abundance of omnibuses and hack-cabs, and the scarcity of sunbeams; and return home to inform their friends that London is a ville monstre, with spacious streets, small houses, few amusements; very great, but very gloomy; and where the nearest approach to sunshine resembles the twinkling of a rushlight through a plate of blue earthenware.
"The foreign appearance of Leicester Square is not of recent growth. It seems to have been the favourite resort of strangers and exiles ever since the place was built. Maitland, who wrote more than a hundred years ago, describing the parish of St Anne's, in which it is situate, says—'The fields in these parts being but lately converted into buildings, I have not discovered any thing of great antiquity in this parish. Many parts of it so greatly abound with French, that it is an easy matter for a stranger to imagine himself in France.'"
Sydney Alley is named after the Earls of Leicester, who had their town-house on the north side of the square, where Leicester Place has since been opened. Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., occupied, for some years, this residence of the Sydneys. She also inhabited a house in Drury Place, where Craven Street now stands, which was built for her by Lord Craven. It was called Bohemia House for many years afterwards, and at last became a tavern, at the sign of the Queen of Bohemia. "The Earl of Craven was thought to have been privately married to the queen, a woman of great sweetness of temper and amiability of manners—a universal favourite both in this country and Bohemia, where her gentleness acquired her the title of 'The Queen of Hearts.' By right of their descent from her, the House of Hanover ascended the throne of this kingdom." Lord Craven was the eldest son of Sir William Craven, lord-mayor of London in 1611. He fought under Gustavus Adolphus with great distinction, and returned to England at the Restoration, when Charles II. made him viscount and earl. He commanded a regiment of the guards until within three or four years of his death, which occurred in 1697, at the advanced age of eighty-five. "He was an excellent soldier," says the advertisement of his decease in No. 301 of the Postman, "and served in the wars under Palsgrave of the Rhine, and also under the great Gustavus Adolphus, where he performed sundry warlike exploits to admiration; and, in a word, he was then in great renowne."
However indifferently Leicester Square may at present be inhabited, and notwithstanding its long-standing reputation as a foreign colony, it has been the chosen abode of many distinguished men. Hogarth and Reynolds lived and died there. Hogarth's house is now part of the Sablonière Hotel. Sir Joshua's was on the opposite side of the square; and both of them, especially the latter, were much resorted to by the wits and wise men of the day. Johnson, Boswell, and, at times, Goldsmith, were constant visitors to Reynolds. John Hunter, the anatomist, lived next-door to Hogarth's house; and in 1725, Lords North and Grey, and Arthur Onslow, the Speaker, also inhabited this square. Leicester House, where the Queen of Bohemia lived, is called by Pennant the "pouting-place of princes." George II. retired thither when he quarrelled with his father; and his son Frederick, the father of George III., did the same thing for the same reason. Whilst Prince Frederick and the Princess of Wales lived there, they received the wedding visit of the Hon. John Spencer, ancestor of the present Earl Spencer, and of his bride, Miss Poyntz. Contrary to established etiquette, the bridal party went to visit the Prince before paying their respects to the King. They came in two carriages and a sedan chair; the latter, which was lined with white satin, contained the bride, and was preceded by a black page, and followed by three footmen in splendid liveries. The diamonds presented to Mr Spencer, on occasion of his marriage, by Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, were worth one hundred thousand pounds. The bridegroom's shoe-buckles alone cost thirty thousand pounds. An old gentleman, born more than a century ago, from whom Mr Smith obtained some of these particulars, informed him, that about that time the neighbourhood was so thinly built, that when the heads of two men, executed for participation in the Scotch rebellion, were placed on Temple Bar, a man stood in Leicester Fields with a telescope, to give the boys a sight of them for a penny a-piece.
A house in Leicester Fields was the scene of some of the eccentricities of that semi-civilised hero, Peter the Great of Russia. It belonged to the Earl of Aylesbury, and was inhabited, during the Czar's visit to this country, by the Marquis of Carmarthen, who gave a grand ball there, on the 2d April 1698, in honour of the imperial stranger. The Marquis was Peter's particular chum and boon companion, and the Czar preferred his society to all the gaieties and visitors that beset him during his residence in England. Peter was very shy of strangers, and when William the Third gave him a magnificent entertainment at St James's, he would not mix with the company, but begged to be put into a cupboard, whence he could see without being seen. He drank tremendously, and made Lord Carmathen do the same. Hot brandy, seasoned with pepper, was his favourite drink. Something strong he certainly required to digest his diet of train-oil and raw meats. On one occasion, when staying in Leicester Fields with the Marquis, he is said to have drunk a pint of brandy and a bottle of sherry before dinner, and eight bottles of sack after it, and then to have gone to the play, seemingly no whit the worse. He lodged in York Buildings, in a house overlooking the river, supposed by some to be that at the left-hand corner of Buckingham Street. A house in Norfolk Street also had the honour of sheltering him. "On Monday night," says No. 411 of the Postman "the Czar of Muscovy arrived from Holland, and went directly to the house prepared for him in Norfolk Street." His principal amusement was being rowed on the Thames between London and Deptford; and at last, in order to live quietly and avoid the hosts of visitors who poured in upon him, he took Admiral Benbow's house at the latter place. It stood on the ground now occupied by the Victualling Office, and was the property of the well-known John Evelyn.