“I often shed tears in the motley Strand for fulness of joy at such multitude of life.”—Charles Lamb’s Letters, vol. i.
The Strand is three-quarters of a mile long. Van de Wyngerede’s view, 1543, shows straggling houses on the south side, but on the north side all is open to Covent Garden. There were three water-courses, crossed by bridges. Haycock’s Ordinary, near Palsgrave Place, was much frequented in the seventeenth century by Parliament men and town gallants. No. 217 was the shop of Snow, a wealthy goldsmith who withstood the South Sea Bubble without injury. Gay describes him during the panic with black pen behind his ear. He says to Snow—
“Thou stoodst (an Indian king in size and hue);
Thy unexhausted shop was our Peru.”
The Robin Hood Debating Society held its meetings in Essex Street. Burke spoke here, and Goldsmith was a member. The great Cottonian Library was kept in Essex House from 1712 to 1730, on the site of the Unitarian Chapel, built about 1774. Mr. Lindsey, Dr. Disney, Mr. Belsham (Priestley’s successor) preached here, and after Mr. Belsham the Rev. Thomas Madge. At George’s Coffee-house, now 213 Strand, Foote describes the town wits meeting in 1751. Shenstone was a frequenter of this house, and came here to read pamphlets—the subscription being one shilling. The Grecian Coffee-house was used by Goldsmith and the Irish and Lancashire Templars. Milford Lane was so named from an adjacent ford over the Thames. A windmill stood near St. Mary’s Church, temp. James I. Sir Richard Baker, the worthy old chronicler whom Sir Roger de Coverley so admired, lived in this lane in 1632-9. The old houses were taken down in 1852. No. 191 was the shop of William Godwin, bookseller, the author of Caleb Williams, and the friend of Lamb and Shelley.—Strype mentions the Crown and Anchor Tavern. Here, in 1710, was instituted the Academy of Ancient Music. Here, on Fox’s birthday, in 1798, 2000 guests were feasted. Johnson and Boswell occasionally supped here, and here the Royal Societies were held. In Surrey Street, in a large garden-house at the east end fronting the river, lived the Hon. Charles Howard, the eminent chemist who discovered the process of sugar-refining in vacuo.
At No. 169, now the Strand Theatre, Barker, an artist, exhibited the panorama—his own invention—suggested to him when sketching under an umbrella on the Calton Hill. No. 217, now a branch of the London and Westminster Bank, was formerly Paul, Strahan, and Bates’s,[764] who in 1858 disposed of their customers’ securities to the amount of £113,625, and were sentenced to fourteen years’ penal servitude. The drinking fountain opposite St. Mary’s Church is a product of a most useful association. The first fountain erected under its auspices was opened in April 1859, by Lord John Russell, Lord Carlisle, and Mr. Gurney.—At No. 147 was published the Sphinx, and Jan. 2, 1828, No. 1 of the Athenæum. No. 149 is the shop once belonging to Mr. Mawe, the mineralogist, who was succeeded by James Tennant, Professor of Mineralogy at King’s College. At No. 132 Strand (site of Wellington Street), the first circulating library in London was started by a Mr. Wright, in 1740. Opposite Southampton Street, from 1686 to late in the last century, lived Vaillant, the eminent foreign bookseller. No. 143 was the site of the first office of the Morning Chronicle (Perry succeeding Woodfall in 1789). Lord Campbell and Hazlitt were theatrical critics to this paper. Mr. Dickens was a parliamentary reporter, Mr. Serjeant Spankie an editor, Campbell the poet a contributor. On Perry’s death, in 1821, it was purchased by Mr. Clement for £42,000. The Mirror, the first cheap illustrated periodical was also published at this office. At No. 1 lived Rudolph Ackermann, the German printseller, who introduced lithography and annuals. He illuminated his gallery when gas was a novelty. Aaron Hill was born in a dwelling on the site of the present Beaufort House; Lord Clarendon lived here while his unlucky western house was building; and here, in 1660, the Duke of York married the chancellor’s daughter.
The York Buildings Water Company failed in 1731. Hungerford Hall and its panoramic pictures were burnt in 1854. At No. 18 Strand, in 1776, the elder Mathews the comedian was born; Dr. Adam Clarke and Rowland Hill used to visit his father, who was a religious bookseller. No. 7 Craven Street (Franklin’s old house) was long occupied by the Society for the Relief of Persons imprisoned for Small Debts. In Northumberland Court, once known as “Lieutenants’ Lodgings,” Nelson once lodged.
Norfolk Street.—[p. 44.]
Mr. Dickens has sketched Norfolk Street in his own inimitable way. “Norfolk is a delightful street to lodge in, provided you don’t go lower down (Mrs. Lirriper dates from No. 81); but of a summer evening, when the dust and waste paper lie in it, and stray children play in it, and a kind of gritty calm and bake settles on it, and a peal of church-bells is practising in the neighbourhood, it is a trifle dull; and never have I seen it since at such a time, and never shall I see it ever more at such a time, without seeing the dull June evening when that forlorn young creature sat at her open corner window on the second, and me at my open corner window (the other corner) on the third.”[765]
The Strand Theatre.—[p. 53.]
The Strand Theatre, No. 169, formerly called Punch’s Playhouse, was altered in 1831 for Rayner, the low comedian, and Mrs. Waylett, the singer. Here were produced many of Douglas Jerrold’s early plays. Under Miss Swanborough’s management, Miss Marie Wilton, arch and witty as Shakspere’s Maria, delighted the town. Here poor Rogers, now dead, was inimitable in burlesque female characters.