“At Charing-cross, hard by the way
Where we (thou know’st) do sell our hay,
There is a house with stairs.”
And then the gay and graceful poet goes on to sketch Lady Margaret—
“Her lips were red, and one was thin,
Compared with that was next her chin.
Some bee had stung it newly.”
And then follows that delightful, fantastic simile, comparing her feet to little mice creeping in and out her petticoat.[355] Sir John was born in 1609.
The oldest part of Northumberland House was the Strand entrance. This was crowned, as stated above, by a frieze or balustrade of large stone letters, probably including the name and titles of the earl and the glorified name of the architect. At the funeral of Anne of Denmark, 1619, a young man, named Appleyard, was killed by the fall of the letter S[356] from the house, which was then occupied by the Earl of Strafford, Lord Treasurer. The house was originally only three sides of a quadrangle, the river side remaining open to the gardens; but traffic and noise increasing, the quadrangle was completed along the river side and the principal apartments. There is a drawing by Hollar of the house in his time, and another, a century later, by Canaletti. The new front towards the gardens was spoiled by a clumsy stone staircase, which was attributed to Inigo Jones, but probably incorrectly.
The date, 1746, on the façade referred to the repairs made in that year, and the letters “A. S. P. N.” stood for Algernon Somerset, Princeps Northumbriæ. The lion over the gateway was said to be a copy of one by Michael Angelo; it is now at Sion House, Isleworth. The gateway was covered with ornaments and trophies. Double ranges of grotesque pilasters enclosed eight niches on the sides, and there was a bow window and an open arch above the chief gate. Between each of the fourteen niches in the front there were trophies of crossed weapons, and the upper stories had twenty-four windows, in two ranges, and pierced battlements. Each wing terminated in a little cupola, and the angles had rustic quoins. The quadrangle within the gate was simpler and in better taste, and the house was screened from the river by elm trees.[357]
There used to be a schoolboy tradition, prevalent at King’s College in the author’s time, that one of the niches in the front of Northumberland House was of copper and movable. So far the story was true; but the tradition went on to relate how, once upon a time, a certain enemy of the house of Percy obtained secret admission by this niche and murdered one of the dukes, his enemy. History is, however, fortunately, quite silent on this subject.
In February 1762 Horace Walpole and a party of quality set out from Northumberland House to hear the ghost in Cock Lane that Dr. Johnson exposed, and that Hogarth and Churchill ridiculed with pen and pencil. The Duke of York, Lady Northumberland, Lady Mary Coke, and Lord Hertford, all returned from the Opera with Horace Walpole, then changed their dress, and set out in a hackney coach. It rained hard, and the lane and house were “full of mob.” The room of the haunted house, small and miserable, was stuffed with eighty persons, and there was no light but one tallow candle. As clothes-lines hung from the ceiling, Walpole asked drily if there was going to be rope-dancing between the acts. They said the ghost would not come till 7 A.M., when only ’prentices and old women remained. The party stayed till half-past one. The Methodists had promised contributions, provisions were sent in like forage, and the neighbouring taverns and ale-houses were making their fortunes.[358]
On May 14, 1770, poor Chatterton, who suffered so terribly for the deceptions of his ambitious boyhood, writes from the King’s Bench (for the present) that a gentleman who knew him at the Chapter coffee-house, in Paternoster Row—frequented by authors and publishers—would have introduced him to the young Duke of Northumberland as a companion in his intended general tour, “but, alas! I spake no tongue but my own.”[359] But this is taken from a most questionable work, full of fictions and forgeries. Its author was a Bristol man, who afterwards fled to America. He also wrote a series of Conversations with the poets of the Lake school, many of which are too obviously imaginary.
On March 18, 1780, the Strand front of Northumberland House was totally destroyed by fire. The apartments of Dr. Percy, the Duke’s kinsman and chaplain, afterwards Bishop of Dromore and editor of the Reliques of Ancient Poetry were consumed; but great part of his library escaped.