The Princess Elizabeth, when a girl, lived at Chelsea, with that dangerous man, with whom she is said to have fallen in love, the Lord Admiral Seymour, afterwards beheaded. He was the second husband of Katherine Parr, one of the many wives of Elizabeth's father. Cremorne was, in Walpole's days, the villa of Lord Cremorne, an Irish nobleman; and near here, at a river-side cottage died, in miserly and cynical obscurity, the greatest of our modern landscape painters, Turner. Then there is Chelsea Hospital to visit. This hospital was built by Wren; Charles II., it is said at Nell Gwynn's suggestion, originated the good work, which was finished by William and Mary. Dr. Arbuthnot, that good man so beloved by the Pope set, was physician here, and the Rev. Philip Francis, who translated Horace, was chaplain. Nor can we leave Chelsea without remembering Sir Hans Sloane, whose collection of antiquities, sold for £20,000, formed the first nucleus of the British Museum, and who resided at Chelsea; nor shall we forget the Chelsea china manufactory, one of the earliest porcelain manufactories in England, patronized by George II., who brought over German artificers from Brunswick and Saxony. In the reign of Louis XV. the French manufacturers began to regard it with jealousy and petitioned their king for special privileges. Ranelagh, too, that old pleasure-garden which Dr. Johnson declared was "the finest thing he had ever seen," deserves a word; Horace Walpole was constantly there, though at first, he owns, he preferred Vauxhall; and Lord Chesterfield was so fond of it that he used to say he should order all his letters to be directed there.
The West End squares are pleasant spots for our purpose, and at many doors we shall have to make a call. In Landsdowne House (in Berkeley Square) it is supposed by many that Lord Shelburne, Colonel Barre, and Dunning wrote "Junius"; certain it is that the Marquis of Landsdowne, in 1809, acknowledged the possession of the secret, but died the following week, before he could disclose it. Here, in 1774, that persecuted philosopher, Dr. Priestley, the librarian to Lord Shelburne, discovered oxygen. In this square Horace Walpole (that delightful letter-writer) died and Lord Clive destroyed himself. Then there is Grosvenor Square, where that fat, easy-going Minister, Lord North, lived, where Wilkes the notorious resided, and where the Cato-Street conspirators planned to kill all the Cabinet Ministers, who had been invited to dinner by the Earl of Harrowby. In Hanover Square we visit Lord Rodney, &c. In St. James's Square we recall William III. coming to the Earl of Romney's to see fireworks let off and, later, the Prince Regent, from a balcony, displaying to the people the Eagles captured at Waterloo. Queen Caroline resided here during her trial, and many of Charles II.'s frail beauties also resided in the same spot. In Cavendish Square we stop to describe the splendid projects of that great Duke of Chandos whom Pope ridiculed. Nor are the lesser squares by any means devoid of interest.
In Pall Mall the laziest gleaner of London traditions might find a harvest. On the site of Carlton House—the Prince Regent's palace—were, in the reign of Henry VI., monastic buildings, in which (reign of Henry VIII.) Erasmus afterwards resided. They were pulled down at the Reformation. Nell Gwynn lived here, and so did Sir William Temple, Swift's early patron, the pious Boyle, and that poor puff-ball of vanity and pretence—Bubb Doddington. Here we have to record the unhappy duel at the "Star and Garter" tavern between Lord Byron and Mr. Chaworth, and the murder of Mr. Thynne by his rival, Count Köningsmark. There is Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery to notice, and Dodsley's shop, which Burke, Johnson, and Garrick so often visited. There is also the origin of the Royal Academy, at a house opposite Market Lane, to chronicle, many club-houses to visit, and curious memorabilia of all kinds to be sifted, selected, contrasted, mounted, and placed in sequence for view.
Then comes Marylebone, formerly a suburb, famous only for its hunting park (now Regent's Park), its gardens, and its bowling-greens. In Queen Elizabeth's time the Russian ambassadors were sent to hunt in Marylebone Park; Cromwell sold it—deer, timber, and all—for £13,000. The Marylebone Bowling Greens, which preceded the gardens, were at first the resort of noblemen and gentlemen, but eventually highwaymen began to frequent them. The Duke of Buckingham (whom Lady Mary Wortley Montagu glances at in the line,
"Some dukes at Marybone bowl time away")
used, at an annual dinner to the frequenters of the gardens, to give the agreeable toast,—"May as many of us as remain unhanged next spring meet here again." Eventually burlettas were produced—one written by Chatterton; and Dr. Arne conducted Handel's music. Marylebone, in the time of Hogarth, was a favourite place for prize fights and back-sword combats, the great champion being Figg, that bullet-headed man with the bald, plaistered head, whom Hogarth has represented mounting grim sentry in his "Southwark Fair." The great building at Marylebone began between 1718 and 1729. In 1739 there were only 577 houses in the parish; in 1851 there were 16,669. In many of the nooks and corners of Marylebone we shall find curious facts and stories worth the unravelling.
PLAN OF ROMAN LONDON
The eastern squares, in Bloomsbury and St. Pancras, are regions not by any means to be lightly passed by. Bloomsbury Square was built by the Earl of Southampton, about the time of the Restoration, and was thought one of the wonders of England. Baxter lived here when he was tormented by Judge Jefferies; Sir Hans Sloane was one of its inhabitants; so was that great physician, Dr. Radcliffe. The burning of Mansfield House by Lord George Gordon's rioters has to be minutely described. In Russell Square we visit the houses of Sir Thomas Lawrence and of Judge Talfourd, and search for that celebrated spot in London legend, "The Field of the Forty Footsteps," where two brothers, it is said, killed each other in a duel for a lady, who sat by watching the fight. Then there is Red Lion Square, where tradition says some faithful adherents, at the Restoration, buried the body of Cromwell, to prevent its desecration at Tyburn; and we have to cull some stories of a good old inhabitant, Jonas Hanway, the great promoter of many of the London charities, the first man who habitually used an umbrella and Dr. Johnson's spirited opponent on the important question of tea. Soho Square, too, has many a tradition, for the Duke of Monmouth lived there in great splendour; and in Hogarth's time Mrs. Cornelys made the square celebrated by her masquerades, which in time became disreputable. Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Sir Joseph Banks, and Burnet, the historian, were all inhabitants of this locality.