Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 3
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter XXXII: Covent Garden and its Neighbourhood (continued).
Chapter XXXII: Covent Garden and its Neighbourhood (continued).
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The parish church St. Paul, Covent Garden, on the west side of the market, as we have said, was built by Inigo Jones, in , at the expense of the ground-landlord, Francis, Earl of Bedford. It was consecrated by Juxon, Bishop of London, on the ; repaired, in , by the Earl of Burlington; totally destroyed by fire on the ; and rebuilt (John Hardwick, architect) on the plan and in the proportions of the original building. The great delay between the period of erection and that of consecration was owing to a dispute between the Earl of Bedford and Bray, the Vicar of St. Martin'sin-the-Fields, on the right of presentation; the earl claiming it as his own, because he had built it at his own expense, and the vicar claiming it as his own, because, not being then parochial, it was nothing more than a chapel-of-ease to . The matter was heard by the King in Council on the , and judgment given in favour of the earl. | |
The architecture of was not to the taste of Horace Walpole, who criticises it in his usual caustic style :--
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The parish register records the baptism of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, and the marriage () of Lady Susan Strangways to O'Brien, the handsome actor. | |
In the churchyard hard by lie buried many eminent persons: amongst others, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, who died in ; Sir Henry Herbert (whose as throws so much light on the history of our stage and drama in the time of Charles I.), brother to Lord Herbert of Cherbury and George Herbert, who died in . Not far off rests Samuel Butler, the author of Butler died in , of consumption, on the , and was buried, as Aubrey tells us in his
It is a whether Samuel Butler was buried at the eastern or the western end of the north wall of the churchyard, the accounts of individuals who might be presumed to be best acquainted with the exact spot where he lies being in conflict on this matter of detail. says Mr. J. H. Jesse, Here, too, lies buried Sir Peter Lely, the painter, who died in the Piazza in . His monument of white marble, which shared the fate of the church when destroyed by fire in , was adorned with a bust of the great artist between Cupids, as well as with fruit, foliage, and other devices, executed by Gibbons: the inscription alone has been preserved. Near him lie Dick Estcourt, the actor and wit, who died in -, and Edward Kynaston, the celebrated actor of female parts at the Restoration--a complete female stage-beauty, Here too rests William Wycherley, the dramatist, who died in in ; Pierce Tempest, who drew the known as and who died in ; and Grinling Gibbons, the sculptor and carver in wood, who died in . Not far off are Mrs. Centlivre, author of and and Robert Wilkes (the original celebrated by Steele for acting with the easy frankness of a gentleman), who died in . Near him are James Worsdale, the painter, who carried Pope's letters to Curll, and, dying in , was buried in the churchyard, with an inscription (removed in ) of his own composing; also John Wolcot, the of the reign of George III., whom he lashed, as well as his minister Pitt, with merciless vigour and persistency. He became the popular satirist of the day, and the fluency of his pen was equalled by its grossness and obscene vulgarity. Those who remember him when he lived in the neighbourhood say that he was a gross sensualist, in spite of his moral mission as a satirist, and that he whimsically lay in bed nearly all day because it was easier to exist when his body weighed only a few ounces than when he had to carry some stone about. He died in , and deserves mention here on account of his eccentricities, of which it were much to be wished that they could be called harmless ones. But he was the enemy of others as well as of himself, and no cares to say a good word on his behalf. Here also may or might be seen a curious epitaph upon Mr. Button, who kept the noted coffee-house in :--
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In is buried, in a nameless grave, a lady, who died in , in this parish, in , and who was described at the time simply as This mysterious person is described by Mr. J. Timbs, in his as he continues, adds Mr. Timbs, though he does not tell us why, But the rumours
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Mr. J. H. Jesse, in his pronounces as and possibly it might be so had not the old church been destroyed by fire at the end of the last century. he writes, He adds, however, that a fact, we should have thought, which would have been very fatal to its claim to be the of the neighbourhood. We want to see these mute memorials with our eyes, and to read the names inscribed upon them, in order to realise, save in the faintest sense, the local and personal interest which clings to such places. | |
The rectory of , Covent Garden, is in the patronage of the Duke of Bedford; and, curiously enough, the parish is entirely surrounded by that of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, from which it was cut off. | |
The rate-books of this parish are kept carefully arranged in streets, like a Post-Office Directory; and they contain the name of every householder from the formation of the parish down to the present day. The church registers also are kept with scrupulous care. | |
Close under the portico of church was a common kind of shed, says Arthur Murphy, facetiously termed
writes Peter Cunningham, Of this print we give an engraving on page . The coffee-house has, however, long since been swept away. | |
As the hustings for the elections, from time immemorial to a recent date, have been fixed before the east end of , that side of Covent Garden has often witnessed the most exciting scenes. But never was witnessed, either there or elsewhere, an election more exciting than that of , when the Tory party moved heaven and earth to exclude the Whig leader, Charles James Fox, from the representation of . As, day after day, the inhabitants of the metropolitan parishes had polled, and the numbers were nearly even, the task of beating up the outlying voters in the suburbs was undertaken with a heart and a will by Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and her sister, Lady Duncannon. writes Sir N. W. Wraxall, The effect of such a powerful intervention soon showed itself. Fox was soon a votes ahead of his opponent, Sir Cecil Wray, and in spite of the counter efforts of the Countess of Salisbury, at the close of the poll he had a clear majority of . It was on this occasion that an Irish costermonger, if we may believe the story, came up to Her Grace of Devonshire, who was of the leading beauties of the day, and respectfully and wittily entreated to be allowed to It is on record that Her Grace of Devonshire used regularly, on the occasion of an election, to hire a -floor in in order that she might witness the proceedings, and lend at least her countenance to the Whig party. From the hustings at Covent Garden a procession was formed, and Fox was as the man of the people, through the chief streets of to Carlton House, the gates of which were thrown open to the excited multitude; the ostrich plumes carried in front of him denoting the patronage of the Whig cause by the Prince of Wales; while another flag was inscribed with the words, in allusion to the Duchess of Devonshire. The intense feelings excited on this occasion are thus summed up by a contemporary writer:--
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The elections would seem generally to have been conducted with very bitter feelings on both sides. We are told by Wright, in a footnote to the letters of Horace Walpole, how the keeper of the in , being at a dinner among the taking notes in pencil, was beaten and cuffed by them, being supposed to be an informer against their treasonable practices. These practices appear to have consisted in offensive toasts.
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Down to the passing of the Reform Bill the voting continued for days, during which the whole of London was kept in a state of violent excitement. Mr. H. C. Robinson, in his speaks of a election as he adds,
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writes Cyrus Redding,
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As to the morals of Covent Garden in the century, we may leave them to be inferred from the following couplet in the epilogue to Dryden's | |
And that the tastes of its inhabitants were alike loose and extravagant may be gathered from Wycherley, who speaks of
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In a tavern at Covent Garden, the husband of the exquisite sculptress, the Hon. Mrs. Damer, shot himself in . Mr. Damer's suicide was hastened, and indeed provoked, by the refusal of his father, Lord Milton, to discharge his debts. Horace Walpole, after entering at length into this matter in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, in , gives the following circumstantial account: Horace Walpole remarks, with his usual cynicism on this affair, that
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The following curious circumstance is mentioned in the where, under date of , we read that
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Among the notorieties of was the well-known night house called It stood on the south side of the market sheds, and was kept at the beginning of the present century by a Mrs. Butler. There, according to the used to divide their spoil in the grey dawn of the morning, when it was time for the night birds to fly to their roost. Hence Tommy Moore, who frequented this place, whimsically says that the is---
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of the earliest records of the artistic fame of Covent Garden is that of Charles I. establishing, in the house of Sir Francis Kynaston, an academy called the for the instruction of gentlemen in arts and sciences, knowledge of metals, antiquities, painting, architecture, and foreign languages. Was this the faint foreshadowing of the Royal Academy? | |
An amusing story in connection with Covent Garden--more especially with reference to the derivation of its name from Convent Garden-is told respecting the old Marquis of Worcester. His lordship being made prisoner, was committed to the custody of the Black-Rod, who then lived in Covent Garden; the noble Marquis, says the historiographer, demanded of Dr. Bayly and others in his company, It was answered, Whereupon the Marquis said,
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Lady Muskerry, the Princess of Babylon of De Grammont's was living here in , according to Mr. P. Cunningham, in the north-west angle, at the corner of . Nicholas Rowe, the dramatic poet, was residing in Covent Garden in ; and close by lived and died Thomas Southern, the author of and of the , whose remains are interred in the Church of St. Paul hard by. In Covent Garden there was, at all events, auction-room for the sale of prints, &c., that of the elder Langford, the same who is introduced by Foote as in his farce of | |
Of , which forms the south side of Covent Garden, Mr. Walker writes thus in --
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The only memory that Mr. Cunningham recalls to us in his generally exhaustive concerning this street, is the fact that in it the celebrated singer, Leveridge, kept a publichouse after retiring from the stage, and also brought out a collection of songs with music. At No. , in the north-west corner of Tavistock Row, the same house in which Miss Ray lived, was the last residence of Charles Macklin, the comedian and centenarian, who died here in . And here, says Mr. Cunningham,
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To or Row properly belongs the story of the murder of Miss Ray by the Rev. Mr. Hackman. Though referred to by Horace Walpole as it has been often told, but by no better than by Mr. John Timbs in his It appears that the gay Earl of Sandwich, Lord of the Admiralty under Lord North's administration, whilst passing through Covent Garden, espied day a pretty | |
p.261 | milliner at No. , on the southern side, at the corner of . Her name was Martha Ray; according to account, her parents were labourers at Elstree, on the borders of Hertfordshire; though others say that they were staymakers in . Be this as it may, she had served her time as an apprentice with a mantuamaker in ; and when Lord Sandwich saw her she was very young. He removed her from her shop, had her education completed, and took her as his mistress, though he was old enough to be her father. In spite of his countess being alive, Lord Sandwich introduced her to his family circle at Hinchinbrooke, his seat in Huntingdonshire; and she charmed the county families around-especially the ladies, and even the bishop's wife-by her charming, yet modest, manners, and her beautiful voice. And we have the authority of Mr. Cradock for saying that in her situation she was a pattern of discretion; for when a lady of rank, between of the acts of the oratorio, advanced to converse with her, she expressed her embarrassment; and Lord Sandwich, turning privately to a friend, said, She was already the mother of a young family by the earl, when she made the acquaintance of a certain Captain Hackman, an officer in a foot regiment, then quartered at Huntingdon, whom she soon inspired with the same passion as that which had brought Lord Sandwich to her feet. Hackman (whom Mr. Cradock met at Hinchinbrooke, the hospitable seat of Lord Sandwich) at once proposed marriage to her, but she told him that Her new admirer therefore resolved to exchange the army for the Church, and became vicar of Wyverton, in Norfolk. Half inclined, probably, to marry Hackman, she appears now to have complained that no settlement had been made upon her, adding that she was anxious to relieve his lordship of expense, and to have even thought of taking an engagement as a singer at the Italian Opera, where she had an offer of and a free benefit. Lord Sandwich, in some doubt as to the real mind of his mistress, now placed Miss Ray under the charge of a duenna; while Hackman grew jealous, and appears to have resolved to destroy either himself or Miss Ray, or both. On the evening of the , Miss Ray went, with a female attendant, to , to see . She had declined to tell Mr. Hackman how she was engaged that evening; he appears, therefore, to have watched her movements, and saw her carriage drive by a coffeehouse in , where he had posted himself. As the carriage dove on, Hackman followed, at a quick pace, to the theatre. The ladies sat in a front box, and gentlemen, all connected with the Admiralty, occasionally paid their compliments to them. Mr. Hackmarn, too, was sometimes in the lobby and sometimes in an upper side-box, and more than once called at the to take a glass of brandy and water, but still was unable, on returning to the theatre, to obtain an interview with Miss Ray. The upshot was that after the piece was over, when the crowd was beginning to pour out, Hackman rushed out of the door of the coffee-house, just opposite to that of the theatre, and as a gentleman was handing the lady into her carriage, drew forth a pistol and shot her through the head. He then drew another pistol to shoot himself; but the ball grazed without penetrating his head, and he then endeavoured to beat out his own brains with the butt-end of the pistol. In this attempt on his own life, however, he was prevented, and was carried off as a prisoner by the to the at . |
Horace Walpole gives us some additional particulars concerning the murder of Miss Ray in of his letters to his acquaintance:--
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The real fact, however, is that Miss Ray had borne to Lord Sandwich no less than children, of whom were then living. of these afterwards attained distinction, Mr. Basil | |
p.262 | Montague, Q.C., eminent both as a lawyer and as a man of letters, who died in , and whose early success at the bar, it is said, was very greatly a result of his having contradicted the then Lord Chancellor on a point of law, and being told by his lordship next day that he was right in his view. But to return to Miss Ray's assassination. Hackman was tried at the for the murder, and the fact that he had pistols instead of compelled the jury to believe that it was not suicide only that he had contemplated as he sat that evening in the window of the hotel in , but that his assassination of Miss Ray was a cool and deliberate act. Accordingly he was found guilty, sentenced to death, and hung at Tyburn, being accompanied in the coach by Lord Carlisle and by James Boswell, who, like George Selwyn, was fond of being present at executions. |
A curious book, it may here be remarked before quitting the subject, arose out of this tragical story. In the following year was published an octavo volume pretending to contain the correspondence of Hackman and Miss Ray. It was entitled The book, appealing as it did to the sensational element in nature, soon ran through several editions. The real author of it was Sir Herbert Croft. Walpole, as if puzzled what to make of it, writes,
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It was said that when Miss Ray's body was brought into the Tavern, George Selwyn put on a long black cloak, and sat in the room with the corpse, as a mourner; but the story
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Footnotes: [] Downe's Roscius Anglicanus, 8vo. 1708. [] Mr. Cradock, in his Literary Memoirs, tells us that his lordship first saw her on going into a shop in this neighbourhood to buy a pair of gloves. |
