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 XXXIII: Covent Garden and its Neighbourhood (continued).
Chapter XXXIII: Covent Garden and its Neighbourhood (continued).
Continuing our desultory tour, we next come to , which runs out of Covent Garden on the north, and connects it with : it shows the date of its erection by its name, being called after the Duke of York, afterwards James II. It is mentioned casually in the , No. , and has had at all events distinguished inhabitant-Sir James Thornhill, the painter. The house is to be identified by the help of the for , which speaks of it as situated on the eastern side of the street, with back offices and a painting-room abutting on Langford's (then Cock's) auction-rooms, in the Piazza. Here, too, according to Mr. P. Cunningham, lived Sir Henry Herbert, the last Master of the Revels at the Stuart Court; and also the engraver, Charles Grignion. In other respects the street seems to have enjoyed but little celebrity in comparison with the neighbouring thoroughfares. | |
, which connects the south-west corner of Covent Garden with , was built in , and named after Henrietta Maria, queen of Charles I. Indeed, it may be said that all the streets around Covent Garden, except those named after the Russell family, bespeak by their names-all borrowed from our Stuart princes-the dates of their erection. Strafford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was of the earliest aristocratic inhabitants of this street. In Sir Robert Strange, the engraver, was living at the in this street, when he published his proposals for engraving by subscription historical prints. other interesting reminiscences belong to this street. It was at the Tavern, in , that Sheridan fought a duel with Mathews, his rival in the affections of Miss Linley; and at Bawthmell's Coffee-house that the Society of Arts was formed, in . | |
, the thoroughfare running parallel with , and forming an outlet from | |
p.263 | the north-west corner of Covent Garden, was built at the same time as . Lenthall, the Speaker of the during the Commonwealth, lived in this street, in a house the site of which is now covered by the Here was the residence of the Indian kings mentioned in the and who lodged in the house of Mr. Arne, an upholsterer. This Mr. Arne was the father of the celebrated Dr. Arne, the composer. In after times an inn, called after these Oriental sovereigns, would appear to have been established there; to it, probably, Tom D'Urfey alludes in his collection of songs, published in :--
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From an early date would appear to have been a favourite haunt for the auctioneers. Here were the sale-rooms of Hutchins, and of Paterson, to whose son Dr. Johnson stood as godfather, and for whom he wrote letters of recommendation to Sir Joshua Reynolds. In these sale-rooms large collections of prints and pictures were constantly passing under the auctioneer's hammer; and among the crowds of purchasers were such men as Gough, the editor of Camden's with his formal-cut coat and waistcoat, and high boots, and carrying in his hand a instead of a walking-stick; Dr. Lort, chaplain to the Duke of Devonshire, and the correspondent of with his thick worsted stockings and wig; Caleb Whiteford, witty and well dressed, after the fashion of the Garrick school; Dr. Gossett, Captain Baillie, Mr. Baker, Mr. Woodhouse, Mr. Musgrave, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Woodhall-all of them keen-scented collectors of articles of , and of prints by celebrated artists such as Hogarth, Cipriani, and Rowlandson. | |
In there was lately, and perhaps still is, the sign of Mr. Larwood suggests that this sign is an allusion to a fabulous monster recorded in a broadside of , from which we learn that before Henry II. died a dragon of marvellous bigness was discovered at St. Osyth, in Essex. In the absence of any more probable hypothesis, we may accept this suggestion as plausible, if not as satisfactory. | |
In also lived the philosophical poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from down to , whilst he was earning his livelihood as an unknown writer on political subjects for the | |
The Garrick Club was originally established in , at No. , about the middle of the north side, in ; and here its fine gallery of theatrical and literary portraits remained until the opening of its new and permanent home in , in . | |
is the name given to a wide and spacious thoroughfare which was driven about the year across the site of and a nest of close and crowded alleys, between and . It takes its name from the Garrick Club, which occupies a noble building erected for its members by Mr. Marrable, and in which is to be seen the finest collection of theatrical portraits in the kingdom. It was made by the elder Charles Mathews, at his residence in Kentish Town. It includes authentic likenesses of most of the theatrical celebrities of the past centuries- Foote, Quin, Garrick, Nell Gwynne, Mrs. Billington, Nancy Dawson, Colley Cibber--some in costume, and others in private dress. The gallery is allowed to be viewed on every Wednesday morning (except during September) by any personally introduced by a member. Among the pictures, which cover nearly the whole of the walls of the various rooms set apart for the use of the members, may be specially mentioned the half-length portrait of Mrs. Oldfield, by Sir Godfrey Kneller; Mrs. Siddons, by Harlow; a fine picture of King; and Mr. and Mrs. Baddeley in , by Zoffany; Macklin as by De Wilde; Mathews, in characters, by Harlow; Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy; Mrs. Bracegirdle; Mrs. Abington as by Hickey; the screen scene from the , as originally cast; Rich as harlequin (); King as by Zoffany; C. Kemble and Fawcett in by Clint; Garrick as by the elder Morland. Since the removal of the club to the number of pictures has been greatly augmented; among the more recent additions being a choice collection of water-colour full-length portraits of theatrical celebrities painted by Mr. John Leech. Upon the walls of the smokingroom there are a few large paintings by Clarkson Stanfield, Louis Haigh, and David Roberts. In the coffee-room there are some objects of interest | |
p.264 | to the curious, independent of the paintings upon the walls-namely, the jewels, &c., presented to Garrick and worn by him upon the stage. Among the busts, of which there are several in the Club, especially in the library, may be particularly noticed of Thackeray; of Mrs. Siddons and her brother; and of Shakespeare, which was formerly bricked up in a wall, but was discovered and brought again to light during the demolition of the old Theatre, in . |
Old , which ran north and south from the western end of , has been so altered within the last few years by the advancing spirit of clearance and ventilation that its original aspect has been almost entirely swept away. Previous to the year , when many of its old and dilapidated tenements were pulled down in order to form the broad thoroughfare of , which now crosses it, here might be seen low gambling-houses; floors let out to numerous families with fearful broods of children; sundry variations of the magisterial permission strange, chaotic trades, to which no skilled contribution imparted a distinctive character; and, by way of a moral drawn from the far-off pure air of open fields and farmyards, a London dairy, professing to be constantly supplied with fresh butter, cream, and new milk from the country: these were some of the special features of a thoroughfare which was marked by a tablet upon of its houses bearing the superscription, If the appearance of the street as above indicated, were all it could boast of, might go down into dust without a word by way of epitaph. But there are circumstances connected with it which will render it immortal in our annals, when its very site shall have become a matter of doubt hundreds of years hence; for Samuel Butler, the author of died here in , of a complication of ailments and miseries, the most urgent of which was want. | |
We may here say that in this dark and narrow alley, too--for is, or rather was, scarcely anything better-Dryden the poet was attacked by hired assailants, and beaten, to use the expressive phrase, This attack has become almost historical. Some of his biographers tell us that when the ferocious assault was made upon him he was going home to his house in , from in , Covent Garden, which he was in the habit of frequently attending. This statement has given rise to much controversy, which the late Mr. Robert Bell, in the volume of , was at considerable pains to set at rest. The assault took place on the night of the , so that the poet could not be making his way at the time to , for that street, it is alleged, was not built till some years later. Dryden is stated, on the authority of the rate-books of the parish, to have lived in from to , when he removed to a house in , exactly facing the dismal of . Here he lived till , when he went farther westward to the house , , where he died on the . says the writer above referred to,
the writer naively adds, The important event is the assault itself, and the circumstance that it occurred in . | |
At the Tavern, in or close to , as Mr. John Timbs tells us, the met, at the time of the Revolution, to consult with Lord Colchester, Mr. Thomas Wharton, and many others; and it was on this occasion resolved that the regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel Langdale's command should desert entire, as in fact it did in . | |
In lived the notorious bookseller, Edmund Curll, at the a sign which he had set up, not, certainly, out of affection for Alexander Pope, but rather from an opposite feeling. says Mr. Larwood, in his ,
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, which forms the continuation from to , was a favourite rseort of Dr. Johnson. His lodgings were at the house of Mr. Norris, a staymaker, in , adjoining , in the Strand. said he, In the reign of Charles II. was very fashionably inhabited; for, as Mr. Peter Cunningham tells us, the Countess of Chesterfield, the lady with whom Van Dyck was in love, occupied a house on the south side in . Flaxman, the famous sculptor, was living here in the years and . | |
The neighbourhood to the east of St. Martin's | |
p.266 | Lane up to northwards a century ago formed the centre for artists of every class and their allies. The great Sir Joshua Reynolds, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, held his court in ; the old Life Academy had been for years in a house at the top of a court in as it was at that time familiarly styled; and as Miss Meteyard tells us in her Here, at the corner of and of , in a house with a double frontage into either thoroughfare, in -, were the show-rooms of Josiah Wedgwood's pottery-ware and porcelain, before he settled down in , Soho, where we found him in a previous chapter. As Miss Meteyard remarks, Although the house thus celebrated is no longer standing in its entirety, it may be of some interest to state, on the same authority, that whilst the ground-floor was a shop for the sale of ordinary goods, where the -floor suite formed a gallery or repository into which only Mr. Wedgwood's wealthy and aristocratic patrons were admitted; and the -floor formed the home of Mr. Wedgwood and his family when in town. Josiah himself thus describes the house in a letter to Bentley:
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Another fact relating to the neighbourhood of Covent Garden and may as well be noticed here. It was the in the West End of London to dispense with the old sign-boards which used to project over the pathways. A daily paper of , tells us, as a piece of news, that Thus the City of began the innovation by procuring an Act of Parliament with powers for that purpose. Other West- End parishes, including that of Marylebone, copied the example; the City of London in due course followed suit, and long before the end of the last century the picturesque signs were superseded by plain and prosaic numbers. Along with the signs, of course, went the sign-posts. Mr. J. Larwood tells us, in his that this removal of the sign-posts, and the paving of the streets at the same time with Scotch granite, gave rise to the following epigram:--
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, which runs northwards from the Strand to the west of the churchyard of , Covent Garden, can at all events boast of some ancient memories. Strype describes it as adding that since the Fire of London the latter are generally taken up by tradesmen of the better class, such as mercers, drapers, and lacemen; but these have given way to large -hand booksellers and printsellers. The houses on the western side, Strype remarks, are better than those on the east. The upper part of the street dates from ; and on of the houses on the western side is a plain tablet with an inscription, In this street resided Quin the actor; Chief Justice Richardson; Sir Francis Kynaston, the poet; the Earl of Chesterfield; and Thomas Sheridan, the father of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Whyte, in his tells us how day when there he looked out up Henrietta Street-opposite to which Mr. Sheridan livedand saw Dr. Johnson walking
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We find the following advertisement respecting the newly-introduced luxury of tea in the of :-- Tea had been introduced into England more than half a century before; but even at the date to which reference is here made it was evidently still a costly and rare article, if we | |
p.267 | may judge from the prices given in the above advertisement. |
In consequence of the removal of house-signs (of which we have already spoken), the difficulty of finding out a house at night was greatly increased, and therefore other means were resorted to, as we learn from an advertisement of who resided We have mentioned in a preceding chapter that it is to Covent Garden that London is indebted for the introduction of
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is the name of the thoroughfare which connects the southern side of Covent Garden with the Strand. Garrick at time lived in . Mr. Cradock, who knew him well, tells us several good stories about him. Garrick was a great mimic, and by his power of imitation could make Johnson seem extremely ridiculous. He could put on the doctor's rough and uncouth manners, and growl out or lines of Gray's without, however, articulating the words. This he could do at his suppers to the entertainment of his friends, but not to the satisfaction of Dr. Johnson. Another anecdote, related likewise by Mr. Cradock, introduces Mrs. Garrick:-- he tells us, From Garrick removed to his house in , at the solicitation of his friend Lord Mansfield. The houses on the Terrace, from the beauty of their prospect, had been selected by his lordship for particular friends. The centre house was allotted to the great actor, but none of them, Mr. Cradock tells us, were quite suited to him, as his health was then declining, and the bleak situation was ill contrasted with the warm and sheltered apartments in which he had left. In lived and died old Gabriel Cibber, and here his son Colley Cibber was born. | |
Extending from to , about midway between the Strand and , is , on which we have already slightly touched in a previous chapter. We may add, however, that the well-known tavern here, called the which stood on the site of the and which was pulled down in , has risen, phoenixlike, in a new building, which has returned to its old designation so far as to style itself the It stands next door to the house of Andrew Marvell, the poet and patriot, where he was lodging when Lord Danby climbed his stairs with a message and bribe from the king, but found him too honest and too proud to accept it. It is said that he was dining off the pickings of a muttonbone when Lord Danby called, and that as soon as he was gone he was obliged to send to a friend to borrow a guinea. doors off, at an old French perruquier's, at the sign of the Voltaire lodged when young, and when busy in publishing his he was a constant visitor at the where his bust still adorns a room. Voltaire had been imprisoned in the Bastile for a libel, and after his release came over to London, where he procured many subscriptions towards publishing his poem. He remained here several years, becoming acquainted with Pope, Congreve, Young, and other celebrated literary men of his time; and tradition says that they frequently resorted to this tavern together of an evening. When Turner lived in this street (prior, that is, to ) he would often spend an evening at the
says Mr. J. H. Jesse, in his
The present tavern, which has resumed its ancient | |
p.268 | name, is well and respectably conducted, and still keeps up the literary traditions of the vicinity by being the home of a literary and artistic club called the which meets times a week for the discussion of subjects of general interest. |
Exactly opposite, on the south side, was a part of the premises of Messrs. Godfrey and Cooke, of , the oldest chemists and druggists in London, having been established in . But these premises have lately been absorbed into a handsome Catholic church, with schools and presbytery attached, dedicated to the Sacred Heart, and solemnly opened by Archbishop Manning in the autumn of . A years ago, or a little more, Mr. Ambrose Godfrey, of the firm, proposed to extinguish fires by a thereby anticipating the of our own day. | |
On the south side, nearer to the west end of the street, is a house which since has been a It was previously a place notoriously of bad reputation as the --a place of low and not very moral amusement for the fast young of the City and West End after the theatres were closed, and rivalling the and the in their special characteristics of immorality. It had been devoted to the muse of song for a century and a half at the least. | |
is said by Mr. Isaac D'Israeli, in his to have received its name from a statue of the Virgin Mary, who also says that the frequent sign of denoted But this may be a fanciful conjecture, as the sober and honest chronicler, John Stow, tells us that its original designation was or Lane. | |
, which leads from towards the lower end of , was so called after Brydges, Lord Chandos, the ancestor of the Duke of Chandos. It was built in the reign of Charles I. In the Harleian we are told that at the corner of was the sign of a Balcony, A balcony-or, as it was sometimes called, a --was at that time (as we have already remarked) a novel invention, and may, therefore, well have attracted the attention of country folks. | |
At the a bagnio in this street, the Honourable John Finch was stabbed, in a fit of jealousy, by a celebrated personage, Sally Pridden, whose portrait was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller. She was called on account of a fancied resemblance to the then Countess of Salisbury. She died in Newgate whilst undergoing her sentence for the above deed of violence, says Caulfield, in his
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is the name given to a district containing a few small and narrow streets lying between , on the west side, and , Covent Garden, on the east. It was built about the year , and was once the residence of well-to-do families. It has, however, but few historical or literary associations; though Mr. Peter Cunningham records the fact that in Sir Francis Kynaston, the accomplished scholar and poet, was living hereabouts, and he supposes that his name is still perpetuated in Kynaston's Alley adjoining. The whole district is now occupied by a nest of low, dark, and crowded streets and alleys, which form a blot and disgrace on our metropolitan administration, and in the centre of which is a mission-chapel with schools attached to it. | |
Of Sir Francis Kynaston some interesting details will be found in Faulkner's It appears that during the prevalence of the plague in London, in , Sir Francis, at that time Regent of the Museum Minervae, presented to the king a petition requesting permission to remove his institute to College, and the king granted his request. adds Faulkner, The authorities of College, however, remonstrated against this royal concession, and so the grant never took effect. Sir Francis and his colleagues accordingly were obliged to content themselves with other quarters, at Little . The subsequent history of the Museum | |
p.269 | Minervae we have not been able to trace; but it is worth mentioning here in connection with the borderland of Covent Garden and , as in all probability it furnished some hints towards the foundation-or, at all events, to the rough outline--of the Royal Academy. It is supposed by Allibone that Sir Francis did not long survive the transaction here recorded, but died about the year . He was the author of a Latin verse translation of Chaucer's and of a poem entitled together with sundry affectionate addresses to his mistress under the name of Sir Francis is mentioned in terms of appreciation in George Ellis's and in the
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