E. Beresford Chancellor

“ CARLTON HOUSE AND SCREEN.
And then for the stranger there is such a pleasant commingling of the old and the new at this point. The wilds [Pg 77] of Soho, with its historic Square, its streets that defy the most exact logical definition, its church, its memories of Dr. Manette and the sweet Lucy; Leicester Square where once was a royal palace, and the homes of Reynolds, and Hunter, and Hogarth, and our one and only Sir Isaac; and where the Empire, and the Alhambra (awhile the home of that most dreary Panopticon) compete nightly with all the bravery of illumination and gigantic “chuckers out.” ”

“ Lord Beaconsfield, who knew and loved his London thoroughly, once wrote that, “Those who know Bond Street only in the blaze of fashionable hours can form but an imperfect conception of its matutinal charm when it is still shady and fresh, when there are no carriages, rarely a cart, and passers-by gliding about on real business.” ”

“ A few steps further and we are in the heart of St. James’s Square. Here history and legend will run away with us if I do not restrain my pen, for every house has an interesting history; each has been the abode of some famous personage.
Here, in the south-east corner, is the long front of Norfolk House, the residence of the last six Dukes of Norfolk; behind it still stands the old house, used principally as a lumber-room, in which George III., and his brother, the Duke of York, were born, what time the mansion was lent to Frederick, Prince of Wales, by an accommodating Duke. ”

“ Among the great successes of this admirable genius (who, by the bye, had been, in turn, chef to Prince George of Cambridge, Lord Ailsa, and Lord Panmure) , was the great banquet held on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Coronation, and the dinner given to Lord Palmerston, in 1850. In the latter case a gastronomic triumph was particularly appropriate, for “Pam” liked a good dinner as much as any man, and, indeed, an opponent once had to confess that “Lord Palmerston is redeemed from the last extremity of political degradation by his cook!” ”

“ Street join. At this spot stands “Stewart’s”—famed all the world over. I say “Stewart’s,” as I should say in Venice, “Florian’s,” or in New York, “Delmonico’s”; for there are certain famous establishments in all great cities which require no more specific designation.
Who is there, indeed, that knows not Stewart’s? It has been presiding over this corner for the last two hundred years and more. It must be the oldest baker’s and confectioner’s business in London, beside which even such ancient houses as “Birch’s” or “Gunter’s” are comparatively modern. ”

“ Park Lane stands alone among the streets of London. In that it has only one side, and looks directly into one of London’s Parks, it might at first seem to have some analogy to the western end of Piccadilly; but Piccadilly is made up of clubs, with here and there a business establishment and—except at Hyde Park Corner itself—private houses but sparsely scattered down it; whereas Park Lane practically consists of the mansions of the wealthy. ”

“ The wall of Buckingham Palace grounds runs the entire length of Constitution Hill, to which additional width is just being given, and as we wend our steps across the Park, at an angle, towards the little paved way that leads by Stafford House, we can see the commencement of that great memorial which will perpetuate in stone, as they are enshrined in the hearts of the people, the virtuous life and great qualities of Queen Victoria. ”

“ Anyone walking down it would have to draw heavily on his imagination, if he would try to realise that, as Bramston writes:—“Pease, cabbages, and turnips once grew where now stands New Bond Street ...”, so completely has time metamorphosed this once rural spot into a promenade of bricks and mortar, where the ends of the world seem to have been ransacked to fill its marts with all the riches of Nature and Art conceivable by the mind of man.
The shops of Bond Street have always been famous. ”

“ Hook’s favourite quarter has undergone many a change, and its present-day equivalent is more likely to be found in that larger area known to all the world as Mayfair. Similarly, although much of the tide of human existence still flows past the spot where Queen Eleanor’s body rested for the last time, on its way to the Abbey, that tide flows as fully and with as much noisy vehemence past half a hundred other crowded spots in London. ”

“ The Bishop of London’s official town residence, whither the Duke of Hamilton, after his celebrated duel with Lord Mohun, was carried, is next door, nestling between the ducal abode and Lord Derby’s iron-balustraded mansion. Commerce has invaded the Square, for, at the opposite corner, is a Bank, and next to it Lord Falmouth’s house, which has some old cannon as posts planted in the pavement before it. ”

“ A second great fire, on December 6th, 1867, again destroyed the building, which was subsequently re-erected with its principal frontage in Pall Mall, at a great cost; this in its turn we have seen disappear, and the new “His Majesty’s Theatre” rise on its site, with its chief entrance in the Haymarket, and a long frontage to Charles Street. Luckily, the old arcade is embodied in the new building, and here are still to be seen those dear little shops that look so clean and prosperous and yet so diminutive—like a sort of Tom Thumbs among business establishments! ”

“ Dr. Johnson in one of his rhetorical flights said that Charing Cross was practically the centre of the universe. “I think,” he observed to Boswell, on a celebrated occasion, “the full tide of human existence is at Charing Cross.” Theodore Hook, on the other hand, considered that that small area in St. James’s, bounded by Piccadilly and Pall Mall, St. James’s Street and Waterloo Place, was the acme of fashion, and contained within itself all that was best worth cultivating in the Metropolis. ”

“ Conduit Street can be reached from Savile Row by one the quaintest little alleys in the West End, called Savile Place, a tiny thoroughfare which I never go through without expecting to see a Sedan chair waiting at the other end, and a bewigged and besworded gentleman or a hooped and patched lady passing through on their way to it. ”

“ THE TURNPIKE AT HYDE PARK CORNER, 1706.
[Pg 29]
CHAPTER II. ST. JAMES’S STREET AND PALL MALL.
“O bear me to the paths of fair Pall Mall,
Safe are thy pavements, grateful is thy smell.”
—Gay’s “Trivia.”
Can we do better, after the surfeit of bricks and mortar which we have just undergone, than relax our jaded senses and relieve our wearied eyes by loitering for a few moments in the Green Park? See! it is just across the way, and a convenient entrance helps to tempt our steps. ”

“ The history of
“The dear old street of clubs and cribs,
As north and south it stretches,”
is one which, if its record were fully written, would be found to have no little connection with the annals of the country. Its position, its proximity to the Palace, its past inhabitants, its famous club houses (where so much of the history of the country was, and is, evolved,) all make for its claim in this respect.
WHITE’S CLUB.
On our left is the famous bow window of “White’s,” where the dandies used to assemble to quiz the ladies on their way to the drawing-rooms. What a history has that club! ”

“ Wherever he is he will be penning that famous “Journal to Stella,” or plotting and planning with the heads of the Opposition—and there is no clearer or more potent brain among them. If he goes into the St. James’ Coffee House, or White’s Chocolate House, “the most fashionable hell in London,” or trudges further east to Willis’s, in Bow Street, be sure there will be plenty to note his strange manner and call him “the mad parson!” ”

“ Berkeley Street, formerly known as Berkeley Row, boasts one or two interesting residents in the past. Here Cosway dwelt, and it was here that he first attracted the notice of the Prince of Wales, whose portrait he “drew in little” so often and so successfully. In the same house, too, had previously lived Shackleton, the portrait painter; and it was to a residence here that Mr. Chaworth was carried after his duel with Lord Byron (the great uncle of the Lord Byron) , which took place at the “Star and Garter,” in Pall Mall, over a dispute as to the best way of preserving game. ”

“ At this point begins that remarkable series of clubs for which Piccadilly is almost as famous as Pall Mall; indeed, between the United Empire Club at No. 84, and the Lyceum, at No. 128, there are a good baker’s dozen of these “assemblies of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions,” as Dr. Johnson defined them. Those in this quarter of the town are for the most part comparatively modern, and I believe I am right in saying that not one of their names will be found included in Timbs’ interesting work on “Clubs and Club Life.” ”

“ The house next door is also a club—“The Savile”—one of the literary clubs of modern London. In the old days, it was the home of the famous Nathan Rothschild, who made a great coup over the Battle of Waterloo, and once told Spohr that the only music he cared for was the chink of money!
As we loiter along, the trees of the Green Park attract us, and the gradual widening of the thoroughfare as we approach Hyde Park Corner, an improvement made but a few years since, gives an additional effect to the coup d’œil that here presents itself. ”

“ I may remind the stranger that the famous Willis’s Rooms, formerly Almack’s, that “Matrimonial Bazaar,” as Lord William Pitt Lennox calls it, the laws of which were as those of the Medes and Persians, as the great Duke of Wellington once had reason to remember when he was turned away from its doors, are still in King Street, but turned to other uses, and that just opposite stands the equally famous “Christie’s,” where old and new masters are continually changing hands.
As we turn into Pall Mall, the picturesque buildings of St. James’s Palace tempt us to loiter ”

“ Theatre and music-hall are here “at grips” with their opposition entertainments. Everything comes in time to Piccadilly Circus. The man strolling out from the play in evening dress and crush hat may be hailed by a friend in ulster and shooting boots, whose hansom is the last stage of a journey from the Hebrides or the Himalayas; the east and the west meet here on common ground for that amusement which would seem to be taken in anything but the sad spirit predicated of it by Continental nations.
Site of LOWER REGENT STREET, FROM PICCADILLY CIRCUS, WITH
“Bull and Mouth.” ”

“ It is curious, having this in view, and remembering the aristocratic traditions associated with the Square, to find so many of the houses now turned to alien uses. Clubs—the Windham, the Sports, the Portland, the Nimrod, the East India, and the Army and Navy—occupy no less than half a dozen of them; the London Library is housed in a rebuilt structure on the site of the former residence of Admiral, the Earl of Torrington; and an art gallery peers out of the corner premises abutting on King Street. ”

“ James’s Square, must not delay us, or we shall never get along, but we may remember that from 1673, when it was formed, to 1830, it was not a street proper at all, but merely one of those exiguous courts, of which Crown Court, in Pall Mall, is a survivor. There is one private house of interest in King Street, for at No. 1c, as a memorial tablet commemorates, Napoleon III., while yet only Prince Louis Napoleon, resided for two years, 1838-40, after he had been expelled from Switzerland. ”

“ In fact the whole square is full of memories, social, historical, and political, and clinging about almost every house are recollections of the witty, the powerful, and the illustrious, [Pg 114] who have at one time or another dwelt within their walls. ”

“ If great people have left their mark on the street, some curious individualities have also been connected with it. Think of four women racing down Pall Mall for a prize, to wit, “a holland smock, a cap, checked stockings, and laced shoes!” ”

“ As to-day nearly every house in Grosvenor Square is occupied by some influential or notable individual, so in the past has, practically, each been the home of an interesting personality. The great Earl of Chesterfield was living [Pg 118] here in 1733, until he moved to the new mansion he had erected for himself facing the Park, and here it was that Johnson was “repulsed from his doors” or “waited in his outward rooms.” ”

“ The residence, which was known as Gloucester House, at the time when the Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III., acquired it in 1761, is, of course, one of the great, as differentiated from merely large, houses of London, and it contains a collection of [Pg 137] pictures and works of art which a millionaire would have to exhaust his fortune in purchasing, and which could only be adequately described by a Waagen or a Smith. ”

“ This magnificent example of Adam’s work was erected for Lord Bute, George III.’s unpopular Minister, but was sold by him, in a yet unfinished state, to the Earl of Shelburne, the ancestor of the Marquis of Lansdowne, who now occupies it. It naturally dwarfs all the other houses in the square, but many of these are also full of interest.
At No. 6 lived the second Lord Chatham, and here William Pitt sometimes stayed; close by, at No. 10, Sir Colin Campbell lived and died; and next door to his residence was the last of Horace Walpole’s homes in London, now indicated by a tablet. ”

“ Suffolk Street, running partly behind the play-house, is one of the older streets in this neighbourhood, having been formed in 1664, on the site once occupied by the town house of the Earls of Suffolk. Although the present street is relatively modern, its lines follow those of the older one. At its Pall Mall eastern corner stands the United University Club in its stately rebuilt magnificence, but the street is [Pg 64] connected more intimately with Art than Letters, being the home of the Society of British Artists. ”

“ Thomas Raikes, who was called by the wits “Phœbus Apollo,” because he rose in the east and set in the west—an allusion to his dual connection with the City and Mayfair—was one of Grosvenor Square’s past inhabitants of interest. Raikes is now remembered by his diary, a valuable record of his times, and his correspondence and friendship with Wellington, but his brother Robert, the initiator of Sunday Schools, carved out a name, aere perennius [Pg 119] , for himself, and by its reflected light Thomas is also partially illuminated. ”

“ Here, too, is Lady Mary Coke, who was used to almost regard herself as a royal widow, on the death of Edward Duke of York—for which “mealy faced boy” she had a “tendre”; the Duchess of Queensberry, Prior’s “Kitty ever fair,” whom Walpole thought looked “ (by twilight) like a young beauty of an old-fashioned century,” and who died in Savile Row, in 1777, “of a surfeit of cherries.”
The list might be indefinitely extended, but “Anni labuntur” and other centuries are hurrying us along, bringing new faces in their train; George Selwyn with his witty talk and mania for executions ”