10 Downing Street

“ Beyond the now vacant space on the north are the great group of Government offices, the Home [Pg 83] and Colonial Offices facing Parliament Street, and behind them the India and the Foreign Offices. Above Downing Street there are others, the Privy Council Office and the Treasury.
Downing Street is called after George Downing, an American Ambassador to the Hague under Cromwell and in Charles II.'s reign. John Boyle, Earl of Cork and Ossory and the last Earl of Oxford, lived here. Boswell occupied a house in Downing Street in 1763. ”

“ Immediately opposite the front gate of Emmanuel there runs off, at right angles, from the Via Devana, a thoroughfare known as Downing Street. Till the present century it actually gave access to Downing, the youngest of the Colleges to which the University officially accords that title. In those days Downing consisted of a huge parallelogram of prettily be-treed greensward, a furlong across and three furlongs long, [115] thus covering far more space than any other college. ”

“ Hence arose the terms of mixed Druses and mixed Christians; mixed Druses meaning Druses living in the Christian country, and mixed Christians those living in the Druse country. Such was the origin of the mixed population question, which entirely upset the project of Downing Street; happy spot, where they draw up constitutions for Syria and treaties for China with the same self-complacency and the same success!
Downing Street (1842) decided upon the sectarian government of the Lebanon. ”

“ Outlines of the future edifice paint themselves against the sky (to men that still have a sky, and are above the miserable London fogs of the hour) ; noble elements of new State Architecture, foreshadows of a new Downing Street for the New Era that is come. These with pious hope all men can see; and it is good that all men, with whatever faculty they have, were earnestly looking thitherward;—trying to get above the fogs, that they might look thitherward! ”

“ In London the prime minister—who has an indifferent official residence, which he and his family have occasionally occupied, in Downing street—lives in Carlton-House Terrace. It is a beautiful house, but not by any means well adapted for party-giving, for it is so constructed that circulation is almost impossible. If you once get into a room, you must stay there; whereas half the charm of Lady Palmerston's famous parties at Cambridge House was the free circulation the rooms afforded, enabling you to pass right round a quadrangle, and thus easily find an acquaintance or get away from a bore. ”

“ Oliver Cromwell appears to have had lodgings within the precincts of the palace, but at a great distance from the state apartments. A kind of village clustered round the Tennis Court, a little to the southward of the tilt-yard and the Horse Guards. A green lawn, and perhaps a garden, existed here, and here General Monk subsequently had his [Pg 64] lodgings. A narrow passage or lane, known as the “Entrance to the Cockpit,” led to them. It is as nearly as possible the modern Downing Street. ”

“ A private telephone wire connected his study in Portland Place with the official residence, and but for this Sir Philip had cut himself adrift from the house in Downing Street, to occupy which had been the ambition of the great men of his party. Now, however, with the approach of the day on which every effort would be taxed, the police insisted upon his taking up his quarters in Downing Street.
Here, they said, the task of protecting the Minister would be simplified. No. 44 Downing Street they knew. ”

“ Something I might say about the manners and morals of Downing Street which would be new to you, that section of London society having been rarely penetrated by travellers, and if penetrated still more rarely escaped from without the loss of that peculiar faculty by virtue of which man tells truth. ”

“ I promised him that I would continue to do my utmost to discover the truth. Then, taking my leave, I went out and down the great staircase into Downing Street, where the dark afternoon was rendered the more cheerless by the rain falling heavily; and the solitary policeman in his dripping cape touched his hat respectfully as I passed. ”

“ Can he do nothing better? Yes, but only hand in hand with woman. Nature declares it; and he who would fight against Nature, must create the evils that torture the world.
200 CHAPTER VII. Downing Street is awake betimes, and within the precincts of the residence of the First Lord of the Treasury an unusual stir and signs of an unwonted anxiety are perceivable. Seated around a long oblong table in a singularly doleful-looking room, are a baker’s dozen of gentlemen, apparently in eager discussion. Perplexity and anxiety is on every face, not unmixed, in some cases, with vacuity. ”

“ The striking characteristics of the work done in Downing Street in its connection with the Crown Colonies are the patient care with which each question is examined and the anxiety to be just in every case, however great or however small the issue. ”

“ To reach Downing to-day, one must turn to the left on leaving Emmanuel, and continue along the Via Devana (here called Regent Street) till large iron gates on the opposite side of the road invite us to enter the College grounds. These give still an impressive sense of space, though now curtailed at the southern as well as the northern end, and form a pretty setting for the two parallel ranges of yellow stone, which date from the beginning of the nineteenth century. ”

“ We are acquainted, more or less intimately, with some couple of dozen "noble young souls," all very clever fellows in their way, who have not the slightest objections to take permanent quarters in Downing Street, if anybody will make it worth their while ”

“ I rejoice to see the development of life and activity which has taken place in Downing. His outward sphere of activity is now very wide and effective. President Fillmore has it in contemplation to lay out extensive grounds around the Capitol at Washington; and there are here two young architects from England who, under Downing's direction, are preparing plans for houses which he is commissioned to erect for private persons, who in their villas and cottages desire to combine the beautiful with the useful. ”

“ The view shows the south side, the part towards Downing Street being discernible behind a tree on the right: the building to the left is the Treasury. The artist has ventured to clothe his little figures in costumes which harmonise more with the old place than the frock coats and trousers of the present day. The windows opening on to the terrace belong to the famous old cabinet room, where Pitt and Sir Robert Peel, Disraeli and Palmerston, have often sat. In the large reception room on the first floor which forms the subject of drawing No. ”

“ The shopping, however, of the rich is one thing, and the shopping of the very poor is quite another. Most interesting, to those who care to study the book of human nature, are the "street-markets" of the people, those rows of noisy booths and barrows which have stood from time immemorial, by traditional right, in certain streets, and where jets of brilliant, flaring naptha-lights display the kaleidoscopic stock-in-trade. Among such streets are Goodge Street, Tottenham Court Road; Leather Lane, Holborn; or, to descend to a yet lower social depth, Brick Lane, Spitalfields. ”

“ Fill all these streets, and a dozen others like them, with rank and wealth and fashion, youth and beauty, pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence, and you have described the concentric circles of which Marlborough House was the heart. Sydney Smith, no mean authority on the social capacities of London, held that "the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Hyde Park, enclosed more intelligence and ability, to say nothing of wealth and beauty, than the world had ever collected in such a space before." ”

“ I think it is Cadogan Mansions, is it not?—Yes.'
'Very comfortable indeed, thank you, Mr. Pink. They are comparatively modern, and the elevator makes it seem more or less like home.'
Mr. Pink brightened; he evidently wished me to be discursive. 'Indeed!' he said—'Ye-es?'
'Yes,' I returned; 'when I have time I always use the elevator.'
'That is not, I think, the address of the lady your father mentioned to us as your only relative in London, Miss Wick?' 'Oh no,' I responded, cheerfully; 'Mrs. Cummers Portheris lives in Half-Moon Street, Mr. ”

“ Oh, give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall."—Charles Morris.
Oh, London! beautiful London! who would not be with thee in May? Paris should not, surely, be recommended as the only Mecca of that lovely month. When the London street authorities, with unwonted forbearance, have for one brief moment suspended their incessant repairing of the busiest thoroughfares; when the hanging gardens of Park Lane, and the window-boxes of Seven Dials, alike display their "pavilions of tender green"; when Piccadilly is blocked with traffic; when Rotten Row is thronged with the smart world ”

“ But, while the plain, nondescript brick houses of Gower Street and Baker Street still remain the prevailing type of London architecture, there is everywhere noticeable a tendency to improve and embellish the streets of the metropolis, to rebuild in a better or, at any rate, a more ambitious way. Travelling along the highway of Oxford Street, from ancient Tyburn to Tottenham Court Road, how many tall, new, and ornate house-fronts rise along the line on each side of us! ”

“ In 1812 the population of the place was under 1,000. It is now, including the suburbs, where some of the wealthiest citizens live in houses as well-built and as luxuriously fitted up as any in London, about 116,000. King Street, the principal one, is built up with substantial brick and stone buildings, many of which are equal to any on the American Continent. Forty years since, it was completely composed of wooden structures, and was barely passable to pedestrians. Now, it is adorned with stately stores, where the latest novelties of the Old World and the New are ostentatiously displayed. ”

“ In London streets, the unexpected is always happening; thus, through the hideous plate glass of a bar parlour, you may catch glimpses of waving trees and grey towers, and even the dreadful glare of London advertisement hoardings does not "wholly abolish or destroy" the ancient charm of the crowded, irregular City streets. A City of parallel lines and squares, such as the Colonials love! Perish the thought! Let them widen Southampton Row if they will, remove Holywell Street and King Street if they list; but let us at any rate keep to our old and devious ways through the heart of the City! ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Mint street. 8. Piccadilly. 9. Spitalfields. 10. Tyburn road. 11. By Charles street, near King’s street, Westminster. 12. York buildings. See York Buildings.
Duke of Norfolk’s yard, St. Alban’s street.
Dulwich, a very pleasant village in Surry, five miles from London, where there is a spring of the same medicinal waters as those of Sydenham wells, with which the master of the Green Man, a house of good entertainment, serves this city, and in particular St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. The fine walk opposite to this house, through the woods, affords from its top a very noble prospect ”

“ The neighborhood is a very quiet one, as by its peculiar exits and passages it is cut off from the busiest part of London on either side of it, and leaving the Holborn or Oxford street, with their crowded traffic, shops, busses, and cabs, in a moment you are in this quiet square, with its little dot of green, fresh grass ”

“ You my Agatha must also read with me a few words of this, because they deserve to be read, and they will be the last which I shall quote from the New World.
I will let Downing speak.
“We have said nothing of the social influence of such a great park [1] in New York. But this is really the most interesting phase of the whole matter. It is a fact, not a little remarkable, that ultra-democratic as are the political tendencies of America, its most intelligent social tendencies are almost wholly in a contrary direction. ”

“ At a point a short way up we cross Piccadilly, and enter a curve in the thoroughfare, called the Quadrant; at the corners of which, and also in Upper Regent Street, are some of the p. 31most splendid shops in London, several being decorated in a style of great magnificence. Regent Street, during the busy season in May and June, and during the day from one till six o’clock, exhibits an extraordinary concourse of fashionable vehicles and foot-passengers; while groups of carriages are drawn up at the doors of the more elegant shops. Towards its upper extremity Regent Street crosses Oxford Street. ”

“ Fleet Street, with its Temple, is not unworthy of being contiguous to the Strand. The fire of London has deprived us of the delight of a real old quarter of the city; but some bits remain, and everywhere there is a stirring multitude, and a great crush and crash of carts and wains. The Inns of Court, and the quarters in the vicinity of the port, Thames Street, Tower Hill, Billingsgate, Wapping, Rotherhithe, are the best parts of London; they are full of character: the buildings bear a nearer relation to what the people are doing than in the more polished quarters. ”