Leicester Square

“ The crowd that hovers about the Leicester Square Tube entrances affords little matter for reflection. It is so obvious. It is so Leicester Square. It alternately snarls and leers. It never truly smiles; it is so tired of the smiling business. The loud garb of the women tells its own tale. For the rest, there are bejewelled black men, a few Australian and Belgian soldiers, and a few [Pg 146] disgruntled and "shopless" actors. I never accept an appointment at Leicester Square Tube. ”

“ Leicester Square will ever be connected with Hogarth at the Golden Head. It was not, at his going there, in a flourishing condition, but it improved. In the year 1735, in Seymour’s ‘Survey,’ Leicester Fields are described as ‘a very handsome open square, railed about and gravelled within. The buildings are very good and well inhabited, and frequented by the gentry. The north and west rows of buildings, which are in St. Anne’s parish, are the best (and may be said to be so still) , especially the north, where is Leicester House, the seat of the Earl of Leicester ”

“ It was colder than they had thought, and the morning air was at once misty and fresh. In Leicester Square the scent of lilacs came to them; beside the pale, undefined bulk of the squat statue they caught the lavender splash of color which was sister to the perfume.
“By Jove, it’s spring!” said Dicky. He pointed out the flowers, and then, still drawing Christian’s arm to turn his attention to the square, recalled to him as they moved that this was the oldtime haunt of foreigners in London. ”

“ However indifferently Leicester Square may at present be inhabited, and notwithstanding its long-standing reputation as a foreign colony, it has been the chosen abode of many distinguished men. Hogarth and Reynolds lived and died there. ”

“ At the top of the Haymarket we find the street from Leicester-square to Piccadilly always full of traffic, and just opposite are the oyster-shops, and Turkish divans and cafés, all quiet enough now, but at the witching hour of night destined to be filled to suffocation with fast men and flash women, with cabs and carriages, with old hags with fruit and flowers, male vendors of pencils and knives, policemen and bullies, fools and rogues. Let us skip over a short interval of time, and suppose the neighbouring church bells to have chimed the midnight hour. ”

“ In shape Arundell Street is exactly like one of those flat stone jars in which Italian wine of the cheaper sort is stored. The narrow neck that leads off Leicester Square opens abruptly into a small court. Hotels occupy two sides of this; the third is at present given up to rooming houses for the impecunious. These are always just going to be pulled down in the name of progress to make room for another hotel, but they never do meet with that fate; and as they stand now so will they in all probability stand for generations to come. ”

“ Alas! that so lovely a piece of work should have fallen a prey to the devastating element that laid the whole structure in ruins, and eclipsed the gaiety, if not of nations, at any rate of the people of London, who were wont to resort nightly to this Thespian temple of Leicester Square, feeling certain that under the liberal management of its enterprising entrepreneur some brilliant stage spectacle would be brought before their eyes. ”

“ We have not yet done with this wonderful district of Soho. It is one of those attractive quarters of London, which is interesting alike for its historical associations and for memorable houses that were once inhabited by famous men. In essays, letters, fiction—all through that period which has been called the Augustan age of English literature—we find allusions to it; and after that time it continued to be the favourite resort of artists, men of letters, wealthy merchants, and not a few statesmen and eminent politicians. In Leicester Square, Hogarth laughed, moralised, and painted. ”

“ The Irish-American in that moving history walks through Leicester Square, full of old men and small children and nursery maids, wondering where he can plant his instrument of wholesale death to the best advantage, and while he looks out for a cosy corner, he suddenly reflects on the fact that the savage hounds of tyranny may even now be on his trail, that if his mission were known he might be torn to pieces by a cruel and ruthless mob. ”

“ The people whom you meet in Leicester square, if you ask them a question, will be sure to answer you in a strange tongue, or else in a strange gibberish of English or Continental patois. There is an acre or two of sickly grass in the middle of the square which is guarded from the footsteps of pedestrians by a rickety and worn iron railing. In the middle of this patch of scanty grass is an equestrian statue of one of the Georges on an iron horse, the nose of which has been broken or has rotted off, and its appearance is in keeping with the buildings that tower all round it. ”

“ At nine o'clock precisely the door of Number Seven Arundell Street, Leicester Square, opened and a young man stepped out.
Of all the spots in London which may fairly be described as backwaters there is none that answers so completely to the description as Arundell Street, Leicester Square. Passing along the north sidewalk of the square, just where it joins Piccadilly, you hardly notice the bottleneck opening of the tiny cul-de-sac. Day and night the human flood roars past, ignoring it. Arundell Street is less than forty yards in length ”

“ But there were as remarkable inhabitants of other houses as of Leicester House. In 1733 there came into the square a man about whom the world more concerns itself than it does [Pg 262] about William Henry, and that man is William Hogarth.
There is no one whom we more readily or more completely identify with Leicester Square than Hogarth. He was born in the Old Bailey in 1697, close to old Leicester House, which, in Pennant’s days, was turned into a coach factory. His father was a schoolmaster, who is, perhaps, to be recognised in the following curious advertisement of the reign of Queen Anne ”

“ There are, besides the grander squares, some, I think, which are deserted by the rich, where "life"—that is, plenty going on—would be more acceptable than quiet; where the residents would be actually glad to have the gates thrown open, the beds set with bright flowers, the seats available for all, as in Leicester Square. I think even a band on a Saturday afternoon might be thought a gain. It is a pity these deserted wildernesses, with their poverty-stricken privet-hedges, are not by some common consent made to adapt themselves to the needs of the neighbourhood. ”

“ Thence, eastward still, and we find ourselves in the Bloomsbury and Bedford Square region, whose old houses, once occupied by rank and fashion, are mostly given over to lodgers like ourselves, while resident middle-class foreigners make their homes largely in the region around Leicester Square. ”

“ Many of these exiles settled in and around Leicester Fields, and for their use several chapels were built. The neighbourhood has ever since been a resort of French immigrants.
In one of these streets opening into Leicester Square, St. Martin's Street, Sir Isaac Newton lived for the last sixteen years of his life. The house in which he lived looks dingy enough now; but in those days it was considered a very good residence indeed, and Like Leicester House was frequented by the best company in the fashionable world. The genius and reputation of its master attracted scientific and learned visitors ”

“ In some cases where the ground is large it might, no doubt, be thrown absolutely open, as Leicester Square is, a man being always in attendance to keep order, though the people will themselves help to keep order very soon. In the case of very small grounds admission might be given to certain numbers by tickets placed in the hands of guardians, schoolmasters, ministers of all denominations, Bible-women, and district visitors. ”

“ Taking Leicester House, in Leicester Square, he filled sixteen rooms and various passages and staircases with his curiosities, and advertised that they were to be seen each day from ten to four, ‘admittance 5s. 3d. each person.’ He was a good naturalist, and a man of varied accomplishments, but grew eccentric in dress and manner. Madame d'Arblay has left a curious picture of the grotesque figure he presented when she visited the museum in 1782 (Diary, ed. Barrett, i. 495) .
Excessive outlay on the museum impaired his fortune. ”

“ Attempt to pass by the Haymarket, or Jermyn Street, or the purlieus of Leicester Square, about four or five o'clock, and you will find that the arteries of circulation are tied up by those thick coagulated knots of betting men. The thoroughfare is quite impassable, and you are compelled to go into the mud of the road to avoid being soiled by the refuse of the pavement. ”

“ Yet, if a stranger visiting London thinks he is likely to see any exile of celebrity, while pacing the streets which branch off Leicester square, he will be almost as much mistaken as if he were to range Eastcheap in the hope of meeting the wild Prince and Poins.
Many a conspiracy has had its followers and understrappers in the Leicester square region; but the great conspirators do not live there any more. The place is falling, falling ”

“ Sparkle, mounting his recovered charger, left his [339] pedestrian friends for the present, to continue their excursion; who, proceeding up St. Martin's Lane, and admiring that noble edifice, the Church, reached, without other remarkable occurrence, the quietude of Leicester Square.
Close by is Barker's Panorama, an object of attraction too prominent to be passed without inspection. They now entered, and Tallyho stood mute with delight at the astonishing effect of the perspective ”

“ He was an impressive person, floridly handsome, beautifully dressed, and the routine work which kept him and the expensively rented, exquisitely furnished suite of offices near Leicester Square was something like this. ”

“ Nothing is much more remarkable than the jetsam, which chance brings up to the surface here and in Wellington Street alike. Some of the rarest books and pamphlets in our early literature have fallen under my eyes in Leicester Square. Once it was a parcel, I recollect, including, among others, Drayton’s Shepheard’s Garland, 1593 ”

“ Paul's to Temple Bar will be through Farringdon Street, Smithfield, across Gray's Inn Lane, Theobald's Road (Holborn is also closed) , Red Lion Square, Queen Street, and Drury Lane. Endless rows with cabmen in consequence, who object to eightpence for the distance. General emigration of the British, who will be found everywhere, in the language of the month, in large coveys, strong on the wing, and offering excellent sport to foreigners. It is probable that the last man about town will commit suicide in the centre of Leicester Square ”

“ To the north of the Earl of Leicester’s house, from Leicester Square, stood King’s Square, on one side of which was the Duke of Monmouth’s house, after whose execution his friends changed the name to Soho Square; So ho! being the watchword with which he advanced to the fatal battle of Sedgemore.
[51]
Loss of a Parent. Loss of a Parent irreparable. ”

“ The Ragged Staff figures also in single blessedness. A carriers [138] ’ inn in West Smithfield possessed this sign in 1682. [181] In the wall of a house at the corner of Little St Andrew Street and West Street, St Giles, there is still a stone bas-relief sign of two ragged staves placed salterwise, with the initials S. F. G., and the date 1691. It was doubtless put there as a compliment to Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, who in the reign of Charles II. built Leicester House, which gave a name to Leicester Fields, now the site of Leicester Square. ”

“ His descendants long continued to manage Vauxhall Gardens. Perhaps the most notable of these was his eldest son Tom, the friend and biographer of Johnson, and the 'Tom Restless' of the 'Idler.'
XXI. AT LEICESTER FIELDS. IT is with places as with persons: they often attract us more in their youth than in their maturer years Apart from the fact that these papers are confessedly confined to the Eighteenth Century, this threadbare truth affords a sufficient excuse for speaking of Leicester Square by its earlier, rather than by its existing name. ”

“ One would rather not inquire what is the ultimate source of their gains.
The police will tell you that there is almost always to be found in London a considerable number of foreigners who are engaged in various schemes for forging the notes of Foreign Banks, and of the Continental Trading Companies and Associations. The conductor of an enterprise of this kind, however, would not be much seen in the classical regions of Leicester Square. ”

“ One or two others, in Bridge Street, Blackfriars, are excellent hotels. Foreign hotels of a medium class are numerous in and about Leicester Square. Another class of hotels or inns are those from which stage-coaches at one time ran, and which were resorted to by commercial and other gentlemen; for example, the Golden Cross, (now renovated and extended,) near Charing Cross; the White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly; the Bell and Crown, Holborn; the Castle and Falcon, Aldersgate Street; and the Bull-in-Mouth, (now called the Queen’s,) opposite the General Post Office, in St. ”

“ Beside the parks and gardens, London has an infinity of squares, commons, and crescents, which are surrounded by private residences and inclosed by railings and walls—such as Trafalgar Square (public) , Bedford, Cavendish, St. George's, Grosvenor, Leicester, Soho, Belgrave, Euston, Finsbury, Fitzroy, Portman, Russell, Wellclose, Hanover, Brunswick, Eaton, Berkeley, Golden, Mecklenburg, Red Lion, Tavistock, and a great number of other squares which I do not now call to mind. ”