The Literary History of the Adelphi and Its Neighbourhood

THE LITERARY HISTORY
OF THE ADELPHI AND
ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD

The Terrace. York Buildings. 1796.
From a water colour by J. Richards R.A.

THE LITERARY HISTORY
OF THE ADELPHI
AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD

By AUSTIN BRERETON

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION

NEW YORK:

DUFFIELD & COMPANY

36-38 WEST 37th STREET

1909

First Edition 1907
Second Edition 1908
(All rights reserved.)

Note

This book is intended for the general reader, as well as for the antiquarian and the lover of London. To this end, the history of the Adelphi and its immediate neighbourhood to the west and on the south side of the Strand has been related in—as far as possible—narrative form. At the same time, it need hardly be said, every care has been taken to present the multitude of details correctly and as a truthful picture of one of the most interesting parts of the great metropolis. I should be ungrateful if I did not take this opportunity of again—as in the case of my chronicle of the Lyceum and Henry Irving—thanking Mr. E. Gardner for so courteously placing at my disposal his unique and invaluable collection of London records and engravings. The majority of the illustrations were kindly lent by him; others were copied from prints in the British Museum. I have also to thank the officials of St. Martin's Library for their ready help in enabling me to consult, at my leisure, some scarce books connected with the literature of historical London.

A.B.

INTRODUCTION

"The Literary History of the Adelphi" has journeyed from one side of the neighbourhood to the other, from west to east. That is to say, its publication has been acquired by Mr. Fisher Unwin, hence the removal of the book from York Buildings to Adelphi—originally called "Royal," and still so marked on the old plans—Terrace. This peregrination gives me the opportunity of supplementing the original work with some interesting particulars which have just come into my possession. Who would think that within a short distance of the Strand, if not actually within the proverbial stone's throw, there are "cottages," and cottages, too, with trees and flowers and lawns, and a mighty river, for prospect? Yet such is the case, although it is no wonder that the rate collector who is new to this part of London has much ado to find "Adelphi cottages." They belong to that mysterious region which lies underneath the Strand level of the Adelphi and is vaguely known as the "arches." If the reader will glance at the illustration which faces page 32—"The Buildings called the Adelphi"—he will see, at the top of the arches and under the terrace, some fifteen semi-circular recesses. These are really capacious rooms, and from the windows thereof the view of the Embankment Gardens and the Thames is considerable compensation for the tediousness and deviousness of the approach. The "cottages" were originally attached to the houses on the terrace above, and, until recent years, they were inhabited. Now, however, the majority of them are let separately and are used as stores or workshops. One of them, however, is still occupied as a dwelling-place, and, whatever else it may be, this habitation is certainly unique.

Underneath the "Adelphi cottages," and extending below the houses of the terrace, and John, Robert, and Adam Streets, are the famous arches, which few people, either Londoners, who know nothing of their own city, or Americans, who are versed in the lore of our ancient streets, have ever visited. Truth to tell, the expedition to the Adelphi arches is not to be undertaken with too light a heart. The gloomy recesses do not conduce to joy, and, although the foot-pad has scant opportunity for indulging in his nefarious practices, he would be a venturesome person, a stranger to these parts, who would wander alone in this underground world after the sun, which never enters these passages, had ceased to illumine the earth above. This very darkness and dismalness has its advantages at times. When Messrs. Coutts, for instance, moved from their old premises in the Strand, there was much speculation as to the manner in which they transferred their immense stock of securities, deeds, and other valuables from one side of the road to the other. There was great talk at the time of armies of detectives and the use of the early hours of Sundays, and other vague suggestions were allowed to be promulgated. It was assumed that the transference would take place from one side of the road to the other, and it was thought that there might be some audacious attempts at robbery. In reality, the matter was quite simple and there was not the slightest danger of any attack upon the priceless possessions. Far removed from the noisy Strand—in regard to atmosphere and surroundings—there is an arch, dark indeed, and shut off from the outer world by huge gates, which are some distance away. Here, many feet below the surface of the streets, is a secret entrance to the premises of the old bank. And here, in absolute security, never dreamt of by the enterprising thief, the carts were loaded with their treasures.

The actual removal of these valuables was effected with great ease. The carts wended their innocent way through the dreary arches, in front of the "cottages," and passed out by a "right of way" underneath the Hotel Cecil, towards Blackfriars. Thus, the would-be thief was deluded of his prey. This "right of way" marks the bottom of Ivy Lane, which is still in existence. It runs from the Strand and denotes the boundary of the Duchy of Lancaster and the City of Westminster. Formerly, it was an open thoroughfare, but there is now, at the Strand entrance as well as at the bottom, a gate. At the river end, there was, in olden times, a bridge, or pier, called Ivy Bridge. But I think that there must have been, not only a bridge in the Strand, but that there was a stream which ran hence into the Thames. John Stow, in his "Survey of London," first published in 1598, speaks of "Ivy Bridge, in the High Street, which had a way under it leading to the Thames, the like as sometime had the Strand Bridge." Now, the Strand Bridge was over the stream of St. Clement's Well, and Strand Lane, like Ivy Lane, ran down to the river, and, like it, there was a pier at the end. I am the more certain that there must have been a river of sorts at the junction of Ivy Lane and the Strand, because to this day, as I found in the course of a recent investigation, a stream trickles under John Street and renders useless a large cellar. Nothing can stop it. It percolates now, just as it has done ever since the excavations made by the Brothers Adam in 1768. It is drained away, but it is just sufficient to create a damp atmosphere which is detrimental to the storing of wine.

Hundreds of thousands of bottles of wine—chiefly port, claret, and burgundy—are in bins here, and a most admirable place for the purpose it is. The underground Adelphi is absolutely dry—save for the one spot mentioned—and the temperature does not vary five degrees in the course of a year. Here, also, are many hundreds of cases of champagne, and here the jaded Londoner—if he be sufficiently favoured—might come and feast his eyes on some few dozens of bottles of "white port"—a wine which is not in fashion in these degenerate days, but which, I rejoiced to learn, is still sent hence to a certain royal household. Strange as it may seem, there is a strong air of royalty about these dimly-lit vaults. What between the secret entrance to the old premises of the great bankers—Messrs. Coutts are the bankers for his Majesty and for the Queen[1]—and the "white port" which gives its benefit to illustrious persons of royal lineage, there is a distinct feeling that one is moving on an exalted plane when, paradoxical as it may seem, we are in this subterranean place. The distinctly regal air which pervades these caves of silence may have given rise to a certain statement that hereabouts—half a dozen yards from the royal stock of "white port"—Lady Jane Grey was cast into a dungeon deep and carried thence to the dreaded Tower, there to be beheaded. But the "Nine Days' Queen" knew only her gardens and her flowers when she lived in Durham House—the predecessor of the Adelphi. Here, in May, 1553, the Duke of Northumberland married his son, Lord Guildford Dudley, to Lady Jane, in pursuance of his design for altering the succession from the Tudor to the Dudley family. The unfortunate girl of scarce seventeen summers certainly left Durham House for the Tower—but it was with great pomp and circumstance, in order to be proclaimed Queen. Her execution followed hard upon, but she knew not imprisonment in what is now the Adelphi. On the other hand, the haunt of a wretched woman is still to be seen in this gloomy spot. "Jenny's Holes" figure on the plan to this day, and are not likely to be obliterated therefrom. Into one or other of these places—recesses by the main arches—the outcast came to sleep and, finally, to die; some say, indeed, that she was murdered here. "Jenny" has no history, but the vague tradition of her misery still haunts these "dark arches." Nor is the story at all improbable. The "dark arches" are forbidding enough now, and, even in the day-time, the sparse gas jets only serve to make darkness visible. So recently as the early seventies, when Mr. George Drummond came into the property, cows were kept in the underground passages of the Adelphi.

Adelphi Terrace, Adam Street to the east, and John Street, which is parallel with the terrace and the Strand, and in between, still retain much of their old-world appearance. But at the western side of the Adelphi changes are afoot. There is a new building, facing the river, but stunted and barred from its proper height by that bugbear of the modern builder, "ancient lights." Then, again, the Caledonian Hotel, in Robert Street, has taken to itself a new storey, and has been transmogrified into modern flats with—oh, shade of Adam!—bath-rooms. The searcher after the picturesque in London architecture might do worse than descend from the Strand, past the Tivoli. He will then be on the site of one of the gateways of Old Durham House, and, turning to the right, he will see a bridge of beautiful design. It was built, in order to connect the Strand and Adelphi premises of the bank, by Thomas Coutts, who procured a special Act of Parliament for the purpose.

The entire Adelphi estate occupies a little over three acres and a quarter, divided as follows:—

The names of two more noted inhabitants of the Adelphi have to be included in this "History." The learned Vicesimus Knox (1752-1821), who is best known to fame as the compiler of "Elegant Extracts" (1789), lived at No. 1, Adam Street. The first floor of the same house was the place of retirement, for a score of years, of George Blamire, barrister-at-law, "of very eccentric habits, but sound mind." John Timbs, in his "Curiosities of London," states that "no person was allowed to enter his chamber, his meals and all communications being left by his housekeeper at the door of his ante-room. He was found dead in an arm-chair, in which he had been accustomed to sleep for twenty years. He died of exhaustion, from low fever and neglect; at which time his rooms were filled with furniture, books, plate, paintings, and other valuable property." The eccentric habits are evident; but the "sound mind" is a little doubtful.

Finally, I may state that I have followed the fortunes of my book, and, after a brief excursion into the noisy part of the world on the other side of Charing Cross, have returned to the quiet and comparative solitude of the Adelphi, where tubes do not trouble and motor buses do not annoy. "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." And I think that there is no part of London of which a man can be in less apprehension of tiring than the Adelphi. It is of London, yet away from it; in the heart of the world, yet secluded. To know it is to love it.

Austin Brereton.

September, 1908.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See page 212.

Contents

List of Illustrations

[The Terrace, York Buildings, Adelphi] Frontispiece
[The Adelphi (Durham Yard and the New Exchange) and Charing Cross in 1755]
[Durham House. Salisbury House. Worcester House]
[The New Exchange, Strand]
["The Buildings called the Adelphi," 1777]
[The Society of Arts, John Street, Adelphi]
[Garrick's House, 5 Adelphi Terrace]
[Adam Street, Adelphi]
[Adelphi Terrace in Garrick's Time]
[The Thames, from the Water Works, York Buildings, Adelphi]
[York Stairs and the Water Tower]
[The Society of Arts distributing its Awards]
[The Strand Entrance to Durham Yard]
[Ivy Lane, Strand (the boundary of the Duchy of Lancaster and the City of Westminster)]
[Entrance to the Adelphi Arches]
[The Fox-under-the-Hill]
[York House, York Stairs, and Durham House]
[York Stairs and Water Works]
[Pepys' Library, Buckingham Street, Adelphi]
[St Mary Rounceval, the Original Site of Northumberland House]
[Suffolk (subsequently Northumberland) House]
T[he Strand Front of Northumberland House in 1752]
[Northumberland House, from the Gardens]
[The Ball-room, Northumberland House]
[The Drawing-room, Northumberland House]
[Charing Cross, before the building of Northumberland Avenue]
[The Lion, Northumberland House]

AN ADAM DOOR.

The Literary History of the Adelphi and its Neighbourhood

[CHAPTER I]

Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham—The Papal Legate and the Oxford Clergy—Henry III. and the Earl of Leicester—Prince Henry—The Author of Philobiblon—Edward III.—Thomas Hatfield—Henry VIII.—Cuthbert Tunstall—Cranmer at Durham House—Anne Boleyn—Henry VIII. and Anne of Cleves feast at Durham House—Dudley, Duke of Northumberland—Lady Jane Grey—Queen Mary—Queen Elizabeth—Philip Sidney—Sir Walter Raleigh—Elizabeth Throgmorton—Glanville v. Courtney—Thomas Egerton—Fire at Durham House—Raleigh and his Pipe.

It is my pleasant duty to relate in these pages the romantic story of kings and queens, of prelates and princes, of book-writers and book-sellers, of artists, architects, and actors, and of other players on life's fitful stage who, for six centuries and a half, have contributed to one of the most interesting chapters in the history of London. Within that small space which has been known as the Adelphi since 1772, a district so confined that it is contained within five hundred square yards, came, in its earlier years, several bishops and other clerical dignitaries, then that prince who was afterwards the fifth King Henry of England, anon, amid much pomp and pageantry, King Henry VIII. Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were familiar with it, and here lived, for twenty years, Sir Walter Raleigh, who inhabited one of the towers which is seen in Hollar's engraving of Durham House. Lady Jane Grey went hence to the Tower and thence to the scaffold. Dryden alluded to it in one of his plays. Voltaire drank wine here, and its memory is hallowed by Dr Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a host of other celebrities. Here David Garrick began his career, and here, curiously enough, he ended it, the funeral procession of the "poor player" reaching from the Adelphi to Westminster Abbey, those who followed him to the grave numbering many men of rank and genius, including Johnson, and a large concourse of the general public who grieved for the loss of the great actor.

The history of the world-famous banking firm of Coutts & Co. is indelibly associated with the Adelphi. Dickens, when a boy, prowled about its dark arches—until lately, one of the most degraded spots in London—and last, though not least, the brothers Adam, to whom London owes several architectural triumphs, in addition to the Adelphi, claim our attention. It is said that at a public dinner, at the beginning of the last century, a worthy alderman whose knowledge of Greek was very vague, was much struck by the toast, in reference to two royal brothers—George IV. and the Duke of York—of "the Adelphi."[2] When it came to the alderman's turn to speak, he said that, as they were on the subject of streets, he would "beg leave to propose 'Finsbury Square.'" In somewhat similar manner, before we get to the Adelphi, we must go back to its origin, and this takes us to the thirteenth century.

Durham House, which, with its grounds, formerly occupied the entire site of the Adelphi, was the town residence of Anthony Bek (otherwise Anthony de Beck or Bec), Bishop of Durham in the reign of Edward I. So it is affirmed by Pennant, and there is no reason to doubt the assertion. Some mistakes have arisen on this point, in consequence, as it appears to me, of there having been two men of the same name, both of whom were bishops. Their ancestor, Walter Bek, came to England with William the Conqueror, and from his three sons sprang three great Lincolnshire families: Bek of Eresby, Bek of Luceby, and Bek of Botheby. Now, Bishop Antony Bek the second (1279-1343), son of Walter Bek of Luceby, constable of Lincoln Castle, was at one time Bishop of Lincoln, and, in 1337, Bishop of Norwich. But Antony Bek, son of Walter Bek, baron of Eresby, was appointed to the see of Durham in 1283. He was intimately associated with Edward I., being one of his chief advisers during the negotiations regarding Baliol, and of great assistance to him in his Scottish expeditions of 1296 and 1298. Owing to a dispute with the prior of the convent of Durham, he was deprived of certain of his rights by the king (but regained them on application to the Pope). As this, however, occurred in the year 1300, it may safely be assumed that Antony Bek had occupied Durham House before that event.

But there was a Durham House even earlier than this of Antony Bek's, if we are to credit an account given by Thomas Fuller. Here, in 1238, the papal legate, Otho, was staying, and hither he summoned the English bishops in order to debate as to what "further steps should be taken respecting the churches and schools of Oxford, which he had laid under interdict on account of the scholars having, when the legate was staying at Oseney, killed his brother and clerk of the kitchen in an affray,"[3] the legate himself being obliged to fly from the city. At the intercession of the bishops, the legate assented to pardon the university on condition of the clergy and scholars making their "solemn submission" to him. As a result, the offenders "went from St Paul's in London to Durham House in the Strand, no short Italian, but an English long, mile, all on foot; the bishops of England, for the more state of the business, accompanying them, as partly accessory to their fault, for pleading on their behalf. When they came to the Bishop of Carlisle's house, the scholars went the rest of the way barefoot, sine capis et mantulis, which some understand, 'without capes or cloaks.' And thus the great legate at last was really reconciled to them."[4]

Some of these old chronicles are not always to be relied upon in the matter of dates: "This howse called Durham, or Dunelme Howse, was buylded in the time of Henry 3, by one Antonye Becke, B. of Durham. It is a howse of 300 years antiquitie; the hall whereof is statelie and high, supported with lofty marble pillars. It standeth on the Thamise veriye pleasantlie." So wrote one historian in 1593. But Henry III. died in 1272, eleven years before Bek was made Bishop of Durham. That there was a Durham House of sorts before Bek's time is pretty certain, although it was not the one that is attributed to that bishop. The story has often been told of Henry III., in 1258, being caught in a thunderstorm on his way down the Thames on his barge. At that time, the Earl of Leicester was the head of the barons who were opposed to the king, and it is said that he was then in occupation of Durham House (we have already seen that the papal legate was installed there twenty years earlier). Be this as it may, the king sought shelter from the storm, and, as the royal barge approached the shore, the Earl of Leicester went forth and endeavoured to allay any fears that the king might have felt, saying, "Your Majesty need not be afraid, for the tempest is nearly over." But the king, being moved to wrath, fiercely exclaimed, "Above measure, I dread thunder and lightning, but, by the head of God, I am more in terror of thee than of all the thunder and lightning in the world." Though this story may be doubted, one early royal memory of Durham House is that of Prince Henry (Henry V.), who, in 1411, "lay at the bysshoppes inne of Darham for the seid day of his comming to towne unto the Moneday nest after the feste of Septem fratum."[5]

That most correct of London historians, John Stow, sets down the fourteenth century as the date of Durham House. "On the south side of which street" (meaning the Strand, which had no name in Stow's time), he says, "in the liberties of Westminster (beginning at Ivy Bridge), first is Durham House, built by Thomas Hatfield, Bishop of Durham, who was made bishop of that see in 1345, and sat bishop there thirty-six years." But we have already seen from Fuller, whose Church History of Britain—from which the quotation in regard to the papal legate, Otho, is taken—was written in 1655, fifty years after Stow's death, that there was a Durham House in 1238.

And this brings me to a curious point. Thomas Pennant, whose Account of London affords much entertaining reading, has an amusing disquisition on the word "palace." He writes: "That the word is only applicable to the habitations of princes, or princely persons, and that it is with all the impropriety of vanity bestowed on the houses of those who have luckily acquired money enough to pile on one another a greater quantity of stones and bricks than their neighbours. How many imaginary Parks have been formed within precincts where deer were never seen! and how many houses misnamed Halls which never had attached to them the privilege of a manor!" Leigh Hunt took the "lively Pennant," as he dubs him, to task on this point: "Unless the words palazzo and piazza are traceable to the same root, palatium (as perhaps they are), place does not of necessity mean palace; and palace certainly does not mean exclusively the habitation of princes and princely persons (that is to say, supposing princeliness to exclude riches), for in Italy, whence it comes, any large mansion may be called a palace; and many old palaces there were built by merchants."[6] But the disquisition does not really alter the fact that the proper name, that is to say, the original one, should be Durham House; we have the excellent authority of Stow and Fuller on this head. The residences in London of the bishops were almost invariably called "House"—certainly not "palace." Thus, Worcester House, which is now marked by the Savoy, originally belonged to the see of Carlisle, and is "the Bishop of Carlisle's House" which is alluded to in the extract from Fuller. York House, which stood to the west of Durham House, was originally the town inn or residence of the Bishop of Norwich, and, subsequently, in Queen Mary's reign, of Heath, Archbishop of York. In the Aggas map of London in 1563, which is the frontispiece to Pennant's "Account," Duresme Place and York Place are given, but that the name in its earlier years was Durham House there is no doubt. The London County Council has lately (1906) perpetuated the name by changing Durham Street to Durham House Street.

THE ADELPHI (DURHAM YARD AND THE NEW EXCHANGE) AND CHARING CROSS, IN 1755.

One of the earliest of the literary inhabitants of Durham House was the learned Richard de Bury (1281-1345), son of Sir Richard Aungerville. He was tutor to Edward III., when Prince of Wales, and, subsequently, was of the king's household. He was Dean of Wells and Bishop of Durham in 1333, lord chancellor from September 1334 to July 1335, and lord high treasurer in 1337. He was employed by the king in Paris and in Hainault in 1336, and, in 1337 and 1342, in Scotland. It is pleasant to think that he wrote his Philobiblon during his residence by the Thames. At any rate, we may be sure that so learned and so useful a man, one who had the confidence of the king for so long, was visited here by Edward III.

Another name of note associated with Durham House is that of Thomas Hatfield, already alluded to by Stow as having built that structure. He probably added to it, or he may have rebuilt it. He was a great prelate, and, in addition to the bishopric of Durham, which he held from 1345 until his death in 1381, he was made keeper of the Privy Seal in 1343, and, in 1346 and 1355, he accompanied Edward III. to France. In Durham, he built part of the south side of the cathedral choir and the hall of the castle, hence, possibly, the credit given to him by Stow of building the Thames-side Durham House. His learned Survey of Durham was edited by the Rev. William Greenwell in 1856.

It is a far cry from the joyous days of Prince Henry to the turbulent times of Henry VIII., but the old chronicles do not contain any mention of Durham House during that lengthy period. In the reign of the latter king, the then Bishop of Durham "conveyed the house to the King in fee"; in other words, the noble Henry appropriated the property to his own uses. He had the saving grace, however, to give to the see of Durham, in exchange, some houses in Cold Harbour (now marked by Upper Thames Street), and elsewhere. The exact date of the transfer is unknown. The history of this bishop, who was made to surrender Durham House to King Henry, is curious. Cuthbert Tunstall, or Tonstall, was Master of the Rolls, and bishop successively of London and Durham. Extolled by Erasmus, and the friend of Sir Thomas More, he was learned in Greek, Hebrew, mathematics, and civil law. Harrow-on-the-Hill had him for rector in 1511, he was prebendary of Lincoln in 1514, archdeacon of Chester in the year following, ambassador to the Prince of Castile at Brussels, 1515-1516, Master of the Rolls in 1516, prebendary of York in 1519, and ambassador to Charles V. in 1519, and again in 1525. He was Bishop of London from 1522-1530, keeper of the privy seal in 1523, and Bishop of Durham in 1530. It must have been after the latter year that he transferred Durham House to Henry VIII. Accused of inciting to rebellion, 1550, he was deprived of his bishopric of Durham by Edward VI., in 1552. Queen Mary, however, restored him immediately on her accession, and he remained in possession of Durham House—which Mary had also restored to the see—until, in the year of his death, 1559, he was again deprived by Queen Elizabeth, to whom he had refused the oath of supremacy.

A very interesting chapter in the history of Durham House came into existence, thanks to its acquisition by Henry VIII., who granted it to the Earl of Wiltshire (1477-1539), Thomas Boleyn, father of Queen Anne Boleyn. It is not impossible that the Earl of Wiltshire was in occupation of Durham House during the childhood of his daughter: at any rate, it is certain that Anne's daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen, resided here.

Through Henry VIII. we get a glimpse of Cranmer at Durham House, for that worthy wrote to the Earl of Wiltshire bidding him "let Doctor Cranmer have entertainment in your house at Durham Place for a time, to the intent he may bee there quiet to accomplish my request, and let him lack neither bookes, ne anything requisite for his studies."[7] Cranmer attended the Earl of Wiltshire as ambassador to Charles V. in 1530, and it is probable that he lodged in Durham House in 1533, for in that year he returned to England, gave formal sentence of the invalidity of the king's marriage with Catharine of Aragon, and pronounced King Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn to be lawful. So that it is easy to imagine that the king's "request" occupied Cranmer's thoughts at Durham House, and that Henry came here in order to confer with him.

That Henry VIII. was familiar with Durham House there is no room for doubt, for, as the pious chronicler, Stow, quaintly puts it, "in the year of Christ 1540," that being the thirty-second year of Henry's reign, "on May-day, a great and triumphant jousting was holden at Westminster, which had been formerly proclaimed in France, Flanders, Scotland, and Spain, for all comers that would undertake the challengers of England; which were, Sir John Dudley, Sir Thomas Seymour, Sir Thomas Ponings, and Sir George Carew, knights, and Anthony Kingston and Richard Cromwell, esquires; all which came into the lists that day richly apparelled, and their horses trapped all in white velvet. There came against them the said day forty-six defendants or undertakers—viz., the Earl of Surrey, foremost, Lord William Howard, Lord Clinton, and Lord Cromwell, son and heir to Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and chamberlain of England, with other; and that day, after the jousts performed, the challengers rode unto this Durham House, where they kept open household, and feasted the King and Queen, with her ladies, and all the court. The second day Anthony Kingston and Richard Cromwell were made knights there. The third day of May the said challengers did tourney on horseback with swords, and against them came forty-nine defendants—Sir John Dudley and the Earl of Surrey running first, which at the first course lost their gauntlets; and that day Sir Richard Cromwell overthrew Master Palmer and his horse in the field, to the great honour of the challengers. The fifth of May the challengers fought on foot at the barriers, and against them came fifty defendants, which fought valiantly; but Sir Richard Cromwell overthrew that day at the barriers Master Culpepper in the field; and the sixth day the challengers brake up their household. In this time of their housekeeping they had not only feasted the king, queen, ladies, and all the court, as it is afore showed, but also they cheered all the knights and burgesses of the common house in the parliament, and entertained the Mayor of London, with the aldermen and their wives, at a dinner, etc. The king gave to every of the said challengers and their heirs for ever, in reward of their valiant activity, one hundred marks and a house to dwell in, of yearly revenue, out of the lands pertaining to the hospital of St John of Jerusalem, which he had confiscated."

From the merry-makings of "bluff King Hal" we turn to the more sober employment of Durham House. Here, in 1550, were lodged the French ambassador to Edward VI., Mons de Chastillon, and his colleagues, the house being "furnished with hangings of the kings for the nonce." In this year, also, Edward VI. granted Durham House for life, or until she was otherwise advanced, to the Lady Elizabeth, afterwards Queen Elizabeth; but, "in some way, it passed from the Princess to Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and was the principal London house when Edward VI. died." I do not think that it is very difficult to account for the transition. During the short reign of Edward VI., we find it stated in Pennant that "the mint was established in this house, under the management of Sir William Sharrington, and the influence of the aspiring Thomas Seymour, lord admiral. Here he proposed to have money enough coined to accomplish his designs on the throne. His practices were detected, and he suffered death. His tool was also condemned; but, sacrificing his master to his own safety, received a pardon, and was again employed under the administration of John Dudley, Earl of Northumberland."

This, I must confess, is a trifle vague. Sir William Sharington, or Sherington—Pennant's Sharrington—vice-treasurer of the mint at Bristol, assisted in the plots of Thomas Seymour, baron Seymour of Sudeley, and was arrested and attainted, but subsequently pardoned. He was sheriff of Wiltshire in 1552, and he died in 1553. Seymour was found guilty of treason and executed in 1549, the second year of King Edward VI. Is it not possible that the Duke of Northumberland received Durham House in reward for his discovery there of the illegal mint? Be this as it may, it certainly was the residence of John Dudley in May, 1553—the year of Edward's death. To quote once more from Pennant: the Duke of Northumberland, in the month mentioned, "in this palace, caused to be solemnised, with great magnificence, three marriages—his son, Lord Guildford Dudley, with the amiable Lady Jane Grey; Lord Herbert, heir to the Earl of Pembroke, with Catherine, younger sister of Lady Jane; and Lord Hastings, heir to the Earl of Huntingdon, with his youngest daughter, Lady Catherine Dudley. From hence he dragged the reluctant victim, his daughter-in-law, to the Tower, there to be invested with regal dignity. In eight short months his ambition led the sweet innocent to the nuptial bed, the throne, and the scaffold." It is, indeed, sad to think of the marriage rejoicings of Durham House turned so speedily and so sadly into the sojourn in the dreaded Tower and the execution of the bride-queen of seventeen summers.

On the accession of Mary, Durham House was restored to Bishop Tunstall, but Queen Elizabeth acquired it in 1559, the year of Tunstall's death. "The queen," said Bishop Goodman (1583-1656), in his Court of James I., "did not spare Cuthbert Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, though some will not stick to say that he was her god-father; which, if he were not, it is most certain that he was then present and did officiate at her christening. But I think he was her god-father, because I am certain he gave her Durham House in the Strand to dwell in, which she kept during her life, and did not restore it to his successors, but suffered Sir Walter Raleigh to live there. I remember when the Bishop of Durham in the queen's time came up to Parliament, he was fain to hire my schoolmaster's house" (Camden's) "in Westminster to lodge in." It is a pity that we cannot agree with Goodman on this point, but, at the time of Elizabeth's christening, 1533, Tunstall was faithful to the Catholic dogma. It is also to be noted that Shakespeare makes the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, pronounce the blessing on the infant Elizabeth in King Henry VIII.

DURHAM HOUSE. SALISBURY HOUSE. WORCESTER HOUSE.

From Queen Elizabeth we obtain a picture of two of the most distinguished of the literary occupants of Durham House—Philip Sidney and Walter Raleigh. In March, 1567-1568, Sir Henry Sidney writes from it to Archbishop Parker for permission to eat meat in Lent for "my boy Philip Sidney, who is somewhat subject to sickness." The future soldier, statesman, and poet was then but a child of thirteen, and his presence there is one of the treasured memories of Durham House.

Sir Walter Raleigh was given the use of Durham House in 1583, and he held it until his fall from favour in 1603. A picturesque glimpse of him is afforded by Aubrey, the antiquary, who, although he was not born until eight years after Raleigh's death, knew the Durham House of that period. It was "a noble palace," he says. "After he" (Raleigh) "came to his greatness, he lived there, or in some apartment of it. I well remember his study, which was on a little turret that looked into and over the Thames, and had the prospect which is as pleasant perhaps as any in the world."[8] Many a time and oft did the young favourite of the queen set out from Durham House, by water, for the court of Elizabeth, and it is not inconceivable that Elizabeth, in her royal barge, should have journeyed on more than one occasion from her palace at Westminster to Raleigh's residence on the Thames. For, during his early years here, Raleigh was in high favour. Then there came the influence of the new favourite, Essex, Raleigh's intrigue with Elizabeth Throgmorton, the queen's jealousy, and his commitment to the Tower. He then settled at Sherbonne, and in 1595, 1596, and 1597, he was abroad on various expeditions. But he appears to have retained possession of Durham House until the end of Elizabeth's reign—1603. In that year Tobias Mathew, the then Bishop of Durham, set forth the claim of his see to the place, and Raleigh, in a letter of remonstrance, states that he had been in possession of the house for about twenty years, and that he had expended some two thousand pounds upon it, out of his own purse. But James I. and the Council, on May 25 of that year, recognised the right of the see of Durham, and restored the house to the successors of Bishop Hatfield.

Raleigh's letter, directed "to the Right Honorabell my verie good Lords, the Lorde Keeper of the Great Seale and my Lorde Chiefe Justice of Ingland, and to my verie good friende, His Majesties Atturney Generall," is as follows:—"I received a warrant from your lordships, my Lorde Keeper and my Lorde Chiefe Justice, and signed also by Mr Atturney Generall, requiringe me to deliver the possession of Deram House to the Byshoppe of Deram or to his Atturney before the xxiiiith day of June next insuing, and that the stabells and gardens should be presentlie putt into his hands.... This letter seemeth to me verie strange, seeinge I have had the possession of the house almost xx yeares, and have bestowed well neare 2000 L. uppon the same out of myne owne purse. I am of opinion that if the King's Majestye had recovered this house, or the like, from the meanest gentleman and sarvannt hee had in Inglande, that His Majestye would have geven six monenths tyme for the avoydance, and I doo not know but the poorest artificer in London hath a quarter's warninge geven him by his landlord. I have made provision for 40 persons in the springe ... and now to cast out my hay and oates into the streates att an hour's warninge, and to remove my famyly and staff in 14 dayes after, is such a seveare expulsion as hath not bynn offered to any man before this daye."

It is more than likely that Raleigh wrote several of his poems in Durham House. His Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of the Azores (1591), and his Discovery of the Empire of Guiana (1596), were published during his tenure of Durham House. Raleigh was Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and, as such, many cases were brought before him here, the most celebrated of them being that of Glanville v. Courtney, which was heard at divers stages in 1591 and subsequent years, Thomas Egerton (afterwards Baron Ellesmere), and Viscount Brackley, lord chancellor, being counsel on one occasion. In 1600, when Raleigh was away in Jersey, where he had been appointed governor, some of the out-buildings of Durham House were destroyed by fire, and this was the beginning of the end of the magnificence which had for so long attended this palace on Thames-side.

Oldys, in his Life of Raleigh, has described the "stalwart, sour-faced" statesman during his residence at Durham House, as attired in a suit of clothes surmounted by jewels to the value of six thousand six hundred gold pieces. The well-known story of Raleigh's first pipe applies—if there is any truth in the legend—to the time when he resided here. In 1586, Drake brought tobacco to England from Virginia. It is said that one day Raleigh's servant, carrying a tankard of spiced ale to Raleigh in his study in the turret, found his master on fire, as he thought, and, dropping the vessel, rushed for assistance, shouting that his master "would be burnt to ashes if they did not run to his assistance." Another version is that the clown dashed the ale over his master's head. Be this as it may, the early use of tobacco is intimately associated with Durham House, for, as is well known, Raleigh smoked as he worked.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] From the builders of the Adelphi, the brothers Adam, who adopted the meaning of the Greek word, [Greek: adelphoi], for their great work. Prior to this, however, Robert and James Adam had signed their architectural drawings "Adelphi."

[3] London Past and Present, vol. i., p. 540.

[4] Thomas Fuller, Church History, B. III., cent. xiii., p. 20.

[5] Nicolas, Chronicle of London, p. 94.

[6] The Town, ed. 1859, p. 177.

[7] Fox, ed. 1597, p. 1689.

[8] Aubrey, vol. iii., p. 513.

[CHAPTER II]

The New Exchange—The Earl of Salisbury proprietor—Opened by James I.—Popular Allusions—The First Edition of Othello published Here—Samuel Pepys a Frequent Visitor—Henry Herringman—Otway—Etherege—Wycherley—Dryden—Addison—Durham House in Decay—Acquired by the Earl of Pembroke—Various Public Offices in Durham Yard—Charles II. helps to extinguish a Fire Here—Archbishop Le Tellier—Godfrey Kneller—David Garrick, wine merchant—Dr Johnson—Voltaire—Murder in the New Exchange.

Leaving for a moment Sir Walter Raleigh in his vain endeavour to uphold his claim to Durham House, let us glance at the Strand portion of the establishment. It teems with romance and literary interest. The stabling, which looked upon the Strand, had fallen into decay, and, early in the reign of James I., it was converted by Robert, Lord Salisbury, into the New Exchange. Its frontage extended from the present George Court to Durham House Street. The foundation stone was laid on June 10, 1608, and, in the following July, as we find from the State Papers, "The New Burse proceeds apace."

The allusion in the State Papers was due to a letter which the Lord Mayor had written, on June 30, to the Lord Treasurer, enclosing a petition from the shopkeepers of the Royal Exchange "concerning a building in course of erection at Durham House in the Strand," which they considered was meant to be employed as "a Pawne or Exchange for the sale of things usually uttered in the Royal Exchange, and which, being situated near to Whitehall and in the highway, would be injurious not only to the shopkeepers and citizens at large," but would tend to the destruction of trade. Another authority says: "The new Bourse at Durham House goes up apace, where the Citizens, and especially the Exchange men, begin to grumble ... and thereupon have made a petition to the Lord Mayor to provide ne quid detrimenti republica capiet."[9] Scant notice, if any, was taken of this petition from the City, and the building of Britain's Burse proceeded without hindrance. The Exchange consisted of four separate places: the Outward Walk below Stairs; the Inner Walk below Stairs; the Outward Walk above Stairs; and the Inner Walk above Stairs. Its opening, on April 11, 1609, was graced by the presence of James I. and his queen, "when," according to Anthony Munday, the poet and playwright and literary executor of Stow, whose Survey he produced in 1618, "it pleased his most excellent Majesty, because the work wanted a name, to entitle it Britain's Burse."

Stow also says: "Now to speak somewhat of later time concerning this Durham House, it was well knowne and observed, for how many yeers I know not, that the outward part belonging thereto, and standing North from the houses, was but a low row of Stables, old, ruinous, ready to fall, and very unsightly, in so public a passage to the Court at Westminster. Upon which consideration, or some more especial respect in the mind of the right honourable Robert, Earl of Salisbury, Lord High Treasurer of England: it pleased him to take such order in the matter, that (at his owne cost and charges), that deformed row of Stabling was quite altered, by the erection of a very goodly and beautiful building instead thereof, and in the very same place. Some shape of the modelling, though not in all respects alike, was after the fashion of the Royall Exchange in London, with Sellers underneath, a walk fairly paved above it, and Rowes of Shops above, as also one beneath answerable in manner to the other and intended for the like trades and mysteries.

"The work was not long in the taking down, nor in the erection againe: for the first stone was laid on the 10. day of June, 1608, and also was fully finished in the next ensuing November after. Also, on Tuesday, being the 10. day of April following, divers of the upper shops were adorned in rich and beautiful manner, with wares most curious to please the eye; so ordered against his Majesties comming thither, to give a name to so good a building. On the day following, it pleased his highnesse, with the Queene, prince, the Duke of Yorke, and the Lady Elizabeth to come thither, attended on by many great Lords and choise Ladies. Concerning their entertainment there, though I was no eye-witnesse thereof, yet I know the ingenuity and mind of the Nobleman to be such, as nothing should want to welcome so great an expectation. And therefore, what variety of devices, pleasing speeches, rich gifts and presents as then flew bountifully abroad, I will rather referre to your imagination, than any way come short of, by an imperfect narration. Only this I adde, that it then pleased his most excellent Majestie, because the worke wanted a name before, to entitle it Britaines Bursse, or Busse."[10]

A most interesting description of the Royal visit, on the occasion of the opening of the Exchange, was given by Marc' Antonio Correr, the Venetian Ambassador in England, in a letter of May 6, 1609, to the Doge and Senate of Venice. The original document is preserved in the Venetian archives, and the following is a translation: "Hard by the Court, the Earl of Salisbury has built two great galleries, decorated, especially outside, with much carving and sculpture. Inside each of these galleries, on either hand, are rows of shops for the sale of all kinds of goods. These will bring in an immense revenue. Last month, he took the King, the Queen, and the Princes to see them. He has fitted up one of the shops very beautifully, and over it ran the motto: 'All other places give for money, here all is given for love.' To the King he gave a Cabinet, to the Queen a silver plaque of the Annunciation, worth, they say, four thousand crowns. To the Prince, he gave a horse's trappings of great value, nor was there any one of the Suite who did not receive at the very least a gold ring."

THE NEW EXCHANGE, STRAND.

The Exchange is thus described by Strype: "In the place where certain old stables stood belonging to this house is the New Exchange, being furnished with shops on both sides the walls, both below and above stairs, for milleners, sempstresses, and other trades, that furnish dresses; and is a place of great resort and trade for the nobility and gentry, and such as have occasion for such commodities."[11]

The connection of the Earl of Salisbury with the New Exchange, and, incidentally, with the Durham House property, is somewhat curious. As already observed, there had been a fire in part of the buildings, in 1600, and, as Salisbury House was adjacent, the neighbouring ruins must have been an unpleasant prospect for the "crook-backed" and thrifty earl. So he bought the Strand part of the ground from Sir Tobie Matthew (1577-1655), who had secured from his father, Bishop Matthew, "an interest in certain outlying portions of Durham House and its purlieus, which was valuable enough to be purchased by Robert Cecil, in the year following the Bishop's translation to York, for the sum of 1200 L." This was in 1607, and, in 1609, he obtained a lease of the courtyard of Durham House, the rest of the property remaining in the possession of the see of Durham until 1630. Cecil, who had been created Earl of Salisbury by James I. in 1605, was in high favour with the King at this period, so that he was able to reply to the petition of the citizens against his building of the Exchange "that Westminster being the place where he was born and of his abode, he sees not but that he may seek to benefit and beautify it" (J. Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton). At the same time, he seems to have behaved fairly enough in another matter, for on September 25, 1609, the then Bishop of Durham, William James, wrote to Thomas Wilson, Lord Salisbury's steward, thanking the Earl for causing stables to be built for him at Durham House, and requesting the delivery of the key to his servant "in order that hay and straw may be provided there, against his coming up to Parliament."

The New Exchange was never a great rival of the old—the Royal—Exchange, and, in 1623, only fourteen years after its opening, there were rumours that it was to be converted into dwelling-houses. "Lady Hatton," it was stated, "is said to have bought Britain's Burse for £6000, and means to make the upper part her dwelling-house; the lower part lets for £320 a year." The rumour was wrong, however, for the place, although it fell into disrepute, existed until nearly the middle of the seventeenth century—until, as a matter of fact, 1737. Its most flourishing period was during the Restoration, when London had doubled in population as compared with the reign of James I., and Covent Garden was the fashionable quarter. There is hardly a dramatist of Charles II.'s time whose works do not contain some reference to it, while one of the playwrights, Thomas Duffet, had been a milliner in this very place before he took to burlesquing Dryden, D'Avenant, and the contemporary writers. The Grand Duke Cosmo gives an accurate picture of the place as it was in Charles II.'s time: "We went to see the New Exchange, which is not far from the place of the Common Garden, in the great street called the Strand. The building has a façade of stone, built after the Gothic style, which has lost its colour from age and become blackish. It contains two long and double galleries, one above the other, in which are distributed, in several rows, great numbers of very rich shops of drapers and mercers filled with goods of every kind, and with manufactures of the most beautiful description. These are for the most part under the care of well-dressed women, who are busily employed in work, although many are served by young men called apprentices."[12]

The stage has a great claim upon the history of the Adelphi, not only by reason of Garrick's residence here, but because the first edition of Othello was published within its precincts. This was in 1622, six years after Shakespeare's death, and a year before the issue of the first folio. The title-page of this quarto is as follows:

The
Tragœdy of Othello,
the Moore of Venice.
As it hath beene diverse times acted at the
Globe, and at the Black Friers, by
His Maiesties Servants
Written by William Shakespeare
London,
Printed by N.O. for Thomas Walkley, and are
to be sold at his shop at the Eagle and Child,
in Brittans Bursse.
1622.

A player and publisher of plays, Will Cademan, lived at the Pope's Head, in the Lower Walk. Samuel Pepys was a visitor to the New Exchange on several occasions. On June 22, 1668, the diarist went to the King's playhouse and saw "an act or two" of Dryden's comedy, An Evening's Love, or the Mock Astrologer, but "liked it not. Calling this day at Herringman's, he tells me Dryden do himself call it but a fifth-rate play." Henry Herringman, who was the principal publisher in London before Jacob Tonson, had his shop "At the Sign of the Blue Anchor" in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange. Here, in 1679, was published Horace's Art of Poetry, "made English" by the Right Hon. the Earl of Roscommon. Otway, in the character of Mrs Furnish, in The Atheist, or the Soldier's Fortune, first acted in 1682, gives a good idea of the cries in the Upper Walk of the New Exchange: "Gloves or ribands, sir? Very good gloves or ribands. Choice of fine essences." The Strand houses near the Exchange were let to "country gentlewomen newly come to town, who loved to lodge in the very centre of fashion." Pert, in Sir George Etherege's comedy, The Man of Mode (1676), says: "That place is never without a nest of 'em. They are always, as one goes by, glaring in balconies or staring out of windows." In another play by the same author, She Would if She Could (1668), and The Country Wife (1675) of Wycherley, scenes are laid in the New Exchange. Dryden, who was well acquainted with the place, makes Mrs Brainsick escape from her husband by pretending to call at her tailor's here "to try her stays for a new gown."

Such a place, in such an age, was bound to deteriorate. In Addison's day, the gallants of the town spent much of their time in lounging about the stalls and indulging in ribald talk. "I have long letters," he says in the Spectator, "both from the Royal and New Exchange on the" subject of the indecent licenses taken in discourse. "They tell me that a young Fop cannot buy a Pair of Gloves, but he is at the same time straining for some Ingenious Ribaldry to say to the young Woman who helps them on. It is no small Addition to the Calamity, that the Rogues buy as hard as the plainest and modestest Customers they have; besides which, they loll upon their Counters half an Hour longer than they need, to drive away other Customers, who are to share their Impertinencies with the Milliner, or go to another Shop."[13]

The rules for the conduct of the New Exchange are very curious. Under the heading of Orders for ye Burse, and dated November, 1609, they are printed in the State Papers.[14] They are as follows:—"Imprimis no shop to be lett within ye said new building to any art, trade, science, or mistery, other than these following or such as shal bee noe annoyance to ye rest of ye shopkeepers ther, and allowed by writting under ye hand of the right hon^ble the Erle of Salisbury lord Treasurer of England, that is to say, Haberdashers of hatts, Haberdashers of smale wares, stockinsellers, Linen-drapers, Seamsters, Goldsmiths or Juellers but not to worke with hammer, such as sell china wares, Milliners, Perfumers, Si(l)ck-mercers, Tyremakers or Hoodmakers stationers Booksellers Confectioners, such as sell picktures, mapps or prints, Girdelers &c.

"Item no shopkeeper to open shop on Christenmas day the Purification of the blessed virgin Easter hollidaies Whitson-hollidaies The nativity of S^t Jo. Baptist the feast day of All saints nor upon any sabboth day throughe out ye whole yeare.

"Item from ye 25 day of March till ye 29 of September the dores & windowes to bee opened by 6 in ye morning & to bee shut by 8 att night: & from ye 29 of September till ye 25 of March, ye dores to bee open by seven in ye morning and shutt by seaven att night. These houres to bee duly kept except it bee upon some speciall occasion agreed on by the shopkeepers, or ye greater part of them.

"Item my lord to mentione one sufficient man of honest & good report to bee housekeeper to make cleane & sweepe the house as often as shal be needfull & to watch or keepe some to watch in ye nights & to see to the opening and shutting of ye dores, every shopkeeper in ye house allowing him 2^s by ye yeare.

"Item all ye dores saving one to bee made fast on ye Inner syde & that one to have 3 locks and 3 keyes whereof the howskeeper to have one & the other 2 to bee kept by 2 of the Tenants quarterly & they to see ye shutting in of ye house themselves or in theyr absence to appoint some other.

"These 2 men to be chosen by ye shopkeepers & they to collect ye forfeitures herafter imposed and mentioned.

"Item a bell to bee kept & maintained within the said new building by the said Erle & the same to bee rong by the howskeeper att xj of ye clock before dinner and half an howre before ye shopkeepers are to shutt up their shops att night & att ye ringing thereof in ye evening every one to sweepe forth his shop & then ye houskeeper to sweepe & make cleane ye whole house, upon payne of every one that shall make default to forfait 4^d for every default which shal be imployed to ye use of ye pore, where and when ye Tenants of ye house shall think fitt.

"THE BUILDINGS, CALLED THE ADELPHI," 1777.

"Item a paire of stocks or some other publique punishment for such as shal be taken pilfering or stealing to be mayntained by the said Erle.

"Item no man to forstall his neighbour eyther by hanging forth any thing or setting forth in his stalle upon payne of forfeiture of 5^s for every default to bee levyd to ye use aforesaid.

"Item no man to call any man that is buying or selling from an other mans stall, or to pull or hale any man as he cometh by to buy or sell as hee is going along by his stall upon payne to forfait for every offence 15^d which shal be likewise levyd & employed to ye use of ye poore.

"Item if any strife or contention shal hapen betwixt any of the Tenants ye same to bee referred to 4 or 6 of ye rest to bee ended & both parties to stand to their award, hee that refuseth to pay for a forfeiture 40^s which shal be likewise employed to ye use afforesaid.

"Item no signe that shal be hanged out to hang furder out into ye walk then another.

"Item wheras many Maisters are not resident there, by means wherof there is great disorder by servants & apprentizes viz. hunting of doggs with greate noise & howling, playing att foyles & cudgles stricking ye balle (which breaketh ye windowes) buffitting & fighting one with another, to ye greate reproache of ye place & hinderance of traders there, bee it therfore by consent of my lord & every one of us confirmed that if herafter any servant or apprentize in any of the ranges wher shopps bee do comitt any such disorders that then the M^r of such person or personnes so offending shall uppon complaint made by ye 2 houskeepers for the tyme being in some private roome in the Burse appointed for the said purpose correct or beate their said servantes, in ye presence of ye said 2 houskeepers, or ells to pay presently for every offender 12 to the use afforesaide.

"Item if any shopkeepers eyther Maisters of (or?) M^rs do braule scould or rayle on one an other with reproachfull words or speeches, to the ill example of their servants, amazment of passengers & to the greate disgrace of themselves & thier nieghbors than then both & so many personnes so offending shall pay for every defalt 2^s 6^d ells to have their theyr (sic) signe taken downe by the 2 howskeepers for one weeke that such scould or scoulds may not be noted nor the Burse disgraced.

"Item that if any do throw or powre out into the walk or range or outt att any of the windowes any noysome thing &c. that then that person so offending shall pay for every default xij^d if it bee a servant then to have correction as afforesaid or theyr M^r or M^rs to pay 6^d for theyr default.

"Item that all and every shopkeeper shall subscrib to these orders that for the good of the house they may be performed without partiallity, and that some course may bee to force the breakers of them to pay theyr fynes wee humbly entreate may be taken.

"Item if any sell or offer to sell any ware in the howse except it bee to a shopkeeper the same party so offending to bee sett in the stockes for 2 howres and to have his wares taken from him to bee kept for a tyme to ye discretion of ye house or to be delivered to ye party offending as they shall thinke good.

"Item my lord to find lights for the stairs and walkes his Executors and assignes.

"Item whosever of the Tenants shall keepe ye key of ye dores if the key bee not there ready by 6 a clock in ye morning they shall forfeit for every default viij^d to bee employed to ye use afforesaid.

"Those things which ye keeper of ye Burse must have care of appointed by my lord att the errection thereof.

"To suffer none to fetch watter by ye staires or walks or carry coals or other carying by ye watter gate to any of ye neghbours in ye streete but only for the shopkeepers howses save M^r Wilsons.

"To be obeydient to M^r Wilson's command in all things concerning ye said buisines."

Returning to Durham House, we recall that, on the death of Queen Elizabeth, the property was restored to the see of Durham and that Lord Salisbury had become possessed of the Strand portion. The history shortly after this period is not particularly clear, for, although on February 16, 1612, we find that the aforesaid William James, Bishop of Durham, wrote to Lord Salisbury thanking him for his "honourable dealings in the purchase of Durham House," on the other hand, John Howson, who was Bishop of Durham from 1628 to the year of his death, 1632, was residing here two years prior to his decease. The "honourable dealings," of course, related to that part of the grounds and stabling of Durham House which had been transferred to Lord Salisbury in 1607 and 1609. Durham House itself fell into decay in the middle of the seventeenth century. It—or a portion of it—was inhabited by Lord-Keeper Coventry, who died here in 1640.

Part of the ground was acquired by Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, in consideration of his payment to the see of Durham of £200 per annum, the grant being confirmed by Act of Parliament in 1640. And, according to Strype, "It was by his son built into tenements or houses, as now they are standing, being a handsome street descending down out of the Strand." This was Durham Yard, which ran down to the river, and is now covered by the buildings on the west side of the Adelphi. In 1667-1668, the office of Commissioners for Accounts was in Durham Yard, and we get an interesting word-picture of it from the pages of Samuel Pepys. On January 31, "Up," he recorded, "by coach, with W. Griffin with me, and our Contract-books, to Durham Yard, to the Commissioners for Accounts; the first time I ever was there; and staid awhile before I was admitted to them. I did observe a great many people attending about complaints of seamen concerning tickets, and among others Mr Carcasse, and Mr Martin, my purser. And I observe a fellow, one Collins, is there, who is employed by these Commissioners particularly to hold an office in Bishopsgate Street, or somewhere thereabouts, to receive complaints of all people about tickets; and I believe he will have work enough. Presently I was called in, where I found the whole number of Commissioners, and was there received with great respect and kindness; and did give them great satisfaction, making it my endeavour to inform them what it was they were to expect from me, and what was the duty of other people; this being my only way to preserve myself, after all my pains and trouble. They did ask many questions, and demanded other books of me, which I did give them very ready and acceptable answers to; and, upon the whole, I do observe they do go about their business like men resolved to go through with it, and in a very good method, like men of understanding. They have Mr Jessop, their secretary; and it is pretty to see that they are fain to find out an old-fashioned man of Cromwell's to do their business for them, as well as the Parliament to pitch upon such for the most part in the lowest of people that were brought into the House for Commissioners. I went away giving and receiving great satisfaction." Various other public offices were in Durham Yard at this period. In 1664, the Coal Meter's Office was here, and, in 1675, His Majesty's Office for granting wine licenses.

On April 26, 1669, Pepys records: "A great fire happened in Durham Yard last night, burning the house of one Lady Hungerford, who was to come to town to it this night; and so the house is burned, new furnished, by carelessness of the girl sent to take off a candle from a bunch of candles, which she did by burning it off, and left the rest, as it is supposed, on fire. The King and Court were here, it seems, and stopped the fire by blowing up the next house." The Merry Monarch, having stopped the fire in Durham Yard, was up betimes next morning and off to Newmarket.

Several other side-lights on the subject are furnished by Pepys. Thus, on February 1, 1663-1664, he notes that, "I hear how two men last night, justling for the wall about the New Exchange, did kill one another, each thrusting the other through; one of them of the King's Chapel, one Cave, and the other a retayner of my Lord Generall Middleton's." In the year of the Great Fire, 1666, he is "up by five o'clock" on September 7, "and, blessed be God! find all well; and by water to Pane's Wharfe. Walked thence, and saw all the towne burned, and a miserable sight of Paul's church, with all the roofs fallen, and the body of the quire fallen into St Fayth's; Paul's school also, Ludgate, and Fleet Street. My father's house, and the church, and a good part of the Temple the like. So to Creed's lodging, near the New Exchange, and there find him laid down upon a bed; the house all unfurnished, there being fears of the fire's coming to them. There borrowed a shirt of him, and washed. To Sir W. Coventry, at St James's, who lay without curtains, having removed all his goods; as the King at White Hall, and everybody had done, and was doing." Three months later, the "very good newes is just come of our four ships from Smyrna, come safe without convoy even into the Downes, without seeing any enemy; which is the best, and, indeed, only considerable good news to our Exchange since the burning of the City; and it is strange to see how it do cheer up men's hearts. Here I saw shops now come to be in this Exchange; and met little Batelier who sits here but at 3 L. per annum, whereas he sat at the other at 100 L.; which he says he believes will prove as good account to him now as the other did at that rent."

Dean Crofts of Norwich and various others of some standing were living in Durham Yard in 1675, and in that year some waterworks, which are not to be confused with those of the York Buildings company, were established by Sir Robert Vyner and others. In 1677, Durham Yard had gone to ruin, and was notorious as a place of ill repute. In April of that year Le Tellier, Archbishop and Duke of Rheims, crossed the Channel in order to "treat about a marriage with the Lady Mary, daughter of the Duke of York, with the Dauphin." In some ribald verses by the libellous Anthony Wood (or, as he dubbed himself, Anthony à Wood, 1632-1695) we read that:

"The Bishop who from France came slowly o'er
Did go to Betty Beaulie's"—

this Betty being a person of notorious character who lived in Durham Yard. Dryden, in his 1667 comedy, Sir Martin Marrall, makes Lady Dupe refer to Durham Yard as the customary landing-place for Covent Garden. And The Tatler of June 7, 1709, alludes to "a certain lady who left her coach at the New Exchange door in the Strand, and whipt down Durham Yard into a boat with a young gentleman for Fox Hall."

THE SOCIETY OF ARTS, JOHN STREET, ADELPHI.

Durham Yard was the first residence in London (1675) of Godfrey Kneller. David Garrick and Samuel Johnson are closely connected with the place. It was here that the volatile Garrick, at the age of twenty-three, was in partnership with his brother, Peter, as a wine-merchant. I do not think that he lived here, but, certainly, the brothers had their wine vaults in Durham Yard. But the union did not last long. "Peter was calm, sedate, and methodical; David was gay, volatile, and impetuous, and, perhaps, not so confined to regularity as his partner could have wished." Therefore, as Garrick's biographer, Thomas Davies, puts it, "to prevent the continuance of fruitless and daily altercation," friends intervened, and the partnership was dissolved amicably. Another most interesting memory of Durham Yard is associated with Garrick's friend, Samuel Johnson, who, at the time of the wine partnership, was living (March, 1741) "at the Black Boy over against Durham Yard"—this is not to be confused with Johnson's "garret," which was in Exeter Street, Strand. Samuel Foote, in his ill-natured way, used to say that he remembered "Davy" in Durham Yard "with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself a wine merchant." Thanks to wine, we have another notable association with Durham Yard. Here was a wine merchant named Brisden, whose shop was frequented by Voltaire. On his return to France, Voltaire wrote to "Dear John," wishing him "good health and a quick sale to your Burgundy." He knew this neighbourhood well, for, during his abode in England, 1726-1729, he constantly visited his friend Congreve, the dramatist, in Surrey Street, Strand. Voltaire lodged in Maiden Lane, a few yards from the Adelphi, over a French barber's shop, which was distinguished by the sign of the White Peruke. He was thoroughly familiar with English, and, on one occasion, a mob of roughs assailed him and twitted him for being—his appearance left no doubt as to his nationality—a "Frenchy." Voltaire nimbly "mounted an adjacent doorstep and addressed the crowd in good English, extolling the liberty of England and the people. His speech was a success. The mob took on at once, and cheered him; eventually they mounted him on the shoulders of a couple of stout fellows and carried him in triumph to his lodgings. Never after that was he molested in his walks."[15]

Leigh Hunt, in The Town, describing Voltaire's visit to England, says that he wrote to Swift from Maiden Lane, in English, but that the language "seems a little too perfect." There is a second letter to Swift "which looks more authentic. But there is no doubt that Voltaire, while in England, made himself such a master of the language as to be able to write in it with a singular correctness for a foreigner. He was then young. He had been imprisoned in the Bastille for a libel, came over here on his release; procured many subscriptions for the Henriade; published in English an essay on epic poetry, and remained some years, during which he became acquainted with the principal men of letters—Pope, Congreve, and Young. He is said to have talked so indecently at Pope's table (probably no more than was thought decent by the belles in France) that the good old lady, the poet's mother, was obliged to retire. Objecting, at Lord Chesterfield's table, to the allegories of Milton, Young is said to have accosted him in the well-known couplet:

'Thou art so witty, profligate, and thin,
Thou seem'st a Milton, with his Death and Sin.'

But this story has been doubted. Young, though not so thin, was as witty and profligate in his way as Voltaire; for, even when affecting a hermit-like sense of religion, he was a servile flatterer and preferment-hunter. The secret of the gloomy tone in his Night-Thoughts was his not having too much, and his missing a bishopric. This is the reason why the Night-Thoughts are overdone, and have not stood their ground. Voltaire left England with such a mass of subscriptions for his Henriade as laid the foundation of his fortunes, and with great admiration of English talent and genius, particularly that of Newton and Locke, which, with all his insinuations against our poetry, he took warm pains to extend and never gave up. He was fond to the last of showing he had not forgotten his English. Somebody telling him that Johnson had spoken well of his talents, he said, in English, 'He is a clever fellow'; but the gentleman observing that the doctor did not think well of his religion, he added, 'A superstitious dog.'"

An affair which had a tragic ending occurred in the New Exchange in 1653. The circumstances are fully related in the State Papers. In the winter of that year there came to England an ambassador from the King of Portugal, with a very splendid equipage; and in his retinue his brother, Don Pantaleon de Sa, a Knight of Malta, and "a gentleman of a haughty and imperious nature." One day in November, Don Pantaleon was walking with two friends in the Exchange, when a quarrel arose between them and a young English gentleman, named Gerard, who accused the Portuguese of speaking in French disparagingly of England. One of the Portuguese gave Mr Gerard the lie, and then began to jostle him; swords were drawn, and all three fell upon Gerard, and one of them stabbed him with his dagger in the shoulder. A few unarmed Englishmen interfered, separated the combatants, and got the Portuguese out of the Exchange, one of them with a cut upon his cheek.

On the next evening, Don Pantaleon came to take his revenge, accompanied by fifty followers; "two Knights of Malta led on by a Portuguese Captain in buff; all having generally double arms, swords and pistols, and coats of mail; two or three coaches brought ammunition, hand-grenades, and bottles, and little barrels of powder and bullets; and boats were provided ready at the water-side. They had resolved to fall upon every Englishman they should find in or about the Exchange. They entered all with drawn swords; the people fled for shelter into the shops; there were few Englishmen present, but of these four were severely wounded by the Portuguese." A Mr Greenaway, of Lincoln's Inn, was walking with his sister and a lady whom he was to have married. These he placed for safety in a shop; he then went to see what was the matter, when the Portuguese, mistaking Greenaway for Gerard, gave the word, and he was killed by a pistol shot through the head. The crowd grew enraged, and Don Pantaleon and the Portuguese retreated to the house of embassy, caused the gates to be shut, and put all the servants in arms to defend it. Meanwhile the Horse Guard on duty had apprehended some of the Portuguese, and Cromwell sent Colonel Whaley in command, who pursued others to the ambassador's house with his horse, and there demanded that the rest should be given up. The Ambassador insisted upon his privilege, and that by the law of nations his house was a sanctuary for all his countrymen; but finding the officer resolute, and that he was not strong enough for the encounter, desired time to send to the Lord General Cromwell, which was granted, and he complained of the injury, and desired an audience. Cromwell sent a messenger in reply, to state that a gentleman had been murdered, and several other persons wounded, and that if the criminals were not given up, the soldiers would be withdrawn, and "the people would pull down the house, and execute justice themselves." Under this threat, Don Pantaleon, three of his retainers, and an English boy, the Don's servant, were given up; they were confined in the guard-house for the night, and next day sent prisoners to Newgate, whence, in about three weeks, the Don made his escape, but was retaken.

By the intercession of the Portuguese merchants, the trial was delayed till the 6th of July in the following year, when the prisoners were arraigned for the crime of murder. Don Pantaleon at first refused to plead, as he held a commission to act as Ambassador in the event of his brother's death or absence from England. He was then threatened with "the press," that horrible form of torture, pressing to death, or peine forte et dure, whereupon he pleaded not guilty.[16] A jury of English and foreigners brought in a verdict of guilty, and the five prisoners were sentenced to be hanged. Every effort was made to save Don Pantaleon's life; but Cromwell's reply was: "Blood has been shed, and justice must be satisfied." The only mercy shown was a respite of two days, and a reprieve from the disgraceful death of hanging; the Ambassador having craved permission to kill his brother with his own sword, rather than he should be hanged.

A remarkable coincidence concluded this strange story. While Don Pantaleon lay in Newgate, awaiting his trial, Gerard, with whom the quarrel in the Exchange had arisen, got entangled in a plot to assassinate Cromwell, was tried and condemned to be hanged, which, as in the Don's case, was changed to beheading. Both suffered on the same day, on Tower Hill. Don Pantaleon, attended by a number of his brother's suite, was conveyed in a mourning-coach with six horses, from Newgate to Tower Hill, to the same scaffold whereon Gerard had just suffered. The Don, after his devotions, gave his confessor his beads and crucifix, laid his head on the block, and it was chopped off at two blows. On the same day, the English boy-servant was hanged at Tyburn. The three retainers were pardoned. Pennant says that Gerard died "with intrepid dignity; the Portuguese with all the pusillanimity of an assassin." Cromwell's stern and haughty justice, and the perfect retribution exacted on this occasion, have been much extolled. His decision tended to render his Government still more respected abroad; and it settled a knotty point as to "the inviolability of ambassadors."[17]

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Court and Times of James I., Birch, vol. i., p. 75.

[10] Stow, ed. 1633, pp. 494-5.

[11] Strype, B. VI., p. 75.

[12] Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo, vol. iii., p. 296.

[13] The Spectator, No. 155.

[14] Domestic, James I., vol. xlix., p. 5.

[15] Callow, Old London Taverns, p. 281.

[16] "The press" was administered to prisoners who refused to plead in answer to a charge. The sentence was as follows: "That you be taken back to the prison whence you came, to a low dungeon, into which no light can enter; that you be laid on your back on the bare floor with a cloth round your loins, but elsewhere naked; that there be set upon your body a weight of iron as great as you can bear—and greater; that you have no substance, save on the first day three morsels of the coarsest bread, on the second day three draughts of stagnant water from the pool nearest to the prison door, on the third day again three morsels of bread as before, and such bread and such water alternately from day to day until you die." This barbarous law remained in force until 1772.

[17] The Romance of London, Timbs, vol. i., pp. 105-8.

[CHAPTER III]

The Romantic Story of the White Milliner, otherwise the Beautiful Frances Jennings, Duchess of Tyrconnel—Her Youthful Escapade—Her Connection with the New Exchange the subject of a Play by Douglas Jerrold—Its Failure and the Author's Disappointment—"Nan" Clarges, afterwards Duchess of Albemarle, sells Wash-balls in the New Exchange—Her Burial in Westminster Abbey—Sir William Read, the Quack, cures "Wry Necks" in Durham Yard—Demolition of the New Exchange—A Noted Book-shop—Ambassadors reside Here.

The romantic story of the White Widow, or the White Milliner, otherwise Frances Jennings, Duchess of Tyrconnel, wife of Richard Talbot, Lord Deputy of Ireland in the reign of James II., plays a large part in the history of the Adelphi. In the Revolution of 1688 the duchess sold small articles of haberdashery for a few days in the New Exchange. According to Horace Walpole, "She wore a white dress wrapping her whole person, and a white mask, which she never removed, and excited much interest and curiosity." Her case becoming known, "she was provided for." The association of Richard Talbot's widow with the Adelphi is very curious. This lady, Frances Jennings, was sister to the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough. By her first husband, George, Count Hamilton, a member of the Abercorn family, and a maréchal de camp in the French service, she had three daughters: Elizabeth, afterwards the wife of Viscount Ross; Frances, wife of Viscount Dillon; and Mary, wife of Viscount Kingsland. On the death of Count Hamilton, she married Colonel Richard Talbot, Baron of Talbot's Town, Viscount of Baltinglass, and Earl of Tyrconnel. On March 20, 1688, James II. created him Marquess and Duke of Tyrconnel. On his death, in 1691, his widow was left with two daughters, one of whom became Princess of Vintimiglia.[18] Walpole states that the duchess, on her arrival in England in 1688, was reduced to absolute want, and, being unable to procure safe access to her family, she adopted the disguise of the White Milliner as a temporary means of livelihood. Be this as it may, the duchess must have had money in her widowhood, for shortly after the death of her husband, and despite the penal laws against the Roman Catholics, she established a convent for Poor Clares in King Street, Dublin, and in this city, at the ripe old age of ninety-two, she died, according to Horace Walpole, "in consequence of falling out of bed upon the floor on a winter's night. Being too feeble to rise or call for aid, she was found in the morning so numbed by the cold that she lived only a few hours." She was buried in St Patrick's Cathedral on March 9, 1730. Walpole describes her as "Of very low stature, extremely thin, and without the least trace of in her features of ever having been a beauty."

Whatever she may have been in her old age, she was pretty and graceful in her youth when at the court of Charles II. Count de Grammont states that she was proof against all the wiles of the Merry Monarch, yet her spirits were such that on one occasion she attired herself as an orange-wench in order to have her fortune told in the neighbourhood of St James's.

While the beauty and unusual propriety of the new-comer were still attracting the attention of the Court, the giddy girl was indiscreet enough to embark in a wild frolic, which very nearly had the effect of ruining her hitherto stainless reputation. The adventure in question, which has been chronicled by more than one contemporary writer, is thus recorded by Pepys: "What mad freaks," he says, "the Mayds of Honour at Court have! That Mrs Jennings, one of the Dutchesse's maids, the other day dressed herself like an orange wench, and went up and down and cried oranges; till, falling down, or by some accident, her fine shoes were discovered, and she put to a great deal of shame." The particulars of the adventure are so interesting that they may be related in these pages.

"Lord Rochester, at this time in disgrace at Court, happened to be consoling himself for the King's displeasure by performing, in an obscure corner of the city, the character of a German empiric and fortune-teller. The success of his celebrated frolic is well known. His fame, which at first had been merely local, had gradually spread itself abroad till at last it reached the ears of the Court. Rochester was of course equally as well acquainted with the scandal of the day as with the persons and characters of those who figured in the licentious Court of his royal master. Accordingly, having recognised one or two of the female attendants of the maids of honour, who had eagerly flocked to consult him, he sent them back so amazed by his superhuman powers as to excite the curiosity of their mistresses. The result fully answered Rochester's expectations. Under the protection of the then fashionable mask, there was more than one giddy maid of honour who made up her mind to dive into the secrets of futurity by means of the German mountebank. Who, indeed, could gravely blame them, when even the Queen herself had set the example of risking her reputation, by indulging in similar masquerading frolics?

"Among those whose curiosity was thus excited were Miss Jennings and Miss Price, the latter, a young lady of indifferent reputation, who had formerly been a maid of honour to the Duchess of York. Miss Jennings, young and indiscreet, believing that as long as she preserved her virtue it mattered little how she obtained amusement, easily enlisted her friend in her mad schemes. Accordingly, having provided themselves with the dresses of orange-girls (a garb usually worn by the least reputable members of society), they issued from St James's Palace, and, crossing the park on foot, entered a hackney-coach at Whitehall.

"They had nearly reached the theatre, where they knew the Duchess to be in person, when Miss Price had the imprudence to propose their joining the real orange-girls and selling their fruit in the face of the Court. As they entered the theatre, they encountered 'the handsome Sydney,' who was just alighting from his carriage. Miss Price offered him her basket; but the dandy, either lost in the contemplation of his own charms, or of those of his mistress, the Duchess of York, took no notice of the masqueraders. Their next adventure was with Killegrew, to whom Miss Jennings timidly held out her basket, while the other, in the cant language of the place, requested him to buy 'her fine oranges.' The challenge was met by the libertine in the kind of manner that might have been expected. He even gave proof of his admiration of Miss Jennings by so rude an homage as to bring the blush to her cheek and the fire to her eye. Leaving Killegrew to enjoy a hearty laugh at the preposterous notion of the existence of a virtuous orange-girl, Miss Price hastily dragged away her friend, whom terror and indignation had rendered nearly powerless.

"Their fright, however, was insufficient to prevent their pursuing the original frolic of the evening. Having entered another hackney-coach, they were on the point of alighting within a few doors of the fortune-teller's, when, to their consternation, they encountered a far more dangerous person than Killegrew. This was no other than the immoral and licentious Brouncker, who, having been dining with a merchant in the neighbourhood, was on his way homewards, when the novelty of seeing two orange-girls in a hackney-coach attracted his attention. Perceiving themselves to be objects of curiosity to so dangerous a libertine, they desired their coachman to drive on, and to put them down in another part of the street. Brouncker, however, stealthily followed them; nor was his astonishment diminished, when he perceived that the shoes and stockings, that covered the pretty feet and ankles which alighted from the vehicle, were of a quality strangely at variance with the rest of the costume. Having contrived to obtain a glimpse of their faces, which they vainly endeavoured to conceal from him, he at once recognised the beautiful maid of honour, on whose motives for disguise he naturally put the worst possible construction. Believing that an assignation on the part of the chaste Miss Jennings was at the bottom of the frolic, and delighted with the tale of scandal with which he had it in his power to amuse the Court, he continued to tease the frightened girls for a short time, without betraying that he had recognised them, and then laughingly wished them good-night.

"Unfortunately the disagreeable adventures of the night were not yet at an end. During the time that the two maids of honour had been enduring the impertinences and libertine proposals of Brouncker, a crowd of blackguard boys, not contented with collecting round their coach, had made a violent attack on their orange baskets. The coachman had taken the part of his fare; and, in consequence of his gallantly resisting the attempts of the depredators, a fight had ensued and the street was in an uproar. The fruit, of course, was only too gladly relinquished to the mob, from whom, notwithstanding, the presumed orange-girls received a volley of abuse and ridicule. Finally, though with some difficulty, they contrived to re-enter their coach, and at last arrived, completely frightened and dispirited, at St James's."[20]

GARRICK'S HOUSE, 5 ADELPHI TERRACE.

It was to the Duchess of Tyrconnel, as she then was, that James II. had to relate the melancholy story of his defeat at the battle of the Boyne: "Soon after sunset, James, escorted by two hundred cavalry, rode into the Castle [Dublin]. At the threshold he was met by the wife of Tyrconnel, once the gay and beautiful Fanny Jennings, the loveliest coquette in the brilliant Whitehall of the Restoration. To her the vanquished King had to relate the ruin of her fortunes and of his own."[21] Jesse regards the connection of the Duchess of Tyrconnel with the New Exchange as "apocryphal." But we have the authority of Walpole and Pennant for the anecdote, and I see no reason to doubt its accuracy.

The romance of the White Milliner of the Adelphi afforded Douglas Jerrold material for a two-act comedy, which Madame Vestris produced at Covent Garden on February 9, 1841. The author of Black-eyed Susan was apparently suffering from some slight at the hands of the critics, for he takes them to task soundly in his Preface to The White Milliner, as his play was called. Having related the incident which gave rise to the piece, he goes on to say: "In our day, the dramatist who keeps aloof from a small faction—which almost avowedly adopts for its motto the dogma of Molière,—

'Nul n'aura de l'esprit,
Hors nous et nos amis,'—

may look for the most unrelenting opposition from two or three stalwart critics, or, rather, literary vassals. Fortunately, however, the despicable partisanship of these people is now too well known to be hurtful. Whether they chronicle their injustice in bold falsehood, or with an affectation of candour, examine a drama to find in it nothing but what is contemptible, the disinterested motive is equally manifest. However, the abuse of these folks, like certain poisons long exposed to light, does not destroy—it only nauseates."

The cast of The White Milliner was remarkably strong. It contained, in addition to Madame Vestris, who played the heroine, Albina, Charles Mathews, James Vining, Robert Keeley, and William Farren. The opening scene is the "Exterior of England's Burse." The last scene of the first act is laid in the interior of the New Exchange. A crowd of milliners, with Doddles, the Beadle of the Burse, in the centre, fill the stage:

"Doddles. Silence! Silence!

Betty. Hear the Beadle!

1st Milliner. Attention for Doddles!

2nd Milliner. Does it concern us all?

Doddles. All: maids, wives, widows, and young women. Silence!

Betty. Now, then; we're still as mice.

Doddles. Yes—when the cat's dead. Silence! and no winking.

Betty. La! Make haste.

Doddles. Manners, Betty Furbelow, manners! When I was in the army——

Betty. We've heard all about that.

Doddles. Before sleeping in wet blankets, I gloriously lost my voice in the defence of my country——

Betty. I'm sure your country ought to be much obliged to you. But the rules! the rules!

Milliners. The rules!

Doddles. Silence! Attention! Rear rank, take close order. Stand off! Baggages, do you call smothering a man taking close order? Hear the rules!

Milliners. Silence! the rules!

Doddles. 'Rules for the better regulation of England's Burse. Whereas'——

Betty. Oh, skip that!

Doddles. Skip it!

Betty. Yes. I hate everything with a whereas. Come to the rules.

Doddles. Well, the 'whereas' is long, and—the fortune of war—I've lost my voice. But it means that these new rules are not only for the morals of the Burse, but, above all, for the better transaction of business.

Betty. Now for it! Attention, ladies, this is business.

Doddles (reads). 'Rule the first. Any milliner who shall deal in smuggled goods shall forfeit her stall for ever.'

Milliners. Shame! Shame!

Betty. Are the articles specified? No! Ladies, here's oppression of the fair sex: for mayn't the most innocent of us smuggle a little, and never know it? And then to forfeit, and for ever!

Doddles. Not only eternally, but for ever. 'Rule second. No milliner shall talk'——

Milliners. Ha! ha! ha!

Doddles. 'Or laugh'——

Milliners. Ha! ha! ha!

Doddles. 'Talk or laugh, under pain of—of'——

Betty. Opening her mouth.

Doddles. Silence! Talk or laugh, under—under—my breath!—'under'—somebody read it—somebody—(Albina comes down the Burse.)

Betty. Here comes our white friend, she'll read it. Here—(giving Albina paper)—read—read: they're new rules made to keep us in order. To put down smuggling and—ha! ha!—talking and laughing, and—ha! ha!—for all I know, all our other little privileges. Read, for Doddles, having lost his voice, they made him beadle. Here: read rule third, for the second's nonsense.

Albina (reads). 'Rule third. No milliner shall be allowed to whisper to her customers, or titter, or blush.'

Betty. That's a hit at you, Sally Sly.

1st Milliner. What do you mean, ma'am? I whisper—I titter—I blush! I scorn you, ma'am!

Doddles. Silence!

Albina (reads). 'And whereas, divers sober people, purchasers of gloves, have complained of certain pinching of the fingers by certain persons, it is ordered that such unseemly practice be discontinued.'

Betty. And very proper too. I don't sell gloves.

Albina. 'Rule fourth. All strong waters, or other intoxicating cordials'——

Betty. Attention, ladies! This may be important.

Albina. 'Are rigorously prohibited.'

Betty. You see, Miss Bitters, I warned you what 'twould come to.

2nd Milliner. I! I! I defy you, ma'am! What do you mean?

Betty. My meaning's plain, ma'am: that everybody's to suffer for one person, ma'am.

2nd Milliner. Do you insinuate? Mr Doddles, does she dare——

Betty. I insinuate nothing; but this I will say: bottles are not so dear that people should use tea-cups.

Doddles. Silence! A very proper rule: not that I see any harm in folks having comforts, but then they ought to be corked. Silence!

Albina. Rule fifth. 'Henceforth no milliner shall presume to—to—to'——

Doddles (reads). 'Wear a mask.'

2nd Milliner. A very excellent and moral regulation Now we shall see who's who.

1st Milliner. If some people never wore anything else, their faces wouldn't be the losers.

Betty. A mask, ma'am, may be good at a pinch—at a pinch, ma'am; but as I've said, ma'am, I don't sell gloves, ma'am.

1st Milliner. Why, you scandalising, wicked——

Doddles. Silence! Silence!

3rd Milliner. Company! Company! To your stalls, ladies. (All the Milliners station themselves at their stalls. Albina retires among them.)

Visitors come down the Burse from c. Enter Lord and Lady Ortolan, she masked.

Lord O. My dear Lady Ortolan, you know I have the worst taste. I am a very Vandal—a Hottentot. I know no more about gowns and petticoats than an ancient Briton.

Lady O. Oh, my lord, I will not have you libel your capacity; for, certainly, no one has studied the subject with greater perseverance. I must have your judgment on a satin.

Lord O. (aside). She has dragged me here. I had as lieve made a journey on a hurdle. One comfort is, I don't see my enigma in white.

Lady O. (aside). She is not here: yet I'll not stir till I confront them.

Doddles (bringing down Albina). Here 'tis; rule fifth: no masks. So you must conform: therefore, uncover your face and——

Lady O. She's here!

Lord O. Confusion!

Doddles. Rule the fifth, which forbids masks, and—and——

Lady O. Nay, poor girl, I'll answer for't she has good reason for her mystery. Eh, my liege lord? a modest, excellent, worthy maid, no doubt?

Lord O. (aside). When women do praise women, what kind creatures!

Albina (aside). Surely there stands my tormentor. Her liege lord! So, so, now for my revenge.

Lady O. Come, we would see your merchandise. His lordship has forced me here to buy a dress.

Albina. And his lordship is such a judge of satin.

Lady O. Indeed?

Albina. Oh, yes, and so good to his mother.

Lord O. (aside). Would I were hanged, now, in a skein of silk!

Albina. Twenty gowns for his honoured parent.

Lord O. Nay, the girl mistakes me for some other customer. She—she——

Lady O. This insult, my lord, passes endurance. (Unmasking herself) Tell me, woman——

Albina (aside). Heavens! Olivia! You, you his wife!

Lady O. You see Lady Ortolan.

Albina. Happy chance; I have much, indeed, to tell you—much to reveal.

Lord O. (aside). Was ever poor married rogue in such a plight?"

Visitors come down the Burse from c. Enter Lord and Lady Ortolan, she masked.

In commenting on the failure of The White Milliner, Jerrold's son, Blanchard Jerrold, wrote that the "author was bitterly disappointed that its pointed and tender dialogue, and its brisk action, failed to achieve success; more,—as may be gathered from his own words,—that personal enmity, carried dishonestly into public criticism, sought to put it aside as a thing in all respects worthless." It was not long, however, before Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures gave Jerrold a foremost place as a wit and removed him far beyond the petty spite which had helped towards the failure of The White Milliner.

Another personage of greater note, although of lower birth, than the Duchess of Tyrconnel, connected with the history of the New Exchange, is "Nan" Clarges, subsequently Duchess of Albemarle. This remarkable woman was the daughter of John Clarges, a blacksmith and farrier, who lived in Drury Lane, at the Strand end, a spot now obliterated. Her mother was one of five women-barbers of notorious disrepute. A contemporary ballad has the refrain:

"Did you ever hear the like,
Or ever hear the fame,
Of five women barbers
Who lived in Drury Lane?"

In the Lives and Adventures of Whitney, John Cottington alias Mul-Sack, and Thomas Waters (1753), there is a reference to these women: "They were five noted amazons in Drury Lane, who were called women-shavers, and whose actions were then talked of much about town; till being apprehended for a riot, and one or two of them severely punished, the rest fled to Barbadoes." Such an origin was not very promising; but Anne Clarges, when she was married to General Monk, upheld her position despite her personal disadvantages, for she was ill-favoured in appearance and by no means cleanly in her habits.

Anne Clarges was married, in 1632, to one Thomas Ratford, son to a farrier who resided in the Royal Mews at Bloomsbury. She had a daughter, who was born in 1634, and died four years later. She had been instructed in the trade of a milliner, and this led to her taking up her abode, after her marriage, at the Three Spanish Gipsies, in the New Exchange. Here she sold wash-balls, powder, gloves, and similar articles, and gave lessons to girls in plain needlework. In 1647, being then sempstress to Colonel Monk, she was in the habit of carrying his linen to him. This was the beginning of her intimacy with the famous soldier. Her parents died in 1648, and, in the following year, she quarrelled with her husband, who apparently left her. At any rate, from that date nothing more was heard of him. When Monk was a prisoner in the Tower—1644-1646—Anne Ratford became his mistress, and had a child of which he was the father—hence, no doubt, the reason of her separation from her husband.

ADAM STREET, ADELPHI.

In an action for trespass, tried in the Court of King's Bench, on November 15, 1700, William Sherwin being the plaintiff and Sir William Clarges, Bart., being the chief defendant, it was proved that Anne Clarges, or Ratford, was, in 1652, married in the Church of St George, Southwark, to General George Monk, and further, that in the course of the following year she was delivered of a son (afterwards the second Duke of Ablemarle), who was suckled by one Honour Mills, a vendor of apples, herbs, and oysters. The point of issue was the right and title to the manor of Sutton in Yorkshire, and other lands—the plaintiff claiming them as heir-at-law and representative to Thomas Monk, elder brother to the first duke of Albemarle, and the defendant as devisee under the will of Christopher, the second duke. The only material point to be decided was, whether Ratford was actually deceased at the period of the marriage of his supposed widow with Monk. On the side of the plaintiff it was sworn by one witness that he had seen Ratford alive about the month of July, 1660, as many as eight years after the second marriage. Another witness affirmed that he had seen him as late as the year 1665, and a second time after the Duke and Duchess of Albemarle were both dead; and thirdly, a woman swore that she had seen him on the very day that his wife (then called Duchess of Albemarle) was placed in her coffin. On the part of the defendant, and in opposition to this evidence, were alleged the material facts that during the lives of the Duke of Albemarle and his son the matter had never been questioned, and, moreover, that the defendant had already thrice obtained verdicts in his favour in the Court of King's Bench. Some other presumptive evidence was adduced, but of less weight. In summing up, the Lord Chief-Justice told the Jury: "If you are certain that Duke Christopher was born while Thomas Ratford was living, you must find for the plaintiff. If you believe he was born after Ratford was dead, or that nothing appears what became of him after Duke George married his wife, you must find for the defendant." The verdict was in favour of the latter.[22]

According to contemporary evidence, the Duchess of Albemarle was a low, foul-mouthed creature, of exceedingly coarse habits. "Monk," says Lord Clarendon in his History, "was cursed, after a long familiarity, to marry a woman of the lowest extraction, the least wit, and less beauty. She was a woman nihil muliebris præter corpus gerens," one who had nothing feminine but her form. In the opinion of Bishop Burnet, she was a "ravenous, mean, and contemptible creature, who thought of nothing but getting and spending." Pepys could not endure her. On March 8, 1661, he met her in "high company," and put her down as "even a plain, homely dowdy." On December 9, 1665, Pepys and "my Lord Brouncker" dined with the Duke of Albemarle. "At table the duchess, a very ill-looked woman, complaining of her lord's going to sea the next year, said these cursed words: 'If my Lord had been a coward he had gone to sea no more: it may be then he might have been excused, and made an embassador' (meaning my Lord Sandwich). This made me mad, and I believed she perceived my countenance change, and blushed herself very much. I was in hopes others had not minded it, but my Lord Brouncker, after we were come away, took notice of the words to me with displeasure." In the following year, on November 4, he alludes to the duke as "a drunken sot," who "drinks with nobody but Troutbecke, whom nobody else will keep company with. Of whom he told me this story; that once the Duke of Albemarle in his drink, taking notice as of a wonder that Nan Hide should ever come to be Duchess of York: 'Nay,' says Troutbecke, 'ne'er wonder at that; for if you will give me another bottle of wine, I will tell you as great, if not greater, a miracle.' And what was that, but that our dirty Besse (meaning his duchesse) should come to be Duchesse of Albemarle?" Monk, it was said, was more in fear of his wife than of an army, and it was reported that she did not hesitate to thrash him at times, but the latter statement is probably an exaggeration. There is no doubt about her loyalty to the Royalist cause; she exerted great influence over Monk, and urged him immensely in his efforts in bringing about the Restoration. In his Curiosities of Literature, D'Israeli cites a passage from a manuscript of Sir Thomas Browne which throws a strange light on Monk's conduct in regard to the Restoration and the part played in it by the blacksmith's daughter: "Monk gave fair promises to the Rump; but at last agreed with the French ambassador to take the government on himself; by whom he had promise from Mazarin of assistance from France. This bargain was struck late at night; but not so secretly but that Monk's wife, who had posted herself conveniently behind the hangings, finding what was resolved upon, sent her brother Clarges away immediately with notice of it to Sir A. She had promised to watch her husband, and inform Sir A. how matters stood. Sir A. caused the Council of State, whereof he was a member, to be summoned, and charged Monk that he was playing false. The General insisted that he was true to his principles, and firm to what he had promised, and that he was ready to give them all satisfaction. Sir A. told him if he were sincere he would remove all scruples, and would instantly take away their commissions from such and such men in the army, and appoint others, and that before he left the room. Monk consented: a great part of the commissions of his officers were changed; and Sir Edward Harley, a member of the Council, and then present, was made Governor of Dunkirk, in the room of Sir William Lockhart: the army ceased to be at Monk's devotion: the ambassador was recalled, and broke his heart."

Another authority, Dr Price, one of Monk's chaplains, speaking on the same subject, says: "His wife had in some degree prepared him to appear, when the first opportunity should be offered. For her custom was (when the General's and her own work and the day were ended) to come into the dining-room in her treason-gown, as I called it, I telling him that when she had that gown on he should allow her to say anything. And, indeed, her tongue was her own then, and she would not spare it; insomuch that I, who still chose to give my attendance at those hours, have often shut the dining-room doors, and charged the servants to stand without till they were called in." The same writer also relates a remarkable dream, in which the Duchess of Albemarle foresaw the return of royalty to England. "She saw," says Dr Price, "a great crown of gold on the top of a dunghill, which a numerous company of brave men encompassed, but for a great while none would break the ring. At last there came a tall black man up to the dunghill, took up the crown, and put it upon his head. Upon the relating of this, she asked what manner of man the King was. I told her, that when I was an Eton scholar, I saw at Windsor, sometimes, the Prince of Wales, at the head of a company of boys; that himself was a very lovely black boy, and that I heard that, since, he was grown very tall." Fantastic as this dream story may appear, it is "not impossible," says Jesse, "that England owes the restoration of royalty to this and other similarly trifling circumstances connected with the influence which Anne Clarges exercised over the mind of her uxorious lord. Nothing, indeed, appears more natural, than that an ignorant and uneducated woman should have attached an undue degree of importance to an idle dream. The duchess, moreover, is known to have been a zealous adherent of the House of Stuart; and lastly, it is certain that she exerted all her influence to induce him to restore Charles the Second to the throne."

The Duke of Albemarle died on January 3, 1670, in his sixty-second year. His body, after it had lain in state at Somerset House for several weeks, was interred, with great pomp and ceremony, in Westminster Abbey, on the north side of Henry the Seventh's chapel. His wife survived him only a few days, and was buried by his side. Their only surviving son—Christopher, who was born in 1653—succeeded to his father's titles and enormous wealth. He died in Jamaica, where he was Governor, in 1688, without issue.

But to return to the New Exchange. In Gay's Trivia; or the Art of Walking the Streets of London (1716), there is an allusion to it:—

"The sempstress speeds to 'Change with red-tipt nose;
The Belgian stove beneath her footstool glows;
In half-whipt muslin needles useless lie,
And shuttle-cocks across the counter fly."[23]

The place was on its downward path at this time. Quack doctors and other charlatans flourished, and the most degraded of women frequented its walks. If one may judge from contemporary advertisements, "Sir William Read, Her Majesty's oculist in Durham Yard in the Strand," did a large trade in the years 1709 and 1710. Thanks to his "long practice and great experience, he has lately found out a medicine that clarifies the eyes from suffusions and cures cataracts." He also professed to "cure hair lips and wry necks, tho' never so deformed." Lady Read took in hand the female customers. Their establishment was in "New Exchange Row, near Durham Yard." This William Read was originally a tailor. He became an itinerant quack, and, in 1705, was knighted for "curing" blind sailors and soldiers without charge. Thanks to his appointment as oculist to Queen Anne, he acquired a fortune. This empiric died in 1715. By 1737, the New Exchange had become so disreputable that it was taken down, and a number of dwelling-houses and shops—the site of which is indicated by the existing buildings between George Court and Durham House Street—facing the Strand, were erected.

ADELPHI TERRACE IN GARRICK'S TIME.

Before leaving this part of the neighbourhood, it should be observed that at Durham Rents, which was at the back of Durham House, there was a book-shop early in the sixteenth century, as we see by the following announcement:—"The Myrroure of Owre Lady, Fynyshed and Imprynted in the Suburbes of the Famous Citye of London, without Temple Barre, by me Richard Fawkes, dwellynge in Durresme Rents, or else in Powles Church Yard, at the Synge of the A.B.C., 1530." On December 9, 1614, Thomas Wilson, traveller, author, and statesman, granted a lease to James Bovy, Serjeant of the Cellar, of "the Sill House, in the Strand, near Durham House." And, on October 1, 1618, there was recorded an indenture of sale from "Sir Thomas Wilson, of Hertford, now residing in St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, of a dwelling-house, garden, etc., in St Martin's-in-the-Fields, between Durham House, Britain's Burse, York House, and the River, to Wm. Roo, of London, for £374." Wilson, who was knighted in this year, was employed in obtaining admissions, that were sufficient to condemn him, from Sir Walter Raleigh, then a prisoner in the Tower. Twenty-eight days after the date of the indenture of sale of Wilson's property, near Durham House, Raleigh was executed. A year later, Sir Thomas Wilson, in a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, writes from "my house in Duresme Yard," and sends a list of ambassadors and other people residing there. Wilson, who was a man of considerable learning, and a traveller, translated from the Spanish the Diana of George de Montemayor (the Portugese poet and romance writer, 1520-1562), the source to which Shakespeare went for several of the incidents in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. He entered the service of Robert Cecil in 1605. He was the keeper of the records at Whitehall from 1606 to the year of his death, 1629. He is the Wilson referred as "ye keeper of ye burse," quoted in the rules for the New Exchange in the preceding chapter.

The overcrowding of the New Exchange was a source of much annoyance to the inhabitants of Durham Yard, who made formal complaint of their grievances. As a result, an Order in Council, dated May 4, 1638, was made by the Inner Star Chamber, as follows:—"The Lords being made acquainted that, over the New Exchange, called Britain's Burse, there are divers families inhabiting as inmates, and that adjoining the wall of the Court of Durham House, there are sheds employed as eating rooms and for other uses, to the great annoyance of the inhabitants, and danger of infection. It was ordered that the Lord Privy Seal and Lord Newburgh, Chancellor of the Duchy, should call before them the inhabitants of the said places, and take order for their removal, and if they find any of the said persons obstinate should certify their names."

FOOTNOTES:

[18] "Richard, or Dick Talbot, as he was familiarly called, was descended from an ancient family of English extraction, who had early settled in Ireland. He commenced life as a profligate and ended it as a bigot. Clarendon informs us that he was the person selected to assassinate Cromwell, and that he willingly undertook to execute the deed; at another time, we find him cruelly and impudently insisting on his intimacy with Anne Hyde, in order to prevent her union with the Duke of York. In person he was far above the common stature, and was extremely graceful and well-made. He possessed considerable knowledge of the world, and had early been introduced into the best society. To his friends he is said to have been generous and obliging, and it was much to his credit, that at the Revolution no offers could induce him to desert the King's interests. His conduct in Ireland at that period is a matter of history. He strenuously espoused the cause of James; but, as his capacity was inferior to his zeal, and as he had more personal courage than military genius, his services were of little avail. 'From the time of the battle of the Boyne,' says the Duke of Berwick, 'he sunk prodigiously, and became as irresolute in his mind as unwieldy in his person.' He died at Limerick, 5th August, 1691. Andrew Marvell says, in his Advice to a Painter[19]:—

'Next, Talbot must by his great master stand,
Laden with folly, flesh, and ill-got land;
He's of a size indeed to fill a porch,
But ne'er can make a pillar of the church.
His sword is all his argument, not his book;
Although no scholar, he can act the cook,
And will cut throats again, if he be paid;
In the Irish shambles he first learnt the trade.'"

[19] The Court of England under the Stuarts, Jesse, ed. 1855, vol. iii., p. 237.

[20] Jesse, vol. iii., pp. 233-236.

[21] Macaulay's History of England, ed. 1863, vol. v., p. 272.

[22] Jesse, vol. iii., p. 46.

[23] Book II., verse 337.

[CHAPTER IV]

Enter the Brothers Adam—Their Marvellous Transformation of the Ruins of Durham House and Yard into the Present Adelphi—The Magnitude of the Project—Opposition of the City—Defeated by Special Act of Parliament—The Adelphi Buildings only completed by Aid of a Lottery—The Adams explain their Position—Robert Adam: His History—His Death—James Adam—Some Poor Wit, including Walpole's, at the Expense of the Architects.

On a certain night in September, in the year 1768, "the Queen's Head Alehouse, near Durham Yard in the Strand, fell down, but the family being alarmed, happily no lives were lost." To such a neglected state had Durham Yard and its surroundings become when, most opportunely, two Scotch architects, the brothers Adam, arrived on the scene of decay. All that was left of the former grandeur of Durham House consisted of "a number of small low-lying houses, coal-sheds and lay-stalls, washed by the muddy deposits of the Thames." The property was then in the possession of the Duke of St Albans, from whom the brothers Adam obtained a ninety-nine years' lease, dating from Lady-day, 1768. The Duke, it seems, was in a parlous condition when he parted with this property, for the small sum, be it said, of £1200 a year. For, in a public print of January 13, 1770, it is stated that "the Duke of St Albans, who is now confined for debt at Brussels, disposed some time ago of the ground in Durham Yard in which the new square is now building; but, before the money was remitted him, he created so many fresh debts, that it is imagined he will remain there for life."

The architects effected a marvellous change over the district. By allowing the wharves to remain, and throwing a series of arches over the entire declivity, they "connected the river with the Strand by a spacious archway, and over these extensive vaultings erected a series of well-built streets, a noble terrace towards the river, and a house with a convenient suite of rooms for the then recently established Society of Arts." So said Peter Cunningham. Older authorities were even more enthusiastic. That fine architectural draughtsman, Thomas Malton, the younger (1748-1804), who was an eye-witness of the vast change effected, praised the brothers highly, in his Picturesque Tour through London and Westminster, in 1792: "To their researches among the vestiges of antiquity," he says, "we are indebted for many improvements in ornamental architecture, and for a style of decoration unrivalled for elegance and gaiety, which, in spite of innovations of fashion, will prevail as long as good taste prevails in the nation. This judgment of the Messrs Adam, in the management of their plans, and their care in conducting the executive part, deserves great praise; and it must be mentioned to their honour, that no accident happened in the progress of the work, nor has any failure been since observed—an instance of good fortune which few architects have experienced when struggling with similar difficulties. This remark will make a very little impression on the careless observer who rattles along the streets in his carriage, unconscious that below him are the streets, in which carts and drays, and other vehicles of business, are constantly employed in conveying coals, and various kinds of merchandise, from the river to the consumer, or to the warehouses and avenues inaccessible to the light of day; but he who will take the trouble to explore these depths will feel its force; and when he perceives that all the buildings which compose the Adelphi are in front but one building, and that the upper streets are no more than open passages, connecting the different parts of the superstructure, he will acknowledge that the architects are entitled to more than common praise.

"The terrace is happily situated in the heart of the Metropolis, upon a bend of the river, which presents to the right and left every eminent object which characterises and adorns the cities of London and Westminster; while its elevation lifts the eye above the wharfs and warehouses on the opposite side of the river, and charms it with a prospect of the adjacent country. Each of these views is so grand, so rich, and so various, that it is difficult to determine which deserves the preference.

"The manner of decorating the fronts of the shops and houses in Adam Street is equally singular and beautiful. It may be proper here to remark, what some future writer may dwell on with pleasure, that in the streets of the Adelphi the brothers have contrived to preserve their respective Christian names as well as their family name; while by giving the general appellation of The Adelphi to this assemblage of streets and buildings, they have converted the whole into a lasting memorial of their friendship and fraternal co-operation.

"The building of the Adelphi was a project of such magnitude, and attracted so much attention, that it must have been a period of the utmost importance in the lives of the architects. In this work they displayed to the public eye that practical knowledge and skill, and that ingenuity and taste, which till then had been in a great measure confined to private edifices, and known only by the voice of fame to the majority of those who feel an interest in the art of building. The extreme depth of the foundations, the massy piers of brickwork, and the spacious subterraneous vaults and arcades, excited the wonder of the ignorant and the applause of the skilful; while the regularity of the streets in the superstruction, and the elegance and novelty of the decorations, equally astonished and delighted all sorts and conditions of people." The brothers had to contend with many difficulties ere they accomplished their great work. In order to embank the river, it was necessary to obtain a special Act of Parliament (12 Geo. III., c. 34, 1771). But, the Court and the City being then at variance, the authorities of the latter vented their spite by opposing the bill, the Lord Mayor, as conservator of the Thames, claiming the right to the soil of the river on behalf of the citizens. The opposition was very strong, but it was finally defeated, thanks, in large measure, so Walpole states, to the influence of the Crown. Much acrimony was displayed, and the newspaper press contained many arguments, mostly in favour of the project. A curious and interesting letter on the subject appeared in the Morning Advertiser in May 1771:—

"Sir," it said, "I never was more astonished than upon reading in your Paper the Petition of the City of London to His Majesty against his giving the Royal Assent to the Bill for embanking the River Thames at Durham-Yard, that there was not one Word in this dull Performance against the Propriety or Utility of the Embankment. This was the only Ground on which the City had any Title to interfere in this Business by Virtue of their Right of Conservancy: But I find that though this was what they originally let out upon in their Opposition. The Proof turned out so strong against them, and the public Utility of the Embankment, as well as of the Wharfs at that Part of the Town, was so clearly demonstrated both to the Lords and Commons, that the City in this last Stage of their Opposition think proper to pass over this very material Circumstance in Silence, and are drove to rest their Complaints upon two Circumstances totally new and different from what they originally opposed it upon.

THE THAMES, FROM THE WATER WORKS, YORK BUILDINGS, ADELPHI.

"First, They allege that this Bill appears to be destructive of the ancient and valuable Rights and Properties of the City of London, enjoyed without Interruption through a Succession of many Ages; insinuating at the same Time that they are denied an Appeal to that Law which knows no Partialities, but strictly gives to every Man his Due.

"Now, Sir, this Representation, if I were inclined to use as gross and as harsh Epithets as the City of London do, might with very great Truth be termed extremely false; for I myself heard Mr Lee the Council for the City of London, fairly acknowledge at the Bar of the House of Lords that the City knew nothing of their Right to the Soil of the River till within these three Weeks; for this amazing Discovery was fallen upon after this Bill had made a considerable Progress in the House of Commons; and this valuable Property had passed unnoticed by all the Magistrates of the City, as well as their Lawyers since the Age of Henry VII. though now asserted to be enjoyed by them without interruption since that Period: A very bold Assertion indeed after so direct and so satisfactory a Proof of the contrary had been within these few Days laid before the House of Lords: Yet this Assertion is not more extraordinary than the Insinuation mentioned above; for all the World may be convinced how groundless the latter is by having Recourse to the Bill, in which they will find an express Clause, reserving to the City a Liberty to try their Right at Law, and the Value to be ascertained by a Jury: So very tender have Parliament been in paying Attention to their Claim of Right, however frivolous and weak it might appear to them.

"A few Words in the saving Clause is the Foundation of the second weighty Complaint in the City's Petition to the King, it being there asserted that the City insist that the Persons who apply for Liberty to embank ought to make Satisfaction for the same; and this Allegation is stigmatised with the severe Terms of groundless, false and contradictory to the City public Declarations in both Houses of Parliament. Whether the City have not been rash in making these bold Assertions, we leave the candid Public to decide, after reading the following Extracts:—

"Extract from the Report of the New Bridge Committee, to whom the Petition for Leave to embank Durham-Yard, &c., was refer'd; which Report is signed by Sir Robert Ladbroke, and many others of the most respectable Citizens of London, who, reported in Favour thereof, provided that a Clause be obtained, 'subjecting the Ground taken out of the River with the yearly Payment of a Farthing, a Square superficial Foot, redeemable on Payment of twenty years Purchase, and for appropriating the Quit Rent and Purchase Money to the Fund created by Parliament for repairing, lighting, and watching the Bridge.'

"Extract from the Case of the City of London printed by them, and handed about to the Members of the House of Commons. At the second reading of the Embanking Bill, which concludes thus: 'However a Bill is now brought in to embank the River, and to vest in the Owners of the adjoining Houses the Soil to be embanked not only against the Representation of the City of London, the Conservators of the River, but without any Regard to their Claim or Right to the Soil to be embanked, and a Property of immense Value to be taken from the Public without any Consideration': And this was the general Language held by the few Advocates for the City in the House of Commons, until a new Doctrine was broached by Mr Dunning, who discovered that this valuable Property could not be estimated by any Jury at above Five Shillings Value; and to this last Doctrine the Party have since adhered; for Lord Camden, in his Speech to the Lords, declared, that no Jury could value the Soil embanked at one Farthing; and these great Lawyers are entirely right; for by the Usage of the River, the Proprietor of every Wharf has an exclusive Right of Frontage or Water-way to Low-water Mark. Therefore whether the King or the City are the Proprietors of the Soil, neither the one or the other could have embanked to the Exclusion of the Proprietors of the adjoining Wharfs; for in this Event no Wharf upon the River Thames would be of the smallest Value; consequently no Persons whatever could have made any advantage of this Embankment but the Parties to the Bill. If this requires any Confirmation, the Bill obtained by the City for the Embankment at Blackfriars establishes it beyond a Doubt, for that Bill vests the Ground obtained off the River in the Proprietors of the adjoining Wharfs and Houses.

"When this is thoroughly understood, how ridiculous must the City appear, and how much do they degrade themselves, by carrying a Petition to the Throne, after having squandered their Treasure in an Opposition, the Object of which is to acquire a Property not worth one Farthing to them; setting up an ostentatious Parade of an Infringement of that Property which they knew they have no Right to, and if they had ought undoubtedly to be given a public Use, upon having a proper Compensation allowed them for it, which is done every Day in Cases of Roads, Navigations, and other Improvements of public Utility, even where private Individuals are to be the principal Benefactors.

"A great City ought not to act the Part of the Dog in the Manger, but should encourage every Scheme of public Advantage. These formerly have been the Sentiments of the City of London, when that City was under the Guidance of grave, respectable and wise Magistrates, not heated by Party, or misguided by violent or factious Views." The storm raised by the projected building drew from Granville Sharp, the philanthropist, a curious, but extremely dry, pamphlet entitled Remarks Concerning the Encroachments of the River Thames near Durham Yard. It was dated from the Old Jewry, August 10, 1771, but it was too late to be of any service, for the Act allowing the embankment of the river had been passed.

Even then misfortune dogged the footsteps of the courageous brothers, for they became involved in financial difficulties, and eventually had to complete their buildings by raising money by means of a public lottery. Some of these difficulties were alluded to by sympathetic friends in the press. "The Adelphi buildings," one of them hears, "were mortgaged for a loan of £70,000 previous to the late unhappy failures of the banks, and it is said that the Messrs Adam had laid out as much more upon them; so that, in the course of five years, these gentlemen expended £140,000 to raise palaces upon an offensive heap of mud, and circulated an immense sum to make a palpable nuisance a principal ornament to the metropolis." Another defender wrote in a similar strain: "Within a space of time, incredibly short for so magnificent an undertaking, they have raised a pile of elegant buildings, noble, convenient, and splendid, on a spot which was, two or three years since, a mere dunghill, a receptacle for filth, obscenity, and wretchedness, a scandal to a well-governed city and a disgrace to one of the noblest rivers in Europe."

Thanks, perhaps, to the publicity thus afforded them in the public press, the brothers Adam obtained the necessary Act of Parliament (13 Geo. III., cap. 75, 1773) for the disposal of the property by lottery. It was as follows:—"An Act for enabling John, Robert, James and William Adam to dispose of several houses and buildings in the parishes of St Martin-in-the-Fields and St Mary-le-Bow, in the county of Middlesex, and other their effects by way of chance in such manner as may be most for the benefit of themselves and creditors."

There were 4370 tickets at £50, making £218,500. The prizes numbered 108, and were thus arranged:—

The above facts are taken from a rare pamphlet, entitled Particulars composing the Prizes in the Adelphi Lottery, published by the Adams on January 18, 1774, in which it is stated that, "as the Messrs Adam engaged in this undertaking, more from an enthusiasm of their own art than from a view of profit; at the same time being eager to point out a way to public utility, though even at an extraordinary expence; they will be perfectly satisfied if they should only draw, from this lottery, the money laid out by them on a work which, they readily confess, they have found to be too great for their private fortunes.... The Messrs Adam have thought it unnecessary to give so particular a description of the houses in the Adelphi as they have done of the houses in Queen Anne Street and Mansfield Street, as these buildings are so generally known by persons who reside in town; but for the information of those who live in the country, it may be satisfactory to say, that they are remarkably strong and substantial and finished in the most elegant and complete manner, much beyond the common stile of London houses: they have all a double tier of offices, which gives an uncommon convenience for the servants of the family.... The inhabitants of the Adelphi buildings express the greatest satisfaction, not only with regard to their houses, but with their situation, which is remarkably dry, healthy and well-aired.

"The principal houses in the Adelphi possess not only a superior degree of convenience, in water laid in, from the top to the bottom of each house, but the whole buildings have also an additional safety against fire, much beyond any other houses in London. For, besides the use of fire engines, which they have in common with other houses, there is a water tower erected by the Messrs Adam, which communicates with the river Thames; and the pipes are so constructed, that upon a minute's notice, three engines, constantly supplied with water, can be played upon any house in the buildings."

In addition to the house property enumerated, pictures and drawings by Teniers, P. Veronese, and Guercino, together with several statues, were enumerated in the lottery paper, so that it appears that the Adams had been compelled to put nearly everything they possessed into the fund for the building of the Adelphi. Fortunately they were in such favour at Court that they were able to obtain the necessary permission for the lottery, otherwise they would have been ruined financially over the speculation.

On Thursday, March 3, 1774, the drawing up of the lottery began at the great room, formerly Jonathan's Coffee House, in Exchange Alley, when No. 3599 was drawn a blank, but being the first drawn ticket it was entitled to £5000. Nine other prizes were drawn on Friday, and at this rate the drawing continued for some time. The newspapers of the period were full of information and advertisements respecting the lottery; and the art of advertising appears to have been very thoroughly mastered at that time. Tickets were sold in all parts of the town, as well as at the Messrs Adams' office in Robert Street; intending purchasers were told that there was a great demand and that early application was necessary— in fact, that the demand began to be prodigious. Then they were informed that "Messrs Adam propose to keep their office in the Adelphi open till twelve o'clock on Wednesday night next (March 9) for the sale of tickets at £50 each, after which the price of the small quantity remaining in the market must be considerably raised, on account of the consumption of tickets by the wheel." Portions of tickets were sold at the various lottery offices thus—a half cost £25, 5s.; a thirty-second, £1, 13s.; and a sixty-fourth, 17s. Then there are little bits of gossip in the papers, intended to whet the appetite of the public. Thus we are told that No. 3599, the first drawn ticket, entitled to an estate of the value of £5000, was sold by Messrs Richardson and Goodenough not half an hour before the lottery began drawing, and, what is very remarkable, was the only ticket they had left unsold. Soon afterwards, the winner of this ticket disposed of it by auction.

YORK STAIRS AND THE WATER TOWER.

It is to be noted that the prizes were not instantly realizable, for the buildings were to be divided among the prize-holders, and the houses were not yet finished. Those who could not wait for their money sold their prizes by auction, and it may be presumed that in course of time the tickets got into a few hands.[24] The following is the explanation by the Adams of their action:—

"The Messrs Adam having received a letter signed A.B.C., which the writer says is sent to be inserted in the public papers, requiring to know the state of the mortgages on the buildings which constitute the Adelphi lottery, and also what security the public have for their completing the unfinished buildings? In answer to these questions, the Messrs Adam, desirous to satisfy the adventurers in the lottery, and the public in all reasonable demands, think it necessary to inform them that the mortgagees have already been paid one half of their money, but as it is requisite that they should join in assigning the prizes to the fortunate adventurers, they defer paying the other half till such assignments are completed. The Messrs Adam, ever since the obtaining of the Act for their lottery, have proceeded with an amazing rapidity in finishing their houses, in the same substantial manner with those formerly finished and sold in the Adelphi; they are happy to think the whole will be completed, and ready to be assigned, by the time they have ascertained in their scheme and allotment, as no attention and no expense shall be spared for that purpose."

Before proceeding further with the history of the Adelphi, the indomitable brothers themselves call for notice. Robert Adam (1728-1792) was the most noted of the four brothers—John, Robert, James, and William. Their father, William Adam, of Maryburgh, N.B. (died June 24, 1748), was the architect of Hopetoun House, and the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, in which city he held the appointment of King's Mason. Robert, the second son, was born at Kirkcaldy, and educated at Edinburgh University. Here he became on friendly terms with several fellow students who also attained fame, including David Hume, Dr William Robertson (the historian), Adam Smith (the political economist), and Adam Ferguson (the philosopher). In his twenty-sixth year Robert Adam visited Italy in the company of Clérisseau, a French architect, and made a minute study of the ruins of the Emperor Diocletian's palace at Spalatro, in Venetian Dalmatia. The journal of his tour was printed in the Library of the Fine Arts, and, in 1764, he published a folio volume with numerous engravings by Bartolozzi and others, from his drawings of the palace. In this important work he states that his object in selecting this ruin for special examination was its residential character, as the knowledge of classical architecture in England was derived exclusively from the remains of public buildings. During his absence on the Continent, he was elected F.R.S. and F.S.A. Soon after his return, he was appointed architect to George III. This office he was obliged to resign in 1768, when he was elected to Parliament as member for Kinross-shire.

The date of Robert Adam's return to England is generally understood to be 1762, but the architect himself makes mention of some work "done since my return to England in 1758." The mistake has probably arisen from the fact that James Adam did not leave his architectural studies in Italy until the former year. Robert, it is certain, is solely responsible for the screen of the Admiralty buildings in Whitehall, built in 1760. "The Admiralty," says Horace Walpole, "is a most ugly device, and deservedly veiled by Mr Adam's handsome screen." About this time there was a pacific invasion of England by the Scots, art being represented by William Chambers, Allan Ramsay—son of the poet—who, in Walpole's opinion, excelled Reynolds as a painter of women, Robert Strange, and the Adam brothers, Robert and James. Mr Clouston doubts the statement that Clérisseau accompanied Robert Adam to Italy. The young French architect was famous at the time of Adam's visit to the Continent, "and one of his pupils, Sir W. Chambers, was making a name in England. It is not altogether evident, therefore, how, a year later, he should have accompanied Adam to Spalatro in the subordinate position of assistant. Still, if any man had the capability of turning a master into a pupil through sheer force of character and magnetic presence, it must be admitted that that man was Robert Adam. His belief in himself was so colossal as probably to approach conceit. The very fact that, as a young man of twenty-nine, who had already had a most expensive education, he spent a considerable amount of his patrimony in a costly expedition, with the view of publishing a book which could not be expected to pay, is enough to show us something of the character of the man.

"He had made up his mind that he was to take the world by storm, and he proceeded to do so with the most absolute confidence, in spite of disadvantages of which he must have been, at least partially, aware.

"In his day in Scotland, and, indeed, for long after, the speech of even the most educated was as a foreign language to English ears. Anything 'Englishy' in accent was ridiculed. So much was this the case that when, towards the end of the century, certain Scottish advocates, who found their accent a serious drawback when arguing before the House of Lords, employed an 'English master,' the movement was laughed out of existence.

"Adam may have been able to speak fairly fluently in both French and Italian: but if his ordinary mode of speech was, as it must have been, broad Fifeshire with a top-dressing of Midlothian, it could not have constituted the best introduction to London society. Yet from the first he was both a social and a professional success, and his immediate reception, despite his Scotch speech and his new gospel, says more for the immense power and personality of the man than any number of words. Other men, even greater than he, have had both reverses and doubts about themselves. Adam had neither. He was born to succeed, and he knew it. Even his book on the Palace at Spalatro, instead of being an expensive way of bringing him before the public, was a great commercial success."[25]

Thanks to their building of Lansdowne House for the Earl of Bute, and Caen Wood House, Hampstead, for Lord Mansfield, as well as to the fame which they obtained by the Adelphi, Robert and James Adam acquired a great reputation as classical architects, and they enjoyed the patronage of the aristocracy. Amongst the most important of their other works were Luton House in Bedfordshire; Osterley House, near Brentford; Keddlestone, Derbyshire; Compton Verney, Warwickshire; the screen fronting the high road, and extensive internal alterations of Sion or Syon House, Middlesex, the seat of the Duke of Northumberland; the infirmary of Glasgow; the parish church at Mistley, Essex; the Register House, Edinburgh; and the Admiralty screen. The number and importance of their buildings in the metropolis materially influenced and much improved the street architecture of London. They originated the idea of giving to a number of unimportant private edifices the appearance of one imposing structure. Portland, Stratford, and Hamilton Places, and the south and east sides of Fitzroy Square, are instances of the manner in which they carried this principle into effect. "An innovation of more doubtful service," according to the Dictionary of National Biography, "was their use of stucco in facing brick houses. Their right to the exclusive use of a composition patented by Liardet, a Frenchman, was the subject of two law-suits, which they gained."

James Fergusson, in his History of Architecture, places their knowledge of classical art below that of Sir William Chambers. He adds: "Their great merit—if merit it be—is that they stamped their works with a certain amount of originality, which, had it been of a better quality, might have done something to emancipate art from its trammels. The principal characteristic of their style was the introduction of very large windows, generally without dressings. These they frequently attempted to group, three or more together, by a great glazed arch over them, so as to try and make the whole side of a house look like one room." Mr Fergusson thinks the college at Edinburgh the best of their works, and says: "We possess few public buildings presenting so truthful and well-balanced a design as this."

Whatever were the architectural defects of their works, the brothers formed a style, which was marked especially in their interiors by a fine sense of proportion, and a very elegant taste in the selection and disposition of niches, lunettes, reliefs, festoons, and other classical ornaments. It was their custom to design furniture in character with their apartments, and their works of this kind are still greatly prized. Amongst them may be specially mentioned their side-boards with elegant urn-shaped knife-boxes, but they also designed bookcases and brackets, pedestals and cabinets, clock-cases and candelabra, mirror frames and console tables, of singular and original merit, adapting classical forms to modern uses with a success unrivalled by any other designers of furniture in England. They designed, also, carriages and plate, and a sedan chair for Queen Charlotte. Of their decorative work generally it may be said that it was rich but neat, refined but not effeminate, chaste but not severe, and that it will probably have quite as lasting and beneficial effect upon English taste as their architectural structures.

THE SOCIETY OF ARTS DISTRIBUTING ITS AWARDS.

In 1773, the brothers Robert and James commenced the publication of their Works on Architecture, in folio parts, which was continued at intervals till 1778, and reached the end of the second volume. In 1822, the work was completed by the posthumous publication of a third volume, but the three bound up together do not make a thick book.[26]

Robert Adam also obtained some reputation as a landscape painter. As an architect, he was extensively employed to the last. In the year preceding his death he designed no less than eight public works and twenty-five private buildings. He died at his house in Albemarle Street, from the bursting of a blood-vessel in his stomach, on March 3, 1792. Of the social position he attained, and the estimation in which he was held, no greater proof can be afforded than the record of his funeral in Westminster Abbey. His pall-bearers were the Duke of Buccleuch, the Earl of Coventry, the Earl of Lauderdale, Viscount Stormont, Lord Frederick Campbell, and Richard Pulteney (the botanist).

His younger brother, James, died in the same street, on October 20, two years later, from apoplexy. His work was so closely connected with that of Robert as to be practically undistinguishable. It is thought, by many, that he was solely responsible for the design of Portland Place. At one time he was architect to George III., and was master mason to the Board of Ordnance in North Britain. He published Practical Essays on Architecture, and, at the time of his death, he was engaged on a history of architecture. The eldest brother, John, inherited the business of the father, and remained in Scotland. William Adam is said to have died in 1748, in which case he could hardly have "assisted his brother Robert in building the Adelphi" (Dict. of Nat. Biography).

And Walpole, writing to Mason on July 29, 1773, says: "What are the Adelphi Buildings? Warehouses, laced down the seams, like a soldier's frill in a regimental old coat." Yet the author of The Castle of Otranto did not disdain from asking Robert Adam to design a room for him.

Apart from their financial troubles in building the Adelphi, the Adams brothers had to stand much banter. It was said, with what truth I know not, that they obtained their workmen, "with true patriotism," from Scotland, and that the labours of the artisans were stimulated by countless bagpipes; "but the canny men, finding the bagpipes played their tunes rather too quick, threw up the work, and Irishmen were then employed." In the Foundling Hospital for Wit,[27] the nationality of the architects is rudely assailed:—

"Four Scotchmen, by the name of Adams,
Who keep their coaches and their madams,
Quoth John, in sulky mood, to Thomas,
Have stole the very river from us!
O Scotland, long has it been said,
Thy teeth are sharp for English bread;
What! seize our bread and water too,
And use us worse than jailors do:
'Tis true, 'tis hard; 'tis hard, 'tis true.
Ye friends of George, and friends of James,
Envy us not our River Thames;
Thy Princess, fond of raw-boned faces,
May give you all our posts and places;
Take all to gratify your pride,
But dip your oatmeal in the Clyde."

FOOTNOTES:

[24] The Adelphi and Its Site, 1885.

[25] English Furniture and Furniture Matters of the 18th Century. R.S. Clouston, 1906, pp. 84-86.

[26] Dictionary of National Biography, vol. i., p. 88.

[27] Ed. 1784, vol. iv., p. 189.

[CHAPTER V]

The Society of Arts—Its Foundation—Its Removal to the Adelphi in 1774—James Barry and his Famous Paintings—Visited in John Street by Burke and Johnson—The Latter's opinion of his Genius—Description of his Pictures for the Society—The Work of the Society—"Spot" Ward, the Inventor of "Friar's Balsam"—Johnson speaks in the Great Room—Forsaken by his "Flowers of Oratory."

Inseparably connected with the romance of the Adelphi, and very interesting on its own account, is the history of the Society of Arts, with its memories, not only of painters, but of Johnson and other celebrities. The Society owes its origin to William Shipley (1714-1803), a drawing-master of Northampton, and brother of Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St Asaph, the friend of Benjamin Franklin. It was established at a meeting held on March 22, 1754, at Rawthmell's Coffee-house, in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Its first president was Jacob, Lord Viscount Folkestone. Its complete designation is "The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce." Smollett, in his History of England (1757), says, somewhat grandiloquently: "The Society is so numerous, the contributions so considerable, the plan so judiciously laid, and executed with such discretion and spirit as to promise much more effectual and extensive advantage to the public than ever accrued from all the boasted academies of Christendom." The Society had various homes prior to settling in the Adelphi. Its first meetings were held over a circulating library in Crane's Court, Fleet Street. A move was made westward to Craig's Court, Charing Cross, and from there the Society went to the Strand, in rooms opposite the New Exchange, and, in 1759, to apartments in Beaufort Buildings, Savoy.

In 1771, the brothers Adam entered into an agreement with the Society for the erection of "a proper building in the Adelphi for the use of the Society and the accommodation of its officers." The first stone was laid by Lord Romney, on March 28, 1772, and the building was opened in 1774. The Great Room, in which are the six famous pictures painted by James Barry, R.A. (1741-1806), between the years 1777 and 1783, is 44 feet in width, 60 feet in depth, and 48 feet in height. The painting of these celebrated pictures is one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of art. In 1774, the Society of Arts suggested to certain members of the Royal Academy—then newly instituted—that they should paint the interior of the Great Room, and that they should be reimbursed by the public exhibition of the completed works. This proposition was rejected by the academicians, at whose head was Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Barry, as a member, refused the offer. Three years later, however, Barry, having but sixteen shillings in his pocket, applied for permission to execute the work, unaided, and without remuneration. The Society's housekeeper told Benjamin Haydon, the historical painter (1786-1846), that she remembered Barry at work on his frescoes. His violence, she said, was dreadful, his oaths were horrid, and his temper was like insanity. In summer, he started painting at five o'clock, worked until dark, and then etched by lamp-light until eleven at night. Burke and Johnson called once. But no artist dared to brave his wrath. He had his tea boiled in a quart pot, dined on porridge, and drank milk for supper. So poor was the painter that he applied, but in vain, to the Society for a little money, and "an insolent secretary even objected to his charge for colours and models." Subsequently, the Society relented and advanced the artist a hundred pounds. The Society "afterwards indulged him with two exhibitions of his paintings, in 1783 and 1784, which brought him £503, 12s., the Society paying the cost of the exhibitions, which amounted to £174." He was also "rewarded" by the Society with a gold medal. But he had other, and, perhaps, more pleasing recognitions of his talent. That sturdy traveller and philanthropist, Jonas Hanway (1712-1786), came to one of the exhibitions, and the pioneer of the umbrella was so pleased that he insisted upon leaving a guinea instead of the customary shilling. The Prince of Wales gave Barry sittings, and Lord Aldborough declared that the painter had "surpassed Raphael." Lord Romney gave him a hundred guineas for a copy of the heads, and Dr Johnson thought highly of Barry's imaginative powers. "Whatever the hand may have done," he said to Boswell, "the mind has done its part. There is a grasp of mind there which you find nowhere else." Poor, neglected, and half-mad, Barry died at the age of sixty-five. His body lay in state in the Great Room on March 7. He was buried in St Paul's.

Some sixty years ago, said a writer towards the middle of the last century, there might have been seen daily passing in a direction between Oxford Street and the Adelphi, for years together, and through all kinds of weather, one whose appearance told, to even the most casual observer, he looked upon a remarkable man. Referring to himself, in one of his letters to a friend, Barry had once said, "Though the body and the soul of a picture will discover themselves on the slightest glance, yet you know it could not be the same with such a pock-fretted, hard-featured little fellow as I am also"; but neither these personal characteristics, nor the mean garb in which he usually appeared, could conceal the earnestness stamped upon his grave, saturnine countenance, or the air of entire absorption in some mental pursuit, having little in common with the bustle of the everyday business of the world around him. He was a man to make or to keep few friends, and to shun all acquaintances; it was not often, therefore, that, in these passages to and fro, he had any companion; but the event was noticeable when he had, from the striking change in his demeanour. He became full of animation, and of a kind of sparkling cheerfulness; his conversation was at once frank, weighty, and elevating, and even the oaths, with which he made somewhat free, could not spoil the delight of the most fastidious censor of words, whilst borne along on the full and free current of the painter's thoughts. No one but himself at such times would have called his countenance "hard-featured"; its smile was inexpressibly sweet, its look of scorn or anger, when roused, such as few men could have met unmoved. But what was the employment that thus determined for so long a period his daily movements? The answer will require a brief review of his past career. Whilst a young student at Rome, Barry, annoyed by the absurd taunts of foreigners as to the ungenial character of the British soil for the growth of art, was often seduced into answering them in such a manner as suited rather his fiery temper and indomitable will than the cause which he so impatiently espoused. But a better result was his own quiet determination to devote his life to the disproof of the theory. He began admirably, by a strict analysis of his own powers, and by inquiring how they were best to be developed. Here is the result: "If I should chance to have genius, or anything else," he observes, in a letter to a friend, "it is so much the better; but my hopes are grounded upon an unwearied, intense application, of which I am not sparing. At present I have little to show that I value; my work is all underground digging and laying foundations, which, with God's assistance, I may hereafter find the use of. I every day centre more and more upon the art; I give myself totally to it; and except honour and conscience, am determined to renounce everything else." But the writer was without a shilling in the world to call his own; and although he had friends, the best of friends, as they were—one of them at least, Burke, the best of men—he had already received from them the entire means of subsistence while he had been studying so long at Rome, and was determined, therefore, to be no longer a burden to them or to others; but how should he, renouncing all ordinary blandishments of a young painter's career, the "face-painting" and other methods by which genius condescends to become fashionable, or, in other words, to lay down its immortality for the pleasure of being acknowledged immortal—how was he to subsist? It was whilst this question remained, we may suppose, not decisively answered, that the painter thus wrote to another friend:—"O, I could be happy, in my going home, to find some corner where I could sit down in the middle of my studies, books, and casts after the antique, to paint this work and others, where I might have models of nature, when necessary, bread and soup, and a coat to cover me! I should care not what became of my work when it was done; but I reflect with horror upon such a fellow as I am, and with such a kind of art in London, with house-rent to pay, duns to follow me, and employers to look for. Had I studied art in a manner more accommodated to the nation, there would be no dread of this." But from this state of despondency and dissatisfaction he was soon to rise triumphant. Again and again he asked himself how he was to subsist while the great things he meditated should be accomplished, and the answer came: the conclusion was anything but attractive or cheering, but he saw it was the conclusion: no cross, no crown; and he accepted it ungrudgingly. It was not long before he could say, "I have taken great pains to fashion myself to this kind of Quixotism; to this end I have contracted and simplified my cravings and wants, and brought them into a very narrow compass." There are few, we think, of those who may have smiled with pity or contempt at the painter's mean garb, who would not have honoured it while they reverenced him, had they known this. The first apparent opportunity of achieving the object indicated was in connection with the proposed decoration of St Paul's.[28] But this fell through, and it was not until the Society of Arts accepted his offer that he was able to bring himself into line with his own convictions.

THE STRAND ENTRANCE TO DURHAM YARD.

"Let us now ascend the stairs to the first floor, passing through the little ante-room where the alto-relievos of Bacon and Nollekens are mounted high upon the walls, and beneath the portrait of the founder of the Society, which appropriately hangs over the door of the great room, where the painter's works are to be found. The first glance shows us in one way the magnitude of the undertaking; the upper portion of the walls of the whole of the noble room, or hall, as it should rather be called, is covered by the six paintings of which the series consists; as we step from one to another, we perceive that these large spaces have been wrought upon in a large spirit; and a still closer examination opens to our view, pictures of surpassing beauty and grandeur, and scarcely less remarkable as a whole for the successful manner in which they have been executed than for the daring originality of their conception."

Barry's six pictures for the Society of Arts were designed on dignified and important subjects, so connected as to illustrate this great maxim of moral truth: "That the attainment of happiness, individual as well as public, depends on the development, proper cultivation, and perfection of the human faculties, physical and moral, which are as well calculated to lead human nature to its true rank and the glorious designation assigned for it by Providence." To illustrate this doctrine, the first picture exhibits mankind in a savage state, exposed to all the inconvenience and misery of neglected culture; the second represents a Harvest Home, or thanksgiving, to Ceres and Bacchus; the third, the victors at Olympia; the fourth, Navigation, or the Triumph of the Thames; the fifth, the Distribution of Rewards by the Society; and the sixth, Elysium, or the state of final Retribution. Three of these subjects are truly poetical, the others historical. The pictures are all of the same height, viz., eleven feet ten inches; and the first, second, fourth, and fifth are fifteen feet two inches long; the third and sixth, which occupy the whole breadth of the room, at the north and south ends, are each forty-two feet long.

The Thames.—Personified and represented, of a venerable, majestic and gracious aspect, sitting on the waters in a triumphal car, steering himself with one hand, and holding in the other the mariner's compass. The car is borne along by our great navigators, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sebastian Cabot, and the late Captain Cook. In the front of the car, and apparently in the action of meeting it, are four figures, representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, ready to lay their several productions in the lap of the Thames. The supplicating action of the poor negro slave—or, more properly, of enslaved Africa—the cord round his neck, the tear on his cheek, the iron manacles and attached heavy chain on his wrists, with his hands clasped and stretched out for mercy, denote the agonies of his soul, and the feelings of the artist thus expressed, before the abolition of slavery became the subject of public investigation. Overhead is Mercury, the emblem of commerce, summoning the nations all together; and following the car are Nereids carrying several articles of the principal manufactures of Great Britain. In this scene of triumph and joy the artist has introduced music, and, for this reason, placed among the sea-nymphs his friend, Dr Burney. In the distance is a view of the chalky cliffs on the English coast, with ships sailing, highly characteristic of the commerce of this country, which the picture is intended to record. In the end of this picture, next the chimney, there is a naval pillar, mausoleum, observatory, light-house, or all of these, they being all comprehended in the same structure.

In this important object, so ingeniously produced by the sea-gods, we have at last obtained the happy concurrence and union of so many important desiderata in that opportunity of convenient inspection of all the sculptured communications, the want of which had been so deeply regretted by all who had seen the Trajan and Antonine columns, and other celebrated remains of antiquity.

The Society.—This picture represents the distribution of the Rewards of the Society. Not far advanced from the left side of the picture stands the late Lord Romney, then president of the Society, habited in the robes of his dignity: near the president stands His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales; and sitting at the corner of the picture, holding in his hand the instrument of the institution, is Mr William Shipley, "whose public spirit gave rise to this Society." One of the farmers, who are producing specimens of grain to the president, is Arthur Young, Esq. Near him Mr More, the late secretary. On the right hand of the late Lord Romney stands the present Earl of Romney, then V.P., and on the left the late Owen Salusbury Brereton, Esq., V.P.[29] Towards the centre of the picture is seen that distinguished example of female excellence, Mrs Montague, who long honoured the Society with her name and subscription. She appears recommending the ingenuity and industry of a young female, whose work she is producing. Near her are placed the late Duchess of Northumberland; the present Duke of Northumberland, V.P.; the late Joshua Steele, Esq., V.P.; Dr Hurd, Bishop of Worcester; Soame Jennings and James Harris, Esqrs.; and the two duchesses of Rutland and Devonshire. Between these ladies, the late Dr Samuel Johnson seems pointing out the example of Mrs Montague to their Graces' attention and imitation. Further advanced is His Grace the late Duke of Richmond, V.P., and the late Edmund Burke, Esq. Still nearer the right-hand side of the picture is the late Edward Hooper, Esq., V.P., and the late Keane Fitzgerald, Esqrs., V.P.; His Grace the late Duke of Northumberland, V.P.; the Earl of Radnor, V.P., William Lock, Esq., and Dr William Hunter are examining some drawings by a youth, to whom a premium has been adjudged: behind him is another youth, in whose countenance the dejection he feels at being disappointed in his expectation of a reward is finely expressed. Near the right side of the piece are seen the late Lord Viscount Folkestone, first president of this Society; his son, the late Earl Radnor, V.P.; and Dr Stephen Hales, V.P. In the background appear part of the water-front of Somerset House, St Paul's, and other objects in the vicinity and view of this Society, as instituted at London. And as a very large part of the rewards bestowed by the Society have been distributed to promote the polite arts of painting and sculpture, the artist has also most judiciously introduced a picture and statue. The subject of the picture is the Fall of Lucifer, designed by Mr Barry, when the Royal Academy had selected six of the members to paint pictures for St Paul's Cathedral; the statue is that of the Grecian mother dying, and in those moments attentive only to the safety of her child. In the corners of the picture are represented many articles which have been invented or improved by the encouragement of this Society. In the lower corner of this picture, next the chimney, are introduced two large models intended by Mr Barry as improvements of medals and coins.

IVY LANE, STRAND (THE BOUNDARY OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER AND THE CITY OF WESTMINSTER).

Elysium, or the State of Final Retribution.—In this sublime picture, which occupies the whole length of the room, the artist has, with wonderful sagacity, and without any of those anachronisms which tarnish the lustre of other very celebrated performances, brought together those great and good men of all ages and nations, who have acted as the cultivators and benefactors of mankind. This picture is separated from that of the Society distributing its rewards by palm trees; near which, on a pedestal, sits a pelican, feeding its young with its own blood, a happy type of those personages represented in the picture, who had worn themselves out in the service of mankind. Behind the palms, near the top of the picture, are indistinctly seen, as immersed and lost in a great blaze of light, cherubims veiled with their wings, in the act of adoration, and offering incense to that invisible and incomprehensible Power which is above them, and out of the picture, from whence the light and glory proceed and are diffused over the whole piece. By thus introducing the idea of the Divine essence, by effect rather than by form, the absurdity committed by many painters is happily avoided, and the mind of every intelligent spectator is filled with awe and reverence.

The groups of female figures, which appear at a further distance absorbed in glory, are those characters of female excellence, whose social conduct, benevolence, affectionate friendship, and regular discharge of domestic duties, soften the cares of human life, and diffuse happiness around them. In the more advanced part, just bordering on the blaze of light (where the female figures are almost absorbed) is introduced a group of poor native West Indian females, in the act of adoration, preceded by angels, burning incense, and followed by their good bishop, his face partly concealed by that energetic hand which holds his crozier, or pastoral staff—who may, notwithstanding the word Chiapa, inscribed on the front of his mitre, be identified with the glorious friar Bartolomeo de las Casas, bishop of that place. This matter of friendly intercourse, continued beyond life, is pushed still further in the more advanced part of the same group by the male adoring Americans and some Dominican friars, where the very graceful incident occurs of one of these Dominicans directing the attention of an astonished Caribb to some circumstance of beatitude, the enjoyment of which he had promised to his Caribb friend. The group below on the left hand in this picture consists of Roger Bacon, Archimedes, Descartes, and Thales; behind them stand Sir Francis Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, and Sir Isaac Newton, regarding with awe and admiration a solar system, which two angels are unveiling and explaining to them. Near the inferior angel, who is holding the veil, is Columbus, with a chart of his voyage; and close to him Epaminondas, with his shield; Socrates, Cato the younger, the elder Brutus, and Sir Thomas More; a sextumbriate to which, Swift says, all ages have not been able to add a seventh. Behind Marcus Brutus is William Molyneux, holding his book of the case of Ireland; near Columbus is Lord Shaftesbury, John Locke, Zeno, Aristotle, and Plato; and, in the opening between this group and the next, are Sir William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, and the honourable Robert Boyle.

The next group are legislators, where King Alfred the Great is leaning on the shoulder of William Penn, who is showing his tolerant, pacific code of equal laws to Lycurgus. Standing around them are Minos, Trajan, Antoninus, Peter the Great of Russia, Edward the Black Prince, Henry the Fourth of France, and Andrea Doria of Genoa. Here, too, are introduced those patrons of genius, Lorenzo de Medici, Louis the Fourteenth, Alexander the Great, Charles the First, Colbert, Leo the Tenth, Francis the First, the Earl of Arundel, and the illustrious monk Cassiodorus, no less admirable and exemplary as the secretary of state than as the friar in his convent at Viviers, the plan of which he holds in his hand. Just before this group, on the rocks which separate Elysium from the infernal regions, are placed the Angelic Guards; and in the most advanced part an archangel, weighing attentively the virtues and vices of mankind, whose raised hand and expressive countenance denote great concern at the preponderancy of evil. Behind this figure is another angel, explaining to Pascal and Bishop Butler the analogy between Nature and revealed Religion. The figure behind Pascal and Butler, with his arms stretched out, and advancing with so much energy, is that ornament of our latter age, the graceful, the sublime Bossuet, Bishop of Meux. The uniting tendency of the paper he holds in that hand, resting on the shoulder of Origen, would well comport with those pacific views of the amiable Grotius, for healing those discordant evils which are sapping the foundations of Christianity amongst the nations of Europe, where in other respects it would be, and even is, so happily and so well established.

Behind Francis the First and Lord Arundel are Hugo Grotius, Father Paul, and Pope Adrian. Towards the top of the picture, and near the centre, sits Homer; on his right hand, Milton; next him, Shakespeare, Spenser, Chaucer, and Sappho. Behind Sappho sits Alcæus, who is talking with Ossian; near him are Menander, Molière, Congreve, Bruma, Confucius, Mango Capac, etc. etc. Next Homer, on the other side, is Archbishop Fenelon, with Virgil leaning on his shoulder; and near them are Tasso, Ariosto, and Dante. Behind Dante, Petrarca, Laura, Giovanni, and Boccaccio.

In the second range of figures, over Edward the Black Prince and Peter the Great, are Swift, Erasmus, Cervantes; near them Pope, Dryden, Addison, Richardson, Moses Mendelssohn, and Hogarth. Behind Dryden and Pope are Sterne, Gray, Goldsmith, Thomson, and Fielding; and near Richardson, Inigo Jones, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Vandyke. Next Vandyke is Rubens, with his hand on the shoulders of Le Sœur, and behind him is Le Brun: next to these are Julio Romano, Dominichino, and Annibal Caracci, who are in conversation with Phidias; behind whom is Giles Hussey. Nicholas Poussin and the Sicyonian maid are near them, with Callimachus and Pamphilius; near Appelles is Corregio; behind Raphaello stand Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and behind them, Ghiberti, Donatello, Massachio, Brunaleschi, Albert Dürer, Giotto, and Cimabue.

In the top of this part of the picture the painter has happily glanced at what is called by astronomers the System of Systems, where the fixed stars, considered as so many suns, each with his several planets, are revolving round the Great Cause of all things; and representing everything as affected by intelligence, has shown each system carried along in its revolution by an angel. Though only a small portion of this article can be seen, yet enough is shown to manifest the sublimity of the idea.

In the other corner of the picture the artist has represented Tartarus, where, among cataracts of fire and clouds of smoke, two large hands are seen, one of them holding a fire-fork, the other pulling down a number of figures bound together by serpenting War, Gluttony, Extravagance, Detraction, Parsimony, and Ambition: and floating down the fiery gulf are Tyranny, Hypocrisy, and Cruelty, with their proper attributes; the whole of this excellent picture proving, in the most forcible manner, the truth of that maxim which cannot be too often inculcated: "That the attainment of man's true rank in the creation, and his present and future happiness, individual as well as public, depended on the cultivation and proper direction of the human faculties."[30]

In addition to the Barry pictures, there are, in the Council Room, full-length portraits of the first president by Gainsborough, and of the second president of the Society, Lord Romney, by Reynolds, together with a portrait of Barry. Here, also, are portraits of the Prince Consort (who was president from 1843 until his death in 1861), painted by Horsley, and of the late Queen Victoria and the royal children, painted by Cope. One of the first prizes of the Society was adjudged to Richard Cosway, then a boy of twelve, and afterwards so eminent as a portrait painter in oil and miniatures. But this was before the Society had removed to the Adelphi. John Bacon, Joseph Nollekens, and William Woollett, George Romney, John Flexman, J.M.W. Turner, Edwin Landseer, William Mulready, J.E. Millais, and many other distinguished artists were awarded premiums by the Society, which, says Mr Wheatley, "has been active in promoting commercial and technical education by means of examinations. Out of the technological examinations has grown the wide-spreading action of the City and Guilds of London Technical Institute. A large number of the chief questions of the day, such as the amendment of the Patent Laws; the cheapening of letter, book, and parcel postage; the improvement of musical education, etc., have been dealt with by the Society in the form of discussion and by addresses to the Government. Several conferences have also been held on sanitary matters and on water supply.

The ordinary meetings are held on Wednesday evenings at 8 p.m., from November to May, when papers are read and discussed on subjects relating to arts, manufactures and commerce. There are also connected with the Society three sections: 1. Indian; 2. Foreign and Colonial; 3. Applied Art. These hold meetings for the reading and discussion of papers on their respective subjects on other days of the week. Courses of lectures on popular subjects connected with arts and manufactures are delivered on Monday evenings, and are styled Cantor Lectures, by reason that they owe their origin to a bequest of the late Dr Cantor. The Albert Medal, founded in honour of the Prince Consort, is awarded annually to some eminent man who has distinguished himself by promoting arts, manufactures, or commerce. The first award was to Sir Rowland Hill in 1864, and the list of recipients forms a noble roll of great men."[31] Her late Majesty, Queen Victoria, was awarded the Society's medal in her jubilee year, 1887.

The notorious quack doctor Joshua Ward (1685-1761), who was caricatured by Hogarth, allowed the Italian sculptor, Agostino Carlini, £100 a year, so that he should work on his statue for life. The impudent inventor of "Friar's Balsam" left this statue to the Society of Arts. This quack, who was nicknamed "Spot" Ward, from a birth-mark on his cheek, was the son of a London dry-salter. His skill was so extolled by General Churchill and Lord Chief Baron Reynolds, that he was called in to prescribe for George II. Despite his "remedies"—his famous "drop and pill" was a dangerous compound of antimony—the King recovered, and "Spot" Ward was solemnly voted the thanks of a credulous House of Parliament and allowed the privilege of driving his carriage through St James's Park. He tried to enter Parliament by fraud in 1717, and fled to St Germain, where he maintained himself by his "universal remedies." Pardoned in 1733, he had a wonderful career in London, and amassed a fortune.

ENTRANCE TO THE ADELPHI ARCHES.

One of the most interesting of the literary associations of the Adelphi is connected, in tradition, with Oliver Goldsmith, and, as a matter of fact, with Samuel Johnson, both of whom appeared before the Society of Arts. "The great room of the Society now mentioned," says Andrew Kippis, the Nonconformist divine and biographer, at the close of his memoir of Gilbert Cooper, in the Biographia Britannica,[32] "was for several years the place where many people chose to try, or to display, their oratorical abilities. Dr Goldsmith, I remember, made an attempt at a speech, but was obliged to sit down in confusion. I once heard Doctor Johnson speak there, upon a subject relating to Mechanics, with a propriety, perspicuity, and energy which excited general admiration." On the other hand, we have the testimony of Boswell that Johnson did not distinguish himself as a speaker in the Adelphi. "I remember that it was observed by Mr Flood, that Johnson, having been long used to sententious brevity and the short flights of conversation, might have failed in that continued and expanded kind of argument which is requisite in stating complicated matters in public speaking; and, as a proof of this, he mentioned the supposed speeches in Parliament, written by him for the magazine, none of which, in his opinion, were at all like real debates. The opinion of one who was himself so eminent an orator must be allowed to have great weight. It was confirmed by Sir William Scott [Baron Stowell, the great Admiralty lawyer], who mentioned that Johnson had told him that he had several times tried to speak in the Society of Arts and Manufactures, but 'had found he could not get on.' From Mr William Gerard Hamilton, I have heard that Johnson, when observing to him that it was prudent for a man who had not been accustomed to speak in public to begin his speech in as simple a manner as possible, acknowledged that he rose in that Society to deliver a speech which he had prepared; 'but,' said he, 'all my flowers of oratory forsook me.'"

I am sorry to destroy a long-cherished illusion, but the worthy Dr Kippis is in error in "remembering" Goldsmith attempting to make a speech in "the great room" of the Society of Arts. This room was not opened until 1774, and on April 4th of that year, Goldsmith—unfortunately for the Kippis tradition—with a mind ill at ease, departed life.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] J. Saunders, in Knight's London, vol. v., pp. 359-360.

[29] Owen Salusbury Brereton (1715-1798), antiquary; recorder of Liverpool, 1742-98; vice-president, Society of Arts, 1765-98; M.P. for Ilchester, 1775-80.

[30] The above descriptions of Barry's famous pictures in the Adelphi are taken from Brayley's Beauties of England and Wales, Middlesex, vol. iii., part ii., pp. 235-241.

[31] London Past and Present, vol. i., pp. 71-2.