from the bell and horns, brompton, to little chelsea.

To return to the continuation of Michael’s Place. It is divided between Nos. 11 and 12 by Michael’s Grove, which led to Brompton Grange, for some years the seat of the favourite veteran vocalist, Braham, who made his appearance as a public singer at the age of ten years, and so far back as 1787. The Grange was taken down in October 1843, and, in the course of twelve months, its spacious grounds were covered by a decided crescent and other buildings. Brompton Grange, which was constructed by Novosielski for his own residence, was, previous to Mr. Braham’s tenancy, occupied by a gentleman of large fortune and weak nerves, which were most painfully affected by the tone of a bell. After considerable research, this spot was selected for his London residence, in the belief that there he would be secure from annoyance. But the folly of human anticipation was speedily illustrated by the building of Brompton Church on the north side of his abode, and of Chelsea New Church on the west; so that, whatever way the wind blew,

“The sound of the church-going bell”

was certain of being wafted to the Grange, which was got rid of in consequence.

From Michael’s Grove, Brompton Crescent is nearly a straight row of twenty-five houses, and forms an angle to the line of the main Fulham Road, uniting with Michael’s Place at “Crescent House,” where the carriage communication was formerly interrupted by a bar, in place of which a post supporting two lamps is now substituted.

No. 9 was for some time in the occupation of Dr. Oswald Wood, the translator (1835) of Von Hammer’s ‘History of the Assassins,’ and who died at the early age of thirty-eight, on the 5th of November, 1842, in the West Indies, where he held the appointment of Provost-Marshal of Antigua.

At No. 13 Brompton Crescent resided Charles Incledon, the rival of his neighbour Braham, whose singing he was wont to designate as “Italianised humbug;” declaring that no one but himself, Charles Incledon, knew how to sing a British ballad: and it must be admitted, that “The Storm” and “Black-eyed Susan,” as sung by Incledon, produced a deep impression on the public mind. He was a native of Cornwall, and the son of a medical gentleman. As a chorister, under the tuition of Jackson, in Exeter Cathedral, Incledon acquired his knowledge of music; for when he was fifteen he entered the Royal Navy, in which he served in the West Indies from 1779 to 1783, when he abandoned the naval profession, and joined a theatrical company at Southampton. After a popular professional career of upwards of forty years as a public singer, Incledon died at Worcester, on the 11th of February, 1826.

Of Incledon many amusing anecdotes are told, chiefly caused by his inordinate vanity, and his mental singleness of purpose. He thought of no one but himself; he saw nothing beyond the one and immediate object at which he grasped; and yet these faults were caused rather by natural weakness of intellect than by an unkind or selfish disposition. In fact, Incledon lived and died a petted servant of the public; which administered intoxicating draughts of applause to his self-esteem.

Mr. G. Rodwell, already mentioned as having been an inhabitant of No. 14 Brompton Row, resided at No. 15 Brompton Crescent, in 1830.

No. 20 Brompton Crescent was, between the years 1822 and 1844, occupied by Mr. PlanchÉ, well known as, perhaps, the most prolific and skilful dramatic writer of the day, and as a gentleman of high literary and antiquarian attainments. His connexion with the last musical efforts of the German composer Weber, in his opera of ‘Oberon,’ which was produced at Covent Garden on the 12th of May, 1826, [65] cannot be forgotten; and to PlanchÉ’s knowledge of costume and taste for pictorial effects the English stage is deeply indebted. In the drawing-room of this house have some of our most agreeable acting dramas been composed, and nothing could have been, in its style and appointments, more typical of PlanchÉ’s dialogue than was the apartment—smart and neat, fit for all occasions, and suited in a moment to the present purpose, whatever that might be. It was polished and elegant; but there was nothing superfluous, beyond a bit of exquisite china on the mantel-piece, or a picture, excellent in its way, on the wall; something which pleased the eye, and which the mind received and relished like a nicely-pointed joke. A well-painted portrait of PlanchÉ himself, by Briggs, the Royal Academician, which has been engraved, hung opposite to the fireplace; and, as if to carry out the similitude between PlanchÉ’s writings and the place where they were written, folding-doors revealed a back drawing-room, which, like his memory, was richly stored with the works of heralds and antiquaries, and of our elder dramatists and poets, so judiciously arranged, that in a moment he was certain of producing the precise passage or the effect which he desired. At the same time so completely was this little battery of knowledge masked under quaint bindings and tasteful covers, that no one suspected what a mine of learning lay beneath; nor, like his own mental resources, was a volume displayed without cause, or unclasped without its effect.

Speaking earnestly to PlanchÉ respecting the pains and pleasures of authorship, L. E. L. once said, “I would give this moment all the fame of what I have written, or ever shall write, for one roar of applause from a crowded house, such as you must have heard a thousand times.”

Mr. PlanchÉ afterwards removed to a new and detached house, built on the site of Brompton Grange. He has now quitted the neighbourhood.

Mr. C. J. Richardson, an architect, whose publications illustrative of Tudor architecture and domestic English antiquities have materially tended to diffuse a feeling of respect for the works of our ancestors, and to forward the growing desire to preserve and restore edifices which time and circumstances have spared to the country, has resided at No. 22 Brompton Crescent. At No. 28 in this crescent, Mrs. Liston died in 1854.

The continuation of Michael’s Place, which we left on our right to visit Michael’s Grove and Brompton Crescent, is the corner house, now Dr. Cahill’s and Mr. Hewett’s. At No. 12, Lewis Schiavonetti, a distinguished engraver, died on the 7th of June, 1810, at the age of fifty-five. He was a native of Bassano, in the Venetian territory, and the eldest son of a stationer, whose large family and moderate circumstances made him gladly accept the offer of Julius Golini, a painter of some repute, to receive his son, at the age of thirteen, for instruction in the arts. No. 12 Michael’s Place In three years after, Golini expired in the arms of his youthful pupil. Upon the death of his master he determined to seek the patronage of Count Remaudini, who had given employment to Bartolozzi and Volpato, and began to study the mechanical process of engraving, under a poor man named Lorio, who, unable to support himself by his profession, officiated as sacristan to a church, and could offer him no better accommodation for study than the sacristy. The circumstances of Schiavonetti not permitting him to seek for higher instruction, he remained with this master about twelve months, when, finding that he had learned all that poor Lorio was able to teach, and feeling an aversion to work occasionally among dead bodies, he determined to alter his situation. A copy of a ‘Holy Family,’ from Bartolozzi, after Carlo Maratta, gained Schiavonetti immediate employment from Count Remaudini, and attracted the notice of Suntach, an engraver and printseller in opposition to Remaudini.

About this time there came to Bassano a Mr. Testolini, of Vicenza, a wretched engraver of architecture, but a man of consummate craft and address. He became acquainted with Schiavonetti at Suntach’s, and, finding in his genius and tractable disposition, a tool which he could use to great advantage, he engaged him to work at his house. Bartolozzi’s engravings in the chalk manner were then in great repute at Bassano, and Testolini made several abortive attempts to discover the process. His young friend succeeded better, and imitated several of Bartolozzi’s prints to perfection; and Testolini took some of Schiavonetti’s productions to the son of Bartolozzi at Venice, and passed them off as his own. They gained him an introduction to that artist, and an invitation to London, where he was then in full occupation, and his works highly appreciated. The change of climate seems to have deteriorated the talents of Testolini; but such was his adroitness that he gained a complete ascendancy over the easy temper of Bartolozzi, and lived in his house at North End, Fulham, about three years. During that time, finding that yet more important advantages might be derived from the aid of his former friend, he made several propositions to Schiavonetti to come to London. These were for a time declined: the rising fame of the young artist caused his talents to be better appreciated, and some Venetian noblemen offered him a pension and constant employment if he would abandon his proposed emigration. Testolini, to frustrate this, induced Bartolozzi to write a letter of persuasion, partly dictated by himself; and, confident of its effect, he set out for Italy to bring Schiavonetti over. During his absence Bartolozzi gained an insight into his real character and interested views, and, on his return with his protÉgÉ, told him that his house was no longer open to him, but that Schiavonetti was welcome to consider it his home. Testolini, however, having found a house in Sloane Square, soon persuaded Schiavonetti that it would be better for him to follow his fortune than to remain with Bartolozzi, to which Schiavonetti consented. This circumstance terminated the connexion between Bartolozzi and Schiavonetti; and shortly after the reputation of the latter as an engraver became established in London, where he conducted every transaction he was engaged in with an uprightness and integrity that cause his memory to be equally respected as a gentleman and as an artist. The ‘Madre Dolorosa,’ after Vandyke; the portrait of that master in the character of Paris; Michael Angelo’s cartoon of the ‘Surprise of the Soldiers on the banks of the Arno;’ a series of etchings from designs by Blake, illustrative of Blair’s ‘Grave,’ with a portrait of Blake after Phillips; the ‘Landing of the British troops in Egypt,’ from De Loutherbourg; and the etching of the ‘Canterbury Pilgrims,’ from Stothard’s admired picture, are some of the most esteemed works of Lewis Schiavonetti. His funeral, which took place on the 14th June 1810, from Michael’s Place, was attended by West, the president, Phillips, Tresham, and other members of the Royal Academy, by his countryman Vendramini, and almost all the distinguished engravers of the day, with other artists and friends to art.

The greater portion of No. 13, Michael’s Place, is shown in the sketch of No. 12, and the former may be mentioned as the residence of the widow of the builder, Madame Novosielski, who died here on the 30th November, 1820. This was the address of Miss Helen Faucit, immediately previous to her successful appearance in the English drama before a French audience, and is at present in the occupation of Mr. Weigall, an artist whose works are highly prized.

Mrs. Billington, the well-known singer and actress, has resided at No. 15.

Miss Pope, an actress of considerable reputation, died at No. 17, Michael’s Place, on the 30th July, 1818, aged seventy-five. Her talents had been cultivated by the celebrated Mrs. Clive, and she was distinguished by the notice of Garrick. As a representative of old women, Miss Pope is said to have been unrivalled; and, for more than half a century, she remained constant to the boards of Drury Lane Theatre, never having performed at any other with the exception of a season at Dublin and another at Liverpool.

Mr. John Heneage Jesse, in 1842, while engaged in the publication of ‘Memoirs of the Court of England, from the Revolution of 1688 to the Death of George II.,’ 3 vols. 8vo, a continuation of his ‘History of the Court of England during the Reign of the Stuarts,’ lodged at No. 18.

Mr. Yates, the manager of the Adelphi Theatre, and an actor of considerable and varied powers, resided at No. 21, Michael’s Place, immediately previous to his accepting a short engagement in Ireland, where he ruptured a blood-vessel, and returned to England in so weak a state that he died on the 21st June, 1842, a few days after his arrival at the Euston Hotel, Euston Square, from whence it was considered, when he reached London, imprudent to remove him to Brompton. He was in the forty-fifth year of his age, and made his first appearance in London at Covent Garden on the 7th November, 1818. On the 30th November, 1823, Mr. Yates married Miss Brunton, an exemplary woman and an accomplished actress, who had retired from the profession for some years previous to her death, aged 61, on 30th August, 1860. Before Mr. Yates’ tenancy, No. 21 was the residence of Mr. Liston, whose comic humour will long be remembered on the stage.

Mrs. Davenport, a clever actress and an admirable representative of old women, died at No. 22, on 8th May, 1843, aged eighty-four. On the 25th of May, 1830, she retired from the stage, after an uninterrupted service of thirty-six years at Covent Garden Theatre, where she took her “first, last, and only benefit,” performing the Nurse in ‘Romeo and Juliet.’

No. 25, Michael’s Place, may be pointed out as the house in which Miss Pope, “the other delicious old woman,” dwelt previous to her removal to No. 17; and No. 26, as the lodgings of Mrs. Mathews, when occupied in the composition of the ‘Memoirs’ of her husband, [72] the eminent comedian,—

“A man so various, that he seemed to be,
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome.”

At No. 33 died Madame Delille, in 1857, at an advanced age. This lady was the mother of the late Mr. C. J. Delille, professor of the French language in Christ’s Hospital and in the City of London School, and French examiner in the University of London. Mr. Delille’s French Grammar is universally adopted by schools, in addition to his ‘RÉpertoire LittÉraire,’ and his ‘LeÇons et ModÈles de PoÉsie FranÇaise.’

The ground upon which Michael’s Place and Brompton Crescent are built was known by the name of “Flounder Field,” from its usual moist and muddy state. This field contained fourteen acres, and is said to have been part of the estate of Alderman Henry Smith, which in this neighbourhood was upwards of eighty-four acres. He was a native of Wandsworth, where he is buried. It has been asserted that, from very humble circumstances, he rose to be an alderman of London—from circumstances so humble, indeed, that Salmon, in his ‘Antiquities of Surrey,’ mentions that he had been in early life whipped out of Mitcham parish for begging there. Being a widower, and without children, he made over all his estates in 1620 to trustees for charitable purposes, reserving out of the produce £500 a-year for himself. He died in 1627–8, and the intent of his will appears to have been to divide his estate equally between the poorest of his kindred, and in case of any surplus it was to be applied to the relief and ransom of poor captives. Mr. Smith is said, but we know little of the history of this benevolent and extraordinary man, to have himself suffered a long captivity in Algiers. No application having been made for many years to redeem captives, in 1772 an act of parliament was passed “to enable the trustees of Henry Smith, Esq., deceased, to apply certain sums of money to the relief of his poor kindred, and to enable the said trustees to grant building leases of an estate in the parishes of Kensington, Chelsea, and St. Margaret’s, Westminster.”

No. 1, North Terrace, leading into Alexander Square, was for some time the residence of the celebrated “O.” Smith, who, though a great ruffian upon the stage, was in private life remarkable for his quiet manners and his varied attainments. At the end of this terrace is the Western Grammar School.

Alexander Square, on the north or right-hand side of the main Fulham Road, between the Bell and Horns public-house and Pelham Crescent, consists of twenty-four houses built in the years 1827 and 1830, and divided by Alfred Place: before each portion there is a respectable enclosure, and behind numerous new streets, squares, and houses have been built, extending to the Old Brompton Road.

No. 19, Alexander Square, was the residence of Captain Glascock, who commanded H.M.S. Tyne, and whose pen has enriched the nautical novel literature of England [73] with the same racy humour which has distinguished his professional career. When commanding in the Douro, some communications which Glascock had occasion to make to the Governor of Oporto not having received that attention which the English captain considered was due to them, and the governor having apologised for his deafness, Glascock replied that in future he would write to his excellency. He did so, but the proceeding did not produce the required reply. Glascock was then told that the governor’s memory was defective; so he wrote again, and two letters remained unanswered. In this state of things it was intimated to Captain Glascock by a distinguished diplomatist, that, as his letters might not have been delivered, he ought to write another. “Certainly,” replied that officer; “my letters to his excellency, as you say, might not have been delivered, for I have had no report absolutely made to me that they had ever reached his hands: but I will take care this time there shall be no mistake in the delivery, for you shall see me attach my communication to a cannonball, the report of which I can testify to my government; and, as my gunner is a sure shot, his excellency will (Glascock was an Irishman) have my epistle delivered into his hand.” This intimation produced at once the desired effect of a satisfactory reply and apology.

Captain Glascock was one of the inspectors under the Poor Relief Act in Ireland. He died in 1847.

No. 24 Alexander Square is the residence of Mr. George Godwin, the editor of the ‘Builder,’ and one of the honorary secretaries of the Art Union,—an association which has exercised an important influence upon the progress of the fine arts in England. Mr. Godwin is likewise favourably known to the public as the author of several essays which evince considerable professional knowledge, antiquarian research, and a fertile fancy.

The bend of the Fulham Road terminates at

The Admiral Keppel

The old Admiral Keppel public-house, from whence the road proceeds in a straight line to Little Chelsea; Marlborough Road and Keppel Street, leading to Chelsea, branching off at each side of the tavern. Since this sketch was taken, the old building has been pulled down (1856), and a large hotel erected on the same spot, by B. Watts, where, in addition to the usual comforts of an inn, hot and cold baths may be had.

In 1818 the Admiral Keppel courted the custom of passing travellers by a poetical appeal to the feelings of both man and beast:—

“Stop, brave boys, and quench your thirst;
If you won’t drink, your horses murst.”

There was something rural in this: the distich was painted in very rude white letters on a small black board; and when Keppel’s portrait, which swung in air, like England’s flag, braving

“The battle and the breeze,”

was unhinged and placed against the front of the house, this board was appended as its motto. Both, however, were displaced by the march of public-house improvement; the weather-beaten sign of the gallant admiral’s head was transferred to a wall of the back premises, where its “faded form” might, until recently, have been recognised; but, though the legible record has perished, opus vatum durat.

Amelia Place is a row of nine houses immediately beyond the Admiral Keppel. Within the walls of the last low house in the row, and the second with a verandah, the Right Hon. John Philpot Curran died on the 14th of October, 1817. It had then a pleasant look-out upon green fields and a nursery-garden, now occupied by Pelham Crescent. Here it was, with the exception of a short excursion to Ireland, that Curran had resided during the twelve months previous to his death. No. 7 Amelia Place Curran’s public life may be said to have terminated in 1806, when he accepted the office of Master of the Rolls in Ireland, an appointment of £5000 a year. This situation he retained until 1815, when his health required a cessation from its laborious attendance. Upon his retirement from office, he “passed through the watering-places with the season,” and then fixed himself at No. 7, Amelia Place, Brompton, which house has now Kettle’s boot and shoe warehouse built out in front. To no other contemporary pen than that of the Rev. George Croly can be ascribed the following glowing sketch of Curran:—

“From the period in which Curran emerged from the first struggles of an unfriended man, labouring up a jealous profession, his history makes a part of the annals of his country: once upon the surface, his light was always before the eye, it never sank and was never outshone. With great powers to lift himself beyond the reach of that tumultuous and stormy agitation that must involve the movers of the public mind in a country such as Ireland then was, he loved to cling to the heavings of the wave; he, at least, never rose to that tranquil elevation to which his early contemporaries had one by one climbed; and never left the struggle till the storm had gone down, it is to be hoped for ever. This was his destiny, but it might have been his choice, and he was not without the reward, which, to an ambitious mind conscious of its eminent powers, might be more than equivalent to the reluctant patronage of the throne. To his habits legal distinction would have been only a bounty upon his silence; his limbs would have been fettered by the ermine; but he had the compensation of boundless popular honour, much respect from the higher ranks of party, much admiration and much fear from the lower partizans. In Parliament he was the assailant most dreaded; in the law-courts he was the advocate deemed the most essential; in both he was an object of all the more powerful passions of man but rivalry,—

‘He stood alone and shone alone.’”

During Curran’s residence in Amelia Place he suffered two slight apoplectic attacks; but he, nevertheless, “occasionally indulged in society, and was to his last sparkle the most interesting, singular, and delightful of all table companions.” The forenoon he generally passed in a solitary ramble through the neighbouring fields and gardens (which have now disappeared), and in the evening he enjoyed the conversation of a few friends; but, though the brilliancy of his wit shone to the last, he seemed like one who had outlived everything in life that was worth enjoying. This is exemplified in Curran’s melancholy repartee to his medical attendant a few days before his decease. The doctor remarked that his patient’s cough was not improved. “That is odd,” remarked Curran, “for I have been practising all night!”

On Thursday, the 9th of October, Curran dined abroad for the last time with Mr. Richard (“Gentleman”) Jones, [78] of No. 14 Chapel Street, Grosvenor Place, for the purpose of being introduced to George Colman “the Younger.” The party, besides the host and hostess, consisted of Mr. Harris and Sir William Chatterton. Colman that evening was unusually brilliant, anticipating, by apt quotation and pointed remark, almost everything that Curran would have said. One comment of Curran’s, however, made a deep impression on all present. Speaking of Lord Byron’s ‘Fare thee well, and if for ever,’ he observed that “his lordship first weeps over his wife, and then wipes his eyes with the newspapers.” He left the dinner-table early, and, on going upstairs to coffee, either affected not to know or did not remember George Colman’s celebrity as a wit, and inquired of Mrs. Jones who that Mr. Colman was? Mr. Harris joined them at this moment, and apologised for his friend Colman engrossing so much of the conversation to himself, adding, that he was the spoiled child of society, and that even the Prince Regent listened with attention when George Colman talked. “Ay,” said Curran, with a melancholy smile, “I now know who Colman is; we must both sleep in the same bed.”

The next morning Curran was seized with apoplexy, and continued speechless, though in possession of his senses, till the early part of Tuesday the 14th, when he sunk into lethargy, and towards evening died without a struggle; so tranquil, indeed, were the last moments of Curran, that those in the room were unable to mark the precise time when his bright spirit passed away from this earth. His age has been variously stated at sixty-seven, sixty-eight, and seventy.

The first lodging which John Banim, the Irish novelist, temporarily occupied in England (April, 1822) was in the house where his illustrious countryman had breathed his last, and from whence Banim removed to 13, Brompton Grove, as already noticed. Banim’s first wish, when he found himself in England, was to visit the scene of Curran’s death; led to the spot by a strong feeling of patriotic admiration, and finding, by a bill in the window, that lodgings were to be let there, he immediately took them, “that he might dream of his country,” as he energetically told the writer, “with the halo of Curran’s memory around him.”

Dropped Capitals for In Pelham Crescent, which consists of twenty-seven houses, and is divided in the centre, between Nos. 14 and 15, by Pelham Place, both Crescent and Place built upon part of the nursery-grounds over which Curran had wandered, dwell at No. 10 Mr. and Mrs. Keeley. At No. 20 resides Mr. John Cooper the well-known veteran actor. M. Guizot, the celebrated French statesman, after the overthrow of the government of Louis Philippe, resided for some time at No. 21, where Madame Guizot, his mother, died in March, 1848, at the advanced age of eighty-three; and the same house was, by a singular coincidence, afterwards occupied by Ledru Rollin. Pelham Place, at the back of the Crescent, is notable for having, at No. 2, Mr. Lazarus, the celebrated clarionet player, and at No. 8 resides Mr. A. Harris, the present lessee of the Princess’s Theatre.

Nearly opposite to Pelham Crescent is Pond Place, where Mr. Curtis, the eminent botanist, of whom more hereafter, died on the 7th July, 1799; and a little further on, on the same side of the way, appears Chelsea New Church, dedicated to St. Luke.

Dropped Capital T he first stone of this church was laid on the 12th October, 1820, and the New Church was consecrated on the 18th October, 1824. The architect was Mr. Savage of Walbrook. [80] The burial-ground in which it stands had been consecrated on the 21st November, 1812; and an Act of Parliament, 59 George III., cap. 35, 1819, authorised the appropriation of part of that ground for the site of building a church. In the burial-ground repose the remains of Dr. John M’Leod, the companion and friend of the gallant Sir Murray Maxwell, and the author of ‘A Narrative of a Voyage in H.M.S. Alceste to the Yellow Sea, and of her Shipwreck in the Straits of Gaspar,’ published in 1817. On his return to England, the services of Dr. M’Leod were rewarded by his appointment to the Royal Sovereign yacht, which he did not long enjoy, as he died in lodgings in the King’s Road, Chelsea, on the 9th November, 1820, at the age of thirty-eight.

Signor Carlo Rovedino, a bass singer of some reputation, also lies buried in this churchyard. He was a native of Milan, and died on the 6th of October, 1822, aged seventy-one. The remains of Blanchard and Egerton, two actors of established character, repose here side by side. William Blanchard was what is termed “a useful comedian;” whatever part was assigned to him, he made the most of it. At the age of seventeen, he joined a provincial theatrical company at York, his native city, and in 1800, after fourteen years of laborious country practice, appeared at Covent Garden as Bob Acres in ‘The Rivals,’ and Crack in ‘The Turnpike Gate.’ At the time of his death, 9th May, 1835, he resided at No. 1, Camera Square, Chelsea. Blanchard had dined with a friend at Hammersmith, and left him to return home about six in the evening of Tuesday. On the following morning, at three o’clock, poor Blanchard was found lying in a ditch by the roadside, having been, as is supposed, seized by a fit; in the course of the evening he was visited by another attack, which was succeeded by one more violent on the Thursday, and on the following day he expired.

Daniel Egerton—“oh! kingly Egerton”—personified for many years on the stage of Covent Garden all the royal personages about whom there was great state and talk, but who had little to say for themselves. He was respected as being, and without doubt was, an industrious and an honest man. Having saved some hardly-earned money, Egerton entered into a theatrical speculation with a brother actor, Mr. Abbott, and became manager of one of the minor houses, by which he was ruined, and died in 1835, under the pressure of his misfortunes. His widow, whose representations of the wild women of Scott’s novels, Madge Wildfire and Meg Merrilies, have distinguished her, died on the 10th August, 1847, at Brompton, aged sixty-six, having supported herself nobly amidst the troubles of her latter days. Mrs. Egerton was the daughter of the Rev. Peter Fisher, rector of Torrington, in Devonshire. She appeared at the Bath theatre soon after the death of her father in 1803, and in 1811 made her first appearance at Covent Garden Theatre as Juliet.

On the right-hand side, a little off the main road, is Onslow Square, which was built upon the site of the extensive house and grounds once occupied as a lunatic asylum. The row of large trees now in the centre of the square was formerly the avenue from the main road to this house. Mr. Henry Cole, C.B. lives at No. 17, Onslow Square; he is well known to the public as a member of the Executive Committee of the Crystal Palace, a promoter of art manufactures, and the author of numerous works published under the nom de plume of “Felix Summerly.” No. 31 is the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Martin (better known as Miss Helen Faucit). At No. 34 resides Baron Marochetti, the celebrated sculptor, who settled in England after the French revolution of February, 1848, and has obtained high patronage here. At the back of the house is the studio, with an entrance from the main road, where the avenue of trees continues. W. M. Thackeray, the popular writer, lives at No. 36, and Rear-Admiral Fitzroy, the distinguished geographer and navigator, is at No. 38.

A few yards beyond Sydney Place (leading into Onslow Square), on the opposite side of the road, is Sydney Street, leading direct to St. Luke’s Church, the late incumbent of which, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, who died on 29th February, 1860, aged 78, was the father of the well-known popular writer, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, of Eversley Rectory, Hants. Sydney Street was originally called Upper Robert Street, as being the continuation of Robert Street, Chelsea; but, under some notion of raising its respectability, the inhabitants agreed to change the name. It happened, however, that the corner house adjoining the Fulham Road, on the western side, was occupied by a surgeon, who imagined that the change in name might be injurious to his practice, and he took advantage of his position to retain the old name on his house. Thus for some time the street was known by both names, but that of Upper Robert Street is now entirely abandoned. The opposite corner house, No. 2, Sydney Street, was for some years occupied by the Rev. Dr. Biber, author of the ‘Life of Pestalozzi,’ and editor and proprietor of the ‘John Bull’ newspaper. On his selling the ‘John Bull,’ it became incorporated with the ‘Britannia.’

No. 24 was for some time the residence of Mr. Thomas Wright, the well-known antiquary and historical writer, who now lives at No. 14.

Robert Street, which connects the main Fulham Road with the King’s Road, passes directly before the west side of the spacious burial-ground, and immediately opposite to the tower of St. Luke’s Church; at No. 17 formerly resided Mr. Henry Warren, the President of the New Society of Water-Colour Painters.

Returning to the main Fulham Road, and passing the Cancer Hospital, now in course of erection, we come to York Place, a row of twenty-two well-built and respectable houses on the south, or, according to our course, left-hand side of the road.

No. 15, York Place, was, between the years 1813 and 1821, the retirement of Francis Hargrave, a laborious literary barrister, and the editor of ‘A Collection of State Trials,’ [84] and many other esteemed legal works. Here he died on the 16th of August, 1821, at the age of eighty-one.

In 1813, when obliged to abandon his arduous profession, in consequence of over-mental excitement, the sum of £8,000 was voted by Parliament, upon the motion of Mr. Whitbread, for the purchase of Mr. Hargrave’s law books, which were enriched with valuable notes, and for 300 MSS., to be deposited in the library of Lincoln’s Inn, for public use. As documents of national historical importance may be particularised, Mr. Hargrave’s first publication, in 1772, entitled ‘The Case of James Somerset, a Negro, lately determined by the Court of King’s Bench, wherein it is attempted to demonstrate the present unlawfulness of Domestic Slavery in England;’ his ‘Three Arguments in the two causes in Chancery on the last Will of Peter Thellusson, Esq., with Mr. Morgan’s Calculation of the Accumulation under the Trusts of the Will, 1799;’ and his ‘Opinion in the Case of the Duke of Athol in respect to the Isle of Man.’

Opposite to York Place was a fine, open, airy piece of ground to which Mr. Curtis, the eminent naturalist, removed his botanical garden from Lambeth Marsh, as a more desirable locality. Upon the south-east portion of this nursery-ground the first stone was laid by H.R.H. Prince Albert, on the 11th July, 1844, of an hospital for consumption and diseases of the chest, and which was speedily surrounded by houses on all sides; probably a circumstance not contemplated at the time the ground was secured.

The botanical garden of Mr. Curtis, as a public resort for study, was continued at Brompton until 1808, when the lease of the land being nearly expired, Mr. Salisbury, who in 1792 became his pupil, and in 1798 his partner in this horticultural speculation, removed the establishment to the vacant space of ground now inclosed between Sloane Street and Cadogan Place, where Mr. Salisbury’s undertaking failed. A plan of the gardens there, as arranged by him, was published in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for August, 1810. [85]

Mr. Curtis, whose death has been already mentioned, was the son of a tanner, and was born at Alton, in Hampshire, in 1746. He was bound apprentice to his grandfather, a quaker apothecary of that town, whose house was contiguous to the Crown Inn, where the botanical knowledge of John Lagg, the hostler, seems to have excited rivalry in the breast of young Curtis. In the course of events he became assistant to Mr. Thomas Talwin, an apothecary in Gracechurch Street, of the same religious persuasion as his grandfather, and succeeded Mr. Talwin in his business. Mr. Curtis’s love of botanical science, however, increased with his knowledge. He connected with it the study of entomology, by printing, in 1771, ‘Instructions for Collecting and Preserving Insects,’ and in the following year a translation of the ‘Fundamenta EntomologiÆ’ of LinnÆus. At this time he rented a very small garden for the cultivation of British plants, “near the Grange Road, at the bottom of Bermondsey Street,” and here it was that he conceived the design of publishing his great work, ‘The Flora Londinensis.’

“The Grange Road Garden was soon found too small for his extensive ideas. He, therefore, took a larger piece of ground in Lambeth Marsh, where he soon assembled the largest collection of British plants ever brought together into one place. But there was something uncongenial in the air of this place, which made it extremely difficult to preserve sea plants and many of the rare annuals which are adapted to an elevated situation,—an evil rendered worse every year by the increased number of buildings around. This led his active mind, ever anxious for improvement, to inquire for a more favourable soil and purer air. This, at length, he found at Brompton. Here he procured a spacious territory, in which he had the pleasure of seeing his wishes gratified to the utmost extent of reasonable expectation. Here he continued to his death;”

having, I may add, for many years previously, devoted himself entirely to botanical pursuits.

To support the slow sale of ‘The Flora Londinensis,’ Mr. Curtis, about 1787, started ‘The Botanical Magazine,’ which became one of the popular periodicals of the day, and Dr. Smith’s and Mr. Sowerby’s ‘English Botany’ was modelled after it.

What Mr. Curtis, as an individual, commenced, the Horticultural Society are endeavouring, as a body, to effect.

Immediately past the Hospital for Consumption is Fowlis Terrace, a row of newly-built houses, running from the road.

At the corner of Church Street (on the opposite side of the road) is an enclosure used as the burial-ground of the Westminster Congregation of the Jews. There is an inscription in Hebrew characters over the entrance, above which is an English inscription with the date of the erection of the building according to the Jewish computation a.m. 5576, or 1816 a.d. Beside it is the milestone denoting that it is 1½ mile from London.

The Queen’s Elm Turnpike, pulled down in 1848, was situated here, and took its name from the tradition that Queen Elizabeth, when walking out, attended by Lord Burleigh, [87a] being overtaken by a heavy shower of rain, found shelter here under an elm-tree. After the rain was over, the queen said, “Let this henceforward be called The Queen’s Tree.” The tradition is strongly supported by the parish records of Chelsea, as mention is made in 1586 (the 28th of Elizabeth, and probably the year of the occurrence), of a tree situated about this spot, “at the end of the Duke’s Walk,” [87b] as “The Queen’s Tree,” around which an arbour was built, or, in other words, nine young elm-trees were planted, by one Bostocke, at the charge of the parish. The first mention of “The Queen’s Elm,” occurs in 1687, ninety-nine years after her Majesty had sheltered beneath the tree around which “an arbour was built,” when the surveyors of the highway were amerced in the sum of five pounds, “for not sufficiently mending the highway from the Queen Elm to the bridge, and from the Elm to Church Lane.” In a plan of Chelsea, from a survey made in 1664 by James Hamilton, and continued to 1717, a tree occupying the spot assigned to “The Queen’s Elm,” is called “The Cross Tree,” and in the vestry minutes it is designated as “The High Elm,” which latter name is used by Sir Hans Sloane in 1727. Bostocke’s arbour, however, had the effect of giving to the cross-road the name of “The Nine Elms.” Steele, on the 22nd June, 1711, writing to his wife, says, “Pray, on the receipt of this, go to the Nine Elms, and I will follow you within an hour.” [88] And so late as 1805, “The Nine Elms, Chelsea,” appeared as a local address in newspaper advertisements.

Again let me crave indulgence for minute attention to the changes of name; but much topographical difficulty often arises from this cause.

The stump of the royal tree, with, as is asserted, its root remaining in the ground undisturbed, a few years ago existed squared down to the dimensions of an ordinary post, about six feet in height and whitewashed. But the identity appears questionable, although a post, not improbably fashioned out of one of the nine elms which grew around it, stood till within the last few years in front of a public-house named from the circumstance the Queen’s Elm, which house has been a little altered since the annexed sketch was made, by the introduction of a clock between the second floor windows, and the house adjoining has been rebuilt, overtopping it.

Queen’s Elm Public House

On the opposite or north side of the Fulham Road, some small houses are called Selwood Place, from being built on part of the ground of “Mr. Selwood’s nursery,” which is mentioned in 1712 by Mr. Narcissus Luttrell, of whom more hereafter, as one of the sources from which he derived a variety of pear, cultivated by him in his garden at Little Chelsea.

Chelsea Park, on the same side of the way with the Queen’s Elm public-house, and distant about a furlong from it, as seen from the road, appears a noble structure with a magnificent portico. Chelsea Park Portico The ground now called Chelsea Park belonged, with an extensive tract of which it formed the northern part, to the famous Sir Thomas More, and in his time was unenclosed, and termed “the Sand Hills.” It received the present name in 1625, when the Lord-Treasurer Cranfield (Earl of Middlesex) surrounded with a brick wall about thirty-two acres, which he had purchased in 1620 from Mr. Blake. In 1717 Chelsea Park, which extended from the Fulham to the King’s Road, was estimated at forty acres, and belonged to the Marquis of Wharton, with whom, when appointed in 1709 Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Addison went over as Secretary. It subsequently became the scene of a joint-stock company speculation under a patent granted in 1718 to John Appletree, Esq., for producing raw silk of the growth of England, and for raising a fund for carrying on the same. This undertaking was divided into shares of £5 each, of which £1 was paid down. Proposals were published, a subscription-book opened, in which several hundred names were soon entered; a deed of trust executed and enrolled in Chancery; directors were chosen by the subscribers for managing the affairs of the Company; and, Chelsea Park being thought a proper soil for the purpose and in a convenient situation, a lease was taken of it for 122 years. Here upwards of 2000 mulberry-trees were soon planted, and extensive edifices erected for carrying on the work: this number of trees was, however, but a small part of what the company intended to plant if they were successful. In the following year Mr. Henry Barham, F.R.S., who was probably a member of the company, published ‘An Essay on the Silk Worm,’ in which he thinks “all objections and difficulties against this glorious undertaking are shown to be mere phantoms and trifles.” The event, however, proved that the company met with difficulties of a real and formidable nature; for though the expectation of this gentleman, who questioned not that in the ensuing year they should produce a considerable quantity of raw silk, may have been partly answered, the undertaking soon began to decline, and, in the course of a few years, came to nothing. It must, however, be admitted that the violent stock-jobbing speculations of the year 1720, which involved the shares of all projects of this nature, might have produced many changes among the proprietors, and contributed to derange the original design. However, from that period to the present time, no effort has been made to cultivate the silkworm in this country as a mercantile speculation, although individuals have continued to rear it with success as an object of curiosity.

Walpole, in his ‘Catalogue of Engravers,’ tells us that James Christopher Le Blon, a Fleming by birth, and a mezzotint-engraver by profession, some time subsequent to 1732, “set up a project for copying the cartoons in tapestry, and made some very fine drawings for that purpose. Houses were built and looms erected in the Mulberry Ground at Chelsea; but either the expense was precipitated too fast, or contributions did not arrive fast enough. The bubble burst, several suffered, and Le Blon was heard of no more.” Walpole adds, “It is said he died in an hospital at Paris in 1740:” and observes that Le Blon was “very far from young when he knew him, but of surprising vivacity and volubility, and with a head admirably mechanic, but an universal projector, and with at least one of the qualities that attend that vocation, either a dupe or a cheat; I think,” he continues, “the former, though, as most of his projects ended in air, the sufferers believed the latter. As he was much an enthusiast, perhaps like most enthusiasts he was both one and t’ other.”

The present mansion was built upon a portion of Chelsea Park by Mr. William Broomfield, an eminent surgeon, who resided in it for several years. The late possessor was Sir Henry Wright Wilson, Bart., to whose wife, Lady Frances Wilson (daughter of the Earl of Aylesbury), was left a valuable estate in Hampshire, [92] said to be worth about £3,000 a year, under the following very singular circumstances. Her ladyship was informed one morning in February, 1814, while at breakfast, that an eccentric person named Wright, who had died a few days previously at an obscure lodging in Pimlico, had appointed her and Mr. Charles Abbott his executors, and after some legacies had bequeathed to Lady Frances the residue of his property by a will dated so far back as August, 1800. As Lady Frances declared herself to be unacquainted even with the name of the testator, she at first concluded that there was some mistake in the matter. After further explanation, the person of Mr. Wright was described to her, and Lady Frances at last recollected that the description answered that of a gentleman she had remembered as a constant frequenter of the Opera some years previously and considered to be a foreigner, and who had annoyed her extremely there by constantly staring at her box. To satisfy herself of the identity, she went to the lodgings of the late Mr. Wright, and saw him in his coffin, when she recognized the features perfectly as those of the person whose eyes had so often persecuted her when she was Lady Frances Bruce, but who had never spoken to her, and of whom she had no other knowledge whatever.

Mr. Wright left legacies of £4,000 to the Countess of Rosslyn, £4,000 to the Speaker of the House of Commons, £1,000 to the lord-chancellor, and the same sum to Archdeacon Pott, the rector of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, which church Mr. Wright had been in the habit of frequenting, having as little acquaintance with any of these parties as he had with Lady Frances Wilson. It may be supposed from these facts that Lady Frances Wilson was exceedingly beautiful, and that an admiration of her charms might have influenced Mr. Wright to make this extraordinary bequest in her favour; but those who knew Lady Frances well assert that such could not possibly have been the case, as she was far from beautiful at any period of her life; and the oddity of the story is, and it seemed to be the general opinion, that Mr. Wright’s legacy was intended for a lady who usually occupied a box next to that in which Lady Frances sat, and who, at the period, was regarded as the belle of the Opera.

Thistle Grove, on the opposite side of the road from Chelsea Park, leads, by what had been a garden pathway, to the Old Brompton Road. At each side of “the Grove,” now occupying the sites of trees, are detached villas, houses, lodges, and cottages, named, or not named, after the taste of their respective proprietors; one of which, on the left hand, some fourteen houses distant from the main Fulham Road, was for many years the residence of Mr. John Burke, whose laborious heraldic and genealogical inquiries induced him to arrange and publish various important collections relative to the peerage and family history of the United Kingdom, in which may be found, condensed for immediate reference, an immense mass of important information.

In Thistle Grove Mr. J. P. Warde, the well-known actor, died in 1840.

Immediately beyond Chelsea Park the village of Little Chelsea commences, about the centre of which, and on the same side of the way, at the corner of the road leading to Battersea Bridge, stands the Goat in Boots public-house. Goat in Boots In 1663, there was a “house called the Goat at Little Chelsea,” which, between that year and 1713, enjoyed the right of commonage for two cows and one heifer upon Chelsea Heath.

How the Goat became equipped in boots, and the designation of the house changed, has been the subject of various conjectures; the most probable of which is, that it originates in a corruption of the latter part of the Dutch legend,—

“mercurius is der goden boode,”
(Mercury is the messenger of the gods,)

which being divided between each side of a sign bearing the figure of Mercury—a sign commonly used in the early part of the last century to denote that post-horses were to be obtained—“der goden boode” became freely translated into English, “the goat in boots.” To Le Blon is attributed the execution of this sign and its motto; but, whoever the original artist may have been, and the intermediate retouchers or repainters of the god, certain it is that the pencil of Morland, in accordance with the desire of the landlord, either transformed the petasus of Mercury into the horned head of a goat, his talaria into spurs upon boots of huge dimensions, and his caduceus into a cutlass, or thus decorated the original sign, thereby liquidating a score which he had run up here, without any other means of payment than what his pencil afforded. The sign, however, has been painted over, with considerable additional embellishments from gold leaf, so that not the least trace of Morland’s work remains, except, perhaps, in the outline.

Park Walk (the road turning off at the Goat in Boots) proceeds to the King’s Road, and, although not in a direct line, to Battersea Bridge. Opposite the Goat in Boots is Gilston Road, leading to Boltons and St. Mary’s Place. At No. 6, St. Mary’s Place, resides J. O. Halliwell, F.R.S., F.S.A., the well-known Shaksperian scholar, whose varied contributions to literature have been crowned by the production of his folio edition of Shakspere—a work still in progress. At No. 8, Mr. Edward Wright, the popular actor, resided for a short time.

A few paces further on the main Fulham Road, at the north or opposite side, stood “Manor House,” now termed Manor Hall, and occupied by St. Philip’s Orphanage, a large, old-fashioned building, with the intervening space between it and the road screened in by boards,—which were attached to the antique iron gate and railings about twenty years ago, when it became appropriated to a charitable asylum. Previously, Manor House had been a ladies’ boarding-school; and here Miss Bartolozzi, afterwards Madame Vestris, was educated.

Seymour Place, which leads to Seymour Terrace, is a cul-de-sac on the same side of the main Fulham Road, between Manor Hall and the Somerset Arms public-house, which last forms the west corner of Seymour Place.

At No. 1, Seymour Terrace expired, on the 19th of June, 1824, in her twenty-fifth year, Madame Riego, the widow of the unfortunate patriot General Riego, “the restorer and martyr of Spanish freedom.” Her short and eventful history possesses more than ordinary melancholy. While yet a child she had to endure all the hardships and privations consequent upon a state of warfare, and under the protection of her maternal grandfather, had to seek refuge from place to place on the mountains of Asturias from the French army. At the close of 1821 she was married to General Riego, to whom she had been known and attached almost from infancy, and, in the spring of the following year, became, with her distinguished husband, a resident in Madrid. But the political confusion and continued alarm of the period having appeared to affect her health, the general proceeded with her in the autumn to Granada, where he parted from his young and beloved wife, never again to meet her in this world, the convocation of the extraordinary Cortes for October 1822 obliging him to return to the capital.

Accompanied by the canon Riego, brother to her husband, and her attached sister, Donna Lucie, she removed in March to Malaga, from whence the advance of the French army into the south of Spain obliged them to seek protection at Gibraltar, which, under the advice of General Riego, they left for England on the 4th of July, but, owing to an unfavourable passage, did not reach London until the 17th of August. Here the visitation which impended over her was still more calamitous than all that had preceded it. Within little more than two months after her arrival in London, the account arrived of General Riego’s execution. [97]

Gerald Griffin, the Irish novelist, in a letter dated 22nd of November, 1823, says,—

“I have been lately negotiating with my host (of 76 Regent Street) for lodgings for the widow and brother of poor General Riego. They are splendid apartments, but the affair has been broken off by the account of his death. It has been concealed from her. She is a young woman, and is following him fast, being far advanced in a consumption. His brother is in deep grief. He says he will go and bury himself for the remainder of his days in the woods of America.”

The house,

No. 1, Seymour Place,

No. 1 Seymour Place as it was then, Seymour Terrace, Little Chelsea, as it is now called, became, about this period, the residence of the unhappy fugitives. Griffin, who appears to have made their acquaintance through a Spanish gentleman, named Valentine Llanos, writes, in February, 1824,—

“I was introduced the other day to poor Madame Riego, the relict of the unfortunate general. I was surprised to see her look much better than I was prepared to expect, as she is in a confirmed consumption.”

Mental grief, which death only could terminate, had at that moment “marked” Madame Riego “for his own;” yet her look, like that of all high-minded Spaniards, to a stranger was calm—“much better than he was prepared to expect.”

On the 18th of May, exactly one month and a day before the termination of her sufferings, Griffin says,—

“The canon Riego, brother to the poor martyr, sent me, the other day, a Spanish poem of many cantos, having for its subject the career of the unhappy general, and expressed a wish that I might find material for an English one in it, if I felt disposed to make anything of the subject. Apropos, Madame Riego is almost dead. The fire is in her eye, and the flush on her cheek, which are, I believe, no beacons of hope to the consumptive. She is an interesting woman, and I pity her from my soul. This Mr. Mathews, who was confined with her husband, and arrived lately in London, and who, moreover, is a countryman of mine, brought her from her dying husband a little favourite dog and a parrot, which were his companions in his dungeon. He very indiscreetly came before her with the remembrances without any preparation, and she received a shock from it, from which she has not yet, nor ever will recover. What affecting little circumstances these are, and how interesting to one who has the least mingling of enthusiasm in his character!”

Madame Riego died in the arms of her attached sister, attended by the estimable canon. In her will she directed her executor, the canon, to assure the British people of the gratitude she felt towards them for the sympathy and support which they extended to her in the hours of her adversity. But what makes the will peculiarly affecting is her solemn attestation to the purity and sincerity of the political life of General Riego. She states that she esteems it to be the last act of justice and duty to the memory of her beloved husband, solemnly to declare, in the awful presence of her God, before whose judgment-seat she feels she must soon appear, that all his private feelings and dispositions respecting his country corresponded with his public acts and professions in defence of its liberties.

A few yards beyond the turn down to Seymour Place, on the opposite side of the road, stood, until pulled down in 1856, to make room for the new one, the additional workhouse to St. George’s, Hanover Square, for which purpose Shaftesbury House was purchased by that parish in 1787; and an Act of Parliament passed in that year declares it to be in “St. George’s parish so long as it shall continue to be appropriated to its present use.” Shaftesbury House Back of Shaftesbury House The parochial adjuncts to Lord Shaftesbury’s mansion, which remained, until the period of its demolition, in nearly the same state as when disposed of, have been considerable; but the building, as his lordship left it, could be at once recognised through the iron gate by which you entered, and which was surmounted by a lion rampant, probably the crest of one of the subsequent possessors. It is surprising, indeed, that so little alteration, externally as well as internally should have taken place. The appearance of the back of Shaftesbury House, as represented in an old print, was unchanged, with the exception of the flight of steps which led to the garden being transferred to the west (or shaded side) of the wing—an addition made by Lord Shaftesbury to the original house. This was purchased by him in 1699 from the Bovey family, as heirs to the widow of Sir James Smith, by whom there is reason to believe it was built in 1635, as Stone was engraved on a stone which formed part of the pavement in front of one of the summer-houses in the garden.

The Right Honourable Sir James Smith was buried at Chelsea 18th of November, 1681. He was probably the junior sheriff of London in 1672.

Summer-house

“It does not appear,” says Lysons, “that Lord Shaftesbury pulled down Sir James Smith’s house, but altered it and made considerable additions by a building fifty feet in length, which projected into the garden. It was secured with an iron door, the window-shutters were of the same metal, and there were iron plates between it and the house to prevent all communication by fire, of which this learned and noble peer seems to have entertained great apprehensions. The whole of the new building, though divided into a gallery and two small rooms (one of which was his lordship’s bedchamber), was fitted up as a library. The earl was very fond of the culture of fruit-trees, and his gardens were planted with the choicest sorts, particularly every kind of vine which would bear the open air of this climate. It appears by Lord Shaftesbury’s letters to Sir John Cropley that he dreaded the smoke of London as so prejudicial to his health, that whenever the wind was easterly he quitted Little Chelsea,” where he generally resided during the sitting of Parliament.

In 1710 the noble author of ‘Characteristics,’ then about to proceed to Italy, sold his residence at Little Chelsea to Narcissus Luttrell, Esq., who, as a book-collector, is described by Dr. Dibdin as “ever ardent in his love of past learning, and not less voracious in his bibliomaniacal appetites” than the Duke of Marlborough. Sir Walter Scott acknowledges in his preface to the works of Dryden the obligations he is under to the “valuable” and “curious collection of fugitive pieces of the reigns of Charles II., James II., William III., and Queen Anne,” “made by Narcissus Luttrell, Esq., under whose name the editor quotes it. This industrious collector,” continues Sir Walter, “seems to have bought every poetical tract, of whatever merit, which was hawked through the streets in his time, marking carefully the price and the date of the purchase. His collection contains the earliest editions of many of our most excellent poems, bound up, according to the order of time, with the lowest trash of Grub Street. It was dispersed on Mr. Luttrell’s death,” adds Sir Walter Scott, and he then mentions Mr. James Bindley and Mr. Richard Heber as having “obtained a great share of the Luttrell collection, and liberally furnished him with the loan of some of them in order to the more perfect editing of Dryden’s works.”

This is not exactly correct, as Mr. Luttrell’s library descended with Shaftesbury House to Mr. Sergeant Wynne, and from him to his eldest son, after whose death it was sold by auction in 1786. On the title-page of the sale-catalogue the collection is described as “the valuable library of Edward Wynne, Esq., lately deceased, brought from his house at Little Chelsea. Great part of it was formed by an eminent and curious collector in the last century.” At the sale of Mr. Wynne’s library, Bindley purchased lot ’209, Collection of Poems, various, Latin and English, 5 vols. 1626, &c.,’ for seven guineas; and ’211, Collection of Political Poems, Dialogues, Funeral Elegies, Lampoons, &c., with various Political Prints and Portraits, 3 vols. 1641, &c.,’ for sixteen pounds; and it is probable that these are the collections to which Sir Walter Scott refers.

Dr. Dibdin, in his enthusiastic mode of treating matters of bibliography, endeavours to establish a pedigree for those who

“Love a ballad in print a’ life,”

from Pepys, placing Mr. Luttrell the Second in descent.

“The opening of the eighteenth century,” he observes, “was distinguished by the death of a bibliomaniac of the very first order and celebrity; of one who had no doubt frequently discoursed largely and eloquently with Luttrell upon the variety and value of certain editions of old ballad poetry, and between whom presents of curious old black-letter volumes were in all probability passing, I allude to the famous Samuel Pepys, secretary to the Admiralty.”

Of Narcissus Luttrell he then says:—

“Nothing would seem to have escaped his lynx-like vigilance. Let the object be what it may (especially if it related to poetry), let the volume be great or small, or contain good, bad, or indifferent warblings of the Muse, his insatiable craving had ‘stomach for all.’ We may consider his collection the fountain-head of these copious streams, which, after fructifying in the libraries of many bibliomaniacs in the first half of the eighteenth century, settled for awhile more determinedly in the curious book-reservoir of a Mr. Wynne, and hence breaking up and taking a different direction towards the collections of Farmer, Steevens, and others, they have almost lost their identity in the innumerable rivulets which now inundate the book-world.”

It is to the literary taste of Mr. Edward Wynne, as asserted by Dr. Dibdin, that modern book-collectors are indebted for the preservation of most of the choicest relics of the Bibliotheca Luttrelliana.

“Mr. Wynne,” he continues, “lived at Little Chelsea, and built his library in a room which had the reputation of having been Locke’s study. Here he used to sit surrounded by innumerable books, a great part being formed by ‘an eminent and curious collector in the last century.’”

What Dr. Dibdin says respecting Mr. Wynne’s building a library and Locke’s study is inaccurate, as there can be no reasonable doubt that the room or rooms his library occupied were those built by Lord Shaftesbury, which had (and correctly) the reputation of having been his lordship’s library, and the study, not of Locke, although of Locke’s pupil and friend. It is not even probable that Lord Shaftesbury was ever visited by our great philosopher at Little Chelsea, as from 1700 that illustrious man resided altogether at Oates, in Essex, where he died on the 28th of October, 1704.

Whether to Lord Shaftesbury or to Mr. Luttrell the embellishments of the garden of their residence are to be attributed can now be only matter for conjecture, unless some curious autograph-collector’s portfolio may by chance contain an old letter or other document to establish the claim. Their tastes, however, were very similar. They both loved their books, and their fruits and flowers, and enjoyed the study of them. Summer-house An account drawn up by Mr. Luttrell of several pears which he cultivated at Little Chelsea, with outlines of their longitudinal sections, was communicated to the Horticultural Society by Dr. Luttrell Wynne, one hundred years after the notes had been made, and may be found printed in the second volume of the Transactions of that Society. In this account twenty-five varieties of pears are mentioned, which had been obtained between the years 1712 and 1717 from Mr. Duncan’s, Lord Cheneys’s, Mr. Palmer’s, and Mr. Selwood’s nursery.

Until recently it was astounding to find, amid the rage for alteration and improvement, the formal old-fashioned shape of a trim garden of Queen Anne’s time carefully preserved, its antique summer-houses respected, and the little infant leaden Hercules, which spouted water to cool the air from a serpent’s throat, still asserting its aquatic supremacy, under the shade of a fine old medlar-tree; and all this too in the garden of a London parish workhouse! Hercules fountain Not less surprising was the aspect of the interior. The grotesque workshop of the pauper artisans, said to have been Workshop Lord Shaftesbury’s dairy, and over which was his fire-proof library, was then an apartment appropriated to a girls’ school.

On the basement story of the original house the embellished mouldings of a doorway, carried the mind back to Doorway the days of Charles I., and, standing within which, imagination depicted the figure of a jolly Cavalier retainer, with his pipe and tankard; or of a Puritanical, formal servant, the expression of whose countenance was sufficient to turn the best-brewed October into vinegar. The old carved door leading into this apartment is shown in the annexed sketch.

Nor should the apartment then occupied by the intelligent master of the workhouse be overlooked. The panelling of the room, its chimney-piece, and the painting and Fireplace with painting above framework above it, placed us completely in a chamber of the time of William III. And we only required a slight alteration in the furniture, and Lord Shaftesbury to enter, to feel that we were in the presence of the author of ‘Characteristics.’

The staircase, too, with its spiral balusters, as seen through the doorway, retained its ancient air.

Staircase seen through doorway

Narcissus Luttrell died here on the 26th of June, 1732, and was buried at Chelsea on the 6th of July following; where Francis Luttrell (presumed to be his son) was also buried on the 3rd of September, 1740. Shaftesbury House then passed into the occupation of Mr. Sergeant Wynne, who died on the 17th of May, 1765; and from him it descended to his eldest son, Mr. Edward Wynne, the author of ‘Eunomus: a Dialogue concerning the Law and Constitution of England, with an Essay on Dialogue,’ 4 vols. 8vo; and other works, chiefly of a legal nature. He died a bachelor, at Little Chelsea, on the 27th of December, 1784; and his brother, the Rev. Luttrell Wynne, of All Souls, Oxford, inherited Shaftesbury House, and the valuable library which Mr. Luttrell, his father, and brother, had accumulated. The house he alienated to William Virtue, from whom, as before mentioned, it was purchased by the parish of St. George’s, Hanover Square, in 1787; and the library formed a twelve-days’ sale, by Messrs. Leigh and Sotheby, commencing on the 6th of March, 1786. The auction-catalogue contained 2788 lots; and some idea of the value may be formed from the circumstance, that nine of the first seventeen lots sold for no less a sum than £32 7s., and that four lots of old newspapers, Nos. 25, 26, 27, and 28, were knocked down at £18 5s. No. ‘376, a collection of old plays, by Gascoigne, White, Windet, Decker, &c., 21 vols,’ brought £38 17s.; and No. 644, Milton’s ‘Eiconoclastes,’ with MS. notes, supposed to be written by Milton, was bought by Waldron for 2s., who afterwards gave it to Dr. Farmer. Dr. Dibdin declares, that “never was a precious collection of English history and poetry so wretchedly detailed to the public in an auction-catalogue” as that of Mr. Wynne’s library; and yet it will be seen that it must have realised a considerable sum of money. He mentions, that “a great number of the poetical tracts were disposed of, previous to the sale, to Dr. Farmer, who gave not more than forty guineas for them.”