The Town Part 16

"30th (Dec., 1662). Visited Mrs. Ferrer and staid talking with her a good while, there being a little proud, ugly, talking little lady there, that was much crying up the Queene-mother's court at Somerset House above our own Queene's; there being before her no allowance of laughing and the mirth that is at others; and, indeed, it is observed that the greatest court now-a-days is there."[165]

The following print represents Old Somerset House, as it appeared in the reign of Charles II. We have seen, but in vain endeavoured to procure for this book, a scarce one by Hollar, in which the towers in the back ground mark out the front in the Strand, and a tall May-pole to the right was the May-pole of John Clarges. The front, looking on the river, was added by Charles II. Inigo Jones was the architect. In Hollar's print it gives us a taste of the banqueting room at Whitehall in its elevation, and in the harmonies of the windows and pilasters.

Below is a portico; and there is another to the right. The chapel, with an enclosure to the left, was the Catholic one; the houses by it, the cloisters of the Capuchins. There was a figure walking in the chapel garden, whom, by his gesticulating arm, we might imagine to be the queen's confessor, studying his to-morrow's sermon, or thinking how he shall get the start of the king's chaplain in saying grace. A curious scene of this kind is worth extracting. "Once," Mr. D'Israeli informs us, "when the king and queen were dining together in the presence, Hacket being to say grace, the queen's confessor would have antic.i.p.ated him, and an indecorous race was run between the Catholic priest and the Protestant chaplain, till the latter shoved him aside, and the king pulling the dishes to him, the carvers performed their office. Still the confessor, standing by the queen, was on the watch to be before Hacket for the after-grace, but Hacket again got the start. The confessor, however, resounded the grace louder than the chaplain, and the king, in great pa.s.sion, instantly rose, taking the queen by the hand." The bowling-green that we read of is probably between the two rows of trees to the right, in front of the right portico (the left, if considered from the house). The garden is in the most formal style of the parterre, where

---- "each alley has its brother, And half the platform just reflects the other;"

a style, however, not without its merits, particularly in admitting so many walks among the flowers, and inviting a pace up and down between the trees. Milton, though he made a different garden for his Eden, spoke of "trim gardens," as enjoyed by "retired leisure." In this back front were the apartments of the court. The scene we have just been reading in Pepys must have pa.s.sed in one of them. Here Charles the First's widow lived with her supposed husband, the Earl of St.

Albans; though she was not so constant to the place as Waller prophesied she would be. She had been used to too much power as a queen, and found she had too little as a dowager. Poor Catherine remained as long as she could. She lived here till she returned to Portugal, in the reign of William III. Speaking of Waller, we must not quit the premises without noticing a catastrophe that befel him at the water-gate, or Somerset-stairs (also, by the way, the work of Inigo Jones). Waller, according to Aubrey, had but "a tender weak body, but was always very temperate." ---- (we know not who this is) "made him d.a.m.nable drunk at Somerset House, where, at the water stayres, he fell down, and had a cruel fall. 'Twas a pity to use such a sweet swan so inhumanly."[166] Waller, who, notwithstanding his weak body, lived to be old, was a water-drinker; but he had a poet's wine in his veins, and was excellent company. Saville said, "that n.o.body should keep him company without drinking, but Ned Waller."

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD SOMERSET HOUSE, FROM THE RIVER.]

Subsequently to Catherine's departure, old Somerset House was chiefly used as a residence for princes from other countries when on a visit.

It was pulled down towards the end of the last century, and the present structure erected by Sir William Chambers, but left unfinished. The unfinished part, which is towards the east, is now in a state of completion, as the King's College. The only memorial remaining of the old palace and its outhouses is in the wall of a house in the Strand, where the sign of a lion still survives a number of other signs, noticed in a list made at the time, and common at that period to houses of all descriptions.

The area of New Somerset House occupies a large s.p.a.ce of ground, the bas.e.m.e.nt of the back-front being in the river. Three sides of it are appropriated to a variety of public offices, connected with trade, commerce, and civil economy; and the front was lately dignified by the occupancy of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies and the Royal Academy of Painting. The structure was an ambitious one on the part of the architect, and upon the whole is elegant but timid. There is a look of fragility in it. It has the extent, but not the majesty, of a national emporium. Rules are violated in some instances for the sake of trifles, as is the case of pillars "standing on nothing and supporting nothing;" and in others, it would seem out of a dread of the result, as in the instance of the huge bas.e.m.e.nt over the water, supporting a cupola, which is petty in the comparison. Sir William did well in wis.h.i.+ng to have an imposing front towards the river; but he might have had another towards the Strand, n.o.bler than the present one. The lower part is nothing better than a pillared coachway.

However, the front of the story is, perhaps, the best part of the whole building. It present a graceful harmony in the proportions.

The Royal Society, which originated in the college rooms of Dr.

Wilkins, afterwards bishop of Chester, met, when it was incorporated, at Old Gresham College in Aldersgate Street; then at Arundel House (on account of the fire); then returned to Gresham College; and, after a variety of other experiments upon lodging, was settled by the late king in New Somerset House. This society, on its foundation, was much ridiculed by the wits. Though its ends were great, it naturally busied itself with little things; pragmatical and pedantic persons naturally enough got mixed up with it; some of its members had foibles of enthusiasm and pedantry, which were easily confounded with their capacities; and the jokes were most likely encouraged by the king (Charles II.), who, though fond of scientific experiments, and wearing a grave face in presence of the learned body (of which he declared himself a member), was not a man to forego such an opportunity of jesting. Wilkins wrote a book to show that a man might go to the moon; and the ethical common-places of Boyle (who was as great a natural philosopher as he was a poor moralist) were the origin of Swift's _Essays on the Tritical Faculties of the Mind_. Then there was the good Evelyn with his hard words, wondering sentimentally at every thing; and jolly Pepys marvelling like Sancho Panza. The readers of Pepys' _Diary_ have been surprised at his not liking _Hudibras_.

Perhaps one reason was, that Butler was the greatest of the jesters against the society. It was impossible not to laugh at the jokes, in which he charges them with attempting to

"Search the moon by her own light; To take an inventory of all Her real estate and personal;-- To measure wind, and weigh the air, And turn a circle to a square; And in the braying of an a.s.s, Find out the treble and the ba.s.s; If mares neigh _alto_, and a cow In double diapason low."[167]

Evelyn got angry, and pretended to be calm. Cowley expressed his anger with a generous indignation. The following pa.s.sage in his _Ode to the Society_ concludes with a fine, appropriate simile. "Mischief and true dishonour," says he,

---- "fall on those Who would to laughter and to scorn expose So virtuous and so n.o.ble a design, So human for its use, for knowledge so divine.

The things which these proud men despise and call Impertinent, and vain, and small, Those smallest things of Nature let me know, Rather than all their greatest actions do!

Whoever would deposed Truth advance Into the throne usurped from it, Must feel at first the blows of Ignorance, And the sharp points of envious Wit.

So, when, by various turns of the celestial dance In many thousand years A star, so long unknown, appears, Though Heaven itself more beauteous by it grow, It troubles and alarms the world below, Does to the wise a star, to fools a meteor, show."[168]

Perhaps a part of the jealousy against the Royal Society arose from a notion which has since become not uncommon, that bodies of this nature, incorporated by kings, are calculated rather to limit inquiry, than to enlarge it. Without stopping to discuss this point, we shall merely observe, that the real greatness of all such bodies, like those of nations themselves, must arise from the greatness of individuals; and that whether the bodies give any l.u.s.tre to them or not, there is no denying that the individuals give l.u.s.tre to the bodies. When Sir Isaac Newton became president, jesting ceased.

It is pleasant to think, while pa.s.sing Somerset House, in the midst of the noise of a great thoroughfare, that philosophical speculation is, perhaps, going on within those graceful walls; that in the midst of all sorts of new things, sight is not lost of the venerable beauties of old; and that art, as well as philosophy, is considering what it shall do for our use and entertainment. The Antiquarian Society originated as far back as the sixteenth century (about the year 1580), and held its first sittings in a room in the Herald's College; but it did not receive a charter till the year 1751. Neither Elizabeth nor James would give it one, fearful, perhaps, of bringing up discussions on matters connected with politics and religion. Elizabeth has now become one of the most interesting of its heroines. There is no society, we think, more likely to increase with age, and to outgrow half-witted objection. The growth of time adds daily to its stock; and as reflecting men become interested in behalf of ages to come, they naturally turn with double sympathy towards the periods that have gone by, and to the mult.i.tudes of beating hearts that have become dust. We should like to see the society in a venerable building of its own, raised in some quiet spot, with trees about it, and with painted windows reflecting light through old heraldry.

The Royal Academy of Painters, now removed to Trafalgar Square, first met in Saint Martin's Lane, under the t.i.tle of the Society of Artists of Great Britain. They had a division among them, which gave rise to the establishment as it now stands; and are a flouris.h.i.+ng body, we believe, in point of funds. Of the deceased members who have done them honour, we shall speak when we come to their abodes.

The Turk's Head Coffeehouse, near Somerset House, was frequented by Dr. Johnson.

In a lodging opposite Somerset House, died the facetious Dr. King, whom we have mentioned in speaking of Doctors' Commons. He had been residing in the house of a friend in the garden-grounds between Lambeth and Vauxhall, where he stuck so close to his books and bottle, that he began to decline with the autumn, and shut himself up from his friends. Lord Clarendon, who resided in Somerset House, and was his relation, sent his sister to fetch him to a lodging he had prepared for him over the way, where he died before the lapse of many hours, while all the world were busy with the meats and mince-pies he had so often celebrated; for it was Christmas-day. Dr. King was the author of an _Art of Cookery_, in which he pleasantly bantered a learned Kitchener of his time; though no man had a livelier relish of their subjects than he. But he wished the relish to be lively in others. At least, he wished them to be _leviter in modo_, if _graviter in re_.

Though occasionally coa.r.s.e, he had the right style of banter, and was of use to the Tories. In return, they would have been of use to him, if his habits would have let them. Swift procured him the place of Gazetteer; but he soon got rid of it.

The precinct called the Savoy was anciently the seat of Peter, Earl of Savoy, who came into England to visit his niece Eleanor, Queen to Henry III. It is not known whether the house was built or appointed for him, but on his death it became the property of the queen, who gave it to her second son Edmund, afterwards Earl of Lancaster; and from his time the Savoy was reckoned part and parcel of the earldom and honour of Lancaster, afterwards the duchy. Henry VII. converted the palace into an hospital for the poor; and it remained so till the time of Charles II.; though the master and other officers, by an abuse which grew into a custom, appear to have had no regular inmates, except themselves. The poor were to apply, as it might happen; and what they got depended on the generosity of the master. In answer to a question put by Government in the reign of Queen Anne, it was stated by the lawyer and four chaplains, that "the statutes relating to the reception of the poor had not been observed within the memory of man."[169] Charles II. put wounded soldiers and sailors into the hospital; and since his time it appears to have been used for the reception of soldiers and prisoners. Latterly, it was a prison for deserters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SAVOY PALACE, FROM THE RIVER.]

The Savoy was the scene of a conference in Charles II.'s reign, between the Church and the Presbyterians, in which possession was proved to be nine points of the Gospel, as well as law. The Presbyterians thought so when it was their turn to rule, and would have thought so again; and the progress of genuine Christianity has been a gainer by the mild sway of the Church of England.

In the chapel was buried old Gawen Douglas, the Chaucer of Scotland; and Anne Killegrew, celebrated by Dryden's ode for her poetry and painting. She was the daughter of one of the masters, Dr. Henry Killegrew, brother of the famous jester, and himself a man of talent.

Mrs. Anne Killegrew,

A grace for beauty, and a muse for wit,

had probably the honour, some day, of dining with her washerwoman's daughter, in the guise of d.u.c.h.ess of Albemarle; for John Clarges, the blacksmith, who lived in the Savoy, had a wife who was a washerwoman, and the washerwoman had a daughter, who took linen to Monk, when he was in the Tower, and married him. It is not commonly known that the validity of this marriage was contested. Upon the trial of an action at law between the representatives of Monk and Clarges, some curious particulars, says an article in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, came out respecting the family of the d.u.c.h.ess.

"It appeared that she was the daughter of John Clarges, a farrier, in the Savoy, and farrier to Colonel Monk, in 1632.

She was married in the church of St. Lawrence Pountney, to Thomas Ratford, son of Thomas Ratford, late a farrier, servant to Prince Charles, and resident in the Mews. She had a daughter who was born in 1634, and died in 1638. Her husband and she 'lived at the Three Spanish Gypsies, in the New Exchange, and sold wash-b.a.l.l.s, powder, gloves, and such things, and she taught girls plain work. About 1647, she, being a sempstress to Colonel Monk, used to carry him linen.' In 1648 her father and mother died. In 1649, she and her husband 'fell out and parted.' But no certificate from any parish register appears, reciting his burial. In 1652, she was married in the church of St. George, Southwark, to 'General George Monk;' and in the following year was delivered of a son, Christopher, (afterwards the second and last Duke of Albemarle), who was suckled by Honour Mills, who sold apples, herbs, oysters, &c. One of the plaintiff's witnesses swore, 'that a little before the sickness, Thomas Ratford demanded and received of him the sum of twenty s.h.i.+llings; that his wife saw Ratford again after the sickness, and a second time after the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Albemarle were dead.' A woman swore, 'she saw him on the day his wife (then called d.u.c.h.ess of Albemarle) was put into her coffin, which was after the death of the duke her second husband, who died the 3rd of January, 1669-70.' And a third witness swore, that he saw Ratford about July, 1660.' In opposition to this evidence, it was alleged, that 'all along, during the lives of Duke George and Duke Christopher, this matter was never questioned,' that the latter was universally received as only son of the former, and that 'this matter had been thrice before tried at the bar of the King's Bench, and the defendant had three verdicts.' A witness swore that he owed Ratford five or six pounds, which he had never demanded. And a man, who had married a cousin to the Duke of Albemarle, _had been told by his wife_, that Ratford _died five or six years_ before the duke married. Lord Chief Justice Holt 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.' A verdict was given for the defendant, who was only son to Sir Thomas Clarges, knight, brother to the ill.u.s.trious d.u.c.h.ess in question, who was created a baronet October 30, 1674, and was ancestor to the baronets of his name."[170]

It does not appear on which of these accounts the jury found a verdict for the defendant--whether because Ratford was dead, or because nothing had been heard of him; so that the d.u.c.h.ess, after all, might have been no d.u.c.h.ess. However, she carried it with as high a hand as if she had never been anything else, and Monk had been a blacksmith.

There are some amusing notices of her in Pepys.

"8th (March, 1661-2). At noon, Sir W. Batten, Col. Slingsby, and I, by coach to the Tower, to Sir John Robinson's, to dinner, where great good cheer. High company, and among others the d.u.c.h.ess of Albemarle, who is ever a plain homely dowdy."[171]

"9th (Dec. 1665). My Lord Brouncker and I dined with the Duke of Albemarle. At table, the d.u.c.h.ess, a very ill-looked woman, complaining of her lord's going to sea 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 amba.s.sador,' (meaning my Lord Sandwich). This made me mad, and I believe 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 came away, took notice of the words to me with displeasure."[172]

Lord Sandwich, the famous admiral, who has such light repute with posterity, was a relation of Pepys, and much connected with him in affairs. There does not appear to have been the least foundation for the d.u.c.h.ess's charge; except, perhaps, that Sandwich had brains enough to know the danger which he braved, while Monk knew nothing but how to fight and lie.

"4th (Nov. 1666)." Pepys says that Mr. Cooling tells him, "the Duke of Albemarle is grown a drunken sot, and drinks with n.o.body but Troutbecke, whom n.o.body 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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, miracle.'

And what was that, but that our dirty Besse (meaning his d.u.c.h.ess) should come to be d.u.c.h.ess of Albemarle."[173]

"4th (April, 1667). I find the Duke of Albemarle at dinner with sorry company, some of his officers of the army; dirty dishes and a nasty wife at table, and bad meat, of which I made but an ill dinner. Colonel Howard asking how the Prince (Rupert) did (in the last fight); the Duke of Albemarle answering, 'Pretty well,' the other replied, 'but not so well as to go to sea again.'--'How!' says the d.u.c.h.ess, 'what should he go for, if he were well, for there are no s.h.i.+ps for him to command? And so you have brought your hogs to a fair market,' said she."[174]

"29th (March 1667-8). I do hear by several, that Sir W. Pen's going to sea do dislike the Parliament mightily, and that they have revived the Committee of Miscarriages, to find something to prevent it; and that he being the other day with the Duke of Albemarle, to ask his opinion touching his going to sea, the d.u.c.h.ess overheard and came into him; and asked W. Pen how he durst have the confidence to go to sea again to the endangering of the nation, when he knew himself such a coward as he was; which, if true, is very severe."[175]

The habit of charging cowardice against the first officers of the time, which was not confined to the d.u.c.h.ess, is characteristic of the grossness of that period, the refinements of which were entirely artificial and modish. No people talked or acted more grossly than the finest gentlemen of the day, or believed more ill of one another; and it was not to be expected that the uneducated should be behindhand with them.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Albemarle is supposed to have had a considerable hand in the Restoration. She was a great loyalist, and Monk was afraid of her; so that it is likely enough she influenced his gross understanding, when it did not exactly know what to be at. Aubrey says, that her mother was one of the "five women barbers." How these awful personages came up we know not--but he has quoted a ballad upon them:--

"Did you ever hear the like, Or ever hear the fame, Of five women barbers, That lived in Drury Lane?"[176]

After all, the father, John Clarges, must have been a man of substance in his trade, to be enabled to set up the enormous May-pole which we see in the picture. But this did not prevent the daughter from growing up vulgar and foul-mouthed, and a very different person from the _Belles Ferronieres_ of old.

The Savoy, on the one side, with its Gothic gate and flint wall, and the splendid mansion called Exeter House on the other, appear in former times to have narrowed the highway hereabouts, as much as Exeter 'Change did lately.

At the corner of Beaufort Buildings flourished Mr. Lillie, the perfumer so often mentioned in the _Tatler_. He was secretary to Mr.

Bickerstaff's Court of Honour, in s.h.i.+re Lane, where people had actions brought against them for pulling out their watches while their superiors were talking; and for brus.h.i.+ng feathers off a gentleman's coat, with a cane "value fivepence." Lillie published two volumes of Contributions, of which the _Tatler_ had made no use. We believe they had no merit. In Beaufort Buildings lived Aaron Hill, and at one time Fielding.

Southampton Street, a little to the west, on the other side of the way, has been much inhabited by wits and theatrical people. Congreve once lived there, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and Garrick. It was called Southampton Street from the n.o.ble family of that t.i.tle, who are allied to the Bedford family, the proprietors.

On the ground of Cecil and Salisbury Streets, opposite Southampton Street, stood the mansion of Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury, the cunning son of a wise father. It was he who, contriving to keep up to the last his interest with the queen Elizabeth, and to oust his rivals, Ess.e.x and others, was the first to make secret terms with her successor James, and to prepare the way for his reception in England: of which, perhaps, Elizabeth was aware, when she lay moaning on the ground.

Where the Adelphi now stands, was Durham Place, originally a palace of the Bishops of Durham, who resigned it to Henry VIII. Henry made it the scene of magnificent tournaments. The Lord High Admiral Seymour caused the Mint to be established in this house, with a view to coin money for his designs on the throne. It was afterwards inhabited by Dudley, Earl of Northumberland, who here married his son to Lady Jane Grey. But its most ill.u.s.trious tenant was Raleigh, to whom it was lent by Queen Elizabeth, and who lived in it during the attempt made at Ess.e.x House. The four turrets of the mansion, under the roof of which lived and speculated that romantic but equivocal person, have been marked out in an engraving from Hollar. Durham Place, though it got into royal hands during the fluctuation of religious opinions, never seems to have been reckoned out of the pale of the bishopric of Durham; for Lord Pembroke bought it of that see in 1640, and pulled it down for the erection of houses on its site.

"Be it known," says the lively Pennant, speaking of the word 'place,' as applied to great mansions, and interpreted by him to mean palace, "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 quant.i.ty of stones or 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."[177]

This is true; but 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 or 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. Palatium, it is true, with the old Romans, though it may have originally meant any house on Mount Palatine, yet in consequence of that place becoming the court end of the city, and containing the imperial palace, may have come ultimately to mean only a princely residence. Ovid uses it in that sense in his _Metamorphoses_.[178] But custom is everything in these matters. Place is now used as a variety of term, either for a large house or street.

Perhaps in both cases it ought to imply something of the look of a palace, or at least an openness of aspect a.n.a.logous to that of a _square_--square in England, corresponding with _place_, _piazza_, and _placa_ on the Continent. The Piazza in Covent Garden, properly means the place itself, and not the portico.