Nooks and Corners of Old London Part 9

A narrow dingy thoroughfare of small shops called Poland Street extends south from Oxford Street. In 1811 Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley then a young man lived hereabouts attracted to the street by Hogg his biographer who liked it because of its name which reminded him of "Thaddeus of Warsaw"

and the cause of freedom. William Blake, the painter-poet, also lived in this street when he depicted "Visionary Portraits" and wrote the "Songs of Experience."

The "Berners Street Hoax" carried quiet Berners Street into history.

This was brought about by Theodore Hook, a novelist, dramatic writer and celebrated wit, in this wise. He laid a wager that he could make the quiet dwelling No. 54, occupied by a demure widow, Mrs. Tottingham, the talk of the town. Then he wrote hundreds of letters to merchants of every line, ordering everything from candles to a hea.r.s.e, and all reached the street at the same hour. The thoroughfare was blocked and the story stirred London for a day. Hook after a meteoric career, at times the friend of royalty and fas.h.i.+on, finally died in 1841 lonely and miserable. Berners Street was long the home of artists. John Opie, Royal Academician, author, and painter of "The Slaughter of James I. of Scotland," lived at No. 8; at No. 13 lived Henry Fuseli the famous portrait painter and critic of the early part of the 19th century; Henry Bone the painter of miniatures lived at No. 15. It was here, too, that the painter of cathedrals David Roberts suffered the apoplectic stroke that resulted in his death.

In Newman Street jutting from Oxford to the north Benjamin West the Anglo-American painter lived at No. 14 and here he died. f.a.n.n.y Kemble the actress was born in this street.

The Soho neighbourhood lies enclosed by Charing Cross Road, Leicester Square, Warwick Street and Oxford Street. The name is a reminder of the old cry of the harriers--Co, ho! The Square of Soho was part of the garden of the Duke of Monmouth whose home was what is now the south side of the square and occupied almost the entire s.p.a.ce between the present Greek and Frith streets.

Frith Street extending south from Soho Square has an air of genteel poverty. In the block below the square on a low house of brick numbered 6 is a tablet:

William Hazlitt 1778-1833 Essayist Died Here

Here he wrote some of his most notable essays and it was from this house that his body was taken to the quiet little churchyard of St. Anne's in Wardour Street.

In the block below the Hazlitt house at No. 7 Mozart lived when eight years old during the two years he remained in London with his father.

Beyond New Oxford Street to the south in High Street is the church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. The fields of this day are the ma.s.sed and dreary houses standing so close about the old church that they seem like to crowd it out of existence. But there is still a bit of green in the churchyard and among the tombstones a most interesting one telling that the body of Richard Pendrell lies buried here since 1671, and further reciting the story of how this Richard Pendrell was the preserver of the life of King Charles II. after the Battle of Worcester. St. Giles was built in 1734 and its spire Hogarth has put in his picture of "Beer Street."

Bloomsbury the heart of the boarding house district where Americans most congregate is enclosed by Tottenham Court Road, Southampton Road, Euston Road and on the south by Oxford Street and High Holborn. The name is a corruption of Blemundsbury, which was the manor of the de Blemunds when Henry III. was king.

There was formerly a graveyard beside St. George's church in Hart Street but it has been made into a recreation ground. Munden the actor whom Charles Lamb wrote of was buried here. It was the spire of this church that Hogarth incorporated into his fearful picture of "Gin Lane." The statue on the steeple top is a representation of George I., and inspired the lines:

When Henry the Eighth left the Pope in the lurch, The Protestants made him the head of the Church; But George's good subjects, the Bloomsbury people, Instead of the church, made him head of the steeple.

Great Russell Street on which the British Museum borders has been the home of many well-known men. John Philip Kemble the great actor lived here in the years after 1790 when Drury Lane came under his direction.

His house was demolished when the west wing of the Museum was added.

Gower Street, monotonous in the regularity of its houses, is where, in the building numbered 110, Charles Darwin lived and where he wrote about "Coral Reefs." Peter de Wint the painter of English cornfields lived at No. 40 and Millais at No. 87.

When Sherlock Holmes first came to London by invitation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle he lived in one of the staid looking brick houses with a prim stoop in Montague Street opposite the British Museum. The house is mentioned in the "Musgrave Ritual."

To Bloomsbury Square in 1780 the Gordon rioters dragged the doc.u.ments, paintings and books of Lord Mansfield and made a bonfire of them. The house, too, of the famous judge which faced the square was burned. It was a fas.h.i.+onable locality in those days, unlike to-day when for the most part the houses are used for business offices. The founder of the British Museum Sir Hans Sloane long lived in this square; and at No. 6 Isaac d'Israeli wrote his "Curiosities of Literature."

In broad Kingsway just a few steps south of High Holborn is the church of Trinity, contracted and ill kempt. There is nothing pleasant or romantic about its appearance and it is noteworthy only because of being on the site of the home in which in 1796 Mary Lamb while temporarily insane stabbed her mother to death.

Dingy Red Lion Street near by the square of the same name in the house numbered 9 William Morris started to make the furniture that was to leave its mark on all such work in future times. Rossetti and Burne-Jones lived at No. 15.

At 48 Doughty Street Charles d.i.c.kens lived and here he finished "Pickwick Papers" and "Oliver Twist," wrote "Nicholas Nickleby," and began to write "Barnaby Rudge."