The Town Part 23

[213] We quote the Earl of Bedford's reply from Granger's Biographical History of England, not being able to refer to Orrery, who we believe is the authority for it. Burnet's Journal is to be found at the end of Lord Russell's Life, by his descendants.

[214] Lounger's Common-Place Book, 1805. 8vo. vol. i., p. 301.

CHAPTER VI.

Great Queen Street -- Former fashionable Houses there -- Lewis and Miss Pope, the Comedians -- Martin Folkes -- Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller and his Vanity -- Dr. Radcliffe -- Lord Herbert of Cherbury -- Nuisance of Whetstone Park -- The Three Dukes and the Beadle -- Rogues and Vagabonds in the Time of Charles II -- Former Theatres in Vere Street and Portugal Street -- First appearance of Actresses -- Infamous deception of one of them by the Earl of Oxford -- Appearance of an avowed Impostor on the Stage -- Anecdotes of the Wits and fine Ladies of the Time of Charles, connected with the Theatre in this Quarter -- Kynaston, Betterton, Nokes, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Mountford, and other Performers -- Rich -- Joe Miller -- Carey Street and Mrs.

Chapone -- Clare Market -- History, and Specimens, of Orator Henley -- Duke Street and Little Wild Street -- Anecdotes of Dr. Franklin's Residence in those Streets while a Journeyman Printer.

Great Queen Street, in the time of the Stuarts, was one of the grandest and most fashionable parts of the town. The famous Lord Herbert of Cherbury died there. Lord Bristol had a house in it, Lord Chancellor Finch, and the Conway and Paulet families. Some of the houses towards the west retain pilasters and other ornaments, probably indicating, as Pennant observes, the abodes in question. Little thought the n.o.ble lords that a time would come, when a player should occupy their rooms, and be able to entertain their descendants in them; but in a house of this description, lately occupied by Messrs.

Allman the booksellers, died Lewis, the comedian, one of the most delightful performers of his cla.s.s, and famous to the last for his invincible airiness and juvenility. Mr. Lewis displayed a combination rarely to be found in acting, that of the fop and the real gentleman.

With a voice, a manner, and a person, all equally graceful and light, and features at once whimsical and genteel, he played on the top of his profession like a plume. He was the Mercutio of the age, in every sense of the word mercurial. His airy, breathless voice, thrown to the audience before he appeared, was the signal of his winged animal spirits; and when he gave a glance of his eye, or touched his finger at another's ribs, it was the very _punctum saliens_ of playfulness and inuendo. We saw him take leave of the public, a man of sixty-five, looking not more than half the age, in the character of the Copper Captain; and heard him say, in a voice broken by emotion, that "for the s.p.a.ce of thirty years, he had not once incurred their displeasure."

Next door but one to the Freemasons' Tavern (westward), for many years lived another celebrated comic performer, Miss Pope, one of a very different sort, and looking as heavy and insipid as her taste was otherwise. She was an actress of the highest order for dry humour; one of those who convey the most laughable things with a grave face.

Churchill, in the _Rosciad_, when she must have been very young, mentions her as an actress of great vivacity, advancing in a "jig,"

and performing the parts of Cherry and Polly Honeycomb. There was certainly nothing of the Cherry and Honeycomb about her when older; but she was an admirable Mrs. Malaprop.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD HOUSES IN GREAT QUEEN STREET.]

Queen Street continued to be a place of fashionable resort for a considerable period after the Revolution. As we have been speaking of the advancement of actors in social rank, we will take occasion of the birth of Martin Folkes in this street, the celebrated scholar and antiquary, to mention that he was one of the earliest persons among the gentry to marry an actress. His wife was Lucretia Bradshaw. It may be thought worth observing by the romantic, that the ladies who were first selected to give this rise to the profession, had all something peculiar in their Christian names. Lord Peterborough married Anastasia Robinson, and the Duke of Bolton, Lavinia Fenton.

Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller, and Radcliffe the physician, lived in this street. We mention them together because they were neighbours, and there is a pleasant anecdote of them in conjunction. The author of a book lately published, describes their neighbourhood as being in Bow Street; but Horace Walpole, the authority for the story, places it in the street before us; adding, in a note, that Kneller "first lived in Durham Yard (in the Strand), then twenty-one years in Covent Garden (we suppose in Bow Street), and lastly in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields." "Kneller," says Walpole, "was fond of flowers, and had a fine collection. As there was great intimacy between him and the physician, he permitted the latter to have a door into his garden; but Radcliffe's servants gathering and destroying the flowers, Kneller sent him word he must shut up the door. Radcliffe replied peevishly, 'Tell him he may do anything with it but paint it.' 'And I,' answered Sir G.o.dfrey, 'can take anything from him but physic.'"[215]

Kneller, besides being an admired painter (and it is supposed from one of his performances, the portrait of a Chinese, that he could have been admired by posterity, if he chose), was a man of wit; but so vain, that he is described as being the b.u.t.t of all the wits of his acquaintances. They played upon him undoubtedly, and at a great rate; but it has been suggested by a shrewd observer, that while he consented to have his vanity tickled at any price, he humoured the joke himself, and was quite aware of what they were at. Nor is this inconsistent with the vanity, which would always make large allowances for the matter of fact. The extravagance it would limit where it pleased; the truth remained; and Sir G.o.dfrey, as Pope said, had a large appet.i.te. With this probability a new interest is thrown upon the anecdotes related of his vanity, with the best of which the reader is accordingly presented. Kneller was a German, born at Lubec, so that his English is to be read with a foreign accent.

The younger Richardson tells us, that Gay read Sir G.o.dfrey a copy of verses, in which he had pushed his flattery so far, that he was all the while in dread lest the knight should detect him. When Kneller had heard this through, he said, in his foreign style and accent, "Ay, Mr.

Gay, all what you have said is very fine, and very true; but you have forgot one thing, my good friend; by G--, I should have been a general of an army; for when I was at Venice, there was a _girandole_, and all the place of St. Mark was in a smoke of gunpowder, and I did like the smell, Mr. Gay; should have been a great general, Mr. Gay!"

Perhaps it was this real or apparent obtuseness which induced Gay to add "engineering" to his other talents, in the verses describing Pope's welcome from Greece:--

"Kneller amid the triumph bears his part, Who could (were mankind lost) a new create: What can the extent of his vast soul confine?

A painter, critic, engineer, divine."

The following is related on the authority of Pope:--

"Old Jacob Tonson got a great many fine pictures, and two of himself, from him, by this means. Sir G.o.dfrey was very covetous, but then he was very vain, and a great glutton; so he played these pa.s.sions against the others; besides telling him that he was the greatest master that ever was, sending him, every now and then, a haunch of venison, and dozens of excellent claret. 'O, my G--, man,' said he once to Vander Gucht, 'this old Jacob loves me; he is a very good man; you see he loves me, he sends me good things; the venison was fat.' Old Geekie, the surgeon, got several fine pictures of him too, and an excellent one of himself; but then he had them cheaper, for he gave nothing but praises; but then his praises were as fat as Jacob's venison; neither could be too fat for Sir G.o.dfrey."

Pope related the following to Spence:--

"As I was sitting by Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller one day, whilst he was drawing a picture, he stopt, and said, 'I can't do as well as I should do, unless you flatter me a little, Mr. Pope! You know I love to be flattered.' I was for once willing," continues Pope, "to try how far this vanity would carry him; and after considering a picture which he had just finished, for a good while very attentively, I said to him in French (for he had been talking for some time before in that language), 'On lit dans les Ecritures Saintes, que le bon Dieu faisoit l'homme apres son image: mais, je crois, que s'il voudroit faire un autre a present, qu'il le feroit apres l'image que voila.' Sir G.o.dfrey turned round, and said very gravely, 'Vous avez raison, Monsieur Pope; par Dieu, je le crois aussi.'"

It must not be omitted that Kneller was a kind-hearted man. At Whitton, where he had a seat, he was justice of the peace, and,

"Was so much more swayed," says Walpole, "by equity than law, that his judgments, accompanied with humour, are said to have occasioned those lines by Pope:--

"I think Sir G.o.dfrey should decide the suit, Who sent the thief (that stole the cash) away, And punish'd him that put it in his way."

"This alluded to his dismissing a soldier who had stolen a joint of meat, and accused the butcher of having tempted him by it. Whenever Sir G.o.dfrey was applied to, to determine what parish a poor man belonged to, he always inquired which parish was the richer, and settled the poor man there; nor would he ever sign a warrant to distrain the goods of a poor man who could not pay a tax."[216]

Poor Radcliffe, after reigning as a physician so despotically, that Arbuthnot, in his projected map of diseases, was for putting him up at the corner of it disputing the empire of the world, became a less happy man than Sir G.o.dfrey, by reason of his falling in love in his old age. He set up a coach, adorned with mythological paintings,--at least, Steele says so; but soon had to put it in mourning for the death of his flame, who was a Miss Tempest, one of the maids of honour. Radcliffe was the Tory physician, and Steele, in the "Tatler,"

with a party spirit that was much oftener aggrieved than provoked in that good-natured writer, was induced, by some circ.u.mstance or other, perhaps Radcliffe's insolence, to make a ludicrous description of him, "as the mourning Esculapius, the languishing, hopeless lover of the divine Hebe." Steele accuses him of avarice. Others have said he was generous. He was the founder of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, and made other magnificent bequests; which prove nothing either way. But it is not favourable to a reputation for generosity, to own (as he did), that he was fond of spunging, and to avoid the paying of bills.

However, when he lost 5,000_l._ in a speculation, he said "he had nothing to do but to go up so many pair of stairs to make himself whole again." He was undoubtedly a very clever physician, though he made little use of books. Like many men who go upon their own grounds in this way, he had an abrupt and clownish manner, which he probably thought of use. According to Richardson, he one day said to Dr. Mead, "Mead, I love you; now I will tell you a sure secret to make your fortune. Use all mankind ill." It is worth observing, that Mead acted on the reverse principle, and made double the fortune of his adviser.

Radcliffe is said have attended the lady of Judge Holt, in a bad illness, with unusual a.s.siduity, "out of pique to her husband;" a very new kind of satire. He used to send huffing messages to Queen Anne, telling her that he would not come, and that she only had the vapours; and when King William consulted him on his swollen ankles and thin body, Radcliffe said he "would not have his Majesty's two legs for his three kingdoms;" a speech which it was not in the nature of royalty to forgive. His death is said to have been hastened by his refusal to attend on Queen Anne in her last illness; which so exasperated the populace that he was afraid to leave his country house at Carshalton, where he died. He lived in Bow Street when he first came to London; and afterwards in Bloomsbury Square.

But the most remarkable inhabitant of Queen Street was Lord Herbert of Cherbury, one of those extraordinary individuals who, with a touch of madness on the irascible side, and subject to the greatest blindness of self-love, possess a profound judgment on every other point. Such persons are supposed to be victims of imagination; but they are rather mechanical enthusiasts (though of a high order), and, for want of an acquaintance with the imaginative, become at the mercy of the first notion which takes their will by surprise. Lord Herbert, who in the intellectual part was intended for a statist and a man of science, was unfortunately one of the hottest of Welchmen in the physical. Becoming a Knight of the Bath, he took himself for a knight-errant, and fancied he was bound to fight everybody he met with, and to lie under trees in the fields of Holland. He thought Revelation a doubtful matter, and so he had recourse to the Deity for a revelation in his particular favour to disprove it. We have related an anecdote of him at Northumberland House, and shall have more to tell; but the account of his having recourse to Heaven for the satisfaction of his doubts of its interference, must not be omitted here. Perhaps it took place in this very street. His Lordship was the first Deist in England that has left an account of his opinions. Speaking of the work he wrote on this subject, he says:--

"My book 'De Veritate prout distinguitur a Revelatione verisimili, possibili, et a falso,' having been begun by me in England, and formed there in all its princ.i.p.al parts, was about this time finished; all the spare hours which I could get from my visits and negotiations being employed to perfect this work; which was no sooner done, but that I communicated it to Hugo Grotius--that great scholar, who, having escaped his prison in the Low Countries, came into France, and was much welcomed by me and Monsieur Tieleners, also one of the greatest scholars of his time; who, after they had perused it, and given it more commendations than is fit for me to repeat, exhorted me earnestly to print and publish it; howbeit, as the frame of my whole work was so different from anything which had been written heretofore, I found I must either renounce the authority of all that I had written formerly, concerning the method of finding out truth, and consequently insist upon my own way, or hazard myself to a general censure concerning the whole argument of my book; I must confess it did not a little animate me, that the two great persons above-mentioned did so highly value it; yet, as I knew it would meet with much opposition, I did consider whether it was not better for me for a while to suppress it.

"Being thus doubtful in my chamber one fair day in the summer, my cas.e.m.e.nt being open towards the south, the sun shining clear, and no wind stirring, I took my book, 'De Veritate,' in my hand, and kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these words:--

"'Oh, thou eternal G.o.d, author of the light which now shines upon me, and giver of all inward illuminations, I do beseech thee of thy infinite goodness to pardon a greater request than a sinner ought to make; I am not satisfied enough whether I shall publish this book 'De Veritate;' if it be for thy glory, I beseech thee give me some sign from heaven; if not, I shall suppress it.'

"I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud though gentle noise came from the heavens (for it was like nothing on earth) which did so comfort and cheer me, that I took my pet.i.tion as granted, and that I had the sign I demanded; whereupon also I resolved to print my book. This (how strange soever it may seem) I protest, before the eternal G.o.d, is true; neither am I any way superst.i.tiously deceived herein; since I did not only hear the noise, but, in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being without all cloud, did to my thinking see the place from whence it came."[217]

"How could a man," justly observes Walpole on this pa.s.sage, "who doubted of partial, believe individual revelation! What vanity to think his book of such importance to the cause of truth, that it could extort a declaration of the Divine will, when the interest of half mankind could not!" Yet the same writer is full of admiration of him in other respects. It is well observed by the editor of the _Autobiography_ (in reply to the doubts thrown on his lordship's veracity respecting his chivalrous propensities, the consequences of which always fell short of duels), that much of the secret might be owing "to his commanding aspect and acknowledged reputation; and a little more to a certain perception of the Quixote in his character, with which it might be deemed futile to contend. His surprising defence of himself against the attack of Sir John Ayres, forcibly exhibits his personal strength and mastery; and his spirited treatment of the French Minister, Luynes, and the general esteem of his contemporaries, sufficiently attest his quick feeling of national and personal dignity, and general gallantry of bearing." There is no doubt, in short, that Lord Herbert of Cherbury was a brave, an honest, and an able man, though with some weaknesses, both of heat and vanity, sufficient to console the most common-place.

With all this elegance of neighbourhood, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the time of Charles II., had one eyesore of an enormous description, in a place behind Holborn row, ent.i.tled Whetstone Park. It is now a decent pa.s.sage between Great and Little Turnstiles.

"It is scarcely necessary," says Mr. Malcolm, "to remind the reader of a well-known fact, that all sublunary things are subject to change:--he who pa.s.ses through the Little Turnstile, Holborn, at present, will observe on the left hand, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, a narrow street, composed of small buildings, on the corner of which is inscribed Whetstone Park.

The repose and quiet of the place seem to proclaim strong pretensions to regular and moral life in the inhabitants; and well would it have been for the happiness of many a family, had the site always exhibited the same appearance. On the contrary, Whetstone Park contributed to increase the dissoluteness of manners which distinguished the period between 1660 and 1700.

Being a place of low entertainment, numerous disturbances occurred there, and rendered it subject to the satire and reprehension even of 'Poor Robin's Intelligencer,' a paper almost infamous enough for the production of a keeper of this theatre of vice. The publication alluded to says, in 1676, 'Notwithstanding the discourses that have been to the contrary, the boarding-school is still continued here, where a set of women may be readily untaught all the studies of modesty or chast.i.ty; to which purpose they are provided with a two-handed volume of impudence, loosely bound up in greasy vellum, which is tied by the leg to a wicker chair (as you find authors chained in a library), and is always ready to give you plain instructions and directions in all matters relating to immorality or irreligion.' * *

"Incomprehensible as it certainly is," continues our author, "the brutal acts of a mob are sometimes the result of a just sense of the ill consequences attending vice; and, although almost every individual composing it is capable of performing deeds which deserve punishment from the police, they cannot collectively view long and deliberate offences against the laws of propriety, without a.s.suming the right of reforming them.

'The Loyal and Impartial Mercury' of Sept. 1, 1682, has this paragraph:--'On Sat.u.r.day last, about 500 apprentices, and such like, being got together in Smithfield, went into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where they drew up, and marching into Whetstone Park, fell upon the lewd houses there, where, having broken open the doors, they entered, and made great spoil of the goods; of which the constables and watchmen having notice, and not finding themselves strong enough to quell the tumult, procured a party of the King's guards who dispersed them, and took eleven, who were committed to New Prison; yet on Sunday night they came again, and made worse havoc than before, breaking down all the doors and windows, and cutting the featherbeds and goods in pieces.' Another newspaper explains the origin of the riot by saying, 'that a countryman who had been decoyed into one of the houses alluded to, and robbed, lodged a formal and public complaint against them to those he found willing to listen to him in Smithfield, and thus raised the ferment.'"[218]

In the "State Poems" is a doggrel set of verses on a tragical circ.u.mstance occasioned by a frolic of three of Charles's natural sons in this place. It is ent.i.tled "On the three Dukes killing the Beadle on Sunday morning, Feb. the 26th, 1671." A great sensation was made by this circ.u.mstance, which was naturally enough regarded as a signal instance of the consequences of Charles's mode of life. Our Grub Street writer selected his t.i.tle well--the "Dukes," the "Beadle," and the "Sunday." His first four lines might have been put into Martinus Scriblerus, as a specimen of the Newgate style.

"Near Holborn lies a park of great renown, The place, I do suppose, is not unknown: For brevity's sake the name I shall not tell, Because most genteel readers know it well."

The three Dukes pick a quarrel with one poor damsel, and "murder" was cried.

"In came the watch, disturbed with sleep and ale, By noises shrill, but they could not prevail T' appease their Graces. Strait rose mortal jars, Betwixt the night blackguard and silver stars; Then fell the beadle by a ducal hand, For daring to p.r.o.nounce the saucy stand.

See what mishaps dare e'en invade Whitehall, This silly fellow's death puts off the ball, And disappoints the Queen, poor little chuck; I warrant t'would have danced it like a duck.

The fiddlers, voices, entries, all the sport, And the gay show put off, where the brisk court Antic.i.p.ates, in rich subsidy coats, All that is got by necessary votes.

Yet shall Whitehall, the innocent, the good, See these men dance, all daubed with lace and blood."[219]

The "subsidy coats" allude to Charles's raising money for his profligate expenditure under pretence of the public service. The last couplet would have done credit to a better satire.

As we are upon the subject of a neighbourhood to which they apply, we shall proceed to give a few more extracts from Mr. Malcolm, highly characteristic of the lower orders of desperadoes in Charles's reign.

"The various deceivers," he tells us, "who preyed upon the public at this time were exposed in a little filthy work called the 'Canting Academy,' which went through more than one edition (the second is dated 1674). I shall select from it enough to show the variety of villany practised under their various names. The _Ruffler_ was a wretch who a.s.sumed the character of a maimed soldier, and begged from the claims of Naseby, Edgehill, Newbury, and Marston Moor. Those who were stationed in the city of London were generally found in Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden; and their prey was people of fashion, whose coaches were attacked boldly; and if denied, their owners were told, "Tis a sad thing that an old crippled cavalier should be suffered to beg for a maintenance, and a young cavalier that had never heard the whistle of a bullet should ride in his coach.'