Whitsun Monday, the 30th of May, 1664, beginning exactly at three of the clock in the afternoon, and the best man is to take all." The weapons were "back-sword, single rapier, sword and dagger, rapier and dagger, sword and buckler, half pike, sword and gauntlet, single faulchion." Mr. James Greenstreet communicated to The Athenæum, February 21, August 29, and November 29, 1885, some important documents relating to the theatre in 1613 and 1623. Red Cross Street, CRIPPLEGATE, from Fore Street to Barbican. In Red Cross Street, on the west side from St. Giles's Churchyard up to the said Crosse, be many fair houses built outward, with divers alleys turning into a large plot of ground, called the Jews' Garden, as being the only place appointed them in England wherein to bury their dead, till the year 1177, the 24th of Henry II. that it was permitted to them (after long suit to the King and Parliament at Oxford) to have a special place assigned them in every quarter where they dwelt. This plot of ground remained to the said Jews till the time of their final banishment out of England, and is now turned into fair garden-plots and summer-houses for pleasure. [See Jewin Street.] On the east side of the Red Cross Street be also divers fair houses up to the Cross.-Stow, p. 113. And first to shew you that by conjecture he [Richard III.] pretended this thing in his brother's life, you shall understand for a truth that the same night that King Edward dyed, one called Mistelbrooke, long ere the day sprung, came to the house of one Pottier, dwelling in Red Crosse Street without Cripple Gate, of London, and when he was, with hasty wrapping, quickly let in, the said Mistelbrooke shewed unto Pottier that King Edward was that night deceased. "By my truth," quoth Pottier, "then will my master the Duke of Gloucester be King, and that I warrant thee." What cause he had so to think, hard it is to say, whether he, being his servant, knew any such thing pretended, or otherwise had any inkling thereof, but of all likelihood he spake it not of nought.—Sir Thomas More (The Pitiful Life of King Edward the Fifth, 12mo, 1641, p. 27). Here was Dr. Williams's Theological Library, now in Grafton Street East, Gower Street. [See Dr. Williams's Library.] Lady Holles's School for Girls, rebuilt 1887-1888, is in this street. Red House, BATTERSEA, a favourite tea-garden and noted place for shooting matches, on the Surrey side of the Thames, nearly opposite Chelsea Hospital. Until the formation of Battersea Park the Red House was the headquarters of the Gun Club. It was purchased by Government in 1850 for £11,000, and pulled down in order that the site might be included in Battersea Park. It stood as nearly as possible between the south end of Chelsea Bridge and the east gate of Battersea Park. Red Lion Court, FLEET STREET, north side, east of Fetter Lane. William Bowyer, the learned printer, moved into this court from Whitefriars in 1767. John Nichols (of the Gentleman's Magazine), his "apprentice, partner and successor " (and biographer), had just been admitted into partnership. When Jennens, the Shakespeare editor, visited his printers he always came in a carriage with four horses and the same number of footmen, and in his progress up the paved court the footmen preceded him to kick oyster shells or orange peel out of his way. Nichols's office was destroyed by fire, February 8, 1808. His son and grandson continued the business in Parliament Street. Printers, publishers, bookbinders, and others connected with "the trade," still occupy the major part of the houses in Red Lion Court, and many periodicals are published here. One word before we part: call upon Mr. John Nichols, bookseller and printer at Cicero's Head, Red Lion Passage, Fleet Street, and ask him whether he did not, about the beginning of March, receive a very polite letter from Mr. Gibbon of Lausanne.-Gibbon to Lord Sheffield, May 30, 1792. Red Lion Court, GILTSPUR STREET, a short passage of old-fashioned houses on the south side of Cock Lane, extending to the back of St. Sepulchre's churchyard, now called RED LION Buildings. Here after his marriage with Miss Mead, 1749, John Wilkes lived in the house of Mrs. Mead, his wife's mother, and here, August 5, 1750, his daughter, so often referred to in his correspondence, was born. He removed to Great George Street shortly after. Red Lion Passage leads from the south-east corner of Red Lion Square into Red Lion Street, Holborn. Erskine was living here, as a temporary arrangement, when he got his first brief.1 Red Lion Square, on the north side of HOLBORN. Built circ. 1698, and so called of "The Red Lion Inn," long the largest and best frequented inn in Holborn. He came back again unto London, where he lodged in the Red Lyon in Holborne.-Stow, by Howes, ed. 1631, p. 672. He [Andrew Marvell] lies interred under ye pewes in the south side of Saint Giles's Church in ye Fields, under the window wherein is painted in glasse a red lyon (it was given by the Inneholder of the Red Lyon Inne in Holborne).—Aubrey's Lives, vol. iii. p. 438. Thomas, a child borne under the Redd Lyon Elmes in the fields in High Holborn, baptized iij of August 1614.-Register of St. Andrew's, Holborn. On the 29th of January 1661 the corpses of Oliver Cromwell, Ireton and Bradshaw were removed from Westminster to the Red Lion in Holborn, and on the following morning put upon a sledge and dragged to Tyburn, there to undergo the ignominy with which our historians have made every one familiar.2 Rede in his Anecdotes and Biography, 1799, repeats a tradition that Cromwell's mutilated remains were procured by some devoted followers and reverently buried in a field on the north side of Holborn, and that the obelisk which stood in the centre of Red Lion Square marked the site of the grave. No contemporary or early writer, so far as we know, alludes to any such tradition, which has all the appearance of being a late invention. Sir Philip Yorke (Earl Hardwicke) took a house in this square in 1727, in which he resided till 1731. At this time the centre of the square was in a dirty and neglected condition, and a newspaper paragraph, quoted in the Hardwicke Correspondence, relates the attempt made to improve it. Red Lion Square in Holborn, having for some years lain in a ruinous condition, a proposal is on foot for applying to Parliament for power to beautify it, as the inhabitants of Lincoln's Inn Fields have lately done. 1 Rogers's Recollections, p. 184. 2 Rugge's Diurnall, MS. し The central area was "inclosed with iron rails, a stone watchhouse" was erected "at each corner, and a plain obelisk in the centre." But the effort to beautify added little cheerfulness to the aspect of the square, if we may trust the impressions of a somewhat later writer. Red Lion Square . . . has a very different effect on the mind. . . . I am sure I never go into it without thinking of my latter end. The rough sod that "heaves in many a mouldering heap," the dreary length of the sides, with the four watchhouses like so many family vaults at the corners, and the naked obelisk that springs from amidst the rank grass, like the sad monument of a disconsolate widow for the loss of her first husband; form altogether a memento mori, more powerful to me than a death's head and cross marrow-bones; and were but a parson's bull to be seen bellowing at the gate, the idea of a country church-yard in my mind would be complete.-Critical Obs. on the Buildings and Improvements of London, 4to, 1771, p. 13. The watch-houses and the obelisk have long since been removed, and the enclosure was turned into a public garden, in 1885, at a cost of £327, under the superintendence of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association. In this square, in 1733, died Lord Chief Justice Raymond; his body was opened by Cheselden the surgeon in the presence of Dr. Mead. The benevolent Jonas Hanway, the traveller and founder of the Marine Society and Magdalen Hospital, lived and died (1786) in a house in Red Lion Square, the principal rooms of which he decorated with paintings and emblematical devices, "in a style," says his biographer, "peculiar to himself." His object was, he says, "to relieve this vacuum in social intercourse [between the time of assembling and the placing of the card tables] and prevent cards from engrossing the whole of my visitors' minds, I have presented them with objects. the most attractive I could imagine-and when that fails there are the cards." Hanway was the first man who ventured to walk the streets of London with an umbrella over his head. After carrying one nearly thirty years he saw them come into general use. Dr. Parsons, the accomplished physician, died here in April 1770, in a house which he had occupied for many years. He left directions that he should not be buried till some change appeared in his corpse. He was kept unburied seventeen days. Henry Mayer, the portrait painter, lived at No. 3. Here Charles Lamb sat to him in 1826. Sharon Turner, the historian, practised for many years as an attorney at No. 32. He was living here in 1808; and here he died, February 13, 1847, aged seventy-eight. Haydon, the historical painter, was living about 1838 in a large house on the west side of Red Lion Square, immediately north of where now stands the church of St. John the Evangelist. This church, consecrated in 1878, was built from the designs of J. L. Pearson, R.A. The foundation stone was laid June 30, 1874. Red Lion Street, CLERKENWELL GREEN, was partly built in 1719, with other buildings in the neighbourhood, by Alexander Graves, builder (d. Nov. 13, 1737). At No. 1 in this street-the Jerusalem Tavern, cleared away in forming Clerkenwell Road-John L Britton, the antiquary, was apprenticed at the beginning of 1787 to the business of a wine merchant, and served six dreary years "in the vaults . . . forcing or fining wines, bottling, corking, and binning the same." 1 He relates that while here he saw a man "pilloried and pelted on Clerkenwell Green, and in Red Lion Street another flogged at the cart's tail, both ceremonies of the most terrifying kind." The Rev. Joseph Trusler, LL.D. (d. 1820), the "moralizer" of Hogarth, at this time, says Britton,2 "lived in Red Lion Street, a few doors from my vaulted home." He was eking out a precarious income by compiling sermons for country clergymen. Red Lion Street, HOLBORN-north side, to Lamb's Conduit Street. [See Red Lion Square.] On the wall of the house, at the corner of Holborn on the west side (The Old Red Lion), is a block of wood let in, with the date "1611" inscribed upon it. Red Lion Street, WHITECHAPEL, HIGH STREET to GREAT ALIE STREET, now incorporated with LEMAN STREET. Here Dick Turpin in a fray with the constables accidentally shot his friend King. Red Lion Yard, HOUNDSDITCH. This opening was on the west side of Houndsditch, nearly opposite the present Cock and Hoop Yard. Here, February 15, 1748, was born Jeremy Bentham. His father and grandfather had been attorneys in this yard for a long series of years. In 1720 Strype described it as a "pretty square place with indifferent good buildings." The elder Bentham's house was the last on the left-hand side.3 Redriff, a corruption of Rotherhithe. [See Rotherhithe.] The immortal Gulliver was, as Swift tells us, long an inhabitant of Redriff. Have I for this thy tedious absence borne, And waked, and wished whole nights for thy return? In five long years I took no second spouse, What Redriff wife so long hath kept her vows? Swift, Mary Gulliver to Captain Lemuel Gulliver. Filch. These seven handkerchiefs, madam. They are of sure sale from our warehouse at Redriff among the seamen.-Gay, The Beggars Opera, 8vo, 1728. The Reform Club, on the south side of Pall Mall, between the Travellers' Club and the Carlton Club, was founded by the Liberal members of the two Houses of Parliament about the time the Reform Bill was canvassed and carried, 1830-1832. The Club consists of 1400 members, exclusive of members of either House of Parliament. Entrance fee, 30 guineas; annual subscription, 10: IOS. house was built, 1837-1840, from the designs of Sir Charles Barry, R.A., based on the Farnese Palace. The exterior is greatly admired, though the windows, it is urged, are too small, and scarcely important enough in effect. The interior, especially the large square hall covered 2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 70. 1 Autob. of John Britton, vol. i. p. 64. 3 Bowring's Life of Bentham, p. 5. L with glass, occupying the centre of the building, is very imposing. The water supply is from an artesian well, 360 feet deep, sunk at the expense of the Club. The cooking establishment of the Club attained great celebrity under the superintendence of M. Soyer, and still sustains its reputation. I am here [War Office] every day; and if you should happen to come into these parts to see the National Gallery, or to look at the new building which Barry has erected for the Reform Club-a building worthy of Michel Angelo-I should be truly glad if you will look in on me.-Macaulay to Leigh Hunt, March 24, 1841. Regency Theatre, TOTTENHAM STREET, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD, afterwards the Prince of Wales Theatre [which see], and now occupied by the Salvation Army. Here, in 1802, Colonel Greville instituted his Picnic Society. Regent Square, GRAY'S INN ROAD. At the south-west angle is the National Scottish Church, a large Gothic edifice, designed 18271828 by Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Tite, architect. The cost, with that of the freehold site, was £25,000. In the view from Hampstead Heath it is often mistaken, from its two towers, for Westminster Abbey. It was built for the Rev. Edward Irving. Here the "unknown tongues' were often heard. At the east end is St. Peter's, best known as Regent Square Church, a semi-classic building with an Ionic portico and tower, designed 1824-1826 at a cost of £16,000, by William and H. W. Inwood, the architects of new St. Pancras Church. Regent Street, perhaps the most effective street in the metropolis, was designed and carried out by John Nash, architect (d. 1835), under an Act of Parliament obtained in 1813, 53 George III., c. 120. It was nearly all completed in 1820. The portion up to Piccadilly was finished in 1817. The street was intended as a communication from Carlton House to the Regent's Park, and commenced at St. Alban's Street, facing Carlton House, thence through St. James's Market across Piccadilly to Castle Street, where it formed a quadrant, to intersect with Swallow Street, and then, taking the line of Swallow Street (the site of which is about the centre of Regent Street), it crossed Oxford Street to Foley House, where it intersected with Portland Place. Foley House and grounds (the site of the Langham Hotel) were bought by Mr. Nash for £70,000, as part of the plan, but after again selling the ground, he changed the route and formed the present turn of Langham Place, instead of the straight line into Portland Place as was at first intended. All Souls Church was built by Nash as a termination to the view up Regent Street from Oxford Street. For this purpose the tower and spire are advanced forward to the centre line of the street, and they appear almost isolated from the church. Polytechnic Institution, erected 1838, from the designs of Mr. J. Thomson, architect, and enlarged in 1848 [which see]. Argyll Rooms, at the north corner of Argyll and Regent Streets, erected by Nash in 1816 for Joseph Welch. The large room was the |
