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LONDON:

PAST AND PRESENT.

Paddington, formerly a village at the west end of London, containing, in 1801, 357 houses; now a large and increasing parish, and part of the great metropolis, having in 1881 a population of 107,098. Pitt is to Addington

As London is to Paddington.-CANNING.

King Edgar gave the manor of Paddington to Westminster Abbey; the grant was confirmed by Henry I., King Stephen, and Henry II. At the Dissolution it was made part of the revenues of the Bishopric of Westminster; and when that see was abolished soon after its establishment, Edward VI. gave it to Ridley, Bishop of London, and his successors.-Newcourt's Repertorium, vol. i. p. 703.

Dodsley, writing in 1761, has nothing further to say of Paddington than that it is "a village in Middlesex situated on the north side of Hyde Park," and long after that artists used to come to it to sketch rural scenes and rustic figures. George Barrett, R.A. (d. 1784), one of the old school of English landscape painters, "resided in a most delightful spot, at the upper end of a field adjacent to old Paddington Canal."

Paddington was then a rural village. There were a few old houses on each side of the Edgware Road, together with some ale-houses of very picturesque appearance, being screened by high elms, with long troughs for watering the teams of the hay waggons on their way to and from market; each, too, had its large straddling signpost stretching across the road. Paddington Green was then a complete street; and the group of magnificent elms thereon, now fast going to decay, were studies for all the landscape painters in the metropolis. The diagonal path led to the church, which was a little Gothic building, overgrown with ivy, and as completely sequestered as any village church a hundred miles from London.-Angelo, p. 229.

VOL. III

Hilts. Where is thy Master?

Pup. Marry he is gone

With the picture of despair to Paddington.

Hilts. Prithee run after 'un, and tell 'un he shall
Find out my Captain lodged at the Red Lion
In Paddington; that's the inn.

Ben Jonson, Tale of a Tub, Act ii. Sc. 1.

B

92

Morland laid the scene of his popular picture of the Wearied Sportsman in an inn at Paddington; and Wilkie found in one of them materials for his Village Festival.

"At Paddington," wrote Leigh Hunt in 1843, "begins the ground of my affections, continuing through mead and green lane till it reaches beyond Hampstead."

Sequestered church and rustic ale-houses (the last of them the Horse and Sacks, removed in 1876, for the Harrow Road improvements), mead and green lane have alike disappeared, and Paddington is as town-like and uninteresting as any other London suburb. The old church (taken down in 1791) was built by Sir Joseph Sheldon and Daniel Sheldon, to whom the manor was leased by Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, successively Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Charles II. The present church of St. Mary stands about 100 feet south of the old church. The architect was John Plaw, its builder Thomas Wapshott; the cost about £6000; the dimensions about 50 feet each way. The first stone was laid October 20, 1788, and the church consecrated April 27, 1791. Eminent Persons interred in. -John Bushnell, the sculptor of the figures on Temple Bar (d. 1701). Matthew Dubourg, the famous player on the violin (d. 1767). Francis Vivares, the engraver (d. 1780); in the churchyard (there was a tomb to his memory when Lysons wrote). George Barrett, the painter (d. 1784). Thomas Banks, R.A., the sculptor (d. 1805); in the churchyard on the south side. John Hall, the engraver (d. 1797). Dr. Alexander Geddes, Roman Catholic translator of the Historical Books of the Old Testament (d. 1802). Lewis Schiavonetti, the engraver (d. 1810); in the churchyard. Caleb Whitefoord (d. 1810), wine merchant, the Papyrius Cursor of the newspaper press, and the hero of Wilkie's Letter of Introduction.

Here Whitefoord reclines, and deny it who can,
Though he merrily liv'd, he is now a grave man !

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Ye newspaper witlings! ye pert scribbling folks!
Who copied his squibs, and re-echoed his jokes ;
Ye tame imitators, ye servile herd, come,
Still follow your master and visit his tomb:
To deck it bring with you festoons of the Vine,
And copious libations bestow on his shrine;
Then strew all around it (you can do no less)
Cross-Readings, Ship News, and Mistakes of the Press.
Goldsmith's Retaliation.

John Philpot Curran, the Irish orator, was buried here in 1817, but in 1840 his remains were removed to Glasnevin Cemetery near Dublin. Michael Bryan, author of the Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (d. 1821). Joseph Nollekens, the sculptor (d. 1823); and his father Joseph Francis, 'Old Nollekens," the painter (d. 1747). Mrs. Siddons, the celebrated actress (d. 1831). Mrs. Siddons lived for many years at Westbourne Farm, in this parish, but the Great Western Railway

has destroyed all trace of her pretty grounds; and next her, Benjamin R. Haydon, the painter (d. June 22, 1846). William Collins, R.A. (d. 1847), distinguished for his seashore scenes; his grave is marked by a marble cross. Observe. In the chancel of the church, tablet to Nollekens the sculptor (d. 1823), by Behnes; tablet to Mrs. Siddons; also in the body of the church, tablet to Richard Twiss (d. 1810), author of Travels through Portugal and Spain. The marriage register contains the following interesting entry: "William Hogarth, Esq., and Jane Thornhill, of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, married March 23, 1729." And on December 1796 Martin Archer Shee (the future fourth President of the Royal Academy) to Mary, daughter of Mr. James Power of Youghal. Besides the old church, Paddington parish contains about twenty churches, among which are-St. James's, now the parish church, at the end of Oxford and Cambridge Terraces; St. John's, in Southwick Crescent, possessing a good stained glass window; Holy Trinity (Thomas Cundy, architect), at the end of Westbourne Terrace; St. Mary's, 1845; Christ Church, 1855; St. Saviour's, 1856; St. Stephen, Westbourne Park, 1856; St. Matthew, Bayswater, 1858; St. Mary Magdalene, 1861; St. Peter's, Harrow Road, 1870; St. Michael and All Angels, Praed Street; St. Luke's, and one or two more. St. Mary's Hospital, a large and costly structure, was erected in 1850, but has since been altered and enlarged, and the internal arrangements greatly improved. The Great Western Railway Terminus and Hotel forms one of the chief architectural features of the place, but many other buildings of more or less architectural pretension have been erected of late years. The Paddington Canal, 13 miles in length, was made pursuant to an Act passed in 1795, and opened July 10, 1801; it is a branch of the Grand Junction Canal.

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There would be nothing to make the Canal of Venice more poetical than that of Paddington, were it not for its artificial adjuncts.—Lord Byron.

Here are two

The cemetery

Paddington Street, HIGH STREET, MARYLEBONE. cemeteries appertaining to the parish of St. Marylebone. on the south side was consecrated in 1733, that on the north in 1772.1 Baretti, author of the Italian Dictionary which bears his name, is buried in the north cemetery. In that on the south side lies Archibald Bower, author of the History of the Popes (d. 1766), and Joseph Bonomi, architect (d. March 9, 1808).

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Paget Place, in the STRAND, formerly Exeter Place, or House, afterwards Leicester House, and finally Essex House, was so called after William Paget, first Lord Paget, who bequeathed it by will, bearing date November 4, 1560, to his son and heir Sir Henry Paget, second Lord Paget. [See Essex House.]

Painted Chamber, or ST. EDWARD'S CHAMBER, a celebrated apartment in the old palace of the Kings of England at Westminster. It was of early or pre-Norman date, and there was a tradition that

1 Lysons, vol. ii. p. 547.

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