MONKWELL, MOGWELL, OR MUGWELL STREET 553

-the figure and manner of the celebrated SAMUEL JOHNSON-the extraordinary power and precision of his conversation, and the pride arising from finding myself admitted as his companion, produced a variety of sensations, and a pleasing elevation of mind beyond what I had ever experienced.—Boswell, by Croker, p. 136. The Fellows of the Royal Society held their anniversary dinner at the Mitre in 1772, and afterwards at the Crown and Anchor until 1848, when they removed to Freemasons' Tavern.1 The Society of Antiquaries also had their dinners or meetings here.

Some Antiquarians, grave and loyal,
Incorporate by Charter Royal,

Last winter on a Thursday night were

Met in full senate at the Mitre.-CAWTHORne.

It was to the Mitre that Hogarth invited his friend Mr. King to Eta Beta Py.2 Sarah Malcolm (painted by Hogarth) was executed opposite Mitre Court, Fleet Street, March 7, 1733, for murdering Mrs. Lydia Duncombe, Elizabeth Harrison, and Ann Price. On this occasion the crowd was so great that "a Mrs. Strangways who lived in Fleet Street, near Serjeants' Inn, crossed the street from her own house to Mrs. Coulthurst's on the opposite side of the way, over the heads and shoulders of the mob." 3

Mitre Tavern in ST. JAMES'S MARKET. Farquhar found Miss Nanny, afterwards Mrs. Oldfield, the actress, rehearsing the part of the Scornful Lady behind the bar of her aunt Mrs. Voss's tavern, the Mitre in St. James's Market.

Mitre Tavern in WOOD STREET, was kept in Charles II.'s time by William Proctor. He died insolvent in 1665. The tavern was destroyed in the Great Fire of the year following.

September 18, 1660.-To the Miter tavern in Wood Street (a house of the greatest note in London). Here some of us fell to handicap, a sport that I never

knew before, which was very good.-Pepys.

July 31, 1665.-Proctor the Vintner of the Miter in Wood Street, and his son, are dead this morning there of the plague; he having laid out abundance of money there, and was the greatest vintner for some time in London for great entertainments. -Pepys.

Molton Street, South. [See South Molton Street.]

Monkwell, Mogwell, or Mugwell Street, CRipplegate, runs from Silver Street, Falcon Square, to Hart Street, London Wall.

So called of a well at the north end thereof, where the Abbot of Garendon had a house or cell, called St. James's in the Wall, by Cripplegate, and certain monks of their house were the chaplains there, wherefore the wall (belonging to that cell or hermitage) was called Monks' Well, and the street of the well Monkswell Street.— Stow, p. 112, and see p. 118.

This is a little fiction of the old antiquary's. It was called Mogwelle or Mugwell Street in the 13th and 14th Street is a corruption of much later date.

1 Weld, History of the Royal Society, vol. ii. p. 137. 2 See title-page, Nichols's Anecdotes.

centuries, and Monkwell In Windsor Court, in this Nichols's Hogarth, 1783, p. 172, note. 4 Riley, Memorials, vol. xix.

554 MONKWELL, MOGWELL, OR MUGWELL STREET

street, so called after Windsor Place, the residence of William, second Lord Windsor (d. 1558), stood the Presbyterian Chapel of Thomas Doolittle, the ejected minister of St. Alphage, London Wall, and the last survivor of the ejected ministers of London. It adjoined Mr. Doolittle's dwelling-house, and was the first Nonconformist place of worship in London erected after the Great Fire in 1666. It is described as "well adapted for concealment, being situated in a court which was entered by a gateway, the building not being visible from the street." It was also the first place of worship opened by the Nonconformists after the royal indulgence. [See Barber-Surgeons' Hall; Lambe's Chapel.]

Monmouth House. [See Monmouth Street; Soho Square.]

Monmouth Street, ST. GILES'S, afterwards called DUDLEY STREET, runs from High Street and Broad Street to Grafton Street. It was named Monmouth Street, it is said, after James, Duke of Monmouth, the natural son of Charles II., whose town house stood on the south side of Soho Square in this neighbourhood; but an examination of the parish papers and registers of St. Giles-in-the-Fields leads to the belief that it was called after Carey, Earl of Monmouth, who died in 1661. The father (the historian of his own life), who died in 1626, and his son, the second and last earl, who died in 1661, were distinguished parishioners of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Monmouth Street was noted throughout the 18th century for the sale of secondhand clothes, and several of the shops continued to be occupied by Jew dealers in left-off apparel. The west side of the street is now a portion of Shaftesbury Avenue. [See Dudley Street.] In Defoe's Life and Adventures of Duncan Campbell (1720), a footman is described "in a very gentlemanly dress, hired for the purpose of a disguise from Monmouth Street."

Ever since I knew the world, Irish patents have been hung out to sale, like the laced and embroidered coats in Monmouth Street, and bought up by the same sort of people.-Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to the Countess of Bute (Works, by Lord Wharncliffe, vol. iii. p. 185).

This looks, friend Dick, as Nature had

But exercis'd the Salesman's trade;

As if she haply had sat down,

And cut our clothes for all the town;

Then sent them out to Monmouth Street

To try what persons they would fit.-Prior's Alma.
Thames Street gives cheeses, Covent Garden fruits,
Moorfields old books, and Monmouth Street old suits.

Poets make characters as salesmen clothes,
We take no measure of your Fops and Beaus ;
But here all sizes and all shapes we meet,
And fit yourselves like chaps in Monmouth Street.

Gay's Trivia.

Prologue to the Three Hours (Swift's and Pope's Miscellanies, vol. iv. p. 178).

The towering Alps shall sooner sink to vales,
And leeches in our glasses swell to whales;

Alleys at Wapping furnish us new modes,

And Monmouth Street Versailles with riding hoods.

Garth, Dispensary, Canto iii.

Pinchbeck demands the tweezer case,
And Monmouth Street the gown and stays.

Isaac Hawkins Browne, Poems, 1768, p. 113.

On Lord Kelly, a remarkable red-faced, drunken lord, coming into a room in a coat much embroidered but somewhat tarnished, Foote said he was an exact representation of Monmouth Street in flames!—Maloniana (Prior's Life of Malone, p. 364).

This was also the case in Monmouth Street in our remembrance. We have ourselves been reminded of the deficiencies of our femoral habiliments, and exhorted upon their score to fit ourselves more beseemingly.-Scott, Fortunes of Nigel.

William Lisle Bowles, the simple-minded divine and poet, was fond of describing his purchase of a great coat in Monmouth Street, which, while in the shop, he took to be of a grave colour, but which in the sunshine turned out a glaring green, to the amazement of a great church dignitary, who met him immediately afterwards.1

Monmouth Street, SPITALFIELDS. [See Spitalfields.]

Montagu Close, SOUTHWARK, the precinct of Montagu House, of which there is a view in Wilkinson's Londina, and which stood near the church of St. Saviour's, Southwark (originally St. Mary Overy). It was taken down in a state of great decay when the new London Bridge improvements were made in 1831-1832. Here were the cloisters about the Priory of St. Mary Overy, and here the poet Gower lived until his death. The original Montagu House was built by Sir Anthony Brown, afterwards Viscount Montagu, who received from Henry VIII. in 1545 a grant of the site of the dissolved Priory of St. Mary Overy.

The third examination of Richard Woodman, at my Lord Montague's house beside S. Mary Overies in Southwarke, the 12 day of May, Anno 1557.

They caried me to my Lord Montague's place in Southwarke, not farre from S. Mary Overies, and brought me into a chamber in my Lord Montague's house.— Foxe's Martyrology, ed. 1597, p. 1807.

Montague House, GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBURY, the town house of Ralph Montague, third Baron Montague of Boughton, Master of the Great Wardrobe in the reign of Charles II., and Marquis of Monthermer and Duke of Montague in the reign of Queen Anne. The first Montague House was designed by Robert Hooke, Curator of the Royal Society, in the year 1678. Evelyn went to see it November 5, 1679: "To see Mr. Mountague's new palace neere Bloomsbery, built by our curator, Mr. Hooke, somewhat after the French; it was most nobly furnish'd, and a fine, but too much exposed garden." He went to see it again, October 10, 1683, and commends the labours of Verrio on the ceilings in the highest terms. There were also "some excellent paintings of Holbein and other masters." The whole house was sub

1 Moore's Diary, vol. ii. p. 242.

sequently destroyed by fire (January 19, 1685-1686), while in the occupation of the Earl of Devonshire, to whom Lord Montague had left it, for the sum of 500 guineas by the year. Lady Rachel Russell describes this fire in one of her letters to Dr. Fitzwilliam, dated January 21, 1685-1686. The Countess of Devonshire and her children escaped wrapped in blankets, and lay the remainder of the night at Southampton House.

On Wednesday, at one in the morning, a sad fire happened at Montague House in Bloomsbury, occasioned by the steward's airing some hangings, etc., in expectation of my Lord Montague's return home, and sending afterwards a woman to see that the fire pans with charcoal were removed, which she told him she had done, though she never came there. The loss that my Lord Montague has sustained by this accident is estimated at £40,000, besides £6000 in plate; and my Lord Devonshire's loss in pictures, hangings, and other furniture, is very considerable.—Ellis's Letters, 2d S., vol. iv. p. 89.

Pierre Puget or Poughet was sent from France to design the second Montague House, of which there is a view in Wilkinson's Londina. The Duke of Montague died in 1709, and his son, the second and last duke, in 1749. Montague House was purchased by the Government, and the British Museum established in it in 1753. The entire structure was razed to the ground between 1840 and 1849. [See British Museum.] The fields behind Montague House, from 1680 to 1750, were the most frequented place for duels in those times; and a piece of ground at the extreme termination of the north-east end of Upper Montague Street was long familiarly known as "The Field of Forty Footsteps," from forty footprints made, it was said, by two brothers in a duel, in which both were killed, about the time of Monmouth's rebellion. No grass or vegetable matter would grow on the footsteps, which were said to be visible as late as 1800, when the fields were built over.1

June 16, 1800.-Went into the fields at the back of Montague House, and there saw, for the last time, the forty footsteps; the building materials are there, ready to cover them from the sight of man. I counted more than forty, but they might be the footprints of the workmen.-Joseph Moser (quoted by Dr. Rimbault, Notes and Queries, Ist S., vol. i. p. 217).

"The fact is," says J. T. Smith, the greater part of whose life was spent in the immediate neighbourhood, and who was of too inquisitive a turn to let any such tradition as that of the "Brothers' Steps" escape his attention," the fact is, that these steps were so often trodden, that it was impossible for the grass to grow. I have frequently passed over them," he adds, "they were in a field on the site of Mr. Martin's Chapel, or very nearly so, and not on the spot as communicated to Miss Porter, who has written an entertaining novel on the subject." Robert Hill, the veteran water-colour painter, long resident in the neighbourhood, writes: "I well remember the Brothers' Footsteps. They were near a bank that divided two of the fields between Montague House and the New Road, and their situation must have been, if my recollection serves me, what is now Torrington Square." 3

1 Notes and Queries, No. 14. 2 Smith's Book for a Rainy Day, p. 28.

3 R. Hill, MS. Letter.

Rashlove. Come Sir, You're punctual I find; then let's lose no more time, but take coach, and go behind Montague House.—Injured Love, or the Lady's Satisfaction, 4to, Lintot, 1711.

Whereas I [Rourk Oregan] am informed that you make love to Miss Melinda Goosetrap, this is to let you know that she is under promise of marriage to me; and that I am at this present waiting at the back of Montague House with a pair of good pistols in my hand. Smollett, Roderick Random.

Having heard that duels were commonly fought at the back of Montague House, he [Strap] conducted the guard to that place.—Ibid.

Montague House, WHITEHALL, opposite Downing Street, its back looking over the Thames Embankment, the town house of the Duke of Buccleuch, who inherits it from the noble family of Montague. The present house, a spacious French Renaissance edifice, with pavilion roofs, was erected in 1859-1862 from the designs of Mr. William Burn. It contains a fine collection of works of art, but is not shown to the public. Among the more noteworthy are some good pictures by Vandyck full-length of Duke of Hamilton in armour (hand leaning on a helmet)-front face, buff boots, hair over forehead (very fine); fulllength of Lord Holland-slashed sleeves, hair short on forehead; fulllength of Duke of Richmond, in complete black-yellow hair over shoulders, brownish background. Thirty-five sketches (en grisaille), by Vandyck, made for the celebrated series of portraits etched in part by Vandyck, and published by Martin Vanden Enden; they belonged to Sir Peter Lely, and were bought at Lely's sale by Ralph, Duke of Montague. By Francis Pourbus, the elder, are two good portraits; one a man with his hand resting on a skull; the other a woman in a white cap. One of Canaletto's finest pictures, a view of Whitehall, looking toward Charing Cross, and showing Holbein's gateway, Inigo Jones's Banqueting House, and the steeple of St. Martin's with the scaffolding about it, and on the river side Montague House, and in the distance the dome of St. Paul's. A noble collection of English miniatures, from Isaac Oliver's time to that of Zincke.

Montague Place, PORTMAN SQUARE, now GLOUCESTER STREET, derived its name from the town residence of Mrs. Montague, "the blue stocking," who both built and lived in the large detached house at the north-west corner of Portman Square.

Monument (The), MONUMENT Yard, Fish StreeT HILL, a fluted column of the Doric order, erected (pursuant to 19 Charles II., c. 3, s. 29) to commemorate the Great Fire of London (September 2-7, 1666). The design was made by Sir Christopher Wren; the basrelief on the pediment carved by Caius Gabriel Cibber, the father of Colley Cibber; the four dragons at the four angles by Edward Pierce, for which he had, as Walpole tells us, 50 guineas a piece; the Latin inscriptions, written by Dr. Thomas Gale, headmaster of St. Paul's School, and Dean of York, who was rewarded with a piece of plate for the service. The whole structure was erected in six years (1671-1677) for the sum of £13,700. It is 202 feet high, and stands at a distance