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portion of Russell Square. These grounds were famed for the view they commanded "of the country, and particularly of Highgate and Hampstead." Walpole, in his Essay on "Modern Gardening," speaks of the early date at which "the light and graceful acacia" must have been introduced, as "witness those ancient stems in the court of Bedford House in Bloomsbury Square." "1 The house was sold by auction, May 7, 1800, and there is an absurd story that a casual dropper-in bought the whole of the furniture and pictures, including Thornhill's copies of the cartoons (now in the Royal Academy), for the sum of £60oo. This is proved to be a mistake by the following quotation from the Annual Register :—

May 7, 1800.-The Duke of Bedford having disposed of the materials of Bedford House for £5 or £6000, a sale of the furniture, pictures, etc., by Mr. Christie, commenced this day, when the most crowded assemblage were gratified with a last view of this design of Inigo Jones, for the Earl of Southampton. . . . The late Duke fitted up the gallery (which was the only room of consequence in the house) and placed in it Sir James Thornhill's copies of the cartoons, which that artist was three years about; which he bought at the sale of that eminent artist's collection for £200. St. John preaching in the Wilderness, by Raphael, fetched 95 guineas. A beautiful painting, by Gainsborough, of an Italian villa, 90 guineas. The Archduke Leopold's gallery, by Teniers, 210 guineas. Four paintings of a battle, by Cassanovi, which cost his grace £1000, were sold for 60 guineas. A most beautiful landscape by Cuyp, for 200 guineas. Two beautiful bronze figures, Venus de Medicis and Antinous, 20 guineas; and Venus couchant, from the antique, 20 guineas. Another of the pictures was the duel between Lord Mahon and the Duke of Hamilton. The week after, were sold the double rows of lime-trees in the garden, valued one at £90 the other at £80; which are now all taken down, and the site of a new square, of nearly the dimensions of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and to be called Russell Square, has been laid out. The famous statue of Apollo, which was in the hall at Bedford House, has been removed to Woburn Abbey, and is to be placed on an eminence in the square between the abbey and the tennis-court and riding house. It originally cost a thousand guineas.

The house was immediately pulled down.2 [See Southampton House.] I have a perfect recollection of its venerable grandeur, as I surveyed it in the distance, shaded with the thick foliage of magnificent lime-trees. The fine verdant lawn extended a considerable distance between these, and was guarded by a deep ravine to the north, from the intrusive footsteps of the daring. Whilst in perfect safety were grazing various breeds of foreign and other sheep, which from their singular appearance excited the gaze and admiration of the curious.-Dobie, History of Bloomsbury, 1834, p. 176.

The wall before Bedford House, a wall of singular beauty and elegance which extended on the north side of Bloomsbury Square from east to west, and the gates of which were decorated with those lovely monsters, sphinxes, very finely carved in stone. Between this wall and the mansion was a spacious courtyard, far better harmonising with the rank of such a dwelling than the underground area and paltry railing of the fashionable residence of the present day. The house itself was a long, low, white edifice, kept, in the old Duke's time, in the nicest state of good order, and admirably in unison with the snow-white livery of the family. It had noble

1 Works, ed. 1786, vol. iv. p. 294.

2 There are several engraved views of Bedford House. The best is in Wilkinson; there is a good painting of it by Scott (it was at Farrar's, September 1850), the point of view from Lord Mansfield's house in the north-east corner of

Bloomsbury Square. For another characteristic view of Bedford House see No. 144 of Gillray's Caricatures, Pity the Sorrows of a Poor Old Man. There is also a view of it in Dodsley, vol. i. p. 330.

apartments and a spacious garden, which opened to the fields; and the uninterrupted freedom of air, between this situation and the distant hills, gave it the advantages of an excellent town-house and a suburban villa.-L. M. Hawkins, Memoirs, Anecdotes, Facts and Opinions, 1824, vol. i. p. 52.

18 Bedford House, STRAND, the town-house of the Earls of Bedford stood on the north side of the Strand, on the site of the present Southampton Street, and was taken down in 1704. The garden wall formed the south side of the open square or Piazza. Strype describes it as "a large but old-built house, having a great yard before it for the reception of coaches: with a spacious garden, having a terrace walk adjoining to the brick wall next the garden." 1 Before the Russell family built their town-house in the Strand, they occupied the Bishop of Carlisle's Inn, over against their newly-erected mansion, afterwards built upon and called "Carlisle Rents." Stow speaks of it in 1598 as "Russell or Bedford House." This must have been the Bedford House in which the Earl of Rutland resided in 1622-1623, and from which Lord Bacon dates several of his letters in those years. On May 18, 1614, Lady Harrington writes to Carr, Earl of Somerset, from Bedford House. In 1704 the Russells removed to Bedford House, Bloomsbury.

Bedford Place, RUSSELL SQUARE, two rows of private houses, running north and south, and connecting Bloomsbury Square with Russell Square; built between 1801 and 1805 on the site of Bedford House, Bloomsbury. Bedford Place is singular among London Streets in having a statue at each extremity in Russell Square, Francis, Duke of Bedford; in Bloomsbury Square, Charles James Fox. In No. 30, at the house of Mr. Henry Fry, died, in 1811, Richard Cumberland, author of The West Indian. John Thelwall lived at No. 40 Bedford Place, where he taught elocution.2 Sir Richard Bethell, afterwards Lord Chancellor and Lord Westbury, lived in Upper Bedford Place in 1826. Dr. Max Schlesinger, English correspondent of the Cologne Gazette, and writer on London, died at No. 25 in 1881.

Bedford Row, HOLBORN, at the north end of Brownlow Street, so called from being built on land belonging to Sir William Harpur's charity, at Bedford. Sir William Harpur was Lord Mayor in 1561, and died in 1573; his name is preserved in Harpur Street, Red Lion Square.

Bedford Row, very pleasantly seated, as having a prospect into Lincoln's Inn Garden and the Fields; with a handsome close before the Row of buildings, inclosed in with palisado pales, and a row of trees; with a broad coachway to the houses, which are large and good; with freestone pavements and palisado pales before the houses, inclosing in little garden plots, adorned with handsome flower-pots and flowers therein.-Strype, ed. 1720, B. iii. p. 254.

Ralph, in his Critical Review of London Buildings, describes this row "as one of the most noble streets that London has to boast of." This was in 1734, when the buildings were new, and the row itself lay open to the fields; but Dodsley, as late as 1761, describes it as "a very handsome, straight, and well-built street, inhabited by persons of 1 Strype, B. vi. p. 93; Maitland, ed. 1739, p. 741. Britton's Autobiography, vol i. p. 185.

VOL. I

L

distinction." In 1773, when the lease fell in, the annual income amounted to £8000.1

April 1, 1716.-Friday night Mr. Mickelwaite was set upon by nine footpads, who fired at his postilion, without bidding him stand, just at the end of Bedford Row, in the road which goes there from Pancras Church to Gray's Inn Lane. His servants

and he fired at them again, and the pads did the same, till all the fire was spent, and then he rode through them towards the town, to call for help, it being dark, which they seeing they could not prevent, ran away.2 The night after this curious combat a lady was shot by a footpad within a few yards of this spot. [See Gray's Inn Walks.]

Eminent Inhabitants.-Sir John Holt, Chief Justice, K.B., died (1710) in his house in Bedford Row, then called "Bedford Walk," and it must have been here that Radcliffe, as Arbuthnot writes to Swift, "preserved my Lord Chief-Justice Holt's wife, whom he attended out of spite to her husband, who desired her dead." Bishop Warburton dwelt here while he was Reader at Lincoln's Inn: all his London letters to Hurd are dated here up to 1757, when he moved to Grosvenor Square. Ralph Allen used to live with him when in town, and Fielding was then a frequent visitor. The Rev. Richard Cecil was preacher at St. John's Chapel. John Abernethy, the great surgeon, at No. 14. At her house in Bedford Row died, in 1731, in the eighty-second year of her age, Mrs. Elizabeth Cromwell, daughter of the Protector Richard. Henry Addington, afterwards Prime Minister and Viscount Sidmouth, was born here in 1757. James Mingay, K.C., "of the iron hand," 1792-1796, at No. 25. In the same house, 1807, Sir W. Garrow. One of the most amusing of Thackeray's minor stories is The Bedford Row Conspiracy.

18 Bedford Square. This square is mentioned and highly praised in the 1783 edition of Ralph's Critical Review of the Public Buildings etc., in London. For the origin of the name see Bedford House, Bloomsbury. Lord Loughborough lived at No. 6, 1787-1796. In the same house Lord Chancellor Eldon resided from 1804 to 1815, and here occurred the memorable interview between his lordship and the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV. The Prince came alone to the Chancellor's house, and upon the servant opening the door observed, that as the Chancellor had the gout, he knew he must be at home, and therefore desired that he might be shown up to the room where the Chancellor was. The servant said his master was too ill to be seen, and that he had also positive orders to show in no one. The Prince then asked to be shown the staircase," which he immediately ascended, and pointed first to one door, then to another, asking, "Is that your master's room?" The servant answered "No," until he came to the right one, upon which he opened the door, seated himself by the Chancellor's bed-side, and asked him to appoint his friend. Jekyll, the great wit, to the vacant office of Master in Chancery. The Chancellor refused-there could not be a more unfit appointment. The Prince perceiving the humour of the Chancellor, and that he was 1 Kearsley, p. 12. 2 Lady Cowper's Diary, p. 100.

firm in his determination not to appoint him, threw himself back in the chair and exclaimed, "How I do pity Lady Eldon !" "Good God!" said the Chancellor, "what is the matter?" "Oh, nothing," answered the Prince, "except that she will never see you again, for here I remain until you promise to make Jekyll a Master in Chancery." Jekyll of course obtained the appointment. In March 1815 there was a corn riot in London, and Lord Eldon's house was broken into by the mob. Fortunately the back premises communicated with the British Museum gardens, in which Lady Eldon took refuge, while a corporal and four soldiers were sent over from the Museum guard. The corporal, a Scotchman, showed himself a great strategist, and made such a display as to deceive the mob into thinking there was a considerable military force. When the intruders were got back into the street the Chancellor seized one of them by the collar and said, "If you don't mind what you are about you will be hanged." "Perhaps so, old chap," was the reply, "but I think it looks now as if you would be hanged first!" Lord Eldon did not forget the corporal whose coolness and address saved his house, but he was killed a few weeks afterwards at Waterloo, before anything could be done for him.1 The Chancellor particularly prided himself on the care which he took of the wards of his court, and the public therefore were greatly amused when, in November 1817, his own eldest daughter made her escape from the house in Bedford Square and married Mr. George S. Repton, architect. No. 5, Sir John Littledale (Justice K. B.), died here 1842. Sir George Thomas Smart, musical composer and conductor (1776-1867), died at his house, No. 12, in this square. No. 25, Basil Montague, the editor of Bacon's Works, and his son-in-law, B. W. Procter (Barry Cornwall). Adelaide Procter was born in this house in 1825. No. 29, Lord Chief-Justice Best (Lord Wynford). No. 32, Sir James Allan Park (Justice Common Pleas). No. 33, Sir James Pattison (Q.B.) No. 43, Chief-Justice Sir Nicholas Tindal (C.P.)

15 Bedford Street, BEDFORD SQUARE. The name was changed to Bayley Street in 1878. Sir Marc Isambard Brunel was living here when, in 1801, he perfected his remarkable invention of the blockmaking machinery.

Bedford Street, in the STRAND.

A handsome broad street with very good houses, which, since the Fire of London, are generally taken up by Eminent tradesmen, as Mercers, Lacemen, Drapers, etc., as is King Street and Henrietta Street. But the west side of this street is the best. -Strype, B. vi. p. 93.

The street described by Strype lay between King Street, Covent Garden, and Maiden Lane, that portion of the present street between Maiden Lane and the Strand being distinguished as Half Moon Street, from the Half Moon Tavern mentioned by Ned Ward in his London Spy, p. 193. This part of the street was called Bedford Street by the

1 Lord Eldon was not remarkable for his hospitality, and when all his windows were broken on

this occasion, a wit remarked that he had at last begun to keep open house.

Westminster Paving Commissioners, for the first time, in 1766. In the wall of one of the houses on the west side, now part of the Civil Service Stores, was a stone inscribed "This is Bedford Street." The upper part of the street (all that was Bedford Street originally) is in the parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and was built circ. 1637; the lower part of the street (Half Moon Street) is still in the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Wildman's Coffee-House, a noted place in the last century, was in this street. [See Wildman's.] Eminent Inhabitants— East Side.--Remigius Van Limput, the painter, who bought, at the sale of the King's effects, Van Dyck's large picture of Charles I. on Horseback, but was obliged to surrender it at the Restoration. It is now at Windsor. He was living here in 1645, and for many years after. John Hoskin, the celebrated limner (d. 1665). In his will he is described as living in Bedford Street. Quin, the actor, in a house rated at £42, from 1749 to 1752. In 1738 he was lodging "at the Sun, a Druggist's, in Bedford Street," as appears from the advertisement of his Benefit. John Edwin, the comedian, died (1790) in the right-hand corner house entering Bedford Court. His friends and fellow actors assembled in the front room upstairs, and formed a torch-light procession to the grave in St. Paul's, Covent Garden. West Side.-Chief Justice Richardson (d. 1635), of whom so many pleasant stories are told, in the house now No. 15. The exterior is modern, but part of the interior is old, and of Richardson's time. Francis Kynaston, on the west side, in 1637. De Grammont's, Earl of Chesterfield, in 1656. Kynaston, the actor, in his old age, in the house of his son, an opulent mercer in the street. Thomas Sheridan, father of Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

Sir

Mr. Sheridan, one time, lived in Bedford Street, opposite Henrietta Street, which ranges with the south side of Covent Garden, so that the prospect lies open the whole way, free of interruption. We were standing together at the drawingroom window, expecting Johnson, who was to dine there. Mr. Sheridan asked me, Could I see the length of the Garden? "No, Sir." [Mr. Whyte was short-sighted.] "Take out your opera-glass, Johnson is coming; you may know him by his gait.” I perceived him at a good distance, working along with a peculiar solemnity of deportment, and an awkward sort of measured step. At that time the broad flagging at each side the streets was not universally adopted, and stone posts were in fashion, to prevent the annoyance of carriages. Upon every post, as he passed along, I could observe, he deliberately laid his hand; but missing one of them, when he had got at some distance he seemed suddenly to recollect himself, and immediately returning back, carefully performed the accustomed ceremony, and resumed his former course, not omitting one till he gained the crossing. This Mr. Sheridan assured me, however odd it might appear, was his constant practice; but why or wherefore he could not inform me.-Whyte, Miscellanea Nova, p. 49.

The first lodgings which Benjamin West, the future President of the Royal Academy, occupied in his professional capacity were in Bedford Street. "In this house," as he told Galt, "the first picture which he painted in England was executed." 1

1 Galt, Life of West, pt. 2, p. 6.

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