18 age lose five, ten, fifteen thousand pounds in an evening there. Lord Stavordale, not one and twenty, lost £11,000 there last Tuesday, but recovered it by one great hand at hazard: he swore a great oath. Now if I had been playing deep, I might have won millions.-Walpole to Mann, February 2, 1770 (Letters, vol. v. p. 226). July 12, 1773.-I was in London yesterday, where there is scarce a soul but Maccaroni's lolling out of the windows at Almack's like carpets to be dusted.Walpole to Lord Nuneham (Letters, vol. v. p. 486). Reynolds was anxious to join the Club; and Gibbon, the historian, was elected a member June 5, 1776, and dates several of his letters from it. Town grows empty, and this house, where I have passed very agreeable hours, is the only place which still invites the flower of the English youth. The style of living, though somewhat expensive, is exceedingly pleasant; and, notwithstanding the rage of play, I have found more entertainment and even rational society here than in any other club to which I belong.—Gibbon to Holroyd, Almack's, June 24, 1776. In a later letter (1771) to the same friend, Gibbon says, "Charles Fox is now at my elbow, declaiming on the impossibility of keeping America." And again, June 12, 1778, "Their chief conversation at Almack's is about tents, drill-serjeants, sub-divisions, firings, etc.; and I am revered as a veteran." In 1778 Brooks, a wine merchant and money-lender, took Almack's and removed the Club to St. James's Street. [See Brooks's Club.] The old house still continued to be occupied as a club, and was known as Goosetrees. Almonry (The), or, THE ELEEMOSYNARY; corruptly called, in Stow's time and in our own, THE AMBRY, a low rookery of houses off Tothill Street, Westminster, where the alms of the adjoining Abbey were wont to be distributed. The first printing-press ever seen in England was set up by William Caxton, citizen and mercer (d. 1491), while residing in this Almonry, under the patronage of Esteney, Abbot of Westminster. Douce possessed what would now be called a handbill, or advertisement, of great interest; it is now in the Library of Brasenose College, Oxford. If it plese ony man, spirituel or temporel, to bye ony pyes of two or thre comemoracio's of Salisbure use, enprynted after the forme of this preset lettre, whiche ben wel and truly correct, late hym come to Westmonester, in to the Almonesryre, at the reed pale, and he shal haue them good chepe. Supplico stet cedula. 2 The house in which he is said to have lived, called "The Reed [Red] Pale," and long an object of attraction, is described by Bagford as a brick building with the sign of the King's Head, but this house was of a much later date than Chaucer's time. It stood on the north side of the Almonry, with its back to the back of those on the south side of Tothill Street,3 and fell down from sheer neglect, in November 1 Douces Catalogue of Books, p. 305. 2 Knight's Caxton, p. 147. There is also a view of it by George Cooke, 1827. 362. 3 Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1846, p. 1845. The place was divided into two parts, called respectively the Great Almonry and the Little Almonry. For about twenty years before he died (except his imprisonment) he [James Harrington, author of Oceana] lived in the Little Ambry (a faire house on the left hand), which lookes into the Dean's Yard in Westminster. In the upper story he had a pretty gallery, which looked into the yard (over . . . court) where he commonly dined, and meditated, and tooke his tobacco.-Aubrey's Lives, vol. iii. p. 375. Almonry Office.-The office of the Hereditary Grand Almoner, and the High Almoner, from the time of Richard I., has usually been held in the Royal Palace, but in 1820 it was moved to an old house in Middle Scotland Yard. It is now at 36 Spring Gardens. The distribution of alms on the Thursday before Easter, or Maundy Thursday, takes place in Whitehall Chapel; but the distribution at Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas, is made at the office. Alpha Cottages, on the west side of the REGENT'S PARK. Here the Rev. Henry F. Cary, the translator of Dante and friend of Lamb, took up his first abode in London. It is situated very pleasantly about half a mile to the left of the Edgware Road, as you come into London, near Upper Baker Street. It is very retired, and looks to the fields.-H. F. Cary, May 3, 1810. He left in 1813 for Kensington Gravel Pits. At No. 21, Alpha Road, Lisson Grove, ST. JOHN'S WOOD. during the height of his London popularity, lived the Hungarian patriot, Louis Kossuth. Ugo Foscolo, the Italian poet and patriot, had a villa on the banks of the canal, which he called Digamma Cottage, he having written an article in the Quarterly Review on that subject. Alphage (St.), ALDERMANBURY, by LONDON WALL. A church in Cripplegate Ward, built 1774-1777, by Sir William Staines, on the site of the chapel of the old Hospital or Priory of St. Mary the Virgin, "for the sustentation of one hundred blind men," founded by William Elsing, mercer, and of which Spital the founder was the first prior. The original church of St. Alphage, which was in existence in the year 1068, was situated on the north side of London Wall. In the reign of Henry VIII. it had become ruinous, and the parishioners petitioned to be allowed to rebuild it. This was not granted, but the King let them have the chapel of St. Mary Elsing for £100. The old church was pulled down and some of the materials sold; the rest were used in repairing the chapel, and making it into, the parish church. In 1774 the church, which escaped the Fire, was in danger of falling, and it was agreed that a new building should be erected. Against the north wall of the church is a monument to Sir Rowland Hayward, Lord Mayor of London in 1570 and 1590 (d. 1593); he is represented kneeling, with his first wife and eight children on his right, and his second wife and her eight children on his left. The living, a rectory, valued at £1350, is in the gift of the Bishop of London. The brick wall which formerly shut in the churchyard from the street was removed in 1872, and a light iron railing substituted, the churchyard being at the same time laid out very prettily as a flower-garden. These alterations exposed to view a portion of the old city wall, which is now very properly kept clear. The name of Alphage has undergone many variations of form; and it appears as St. Taphyns in Norden's Map of London, 1593. Alsatia, a cant name given before 1623 to the precinct of Whitefriars, then and long after a notorious place of refuge and retirement for persons wishing to avoid bailiffs and creditors. The earliest use of the name is contained in a quarto tract by Thomas Powel, printed in 1623, and called "Wheresoever you see mee, Trust unto Yourselfe: or, The Mysterie of Lending and Borrowing." The second in point of time is in Otway's play of The Soldier's Fortune (4to, 1681), and the third in Shadwell's celebrated Squire of Alsatia (4to, 1688), Sir Walter Scott's authority for some of his admirable scenes in the Fortunes of Nigel. This place [Whitefriars] was formerly, since its building in houses, inhabited by gentry; but some of the inhabitants taking upon them to protect persons from arrests, upon a pretended privilege belonging to the place, the gentry left it, and it became a sanctuary unto the inhabitants, which they kept up by force against law and justice; so that it was sufficiently crowded with such disabled and loose kind of lodgers. But, however, upon a great concern of debt, the sheriff with the posse comitatus forced his way in, to make a search; and yet to little purpose; for the time of the sheriff's coming not being concealed, and they having notice thereof, took flight either to the Mint in Southwark, another such place, or some other private place, until the hurly-burly was over, and then they returned. But of late the Parliament taking this great abuse into its consideration, they made an Act [8 and 9 Will. III., c. 27, 1697] to put down all such pretended privileged places upon penalties; yet not so well observed as it ought to be.-Strype, B. iii. p. 278. [See Whitefriars.] The particular portions of Whitefriars forming Alsatia were RamAlley, Mitre Court, and a lane called in the cant language of the place by the name of Lombard Street. Shadwell has described the class of inhabitants in the dramatis persone before his play : Cheatly. A rascal, who by reason of debts dares not stir out of Whitefryers, but there inveigles young heirs in tail, and helps them to goods and money upon great disadvantages; is bound for them, and shares with them till he undoes them. A lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the cant about the town. Shamwell. Cousin to the Belfonds; an heir who, being ruined by Cheatly, is made a decoy-duck for others; not daring to stir out of Alsatia, where he lives; is bound to Cheatly for heirs, and lives upon 'em, a dissolute, debauched life. Capt. Hackum. A block-headed bully of Alsatia; a cowardly, impudent, blustering fellow, formerly a serjeant in Flanders, run from his colours, retreated into Whitefryers for a very small debt, where, by the Alsatians, he is dubbed a Captain; marries one that lets lodgings, sells cherry-brandy, and is a bawd. Scapeall. A hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm-singing, precise fellow, pretending to great piety, a godly knave, who joins with Cheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods and money.-Squire of Alsatia, 4to, 1688. No. 50 of Tempest's Cries of London (drawn and published in James II.'s reign) is called "The Squire of Alsatia," and represents a young gallant of the town with cane, sword, hat, feather, and Chedreux wig. 18 18 Courtine. 'Tis a fine equipage I am like to be reduced to; I shall be ere long as greasy as an Alsatian bully; this flopping hat, pinned up on one side, with a sandy weather-beaten peruke, dirty linen, and to complete the figure, a long scandalous iron sword jarring at my heels.-Otway, The Soldier's Fortune, 4to, 1681. 66 The original of Scott's Duke Hildebrod may be found in Shadwell's Woman Captain (4to, 1680). Steele in The Tatler of September 10, 1709 (No. 66), speaks of Alsatia as now in ruins." It is not unlikely that the Landgraviate of Alsace (German Elzass, Latin Alsatia), long a borderland and a cause of contention, often the seat of war, and familiarly known to our Low Country soldiers, suggested the cant name of Alsatia to the precinct of Whitefriars. This privileged spot stood much in the same position to the Temple and Westminster as Alsace did to France and the central powers of Europe. In the Temple, students were studying to observe the law; and in Alsatia adjoining, debtors to avoid and violate it; the Alsatians were troublesome neighbours to the Templars, and the Templars as troublesome neighbours to the Alsatians. The Templars shall not dare Cartwright's Ordinary, 8vo, 1651. The privilege of sanctuary was abolished in 1697. Alsop's Buildings (afterwards called ALSOP TERRACE), NEW ROAD. The first row of large houses on the north side, west of Regent's Park, now absorbed in MARYLEBONE ROAD. At No. 30 lived for thirty years (1818-1848) John Martin, the painter of Belshazzar's Feast and other fine works. The studio at the back was built by him. Amelia Place, BROMPTON (now incorporated with FULHAM ROAD), a small pleasant row of houses looking on a nursery garden, now Pelham Crescent. At No. 7 the Right Hon. John Philpot Curran died, October 14, 1817. He had resided there for twelve months. "His forenoon was generally passed in a solitary ramble through the neighbouring fields and gardens (which have now disappeared), and in the evening he enjoyed the conversation of a few friends." Banim, the Irish novelist, on first coming to London, 1822, i had lodgings in the house in which his illustrious countryman had died. Amen Corner, AVE MARIA LANE, PATERNOSTER Row. At the end of Pater-Noster Row is Ave-Mary Lane, so called upon the like occasion of text-writers and bead-makers then dwelling there; and at the end of that lane is likewise Creede Lane, lately so called, but sometimes Spurrier Row, of spurriers dwelling there; and Amen Lane is added thereunto betwixt the south end of Warwick Lane and the north end of Ave-Mary Lane.-Stow, p. 127. At No. 4 Amen Corner is the entrance to AMEN COURT, where are the dwellings of the Canons residentiary of St. Paul's. I have taken possession of my preferment. The house is in Amen Corner,—an awkward name on a card, and an awkward annunciation to the coachman on leaving a fashionable mansion.-Sydney Smith to the Countess of Morley, Bristol, 1831. 1 Dillon Croker's Walk to Fulham, p. 77; Regan, Life of Curran, p. 271. Ampthill Square, a turning out of the Hampstead Road, named after Ampthill Park in Bedfordshire, a seat of the Duke of Bedford. The south-west corner of the enclosure is crossed by a deep cutting of the London and North-Western Railway. Henry West Betty, better known as the "Infant Roscius" (b. September 13, 1791), died at his house in the square in September 1874. Ampton Street, GRAY'S INN ROAD (east side) to Frederick Place. Here, in the autumn of 1830, when Thomas Carlyle brought his wife for the first time to London-and during his vain search for a publisher for the newly-finished Sartor Resartus-they spent "an interesting, cheery, and in spite of poor arrangements, really pleasant winter. We lodged in Ampton Street, Gray's Inn Lane, clean and decent pair of rooms, and quiet decent people." Visitors "in plenty: John Mill one of the most frequent. . . . Jeffrey, Lord Advocate, often came on an afternoon." They stayed about three months. "I wrote Johnson here just before going."-Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 163. Amwell Street, by the New River Head, PENTONVILLE, so called from the village of Amwell, in Hertfordshire, where the New River has its rise. One of the registration sub-districts of the parish of Clerkenwell is named Amwell. Anchor Lane, on the south side of UPPER THAMES STREET, opposite Addle Hill-the site now marked by Anchor Wharf. On July 30, 1557, Henry Machyn, the Diarist, interrupts his daily list of funerals, and records how he "and mony mo did eat half a bushel of owsturs in Anckur Lane at Master Smyth and Master Gytton's cellar, upon hogsheads and candlelight, and onions and red ale, and claret ale, and muscadel and malmsey ale, fre cope, at 8 in the morning.—p. 143. A curious little peep into London life three centuries ago! In the Calendar of State Papers (Domestic, 1661-1662, p. 87), reference is made to a conventicle in this lane, "where two pulpits are set up for prophesying." Andrew's (St.), HOLBORN, a parish church on Holborn Hill (now Holborn Viaduct), between Shoe Lane and St. Andrew Street, in the ward of Farringdon Without, designed by Sir C. Wren in 1676, on the site of the old church, which escaped the Fire, but was so decayed that it had to be taken down, except the tower. The tower, which still shows two or three of the Gothic arches, was refaced with Portland stone in 1704. The church is spacious, and admirably fitted for seeing and hearing. It is 105 feet long, 63 feet wide, and 43 high. It cost £9000. The interior of the church much resembles that of St. James's, Westminster. The organ was the larger portion of the rejected organ of the Temple Church, made by Harris, in competition with Father Schmydt; but it gave place, in 1872, to a new and more powerful instrument, constructed by Messrs. Hill. The coloured glass in the east window was executed by Joshua Price in 1718, and for the period of its erection is very good. The church was thoroughly repaired in |