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outlawed for his adherence to James II., and was burnt down January 26, 1713, when in the occupation of the Duc d'Aumont, ambassador from Louis XIV.

After dinner at Lord Treasurer's, the French Ambassador, Duke d'Aumont, sent Lord Treasurer word that his house was burnt to the ground. It took fire in the upper rooms, while he was at dinner with Monteleon, the Spanish Ambassador, and other persons; and soon after Lord Bolingbroke came to us with the same story. We are full of speculations upon it, but I believe it was the carelessness of his rascally French servants.-Swift to Mrs. Dingley, January 26, 1713.

The house was insured, but the French King's dignity would not permit him, it is said, to suffer a Fire-office to pay for the neglect of the domestics of his representative.1 The front of the new house which the King erected was of stone, with eight lofty Corinthian pilasters, and surmounted on the coping by urns and statues. Over the street door was a phoenix; the ornament above the capitals of the pilasters, was the Gallic cock. The architect was Colin Campbell. The staircase was painted by Giacomo Amiconi, a Venetian painter, of some reputation in this country. He chose the story of Holofernes, and painted the personages of his story in Roman dresses. On the top was a great reservoir, used as a fish-pond and a resource against fire. Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke, came to reside here in 1737, when he was appointed Lord Chancellor, and continued to occupy it during the whole time that he held the seals. In 1764-1783 it was in the occupation of the Spanish Ambassador.2 It was taken down a few years later, and is still preserved to us in a large engraving published by Thomas Bowles (1714).

June 8, 1764.-The house of Bedford came to town last Friday, I supped with them that night at the Spanish Ambassador's, who has made Powis House magnificent.-Walpole to Lord Hertford, vol. iv. p. 247.

Nos. 50, 51, and 52 were built 1777 on part of the site.

Powis Place, GREAT ORMOND STREET. [See Powis House, Great Ormond Street.] John Leech was resident at No. 9 about 1848.

Pratt Place, now PRATT STREET, CAMDEN TOWN. Dr. Wolcot (Peter Pindar) lodged in the first floor of a house rented by a Mr. and Mrs. Knight in this street.

Prerogative Will Office or Court was in KNIGHTRIDER STREET, DOCTORS' COMMONS. This was the court wherein all wills were proved and all administrations granted that belonged to the Archbishop of Canterbury by his prerogative. It was removed in 1874 to Somerset House. [See Will Office.]

Prescot Street, GOODMAN'S FIELDS, between Leman Street and Mansell Street, is divided into "Great" and "Little." In Little Prescot Street is one of the oldest dissenting meeting-houses in London.

1 Noorthouck, p. 305; Europ. Mag. for June 1804, p. 429.

2 Noorthouck, p. 746.

Prescot Street, a spacious and regular built street on the south side of the Tenter Ground in Goodman's Fields. Instead of Signs the Houses here are distinguished by numbers, as the staircases in the Inns of Court and Chancery.-Hatton, 1708, p. 65. Sir Cloudesley Shovel, the old rough admiral of Queen Anne's reign, resided in this street before he removed to Soho Square; and here (August 8, 1758) the first Magdalen Hospital was opened with eight inmates, all that the Institution could then shelter. [See Goodman's Fields.] In Great Prescot Street are the Whitechapel County Court, a Roman Catholic Church, and the convent of St. Mary.

Primrose Hill, a hillock on the north side of the Regent's Park, from which it is divided by two roads and a canal. It belonged to the Provost and Fellows of Eton College, but has been secured by the Government and laid out as a public recreation ground. In the Register of the Stationers' Company, 1586-1587, is an entry of “A Sweete and Courtly Songe of the Flowers that grow on Prymrose Hill." In a dry ditch at the foot of this hill, on the south side, about two fields distant from the White House (Chalk Farm), the body of Sir Edmond Berry Godfrey was found on Thursday October 17, 1678. Primrose Hill was long familiarly known as Green Berry Hill, and by a curious coincidence three of the supposed murderers were named respectively Green, Berry, and Hill. Godfrey's body was removed to the White House and afterwards interred in the churchyard of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. There is a contemporary medal of Sir Edmond, representing him, on the obverse, walking with a broken neck and a sword in his body, and on the reverse, St. Denis bearing his head in his hand, with this inscription :—

Godfrey walks up hill after he was dead, Denis walks down hill carrying his head. There is a good view on a fine day of the west end of London from this hill, though of late circumscribed by the progress of buildings. Whilst yet in the fields Primrose Hill (generally the Chalk Farm side) was often chosen for duels. Here occurred (1806) the harmless meeting between Tom Moore and Jeffrey, and here, on the night of February 16, 1821, was fought the duel between John Scott of the London Magazine and Mr. Christie, in which the former was killed.

There's no news that you'd care to hear of, except that the Prince is to have a villa upon Primrose Hill, connected by a fine street with Carlton House, and is so pleased with this magnificent plan that he has been heard to say, "It will quite eclipse Napoleon."-Thomas Moore, October 24, 1811 (Memoirs, vol. viii. p. 97). It is needless to say that Regent Street was not carried quite so far north, and Napoleon was eclipsed in quite another fashion.

Prince's Court, GEORGE STREET, WESTMINSTER. John Wilkes had a house close to Storey's Gate, the last house on the north side, the windows looking into the park. On September 18, 1771, Junius wrote a long letter to Wilkes, in which he says, "My Second Letter is of public import, and must not be suppressed. I did mean that it should be buried in Prince's Court,"

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Prince's Hall, PICCADILLY, a large building on the south side of the street extending from the churchyard of St. James's, Piccadilly, to No. 189. It was erected in 1881 from the designs of Mr. E. R. Robson, architect, by a Limited Liability Company with a capital of £50,000, entitled the Piccadilly Art Galleries Company. There are three galleries occupied by the Royal Institute of Painters in WaterColours and the Institute of Painters in Oil-Colours, and a hall let for concerts and entertainments. The elevation contains a series of recesses in which are placed busts of celebrated English water-colour painters. The lower part is occupied by shop fronts.

Prince's Square. [See Ratcliffe Highway.]

Prince's Street, BRIDGEWATER SQUARE. Edmund Halley, the astronomer, lived in this street.1

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Prince's Street, CAVENDISH SQUARE, south-east corner Oxford Street. Charles Lamb placed the birthplace of the immortal Elia in this street.

Is the Parish Register nothing? Is the room in Princes Street, Cavendish Square, where we saw the light six and forty years ago, nothing?-Elia, Postscript to the Chapter on Ears.

Prince's Street, DRURY LANE. [See Drury Lane.]

He [the first Earl of Clare, died 1637] likewise purchased one half of Princes Street by Drury Lane. And he caused to be routed those edificies called Lowche's Buildings, with the most part of Clement's Inn Lane, Blackmore Street by Drury Lane, and part of Clement's Inn Fields.-Gervase Holles in Collins's Histor. Collec tions, p. 85.

Pope's correspondent, Henry Cromwell, lived at "the Widow Hambleton's Coffee-house, in Prince's Street, near Drury Lane." Hence Pope speaks of "your old apartment in the Widow's Corner," and the couplet—

To treat those nymphs like yours of Drury
With-I protest-and I'll assure ye !2

Prince's Street, HANOVER SQUARE, was built in the year 1719.2 Here in 1833 died Sir John Malcolm, the historian of Persia and biographer of Lord Clive.

Prince's Street, WARDOUR STREET, was so called from the military garden of Henry, Prince of Wales, eldest son of King James I., which stood on part of Prince's Street and Gerard Street. [See Military Garden.] Princes Street extended from Coventry Street to Old Compton Street, where it joined Wardour Street; but in 1880 the name was abolished and the thoroughfare from Oxford Street to Coventry Street was named Wardour Street for its entire length. When all the speculations of the brilliant author of Lacon had failed, a fiat of bankruptcy was issued against him as the "Rev. Charles Caleb Colton, late of Prince's Street, Soho, Wine Merchant."

1 Weld's History of the Royal Society, vol. i. p. 427.

2 Elwin's Pope, vol. vi. p. 64.

Prince of Wales Theatre, 21 TOTTENHAM STREET, Tottenham Court Road, was originally a concert room, then used for musical and miscellaneous entertainments and amateur theatrical performances. Converted into a theatre and named the Regency, it passed through many hands, and was at different times named the Fitzroy, the Royal, the West End, and the Queen's, but it was at length remodelled, and under the management of Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft became, as the Prince of Wales's, one of the most fashionable and highly patronised theatres in London. Early in 1880 Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft removed to the Haymarket Theatre, and the Tottenham Street Theatre remained empty for some years. It is now (1890) occupied by the Salvation Army.

The name of Prince of Wales's Theatre has been given to what was previously the Prince's in Coventry Street.

Princess's Theatre, OXFORD Street, opposite the Pantheon, was built in 1830 as a bazaar. Forming a part of the Queen's Bazaar, as it was named, was a spacious concert room. The speculation was not successful, and in 1840 the building was remodelled by Mr. T. M. Nelson, architect for Mr. Hamlet, a well-known west-end goldsmith, and reopened in 1841 as the Princess's Theatre. Under Mr. Charles Kean's management the theatre attained celebrity for its artistic "mounting" and careful performance of the plays of Shakespeare. Later it became noted for the "realistic melodrama." In 1880 the building was almost reconstructed under the direction of Mr. C. J. Phipps, architect. The theatre itself now includes the great concert room at the back (of late the lecture hall of the Castle Street Cooperative Institute), and rendered more attractive to occupants of the dress-circle and stalls by the provision of luxurious lounge, refreshment and smoking rooms. The Oxford Street entrance has been enlarged and new entrances provided, and the working arrangements improved.

Printing House Square, BLACKFRIARS, SO called from the printing office of the King's printers, formerly situated here. The first printer whose name has come down to us is John Bill, who, "at the King's Printing House in Black Friers," printed the proclamations of the reign of Charles II., and the first London Gazette, established in that reign. Charles Eyre and William Strahan were the last King's printers who resided here, and in February 17701 the King's Printing House was removed to New Street, near Gough Square, in Fleet Street, where it now The place still continues to deserve its name of Printing House Square, for here every day in the week (Sunday excepted) The Times newspaper is printed and published, and from hence distributed over the whole civilised world. This celebrated paper, finding daily employment on the premises for between 200 and 300 people, was established in 1788-the first number, price 3d., appearing on the 1st of January in that year as the successor to the Universal Register. In that number appeared an amusing explanation of the origin of the new title:

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1 London Gazette, February 17, 1770.

The Universal Register from the day of its first appearance to the day of its confirmation, has like Tristram, suffred from unusual casualties, both laughable and serious, arising from its name, which on its introduction was immediately curtailed of its fair proportions by all who called for it-the word Universal being universally omitted, and the word Register being only retained. "Boy, bring me a Register." The waiter answers "Sir, we have not a Library, but you may see it at the New Exchange Coffee-house." "Then I'll see it there," answers the disappointed politician, and he goes to the New Exchange, and calls for the Register; upon which the waiter tells him that he cannot have it as he is not a subscriber, and presents him with the Court and City Register, the Old Annual Register, or the New Annual Register; or, if the coffee-house be within the purlieus of Covent Garden, or the Hundred of Drury Lane, slips into the politician's hand Harris' Register of Ladies. For these, and other reasons, the parents of the Universal Register have added to its original name that of The Times, which being a monosyllable, bids defiance to corruptors and mutilators of the language.—The Times of January 1, 1788.

The Times of Tuesday, November 29, 1814, was the first work ever printed by a mechanical apparatus, and the first newspaper printed by steam, the machine being the invention of a German named König. A machine erected in 1846 threw off the then almost incredible number of 6000 sheets of eight pages per hour;1 but some years later another, by Mr. Applegarth of Dartford, was erected which threw off 10,000 an hour. Afterwards the American ten-cylinder Hoe machine was employed; but since 1869 The Times has been printed by the Walter Press. This remarkable machine, the most perfect printing press yet produced, was manufactured within The Times office, and is said to be due to the "combined ingenuity of Mr. Walter, chief proprietor, Mr. Macdonald, manager, and Mr. Calverly, chief engineer of The Times newspaper," 2 nearly seven years of assiduous labour being devoted to its production. With it The Times is printed from a continuous roll of paper, about 4 miles long and double the width of The Times, which travels through the press at the rate of 1000 feet a minute-the 4 miles of paper being covered on both sides with printed matter in twenty-five minutes. The impression is taken from curved stereotype plates, cast from a paper matrix, and the machine, almost entirely automatic in its action, unrols and damps the paper, inks the types, registers so that the columns of print range accurately on the two sides of the paper, cuts the sheets of eight pages, and delivers them printed on both sides at the rate of 17,000 an hour, and finally keeps an accurate record of the number so printed. To work this surprising apparatus only an engineer and three pressmen are required. The average number of compositors employed is 110. The process of printing is well worth witnessing, but to see it a special order must be obtained. The establishment is one of the best ordered hives of industry in the metropolis. Every part is arranged for convenient and easy working. The editor's rooms, the rooms with their excellent reference libraries appropriated to the literary staff, the printing offices with the arrange1 Times, August 21, 1846.

2 English Cyclopædia, Arts and Sciences Supplement, Art "Printing."

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