CHAPTER IV.

The York Column-Buckingham Palace-Tart Hall-Popular frenzy during supposed Popish plot-Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham-Pimlico, as described by Ben Jonson-Drunkenness, a national vice- Strong-water shops -"Anniseed Robin"-Curious public-houses in Bird-cage Walk-The Cock-Tothill Fields-St. James's Park drained by Henry VIII.-Anecdote of Charles I. at St. James's Palace-Queen Henrietta Maria's guests and ladies dismissed-Park planted by Charles II.-Affability of some continental sovereigns-Duck Island-Mall founded by Charles II.-Stocked with fowl-Evelyn's account of the Mall-Public shoe-cleaners driven from-Hyde Park-Parade at the Horse Guards-The Decoy-Anecdotes of Charles II. and the Popish plot-Cure wrought by royal touch-The courtly Waller-Duke Street Chapel-Judge Jeffreys-Rosamond's Pond -The Wellington Barracks - The Enclosure-National festival on the peace of 1814-Park first lighted with gas-Pieces of ordnance on the Parade.

THE fine flight of steps, on the summit of which stands the York Column, now invite us to stroll into the park, before we continue our course towards Charing Cross and Whitehall. The York Column was erected between the years 1830 and 1833, from the design of Mr. B. Wyatt. The money for its erection was raised by public subscription. It is 124 feet high, the same height as the celebrated column of Trajan at Rome. The pedestal is formed of Aberdeen, and the shaft of Peterhead granite. The bronze statue of the Duke of York is 14 feet high, and was executed by Westmacott. The cost of raising it from the ground to its elevated position, including the fixing and removal of the scaffold, was upwards of £400.

Having entered the park, we proceed at once to Buckingham Palace, the town residence of Her Majesty. The original house was built in 1703, upon the site of the second Arlington House, the residence of the Earl of Arlington, and built for him after he was burnt out of Arlington House, Piccadilly, as already stated. There is a rare print of this house, ill done, said to have been the production of Sutton Nichols. It has the initials S. N. Of this there is a copy, in a worse manner, by John Seago.

By the plan drawn of the parish of St. George, Hanover Square, now hanging in the vestry of the church, it appears that about five-sixths of the house, called “Tart Hall,” in which the Lord Viscount Stafford resided, was in St. George's parish, as the boundary line cuts off about a sixth part of the south end of it, which is in the adjoining parish.

This house stood opposite to the park, on the ground between Buckingham House and the commencement of the houses in James Street; the site of Stafford Row was part of its garden. It was built in the reign of Charles I., for Alathea, Countess of Arundel. Its next possessor, her second son, Lord Stafford, fell a victim to the evidence of Titus Oates, and was beheaded in 1680.

During the popular frenzy, excited by the supposed popish plot, the Arundel marbles in this house were buried in the garden, lest the bigotted mob should have mistaken them for popish saints, and destroyed them.

Buckingham House was purchased of Lord Arlington by the well-known John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, who having obtained from the Crown an additional lease of land, including a portion of the domains of Tart Hall, pulled down the old house in the year 1703, and erected a new and more magnificent one. This nobleman, first known as the Earl of Mulgrave, afterwards Marquis and Duke of Normanby, and then as the Duke of Buckingham, was a great man and a small littérateur in his day. In the latter character he is enshrined in the pages of Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," although he might, if merit or genius were the passport, have been very properly left out. He enjoyed, in his day, the reputation of a Mohock, and was a very gallant soldier. He married a natural daughter of King James II., by Catherine Sedley, and died in 1720.* He left Buckingham House to his son, Sir Charles Herbert Sheffield, of whom it was purchased by the Crown. In the year 1775, it was granted as a residence for the queen, in lieu of Somerset House, which was then pulled down. It afterwards went by the name of the Queen's House, and was the constant residence of Queen Charlotte. George IV., in the year 1825, employed Mr. Nash, the architect, to make various alterations, and he was employed upon it until his death. Mr. Blore was then intrusted with the work, and it may now be called altogether a new edifice, for it does not preserve one sign of its former shape or porportions. There was a dome upon it, erected by one of the architects, which did not please the taste of George IV., and it was taken down.

It was not in a habitable state during the reign of William IV., but Her present Majesty took up her abode in it soon after her accession. The principal front forms three sides of a square, enclosing

*He was twice married, and each time to a widow.

a space about 250 feet in diameter. In the centre is a portico, the lower part in the Doric, and the upper in the Corinthian order of architecture. The garden front is a simple elevation of the Corinthian order, resting on a rustic Ionic basement from whence there is a broad terrace leading to the garden. The interior is fitted up with the magnificence befitting the abode of a Queen of England. On the ground-floor are Her Majesty's private rooms and the library. The grand staircase is of fine white marble, and leads to the throne-room and drawing-rooms. The former is ornamented with basso-relievos, by Bailey, from designs by Stothard. The picture-gallery is a magnificent apartment, extending to a length of 164 feet, being 28 broad. But this palace is not spacious enough for Her Majesty and the Royal Family. Accordingly, the sum of £150,000 was voted last session to make such alterations in it, or additions to it, as may be desirable.

The principal approach to the palace is formed by an arch of white marble, built in imitation of the arch of Constantine at Rome, and is adorned with sculpture by Westmacott and Bailey. Considered per se, it is a beautiful building, but standing where it does, it has anything but a good effect. On the top of this arch is hoisted the standard of England whenever the Queen is present. The silk of this magnificent flag is said to have cost £140.

A new front, completing the quadrangle of the palace, has just been erected from the design of Mr. Barry.

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The immediate back of the palace, which even now is not a very creditable neighbourhood, was, in the days of Ben Jonson, the abode of the very refuse of London. In his play of the Alchymist," he says, "Gallants, men and women, and of all sorts, tag-rag and bob-tail, have, been seen to flock here in threaves, these ten weeks, as to a second Hoxton or Pimlico." In another part of the same play he says, " Besides other gallants, oyster-women, sailors' wives, tobacco-men-another Pimlico." It is in contemplation at present to form almost a new town between this and Westminster Abbey, and remove the dirty, narrow,ill-paved, and almost pestilential streets of old Westminster -the grand nest of thieves and beggars, and full of pawn-shops, old clothes warehouses, and gin-palaces. The immense number of the latter is a feature in this part of the town,—and indeed, through London generally it may be remarked, that the poorer the neighbourhood, the more magnificent the gin-palaces. Perhaps the one is the result of the other. All travellers remark upon the drunkenness of the people of London: in no other

city in Europe is it common to see a drunken woman, even of the lowest and most degraded class. But how common is it in this capital! The writer of a treatise, called the "London and Country Brewer," published in 1738, when the drunkenness of the lower orders was as prevalent as it is now, gives the following explanation of the origin of the vice amongst us. The passage, bating the opinion at the commencement, is valuable and curious, as affording an insight into the manners of the populace more than a century ago, and the price of liquors at that time. "Our drunkenness as a national vice takes its date from the restoration of Charles II., or a few years after. Joy, mirth, good cheer, and good liquor were the solace of the common people in 1661. They rejoiced that after a long usurpation the king should enjoy his own again; that after a long series of blood and confusion, and a civil war in the bowels of the country, the people should enjoy a public peace and tranquillity; that trade should flourish, and plenty succeed misery and want. These were the several reasons of their joy; and very merry, and very mad, and very drunken the people were; and grew more and more so every day. As to the materials, beer and ale were considerable articles; they went a great way in the work at first, but were far from being sufficient, and then strong waters, which had not been long in use, came into play. The occasion was this:-In the Dutch wars it had been observed that the captain of the Hollander's men-of-war, when they were about to engage with our ships, usually set a hogshead of brandy abroach afore the mast, and bid the men drink sustick that they might fight lustick; and our poor seamen felt the force of the brandy to their cost. We were not long behind them; but suddenly after the war we began to abound in strong-water shops. These were a sort of petty distillers, who made up those compound waters from such mixed and confused trash as they could get to work from. Such as damaged and eager or sour wineswines that had taken salt water in at sea; lees and bottoms; also damaged sugars and molasses, grounds of cyder, &c., for till then there was very little distilling known in England, but for physical uses. The spirits were bad, but they mixed them with such additions as they could get to make them palatable; and gave them the name of cordial waters. The strong-water shops made a vast show of glasses, labelled like the gallipot Latin of the apothecaries, with innumerable hard names, to set them off. Here, as at a fountain, the good wives furnished their little fireside cupboards with a needful bottle for a cherish

ing cup; and hence, as from wholesale dealers, all the little chandlers' shops, not in London and its adjacent parts only, but over great part of England, were furnished for sale; and to the personal knowledge of the writer hereof, and of thousands still living, not the chandlers' shops only, but just as is now complained of, the barber chirurgeon, were furnished with the same, and sold it by retail to the poor people, who came under their operations. The names of some of the liquors were— aqua vitæ, anniseed water; aqua mirabilis, cinnamon water; aqua salis, clove water; aqua dulcis, plague water; cholick water, which, in short, was Geneva. These, and many more; but aqua vitæ and anniseed water were the favourite liquors, and in time the latter prevailed; the quantity drank was prodigious. It was the Geneva of these times; it was cried about the streets, of which the memory of Anniseed Robin will be a never-dying testimony; who was so well known in Leadenhall and the Stock Market for his liquor and his broad-brimmed hat, that it became proverbial when we saw a man's hat hanging about his ears, to say he looks like Anniseed Robin. The bum-boats continue to this day crying a dram of the bottle in the river among the ships-this was the dram-drinking age. A sudden stop was put to it, for the French out-did them exceedingly; and pouring in their brandy at a cheap rate, the physicians recommended it, and people took their drams in plain brandy. The best was sold for twopence the quartern; the poor could have a large dram for a halfpenny, and the fellows that cried about the streets carried with them little double dram-cups, which being held on one side was a penny, and on the other side a halfpenny, This held on for several years, and the custom-house books will show the prodigious consumption, till the late Revolution, when a war with France breaking out, brandy rose from twopence to sixpence the quartern, and from thence to such a scarcity that no good brandy was to be got at any price. The poor went from the dram-cup to the alehouse pint, to their great regret as well as expense.'

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Twenty years ago, Westminster, and especially that part of it behind the Bird Cage Walk, abounded in old-fashioned quaint public-houses. One of them, known by the sign of the Cock," was so very ancient that it was believed, it is not known exactly upon what authority, that the workmen employed in building Westminster Abbey received their wages there. Perhaps they were the workmen who built Henry the Seventh's Chapel. And even on the latter supposition, the pot-house