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VESTIGES,

COLLECTED AND RECOLLECTED,

SOMERSET-HOUSE.

BY JOSEPH MOSER, ESQ

NUMBER II.

IT has been obferved by critics who had probably heard, for I will not give them credit for understanding fufficient to fuggeft the fentiment, that it required a far greater portion of fublime genius and elevated ideas to defign the Cartoons than to delineate the infide of a Dutch kitchen; and extending their obfervation from painting to architecture, that the mind fublimely intelligent could only receive impreffions of the grand, while the fure criterion of a grovelling intellect was a scrupulous attention to the minute. The idea that pervades thefe propofitions has alfo been applied to fuch kind of inveftigation as forms the bafis of thefe Veltiges. Researches into antiquity (fay they), when properly directed, may certainly be productive of inftruction as well as entertainment; but it is not every trifling memorial that is to be found in the rubbish of former ages that is worthy of being preserved in repofito

ries of ornamental or useful know

ledge. Thefe aphorifms, though trite, may in fome degree be true; but I conceive, as I have already hinted, that there are few circumftances attending local hiftory, local manners, and by a regular gradation leading the mind to comparative reflections on morals, on the good and evil refulting from peculiar characters, fituations, and habits of life, that, when inveftigated, will be deemed trifling or unimportant; I fhall therefore make no further apology for the continuance of this fpeculation, but proceed to the confideration of a palace which has funk and rifen, as I may correctly ftate, in fome degree, under my obfervation.

Somerfet-houfe, the royal apartments of which had, from about the year 1769 until its final dilapidation, been configned to the ufe of the two schools of defign founded by his Majesty, and to the refidence of the late G M. Mofer, Efq. the keeper, in fact the father, of

* It may be neceffary to state, with respect to my truly scientific and ingenious relation, that the arts dependant upon design owe their revival in a great measure to his enthufiaftic exertions for their fupport. It is known to every one that has confidered the subject, that in the reign of Charles the Second there was an academy for drawing the human figure from the life, established in London; but the arts declining after the death of that Monarch, the Academy consequently fell into difufe, and was at length abandoned until about the year 1730, when Mr. Mofer obferving the difficulties their profeffors had to encounter, and yet how much occafion the painters and sculptors of that period had to ftudy the human figure, both from the antique and living models, with the affiftance of an artist of the name of Roby Marcus Tufcher, a painter of confiderable eminence, the late James Stuart, Efq. and feveral others, raised a fubfcription, and established an academy in an apart ment (as I have been informed) in Salisbury-court. The advantages which in point of improvement the Gentlemen concerned derived from this plan foon became fo obvious in their works, and the candidates for admiffion, as fubfcribers and ftudents, in confequence, so numerous, that the Managers were obliged to feek a fituation where they could obtain greater accommodation. Peter court, St. Martin's-lane, was the place fixed upon, and a building of confiderable fize, which had formerly been a French chapel, and has fince been converted into a Quaker's meeting, was adapted to academical purposes; the fubfcription was annual, but the meetings were only held in the evening from fix to eight o'clock. Here Mr. Mofer, for a long feries of years, acted as Treasurer and Director; and here those artists whole genius forms an epoch in the history of the last century, and whole works will adorn many of the fucceeding, turned their attention from the chimerical and erratic purfuits of fancy to the tudy of nature and truth.

VOL. XLII. AUG. 1802.

N

the

the academical establishment, was, as is well known, originally built by Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerfet, Protector during the minority of Edward the Sixth, upon the fite of an inn of chancery called Strand, or the Bishop of Worcester's, Inn, and alfo upon the fites of the Bishop of Litchfield's and Coventry's houfe, commonly called Chefter Inn, the Bishop of Landaff's houfe, and a church called St. Mary in the Strand, which were all pulled down by his order, and made level with the ground, ann. 1549, 3 Edw. VI. and their materials applied to the purpofes of the new building; alfo for a further fupply of timber, lead, iron, and tone, he took down at St. Paul's a cloifter, two chapels, a charnel-houfe, and likewife most part of the church of St. John of Jerufalem, near Smithfield t.

This ancient building, it will be remembered, contained a strange architectural mixture, in which the Gothic tafte fo long prevalent in this country feemed to be blended and united with the first incorrect ideas of the lately imported Grecian; from which it has been conjectured, that the architect was an Englishman of confiderable genius, as, from the union of thefe incoherent fyftems, he contrived to produce in the whole an effect exceedingly grand and picturesque.

Although the ancient building and garden occupied a confiderable space, they did not, by any means, comprife the intended ground plan of the new erections. This palace had had a large addition made to it, which contained all the apartments fronting the garden dedicated to the purposes of the Royal Academy, the Keeper's lodgings, those of the Chaplain, the Housekeeper, &c.; thefe, with the chapel, fcreen, and offices, were the works of Inigo Jones, though they probably rofe upon the ruins of a very magnificent part of the old fabric.

At the extremity of the royal apart-, ments, which might be termed femi

modern, two large folding-doors connected the architecture of Jones with the ancient ftructure; these opened into a long gallery, on the first floor of a building which occupied one fide of the water-garden; at the lower end of this was another gallery, or fuite of apartments, which made an angle forming the original front toward the River, and extending to Strandlane. This old part of the mansion had long been fhut up (it was haunted of courfe), when Sir William Chambers withing, or being directed, to furvey it, the folding doors of the royal bedchamber (the Keeper's drawing-room) were opened; a number of perfons entered with the Surveyor. The first of the apartments, the long gallery, we obferved was lined with oak in finall pannels; the heights of their mouldings had been touched with gold: it had an oaken floor and ftuccoed ceiling, from which still depended part of the chains, &c. to which had hung chandeliers. Some of the sconces remained against the fides, and the marks of the glaffes were still to be diftinguished upon the wainscot.

From feveral circumstances it was evident, that this gallery had been used as a ball-room. The furniture which had decorated the royal apartments had, for the convenience of the Academy, and perhaps prior to that estab lifhment, with refpect to fome of the rooms, been removed to this and the adjoining fuite of apartments. It was extremely curious to obferve thrown together, in the utmolt confufion, various articles, the fashion and forms of which fhewed that they were the production of different periods. In one part there was the vestiges of a throne and canopy of state; in another, curtains for the audience-chamber, which had once been crimfon velvet fringed with gold. What remained of the fabric had, except in the deepest folds, faded to an olive colour; all the fringe and lace but a few threads and fpangles had been

Stow's Survey of Lond. p. 493. Ibid. 490. Videfis etiam regift. Inter Temp.

folio 113. a.

+ Hayward, p. 303. Stow, p. 596. 、

The original plan of the new buildings Somerfet-place, as I have been informed, comprehended a very large space indeed, taking in the far greater part, if not the whole, of the Savoy weftward, and all the buildings in front from the prefent manfion nearly to the Talbot Inn eaftward. Somerfet-yard, i. e. the late Princefs-Dowager of Wales' Stabling, abutting upon the Savoy Wall, was formerly the western extiemity of this palace and its appurtenances, as Strand-lane was the eastern.

ripped

ripped off; the ornaments of the chairs of ftate demolished; ftools, couches, fcreens, and fire-dogs, broken and fcattered about in a state of derangement which might have tempted a philofopher to moralize upon the tranfitory nature of fublunary fplendour and human enjoyments.

With respect to the gold and filver which were worked in the borders and other parts of the tapestries with which the royal apartments were, even within my remembrance, heng, it had been carefully picked out while thofe rooms were used as barracks. Some very elegant landscapes, beautifully wove in tapestry, adorned the library of the Royal Academy until the diffolution of the building.

To return from this fhort digreffion to the gallery; I muft obferve, that treading in duft that had been for ages accumulating, we paffed through the collection of ruined furniture to the fuite of apartments which I have already stated formed the other fide of the angle, and fronted the Thames f. In thefe rooms, which had been adorned in a style of fplendour and magnificence which was creditable to the taste of the age of Edward the Sixth, part of the ancient furniture remained,

and indeed, from the ftability of its materials and construction, might have remained for centuries, had proper attention been paid to its prefervation.

The audience-chamber had been hung with filk, which was in tatters, as were the curtains, gilt leather covers, and painted fcreens. There was in this and a much longer room a number of articles which had been removed from other apartments, and the fame confufion and appearance of neglect was evident. Some of the fconces, though reverfed, were ftill against the hangings; and I remember one of the brass giit chandeliers ftill depended from the ceiling. The general state of this building, its mouldering walls and decaying furniture, broken cafements, falling roof, and the long ranges of its uninhabited and uninhabitable apartments, prefented to the mind in strong, though gloomy colours, a correct picture of thofe dilapidated calties, the haunts of spectres and refidence of magicians and murderers, that have, fince the period to which I allude, made fuch a figure in romance; and I have often reflected, that there was matter enough in the winding ftairs, dark galleries, long arcades, cells, and dungeons, as they might have been

* I have frequently contemplated this tapestry with fenfations of pleafure, arifing from the elegance of the defigns and the perfection of the workmanship. It beauti fully ornamented the building of Inigo Jones, and was, I have no doubt, the production of French looms. The compofition of the landscapes feemed to be of the fchool of Gafpar Pouffin §; but I do not think that they were direct copies of that mafter, at least I do not recollect any of his prints that exhibit the fame fubjects. The tapestry in the other apartments, which had been taken down long before the Royal Academy was established, I can just recollect displayed hiftorical fubjects.

↑ Whomfoever remembers any thing of the old Palace of Somerset-house muft recollect, that the water-garden was formed by two fides of the building, the wall which ranged along Strand-lane, and a palifadoed front. It was a kind of large terrace, being ascended by a flight of tteps from the garden that was common to the whole. It had gates, and the railing extended from the building of Inigo Jones to Strand-lane. Formerly a statue flood in the centre, and there were feveral others at the corners of parterres in the great garden, particularly one in brafs of Cleopatra, with a snake environing her arm, and fixed upon her breast; in her other hand a cap. I can remember the pedestals of fome of thefe ftatues ftanding in their proper places; the milerably mutilated remains of others were placed against the west wall, but fo corroded and dilapidated that it was impoffible to difcern what they had been, or to what the remains belonged. In the centre of the weltern quarter of the garden was a large bafon; there had been a fountain, which was dried by the torch of the genius of improvement. The water gate, which tell in the general diffolution of the building, was efteemed a beautiful fpecimen of the union of grandeur with elegant fimplicity. It was appropriately adorned with the figures of Thames and Ifis.

The landscapes of this artift being peculiarly adapted to the procefs, were frequently copied in tapestry, many exquifite pieces of which formerly adorned the royal palaces of France: he was born at Rome, of French parents, in the year 1600, and died in that city in 1663.

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termed, impervious to the folar
beam," of the ancient part of Somerset
Houfe, to have furnished an author,
whole imagination inclined to the
doleful and terrific, with apartments
and places properly adapted to "many
a foul and midnight murder." The
figures of ancient warriors might,
without a touch of the promethean
torch," have started from their canvas
in one room; the ftatue afcended from
the garden, and danced the hays in
another; the maffy doors were admi-
rably calculated to be forced open by
fupernatural means, though no mortal
engine of lefs power than a battering
ram would perhaps have effected it;
the dark paffages feemed as if con-
trived for ghofts or banditti with
gleaming torches ; and upon the
broken ftairs any one might have
hung for hours without any danger
of being relieved. In fhort, this fpot
feemed fo well adapted to become the
fcene of a modern novel, erected upon
an ancient foundation, that I very
much wonder fome eccentric genius
has not contracted for it, as it might
have faved him or her the trouble and
expence of a flight to Italy or France.
Here they might, ad libitum, have called
up the spirit of the ancient poffellor of
this fuperb manfion, and perhaps have
oppofed him to the fhades of a hoft of
his monaftic enemies, who might have
upbraided him with the deftruction of
their churches, thrines, and convents,
rattied the windows, thook the walls,
made the armour fall with a horrid
crash, overturned the throne, deftroyed
the furniture, and then have departed,
leaving to the faithful recorders of fuch
events materials for a tale of wonder,
whofe morality would have been nearly
equal to its probability.

re

Paffing through thefe rooms, flecting, that although they might be made the fcenes of romance and foulharrowing woe," they had once actually been the regions of fplendour, of feftivity, of luxury, and hofpitality, fuch as would in more modern times, when the generous, the indigenous feelings of the Great were frittered away in the pursuit of falfe tafte, and blunted by the operation of false refinement, have been deemed ufelefs and cumbersome appendages of fate;

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"Yet hence the poor were cloath'd,
the hungry fed;"

reflecting, as I have obferved, upon
the brilliancy which these apartments
had once exhibited, and upon the for-
tune of feveral of their tenants, we
arrived at a pair of doors near the
eastern extremity, that were with diffi-
culty opened, but which, when opened,
were found to give access to a room
which would have almoft repaid any
difficulty that might have occurred in
obtaining a fight of it.

This apartment was upon the first
floor of a finall pile that formed a kind
of tower at the end of the old building,
and the internal part of which was un-
questionably of the work of Inigo Jones.
It was known to have been afterwards
ufed as a break faft or dreffing room by
Catharine, the Queen of Charles the
Second, who refided and kept her Court
in this palace many years; in fact,
from the death of that Monarch until
her return to Lisbon. This clofet had
more the appearance of a small temple
than a room; it was of an octagonal
form, and the ceiling rofe in a dome
from a beautiful cornice. The specta-
tor was in an intant ftruck with the
harmony of the parts which compofed
this exquifitely-formed building, and
received a fenfation of pleasure without
knowing whence it proceeded. Upon
examination, there appeared fuch an
elegant fimplicity in the architecture,
fuch a truly attic grace in the orna-
ments, that I remember Sir William
Chambers, who was prefent, exceed-
ingly regretted the neceffity there was
for its dilapidation. The figures painted
upon the pannels were in fresco, the
ornaments under the furbafe were
upon their heights touched with gold.
The few articles of furniture that re-
mained in this room were in the an-
tique style. There were several pic-
tures upon the ground, but, except
one, which feemed adapted to the
paunel over the chimney, they were
not judged to have belonged to this.
apartment.

A fmall door of this room opened upon the ftair-cafe, and when you defcended to the ground floor on the right hand fide of the paffage, another door opened into an apartment of the octagon form, lined entirely with marble, in the interior closets of which were a hot and a cold-bath. The latter had. I believe, been a short time before used by the inhabitants of the palace, and was, I have no doubt, fupplied from the fame Spring,

that

that was afterwards transferred to the Surry Street Baths, which were, and probably still are, within fifty yards of this spot.

The ftyle of internal architecture of thefe fmall apartments, which were appropriated to the ufe of the Queen, was fo extremely elegant, that, as I have obferved, Sir William Chambers regretted that it was not in his power to remove them entire. He, however, I think, ordered fpecimens of their ornaments, &c. to be preserved, and, I believe, drawings of their plans and fection to be made, which, if they were executed, are unquestionably preferved in his collection. Mr. Mofs, the archi-. tect, when a ftudent, made a beautiful drawing of the front of this palace (in its ancient ftate) toward the Strand, from which, I think, there is an engraving; this drawing obtained a medal in the Royal Academy. I hope every part of the old building, which I confider with refpect and veneration, has been delineated, and that a feries of views of it will one day be published.

Referring retrospectively to the domestic hiftory of this once celebrated edifice, it will, as I have obferved upon another occafion, be found interwoven and blended with the history of the country. The many changes of occupancy that have occurred are to be traced in the fate of its different tenants, though there are local features attached to every period, to every individual, which are feldom difplayed upon the hiftoric tablet, but the outline of which it would be both amusing and inftructive to contemplate. Of thefe, alas! I fear in this initance every veftige is obliterated.

It will probably be recollected, that from the reign of James the Firft down to the Interregnum, this palace was identified in records, deeds, warrants, &c. by the appellation of Denmark Houfe, in compliment to Ann of Denmark, who, I believe, added the octagon tower at the east end, which contained the baths and apartments

I have juft defcribed, and who caused the whole building to be repaired, beautified, and, among many other improvements, the refervoir to be conftructed, which was fupplied with water from Hyde Park.

On Shrove Tuesday, in the year 1616, it appears that the Court first took poffeffion of this palace: a fplen did entertainment was upon this occafion given by the Queen to the King and Nobility, which concluded with a mafque and ball in a ftyle fuperior to any that had before been exhibited, though thefe kind of private theatricals were much the tafte of the age of this Monarch and his fucceffor.

In the age immediately fucceeding, this houfe became the scene of an exhibition of another kind. It would be too extravagant an hypothefis to fuppofe that the exuberant gaiety of one period was remotely the caufe of the extraordinary folemnity of another; but be this as it may, it appears, that on the 26th of September 1658, Somerfet Houfe, the feat of Kings, became the receptacle of the corpfe of that arch-regicide Cromwell, which was, with the greatest privacy, removed from Whitehall by night.. Here it lay in ftate until the 23d of November, whence, with fuch fuperb obfequies as had never before been feen, even in those ages of magnificent funerals, it was interred in Westminfter-abbey.

In the reign of Charles the Second, the fplendour of Somerset House, toge. ther with its ancient name, were revived. In this reign, it was frequently the fcene of public entertainments, and fometimes the refidence of public characters. After the death of this Monarch, it has already been obferved, his Queen kept her Court here. In the beginning of this century, it appears to have been occafionally appropriated to masquerades. Mr. Addifon, in the Freeholder, mentions one given in honour of the birth of the Archduke. In the year 1753 or 4, the Venetian Ambassador had a splendid

This circumfiance, as indeed many other refpecting this man, confpicuous for his talents, ftill rendered more confpicuous by his crimes, has been the subject of much controverfy. has been faid by fome that his remains were thrown into the Thames, by others that they were buried in Nafeby Field. Both thefe fuggestions are equally improbable. Where his corpfe was depofited is of little importance; though, for an example to pofterity, it might have been wifhed, he had met a fate fimilar to that of many other regicides, and fuffered the punishment which his atro

cities merited.

entertainment

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