To the Northward, Tavistock-square is commenced; and by an early attention to the enclosing and planting its area before the erection of the habitations, it has become at once pleasant, healthy, and desirable.

To the Eastward of the Foundling Hospital a Square is begun, of the same dimensions as Brunswick-square. Northward of the Hospital Garden is the Estate of Mr. Harrison, where a respectable neighbourhood is rapidly forming; and nearly a dioining, is a large field belonging to the Skinners' Company, for which extensive building plans have been projected; but through some extraordinary inadvertence, no agreement has been effected, to insure respectable accesses either by the South, East, or Western sides.

The Estate formerly belonging to Mr. Mortimer, at the North end of Gower-street, after many years' litigation, has now become the property of Sir William Paxton, who proposes to put up extensive and respectable buildings on it, and to continue ont Gower-street.

To the Northward of Tavistock-square, an arca of about 20 acres is proposed to be surrounded with buildings; the centre to be occupied and dressed as nursery-grounds; the Paddington-road running between them. Directly Northward, from the centre of this large area, a wide grand road is to lead to the Hampstead-road at Camden Town; the sides to be planted with double rows of trees, and the houses to be coupled or detached, allowing abundant space to cach for respect

able inhabitants.

. It is worthy of remark, that a line drawn from the Obelisk in St. George's-fields to the Hampstead-road, will directly pass to the Eastward of Somerset-place in the Strand, by Bloomsbury, through Russell and Tavistuck Squares, and the above grand avenue: and, at a comparatively small expense, forin a noble sercet of communication of more than three miles in extent; dividing the metropolis North and South, almost centrally.

The New Bridge, (so injudiciously intended to be built across the Thames opposite Beaufort-buildings,) without the possibility of any considerable Northern outlet, should undoubtedly be placed in this line, the Eastern wing of Somerset-place completed, and a correspondent range of buildings at the back of Surry-street erected*, with a spacious street between at least eighty feet wide, forming the access from the Straud, and leading direct to the proposed grand

street.

The road from the Bridge to the Obelisk would be through property, that must be most materially increased in value by the

*This would be an excellent situation for the Prerogative and other connected Courts, knowa as Doctor / Commons, at present so wretchedly place 4; and their removal would make way for the improvements so much wanted to the Souul of St. Paul's,

operation; and if the prices which building ground has produced to the Corporation of London, at their improvements by Snow-hill and Temple-bar, be a criterion, the making so grand a street as is here projected, would prove an undertaking of very considerable profit to any individuals, who, sanctioned by the Legislature, might undertake it; the greater proportion of the space between that part of Holborn and the Strand being at present chiefly occupied as sheds or tenements of the most miserable quality. The New Street would allow of houses of the most respectable class public or private, and consequently the ground must be proportionably valuable. It should also be at least eighty feet wide; ninety or one hundred would be better; and its arrangement of houses, elevation, character, &c. ought all to be new and striking. The dwellings should afford sufficient space for trade, but not to overwhelm the tradesman with rent; and private individuals, or professional men, should therein find accommodations.

Toreturn to the New Buildings by Bloomsbury: the Corporation of the City of London, on its estate between Gower-street and Tottenham-court-road, is causing a street, with a crescent at each end, to be erected, and a long range of shops next the road: the whole much improving that approach to the Bedford Estate,

Of the importance of the buildings on the Bedford and Foundling Estates to the country and the proprietors, some judgment may be formed by the following estimates, which are very nearly correct: the duties already paid to Government for the articles consumed in the building, amount to 81,500.; the house and window duties per annum,40,7001; the war tax on property per annum, 14.8001; the New River Company gain by the increased service, per annua, 34501.; the present value of the buildings erected is 1,328,000l.; the annual value 125,710l.; and the present annual value of the ground rents. 18.8391.

It is presumed that about one half the buildings are completed on the Bedford Estate, and two-thirds on the Foundling Estate. If, therefore, those proportions be added to the suns already estimated, some idea may be formed of the reversionary value to the proprietors; and if to these be added the duties and taxes on the other Estates before mentioned South of the Newroad, the permanent taxes to the State cannot be less, (according to their present ratio,) than for houses and windows per annum, 100,0001.; for duties and customs on the building articles, 200,0001.; for the war tax on property per annum, 400001.; and in total of the capital thus to be created, not less than 3,500,0001.; exclusive of all consideration of the advantages derived to the revenue, manufactures, and commerce, by the fitting up and furnishing su vast a neighbourhood.

VESTIGES,

COLLECTED AND RECOLLECTED,

BY JOSEPH MOSER, ESQ.
No. LVI.

A PHILOSOPHICAL AND MORAL VIEW OF ANCIENT AND MODERN LONDON.

WITH NOTES, &c.
Chapter XXI.

ROM the ancient fabric called Dur

does not appear, in the reign of Henry the VIIIth, to have been any building of note in the front of the street.. Salisbury House, a large Gothic mansion, occupied with its site and gardens

the south side of the Strand betwixt the

road and the river: this had probably been the spot whereon the town residence of the Earls of Salisbury had

stood from the time of the Normans

Cecil House, which stood on the North side of the Strand, was originally the parsonage house belonging to the church of St. Martin in the Fields. In consequence of a composition betwixt Sir John Palmer and the incumbent, in the reign of Edward the IVth, it came to that Knight, who demolished it, and began to rebuild on the same site one of brick and timber, which was a mode of erecting houses very little known, and still less practised, in that age t.

* Among the large possessions granted to Walter d'Fwereux, Earl of Rosmar, in Normandy, the estates belonging to the family in Wiltshire were, perhaps, the principal; but this favourite had grants in other places, which descended to his son Edward, surnamed of Salisbury, and probably became attached to the title, of which this mansion, long distinguished by the epithet of Salisbury House, might form a part. It is here unnecessary to trace this unfortunate and royal line. Margaret, the last of this dynasty, was most barbarously massacred on the scaffold, 1541. The title then lay dormant until 1605, when James dignified with it Robert Cecil, second son of that great statesman, Sir William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, who for his prudence and sagacity had obtained one equally honourable, being called the English Nestor. Whether he quite deserved it will be a subject of future consideration.

+ Brick buildings were, from the time of the Romans down to the reign of Henry the VIIIth, very seldom erected in London. Previous to this period, coal ashes, or what is now technically denominated breeze, was forbidden to be used in the composition Europ. Mag. Vel. LI, April 1807.

This edifice has been stated to have been very large and spacious; yet it was much extended and enlarged when it became a ministerial residence. In this house (whose site is now courts and alleys) resided that eminent statesman, Sir William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, whom we mentioned in the note. Burleigh House, as it appears by the ancient plan, fronted the Strand; its gardens extended from the West side of the

garden wall of

ton-street. Lord Burleigh was, in this the green lane which is now Southamphouse, honoured by a visit from Queen Elizabeth, who, knowing him to be him sit in her presence; which, it is subject to the gout, would always make ed a great indulgence from so haughty probable, the Lord Treasurer considerlogized for the badness of his legs. a lady, inasmuch as he one day apoLord, we make use of you not for the To which the Queen replied, 66 My badness of your legs, but for the goodness leigh House, it is probable she had that of your head." When she came to Burkind of pyramidical head-dress then in fashion, built of wire, lace, ribands, and jewels, which shot up to a great

of bricks, from an idea that this inflammable substance mixed with the clay rendered them in burning porous, and more liable to decay. However, though, from an examination of the solid téxture of the Roman bricks, and of those either made here soon after the Conquest, or in the twelfth century imported from Normandy, this appeared spe cious, it had been experimentally proved to be false. The Romans, and probably the Normans, had some ingredients of which they composed them, with which the brickmakers in the latter ages were unacquainted, as their manufacture soon mouldered into du. This may be yet observed in many of the aucient walls, where bricks have been used to fill up the interstices, and repair dilapidations in those of stone, or where the have been mingled with flints; and is still obvions in those of Bethlem, which are built wholly of brieks made without breeze, but repaired with others in which that article had entered into their composition. Those are in such a state of decay, that many of them fall into powder upon the touch; while these, though they have stood more than a century, are as firm as at first, and, unlike most of the

bricks of the present times, (for in this article we are relapsing as much from avarice as our artificial stones, ancestors from ignorance,) are completely

K k

height; for when the principal domestic ushered her in, as she passed the threshold he desired her Majesty to stoop. To which she answered, For your master's sake I will stoop, but not for the King of SPAIN." A great part of the glory that distinguished the reign of Elizabeth, has been ascribed to the prudent choice which she made of her Ministers. That they were all men of talents is unquestionable; and that those individual abilities, however different might be their operation in different minds, were brought into one system, and by means, some of which would now be scarcely commended, were made to act together for the general good, is equally certain. Of this machine (which seems, in some instances, to have been unnecessarily complicated,) Lord Burleigh was considered the primum mobile, the first mover, the great wheel that impelled every other motion. Viewing him in this light, his character does not appear quite so perfect as many historians, who do not seem to bave very accurately marked the difference betwixt shrewdness and wisdom, have thought it. In fact, Machiavelian politics, which had before too much infected the English Court, triumphed in the days of Elizabeth. The Queen and her Ministers delighted to bewilder most of their connexions, and of their affairs, in a labyrinth, to which it was supposed that of all her subjects Burleigh alone held the clue. Be this as it may, it is certain that he most artfully thrid the mazes of a multiplicity of matters, which few could have either so tangled, or disentangled, and consequently acquired the appellation of the Wise; though we think he forfeited his title to it, by his suffering his wisdom to become a pander to the envy and jealousy of his royal mistress, in the affair respecting the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots. In this transaction, although we can discern much of shrewdness and cunning, wisdom (which as only to be identified with rectitude, we conceive to be a mental property that disdains even to compass a laudable end by vicious means,) is seldom visible *. His saying was, Prudens qui patiens; his maxim, Nolo mi

Assertion always shrinks into darkness if it is not collaterally illuminated by ⚫ray from the torch of truth. There is

nor me timeat dispiciatve major. He died in Burleigh House, 1598. His

in the Talbot papers the "fragment of a letter from Lord Burghley to the Earl of Shrewsbury," 1572; in which, speaking of the Queen of Scots, he says, and fynding the sayd Quene now so bent, she must not think but hir Maty hath cause to alter hir curteouss dealings wt hir. And so, in this sort, hir Maty wold have yow tempt hi pacience to pvoke hir to answer somewhat † for of all these pmises hir Maty is certainly assured and of much more..

"Hir Maty told me a whyle ago ta gentleman of my L. of (I dare not name the pty) coming to your L. howss, was by your L askd whyther he had sene the

of Scotts or no, and he sayd no: then f her Maty mislykyng I saydyt I durst saye it your L yow shall se bir anone, which offe May would have y Q kept very strayıly was not trew in matere. I peene har

from all conference, in so much it is more lyke yt she shall be rather comitted to ward than to have more libty: Your L shall do well to send the names of those yt shail remayn, and of such as shall dep't Your L at Com

Upon this passage Mr. Lodge ‡ makes the following remark: "We have here the Prime Minister of a wise and powerful Monarch, directing, by her order, one of the first Noblemen in the realm to visit the cell of a

prisoner, and to exercise the office of a spy of the inquisition, by artfully drawing the proofs of the prisoner's guilt from her own mouth. is couched aggravate the idea of its turpiThe terms in which this treacherous mandate tude. The Earl, deep in the secrets of her story, already master of all the known evidence against her, is ordered not only to sitt her by artful questions, but to assail her pas sions, and to work upon the weakness of a feminme temper, which had been rendered infinitely irritable by a long series of misfortunes-in a word, "to tempt her patience to provoke her to utter somewhat."

While this excites the tear of compassion for the situation of the victim, its policy, like its morality, is so contracted, that we discern in it no traces of the mind of the great Burleigh.

Vol. II. of Illustrations of English History, No. LXVII.

eldest son, Thomas, who succeeded him, was, by letters patent, bearing date the 4th of May, 3d Jac., created Earl of Exeter. Large as Burleigh House was, he is said to have made very considerable additions to it, or, rather, to have erected a new building on its eastern side: the whole mansion then obtained the appellation of Exeter House, upon part of the site of which Exeter 'Change was erected.

It is a curious speculation to consider how, in every age, convenience has been made subservient to property. The abutments of the splendid mansion of Lord Exeter on the one side, and the Gothic gate and flint wall of the Savoy on the other, narrowed and encumbered the highway of the Strand as much as the Change and the opposite buildings do at present. Yet when, by pulling down the former, so great an alteration was made, although (from the connexion betwixt the court and the city) the inconvenience must have been long felt, no measures were taken to remedy it. Coaches were first used in London about 1580 *, and were gradually increasing carts and waggons had been long in use in and about the metropolis; therefore the necessity of a wide passage in the avenue betwixt the two cities was hourly apparent. Of this, as early as the reign of Edward the Vith, the Protector, Somerset, was apprized; as, whatsoever might have been

* The chariots of the ancient Britons, rendered much more elegant by the refined taste of the Romans, and, at their recession, declining into the clumsy machines without wheels used by the Saxons, were in some degree restored to their pristine dignity, and placed again upon wheels, by the Normans. In this form they were first termed Whirlicots, and continued, under other appellations, to the seventeenth century; at the dawn of, which period the riding in coaches was, by the English, considered as effeminate, and an Act passed to prevent it: but in this instance indulgence was stronger than law, for in 1605 they began to be common in London. Four hackney-coaches were set up by Captain Bailly, 1634 In 1778, 23,000 coaches were kept in England. How carriages for show and pleasure have increased since, is too obvious to render a statement necessary. So little were coaches known in the reign of Henry the VIIIth, that we find, upon Ascension Day, 1516, Margaret, Queen of Scots, rode along Cheapside, and so on to Baynard's Castle, behind Sir Thomas Par, the father of Katherine Par.

his motive for demolishing the ancient conduit and church of St. Mary, he certainly cleared the arca before his palace *. When Exeter Change, the

It appears by the plan of London, 1600, that the great width of the Strand lay before the, at that time, magnificent palace of Somerset House: which width continued exactly as it does at present, to the buildings of the Earl of Exeter, the wall of whose court made the same angle as is now to be observed at the corner of Pidcock's Menagerie. The. ground behind the adjoining houses, and extending to the backs of those on the south side of Excter-strect, for a great num. ber of years lay entirely waste. When the surveyors appointed by Messrs. Garrick and Lacey to examine OLD DRURY, reported that that theatre was in a very infirm state, they contemplated the purchase of that ground in order to erect a new one upon it. But whether the two Managers wanted to make too good a bargain, or the proprietor had too great an idea of its value; or whether, upon a closer inspection, they found, by lightening the upper works and extending the lower, (that is, taking off half the shilling gallery and adding it to the boxes, thus inverting the column of society and placing the capital at the base,) Drury, as Quidnunc says, "would last their time," is uncertain; but certain it is, that the negociation failed; and although they did not wish to pull an old house over it was a less evil than the risk of building their heads, still they thought the chance of a new one: they therefore, by the help of propping, patching, and plastering, support

ed, in its declining state, the old fabric which had long supported them.

Upon the incorporation of the Society of Artists, 1765, a part of the ground that we have mentioned was taken by James Paine, Eq., who had just then finished Salisburystreet, and who built upon it that elegant fabric which is now the Lyceum. This was intended for an academy and exhibitionroom to anticipate the royal establishment then in contemplation; and we think that there were several annual exhibitions in it. To erect this building the last vestiges of Exeter Honse were demolished. These consisted of a large room, and one or two smaller, which had been used for a variety of purposes. As, for instances; one time, in an evening, a square paper lanthorn, in illuminated characters, formed the public, that Books, &e, were to be sold by auction; at another, the ingenious Mr. Flockton, with a brazen trumpet and a brazen face, announced that the facetious Mr. Punch and his merry family, were ready to receive company of any description. This room had erst been used as a Roman Catholic private chapel; and in our own times had, we think, been the receptacle of WILD BEASTS, the

new mart for millinery, clothes, trinkets, hangings,books,&c., was erected to rival, or rather to supplant, "the Bursse of Britain," its attractions added greatly to the concourse of people, and consequently of carriages. This building at first contained two ranges or stories of shops: the lower one still remains; the upper one has, like the galleries of the Royal Exchange, long been devoted to other, although we do not mean to insinuate to such laudable purposest. The building called the Savoy (which, in the course of ages, had been a palace, a castle, an hospital, and a military prison, which is the use made of it at present,) has been, by the various events that are recorded to have occurred to it, and in it, too well known to need a particular notice. In 1551, Sir John Thynne had a lease of it, which became a subject of inquiry before the Lords of the Council, as he was probably suspect ed of having obtained it by a fraudu lent bargain with Lord Paget, who had been Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster, and was accused of having embezzled large sums of money that had arisen from the sales of wood and fines for leases within that department. This was the obvious pretence; but the secret motive that led to this inquiry was a crime of which courtiers are seldom guilty; namely, an inviolable attachment to the fallen Protector, whose character, whatsoever might have been

school of defence, the audience chamber of those beautiful Houynhnms the panther mare and colt, the apartment wherein the White Negro Girl and the Porcupine Man held their levees; and, in short, applied to many other purposes equally extraordinary. When the foundations of the present buildings were dug, a number of vaults were discovered, which were in some degree connected, and showed the extent of the ancient fabric.

*The New Exchange.

When the City of Westminster became the rival of London in the display of fashionable articles of dress, it appears from the Spectator, who never suffered any circumstance that characterised the times to pass unnoticed, that this part of it abounded with the shops of tradesmen dependent upon fashion. The petition of Bartholomew Lady love, who was one of the mercers of Roundcourt, and of the sect of Fawners, is well known. No. 305 there is also another petition from the New Exchange mentioned, which was to relate to the arts of buying and selling, and particularly of valuing goods by the complexion of the buyer.

its merit or demerit, it appears descended into the hands of a party who treated it with as little tenderness as they did his person.

In the reign of James the Ist, the Savoy was considered as an appendage to the Queen's Court, i. e, Somerset, or, as it was then termed, Denmark House *. That illustrious Nobleman George Clifford +, Earl of Cumberland, died in that part of the Savoy called the Dutchy House, in 1605; as did William Compton, first Earl of Northampton ‡, in 1630.

It was only called so during the life of Anne of Denmark among her own people.— Rapin.

There are few names better known by historical record than this of Clifford. Fair Rosamond, the daughter to Lord Clifford, was rendered as remarkable by her beauty, has consigned to eternal infany, was for his as Clifford of Cumberland, whom Shakspeares barbarity. George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland, the person mentioned above, was born in 1558. This Nobleman entered into the romantic spirit of the Court of Elizabeth, and distinguished himself in several tournaments before that Princess, who on one occasion took off her glove, and presented it to him; which is almost the greatest favour a Knight could receive from the goddess of his idolatry, and of which he was so proud, that upon public festivals he used for the gallantry which he displayed, and the always to wear it in his hat. He, however, share he had in the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and for his exploits in the South Sea, at Santa Cruz, &c., deserved much more solid favours.

Made Knight of the Bath at the creation of Charles, Duke of York. 16 Jac. advanced to the title of Earl of Northampton, and Knight of the Garter. Spencer Comp ton, his son, took arms in favour of his Monarch, Charles the Ist. He behaved with great gallantry, and was slain at the battle of Hopton Heath, Staffordshire, aged forty-two, leaving six sons, viz. James, who succeded him, tour who were knighted, and one who became Bishop of Oxford, and soon after of London . He had also two daughters. When his Lordship fell, he was offered quarter; but, with an heroic spirit of loyalty, he indignantly replied to the insurgents, "that he scorned to accept of quarter from such base rogues and rebels as they were;" in consequence of which he was cruelly slain with a halbert. (Clarendon.)-His wife was the daughter of Sir Francis Beaumont. Of

§ Vide Henry the VIth, part iii.

Thus Prelate performed the coronation office for William and Mary, instead of Archbishop Sancroft.