CHAPTER XL.
CHISWICK.
"Et terram Hesperiam venies, ubi Thamesis arva
Inter opima virum leni fluit agmine."—Virgil, "Æn.," ii.
Earliest Historical Records of Chiswick—Sutton Manor—Chiswick Eyot—The Parish Church—Holland, the Actor—Ugo Foscolo—De
Loutherbourg—Kent, the Father of Modern Gardening—Sharp, the Engraver—Lady Thornhill—Hogarth's Monument—A Curious
Inscription—Extracts from the Churchwardens' Books—Hogarth's House—Hogarth's Chair—The "Griffin" Brewery—Chiswick Mall—The "Red Lion"—The "White Bear and Whetstone"—The College House—Whittingham's Printing-press—Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland—Dr. Rose and Dr. Ralph—Edward Moore, the Journalist—Alexander Pope's Residence—The Old Manor House—Turnham
Green—Encampment of the Parliamentarians during the Civil Wars—The Old "Pack Horse" Inn—The Chiswick Nursery—Chiswick
House—Description of the Gardens—The Pictures and Articles of Vertu—Royal Visits—Death of Charles James Fox and George
Canning—Garden Parties—Corney House—Sir Stephen Fox's House—The Gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society.
It is curious to note how the gradual—or, we
might perhaps say, rapid—extension of the metropolis is affecting the once out-lying towns and
villages in its immediate vicinity on both sides
of the river. Many places, indeed, as we have
already seen, such as Paddington and Bayswater,
Stoke Newington and Hackney, Clapham and
Camberwell, have already become entirely absorbed
into the gigantic city; whilst others are so rapidly
increasing in size that they, too, will soon lose all
signs of a separate existence. Chiswick, which
lies on the bend of the river between Turnham
Green and Brentford, still retains many of its rural
charms, although their effacement by the hand of
the builder may be perhaps but the work of a few
years. To a certain extent, however, this progress
is apparent even so far west as Chiswick, which
we design to form the limit of our journeyings in
this direction.
Chiswick is not found in Doomsday-Book, but it
is mentioned in the various records of Henry III.
by the name of "Chesewicke." According to
the Saxon Chronicle, a battle was fought between
Chiswick and Turnham Green between Edmund
Ironside and the Danes, who were bent on
attacking London, approaching it by the Roman
road across the "Back Common," as it is now
called, but which was the only entrance to the
metropolis from the west, the present western road
dating no further back than about the eighteenth,
or perhaps the close of the seventeenth century.
A presumed proof of the antiquity of this road
across the "Back Common" is to be found in the
urn containing Roman coins dug up in situ in
the year 1731, concerning which discovery we
shall have more to say presently. With this single
fact we must be content with regard to the early
history of Chiswick, till we come to the reign of
Henry II., when the Doomsday-Book of St. Paul's,
in an Inquisition into the manor and churches
belonging to the metropolitan cathedral, alludes
to the "status Ecclesiæ de Sutton"—Sutton, i.e.,
South Town, being the popular name for that part
of Chiswick which lay between Turnham Green
and the river Thames.
In this document we find an account of the glebe,
titles, and pension payable to the vicar; and it is
worthy of note that now, after the lapse of nearly
seven hundred years, there is still paid to the
vicar by the Chapter of St. Paul's a "pension" of
thirteen shillings annually, and another of two
shillings to the chapter by the vicar. From
another inquisition, dated 1222, we learn that the
then "Firmarius" of the Manor had made a
collection of Peter's pence; but, it is added,
"sibi retinet," he keeps it for himself. If this
"Firmarius" was, as is suspected, a member of
the Chapter of London, his act was a "robbing of
Peter to pay Paul," and possibly may have given
rise to the saying.
The same source of information tells us that at
"Sutton" there was a "parva capella" attached
to the manor-house; and as the population in
this part has very much increased of late years, a
new church has been erected recently, almost on
the site of the former fabric.
In 1570, Gabriel Goodman, Prebendary of St.
Paul's, becoming Dean of Westminster, "diverted"
the manor of Chiswick from the cathedral to the
abbey. It was perhaps in consequence of the
new tie thus springing up that a "Pest House"
was built on Chiswick Mall for the use of the
Westminster scholars. It was a plain and substantial building, comprising a house, dormitory,
and school; and it is a matter of history that
during the time of the great plague the school
or "College of St. Peter's" at Westminster was
carried on at Chiswick by Dr. Busby without interruption to the regular studies. The Pest House
was pulled down only a few years ago, and its site
is now covered by modern villas. During the demolition of this building it was discovered that
some of its walls were as old as the thirteenth
century. But we are anticipating.
If Chiswick is approached by way of the Thames,
but little of it is seen, as it lies opposite a small
island of osiers—called Chiswick Ait or Eyot—which nearly hides it from public view. Thus the
steamers rather avoid the place, and all that can
be seen of it is perhaps the spire of the old church
and one or two of the pleasant houses in the Mall,
which runs along the river's bank, almost a continuation of that of Hammersmith, mentioned in
the preceding chapter. The visitor to Chiswick,
approaching by land, may find it rather an out-ofthe-way place. It is true that part of it, Turnham Green, on the north side, lies on the high
road at the western end of Hammersmith, but
Chiswick proper lies off the high road and nearer
the river, and it is only by walking that one can
get at the place; but the walk thither will be well
repaid for the trouble taken in accomplishing it.
Whatever alterations may pass over this once pretty
village, it will always be a spot that the student of
English history and English manners will regard
with a fair amount of interest, for the sake of
several men of mark who have lived or died in its
neighbourhood.
The parish church stands near the river, and
is dedicated to St. Nicholas, the patron saint of
fishermen, who, at the time of its erection, as now,
formed the majority of the parishioners. The
present structure, though adorned with a handsome
tower, is disfigured by a fair share of the deformities
of the architecture of the eighteenth century, and
in other respects is quite in harmony with its
sister edifices which grace—or disgrace—the valley
of the Thames between London and Windsor.
It consisted originally of only a nave and chancel,
and was built about the beginning of the fifteenth
century, at which time the tower was erected at
the charge and cost of William Bordal, vicar of the
parish, who died in 1435. The tower is built of
stone and flint, as was originally the north wall of
the church. Some aisles or transepts of brick,
in the hideous style of the Georgian era, just out on
either side, one of them bearing the ominous date of
1772, and the other of 1817. These excrescences
were first erected in the shape of transepts; but
as the population increased, and more space was
needed, they were extended westward, and, so
far as they can be described at all, ought perhaps
to be termed aisles by courtesy. Recently some
improvements and partial restorations have been
made in the interior: the pews have given place
to low open benches, an organ-chamber has been
erected, the west window opened, and the chancel
rebuilt and decorated in true ecclesiastical taste,
and a new memorial east window inserted. Still,
the inside of the nave is a most barn-like structure;
and a modern roof, which not many years ago
replaced the original handsome open timber-roof of
the pre-Reformation era, looks heavy and cumbrous
to a degree.
Taking a general view of the interior of the
church, we may say that, with the single exception
of Bath Abbey, we never saw a sacred edifice
whose walls are more hideously disfigured with
"pedimental blotches," in the shape of marble
mural monuments. These are of every date, from
the fine classical piece of sculpture which commemorates one of the Chaloners of Elizabeth's
reign—Sir Thomas Chaloner, a distinguished
chemist, in the boldest possible relief, and the
more modest and retiring tablet which, adorned
with a pile of Bibles on either side, records the
virtues of the wife of Dr. Walker, a Puritan
minister during the Commonwealth, who signalised
his incumbency by the first enlargement of the
church, and by substituting the "Directory" for
the Prayer-book—down to the present century.
Among them are monuments to such a cloud of
peers and peeresses and honourables, as ought to
gladden the heart of "Garter" or "Ulster" himself. There is one to a Duchess of Somerset;
another to one of the Burlingtons; three or four to
the relatives of Sir Robert Walpole, all titled individuals; and another, very handsome of its kind,
to one of Nature's gentlemen, Thomas Bentley,
the able and public-spirited partner of Josiah
Wedgwood, who resided in the parish, and whose
virtues it commemorates. Bentley lived in a
large and substantial mansion in the high road
leading from Hammersmith to Turnham Green,
now (or lately) occupied by Mr. Vaughan Morgan.
The bas-reliefs, of which he speaks so often in his
correspondence with Wedgwood, still grace the
walls of the house, which (if we except a few
additions) is much in the same state as when owned
by Bentley.
Garrick erected the monument in the chancel
to his friend Charles Holland, the actor, who died
at Chiswick House; and he also wrote the inscription. Charles Holland was the son of John Holland,
a baker of Chiswick, where he was baptised April
3rd, 1733. He was apprenticed to a turpentine
merchant; but strongly imbued with a predilection
for the stage, and praised for the display of that
talent in his private circle, he applied to Garrick,
who gave him good encouragement, but advised him
"punctually to fulfil his engagement with his master,
and should he then find his passion for the theatre
unabated, to apply to him again." This advice he
followed; and under Garrick's auspices made his
début at Drury Lane Theatre, in 1754, in the part
of Oronooko. He distinguished himself principally
in the characters of Richard III., Hamlet, Pierre,
Timur in "Zingis," and Manley in "The Plain
Dealer." Holland was a zealous admirer and
follower of Garrick; and, as a player, continued to
advance in reputation. His last performance was
the part of Prospero, in Shakespeare's "Tempest,"
November 20th, 1769; and he died of the smallpox on December 7th following. His body
was deposited in the family vault in Chiswick
churchyard on the 15th of the same month; and
his funeral was attended by most of the performers
belonging to Drury Lane Theatre.
In the church, in the north wall of the chancel
is raised a marble monument, on which is engraved
the following inscription, in a circular compartment, surmounted by an admirable bust:—
"If Talents to make entertainment instruction, to support
the credit of the Stage by just and manly Action; If to
adorn Society by Virtues which would honour any Rank
and Profession, deserve remembrance: Let Him with whom
these Talents were long exerted, To whom these Virtues
were well known, And by whom the loss of them will be
long lamented, bear Testimony to the Worth and Abilities
of his departed friend Charles Holland, who was born
March 12th, 1733, dy'd December 7th, 1769, and was
buried near this place. D. Garrick."
A view of Holland's monument is given in Smith's
"Historical and Literary Curiosities."
Among the other parishioners buried in the church
are several members of an old Berkshire family,
the Barkers, whose name is still kept in memory
by "Barker's Rails," opposite Mortlake: a place
well known to all oarsmen as the goal of the
University boat-races.
The tower contains a peal of five bells. The
curfew was rung every evening at Chiswick as
recently as twenty years ago, when it was discontinued through the parsimony of the parishioners.
The vestrymen of Chiswick appear to have shown
either extreme precaution or else extremely aristocratic tendencies; for in 1817 (as we are told by
a tablet on the wall of the church) they passed
a resolution that henceforth no corpse should be
interred in the vaults beneath the church unless
buried in lead.
Chiswick churchyard holds the ashes of more
than a fair sprinkling of those whose names have
been inscribed on the roll of the Muses, or have
achieved or inherited names illustrious in history.
Space will permit us to speak of only a few. Here,
then, lies the third daughter of the Protector,
Oliver Cromwell, Mary, Countess of Fauconberg.
She was married at Hampton Court in 1657, and
resided at Sutton Court. In person, as we learn
from Noble's "Memoirs of the Cromwells," she
is said to have been handsome, and yet to have
resembled her father. In the decline of her life
she grew sickly and pale, and after seeing all the
hopes of her family cut off by her father's death,
she is said to have exerted such influence as
she possessed for the restoration of Monarchy.
She bore the character of a pious and virtuous
woman, and constantly attended divine service in
Chiswick Church to the day of her death.
Here, too, were buried Lord Macartney, our
Ambassador to China, and Ugo Foscolo, the
Italian patriot. The tomb of the latter, restored
and surmounted by a fine block of Cornish granite
in 1861, at the expense of Mr. Gurney, was visited,
during his stay in England, by Garibaldi, who made
a pilgrimage to it, in company with M. Panizzi, at
an hour when few of the good people of Chiswick
were out of their beds. After reposing here for
nearly half a century, the body of Ugo Foscolo was
disinterred and conveyed to his native country, as
is duly recorded by a recent inscription on the
tomb, which is as follows:—
UGO FOSCOLO.
Died Sep. 10, 1827, aged 50.
From the sacred guardianship of Chiswick,
To the honours of Santa Croce, in Florence,
The Government and People of Italy have transported
The remains of the wearied Citizen Poet,
7th June, 1871.
This spot, where for 44 years the Relics of Ugo Foscolo
Reposed in honoured Custody,
Will be for ever held in grateful Remembrance
By the Italian Nation.
Ugo Foscolo's was one of the few great names
in Italian literature in the present century. He
was a native of Zante, of Venetian extraction, and
was educated at Padua. After some adventures
in the army, he devoted himself to literature, and
was remarkable for the terseness and polish of his
Italian style. He had studied the finest and best
writers of Greece and Italy down to those of the
Middle Ages inclusively. Admiring Alfieri beyond
all others, he imitated him in keeping as close as
possible to the severe style of Dante. Coming
to England with good introductions, he might
have supported himself in comfort, had it not been
for his irritable temper, which was rendered worse
by pecuniary losses. He obtained the entrée of
Holland House, but took a great dislike to its
mistress, saying that "he should be sorry to go
even to heaven with Lady Holland." He lived in
lodgings in Wigmore Street, made the acquaintance
of Rogers, Campbell, and the rest of the literary
clique, and contributed to the Quarterly and other
periodicals. He was also the author of "Fieste,"
"Ajax," "Ricciardo," "The Sepulchres," "The
Letters of Ortis," the "Essay on Petrarch," and
of many other works, the merits of which can be
appreciated only by Italian scholars. He died in
1827. In the year 1871, as stated above, his
remains were disinterred and carried over to his
beloved Italy. Peace to his ashes! In spite of
his rudeness to Lady Holland, he was in many
ways one of Nature's true nobility.
Another noted individual who reposes here is
Miles Corbet, the regicide, who died at the age
of eighty-three. Then there is Barbara Villiers,
Duchess of Cleveland, fairest and gayest of the
fair but frail beauties of the Court of the second
Charles: this lady was the daughter of William,
Viscount Grandison, and wife of Roger Palmer,
Earl of Castlemaine, one of the Palmers of Wingham, Kent, and of Dorney Court, Backs.
OLD COTTAGES ON BACK COMMON.
De Loutherbourg, the artist and magnetiser, of
whom we have spoken in the preceding chapter; (fn. 1)
and Dr. William Rose, critic and journalist, the
translator of Sallust, and "a constant writer in the
Monthly Review," both lie buried here. Among
Dr. Rose's visitors, it appears, were many, if not
most, of the literati of the day. J. J. Rousseau
took lodgings in Chiswick, during his brief stay in
England, in order to be near him; and there is
recorded in Faulkner's "Chelsea" an anecdote of
another visitor of very opposite principles, Dr.
Samuel Johnson, who, as we learn from Boswell,
often came to Chiswick. One day, being invited
by his host to take a stroll as far as Kew Gardens,
at that time in the possession, if not in the actual
occupation, of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and
subsequently of the Princess Dowager and family,
he replied to Rose, "No, sir, I will never walk
in the gardens of an usurper;" a tolerably convincing illustration, if one be needed, of the great
lexicographer's Jacobite partialities being still
unabated at a time when the crushing defeat of
Culloden was still rankling in the minds and
memories of all adherents of the exiled family.
Another distinguished man whose remains are
interred here was Dr. Andrew Duck, an eminent
civilian, who died at Chiswick in 1649. He was
some time Chancellor of the diocese of Bath and
Wells, and afterwards Chancellor of London, and
subsequently Master of the Court of Requests.
In 1640 he was elected member for Minehead in
Somersetshire, and when the Civil War broke out
he became a great sufferer for the royal cause.
Among other works, Dr. Duck was the author of a
book entitled "De Usu et Auctoritate Juris Civilis
Romanorum."
Kent, the father of modern gardening, lies buried
in the vault of the Cavendishes. He was the
Paxton of the last century. Horace Walpole says
of him, "As a painter, he was below mediocrity;
as an architect, he was the restorer of the science;
as a gardener he was thoroughly original, and the
inventor of an art which realises painting, and
improves nature. Mahomet imagined an elysium,
but Kent created many." He frequently declared
that he caught his taste for landscape gardening
from reading the picturesque descriptions of the
poet Spenser. Mason, who notices his mediocrity
as a painter, pays the following tribute to his
excellence in the decoration of rural scenery:—
HOGARTH'S HOUSE.
"He felt
The pencil's power; but fir'd by higher forms
Of beauty than that poet knew to paint,
Work'd with the living hues that Nature lent,
And realised his landscapes. Generous he
Who gave to Painting what the wayward nymph
Refus'd her votary, those Elysian scenes
Which would she emulate, her nicest hand
Must all its force of light and shade employ."
Kent, as may be judged from the above estimates,
though a second-rate painter, and a moderate architect, was at the same time an admirable landscape
gardener.
Another worthy who
reposes here is William
Sharp, well-known in his
day as a line-engraver, to
whom we are indebted
for the reproduction of Sir Joshua Reynolds's portrait of John Hunter, considered to be one of the
finest prints in existence. Born in the Minories
in the year 1749, and early trained in copying by
his art the works of the old masters, he would in
due time have proved himself a first-rate artist, had
he not devoted the best years of his life to the
delusions and imposture of Joanna Southcott and
the "prophet" Brothers, (fn. 2) whose portrait he engraved in duplicate, in the full belief that when
the New Jerusalem arrived a single plate would
not suffice to satisfy the demand for impressions!
At the foot of each plate he added the words,
"Fully believing this to be the man appointed by
God, I engrave his likeness.—W. Sharp." It is
only fair to add that he maintained his belief
in these delusions down to his very last hour.
Besides the portraits above mentioned, Sharp's
principal works include, "The Doctors of the
Church," after Guido; the "Head of the Saviour
crowned with Thorns," after Guido; and "St.
Cecilia," after Domenichino. He also engraved
the "Three Views of the Head of Charles I.,"
after Vandyck; "The Sortie made by the Garrison
of Gibraltar," after Turnbull; and the "Siege and
Relief of Gibraltar," after Copley. The plate of
the "Three Maries," after Annibal Carracci, was
left unfinished at the time of his decease, which
took place at Chiswick in 1824. A portrait of
Sharp painted by Longdale, was exhibited at the
Royal Academy in 1823, and was purchased by
the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery.
There are also buried here Judith, Lady Thornhill, the widow of Sir James Thornhill, the painter
of the ceilings of Blenheim and Greenwich, (fn. 3) and of
the dome of St. Paul's; her daughter, married to
the immortal Hogarth; a sister of Hogarth; and
last, not least, the great caricaturist himself, William
Hogarth, to whose memory a large and conspicuous
monument, erected by Garrick, stands in the churchyard, on the south side of the church, surmounted
with a brazen flame like that on the top of the
Monument at London Bridge. The inscription
on the tomb is as follows:—"Here lieth the body
of William Hogarth, Esq., who died October the
26th, 1764, aged 67 years. Mrs. Jane Hogarth,
wife of William Hogarth, Esq., obiit the 13th of
November, 1789, ætat. 80 years.
"Farewell, great Painter of mankind,
Who reached the noblest point of art,
Whose pictured morals charm the mind,
And through the eye correct the heart.
"If genius fire thee, Reader, stay;
If Nature touch thee, drop a tear;
If neither move thee, turn away,
For Hogarth's honoured dust lies here.
"D. Garrick."
The inscription was written by Garrick himself.
The monument is adorned also with a mask, a
laurel-wreath, a palette, pencils, and a book inscribed "The Analysis of Beauty."
Dr. C. Mackay, in his interesting volume entitled
"The Thames and its Tributaries," from which
we have frequently quoted during the progress of
this work, criticises the inscription on Hogarth's
tomb in rather severe terms, remarking that "the
object of an epitaph is merely to inform the
reader of the great or good man who rests below,"
and that, consequently, "there is no necessity for
the word of leave-taking." He adds, however,
that "The thought in the last stanza is much
better; and were it not for the unreasonable
request that we should weep over the spot, would
be perfect in its way. Men cannot weep that
their predecessors have lived. We may sigh that
neither virtue nor genius can escape the common
lot of humanity, but no more; we cannot weep.
Admiration claims no such homage; and, if it
did, we could not pay it."
"Dr. Johnson," writes Mrs. Piozzi, "made four
lines on the death of poor Hogarth, which were
equally true and pleasing; I know not why Garrick's were preferred to them." Johnson's stanzas
were, it seems, only an alteration of those written
by Garrick, as will be seen from the following
letter which appears in Boswell's "Life" of the
great doctor, as addressed by him to the great
actor at the time when the inscription was in
contemplation:—
"Streatham, Dec. 12, 1771.
"Dear Sir,—I have thought upon your epitaph, but
without much effect. An epitaph is no easy thing.
"Of your three stanzas, the third is utterly unworthy of
you. The first and third together give no discriminative
character. If the first alone were to stand, Hogarth would
not be distinguished from any other man of intellectual
eminence. Suppose you worked upon something like this:
"The hand of Art here torpid lies
That traced the essential form of Grace:
Here Death has closed the curious eyes
That saw the manners in the face.
"If Genius warm thee, Reader, stay,
If merit touch thee, shed a tear;
Be Vice and Dulness far away!
Great Hogarth's honour'd dust is here.
"In your second stanza, pictured morals is a beautiful
expression, which I would wish to retain; but learn and
mourn cannot stand for rhymes. Art and nature have been
seen together too often. In the first stanza is feeling, in the
second feel. Feeling for tenderness or sensibility is a word
merely colloquial, of late introduction, not yet sure enough
of its own existence to claim a place upon a stone. If thou
hast neither is quite prose, and prose of the familiar kind.
Thus easy is it to find faults, but it is hard to make an
epitaph.
"When you have reviewed it, let me see it again: you
are welcome to any help that I can give, on condition that
you make my compliments to Mrs. Garrick.
"I am, dear Sir, your most, &c.,
"Sam. Johnson."
Hogarth died on October 26th, 1764. The
very day before he died he was removed from
his villa at Chiswick to Leicester Fields, (fn. 4) we are
told, "in a very weak condition, yet remarkably
cheerful." To Hogarth's tomb is appended a
short notice to the effect that it was restored, in
1856, by a Mr. William Hogarth of Aberdeen,
who, no doubt, was glad to give this proof of his
connection with so distinguished a personage.
Carey, the translator of Dante, resided at Chiswick in Hogarth's house, and lies buried in the
churchyard close under the south wall of the chancel.
His monument was a few years ago rescued from
oblivion, and restored at the expense of the vicar,
who carefully inclosed it with iron railings.
It would appear from the parish books also, that
Joseph Miller, of facetious memory, and who was
a comic actor of considerable merit, lies buried
here. He was for many years an inhabitant of
Strand-on-the-Green, in this parish, where he died
at his own house, according to the Craftsman, on
the 19th of August, 1738. But it is always said
that he was buried in St. Clement Danes. (fn. 5) Near
him sleeps James Ralph, well known as a political
writer, and a friend of Franklin. He published
some poems ridiculed by Pope in the "Dunciad."
"Silence, ye wolves; while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
Making night hideous, answer him ye owls."
If his poems were not good, at all events his
political tracts showed great ability, and he was
in high favour with Frederick, Prince of Wales.
It is worthy of remark that the church and
churchyard cover the remains of a considerable
number of Roman Catholics, including, among
many members of old English and Irish families,
some of the Towneleys of Towneley, Mr. Chideock
Wardour, &c. The Towneleys, we may add, owned
a house in the village on the site of the former
residence of the Earls of Bedford. In 1838, and
again in 1871, the churchyard was enlarged by
the addition of ground at its western extremity,
the gifts of successive Dukes of Devonshire, as
parishioners.
On the outside of the wall of the churchyard,
on the north-east, facing the street, is the following
curious inscription, which is of interest as showing
the sacredness of consecrated ground two centuries
ago. It takes much the same view as that expressed
at such length by Sir Henry Spelman in his book,
"De non temerandis Ecclesiis:"—"This wall was
made at ye charges of ye right honourable and
truelie pious Lorde Francis Russell, Earle of Bedford, out of true zeale and care for ye keeping of
this church yard and ye wardrobe of Godd's saints,
whose bodies lay (sic) therein buryed, from violating
by swine and other prophanation. So witnesseth
William Walker, V. A.D. 1623." Beneath this
inscription is a tablet setting forth that the wall
was rebuilt in 1831.
The churchwardens' books, commencing with
the year 1621, contain a variety of curious and interesting entries. "Our dinner, when we went to
take our oathes," is a constantly recurring item;
so frequent, indeed, and occasionally so costly,
that on one occasion the good vicar was scandalised, and adds a foot-note, "Here they eat too
much." Another frequent item is that of "Boathier" (hire), for parochial excursions; in one place
we read of "Boat-hier for to take the children
to Fulham to be Bishoped," i.e. confirmed. We
find also frequently large fees paid "for the buryall
of creeples;" and in 1665–6 the books contain,
inter alia, an account of the Great Plague, and
of the sanitary measures adopted by the parish.
Among other curious precautions, it should be
mentioned that a resolution was passed by the
parish that all loose and stray dogs and cats are to
be killed for fear of conveying the infection, and
that the poor bedesmen are to nurse "the patients
ill with the plague."
Then there are sundry entries concerning
"plague-water," a supposed antidote to the plague,
but which does not appear to have proved an
infallible elixir, for in more than one instance we
read an entry of "plague-water" for A or B, when
the next page has a charge for carrying the said A
or B to church. Other sums are charged as paid to
"maimed soldiers," "Tory ministers," "plundered
persons," and "the widow Steevens in her distraction." In 1643 occurs a charge "for sweeping the
church after the soldiers," i.e. after it had been
occupied by the London "Train Bands," who
were quartered within its walls, and took part in
the battle fought on Turnham Green between
Prince Rupert and the Parliamentary forces. The
records of fast-days, and of revels, feasts, bellringings, and tar-barrels on festive occasions paid
out of the church rates—e.g., for "the victory over
the Dutch"—show that Chiswick took an active part
in the politics of the age. The books during the
first half of the last century contain several curious
entries of rewards paid to the beadles for driving
away out of the parish sundry poor women, who
came into its aristocratic precincts in a condition
which showed that they were likely to add to the
population, and so to entail charges on the parishioners. To account for the disappearance of all
earlier registers, it is said, but upon what authority
we know not, that when the Protector quartered
his troops in the church, he and his soldiers tore
up those documents to light the fires, and for
other and viler purposes. We may add that
although there is a tradition that Lady Fauconberg
got possession of her father's body at the Restoration, and deposited it carefully here; and although
Miss Strickland, in one of her biographies, mentions
a report that the real child of James II. died of
"spotted fever," and was buried at Chiswick, no
traces of any entry of such burials are to be found
in the parish records.
But Chiswick has been remarkable for other
celebrated persons who have lived in it. Amongst
those of whom we have not already spoken, excepting with reference to their graves in the churchyard,
may be mentioned Sir Stephen Fox, the friend of
Evelyn, who occupied the Manor House, now the
asylum kept by Dr. Tuke; Dr. Busby, of scholastic
fame; Pope, who resided for a time in Mawson's Buildings (now Mawson Row); the notorious
Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland; Lord Fauconberg,
the Protector's son-in-law; the Pastons, ancient
Earls of Yarmouth; Sir John Chardin, the traveller; Lord Heathfield, the defender of Gibraltar;
Lord Macartney, our Ambassador in China;
Hogarth, Zoffany, and Loutherbourg, the painters;
Holland, the actor, and friend of Garrick; Dr.
Rose, the translator of Sallust; Carey, the translator
of Dante; Sharp, the engraver; and Carpue, the
anatomist. Thomas Wood, another resident of
Chiswick, was immortalised by an epigram, written
in Evelyn's "Book of Coins" by Pope's own
hand:—
"Tom Wood of Chiswick, deep divine,
To painter Kent gave all this coin.
'Tis the first coin, I'm bold to say,
That ever churchman gave to lay."
The above lines were communicated to Notes
and Queries, March 15th, 1851, by the Rev. R.
Hotchkin, rector of Thimbleby, from a copy once
in the possession of Mason, the poet.
At a short distance north-west of the church,
in a narrow and dirty lane leading towards one
entrance to the grounds of Chiswick House, still
stands the red-bricked house which was once
occupied by Hogarth, and still bears his name.
The house is very narrow from front to back; one
end abuts on the road; but the front of it, which
apparently is in much the same condition now
as when Hogarth lived, looks into a closed and
high-walled garden of about a quarter of an acre,
in which a prominent object is a fine mulberry-tree
planted by the painter's own hand. At the bottom
of the garden stood till recently the workshop in
which he used to ply his art, secluded and alone.
Hard by against the wall were formerly memorials
in stone to his favourite dog, cat, and bull finch.
That over the dog was inscribed—
"Life to the last enjoyed, here Pompey lies,"
and on that of the bird was "Alas! poor Dick;"
the memorial over the grave of the cat disappeared
many years ago. The two memorials above mentioned remained upon the grounds till quite recently, it being in the agreement when the house
was let that they should not be disturbed; their
position, however, had long been changed. For
some time they were covered over with concrete,
to serve as the flooring of a pigsty; but in the end
they were carried away, and the bones of Hogarth's
"pets" were disinterred. Hogarth's residence is
now a private dwelling-house, and the garden is
tenanted by a florist. Two leaden urns which
adorn the entrance to the house were the gift of
David Garrick to his friend.
Mr. Tom Taylor thus describes Hogarth's house,
as it was in 1860:—"His house still stands, but
sadly degraded within the last few years. It is a
snug red-brick villa of the Queen Anne style, with
a garden before it of about a quarter of an acre.
An old mulberry is the only tree in the neglected
garden that may have borne fruit for Hogarth.
There is down-stairs a good panelled sitting-room
with three windows, a small panelled hall, and a
kitchen built on to the house; above, two storeys of
three rooms each, with attics over. The principal
room on the first floor has a projecting bay-window
of three lights, quite in the style of Hogarth's time,
and was no doubt added by him. The paintingroom was over the stable at the bottom of the
garden. Stable and room have fallen down, but
parts of the walls are still standing. The tablets to
the memory of pet birds and dogs, formerly let into
the garden wall, have disappeared."
It was here that Hogarth used to spend the
summers of his later life, enjoying the fresh air and
green fields, which in his time were more extensive
than they are now, although Chiswick has been
less over-built than most of the London suburbs,
and still retains much of its old-world character.
Besides his favourite amusement of riding, the artist
used to occupy himself in painting and in superintending the engravers whom he often invited
down from London. And to his Chiswick cottage
he came, after his bitter quarrel with Wilkes and
Churchill, bringing some plates for re-touching. He
was cheerful, but weak, and must have felt that
his end was not far off, when in February, 1764,
he put the last touches to his "Bathos." His
prints now filled a large volume; and as the story
goes, at one of the last dinners which he gave he
was talking of a final addition to them.
Hogarth was then not in the best of health, and
in reply to one of his guests as to what his next
picture was to be, he remarked, "My next undertaking shall be the end of all things." "If that is
the case," said one of the party, "your business
will be finished, for there will be an end of the
painter." "You say true," said Hogarth, with a
sigh; however, he began his design the next day,
and worked at it till it was finished. A strange
and yet impressive grouping of objects have we
there—a broken bottle, an old broom worn to the
stump, the butt-end of an old musket, a cracked
bell, a bow unstrung, an empty purse, a crown
tumbled to pieces, towers in ruins, the sign-post of
a tavern called the "World's End," the moon in
her wane, the map of the globe burning, a gibbet
falling and the body dropping down, Phœbus and
his horses dead in the clouds, a vessel wrecked,
Time with his hour-glass and scythe broken, a
tobacco-pipe in his mouth with the last whiff of
smoke going out, a play-book opened with Exeunt
Omnes stamped in the corner. "So far so good,"
cried Hogarth; "nothing now remains but this,"
as he dashed into the picture the broken painter's
pallet; it was his last performance.
Passing on a few steps farther, we come to a
plain house, in the garden of which stands Hogarth's portable sun-dial, duly authenticated. In
the same house Hogarth's arm-chair, made of
cherrywood, and seated with leather. The latter
is much decayed, and one of the arms is wormeaten, but the rest is sound and good.
This chair, in which Hogarth used to sit and
smoke his pipe, was given by the painter's widow
to the present owner's grandfather, who was a
martyr to the gout. It moves very easily on
primitive stone castors, three in number. To this
same individual Mrs. Hogarth offered to sell a
quantity of her late husband's pictures for £20;
but the bargain was never concluded, and his
paintings were eventually dispersed.
The principal street of Chiswick is a narrow,
winding thoroughfare, running at right angles from
the river, close by the church. In the middle of
the village is the Griffin Brewery, where, aided by
the medicinal virtues of a spring of their own,
Messrs. Fuller, Smith, and Turner produce ales in
no way inferior to those of Bass and Allsopp; and
not far distant is the brewery of Messrs. Sich and
Co., a firm perhaps equally well known.
The Mall, as we have stated above, overlooks
the river, and commands beautiful and extensive
views. It commences at the vicarage, and extends eastward towards the terrace at Hammersmith, with which it forms a continuous promenade.
About half-way along the Mall is an old publichouse, the "Red Lion," which has stood upwards
of a century: it is a large house, and some of the
rooms and fireplaces bear evident traces of its
antiquity. Chained to the lintel of the door is an
old whetstone, which was placed there a few years
ago, on the demolition of a still older inn which
stood next door, on the spot now occupied by the
new store-rooms of the Griffin Brewery. This
older hostelry bore the sign of the "White Bear
and Whetstone." The stone itself, which has been
handed over to the safe keeping of the "Red
Lion," bears the following inscription, cut upon it
in deep letters:—"I am the old whetstone, and
have sharpened tools on this spot above 1,000
years." As originally cut, the number of years
was evidently 100; the fourth figure is clearly a
more recent addition. From the tool-sharpening
operation that has been carried on, a portion of
the stone is considerably worn away, and with it
part of the inscription, which, we were informed
by an old inhabitant, ran thus:—"Whet without,
wet within." Of the ludicrous uses to which a
whetstone may sometimes be put we have given an
amusing instance in our account of Fulham Palace. (fn. 6)
A little to the east of the "Red Lion," on the
spot now occupied by a row of modern semidetached villas, stood formerly a building called
the College House, which was originally the
prebendal manor-house of Chiswick, of which we
have spoken above. In 1570 it was held by Dr.
Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster (one of
Fuller's "worthies"), who granted a lease of the
manor, in trust, for ninety-nine years, to William
Watter and George Burden, that they should
within two years convey the farm to the Abbey
Church of Westminster. In this lease it was
stipulated that the lessee "should erect additional
buildings adjoining the manor-house, sufficient for
the accommodation of one of the prebendaries of
Westminster, the master of the school, the usher,
forty boys, and proper attendants, who should
retire thither in time of sickness, or at other
seasons when the Dean and Chapter should think
proper." From that time down to a comparatively
recent date a piece of ground was reserved (in the
lease to the sub-lessee) as a play-place for the
Westminster scholars, although it is not known
that the school was ever removed to Chiswick
since the time of Dr. Busby, who resided here
with some of his scholars, in 1657, "on account of
the hot and sickly season of the year." In 1665,
when the plague commenced in town, Dr. Busby
removed his scholars to Chiswick. But it spread
its baneful influence even to this place. Upon this
Dr. Busby called his scholars together, and in an
excellent oration acquainted them that he had
presided over the school for twenty-five years, in
which time he had never hitherto deserted Westminster; but that the exigencies of the time required
it now. At the end of the last century, according
to Lysons, the names of Lord Halifax and John
Dryden, who were Busby's scholars, could be seen
written on the walls of this interesting old house.
When Hughson published his "History of London"
(in 1809), the old College House was occupied as
an academy. In more recent times the premises
were taken by Mr. C. Whittingham, who here set
up that printing-press which subsequently turned
out so many beautifully-printed octavos and duodecimos, embracing nearly the whole range of
English literature. Mr. Whittingham built for
himself extensive premises at Chiswick, where he
manufactured paper, the reputation of which soon
spread, owing to its strength, and yet its softness.
This was made principally from old rope, by a
process of his own devising. Whittingham commenced business on a small scale in Fetter Lane,
but ultimately he realised a handsome income
from the "Chiswick Press."
ENTRANCE TO CHISWICK.
The old house, which in its latter days was
known as Chiswick Hall, having been disposed of,
was finally demolished in 1874, when the lower
part of the walls, which had been embedded in
stones and wood-work, was found to be of great
thickness. Some part of the old boundary-walls
are still standing. The old materials having been
used in the alterations carried out in the sixteenth
century, there can be no doubt that the fragments
found embedded in the walls were from the earlier
building, and possibly of Norman origin.
Here, probably at Walpole House, on the Mall,
Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, spent the last few
years of her life. Here, in the summer of 1709,
says Boyer, she "fell ill of a dropsie what swelled
her gradually to a monstrous bulk, and in about
three months put a period to her life, in the sixtyninth year of her age." She died October 9th, in
the year above mentioned, and was buried in the
chancel of the parish church, though no stone
marks the spot. The pall of this mistress of
royalty was borne by two Knights of the Garter,
the Dukes of Ormond and Hamilton, and four
other peers of the realm, Lords Essex, Grantham,
Lifford, and Berkeley of Stratton. At Walpole
House Daniel O'Connell resided for several years
while he was studying for the law.
AT CHISWICK.
1. Chiswick Church, 1760.
2. Hogarth's Tomb, 1860.
3. Manor House, Chiswick, 1850.
In Chiswick Lane, the road leading from the
Mall up to the Kew and London Road, lived
Dr. Rose, a pupil of Doddridge, and a schoolmaster of repute. He kept an academy at Kew,
where Dr. Johnson came to take tea. Sometimes
Rose would be unavoidably absent, and Johnson
drank cup after cup, condescending to say little
to Mrs. R., as she tells us, except, "Madam, I am
afraid I give you a great deal of trouble." Dr.
Rose, as we have stated above, lies buried in the
neighbouring churchyard.
Another resident was Dr. Ralph, a political
writer and historian, who appears in Bubb Dodington's Diary to have been long in the confidence
and service of the clique at Leicester House. (fn. 7)
In 1766 the quiet village was frighted from its
propriety by the arrival of the celebrated Rousseau,
who took lodgings at a small grocer's shop near the
house of Dr. Rose. "He sits in the shop," says
a writer in the Caldwell papers, "and learns English
words, which brings many customers to the shop."
At one time Edward Moore, the journalist, lived
here. Originally a linen-draper, he became the
author of "Fables for the Fair Sex," the tragedy
of The Gamester, two forgotten comedies, a collection of periodical essays; and was for some time
editor of the World. He was in the habit of
attending Chiswick Church, and as the tale goes,
his wife called him to account one Sunday for
having been very inattentive during the service.
Moore at once remarked, "Well, my dear, that's
very odd, for I was thinking the whole time of the
'next World.'"
On the west side of Chiswick Lane is Mawson
Row—formerly called Mawson's Buildings—a row
of red-brick houses, five in number. Alexander
Pope and his father lived here for a short time.
They removed thither early in 1716, from Binfield,
the place of the poet's birth; and left Chiswick
for the more famous residence at Twickenham
about the year 1719. The elder Pope, who died
here in 1717, lies buried in Chiswick churchyard.
Portions of the original drafts of the translation of
the "Iliad," on which Pope was engaged at this
period, and which are preserved in the British
Museum, are written upon the backs of letters to
Pope and his father, addressed, "To Alexr. Pope,
Esquire, at Mawson's Buildings, in Chiswick."
Among the writers of these letters appear to be
Lord Harcourt, and Teresa Blount.
Higher up Chiswick Lane stands the old Manor
House, which was once inhabited by the lords of
the manor, and has all the imposing exterior of a
French château. It is now a private lunatic asylum.
At the junction of the lane with the high road
is Grosvenor House, an old-fashioned mansion,
which, since 1870, has been occupied as St. Agnes'
Orphanage for Girls.
At a short distance westward from Chiswick
Lane lies the hamlet of Turnham Green, which
connects the parish of Hammersmith with that of
Chiswick, to which it belongs. The green abuts
upon the main road, and is enclosed; and in the
centre stands a church of Early-English architecture, which was erected in 1843, when the hamlet
was made into an ecclesiastical district.
Without going back to mythical times, to speak
of a certain battle which is stated to have been
fought here in the British or Saxon times, and
without inferring, as does Stukeley, that it was a
Roman station simply because an urn of Roman
manufacture was dug up here during the reign of
George I., we may state that Turnham Green in
its time has been the scene of sundry historic
events. Here, in 1642, Prince Rupert encamped
with his army; and on the day of the "Battle of
Brentford" the green witnessed some sharp skirmishing, no less than six hundred of the prince's
cavaliers being left dead on the field. The
Royalists—headed by Prince Rupert, and followed
by King Charles—after leaving Oxford, and making
their way through Abingdon, Henley, and other
towns, had reached as far as Brentford, which was
occupied by a broken regiment of Colonel Hollis's,
but "stout men all, who had before done good
service at Edgehill." The Royalists, it appears,
fancied that they should cut their way through
Brentford without any difficulty, go on to Hammersmith, where the Parliament's train of artillery lay,
and then take London by a night assault. But
Hollis's men opposed their passage, and stopped
their march so long at Brentford that the regiments
of Hampden and Lord Brooke had time to come
up. These three regiments, not without great loss,
completely barred the road. The Earl of Essex,
having quartered his army at Acton, had ridden
to Westminster to give the Parliament an account
of his campaign, and while he was absent, Prince
Rupert, taking advantage of a dense November fog,
had advanced, and fallen unexpectedly upon the
Roundheads. The roar of the artillery was heard
in the House of Lords, and the Earl of Essex
rushed out of the house, mounted his horse, and
galloped across the parks in the direction of the
ominous sound. As he approached Brentford,
the earl learned, to his astonishment, the trick
which had been played; he had gathered a
considerable force of horse as he rode along, and
when he came to the spot he found that the
Royalists had given over the attack and were lying
quietly on the western side of Brentford. "All
that night," says May, "the city of London poured
out men towards Brentford, who, every hour,
marched thither; and all the lords and gentlemen
that belonged to the Parliament army were there
ready by Sunday morning, the 14th of November."
Essex found himself, in the course of this Sunday,
at the head of 24,000 men, who were drawn up
in battle array on Turnham Green. How the
Royalists took themselves off again to Oxford, by
way of Kingston Bridge, is recorded in history;
and how the Earl of Essex went in pursuit, crossing
over the Thames by a bridge of boats from Fulham
to Putney, we have already told. (fn. 8)
Turnham Green was to have been the scene
of the Jacobite plot to assassinate William III.
on the 15th of February, 1696, as recorded by
Macaulay in the 21st chapter of his history. "The
place," he writes, "was to be a narrow and winding lane leading from the landing-place on the
north of the river to Turnham Green. The spot
may still easily be found, though the ground has
since been drained by trenches. But during the
seventeenth century it was a quagmire, through
which the royal coach was with difficulty tugged
at a foot's pace." For their complicity in this
plot, six gentlemen, named Charnock, Keyes,
King, Sir John Frend, Sir William Parkyns, and
Sir John Fenwick, were tried, and executed on
Tower Hill. The spot is still easily identified.
In his "Diary" under date May 1st, 1852, Macaulay
has an entry: "After breakfast I went to Turnham
Green to look at the place. I found it after some
search: the very spot beyond a doubt, and admirably suited for an assassination."
A pamphlet, published in 1680, furnishes details
of another sanguinary encounter, on a smaller
scale, which took place here; the pamphlet is
entitled "Great and Bloody News from Turnham
Green, or a Relation of a sharp Encounter between
the Earl of Pembroke and his Company with the
Constable and Watch belonging to the parish of
Chiswick, in which conflict one Mr. Smeethe, a
gentleman, and one Mr. Halfpenny, a constable,
were mortally wounded."
In 1776, Mr. Alderman Sawbridge, then Lord
Mayor, met with a mishap here. Crossing the
green, on his way back from a state visit to royalty
at Kew, his carriage and suite were stopped by a
single highwayman; even the City "sword-bearer"
sat still and submitted to see himself and the
chief civic dignitary stripped of their valuables.
It is said that when the highwayman had thus
outraged the City magnates, he rode off towards
Kew, and meeting the vicar on the way, made
him deliver up his valuables, and among other
things his written sermon!
But even Turnham Green has its amusing
memories. Angelo, in his "Reminiscences," tells
a good story, the scene of which he lays here. "Returning one day from my professional attendance
in the country, when I reached Turnham Green
I met a happy pair, as I imagined, who were taking
a trip from town to pass their honeymoon in the
country. They happened, however, to have a
quarrel just as a return post-chaise passed by, a
little in front of me; the postilion was stopped
by the gentleman; and as I stopped also I beheld
the gentleman hand the young lady out of the
coach and place her in the chaise, singing at the
same time the words of an old favourite Vauxhall
song, 'How sweet the love that meets return!'
It is said that 'a fool and his money are soon
parted;' in this case it may be suggested that for
'money' we should read 'bride.'"
Like its neighbour Hammersmith, Turnham
Green has numbered among its residents a few
men of note in their day; among them, Lord
Lovat, the Scottish rebel, and the hero of Gibraltar,
Sir George Eliott, Lord Heathfield.
The old "Pack Horse" has been a well-known
tavern at Turnham Green for a couple of centuries;
it is mentioned in an advertisement in the London
Gazette as far back as the year 1697. Here
Horace Walpole used often to bait his horse when
journeying between London and his favourite
Strawberry Hill. The "Pack Horse," as Mr.
Larwood tells us, in his "History of Sign-boards,"
was a common sign for posting inns in former
times: and it certainly points back to a very
primitive mode of travelling. Another old inn,
but which has disappeared within the last few
years, was the "King of Bohemia's Head," a
name already made familiar to our readers in our
account of Drury Lane. (fn. 9)
The locality of Turnham Green has long been
famous for its gardens and nurseries. Almost the
very last entry in John Evelyn's "Diary" relates to
this place; he writes, under date May 18, 1705:—"I went to see Sir John Chardine at Turnham
Green; the gardens being very fine and well
planted with fruit."
Mr. Glendinning's nursery here has long been
in existence as the Chiswick Nursery, and it is
said that heaths were cultivated here almost
earlier than in any of the metropolitan establishments of this kind. Of late years this nursery has
greatly risen in character, and is still constantly
improving. New houses have been erected, a
wider range of plant-culture has been taken, and
a considerable interest is made to attach to it on
account of the spirit and enterprise with which new
plants are procured, and the successful manner in
which they are flowered.
The following epitaph on Jemmy Armstrong, a
sheriff's officer, who died in November, 1801, at
his villa on Turnham Green, commonly known by
the name of "Lock-up Hall," will be found in
"The Spirit of the Public Journals" for 1802:—
"Armstrong's arrested! sued, as will be all,
By old Time's writ, special-original,
The debt to nature due to make him pay.
Death, Fate's bum-bailiff, served him with 'Ca. Sa.'
His doctor 'to file common bail' did move:
Not granted, Jemmy puts in bail above.
By Habeas now remov'd from earth to sky,
Before th' Eternal Judge he'll justify."
From Turnham Green, a broad road lined with
lime-trees, and known as the Duke's New Road—from the fact of its having been made by the late
Duke of Devonshire—leads to Chiswick House,
one of the many seats of his Grace. In the ninth
year of King Edward IV., one Baldwin Bray,
whose ancestors were settled here for many
generations, conveyed the lease of the "manor of
Sutton within Cheswyke" to Thomas Coveton and
others; and during the civil war this manor was
sequestered to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of
London. In 1676 the lease came into the hands
of Thomas, Earl of Fauconberg, whose son's greatnephew, Thomas Fowler, Viscount Fauconberg,
assigned it about the year 1727 to Richard, Earl
of Burlington. After the Earl's death, the lease
was renewed to the Duke of Devonshire, who
married his daughter and sole heir. The other,
or prebendal manor, is still in the hands of the
Weatherstone family.
The mansion stands near the site of an old
house, which, it is said, was built by Sir Edward
Warden, or Wardour, but which was pulled down
in 1788, and by Kip's print of it seems to have
been of the date of James I. Towards the latter
end of that king's reign, it certainly was the
property and residence of Robert Carr, Earl of
Somerset, whose abandoned Countess died there
in misery and disgrace. The Earl, who was a
partaker in her crimes, survived her many years,
but was never able to retrieve his broken fortunes
and dishonoured name. On the marriage of his
daughter, Lady Ann, with Lord Russell,
(fn. 10)
he was
obliged to mortgage his house at Chiswick to
make up the marriage portion which the Earl of
Bedford demanded with his wife, and the mortgage
never being paid off, the estate passed away into
other hands, from whom again it passed through
several changes into the possession of Boyle, Earl
of Burlington, above mentioned. Faulkner, in his
"History of Chiswick," remarks that "it is a
curious fact that though Chiswick was sold by the
beautiful Lady Ann Carr's father, to enable her
to marry, it was not lost to her descendants; for
Rachel, the daughter of Lord Russell who was
beheaded, and his celebrated wife, married the
second Duke of Devonshire, so that the present
duke is descended from that lovely girl, and is a
possessor of the place where her youth was spent—the home of her ancestors."
The house, which is almost hidden from our
view by the tall cedars and other trees among
which it stands embowered, was erected by the
last Earl of Burlington—the "architect earl," as he
is called—in the reign of George II., from a design
by Palladio; and it is a standing proof of the
skill and taste of the noble designer, though its
merits have been variously estimated.
The ascent to the house is by a double flight of
steps, on one side of which is the statue of Palladio,
on the other that of Inigo Jones. The portico is
supported by six fluted columns, of the Corinthian
order, surmounted by a pediment; the cornice,
frieze, and architraves being as rich as possible.
Inside this is an octagonal saloon, which finishes
at the top in a dome, through which it is lighted.
The interior of the structure is finished with the
utmost elegance; the ceilings and mouldings are
richly gilt, upon a white ground, giving a chaste
air to the whole interior. The principal rooms
are embellished with books, splendidly bound, and
so arranged as to appear not an encumbrance but
ornament. The tops of the book-cases are covered
with white marble, edged with gilt borders.
The gardens are laid out in the first taste, the
vistas terminated by a temple, obelisk, or some
similar ornament, so as to produce the most agreeable effect. At the end opposite the house are
two wolves by Scheemakers; the other exhibits a
large lioness and a goat. The view is terminated
by three fine antique statues, dug up in Adrian's
garden at Rome, with stone seats between them.
Along the ornamental waters we are led to an
inclosure, where are a Roman temple and an
obelisk; and on its banks stands an exact model
of the portico of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, the
work of Inigo Jones. The pleasure-grounds and
park include about ninety acres, together with
an orangery, conservatory, and range of forcinghouses 300 feet in length.
Horace Walpole, being a connoisseur, must needs
find fault with something. He desired that the
lavish quantity of urns and statues behind the
garden front should be "retrenched;" and this
might be desirable if these urns and statues were
not exquisite gems of art, and individually of great
beauty and value, demanding a more undivided
attention than would be given them if considered
merely as ornamental appendages to the grounds.
The bronze statues of the Gladiator, Hercules with
his club, and the Faun, are worthy a place in any
gallery. Three colossal statues, removed hither
from Rome, although mutilated, are very fine, as
are also the profusion of minor marbles scattered
throughout the grounds. Nothing can be more
exquisite than the taste that presides over the
Versailles in little. The lofty walls of clipped
yew, inclosing alleys terminated by rustic temples;
the formal flower-garden, with walks converging
towards a common centre, where a marble copy of
the Medicean Venus woos you from the summit
of a graceful Doric column; the labyrinthic involution of the walks, artfully avoiding the limits of
the demesne, and deceiving you as to its real
extent; the artificial water, with its light and
elegant bridge, gaily painted barges, and wildfowl disporting themselves on its glassy surface;
the magnificent cedars feathering to the ground;
the temples and obelisk, happily situate on the
banks of the river, or embowered in wildernesses
of wood; the breaks of landscapes, where no
object is admitted but such as the eye delights to
dwell upon; the moving panorama of the Thames
removed to that happy distance where the objects
on its surface glide along like shadow the absolute
seclusion of the scene, almost within the hum of a
great city, make this seat of the Duke of Devonshire a little earthly paradise. The house, notwithstanding Lord Hervey's sarcasm (who said that it
was "too small to inhabit, and too large to hang
to one's watch"), is a worthy monument of the
genius and taste of the noble architect. Nowhere
in the vicinity of London have wealth and judgment been so happily united; nowhere in the
neighbourhood of the metropolis have we so complete an example of the capabilities of the Italian
or classic style of landscape gardening.
One of the principal objects of interest in the
garden is an arched gateway, designed by Inigo
Jones, which was originally erected at Chelsea, on
the premises which once belonged to the great
Sir Thomas More, but were afterwards known as
Beaufort House, (fn. 11) from being occupied by the
head of that family. The gate subsequently
belonged to Sir Hans Sloane, but as he neglected
it Lord Burlington begged it from him. Its removal hither occasioned the following lines by
Pope:—
"Passenger. O gate! how cam'st thou here?,
Gate. I was brought from Chelsea last year
Batter'd with wind and weather;
Inigo Jones put me together;
Sir Hans Sloane
Let me alone,
So Burlington brought me hither."
Again, it will be remembered that in his poem
on "Liberty" Thomson thus apostrophizes Lord
Burlington:—
"Lo! numerous domes a Burlington confess:
For kings and senates fit, the palace see!
The temple, breathing a religious awe;
E'en framed with elegance the plain retreat,
The private dwelling. Certain in his aim,
Taste never, idly working, spares expense.
See! sylvan scenes, where Art alone pretends
To dress her mistress and disclose her charms;
Such as a Pope in miniature has shown,
A Bathurst o'er the widening forest spreads,
And such as form a Richmond, Chiswick, Stowe."
Dr. Waagen, who visited Chiswick House for
the special purpose of art criticism, reports in
his "Works of Art and Artists in England," that
"among the pictures are many good and many
even excellent, but that, unfortunately, they are
partly in a bad condition, either from the want of
cleaning or from dryness. Several pictures, too,"
he adds, "are hung in an unfavourable light, so
that no decided opinion can be formed of them."
Among the pictures are several of Vandyke, Gaspar
Poussin, Paul Veronese, Titian, Tintoretto, C.
Maratti, Sir Godfrey Kneller, Cornelius Jansen,
Holbein, &c., and one very exquisite miniature
portrait of Edward VI., after Holbein, by Peter
Oliver, son of Isaac Oliver, one of the favourite
painters of Charles I. Perhaps the finest of all
the paintings is one of Charles I. and his children,
by Vandyke, as to which it is uncertain whether it
is a duplicate or the original of the picture in Her
Majesty's collection at Windsor. Another celebrated picture is by J. Van Eyck, which Horace
Walpole mentions in his book on painting in England—"The Virgin and Child attended by Angels,"
as representing in the figures which it contains
several members of Lord Clifford's family (from
whom the Earl of Burlington was maternally
descended); though the statement was controverted
at considerable length by an eminent antiquary
and genealogist in the Gentleman's Magazine for
1840.
CHISWICK HOUSE, IN 1763.
Among the other articles of vertu in Chiswick
House is a present from the late Emperor of
Russia to the late Duke of Devonshire; a magnificent clock in a case of malachite, surmounted
with a representation of the Emperor, Peter the
Great, in a storm, who is standing in a boat, with his
hand upon the helm, in a firm and defiant attitude.
The boat itself, which is about a foot long, is of
bronze.
The grounds of Chiswick House were considerably enlarged by the late Duke of Devonshire.
In Miss Berry's "Journal," under date of June 1st,
1813, is the following entry respecting them:—"Drove with the Duke of Devonshire, in his
curricle, to Chiswick, where he showed me all the
alterations that he was about to make, in adding
the gardens of Lady M. Coke's house to his own.
The house is down, and in the gardens he has
constructed a magnificent hot-house, with a conservatory for flowers, the
middle under a cupola.
Altogether, it is 300 feet long.
The communication between the
two gardens is through what
was the old greenhouse, of which they have
made a double arcade, making the prettiest effect
possible."
In 1814 the Emperor Alexander I. of Russia
and the other allied sovereigns visited the Duke of
Devonshire here, and the open-air entertainments
which were given at Chiswick by the duke in
subsequent years were among the chief attractions
of the "London season." Sir Walter Scott, in his
"Diary," May 17th, 1828, tells us how that, after
paying a visit to the Duke of Wellington, he drove
to Chiswick, where he had never been before.
"A numerous and gay party," he adds, "were
assembled to walk and enjoy the beauties of that
Palladian dome. The place and highly ornamented gardens belonging to it resemble a picture
of Watteau. There is some affectation in the
picture, but in the ensemble the original looked very
well. The Duke of Devonshire received every one
with the best possible manners. The scene was
dignified by the presence of an immense elephant,
who, under the charge of a groom, wandered up
and down, giving an air of Asiatic pageantry to
the entertainment." This elephant occupied a
paddock near the house; her intelligence, docility,
and affection were remarkable; she died in the
year 1829.
CORNEY HOUSE, IN 1760.
In June, 1842, Her Majesty and the late Prince
Consort visited his grace at Chiswick; and in
the month of June, 1844, the duke gave here a
magnificent entertainment to the Emperor (Nicholas)
of Russia, the King of Saxony, the Duke and
Duchess of Cambridge, and about 700 of the
nobility and gentry.
It may be added that several of the finest trees
in these gardens were planted by royal hands, to
commemorate the visits of the Emperor Nicholas,
Queen Victoria, and other sovereigns and illustrious persons to the head of the ducal house of
Cavendish.
Chiswick has witnessed the death of more than
one political celebrity. At the end of August,
1806, the great statesman, Charles James Fox,
was in his last illness removed to the Duke of
Devonshire's villa, where he died a fortnight later.
The bed-chamber which he occupied opens into
the Italian saloon, and before the window grew a
mountain-ash, which appears to have been to him
an object of great interest.
The following anecdotes rest upon the authority
of Samuel Rogers:—"Very shortly before Fox died
he complained of great uneasiness in his stomach,
and Clive advised him to try a cup of coffee. It
was accordingly ordered; but not being brought
as soon as was expected, Mrs. Fox expressed
some impatience; upon which Fox said, with his
usual sweet smile, 'Remember, my dear, that good
coffee cannot be made in a moment.' Lady
Holland announced the death of Fox in her own
odd manner to those relatives and intimate friends
of his who were sitting in a room near his bedchamber, and waiting to hear he had breathed his
last: she walked through the room with her apron
over her head. * * * How fondly the surviving
friends of Fox cherished his memory! Many years
after his death, I was at a fête given by the Duke
of Devonshire at Chiswick House. Sir Robert
Adair and I wandered about the apartments up
and down stairs. 'In which room did Fox
expire?' asked Adair. I replied, 'In this very
room!' Immediately Adair burst into tears with
a vehemence of grief such as I hardly ever saw
exhibited by a man."
Undoubtedly, Fox was a great orator. Horace
Walpole wrote:—"Fox had not the ungraceful
hesitation of his father, yet scarcely equalled him
in subtlety and acuteness. But no man ever
excelled him in the clearness of argument, which
flowed from him in a torrent of vehemence, as
declamation sometimes does from those who want
argument." Burke once called him "the greatest
debater the world ever saw;" and Mackintosh described him as "the most Demosthenean speaker
since Demosthenes."
Twenty years afterwards there came hither to die,
in the same villa and the same room, and nearly
at the same age, the classic and witty and brilliant
George Canning. He died on the 8th of August,
1827. The apartment in which the two statesmen breathed their last is thus sketched by Sir
Henry Bulwer (Lord Dalling), in his "Historical
Characters":—"It is a small low chamber,
over a kind of nursery, and opening into a wing
of the building, which gives it the appearance
of looking into a court-yard. Nothing can be
more simple than its furniture or its decorations.
On one side of the fire-place are a few bookshelves; opposite the foot of the bed is the low
chimney-piece, and on it a small bronze clock,
to which we may fancy the weary and impatient
sufferer often turned his eyes during those bitter
moments in which he was passing from the world
which he had filled with his name and was governing with his projects.
Of late years Chiswick House has been used as
a suburban nursery for the children of the Prince
and Princess of Wales; and occasionally, during
the summer season, the Prince and Princess have
taken up their residence here, and given gardenparties, which have perhaps even excelled in
brilliancy those given in former years.
Corney House, which was pulled down in 1823,
originally belonged to the Russell family, who were
seated here at the commencement of the seventeenth century. In 1602 Queen Elizabeth paid
a visit to its then owner, William, Lord Russell,
whose son Francis, first Earl of Bedford, afterwards
lived here, and took an interest in the concerns of
the parish, as is evident from the inscription on
the churchyard wall already mentioned. (fn. 12) The
house was for some time the residence of the Earl
Macartney; but, like most of the property in the immediate neighbourhood of Chiswick House, it has
passed into the hands of the Duke of Devonshire.
On the demolition of the mansion the grounds
were added to those of Chiswick House; its name,
however, is preserved in Corney Reach, a bend of
the river between Chiswick and Mortlake Bridge,
which has become familiarized in aquatic annals
in connection with the University boat-race.
It appears by the Court Rolls that Sir Stephen
Fox, in the year 1685, purchased a copyhold estate
at Chiswick, on which he built a mansion, which
he made his principal residence after he had retired
from public business. William III. was so pleased
with it that he is said to have exclaimed to the
Earl of Portland on his first visit, "This place is
perfectly fine; I could live here five days"—a
compliment which he never paid to any other
place in England except Lord Exeter's mansion
at Burleigh. The staircase of Sir Stephen Fox's
house was painted by Verrio. The gardens, as we
learn from Evelyn's "Diary" (October 30th, 1682),
were laid out by the architect, whose name was
May:—"The garden much too narrow; the place
without water, neere a highway and neere another
greate house of my Lord Burlington; with little
land about it, so that I wonder at the expense; but
women," he quaintly adds, "will have their will."
Sir Stephen Fox, who died in 1716, was the father
of Henry, first Lord Holland, and grandfather of
Charles James Fox.
In 1818, the gardens of the Horticultural Society
were established on that part of the grounds of
Chiswick House lying between the mansion and
Turnham Green. Up to this time, few of the
inhabitants of London even visited the village;
but when the Horticultural Fêtes were held here
Chiswick achieved some notoriety: it rose to be
a place of popular resort, and had even its steamboat pier.
Other attractions, however, sprang up and threw
Chiswick into the shade; and when, as we have
stated in a previous volume, (fn. 13) the head-quarters of
the Horticultural Society were removed to South
Kensington, the visitors to Chiswick became "few
and far between," with the solitary exception of
the day of the University boat-race, when the
Chiswick bank of the Thames annually receives
its moiety of eager and expectant sight-seers.
The Horticultural Society's grounds are now
used as nursery and fruit gardens, for the culture
of the seeds and rare plants collected by the society
from all parts of the world; as a school of horticulture; and for raising plants and flowers for the
conservatory and gardens at South Kensington,
and for distribution among the Fellows of the
Society. The number of plants transferred from
Chiswick to South Kensington up to April, 1878,
was nearly 50,000.