In one of these streets opening into Leicester Square, St. Martin"s Street, Sir Isaac Newton lived for the last sixteen years of his life. The house in which he lived looks dingy enough now; but in those days it was considered a very good residence indeed, and Like Leicester House was frequented by the best company in the fashionable world. The genius and reputation of its master attracted scientific and learned visitors; and the beauty of his niece, Mrs. Catharine Barton, drew to her feet all the more distinguished wits and beaux of the time.
Between 1717 and 1760 Leicester House became what Pennant calls "the pouting-place of princes," being for almost all that time in the occupation of a Prince of Wales who was living in fierce opposition to the reigning king. In 1718 the Prince of Wales having had a furious quarrel with his father George I., on the occasion of the christening of the Prince"s son George William, left St. James"s, and took Leicester House at a yearly rent of five hundred pounds; and until he succeeded to the throne in 1727, it was his town residence.
Here he held his court--a court not by any means strait-laced; a gay little court at first; a court whose selfish intrigues and wild frolics and madcap adventures and humdrum monotony live for us still in the sparkling pages of Horace Walpole; or are painted in with vivid clearness of touch and execution, but with a darker brush, by Hervey, Pope"s Lord f.a.n.n.y, who was a favourite with his mistress the handsome accomplished Caroline, Princess of Wales. Piloted by one or other of these exact historians, we enter the chamber of the gentlewomen-in-waiting, and are introduced to the maids-of-honour, to fair Mary Lepell, to charming Mrs.
b.e.l.l.e.n.den, to pensive, gentle Mrs. Howard. We see them eat Westphalia ham of a morning, and then set out with their royal master for a helter-skelter ride over hedges and ditches, on borrowed hacks. No wonder Pope pitied them; and on their return, who should they fall in with but that great poet himself! They are good to him in their way, these saucy charming maids-of-honour, and so they take the frail little man under their protection and give him his dinner; and then he finishes off the day, he tells us, by walking three hours in the moonlight with Mary Lepell. We can imagine the affected compliments he paid her and the burlesque love he made to her; and the fun she and her sister maids-of-honour would have laughing over it all, when she went back to Leicester House and he returned to his pretty villa at Twickenham.
As the Prince grew older his court became more and more dull, till at last it was almost deserted, when on the 14th of June 1727 the loungers in its half-empty chambers were roused by sudden news--George I. was dead; and Leicester House was thronged by a sudden rush of obsequious courtiers, among whom was the late king"s prime-minister, bluff, jolly, coa.r.s.e Sir Robert Walpole. No one paid any attention to him, for every one knew that his disgrace was sealed; the new king had never been at any pains to conceal his dislike to him. Sir Robert, however, knew better; he was quite well aware who was to be the real ruler of England now; and he knew that the Princess Caroline had already accepted him, just as she accepted La Walmoden and her good Howard; and so all alone in his corner he chuckled to himself as he saw the crowd of sycophants elbow and jostle and push poor Lady Walpole as she tried to make her way to the royal feet. Caroline saw it too, and with a flash of half-scornful mischief lighting up her shrewd eyes, said with a smile: "Sure, there I see a friend." Instantly the human stream parted, and made way for her Ladyship.
In 1728 Frederick, the eldest son of George and Caroline, arrived from Hanover, where he had remained since his birth in 1707. It was a fatal mistake; he came to England a stranger to his parents, and with his place in their hearts already filled by his brother. It was inevitable that where there was no mutual love, distrust and alienation should come, as in no long time they did, with the result that the same pitiful drama was played out again on the same stage. In 1743 Frederick Prince of Wales took Leicester House and held his receptions there. He was fond of gaiety, and had a succession of b.a.l.l.s, masques, plays, and supper-parties. His tastes, as was natural considering his rearing, were foreign, and Leicester House was much frequented by foreigners of every grade. Desnoyers the dancing-master was a favourite habitu, as was also the charlatan St-Germain. In the midst of all this fiddling and buffoonery the Prince fell ill; but not so seriously as to cause uneasiness to any one around him; consequently all the world was taken by surprise when he suddenly died one morning in the arms of his friend the dancing-master. After his death his widow remained at Leicester House, and like a sensible woman as she was, made her peace with the king her father-in-law, who ever afterwards shewed himself very kind and friendly to her.
In October 1760 George III. was proclaimed king; and again a crowd of courtiers thronged to Leicester House to kiss the hand of the new sovereign. For six years longer the Princess of Wales continued to live at Leicester House; and there in 1765 her youngest son died, and the following year she removed to Carlton House.
While the quarrel between George II. and Frederick was at its fiercest, the central inclosure of Leicester Square was re-arranged very elegantly according to the taste of the day; and an equestrian statue of George I., which had belonged to the first Duke of Chandos and had been bought at the sale of his effects, was set up in front of Leicester House, where it remained, a dazzling object at first, in all the glory of gilding, which pa.s.sed with the populace for gold; but latterly a most wretched relic of the past, an eyesore, which was removed in 1874 in the course of Baron Grant"s improvements.
Leicester Square had other tenants beside Sir Isaac Newton, compared with whom courtiers and gallants and fine gentlemen and ladies look very small indeed. Hogarth lived in this street, and so did Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Hogarth"s house was the last but two on the east side of the Square. Here he established himself, a young struggling man, with Jane Thornhill, the wife with whom he had made a stolen love-match. In this house, with the quaint sign of the Golden Head over the door, he worked, not as painters generally do, at a mult.i.tude of detached pieces, but depicting with his vivid brush a whole series of popular allegories on canvas. When he became rich, as in process of time he did, he had a house at Chiswick; but he still retained the Golden Head as his town-house, and in 1764 returned to it to die.
In No. 47 Sir Joshua Reynolds lived, and painted those charming portraits which have immortalised for us all that was most beautiful and famous in his epoch. He was a kindly genial lovable man, fond of society, and with a liking for display. He had a wonderful carriage, with the four seasons curiously painted in on the panels, and the wheels ornamented with carved foliage and gilding. The servants in attendance on this chariot wore silver-laced liveries; and as he had no time to drive in it himself, he made his sister take a daily airing in it, much to her discomfort, for she was a homely little lady with very simple tastes. He was a great dinner giver; and as it was his custom to ask every pleasant person he met without any regard to the preparation made to receive them, it may be conjectured that there was often a want of the commonest requisites of the dinner-table. Even knives, forks, and gla.s.ses could not always be procured at first. But although his dinners partook very much of the nature of unceremonious scrambles, they were thoroughly enjoyable. Whatever was awanting, there was always cheerfulness and the pleasant kindly interchange of thought. In July 1792 Sir Joshua died in his own house in Leicester Square; and within a few hours of his death, an obituary notice of him was written by Burke, the ma.n.u.script of which was blotted with his tears.
In No. 28, on the eastern side of the Square, the celebrated anatomist John Hunter lived. Like most distinguished men of the day, he sat to Sir Joshua Reynolds for his portrait; but was so restless and preoccupied that he made a very bad sitter. At last one day he fell into a reverie. The happy moment had come; Sir Joshua, with his instinctive tact, caught the expression and presented to us the great surgeon in one of his most characteristic att.i.tudes. The other celebrated surgeons, Cruickshank and Charles Bell, also lived in this Square. The house in which Bell resided for many years was large and ruinous, and had once been inhabited by Speaker Onslow. Here he set up his Museum, and began to lecture on anatomy, having for a long time, he writes, scarcely forty pupils to lecture to.
During all the later portion of its history Leicester Square has been famous for shows. In 1771 Sir Ashton Lever exhibited a large and curious Museum in Leicester House. In 1796 Charles Dibdin built at Nos. 2 and 3, on the east side of Leicester Square, a small theatre in which he gave an entertainment consisting of an interesting medley of anecdote and song. In 1787 Miss Linwood opened her gallery of pictures in needlework, an exhibition which lasted forty-seven years, for the last thirty-five of which it was exhibited at Savile House, a building which was destroyed by fire in 1865.
After Miss Linwood"s, one of the best shows in Leicester Square was Burford"s Panorama, which is now numbered with the things that were, its site being occupied by a French chapel and school. In 1851 a new show was inaugurated by Mr. Wylde the geographer. It consisted of a monster globe sixty feet in diameter, which occupied the central dome of a building erected in the garden of the Square. The world was figured in relief on the inside of it, and it was viewed from several galleries at different elevations. It was exhibited for ten years, and was then taken down by its proprietor, owing to a dispute concerning the ownership of the garden. Out of this case, which was decided in 1867, the proceedings originated which resulted in the purchase and renovation of the garden by Baron Grant, who having once more made it trim and neat, handed it over to the Board of Works.--_Chambers"s Journal._
A WOMAN"S LOVE.
A SLAVONIAN STUDY.
Those races that have not undergone the beneficial and domesticating influences of civilisation, and that are isolated from the more cultured nations, possess to an excess the different qualities or impulses inherent to our nature. Amongst the emotions that move the heart of man, love is certainly the one that has the greatest empire over him; it rules the soul so imperiously that all the other pa.s.sions are crushed by it. It makes cowards of the bravest men, and gives courage to the timid. Love is, indeed, the great motive-power of life.
Our pa.s.sions and our emotions are, however, more subdued than those of the semi-civilised nations; for, in the first place, we undergo the softening influences of education, and secondly, we are more or less under the restraint of the rules which govern society. Besides this, our mind is usually engrossed by the numerous cares which our state of living necessitates; for we are not like them, contented with little; on the contrary, instead of being satisfied with what is necessary, we require luxuries and superfluities, the procurement of which takes up a considerable portion of our energy and our mental activity.
The Slavonians, and more especially those belonging to the southern regions, such as the Dalmatians and Montenegrins, are, as a general rule, very pa.s.sionate; ardent in their affections, they are likewise given to anger, resentment, and hatred, the generic sister pa.s.sion of love.
The Slavonian women are, however, not indolent, nor do they ever indulge in idle dreams; for they are not only occupied with the household cares, but they also take a share, and not the smallest or the slightest, of those toils which in other countries devolve upon the men alone. They therefore, in the manly labours of the field, not only get prematurely old, but they hardly ever possess much grace, slenderness, or delicate complexions. No Slavonian woman, for instance, is ever _mignonne_. They, in compensation, acquire in health, and perhaps in real sthetic beauty of proportions, what they lose in prettiness or delicacy of appearance, consequently they never suffer from vapours or from the numerous nervous complaints to which the generality of our ladies are subjected; the natural result of this state of things is _mens sana in corpore sano_; this is doubtless the reason why Slavonian women are, as a general rule, fond mothers and faithful wives.
They are certainly not endowed with that charming refinement, the _morbidezza_ of manners which but too often is but a mask covering a morbid selfish disposition, a hypocritical and false nature. Though ignorant, they are neither void of natural good sense nor wit; they only want that smattering of worldly knowledge which the contact of society imparts, and which but too often covers nothing but frivolity, gross ignorance, and conceit. Their conversation is, perhaps, not peculiarly attractive; for being simple and artless, speech was not given to them as a means of disguising their thoughts; their lips only disclose the fullness of their hearts. Conversation is, besides, a gift conferred to few; and even in our polite circles not many persons can converse in an interesting manner, and fewer can be witty without backbiting; moreover, if man were suddenly to become transparent, would he not have to blush for the frivolous demonstrations of friendship daily interchanged in our artificial state of society?
The different amus.e.m.e.nts that absorb so much of our time and occupy our minds are unknown in Slavonian countries; the daily occupations and the details of the toilet do not captivate the whole attention; so that when a simple affection is awakening in the heart of a man or of a woman, it by degrees pervades the whole soul and the whole mind, and a strong and ardent pa.s.sion usually ensues. Moreover, amongst those simple-minded sincere people flirtations are generally unknown; yet when they do love, their affections are genuine; they never exchange amongst each other those false coins bearing Cupid"s effigy, and known as coquetry; for their lips only utter what their hearts really feel. People there do not delight in playing with the fire of love, or trying how far they can with impunity make game of sentiments which should be held sacred. Amongst the virile maidens of Slavonia many of them therefore have virgin hearts, that is to say, artless souls, fresh to all the tender sentiments; the reason of this is, that from the age of fifteen they do not trifle with their affections until they have become so callous and sceptical that marriage is merely wealth or a position in life. Men do not first waste away all the tender emotions which the human heart is capable of, and then settle down into a _mariage de raison_.
The following story, which happened about a century ago, will serve as an ill.u.s.tration of the power of love amongst the Slavonians; it is, indeed, a kind of repet.i.tion of the fate which attended the lovers of Sestos and Abydos. This, however, is no legend, but an historical fact; the place where this tragedy happened was the island of St. Andrea, situated between those of Malfi and Stagno, not far from the town of Ragusa.
Though no Musus has immortalised this story by his verses, it is, however, recorded in the "Revista Dalmata" (1859), in the "Annuario Spalatino" of the same year, as well as other Slavonian periodicals.
The hero of this story, whose Christian name was Teodoro, belonged to one of the wealthiest patrician families of Ragusa, his father being, it is said, Rector of the Republic. He was a young man of a grave character, but withal of a gentle and tender disposition; he not only possessed great talents, but also great culture, for his time was entirely given up to study.
One day, the young patrician having gone from the island of St. Andrea, where he had been staying at the Benedictine convent, to one of the other two neighboring islands, he in the evening wished to return to his abode.
He met upon the beach a young girl who was carrying home some baskets of fish. Having asked her if she knew of anybody who would take him across to the island of St. Andrea, the young girl proffered her services, which the young and bashful patrician reluctantly accepted.
The young girl was as beautiful, as chaste, and as proud as the Arrabiata of Paul Heyse; and for the first time Teodoro felt a new and vague feeling awake in his bosom. He began to talk to the girl, asking her a thousand questions about herself, about her home; and the young girl doubtless told him that she was an orphan, and that she lived with her brothers. Instead of returning to his family, the young n.o.bleman remained at the Benedictine convent, with the purpose of studying in retirement; his mind, however, was not entirely engrossed by his books, and his visits to the island where Margherita lived daily became more frequent.
The love which had kindled in his heart found an echo in the young girl"s bosom, and instead of endeavouring to suppress their feelings they yielded to the charms of this saintly affection, to the rapture of loving and being loved. In a few days their mutual feelings had made such progress that the young man promised the _barcarinola_ to marry her. His n.o.ble character and his brave spirit made him forget that he could not with impunity break the laws of the society amongst which he lived; for that society, which would have smiled had he seduced the young girl and made her his mistress, would nevertheless have been scandalised had he taken her for his lawful wife.
Peccadilloes are overlooked, and it is almost better in high life to be a knave than a fool; it was, indeed, a quixotic notion for a patrician to marry a plebeian, an unheard of event in the annals of the aristocratic republic of Ragusa. The difficulties which our hero was to encounter were therefore insurmountable.
In the midst of his thoughtless happiness our young lover was suddenly summoned back to his home; for whilst Teodoro was supposed to be deeply engaged in his studies his father, without the young man"s knowledge, and not antic.i.p.ating any opposition, promised his son in marriage to the daughter of one of his friends, a young lady of great wealth and beauty.
This union had, it is true, been concerted when the children were mere babes, and it had until then been a bond between the two families. The young lady being now of a marriageable age, and having concentrated all her affections on the young man she had always been taught to regard as her future husband, she now looked forward with joy for the antic.i.p.ated event.
Teodoro was therefore summoned back home to a.s.sist at a great festivity given in honour of his betrothal; he at once hastened back to Ragusa, in order to break off the engagement contracted for him. Vainly, however, did he try to remonstrate, first with his father and then with his mother. He avowed that he had no inclination for matrimony, that he felt no love for this young lady, nothing but a mere brotherly affection, and that he could not cherish her as his wife; he found, nevertheless, both his parents inexorable. It was too late; the father had given his word to his friend; a refusal would prove an insult, which would provoke a rupture between these two families; no option was left but to obey.
Teodoro thereupon retired to his own room, where he remained in the strictest confinement, refusing to see any one. The evening of that eventful day, the guests were a.s.sembled; the bride and her family had already arrived; the bridegroom, nevertheless, was missing. This was indeed a strange breach of good manners, and numerous comments were whispered from ear to ear. The father sent at last a peremptory order to his undutiful son to come at once to him. The young man ultimately made his appearance, attired like Hamlet at his stepfather"s court, in a suit of deep mourning, whilst his long hair, which formerly fell in ringlets over his shoulders, was all clipped short. In this strange accoutrement he came to acquaint his father before the whole a.s.sembly that he had decided to forego the pleasure, the pomp and vanity of this world, to renounce society, and take up his abode in a convent, where he intended pa.s.sing his days in study and meditation.
The scene of confusion which followed this unexpected declaration can be imagined. The guests all wished to retire: the first person, however, to leave the house was Teodoro, expelled by his father and bearing with him the paternal malediction. Thus this day of antic.i.p.ated joy ended in disappointment and humiliation. The discarded bride was borne away by her parents, and it is said that her delicate health never recovered from this unexpected blow.
That very night the young man retired to the Benedictine convent upon the island of St. Andrea, with the firm resolution of pa.s.sing his life in holy seclusion. When a few days had pa.s.sed, his love proved, nevertheless, stronger than his will, and he could not refrain from going to see his Margherita, and informing her of all that had happened, telling her that he had been driven from home, and that he had taken refuge at the convent, where he intended pa.s.sing his life in a state of holy celibacy.
Notwithstanding all his good intentions, the sight of the young girl proved too great a temptation, her beauty overcame his resolutions, and he swore to her that he would brave his parents" opposition, as well as the anger of his caste, and that he would marry her in spite of his family and of the whole world.
He thus continued seeing this young girl, till at last the fishermen, her brothers, having found out why this young patrician visited the island so often, severe and jealous like all their countrymen, they waylaid him, and threatened to kill him if he were once more caught upon these sh.o.r.es. The prior of the Benedictines, finding besides that his _protege_, far from coming to seek peace and tranquillity within the walls of his convent, was, on the contrary, an object of scandal, expressed his intention to expel him, should he not discontinue his visits to the neighbouring island, and reform.
Every new difficulty seemed to give fresh courage to the lovers; they would have fled from their native country and their persecutors, but they knew that they would be overtaken, brought back, and punished; so they decided to wait some time until the wrath of their enemies had abated, and the storm had blown over.
As Teodoro could not go any more to see the young girl, it was Margherita who now came to visit her lover; to evade, however, the suspicion of her brothers, and that of the friars, they only met in the middle of the night, and as they always changed their place of meeting, a lighted torch was the signal where the young girl was to direct her bark. There were nights, nevertheless, when she could not obtain a boat; yet this was no obstacle to her brave spirit, for upon those nights, she, like Leander, swam across the channel, for nothing could daunt this heroic woman"s heart.
These ill-fated lovers were happy notwithstanding their adverse fortune, for the sacred fire of love which burnt within them was bliss enough to compensate for all their woes. Their days were pa.s.sed in anxious expectation for the hour which was to unite them on the sea-sh.o.r.e, amidst the darkness of the night. There clasped in one another"s arms, the world and its inhabitants existed no longer for them; those were moments of ineffable rapture, in which it seemed impossible to drain the whole chalice of happiness; moments in which time and eternity are confounded, instants only to be appreciated by those who have known the infinite bliss of loving and being loved. Their souls seemed to leave their bodies, blend together and soar into the empyreal s.p.a.ces, the regions of infinite happiness; for them all other sentiments pa.s.sed away, and nothing was felt but an unmitigated love.
The dangers which encompa.s.sed them, their loneliness upon the rocky sh.o.r.es, the stillness of the night, only served to heighten their joy and exultation, for a pleasure dearly bought is always more keenly felt.
Their happiness was, however, not to be of long duration; such felicity is celestial; on this earth,
"Les plus belles choses Ont le pire destin."
Margherita"s brothers, knowing the power of love, watched their sister, and at last found out that when the young n.o.bleman had ceased coming, it was she who by night visited the Island of St. Andrea, and they resolved to be revenged upon her. They bided their time, and upon a dark and stormy night, the fishermen, knowing that their sister would not be intimidated by the heavy sea, went off with the boat and left her to the mercy of the waves. The young girl, unable to resist the impulse of her love, recommended herself to the Almighty, and bravely plunged into the waters.
Her treacherous brothers, having watched her movements, plied their oars and directed their course towards the island; they landed, went and took the lighted torch from the place where it was burning, and fastened it to the prow of their boat; having done this, they slowly rowed away into the open sea.
Margherita, as usual, swam towards the beacon-light of love, but that night all her efforts were useless--the faster she swam, the greater was the distance that separated her from that _ignis-fatuus_ light; doubtless she attributed this to the roughness of the sea, and took courage, hoping soon to reach that blessed goal.
A flash of lightning, which illumined the dark expanse of the waters, made her at last perceive her mistake; she saw the boat towards which she had been swimming, and also the island of St. Andrea far behind her. She at once directed her course towards it, but there, in the midst of darkness, she struggled with the wild waves, until, overpowered by fatigue, she gave up all hopes of rejoining her beloved one, and sank down in the briny deep.
The cruel sea that separated the lovers was, however, more merciful than man, for upon the morrow the waves themselves softly deposited the lifeless body of the young girl upon the sand of the beach.
The n.o.bleman, who had pa.s.sed a night of most terrible anxiety, found at daybreak the corpse of the girl he loved. He caused it to be committed to the earth, after which he re-entered within the walls of the convent, took the Benedictine dress, and spent the rest of his life pining in grief.
ADRIAN DE VALVEDERE, in _Tinsley"s Magazine_.