THE

THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.

1694-1773.

HE Earl of Chesterfield, born in London, was christened in St. James's Church, Piccadilly, and spent the greater part of his life in the metropolis. He lived at one time in St. James's Square, and later in Bedford Street, Covent Garden; but his most important London home was the mansion bearing his name in South Audley Street, May Fair. It was commenced in 1747, and was still standing in 1885, although its gardens have been built upon, and are shorn of their fair proportions.

Walford's
Londoniana,

Chesterfield.

But perhaps the most interesting apartment in the whole house [Chesterfield House] is the library; there, where Lord Chesterfield used to sit and write, still stand [1869] the books which it is only fair to suppose that he read, books of wide-world and enduring interest, and which vol. ii. stand in goodly array, one row above another, by hundreds. High above them, in separate panels, are 'Kit Kat' sized portraits of all the great English poets and dramatists, down to the time of Chesterfield. . . . In another room not far from the library, one seems to gain an idea of the noble letter-writer's daily life; for it is a room which has not only its antechamber, in which the aspirants for his lordship's favor were sometimes kept waiting, but on its garden side a stone or marble terrace overlooking the large garden, stretching out in lawn and flower-beds, behind the house. Upon this terrace Chesterfield doubtless often walked, snuff-box in hand, and in company with some choice friend.

This room is the subject of E. M. Ward's well-known picture, 'Dr. Johnson in the Anteroom of Lord Chesterfield,'

an incident which is said to have occurred in 1749, although good authorities assert that the Earl did not occupy the house until three years later.

Chesterfield died in Chesterfield House in 1773, and was buried in Grosvenor Chapel, South Audley Street (see CARTER), according to the instructions contained in his will that he should be placed in the graveyard nearest to the spot where he might happen to die, and that the expenses of his funeral should not exceed one hundred pounds. His remains were afterwards removed to the family burial-place in Shelford Church, Nottinghamshire.

CHARLES CHURCHILL.

1731-1764.

HURCHILL was born in Vine Street, Westminster, in 1731, and was probably christened in the neighboring Church of St. John the Evangelist, Smith Square, of which his father was curate at the time of his birth.

Churchill was sent to Westminster School in 1739, where he remained ten years.

Gilfillan's
Life of

Shortly after [1746], having by some misdemeanor displeased his masters, he was compelled to compose and recite in the schoolroom a poetical declamation in Latin, by way of penance. This he accomplished in a masterly manner, Churchill. to the astonishment of his masters and the delight of his schoolfellows, some of whom became afterwards distinguished inen. We can fancy the scene at the day of recitation, the grave and big-wigged schoolmasters looking grimly on, their aspect however, becoming softer and brighter, as one large hexameter rolls out after another; the strong, awkward, ugly boy un

blushingly pouring forth his energetic lines, cheered by the sight of the relaxing gravity of his teachers' looks; while around you see the bashful, tremulous figure of poor Cowper, the small, thin shape and bright eye of Warren Hastings, and the waggish countenance of Colman [the elder], all eagerly watching the recital, and all at last distended and brightened with joy at his signal triumph.

St. Peter's College or, as it is more familiarly called, Westminster School -in which have been educated so many famous Englishmen, is immediately adjoining the cloisters of the Abbey, the entrance being through the old gateway, said to have been designed by Inigo Jones, in Little Dean's Yard.

Churchill contracted a Fleet marriage at an early age, and lived unhappily with his wife. In 1758 he was appointed successor to his father in the Church of St. John, and is said to have preached his father's old sermons, and generally to have conducted himself in a manner unbecoming a clergyman. At the same time he was acting as tutor in a girls' seminary at Queen Square, Bloomsbury; but his habits were so irregular that he was compelled to resign both his church and his school.

One of Churchill's favorite places of resort was the Bedford, 'under the piazza in Covent Garden.' It was on the corner near the entrance to the theatre, and its name was perpetuated in 1885 in the Bedford Hotel.

He was a member of the Beefsteak Club, which met in a room at the top of Covent Garden Theatre in Churchill's time. Wilkes was his sponsor in the society; but his conduct was such as to shock and disgust even an assemblage of men not over particular; and to avoid expulsion, after the publication of his desertion of his wife, he resigned.

COLLEY CIBBER.

1671-1757.

OLLEY CIBBER, according to his own statement, 'was born in London on the 6th of November, 1671, in

Southampton Street, facing Southampton House.'

Southampton House, afterwards Bedford House, taken down in the beginning of the present century, occupied the north side of Bloomsbury Square. Evelyn speaks of it in his Diary, October, 1664, as in course of construction. Another and an earlier Southampton House in Holborn, 'a little above Holborn Bars,' was removed some twenty years before Cibber's birth. He was, therefore, probably born at the upper or north end of Southampton Street, facing Bloomsbury Square, where now are comparatively modern buildings, and not in Southampton Street, Strand, as is generally supposed.

Cibber, in his 'Apology,' says nothing of his home life or of his social haunts, although he speaks frequently and freely of the scenes of his professional labors.

6

From 1711 until 1714 he lived in Spring Gardens, Whitehall (see Mrs. CENTLIVRE), near the Bull Head Tavern,' of which now there is no trace left.

Cunningham, in his 'Hand-Book,' quotes the following advertisement from the 'Daily Courant,' January 20, 1703 [sic, probably 1713]:

In or near the old play house in Drury Lane on Monday last the 19th of January a watch was dropped having a Tortoise shell case inlaid with silver, a silver chain and a gold seal ring

- the arms a cross wavy and cheque. Whoever brings it to

Mr. Cibber at his house near the Bull Head Tavern in Old Spring Gardens, at Charing Cross, shall have three guineas reward.

Walpole declared that Cibber wrote one of his plays in the little cottage which stood on the site of the afterwards famous Strawberry Hill (see WALPOLE).

He is known to have lived at Islington, and in Berkeley Square, in an old-fashioned town mansion, standing in 1885.

John Tay

Colley Cibber lived in Berkeley Square at the north corner of Bruton Street, where my mother told me she saw him once standing at his parlor window, drumming lor's Recwith his hands on the frame. She said he appeared ords of my like a calm, grave, and reverend old gentleman.

Life.

Doran's An

ii. chap. ii.

Among them all, Colley kept his own to the last. A short time before the last hour arrived, Horace Walpole hailed him on his birthday with a good-morrow, and I am glad, sir, to see you looking so well.' 'Egad, sir,' replied the nals of the old gentleman, all diamonded and powdered and dan- Stage, vol. dified, 'at eighty-four it is well for a man that he can look at all.' . . . And now he crosses Piccadilly and passes through Albemarle Street, slowly but cheerfully, with an eye and a salutation for any pretty woman of his acquaintance, and with a word for any 'good fellow' whose purse he has lightened, or who has lightened his, at dice or whist. And so he turns into the adjacent square; and as his servant closes the door, after admitting him, neither of them wots that the master has passed over the threshold for the last time a living man. In December, 1757, I read in contemporary publications that 'there died at his house in Berkeley Square, Colley Cibber, Esq., Poet Laureate.'. . . Colley Cibber was carried to sleep with kings and heroes in Westminster Abbey.

Dr. Doran is not to be relied upon here. Cibber certainly was not buried in the Abbey, and according to other authorities he died at Islington. A careful search through files of contemporary publications in the British Museum has failed to reveal any mention of the place of his death.