MEMORIALS OF LONDON.

CHAPTER I.

PICCADILLY.

Traditions of Hyde Park Corner - Sir Thomas Wyatt - Charles the Second and the Duke of York-Sir Samuel Morland — Winstanley-Pope- Lord Lanesborough — Apsley House -The "Pillars of Hercules "-Origin of the Name Piccadilly - Eminent Persons Who Lived in the Neighbourhood.

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HYDE PARK CORNER, as the approach to London, seems to appropriate place for commencing our antiquarian rambles. The spot, too, in itself, possesses great interest. It was here that Sir Thomas Wyatt "planted his ordnance" in his famous attempt on London in 1554; and here also, on the threatened approach of the royal army in 1642, the citizens of London hastily threw up a large fort, strengthened with four bastions; in which zealous work of rebellion they were enthusiastically aided by their wives and daughters. Butler tells us, in his inimitable “Hudibras :

"From ladies down to oyster-wenches,
Laboured like pioneers in trenches;
Fell to their pickaxes and tools,

And helped the men to dig like moles."

I have seldom crossed the road between Constitution Hill and Hyde Park, without calling to mind the well-known retort which Charles the Second gave his brother, the Duke of York, on this particular spot. Charles, who was as fond of walking as his brother was of riding, after taking two or three turns, and amusing himself with feeding the birds in St. James's Park, proceeded up Constitution Hill, accompanied by the Duke of Leeds and Lord Cromarty, into Hyde Park. He was in the act of crossing the road, when he was met by the Duke of York, who had been hunting on Hounslow Heath, and who was returning in his coach, attended by an escort of the royal horse guards. The duke immediately alighted, and after paying his respects to the king, expressed his uneasiness at seeing him with so small an attendance, and his fears that his life might be in danger from the hands of an assassin. "No kind of danger," said the merry monarch, "for I am sure that no man in England will take away my life to make you king."

Close to Hyde Park Corner, the well-known

'Doctor King tells us that Lord Cromarty was in the constant habit of relating the story to his friends.

mechanist, Sir Samuel Morland, had a country house. A letter of his, addressed to the highminded and ingenious philosopher, John Evelyn, is dated from his "hut near Hyde Park Gate." It was to the town house of Sir Samuel, at Lambeth, that Charles the Second passed from the palace of Whitehall by water, to pass the first night of his almost miraculous Restoration with Mrs. Palmer, afterward the too celebrated Duchess of Cleveland. Winstanley, another ingenious mechanist, who lived in the reign of Queen Anne, had also a "water theatre" near Hyde Park Corner, conspicuous from its being surmounted by a large weathercock; and here, we are told, the town was accustomed to crowd of an evening to witness his hydraulic experiments. Steele mentions him in one of his papers in the Tatler, and Evelyn has thought the projector worthy of praise.

One would be glad, but the wish is a vain one, to ascertain the exact spot, "by Hyde Park Corner," which was the scene of the schoolboy days of Pope, where the poet forgot the "little" which he had learnt from his Roman Catholic preceptor, Bannister; from whence he used to stroll to the playhouse, to delight himself with theatrical exhibitions; and where the youthful bard composed his juvenile play from "Ogildby's Iliad," in which his schoolfellows were the principal performers, and his master's gardener was the personator of Ajax.

Since we are unable to point out the exact spot where the great poet "lisped in numbers," it is but small consolation to be able to fix the residence of one whose follies have been immortalised by his verse. This was Theophilus, first Lord Lanesborough:

"Sober Lanesborough dancing with the gout."

His country residence was on the site of the present St. George's Hospital, and originally formed the centre of the old hospital, to which two wings were afterward added on its being adapted to charitable purposes. So paramount is said to have been Lord Lanesborough's passion for dancing, that, when Queen Anne lost her consort, Prince George of Denmark, he seriously advised her to dispel her grief by applying herself to his favourite exercise. He died here on the IIth of March, 1723.

Apsley House, which stands on the site of the old Ranger's Lodge, was built by Lord Chancellor Apsley, afterward second Earl of Bathurst, about the year 1770. Almost adjoining, and to the east of Apsley House, formerly stood a noted inn, the "Pillars of Hercules," which will always be memorable as the place where Squire Western took up his abode, when he came to London in search of Sophia, and was bursting with vengeance against Tom Jones. About the middle of the last century, the "Pillars of Hercules"