BRIGHTER LONDON

called it), but regale yourself with the supplementary and gratuitous recreation of "balance-masters, walking on the wire, rope-dancing, tumbling, and pantomime entertainments." At Bagnigge Wells, in what is now the King's Cross Road, you might, after being received at the Assembly Room by a dignified Master of the Ceremonies with a Cocked Hat, enjoy, to the sound of an organ, the refreshment (with gilt spoons) of tea, which would be handed to you by a page with a kettle, like Pompey in the second plate of Hogarth's "Harlot's Progress"; at Cuper's (vulgo "Cupid's ") Gardens, on the Surrey side of the water over-against Somerset House, you might witness the noted fireworks, listen to Mr. Jones, his harp-playing, and assist at various other amusements, some of which, it is to be feared, were more suited to Thomas Idle than to Francis Goodchild. Then-as time-honoured as any, since they dated from Pepys and the Restoration, and survived until Chatterton could write their burlettas-there were, at the bottom of Harley Street, the renowned Gardens of Marybone, which, in addition to the pyrotechnic displays of Caillot and Torré, and the privilege of having your pockets emptied by the illustrious George Barrington or some equally quick-handed artist, offered the exceptional attractions of "fine Epping butter," "Almond Cheesecakes," and "Tarts of a Twelve-penny size," made by no less a personage than the sister of Dr. Trusler, author of that popular didactic work, the "Blossoms of Morality." All of these, however, were but the shadows of the two greater rallying-places, Vauxhall and Ranelagh, both of which were on the Thames.

(Eighteenth Century Vignettes. Second Series.)

ΙΙΟ

WILLIAM WHITEHEAD

44

WILLIAM WHITEHEAD-POET LAUREATE IN a contemptuous list of the chief writers in the World, drawn up as a corrective to Horace Walpole's praise of some of its contributors, Macaulay speaks of Whitehead (whom he calls Whithed) as "the most accomplished tuft-hunter of his time." He also reproaches him with being forgotten. This is surely too severe. To be a tuft-hunter-although no social recommendation-need not disqualify a man for poetry. As for being forgotten, that has happened to many estimable persons, and will doubtless happen to many more. Whitehead was, of course, in no sense strenuous "-possibly he was constitutionally of languid vitality. He liked ease and quiet. He liked refined and well-bred people; he liked the leisurely amenity and the large air of great houses in the country. In middle-age he was fortunate enough to find an asylum with noble friends to whom he could be agreeable without subserviency, and by whom he was esteemed without being patronized. He was probably a delightful companion to his superannuated lord and lady " [Earl and Countess of Jersey], and to all their circle. Being a bachelor, he injured no one by his lack of ambition. In regard to his verses, what is most observable is the extent of his qualifications, and the moderate standard of his achievement. He was a good classical scholar; he had travelled intelligently; he was apparently well-read in Continental literature. He could write heroics like Pope's, blank-verse like Thomson's, anapaests like Prior's, elegies like Gray's. He had considerable humour, and a convenient gift of

44

III

A BALLAD TO QUEEN ELIZABETH

epigram. Dull he certainly was not-whatever Churchill might say. But he seems always to have been afraid to depart from tradition—to let himself go. He imitates where he should originate. He is "always good and never better." His facility is great, his taste cultivated, and his tone-for his time-exceptionally discreet. Why, with this equipment, he did not do greater things, may safely be left to the Timothy Tittles and Dick Minims of criticism who are always lamenting that a sunflower is not a rose-or the converse. Meanwhile, it is satisfactory to think sympathetically of that placid, sauntering, summer-day life in the gardens of Middleton Park, or Nuneham, where "Farmer George's" Laureate sometimes meditated a birthday ode, and sometimes turned an inscription for an urn or a sundial.

(Old Kensington Palace and Other Papers.)

A BALLAD TO QUEEN ELIZABETH

of the Spanish Armada

KING PHILIP had vaunted his claims;

He had sworn for a year he would sack us,

With an army of heathenish names

He was coming to fagot and stack us;

Like the thieves of the sea he would track us,

And shatter our ships on the main ;

But we had bold Neptune to back us,And where are the galleons of Spain ?

STRAWBERRY HILL

His carackes were christened of dames
To the kirtles whereof he would tack us;
With his saints and his gilded stern-frames,
He had thought like an egg-shell to crack us;
Now Howard may get to his Flaccus,
And Drake to his Devon again,

And Hawkins bowl rubbers to Bacchus,-
For where are the galleons of Spain ?

Let his Majesty hang to St. James
The axe that he whetted to hack us;
He must play at some lustier games

Or at sea he can hope to out-whack us;
To his mines of Peru he would pack us
To tug at his bullet and chain;

Alas! that his Greatness should lack us!— But where are the galleons of Spain?

ENVOY.

GLORIANA ! the Don may attack us Whenever his stomach be fain;

He must reach us before he can rack us, And where are the galleons of Spain?

STRAWBERRY HILL

ON the 5th of June, 1747, Walpole announces to Mann that he has taken a little new farm, just out of Twickenham. . . . It stood on the left bank of the Thames, at the corner of the Upper Road to

STRAWBERRY HILL

44

Teddington, not very far from Twickenham itself. It had been built about 1698 as a country box" by a retired coachman of the Earl of Bradford, and, from the fact that he was supposed to have acquired his means by starving his master's horses, was known popularly as Chopped-Straw Hall. Its earliest possessor not long afterwards let it out as a lodginghouse, and finally, after several improvements, sublet it altogether. One of its first tenants was Colley Cibber, who found it convenient when he was in attendance for acting at Hampton Court; and he is said to have written in it the comedy called The Refusal; or, The Ladies' Philosophy, produced at Drury Lane in 1721. Then, for eight years, it was rented by the Bishop of Durham, Dr. Talbot, who was reported to have kept in it a better table than the extent of its kitchen seemed, in Walpole's judgment, to justify. After the Bishop came a Marquis, Henry Bridges, son of the Duke of Chandos ; after the Marquis, Mrs. Chenevix, the toy-woman who, upon her husband's death, let it for two years to the nobleman who predecessed Walpole, Lord John Philip Sackville. Before this Mrs. Chenevix had taken lodgers, one of whom was the celebrated theologian, Père Le Courrayer. At the expiration of Lord John Sackville's tenancy, Walpole took the remainder of Mrs. Chenevix's lease; and in 1748 had grown to like the situation so much that he obtained a special act to purchase the fee simple from the existing possessors, three minors of the name of Mortimer. The price he paid was £1356 IOS. Nothing was then wanting but the name, and in looking over some old deeds this was supplied. He