On the 17th of January, 1838, we, viz., my beloved husband and myself, accompanied by our dear niece, Josephine Clarke, and our trusty servants from Ireland, John and Mary Forman, took possession of our dear, very dear house, No. 11, William Street. Belgrave Square is the only place of any note, i.e., of gentility near us. I take great interest in this new and pretty quartier; but I must have a new Gate where the Fox and Bull pot-house now stands; there is a rural air over the whole that is pretty; but a gate we must have into the park at the top of William Street, for pretty it will be when it is finished, though I shall regret having houses opposite to me in place of the green swards. We have a branch-Gunter, the confectioner, near us, and I have paid my score to that illustrious house, by giving him a receipt for a plombière, which I had from Carême in 1829.
March 5.—Colburn followed up his efforts at recon-
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March 11, William Street.—I see it is quite absurd to attempt keeping a diary here within the sound of workmen and mills; I give it up. I have been so busy, with my good Woman and her Master, lying in abeyance—heaps of letters to write—having to receive all day and go out every evening. When I had nothing to write about, then I had time to journalise. Now, when every day would supply a volume, I have not a moment to write a line!
Lady Morgan always got up the history and traditions of whatever place she visited. She wrote some charming papers upon the history of Pimlico, which were published in the Athenæum. They excited interest in the neighbourhood, as appears from the following note, selected from many others.
Lady Carlisle presents her compliments to Lady Morgan, and must tell her how much pleased and gratified she was by the interesting paper she was so obliging as to send her. She thinks the inhabitants of Pimlico ought to give her a vote of thanks for making their situation classic ground by the associations of her mind and genius.
| 440 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
May 14.—My first shaking of the Albert Gate! What a charming quartier! what capabilities! I have been talking it over with Cubitt, the Pontifex maximus of this new estate. What I want is a Gate, where the old sewer tap now moulders and flanks a ditch of filth and infection; a sort of little rustic bridge should be over it, which would not be without its picturesque effect. Cubitt wants it too, but despairs of getting it. That terrible brewery points its cannon against all improvement! even whilst we spoke, a volume of smoke rolled out from its chimney, making its curling way direct for the Duke’s windows. “That smoke will serve us yet,” I said; “it will ruin the Apsley House picture gallery, if the Cannon Brewery be not removed, the Duke must know of it.” “I will buy out the Cannon Brewery,” said Cubitt. He is a great little man!
May 29.—Last night we were at Lady Stepney’s great rout. I was
presented to the Duke of Cambridge all over
again, who shook hands and said he remembered me. I had much to do to persuade
Miss José to sing for his Royal Highness, and
though she sang pretty bad, yet he praised her beyond beyond, and said her
voice and school were equally fine. I have had a great many people come to call
on me. The Queen’s coronation is
put off till August next; not to cut short the season, she does not go to
Ireland. I have just returned from the Queen of Modistes, Madame Devey, getting a
hat for Lady Clanricarde’s concert.
Never were hats worn so small, but pretty
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Yesterday we were at Lord Ducie’s, where the Chanoiness Talbot had just arrived per diligence from the top of the Pyramid, and was the fun of the party. Every one was in their Devonshire House full dress, and she in a black frieze gown, leather brogues, and a green pocket-handkerchief on her head, and no gloves on her naked stout arms. She will not be here long. Rogers was here all yesterday; he has sent José all his works as a present.
London looks like the last scene in a pantomime, all transformed for the Coronation. Every house, from Hyde Park Corner to the Abbey, cased up with wooden platforms, canopied balconies. The Duke of Devonshire’s house, and the great houses in Piccadilly, which have courts before them, have superb boxes erected as in a theatre, all draped and gilt. The whole front of the Ordnance, where we are to have a grand déjeuner, is fitted up as an amphitheatre, decorated with the Queen’s arms and crown. The streets all barricaded, and on the day, no carriage is to pass after eight in the morning.
August 26.—Here is a letter which I have just sent to Lord Duncannon. Another touch at my gate.
| 442 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
Lady Morgan presents her compliments to Lord Duncannon, presuming upon the kindness with which his Lordship received the petition for the opening of an ancient gate in Hyde Park, Knightsbridge. She takes the liberty of enclosing a plan of the district to which this ingress to Hyde Park would be of such an incalculable advantage, together with an explanatory letter from Mr. Cubitt, the founder of this new capital of the west, who is willing to incur the expense of the alteration. Should the lords of the woods and forests not dismiss that petition (as frivolous and vexatious), the spirit of which is to preserve the health and beauty of thousands of fair pedestrians, now denied the advantages of their neighbourhood by the noxious atmosphere they must pass through to attain it, Lord Duncannon will receive the gratitude of many a fair generation yet unborn, and merit a statue, which, compared with the bronze gentleman in the park, and the wooden one, who tête-à-têtes him on the other side of the way, will be as an “hyperion” to two “satyrs.”
Lord Duncannon presents his
compliments to Lady Morgan, and
regrets that he cannot recommend to her
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Well! we have got our answer; but we are not beaten. Cubitt has actually bid for the Cannon Brewery, and will buy out all the old houses, including the dear old ‘White Hart.’ We are going to get up a memorial to the Queen, signed by all the respectable inhabitants of Cubittopolis, with the Duke at the head of it. We have got the Duchess of Kent to give her name also.
A letter from General Sir John Burgoyne, whose alarms on the subject of the defences of England have made his name familiar to all. It relates to an article in the Athenæum upon one of his reports on railways.
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I am much obliged to you for sending me the Athenæum, but I had been on the look out on each of the last three Saturdays, and at last found the article and read it with much interest. I am particularly pleased with the dissertation on commissions, which is most just, and is a subject on which the world (that is the British imperial world) rejoice to be enlightened; for a pack of interested jobbers have been calling mad dog till they have almost persuaded John Bull out of his senses, that is, out of his commissions. It is something on a par with the London thieves, who made a bold effort to cry down the police, when they were first instituted. Because a commission cannot perform a miracle, such as making Ireland in a moment rich and happy (and a greater miracle than that was never yet achieved), they abuse it; but there are none, I believe, that have been appointed, but have produced at least a great amount of most useful information, that in one way or another has been of the greatest service.
Your remarks on the report in general are very good. I have been arrested by various persons, with—“Have you seen a very moderate and sensible article on your Railway Report in the Athenæum, &c.”
Lord Cloncurry tells me that the Duke of Leinster
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Dear Sir Charles, I am just going to Paris, to bring home my wife.
December 23.—We went last night to a literary soirée given by Messrs. Henry Chorley and Henry
Reeve, authors and sub-editors. Count Alfred de Vigny was presented to me, and I said all sorts
of things en gracieux on his
“Cinq Mars;” he
talks well, and is high bred. I joked a little about the present state of
literature in France, and its melodramatic character, du plus
beau noir. He said “Oui, mais croyez moi milady le
fonds du caractère Français est la tristesse.” I
gave a little soirée for him, very pleasant. He
said, in answer to my observation on the bright,
| 446 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
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