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
| ALBERT GATE—1838. | 441 |
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
| ALBERT GATE—1838. | 443 |
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.
