44
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. v. JAN. 20, igoe.
the other ornamental waters of the capital,
-await the consummation of a greater
supply. The most beautiful feature of the
square the portico and spire of St. Martin's
has been in difficulties, owing to the narrow-
ness of the street after the building of the
National Portrait Gallery ; but St. Martin's
has happily not suffered. Poor King Charles,
represented by his mounted effigy, calmly
forsees disturbance by the advent of the
Mall, greatly widened and beautified since
his last sad parade along it. " Her Majesty's,"
as we knew it in the days of Grisi, Mario,
^,nd Lablache, has gone, and "His Majesty's,"
a fine new theatre, stands on part of the site.
Opposite is the old house " the Haymarket,"
dear in our memories, and now clean and
virile in new paint ; and the Haymarket
proper is handsomer and better in character.
Regent Street of the Regency has held its own, and is still the fine street of the West End; but the houses once thought stately are facing dwarfed by those on the newer and grander scale. The Quadrant Colonnade which was the pride of its day, and, indeed, was unique and handsome had had but "thirty years of existence when removed at the close of the forties. It was regretted, >but its aesthetic value did not compensate the practical merchant for inconvenience suffered in its classic shade. A few of its iron Doric pillars have remained in the -openings to by- streets ; but these, too, will probably follow their departed fellows in the immense clearance now being made of >t. James's Hall and adjoining buildings, the successors to which we await with much interest. The new monster block to be reared will also have much to do with .Piccadilly, which famous thoroughfare has during the contemplated space of years seen several new erections, that perhaps of para- mount interest being the increased elevation of Burlington House, the home of art, a work, of course, not approved by all critics. 'The London University buildings at the rear of Burlington House are worthy of a more prominent site.
The grand Place opened out at Hyde Park "Corner had attention in my former note, yet as the just pride of Londoners one is tempted to return to it. In its fine curved roads of liberal width, and intervening ornamental spaces, it is not only worthy of a great city, but also an example of efficient control of the tremendous traffic of London at a meeting- place where it had threatened to become unmanageable. The Iron Duke who here presides is less colossal, but more artistic, than his former presentment, now placed at
Aldershot ; and the handsome arch of Decimus
Burton, no longer encumbered by the ponder-
ous statue, has been moved, stone by stone,
and now stands with greater meaning as the
gate of the Palace avenue, Constitution Hill.
The young trees are already an evident adorn-
ment, and will in a few years add great
beauty to "Hyde Park Corner" the old
name, which is now anomalous, but which
we hope will always be retained.
Nothing can be more interesting to the Londoner than to observe say from the roof of an omnibus the gradual trans- formation or rebuilding taking place along the route. He is pained sometimes by the removal of houses and public edifices which have become obsolete, but to which long fami- liarity had attached him. He has even seen with regret the pulling down of the massive walls of sullen old Newgate Prison. On the site has risen a stately new Criminal Court.
East of Newgate we now find a large vacant space where once we watched the blue-gowned, yellow-stockinged boys suc- cessors of the Grey Friars in their play- ground fronting the famous school now transferred to Horsham. The great addition to the Post Office which is to rise here will scarcely be of equal interest.
Along the main thoroughfares we mark the mixing of the old and the new, the contrast between the housing and trade requirements of the past and the present. The small old houses with venerable tiled roofs peep out behind grand new fronts with huge plate-glass windows, or are squeezed between modern blocks of immense magnitude. In this the progress of the age is seen, and also the deliberate and lawful action of a free people. Thus bit by bit London is slowly renewed, and is gradually winning as this very brief and imperfect survey may have tended to show a place in the first rank of beautiful cities.
W. L. RUTTON.
STEVENSON AND SCOTT : " HEBDOMADARY."
In ' The Wrecker' (chap. yii. p. 108, Cassel),
1892) Pinkerton, whose philosophy of life is
Stevensonian to the core, speaks as follows :
" Here's a sketch advertisement. Just run your eye over it. Sun, Ozone, and Music ! Pinkerton's hebdomadary picnics! That's a good catching phrase, ' hebdomadary,' though it 's hard to say. I made a note of it when 1 was looking in the dictionary how to spell hectayonal. ' Well, you're a boss word,' I said. 'Before you're very much older, I '11 have you in type as long as your- self.' And here it is, you see."
Re-reading Scott, I have come across the following :
