Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/426

418 NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vii. MAY 24, no. AUTHORS WANTED (US. vii. 330).—The author of ' The Fawcetts and Garods,' a novel published in 1886 under the pseudonym of " Saimath," is Augusta A. Varty-Smith of Penrith. I have no record of any other works by this author. A bibliography of the dialect literature of Cumberland was com- piled by the present writer, and published by Wilson of Kendal in 1907 as Tract Series No. IX. of the Cumberland and Westmorland Society. ARCHIBALD SPARKE, F.R.S.L. Bolton. an liiooho Saint John's Wood. By Alan Montgomery Eyre. (Chapman & Hall.) MR. EYRE has done well to give us the history of St. John's Wood, a suburb intimately associated with his name. In 1732 Lord Chesterfield sold the estate of St. John's Wood to Henry Samuel Eyre, and from that date the estate has remained in the possession of members of the Kyre family. In 1808 Cyrus Redding wrote to his friend Tearle : " Beau- tiful fields— green lanes, clear air— the very place for lovers of quiet and the lovers of nature. Why don't you build a villa in the heart of St. John's Wood?" In 1812 " Old Marylebone Park and Fields, that extensive tract of pasture land, was awakened one morning by the lark to find itself famous. The Prince Regent had begun the Regent's Park." The idea was wondrous in its inception. Regent Street was to connect Carlton House with the new park, and in its centre was to be erected a huge and costly palace for the future monarch. The Regent became King ; but he abandoned " his grandiose scheme of a northern palace." though the park was not thrown open to the public until 1838, when Victoria had been a vear on the throne. But St. John's Wood had not so waited. Mrs. Siddons, on its southern edge, had sung its praises, and thousands of builders were at work between Waterloo year and the end of the reign of George IV. Its houses soon became occupied by authors, artists, Bohemians, and dfmi-mondainex. Among the artists was Edwin Landseer, who, when six years old, would ramble through St. John's Wood, making sketches which are now to be seen at South Kensington. Later he took 18, St. John's Wood Road and lived there for fifty years. The first picture he painted there was ' The Monkey who had seen the World,' which appeared in 1827, at the same time as ' The Deer-Stalker's Return ' ; and all his other famous pictures were painted there. After his death on the 1st of October, 1873, the house was occupied by Mr. H. W. B. Davis, R.A. At the end of North Bank, Haydon dwelt for several years, and when he departed, C. R. Leslie succeeded him. Leslie's paintings were so much in demand that in 1851 he had commissions to last him for ten years. He died at his house on the 5th of May, 1859. Close by, in earlier years, in Pine- Apple Place, Romney lived in 1793-4. Later, again, the names of the artists in St. John's Wood are legion. Long, the painter of 'The Babylonian Marriage Market,' lived for years in Marlborougb Hill; John Pettie lived in St. John's Wood Road ; Burgess in Finchley Road ; and Sidney Cooper in Wellington Road, where he died in his hundredth year. His next-door neighbour was Harvey " the woodcut illustrator, and the right-hand man of Charles Knight." Tissot, the French artist, who was " esteemed far and wide as a painter par ex- cellence of the charms of the ladies," and drew caricatures for Vanity Fair, suddenly " became one of the leading religious painters of the century, and spent years in Palestine illustrating incidents in the life of Christ." His success was so great that " for his first series of Holy Laud pictures the French firm of Lemercier paid him more than a million francs." Tadema must also be added to the roll of St. John's Wood great painters. For over forty years he lived there, first at Townshend House, and afterwards in Grove End Road, and "these dwellings were in themselves marvellous works of art." The two little children of his first wife had a love for St. John's Wood and its then quaint shops. One kept by an old couple was fre- quently visited; some of their stock was old and rare, and one day the children found yards and yards of beautiful Corn Law ribbons woven with the wheat-car pattern. Frederick Goodall lived at 62, Avenue Road, formerly occupied by Gambart. It had a large room which served Gambart as a picture gallery and concert-room. Here Titiens ana many other cele- brated vocalists would sing. There were also dinner - parties to French artists and famous musicians. "On the night of the first representa- tion of 'Faust' Gounod was brought back to Gambart's in almost an unconscious state from the effects of disappointment." The opera, now so popular, was regarded as only a partial success. Next door to Gaml>art's, at No. 64, Herbert Spencer lived. In (ireville Place lived, and painted, the talented and lovable E. J. Gregory, R.A., and opposite was the house of Frank Dicksee, R.A. "In the cul-de-sac of Clifton Hill, No. 114, there might have been seen, until a few years ago, a pleasant- faced, alert old gentleman who, in spite of his years (and he lived to be ninety), was always busy In the mornings with his paints and brushes, and in the afternoon was ready for a stroll and a chat. His name was William Powell Frith, painter of ' The Derby Day' and ' The Railway Station,' in which latter picture he has introduced himself and his family." Coming to resident authors, we find them to be as numerous as the artists. Foscolo, the Italian poet, lived at South Bank, and, in commemoration of an article of his in The Quarterly, he gave to his house the name of Digamma Cottage. For a time Samuel Carter Hall acted as his literary secretary. Hall described Foscolo's head as " one of the finest intellectually, with a forehead as broad and massive as Michael Angelo's." At 17, Elm Tree Road, Tom Hood had lodgings —" Hood of the Wood." as he styled himself. It was here he wrote'The Song of the Shirt'and ' The Bridge of Sighs,' and here he was visited by Jerrold, who was a neighbour, Dickens, Maclise, and others. Better times arrived, and the Hoods after eight years became possessed of a house of their own in Finchley Road. This Hood called Devonshire Lodge, in remembrance of the kind- ness he had received from the Duke of Devonshire.