the shop of Ribeau, observed one of the bucks of the paper bonnet zealously studying a book he ought to have been binding. He approached; it was a volume of the old Britannica, open at 'Electricity.' He entered into talk with the journeyman, and was astonished to find in him a self-taught chemist, of no slender pretensions. He presented him with a set of tickets for Davy's lectures at the Royal Institution: and daily thereafter might the nondescript be seen perched, pen in hand, and his eyes starting out of his head, just over the clock opposite the chair. At last the course terminated ; but Faraday's spirit had received a new impulse, which nothing but dire necessity could have restrained; and from that he was saved by the promptitude with which, on his forwarding a modest outline of his history, with the notes he had made of these lectures, to Davy, that great and good man rushed to the assistance of kindred genius. Sir Humphry immediately appointed him an assis tant in the laboratory; and after two or three years had passed, he found Faraday qualified to act as his secretary." His career in after life we have already narrated.

Convent of the Sisters of Mercy, dedicated to St. "Ned Magrath, formerly secretary to the Edward. This foundation owes its existence to Athenæum, happening, many years ago, to enter the exertions of the late Rev. John Hearne, of the Sardinian Chapel, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and his brother, the Rev. Edward Hearne, of Warwick Street Chapel. The community was established in 1844, and for a few years carried on their works of charity in the neighbourhood of Queen Square, Bloomsbury, where the convent was first founded. Their chief duties while there, as we learn from the "Catholic Hand-book," were the visitation of the sick poor and the instruction of adults. But possessing no means of carrying out the other objects of the institute-namely, the "education of poor children," and the "protection of distressed women of good character," they became desirous of building a convent, with schools and a House of Mercy attached to it. In 1849, the ground on which the present Convent of St. Edward stands was selected as an eligible site for the building required; and the sisters having opened a subscription-list and obtained sufficient funds to begin with, the erection was commenced early in the following year, from the designs of Mr. Gilbert Blount. In 1851, the community removed from Queen Square to their present home. School-rooms have since been erected in connection with the convent; and in 1853 the "House of Mercy," dedicated to "Our Blessed Lady and St. Joseph," was erected, at the expense of Mr. Pagliano. This house is for the admission and protection of young women of good character, who are intended for service, or who may be for a time out of employment. Girls of fourteen or fifteen usually remain here for two years, till trained for service; and those who have already been in service till they are provided by the sisters with suitable situations. While in the house, they are employed in needlework, housework, washing, ironing, &c. There is an extensive laundry attached to the House of Mercy, and the profits arising therefrom are the principal support of this institution.

In Blandford Street, Dorset Square, Michael Faraday, as we have already stated in our notice of the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street, was apprenticed to a bookbinder, named Ribeau, in a small way of business. Faraday was placed here by his friends when only nine years of age, and continued in the occupation till he was twentyone. The circumstances that occasioned Faraday to exchange the work-room of the binder for the laboratory of the chemist have been thus forcibly related :

See Vol. IV., p. 297.

In Harewood Square lived, for the last thirty or forty years, the self-taught sculptor, John Graham Lough, and here he died in 1876. Sir George Hayter, many years serjeant-painter to the Queen, and "painter of miniatures and portraits" to the Princess Charlotte and to the King of the Belgians, was for many years a resident in this square, and subsequently in Blandford Square. Sir George Hayter is perhaps best known as the author of the appendix to the "Hortus Ericæus Woburnensis," on the classification of colours. He subsequently removed into the Marylebone Road, and there died, at an advanced age, in January, 1871.

Dorset Square, as we have shown in the previous chapter, covers the site of what, in former times, was a noted cricket-field; and its present name is said to have been given to it "after the great patron of cricket, the Duke of Dorset." In our account of Lord's Cricket-ground* we have entered at some length into the history of the game of cricket; but as this spot was the original "Lord's," it may not be out of place to make here a few additional remarks. Cricket made a great start about the year 1774; and Sir Horace Mann, who had promoted the game in Kent, and the Duke of Dorset and Lord Tankerville, who seem to have been the leaders of the Surrey and Hants Elevens, conjointly

* See p. 249, ante.

Marylebone, North.]

MRS. SIDDONS.

261

with other noblemen and gentlemen, formed a Rome were there, not their representations. Another committee, under the presidency of Sir William moment, and there was no object seen but that Draper. They met at the "Star and Garter," in wonderful woman, because even the clever adjuncts Pall Mall, and laid down the first rules of cricket, vanished as if of too little moment to engross which very rules form the basis of the laws of attention. If her acting were not genius, it was cricket of this day. The Marylebone Club first the nearest thing to it upon record. In 'Lady played their matches at "Lord's," when it occu- Macbeth' she made the beholders shiver; a thrill pied this site. It would be superfluous to say of horror seemed to run through the house; the anything about the Marylebone Club, as the rules audience-thousands in number, for every seat was of this club are the only rules recognised as filled, even the galleries-the audience was fearauthentic throughout the world, wherever cricket stricken. A sorcerer seemed to have hushed the is played. breathing of the spectators into the inactivity of fear, as if it were the real fact that all were on the verge of some terrible catastrophe." Some one remarked once to Mrs. Siddons that applause was necessary to actors, as it gave them confidence. "More,” replied the actress; "it gives us breath. It is that we live on."

Eastward of this square, and connecting the Park Road with Marylebone Road, is Upper Baker Street. In the last house on the eastern side of this street lived the tragic muse, Mrs. Siddons, as we are informed by a medallion lately placed on its front. The house contains a few memorials of the great actress; and among them, on the staircase, is a small side window of painted glass, designed and put up by her: it contains medallion portraits of Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser, Cowley, and Dryden. The dining and drawing-rooms, and also what was the music-room, have bow windows looking north, and commanding a view across the park to Hampstead. It is worthy of remark that, when the houses of Cornwall Terrace were about to be brought close up to the gate of the park, Mrs. Siddons appealed to the Prince Regent, who kindly gave orders that her country view should be spared. The house, which is still unchanged in its internal arrangements, is now used as the estate office of the Portman property.

We learn from "Musical and Theatrical Anecdotes," that Mrs. Siddons, in the meridian of her glory, received £1,000 for eighty nights (ie., about 12 per night). Mrs. Jordan's salary, in her meridian, amounted to thirty guineas per week. John Kemble, when actor and manager at Covent Garden, was paid £36 per week; Miss O'Neill, £25 per week; George Cook, £20; Lewis, £20, as actor and manager. Edwin, the best buffo and burletta singer that ever trod the English stage, only £14 per week.

Mrs. Siddons' father, we are told, had always forbidden her to marry an actor, but, of course— like a true woman-she chose a member of the old gentleman's company, whom she secretly wedded. Of her acting when in her prime, Cyrus Redding When Roger Kemble heard of it, he was furious. thus writes, in his "Fifty Years' Recollections":"Have I not," he exclaimed, "dared you to marry -"My very first sight of Mrs. Siddons was in a player?" The lady replied, with downcast eyes, 'Queen Catherine." Never did I behold anything that she had not disobeyed. "What! madam, more striking than the acting of that wonderful have you not allied yourself to about the worst woman; for, no heroine off the boards, she was the performer in my company?" 'Exactly so," murideal of heroic majesty in her personations. I have mured the timid bride; "nobody can call him an seen real kings and queens, for the most part actor." ordinary people, and some not very dignified, but in Siddons there was the poetry of royalty, all that hedges round the ideal of majesty--the ideal of those wonderful creations of genius, which rise far beyond the common images exhibited in the world's dim spot. It was difficult to credit that her acting was an illusion. She placed the spectator in the presence of the original; she identified herself with heroic life; she transferred every sense of the spectator into the scenic reality, and made him cast all extraneous things aside. At such times, the crowded and dense audience scarcely breathed; the painted scenery seemed to become one, and live with the character before it. Venice,

"I remember Mrs. Siddons," says Campbell, in his life of that lady, "describing to me the scene of her probation on the Edinburgh boards with no small humour. The grave attention of my Scottish countrymen, and their canny reservation of praise till they are sure it is deserved,' she said, had wellnigh worn out her patience. She had been used to speak to animated clay, but she now felt as if she had been speaking to stones. Successive flashes of her elocution, that had always been sure to electrify the south, fell in vain on those northern flints. At last, as I well remember, she told me she coiled up her powers to the most emphatic possible utterance of one passage, having previously vowed in her

heart that, if this could not touch the Scotch, she would never again cross the Tweed. When it was finished, she paused, and looked to the audience. The deep silence was broken only by a single voice exclaiming, 'That's no bad!' This ludicrous parsimony of praise convulsed the Edinburgh audience with laughter. But the laugh was followed by such thunders of applause, that, amidst her stunned and nervous agitation, she was not without fears of the galleries coming down."

Mrs. Siddons retired from the stage in the zenith of her fame, in June, 1812, after appearing for the last time in her favourite character of "Lady Macbeth." She appeared, however, again on two or three particular occasions between that time and 1817, and also gave, about the same time, a course of public readings from Shakespeare at the Argyll Rooms.

By her will, which was made in 1815, Mrs. Siddons left her "leasehold house in Upper Baker Street" to her daughter Cecilia, together with her carriages, horses, plate, pictures, books, wine, and furniture, and all the money in the house and at the banker's." She also left to her, and to her son George, the inkstand made from a portion of the mulberry-tree planted by Shakespeare, and the pair of gloves worn by the bard himself, which were given to her by Mrs. Garrick. Mrs. Siddons herself, as stated above, lies buried in Paddington Churchyard.

In this same street lived for some years Richard Brothers, who, during the years 1792-4, had much disturbed the minds of the credulous by his "prophecies." He had been a lieutenant in the navy. Among other extravagances promulgated by this man, he styled himself the "Nephew of God;" he predicted the destruction of all sovereigns, the downfall of the naval power of Great Britain, and the restoration of the Jews, who, under him as their prince and deliverer, were to be re-seated at Jerusalem; all these things were to be accomplished by the year 1798. In the meantime, however, as might be expected, Mr. Brothers was removed to a private madhouse, where he remained till 18c6, when he was discharged by the authority of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Erskine. He died at his residence in this street in 1824, and was buried at St. John's Wood Cemetery, as already stated.

A little beyond the top of Upper Baker Street, on the way to St. John's Wood, is the warehouse of Messrs. Tilbury for storing furniture, &c. The name of Tilbury is and will long be known in London on account of the fashionable carriage invented by the Messrs. Tilburys' grandfather in the days of the Regency, and called a Tilbury, which was succeeded by the Stanhope. Each had its day, and both have been largely superseded by the modern cabriolet, though every now and then the light and airy Tilbury re-asserts its existence in the London parks.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE REGENT'S PARK: THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, &c.

"What a dainty life the milkmaid leads,

When o'er these flowery meads

She dabbles in the dew,

And sings to her cow,

And feels not the pain

Of love or disdain.

She sleeps in the night, though she toils all the day,

And merrily passeth her time away."-Old Play.

Rural Character of the Site in Former Times--A Royal Hunting-ground-The Original Estate Disparked-Purchased from the Property of the Duke of Portland-Commencement of the Present Park-The Park thrown open to the Public-Proposed Palace for the Prince RegentDescription of the Grounds and Ornamental Waters-The Broad Walk-Italian Gardens and Lady Burdett-Coutts' Drinking-Fountain-The Sunday Afternoon Band-Terraces and Villas-Lord Hertford and the Giants from St. Dunstan's Church-Mr. Bishop's Observatory-Explosion on the Regent's Canal-The Baptist College- Mr. James Silk Buckingham-Ugo Foscolo-Park Square-Sir Peter Laurie a Resident here-The Diorama-The Building turned into a Baptist Chapel-The Colosseum-The Great Panorama of London-The "Glaciarium"The Cyclorama of Lisbon-St. Katharine's College-The Adult Orphan Institution-Chester Terrace and Chester Place-Mrs. Fitzherbert's Villa-The Grounds of the Toxophilite Society-The Royal Botanical Society-The Zoological Gardens. "AMONG the magnificent ornaments of our metropolis commenced under the auspices of his present Majesty, while Regent," we read in "Time's Telescope" for March, 1825, "the Regent's Park ranks high in point of utility as well as beauty, and is an invaluable addition to the comforts and the plea

sures of those who reside in the north-west quarter of London. It is no small praise to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests to say that this park is under their especial direction; and although, from the various difficulties they have necessarily encountered, they have not been enabled to carry

EARLY HISTORY OF THE LOCALITY.