Round about Piccadilly and Pall Mall Or, a Ramble from Haymarket to Hyde Park; Consisting of a Retrospect of the Various Changes That Have Occurred in the Court End of London (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1870 Excerpt: ...came and settled round it. Although the exterior of the house is pretentious and without elegance, the interior is fine, and the Earl was justly proud of it. He watched its progress with the greatest interest, and wrote lovingly about it to his friends. In July, 1748, he wrote to the Marquise de Monconseil, and told her that he had then no house, as he had left his old one, and his new one was not ready. In six weeks he hoped to be in the new mansion, and he told the lady that all the rooms were to be furnished a la Frangaise. In September he wrote to the same lady and expatiated on the charms of his boudoir, which, he told her, was so called "a non boudare" on the same principle as lucus a non lucendo, for it was impossible to be bored in such a room. He was proud of the large courtyard in front and the large garden behind, two things rare in London though then common in Paris. In March, 1749, he writes to his friend Solomon Dayrolles: "I have yet finished nothing but my boudoir and my library; the former is the gayest and most cheerful room in England, the latter the best." This library is a handsome room looking out upon the garden. The bookcases, which do not exceed half the height of the walls of the room, are painted white, and above them were a series of portraits of celebrated authors let into white ornamental frames in the walls. Over the fireplace was Shakspeare, by Zucchero; the others were Chaucer, Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Milton, Sir John Denham, Butler, Waller, Cowley, Earl of Dorset, Rochester, Dryden, Wycherley, Congreve, Otway, Prior, Addison, Pope, Rowe, and Swift. The suite of rooms was elegantly furnished with silk hangings and ornamented in the French taste, but each had its distinctive feature, and it...