Mr. J. T. Smith, the antiquary, states that the walls of the demolished church were adorned with several texts from Scripture, in accordance with the instructions of Queen Elizabeth : "And many a holy text around she strews To teach the rustic moralist to die." In 1788 an Act was passed for rebuilding the parish church and enlarging the churchyard, and accordingly St. Mary's Church, on the Green, was erected. The preamble of the Act tells us that its predecessor "is a very ancient structure, and in such a decayed state that it cannot be effectually repaired, but must be taken down and rebuilt; besides which, the same is so small, that one-fourth of the present inhabitants within the said parish cannot assemble therein for divine worship. The new church was built partly by subscription and partly by assessment of the inhabitants. A print of the church, in the European Magazine for January, 1793, shows the building exactly in its present state; but on the other side of the road, opposite to the south entrance, is a large pond, in which stakes and rails stand up after the most rural fashion. The village stocks, too, are represented in this engraving. So much admired was this church at the time when it was built, and so picturesque an object it is said to have been, "particularly from the Oxford, Edgware, and Harrow Roads," that almost all the periodicals of the day noticed it. The following description of the building, given in the European Magazine, was doubtless correct at the time it was written :-"It is seated on an eminence, finely embosomed in venerable elms. Its figure is composed of a square of about fifty feet. The centres, on each side of the square, are projecting parallelograms, which give recesses for an altar, a vestry, and two staircases. The roof terminates with a cupola and vane. On each of the sides is a door: that facing the south is decorated with a portico, composed of the Tuscan and Doric orders, having niches on the sides. The west has an arched window, under which is a circular portico of four columns, agreeable to the former composition." The church, in fact, is a nondescript building, though it pretends to be erected after a Greek model. and Priscilla Wakefield, in her "Perambulations of London (1814), writes-"The strange custom is observed, on the Sunday before Christmas Day, of throwing bread from the church steeple, to be scrambled for by the populace, in consequence of a gift from two maiden ladies." Under date of Tuesday, December 21, 1736, the Grub Street Journal gives the following account of the "Bread and Cheese Charity :"-" On Sunday, after divine service, was performed the annual ceremony of throwing bread and cheese out of Paddington Church steeple among the spectators, and giving them ale. The custom was established by two women, who purchased five acres of land to the above use, in commemoration of the particular charity whereby they had been relieved when in extreme necessity." It is almost needless to add that this custom has long since been allowed to fall into disuse. The living of Paddington is said to have been formerly so small that it was a difficult task for the bishop to find anybody to discharge its duties. In fact, it would appear that during the Tudor and early Stuart reigns, the parson of Paddington did not come up even to the standard of Goldsmith's model— "Passing rich on forty pounds a year;" for as late as the year 1626 its value was just ten pounds a year. Yet even its poverty had its advantages; for when Bishop Aylmer's enemies, among other charges, accused him of ordaining his porter, the fact was admitted, but justified on the ground that the man was of honest life and conversation, and proved to be an earnest and zealous pastor, by the scantiness of the stipend which he was content to receive, and less than he had actually received in a lay capacity. In the new burial-ground rest the remains of William Collins, R.A., the painter of "As Happy as a King," who died in 1847, at the age of fifty-nine; of Banks, the Royal Academician, the sculptor, who was buried here in 1805, at the age of seventy; and of George Barret, one of the founders of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, who died in 1842. Here, too, are buried the celebrated singers, Antonio Sapio and Antonio Zarra; and at least one centenarian, John Hubbard, who is recorded on his tomb as having been born in 1554, and having died in 1665, at the ripe age of one hundred and eleven. Here, too, lies buried George Bushnell, the clever but vain and fantastic sculptor, to whom we owe the statues on Temple Bar, and who Lysons mentions the custom of loaves being executed those of Charles I., Charles II., and Sir thrown from the church tower to be scrambled for- Thomas Gresham for the first Royal Exchange. a remnant, no doubt, of the old Easter "largess;" | In after life he embarked in several mad schemes, The old and present churches are described (with illustrations) in the supplement to the Gentleman's Magazine for 1795. The writer of the description says that the monuments in the former building were transferred to a light vault under the new one. 66 which nearly ruined him; among other crazes of his, which are recorded, is an attempt to build a model of the Trojan horse in wood and stucco; the head was large enough to hold twelve men and a table, and the eyes served as windows. It cost £500, and was demolished by a storm of wind; and no entreaty could induce him to put the monster together again. He died in 1701. Mrs. Siddons and Benjamin Robert Haydon, the painter, lie quite at the northern end of the burial-ground, not far apart; their monuments are simple and plain; that of Haydon bears upon it a quotation from King Lear, in allusion to his life of fretful disappointment; that of Mrs. Siddons is a flat stone, surrounded with a plain iron railing. We shall have more to say of Mrs. Siddons when we come to Upper Baker Street. With reference to Haydon, of whose last abode in Burwood Place we have spoken in the preceding chapter, we may state that he was the son of a bookseller, and was born at Plymouth in 1786. He came to London at the age of eighteen to seek his fortune-at all events, to make his way as a painter-bringing little with him except introductions to Northcote and Opie, the Royal Academicians. His career was eccentric and fitful; at one time he basked in the sunshine of public favour, and then again lost it, and with it, what was worse, he lost heart. From time to time he exhibited historical pictures at the Egyptian Hall, and had the mortification of seeing them eclipsed by the most common-place sights which drew crowds together, whilst his pictures were neglected. The slight, added to the pressure of debt, was more than poor Haydon could stand, and on the 22nd of June he died in his own studio, by his own hand, in front of one of his historical paintings. "Thus died poor Haydon," says his biographer, "in the sixty-first year of his age, after forty-two years of struggles, strivings, conflicts, successes, imprisonments, appeals to ministers, to Parliament, to patrons, to the public, self-illusions, and bitter disappointments." His first picture was exhibited in 1807; the subject of it, "Joseph and Mary resting with our Saviour after a Day's Journey on the Road to Egypt." It was sold; and the next year he exhibited the celebrated "Dentatus," which he considered badly hung by the Royal Academicians, and forthwith proceeded to make enemies of those forty potentates of art-a most imprudent step for so young an artist to take. Lord Mulgrave bought "Dentatus ;" and in the following year it obtained the prize at the British Institution, and soon became very popular. The "Judgment of Solomon" appeared next; but during its progress Haydon's resources failed, and the directors of the 209 British Institution voted him a present of one hundred guineas. Previous to this the artist had for some time devoted ten or twelve hours a day to the study of the Elgin marbles, which had just arrived in England; and he wrote and talked about them so enthusiastically and eloquently that he mainly contributed to their being purchased for the nation. He went, accompanied by Wilkie, to Paris in 1814, to study at the Louvre, and on his return commenced his largest work, "Christ entering into Jerusalem." This picture was exhibited in 1820, both in London and the provinces, to visitors at a shilling each, and he gained a considerable sum by it. It was considered a triumph of modern art. But, with all his acknowledged powers, Haydon mistook or disdained to follow the more certain path to fame and fortune. While his more successful brethren were engaged on cabinet pictures, his works were on too large a scale to be hung in private rooms; hence, the orders he obtained were comparatively few, and he became embarrassed. In 1827, Haydon gave the following melancholy account of the fate of his great pictures :—“My Judgment of Solomon' is rolled up in a warehouse in the Borough! My 'Entry into Jerusalem,' once graced by the enthusiasm of the rank and beauty of the three kingdoms, is doubled up in a back room in Holborn! My Lazarus' is in an upholsterer's shop in Mount Street! and my Crucifixion' is in a hay-loft in Lisson Grove!" In 1832, Haydon painted at Paddington his great picture of the "Reform Banquet ;" and here most of the leading Whigs-Macaulay, among others— gave him sittings. Few diaries are more sad than that which Haydon kept, and which accumulated to twentysix large MS. volumes. At one time he mourned over the absence of wealthy patrons for his pictures; at another, of some real or fancied slight he had received from other painters; while in his entries repeated reference was made to debts, creditors, insolvencies, applications to friends for loans-in fact, despondency marked every line. And now the time arrived when his cup of bitterness overflowed. One great and honourable ambition he had cherished-to illustrate the walls of the new Houses of Parliament with historical pictures; but this professional eminence was denied to him, and the rejection of his cartoon by the Royal Commission was the death-blow to his hopes. He would have borne up had he but realised the hope of painting one of the frescoes, or been cheered under his disappointment by popular support! Such was the mental condition of the unhappy my bills and caravan, but do not read them; their eyes are on them, but their sense is gone. It is an insanity, a furor, a dream, of which I would not have believed England could have been guilty." painter in the early part of the year 1846, when the so-called "General Tom Thumb" came to England. Haydon had then just finished a large picture, on which he had long been engaged, "The Banishment of Aristides." He hoped by it to redeem his fallen fortunes, and to relieve himself of some of his debts, by exhibiting the picture in London. He engaged a room in the Egyptian Hall, under the same roof where "Tom Thumb" of the churchyard, since thickly encumbered with Mr. Cyrus Redding thus speaks, in his "Fifty Years' Reminiscences," of Paddington Green and its churchyard in the year 1806 :-" At such times I crossed Paddington Green, and the new part was attracting crowds, and sent out invitations to memorials of the dead. There were then only three or four tombstones to be seen in that part. One nearest the iron palisades was placed by Lord Petre in memory of an excellent man and scholar, Dr. Geddes. He was the author of a new translation of some part of the Holy Scriptures. The Catholics and High Church Protestants did not approve of his conduct, because, in place of vindicating the authority of their churches in matters of religion, he supported the right of private judgment. His stone I saw in perfect preservation but a few years ago, in the same place as at first. It must have been designedly removed. Perhaps the epitaph displeased some strait-laced official. I will repeat it from memory, though I am not certain I am correct to a word. 'Christian is my name, Catholic my surname. If I cannot greet thee as a disciple of Jesus, still I should love thee as my fellow-man.'" The Church of St. Mary ceased to be the parish church of Paddington in 1845, when it was superseded by the new Church of St. James, at the west end of Oxford and Cambridge Terraces, and the south end of Westbourne Terrace. "By these means," says the Report of 1840, "accommodation will be provided for 4,000 persons, or including Bayswater Chapel, which may hereafter be made a parochial chapel, for more than 5,000 persons, in a parish supposed to contain 20,000 souls." The edifice, we are informed, was originally designed for a secular building, but was altered to suit the "taste of the times." In 1844-46 was built a new church, in the elaborate Gothic style, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, in Gloucester Gardens, Bishop's Road. It is a large church, capable of accommodating nearly 1,600 worshippers, and is built in the "Perpendicular" style of architecture, from the designs of Mr. Cundy. It has a very richly crocketed spire and pinnacled tower, upwards of 200 feet high, and a beautiful stained glass window in the chancel. The crypt is said to be on a level with the roofs of the houses in Belgrave Square. This fabric is the "pet church of Paddington," and its "fair proportions and elegance of form" were said in those days to be "pleasing to the eye of all who admire the architectural art." The building cost nearly £20,000. In 1847, All Saints' Church was erected in Cambridge Place, at the end of Star Street. It occupies a portion of the site of the old Grand Junction Waterworks' reservoir. There is an ancient house still standing at the right-hand corner of Old Church Street, going from Paddington Green. The uppermost storey of the building slightly overhangs the lower one, and the ground surrounding the house has been so raised that a descent of a step has to be made on going into it. In this house, which was for some time a disagreeable-looking butcher's shop, and now serves as the office of the district surveyor, lived formerly the religious fanatic, Richard Brothers, who is said to have represented himself to be the "Nephew of God, and His prophet and preacher." His grave is in St. John's Wood Churchyard, appropriately opposite that of Joanna Southcott. Paddington has long been noted for its old public-houses. In the etching above referred to is represented, apparently about a hundred yards to the south-west of the church, a large and lofty building, presumably an inn, as a large sign-board projects into the street in front. This there can be little difficulty in identifying with the "Dudley At Arms," in Dudley Grove, Harrow Road, or, at all events, with its predecessor on the same spot. the corner of Old Church Street and the Edgware Road is the "Wheatsheaf" Tavern. There is an engraving extant of this old tavern, which represents it as a lowly, thatched, roadside hostelry; and, notwithstanding the visits of Ben Jonson, tradition says the house bore no very good repute, as both that and the old "Pack-horse," in the Harrow Road, were the favourite resorts of the masked and mounted gentlemen who made the Uxbridge and Edgware Roads perilous to travellers down to the close of the last century. The "White Lion," another old tavern in the Edgware Road, dates from 1524, "the year when hops were first imported." George Morland is said to have been the painter of the sign of the "White Lion," which used to hang in front of this tavern, where he used to carouse, along with his friends Ibbetson and Rathbone. At the "Red Lion," near the Harrow Road, tradition says that Shakespeare acted as a strolling player; another "Red Lion," formerly near the Harrow Road bridge over the bourn, is described in an "inquisition" dated as far back as the reign of Edward VI. As recently as 1840, the year of the opening of the Great Western Railway, a wide and open space of land in this vicinity was occupied by market and nursery gardens, and the red-tiled weather-boarded cottages of labourers and laundresses. Eight or ten years later, the appearance of the district was entirely changed: terraces and squares of fine houses had risen up in every direction west of the bourn; but the approaches to it from the Edgware Road, whether by Praed Street or the Harrow Road, were very deplorable. They are not much better even now; but as the grimy-looking houses at the entrance to the Harrow Road are in the course of removal, some improvement will eventually be brought about. We are informed, by a resident of some years' standing, that “anything more disgraceful than the appearance of the portion that remained of old Paddington Green it is impossible to imagine; all the refuse of the neighbourhood was heaped upon it, and the hollows filled with stagnant water, which made the place horrible to every sense. It was the play-ground of idle boys, and children uncared-for and squalid, who spent the day in fighting, swearing, shouting, crying, and throwing stones, so as to make the passing-by as dangerous as it was disagreeable. On all Sundays, and, in summer time, on week-day evenings, two or three self-constituted preachers, whose doctrines were as extraordinary as their English, were wont to establish themselves there, and rant and voci |