with a warm attachment to virtue, was the frailest of human beings." The editor of the "Biographia Dramatica" says: "Sir Richard retired to a small house on Haverstock Hill, on the road to Hampstead. . . . Here Mr. Pope, and other members of the Kit-Cat Club, which during the summer was held at the Upper Flask,' on Hampstead Heath, used to call on him, and take him in their carriages to the place of rendezvous." Dr. Garth,

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smiled on Steele for a time, and we next hear of him as having taken a house in Bloomsbury Square, where Lady Steele set up that coach which landed its master in so many difficulties. No mention, apparently, is to be found of Steele's residence at Haverstock Hill in Mr. Montgomery's work on "Sir Richard Steele and his Contemporaries." In the Monthly Magazine, Sir Richard Phillips tells us that in his time Steele's house had

too, was a frequent visitor here. He was a member of the Kit-Cat Club, and notorious for his indolence. One night, when sitting at the "Upper Flask," he accidentally betrayed the fact that he had half-a-dozen patients waiting to see him, and Steele, who sat next him, asked him, in a tone of banter, why he did not get up at once and visit them. "Oh, it's no great matter," replied Garth; "for one-half of them have got such bad constitutions that all the doctors in the world can't save them, and the others such good ones that all the doctors could not possibly kill them."

Here Steele spent the summer days of 1712, in the company of many of his "Spectators," returning generally to town at night, and to the society of his wife, who, as we have stated, at that time had lodgings in Bury Street. Fortune seems to have

been "converted into two small ornamental cottages for citizens' sleeping boxes. Opposite to it," he adds, "the famous 'Mother' or 'Moll' King built three substantial houses; and in a small villa behind them resided her favourite pupil, Nancy Dawson. An apartment in the cottage was called the Philosopher's Room, probably the same in which Steele used to write. In Hogarth's 'March to Finchley' this cottage and Mother King's house are seen in the distance Coeval with the

Spectator and Tatler, this cottage must have been a delightful retreat, as at that time there were not a score of buildings between it and Oxford Street and Montagu and Bloomsbury Houses. Now con tinuous rows of streets extend from London to this spot."

Steele's cottage was a low plain building, and

Hampstead.]

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At the lower end of the avenue stood, till very recently, a house which, a century ago, enjoyed a celebrity akin to that of the Vauxhall of our own time, but which at an earlier period had a history of its own. An engraving of the house soon after this date will be found in Lysons' "Environs of London," from which it is reproduced in Charles Knight's "Pictorial History of England." It stood near the site of what is now St. Peter's Church, facing the avenue above mentioned, at right angles.

Upon the dissolution of the monasteries one Armigel Wade, or Waad, who had been clerk to the Council under Henry VIII. and Edward VI., and who is known as the British Columbus, obtained a lease of "Old Belsize "-for so this house was called-for a term of two lives. He thereupon retired to Belsize House, where he ended his days in 1568. There was a monument erected to his memory in the old parish church of Hampstead. His son, Sir William Waad, made Lieutenant of the Tower, and knighted by James I., also lived at Belsize and died in 1623. Sir William had married, as his second wife, a daughter of Sir Thomas Wotton, who, surviving as his widow, got the lease of the house and estate renewed to her for two more lives, at a yearly rental of £19 2s. 10d., exclusive of ten loads of hay and five quarters of oats payable to Westminster. She left Belsize to her son, Charles Henry de Kirkhaven, by her first husband; and he, on account of his mother's lineage, was created a peer of the realm, as Lord Wotton, by Charles II., and made this place his residence.

That old gossip, Pepys, thus speaks of it in his "Diary," under date August 17, 1668: "To Hampstead, to speak with the attorney-general, whom we met in the fields, by his old rout and house. And after a little talk about our business, went and saw the Lord Wotton's house and garden, which is wonderful fine: too good for the house the gardens are, being, indeed, the most noble that ever I saw, and such brave orange and lemon trees."

The gardens, indeed, were quite fine enough to offer temptations to thieves and robbers, for soon after this date we find that an attack was made upon the place. In the True Protestant Mercury of October 15-19, 1681, we read-"London, October 18. Last night, eleven or twelve highway robbers came on horseback to the house of Lord Wotton, at Hampstead, and attempted to enter therein, breaking down part of the wall and the gate; but there being four or five within the house, they very courageously fired several musquets and a

to one of the lord's tenants, a farmer, that dwelt not far off, who thereupon went immediately into the town and raised the inhabitants, who, going towards the house, which was about half a mile off, it is thought the robbers hearing thereof, and withal finding the business difficult, they all made their escape. It is judged they had notice of my lord's absence from his house, and likewise of a great booty which was therein, which put them upon this desperate attempt."

On Lord Wotton's death the Belsize estate fell to the hands of his half-brother, Lord Chesterfield. The latter, however, did not care to live there, but sold his interest in the place, and the house remained for some time unoccupied. In the reign of George I., however, we find Belsize in the hands of a retired "sea-coal" merchant, named Povey, to whom the then French ambassador, the Duc d'Aumont, offered the (at that time) immense rental of £1,000 a year on a repairing lease. It transpired that the duke wanted the place because it contained or had attached to it a private chapel. On this the coal-merchant refused to carry out the bargain, on the ground that he "would not have his chapel desecrated by Popery." For this piece of Protestant zeal he hoped that he would have been applauded by the magistrates; his surprise, therefore, must have been great when, instead of praise, he received from the Privy Council a reprimand, as being an "enemy to the king." It is recorded that when the Prince of Wales (afterwards George II.) came soon afterwards to see the house, Povey addressed to him a letter, informing his royal highness of these particulars, but the prince never condescended to vouchsafe him a reply. Povey, we may add, made himself notorious in his day by the publication of sundry pamphlets exposing the evil practices of Government agencies. He also took to himself great credit as a patriot for having refused to let his mansion to the French ambassador, and modestly put in a claim for some reimbursement from the nation, for having "kept the Romish host" from being offered in Hampstead, at a cost to himself of one thousand pounds. Our readers will hardly need to be told that Mr. Povey got no thanks for his pains, any more than he did shortly afterwards for his equally disinterested offer of his house and chapel for the use of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, "for a place of recess or constant residence." Not obtaining an answer to his impertinent intrusion, he seems to have turned Belsize to good account pecuniarily, and perhaps, at the same time, to have "paid out" his neighbours for their coolness to him, by allowing

ment.

For a period of about forty years-in fact, during the reigns of George I. and George II.-Belsize ceased to be occupied as a private residence, being opened by a Welshman of the name of Howell as a place of public amusement, and sank apparently down into a second-rate house of refreshments and gambling. In the park, which was said to be a mile in circumference, were exhibited foot-races, athletic sports, and sometimes deer-hunts and foxhunts: and it is said that one diversion occasionally was a race between men and women in wooden shoes. Upon the whole, it is to be feared that Belsize was not as respectably conducted as it might have been and ought to have been; the consequence was that its customers fell off, and in the end it was shut up.

The newspapers of the period announce that the house was opened as a place of public entertainment "with an uncommon solemnity of music and dancing." It is somewhat amusing to note that the advertisements wind up with an assurance that for the benefit of visitors timid about highwaymen "twelve stout fellows completely armed patrol between Belsize and London." Notwithstanding that the house had been the residence of the lord of the manor, better company (we are told) came to it in its fallen estate than before. A year or two after it was opened to the public grievous complaints were made by the people of Hampstead of the multitude of coaches which invaded their rural solitude. The numbers were often as many as two or three hundred in a single night. We glean from Park's "History of Hampstead" the following particulars concerning Belsize House as a place of amusement :-" Of Belsize House, as the mansion of a manorial district in the parish of Hampstead, I have already spoken; it is introduced again here as a place formerly of considerable notoriety for public diversions. The following extracts will give some idea of the nature and character of these amusements, and indicate that it was the prototype of Vauxhall, Ranelagh, and many other more modern establishments :-'Whereas that the ancient and noble house near Hampstead, commonly called Bellasis-house, is now taken and fitted up for the entertainment of gentlemen and ladies during the whole summer season, the same will be opened with an uncommon solemnity of music and dancing. This undertaking will exceed all of the kind that has hitherto been known near London, commencing every day at six in the morning, and continuing till eight at night, all persons being privileged to admittance without

"A hand-bill of the amusements at Belsize (formerly in the possession of Dr. Combe), which has a print of the old mansion-house prefixed, announces Belsize to be open for the season (no date), 'the park, wilderness, and garden being wonderfully improved and filled with variety of birds, which compose a most melodious and delightful harmony. Persons inclined to walk and divert themselves, may breakfast on tea and coffee as cheap as at their own chambers. Twelve stout fellows, completely armed, to patrole between Belsize and London,' &c., &c. 'Last Saturday their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales dined at Belsize-house, near Hampstead, attended by several persons of quality, where they were entertained with the diversion of hunting, and such other as the place afforded, with which they seemed well pleased, and at their departure were very liberal to the servants.'-Read's Journal, July 15, 1721.

"In the same journal, September 9, 1721, is an account of his Excellency the Welsh ambassador giving a plate of six guineas to be run for by eleven footmen. The Welsh ambassador appears to have been the nickname of one Howell, who kept the house.

"The Court of Justices, at the general quarter sessions at Hickes's-hall, have ordered the highconstable of Holborn division to issue his precepts to the petty constables and headboroughs of the parish of Hampstead, to prevent all unlawful gaming, riots, &c., at Belsize-house and the Great Room at Hampstead.'-St. James's Journal, May 24, 1722.

"On Monday last the appearance of nobility and gentry at Belsize was so great that they reckoned between three and four hundred coaches, at which time a wild deer was hunted down and killed in the park before the company, which gave near three hours' diversion.'-Ibid., June 7, 1722."

In 1722 was published, in an octavo volume, "Belsize House,' a satire, exposing, 1. The Fops and Beaux who daily frequent that academy. 2. The characters of the women who make this an exchange for assignations. 3. The buffoonery of the Welsh ambassador. 4. The humours of his customers in their several apartments, &c. By a Serious Person of Quality." The volume, however, is of little real value, except as a somewhat coarse sketch of the manners of the age.

According to this poetical sarcasm, Belsize was an academy for dissipation and lewdness, to a degree that would scarcely be tolerated in the present

times, and that would be a scandal in any; but some allowance must probably be made for the jaundiced vision of the caustic writer. We find in it the following brief description of the house :

"This house, which is a nuisance to the land,

Doth near a park and handsome garden stand, Fronting the road, betwixt a range of trees, Which is perfumed with a Hampstead breeze; And on each side the gate's a grenadier, Howe'er, they cannot speak, think, see, nor hear; But why they're posted there no mortal knows, Unless it be to fright jackdaws and crows; For rooks they cannot scare, who there resort, To make of most unthoughtful bubbles sport." The grounds and gardens of Belsize continued open as late as the year 1745, when foot-races were advertised there. In the course of the next generation, however, a great change would seem to have come over the place; at all events, in the "Ambulator," (1774), we read: "Belsize is situated on the south-west side of Hampstead Hill, Middlesex, and was a fine seat belonging to the Lord Wotton, and afterwards to the Earl of Chesterfield; but in the year 1720 it was converted into a place of polite entertainment, particularly for music, dancing, and play, when it was much frequented, on account of its neighbourhood to London, but since that time it has been suffered to run to ruin."

After the lapse of many years, during which little or nothing is recorded of its history, Belsize came again to be occupied as a private residence, and among its other tenants was the Right Hon. Spencer Perceval, afterwards Prime Minister, who lived here for about ten years before taking office as Chancellor of the Exchequer, namely, from 1798 to 1807. Mr. Perceval was the second son of the Earl of Egmont. Having first applied himself to the study of the law, he entered Parliament, in 1796, as member for Northampton, and under Mr. Addington's administration, in 1801, was appointed Solicitor-General. Next year he became AttorneyGeneral, attaining also great distinction as a Parliamentary debater. On the fall of the Duke of Portland's Administration, in 1809, Mr. Perceval was appointed First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he was still in office when he was assassinated by Bellingham, in the lobby of the House of Commons, in 1812.* A portrait of Mr. Perceval, painted by Joseph, from a mask taken after death by Nollekens, is to be seen in the National Portrait Gallery.

In more recent times Belsize House was occupied by a Roman Catholic family named Wright, who were bankers in London. The old house,

See Vol. III., p. 530.

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originally a large but plain Elizabethan mansion, with central tower and slightly projecting wings, was remodelled during the reign of Charles II., and subsequently again considerably altered. Its park, less than a century ago, was a real park, somewhat like that which encompasses Holland House, at Kensington. It was surrounded by a solid wall, which skirted the south side of a lane leading from the wood of the Knights of St. John towards Hampstead.

Belsize seems, on the whole, to have been rather an unlucky place. The mansion was pulled down about the year 1852, and the bricks of the house and of the park wall were used to make the roads which now traverse the estate, and to form the site of the handsome villa residences which now form Belsize Park; and at the present time all that is left to remind the visitor of the past glories of the spot is the noble avenue of elms which, as we have stated, once formed its principal approach.

On the 21st of February, 1845, Mr. James Delarue, a teacher of music, was murdered by a young man named Hocker, close by the corner of Belsize Park, in the narrow lane leading from Chalk Farm to Hampstead. The lane, at that time, as may be imagined, was very solitary, seeing that, with the exception of Belsize House, there were no houses near the spot. The crime was perpetrated about seven o'clock in the evening. Cries of "murder" were heard by a person who happened to be passing at the time, and on an alarm being given, the body of the murdered man was quickly discovered. Hocker, it seems, had in the meanwhile gone to the "Swiss Tavern," and there called for brandy and water; but on the arrival of the police and others, Hocker too appeared on the spot, inquired what was amiss, and, taking the dead man's hand, felt his pulse and pronounced him dead, and gave some bystanders money to help carry the corpse away. Mr. Howitt, in noticing this tragedy in his "Northern Heights," says, "The murder was afterwards clearly traced to Hocker, the cause of it being jealousy and revenge, so far as it appeared, for his being supplanted by Delarue in the affections of a young woman of Hampstead. On the trial Hocker read a paper endeavouring to throw the charge of the murder on a friend, whose name, of course, he did not disclose, and added an improbable story of the manner in which his clothes had become stained with blood. The reading of this paper only impressed the court and the crowd of spectators with an idea of Hocker's excessive hypocrisy and cold-bloodedness. He was convicted and executed." Miss Lucy Aikin alludes to