ANECDOTE OF JOHN FLAXMAN.

115

church lies buried the great sculptor, John Flaxman, whose remains were carried to the grave on the 15th of December, 1826, attended by the President and Council of the Royal Academy. Allan Cunningham relates an interesting circumstance connected with the death of this celebrated artist. "The winter," he says, "had set in, and, as he was never a very early mover, a stranger found him rising one morning, when he called about nine o'clock. 'Sir,' said the visitant, presenting a book as he spoke, this work was sent to me by the author, an Italian artist, to present to you, and at the same time to apologize for its extraordinary dedication. In truth, sir, it was so generally believed throughout Italy that you were dead, that my friend determined to shew the world how much he esteemed your genius, and having this book ready for publication, he has inscribed it "Al Ombra di Flaxman." No sooner was the book published than the story of your death was contradicted, and the author, affected by his mistake, which, nevertheless he rejoices at, begs you will receive his work and his apology.' Flaxman smiled, and accepted the volume with unaffected modesty, and mentioned the circumstance as curious to his own family, and some of his friends." This circumstance took place on the 2nd of December, when the great artist was apparently in excellent health and spirits. The next day he was suddenly taken ill with a cold, and, five days after the visit of the stranger, he was "Lives of the British Sculptors."

*

no more. His epitaph tells us, that, "his mortal life having been a constant preparation for a blessed immortality, his angelic spirit returned to the Divine Giver on the 7th of December, 1826, in the seventy-second year of his age."

CHARING CROSS.

117

CHARING CROSS AND WHITEHALL.

STATUE OF CHARLES THE FIRST.EXECUTION OF GENERAL HARRISON AND HUGH PETERS. ANECDOTES OF LORD ROCHESTER AND RICHARD SAVAGE.-OLD ROYAL MEWS.-COCKSPUR AND WARWICK STREETS. SCOTLAND YARD. ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE LORD HERBERT.-SIR JOHN DENHAM.-WALLINGFORD HOUSE. DUKES OF BUCKINGHAM.-ADMIRALTY.

AT Charing Cross, observed Dr. Johnson, flows the full tide of human existence. At this distance of time, the imagination does not easily reconcile itself to contemplate the period, when the site of the present populous and animated spot was occupied by a shady and retired grove, in the midst of which stood a hermitage and a fair chapel dedicated to St. Catherine. And yet, in 1261, we find William de Radnor, Bishop of Llandaff, requesting permission of his sovereign, Henry the Third, to take up his abode in the cloister of his hermitage at Charing during his occasional visits to London.* Whether, at this period, the ground on which Charing Cross now stands belonged to the King, or to the See of Llandaff, there is some doubt.

Here, as late as the days of Charles the First, stood one of those beautiful architectural memorials raised by Edward the First, in 1296, to the memory

* Willis's " History of the See of Llandaff," p. 51.

of his beloved consort, Eleanor of Castile. This, as well as the others, were built after designs by Cavalini, and were erected, as is well known, on each spot where her remains rested in their passage from Horneby, in Lincolnshire, where she died, to their last home in Westminster Abbey. Anciently the small village of Charing stood in the open country between the cities of London and Westminster, and it has been conjectured, with much ingenuity, that it derived its name from the cross dedicated to la chére reine. Unfortunately, however, we find from the petition of William de Radnor, as above quoted, that the name of Charing existed thirty-five years before the death of the devoted princess to whose memory the cross was erected. During the civil troubles in the reign of Charles the First, this interesting memorial of a past age was unfortunately regarded by the fanatics as a relic of Popish superstition, and in a moment of religious frenzy, was razed to the ground by an illiterate rabble.

Nearly on the site where the cross anciently stood, is the equestrian statue of King Charles the First, which was cast in 1633, by Le Sour, for the Earl of Arundel. A curious anecdote is related connected with this beautiful work of art. Previous to the period fixed upon for its erection, it was seized by the Parliament, who ordered it to be sold and broken into pieces. According to M. d'Archenoltz, it was purchased by one John River, a brazier, who carefully concealed the statue in hopes of better times, and who subsequently realized a considerable sum of money

STATUE OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

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by selling a variety of small household articles in bronze, which he professed to have manufactured out of the mutilated man and horse. By the royalists they are said to have been eagerly bought out of affection to their martyred sovereign, and by the rebels as a memorial of their triumph. After the Restoration, River is said to have exhumed the statue, and to have returned it uninjured to the Government; and, in 1678, it was erected at Charing Cross, on its present pedestal, the work of Grinlin Gibbons. It appears by the parish books, that, during the Interregnum, the statue was preserved in the vaults of St. Paul's church, Covent Garden.

Charing Cross is replete with historical and literary associations. It was here that the fight took place, in the days of Queen Mary, between Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Pembroke,—a conflict on which the Marquis of Northampton, Sir Nicholas Penn, and other courtiers, are described as quietly gazing from the leads of St. James's Palace; while so loud were the screams of women and children that they were heard at the top of the White Tower, and "the great shot was well discerned there out of St. James's Fields."

It was in "Hartshorn Lane, near Charing Cross,”situated on the south side of the Strand, to the east of Northumberland House,-that the father and mother of Ben Jonson lived, when, as we have already mentioned, the future dramatist was sent to take his daily lessons in St. Martin's church; and it

* Stow.