THE ROMANCE OF TWO HOUSES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 13

THE ROMANCE OF TWO HOUSES.

If we knew the history of all those;; human shells with which our oldest streets are lined, we should see a London ac full of ghosts as any Hades in the Haymaiket. One of the most thickly haunied of our thoroughfares would, ot course, be Piccadilly, where the shades — some gentle, some grotesque, some personably tragic — would ; throng round the historic dwelling-places j ot "old Q." of Georgiana, loveliest of duchesses, of Byron, the Palmerstons, the great Dake of "Wellington, Lady Hamil- i ton, and oY Beau Brummell, or of Harriet Mellon, Duchess of St. Albans. It is the , last two of these who will be most moved, t when they; revisit the more prosaic glim pats j of our jno&enr moon, by the latest change , just h&rkkd in the abodes they knew, j For 80. and., 81 Piccadilly, the homes of Thomae Coufcts arid' Watier, have been seemed as the premises of the Imperial J Colonial Ciub. I At an informal pre'iminaiy gathciing ] held in the ball-room of the H/de Park i Hotel, the first meeting was called of the supporters of the new venture, among whom are already counted the Earl of Kintore, Lord Llaogattock, Lord fiosmead. the Earl of Ronal-dsliay. Sir Gilbert Parker, the Marchioness of Hertford, the Counters of Dundona,ld, the Countess of Minto, Lady Algernon Gordon-Lennox, Viscoim- ( less Castlereagh, Lady Waleran, and many more. As explained to the meeting by Mrs Baker, the organising secreting- (72, "Victoria stieet, S.W.), the objects of the new club deserve a wider publicity and support than would be appropriate in the case of undertakings with less wide a basis and less patriotic aims. It is primarily meant to form a bond of goodfeeling and Cordial understanding between the capital of the Empire and the Englishspeaking people overseas. That it was wanted is chiefly evident in the wellknown''fact that Londoners, who find the doors of every club open to them throughout our colonies, are unable to return that hospitality in kind when their colonial friends visit the Old Country. Of the 5000 members contemplated (10 per cent, of whom has apparently joined or subscribed already), some 2000 will <be overseas. Further details are to be settled at a subsequent and more formal meeting ; but the fact that so suitable and historic a cite has been already secured is the most promising augury for the future. The decoration and planning are in the hands of Mrs Hwfa Williams, and an essential part of the scheme is the placing of a memorial bust of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts in her own old drawingroome, which is in future to become the drawing-room of the lady members of the club. That the rooms inhabited, at No. 80, by one .who, both at Holly Lodge and here, threw her hospitable doors wide open to colonial visitors should be turned to new purposes of the kind suggested has a definite appropriateness of its own which will certainly not be lessened in the eyes of its new inhabitants by the other memories of famous ladies which - clung round the spot even before " the Baroness" had made it sacred to the thousands of her fellow citizens who reverenced her character or benehted by her countless charities. In Mr George Street's latest— and, perhaps, mest charming — book, he numbers among Piccadilly's most fascinating phantoms " her frolic Grace,' 1 Harriot Mellon. To the great house whose bow-windows swell into Piccadilly, and whose entrance ifi in •Stratton' street, old Tom Coutts brought the lively Irish brunette from the boards of Drury Lane, where Sheridan had got her a position nearly twenty years before. Their marriage was celebrated just three menths before Waterloo ; and generous, kind-hearted Harriot most thoroughly enjoyed herself. Captain Gronow desciibes how Thomas Coutts paid £15,000 for her at the dimier-table for the diamond ci-ess worn by the Duke of York at George the Fourth's coronation on the previous day. Wh.en.her old husband died., in 182'^. he left her his fortune, and it is the greatest tribute to her character that her friend Walter Scott said she was " without either affectation or in&olence in the oisplay of her wealth." Lockhart's description, of her arrival at Abbotsford shows that there must, at any rate, have been some display. But she was 3f a freehanded disposition, and though she became a nine days' wonder by marrying the Duke of St. Albans, she scon discovered that her new friends were " too fine and fastidious to enjoy anything." After ' ten years of what fun she could get out of it all, she died in 1837 on old Tom Coutt's bed, where she had insisted on being taken from her room in Holly Lodge. It was at No. 80, Piccadilly, that Sir Francis Burdett was living in 1810, when he was taken to the Tower by the Ser-geant-at-Arms. He had barricaded his house, but the captors eventually got in to find him teaching his unfortunate child Magna Charta. The Life Guaids had a good deal of trouble with the mob, who strongly resented his arrest ; and when Henry Bickersteth (afterwards Lord Langdale) secured his release in rather more than two months' time, he had to get away by water to avoid the demonstiations of his ardent partisans. But they insisted on demonstrating, whethev he was there or not. Piccadilly was full of scaffolding and banners bearing such devices as " Trial by Jury," " The Constitution," or " Burdett for ever." Everyone who did not want their windows broken had to light up that night. In 1844 Sir Francis died, broken-hearted at the loss of his wife. As if the committee of the new Imperial Colonial Olub had been guided throughout all their decisions by a keen sense of historical appropriateness, they have allotted No. 81 to their gentlemen members ; and these would, indeed, be hard tc satisfy

1 ■\verp they not content to live whore Beau j BiiPiiitul! tlu.med it as peipetual piesii dent .ii W a tier's. The club was named j after th > Regent's iamous cook, but it I be'anit th" lesort of the most reckless I gambles in L< ivioii. and among them were .ißiuiy of Beau Brumnieil's famous friends, L'liitrles Fox and FiizPatrick, Erskine, Sheridan, William Lamb, who ~nae to be ljoul Melbourne, By ion. who. with 'ihonias j Moore aii-d William Spencer, represented j the literature ol a club that was more i interested in "Macxo, 01 whatever they ; j spell it," than in otliei forms of cultivated' i pleasiue. The .members appear to have j I rumwl one aiothei most successfully, Poor i i Bmmmell, whose character Mr George , ' Street has'so sympathetically vindicated in i hi- pleasant Bs>:>k of Ghosts, was ruined 1 j before the club itsell e.ime to an end ; and t i it is a. cunoua indication of the way in < | winch chaiacter otten sticks to a locality i . that the giuiiblina traditions of the place j were carried on liy no lees a personage than the notonous. Croclcford. who seems to have hnd a share in the "French i Hazard "' Bank, at 81 Piccadilly, beiore 1» ' I moved across the ■way into St James j stieet. | But of these memories, it may be hojvil , thai the gentlemen of the neir club Viiii j invoke the shades of Watier's famous di6hes lather than the reckless spirits of the gambling dandies ; just as in the house next door the lady members -will, no doubt, select their inspiration from the still fresh and flagrant recollections of the kindi heat ted Baroness who has preceded them. If old assoc-iatiore have any influence on new enterprises, the Imperial Colonial Club may, indeed, be congratulated, for se\eral reasons, upon the site to which they will now add the newer aspirations of a larger world than Harriot Mellon or Beau Brummell knew. The tradition of hospitality j will, at any rate, remain. The entertainments and receptions contemplated in the club's piovisional prospectus are .sufficient to lend a new lustre even to the illustrious thoroughfare of Piccadilly. The cult of strenuous Imperial endeavour is one which the new inhabitants of 80 and 81 Piccadilly must create there for themselves. — Daily Telegraph.