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convinced of their own cruelty and amend their conduct." The mi

quents, and the very same day all the houses of those hard-hearted

nisters were obliged to announce people were demolished. this rigid injunction to the delin

PLATE 31.-GROSVENOR-SQUARE.

THIS square received its name | Duke of Norfolk for seven thousand

pounds. The statue in the center of this place was executed by Van Nost; it is an equestrian figure of George I. and was placed there by Sir R. Grosvenor. This statue, in the year 1726, stood near the redoubt called Oliver's Mount; some disaffected person there mutilated it, and affixed a traitorous paper to the pedestal.

Were we to attempt to form a list of the noble and illustrious persons who have inhabited this place, we should make our catalogue very extensive. Mr. Malcolm, in treating on this subject, says, most of his readers must know that it is "the very focus of feudal grandeur, elegance, fashion, taste, and hospi

from Sir Richard Grosvenor, Bart. who was, in right of the manor of Wimondham, Herts, grand cupbearer at the coronation of George the Second. This gentleman had a great passion for building, and covered a considerable plot of ground in the neighbourhood, between New Bond-street and Hyde Park, which now produces an immense income to his descendant, the Earl of Grosvenor. GrosvenorSquare covers six acres of ground, is situated on the south side of Oxford-street, and is considered the handsomest in the metropolis; not indeed from the regularity of its buildings, but from the general appearance, and it has ever been held the first for fashionable resi-tality; the novel-reader must be indence. The garden, which is very picturesque from all points of view, was laid out by Kent. It has of late years, however, been deprived of much of its shrubbery, in conse.. quence of the cover afforded by it to the servants in the neighbour- Here long resided Mr. Wilkes, hood, whose noise disturbed the the champion of liberty, in the nobility and gentry during their house at the corner of South Audmorning repose. The eastern side | ley-street. His daughter had etchof the square exhibits some regu- | ed the six lower panes of glass in larity of architecture; the other three offer specimens of various species of domestic buildings. The center house on the eastern side was won by raffle, in the year 1739, by two persons named Hunt and Braithwaite, who sold it to the

timately acquainted with the description of residents within it, when the words Grosvenor-Square are to be found in almost every work of that species written in the compass of fifty years."

each parlour window, which were broken by a mob during a public disturbance a few years ago. At the corner house on the north side, has long resided Sir George Beaumont, Baronet, whose taste for the fine arts is not only displayed by his

valuable collection of pictures by the father of the present earl; a the greatest masters, ancient and vast addition was made to it by the modern, but also by his own admi-purchase of a great proportion of rable productions in landscape.- the grand collection the property of Here too reside the Earl of Derby, the late Welbore Ellis Agar, Esq. for the friend of the illustrious Fox, the sum of thirty thousand pounds. and his countess, formerly Miss Lord Grosvenor, to gratify the Farren, whose beauty and tran- public, has munificently thrown scendant talents upon the stage, open this gallery one day in each were exceeded only by her exem-week, for a certain period, during plary virtue in private life; and the spring of the last few years. also Sir Gilbert Heathcote, and his amiable lady, who has long shone in the great world as one of the most distinguished luminaries of taste and fashion.

We cannot too much respect those noblemen and gentlemen, who thus liberally furnish an intellectual feast for the lovers of the fine arts. The possession of fortune dignifies the holder when it is thus liberally used, and is the most certain means of securing the re

We must not omit here to men'tion the Picture Gallery of the nobleman the proprietor of this estate, whose residence is in the immedi-spect of the world, and exemption ate neighbourhood of the square, in the magnificent house in Upper Grosvenor street. Part of this splendid gallery was collected by ||

from that hatred, or envy at least, which mankind is wont to feel towards those whom fortune has selected for her favourites.

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THE MODERN SPECTATOR.

No. XXXII.

Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam
Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas
Undique collatis membris; aut turpiter atrum
Desinat in piscem mulier formosa supernè,
Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici?
Suppose a painter, to a human head,
Should join a horse's ueck, and wildly spread
The various plumage of the feather'd kind
O'er limbs of different beasts, absurdly join'd;
Or if he gave to view a beauteous maid,
Above the waist with every charm array'd,
Should a foul fish her lower parts infold,
Would you not laugh such pictures to behold?

TO THE MODERN SPECTATOR.

Sir.

DURING my rambles through different parts of this island, in the course of last summer, I visited Edinburgh; and I must own, that the pleasure I enjoyed in viewing that fine city, and its magnificent

HOR. Ars Pect.

ceived a sensible interruption, when, on examining Holyrood-House, the royal palace of Scotland, I perceived that its beautiful chapel was without a roof. To what cause this extraordinary negligence is to be attributed, it is not for me to enquire; I shall only beg leave to

as well as beautiful vicinities, re-suggest, that the reparation of this

interesting structure would require, as the period of her death, render

her memory interesting, beyond expression, to our reflection, and calculated to awaken the tendercst sentiments of commiseration and regret. I do not hesitate to say, that the loyal spirit of the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight has slumbered over the grave of this princess, when it ought to have erected some memorial suited to the character of the misfortunes and early fate of the daughter of an excellent man, though an unfortunate prince, and whose cruel end is annually commemorated with religious deprecation by the ritual of our church. I hope it will not yet be thought too late to redeem

but a small comparative expence, which, if no regular and established means are at hand, might be effected by a subscription of the Scottish nobility, with his Royal Highness the Duke of Rothsay at their head; when the chapel royal of Scotland would be restored to its former figure, and be applied to its original intentions and characteristic functions. The thing 'speaks for itself; and I should presume, that these brief observations are not the first which have been made respecting this disgraceful dilapidation. Not only a nation's honour, but the dignity of the crown and the veneration due to religion, are involved in the main-past negligence, and that the bones tenance of this structure. I am also induced, by an emo-protected with due distinction by tion arising from a similar princi- that pious loyalty, which, if it apple, to pass to another object which peared only in one individual,would has awakened my sympathising at- soon cause a similar feeling to anitention. It is in a part of the king-mate the bosoms of many others. dom very remote from that which contains the object of my former dissatisfaction.

of this princess will be hereafter

I should feel an uncommon satisfaction in promoting, in any way, the erection of such a memorial, nor should it want the support, as it would, when completed, receive the warmest approbation of

Your obedient humble servant,

HUGO DE MORVILLE. I have inserted the suggestions of my correspondent, which appear to have arisen from emotions very honourable to himself; and it may be hoped, that I am not the

In a tour through the Isle of Wight, I proved myself so little of an antiquary, as to be astonished when, on visiting the parish church of Newport, which is so well known to be the principal town of that insular paradise, my conductor solicited my particular attention to the spot which contained the ashes of an English princess, the daughter of Charles I. who died in Caris-only one whose wishes may look brook castle during her royal father's confinement in that place. No monument marks the spot, and tradition alone sanctifies it as the grave of a person whose exalted rank, and the peculiar circumstances attendant on whose life, as well

forward to see his ideas realized.

It is not my intention to enlarge upon his complaints, or to add any recommendations or notions of my own respecting the removal of them, but the subject recalls to my mind various observations which the old

some instances, curiously repaired, and new ruins constructed. They seem to be essential decorations in the art of modern gardening; and though fancy cannot, like Don Quixote, turn windmills into giants, I could name instances of watermills wearing the forms of abbies, or convents, or priories, or some of the shapes of those buildings where solitary Sanctity took up her abode. Nay, examples might be produced, where ruins have been purchased, and carefully removed to be rebuilt in other situations, and become the ornaments of other sceneries.

If a fanciful genius were to animate some of these ancient struc

and new ruins, that solicit our ve-neration on the one hand, and call forth our admiration and ridicule on the other, have induced me at different times to make; and I shall now take the liberty of presenting them to the attention of my readers. The modern taste for ruins and Gothic architecture, amidst all its absurdities, has had one good effect: it has proved a guardian to the former, and has saved many an old castle and antique abbey from prevailing neglect and wanton dilapidation. How many instances might be named where these venerable, interesting, and beautiful piles have been considered as quarries above ground, to furnish materials for the reparation of farm-tures, and to make them hold diahouses, cottages, out-houses, and logues with their new neighbours, walls, when they were left to the in the same manner and with the mercy of country stone-masons and same spirit as Le Sage inspired bricklayers, village surveyors and certain chimnies of Madrid in his provincial stewards. Among many entertaining novel of the Devil others which might be named, Net-upon two Sticks, some curious and ley Abbey, in the vicinity of South-laughable raillery might be introampton, an object so well known and so much admired for its picturesque character and beautiful situation, and which the artist and poet have employed their best powers to delineate and describe, was once threatened with being snatch-had introduced its useful widened from the slow, progressive corrosions of time, by the pick-axe of the artizan and the claims of tenants. But the elegant poem of Mr. Keate awakened the spirit of preservation in the bosom of the owner of these remains, and, from that time, no inroad has been made upon them, but such as the natural course of decay has produced.A contrary extreme has now taken place, and ancient ruins are not only carefully preserved, but, in

duced on the taste that deals in these varieties. By way of example, a cross, which for centuries stood neglected and despised in one of the dismal streets of Bristol, before the spirit of improvement

ings, local enlargements, and illuminating dilapidations, now occupies a riant spot in the Arcadian Paradise, the British Tempe of Stourhead, in Wiltshire, where the chaste beauty of Grecian architecture and its Palladian imitations, unite with all the sylvan exuberance of the surrounding scenes, and the bold diversified range of distant prospect. Carfax, the celebrated : conduit, which, for two hundred years, occupied the central point

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of the four principal streets in the
city of Oxford, has been removed
to a woody brow, commanding a
most splendid prospect in a fine
tranquil part of the park at Nune-
ham, the seat of Earl Harcourt.
With what sentiments this fine pile
of stone might be inspired, in its
present noiseless state of repose,
after having existed for such a
length of time amid the perpetual
roll and rattle of its former posi-turesque, in lawns of half an acre
tion, I shall leave to the invention
of some one who has more genius
for fabulous composition than I
can boast.

ivy in a way to give it the appear- 1
ance of the growth of half a cen- :
tury. Such an addition as ready
made ruins must heighten the dis-
play of the various manufactories
round London for pavilions, sum-
mer-houses, alcoves, cottages, lodg
es, dairies, gateways, dove-cotes,
aviaries, and other buildings useful
and ornamental, which are pecu-
liarly calculated to assist the pic-

of surface to parks of several miles in circumference.

Various are the ridiculous circumstances which have attended this rage for ruins, and I shall beg leave, for the amusement of my readers, to relate two or three of them on the authority of a curious observer, whose information has never yet misled or deceived me.

Such transpositions of old ruins are, however, for obvious reasons, less subject to ridicule than the construction of new ones: beones: because, if the character of a new situation is appropriately suited to the subject that is removed, one A gentleman, who thought a pigof the objections to the transferral gery would admit of a ruined form, of it is done away; and when it is and give a solemn variety to the considered what a change has taken scene where he wished to place it, place in the appearance of the employed an architect to make the country that surrounds an ancient design and carry it into effect. The structure since its first erection, it sties, therefore, were correctly may lose little of its individual ori- formed for the purpose; so that ginality; antiquarian prejudice the hogs grunted beneath broken may alone be wounded by the arches and decapitated pinnacles, change. As for modern ruins, they while they sucked up their wash now appear to have become an from troughs adorned with florid additional branch of architecture, traceries. Ivy had already begun and books of designs for their con- to creep up the pillars, and all the struction are published, so that mo- promise of Gothic beauty in ruins dern gardening may find them rea- was anticipated, when a landscapedy assorted in all the varieties of painter, who was employed to take tumble-down towers, mouldering a view of the spot, objected to its gateways, roofless chapels, and deficiency in the picturesque. The broken arches; nay, if I am not walls, he thought, were not suffimistaken, they may be had ready | ciently broken, nor the irregular made in artificial stone. Indeed, decays and corrosions of time na-. I have heard it said, that some gar-turally displayed. In short, the dener near Bethnal Green has dis- ignorance of the builder of these covered the art of transplanting ruins was so completely exposed,

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