such sketches as will aid the recognition of the points mentioned, the appearance of which must be familiar to all who have journeyed between London and Fulham—a district containing, beside the ancient village of that name, and remarkable as adjacent to the country seat of the Bishop of London, two smaller villages, called Walham Green and Parson’s Green. The former of which stands on the main London road, the latter on the King’s Road—which roads form nearly parallel lines between Fulham and the metropolis. For all information respecting the neighbourhood of Knightsbridge the reader may be referred to a recently published work “The Memorials of the Hamlet of Knightsbridge, with notices of its immediate neighbourhood,” by the late Henry George Davis, edited by Charles Davis (Russell Smith).
From Knightsbridge, formerly a suburb, and now part of London, the main roads to Fulham and Hammersmith branch off at the north end of Sloane Street (about a quarter of a mile west of Hyde Park Corner), thus:—
And at the south termination of Sloane Street, which is 3,299 feet in length, the King’s Road commences from Sloane Square.
The Main Fulham Road passes for about a mile through a district called by the general name of Brompton, which is a hamlet in the parish of Kensington. The house, No. 14 Queen’s Buildings, Knightsbridge, on the left-hand or south side of the road,
From 1792 to 1797 this house was described as No. 14 Queen’s Buildings, Knightsbridge; but in the latter year the address was changed to No. 14 Knightsbridge Green. [25a] In 1800 it was known as No. 14 Knightsbridge, and in 1803 as No. 14 Queen’s Row, Knightsbridge. [25b] In 1810 as Gloucester Buildings, Brompton. [25c] In 1811 as Queen’s Buildings. [25d] In 1828 as Gloucester Row. [25e] In 1831 as Gloucester Buildings; [25f] and it has now reverted to its original name of Queen’s Buildings, Knightsbridge, in opposition to Queen’s Buildings, Brompton, the division being Hooper’s Court, if, indeed, the original name was not Queen’s Row, Knightsbridge, as this in 1772 was the address of William Wynne Ryland (the engraver who was hanged for forgery in 1783). When houses began to be built on the same side of the way, beyond Queen’s Row, the term “Buildings” appears to have been assumed as a distinction from the row west of Hooper’s Court; which row would naturally have been considered as a continuation, although, in 1786, the Royal Academy Catalogue records Mr. J. G. Huck, an exhibitor, as residing at No. 11 Gloster Row, Knightsbridge.
These six alterations of name within half a century, to say nothing of the previous changes, illustrate the extreme difficulty which attends precise local identification in London, and are merely offered at the very starting point as evidence at least of the desire to be accurate.
About the year 1800, the late residence of Mr. Nattes became the lodgings of Arthur Murphy, too well known as a literary character of the last century to require here more than the mere mention of his name, even to those who are accustomed to associate every thing with its pecuniary value; as Murphy’s portrait, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds for Mr. Thrale, sold at Christie’s in the sale of Mr. Watson Taylor’s pictures (June, 1823), for £94 10s. Murphy had prepared his translation of Tacitus [26] for the press, at his house on Hammersmith Terrace (the last at the west end); but declining health and circumstances induced his removal into lodgings near London, at “14 Knightsbridge.” From these apartments “he soon removed to others in Brompton Row, where he did not remain long, not liking the mistress of the house, but returned to his former residence (No. 14), where he resided till the time of his death.” In 1803, the late Lord Sidmouth (then Mr. Addington), conferred a pension of £200 a-year on Murphy, “to mark the sense” his majesty entertained “of literary merit, particularly when accompanied with sound principles and unquestionable character;” which gracious mark of royal favour Murphy acknowledged on the 2nd of March, from “14 Queen’s Row, Knightsbridge.” Here he wrote his life of Garrick, [27a] a work which, notwithstanding Mr. Foot’s ingenious defence of it, shews that Garrick’s life remains to be written, and that Murphy’s intellectual powers were, at the time when he composed it, in a state of decay.
Murphy, according to his biographer, “possessed the first and second floors of a very pleasant, neat house, where there was a long gravel walk in the garden; [27b] and though his library had been much diminished, yet, in the remaining part, he took care to reserve the Elzevir editions of the classics. Mrs. Mangeon (the mistress of the house) was a neat and intelligent woman, and Mr. Murphy secured her friendship by giving her son a presentation to Christ’s Hospital. Anne Dunn, his own servant-maid, was an excellent servant, honest, faithful, and attentive; so that, what with the services he had rendered to the mistress of the house, and what with the intrinsic fidelity of his female domestic, he could put the whole family into a state of requisition, and command an elegant table, as well as ready attention, upon any particular occasion. Such was the situation of a man of genius, and an author, in the decline of a long life, and in a country at the highest pitch of grandeur and wealth. But it must be remembered, that the comforts he possessed were not derived from the profits of literature.”
During the last year of Arthur Murphy’s life he possessed a certain income of £500, and added to this was £150 for the copyright of his Tacitus, which, however, was less than half the sum he had been frequently offered for it. The translation of Sallust, which Murphy left unfinished, was completed by Thomas Moore, and published in 1807.
Murphy appears to have perfectly reconciled his mind to the stroke of death. He made his will thirteen days previous to it, and dictated and signed plain and accurate orders respecting his funeral. He directed his library of books and all his pictures to be sold by auction, and the money arising therefrom, together with what money he might have at his bankers or in his strong box, he bequeathed to his executor, Mr. Jesse Foot, of Dean Street, Soho. To Mrs. Mangeon (his landlady) he gave “all his prints in the room one pair of stairs and whatever articles of furniture” he had in her house, “the bookcase excepted.” And to his servant, Anne Dunn, “twenty guineas, with all his linen and wearing apparel.” After the completion of this will, Murphy observed, “I have been preparing for my journey to another region, and now do not care how soon I take my departure.” And on the day of his death (18th June, 1805) he frequently repeated the lines of Pope:—
“Taught, half by reason, half by mere decay,
To welcome death and calmly pass away.”
All that we can further glean respecting the interior of Murphy’s apartment is, that in it “there was a portrait of Dunning (Lord Ashburton), a very striking likeness, painted in crayons by Ozias Humphrey.”
Humphrey, who was portrait-painter in crayons to George III., and in 1790 was elected member of the Royal Academy, resided, in 1792 and 1793, at No. 19 Queen’s Buildings, Knightsbridge; but whether this was the fifth house beyond Nattes’, or the No. 19 Queen’s Buildings, now called Brompton Road (Mitchell’s, a linen-draper’s shop), I am unable, after many inquiries, to determine. It will be remembered that Dr. Walcott (Peter Pindar) introduced Opie to the patronage of Humphrey, and there are many allusions to “honest Ozias,” as he was called in the contemporary literature.
“But Humphrey, by whom shall your labours be told,
How your colours enliven the young and the old?”
is the comment of Owen Cambridge; and Hayley says,
“Thy graces, Humphrey, and thy colours clear,
From miniatures’ small circle disappear;
May their distinguished merit still prevail,