No. 20 Brompton Crescent was, between the years 1822 and 1844, occupied by Mr. Planché, well known as, perhaps, the most prolific and skilful dramatic writer of the day, and as a gentleman of high literary and antiquarian attainments. His connexion with the last musical efforts of the German composer Weber, in his opera of ‘Oberon,’ which was produced at Covent Garden on the 12th of May, 1826, {65} cannot be forgotten; and to Planché’s knowledge of costume and taste for pictorial effects the English stage is deeply indebted. In the drawing-room of this house have some of our most agreeable acting dramas been composed, and nothing could have been, in its style and appointments, more typical of Planché’s dialogue than was the apartment—smart and neat, fit for all occasions, and suited in a moment to the present purpose, whatever that might be. It was polished and elegant; but there was nothing superfluous, beyond a bit of exquisite china on the mantel-piece, or a picture, excellent in its way, on the wall; something which pleased the eye, and which the mind received and relished like a nicely-pointed joke. A well-painted portrait of Planché himself, by Briggs, the Royal Academician, which has been engraved, hung opposite to the fireplace; and, as if to carry out the similitude between Planché’s writings and the place where they were written, folding-doors revealed a back drawing-room, which, like his memory, was richly stored with the works of heralds and antiquaries, and of our elder dramatists and poets, so judiciously arranged, that in a moment he was certain of producing the precise passage or the effect which he desired. At the same time so completely was this little battery of knowledge masked under quaint bindings and tasteful covers, that no one suspected what a mine of learning lay beneath; nor, like his own mental resources, was a volume displayed without cause, or unclasped without its effect. Speaking earnestly to Planché respecting the pains and pleasures of authorship, L. E. L. once said, “I would give this moment all the fame of what I have written, or ever shall write, for one roar of applause from a crowded house, such as you must have heard a thousand times.” Mr. Planché afterwards removed to a new and detached house, built on the site of Brompton Grange. He has now quitted the neighbourhood. Mr. C. J. Richardson, an architect, whose publications illustrative of Tudor architecture and domestic English antiquities have materially tended to diffuse a feeling of respect for the works of our ancestors, and to forward the growing desire to preserve and restore edifices which time and circumstances have spared to the country, has resided at No. 22 Brompton Crescent. At No. 28 in this crescent, Mrs. Liston died in 1854.