However indifferently Leicester Square may at present be inhabited,
and notwithstanding its long-standing reputation as a foreign
colony, it has been the chosen abode of many distinguished men.
Hogarth and Reynolds lived and died there. Hogarth's house is now
part of the Sablonière Hotel. Sir Joshua's was on the opposite side
of the square; and both of them, especially the latter, were much
resorted to by the wits and wise men of the day. Johnson, Boswell,
and, at times, Goldsmith, were constant visitors to Reynolds. John
Hunter, the anatomist, lived next-door to Hogarth's house; and in
1725, Lords North and Grey, and Arthur Onslow, the Speaker, also
inhabited this square. Leicester House, where the Queen of Bohemia
lived, is called by Pennant the "pouting-place of princes." George
II. retired thither when he quarrelled with his father; and his son
Frederick, the father of George III., did the same thing for the
same reason. Whilst Prince Frederick and the Princess of Wales lived
there, they received the wedding visit of the Hon. John Spencer,
ancestor of the present Earl Spencer, and of his bride, Miss Poyntz.
Contrary to established etiquette, the bridal party went to visit
the Prince before paying their respects to the King. They came in
two carriages and a sedan chair; the latter, which was lined with
white satin, contained the bride, and was preceded by a black page,
and followed by three footmen in splendid liveries. The diamonds
presented to Mr Spencer, on occasion of his marriage, by Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough, were worth one hundred thousand pounds. The
bridegroom's shoe-buckles alone cost thirty thousand pounds. An old
gentleman, born more than a century ago, from whom Mr Smith obtained
some of these particulars, informed him, that about that time the
neighbourhood was so thinly built, that when the heads of two men,
executed for participation in the Scotch rebellion, were placed on
Temple Bar, a man stood in Leicester Fields with a telescope, to
give the boys a sight of them for a penny a-piece.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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