At the east end stands St. Peter’s Church, built in 1826, and denounced by Mr. Cunningham as one of the “ugliest in all London.” The site is an excellent one, few superior in the metropolis; it is a just source of regret, therefore, that a more creditable design was not chosen. It was designed by Henry Hakewill, in the Ionic Order, and consecrated by Dr. Howley, then Bishop of London, July 27th, 1827. It was burnt down in 1835, when the altar-piece, “Christ crowned with Thorns,” a good specimen of Hilton, R.A., was with difficulty saved. It was presented to the Church by the British Institution. GROSVENOR CRESCENT is still unfinished. Here reside the Rev. A. P. Stanley, Sir Charles Trevelyan, and at No. 1 the Earl of Clarendon, late Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The Crescent is ultimately to be continued to open into Grosvenor Place, and thus it will form the main entrance to Belgravia; an improvement very greatly needed. GROSVENOR PLACE.—The story pertaining to the foundation of this street has been told already. Originally the houses were built no further than the Lock Hospital, which occupied the site of the Grosvenor Place Houses. At the bottom, where the junction with the King’s Road was formed, was a cluster of mean dwellings, and one inn, known as “The Feathers.” At No. 1, Dr. Lane’s celebrated School of Anatomy and Medicine has for many years been established. No. 4 originally formed two houses, which were thrown together by the late Earl of Egremont, who here first formed the splendid collection of pictures now at Petworth. He was a great patron of English artists, and an excellent judge of their productions. Haydon, one of those he had befriended, declares he “never saw such a character, or such a man, nor were there ever many. ‘Live and let live’ seems to be the Earl’s motto.” Lord Egremont died in November, 1837. {232} The mansion at the north corner of Halkin Street is that— “Where the Howards’ noble race For many a year have made their resting place.” The first nobleman of this title who resided here was Frederick, the fifth earl. He was born in 1748, and died in 1825, and is the nobleman often mentioned by Boswell as gaining Johnson’s praise for his literary performances. But however valuable these may be considered, he owes his literary immortality to the attacks made on him by Byron. He was guardian to the poet, who dedicated to him his “Hours of Idleness,” which the Earl is said to have coolly received, an affront which deeply rankled in Byron’s breast—causing a wound his mother did her best to widen. Byron, however, seems to have forgotten his animosity, for in his “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” as originally intended for the press, he compliments Carlisle:— “On one alone Apollo deigns to smile, And crowns a new Roscommon in Carlisle.”