The memorials of the hamlet of Knightsbridge : $b With notices of its immediate neighbourhoodDavis, Henry George
History
The memorials of the hamlet of Knightsbridge : $b With notices of its immediate neighbourhood
Davis, Henry George
Knightsbridge (London, England)
Besides his remarkable “Essay on Falstaff,” he published “Remarks on the
Slave Trade,” a useful and earnest pamphlet. In the “Gentleman’s
Magazine,” December, 1815, a writer endeavoured to fix on him the
authorship of the “Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers,” now known to
have been concocted by Mason and Walpole, but published under the
pseudonyme of “Malcolm M‘Gregor, of Knightsbridge, Esq.” But Dr.
Symmons, Morgann’s friend and executor, denied the ownership, and
declared his repeated injunctions were, that all his papers should be
destroyed, and that he never published any but those with his name.
Symmons had previously said, “Some of those writings destroyed, in the
walks of politics, metaphysics, and criticism, would have planted a
permanent laurel on his grave.” {148} Mr. Morgann is one who has an
honourable niche in Boswell’s inimitable “Life of Johnson.”
Morgann afterwards removed to High Row, where he died March 28th, 1802,
in his seventy-seventh year. “As a man, he stood detached from the
general contagion of the age he lived in; neither complying with the
vices of the great, however familiar or seductive, nor with their
frivolities, however general or imposing. His mind was compounded of
pure and simple elements, which inseparably mixed in his business, his
friendships, and intercourse with all mankind; and it was often no less
pleasing to his friends, than to the lovers of virtue in general, to see
with what lustre those plain but prepossessing colours outshone the glare
of fashion, and the accommodating varnish of modern morals.” {149a}
LOWNDES SQUARE, so named from William Lowndes, Esq., of Chesham, to whom
the land belongs. According to Dr. King, rector of Chelsea (1694 to
1732), in his MS. account of that parish, {149b} this site at one time
belonged to a Benedictine convent. It certainly formed part of the gift
of Edward the Confessor to the Abbey, but has been in lay hands ever
since the Reformation. At about where William Street joins the Square
stood a large detached house, formerly a place of amusement, and known as
Spring Garden. Dr. King mentions it as “an excellent Spring Garden.”
{149c} And among the entries of “The Virtuosi, or St. Luke’s Club,”
Established by Vandyke, is the following allusion:—
“Paid and spent at Spring Gardens, by Knightsbridge, forfeiture £3 15
shgs.” {149d}
That enjoyable chronicler, Pepys, too, I fancy alludes to Spring Gardens
in the following entry in his “Diary.” It must be premised that the
hearty clerk of the Admiralty had been to Kensington, and there, as was
frequently his wont, had had what he innocently and amusingly terms a
“frolic”:—
“June 16, 1664. I lay in my drawers, and stockings, and waistcoat
till five of the clock, and so up, and being well pleased with our
frolic, walked to Knightsbridge, and there ate a mess of cream, and
so to St. James’,” &c.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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