When Francis Duke of Bedford, in the reign of the first Charles, proposed to erect a place of worship for his tenantry in the then thinly populated locality of the Convent-Garden, he called to his councils the celebrated Inigo Jones, suggesting, as we find it recorded, that “anything—a barn would do;” an expression sounding more of the prudence than of the piety of the said Francis. The architect took the hint, and thence arose, in 1640, the Palladian structure of which we now behold a duplicate; the original building having been destroyed in 1795, through the carelessness of some workmen engaged in its repair. The contemplation of this edifice has given rise to a shrewd suspicion on our mind, that the above venerable anecdote relating to its origin may have been the after-thought of some architectural critic, whose admiration for the designer of Whitehall was stronger than his respect for the memory of the Duke. Be that as it may, the structure, for several years, was merely known as the Chapel of Ease to St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, until 1645, when it was erected into a separate living, and, in the year of the Restoration (1660), the patronage was vested in the Duke of Bedford; the whilom chapelry becoming known as the church and parish of St. Paul, Covent-Garden.
St. Paul’s, Covent-Garden, has some peculiarities in its structure. The Tuscan portico, with its prazzi, being placed in the rear instead of the front of the edifice, which latter stands in the quiet by-way of Bedford-street. Hence the back of the altar is (to use a palpable Hibernicism) the front which our artist has chosen for the exercise of his pencil; the lantern and principal entrance being at the western extremity of the church. Popularly speaking he is right; for this is the elevation which has looked down on the many glorious rows, cracked crowns, and melées consequent upon each recurrence of a Westminster election—the hustings-hammering high bailiff of that ancient borough and city having made this spot memorable as “the field of a thousand fights,” by here fixing the polling-place for the return of members to represent it in Parliament. Here then, were the tag-rag and bob-tail of this ancient and radical borough wont to disport themselves in fighting, roaring, drinking, and swearing, during the fourteen days’ saturnalia of each contested election. But these scenes are no more—the Reform bill, by dividing the constituencies and the erection of district polling-booths, has destroyed the glorious anarchy—the rude liberty of the Westminster canaille, and we may look with equal success for the Maypole in the Strand or the Standard on Cornhill, as for an election mob, such as in the days of Fox, Burdett, Hobhouse, Maxwell, or Sheridan, crowded the front of St. Paul’s, Covent-Garden. But, if the history of the hustings of Covent-Garden would be the history of political party for the last hundred years, not less would the history of the hotels and coffee-houses, which occupy two sides of the quadrangle, comprise the anecdotal annals of the last century and the earlier portion of the present. The early companions of George the Fourth here revelled; and a host of buried talent, senatorial, literary, forensic, and dramatic, has the “venue” of the brightest witticisms and most brilliant sallies laid in the hotels of “the Garden” — in the Bedford, the Russell, the Piazza, Offley’s, Mother Butler’s, and the rest.
All around the subject of our sketch has experienced its full share of change. There is a painting by Hogarth, from which an etching has been published, representing Covent Garden in 1745. There stands the predecessor of the present church, alike in every respect (except the illuminated clock in the pediment)—but here the resemblance ceases. The area now occupied by the handsome market, with its granite columns, plate-glass windows, covered arcades and conservatories, is an uneven space divided by posts and chains, with a pump in its centre. Here and there a market-woman, with looped up petticoats and exposed neck, presides over heaps of vegetables scattered on the ground, while among mounds of turnips, carrots, and cabbages, strut several formal figures in the uncouth head-dresses, pinched stomachers, and stiff diamond-quilted skirts of a century ago; accompanied by puppy dogs, and beaux as precise and quaint in attire as themselves. But to return. The design both of church and piazza, is said to have been borrowed from & place built by Cosmo de Medicis at Leghorn. The bold projecting cornice outside, and the eight Corinthian columns of the altarpiece within, have found many admirers among the cognoscenti. In the church-yard lies the eminent father of all stale jokes, to wit Joseph Miller, Esq.; a gentleman to whom posterity has done cruel injustice, if a recent writer speak truth—who avers that the said Joseph was a fellow so remarkably dull as never to have perpetuated a pun, and par consequence must stand acquitted of all suspicion of petty larceny. But if Joseph Miller deserve this exculpation, his near neighbour Claude du Val, the hero of highwaymen, can raise no such claim. He also lies in this graveyard; but as the pseudo jokes of the one and the felonies of the other are foreign to our enquiries we shall here close our notice of St. Paul, Covent Garden.
The Illustrated London News, London, England, Week Ending September 10, 1842
