Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/11

 9 th S. II. JULY 2, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

the way, is still preserved in that of the adjacent Compton Street, as also, in Frith Street, is the name of one Mr. Frith, who acted for his lordship in the matter. George- irenes succeeded in collecting some 1,500^., and the church was ultimately built. It was dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, and over its door was placer! a stone incised inscrip- tion, which exists, in excellent preservation, to this day. It is in rather fantastic modern Greek characters, impossible to reproduce in type, and has been translated as follows :

"In the year of Salvation 1677, this temple was erected for the nation of the Greeks the most serene Charles II. behijj King, and the Royal [lit. born in the purple] Prince Lord James being the commander of the forces, the Right Reverend Lord Henry Compton being liishop at the ex- pense of the above and other bishops and nobles, and with the concurrence of our Humility of Samos, Joseph Gcorgeirenes, a native of the island of Melos."

Poor Georgeirenes's career, however, was beset with misfortunes. He had a thorn in the side in the shape of a rival Greek priest, who fraudulently represented himself as the Archbishop of Samos, and collected moneys ostensibly for the building of the church, which he devoted to a most unworthy object, namely, himself. To stop this impostor's practices, the real archbishop advertised a quaintly personal description of himself in the London Gazette of February, 1680, in which he accused " Joachim Ciciliano, of the island of Cefalonia, a Grecian minister of a high stature, with a black beard," of per- sonating him and receiving contributions " towards building the Grecian Church," and further with " lewdly spending the same to the prejudice of the said church." To pre- vent all possibility of further mistake, he asked all and sundry to take notice that he himself (Georgeirenes) was "an indifferent tall man, and slender, with long black hair, having a wart on the right side of the nose, but against his eye, and black whiskers, and very little beard, and he finished by declaring that " with the assistance of good Christians, amongst whom he doubtless included the " most serene " Charles and the royal James, he had built and almost finished "the Grecian Church in Sohoe Fields." But though George- irenes scored off his felonious fellow-country- man, his lot was not a happy one. The church was not a success. It was incon- veniently situated. The Greeks were already removing from the site of their earlier settle- ment in Greek Street and its neighbourhood, and the congregation, and as a necessary consequence the funds, were declining. Compton was not now so willing to help

him as he had been; the parish authorities disputed the bishop's right to the ground on which the church stood ; and the end of it all was that the poor Archbishop of Samos, like Mr. Gladstone's Turk, was evicted " bag and baggage." A legend existed in the neigh- bourhood that his ghost haunted the scene of his mortifications and failures. The building passed into the hands of other foreigners, the Huguenots, of whom Soho contained a great number, and it was held by them for more than a hundred years, till 1822. Then came, and went, a body of Calvinistic Protestant Dissenters ; and in 1849 the edifice was secured by the rector of St. Anne's, Soho, and consecrated by Bishop Blomfield for the service of the Church of England, under its old name of "St. Mary the Virgin." This name the Large modern church which has superseded it still bears, and the premises are now the scene of great parochial and evangelistic activity. It is much to be hoped that steps will be taken to ^reserve in safe custody the interesting inscription of which a translation is given above, for which, and for most of the historical facts relating to the church, I am indebted to an article in the Sunday at Home, written by Mr. J. Sachs.

It may be mentioned that the church, then in the possession of the Huguenots, is drawn by Hogarth in his picture ' Noon,' where also may be found a portrait of its minister and the painter's friend, the Kev. M. Herve. With a sublime disregard of minute accuracy, Hogarth has shown St. Giles's steeple domin- ating the scene in Hog Lane.

A walk round this district would well repay the reflective antiquary. In the immediate neighbourhood is St. Anne's, Soho, where lie the bones of the hapless Theodore, King of Corsica, and the register of which church contains records of the baptisms of many of the royal blood. In Soho Square itself, the rectory stands on the site of Monmouth House, where lived the unfortunate duke whose motto at Sedgemoor was " Soho ! " The notorious Mrs. Cornelys, so frequently men- tioned in the chroniques scandaleuses of the last century, had her house where the Catholic church now stands. Of the associa- tions of Leicester Square it is needless to write. Sir Joshua Reynolds's house is still to be seen ; Hogarth's, alas ! is being demo- lished. Just round the corner, at the Newton Hall, is the famous Sir Isaac Newton's. In West Street, St. Giles's, is Wesley's chapel, now a mission chapel of the Church of Eng- land a place with which the founder of Methodism was long and intimately con- nected, and of which the Kev. Mr. Dibdin a