Soho: St Anne's Churchyard

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Sir Walter Besant, in The Fascination of London, published in 1903, continues his survey of Soho with this look at the churchyard of the parish church, St Anne's:

The old churchyard of St Anne's, Soho, lies above the level of the street, and has been turned into a public garden.

Facing the principal entrance in Wardour Street is a stone monument to King Theodore of Corsica, and a small crown on the stone marks his rank.

King Theodore died in this parish December 11, 1756, immediately after leaving the King's Bench Prison, by the benefit of the Act of Insolvency, in consequence of which he registered his kingdom of Corsica for the use of his creditors.

His epitaph was written by Horace Walpole:

The grave, great teacher, to a level brings
Heroes and beggars, galley slaves and kings.
But Theodore this moral learned ere dead:
Fate poured its lessons on his living head,
Bestowed a kingdom, but denied him bread.

Close by is a monument to the essayist Hazlitt, born 1778, died 1830.

The inscription says that he lived to see his deepest wishes gratified as he expressed them in his essay on the "Fear of Death," and proceeds to set forth at considerable length the tenor of those wishes.

During the dinner-hour, when the weather is fine, the graveyard seats are filled by the very poorest of the poor, many of them aliens, far from their own ountry, and sad beneath the gray skies of the land that gives them bread, but denies them sun.

In the registers are recorded the baptisms of two of the children of George II, and five of the children of Frederick, Prince of Wales, born at Leicester House, in this parish.

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