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survives; and Buckingham exchanged his mansion in the Strand, which was pulled down, for the safe seclusion of Dowgate. The result of these changes is described by Addison some thirty years later, who remarks that the Courts of two ' countries do not so differ from one another, as the Court and the City, in their peculiar ways of life and conversation. In short, the inhabitants of St. James's, notwithstanding they live under the same laws, and speak the same language, are a distinct people from those of Cheapside.'

If, as we have seen, the course of fashion, like that of empire, is ever westward, like empire also it leaves its ruins behind it. During the reigns of Charles II. and James II., the mansions of the Elizabethan aristocracy in the Strand were either separated into tenements or pulled down, and their sites and gardens covered with contiguous buildings. The large mansion of Sir Edward Hungerford, created Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Charles II., was pulled down a few years later, Hungerford Market being partly formed by the separation of the estate. Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden still retained within their enclosures many families of the great; but Bow Street, well-inhabited' in the time of Strype, ceased to be so in 1720; and that district was already being filled with a mixed population. Whetstone Park, where houses were first built by Mr. Whetstone, a vestryman of St. Giles's, in the time of Charles I., existed as a memorial of its prosperity and decline; and Lewknor Lane (since converted into one of the numerous Charles Streets) the site of the house and gardens of Sir Lewis Lewknor under James I., was now the recognised abode of the dissolute-the pernicies opprobriumque pagi.

Accordingly, a further move was made, or rather the limits of this once exclusively fashionable district were extended. Lomsbery, a royal manor under Henry VIII., and the site of the king's stables, now changed its character under the corruption of Bloomsbury, and foreign princes were carried to see "Bloomsbury Square as one of the wonders of England.' Hard by rose Montague House, the residence of Baron Montague under Charles II., rebuilt by the first Duke in the reign of Anne; in which the collections of the British Museum were first deposited and remained till within our own memory. Bedford House, Bloomsbury, was built in the reign of Charles II.; and here also we find the titles of that noble family on another portion of their estate. Chenies Street and Francis Street are added to the familiar names of Tavistock, Russell, and Bedford. Howland Street and Streatham Street

record the marriage of the second Duke with the daughter of John Howland of Streatham, in 1696. Gower Street and Keppel Street, built between 1778 and 1786, are associated with the memory of his son, made Lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1756; in like manner as the more recent alliance of this line with the families of Torrington and Gordon, by the two marriages of the sixth Duke, is commemorated in two squares of those names.

Soho was the earliest rival of Bloomsbury, as the residence of the more opulent portion of the so-called upper-middle class, whose numbers and prosperity were yearly increasing. Names of rank, however, occur in its street-nomenclature, identified with former inhabitants of that region, much of which owes its present aspect to the exertions of a wealthy builder, whose name is perpetuated in Frith Street. Soho Square was begun in the reign of Charles II., and became the residence of the Duke of Monmouth. From him the square was originally called Monmouth Square, and afterwards changed to King Square. Tradition reports, says Pennant, that on his death the admirers of the Duke re-changed the name to Soho, being the word of the day at the battle of Sedgmoor. Mr. Cunningham has clearly exposed this popular error by a reference to the rate-books of St. Martin's, in which Soho-fields' are mentioned as early as 1632, or more than fifty years before that battle was fought. Soho,' he adds, or "So-how," was an old cry in hunting, when the hare was found;' but the investigation, thus suggested, is more curious than important. Monmouth Street, erected nearly a century later, preserves the Duke's memory; his mansion passed to Lord Bateman, who has left his name in Bateman's Buildings. Gerard Street dates from 1681, and, like Macclesfield Street, marks the former residence of Gerard, Earl of Macclesfield. Wardour Street, like Arundel Street, took its name from Lord Arundel of Wardour, at the close of the last century. The fifth Lord Arundel, who died in 1726, married the daughter of the noted gamester Colonel Panton, the original owner of Panton Street, and the last proprietor of Piccadilly Hall; although the derivation of that street from Panton, a particular kind of horseshoe, is mentioned by Mr. Timbs as having been long credited, from its contiguity to the Haymarket.*

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Long, however, before Soho sank to its present state of degeneracy-in other words, before foreign refugees began to oust its former population—the attraction of the Court, in a

* Club Life in London, vol. ii. p. 223.

luxurious age, had gathered around it the most luxurious portion of society. The partiality of Charles II. for Whitehall and St. James's led to a corresponding migration of rank and fashion. The open green park, formed by the enclosure by Henry VIII. of the fields adjacent to the ancient hospital of St. James's, was now levelled and laid out, the series of ponds converted into an artificial lake, and avenues of trees planted, one of which records its reputation as an aviary by the name of Birdcage Walk.* A cockpit-royal occupied the site where now the meetings of the Privy Council are held, and has given rise to the name of Cockpit Steps. Pall Mall and the Mall are associated with another royal diversion, minutely described by an authority quoted by Strutt. Fronting the Mall rose the original of Buckingham Palace, built in 1703 for the Duke of Buckingham on the ruins of Goring House, the former residence of Lord Arlington. The site was once known as the Mulberry Garden, a place of amusement somewhat similar to Spring Gardens-an eccentricity of the Elizabethan age, so called from a fountain set playing by the spectator treading on its hidden machinery-as may still be seen in the marble courts of the old palace of Cintra and the Alcazar of Seville. Marlborough House was built in 1709-10 for the great Duke of Marlborough; and Carlton House dates from the same year, as the residence of Henry Boyle, Baron Carlton. West of Charing Cross, King Street formed the principal means of access through Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament. Richmond House, now Richmond Terrace, formed the western extremity of the Privy Gardens; and in Downing Street (so called from Sir George Downing, Secretary of State in 1668) stood a few isolated mansions, one of which formed the residence of Aubrey de Vere, the last Earl of Oxford, till his death in 1702. North of St. James's Park, the space between the Mall and Piccadilly had by this time exchanged its rural aspect for the houses of the great; and the apple orchards of the time of Charles I. were known only by the name of Appletree Yard. St. James's Square, begun in 1676, formed the focus of this aristocratical region, and Charles Street, York Street, and King Street rose about the same time. The house of the Duke of Ormond survives in Ormond Yard; that of the Duchess of Cleveland in Cleveland Row. Arlington Street was built in 1689, on land granted by Charles II. to Henry

* A certain Storey was keeper of the aviaries, who has left his name in Storey's Gate, incorrectly described by Pennant as Store's Gate, or the store-house for ordnance in the time of Queen Mary,'

Bennet, the noted member of the Cabal. Jermyn Street and St. Alban's Place (now Waterloo Place) were already standing, and took their names from Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Alban's, whose nephew, Lord Dover, has left his memory in Dover Street, Piccadilly.

This last-named thoroughfare formed for a long period the northern limits of fashion. Between Devonshire House and Hyde Park Corner, the route lay between a succession of stone-yards, but the eastern portion was well defined before the close of the seventeenth century; and its history is recorded in the names of many of its offshoots. The existence of two Lord Berkeleys, each possessing a town-house called after his name, has been overlooked by Pennant. The builder of the mansion in Piccadilly-afterwards called Devonshire House -was Sir John Berkeley, created Baron Berkeley of Stratton (whence Stratton Street) in 1658; George, thirteenth Earl of Berkeley, was then living in Clerkenwell. The first Burlington House was built by the father of Boyle, Earl Burlington and Cork, the architect, whose wife, the heiress of the Saviles, has left her memory in Savile Row. Clarges Street rose in 1717, called after Sir Walter Clarges, the nephew of Ann Clarges, wife of General Monk. Albemarle Street took its name from Christopher Monk, second Duke of Albemarle, to whom Clarendon House, now marked by the Clarendon Hotel, was sold in 1657; Hamilton Place from James Hamilton, ranger of Hyde Park under Charles II.; and Bond Street from Sir Thomas Bond, created a baronet in the same reign.

The continuous development of the capital, as illustrated in its street-nomenclature, offers from this period few features of interest. It is a simple narrative of adding house to house.' Social distinctions are no longer reflected in the modern names of localities; retail trade, for example, once so fruitful an index to topographers, now everywhere following the extension of fashion. The transfer of monastic property, around London, to the aristocracy, we have already noticed. The expansive impulses of population now tended, in a different way, to increase their wealth, at the expense of their local isolation; the natural effect of the enhanced value of land around the capital being to crowd their parks and gardens with contiguous buildings. One by one, their suburban estates were let on building leases, or the large landowners themselves turned builders on an extensive scale; and the streets thus formed derived their names, without their former significance, from the rolls of the peerage.

This suburban extension, so far as regards the migration of

the titled and opulent, was almost exclusively to the north-west and west. The northward progress of building beyond Piccadilly was met by a side stream, formed by the western expansion of Soho; and the result was Golden Square, once the abode of persons of rank. Some isolated edifices of importance still existed in the neighbourhood of what is now Regent Street; one of which resisted the encroachments of building till 1736, when Argyll Place was built through the Duke of Argyll's gardens into Oxford Road. Berkeley Square, named from Lord Berkeley's house in Piccadilly, was standing at the commencement of the last century, and Lansdowne House was built in it by Adam the architect for the Earl of Bute. In 1721, May Fair was built upon, and four years later Sir Richard Grosvenor assembled his tenants on that portion of his estate at a sumptuous entertainment, and named the various streets which surrounded Grosvenor Square.* Chesterfield House became the residence of the celebrated Earl under George II., built on land belonging to Curzon, Lord Howe; and Chesterfield Street, Stanhope Street, and Curzon Street rose in consequence.

The row of houses north of the Tyburn Road was completed in 1729, and the road called Oxford Street. A similar enlargement of the north-western suburbs to that previously described, was now effected by the junction of Bloomsbury with the Marylebone estate, which was purchased in 1710 by John Holles, Duke of Newcastle, whose only daughter and heiress, Henrietta Holles, married Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer. By the marriage of the only daughter of this Earl, Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, to William Bentinck, second Duke of Portland, in 1734, the manor passed to the Portland family, till their conversion into lessees under the Crown in the present century. A wilderness of streets preserves the titles and alliances of these noble families, e. g., Henrietta Street, Bentinck Street, Holles Street, Vere Street, Margaret Street, Cavendish Street, Harley Street, Foley Place, Weymouth Street, &c. Cavendish Square, Oxford Square, and Hanover Square (so called in honour of George I.) were all built between 1716 and 1720, and added to this westward attraction of the aristocracy. The riches which flowed into this country after the general peace at Fontainebleau in 1763 renewed, with increased vigour, the progress of architectural activity, which every war at its commencement had suspended.

* Malcolm's 'Londin. Rediv.' vol. iv. p. 331. A fair was once held annually at the north of Half-Moon Street, commencing on May-Day,