who have wrongly supposed that it was built on the site of Arlington House. Cunningham says that Lord Arlington sold the ground to Mr. Pym, " who for many years inhabited one of the largest houses in this street, and in whose family the ground still remains!" The "high buildings," as Roger North calls them, were at once inhabited by people of quality. The neglected Duchess of Buckingham, widow of the profligate Duke, and daughter of Fairfax, lived here from 1692 to 1694. The following noblemen were living in this street in 1698-Lord Brook, Earl of Kingston, Lord Guildford, Lord Cholmondeley, and Earl of Peterborough. In 1708 all these still remained, except the last named, and one of the natural sons of Charles II., the Duke of Richmond, was added to the number of residents. In 1706 the Earl of Kingston was created Marquis of Dorchester, and in an advertisement in the Tatler (August, 1710) his house is referred to :-" In Arlington Street, next door to the Marquis of Dorchester, is a large house to be let, with a garden and a door into the park." This house remained in the family till 1770, when it was sold by the second Duke of Kingston for 16,850. It was here that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, then a fashionable toast, lived with her father before her marriage. Lords Cholmondeley and Guildford, and the Duke of Richmond, were still in the street in 1724. William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, lived in a house on the west side of the street in 1715, and continued in it till he moved to his house in Piccadilly. Sir Robert Walpole lived next door to his rival Pulteney, in 1716, and continued in the house till 1742, when he moved to No. 5. It was afterwards rebuilt by Kent, and inhabited by Henry Pelham. John Lord Carteret, Earl of Granville, lived for some years in the last house on the west, or Green Park side of the street. After enumerating the four last names, which consist of two Prime Ministers and two Secretaries of State, we see the force of Horace Walpole's remark, that it

54 MALCOLM (London, vol. iv. p. 328) is greatly in error when he writes, "Arlington Gardens comprised the ground now occupied by Arlington Street, part of the Green Park and part of St. James's Park."

was the Ministerial street. Writing to George Montagu (December 1, 1768), he says:-"I like your letter, and have been looking at my next door but one. The ground story is built, and the side walls will certainly be raised another floor before you think of arriving. I fear nothing for you but the noise of workmen, and of this street in front, and Piccadilly on the other side. If you can bear such a constant hammering and hurricane, it will rejoice me to have you so near me; and then I think I must see you oftener than I have done these ten years. Nothing can be more dignified than this position. From my earliest memory Arlington Street has been the Ministerial street. The Duke of Grafton is actually coming into the house of Mr. Pelham, which my Lord President is quitting, and which occupies, too, the ground on which my father lived; and Lord Weymouth has just taken the Duke of Dorset's; yet you and I, I doubt, shall always live on the wrong side of the way." William Gerard Hamilton lived here in 1779; and Walpole, in a letter to Lady Ossory, referring to the effects of a storm on New Year's day of this year, mentions that "one of the Gothic towers at Lady Pomfret's house (now Single Speech Hamilton's), in my street, fell through the roof, and not a thought of it remains."

No. 5. Horace Walpole lived in this house from 1742 until 1779, when he removed to Berkeley Square. The first four of these years he dwelt with his father, who left him the house. A curious incident in Walpole's life occurred in 1771, when his house was broken open without any of his servants being disturbed. All the locks were forced off his drawers, cabinets, &c., and the contents were scattered about, but nothing was taken away.

No. 16. The Duke of Rutland, through whose influence, brought to bear upon Sir James Lowther, Pitt was first returned to Parliament, was living in this house in 1824. In 1826 it was lent to the Duke of York, who died in it on January 5, 1827.

55 WALPOLE'S Letters, ed. 1840, vol. v. p. 227.

No. 17 was built by Kent, on the site of Sir Robert Walpole's first house, and inhabited by Pelham, who was succeeded by the Duke of Grafton. It afterwards came into the possession of the Earl of Yarborough.

No. 20. The town house of the Marquises of Salisbury, which is now being rebuilt. In April, 1786, George III., Queen Charlotte, and the Princess Royal, stood sponsors to the daughter of the first Marquis and Marchioness, when a grand christening took place at this house. The child was named Georgiana Charlotte Augusta, and became afterwards the second wife of Henry Wellesley, first Lord Cowley. The Marchioness, well known as "Old Sarum," was for years one of the leaders of fashion in the metropolis. For her Sunday receptions and suppers, which attracted to her house all the most distinguished society in London, no cards were sent out, but verbal invitations were given. A writer in the New Monthly Magazine for 1821, says: "The man of fashion . . . lounges at the subscription house, and votes Sunday a complete bore until it is time to drop in at the Marchioness's in Arlington Street."

It is unnecessary to mention the numerous noblemen who have inhabited the other houses, but it is worthy of note that Charles J. Fox lived in the street for a short time, as did Richard Rigby. Lord and Lady Nelson were here in the winter of 1800-1, and the celebrated chemist Brande was born in the street.

We now pass the Green Park, and come to Grosvenor Place, which was built in 1767, much to the annoyance of George III. The ground could have been bought for the Crown for 20,000l., but George Grenville would not buy it, and it fell into the hands of the builders. Anne, Countess of Upper Ossory, the correspondent of Horace Walpole, died here on February 23, 1804. She had been the wife of the notorious Duke of Grafton, but was divorced from him on account of his vicious life. George, third Earl of Egremont, the patron of Haydon, who says of him, "Lord Egremont goes about helping everybody who wants it," lived for some

years at No. 4. No 12 was the town house of the Earls of Carlisle. Sir Henry Hardinge, afterwards Lord Viscount Hardinge, and Commander-in-Chief, lived at No. 32 in 1824. Sir James Graham, the "weathercock" Minister, lived for many years at No. 46.

The appearance of this place has been completely changed within the last few years by the extensive alterations made by the late Marquis of Westminster, who has erected noble blocks of houses in place of the old-fashioned buildings that formerly stood on the ground.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE STREETS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF PICCADILLY.

GREAT WINDMILL STREET is figured in Faithorne's map, with houses on both sides, as far as the Oxford Road, and the Windmill from which it derived its name, is there marked. In 1671, the Windmill Fields are mentioned in a Proclamation (April 7th). One of the early inhabitants of this street, was Colonel Charles Godfrey, who married Arabella Churchill, the mistress of James II., and was living here in the year 1683. Sir John Shadwell, the physician, and son of the poet, was in the street in 1729; but its most celebrated inhabitant was Dr. William Hunter, who lived and died in a large house on the east side. Having accumulated sufficient property to secure his ease and independence, he devoted his wealth to the foundation of an Anatomical School. For this purpose he purchased ground, and built a house in Great Windmill Street, to which he removed in 1770. The museum, besides a large collection of anatomical preparations, contained fossils, and other subjects of natural history, a noble library of classics, and a cabinet of ancient medals, of which a catalogue was published in 1783, by Dr. Combe. Dr. Hunter had an attack of gout a few weeks before his death, on apparent recovery from which he delivered a lecture, that exhausted him, and brought on a paralytic seizure. He expired on March 30th, 1783, and was buried in St. James's Church. His museum was bequeathed by him temporarily to Dr.