This was established in 1692, and stood on the spot where
Cranbourne Street now crosses the end of St. Martin's Lane. It was a
favourite resort of all the painters and sculptors of the time, not to
mention the wits and beaux. Hogarth was a constant visitor, his house in
Leicester Square being conveniently near. Roubiliac, Gainsborough, and
also Wilkie, came to enjoy society at Old Slaughter's, and Pope and
Dryden are known to have visited it. The first chess club in London was
established here in 1747.

And now we have strolled around the chosen area, making Trafalgar Square
the centre, and returning to and fro in two great loops eastward and
westward, resembling a true lovers' knot. We have been in the company of
King and courtier, rebel and wit. We have consorted with the gay fops of
the eighteenth century in their club and coffee house life, and we have
seen the haunts of men whose names are household words wherever the
English tongue is spoken.

It has been chiefly seventeenth and eighteenth century life that has
enchained us as we read the pages of the past, and in its richness and
variety at least the eighteenth century would be difficult to rival.
Prosaic London, with her borough councils, her Strand improvements, and
her immense utilitarian flats, still retains the glamour of her bygone
days, and if her present buildings are without much attraction, they are
glorified by the halo of their association with their fascinating
predecessors.

INDEX

Albemarle, Duchess of, 74

Albemarle, Duke of, 83

Addison, 58, 95, 106

Adelphi, 72

Adelphi Terrace, 74

Admiralty, 12

Agar Street, 71

Apsley House, 52

Arlington House, 2

Arne, Dr., 104

Arundel Street, 88

Astley, 62

Babington, 96

Bacon, 71

Baily, 27

Beauclerk, Topham, 30

Beaufort Buildings, 77

Beckford, Alderman, 33

Bedford Coffee House, 102

Bedford House, 77

Belines, 27

Berkshire House, 58

Bermudas, 16

Bleak House, 98

Blessington, Lady, 50

Blood, Colonel, 57

Bohemia, Queen of, 22, 97

Bolingbroke, Lord, 40

Booksellers' Row, 99

Boswell Court, 99

Bow Street, 105

Bracegirdle, Mrs., 88, 96, 97

Braganza, Catherine, 83

Bridgewater House, 37, 58

Buckingham, Duke of, 2, 12

Buckingham Palace, 1

Buckingham Street, 71

Burdett, Sir Francis, 76

Burke, Edmund, 29, 30, 54

Burlington Arcade, 44

Burlington Gardens, 44

Burlington House, 43

Burney, Miss, 23, 58

Bur