hed and painted in various
tones of bronze and gold. The carving upon it is very elaborate and
enigmatical. The panelled ceiling has some affinity with it, but has
been modernized, and is not so interesting. The front of the house
remains as it was, and claims to be the only original frontage in the
square.

The centre of the square, when first laid out, was occupied by a
fountain surmounted by a statue of Charles II. in armour, the work of
Colley Cibber. Clinch in "Soho and its Associations" mentions a document
of 1748, still extant, in which are recorded the subscriptions made by
the inhabitants to replace the wooden palisades round the square by iron
railings. This is headed by L300 from the Duke of Portland, and among
the names are those of many titled and influential people, showing that
fashion had not then migrated westward. It was on the doorstep of a
house in the square that De Quincey sank dying of exhaustion and
starvation during his first novitiate of London life, and he was only
saved by his faithful companion Ann.

PART II

PICCADILLY AND ST. JAMES'S SQUARE

Returning from Soho Square to Piccadilly Circus, we find ourselves in
the parish of St. James's, Piccadilly, which takes in all the now
fashionable shopping locality of Regent Street, and is bounded on the
east and south by St. Anne's, Soho, and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and
on the west by St. George's, Hanover Square.

St. James's parish was separated from St. Martin's in 1685, but before
that epoch it had begun to have an existence of its own. Faithorne and
Newcourt's map of London, 1658, shows us open ground from a double row
of trees at Pall Mall to Piccadilly; Piccadilly is marked "from
Knightsbridge unto Piccadilly Hall." Opposite the palace, at the foot of
the present St. James's Street, are a few houses, including Berkshire
(now Bridgewater) House, and there are a few more at the eastern
extremity of Pall Mall. At the north-eastern corner of what we call the
Haymarket is the "Gaming House," and at the corners adjacent one or two
more buildings. This is St. James's in its earliest stage, before the
tide of fashion had moved so far westward. Henry Jermyn, Earl of St
Albans, in the reign of Charles II. obtained a building lease of
forty-five acres in St. James's Fields and projected the square, which
became the nucleus of the parish.

_Piccadilly._--There is no authentic derivation for this curious name,
though many fancy suggest