and another above, "Lisle St. 1791"; but these were doubtless inserted when the street was laid out at that date, while the building itself is evidently of earlier date, and bears the cachet of the early part of the eighteenth century, when the house was probably refronted. So we may cheerfully proceed with our record. While Charles the Second was still King, Leicester Square had come into existence in its present alignment, with Leicester House presiding over the scene, its courtyard represented by the present Leicester Place, and its state entrance thrown back into what is now Lisle Street. Another large mansion occupied the rest of that side of the Square, which had been recently built by Lord Aylesbury, and which afterwards took the name of Savile House, now represented by the Empire Music Hall. In the rear of Leicester House towards the City, just behind the site of Mr. George Edwards' new theatre, was Newport House, the residence of a long-extinct Earl Newport, commemorated in Great Newport Street and the almost extinct Newport Market, where huge model dwellings have taken the place of the slums of other days. Leicester Fields were all alive in 1698, when Savile House was occupied by Lord Carmarthen, to whom, as a congenial spirit who loved drinking and sailing, had been entrusted the charge of entertaining the Czar Peter. The Czar himself was content with much humbler lodgings, and could hardly be persuaded to show himself at the brilliant receptions at Savile House. A few years later, in 1708, Leicester House was in the occupation of the Imperial Ambassador, and in 1712 crowds were drawn to witness the arrival of his guest, the famous Prince Eagène, the comrade in arms of the Great Marlborough, at that time in disgrace. Then we come to the era of the Guelphs, and we find the Prince of Wales in 1718 flying from St. James's after a desperate quarrel with his father, and taking refuge with his charming but fiery Princess at Savile House. Soon after the Royal party passed over to Leicester House, and the old mansion of the Sidneys became the court of the opposition, frequented by poets, wits, and savans, who were welcomed by the bright and clever Princess and her merry maids of honour. Of this date are Pope's gay lines "To Bellenden, Lepell, and Griffin," and his challenge to them to meet him and his friend Gay At Leicester Fields, a house full high, and his allusion to "garrets hung in green may well be to the confined quarters of Leicester House, where the dormer windows that peep over the balustraded parapet may have witnessed the frolics of the laughterloving girls, Madge Bellenden, the fairest of the land, And smiling Mary, soft and fair as down. All this was changed in 1727, when news came from Hanover of old George's death, and George the Second was proclaimed King in front of Leicester House. Then came the courtiers in a crowd, and the saloons but lately a desert were thronged with gay people. Sir Robert Walpole walked through the saloons, and all the fine people turned their backs upon him, believing him to be irretrievably disgraced. Lady Walpole was elbowed and squeezed into a corner among the nobodies, till the new Queen caught sight of her, and with the remark, "There I see a friend," lifted her at once into the heaven of Court favour. The secret of the Minister's continued ascendency in the new reign was at once divined, and as Lady Walpole remarked, she might have walked out on the people's heads. Fifteen years after this, another Prince of Wales, on equally bad terms with his father, settled at Leicester House. This was Prince Fred, one of the most amiable and accomplished of the Guelphs, but too fond of fiddling and dancing to suit the robust taste of the period. In the early part of the year 1745, when his brother William was fighting at Fontenoy, the Prince was performing at Leicester House in Congreve's masque, "The Judgement of Paris," himself assuming the pleasing part of Paris. Then were Leicester Fields alive, from midnight till early morning, with flambeaux and gilt coaches and a mob of lacqueys, while a gay crowd kept up the revels within the Royal mansion. But the Prince's real goodness of heart was evinced in the scenes which followed the rising of 1745, when he showed great kindness to the Jacobite prisoners, and exerted all his influence, which was not great, on the side of mercy. Lady Cromartie, whose husband was sentenced to death, brought her four children Leicester House to implore the intercession of the Princess, whose only reply was to bring out her own children and place them by the side of the others. But in this case the princely influence was successful, and Cromartie was spared. to One of Prince Fred's birthday celebra tions, in 1748, was notable for the unveiling of an equestrian statue of his grandfather, George the First, which had been brought from Cannons, the Duke of Chandos's costly seat-Timon's villa-when the place was demolised. Man and horse were richly gilt, and for long the statue was regarded with something like awe by country yokels, as an evidence of the wealth of gold that was knocking about the streets of London. Its ultimate fate, too, comes within living memory, the mark of derisive comment from all sides, the object of all kinds of missiles, and the butt of the practical jokers of the period, some of whom painted the statue all over with black spots. At last the King was knocked off his horse, the steed itself was crippled, and the last relics of it were removed to make room for Baron Grant's improvements. Prince Fred died in 1751, but the Royal widow and her children continued to reside there, and on the death of George the Second his grandson was proclaimed King in Leicester Square; two Kings in the half-century being not a bad record for our respectable but not majestic-looking Square. The Princess Augusta continued to live in the Square after her son's accession to the throne, but she left it for Carlton House in 1766. And then Leicester House fell into evil days, struggling on as Lever's Museum for some years, till that collection was disposed of by lottery. fish, and joint was served for the modest sum of eighteen pence. At last, in 1856, the whole affair was burnt to the ground, and out of its ashes rose, after sundry changes and vicissitudes, the present prosperous Empire Music Hall. once For the greater part of our century, indeed, exhibitions have been one of the specialties of Leicester Square. In the corner next Cranbourne Street a cross and an inscription, "Notre Dame de France," marks the entrance to what was Burford's Panorama, now French Catholic schools and chapel. A little on this side, where the Parcel Post is now, Charles Dibdin, the song writer, gave his entertainment in what he termed the Sans Souci Theatre. The Alhambra Music Hall was originally started as an instructive and improving exhibition on the lines of the old Polytechnic, and called the Panopticon. In that direction Leicester Square has never achieved much success. Standing by the bust of Newton, which occupies a corner of the ornamental enclosure, you can see Sir Isaac's old house in St. Martin's Street, which, in his time, was the main artery of Leicester Fields. Its neighbour is the Orange Street Chapel, and the house itself, which in old views is of red brick, has been stuccoed over, a formal three-storeyed house with three windows in a row. A lamp over the door announces it as now the "United Service Warrant Officers' Club," and a plaque affixed by the Society of Arts commemorates the tenancy of the great philosopher who lived there from 1710 to 1725, when he removed to die in Kensington. The bust of William Hogarth commemorates the residence of the great artist in the square, where are now the Tennison Schools. The house has been altered and renewed, yet the great painter of mankind died within those walls, and the last scenes that met his eyes were in general character as we see them now. Over the By this time the Sidneys had become extinct in the main line, and their representatives were anxious to sell the London property to clear the estate at Penshurst, and Leicester Fields were bought by the Talks for ninety thousand pounds. Leicester House was partly demolished and partly turned into Lisle Street, and the square itself entered into a period of decadence. Savile House, which had been occupied by the Royal children-a gallery formerly connecting the two houses-sur-way vived in one form or other to our own times. It was occupied by Miss Linwood's exhibition of needlework for many years; and after that all kinds of exhibitions found a temporary home there. Panoramas, tableaux vivants, bearded ladies and giants, industrious fleas and waxwork models, a café chantant, a billiard saloonsuch were a few of the many purposes to which its rooms were turned. Down below-literally in the shades was a cheap restaurant, where a repast of soup, lived Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the house now occupied by Messrs. Pattick and Simpson, the auctioneers. The house has suffered little damage; the countinghouse is Sir Joshua's front parlour; the balustraded staircase is still there, and Sir Joshua's gallery, lighted from above, where the great master exhibited his latest pictures, and which formed an antechamber to his painting-room, no longer in existence. The gallery is now surrounded by bookcases, which dealers and collectors are overhauling in view of the forthcoming sale of books. In the centre is the auctioneer's rostrum, and vacant spaces are piled with bric-a-brac curios and antiques, all to come under the auctioneer's hammer. A more recent habitué of the square was John Hunter, the great surgeon, whose house still remains in its original state, between the Tennison Schools and the Alhambra. But if you will come round to the back of the square, where Castle Street used to be, at the spot which none of the old frequenters of the square would recognise for the corner of Green Street, once Dirty Lane, so opened out it is with vistas of theatres and club-houses, and a new town hall for St. Martin's-there, on the old-fashioned side of the street, just opposite the Garrick Theatre, stands an old-fashioned house with an archway through it, closed by an oldfashioned iron grille, which was the back way to John Hunter's premises, and the yard where he kept his museum, And often has that grille been cautiously opened as cart or hackney coach drew up before it in the darkness of night, and precious dark old Castle Street was in Hunter's time with a twinkling oil lamp here and there, and then some object would be hauled out and hurried through the dark entry, while the iron gate would clang behind it. And this old grille is a living witness-for such things live as well as we-to the story of John Hunter and the giant, which is well told by the late Tom Taylor, in his history of Leicester Square. Pat O'Brien was the name of the giant, famous in his day, and successful, too, for he had accumulated a nice little fortune, and lived retired at Epping. But at the time of writing, the giant was dying of consump-a tion in Cockspur Street, at the advanced age, for a giant, of forty-six or seven-a quiet, retiring fellow, whose chief fear now was that he should figure in Hunter's Museum after his death; for he knew that the surgeon had his eye on him. There would be no rest for him in the grave if John Hunter was after him. Undertakers were, more or less, in the body-snatching business; sextons were as bad as any; and even were these faithful and vigilant, there was the professional resurrectionist, who would not be denied. So poor O'Brien left a sum of money with directions to hire a number of stout trusty Irishmen to carry his body to some place down the river, there to take boat for the Nore, and sink the coffin in deep water, where no groping | or raking could fish it up. The Irishmen were true and trusty, but the undertaker was a traitor. For the Irish were thirsty as well as trusty, and, at a given point on the way, were invited to a drink in a convenient public-house, where there was a convenient barn, where the coffin was locked up, while the bearers did their duty in waking with the whisky. Concealed in the barn were the undertaker's men, with their proper tools, who whipped out the poor giant's body in a trice, hid it in the straw, replacing it with stones of the proper weight, and making everything as before. The Irishmen, after a deep potation, marched off with their burden unsuspectingly, and buried it in the deep seas, while on the same night the undertaker gave the accustomed signal at the grille in Castle Street, handed in his prize, and received the promised reward. The giant's bones are still to be seen in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, the bulk of which is formed by John Hunter's collection. The great surgeon did not actually die in Leicester Square, for he died suddenly at a meeting of the governors of St. George's Hospital, in a fit of righteous indignation. But he was buried from the square-that is, his body was placed in the vaults under St. Martin's Church; and curiously enough his remains were resurrected, but in an honourable way, and to convey them to a more dignified resting-place, and that by Frank Buckland, whose account of the transaction is pleasant if gruesome reading. Other scenes we may recall in connection with Leicester Fields, such as the pillage of Savile House by the Gordon rioters, scene witnessed by Dr. Burney, the musician and father of "Evelina," Madame D'Arblay, who lived close by in St. Martin's Street. One would like to know something about the jovial clubs that existed in Hogarth's time at the various taverns round about, frequented by the actors and artists and literary notables of the period. An interesting circumstance is mentioned by Tom Taylor, that, in 1739, the artists hired a room in Peter's Court, St. Martin's Lane, close by, and that Hogarth gave them the apparatus, such as casts, stools, lamps, and so on, for this which was probably one of the first life schools of the kind in London. We were in danger of forgetting the Great Globe which occupied the vacant ground in Leicester Square for a decade or/ two, dating from the Crimean War. There 1 was instruction again; and if it could have been seen from the outside as a realistic globe, with diurnal revolution, and sun, moon, and stars all complete, it would have made a charming spectacle. But seeing it from the inside, just as if the globe were a filmy thing like a soap bubble, destroyed the illusion. But everything points to Leicester Square becoming one of the great sites of the future. For it is in the line of direct communication with Piccadilly, and sooner or later a third great line of communication must come into existence from west to east between the Strand and Holborn. But that is an affair for you people of the twentieth century. LITTLE WHITE-CAP. A STORY IN NINE CHAPTERS. BY BARBARA DEMPSTER. Author of "Mrs. Dave's Lady-Help," "The Bridge House," "Tabitha's Choice," etc., etc. CHAPTER VII. MRS. JOLIFFE said nothing to Priscilla of what she had heard. Between the two there was always that barrier of the consciousness of a want of sympathy and comprehension. Priscilla bore this new trouble with the same still self-repression with which she had borne all the other anguish that had come into her life. It was the inherited self-control, perhaps of generations of social discipline and high breeding, which not even the blood of the linen-draper's daughter had been able to deteriorate, which supported her. So Mrs. Joliffe chose to think, and she was very proud of her, though her manner never betrayed it. But it was the genuine affection that underlay the cold, proud exterior which prompted Mrs. Joliffe to take the step she did the next morning. Though it was intolerably painful for her to have to discuss with outsiders the shame and disgrace that had come into their lives, it was still impossible to let the matter pass unnoticed. The real story of the case must be made public. "To be the common property of every gossiping teatable for the next fortnight!" so she said, with intense bitterness to herself, But the truth was better, after all, than the lie which, started by Mrs. Dacre, was going about the neighbourhood. So, after breakfast, Mrs. Joliffe ordered the carriage to be brought round, and drove off to the Vicarage to tell Mrs. Gay how shamefully Priscilla had been wronged. After the marriage with the nursery governess, with which his family considered that he had disgraced himself, and from which, indirectly, the other two unfortunate marriages had sprung, the Honourable John Saltmarsh had sunk gradually lower in the social scale, till finally he reached the level from which his wife had sprung, and in which lower social world, it must be confessed, he found an amount of kindliness and honesty of purpose that was not surpassed in the higher planes from which he had fallen. His brave little wife, proud of and idolising her handsome, aristocratic husband, did, indeed, at first, for his sake, make splendid efforts, if not to keep him up to his original social level, at least, to prevent him drifting completely apart from his social equals. But the task was beyond her strength. Indolent and indifferent by nature, and not overgifted in the way of brains, the Honourable John found the task of earning even bread and butter for his wife and child a difficult one. Various better berths he succeeded in obtaining were gradually lost, either by inattention or incapability, and finally he drifted into a small clerkship procured for him by his father-in-law, the linen-draper. The small salary coming from it was supplemented by his wife's earnings, who slaved herself slowly to death by giving lessons, doing every variety of house-work, and making every penny stretch to its uttermost. As soon as she was old enough, Priscilla, by her aunt's generosity, was sent to a good boarding-school, and as even many of her holidays, by her aunt's commands, were spent away from home, it was not till her mother was dying that she found out what the mode of life there had been. She was sixteen then, and in her heart she never quite forgave her aunt for insisting upon her being brought up so much away from home, and so being kept in ignorance of the state of affairs there. Neither her kindly, courtly father, nor her brave, sweet-tempered, heroic little mother had ever breathed a word to her of their difficulties, which, after all, fell with their greatest force on her mother. She only found it all out when her mother was dying. Then, when her mother was dead, she refused to return to school, or even to go and live with her aunt, who, it is only fair to say, had never really known how terribly straitened the existence of her brother and sister-in-law had been, both with an equal, though different kind of pride, keeping their privations to themselves. In spite of her aunt's anger and arguments, of her offers to keep her brother from poverty if Priscilla would only return to school, Priscilla persisted in staying on in the little home in Dalston and taking up the burden of life her mother had so patiently and grandly borne, though not even half an ounce of blue blood had ennobled her veins. Her father needed her help and companionship. With the loss of his wife the last spark of energy and vigour seemed to die out of his being. Physically and mentally he slowly broke down. The clerkship was given up, and they were compelled to live on what Priscilla earned by teaching, Mrs. Joliffe, grievously of fended, taking no further notice of them. For nearly two years this life went on, then the Honourable John died suddenly, and Priscilla was homeless. But during the last part of these two years Priscilla had made a friend. It was while going backwards and forwards to her work that by an accident she made the acquaintance of a young engineer. She had often noticed the young workman, who came back one day in the week by the same train as herself from his work in the big ironworks in which he was employed. She was always late home on this particular day. One foggy winter evening, a man, taking advantage of the dark and deserted streets, followed her. He was making himself very unpleasant, when she Saw him suddenly sprawling on the pavement, dropped by a well-directed blow from a man who had come up at the moment. It was her weekly fellow-traveller-the young workman, whose fine, intelligent face she had noticed often during the last month or two. He escorted her home, and told her his name and his occupation. She had always wondered at his being a mere workman. She found now that his work in the foundry necessitated the working dress, but that there was nothing else to distinguish him from the truest gentleman she had ever seen. The acquaintance continued. She soon found that he was like no other man she had ever met. She also discovered after a time that even before she had noticed him, he had noticed her, and a little later again made another discovery, that their weekly travelling back together to Dalston on that particular day-the day on which she was detained latest at the teaching, was not accidental on his part, and that during the dark winter evenings, though she had not known it, she had had a secret escort from the commencement of her journey at the crowded London terminus to the moment when she reached her own doorstep. In the meantime he had, at her invitation, called at the house, and her father, in spite of the fact that Will Deane frankly confessed that his father had been a blacksmith, took a great fancy to the strong, intelligent, self. educated young engineer who had, by his own talents and dogged perseverance, risen to be what he was. He was not a gentleman by birth, but he was a gentleman by instinct, study and reading doing the rest; and a lucky chance, which had thrown him into the companionship of a man far above him in the social scale, had given him the polish which had at first puzzled both Priscilla and her father. When the Honourable John Saltmarsh died suddenly, and Priscilla was left homeless and unprotected, Will Deane asked her to be his wife. But they had understood each other long before that, and Priscilla, in spite of the blue blood inherited from her father, held it an honour to give herself to a man who, though he wore workman's clothes, and worked with his hands as well as his brains, was the truest, bravest, most chivalrous knight a woman's heart and soul could desire. But Mrs. Joliffe thought otherwise. She was almost mad with shame and rage that still another of her flesh and blood should make such a low and fatal marriage. as Priscilla wrote to her to tell her of her father's death, and Mrs. Joliffe, soon as she could travel, the shock aggravating her rheumatism from which she suffered, went up to the little house at Dalston to find her niece engaged to ba married. Neither her anger, nor her reproaches, nor her entreaties could prevail. Not even the relation of her own bitter regret for the marriage she herself had made, and which, too, had been brought about through her brother's marriage, Stephen Joliffe having been introduced to her in her brother's house, could avail. Instead, Priscilla passionately resented the indirect insult to her mother, as being the cause of the meeting between one of her own class and the proud, aristocratic Miss Saltmarsh, and declared that it was her |