erty of this family, now Dukes of Northumberland, until
its compulsory sale in the year 1874. The house originally consisted of
three sides of a quadrangle, the fourth side lying open with gardens
stretching down to the river. The front was wrongly attributed to Inigo
Jones. The house had been repaired or rebuilt in many places, so that
there was not much that was ancient left in its later days. By the side
of Northumberland House formerly ran Hartshorn Lane, now entirely
obliterated. Ben Jonson was born here, and lived here in his childhood.

Trafalgar Square was built over the site of what was formerly the Royal
Mews, a building of very ancient foundation; and a rookery of obscure
and ill-famed lanes and alleys on the west and north of St. Martin's
Church, popularly known as the Bermudas, and afterwards the Caribbean
Islands. In the midst of the mews stood a small and remarkable building
called Queen Elizabeth's Bath. It is almost impossible to estimate the
difference between the then and the now, in regard to this particular
part. St. Martin's Lane continued right up to Northumberland House,
where the lion of the proud Percies stiffened his tail on the parapet.
The house stood across the present head of Northumberland Avenue. The
Royal Mews themselves were where the fountains now splash, and on the
further side of them was Hedge Lane.

Pennant says the Mews was so called from having been used for the King's
falcons--at least, from the time of Richard III. to Henry VIII. In the
latter King's reign the royal horses were stabled here, but the name
Mews was retained, and has come to be applied to any town range of
stabling. The mews were removed to make way for the National Gallery
about 1834. Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet, was Clerk of the King's Works,
and of the Mews at Charing about the end of Richard II.'s reign. During
the Commonwealth Colonel Joyce was imprisoned in the Mews by order of
Oliver Cromwell.

It is supposed that we are indebted to William IV. for the idea of a
square to be called Trafalgar in honour of Nelson, and to contain some
worthy memorial of the hero. The total height of the monument, designed
by Railton, is 193 feet, and its design is from that of one of the
columns of the Temple of Mars at Rome. The statue, which looks so small
from the ground, is really 17 feet high, nearly three times the height
of a man; it was the work of E. H. Baily, R.A. The pedestal has bronze
bas-reliefs on its four sid