, plaistered head, whom Hogarth has represented mounting grim sentry
in his "Southwark Fair." The great building at Marylebone began between
1718 and 1729. In 1739 there were only 577 houses in the parish; in 1851
there were 16,669. In many of the nooks and corners of Marylebone we
shall find curious facts and stories worth the unravelling.

[Illustration: PLAN OF ROMAN LONDON (_see page 20_).]

The eastern squares, in Bloomsbury and St. Pancras, are regions not by
any means to be lightly passed by. Bloomsbury Square was built by the
Earl of Southampton, about the time of the Restoration, and was thought
one of the wonders of England. Baxter lived here when he was tormented
by Judge Jefferies; Sir Hans Sloane was one of its inhabitants; so was
that great physician, Dr. Radcliffe. The burning of Mansfield House by
Lord George Gordon's rioters has to be minutely described. In Russell
Square we visit the houses of Sir Thomas Lawrence and of Judge Talfourd,
and search for that celebrated spot in London legend, "The Field of the
Forty Footsteps," where two brothers, it is said, killed each other in a
duel for a lady, who sat by watching the fight. Then there is Red Lion
Square, where tradition says some faithful adherents, at the
Restoration, buried the body of Cromwell, to prevent its desecration at
Tyburn; and we have to cull some stories of a good old inhabitant, Jonas
Hanway, the great promoter of many of the London charities, the first
man who habitually used an umbrella and Dr. Johnson's spirited opponent
on the important question of tea. Soho Square, too, has many a
tradition, for the Duke of Monmouth lived there in great splendour; and
in Hogarth's time Mrs. Cornelys made the square celebrated by her
masquerades, which in time became disreputable. Sir Cloudesley Shovel,
Sir Joseph Banks, and Burnet, the historian, were all inhabitants of
this locality.

Islington brings us back to days when Henry VIII. came there to hawk the
partridge and the heron, and when the London citizens wandered out
across the northern fields to drink milk and eat cheesecakes. The old
houses abound in legends of Sir Walter Raleigh, Topham, the strong man,
George Morland, the artist, and Henderson, the actor. At Canonbury, the
old tower of the country house of the Prior of St. Bartholomew recalls
to us Goldsmith, who used to come there to hide from his creditors, go
to bed early, and write steadily.

At Highgate and Hampstead we shall scour