N CHAPTER VIII BERKELEY SQUARE O SUCH changes have fallen upon this-the court end of the town, since it was laid out in the middle of the eighteenth century under Robert Walpole, then Prime Minister. At No. 11, so the records show, lived his son Horace chiefly from 1779 to 1797; at No. 13 the Marquis of Hertford began to collect what is now the Wallace Collection; at No. 25 lived Charles James Fox; at No. 28 Lord Brougham entertained as Lord Chancellor; at No. 38 Lady Jersey's dinners and balls were the talk of the town; at No. 45 Lord Clive committed suicide in 1774, and in the corner house on Bruton Street Colly Cibber lived and died. In fact, many houses of the period are still identified by these names, and some of them have the iron torchextinguishers hanging at their doorposts. And even at this late day the carriage of his Majesty the King can be found outside the stoops of the great people whose doors open on the Square. That which drew me to it was the fact that on this very square was set up one of the most brilliant booths in all Vanity Fair. "All the world knows that Lord Steyne's town palace stands in Gaunt Square, out of which Great Gaunt Street leads, whither we first conducted Rebecca in the time of the departed Sir Pitt Crawley. Peering over the railings and through the black trees into the garden of the square, you see a few miserable governesses with wan-faced pupils wandering round and round it, and round the dreary grass-plot in the centre of which rises the statue of Lord Gaunt, who fought at Minden, in a three-tailed wig, and otherwise habited like a Roman Emperor. Gaunt House occupies nearly a side of the square. The remaining three sides are composed of mansions that have passed away into dowagerism; tall, dark houses, with window frames of stone, or picked out of a lighter red. Little light seems to be behind those lean, comfortless casements now; and hospitality to have passed away from those doors as much as the laced lacqueys and link-boys of old times, who used to put out their torches in the blank iron extinguishers that still flank the lamps over the steps. Brass plates have penetrated into the Square - doctors, the Diddlesex Bank, Western Branch the English and European Reunion, etc. - it has a dreary look nor is my Lord Steyne's palace less dreary. All I have ever seen of it is the vast wall in front, with the rustic columns at the great gate, through which an old porter peers sometimes with a fat and gloomy red face and over the wall the garret and bedroom windows, and the chimneys, out of which there seldom comes any smoke now." While there is some conflict over the exact location of this noble mansion, all authorities agree that Gaunt Square was |