CHAPTER IX 



SQUARES 



Fountains and Trees our wearied Pride do please. 

 Even in the midst of Gilded Palaces ; 

 And in our Toivns, that Prospect gives Delight, 

 Which opens round the Country to our Sight. 



— Lines in a Letter from Sprat to Sir Christopher 

 Wren on the Translation of Horace. 



OTHING is more essentially cha- 

 racteristic of London than its 

 squares. They have no exact 

 counterpart in any foreign city. 

 The iron railings, the enclosure 

 of dusty bushes and lofty trees, 

 with wood-pigeons and twittering 

 sparrows, have little in common 

 with, say for instance, the Place Vendome in Paris, 

 or the Grand' Place in Brussels, or Madison Square, 

 New York. The vicissitudes of some of the London 

 Squares would fill a volume, but most of them have 

 had much the same origin. They have been built 

 with residential houses surrounding them, and though 

 some have changed to shops, and in others the houses 

 are dilapidated and forsaken by the wealthier classes, 

 nearly every one has had its day of popularity. 



In some of those now deserted by the world 



of fashion, the gardens have been opened to the 



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