SQUARES 229 



Shakespeare in the centre, and the four busts, were 

 also the gift of the same public benefactor, who 

 presented the Square complete, with trees, statues, 

 railings, and seats, in 1874. 



Soho Square was another of the fashionable squares of 

 London, now gloomy and deserted by its former aristo- 

 cratic residents. The gardens are kept up for the benefit 

 of those living in the Square only, and are not enjoyed 

 by the masses, like Leicester Square. Maitland describes 

 the building and consecration of St. Anne's, Soho, or, as 

 he calls it, St. Anne's, Westminster, which was in 1685 

 separated from St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and a new 

 parish created, just in the same way as scores of parishes 

 have to be treated nowadays, to meet the needs of the 

 much more rapidly-growing population. Of the new 

 parish, he says the only remarkable things were " its 

 beautiful streets, spacious and handsome Church, and 

 stately Quadrate, denominated King's-Square, but vulgarly 

 Soho-Square." Various suggestions have been made as 

 to the origin of the name, and the most popular explana- 

 tion is that it was a hunting-cry used in hunting hares, 

 which sport was indulged in over these fields. The word 

 Soho occurs in the parish registers as early as 1632. 

 When first built the Square was called King Square, from 

 Geoffrey King, who surveyed it, not after King Charles IL 

 But the old name of the fields became for ever attached 

 to the Square, to the entire exclusion of the more modern 

 one, after the battle of Sedgemoor. Monmouth's sup- 

 porters on that occasion took the word Soho for their 

 watchword, from the fact that Monmouth lived in the 

 Square. In 1690 John Evelyn notes that he went with 

 his family " to winter at Soho in the Great Square." 

 Monmouth House was built by Wren, when the Square 



