SQUARES 
227 
very quiet and dreary aspect when compared with the 
cheerful crowds enjoying the gardens in its larger 
neighbour, Leicester Square. This was known as 
Leicester Fields, and was traversed by two rows of 
elm trees; and even after the houses round it were 
begun, about 1635, the name of Fields clung to 
it. The ground was part of the Lammas Lands be¬ 
longing to the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and 
Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, who built the house 
from which the Square takes its name, paid compensa¬ 
tion for the land, to the poor of the parish ^3 yearly. 
The house occupied the north-east corner of the Square, 
and in after years became famous as a royal residence. 
It has been called “ the pouting-place ” of princes, 
as it was to Leicester House that the Prince of Wales 
retired when he quarrelled with his father, George I.; 
and there Caroline the Illustrious gathered all the 
dissatisfied courtiers, and such wit and beauty as could 
be found, round her. When he became George II., 
and quarrelled in his turn with his son, Frederick, 
Prince of Wales, the latter came to live in Leicester 
House. The statue of George I. which stood in the 
centre of the garden was, it was said, put up by 
Frederick, with the express purpose of annoying his 
father. A view of the Square in 1700, shows a neatly- 
kept square garden with four straight walks, and trees 
at even distances, and Leicester House standing back, 
with a fore-court and large entrance gates, and a garden 
of its own with lawns and statues at the back. Savile 
House, next door to Leicester House, on the site 
of the present Empire Theatre, was also the scene 
of many interesting incidents, until it was practically 
destroyed during the Gordon Riots. The list of great 
