Houses were at length pulled down, and the flames still spreading westward, were at length stopped at the Temple Church, in Fleet Street, and Pie Corner in Smithfield. In these four days 13,200 houses, 400 streets, and 89 churches, including the cathedral church of St. Paul, were destroyed, and London lay literally in ruins. The loss was so enormous that we may be said still to suffer from its effects. Yet the advantages were not a few. London was freed from the plague ever after; and we owe St. Paul's, St. Bride's, St. Stephen's, Walbrook, and all the architectural glories of Sir Christopher Wren to the desolation it occasioned.

Pudding Lane is now almost entirely occupied by wholesale fruit merchants and brokers.

Puddle Dock (originally PUDDLE WHARF), at the foot of St. Andrew's Hill, Upper Thames Street, Blackfriars, in Castle Baynard Ward.

Then a water gate at Puddle Wharf, of one Puddle that kept a wharf on the west side thereof, and now of Puddle water by means of many horses watered there.Stow, pp. 16, 136.

The town house of the Earl of Rutland, temp. Elizabeth, seems to have been here.1 Rutland Place and Rutland Yard (now Rutland Wharf), to the east of Puddle Dock, commemorate the fact. Sir Dudley Carleton was living at Puddle Wharf in 1600. On December 17, 1609, the Lady Arabella Stuart wrote to Cecil from Puddle Wharf beseeching that her Patent (of the "privilege of nominating such persons as shall sell wines, aquavitæ or usquebagh" for twenty-one years) may speedily pass the Great Seal.2 The house which Shakespeare bought in the Blackfriars, and which he bequeaths by will to his daughter, Susannah Hall, is described in the Conveyance as "abutting upon a streete leading down to Puddle Wharffe on the east part, right-against the King's Maiesty's Wardrobe "-"and now or late in the tenure or occupacon of one William Ireland, or of his assignee or assignes."3 [See Ireland Yard.]

I gyve will bequeath and devise unto my daughter Susannah Hall. . . all that messuage or tenemente with the appurtenances wherein one John Robinson dwelleth scituat lying and being in the Blackfriars in London neare the Wardrobe.”— Shakespeare's Will.

Puddle Wharf,

Which place we'll make bold with to call it our Abydos,

As the Bankside is our Sestos.

Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, Act v; see also Beaumont and Fletcher, vol. ii. p. 167.

H' had been both friend and foe to crimes;

Clodpate. Is not this better than anything in that stinking Town [London]? Lucia. Stinking Town! I had rather be Countess of Puddle-Dock than Queen of Sussex.-T. Shadwell, Epsom Wells, 4to, 1676.

Swift also introduces the Countess of Puddle Dock in his Polite Conversation, and Hogarth a Duke of Puddle Dock in his Trip to Gravesend.

But what most pleased us was his Grace
Of Puddle Dock, a porter grim,

Whose portrait Hogarth in a whim
Presented him in caricature

And pasted on the cellar door.-Hogarth's Trip.

The Duke of Puddle Dock was probably at this time a notorious personage, as there was published in 1739 "The Popular Convention, a Poem by the Duchess of Puddle Dock."1

Puddle Hill, PUDDLE WHARF, BLACKFRIARS.

lived the father of Archbishop Leighton.

Here in 1628

To his kind and loving Father, Mr. Alexander Leighton, Dr. of Medicine, at his house on the top of Pudle Hill, beyond the Black Friars Gate, near the King's Ward-robe, these.—Archbishop Leighton to his Father from Edinburgh, 1628.

Pullin's Row, ISLINGTON. A few houses on the east side of Upper Street, were so called.

Ben. The young gentleman in Pullin's Row, Islington, that has got the consumption, has sent to know if you can let him have a sweetbread.-Charles Lamb's farce, The Pawnbroker's Daughter.

Pulteney Street (Little), GOLDEN SQUARE, was originally called Knaves Acre.2 Sir William Pulteney, Knt., an inhabitant of St. James's parish, held the site of this street and adjacent property by lease from the Crown, part of which he demised in 1685 to Thomas Beake, a carpenter, hence Beak Street. A "Mr. Poultney of St. James's" is recorded as the owner of "certain messuages and tenements in a certain place called Soehoe" as early as 1645. In 1720 Strype says "The Knave's Acre is but narrow and chiefly inhabited by those that deal in old goods and glass bottles." It is still marked Knave's Acre in Roque's Map of 1745, although it is figured as Pultney Street in Strype's Map of 1720. The present Great Pulteney Street was of later construction. At his house here died, July 9, 1742, John Oldmixon, the historian and party writer. Great Pulteney Street is peculiarly interesting to the musician from Joseph Haydn having resided at No. 18 (lately rebuilt), when he visited England; and from Shudi (properly Tschudi), the harpsichord maker and friend of Handel, having founded his business at No. 33 as early, according to the family tradition, as 1732. The sign of the house was "The Plume of Feathers." Shudi's son-in-law, John Broadwood, who founded the pianoforte business, succeeded to it in 1769, and it still remains occupied by his descendants' firm. There is a room shown in this house to which Haydn used to retire to compose.

Pump Court, TEMPLE, was so called from the pump in the centre. The present buildings were erected in 1826.

January 27, 1678-1679.—In the night the greatest part of the Middle Temple in London, consumed by a dreadful fire which began in the south-west corner of Pump Court.-Dugdale's Diary, in Hamper.

In 1710, when the future Lord Chancellor Hardwicke began to study for the Bar, he took chambers in this Court; and in 1715, when commencing to practice, he moved into a fresh set of chambers, but still in Pump Court.

When, in June 1740, Fielding was called to the Bar he had chambers assigned him in this Court.

Pur Alley.

Now Post and Pair, old Christmas heir,
Doth make and a gingling sally;

And wot you who, 'tis one of my two

Sons, card-makers in Pur Alley.—

Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas.

There was a Pur (or Pur's) Court on the east side of Old Change near Cheapside; and Pur Field was the old name of a portion of Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Purim Place, MILE END, on the east side of the Cambridge Road.

The names of streets will often be found connected with some singular event or the character of some person. Not long ago a Hebrew, who had a quarrel with his community about the manner of celebrating the Jewish festival in commemoration of the fate of Haman, built a neighbourhood at Bethnal Green, and retained the subject of his anger in the name which the houses bear of Purim Place. This may startle some theological antiquary at a remote period, who may idly lose himself in abstruse conjectures on the sanctity of a name, derived from a well known Hebrew festival; and perhaps in his imagination be induced to colonize the spot with an ancient horde of Israelites.-I. D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature, vol. iii. p. 360.

On this passage Mrs. Piozzi has a note (Piozziana, p. 207) which may serve to show that theological antiquaries are not the only people likely to idly lose their way when embarking on abstruse etymological conjectures.

Pye Street (Old), WESTMINSTER, runs from St. Anne's Street to Duck Lane, and was so called from Sir Robert Pye (the husband of John Hampden's daughter), who resided here. Strype in 1720 described the street as "better built than inhabited." At No. 8 lived Isaac De Groot.1 "I have known him many years," wrote Dr. Johnson. "He has all the common claims to charity, being old, poor, and infirm to a great degree. He has likewise another claim, to which no scholar can refuse attention; he is by several descents the nephew of Hugo Grotius; of him from whom, perhaps, every man of learning has learnt something."

1 Boswell, by Croker, p. 535.

Quadrant (The), the eastern end of REGENT STREET, was designed when Regent Street was built by John Nash, architect. arcade, which covered the whole footway (supported by 145 cast-iron pillars), was removed in December 1848. Thus was sacrificed the most beautiful and most original feature in the street architecture of London. The reasons assigned for this removal were, that, though picturesque in itself, and of use on a rainy day, by darkening the footpath it lessened the value of the shops and occasioned other nuisances. Traces of the arcade may still be seen at the two intersections of Leicester Street. The name was retained some years after the removal of the arcade, but is now merged in that of Regent Street. Quebec Street, OXFORD STREET, commemorates the capture of Quebec by General Wolfe in 1759.

Queen Square, BLOOMSBURY, was so called out of compliment to Queen Anne, in whose reign it was erected.1 The north side ". was left open for the sake of the beautiful landscape formed by the hills of Highgate and Hampstead, together with the adjacent fields." 2 1756 Maitland calls it "Queen's Square, Red Lion Fields."

In

Eminent Inhabitants.—Alderman Barber, the printer, who died here in 1741 (the individual to whom Butler owes a monument in Poets' Corner). In January 1771 Barber's house was occupied by Dr. Charles Burney. Madame D'Arblay speaks of "the beautiful prospect of the hills, ever verdant and smiling, of Hampstead and Highgate, which at that period, in unobstructed view, faced the Doctor's dwelling in Queen Square." 3

In February [1772] I had the honour of receiving the illustrious Captain Cook to dine with me in Queen Square, previously to his second voyage round the world. Observing upon table Bougainville's Voyage autour du Monde he turned it over and made some curious remarks on the illiberal conduct of that circumnavigator towards himself when they met and crossed each other; which made me desirous to know, in examining the Chart of M. de Bougainville, the several tracks of the two navigators; and exactly where they had crossed or approached each other. Captain Cook instantly took a pencil from his pocket-book, and said he would trace the route, which he did in so clear and scientific a manner that I would not take fifty pounds for the book. The pencil-mark having been fixed by skim-milk will always be visible.-Mem. by Dr. Burney, Memoirs, vol. i. p. 270.

It was on this occasion arranged that the Doctor's eldest son James (afterwards Admiral Burney, the friend of Charles Lamb) should accompany the great navigator in his approaching voyage. Charles Churchill, the poet, in 1758, after the death of his father, was engaged by Mrs. Dennis, who had a boarding-school in this square, to give "lessons in the English tongue to the young ladies," and, as Dr. Kippis says, "conducted himself in his new employment with all the decorum becoming his clerical profession." This school was at No. 31, and became so famous as to earn the name of "The Ladies' Eton." Boswell's daughter Veronica was there in 1789, and he writes of her

1 Hatton, p. 67.

2 Dodsley, 1761, vol. v. p. 240.

3 D'Arblay's Memoirs of Dr. Burney, vol. i. p. 290.

with no small pride as his "Queen Square daughter." It continued to be a school of some note for nearly a century, and was finally closed about 1855. The house in the north-west corner was Heidegger's, who left it on his death in 1749 to his only daughter, the wife of Admiral Sir Peter Denis. Dr. Stukeley, who died here in 1765, was rector of the small brick church of St. George the Martyr, on the south-west side of the square [which see]. Dr. John Campbell, author of The Lives of the Admirals, and chief contributor to the Biographia Britannica, lived here for many years and here died, December 28, 1775.

Campbell's residence for some years before his death was the large new-built house, situate at the north-west corner of Queen Square, Bloomsbury, whither, particularly on a Sunday evening, great numbers of persons of the first eminence for science and literature were accustomed to resort for the enjoyment of conversation.Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 210.

Johnson. I used to go pretty often to Campbell's on a Sunday evening, till I began to consider that the shoals of Scotchmen who flocked about him might probably say, when anything of mine was well done, "Ay, ay, he has learnt this of Cawmell.” -Boswell, by Croker, p. 142.

Dr. Anthony Askew (d. 1774), famous as a physician, and in his own day still more widely famous as a Greek scholar. Dr. Mead gave to Askew the gold-headed cane which he had received from Radcliffe, and which, after Askew, was successively carried by Pitcairn and Baillie; it is now preserved in the Royal College of Physicians. Askew's house was a favourite resort of the leading scholars of the day, among them being enumerated Archbishop Markham, Sir William Jones, Dr. Parr, and Richard Farmer, the Shakespearian annotator.

Dr. Askew's house in Queen's Square, was said to be the most classical in London; for every passage was lined with Greek or Latin books. He had a Greek servant reckoned the finest copyist in the world.-Cradock's Lit. Memoirs, vol. iv. p. 135.

George III., wishing to secure the library entire, offered £5000 for it, but the family decided to submit it to auction. The sale took place in 1775 and lasted twenty days. A considerable portion of the library (including the large purchases by the King and Mr. Cracherode) came eventually to the British Museum. The Rev. George Croly, LL.D., author of Salathiel, was living at No. 9 Queen Square till his death in November 1860.

Queen Square has long ceased to be a fashionable place of residence, and several of the larger houses have been appropriated to commercial, educational or benevolent uses. Nos. 17-19, the Alexandra Hospital for Children with Hip Disease; Nos. 23-25, the National Hospital for the Paralysed and the Epileptic; No. 29, the College for Men and Women; Nos. 32 and 33, the School of Ecclesiastical Embroidery; No. 41, the Italian Hospital; No. 43 is the Government (District) School of Art for Ladies. General Strode erected a statue of Queen Charlotte in the centre of the square.