back-front was formerly the Excise Office; then the South Sea Company's Office; and hence is distinguished by the name of the Old South Sea House. As to the new building in which the Company's affairs are now transacted, it is a magnificent structure.-Noorthouck's History of London, 4to, 1773, p. 569.

Reader, in thy passage from the Bank-where thou hast been receiving thy half-yearly dividend (supposing thou art a lean annuitant like myself)-to the Flower Pot to secure a place for Dalston, or Shacklewell, or some other thy suburban retreat northerly, didst thou never observe a melancholy looking, handsome, brick and stone edifice, to the left-where Threadneedle Street abuts upon Bishopsgate? I dare say thou hast often admired its magnificent portals ever gaping wide, and disclosing to view a grave court, with cloisters, and pillars, with few or no traces of goers-in or comers-out-a desolation something like Balclutha's.

This was once a house of trade,—a centre of busy interests. The throng of merchants was here—the quick pulse of gain—and here some forms of business are still kept up, though the soul be long since fled. Here are still to be seen stately porticos, imposing staircases, offices as roomy as the state apartments in palacesdeserted, or thinly peopled with a few straggling clerks; the still more sacred interiors of court and committee-rooms, with venerable faces of beadles, door-keepers -directors seated on forms on solemn days (to proclaim a dead dividend) at long worm-eaten tables, that have been mahogany, with tarnished gilt-leather coverings, supporting massy silver inkstands long since dry; the oaken wainscot hung with pictures of deceased governors and sub-governors, of Queen Anne, and the two first monarchs of the Brunswick dynasty; huge charts, which subsequent discoveries have antiquated; dusty maps of Mexico, dim as dreams,—and soundings of the Bay of Panama!-Charles Lamb, Elia, 1st S.

John Lamb, the elder brother of Charles, was a clerk in the South Sea House, and through his influence Elia himself was admitted to learn bookkeeping in the office-hence his familiarity with its interior economy. Portions of the interior and exterior have been remodelled, 1855-1856, and the South Sea House is now a nest of mercantile offices, it having been sold for £55,700.

South Street, GROSVENOR SQUARE, Farm Street to Park Lane. Eminent Inhabitants.-Charles James Fox at No. 26, in 1792. The Duke of Orleans (Philippe Egalité), at No. 31. Lady Holland died, November 16, 1845, at No. 33; and here died, April 10, 1843, John Allen, M.D., of Holland House celebrity. George Bryan (Beau) Brummell was living at No. 24 in 1809. Lord Melbourne, at No. 39, during the whole of the Melbourne administration (1835-1841); it is said that Lord Melbourne for many years never gave a dinner, or even had a joint cooked for himself, in this house.

His cooks with long disuse their trade forgot;
Cool was his kitchen.

Southampton Buildings, HOLBORN to CHANCERY LANE, a row of tenements so called after the Wriothesleys, Earls of Southampton, and entitled "Old" to distinguish them from the "New" buildings in High Holborn, erected by Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton (d. 1667), son of Shakespeare's patron, and father of Lady Rachel Russell. [See Southampton House, Holborn.] On August 16, 1673, the Holborn property of the Southampton family was assigned, in trust, to Arthur, Earl of Essex, and others, for and on behoof of Elizabeth,

Countess-Dowager of Northumberland, on her marriage with the
Honourable Ralph Montague, eldest son and heir of Edward, Lord
Montague. On July 17, 1690, it was assigned in mortgage by Ralph,
Earl of Montague, and Elizabeth, Countess of Montague, to Edward
Rudge and Edward Littleton. In 1723 it was granted by John,
Duke of Montague, as a portion to his eldest daughter, Lady Isabella,
on her marriage to William, Duke of Manchester.
On March 22,

1727, it was sold and assigned in fee by William and Isabella, Duke and Duchess of Manchester; John, Duke of Montague; Scroop, Duke of Bridgewater; Robert, Earl of Sunderland; and Francis, Earl of Godolphin, to Jacob de Bouverie, Esq., and Sir Edward de Bouverie, Bart., ancestors of the present proprietor, the Earl of Radnor. On March 3, 1740, Sir Jacob de Bouverie, Bart., granted a lease to Edward Bootle, for a term of 230 years, of those premises. After that the present buildings were erected by Edward Bootle, who left them by will to Robert Bootle; who left them by will to trustees; and by divers assignments they became vested in Edward Smith Bigg, Esq., who granted them on lease to the trustees of the London Mechanics' Institute, for the whole of his term of 146 years, from September 1, 1824, at a rent of £229 per annum, with liberty to purchase down to £29 per annum, at any time, for the sum of £350.1 They are now held by the Birkbeck Bank. The Birkbeck Institution, a reconstitution of the London Mechanics' Institution, and so named in honour of Dr. Birkbeck, the original founder, has been removed to a new house in Bream's Buildings.

This yeare [1650] Jacob, a Jew, opened a Coffey house at the Angel, in the Parish of S. Peter in the East Oxon, and there it was by some, who delighted in Noveltie, drank. When he left Oxon, he sold it in Old Southampton buildings in Holborne near London, and was living there in 1671.—Autobiography of Antony à Wood, vol. ii. p. 65.

Here, in the house of a relative, Edmund Ludlow, the Parliamentary general, lay concealed at the time of the Restoration till he succeeded in escaping to the Continent. In 1696, when Sir George Barclay was arranging the plot for the murder of William III., he took lodgings under the name of Brown in Southampton Buildings, "over against the arch which led to Staple Inn, the meeting-place of the conspirators being the Griffin Tavern close by.2 Thomas Holcroft, the dramatist, about 1780 kept a lodging-house in this street. Charles Lamb was living at No. 34 in 1809, after he left Mitre Court Buildings and before he went to Inner Temple Lane. Twenty-one years afterwards, in 1830, when he made a last attempt to reside in London, he once more took up his abode in the same No. 34. In March 1811, when Coleridge was lecturing, he resided in Southampton Buildings, and, as he was in daily intercourse with the Lambs, very probably in No. 34, to which they themselves twice resorted. Here, in the Southampton Coffeehouse, at the Chancery Lane end, Hazlitt has laid the scene of his 2 Blackmore, pp. 135, 136.

1 Mechanics' Register, vol. ii. pp. 179, 180.

Essay on Coffee-house Politicians; and here he occasionally held a kind of evening levee.1

For several years Mr. Hazlitt was a very regular visitor to the Southampton Coffee House. . . . He always came in the evening, occupied a particular place reserved for him as scrupulously as his seat at Covent Garden, called for what he wanted, and settled the score whenever it happened to be convenient.-W. C. Hazlitt, Memoirs of William Hazlitt, vol. i. p. 292.

In the year 1820 Hazlitt took apartments at No. 9, at the house of a tailor named Walker. Here, on August 16, he "first saw the sweet apparition" of Miss Sarah, the landlord's daughter, bringing up the tea-tray, and at once fell in love with her. She would not listen to his advances; and after a while he made a journey to Edinburgh to procure a divorce, but the young lady remained unmoved. The great writer then "threw out his clamorous anguish to the clouds and to the winds and to the air" in his Liber Amoris, or the New Pygmalion (12m0, 1823), and returned no more to Southampton Buildings.

At Nos. 25 and 26 are the Patent Office, the Registries of Design and Trade Marks Offices, and the Patent Library and Reading Room. At No. 10 is the Office of the Commissioners for Affidavits in the Irish Law Courts, and Registry of Deeds in Ireland. [See Patent Office.]

Southampton House, BLOOMSBURY, occupied the whole of the north side of the present Bloomsbury Square.

Southampton House, a large building with a spacious court before it for the reception of coaches, and a curious garden behind, which lieth open to the fields, enjoying a wholesome and pleasant air.-Strype, B. iv. p. 84.

October 2, 1664.-To my Lady Sandwich's through my Lord Southampton's new buildings in the fields behind Gray's Inn, and indeed they are very great and a noble work.-Pepys.

February 9, 1665.-Din'd at my Lo. Treasurer's the Earle of Southampton in Blomesbury, where he was building a noble Square or Piazza, a little Towne; his owne house stands too low, some noble roomes, a pretty cedar chapell, a naked garden to the north, but good aire.-Evelyn.

If you're displeas'd with what you've seen to-night
Behind Southampton House we'll do you right;
Who is't dares draw 'gainst me and Mrs. Knight?

Epilogue to Mountfort's Greenwich Park, 4to, 1691.

Rachel, Lady Russell, whose letters invest this house with many delightful associations, died in it September 29, 1723, aged eighty-six. [See Bedford House, Bloomsbury.]

Southampton House, HOLBORN, the town house of the Wriothesleys, Earls of Southampton, on the south side of Holborn, a little above Holborn Bars. It was taken down circ. 1652. Parts remained as late as 1850 in Mr. Griffith's, a whipmaker's warehouse, 322 Holborn, and some fragments existed in the Blue Posts Tavern, No. 47 Southampton Buildings, Holborn. On May 17, 1847, Mr. Griffith showed Mr. Cunningham what is still called "the chapel" of

1 Patmore, in Jerrold's Mag. No. 2.

the house, with rubble walls and a flat-timbered roof. Mr. Griffith informed Mr. Cunningham at the same time that his father remembered a pulpit in the chapel, and that he himself, when forming the foundation of a workshop adjoining, had seen portions of a circular building which he supposed to be part of the ruins of the old Temple mentioned by Stow. He was probably right, for in pulling down some old houses early in the last century in the immediate neighbourhood unmistakable remains of the first Temple church were discovered. These remains were of Caen stone.

Beyond the bars [Holborn Bars] had ye in old time a Temple built by the Templars, whose order first began in 1118, in the 19th of Henry I. This Temple was left and fell to ruin since the year 1184, when the Templars had built them a new Temple in Fleet Street, near to the river of Thames. A great part of this old Temple was pulled down but of late in the year 1595. Adjoining to this old Temple was sometime the Bishop of Lincoln's Inn, wherein he lodged when he repaired to this city. Robert de Curars, Bishop of Lincoln, built it about the year 1147. John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, Chancellor of England in the reign of Richard III., was lodged there. It hath of late years belonged to the Earls of Southampton, and therefore called Southampton House. Master Ropar hath of late built much there; by means whereof part of the ruins of the old Temple were seen to remain, built of Caen stone, round in form as the new Temple by Temple Bar, and other Temples in England.-Stow, p. 163.

Southampton House was conveyed in Fee to the Lord Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and Lord Chancellor in the time of King Edward VI. For which the Bishop hath no other house in or near London, as is thought.-Strype, B. iv. p. 69. This Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, died at Southampton House in 1550.

1617.-James I. to Sir Henry Yelverton, Attorney-General. Orders him to prepare a Bill confirming certain privileges to Henry Earl of Southampton, etc., and to extend the liberties of Southampton House from Holborn Bars to the Rolls in Chancery Lane.-Cal. State Pap., 1611-1618, p. 507.

My Lord of Southampton moved the king by petition, that he might have leave to pull down his house in Holborn, and build it into tenements, which would have been much advantage to him, and his fortune hath need of some helps. His Majesty brought his petition with him to the Council Table, and recommended it to the Lords, telling their lordships that my Lord of Southampton was a person whom he much respected, etc.; but upon debate it was dashed.—Garrard to Lord Strafford, March 23, 1636, vol. ii. p. 57.

And lately it [Southampton House] hath bin quite taken down and turned to several private tenements.-Howell's Londinopolis, fol. 1657, p. 344.

Tuesday, August 28, 1649.-There is a well found by a souldier (and so called the Souldier's Well) near Southampton House in Holburne, doth wonderfull cures to the blind and lame.-Perfect Occurrences from August 24 to August 31, 1649.

Southampton Market, BLOOMSBURY, better known in later years as Bloomsbury Market [which see].

December 9, 1668.-Abroad with my wife to the Temple . . . and so to see Mr. Spong, and found him out by Southampton Market, and there carried my wife, and up to his chamber, a bye place, but with a good prospect of the fields.-Pepys.

Southampton Row, from HIGH HOLBORN to RUSSELL SQUARE. Under this name are now included King Street and Upper King Street.

1 Herbert's Inns of Court, p. 259, note.

The former included the portion between High Holborn and Hart Street, and the latter the portion northwards to Bloomsbury Place. The remainder is the original Southampton Row, of which the east side of Russell Square is a prolongation. Here, about 1750 (nine doors. north of Cosmo Place), was the residence of Ashley Cowper, the uncle of the poet, and the father of Lady Hesketh and Theodora Jane Cowper, whom the poet loved so tenderly, and who retained for him a life-long affection. "The most popular poet of his generation" was then articled to a solicitor in the neighbourhood, and he and his fellowclerk, Edward Thurlow, afterwards Lord Chancellor, passed most of their time with this family.

I did actually live three years with Mr. Chapman, a solicitor, that is to say I slept three years in his house; but I lived, that is to say I spent my days, in Southampton Row, as you very well remember. There was I and the future Lord Chancellor, constantly employed from morning to night, in giggling and making giggle, instead of studying the law.-Cowper to Lady Hesketh.

Here, "at Mr. Jauncey's," on the east side of the Row, when the British Museum was first opened to the public, Gray the poet took apartments which had previously been occupied by his friend Dr. Wharton.

I am now settled in my new territories, commanding Bedford Gardens and all the fields as far as Highgate and Hampstead, with such a concourse of moving pictures as would astonish you; so rus-in-urbe-ish, that I believe I shall stay here, except little excursions and vagaries, for a year to come. What though I am separated from the fashionable world by Broad St. Giles' and many a dirty court and alley, yet here is air and sunshine, and quiet however to comfort you: I shall confess that I am basking all the summer, and I suppose shall be blown down all the winter, besides being robbed every night; I think, however, that the Museum, with all its manuscripts, and rarities by the cart load, will make ample amends for all the aforesaid inconveniences.-Gray to Mr. Palgrave, July 24, 1759.

The unhappy Dr. Dodd at one time kept a "Select Academy" in this Row. Dodd, the actor, celebrated as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, died at his lodgings in this Row in 1796.

Southampton Square. [See Bloomsbury Square.]

Southampton Street, BLOOMSBURY, runs from Holborn into Bloomsbury Square.

I was born in London on November 6, 1671, in Southampton Street, facing Southampton House.-Colley Cibber's Apology.

Southampton Street, PENTONVILLE, from Pentonville Road to Caledonian Road. Dickens relates that Joe Grimaldi, the King of Clowns, passed his last days in a "neat little dwelling" in this street. A few doors off was the "Marquis Cornwallis Tavern," the landlord of which used to call for him every evening and return with him at night. Grimaldi was crippled in his lower limbs, and the friendly landlord carried him on his back. Grimaldi died here in 1837. In this street Thomas Carlyle had lodgings ("my own rooms in Southampton Street") on his first visit to London, 1824.

1

1 Carlyle's Reminiscences, p. 241.