his stomach. He almost incessantly expressed a sense of pain till about four o'clock in the morning, when he said he found his stomach much easier. About seven, the servant asked whether he should send for Mr. Farquhar? He answered, no: that he was as well as he had been the day before. About half-past eight he got out of bed, and said he was 'plus adroit' than he had been for three months past, and got into bed again, without assistance, better than usual. About nine he said that he would rise. The servant, however, persuaded him to remain in bed till Mr. Farquhar, who was expected at eleven, should come. Till about that hour he spoke with great facility. Mr. Farquhar, came at the time appointed, and he was then visibly dying. When the valet-de-chambre, after attending Mr. Farquhar out of the room, returned, Mr. Gibbon said, 'Pourquoi est ce que vous me quittez?' This was about half past eleven. At twelve he drank some brandy and water from a tea-pot, and desired his favourite servant to stay with him. These were the last words he pronounced articulately. To the last he preserved his senses; and when he could no longer speak, his servant having asked a question he made a sign to shew that he understood him. He was quite tranquil, and did not stir; his eyes half shut. About a quarter before one he ceased to breathe. The valet-de-chambre observed that Mr. Gibbon did not, at any time, shew the least sign of alarm or apprehension of death; and it does not appear that he ever thought

VOL. I.

H

himself in danger, unless his desire to speak to Mr. Darell may be considered in that light."*

Lord Sheffield hastened to the bed-side of his dying friend, but, on his arrival in St. James's Street, he found that the great historian had ceased to exist. He caused the remains of his friend to be interred in the burial place of his family at Sheffield Place in Sussex. The house in which Gibbon breathed his last was No. 76, St. James's Street, near the corner of Little St. James's Street, and was pulled down to make room for the present Conservative Club.

No. 62, higher up the street, (now occupied by Lauriere, the jeweller) was, in the last century, wellknown as Betty's fruit-shop, where men of wit and fashion met to discuss the scandal or politics of the day. It would seem that the old lady herself had some reputation for saying good things; at least, Horace Walpole writes to George Selwyn, on the 2nd of December, 1765,-" When you have a quarter of an hour awake, and to spare, I wish you would bestow it on me. There are no such things as bon mots here to send you, and I cannot hope that you will send me your own: next to them I should like Charles Townshend's, but I don't desire Betty's." Walpole, elsewhere describing a party of pleasure at Vauxhall, mentions that Betty accompanied them to the gardens with baskets of strawberries and cherries.

With a name scarcely less illustrious than that *Gibbon's "Miscellaneous Works."

of Gibbon we will conclude our notices of St.
James's Street. Lord Byron, at the time when
the publication of his "English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers" rendered his name for the first time
conspicuous in the literary history of his country,
resided at No. 8 in this street. It was from this
house that the proud and misanthropic poet de-
parted, on a melancholy and well-known occasion,
to take his seat in the House of Lords as a peer of
the realm,-"in a state," says Moore, "more lone
and unfriended, perhaps, than any youth of his
high station had ever before been reduced to on such
an occasion,-not having a single individual of his
own class, either to take him by the hand as friend
or acknowledge him as acquaintance." Nothing
can be more strikingly dramatic than the account
which his relative, Mr. Dallas, gives of this painful
passage in the life of the great poet.
"I was
passing down St. James's Street," he says,
no intention of calling, when I saw his chariot at
the door, and went in. His countenance, paler
than usual, shewed that his mind was agitated, and
that he was thinking of the nobleman* to whom
he had once looked for a hand and countenance in
his introduction to the house. He said to me, 'I
am glad you happened to come in; I am going to
take my seat, perhaps you will go with me.' I
expressed my readiness to attend him; while, at
the same time I concealed the shock I felt on
thinking that this young man, who, by birth, fortune,

* His relative, the late Earl of Carlisle.

"with

827171 A

and talent stood high in life, should have lived so unconnected and neglected by persons of his own rank, that there was not a single member of the senate to which he belonged, to whom he would or could apply to introduce him in a manner becoming his birth; I saw that he felt the situation, and I fully partook of his indignation." The subsequent scene in the house of Lords is graphically described by Dallas but is too long for insertion. "We returned to St. James's Street," he says, "but he did not recover his spirits."

ARLINGTON STREET.

101

THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ST. JAMES'S

STREET.

BENNET STREET.—ARLINGTON STREET.-PARK PLACE.- ST. JAMES'S
PLACE. CLEVELAND ROW.-KING STREET. ALMACK'S.
RYDER STREET.—BURY STREET.

LITTLE

THE streets diverging from St. James's Street are all of them more or less associated with some person of celebrity or some event of interest. As we descend towards St. James's Palace, the first opening to the right is Bennet Street, a small avenue leading to Arlington Street. At No. 4, Bennet Street, in the apartments which he occupied on the first floor, Lord Byron composed the "Giaour," the "Bride of Abydos," and the "Corsair." He resided here during a great part of the years of 1813 and 1814, and sometimes in his letters amuses himself with playfully styling it Benedictine Street.

Let us pass on to Arlington Street, so called from the Bennets Earls of Arlington, which, considering how small a number of houses it contains, has been inhabited by a greater number of persons of note and genius than perhaps any other street of the same size in London. As early as the reign of Queen Anne, we find it containing the residences of several persons of rank. Here, in 1708, were residing the Duke of Richmond, Lord Brook, Lord Cholmondley,