It was almost a country road to the left of St. James's Street, between the Green Park and Hyde Park, {68} with meadows and the distant hills beyond. Going eastward he would find that a Henrietta Street and a King Street still led into Covent Garden; but the Covent Garden of his time was an open place, with a column and a sun-dial in the middle. Handsome dwellings for persons of repute and quality stood on the north side over those arcades which were fondly supposed by Inigo Jones, who laid out the spot, to resemble the Piazza in Venice. Inigo Jones built the church, too, which is to be seen in the "Morning" plate of Hogarth's "Four Times of the Day." This church was destroyed by fire in 1795, and was rebuilt in its present form by Hardwick. [Sidenote: 1714--Anne's London] Charing Cross was still a narrow spot where three streets met; what is now Trafalgar Square was covered with houses and the royal mews. St. Martin's Church was not built by Gibbs for a dozen years later, in 1726. Soho and Seven Dials were fashionable neighborhoods; Mrs. Theresa Cornelys's house of entertainment, of which we hear so much from the writers of the time of Anne, was considered to be most fashionably situated; ambassadors and peers dwelt in Gerrard Street; Bolingbroke lived in Golden Square. Traces of former splendor still linger about these decayed neighborhoods; paintings by Sir James Thornhill, Hogarth's master and father-in-law, and elaborate marble mantel-pieces, with Corinthian columns and entablatures, still adorn the interiors of some of these houses; bits of quaint Queen Anne architecture and finely wrought iron railings still lend an air of faded gentility to some of the dingy exteriors. Parts of London that are now fashionable had not then come into existence. Grosvenor Square was only begun in 1716, and it was not until 1725 that the new quarter was sufficiently advanced for its creator, Sir Richard Grosvenor, to summon his intending tenants to a "splendid entertainment," at which the new streets and squares were solemnly named. Though we of to-day have seen a good deal of what are called Anne and Georgian houses, of red brick, {69} curiously gabled, springing up in all directions, we must not suppose that the London of 1714 was chiefly composed of such cheerful buildings. Wren and Vanbrugh would be indeed surprised if they could see the strange works that are now done, if not in their name, at least in the name of the age for which they built their heavy, plain, solid houses. We can learn easily enough from contemporary engravings what the principal London streets and squares were like when George the Elector became George the King. There are not many remains now of Anne's London, but Queen Anne's Gate, some few houses in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, and here and there a house in the City preserve the ordinary architecture of the age of Anne. Marlborough House bears witness to what it did in the way of more pretentious buildings.