At this time, Mrs. Montagu had been living in Hill Street more than thirty years. It was not even at the later period the well-macadamised and broadly paved street it now is. A few of the original and noble houses still dignify the street. Mrs. Montagu began to reside there a short time before Lord Chesterfield removed from Grosvenor Square to Chesterfield House; namely, in 1748. In the June of that year, Chesterfield wrote to Mr. Dayrolles: “I am now extremely busy in moving to my new house, where I must be before Michaelmas next.... As my new house is situated among a parcel of thieves and murderers, I shall have occasion for a house-dog.” Chesterfield House is within a stone’s throw of Hill Street. The “thieves and murderers” were among the butchers of May Fair and Sheppard’s Market—not then cleared out for such streets as have since been erected on the site. Park Lane was then Tyburn Lane, and what with the fair of six weeks’ duration (with blackguardism and incidents of horror that will not bear repeating), and the monthly hangings at Tyburn, from which half the drunken and yelling spectators poured through May Fair, Hill Street, and adjacent outlets on their way to home and fresh scenes of riot,—between the fair, the gallows, and the neighbouring rascalry,—the district was not to be entered after dark without risk of the wayfarer being stripped by robbers. Footpads were as common between Hay Hill and Park Lane as highwaymen between Hounslow and Bagshot. Now, Hill Street looks as if no mounted gentleman of the road had ever quietly ridden through it on a summer’s evening westward, on felonious thoughts intent. Chesterfield House stands, but new mansions occupy its once brilliant gardens, whence all the gay spirits have been driven. In that locality no longer can it be said that— “... round and round the ghosts of beauties glide, Haunting the places where their honour died!” In 1770, Hill Street, still unpaved, was most crowded with the carriages of visitors to Mrs. Montagu’s rooms. In the assemblies held there, the hostess had words for all, but she had no special idols; and this was not always gratifying to those who looked for idolatry. Boswell notices one night when “a splendid company had assembled, consisting of the most eminent literary characters. I thought he (Johnson) seemed highly pleased with the respect and attention that was shown him, and asked him on our return home if he were not highly gratified by his visit. ‘No, sir,’ said he; ‘not highly gratified, yet I do not recollect to have passed many evenings with fewer objections.’”