In 1818 the Admiral Keppel courted the custom of passing travellers by a poetical appeal to the feelings of both man and beast:— “Stop, brave boys, and quench your thirst; If you won’t drink, your horses murst.” There was something rural in this: the distich was painted in very rude white letters on a small black board; and when Keppel’s portrait, which swung in air, like England’s flag, braving “The battle and the breeze,” was unhinged and placed against the front of the house, this board was appended as its motto. Both, however, were displaced by the march of public-house improvement; the weather-beaten sign of the gallant admiral’s head was transferred to a wall of the back premises, where its “faded form” might, until recently, have been recognised; but, though the legible record has perished, _opus vatum durat_. AMELIA PLACE is a row of nine houses immediately beyond the Admiral Keppel. Within the walls of the last low house in the row, and the second with a verandah, the Right Hon. John Philpot Curran died on the 14th of October, 1817. It had then a pleasant look-out upon green fields and a nursery-garden, now occupied by Pelham Crescent. Here it was, with the exception of a short excursion to Ireland, that Curran had resided during the twelve months previous to his death. [Picture: No. 7 Amelia Place] Curran’s public life may be said to have terminated in 1806, when he accepted the office of Master of the Rolls in Ireland, an appointment of £5000 a year. This situation he retained until 1815, when his health required a cessation from its laborious attendance. Upon his retirement from office, he “passed through the watering-places with the season,” and then fixed himself at No. 7, Amelia Place, Brompton, which house has now Kettle’s boot and shoe warehouse built out in front. To no other contemporary pen than that of the Rev. George Croly can be ascribed the following glowing sketch of Curran:—