79. Lansdowne House, from Berkeley Square, 1893 (Black and white). Dividing the gardens of Devonshire House and Lansdowne House is Lansdowne Passage, a short cut for walkers from Curzon Street to Hay Hill. Thomas Grenville records that the iron bars at the two ends were put up late in the 18th century, because a mounted highwayman who had committed a robbery in Piccadilly escaped through this passage by riding down and up the steps. Lansdowne House, like that last described, is interesting from its connection with historic personages, as a specimen of the dwelling of a great nobleman in the 18th century, and from its having a considerable garden. It was designed by Robert Adam (the most famous of the brothers who built the Adelphi) about the year 1765, for Lord Bute, then Prime Minister, whose treaty of peace with France raised such a fury of opposition that his enemies did not hesitate to say that he had been bribed. On his fall from power it passed, as yet unfinished, into the hands of Lord Shelburne, afterwards the first Marquis of Lansdowne, to whose descendant it still belongs. Embowered in foliage it certainly has a picturesque effect from the adjoining Berkeley Square. (7-5/8 × 10-3/8) D. 65-1896. 80. Library of Chesterfield House, South Audley Street, 1893 (Black and white). Whatever may have been their defects, the noblemen's mansions built in the eighteenth century were mostly distinguished by fine staircases and reception rooms. A notable specimen is Chesterfield House, which was planned by Ware, an architect of no mean merit, for Philip, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, who wrote the famous _Letters to his Son_. Here Samuel Johnson is popularly supposed to have "waited in the outer rooms" and been "repulsed from the door;" but this must have occurred not later than 1747, as is clear from Johnson's own words, and the Earl did not take possession of his new home in South Audley Street till March 13th, 1749. The ground attached to it has been sadly curtailed since he wrote to a friend "My garden is now turfed, planted, and sown, and will in two months make a scene of verdure and flowers not common in London." Inside, however, there has been comparatively little change. The marble staircase, with its pillars, has a very stately effect; it was brought from Canons, near Edgware, the letters on the wrought iron balustrade being the initials of the "princely" Chandos, whose ducal coronets were removed by Lord Chesterfield and replaced by his own. On the ground floor at the back there is a splendid suite of rooms, including the library, which is represented in drawing No. 80. Its first owner called it with pardonable pride "the best room in England," and here are still to be seen under the cornice, in capital letters a foot high, the Horatian lines: "Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis, Ducere solicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ";