During those final scenes around the “triple tree” a romantic figure had passed across the horizon of Hyde Park, who, but for an attack of fever in Newgate, to which he succumbed, might also have ended his days at the gallows. The peculiar personality of Lord George Gordon had been played out, and the Gordon Riots, which Dickens so graphically describes in _Barnaby Rudge_, had landed their instigator in gaol. Lord George had been a familiar frequenter of the Park, where he drove his own coach, though his income only reached the modest sum of £600 a year. The desire to be possessed of a coach was as strong, apparently, in England in those days as it is in Italy or Spain to-day, where folk will live on beans and olives, and save their money to drive behind a pair of horses. When the riots broke out a camp was again formed in Hyde Park. It was much needed, for, after the burning of Lord Mansfield’s house in Bloomsbury Square, the nobility in Mayfair would not remain in their homes at night; and Wraxall tells us that the Duchess of Devonshire for many nights left her mansion in Piccadilly, and slept on a sofa at the house of Lord Clermont in Berkeley Square. But these riots were quickly subdued, and Hyde Park again became the scene of gaiety, festivity, and frivolity, bordered on the east and south by its stately mansions, where magnificent entertainments were given, and the owners held small courts of their own. One of these—on the site of Dorchester House, the present American Embassy—belonged to Lord Milton, who was afterwards made Earl of Dorchester. He was famous for his regal hospitality, but so exclusive was the circle of friends admitted to its stately halls, that the house was known among the excluded ones as “Milton’s Paradise Lost.” Its owner, who was a man of great intellect, but reserved and haughty, was one of the most familiar figures in the Park. It is passing strange that an American, in the charming person of Mr. Whitelaw Reid, should dispense royal hospitality on the very edge of Old Tyburn Lane. Another remarkable personage, contemporary with Lord Milton, was Lord Deerhurst, the son of Lady Coventry (Miss Gunning). Although quite blind through a shooting accident, he would ride full gallop in Rotten Row. Once he cannoned into another horseman, but after a few days’ rest he again appeared in the saddle as reckless as ever.