It was said that it was Lord Coventry, the husband of the famous beauty, who finally caused an end to be put to the “May fair” which used to be held upon the ground now covered by Hertford Street, Curzon Street, Shepherd’s Market, and some other streets. Lord Coventry lived at the house at the corner of Engine Street (now Brick Street) which, in the middle of the eighteenth century, had been erected on the site of the large and ancient Greyhound Inn. The perpetual noise and uproar which went on by night as well as by day during the whole month of May, owing to the fair, so irritated and annoyed him that he determined to make an effort to have it totally suppressed. As early as 1709 it had been prohibited, but within a few years was once more revived, though the Grand Jury of the City of Westminster had characterised it as a vile and riotous assembly. Lord Coventry, however, by some means or other, was completely successful in his efforts to abolish finally what he considered to be an intolerable nuisance, and no “May fair” seems to have been held much after 1764, the date at which Lord Coventry entered into possession of his new house. Most of the ground on which the fair was held belonged to a Mr. Shepherd, whence has originated the present name of Shepherd’s Market, which is sometimes wrongly called “Shepherd Market,” as if it had been a meeting-place for shepherds in the past. This was never the case. Another gentleman of the same sounding name also lived in Mayfair for a time in 1723. This was the celebrated Jack Sheppard of notorious memory. In an attic in Curzon Street Sir Francis Chantrey, when quite an undistinguished young man, modelled his Head of Satan and the bust of Lord St. Vincent; and in this street also lived Madam Vestris; the Miss Berrys, one of whom I knew, lived at No. 8, whilst Lord Beaconsfield went to reside in this street at No. 19 at the beginning of 1881, in which house he died some three months later. Many have sought to trace the origin of the name Piccadilly, but I believe that no entirely satisfactory explanation has ever been given. The first mention of what is now a world-famous thoroughfare occurs (as is well known) in Gerard’s _Herbal_, which has originated an erroneous idea that Piccadilly existed in 1596 when the work in question was published. As a matter of fact, it is not in the original edition of Gerard’s _Herbal_ that such a mention occurs, but in a much later one published in 1636, and edited by Thomas Johnson. It runs as follows:—“The little wild bugloss grows upon the dry ditch bank about Pickadella.” It is pretty well authenticated that about 1630 a retired tailor, named Higgins, whose fortune had been in a great measure made by the sale of “pickadelles”—piccadillies or turnover collars—built himself a snug house in this locality which he called Pickadilla Hall; and Mr. Higgins, therefore, it was who, in all probability, originated the name.