Somerset House was but an indifferent town residence for either Queen or queen-dowager, and the King showed his taste and gratified Queen Charlotte when, in lieu of the above-named residence, he purchased for her that red-brick mansion which stood on the site of the present Buckingham Palace, and was then known as ‘Buckingham House.’ It was subsequently called the ‘Queen’s House.’ The King bought it of Sir Charles Sheffield for 21,000_l._, and settled it on his consort by an act of parliament obtained some years afterwards. Therein were all the children born, with the exception of their eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, who was born at St. James’s Palace; who demolished the old house in 1825, and erected on its site one of the ugliest palaces by which the sight was ever offended. Queen Victoria has had some difficulty to make it a comfortable residence; to render it beautiful was out of the power even of her Majesty’s architect, Mr. Blore. The edifice of his predecessor, Nash, defied all his efforts. In Queen Charlotte’s time Mr. Wyatt erected a grand staircase. West’s pictures soon filled the great gallery, and _that_ artist at least would not complain, as so many others did, that the Queen and King were mean patrons of art, seeing that the latter, to gratify his consort, paid West no less than 40,000_l._ for his labours. The principal of these pictures are now at Hampton Court. The ‘Regulus’ brought West a very liberal pension. The dining-room was adorned with pictures by Zucchero, Vandyke, Lely, Zoffani, Mytens, and Houseman. The Queen’s house, although intended as a simple asylum for its royal owners from the oppressive gorgeousness and ceremony of St. James’s, did not lack a splendour of its own. The crimson drawing-room, the second drawing-room, and the blue-velvet room, were magnificent apartments, adapted for the most showy of royal pageants, and adorned with valuable pictures. Queen Charlotte had hardly been installed in this her own ‘House,’ when her husband commenced the formation of that invaluable library which her son, on demolishing her house, made over to the nation, and is now in the British Museum.