physicians, merchants, seamen, and all kinds of excellent artificers of the most refined arts, and most excellent beauties; for it is observed, that in most families of England, if there be any son or daughter that excels the rest in beauty or wit, or perhaps courage or industry, or any other rare quality, London is their north star, and they are never at rest till they point directly thither." [1] He mentions his preaching once at St. Dunstan's church, when an accident occurred, which alarmed the vast concourse, and was likely to have occasioned much mischief. He relates the odd circumstance of an old woman, squeezed in the crowd, asking forgiveness of God at the church door, and promising, if he would deliver her that time she would never come to the place again. CHAPTER VI. LONDON DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. From Maitland, who published his History of London in 1739, we learn that there were at that time, within the bills of mortality, 5,099 streets, 95,968 houses, 207 inns, 447 taverns, and 551 coffee-houses. In 1681, the bills included 132 parishes; 147 are found in those for the year 1744. Judging from the bills of mortality, which however cannot be trusted as accurate, population considerably increased in that portion of the century included in Maitland's history. During the seventeen years from 1703 to 1721, the total number of burials was 393,034. During the next seventeen years, to 1738, they amounted to 457,779. The extension of London was still towards the west. In the Weekly Journal of 1717 it is stated, the new buildings between Bond-street and Marylebone go on with all possible diligence, and the houses even let and sell before they are built. In 1723, the duke of Grafton and the earl of Grantham purchased the waste ground at the upper end of Albemarle and Dover-streets for gardens, and turned a road leading into May Fair another way. (London, vol. i, p. 310.) Devonshire House remained for some time the boundary of the buildings in Piccadilly, though farther on, by the Hyde Park Corner, there were several habitations. Lanesborough House stood there by the top of Constitution-hill, and was, in 1773, converted into an infirmary, since rebuilt, and now known as St. George's Hospital. It may be added, that Westminster Hospital, the first institution of the kind supported by voluntary contributions, was founded in 1719. Several churches were erected in the early part of the eighteenth century. In the year 1711, an act was passed for the erection of no less than fifty, but only ten had been built on new foundations when Maitland published his work. These ecclesiastical edifices exhibit the architectural taste of the age. The finest specimen of the period is the church of St. Martin-in-the-fields, built by Gibbs. It was commenced in 1721, and finished in 1726, at a cost of nearly £37,000. In spite of the drawback in the ill-placed steeple over the portico, without any