1721 the Chevalier de David tried to get up a subscription for a sum of £2500 for a statute of George I. to be done by himself and set up, but, as he only collected £100 towards it, that scheme also fell through. Once more an effort was made which bore tardy fruit, for in 1724 Samuel Travers bequeathed a sum of money by will “to purchase and erect an equestrian statue in brass to the glorious memory of my master, King William III.” Somehow this was not carried out at the time, but in 1806 the money appeared in a list of unclaimed dividends, and John Bacon the younger was given the commission to model the statue, which was cast in bronze at the artist’s own studio in Newman Street, and put up in the centre of the pond. Thus it remained until towards the middle of last century the stagnant pool was drained. In the 1780 riots the mob carried off the keys of Newgate and flung them into this basin, where years afterwards they were found. It was 150 feet in diameter, and 6 or 7 feet deep. When the pond was drained, the garden was planted in the form it now is, and the statue left standing in the centre. St. James’s is still one of the finest residential squares in London, and the old rhyme, picturing the attractions in store for the lady of quality who became a duchess and lived in the Square, might have been written in the twentieth instead of the eighteenth century. “She shall have all that’s fine and fair, And the best of silk and satin shall wear; And ride in a coach to take the air, And have a house in St. James’s Square.” [Illustration: STATUE OF WILLIAM III. IN ST. JAMES’S SQUARE]