Less cheerful has been the fate of Golden Square, which has a forsaken look, and the days when it may have justified its name are past. Originally Gelding Square, from the name of an inn hard by, the grander-sounding and more attractive corruption supplanted the older name. Another derivation for the word is also given--“Golding,” from the name of the first builder; but anyhow it was called Golden Square soon after it came into being. The houses round it were built about the opening years of the eighteenth century, when the dismal memories of the Plague were growing faint. For the site of Golden Square, “far from the haunts of men,” was one of the spots where, during the Plague, thousands of dead were cast, by scores every night. These gloomy scenes forgotten, the Square was built, and at one time fashionable Lord Bolingbroke lived here, while Secretary for War. It is still “not exactly in anybody’s way, to or from anywhere.” The garden is neat, with a row of trees round the Square enclosure, and a path following the same lines. In the centre stands a statue of George II., looking thoroughly out of place, like a dilapidated Roman emperor. It was bought from Canons, the Duke of Chandos’s house, near Edgware, when the house was pulled down and everything sold in 1747. There are a few seats, but they are rarely used, and it has a very quiet and dreary aspect when compared with the cheerful crowds enjoying the gardens in its larger neighbour, Leicester Square. This was known as Leicester Fields, and was traversed by two rows of elm trees; and even after the houses round it were begun, about 1635, the name of Fields clung to it. The ground was part of the Lammas Lands belonging to the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, who built the house from which the Square takes its name, paid compensation for the land, to the poor of the parish £3 yearly. The house occupied the north-east corner of the Square, and in after years became famous as a royal residence. It has been called “the pouting-place” of princes, as it was to Leicester House that the Prince of Wales retired when he quarrelled with his father, George I.; and there Caroline the Illustrious gathered all the dissatisfied courtiers, and such wit and beauty as could be found, round her. When he became George II., and quarrelled in his turn with his son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, the latter came to live in Leicester House. The statue of George I. which stood in the centre of the garden was, it was said, put up by Frederick, with the express purpose of annoying his father. A view of the Square in 1700, shows a neatly-kept square garden with four straight walks, and trees at even distances, and Leicester House standing back, with a forecourt and large entrance gates, and a garden of its own with lawns and statues at the back. Savile House, next door to Leicester House, on the site of the present Empire Theatre, was