It also furnished a title to a dramatic trifle, by George Colman, called ’The Spleen, or Islington Spa,’ acted at Drury Lane in 1776. The proprietor, Holland, failing, the Spa was sold to a Mr. Skinner in 1778, and the gardens were reopened every morning for drinking the waters, and in the afternoon for tea. The subscription for the season was one guinea; non-subscribers drinking the waters, sixpence each morning. At the beginning of this century part of the garden was built on, and about 1840 what remained was covered by two rows of cottages, called Spa Cottages. At present there is at the corner of Lloyd’s Row a small cottage with the inscription on it, ’Islington Spa, or New Tunbridge Wells.’ The Islington Spa must not be confounded with a similar neighbouring establishment in Spa Fields, adjoining Exmouth Street. The locality was originally called Ducking Pond Fields. Hunting ducks with dogs was one of the barbarous amusements our ancestors delighted in. The public-house to which the pond belonged was taken down in 1770, and on its site was erected the Pantheon, built in imitation of the Oxford Street Pantheon. It was a large round building, with a statue of Fame on the top of it. Internally it had two galleries and a pit, and in the winter it was warmed by a stove, having fireplaces all round, the smoke from which was carried away under the floor. To the building was attached an extensive garden, disposed in fancy walks, and having on one side of it a pond, at one end of which was a statue of Hercules, at the other end stood a summer-house for company to sit in. There were also boxes of alcoves all round the gardens, and two tea-rooms in the main building itself. The place was well patronized, the company usually consisting, as described in the _Sunday Ramble_, of some hundreds of persons of both sexes, the greater part of which, notwithstanding their gay appearance, were evidently neither more nor less than journeymen tailors, hair-dressers, and other such people, attended by their proper companions, milliners, mantua-makers, and servant-maids, besides other and more objectionable characters of the female sex. According to a letter addressed to the _St. James’s Chronicle_, 1772, the Pantheon was a place of ’infamous resort,’ the writer declaring that of all the tea-houses in the environs of London, the most exceptional he ever had occasion to be in was the Pantheon. He was particularly annoyed at being frequently asked by the Cyprian nymphs swarming in the place to be treated with ’a dish of tea.’ He ought to have heard the requests of our modern Cyprians! The place, however, did not prosper; the Rotunda had been built by a Mr. Craven; whilst it was being erected Mrs. Craven visited it, and was so overcome by the gloomy thoughts that troubled her mind that she gave vent to tears, and remarked to a friend of hers: ’It is very pretty, but I foresee that it will be the ruin of us, and one