The Pantheon in Oxford Street, where in its first phase as a theatre Miss Stephens, afterwards Countess of Essex, made her _début_ on the stage, had since 1834 been reconstructed as a bazaar and picture gallery. _Punch_ describes it in 1842 as a Zoo and National Gallery combined, with its conservatory, aviary, statues, and pictures. It was a pleasant cut for idlers in wet weather from Oxford Street to Marlborough Street. But its glories were but a pale reflex of the days when the building excited Walpole's enthusiasm, and Gibbon was a regular attendant of its "splendid and elegant" masquerades. After various vicissitudes the Pantheon was closed in 1867, and is now a wine warehouse. The Lowther Arcade, from the Strand to King William Street, was consecrated to the sale of toys. The present writer can remember it in the 'seventies, with stout and bearded shopmen blowing on tin trumpets and spinning tops for the allurement of passers by. It has disappeared, but the Burlington Arcade remains. Under the heading of "The Haunts of the Regent Street Idler," _Punch_ gives a detailed account of its attractions in 1842:-- The covered passage through which the overland journey from Burlington Gardens to Piccadilly is generally performed so abounds in objects of amusement to the lounger that, in point of cheap happiness, it becomes a perfect Burlington Arcadia. He can pass a whole afternoon therein, with the additional comfortable feeling of security from any unexpected shower. First of all he makes a regular inspection of every article in Delaporte's windows--from Gavarni's _Charivari_ sketches, which have been there as far as the memory of the oldest lounger can reach, to the droll _Diableries_, and the _Dames et Seigneurs de la Cour du Moyen Age_, who rushed into publicity at the first whisper of the Queen's Fancy Ball. Then he listens to the dulcet notes of an accordion, which is perpetually playing in this favoured thoroughfare, whilst he saunters on to the fancy stationer's, and criticizes the water-colour albumified views of Venice and Constantinople, all neutral tint and burnt sienna; or falls in love with the impassioned head of La Esmeralda, and regrets such symmetrical young ladies do not dance about the streets at the present day; his attention only being withdrawn from the beautiful gipsy by two portraits of mortal angels in _very_ low dresses, one of whom is asleep at one corner of the window, and the second combing her hair at the other. He peers into all the artificial flower shops, to see what hidden divinities are therein concealed by the bowers of tinted gauze and tinsel; and having admired the languishing ladies and very nice gentlemen in the hairdressers' windows, finally loses himself in an earthly paradise of painted snuff-boxes, parasols, popular music and perfumery, together with certain articles of