_Lansdowne House._--"The iron bars at the two ends of Lansdowne Passage (a near cut from Curzon Street to Hay Hill) were put up late in the last century, in consequence of a mounted highwayman, who had committed a robbery in Piccadilly, having escaped from his pursuers through this narrow passage by riding his horse up the steps. This anecdote was told by the late Thomas Grenville to Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis. It occurred while George Grenville was Minister, the robber passing his residence in Bolton Street full gallop." _Newcastle House._--"The old and expensive custom of 'vails-giving,' received its death-glow at Newcastle House. Sir Timothy Waldo, on his way from the Duke's dinner table to his carriage, put a crown into the hand of the cook, who returned it, saying: 'Sir, I do not take silver.' 'Don't you, indeed?' said Sir Timothy, putting it in his pocket; 'then I do not give gold.' Hanway's 'Eight Letters to the Duke of ----,' had their origin in Sir Timothy's complaint." _Red Lion Square._--"The benevolent Jonas Hanway, the traveller, lived and died (1786) in a house in Red Lion Square, the principal rooms of which he decorated with paintings and emblematical devices, 'in a style,' says his biographer, 'peculiar to himself.' 'I found,' he used to say, when speaking of these ornaments, 'that my countrymen and women were not _au fait_ in the art of conversation, and that instead of recurring to their cards, when the discourse began to flag, the minutes between the time of assembling and the placing the card-tables are spent in an irksome suspense. To relieve this vacuum in social intercourse and prevent cards from engrossing the whole of my visitors' minds, I have presented them with objects the most attractive I could imagine--and when that fails there are the cards.' Hanway was the first man who ventured to walk the streets of London with an umbrella over his head. After carrying one near thirty years, he saw them come into general use." _Downing Street._--"Baron Bothmar's house was part of the forfeited property of Lee, Lord Lichfield, who retired with James II., to whom he was Master of the Horse. At the beginning of the present century there was no other official residence in the street than the house which belonged, by right of office, to the First Lord of the Treasury, but by degrees one house was bought after another: first the Foreign Office, increased afterwards by three other houses; then the Colonial Office; then the house in the north corner, which was the Judge Advocate's, since added to the Colonial Office; then a house for the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and lastly, a whole row of lodging-houses, chiefly for Scotch and Irish members."