“It is one of the squares that have been—a quarter of the town that has gone down in the world, and taken to letting lodgings. Many of its first and second floors are let, furnished, to single gentlemen, and it takes boarders besides. It is a great resort of foreigners. The dark-complexioned men who wear large rings and heavy watch-guards, and bushy whiskers, and who congregate under the Opera Colonnade, and about the box-office in the season between four and five in the afternoon, when they give away the orders—all live in Golden Square, or within a street of it. Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the opera-band reside within its precincts.” We read in the same book of the whereabouts of _Mr. Kenwigs_ as being in this neighbourhood— “A bygone, faded, tumble-down street, with two irregular rows of tall meagre houses, which seem to have stared each other out of countenance years ago; the very chimneys appear to have grown dismal and melancholy from having had nothing better to look at than the chimneys over the way.” There are many streets in the district of Soho, in this vicinity, which will in some respects correspond with the description given; but much alteration has taken place during the last sixty years. Recollecting that _Newman Noggs_ lodged in the upper part of the same house, it must have been conveniently near Golden Square. In Carnaby Street (immediately north of the Square) there may be remarked a white-fronted, old-fashioned house (No. 48), which, being in proximity to Ralph Nickleby’s Office, may be assigned as aforetime comprising the apartments of the Kenwigs Family. At the corner of _Beak Street_ and _Upper James Street_ is still existent “The Crown Inn,” well known to Newman Noggs; though, since his time, it must have undergone considerable alteration. In his first letter to Nicholas Nickleby, Newman writes:— “If you ever want a shelter in London, . . . they know where I live at the sign of the Crown, Golden Square. It is at the corner of Silver Street” [now Beak Street] “and James Street, with a bar door both ways.” In this neighbourhood, also, Martha’s Lodgings were situated, in the days of David Copperfield, who says:— “She laid her hand on my arm, and hurried me on to one of the sombre streets of which there are several in that part, where the houses were once fair dwellings, in the occupation of single families, but have, and had, long degenerated into poor lodgings let off in rooms.” Such a house may be found in _Marshall Street_, No. 53, close at hand. But at this distance of time it is difficult to assign the exact locality intended by Dickens. We are all familiar with the welcome episode in David’s history when Martha rescued _Little Emily_, bringing her to these lodgings, and _Mr. Peggotty’s_ dream came true.—See chapter 50.