Yet, though much of the old capital has vanished and more of it has been changed, many remnants of its historic past exist, and many of its streets and houses are fraught with a delightful, romantic interest. It is not forgotten that sometimes the charm resides in the eyes that see, quite as much as in the object that is seen. The storied spots of London may not be appreciable by all who look upon them every day. The cab-drivers in the region of Kensington Palace Road may neither regard, nor even notice, the house in which Thackeray lived and died. The shop-keepers of old Bond Street may, perhaps, neither care nor know that in this famous avenue was enacted the woeful death-scene of Laurence Sterne. The Bow Street runners are quite unlikely to think of Will's Coffee House, and Dryden, or Button's, and Addison, as they pass the sites of those vanished haunts of wit and revelry in the days of Queen Anne. The fashionable lounger through Berkeley Square, when perchance he pauses at the corner of Bruton Street, will not discern Colley Cibber, in wig and ruffles, standing at the parlour window and drumming with his hands on the frame. The casual passenger, halting at the Tavistock, will not remember that this was once Macklin's Ordinary, and so conjure up the iron visage and ferocious aspect of the first great Shylock of the British stage, formally obsequious to his guests, or striving to edify them, despite the banter of the volatile Foote, with discourse upon "the Causes of Duelling in Ireland." The Barbican does not to every one summon the austere memory of Milton; nor Holborn raise the melancholy shade of Chatterton; nor Tower Hill arouse the gloomy ghost of Otway; nor Hampstead lure forth the sunny figure of Steele and the passionate face of Keats; nor old Northumberland Street suggest the burly presence of "rare Ben Jonson"; nor opulent Kensington revive the stately head of Addison; nor a certain window in Wellington Street reveal in fancy's picture the rugged lineaments and splendid eyes of Dickens. Illustration: "The Spaniards, Hampstead."