For ev'ry vocal pipe re-ecchoes _Joe_. Alas, poor _Joe_! Like _Francis_ in the play He stands confounded, anxious how to please The many-headed throng. But shou'd I paint The language, humours, customs of the place, Together with all curtsy's lowly bows, And compliments extern, 'twould swell my page Beyond it's limits due. Suffice it then, For my prophetic muse to say, 'So long As fashion rides upon the Wing of time, While tea and cream, and buttered rolls can please, While rival beaux, and jealous belles exist, So long _White Conduit_ house, shall be thy fame. W. W." Later on in the century, it was still a reputable place of resort. In 1774, there was a painting at one end of the garden, the perspective of which served, artificially, to augment its size; the round fish-pond in the centre of the garden, still existed, and the refreshment-rooms, or boxes, were hung with Flemish and other pictures. Hone ("Every Day Book," vol. ii. p. 1201, &c.) says, "About 1810, the late celebrated Wm. Huntingdon S.S.[26] of Providence Chapel, who lives in a handsome house within sight, was at the expense of clearing the spring for the use of the inhabitants; but, because his pulpit opinions were obnoxious, some of the neighbouring vulgar threw loads of soil upon it in the night, which rendered the water impure, and obstructed its channel, and, finally, ceasing to flow, the public was deprived of the kindness he proposed. The building itself, was in a very perfect state at that time, and ought to have been boarded up after the field it stood in was thrown open. As the new buildings proceeded, it was injured, and defaced, by idle labourers and boys, from mere wantonness, and reduced to a mere ruin. There was a kind of upper floor or hayloft in it, which was frequently a shelter to the houseless wanderer. A few years ago some poor creatures made it a comfortable hostel for the night with a little hay. Early in the morning a passing workman perceived smoke issuing from the crevices, and as he approached, heard loud cries from within. Some mischievous miscreants had set fire to the fodder beneath the sleepers, and, afterwards, fastened the door on the outside: the inmates were scorched by the fire, and probably they would all have been suffocated in a few minutes, if the place had not been broken open. [Illustration: THE WHITE CONDUIT.] "The 'White Conduit' at this time (1826) merely stands to those who had the power, and neglected to preserve it. "To the buildings grown up around, it might have been rendered a neat ornament, by planting a few trees, and enclosing the whole with an iron railing, and have stood as a monument of departed worth.