IT is my pleasant duty to relate in these pages the romantic story of kings and queens, of prelates and princes, of book-writers and book-sellers, of artists, architects, and actors, and of other players on life's fitful stage who, for six centuries and a half, have contributed to one of the most interesting chapters in the history of London. Within that small space which has been known as the Adelphi since 1772, a district so confined that it is contained within five hundred square yards, came, in its earlier years, several bishops and other clerical dignitaries, then that prince who was afterwards the fifth King Henry of England, anon, amid much pomp and pageantry, King Henry VIII. Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were familiar with it, and here lived, for twenty years, Sir Walter Raleigh, who inhabited one of the towers which is seen in Hollar's engraving of Durham House. Lady Jane Grey went hence to the Tower and thence to the scaffold. Dryden alluded to it in one of his plays. Voltaire drank wine here, and its memory is hallowed by Dr Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a host of other celebrities. Here David Garrick began his career, and here, curiously enough, he ended it, the funeral procession of the "poor player" reaching from the Adelphi to Westminster Abbey, those who followed him to the grave numbering many men of rank and genius, including Johnson, and a large concourse of the general public who grieved for the loss of the great actor. The history of the world-famous banking firm of Coutts & Co. is indelibly associated with the Adelphi. Dickens, when a boy, prowled about its dark arches--until lately, one of the most degraded spots in London--and last, though not least, the brothers Adam, to whom London owes several architectural triumphs, in addition to the Adelphi, claim our attention. It is said that at a public dinner, at the beginning of the last century, a worthy alderman whose knowledge of Greek was very vague, was much struck by the toast, in reference to two royal brothers--George IV. and the Duke of York--of "the Adelphi."[2] When it came to the alderman's turn to speak, he said that, as they were on the subject of streets, he would "beg leave to propose 'Finsbury Square.'" In somewhat similar manner, before we get to the Adelphi, we must go back to its origin, and this takes us to the thirteenth century.