The New Exchange was never a great rival of the old--the Royal--Exchange, and, in 1623, only fourteen years after its opening, there were rumours that it was to be converted into dwelling-houses. "Lady Hatton," it was stated, "is said to have bought Britain's Burse for £6000, and means to make the upper part her dwelling-house; the lower part lets for £320 a year." The rumour was wrong, however, for the place, although it fell into disrepute, existed until nearly the middle of the seventeenth century--until, as a matter of fact, 1737. Its most flourishing period was during the Restoration, when London had doubled in population as compared with the reign of James I., and Covent Garden was the fashionable quarter. There is hardly a dramatist of Charles II.'s time whose works do not contain some reference to it, while one of the playwrights, Thomas Duffet, had been a milliner in this very place before he took to burlesquing Dryden, D'Avenant, and the contemporary writers. The Grand Duke Cosmo gives an accurate picture of the place as it was in Charles II.'s time: "We went to see the New Exchange, which is not far from the place of the Common Garden, in the great street called the Strand. The building has a façade of stone, built after the Gothic style, which has lost its colour from age and become blackish. It contains two long and double galleries, one above the other, in which are distributed, in several rows, great numbers of very rich shops of drapers and mercers filled with goods of every kind, and with manufactures of the most beautiful description. These are for the most part under the care of well-dressed women, who are busily employed in work, although many are served by young men called apprentices."[12] The stage has a great claim upon the history of the Adelphi, not only by reason of Garrick's residence here, but because the first edition of _Othello_ was published within its precincts. This was in 1622, six years after Shakespeare's death, and a year before the issue of the first folio. The title-page of this quarto is as follows: The Tragoedy of Othello, the Moore of Venice. As it hath beene diverse times acted at the Globe, and at the Black Friers, by His Maiesties Servants. Written by William Shakespeare. London, Printed by N.O. for Thomas Walkley, and are to be sold at his shop at the Eagle and Child, in Brittans Bursse. 1622.