"Be it known," says the lively Pennant, speaking of the word 'place,' as applied to great mansions, and interpreted by him to mean palace, "that the word is only applicable to the habitations of princes, or princely persons, and that it is with all the impropriety of vanity bestowed on the houses of those who have luckily acquired money enough to pile on one another a greater quantity of stones or bricks than their neighbours. How many imaginary _parks_ have been formed within precincts where deer were never seen! And how many houses misnamed _halls_, which never had attached to them the privilege of a manor."[177] This is true; but unless the words _palazzo_ and _piazza_ are traceable to the same root, palatium (as perhaps they are), _place_ does not of necessity mean _palace_; and palace certainly does not mean exclusively the habitation of princes or princely persons (that is to say, supposing princeliness to exclude riches,) for in Italy, whence it comes, any large mansion may be called a palace; and many old palaces there were built by merchants. Palatium, it is true, with the old Romans, though it may have originally meant any house on Mount Palatine, yet in consequence of that place becoming the court end of the city, and containing the imperial palace, may have come ultimately to mean only a princely residence. Ovid uses it in that sense in his _Metamorphoses_.[178] But custom is everything in these matters. Place is now used as a variety of term, either for a large house or street. Perhaps in both cases it ought to imply something of the look of a palace, or at least an openness of aspect analogous to that of a _square_--square in England, corresponding with _place_, _piazza_, and _plaça_ on the Continent. The Piazza in Covent Garden, properly means the place itself, and not the portico.