With the disappearance of St. James’s Hall and Quaritch’s, Piccadilly would seem to be losing all touch with past times, did not Hatchard’s Book Shop, Fores’ Print Shop, Lincoln & Bennett’s, Denman’s,[3] and Stewart’s still remain to crystallise in their well-known names those past days of which, say what we will, we seem to be losing grip with every succeeding year. [Sidenote: THE ALBANY, PICCADILLY.] This fine old house, which has, since 1804, been divided into suites of apartments for single men, was designed by Chambers. In 1770, it was sold by the second Lord Holland to Lord Melbourne, who subsequently exchanged it with the Duke of York for Melbourne House, Whitehall. In Lord Holland’s time it was called Piccadilly House, and a previous mansion on the same site had been known as Sunderland House. [Illustration: DENMAN HOUSE, PICCADILLY. (_The Vignette shows the old building, No. 20, rebuilt 1903_).] It is altogether cloistral, and the curious covered passageway running through from Piccadilly to Burlington Gardens, from which suites of rooms are reached, helps to give it that seclusion which Macaulay, one of its most notable inhabitants, delighted in. It combined what he best liked--“a college life at the West End of London.” The various suites are numbered in blocks; thus, Macaulay’s was No. 1 E, on the second floor, where the earlier volumes of the great history were written; “Monk” Lewis lived in No. 61 K.; George Canning at No. 5 A. Lord Byron and Lord Lytton both had sets of chambers here, and the former enters in his journal for March 28th, 1814, the fact that on that day he took possession of the rooms, rented from Lord Althorp for seven years. It was from here that he set out to be married to Miss Milbanke on a fateful day for them both, January 2nd, 1815. Lytton, at a later date, occupied the same apartments, and wrote many of his novels here. Lady Lytton once told a friend that she had heard from him that he was here “with Solitude”; but, paying her lord and master an unexpected visit, she found “Solitude” gowned in white muslin and sitting on his knee! [Sidenote: BURLINGTON HOUSE.]