A story is a story, but this one has carried us many a mile from Grosvenor Square. One connected with the Square itself, however, tells how Dr. Johnson once knocked down a sturdy beggar in its precincts, what time probably the great Cham of literature was on his way to visit his friends, the Thrales, who lived here for a time, until the death of Henry Thrale, in 1781. The town house of the Stanley family was in this Square till 1832, when they removed to St. James’s Square, and here Lord Derby married Miss Farren, in 1797, in the same year in which John Wilkes, who was then residing at No. 30 (now No. 35), died. Sir Stamford Raffles, Lord Granville, Lord Shaftesbury, the philanthropist, and Sir John Beaumont, are among the many other notable people who have helped to shed lustre upon Grosvenor Square. The Square has been twice renumbered, with the exception of the east side, where the owners made such successful efforts to preserve the original numbering that even parochial authority gave way before them. Once, at an earlier day, the inhabitants made an equally strenuous but less defensible attempt to contest innovation; and it was not till 1842, _credite posteri_, that the Square was lighted with gas, it being the last important place in London to be so illuminated. [Sidenote: NORTH AND SOUTH AUDLEY STREETS.] At the north-west corner of the Square is North Audley Street, taking its name from Hugh Audley, while its continuation at the south-west, where it finally debouches into Curzon Street, is known as South Audley Street. Its most important mansion, one of the most beautiful in London, is Chesterfield House, facing Hyde Park through Stanhope Street. It was built by the great Earl of Chesterfield in 1749, Ware being the architect. Although it still preserves its fine courtyard, its fair proportions at the back, where its gardens formerly extended down the better part of Curzon Street, have been greatly curtailed by the erection of houses. The mansion itself, however, with its wonderful drawing-room, its library, where Lord Chesterfield lounged or wrote his celebrated “Letters to his Son,” which Johnson criticised so pithily and so severely--its marble staircase and Ionic portico, both of which came from Canons, and gave the Earl the opportunity for a mild jest about his “canonical pillars,” still remain. In 1869, Mr. Magniac gave the enormous sum of £175,000 for the place, and here housed his wonderful collections; but these have gone the way (Christie’s way) of all beautiful things, and to-day Lord Burton owns the place. But Chesterfield House is not the only fine mansion in Audley Street, for, at No. 8, is Alington House, now Lord Alington’s, but formerly known as Cambridge House, where, in 1826, the Duke of York, brother of George IV. was living.