Between Red Lion Square and the British Museum, whither we are now bound, one object of interest alone is to be seen St. George's Church in Hart Street, famous for its pyramidal spire, culminating in a statue not of George the Saint but of George the First ; placed there, to London's intense amusement, by Hucks the brewer. Hogarth, who liked to set a London spire in the background of his satirical scenes, has this in his terrible "Gin Lane," just as St. Giles, close by, is in his "Beer Street." Munden the actor, whose grimaces and drolleries Lamb has made immortal, was buried in the churchyard of St. George's, now transformed into a recreation ground. Above the old player with the bouquet of faces Bloomsbury children now frolic.

St. Giles's-in-the-Fields is so near that we ought perhaps to glance at it before exploring the Museum and the rest of Bloomsbury. It is still in the midst of not too savoury a neighbourhood, although no longer the obvious antipodes to St. James's that it used to be in literature and speech. When we want contrasts now we speak of the West End and the East End. St. Giles's is a dead letter. The present church is not so old as one might think: much later than Wren: and it is interesting rather for its forerunner's name than for itself, and also for being the last resting-place of such men as George Chapman, who translated Homer into swinging Elizabethan English, and the sweetest of garden poets, Andrew Marvell.

Bloomsbury, which is the adopted home of the economical American visitor and the Hindu student ; Bloomsbury, whose myriad boarding-houses give the lie to the poet's statement that East and West can never meet; is bounded on the south by Oxford Street and High Holborn; on the north by the Euston Road ; on the east by Southampton Row; and on the west by Tottenham Court Road. It has few shops and many residents, and is a stronghold of middle-class respectability and learning. The British Museum is its heart : its lungs are Bedford Square and Russell Square, Gordon Square and Woburn Square: and its aorta is Gower Street, which goes on for ever. Lawyers and law students live here, to be near the Inns of Court, and bookish men live here, to be near the Museum; Bloomsbury is discreet and handy : it is near everything, and although not fashionable, any one, I understand, may live there without losing caste. It belongs to the Ducal House of Bedford, which has given its names very freely to its streets and squares.

To my mind Gower Street is not quite old enough to be interesting, but it has had some very human inhabitants of eminence, and has one or two still. Millais lived with his father at No. 87 ; the great Peter de Wint, who painted English cornfields as no one -ever did before or since, died at No. 40. In its early days Gower Street was famous for what? Its rural character and its fruit. Mrs. Siddons lived in a house there, the back of which was "most effectually in the country and delightfully pleasant"; while Lord Eldon's peaches (at the back of No. 42), Col. Sutherland's grapes (at No. 33), and William Bentham's nectarines were the talk of all who ate them.

Every one who cares for the beautiful sensitive art of John Flaxman, the friend of Blake, should penetrate to the dome of University College, where is a fine collection of his drawings and reliefs. In the Rotunda has lately been placed a mural painting by Professor Tonks commemorating the War. The College also possesses the embalmed body of Jeremy Bentham, who sits in a glass case dressed in his Quakerish clothes. On his shoulders is a new head made of wax; at his feet is his real one, mummified. Other objects of interest in this neighbourhood are the allegorical frescoes at University Hall in Gordon Square, filled with portraits of great Englishmen ; the memorial to Christina Rossetti in Christ Church, Woburn Square; and two unexpected and imposing pieces of architecture St. Pancras Church in the Euston Road, and Euston station. Euston station, seen at night or through a mist, is one of the most impressive sights in London. As Aubrey Beardsley, the marvellous youth who perished in his decadence, used to say, Euston station made it unnecessary to visit Egypt. I would not add that St. Pancras Church makes it unnecessary to visit Greece; but it is a very interesting summary of Greek traditions, its main building being an adaptation of the Ionic temple of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis at Athens, its tower deriving from the Horologium or Temple of the Winds, and its dependencies, with their noble caryatides, being adaptations of the south portico of the Pandroseion, also at Athens.

Bloomsbury, as I have said, gives harbourage to all colours, and the Baboo law student is one of the commonest incidents of its streets. But the oddest alien I ever saw there was in the area of the house of a medical friend in Woburn Square. While waiting on the steps for the bell to be answered I heard the sound of brushing, and looking down, I saw a small negro boy busily polishing a boot. He glanced up with a friendly smile, his eyes and teeth gleaming, and I noticed that on his right wrist was a broad ivory ring. "So you're no longer an Abolitionist !" I said to the doctor when I at last gained his room. "No," he answered: "at least, my sister isn't. That's a boy my brother-in-law has just brought from West Africa. He didn't exactly want him, but the boy was wild to see England, and at the last minute jumped on board." "And what does the ring on his arm mean?" I asked. "Oh, he's a king's son out there. That's a symbol of authority. At home he has the power of life and death over My slaves."

When I came away the boy was still busily at work, but he had changed the boots for knife-cleaning. He cast another merry smile up to me as I descended the steps the king's son with the power of life and death over fifty slaves.