teen shares, held by the representatives of the Tulks, easily, the other six after long and troublesome negotiation. The last was purchased from an owner, whose agent arrived from New Zealand only a few days before the completion of the works.

Baron Grant employed Mr. James Knowles as his architect. The laying out of the garden was entrusted to Mr. John Gibson, jun., to whom with his father the public is indebted for the tasteful planting and arrangement of Battersea Park.

The principal ornament of the new Square is a white marble fountain, surmounted by a statue of Shakespeare, also in white marble, the figure being an exact reproduction, by Signor Fontana, of the statue (designed by Kent and executed by Scheemacker), on the Westminster Abbey cenotaph. The water spouts from jets round the pedestal, and from the heads of dolphins at each of its corners, into a marble basin. Flower beds surround this central mass, and the enclosure, so long a squalid and sordid waste, is now a gay and graceful garden of flowering shrubs, green plots, inlaid with bright flower-beds, and broad, gravelled paths. The iron railing outside is

waist high, elaborately designed, and executed by the Coalbrooke-dale Company. In each angle of the garden is a bust of white marble on a granite pedestal. To the southeast, stands Hogarth, by Durham; to the southwest, Newton, by Weekes; to the north-east, John Hunter, by Woolner; to the north-west, Reynolds, by Marshall. Only Hogarth and Reynolds could be placed in juxtaposition to their houses in the Square.

The idea which the designer of the central fountain wished to convey (I use his own words) was of the Poet, standing isolated and colossal, cut off from the rest of the world by the quasi Castalian spring, which rises at his feet, but brought close to all men in his works, symbolized by the grass and flowers which spring round the margin of the fountain, and which its water bedews and nourishes. The dolphins playing close below him imply his Arion-like attraction for the "sane and simple" animal part of us, and those memorable words to which his finger points-" There is no darkness but ignorance"—his deep, sympathetic insight into our brighter nature and its needs.

The modified repetition of the figure in the Abbey was chosen for the statue, partly because it has become the traditional figure of Shakespeare in this country, and is recognizable by everybody at a glance; partly because, if not a great, it is certainly not a mean work of art; and partly because the difficulties of selection would have made the production of an original work impossible in the time at command.

On Thursday, the 2nd of July, 1874, the garden was formally handed over by the donor to the Metropolitan Board.

A brilliant day, and the interest of the occasion, combined to attract a great crowd. Spectators filled the open windows, and fringed the roofs wherever there was a balustrade to secure them. Within the hoarding pavilions were arranged round for the accommodation and refreshment of more than 2000 invited visitors, and the shelter, meant as a protection against showers, was available against sunshine.

At three o'clock the transfer of the garden took place, after Baron Grant had told the story of his purchase, had thanked the Leicester Square Defence Committee for the local influence they