SIR THOMAS WILSON

of a dwelling-house, garden, etc., in St Martin's-inthe-Fields, between Durham House, Britain's Burse, York House, and the River, to Wm. Roo, of London, for £374." Wilson, who was knighted in this year, was employed in obtaining admissions, that were sufficient to condemn him, from Sir Walter Raleigh, then a prisoner in the Tower. Twenty-eight days after the date of the indenture of sale of Wilson's property, near Durham House, Raleigh was executed. A year later, Sir Thomas Wilson, in a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, writes from "my house in Duresme Yard," and sends a list of ambassadors and other people residing there. Wilson, who was a man of considerable learning, and a traveller, translated from the Spanish the Diana of George de Montemayor (the Portugese poet and romance writer, 15201562), the source to which Shakespeare went for several of the incidents in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. He entered the service of Robert Cecil

in 1605. He was the keeper of the records at Whitehall from 1606 to the year of his death, 1629. He is the Wilson referred as "ye keeper of ye burse," quoted in the rules for the New Exchange in the preceding chapter.

The overcrowding of the New Exchange was a source of much annoyance to the inhabitants of Durham Yard, who made formal complaint of their grievances. As a result, an Order in Council,

dated May 4, 1638, was made by the Inner Star Chamber, as follows:-"The Lords being made acquainted that, over the New Exchange, called Britain's Burse, there are divers families inhabiting as inmates, and that adjoining the wall of the Court of Durham House, there are sheds employed as eating rooms and for other uses, to the great annoyance of the inhabitants, and danger of infection. It was ordered that the Lord Privy Seal and Lord Newburgh, Chancellor of the Duchy, should call before them the inhabitants of the said places, and take order for their removal, and if they find any of the said persons obstinate should certify their names."

CHAPTER IV

Enter the Brothers Adam-Their Marvellous Transformation of the Ruins of Durham House and Yard into the Present Adelphi-The Magnitude of the Project-Opposition of the City-Defeated by Special Act of Parliament-The Adelphi Buildings only completed by Aid of a LotteryThe Adams explain their Position-Robert Adam: His History-His Death-James Adam-Some Poor Wit, including Walpole's, at the Expense of the Architects.

On a certain night in September, in the year 1768, "the Queen's Head Alehouse, near Durham Yard in the Strand, fell down, but the family being alarmed, happily no lives were lost." To such a neglected state had Durham Yard and its surroundings become when, most opportunely, two Scotch architects, the brothers Adam, arrived on the scene of decay. All that was left of the former grandeur of Durham House consisted of “a number of small low-lying houses, coal-sheds and lay-stalls, washed by the muddy deposits of the Thames." The property was then in the possession of the Duke of St Albans, from whom the brothers Adam obtained a ninety-nine years' lease, dating from Lady-day, 1768.

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The Duke, it seems, was in a parlous condition when he parted with this property, for the small sum, be it said, of £1200 a year. For, in a public print of January 13, 1770, it is stated that "the Duke of St Albans, who is now confined for debt at Brussels, disposed some time ago of the ground in Durham Yard in which the new square is now building; but, before the money was remitted him, he created so many fresh debts, that it is imagined he will remain there for life."

The architects effected a marvellous change over the district. By allowing the wharves to remain, and throwing a series of arches over the entire declivity, they "connected the river with the Strand by a spacious archway, and over these extensive vaultings erected a series of well-built streets, a noble terrace towards the river, and a house with a convenient suite of rooms for the then recently established Society of Arts." So said Peter Cunningham. Older authorities were even more enthusiastic. That fine architectural draughtsman, Thomas Malton, the younger (1748-1804), who was an eye-witness of the vast change effected, praised the brothers highly, in his Picturesque Tour through London and Westminster, in 1792: “To their researches among the vestiges of antiquity," he says, 66 we are indebted for many improvements in ornamental architecture, and for a style of decoration unrivalled for elegance and gaiety, which,