London in 1731

"By numbers here from shame or censure free, All crimes are safe but hated poverty. This, only this, the rigid law pursues, This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse. The sober trader, at a tattered cloak, Wakes from his dream and labours for a joke; With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze, And turn the varied taunt a thousand ways. Of all the griefs that harass the distressed, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest; Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart."

When Don Manoel's account of London was written the fashionable world was only beginning to migrate from Covent Garden--once a garden belonging to the Convent of Westminster, and the first London square inhabited by persons of rank and fashion--to Grosvenor Square, of which Don Manoel describes the new glories. They included a gilt equestrian statue of King George I. in the middle of its garden, to say nothing of kitchen areas to its houses, then unusual enough to