left the whole of his fortune of £900,000. When the lady, who afterwards became Duchess of St. Albans, died in the year of the Queen's accession, that £900,000 formed the foundation of the great fortune of Miss Angela Burdett, better known to this generation as Lady Burdett-Coutts. Messrs. Coutts' banking-house is an interesting building, with many portraits of the early friends and customers of the house, which included Dr. Johnson and Sir Walter Scott. The cellars of the firm are reputed to be full of boxes containing coronets and patents of nobility. Upon another part of the site of Durham House the brothers Adam built, in 1768, the region called the Adelphi. There, in the centre house of Adelphi-terrace, with its wondrous view up and down the river, died in 1779 David Garrick.
Buckingham-street and Villiers-street, which lie between the Adelphi and Charing Cross Station, carry their history, like so many other of the Strand tributaries, written in their names. They recall the long-vanished glories of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who lived at York House, so called as having been the town palace of the Archbishops of York. Wolsey lived there for a time; Bacon was living there when he was degraded. The Crown granted it to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, by whom it was splendidly rebuilt. The second Duke sold it to pay his debts, making it a condition that he should be commemorated in the names of the streets placed on the site—George, Villiers, Duke, and Buckingham streets. The only remaining relic of York House is the fine water-gate at the bottom of Buckingham-street. Close to this water-gate, in a house marked by a Society of Arts tablet, for a short time lived Peter the Great; opposite lived Samuel Pepys; and No. 14 was occupied by Etty. In Villiers-street both Evelyn and Steele lived; but it is now the haunt of anything rather than genius. Northumberland House, the last and best known of the river side palaces, which was demolished only at the end of 1874,
