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HERE is in the dark heart of Soho, not far from a large stable where Zebras, Elephants, and trained Ponies await their turn for the footlights and the inebriation of public applause, a little tavern, divided, as are even the meanest of our taverns, into numerous compartments, each corresponding to some grade in the hierarchy of our ancient and orderly society.

For many years the highest of these had been called "the Private Bar," and was distinguished from its next fellow by this, that the cushions upon its little bench were covered with sodden velvet, not with oilcloth. Here, also, the drink provided by the politician who owned this and many other public-houses was served in glasses of uncertain size and not by imperial measure. This, I say, had been the chief or summit of the place for many years; from the year of the great Exhibition, in fact until that great change in London life which took place towards the end of the eighties and brought us, among other things, a new art and a new conception of world-wide power. In those years, as the mind of London changed so did this little public-house (which was called "the Lord 53