Wonders of Exeter Change The Earl of Rosebery, in unveiling the tablet on Holly Lodge, where Macaulay lived three or four years before his death, asked when ther it was not an immense relief to the eye and to the thoughts for anyone in the habit of taking long walks in London to come across a memorial of some distinguished person, which would relieve the intolerable pressure of the monotony of endless streets. The value of the memorial tablet is undoubted, but there are other things for anyone with imagination and a sense of history, to bring back the London of the past.
There is Burleigh-street, where immediately to the east stood Exeter House. The site of the house was once occupied by the rectory of St. Clement Danes. Sir Thomas Palmer erected a "large and spacious" house on the ground, and after his execution for treason in 1533 the place was granted to Sir William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, who practically rebuilt it at enormous expense. On Burleigh's death the house came to his son, who was created Earl of Exeter, and the name was changed to "Exeter House." After the Great Fire the place passed through various hands, and in 1676, when Lord Shaftesbury moved to Thanet House, the old Exeter House was pulled down to make way for streets and buildings.
Eva aw Innapitant.
By far the most important of these buildings was Exeter Change. The east end projected into the street, and the pavement went through it, and it was not until a later period that the footway ran round it, thus making the street extremely narrow. The Change had "two walks below stairs, and as many above, with shops on each side for Semsters, Milenners, Hosiers, ete." Part of the Change became a sort of menagerie, run successively by Pidcock, Polito, and Cross. An old newspaper paragraph, headed "Adam and Eve in Paradise," reads as follows:
As everything that calls our attention to the situation of our first parents must prove peculiarly interesting to every member in society, that beautiful set-pent, the boa constrictor, row exhibiting Mr, Cross's menagerie, Exeter Change, is particularly recommended to public inspection; nor can we avoid making considerable allowance for Eve's tergiversation when we perceive the lar beauty, subtilty, and docility of the animal. We at the same time _recommend a general view of the immense collection of birds and beasts that are in the same establishment, from every quarter of the Globe, consisting of some
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.