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Feeling himself disgraced, and desirous of keeping out of the way of his town acquaintances, seems a more cogent reason for his seclusion than the fear of his creditors, especially when we learn that the Spectator, instead of falling off in popularity, was selling better than ever and at double its original price; and that at the close of this summer he had taken a house for his wife in Bloomsbury Square, which does not look as if he was in want of funds.

As for the irritable Dean, who had threatened to do nothing for him, a little further on in his ‘Correspondence’ he is telling the same lady of all he had done for the Whigs, and adds that he had ‘kept Steele in his place.’[41]

Leaving Steele’s cottage, we pass England’s Lane on the left—a lane famous for its blackberry hedges and the pleasant fields in the neighbourhood of the late Mr. Bell the publisher’s house; but all has changed, and the once rural lane is now a path between brick walls and garden fences. Farther on is Park Road, leading to the newly-made Fleet Road and Gospel Oak Station; and on the other side of the way, a little further on, Upper Park Road, with fragrant nursery-grounds spreading over the same distance on the right, reminiscent of the times when it was all ‘flowers and gardens’ on that side of the way to Hampstead. The road is still attractive with its handsome houses, standing behind well-grown trees in well-kept gardens; but formerly, on the ascent of Haverstock Hill, the outside passenger by the old stage-coach on looking back found himself repaid on a clear day by a brief prospect of the great city, with ‘the dome of St. Paul’s in the air,’ and all the surrounding spires, towers, and cupolas that ascend above the city roofs.