Manor,' of which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime called 'Lun's Ghost' - a satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead-but to my apprehension (too sincere for satire) Lun was as remote a piece of antiquity as Lud-the father of a line of harlequins-transmitting his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of white patch-work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead. 'My third play followed in quick succession. It was 'The Way of the World.' I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge; for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady Wishfort affected me like some solemn tragic passion. 'Robinson Crusoe' followed, in which Crusoe, Man Friday, and the Parrot were as good and authentic as in the story. The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have clean passed out of my head. I believe I no more laughed at them, than at the same age I should have been disposed to laugh at the grotesque gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone, around the inside of the old round church (my church) of the Templars.

"I saw these plays in the season of 1781-2, when I was from six to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven years (for at school all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! At the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all

'Was nourished I could not tell how.'.

I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. The same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reverence was gone! The green curtain was no longer a veil drawn between two worlds, the unfolding of which was to

bring back past ages, to present a 'royal ghost,'-but a certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their fellow men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The lights-the orchestra lights-came up, a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's bell, which had been like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no hand seen or guessed at, which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many centuries-of six short twelvemonths-had wrought in me. Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreasonable expectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotions with which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearance, to me, of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella. Comparison and retrospection soon yielded to the present attraction of the scene; and the theatre became to me, upon a new stock, the most delightful of recreations."

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CHAP. VIII.

COVENT GARDEN CONTINUED AND LEICESTER SQUARE.

1

Bow Street once the Bond Street of London. - Fashions at that Time. Infamous Frolic of Sir Charles Sedley and others. - Wycherly and the Countess of Drogheda. - Tonson the Bookseller. Fielding.Russell Street. - Dryden beaten by hired Ruffians in Rose Street.

His Presidency at Will's Coffee-House. - Character of that Place. - Addison and Button's Coffee-House.-Pope, Philips, and Garth. -Armstrong. - Boswell's Introduction to Johnson. - The Hummums. - Ghost Story there. - Covent Garden. The Church. - Butler, Southern, Eastcourt, Sir Robert Curious Dialogue with him when past a

Car, Earl of Somerset.

Strange. Macklin.

Century. Dr. Walcot. - Covent Garden Market.

Story of Lord Sandwich, Hackman, and Miss Ray. Henrietta Street Mrs. Clive. - James Street. Partridge, the Almanack Maker. - Mysterious Lady. - King Street. Arne and his Father. - The four Southampton Row. - Maiden Lane. - Voltaire.

Indian Kings.

Long Acre and its Mug-Houses. - Prior's Resort there. - Newport Street. St. Martin's Lane, and Leicester Square. - Sir Joshua Reynolds. Hogarth. Sir Isaac Newton.

ow STREET was once the Bond Street of
London. Mrs. Bracegirdle began an
epilogue of Dryden's with saying-
"I've had to-day a dozen billet-doux
From fops, and wits, and cits, and Bow-
street beaux;

Some from Whitehall, but from the
Temple more:

A Covent-garden porter brought me four."

Sir Walter Scott says, in a note on the passage, "With a slight alteration in spelling, a modern poet would have written Bond Street beaux. A billet-doux from Bow Street would now be more alarming than flattering."* Mrs. Bracegirdle spoke this epilogue at Drury Lane.

There was no Covent Garden theatre then. People of fashion occupied the houses in Bow Street, and mantuas floated up and down the pavement. This was towards the end of the Stuarts' reign, and the beginning of the next century, the times of Dryden, Wycherly, and the Spectator. The beau of Charles's time is well known. He wore, when in full flower, a peruke to imitate the flowing locks of youth, a Spanish hat, clothes of slashed silk or velvet, the slashes tied with ribands, a coat resembling a vest rather than the modern coat, and silk stockings, with roses in his shoes. The Spanish was afterwards changed for the cocked-hat, the flowing peruke for one more compact; the coat began to stiffen into the modern shape, and when in full dress, the beau wore his hat under his arm. His grimaces have been described by Dryden :—

"His various modes from various fathers follow;

One taught the toss, and one the new French wallow;

His sword-knot this, his cravat that designed;

And this the yard-long snake that twirls behind.

From one the sacred periwig he gained,

Which wind ne'er blew, nor touch of hat profaned.
Another's diving bow he did adore,

Which with a shog casts all the hair before,
Till he, with full decorum, brings it back,
And rises with a water-spaniel shake."

One of these perukes would sometimes cost forty or fifty pounds. The fair sex at this time waxed and waned through all the varieties of dishabilles, hoop-petticoats and stomachers. We must not enter upon this boundless sphere, especially as we have to treat upon it from time to time. We shall content ourselves with describing a set of lady's clothes, advertised as stolen in the year 1709, and which would appear to have belonged to a belle

* In the prologue to Etherege's play of the 'Man of Mode.' Scott's 'Dryden,' vol. x. p. 340.

resolved to strike even Bow Street with astonishment. They consisted of “a black silk petticoat, with a red-andwhite calico border; cherry-coloured stays, trimmed with blue and silver; a red and dove-coloured damask gown, flowered with large trees; a yellow satin apron, trimmed with white Persian; muslin head-cloths, with crowfoot edging; double ruffles with fine edging; a black silk furbelowed scarf, and a spotted hood!"* It is probable, however, the lady did not wear all these colours at once.

A tavern in Bow Street, the Cock, became notorious for a frolic of Sir Charles Sedley, Lord Buckhurst, and others, frequently mentioned in the biographies, but too disgusting to be told. There was an account of it in Pepys's manuscript, but it was obliged to be omitted in the printing. Anthony à Wood found it out, and first gave it to the public. It was not commonly dissolute, there was a filthiness in it, which would have been incredible if told of any other period than that of the fine gentlemen of the court of Charles. What can be repeated has been told by Johnson in his life of Sackville, Lord Dorset.

66

'Sackville, who was then Lord Buckhurst, with Sir Charles Sedley, and Sir Thomas Ogle, got drunk at the Cock, in Bow Street, by Covent Garden, and going into the balcony, exposed themselves to the company in very indecent postures. At last, as they grew warmer, Sedley stood forth naked, and harangued the populace in such profane language, that the public indignation was awakened; the crowd attempted to force the door, and being repulsed, drove in the performers with stones, and broke the windows of the house. For this misdemeanour they were indicted, and Sedley was fined five hundred pounds; what` was the sentence of the others is not known. Sedley employed Killegrew and another to procure a remission of the King, but

* Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 317.