Thames Street gives cheeses, Covent Garden fruits; Moorfields old books, and Monmouth Street old suits.--Gay's Trivia.

It is now, however, time to proceed to a more minute description of Covent Garden itself. The present market, which occupies all the centre of the square, consists of a central arcade and side rows of shops, intersected in the centre by another thoroughfare at right angles. It was built, in , by John, Duke of Bedford, whose architect was Mr. William Fowler. The centre consists of an arch raised upon the entablature of Tuscan columns, with a single-faced archivolt supported by piers, which carry a lofty triangular pediment, the tympanum of which is embellished by the armorial bearings of the noble owner of the soil, his Grace the Duke of Bedford. On each side of this appropriate centre, which is high enough to admit a lofty loaded wagon into the central area, is a colonnade of the Tuscan order, projecting before the shops. The columns are of granite; and over the east end is the inscription,

John, Duke of Bedford

. Erected MDCCCXXX.

At each of the extreme angles of the portions of this new market are raised quadrangular pavilions, which break the monotony of the composition in a very satisfactory and artistic manner, for they are at the same time useful and ornamental. The area of the market is about acres, and it forms the principal mart of the metropolis for fruit, vegetables and flowers.

Those who wish to see the sight and smell the scent of fresh flowers in London in the summer should pay a visit to Covent Garden before, or, atthe latest, soon after sunrise on Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday; but the central arcade is a pretty sight at whatever time, and in whatever season, it may be visited.

The contrast between the Covent Garden of

fifty

years ago and the present,

Book about London,

is as wide a

one

as can possibly exist. The old watchman-helpless for good, and the most corrupt of public officersthe turbulent and drunken old women, the porters quarrelling over their morning potations, the jaded and neglected horse dropping beneath the cartload of half-rotten turnips, the London rakes- (fast men of those days)-making, not the night, but morning, hideous by their obscene blasphemies, and deeming it conduct becoming of gentlemen to interrupt honest industry and to scoff at early labour;--all this has gone, and so also are the terrible lessons that it inculcated. Order is now preserved as well as it can be amongst a rude assemblage of women and men whose battle for existence begins when the civilisation of the great city slumbers.

There is no

rus in urbe

,

like Covent Garden Market. Here Nature empties forth her teeming lap filled with the choicest of produce. It is the metropolitan congress of the vegetable kingdom, where every department of the growing and blowing world has its representatives--the useful and the ornamental, the needful and the superfluous, the esculent and the medicinal. It is a twofold temple, dedicated to Pomona and Flora, in which daily devotion is paid to the productive divinities. Here, as in a very temple, all classes and grades, all denominations and distinctions of men jostle each other in the humility of a common dependence on the same appetites, the same instincts, the same organs of taste, sight, and smell--the fashionable lady, who has left her brougham at the entrance, in quest of some pampered nursling of the conservatory, and the wan needlewoman bent on the purchase of a bunch of wallflowers, or a root of pale primroses to keep her paler cheeks in countenance; the artisan's wife, purveying for her husband's meal, and the comfortable housekeeper, primed with the discriminating lore of Mrs. Glass, making provisions for her winter's preserves; the bloated gourmand, in search of precocious peas, and the sickly hypochondriac eager to try the virtue of some healing herb.

The priestesses who serve the temple form two distinct classes-those of Pomona and those of Flora--the basket-woman and the bouquet-girl. As to the former, hers is no finiking type of female beauty; the taper waist and slender neck would ill befit the rude labours she is devoted to. Her portly figure is rather architectural than sculptural in its graces; and with arms upraised, in support of the basket balanced on her head, she might serve as a model for the caryatids of a new temple to the deity she serves.

He who would behold her in full activity must gratify his curiosity at some expense. He must voluntarily accomplish that which is enforced upon the vegetable visitor of the market-he must tear himself from his bed, foregoing the suavities of the morning's sleep to face the bleak air of dawning day: unless, indeed, he repair to the scene, as we have often done, as a sort of finish --to use the language of antiquated fast men-after a round of evening parties, his temples throbbing with an unhallowed mixture of festive beverages, from the bland negus to the ice-bound fire of champagne punch; his senses jaded with a thousand artificial and violent delights; and perhaps, a secret wound rankling at his heart--a wound that he has attempted to treat with light difference, and to bury under a hecatomb of flirtations, but which now asserts itself with redoubled pangs, and mingles its reproaches to the many-voiced objurgations of conscience to sicken and digust him with his existence. Under such circumstances is it that the most striking phase of Covent Garden--that which it presents on the morning of a market-day-will produce its fullest effect.

Towards the afternoon another and very different phase of the market is presented. To the range of heavy-tilted carts and wagons has succeeded a line of brilliant and elegant equipages. The utile has given place to the dulce, and pleasure now shows itself almost as busy as need. Over this period of the day Flora more especially presides, and the bouquet-girl--her priestess--is in the height of her ministry. Her delicate fingers are now busily employed in tricking out the loveliness of Nature; for even her loveliest daughters must be drilled and trained ere they can make their debut in the world of artifice they are called upon to adorn. Their slender stems need a wiry support to prop the head that else would droop in the oppressive atmosphere of the ball-room or the theatre. Art must draw fresh beauties from the contrast of each with the other; nor will the self-complacent ingenuity that paints the lily and gilds refined gold be satisfied till it has completed their toilet by investing them in a white robe of broidered paper.

The clients of the bouquet-girl consist almost exclusively of the sighing herd of lovers. These, with the exception of an occasional wholesale order from the manager of a theatre with a view to some triumphant debut, form the staple consumers of her wares. But among the whole tribe she has no such insatiate customer as he who is struggling in the toils of a danseuse. If music be the food of love, bouquets are cetainly the very air upon the regular supply of which hangs its existence; and on such air does the danseuse, chameleon-like, seem exclusively to live. They are the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of her lifethe symbols of her triumphs, public and domestic.

, it is true, is a limited arena, in comparison with its requirements, and consequently on market mornings the streets and avenues around, for half a mile, are thronged with merchants and traders, with heavy carts or wagons; from the elegantly painted light van to the hand-cart of the humble coster.

The apparent tumult of these occasions,

Book about London,

is all sober business, and the earnestness of all present is most remarkable to a stranger, who is apt to look upon the scene as

one

of the wildest uproar and confusion. The thousands of tons of vegetables and fruit are dispersed through every avenue and artery of the metropolis by

nine

o'clock and the market is then apparently emptied; excepting the many choice fruits and early vegetables to be found in the beautiful arcade, when the peaceable folks arrive on the exquisite mission of discovering delicacies for some poor cast-down invalid friend; and it is in this long-continued arch that the bouquets are made for the evening exhibitions which do such terrible mischief in Cupid's calendar, at balls, theatre, opera, concert, and in the private boudoir of my ladye-love.

A visit to in the early morning in summer is that should not be missed. Between the hours of and there is apparently little bustle in the market, though business goes on rapidy; and the scene presented is curious in the extreme. It is of those phases of life in which Charles Dickens delighted, and which would require the pen of Swift, or Sterne, or Fielding, to describe adequately and

this market

When I had no money,

I took a turn in Covent Garden, and stared at the pine-apples in the market.

People who know Covent Garden only in its quiet afternoon aspect,

can form no idea of the vile den it is at the busy hour of daybreak. Then the cabbages and peas that have been fermenting in the wagons for some hours past are tilted out on the flag-

Powell's Puppet-Show. (From A Contemporary Print.)

stones, and scrambled for by porters, who die early through exhaustion and excessive labour at unseemly hours. Then it is that the citizen's dinner is tossed to and fro, smoking with the temperature it has attained by close packing and long confinement, and is at last consigned to an unclean cart, for the district where its destiny is to be completed. The citizens are happily ignorant of the copper used in cooking, and the preliminary cooking vegetables are subjected to on their way to and

from

the market. We are fully cognisant of the fact that Spitalfields and Farringdon absorb some portion of the trade in vegetables; but Covent Garden is

the

market;

par excellence

, and it is a disgrace to the metropolis to be compelled to rely on the capabilities of a place which, spacious as it

may be, is fitted

at the very utmost to serve as a market for a town of

60,000

inhabitants.

The flower market of Covent Garden,

is carried on in Covent Garden Market About 1820. the open area opposite the church, and at the entrance of the grand row of shops which runs down the centre. The growers chiefly bring their productions into the market at or before midnight, and about one o'clock is the briskest period of the sale, the road being rendered almost impassable from the number of basket-women and others taking in their supply for the day of flowers in pots, as well as cut flowers. A more animated scene of the bustle of business, with the gay and varied hue of the flowers, and their delightful fragrance, it is scarcely possible to describe, than that which continues till about four or five o'clock, when the traders, having generally exhausted their stock, return home, and the dealers are on their way to supply their different walks and routes for the day. The peripatetic dealers having obtained their supply, the next who come in for their share are the various greengrocers of the metropolis, who take but a limited supply; whilst the remnants are left to salesmen for the day's demand of the market. The chief source of the costermonger's market is in the metropolis; and their supply being exhausted on other days but those of the market-days of Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, they replenish their stock from the nurserymen, who may be considered the manufacturers, in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, from whom the limited and humble flora of the metropolis is supplied. It is amusing likewise to contemplate the variety of persons who, at an early hour in the morning, are the visitants of the Market. There are the humble trader trafficking with the grower for his day's supply; the rake or the roue, and the unhappy companion of his night's frolic and dissipation, retiring to their unhallowed rest, whilst others are actively employed in the business of the day; the sot reeling home from his night's debauch, unfitted for the occupation which demands his exertion; the unfortunate, who, homeless, has wandered the streets, and contemplates luxuries in which he cannot indulge; and others induced to visit thus early this fac-simile, as it may be termed, of the most interesting of country enjoyments in the pursuit of health and pleasurable gratification. Such compose the motley group which we jostle against in an early visit to Covent Garden Market.

The nature of the supply of flowers to the market of course depends upon the season; but it is surprising to what an extent art has beaten nature in the race for priority. In the midst of winter Covent Garden Market shows all the realities of advanced and advancing spring. In February we have primulas, mignonette, wallflowers, violets, tulips, hyacinths, narcissusses, and other forced bulbs; in March, forced verbenas, camellias, epacrises, the heaths of Australia, lilacs, rhododendrons; azaleas, the honeysuckles of the American woods, and kalmias; in April these are more numerous, with a variety of hybrid heaths, acacias forced, roses, and pelargoniums; in May a greater variety of heaths are coming to perfection; and now also we have, in large and interesting variety, pelargoniums or geraniums, the standard flower of English ornament; mignonette, which has continued in perfection all through this artificial season, is now very abundant, and the beautiful China roses add a variety to the scene. In June the varieties of pelargoniums are in full perfection, and upwards of one hundred distinct sorts grace the show in the market; so great being the supply at this time of year that frequently from five to six hundred dozens are daily sent by growers. We have now the beautiful pendant fuchsias, many sorts of verbenas, cactuses, hydrangeas, cockscombs, balsams, stocks, heartsease; and pinks and picotees will soon be added to enliven the floral scene. Now, too, we have the pretty gardenia or Cape jasmine; and the sweet-scented lemon-plant. The flower-market is at the acme of its perfection, and the usual variety of supply continues, with little variation, till the autumnal months.

Some idea may be formed of the taste for flowers in London, and the extent of trade done in them, by reading a case of bankruptcy before Mr. Registrar Brougham, , at the hearing of which a proof was put in for for flowers supplied in months to individual. Among the items were charges of for a moss-rose, and for lilies of the valley and ferns.

A new building has been erected in the southeast corner of the market-place, in which the wholesale business of the flower-market is mainly carried on. The structure possesses little or nothing in the way of architectural pretensions, and has its principal entrance in .

At Wilton House, near Salisbury, the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, there is a fine picture of Covent Garden, painted by Inigo Jones himself. It represents the place in its original state, with a tree standing in the middle. A companion picture by the same artist, as already stated, it may be added, gives a view of when built upon.

The houses on the north and east sides of the market inclosure, as already mentioned, were so built as to form a covered pathway before the shopfronts, which was commonly known as the Piazza. The name

piazza,

place,

square;

The Piazza

Glossographia

a market-place or chief street, such as that in Covent Garden.

The Piazza when erected was a fashionable lounge, and generally regarded as a work of high artistic merit. Allusions are constantly made to it in the works of the dramatists of the time of the Stuarts and of the half of the eighteenth century, as a place of appointments and assignations. Peter Cunningham tells us that the north side was called the Great, and the east the Little Piazza; and that so popular and fashionable did the place become, that for a century after its erection many of the female children baptised in the parish were christened

Piazza!

Thornton, in his

Survey of London and

Westminster

,

In the arcade there is nothing very remarkable; the pilasters are as errant and homely stripes as any plasterer could have made.

This is very true now, though hardly true in Walpole's time, when the arcade remained as Inigo Jones had built it, with stone pilasters on a red-brick frontage. The pilasters, as we now see them, are lost in a mass of compo and white paint; the red bricks have been whitened over, and the pitched roof of red tile replaced with flat slates.

In discoursing of this parish, the

London Spy

the vicissitude of all human affairs is pretty discernible in the lives of the gamesters who patrol the Piazza for about

three

hours generally in the afternoon.

I have known an inauspicious hand of cards or dice transmute a silver-hilted sword into a brass

one

. . .. On the other hand, a pair of

second

-hand shoes has often here stepped at once into a chariot.

The same authority states that in this parish the Irish Society of Fortune-hunters are said to hold their quarterly meetings; but, as his account of their

transactions

Pepys thus writes, in his

Diary,

To my Lord Brounker's by appointment, under the Piazza in Covent Garden, where I occasioned much mirth with a ballet [ballad] that I brought with me made from the seamen at sea to their ladies in town.

To all ye ladies now on land.

In the Piazza, close to the steps of , about , lived Sir Godfrey Kneller, State-painter to sovereigns of England in succession, and the painter of scores of the leaders of fashion, as well as of the portraits of the

Kit-cat Club.

Here too Wilson,

the English Claude,

The

Piazza

It was by an improvisation at the

Piazza

Under the Piazza in Covent Garden, Powell, about , set up his well-known Puppet Show, which had acquired great celebrity in the provinces at Bath, and which is immortalised in the It was humorously announced by Steele that Powell would gratify the town with the performance of his drama on the story of the chaste Susannah, which would be graced by the addition of new

When I toll to prayers, I find my congregation take warning of my bell, morning and evening, to go to a puppet-show set forth by

one

Powell under the Piazza. By this means I have not only lost

two

of my best customers, whom I used to place, for sixpence a-piece, over against Mrs. Rachel Eyebright, but Mrs. Rachel herself has gone thither also. There now appear among us none but a few ordinary people, who come to church only to say their prayers, so that I have no work worth speaking of but on Sundays. I have placed my son at the Piazzas to acquaint the ladies that the bell rings for church, and that it stands on the other side of the garden; but they only laugh at the child. I desire that you would lay this before all the whole world, that I may not be made such a tool for the future, and that Punchinello may choose hours less canonical. As things are now, Mr. Powell has a full congregation, while we have a very thin house.

The

Second

Tale of a Tub,

What man or child that lives within the verge of Covent Garden, or what beau, belle, or visitant of Bath, knows not Mr. Powell

The

Bedford Coffee-house

This coffee-house,

affords every variety of character. This coffee-house is crowded every night with men of parts. Almost every

one

you meet is a polite scholar and a wit; jokes and

bon-mots

are echoed from box to box; every branch of literature is critically examined, and the merit of every production of the press, or performance at the theatres, weighed and determined. This school . .... has bred up many authors to the amazing entertainment and instruction of their readers.

Button's,

Bedford

blanks

Memoirs of the Bedford Coffee House,

The

Bedford

Button's.

The regular frequenters of the room,

strove to get admitted to his party at supper; and others got as near as they could to the table, as the only wit flowed from Foote's tongue.

Another frequenter of the

Bedford

Why, where on earth has it gone to?

Gone to the d-- l!

Well said, David,

let you alone for making a guinea go further than any

one

else in the world.

It will be remembered that here, too, at the shilling rubber meeting, arose the sharp squabble between Hogarth and Churchill, when Hogarth used some insulting language towards Churchill, who resented it in

The Epistle.

Never,

did

two

angry men of their abilities throw mud at each other with less dexterity.

It was at the

Bedford Coffee-house

Book for a Rainy Day,

Mr. John Nixon, of

Basinghall Street

, gave me the following information respecting the Beefsteak Club. Mr. Nixon, as secretary, had possession of the original book. Lambert's Club was

first

held in

Covent Garden Theatre

, in the upper room, called the Thunder and Lightning; then in

one

even with the

two-shilling

gallery; next in an apartment even with the boxes; and afterwards in a lower room, where they remained until the fire. After that time, Mr. Harris insisted upon it, as the

playhouse was a new building, that the Club should not be held there. They then went to the Bedford Coffee-house next door. Upon the ceiling of

the

dining-room they placed Lambert's original gridiron, which had been saved from the fire. They had a kitchen, a cook, and a wine-cellar, &c., entirely independent of the Bedford Coffee-house. The society held at Robins's room was called the Ad Libitum Society, of which Mr. Nixon had the books, but it was quite unconnected with the Beefsteak Club.

Bedford

Temple of Luxury.

In the north-east corner of the Piazza, and immediately adjoining the Opera House, with which it communicates, is the Floral Hall. This elegant building was intended as the realisation of a longcherished scheme on the part of Mr. Gye, namely, to establish a vast central flower-market, for many years a growing desideratum in the metropolis. An opportunity was at last presented by the rebuilding of , after its destruction in ; and it was decided to carry out Mr. Gye's favourite plan, by erecting an arcade on the south side of the new Opera House. The ground-plan of the building may be described resembling sides of an unequal triangle, the principal entrance being by the side of the Opera House, in , at the end of the longer side of the figure, while the othee opens upon , on the side of the Piazza. The public footway of the Piazza is continued along the Covent Garden entrance, in the shape of a gallery roofed with glass and iron. The main arcades run in a direct line from the entrances, and are surmounted at the point of junction by a lofty dome of feet span, which forms an imposing object in the view. This dome, as well as the roofs, are principally composed of wrought iron; the arches, columns, and piers are of cast iron; the frontage, both in and in the Piazza, is of iron and glass, of which the entire structure is principally composed, brickwork forming but a very small part of the composition. The utmost length of the arcade, from the entrance to the west wall, is feet; and the length of the shorter side, from to the wall of the theatre, nearly feet. The total height, from the ground to the top of the arched dome, is rather over feet. Each of the main arcades is feet wide, and has a side-aisle between the main columns and the wall, feet in width and in height. The entrances are both elegant and simple, the doorways being so deeply recessed as, in conjunction with the richly-designed iron arches which give admission to the interior, to obviate the flat appearance which generally characterises buildings of glass and iron. The interior is fully equal in lightness and grace of design to the exterior. The columns which support the roof are of cast iron, with richly ornamented capitals, the latter perforated, in order to ventilate the basement beneath, with which the hollow columns communicate. The ground having been excavated beneath, the principal floor forms a basement of the same area as the building above it, and feet in height, the floor of the arcade being supported by cast-iron columns. This building was, as its name implies, designed for a flower-market, and was expected to prove a boon to the many florists and nurserymen scattered among the outskirts of London, but has never fulfilled the purpose for which it was erected. It was opened on the , with a Volunteer ball, under royal patronage, and has since been employed principally, if not solely, for concerts during the season.

In the south-east corner of the market-placa, and occupying that portion which was destroyed by fire, are hotels, known by the strange names of the

Old Hummums

New Hummums.

Homoum.

History of Domestic Manners of England,

Among the customs introduced from Italy was the hot sweating bath, which, under the name of the hothouse became widely known in England for a considerable time.

Marry, it will take me much sweat; 'twere better to go to

sixteen

hot-houses.

Hummums,

The

Old Hummums

Midnight Modern Conversations.

In the north-west corner of Covent Garden is

Evans's Hotel,

Lives:

Since the restoration of Charles II., he (Sir Kenelm Digby) lived in the last faire house westward in the north portion of Covent Garden, where my Lord Denzill Holles lived since. He had a laboratory there. I think he dyed (died) in this house.

The mansion was subsequently altered, if not rebuilt, for the Earl of Orford, better known by the name of Admiral Russell, the same who, in , defeated Admiral de Tourville, near La Hogue,

At the end of the last, and during the early part of the present century, when used as a dinner and coffee-room only, it was called in the slang of the day,

The Star,

The rooms on the left hand of the entrance are used by the members of the Savage Club, composed mainly of dramatists and dramatic authors.

Evans's

About

twenty

years ago the list of metropolitan concert-rooms was headed by the Cyder Cellars and Evans's. The entertainments to be found in such places were not very select; but while the former has disappeared

altogether, the latter has been altered and purged. The surviving establishment, half supper-room and half. music-hall, and

one

of the lions of London, is situated at the western extremity of Covent Garden Piazza. It is subject to peculiar and stringent regulations. Ladies are not admitted, except on giving their names and addresses, and then only enjoy the privilege of watching the proceedings from behind a screen. The whole of the performances are sustained by the male sex, and an efficient choir of men and boys sing glees, ballads, madrigals, and selections from operas, the accompaniments being supplied on the piano and harmonium. . . The new hall,

one

of the most elaborately ornamented in London, was erected from designs by Mr. Finch Hill. Its proportions are certainly fine, and the decorations cost about

£ 5,000

. On the occasion of our last visit to Evans's, we heard standard music, English,German, and Italian, performed with admirable spirit, precision, and delicacy. The performances commence at

eight

o'clock; and we recommend Evans's to the notice of steady young men who admire a high class of music, see no harm in a good supper, but avoid theatres and the ordinary run of musichalls. The so-called

cafe

is a spacious room, supported by pillars, and hung round with portraits of actresses. Previous to the erection of the new hall, the chamber thus adorned was used as the singing-room.

The present hall, to which the cafe forms a sort of vestibule, is on a level with the cellars in front, and runs out at the rear of the house, occupying a plot of ground which was formerly the garden of Sir Kenelm Digby. At a later period it contained a cottage in which the Kemble family occasionally resided, when in the full tide of their popularity. According to tradition, it was in this cottage that their talented daughter, Miss Fanny Kemble, was born. The hall is about feet high, and as many wide; it is about feet long from end to end; and with the old room, through which it is approached, the entire length is feet. The carved ceiling, richly painted in panels, is supported on either side by a row of substantial columns with ornamental capitals, from which spring bold and massive arches; these columns help also to support the gallery, which extends along the sides and end of the hall, and in which are the private screened boxes alluded to above. The hall is well lighted by sun-light burners; it is also well ventilated, well conducted, well served, and therefore well patronised. A numerous army-corps of waiters, including a battalion of boys in buttons, flit noiselessly about, attending to the creature comforts of the visitors, who, between the hours of and , are continually dropping in to enjoy a hot supper and listen at the same time to the charming melodies provided for their delectation.

Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, the poet, resided in in a house in the north-west corner of Covent Garden; here also Thomas Killigrew, the wit, was living between the years and . The site was afterwards occupied by Denzil Holles, Sir Harry Vane, Sir Kenelm Digby; Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham; and Russell, Earl of Orford. The house was subsequently taken by Lord Archer, who married Sarah, the daughter of Mr. West, some time President of the Royal Society. Mr. West's library and Collection of prints, coins, and medals, were sold in this house, and occupied the auctioneer weeks in the disposal of it. After the above sale in , the mansion was converted into a family hotel, by a person named David Low, and is said to be the of the kind established in London. About , a Mrs. Hudson became proprietor. Her advertisements were curious; ends thus-

Accommodation, with stabling, for

one hundred

noblemen and horses.

Paddy Green,

It was in the north-western angle of the Piazza that Sir Peter Lely resided for many years. It is well known that names were sometimes adopted from sign-boards. That of Rothschild, the

Red Shield,

His grandfather,

was a perfumer, named Van der Vaas, and lived at the sign of the Lilypossibly a vase of lilies. When his son entered the English army, he discarded his Dutch name, and for the paternal sign adopted the more euphonious name of Lilly or Lely.

To the above list of notables who have resided here must be added the name of Dr. Berkeley, the philosopher, Bishop of Cloyne. Zoffany's house was the same which afterwards became the auctionroom of George Robins, and Peter Cunningham identifies

the

second

house eastward from

James Street

The auction-rooms of George Robins were for miany years of the celebrities of London. They were formerly known as

Langford's and Cox's,

Hogarth exhibited his Marriage a la Mode gratis to the public.

Life of Nollekens.

It may be worth a passing note to record the fact that Covent Garden was the place in London where a balcony or

belconey,