To-day on the site of Will's Coffee House stands the old home of Charles and Mary Lamb, where was written the first series of the "Essays of Elia." Russell Street is a place of wholesale fruit and vegetable dealers now, but there are signs of old-time pleasantness to be found, especially in the delightful cornices over many of the windows.
Opposite Will's, Button's Coffee House was established in 1712, presided over by Addison's old servant Daniel Button. As Will's was a place for literary controversy, Button's was first of all ground for the discussion of matters political. Joseph Addison was the recognized head of the coterie who met there, among whom were Alexander Pope, Ambrose Philips, Thomas Tickell, Henry Carey, Richard Steele and Richard Savage. One faithful habitué was a playwright named Charles Johnson, whose fame rested chiefly on the fact that for many years he wrote a play every season and went to Button's every day. Steele, then editing the "Guardian," was so constant in his attendance that he used the rooms as his editorial office, setting up a lion's head, into the mouth of which correspondents deposited communications to which Steele replied in the pages of the "Guardian." Button the proprietor died in 1730 in great poverty and was buried in the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, at the expense of the parish.
Another celebrated coffee house was Tom's, on the north side of Russell Street, at No. 17, taking its name from Thomas West its first proprietor. West killed himself by jumping from the second story window of the house in 1722 but the business was continued with considerable success until 1814.
Far back in the 13th century all the land about what is now the Covent Garden district was a real garden, a great fertile tract attached to the convent of the monks of Westminster. Since those early days it has always been associated with flowers and growing things and the Covent Garden Market is now the chief flower, fruit and vegetable market of London. A map of the middle of the 16th century shows it a tract stretching approximately from the Strand to the Long Acre of to-day and surrounded by a wall. The Crown granted the land to the Bedfords in 1552, and in 1621 Inigo Jones planned the Covent Market Square. In 1831 the market buildings of this day were erected, but they have since been added to and improved.
Under the Piazza in Covent Garden was Bedford's Coffee House, the successor in popularity to Will's and Button's. Here gathered David Garrick, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, William Hogarth, Samuel Foote and Henry Fielding. The house continued a popular rendezvous until about 1803.
On the west side of Covent Garden, plain, dingy and unkempt in appearance, blending with the unpleasantness of the streets surrounding the market, is the church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Francis, fifth Earl of Bedford, in the 17th century owned all the land hereabouts and directed Inigo Jones to build a chapel for Covent Garden. But, he explained, it must not cost much money—build simply a barn. And Inigo Jones responded: "It shall be the handsomest barn in England." And he built St. Paul's. One of the memories associated with it is the record that here, in 1773, William Turner, the hair-dresser of Maiden Lane, was married to Mary Marshall. Their son was baptised here in 1775 and afterwards became the artist Joseph Mallord William Turner. In the forlorn burial ground back of this church were buried Samuel Butler, author of "Hudibras," in 1680; Grinling Gibbons, the wood carver, in 1721, and Edward Kynaston, an actor of female rôles, in 1712. This actor gained fame not only as a rare interpreter of character, but on one memorable occasion by keeping King Charles II. waiting, "because the queen was not yet shaved." William Wycherley, dramatist and author of "The Country Girl," was laid here in 1715, and T. A. Arne, composer of "Rule Britannia," in 1778. It is here, too, that Daniel Button, proprietor of the famous Button's Coffee House in Russell Street, lies, and others whose names are known all over the world.
Close by busy Covent Garden Market, in the house numbered 27 Southampton Street, David Garrick the actor lived for more than twenty years. A fanciful tablet over the doorway reads:
David Garrick
Lived Here
1750-1772
Southampton Street takes its name from the Earl of Southampton, and was the main approach to Covent Garden in the reign of Charles II.
Unattractive Maiden Lane leading from Southampton Street back of the Adelphi Theatre is narrow and usually overcrowded with many people and business vehicles. It was in this street, where the house No. 20 stands, that the great Turner was born in 1775, his father here having carried on his profession of hair-dresser. Voltaire, the Frenchman, lived in this thoroughfare for a time. In our own times, close by the stage door of the Adelphi, the actor William Terriss was done to death by a madman.