Down through Coventry street, past the cafés again, which are preparing to close, and now we are in the Haymarket, one of the worst quarters of London. This street is wide, beginning at Coventry street and running down for a distance of about 1,400 feet to the "bottom," ending at the line where Pall Mall begins. They always say the "bottom" or "top" of a street in London, never "east" or "west." If there be a place in London that is deserving of notice, it is the Haymarket. Hundreds of years ago, the washerwomen of the village of Charing, just below us, and now one of the great business centres of London, used to bring their dirty linen here to cleanse it, and then dry it on the green fields in the Haymarket.
The green fields of the Haymarket have long ago been covered over with theatres, opera-houses and palatial shops, and now not all the washerwomen in England could cleanse the immoral sewage that streams through the Haymarket night after night—through the snows of winter, the heated nights of July, and August, and the fragrance of May. Here, at this chemist's door, formerly a tennis court, Charles II., his brother, the Duke of York, Sedley, Rochester, and the rest of the wild, reckless lot, used to come to play their favorite game; and here sat Mistress Gwynne, Portsmouth, Mrs. Hyde, Louise de Queroailles, Frances Stewart, and other dissolute beauties of the merry monarch's court, applauding the feats of skill performed by their lovers. In the theatre formerly standing on the site of the present Haymarket Theatre, and opposite to Her Majesty's Opera House, with its long, drab colonnades and dark shops imbedded in the arcades, Foote and glorious Garrick woke the passions of all who were intellectual and noble in the Addisonian age of England.
Here was the public house kept by Broughton, the champion of England, who has been forever immortalized by Hogarth—just off Cockspur street; and here was his swinging sign-board, having a portrait of himself, battered and bruised, in a cocked hat and wig, with the legend on the sign-board—
"Hic Victor Cæstus artemque repono."
Think of a modern prize buffer attempting to quote from the classics. Cibber wrote a show-bill for Broughton once, which I reproduce, as a specimen of advertising skill:
"At The New Theatre
"In the Haymarket, on Wednesday. The 29th of This Instant April,
"The Beauty of the Science of Defence will be shown in a Trial of Skill between the following Masters, viz., Whereas, there was a battle fought on the 18th of March last, between Mr. Johnson, from Yorkshire, and Mr. Sherlock, from Ireland, in which engagement they came so near as to throw each other down. Since that rough battle the said Sherlock has challenged Johnson to fight him, strapt down to the stage, for twenty pounds; to which the said Johnson has agreed; and they are to meet at the time and place above mentioned, and fight in the following manner, viz., to have their left feet strapt down to the stage, within reach of each other's right leg; and the most bleeding wounds to decide the wager. N.B.—The undaunted young James, who is thought the bravest of his age in the manly art of boxing, fights himself the stout-hearted George Gray for ten pounds, who values himself for fighting at Tottenham Court. Attendance to be given at ten, and the Masters mount at twelve. Cudgel-playing and boxing to divert the gentlemen until the battle begins.
"N.B.—Frenchmen are requested to bring smelling bottles."
Think only of these wigged nobles and their clients, the boxers, in knee-breeches and wigs, going to a battle, and think of the Frenchmen who were compelled to bring smelling-bottles to keep their stomachs in order, and who will not say that even in prize-fighting the Nineteenth century has brought progress, as in every other scientific matter?
AT "BARNES'S."