In the popular dramas written in the last part of Milton’s lifetime, constant allusion is made to the fashionable and even licentious companies that frequented the piazza of Covent Garden, and it is safe to say that it was never at any time a haunt of the serious-minded Puritan. The poet Gay, writing in the next generation after Milton, thus describes the Covent Garden that he knew:
“Where Covent Garden’s famous temple stands,
That boasts the work of Jones’ immortal hands,
Columns with plain magnificence appear,
And graceful porches lead along the square;
Here oft my course I bend, when lo! from far
I spy the furies of the football war:
The ’prentice quits his shop to join the crew,
Increasing crowds the flying game pursue.”
At first, peddlers of fruit and vegetables used the gravelled centre of the square for their booths, and gradually the market grew into a well-recognised establishment, and the open square was finally in 1830 covered over. In Milton’s later years Covent Garden was fashionable as a residence for the nobility. Bishops, dukes, and earls had here their town houses, and among the titled residents was the painter, Sir Godfrey Kneller.
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SOMERSET HOUSE
This view represents the house as it stood in Milton’s boyhood, previous to the alterations by Inigo Jones. Adjoining it is the Savoy, and immediately behind it is the only view extant of Exeter House.
From an ancient painting in Dulwich College.
The palace on the Thames known as “Somerset House” was in Milton’s lifetime a magnificent structure; built in 1544-49, it was from the time of Elizabeth to 1775 a residence much favoured by royalty. Pepys tells us in 1662: “Indeed it is observed that the greatest court nowadays is there.” It was then the residence of the queen mother, whose rooms he describes as “most stately and nobly furnished,” and he remarks upon the echo on the stairs, “which continues a voice so long as the singing three notes, concords one after another, they all three shall sound in concert together a good while most pleasantly.” The site occupied an area of six hundred feet from east to west and five hundred from north to south. The present large edifice, which was erected on the site of the old one, demolished in 1775, is used for many important public purposes.