During the dinner-hour, when the weather is fine, the graveyard seats are filled by the very poorest of the poor, many of them aliens, far from their own country, and sad beneath the gray skies of the land that gives them bread, but denies them sun.
In the registers are recorded the baptisms of two of the children of George II., and five of the children of Frederick, Prince of Wales, born at Leicester House, in this parish.
Wardour Street has long been celebrated for its shops of old china, bric-à-brac, and furniture. It can claim Flaxman among its bygone residents.
Dean Street is a long and narrow thoroughfare, a favourite residence with artists at the end of the eighteenth century; the names of Hayman, Baily, Ward, and Belines are all to be found here in association. Sir James Thornhill lived at No. 75, where there are the remains of some curious staircase paintings by him, in the composition of which he is said to have been assisted by his son-in-law, Hogarth. Turner, the father of the great painter, was a hairdresser in Dean Street, and Nollekens' father died in No. 28. In the house adjoining the Royalty Theatre Madame Vestris was born.
Frith Street in old maps is marked "Thrift Street," a name by no means inappropriate at the present time. It also has its associations, and can claim the birth of Sir Samuel Romilly, the great law reformer, who lived until the early part of the nineteenth century, and whose father was a jeweller here; the early boyhood of Mozart, and the death of Hazlitt, which took place in furnished lodgings. The failure of his publishers had made him short of money; he was harassed by pecuniary cares, yet his last words were: "I've had a happy life."
The following advertisement bearing date March 8, 1765, is worth quotation: "Mr. Mozart, the father of the celebrated Young Musical Family who have so justly raised the Admiration of the greatest musicians of Europe, proposes to give the Public an opportunity of hearing these young Prodigies perform both in public and private, by giving on the 13th of this month a concert which will be chiefly conducted by his Son, a boy of eight years of age, with all the overtures of his own composition. Tickets may be had at 5s. each at Mr. Mozart's, or at Mr. Williamson's in Thrift Street, Soho, where Ladies and Gentlemen will find the Family at Home every day in the week from 12 to 2 o'clock and have an opportunity of putting his talents to a more particular proof by giving him anything to play at sight or any Music without a Bass, which he will write upon the spot without recurring to his harpsichord."
In this street there are many interesting relics of bygone splendour. No. 9—now to let—has a splendid well staircase with spiral balusters. The walls and ceiling of this are lined with oil-paintings of figures larger than life. These have unfortunately been somewhat knocked about during successive tenancies, but clearly show that the house was one of considerable importance in past times. It was in lodgings in this street that Mrs. Inchbald wrote her "Simple Story," published 1791, in four volumes, which was an immediate success. She was an actress as well as an author, and a friend of the Kembles. Her dramatic writings were very many.
At No. 13, Greek Street were Wedgwood's exhibition-rooms. In No. 27 De Quincey used to sleep on the floor by permission of Brumel, the money-lender's attorney.
On the other side of Shaftesbury Avenue, and parallel with it, is Gerrard Street, a dingy, unpretending place, but thick with memories and associations. It was built about 1681, and was called after Gerard, Earl of Macclesfield. Wheatley quotes from the Bagford MSS. of the British Museum to the effect that "Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James I., caused a piece of ground near Leicester Fields to be walled in for the exercise of arms. Here he built a house, which was standing at the Restoration. It afterwards fell into the hands of Lord Gerard, who let the ground out to build upon." Hatton speaks of "Macclesfield House, alias Gerrard House, a well-built structure situate in Gerrard Street ... now (1708) in possession of Lord Mohun." Dryden lived in Gerrard Street in a house on the site of one marked by a tablet of the Society of Arts. He died here, and his funeral was interrupted by a drunken frolic of Mohocks headed by Lord Jeffreys. Close by is an hotel, where once Edmund Burke resided; opposite to him J. T. Smith lodged, as he tells us in "Nollekens and his Times," and he could look into Burke's rooms when they were lighted, and see the patient student at work until the small hours of the morning. Charles Kemble and his family also resided in this street.
On the site of the Westminster General Dispensary was a tavern named the Turk's Head, where the well-known literary club had its origin. The members were at first twelve in number, including Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, Edmund Burke, Dr. Nugent, Topham Beauclerk, Mr. Langton, Dr. Goldsmith, and Sir J. Hawkins. In 1772 the number of the members was increased to twenty, and instead of meeting weekly, on Mondays, for a supper, they met every fortnight, on a Friday, and dined together. David Hume was here in 1758, and the actor Edmund Kean passed most of his boyhood in this street, sheltered by a couple who had adopted him when his mother deserted him in Frith Street. All his early boyhood is associated with this neighbourhood; he was found in Frith Street, and his schools were in Orange Court, Leicester Square, and Chapel Street, Soho. The dispensary is in itself interesting, being one of the very oldest institutions of the kind, established in 1774.