on which Sir Walter Scott remarked a billet-doux from Bow Street would now be more alarming than flattering. The police officer began his reign here in 1749.
Henry Fielding, who was in authority in 1753, did much to suppress the unbridled license and open highway robbery of the Metropolis.
Will's Coffee-house was at No. 1, on the west side, the corner of Russell Street. The principal room was on the first floor. Dryden made the house the chief place of resort for the poets and wits of the time. After his death Addison took the company across the street to Button's. Ned Ward's notes on Will's are not respectful.
"From thence we adjourned to the Wits' Coffee-house.... Accordingly, upstairs we went, and found much company, but little talk.... We shuffled through this moving crowd of philosophical mutes to the other end of the room, where three or four wits of the upper class were rendezvous'd at a table, and were disturbing the ashes of the old poets by perverting their sense.... At another table were seated a parcel of young, raw, second-rate beaus and wits, who were conceited if they had but the honour to dip a finger and thumb into Mr. Dryden's snuff-box" (Cunningham, p. 555.).
Defoe, on the other hand, is more complimentary:—
"Now view the beaus at Will's, the men of wit,
By nature nice, and for discerning fit,
The finished fops, the men of wig and muff.
Knights of the famous oyster-barrel snuff."
At Button's there was a carved lion's head, of which the mouth was a letter-box for contributions to the Guardian and Tatler. This was set up by Addison in 1713, and attracted much attention. It was removed in 1731 to the Shakespeare Tavern, and later came into the possession of the Duke of Bedford. Tom's was the last of the three famous houses. It was started by a waiter from Will's, and managed to hold its own. It was on the north side of the street, nearly opposite Button's.
The literary associations of the street are innumerable. Wycherley lodged here, and after an illness was visited by Charles II., who gave him £500 for a trip to France. The well-known Cock Tavern was just opposite his rooms, and when Wycherley had married the Countess of Drogheda he used to sit in the tavern with the windows open so that his jealous wife could see there were no women in his company. This tavern was the resort of the rakes and mohocks that for a while made the neighbourhood a terror to decent people. Henry Fielding wrote "Tom Jones" while living in this street. Grinling Gibbons died here. Edmund Waller, the poet, lived here during the Commonwealth, and Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, was born here in 1661. Radcliffe, the Court physician, was a resident in the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The streets opening out of the square can boast many interesting associations.
Henrietta Street was named after Charles I.'s Queen. Samuel Cooper, miniature-painter, lived here. The Castle Tavern, where Sheridan fought with Mathews on account of Miss Linley, was in this street.