LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.-PORTUGAL STREET.-DUKE STREET.-ST. GILES'S CHURCH AND CHURCHYARD.

DRURY LANE derives its name from having been built nearly on the site of Drury House, the residence of the once powerful family of the Druries. "It is singular," says Pennant, "that this lane, of later times so notorious for intrigues, should derive its title from a family name, which, in the language of Chaucer, had an amorous signification:

"Of bataille and of chevalrie,

Of ladies love and druerie,
Anon I wool you tell."

Drury House, which stood where Craven Buildings and the Olympic Theatre now stand, is said to have been built by the gallant and courtly Sir William Drury,—Lord Deputy of Ireland in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and a Knight of the Garter,-who was killed in a duel with Sir John Burroughs, on account of a quarrel between them on an absurd question of precedency.* He was succeeded by his

* Camden's "Life of Queen Elizabeth."

son, Sir Robert Drury, in whose life-time the celebrated Dr. Donne found a welcome refuge in Drury House during the days of his poverty.* Here, too, it was, that the unfortunate Earl of Essex and his friends met secretly to plan the rash conspiracy, which ended in as fatal a catastrophe.

Some time after the death of Sir Robert Drury, this property came into the possession of William, Lord Craven, the gay courtier of the reign of James the Second, the hero of the "tremendous breach of Creutznach," and the presumed husband of the charming Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia. Lord Craven pulled down the old mansion of the Druries, and built on its site a large brick pile, in which we find the Queen of Bohemia residing shortly after the Restoration of her brother, Charles the Second. Part of Craven House was taken down in 1723, but the remaining portion continued to be used as an inn till the commencement of the present century, when, with other buildings, it was pulled down to make room for the Olympic Theatre. Pennant tells us, that, in searching after old Craven House, he discovered a public-house, the sign of which was a head of the Queen of Bohemia, Lord Craven's "admired mistress," which which proved its identity. Within little more than half a century, there was to be seen, in the court in Craven Buildings, a fresco painting of Lord Craven, seated, in full armour, on a white horse, with a truncheon in his hand.

* Walton's "Life of Dr. Donne."

ANNE CLARGES, DUCHESS OF ALBEMARLE.

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In the reign of Charles the Second, we find Drury Lane one of the most fashionable situations in London. Besides Craven House, here stood Clare House, the residence of the Earl of Clare, and Anglesea House, the residence of the Earl of Anglesea.* In Craven Buildings lived, at different periods, the celebrated actresses Mrs. Bracegirdle and Mrs. Pritchard.

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In Drury Lane lived Anne Clarges, who became the mistress, and afterwards the wife, of the celebrated George Monk, Duke of Albemarle. "Monk," says Lord Clarendon, in his "History of the Rebellion," "was cursed, after a long familiarity, to marry a woman of the lowest extraction, the least wit, and less beauty." Clarendon afterwards speaks of her as a woman with nothing feminine about her but her make;" and Burnet styles her a "ravenous, mean, and contemptible creature, who thought of nothing but getting and spending." She was the daughter of a blacksmith, who lived in Drury Lane, and was bred a milliner. "When Monk was a prisoner in the Tower," says Aubrey, "his sempstress, Anne Clarges, a blacksmith's daughter, was kind to him in a double capacity. It must be remembered that he was then in want, and that she assisted him. Here she was got with child. She was not at all handsome, nor cleanly. Her mother was one of the five women-barbers, and a woman of ill-fame. A ballad was made on her and the other four; the burden of it was

* "Present State of England," 1683.

Did you ever hear the like,

Or ever hear the fame,
Of five women barbers,

Who lived in Drury Lane."*

In a curious memoir, in the British Museum, of one Mul-Sack, a noted highwayman, I found the following notice of these ladies;-"There were five noted Amazons in Drury Lane, who were called women-shavers, and whose actions were then talked of about town, till being apprehended for a riot, and one or two of them severely punished, the rest fled to Barbadoes." The author of the "Memoir of Mul-Sack" mentions a brutal and disgusting act of cruelty which was perpetrated by these wretches on another woman, the particulars of which are too gross for publication, but which sufficiently attest how detestable was the character of the "five women-shavers" of Drury Lane.

Drury Lane was one of the first places in London which was visited by that terrible calamity, the great Plague, in 1665. Pepys mentions his being at "the coffee-house" on the 24th of May, when he says all the conversation was "of the plague growing upon us in this town, and of remedies against it, some saying one thing, and some another." On the 7th of June,- which he speaks of as "the hottest day that ever I felt in my life," he says in his "Diary," "This day, much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and 'Lord have mercy upon us Two years

writ there."

* Aubrey's "Letters of Eminent Men."

NELL GWYNNE IN DRURY LANE.

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on

afterward, when Pepys was passing through Drury Lane, on his way to Westminster, the street presented a very different appearance. It was May-day, 1677, and the passage in his "Diary" shews that the beautiful and warm-hearted Nell Gwynne was at this period an inhabitant of Drury Lane. "To Westminster, in the way, many milkmaids, with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them; and saw pretty Nelly stand at her lodgings-door, in Drury Lane, in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one; she seemed a mighty pretty creature."

After Drury Lane had ceased to bear the fashionable reputation which it enjoyed in the seventeenth century, it became in the reign of Queen Anne, and up to a much later period, notorious as a colony for those unfortunate off-shoots of genius, who may perhaps be best designated as poor authors." In the wittiest satirical poem of modern times, the

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Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," Pope, speaking of the disagreeable manner in which he was pestered by authors to read their MSS., writes:

I sit with sad civility; I read

With honest anguish, and an aching head;
And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,

This saving counsel, "Keep your piece nine years."
"Nine years!" cries he, who high in Drury Lane,
Lulled by soft zephyrs through the window-pane,
Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before Term ends,
Obliged by hunger, and request of friends, &c.

Goldsmith also writes, in his "Description of an author's bed-chamber," by which was probably intended his own: