BOW STREET AND RUSSELL STREET

THE HE old building in our illustration which stands at the corner of Bow and Russell Streets, Covent Garden, on true classic ground, was once the famous Will's Coffee House, which is described as being on the north side of the west corner of Bow and Russell Streets: a position answering exactly to the situation of this house. Charles and Mary Lamb also lived here. There is hardly a foot of these two streets that is without some literary or dramatic association: Bow Street, even to-day, continues to draw almost daily a number of persons who are interested, sometimes against their wills, in the huge police court identified with its name. The street was built in 1637 and named, so it is said, from its shape which is like a bent bow. It was a residential quarter until about 1725, Covent Garden Theatre was erected in the street some seven years later, and the Police Court first appeared in 1749.

The most interesting literary association concerning Bow Street is that it was here that Henry Fielding wrote "Tom Jones." The house in which he lived stood on the site of the Police Court, and was demolished during the Gordon riots in 1780. Had it escaped the hands of the rioters, it is highly probable that it would have fallen, in this utilitarian age, under the pick of the house-breaker; though many would have made a brave effort to save the house of Harry Fielding. He and his half-brother, Sir John Fielding, were of course among the most celebrated of the Bow Street magistrates.

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William Wycherly, the dramatist, spent his last days in lodgings in this street, and here Charles II visited him. The dramatist, who was too old and ill to go to the church, was married in his house, but died eleven days later. Waller the poet, Dr. Johnson, and Sir Roger de Coverley, also lived in Bow Street.

In Russell Street, or Great Russell Street as it was then called, it will be remembered that Tom Davies, the bookseller, introduced Boswell to Johnson, at his shop on May 16, 1763. At Nos. 20 and 21 Charles Lamb and his sister took lodgings in October, 1817, in the house of an ironmonger or brazier, and remained there till the middle of 1823. Mr. Owen, the ironmonger, occupied the shop at the corner of Russell and Bow Streets and the adjoining one. It is stated that Lamb's lodgings were over the corner shop, which is depicted in Mr. Fletcher's drawing. Here Lamb was thoroughly in his element, with, as he says, Drury Lane, in sight from our front, and Covent Garden from our back." He loved "the theatres with all their noises." Covent Garden Market, too, with the prospect of "early peas and 'sparagus," and the Piazzas with the old bookstalls.

R. I.