Morning journal and courier., 1892-09-17
wAKEMAN,S WANDERINGs.

knOW.-HQck.
 wAKEMAN'S wANDERINGS. Covent Garden and Its SJoyoui Neighborhood" - Famous Inns oi Olden Times and Noted Resorts oi To-Day-Rich and Mellow Memo. rfes Charmingly Recalled-The Mar ket in Early Morning Hours-In' teresting Types and Scenes.
 LONDON, Sept. 5. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER: Of all the good old London taverns oi
 by-gone days those looking in upon Co vent Garden, or immediately around about it, best retain that flavor which has given English fctional literature for the past two
 hundred years one of it's most winsome
 and lasting charms.
 used to haunt the apartment houses of
 London, up Bloomsbury way, and skir-
 mish with their sad-eyed, funereal-voiced,
 widowed, nimble- fingered keepers in dis
 may and desperation, or waste my energies
 upon the austerities of the great hotels
 along the Strand. But one day of grace succor came, and good old Sant Mathews, the London actor, said: "My dear boy. don't be a cad any longer and waste your gold among the hotel Bedouins of Lon don. Live like a gentleman of the old school on half the money, and take your ease at your inn in the very heart of that precinct where all our literature worth reading was made. Go to any of the'quiet old inns about Covent Garden and be all ways at rest, even in restless London"
 have never been SO grateful for advice in all my life. Here are half score of inns, genuine old tsverns, most of them built long before the century came in, and every one of modern make constructed and conducted on the old fashioned plan. They are taverns at which the freplsces are huge, cavernous and get-at-able; the bedrooms warm and cozy; the halls low ceilinged, but broad and full of real olden settles and sofas; the smoking rooms snug and warm and with plenty of papers and books; the pictures yellow and old and dim and hung in great broad, odd frames, which show they were there long before you were born; the dining rooms ample and quiet and ''richly browned;" the ports, clarets and sherries with the cob webs of the twenties and thirties upon them; the food wholesome, fine and good; the porters friendly and "talky" when you wish to get down from your own pedestal for little humsnizing batter; and even the misses in the office and bar and rosy faced chambermaid are not averse on occa- sion to bit of innocent banter, which af- ter all anybody but prude, hermit or hypocrite at times truly enjoys.
 And SO from coming and going often these old Coyent Garden inns have become a sort of home to me. The:c associations, rich and mellow ss the very wines they serve, have taken their place one by one in my heart, while the market into which the windows of nearly all of them look, like 'Silss Vegas "Our House" in Mutual Friend," has become my market. Scores of its folk are my intimate friends; for you must know thst most of them have easy, all night ways with them. and you require no introduction whatever to get upon eating and drinking terms and into vows of lifelong intimacy with yokel, cos ter, porter, and I was almost about to say the Prince of Wales himself.
 That really human and clever man of the world often comes to Rules" but a stone's throw from the market, where he makes night of it pesceably and like a gentleman with the wits Of the town, end ing his little forgivable diversion by lousing jostling among the early porters, costers and green grocers, and taking the badinsge given all who come with royal philosophy and cheery good will. This large human levelipg influence has always been peculiar to the Covent Garden dis trict. It is still here IS one of the best legacies of the mellow olden time. And here is the only place in London or in all England where you can find it changeless to enjoy.
 What host of rich associations crowd within this little Covent Garden districtl Thackeray called it the Joyous neigh borhood of Covent Gsrden," though it was scarcely known at the beginning of the seventeenth century. From the mid dle of the seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century 1t was the best known rendezvous of authors, actors, painters, good fellows generally and substantial country squires and gen. tlemen visiting the town of London. In Ruasell street, now chiefly given over to green -grocers and fruiterers. was the then social exchange of the English cap itsl. the mart of it's news, politics, scan dal and wit.
 In this one short thoroughfare stood the most noted coffee houses of the reigns of William III. and Queen Anne. familiar to all converssnt with the pest English literature. "Will's," "Button's" and "Tom's" were 'sacred to polite let ters." All the English Sir Rogers de Co., verley also made these places their Lon- don address: Pepys and Evelyn, the his torians, visited and lodged here. The entire neighborhood, including the shady thoroughfares of Wyeh street, Great and Little Queen streets, Lincoln's Inn Fields,
 Portugal street, and on the south Bed
 ford, York, Tavistock, Henrietta, King
 and the present Gsrrick and Catherine
 streets were occupied by the houses of the gentry.
 "Will's," which stood at the west side of Bow street and the north side of Russell street, was the most ancient and noted of these resorts. Dryden's patronage and frequent appearance there made the repa tation of the house. After the play the cream of those who knew London and whom London knew gathered here for cof' fee, pipe and their nightly gossip. Ma cauley says "Under no roof wss a greater variety of figures to be seen; earls' stars and garters, clergymen in cassocks and | bands, pert templars, sheepish lads from | the universities, trans'atoIs and index | makers in ragged coats of frieze. The
 great push was to get near the chair where John Dryden sat-" London is vastly greater now, and the fine London clubs of 1 ten separate congenisl men and interests
 but another Mscauley could describe quite
 as interesting groupings and scenes in th, Covent Garden inns, public houses and | cobwebbed old resorts of to day.
 | Addison and Steele were the most bril-