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CHAPTER I

London Town in Ancient Times-Class Distinctions-
The Suburb of Kensington-Picturesque Thorough-
fares and their Frequenters-Quaint Signs-Street
Criers and Their Wares-Hackney Coaches and
Their Swearing Drivers-Sedan Chairs and Their
Bearers-A Gang of Devils-The Mohawks and
Their Practices-Lady Wentworth is frighted-
A New Invention enlightens the Street-St. James's
Coffee House and Its Customers-The Great Whig
Lords-White's Coffee House and Those Who
flocked there-With the Parsons in St. Paul's
Churchyard-Description of the Young Man's
Coffee House-A Favourite Resort of the Beau-
Good Company at Button's-Addison, Dick Steele,
Dr. Garth, Nicholas Rowe, William Congreve, and
Dean Swift-Gambling at Tom's Coffee House-
A Young Man from the University-Playing for
a Wife-With the Players at the Bedford-
Betterton, Dogget, Booth, and Colley Cibber-My
Lord Marlborough's Favourite-State of the Stage
-Queen Anne's Proclamation regarding the Play-
houses-The First Censor-Descriptions of the
Theatres-Her Majesty's Love of Horse-racing.

9

VOL. II.

I

C

CHAPTER I

COMPARED with its monstrous overgrowth in the present day, London was in the reign of Queen Anne a comparatively small and compact city. And this being an age before class distinctions became lost in a democratic mass, each section of society was marked by its dress and manner, and lived in its own. quarter of the town. In this way the staid and busy tradesman, great merchants, and bankers, dwelt with their families above their shops or offices east of Temple Bar; barristers, solicitors, and law students were to be found in and around the Temple; the environs of Drury Lane were given over to the poor players and pamphleteers, the ready-witted writers of lampoons and satires, to singers and musicians, to those who penned comedies and tragedies, or indited fulsome praises to some proud patron.

In the vicinity of the Royal Palaces of Whitehall and St. James's lived the courtiers whose great mansions rose in the Strand or Piccadilly; whilst persons of lesser distinction resided in Leicester Square, Covent Garden, or Bloomsbury, from whose new-built Queen's Square,

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