. Old and new London : a narrative of its history, its people, and its places. the very breath ofcomic fiction. But we must pass on from thedomain of poetry into the prosaic region of fact, 282 OLD AND NEW LONDON. [Covent Garden, In Brydges Street, Covent Garden (now absorbedinto Catherine Street, of which it forms a continua-tion), facing the entrance to Drury Lane Theatre,was a tavern bearing the sign of The SheridanKnowles, who is supposed by Mr. Larwood tohave been the last Hterary celebrity to whom suclian honour was paid. There the club of Owls used at one time to hold its meetings. Sher
. Old and new London : a narrative of its history, its people, and its places. the very breath ofcomic fiction. But we must pass on from thedomain of poetry into the prosaic region of fact, 282 OLD AND NEW LONDON. [Covent Garden, In Brydges Street, Covent Garden (now absorbedinto Catherine Street, of which it forms a continua-tion), facing the entrance to Drury Lane Theatre,was a tavern bearing the sign of The SheridanKnowles, who is supposed by Mr. Larwood tohave been the last Hterary celebrity to whom suclian honour was paid. There the club of Owls used at one time to hold its meetings. SheridanKnowles was one of its especial patrons and fre- On the south side of Drury Lane Theatre, in anarrow court leading out of Catherine Street, calledVinegar Yard, is a small tavern—or rather oysterand refreshment-rooms—dear to artists, who are,indeed, its chief customers, and, if we may trustthe Daily Telegraph, enjoys a reputation of muchthe same kind as that which in former daysattached to Buttons or Wills house rejoices in the fanciful name of The. THE SCuTCH NATluNAL CHURCH, CRuWN COURT. quenters; and as it embraced many authors,wits, and composers, its members, it may well beimagined, were not owls of the moping sort,whom Gray commemorates in his Elegy. Everyjxanel was inscribed with the name of some deador living dramatist. Now-a-days the carriages of the upper ten thou-sand have no difficulty in finding their way to OldDrury or Covent Garden Market. The access toDrury Lane Theatre, however, was remarkably badin old times. Walker, writing in The Original,in 1836, says:—Within memory, the principalcarriage approach to Old Drury Lane Theatrewas through that part of Drury Lane which is nowa flagged foot-passage, and called Drury Court,just opposite the new church in the Strand. Whistling Oyster, and its sign is a weirdly andgrotesquely comical representation of a giganticoyster whistling a tune, and with an intenselyhumorous twinkle beaming in its ey
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