couvent_ more
immediately than the Latin _conventus_.

At the dissolution of the monasteries, Westminster Convent Garden became
Crown property. In the first year of his reign Edward VI. granted it to
the Duke of Somerset. On the fall of that nobleman it reverted to the
Crown, and in 1552 was granted to the Earl of Bedford with "seven acres,
called Long Acre." The Earl of Bedford built a town-house on his newly
acquired property, and devoted himself to the improvement of the
neighbourhood.

Though the parish is so small, it is full of interesting associations,
chiefly of the last two centuries. Wits, actors, literary men, and
artists, frequented its taverns and swarmed in its precincts. The
contrast between its earlier days, when it was a quiet retreat where the
monks slowly paced beneath the sheltering trees, and its later
vicissitudes, when the eighteenth-century roisterers and gamesters made
merry within its taverns, could hardly be more striking.

The great square called the Market was laid out by the Earl of Bedford
in 1631; the Piazza ran along the north and east sides; the church and
churchyard formed the west side; on the south was the wall of Bedford
House, and by a small grove of trees in the middle stood a sundial. The
place gradually grew as a market. In 1710 there were only a few sheds;
in 1748 the sheds had become tenements, with upper rooms inhabited by
bakers, cooks and retailers of gin.

The square itself is redolent of memories. When first built it was one
of the most fashionable parts of London, and the names of the occupiers
were all titled or distinguished. We read among them those of the Bishop
of Durham, Duke of Richmond, Earl of Oxford, Marquis of Winchester, Sir
Godfrey Kneller, and the Earl of Sussex. The arcade, or Piazza, as it
was called, was a fashionable lounging-place, and many foundling
children were called Piazza in its honour. One of the scenes in Otway's
"Soldier of Fortune" is laid here, and also one in Wycherley's "Country
Wife." Sir Peter Lely had a house in the square, and this house was
successively occupied by Sir Godfrey Kneller and Sir James Thornhill
(Timbs). Coffee-houses and taverns abounded in and about the square. Of
these the most famous were Will's, Button's and Tom's, well known by the
references to them in contemporary literature. The first of these in
point of time was "Will's," which stood at the north corner of Russell
and Bow Streets (see p. 106).

The Bedfor