ings were very
many.

At No. 13, Greek Street were Wedgwood's exhibition-rooms. In No. 27 De
Quincey used to sleep on the floor by permission of Brumel, the
money-lender's attorney.

On the other side of Shaftesbury Avenue, and parallel with it, is
Gerrard Street, a dingy, unpretending place, but thick with memories and
associations. It was built about 1681, and was called after Gerard, Earl
of Macclesfield. Wheatley quotes from the Bagford MSS. of the British
Museum to the effect that "Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James I.,
caused a piece of ground near Leicester Fields to be walled in for the
exercise of arms. Here he built a house, which was standing at the
Restoration. It afterwards fell into the hands of Lord Gerard, who let
the ground out to build upon." Hatton speaks of "Macclesfield House,
alias Gerrard House, a well-built structure situate in Gerrard Street
... now (1708) in possession of Lord Mohun." Dryden lived in Gerrard
Street in a house on the site of one marked by a tablet of the Society
of Arts. He died here, and his funeral was interrupted by a drunken
frolic of Mohocks headed by Lord Jeffreys. Close by is an hotel, where
once Edmund Burke resided; opposite to him J. T. Smith lodged, as he
tells us in "Nollekens and his Times," and he could look into Burke's
rooms when they were lighted, and see the patient student at work until
the small hours of the morning. Charles Kemble and his family also
resided in this street.

On the site of the Westminster General Dispensary was a tavern named the
Turk's Head, where the well-known literary club had its origin. The
members were at first twelve in number, including Sir Joshua Reynolds,
Dr. Johnson, Edmund Burke, Dr. Nugent, Topham Beauclerk, Mr. Langton,
Dr. Goldsmith, and Sir J. Hawkins. In 1772 the number of the members was
increased to twenty, and instead of meeting weekly, on Mondays, for a
supper, they met every fortnight, on a Friday, and dined together. David
Hume was here in 1758, and the actor Edmund Kean passed most of his
boyhood in this street, sheltered by a couple who had adopted him when
his mother deserted him in Frith Street. All his early boyhood is
associated with this neighbourhood; he was found in Frith Street, and
his schools were in Orange Court, Leicester Square, and Chapel Street,
Soho. The dispensary is in itself interesting, being one of the very
oldest institutions of the kind, established in 1774.

Charing Cross Road follows