Covent Garden

“ My sister has concluded an extremely agreeable and advantageous engagement with Covent Garden, for a certain number of nights, at a very handsome salary. This is every way delightful to me; it keeps her in England, among her friends, and in the exercise of her profession; it places her where she will meet with respect and kindness, both from the public and the members of the profession with whom she will associate. Covent Garden is in some measure our vantage-ground, and I am glad that she should thence make her first appeal to an English audience. ”

“ Surely there was no call for any unrest, or fear, or foreboding? The still and shining morning was but emblematic of his life—if only he knew, and were content. And indeed he looked contented enough, as he wandered on, breathing the cool freshness of the air, and with a warmer light from the east now touching from time to time his sun-tanned face. He went up to Covent Garden—for mere curiosity's sake. He walked along Piccadilly, and thought the elms in the Green Park looked more beautiful than ever. ”

“ The middle avenue of Covent Garden is expensive, but it can produce anything wished for in the fruit and flower line. Riches in such places are as the magic wand of an Aladdin. The central avenue of the market is refined and polite; outside its limits, however, the manners of the locality are original and peculiar, a kind of "law unto themselves." The Covent Garden porters and market-women are rough diamonds; the men, especially, full of good-natured horse-play, seem alarming on a first introduction, but harmless when you are used to them. ”

“ How the people in Covent Garden have got their flowers it is difficult to say. I should rather have expected to see violets growing at Charing Cross, and primroses upon Ludgate Hill, than in the few fields and hedge-rows which it has been my misfortune to see during the last few months. ”

“ She did not want to return to Curran's to sit in her box-like room, or to look at the two spinsters availing themselves of their holiday in town to play patience in the conservatory.
All the afternoon, therefore, Victoria saw the sights. Covent Garden repelled her by the massiveness of its food suggestion, and especially by the choking dirt of its lanes. After Covent Garden, Savoy court yard and its announcements of intellectual plays by unknown women. Then once more, drawn by its spaciousness guessed at through Spring Gardens, Victoria walked into Saint James's Park. ”

“ Being raised a few feet above the ground, the veranda was enclosed by a wooden railing, and this and the supporting posts were twined with creepers that must have been planted at least thirty years. One of these, a stephanotis, showed masses of white bloom, which Joan Gildea casually reflected would have fetched a pretty sum in Covent Garden, and, joining in with a fine-growing asparagus fern, formed an arch over the entrance steps. ”

“ Covent Garden theatre was partly rebuilt 296 in 1772, and wholly so in 1809, having undergone the usual death by conflagration. The new edifice was a structure in classical taste, by Mr. Smirke, the portico being a copy from the Parthenon of Athens. [269]
Actors have seldom been confined to any one house; and those whom we are about to mention performed at Drury Lane as well as Covent Garden; but as they were rivals or opponents of Garrick, and may be supposed to have made the greatest efforts when they acted on a different stage, we shall speak of them apart under the present head. ”

“ Although to-day celebrated chiefly for being the central clearing-house for the flower, fruit and vegetable supply of London, Covent Garden as a whole can vie with any other district of the British capital in wealth of interesting association. The market itself dates from the middle of the seventeenth century, but the area was constituted a parish a few years earlier. ”

“ Many old play-goers who are in the habit of associating the two theatres in their fancy, like twins, will be surprised to hear that the Covent Garden establishment is very young, compared with her sister, being little more than a hundred years old. It was first built by Rich, the harlequin, and opened in 1733 under the patent granted to the Duke's company. The Covent Garden company may therefore be considered as the representatives of the old companies of Davenant and Betterton; while those at Drury Lane are the successors of Killigrew, and more emphatically the King's actors. ”

“ It was the afternoon following her last appearance at Covent Garden this season, and the place was a veritable garden of flowers—floral rewards bestowed upon the singer the previous night for her dramatic rendering of Desdemona in "Otello." Wherever the eye looked there were flowers—roses were springing out of every nook and corner, huge posies and heavy baskets, whilst leaning negligently against the wall of the drawing-room was a great A composed of white sweet-peas, and the tiny vases scattered about were brimming over with the blossoms. ”

“ Books of costumes are always at hand, so that a degree of historical accuracy is now attained in Opera costume, which materially assists the illusion; and no such anachronism is visible in Covent Garden as in a certain theatre across the Thames, where, instead of the Saracenic minarets of Cairo, this gorgeous Arab city is represented by pyramids, obelisks, and sphynxes. The painting-room of Covent Garden is a light and lofty apartment at the top of the house, and the name of Mr Grieve is a sufficient guarantee both for historical accuracy and artistic character. ”

“ Crene is Greek for brook, [452] the Hippocrene or the horse brook was the fountain struck by the hoof of the divine Pegasus: Cranbrook Street is a continuation of Coventry Street, and I rather suspect that the neighbouring Covent Garden is not, as popularly supposed, a corruption of Convent Garden, but was from time immemorial a grove or garden of Good Coven. The Maiden Lane here situated probably derived its title from a sign or tablet of the Maiden similar to the Coventina pictures, and it is not improbable that Coven or Goodiva once reigned from Covent Garden via Coventry Street to St. ”

“ Then we have Bedford Street, with Russell Street, Southampton Street, Tavistock Street, around Covent Garden. These names unfold historical truths. Covent Garden is an abbreviated form of Convent Garden, the garden of the monks of Westminster. It was granted to the Russell family at the dissolution of monasteries, and the Russells, Earls of Bedford, erected a mansion here, which has long disappeared, but has left traces behind in the streets named after the various titles to which members of the Russell family attained. In another part of London we find traces of the same family. ”

“ Fish is now brought largely to London by railway, from various ports on the east and south coasts. The yearly sale of fish at Billingsgate has been estimated at so high a sum as £2,000,000.
Covent Garden Market (connected by Southampton Street with the Strand) is the great vegetable, fruit, and flower market. This spot, which is exceedingly central to the metropolis, was once the garden to the abbey and convent of Westminster: hence the name Convent or Covent. At the suppression of the religious houses in Henry VIII.’s reign, it devolved to the Crown. ”

“ Among the notable coffee-houses of Covent Garden were the Bedford, King's, Rawthmell's and Tom's. The first was situated under the Piazza, and could count among its patrons Fielding, Pope, Sheridan, Churchill, Garrick, Foote, Quinn, Collins, Horace Walpole and others. Its characters, according to the Connoisseur, 'afforded a greater variety of nearly the same type as those to be found at George's. It was, this authority asserts, crowded every night with men of parts. Almost every one to be met there was a polite scholar and a wit. ”

“ There are anecdotes of Hogarth and his friends to be picked up here in abundance, and the locality generally deserves exploration, from the quaintness and cleverness of its former inhabitants.
In Covent Garden we break fresh ground. We found St. Martin's Lane full of artists, Guildhall full of aldermen, the Strand full of noblemen—the old monastic garden will prove to be crowded with actors. We shall trace the market from the first few sheds under the wall of Bedford House to the present grand temple of Flora and Pomona. ”

“ Paul’s, Covent Garden, which, though not devoid of character and effect, is remarkable chiefly [Pg 29] for the great width of the intercolumns, and the great projection of its very shallow, and therefore too shelf-like cornice, which, if no other part, must be admitted to differ widely from the comparatively slightly projecting and massive Doric cornice. The Tuscan has, however, been treated differently by different Architects, and some of them have given it what is merely a modification of the Doric cornice without its mutules. ”

“ George Lambert, Rich's scene-painter at Covent Garden, says he, "being a man of wit, and of repute as an artist, was frequently visited by persons of note while at his work in the scene-room. In those days it was customary for men of fashion to visit the green-room, and to indulge in a morning lounge behind the curtain of the theatre. ”

“ Garden before she made her triumphal successes at Brussels and Paris. Having become famous in Paris, of course she became indispensable to Covent Garden, and, thank Heaven, her lovely voice is still to be heard there, and I am proud to be able to count myself as one of her friends. But it was only when I was fortunate enough to become a member of the omnibus box that I developed into a confirmed habitué. There were plenty of other distractions available, but I was faithful to my love of music and was there most nights in the week, hearing delightful operas in the greatest comfort. ”

“ All around the subject of our article has experienced its full share of change. There is a painting by Hogarth, from which an etching has been published, representing Covent Garden in 1745. There stands the predecessor of the present church, alike in every respect (except the illuminated clock in the pediment) ; but here the resemblance ceases. The area now occupied by the handsome market, with its granite columns, plate-glass windows, covered arcades and conservatories, is in Hogarth’s picture an uneven space divided by posts and chains, with a pump in its centre. ”

“ I remember when a gentleman might have reeled round the environs of Covent Garden, in and out of every establishment, from the Bedford to Mother Butlers, without having his pleasures broken in upon by the irruptions of Bow-street mohawks, or his person endangered by any association he chose to mix with ”

“ Within this paved space rows of shops are conveniently arranged for the display of the choicest fruits of the season: the productions of the forcing-house, and the results of horticultural skill, appear in all their beauty. There are also conservatories, in which every beauty of the flower-garden may be obtained, from the rare exotic to the simplest native flower. The Floral Hall, close to Covent Garden Opera House, has an entrance from the north-east corner of the market, to which it is a sort of appendage as a Flower Market. ”

“ It will be seen that Cockneys relish greens very much.
A little of everything can be procured at Covent Garden. Here are peddlers of account books, lead pencils, watch chains, dog-collars, whips, chains, curry-combs, pastry, money-bags, tissue-paper for the tops of strawberry-pottles, and horse-chestnut leaves for garnishing fruit-stalls; coffee-stalls, and stalls of pea-soup and pickled eels; basket-makers; women making up nosegays; and girls splitting huge bundles of water-cresses into little bunches.
Here are fruits and vegetables from all parts of the world ”

“ Houses and streets grew then as they do now, not so quickly indeed, but equally to the astonishment of their inhabitants; and the latter had reason to congratulate themselves on a pavement to walk upon; a luxury for which a lively Parisian, not half a century ago, is said to have gone down on his knees, when he came into England, thanking God that there was a country "in which some regard was shown to foot passengers." In Charles the First's reign the suburbs of Westminster and Spitalfields were greatly enlarged, and the foundation of Covent Garden was commenced, as it now stands. ”

“ Marylebone, the now grand paradise of love, and Covent Garden, her elder born, beam with uncommon ardor; nor is our antient Drury unfrequented; no sooner do the stars above shed their benign in- fluence, but our more attracting ones below
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below bespangle every walk, and make a heaven on earth; Bagnigge, St. George's Spa, with all their sister shops, deal out each night their choiceft gifts of love; nor with the sons of pleasure be dis- appointed should they extend their travels still farther east, and visit the purlieus of White Chapel. ”

“ Cuffe of that Place, to Sarah Sewell and Company, at their Stall in Covent-Garden. We arrived at Strand-Bridge at Six of the Clock, and were unloading; when the Hackney-Coachmen of the foregoing Night took their Leave of each other at the Dark-House, to go to Bed before the Day was too far spent. Chimney-Sweepers pass'd by us as we made up to the Market, and some Raillery happened between one of the Fruit-Wenches and those black Men, about the Devil and Eve, with Allusion to their several Professions. I could not believe any Place more entertaining than Covent-Garden ”