conversation, after the play, at Rosamond's Pond.-Colley Cibber, Love's Last Shift, 4to, 1696.

Mirabel. Meet me at one o'clock by Rosamond's Pond.-Congreve, The Way of the World, 4to, 1700.

Young Wou'd Be. Are the ladies come?

Serv. Half an hour ago, my lord.

Young Wou'd Be. Where did you light on 'em?

Serv. One in the passage at the old Playhouse—I found another very melancholy paring her nails by Rosamond's Pond—and a couple I got at the Chequer Alehouse in Holborn.-Farquhar, The Twin Rivals, 4to, 1703.

January 31, 1710-1711.-We are here in as smart a frost for the time as I have seen; delicate walking weather, and the Canal and Rosamond's Pond full of the rabble sliding, and with skates, if you know what those are. Patrick's bird's water freezes in the gally-pot, and my hands in bed.—Swift, Journal to Stella.

Upon the next public Thanksgiving Day it is my design to sit astride on the dragon on Bow steeple, from whence, after the discharge of the Tower guns, I intend to mount into the air, fly over Fleet Street, and pitch upon the Maypole in the Strand. From thence, by gradual descent, I shall make the best of my way for St. James's Park, and light upon the ground near Rosamond's Pond.-The Guardian, No. 112.

As I was last Friday taking a walk in the Park, I saw a country gentleman at the side of Rosamond's Pond, pulling a handful of oats out of his pocket, and with a great deal of pleasure gathering the ducks about him. Upon my coming up to him, who should it be but my friend the Fox-Hunter, whom I gave some account of in my 22nd paper! I immediately joined him, and partook of his diversion, until he had not an oat left in his pocket.-Addison, The Freeholder, No. 44, May 21, 1716. This the Beau-monde shall from the Mall survey

This the blest lover shall for Venus take,

And send up vows from Rosamonda's Lake.-Rape of the Lock.

The termination of this delectable walk [in St. James's Park] was a knot of lofty elms by a Pond side; round some of which were commodious seats for the tired ambulators to refresh their weary pedestals. Here a parcel of old worn-out Cavaliers were conning over the Civil Wars.-Ned Ward's London Spy, ed. 1753, p. 164. Tom Brown speaks of the Close Walk at the head of the pond.1 Another pond in the Green Park (nearly opposite Coventry House) bore the name of Rosamond down to 1840-1841.

Rose Street, COVENT GARDEN, a dirty and somewhat circuitous street, between King Street and Long Acre, for the most part cleared, or absorbed, in forming GARRICK STREET.

Rose Street, of which there are three, and all indifferent well-built and inhabited ; but the best is that next to King Street, called White Rose Street, which is in Covent Garden Parish.-Strype, B. vi. p. 74.

It was in this street ("over against " which he was living at the time) that on December 18, 1679, Dryden 2 was barbarously assaulted and wounded by three persons hired for the purpose, as is now known, by Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. In the Mercurius Domesticus, the first

1 Amusements of London, 8vo, 1700, p. 65.

2 The biographers of Dryden relate that the poet was on his way home from Will's to his house in Gerard Street; but no part of Gerard Street was built in 1679, and in that year the

Rate-books of St. Martin's show that Dryden was living in Long Acre, over against Rose Street. That he was on his way home from Will's is only an assumption.

number of which appeared on the following day, the affair is thus described.

Upon the 18th inst., in the evening, Mr. Dryden, the great Poet, was set upon in Rose Street, in Covent Garden, by three persons, who calling him rogue, and son of a whore, knockt him down, and dangerously wounded him, but upon his crying out murther, they made their escape; it is conceived that they had their pay beforehand, and designed not to rob him, but to execute on him som Feminine if not Popish vengeance.

Fifty pounds were offered for the discovery of the offenders, and a pardon from the King, in addition, if a principal or an accessory would come forward. Rochester took offence at a passage in Lord Mulgrave's Essay on Satire, of which he thought Dryden was the author, and, three weeks before this cowardly revenge, had written to his friend Henry Saville that he intended to "leave the repartee to Black Will with a cudgell." There are many allusions to this Rose Alley Ambuscade, as it is called, in our old State Poems. So famous, indeed, was the assault, that Mulgrave's poem was commonly called "The Rose Alley Satire." Eminent Inhabitants.-Samuel Butler, author of Hudibras, died here (1680) poor and neglected. Edmund Curll, the bookseller, was living here when he published Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence.

Rose Street, Sоно, a street south-east of Soho Square, connecting Greek Street with Crown Street. Mrs. Delany writes that when she came to London in 1720 she found that Mr. Pendarves, her first husband, "had taken a house in a very indifferent part of the town, Rose Street, Hog Lane, Soho." 1

Rose Tavern (The) stood in RUSSELL STREET, COVENT GARDEN, adjoining Drury Lane Theatre. Part of it was taken down in 1776, when Adam, the architect, built a new front to the former theatre for Garrick, then about to part with his patent. In Charles II.'s time it was kept by a person of the name of Long (buried at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, August 5, 1661), and afterwards by his widow. Tavern tokens of the house still exist.

May 18, 1668.—It being almost twelve o'clock, or little more, to the King's Playhouse, when the doors were not then open; but presently they did open; and we in, and find many people already come in by private ways into the pit, it being the first day of Sir Charles Sedley's new play so long expected, The Mulberry Garden; of whom, being so reputed a wit, all the world do expect great matters. having sat here awhile and eat nothing to-day, did slip out, getting a boy to keep my place; and to the Rose Tavern, and there got half a breast of mutton off of the spit, and dined all alone.-Pepys.

I

I left some friends of yours at the Rose.-Sedley's Bellamira, 4to, 1687.
Sir Fred. Frolic. Sing the catch I taught you at the Rose.—Etherege, Love in a
Tub, 4to, 1669.

Woodcock. By the Lord Harry, Sir Positive, I do understand Mathematics better than you; and I lie over-against the Rose Tavern in Covent Garden, dear heart.— Shadwell, The Sullen Lovers, 4to, 1668.

Or sipping Tea while they relate
Their evening's frolic at the Rose.

1 Mrs. Delany's Autob., vol. i. p. 61.

The School of Politicks, p. 40, 1690.

2 Strype, B. vi. pp. 67, 74.

T

Tope. Puh, this is nothing; why I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns and the Tityre Tu's; they were brave fellows indeed; in those days a man could not go from the Rose Tavern to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willy.-Shadwell, The Scowrers, 4to, 1691.

Whackum (a city scowrer, and imitator of Sir William Rant). Oh no, never talk on't. There will never be his fellow. O had you seen him scower, as I did, oh so delicately, so like a gentleman! How he cleared the Rose Tavern? I was there about law-business, compounding for a bastard, and he and two fine gentlemen came roaring in, the handsomeliest and the most genteely turned us all out of the room, and swinged us and kicked us about, I vow to God 'twould have done your heart good to have seen it.—Ibid.

Here Prior has laid the opening scene in The Hind and the Panther Transversed.

Johnson. Nay faith, we won't part so. let us step to the Rose for one quarter of an hour, and talk over old stories.

Bayes. I ever took you to be men of honour, and for your sakes I will transgress as far as one pint.

Johnson. Well, Mr. Bayes, many a merry bout have we had in this house, and shall have again, I hope.-Prior and Montague, The Hind and the Panther Transversed, 1687.

Lucy. Pray, sir, pardon me.

Brazen. I can't tell, child, till I know whether my money be safe (searching his pocket). Yes, yes, I do pardon you; but if I had you in the Rose Tavern in Covent Garden, with three or four hearty rakes, and three or four smart napkins, I would tell you another story, my dear.-Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer, 4to, 1707.

Swift, Verses on his own Death.
Tho' he and all the world allow'd her wit,
Her voice was shrill and rather loud than sweet;
When she began,-for hat and sword he'd call,
Then after a faint kiss,-cry, 'Bye; Dear Moll:
Supper and friends expect me at the Rose.

Tatler, No. 2, April 14, 1709.

He is an excellent critick, and the time of the play is his hour of business; exactly at five he passes through New Inn, crosses through Russell Court, and takes a turn at Will's till the play begins; he has his shoes rubbed and his periwig powdered at the Barber's as you go into the Rose.-The Spectator, No. 2.

The hangings [at Drury Lane Theatre] you formerly mentioned are run away; as are likewise a set of chairs, each of which was met upon two legs going through the Rose Tavern at two this morning.-The Spectator, No. 36.

Mr. Hildbrand Horden was the son of Dr. Horden, minister of Twickenham in Middlesex; and was an actor upon the stage, and had almost every gift that could make him excel in his profession, and was every day rising in the favour of the public, when, after having been about seven years upon the stage, he was unfortunately killed at the bar of the Rose Tavern, in a frivolous, rash, accidental quarrel, for which Colonel Burgess, one who was resident at Venice, and some other persons of distinction, took their trials, and were acquitted. He was remarkable for his handsome person; and before he was buried, several ladies well dressed came in masks, which were then much worn, and some in their own coaches, to visit him in his shroud.-List of Dramatic Authors appended to Scanderbeg, a Tragedy, 8vo, 1747. In this house [the Rose Tavern] George Powell spent great part of his time;

and often toasted to intoxication his mistress, with bumpers of Nantz-brandy.— Davies's Dramatic Misc., vol. iii. p. 416.

Here (November 14, 1712) the seconds on either side arranged the duel fought the next day between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun, as "John Sisson, the drawer of the Rose Tavern," deposed in evidence before the coroner. The duke and Lord Mohun were here the same day, the duke and General Macartney (Lord Mohun's second) drinking part of a bottle of French claret together.

One Leathercoat, a porter at this tavern, has been immortalised by Hogarth in Plate III. of The Rake's Progress, and by Fielding in The Covent Garden Tragedy, 1732. On January 19, 1763, the night of the production of Mallet's tragedy of Elvira, Edward Gibbon and his father dined with the "only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend.”

I then undressed for the play. My father and I went to the Rose, in the passage of the play-house, where we found Mallet, with about thirty friends. We dined together, and went thence into the pit, where we took our places in a body, ready to silence all opposition. However, we had no occasion to exert ourselves.—Gibbon's Journal. Rose Tavern was at the corner of THANET PLACE, without TEMPLE BAR.

At the Rose Tavern without Temple Bar there is a vine that covers an arbour where the sun very rarely comes, and has had ripe grapes upon it.-The City Gardener, by Thomas Fairchild, Gardener of Hoxton, 8vo, 1722, p. 55.

The Rose Tavern, a well customed house with good conveniences of rooms, and a good garden.—Strype, B. iv. p. 117.

The painted room at the Rose Tavern is mentioned in Walpole's letters to Cole of January 26, 1776, and March 1, 1776.

Rose Theatre, BANKSIDE, stood east of the Bear Garden and a little north-west of the site upon which the Globe was built soon afterwards. It was situated close by where the south end of Southwark Bridge now is. Here is still a Rose Alley. In 1552, as appears by a deed preserved at Dulwich College, Thomasin Symondes of London, widow, late wife of Raphe Symondes, citizen and fishmonger, sold her "messuage or tenement, called the Little Rose, with two gardens to the same adjoining," in the parish of St. Saviour, Southwark, to Ambrose Nicolas and others. In 1564 Nicolas let it for thirty-one years at £7 per annum, and on March 24, 1584, the remainder of his lease was purchased by Philip Hinchley [Henslowe], citizen and dyer of London.1 The theatre, a wooden building, "done abowt with calme bordes on the outside," was opened about 1592, or a little before.

Thou hadst a breath as sweet as the Rose that grows by the Bear Garden.Decker's Satiromastix, 1602.

A messuage or tenement, called the Rose, is mentioned in the charter of Edward VI., granting the manor of Southwark to the City of London.

Rose and Crown Court, GRAY'S INN LANE (now Gray's Inn Road, Rose and Crown Court, has long disappeared). In 1673 John 1 Collier's Memoirs of Edward Alleyn (Cam. Soc.), p. 189.

Aubrey, the antiquary, lodged at the house of Henry Coley in Rose and Crown Court, in Gray's Inn Lane. Coley was a tailor by trade, and astrologer, medical adviser, and fortune-teller by profession; and adopted son of William Lilly, whose Ephemeris he continued for several years. He published A Key to the whole Art of Astrology. Granger mentions his portrait inscribed "Henricus Coley, philomath," with "a celestial globe at his elbow."

Rosemary Lane, from Sparrow Corner, Minories, to Cable Street, WHITECHAPEL, since 1850 called Royal Mint Street. Here was the once notorious mart for old clothes called Rag Fair, and there are still many second-hand clothes' stores in the street. [See Rag Fair.] On October 31, 1631, there is a "Grant to William Bawdrick and Roger Hunt of the King's interest in certain tenements in Rosemary Lane, Middlesex, the lease of which was taken by Horatio Franchotti, an alien, but discovered and prosecuted for on His Majesty's behalf." In the burial register of St. Mary's, Whitechapel, the following entry

Occurs :

1646, June 21st. Rich. Brandon, a man out of Rosemary Lane.

"1

To this is added, "This R. Brandon is supposed to have cut off the head of Charles the First."

He [Brandon] likewise confessed that he had thirty pounds for his pains, all paid him in half crowns within an hour after the blow was given; and that he had an orange stuck full of cloves, and a handkercher out of the King's pocket, so soon as he was carryed off from the scaffold, for which orange he was proffered twenty shillings by a gentleman in Whitehall, but refused the same, and afterwards sold it for ten shillings in Rosemary Lane.-The Confession of Richard Brandon, the Hangman, 4to, 1649.

This Richard Brandon was, it is said, "the only son of Gregory Brandon, and claimed the gallows by inheritance-the first he beheaded was the Earl of Strafford." 2

Rosemary Lane and Ratcliff" were the daily haunts, and the ashes of the neighbouring glass-house the nightly sleeping-place of Defoe's Colonel Jack, his business in "the case of some of the poorer shopkeepers" being "to look after their shops till they went up to dinner, or till they went over the way to an alehouse and the like." Goldsmith speaks of another craft than that of dealing in old clothes which was carried on here in his time.

"I beg pardon sir," cried I, "but I think I have seen you before; your face is familiar to me." "Yes, sir," replied he, "I have a good familiar face, as my friends tell me. I am as well known in every town in England as the dromedary, or live crocodile. You must understand, sir, that I have been these sixteen years Merry Andrew to a puppet-shew; last Bartholomew fair my master and I quarrelled, beat each other, and parted; he to sell his puppets to the pincushion-makers in Rosemary Lane, and I to starve in St. James's Park.-Goldsmith, Essay, p. 21.

Rosoman Street (formerly ROSOMAN ROW), CLERKENWELL, runs from Corporation Row to the New River Head. It was named after 1 Cal. State Pap., 1619-1623, p. 305. 2 Ellis's Letters, 2d S., vol. iii. p. 342.