whose names are still perpetuated in Clare Market and Craven Yard. Drury Lane, when Nelly was living there, was a kind of Park Lane of the present day, made up of noblemen's mansions, small houses, inns and stable-yards. Nor need the similitude be thus restricted; for the Piazza of Covent Garden was then to Drury Lane what Grosvenor Square is at present to Park Lane. Squalid quarters indeed have always been near neighbours to lordly localities. When Nelly lodged in Drury Lane, Covent Garden had its Lewknor Lane, and Lincoln's Inn Fields their Whetstone Park. Belgravia has now its Tothill Street—Portman Square has its contaminating neighbourhood of Calmel Buildings—and one of the most infamous of alleys is within half a stone's throw of St. James's Palace!
Nelly's lodgings were near the lodgings of Lacy the actor, at the top of Maypole Alley,
Where Drury Lane descends into the Strand,
and over against the gate of Craven House. The look-out afforded a peep into a part of Wych Street, and while standing at the doorway you could see the far-famed Maypole in the Strand, at the bottom of the alley to which it had lent its name.
This Maypole, long a conspicuous ornament to
