d the
Cat and Fiddle, later the Trumpet, and still later the Duke of York's.
The well-known Kitcat Club met here originally. This was a society of
thirty-nine gentlemen or noblemen zealously attached to the Protestant
succession in the House of Hanover, and originated about 1700. Addison
and Steele, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and others of celebrity, besides the
Dukes of Somerset, Devonshire, Marlborough, Newcastle, etc., and many
others, titled and untitled, were of the society. The bookseller Tonson
was the secretary, and he had his own and all their portraits painted by
Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was also a member of the club. Addison dated
many of his famous essays from this address. The lane was known in the
reign of the first James as Rogues' Lane.

The south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields only is within our boundaries,
but the square is worth seeing. It is the largest in London, and was
partly designed by Inigo Jones, who built the west side, called the Arch
Row; the east side was bounded by the garden wall of Lincoln's Inn; on
the north was Holborn Row; the south side was Portugal Row. The history
of Lincoln's Inn Fields is a curious combination of rascality and of
aristocracy. The rascals infested the fields, which were filled with
wrestlers, rogues and cheats, pick-pockets, cripples and footpads; the
aristocrats occupied the stately houses on the west side. Among the
residents here were Lord Somers, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Kenyon,
Lord Erskine, and Spencer Percival. In the fields Babington and his
accomplices were executed, some of them on the 20th, and some on the
21st, of September, 1586. Here also on July 21, 1683, William, Lord
Russell was beheaded.

East of Drury Lane there lies a curious district mainly made up of lanes
now rapidly disappearing, such as Clare Market, Wild Street, and a
network of narrow courts. In 1657 Howell speaks of the Earl of Clare as
living "in a princely manner" in this neighbourhood. It was in Clare
Market that Orator Henley had his chapel. The market was one chiefly for
meat, and the shops and sheds were mainly occupied by butchers. Dr.
Radcliffe frequented a tavern in this place, and Mrs. Bracegirdle, the
actress, used to visit the market in order to assist the poor
basket-women. The place is now almost gone. There was a notorious
burial-ground, closed at last after its enormities had been exposed over
and over again. King's College Hospital is built upon a part of the
slums. Clemen