On the west side, at No. 15, lived Chief “Justice” Richardson, the humourist. He died in 1635. The interior of the house is ancient. Sir Francis Kynaston, an esquire of the body to Charles I., and author of _Leoline and Sydanis_, lived in this street in 1637. He died in 1642. The Earl of Chesterfield, one of Grammont’s gay and heartless gallants, lived in Bedford Street in 1656. In the same street, in his old age, at the house of his son, a rich silk-mercer, dwelt Kynaston, the great actor of Charles II.’s time, so well known for his female characters. Thomas Sheridan, the lecturer on elocution, the son of Swift’s friend, and the father of the wit and orator, lived in Bedford Street, facing Henrietta Street and the south side of Covent Garden. Here Dr. Johnson often visited him. “One day,” says Mr. Whyte, “we were standing together at the drawing-room window expecting Johnson, who was to dine with us.[348] Mr. Sheridan asked me could I see the length of the garden. ‘No, sir.’ ‘Take out your opera-glass then: Johnson is coming, you may know him by his gait.’ I perceived him at a good distance, walking along with a peculiar solemnity of deportment, and an awkward, measured sort of step. At that time the broad flagging at each side of the streets was not universally adopted, and stone posts were in fashion to prevent the annoyance of carriages. Upon every post, as he passed along, I could observe he deliberately laid his hand; but missing one of them, when he had got to some distance he seemed suddenly to recollect himself, and immediately returning back, carefully performed the accustomed ceremony, and resumed his former course, not omitting one, till he gained the crossing. This, Mr. Sheridan assured me, however odd it might appear, was his constant practice, but why or wherefore he could not inform me.” This eccentric habit of Johnson, the result of hypochondriacal nervousness, is also mentioned by Boswell. [Illustration: EXETER CHANGE, 1821.] Richard Wilson, the great landscape-painter--“Red-nosed Dick,” as he was familiarly called--was a great ally of Mortimer, “the English Salvator.” They used to meet over a pot of porter at the Constitution, Bedford Street. Mortimer, who was a coarse joker, used to make Dr. Arne, the composer of “Rule Britannia,” who had a red face and staring eyes, very angry by telling him that his eyes looked like two oysters just opened for sauce, and put on an oval side dish of beetroot. Close to the Lowther Arcade there is one of those large cafés that are becoming features in modern London. It was started by an Italian named Carlo Gatti. There you may see refugees of all countries, playing at dominoes, sipping coffee, or groaning over the wrongs of their native land and their own exile. No music is allowed in this large hall, because it might interfere with the week-day services at St. Martin’s Church. [Illustration: TITUS OATES IN THE PILLORY.] CHAPTER IX. CHARING CROSS.