The earliest mention that we have of Villiers Street is found in the diary of the pious and amiable John Evelyn, who, on November 17, 1683, sets down: "I took a house in Villiers Street, York Buildings, for the winter, having many important concerns to dispatch, and for the education of my daughters." Addison's friend, Sir Richard Steele, lived here after the death of his wife, the jealous "Prue," in 1721, until 1724. While he was here, his last comedy, _The Conscious Lovers_, was produced at Drury Lane, in 1722. There was a celebrated music room in this street. The building, erected in 1680, was popular for half a century, and was pulled down in 1758. It contained a beautiful ceiling, painted by Verrio, which had been incorporated from York House, and, as it could not be removed, it was, perforce, destroyed. _The Fair Penitent_, _Jane Shore_, _The Beggar's Opera_, and other well-known pieces were performed here. In the _Miscellanies_ of the dramatist, Aaron Hill (1685-1750), is "A Prologue for the third night of _Zara_"--which Hill had translated from Voltaire--"when first played at the Great Musick Room, in Villars Street, York Buildings," in 1735. The representative of Lusignan--one of Garrick's best parts--a gentleman named Bond, expired on the stage. At the first representation of the piece, a young gentleman, a relation of the author's, attempted the character of Osman, but without success, despite the great pains taken at rehearsal by the adapter. _Zara_ was still more remarkable for the appearance in it, at the age of twenty-five, of Mrs Cibber, who subsequently achieved such great fame on the stage. Zara was her first attempt in tragedy. On the sole authority of that wicked libeller and scurrilous writer, "Anthony Pasquin," otherwise John Williams, "one of the dirtiest and most disreputable fellows that ever disgraced the literary profession," it has been related that Garrick, three years before he appeared for the first time on the London stage, had acted in the Duke's Theatre, and that "the ladies who were present were so fascinated by Mr Garrick's powers that they offered him their trinkets and their purses from the boxes." This is not so. Garrick did not play before the public in London until October 19, 1741. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 59: _Gentleman's Magazine_, August 1783, p. 709.] [Footnote 60: _All Alive and Merry, or the London Daily Post_, April 18, 1741.] [Footnote 61: _Haunted London_, p. 136.] [Footnote 62: _London Past and Present_, vol. i., p. 296.] [Footnote 63: _David Copperfield_, chap. xxiii.] CHAPTER XII