On the other side of Shaftesbury Avenue, and parallel with it, is Gerrard Street, a dingy, unpretending place, but thick with memories and associations. It was built about 1681, and was called after Gerard, Earl of Macclesfield. Wheatley quotes from the Bagford MSS. of the British Museum to the effect that "Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James I., caused a piece of ground near Leicester Fields to be walled in for the exercise of arms. Here he built a house, which was standing at the Restoration. It afterwards fell into the hands of Lord Gerard, who let the ground out to build upon." Hatton speaks of "Macclesfield House, alias Gerrard House, a well-built structure situate in Gerrard Street ... now (1708) in possession of Lord Mohun." Dryden lived in Gerrard Street in a house on the site of one marked by a tablet of the Society of Arts. He died here, and his funeral was interrupted by a drunken frolic of Mohocks headed by Lord Jeffreys. Close by is an hotel, where once Edmund Burke resided; opposite to him J. T. Smith lodged, as he tells us in "Nollekens and his Times," and he could look into Burke's rooms when they were lighted, and see the patient student at work until the small hours of the morning. Charles Kemble and his family also resided in this street. On the site of the Westminster General Dispensary was a tavern named the Turk's Head, where the well-known literary club had its origin. The members were at first twelve in number, including Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, Edmund Burke, Dr. Nugent, Topham Beauclerk, Mr. Langton, Dr. Goldsmith, and Sir J. Hawkins. In 1772 the number of the members was increased to twenty, and instead of meeting weekly, on Mondays, for a supper, they met every fortnight, on a Friday, and dined together. David Hume was here in 1758, and the actor Edmund Kean passed most of his boyhood in this street, sheltered by a couple who had adopted him when his mother deserted him in Frith Street. All his early boyhood is associated with this neighbourhood; he was found in Frith Street, and his schools were in Orange Court, Leicester Square, and Chapel Street, Soho. The dispensary is in itself interesting, being one of the very oldest institutions of the kind, established in 1774. Charing Cross Road follows very nearly the course of the old Hog Lane, later Crown Street, which bounded the parish on the east. St. Mary the Virgin's Church is on the west side, and the building has had many vicissitudes. In 1677 it was erected by the Greek congregation in Soho, and had the distinction of being the first church of that community in England. It was afterwards used by a French Protestant community, and then by a body of Dissenters. In 1849 it stood in imminent peril of being turned into a dancing-saloon, but was rescued and became Church of England.