Craven House -- Donne and his vision -- Lord Craven and the Queen of Bohemia -- Nell Gwynn -- Drury Lane Theatre -- Its antiquity, different eras, and rebuildings -- The principal theatre of Dryden, Wycherley, Farquhar, Steele, Garrick, and Sheridan -- Old Drury in the time of Charles II. -- A visit to it -- Pepys and his theatrical gossip, with notes -- Hart and Mohun -- Goodman -- Nell Gwynn -- Dramatic taste of that age -- Booth -- Artificial tragedy -- Wilks and Cibber -- Bullock and Penkethman -- A Colonel enamoured of Cibber's wig -- Mrs. Oldfield -- Her singular position in society -- Not the Flavia of the Tatler -- Pope's account of her last words probably not true -- Declamatory acting -- Lively account of Garrick and Quin by Mr. Cumberland -- Improvement of stage costume -- King -- Mrs. Pritchard -- Mrs. Clive -- Mrs. Woffington -- Covent Garden -- Barry -- Contradictory characters of him by Davies and Churchill -- Macklin -- Woodward -- Pantomime -- English taste in music -- Cooke -- Rise of actors and actresses in social rank -- Improvement of the audience -- Dr. Johnston at the theatre -- Churchill a great pit critic -- His Rosciad -- His picture of Mossop -- Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Suett -- Early recollections of a play-goer. Drury Lane takes its name from "the habitation of the great family of the Druries," built, "I believe," says Pennant, "by Sir William Drury, knight of the garter, a most able commander in the Irish wars, who unfortunately fell in a duel with Sir John Burroughs, in a foolish quarrel about precedency. Sir Robert, his son, was a great patron of Dr. Donne, and assigned to him apartments in his house. I cannot, learn into whose hands it passed afterwards. During the time of the fatal discontents of the favourite, Essex, it was the place where his imprudent advisers resolved on such counsels as terminated in the destruction of him and his adherents."[247] Drury House stood at the corner of Drury Lane and Wych Street, upon the ground now included in Craven Buildings in the one thoroughfare, and the Olympic Pavilion in the other. Pennant proceeds to say, that it was occupied in the next century by "the heroic William Lord Craven, afterwards Earl Craven," who rebuilt it in the form standing in his time. He describes it as "a large brick pile,"--a public-house with the sign of the Queen of Bohemia,--a head which still mystifies people in some parts of the country. The remains were taken down in 1809, and the Olympic Pavilion built on part of the site. But the public-house was only a portion of it. [Illustration: CRAVEN HOUSE.]