bounds, this spot was already famous for
kitchen vegetables—not, indeed, as the market
where they were, sold, but, as a garden where
they grew. Sturdy monks, who were the
only cultivators of vegetables in those
troublous times, doffed their gowns, and dug
the ground, and planted here in their
own rude way, radishes, skirrel, pompions,
cabbages, and such things for the use of
the Abbot and Convent of Westminster;
whence this place was known as Convent
Garden, or in French from the time of the
Normans, Couvent Garden. But the monks
were not allowed to enjoy their garden
long after that. A terrible storm swept
them, with all their costumes and properties,
from the face of the land. The Crown took
possession of the monks' garden, and afterwards
gave it to the Duke of Somerset. The
duke himself fell into trouble five years after,
and Edward the Sixth revoked his gift and
gave it to the Bedford family, who have kept
it ever since. The new possessor built immediately
a house upon his own ground; a modest
wooden edifice beside the Strand, from the
back windows of which he looked across
meadows to a long shady avenue of trees,
called St. Martin's Lane.

About this time, our kitchen vegetables,
which had so fallen into disuse in the times
of the wars as to be almost totally unknown,
began to come again into fashion.
Peas and cabbages, grown stale and withered
in a long sea voyage, fetched extravagant
prices; until men sent abroad for roots and
seeds no longer to be found in England, and
began to plant them near London. "Master
Samuel Hartlib," to whom Milton addresses
his gigantic scheme of education, knew some
old men (he says) in his time, who recollected
the first gardener who came into Surrey to
plant cabbages and cauliflowers, and to grow
turnips, carrots, parsnips, and early ripe peas,
all of which were great wonders then. These
earliest of market gardeners looked about for
certain convenient spots in London and Westminster,
where they might be allowed to
stand and sell their produce unmolested. A
small space, just under the Duke's garden-wall,
at the back of the new mansion, was one
of these places; and thither the buyers,
finding out on what days of the week they
would be sure to find them there, soon began
to come.

Covent Garden Market, like the English
constitution, was not founded in a day. Many
markets with spacious accommodation for
any kind of trade have been planned and
built; first stones have been laid and silver
trowels wielded by lily hands; solemn grants of
charters have been obtained; grand banquets
and inaugural processions have proclaimed to
the world, amid the beating of drums, that
the great market was open. But the public
will not come to a market, be it ever so grand.
The market must come to them; consequently,
the passages of these architectural
marts sometimes fall into the hands of
mangling-women, and cobblers, and working
cabinet-makers. Lenders of trucks, and
removers of goods in town and country, retailers
of coals and greens, reside in their
shops—"a world too wide" for them to hope
to make a show there with their slender
stock. Their pumps have been turned to
alien uses: their great, half-finished public-houses,
which were to do a roaring business
for ever after the grand inauguration, have
dwindled into wretched beershops; their
"Bye-laws of this Market" have become a
mockery and a bye-word. Not one of them
has flourished like this Covent Garden; the
monarch of green markets, whose inaugurator
was the first market-gardener who approved
of the spot, and set his burden down against
the wall.

Soon after this, the proprietor of the land,
not caring particularly about the rural prospect
from his back windows, determined to
build a church, and a grand square with a
colonnade around it, in the Italian fashion,
to be called the Piazza—not the colonnade
which has now monopolised the name, but
the square itself—that word signifying, in
the Italian tongue, an open place or square.
For this purpose, he consulted Inigo Jones,
who drew the designs. The church and the
square were built soon after; although the
colonnade was only finished on two sides.
This was then the only square in London,
and was considered the very headquarters of
fashion. Noble and wealthy families dwelt
under the colonnade, and in mansions round
about. Idlers of high degree of both sexes
flocked thither; playwrights laid their scenes
of intrigue and humour there; every comedy
of town life had allusions to the Piazza; and
so deeply had that word impressed itself on
the minds of the parish authorities, that for
nearly a century, as the church registers will
show, all children found in the neighbourhood
were christened John, or James, or
Mary Piazza.

Meanwhile nobody noticed the progress of
the obscure little market, behind the Duke's
wall. No hardy gardener had dared to carry
his wares into the haunt of fashion. Cabbages
or onions had not yet been brought
between the wind and their nobility. But,
one day, the modest wooden edifice was
pulled down; the brick wall was demolished,
and surveyors with haughty contempt for
vested interests began coolly to lay down
plans for new streets upon the very ground
of the vegetable market. The market gardeners
were driven back into the very centre
of the great square, where they turned and
made a stand, and compelled the idlers to idle
here. The wealthy and noble families
fled farther west, never to return, leaving
houses to vintners, coffee-house keepers,
actors, and artists. The triumph of the
market was complete. There were, indeed,
lovers of the sublime and beautiful who