_Coleman's Music House._--A house of entertainment, with a large and well planted garden, known as "Coleman's Musick House," was offered for sale in 1682. It was situated near _Lamb's Conduit_, and was demolished upon the building of Ormond Street.
_White Conduit House._--The old tavern of this name was erected in the reign of Charles I. The workmen are said to have been regaling themselves upon the completion of the building, at the instant the king was beheaded at Whitehall. { 396}
_Goodman's Field Wells._--A place of entertainment established after the suppression of the theatre in this locality in 1735.
_Bride Lane, St. Bride's._--The first meetings of the Madrigal Society (established in 1741) were held at a public-house in this lane, called "The Twelve Bells."
POPE'S REVISION OF SPENCE'S ESSAY ON THE ODYSSEY.
Spence's almost idolatrous admiration of, and devotion to, Pope, is evident from the pains he took to preserve every little anecdote of him that he could elicit from conversation with him, or with those who knew him. Unfortunately, he had not Boswell's address and talent for recording gossip, or the _Anecdotes_ would have been a much more racy book. Spence was certainly an amiable, but I think a very weak man; and it appears to me that his learning has been overrated. He might indeed have been well designated as "a fiddle-faddle bit of sterling."
I have the original MS. of the two last Dialogues of the _Essay on the Odyssey_ as written by Spence, and on the first page is the following note:--"The two last Evenings corrected by Mr. Pope." On a blank page at the end, Spence has again written:--"MS. of the two last Evenings corrected with Mr. Pope's own hand, w'ch serv'd y'e Press, and is so mark'd as usual by Litchfield."
This will elucidate Malone's note in his copy of the book, which Mr. Bolton Corney has transcribed. I think the first three dialogues were published in a little volume before Spence became acquainted with Pope, and perhaps led to that acquaintance. Their intercourse afterwards might supply some capital illustrations for a new edition of Mr. Corney's curious chapter on _Camaraderie Littéraire_. The MS. copy of Spence's Essay bears frequent marks of Pope's correcting hand by erasure and interlineary correction, silently made. I transcribe the few passages where the poet's revision of his critic are accompanied by remarks.