Y, are still constant visitors to Wych Street. So gorgeous is often the
assemblage in this murkiest of streets, that you are reminded of the
days when the French _noblesse_, in all the pride of hoops and
hair-powder, deigned to flock to the lowly wine-shop of Ramponneau. My
business, however, is less with the Olympic Theatre, as it at present
exists, than with its immediate predecessor. About fifteen years ago,
there stood in Wych Street a queer, low-browed little building with a
rough wooden portico before it,--not unlike such a portico as I have
recently seen in front of a dilapidated inn at Culpepper, Virginia,--and
with little blinking windows, very much resembling the port-holes of a
man-of-war. According to tradition, the place had, indeed, a kind of
naval origin. Old King George III., who, when he was not mad, or
meddling
