Club Life of London, Vol. 2 (of 2)
by John Timbs · English · Gutenberg #41516 · 542,436 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Club Life of London, Vol. 2 (of 2)
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Club Life of London, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Author: John Timbs
Release date: November 30, 2012 [eBook #41516]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41516
Credits: Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLUB LIFE OF LONDON, VOL. 2 (OF 2) ***
Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
On page 31, either 1660 or 1669 is a possible typo.
On page 131, "The 4th Edward IV." is possibly a typo.
On page 154, "Dan Rowlandson" should possibly be "Dan Rawlinson".
On page 262, "Belvidere" is a possible typo for "Belvedere".
CLUB LIFE OF LONDON
WITH
ANECDOTES OF THE CLUBS, COFFEE-HOUSES
AND TAVERNS OF THE METROPOLIS
DURING THE 17TH, 18TH, AND 19TH CENTURIES.
BY JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.
[Illustration]
IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. II.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET
Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
1866.
PRINTED BY
JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, LITTLE QUEEN STREET,
LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.
CONTENTS.
Coffee-houses.
Page
EARLY COFFEE-HOUSES 1
GARRAWAY'S COFFEE-HOUSE 6
JONATHAN'S COFFEE-HOUSE 11
RAINBOW COFFEE-HOUSE 14
NANDO'S COFFEE-HOUSE 18
DICK'S COFFEE-HOUSE 20
THE "LLOYD'S" OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II 21
LLOYD'S COFFEE-HOUSE 24
THE JERUSALEM COFFEE-HOUSE 30
BAKER'S COFFEE-HOUSE 30
COFFEE-HOUSES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 31
COFFEE-HOUSE SHARPERS IN 1776 42
DON SALTERO'S COFFEE-HOUSE 44
SALOOP-HOUSES 48
THE SMYRNA COFFEE-HOUSE 49
ST. JAMES'S COFFEE-HOUSE 50
THE BRITISH COFFEE-HOUSE 55
WILL'S COFFEE-HOUSE 56
BUTTON'S COFFEE-HOUSE 64
DEAN SWIFT AT BUTTON'S 73
TOM'S COFFEE-HOUSE 75
THE BEDFORD COFFEE-HOUSE, IN COVENT GARDEN 76
MACKLIN'S COFFEE-HOUSE ORATORY 82
TOM KING'S COFFEE-HOUSE 84
PIAZZA COFFEE-HOUSE 87
THE CHAPTER COFFEE-HOUSE 88
CHILD'S COFFEE-HOUSE 90
LONDON COFFEE-HOUSE 92
TURK'S HEAD COFFEE-HOUSE, IN CHANGE ALLEY 93
SQUIRE'S COFFEE-HOUSE 96
SLAUGHTER'S COFFEE-HOUSE 99
WILL'S AND SERLE'S COFFEE-HOUSES 104
THE GRECIAN COFFEE-HOUSE 105
GEORGE'S COFFEE-HOUSE 107
THE PERCY COFFEE-HOUSE 108
PEELE'S COFFEE-HOUSE 109
Taverns.
THE TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON 110
THE BEAR AT THE BRIDGE-FOOT 122
MERMAID TAVERNS 124
THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN 124
THREE CRANES IN THE VINTRY 128
LONDON STONE TAVERN 128
THE ROBIN HOOD 129
PONTACK'S, ABCHURCH LANE 130
POPE'S HEAD TAVERN 131
THE OLD SWAN, THAMES-STREET 132
COCK TAVERN, THREADNEEDLE-STREET 133
CROWN TAVERN, THREADNEEDLE-STREET 134
THE KING'S HEAD TAVERN, IN THE POULTRY 135
THE MITRE, IN WOOD-STREET 141
THE SALUTATION AND CAT TAVERN 142
"SALUTATION" TAVERNS 144
QUEEN'S ARMS, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD 145
DOLLY'S, PATERNOSTER ROW 146
ALDERSGATE TAVERNS 147
"THE MOURNING CROWN" 150
JERUSALEM TAVERNS, CLERKENWELL 150
WHITE HART TAVERN, BISHOPSGATE WITHOUT 152
THE MITRE, IN FENCHURCH-STREET 154
THE KING'S HEAD, FENCHURCH-STREET 155
THE ELEPHANT, FENCHURCH-STREET 156
THE AFRICAN, ST. MICHAEL'S ALLEY 157
THE GRAVE MAURICE TAVERN 159
MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY, SPITALFIELDS 160
GLOBE TAVERN, FLEET-STREET 161
THE DEVIL TAVERN 162
THE YOUNG DEVIL TAVERN 169
COCK TAVERN, FLEET-STREET 170
THE HERCULES' PILLARS TAVERNS 171
HOLE-IN-THE-WALL TAVERNS 173
THE MITRE, IN FLEET-STREET 175
SHIP TAVERN, TEMPLE BAR 177
THE PALSGRAVE HEAD, TEMPLE BAR 178
HEYCOCK'S, TEMPLE BAR 178
THE CROWN AND ANCHOR, STRAND 179
THE CANARY-HOUSE, IN THE STRAND 180
THE FOUNTAIN TAVERN 181
TAVERN LIFE OF SIR RICHARD STEELE 182
CLARE MARKET TAVERNS 184
THE CRAVEN HEAD, DRURY LANE 185
THE COCK TAVERN, IN BOW-STREET 187
THE QUEEN'S HEAD, BOW-STREET 188
THE SHAKSPEARE TAVERN 189
SHUTER, AND HIS TAVERN PLACES 191
THE ROSE TAVERN, COVENT GARDEN 192
EVANS'S, COVENT GARDEN 194
THE FLEECE, COVENT GARDEN 196
THE BEDFORD HEAD, COVENT GARDEN 197
THE SALUTATION, TAVISTOCK STREET 197
THE CONSTITUTION TAVERN, COVENT GARDEN 199
THE CIDER CELLAR 199
OFFLEY'S, HENRIETTA-STREET 201
THE RUMMER TAVERN 202
SPRING GARDEN TAVERNS 204
"HEAVEN" AND "HELL" TAVERNS, WESTMINSTER 206
"BELLAMY'S KITCHEN" 208
A COFFEE-HOUSE CANARY BIRD 210
STAR AND GARTER, PALL MALL 211
THATCHED HOUSE TAVERN 217
"THE RUNNING FOOTMAN," MAY FAIR 219
PICCADILLY INNS AND TAVERNS 221
ISLINGTON TAVERNS 224
COPENHAGEN HOUSE 229
TOPHAM, THE STRONG MAN, AND HIS TAVERNS 232
THE CASTLE TAVERN, HOLBORN 234
MARYLEBONE AND PADDINGTON TAVERNS 236
KENSINGTON AND BROMPTON TAVERNS 242
KNIGHTSBRIDGE TAVERNS 249
RANELAGH GARDENS 255
CREMORNE TAVERN AND GARDENS 257
THE MULBERRY GARDEN 258
PIMLICO TAVERNS 259
LAMBETH,--VAUXHALL TAVERNS AND GARDENS, ETC. 260
FREEMASONS' LODGES 263
WHITEBAIT TAVERNS 267
THE LONDON TAVERN 274
THE CLARENDON HOTEL 279
FREEMASONS' TAVERN, GREAT QUEEN-STREET 280
THE ALBION, ALDERSGATE-STREET 283
ST. JAMES'S HALL 284
THEATRICAL TAVERNS 285
APPENDIX.
BEEFSTEAK SOCIETY 286
WHITE'S CLUB 287
THE ROYAL ACADEMY CLUB 289
DESTRUCTION OF TAVERNS BY FIRE 290
THE TZAR OF MUSCOVY'S HEAD, TOWER-STREET 291
ROSE TAVERN, TOWER-STREET 292
THE NAG'S HEAD TAVERN, CHEAPSIDE 293
THE HUMMUMS, COVENT GARDEN 295
ORIGIN OF TAVERN SIGNS 296
INDEX TO THE FIRST VOLUME 305
INDEX TO THE SECOND VOLUME 313
[Illustration: "The Lion's Head," at Button's Coffee-House.]
CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
Coffee-houses.
EARLY COFFEE-HOUSES.
Coffee is thus mentioned by Bacon, in his _Sylva Sylvarum_:--"They
have in _Turkey_ a _drink_ called _Coffee_, made of a _Berry_ of the
same name, as Black as _Soot_, and of a _Strong Sent_, but not
_Aromatical_; which they take, beaten into Powder, in _Water_, as Hot
as they can _Drink_ it; and they take it, and sit at it in their
_Coffee Houses_, which are like our _Taverns_. The _Drink_ comforteth
the _Brain_, and _Heart_, and helpeth _Digestion_."
And in Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part i., sec. 2, occurs,
"Turks in their coffee-houses, which much resemble our taverns." The
date is 1621, several years before coffee-houses were introduced into
England.
In 1650, Wood tells us, was opened at Oxford, the first coffee-house,
by Jacobs, a Jew, "at the Angel, in the parish of St. Peter in the
East; and there it was, by some who delighted in novelty, drank."
There was once an odd notion prevalent that coffee was unwholesome,
and would bring its drinkers to an untimely end. Yet, Voltaire,
Fontenelle, and Fourcroy, who were great coffee-drinkers, lived to a
good old age. Laugh at Madame de Sévigné, who foretold that coffee and
Racine would be forgotten together!
A manuscript note, written by Oldys, the celebrated antiquary, states
that "The use of coffee in England was first known in 1657. [It will
be seen, as above, that Oldys is incorrect.] Mr. Edwards, a Turkey
merchant, brought from Smyrna to London one Pasqua Rosee, a Ragusan
youth, who prepared this drink for him every morning. But the novelty
thereof drawing too much company to him, he allowed his said servant,
with another of his son-in-law, to sell it publicly, and they set up
the first coffee-house in London, in St. Michael's alley, in Cornhill.
The sign was Pasqua Rosee's own head." Oldys is slightly in error
here; Rosee commenced his coffee-house in 1652, and one Jacobs, a Jew,
as we have just seen, had established a similar undertaking at Oxford,
two years earlier. One of Rosee's original shop or hand-bills, the
only mode of advertising in those days, is as follows:--
"THE VERTUE OF THE COFFEE DRINK,
"_First made and publickly sold in England by Pasqua Rosee._
"The grain or berry called coffee, groweth upon little trees
only in the deserts of Arabia. It is brought from thence,
and drunk generally throughout all the Grand Seignour's
dominions. It is a simple, innocent thing, composed into a
drink, by being dried in an oven, and ground to powder, and
boiled up with spring water, and about half a pint of it to
be drunk fasting an hour before, and not eating an hour
after, and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured;
the which will never fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise
any blisters by reason of that heat.
"The Turks' drink at meals and other times is usually water,
and their diet consists much of fruit; the crudities whereof
are very much corrected by this drink.
"The quality of this drink is cold and dry; and though it be
a drier, yet it neither heats nor inflames more than hot
posset. It so incloseth the orifice of the stomach, and
fortifies the heat within, that it is very good to help
digestion; and therefore of great use to be taken about
three or four o'clock afternoon, as well as in the morning.
It much quickens the spirits, and makes the heart lightsome;
it is good against sore eyes, and the better if you hold
your head over it and take in the steam that way. It
suppresseth fumes exceedingly, and therefore is good against
the head-ache, and will very much stop any defluxion of
rheums, that distil from the head upon the stomach, and so
prevent and help consumptions and the cough of the lungs.
"It is excellent to prevent and cure the dropsy, gout,[1]
and scurvy. It is known by experience to be better than any
other drying drink for people in years, or children that
have any running humours upon them, as the king's evil, &c.
It is a most excellent remedy against the spleen,
hypochondriac winds, and the like. It will prevent
drowsiness, and make one fit for business, if one have
occasion to watch, and therefore you are not to drink of it
after supper, unless you intend to be watchful, for it will
hinder sleep for three or four hours.
"It is observed that in Turkey, where this is generally
drunk, that they are not troubled with the stone, gout,
dropsy, or scurvy, and that their skins are exceeding clear
and white. It is neither laxative nor restringent.
"_Made and sold in St. Michael's-alley, in Cornhill, by
Pasqua Rosee, at the sign of his own head._"
The new beverage had its opponents, as well as its advocates. The
following extracts from _An invective against Coffee_, published about
the same period, informs us that Rosee's partner, the servant of Mr.
Edwards's son-in-law, was a coachman; while it controverts the
statement that hot coffee will not scald the mouth, and ridicules the
broken English of the Ragusan:--
"A BROADSIDE AGAINST COFFEE.
"A coachman was the first (here) coffee made,
And ever since the rest drive on the trade:
'_Me no good Engalash!_' and sure enough,
He played the quack to salve his Stygian stuff;
'_Ver boon for de stomach, de cough, de phthisick._'
And I believe him, for it looks like physic.
Coffee a crust is charred into a coal,
The smell and taste of the mock china bowl;
Where huff and puff, they labour out their lungs,
Lest, Dives-like, they should bewail their tongues.
And yet they tell ye that it will not burn,
Though on the jury blisters you return;
Whose furious heat does make the water rise,
And still through the alembics of your eyes.
Dread and desire, you fall to 't snap by snap,
As hungry dogs do scalding porridge lap.
But to cure drunkards it has got great fame;
Posset or porridge, will 't not do the same?
Confusion hurries all into one scene,
Like Noah's ark, the clean and the unclean.
And now, alas! the drench has credit got,
And he's no gentleman that drinks it not;
That such a dwarf should rise to such a stature!
But custom is but a remove from nature.
A little dish and a large coffee-house,
What is it but a mountain and a mouse?"
Notwithstanding this opposition, coffee soon became a favourite drink,
and the shops, where it was sold, places of general resort.
There appears to have been a great anxiety that the Coffee-house,
while open to all ranks, should be conducted under such restraints as
might prevent the better class of customers from being annoyed.
Accordingly, the following regulations, printed on large sheets of
paper, were hung up in conspicuous positions on the walls:--
"_Enter, Sirs, freely, but first, if you please,
Peruse our civil orders, which are these._
First, gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither,
And may without affront sit down together:
Pre-eminence of place none here should mind,
But take the next fit seat that he can find:
Nor need any, if finer persons come,
Rise up for to assign to them his room;
To limit men's expense, we think not fair,
But let him forfeit twelve-pence that shall swear:
He that shall any quarrel here begin,
Shall give each man a dish t' atone the sin;
And so shall he, whose compliments extend
So far to drink in coffee to his friend;
Let noise of loud disputes be quite forborne,
Nor maudlin lovers here in corners mourn,
But all be brisk and talk, but not too much;
On sacred things, let none presume to touch,
Nor profane Scripture, nor saucily wrong
Affairs of state with an irreverent tongue:
Let mirth be innocent, and each man see
That all his jests without reflection be;
To keep the house more quiet and from blame,
We banish hence cards, dice, and every game;
Nor can allow of wagers, that exceed
Five shillings, which ofttimes do troubles breed;
Let all that's lost or forfeited be spent
In such good liquor as the house doth vent.
And customers endeavour, to their powers,
For to observe still, seasonable hours.
Lastly, let each man what he calls for pay,
And so you're welcome to come every day."
In a print of the period, five persons are shown in a coffee-house,
one smoking, evidently, from their dresses, of different ranks of
life; they are seated at a table, on which are small basins without
saucers, and tobacco-pipes, while a waiter is serving the coffee.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] In the French colonies, where Coffee is more used than in the
English, Gout is scarcely known.
GARRAWAY'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
This noted Coffee-house, situated in Change-alley, Cornhill, has a
threefold celebrity: tea was first sold in England here; it was a
place of great resort in the time of the South Sea Bubble; and has
since been a place of great mercantile transactions. The original
proprietor was Thomas Garway, tobacconist and coffee-man, the first
who retailed tea, recommending for the cure of all disorders; the
following is the substance of his shop bill:--"Tea in England hath
been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and sometimes for ten pounds the
pound weight, and in respect of its former scarceness and dearness,
it hath been only used as a regalia in high treatments and
entertainments, and presents made thereof to princes and grandees till
the year 1651." The said Thomas Garway did purchase a quantity
thereof, and first publicly sold the said tea in leaf and drink, made
according to the directions of the most knowing merchants and
travellers into those Eastern countries; and upon knowledge and
experience of the said Garway's continued care and industry in
obtaining the best tea, and making drink thereof, very many noblemen,
physicians, merchants, and gentlemen of quality, have ever since sent
to him for the said leaf, and daily resort to his house in
Exchange-alley, aforesaid, to drink the drink thereof; and to the end
that all persons of eminence and quality, gentlemen, and others, who
have occasion for tea in leaf, may be supplied, these are to give
notice that the said Thomas Garway hath tea to sell from "sixteen to
fifty shillings per pound." (See the document entire in Ellis's
_Letters_, series iv. 58.)
Ogilby, the compiler of the _Britannia_, had his standing lottery of
books at Mr. Garway's Coffee-house from April 7, 1673, till wholly
drawn off. And, in the _Journey through England_, 1722, Garraway's,
Robins's, and Joe's, are described as the three celebrated
Coffee-houses: in the first, the People of Quality, who have business
in the City, and the most considerable and wealthy citizens, frequent.
In the second the Foreign Banquiers, and often even Foreign Ministers.
And in the third, the Buyers and Sellers of Stock.
Wines were sold at Garraway's in 1673, "by the candle," that is, by
auction, while an inch of candle burns. In _The Tatler_, No. 147, we
read: "Upon my coming home last night, I found a very handsome present
of French wine left for me, as a taste of 216 hogsheads, which are to
be put to sale at 20_l._ a hogshead, at Garraway's Coffee-house, in
Exchange-alley," &c. The sale by candle is not, however, by
candle-light, but during the day. At the commencement of the sale,
when the auctioneer has read a description of the property, and the
conditions on which it is to be disposed of, a piece of candle,
usually an inch long, is lighted, and he who is the last bidder at the
time the light goes out is declared the purchaser.
Swift, in his "Ballad on the South Sea Scheme," 1721, did not forget
Garraway's:--
"There is a gulf, where thousands fell,
Here all the bold adventurers came,
A narrow sound, though deep as hell,
'Change alley is the dreadful name.
"Subscribers here by thousands float,
And jostle one another down,
Each paddling in his leaky boat,
And here they fish for gold and drown.
"Now buried in the depths below,
Now mounted up to heaven again,
They reel and stagger to and fro,
At their wits' end, like drunken men.
"Meantime secure on Garway cliffs,
A savage race, by shipwrecks fed,
Lie waiting for the founder'd skiffs,
And strip the bodies of the dead."
Dr. Radcliffe, who was a rash speculator in the South Sea Scheme, was
usually planted at a table at Garraway's about Exchange time, to watch
the turn of the market; and here he was seated when the footman of his
powerful rival, Dr. Edward Hannes, came into Garraway's and inquired,
by way of a puff, if Dr. H. was there. Dr. Radcliffe, who was
surrounded with several apothecaries and chirurgeons that flocked
about him, cried out, "Dr. Hannes was not there," and desired to know
"who wanted him?" the fellow's reply was, "such a lord and such a
lord;" but he was taken up with the dry rebuke, "No, no, friend, you
are mistaken; the Doctor wants those lords." One of Radcliffe's
ventures was five thousand guineas upon one South Sea project. When he
was told at Garraway's that 'twas all lost, "Why," said he, "'tis but
going up five thousand pair of stairs more." "This answer," says Tom
Brown, "deserved a statue."
As a Coffee-house, and one of the oldest class, which has withstood,
by the well-acquired fame of its proprietors, the ravages of time, and
the changes that economy and new generations produce, none can be
compared to Garraway's. This name must be familiar with most people in
and out of the City; and, notwithstanding our disposition to make
allowance for the want of knowledge some of our neighbours of the
West-end profess in relation to men and things east of Temple Bar, it
must be supposed that the noble personage who said, when asked by a
merchant to pay him a visit in one of these places, "that he willingly
would, if his friend could tell him where to change horses," had
forgotten this establishment, which fostered so great a quantity of
dishonoured paper, when in other City coffee-houses it had gone
begging at 1_s._ and 2_s._ in the pound.[2]
Garraway's has long been famous as a sandwich and drinking room, for
sherry, pale ale, and punch. Tea and coffee are still served. It is
said that the sandwich-maker is occupied two hours in cutting and
arranging the sandwiches before the day's consumption commences. The
sale-room is an old fashioned first-floor apartment, with a small
rostrum for the seller, and a few commonly grained settles for the
buyers. Here sales of drugs, mahogany, and timber are periodically
held. Twenty or thirty property and other sales sometimes take place
in a day. The walls and windows of the lower room are covered with
sale placards, which are unsentimental evidences of the mutability of
human affairs.
"In 1840 and 1841, when the tea speculation was at its height, and
prices were fluctuating 6_d._ and 8_d._ per pound, on the arrival of
every mail, Garraway's was frequented every night by a host of the
smaller fry of dealers, when there was more excitement than ever
occurred on 'Change when the most important intelligence arrived.
Champagne and anchovy toasts were the order of the night; and every
one came, ate and drank, and went, as he pleased without the least
question concerning the score, yet the bills were discharged; and this
plan continued for several months."--_The City._
Here, likewise, we find this redeeming picture:--"The members of the
little _coterie_, who take the dark corner under the clock, have for
years visited this house; they number two or three old, steady
merchants, a solicitor, and a gentleman who almost devotes the whole
of his time and talents to philanthropic objects,--for instance, the
getting up of a Ball for Shipwrecked Mariners and their families; or
the organization of a Dinner for the benefit of the Distressed
Needlewomen of the Metropolis; they are a very quiet party, and enjoy
the privilege of their _séance_, uninterrupted by visitors."
We may here mention a tavern of the South Sea time, where the "Globe
_permits_" fraud was very successful. These were nothing more than
square pieces of card on which was a wax seal of the sign of the Globe
Tavern, situated in the neighbourhood of Change-alley, with the
inscription, "Sail-cloth Permits." The possessors enjoyed no other
advantage from them than permission to subscribe at some future time
to a new sail-cloth manufactory projected by one who was known to be a
man of fortune, but who was afterwards involved in the peculation and
punishment of the South Sea Directors. These Permits sold for as much
as sixty guineas in the Alley.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] _The City_, 2nd edition.
JONATHAN'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
This is another Change-alley Coffee-house, which is described in the
_Tatler_, No. 38, as "the general mart of stock-jobbers;" and the
_Spectator_, No. 1, tells us that he "sometimes passes for a Jew in
the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's." This was the rendezvous,
where gambling of all sorts was carried on; notwithstanding a formal
prohibition against the assemblage of the jobbers, issued by the City
of London, which prohibition continued unrepealed until 1825.
In the _Anatomy of Exchange Alley_, 1719, we read:--"The centre of the
jobbing is in the kingdom of Exchange-alley and its adjacencies. The
limits are easily surrounded in about a minute and a half: viz.
stepping out of Jonathan's into the Alley, you turn your face full
south; moving on a few paces, and then turning due east, you advance
to Garraway's; from thence going out at the other door, you go on
still east into Birchin-lane; and then halting a little at the
Sword-blade Bank, to do much mischief in fewest words, you immediately
face to the north, enter Cornhill, visit two or three petty provinces
there in your way west; and thus having boxed your compass, and sailed
round the whole stock-jobbing globe, you turn into Jonathan's again;
and so, as most of the great follies of life oblige us to do, you end
just where you began."
Mrs. Centlivre, in her comedy of _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_, has a
scene from Jonathan's at the above period: while the stock-jobbers are
talking, the coffee-boys are crying "Fresh coffee, gentlemen, fresh
coffee! Bohea tea, gentlemen!"
Here is another picture of Jonathan's, during the South Sea mania;
though not by an eye-witness, it groups, from various authorities, the
life of the place and the time:--"At a table a few yards off sat a
couple of men engaged in the discussion of a newly-started scheme.
Plunging his hand impatiently under the deep silver-buttoned flap of
his frock-coat of cinnamon cloth and drawing out a paper, the more
business-looking of the pair commenced eagerly to read out figures
intended to convince the listener, who took a jewelled snuff-box from
the deep pocket of the green brocade waistcoat which overflapped his
thigh, and, tapping the lid, enjoyed a pinch of perfumed Turkish as he
leaned back lazily in his chair. Somewhat further off, standing in the
middle of the room, was a keen-eyed lawyer, counting on his fingers
the probable results of a certain speculation in human hair, to which
a fresh-coloured farmer from St. Albans, on whose boots the mud of the
cattle market was not dry, listened with a face of stolid avarice,
clutching the stag-horn handle of his thonged whip as vigorously as if
it were the wealth he coveted. There strode a Nonconformist divine,
with S. S. S. in every line of his face, greedy for the gold that
perisheth; here a bishop, whose truer place was Garraway's, edged his
cassock through the crowd; sturdy ship-captains, whose manners smack
of blustering breezes, and who hailed their acquaintance as if through
a speaking-trumpet in a storm--booksellers' hacks from Grub-street,
who were wont to borrow ink-bottles and just one sheet of paper at the
bar of the Black Swan in St. Martin's-lane, and whose tarnished lace,
when not altogether torn away, showed a suspicious coppery redness
underneath--Jews of every grade, from the thriving promoter of a
company for importing ashes from Spain or extracting stearine from
sunflower seeds to the seller of sailor slops from Wapping-in-the-Wose,
come to look for a skipper who had bilked him--a sprinkling of
well-to-do merchants--and a host of those flashy hangers-on to the
skirts of commerce, who brighten up in days of maniacal speculation,
and are always ready to dispose of shares in some unopened mine or
some untried invention--passed and repassed with continuous change and
murmur before the squire's eyes during the quarter of an hour that he
sat there."--_Pictures of the Periods, by W. F. Collier LL.D._
RAINBOW COFFEE-HOUSE.
The Rainbow, in Fleet-street, appears to have been the second
Coffee-house opened in the metropolis.
"The first Coffee-house in London," says Aubrey (MS. in the Bodleian
Library), "was in St. Michael's-alley, in Cornhill, opposite to the
church, which was set up by one ---- Bowman (coachman to Mr. Hodges, a
Turkey merchant, who putt him upon it), in or about the yeare 1652.
'Twas about four yeares before any other was sett up, and that was by
Mr. Farr." This was the Rainbow.
Another account states that one Edwards, a Turkey merchant, on his
return from the East, brought with him a Ragusian Greek servant, named
Pasqua Rosee, who prepared coffee every morning for his master, and
with the coachman above named set up the first Coffee-house in St.
Michael's-alley; but they soon quarrelled and separated, the coachman
establishing himself in St. Michael's churchyard.--(See pp. 2 and 4,
_ante._)
Aubrey wrote the above in 1680, and Mr. Farr had then become a person
of consequence. In his _Lives_, Aubrey notes:--"When coffee first came
in, Sir Henry Blount was a great upholder of it, and hath ever since
been a great frequenter of coffee-houses, especially Mr. Farre's, at
the Rainbowe, by Inner Temple Gate."
Farr was originally a barber. His success as a coffee-man appears to
have annoyed his neighbours; and at the inquest at St. Dunstan's, Dec.
21st, 1657, among the presentments of nuisances were the
following:--"We present James Farr, barber, for making and selling of
a drink called coffee, whereby in making the same he annoyeth his
neighbours by evill smells; and for keeping of fire for the most part
night and day, whereby his chimney and chamber hath been set on fire,
to the great danger and affrightment of his neighbours." However, Farr
was not ousted; he probably promised reform, or amended the alleged
annoyance: he remained at the Rainbow, and rose to be a person of
eminence and repute in the parish. He issued a token, date 1666--an
arched rainbow based on clouds, doubtless, from the Great Fire--to
indicate that with him all was yet safe, and the Rainbow still
radiant. There is one of his tokens in the Beaufoy collection, at
Guildhall, and so far as is known to Mr. Burn, the rainbow does not
occur on any other tradesman's token. The house was let off into
tenements: books were printed here at this very time "for Samuel
Speed, at the sign of the Rainbow, near the Inner Temple Gate, in
Fleet-street." The Phoenix Fire Office was established here about
1682. Hatton, in 1708, evidently attributed Farr's nuisance to the
_coffee itself_ saying: "Who would have thought London would ever have
had three thousand such nuisances, and that coffee would have been (as
now) so much drank by the best of quality, and physicians?" The
nuisance was in Farr's chimney and carelessness, not in the coffee.
Yet, in our statute-book anno 1660 (12 Car. II. c. 24), a duty of
4_d._ was laid upon every gallon of coffee made and sold. A statute of
1663 directs that all Coffee-houses should be licensed at the Quarter
Sessions. And in 1675, Charles II. issued a proclamation to shut up
the Coffee-houses, charged with being seminaries of sedition; but in a
few days he suspended this proclamation by a second.
The _Spectator_, No. 16, notices some gay frequenters of the
Rainbow:--"I have received a letter desiring me to be very satirical
upon the little muff that is now in fashion; another informs me of a
pair of silver garters buckled below the knee, that have been lately
seen at the Rainbow Coffee-house in Fleet-street."
Mr. Moncrieff, the dramatist, used to tell that about 1780, this house
was kept by his grandfather, Alexander Moncrieff, when it retained its
original title of "The Rainbow Coffee-house." The old Coffee-room had
a lofty bay-window, at the south end, looking into the Temple: and the
room was separated from the kitchen only by a glazed partition: in the
bay was the table for the elders. The house has long been a tavern;
all the old rooms have been swept away, and a large and lofty
dining-room erected in their place.
In a paper read to the British Archæological Association, by Mr. E. B.
Price, we find coffee and canary thus brought into interesting
comparison, illustrated by the exhibition of one of Farr's Rainbow
tokens; and another inscribed "At the Canary House in the Strand,
1_d_., 1665," bearing also the word "Canary" in the monogram. Having
noticed the prosecution of Farr, and his triumph over his
fellow-parishioners, Mr. Price says:--"The opposition to coffee
continued; people viewed it with distrust, and even with alarm: and we
can sympathize with them in their alarm: when we consider that they
entertained a notion that coffee would eventually put an end to the
species; that the _genus homo_ would some day or other be utterly
extinguished. With our knowledge of the beneficial effect of this
article on the community, and its almost universal adoption in the
present day, we may smile, and wonder while we smile, at the bare
possibility of such a notion ever having prevailed. That it did so, we
have ample evidence in the "Women's Petition against Coffee," in the
year 1674, cited by D'Israeli, _Curiosities of Literature_, vol. iv.,
and in which they complain that coffee "made men as unfruitful as the
deserts whence that unhappy berry is said to be brought: that the
offspring of our mighty ancestors would dwindle into a succession of
apes and pigmies," etc. The same authority gives us an extract from a
very amusing poem of 1663, in which the writer wonders that any man
should prefer Coffee to Canary, terming them English apes, and proudly
referring them to the days of Beaumont and Fletcher and Ben Jonson.
_They_, says he,
"Drank pure nectar as the gods drink too
Sublimed with rich _Canary_; say, shall then
These less than coffee's self, these coffee-men,
These sons of nothing, that can hardly make
Their broth for laughing how the jest does take,
Yet grin, and give ye for the vine's pure blood
A loathsome potion--not yet understood,
Syrup of soot, or essence of old shoes,
Dasht with diurnals or the book of news?"
One of the weaknesses of "rare Ben" was his _penchant_ for Canary. And
it would seem that the Mermaid, in Bread-street, was the house in
which he enjoyed it most:
"But that which most doth take my muse and me,
Is a pure cup of rich _Canary wine_,
Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine."
Granger states that Charles I. raised Ben's pension from 100 marks to
100 pounds, and added a tierce of canary, which salary and its
appendage, he says, have ever since been continued to poets laureate.
Reverting to the Rainbow (says Mr. Price), "it has been frequently
remarked by 'tavern-goers,' that many of our snuggest and most
comfortable taverns are hidden from vulgar gaze, and unapproachable
except through courts, blind alleys, or but half-lighted passages." Of
this description was the house in question. But few of its many
nightly, or rather midnightly patrons and frequenters, knew aught of
it beyond its famed "stewed cheeses," and its "stout," with the
various "et ceteras" of good cheer. They little dreamed, and perhaps
as little cared to know, that, more than two centuries back, the
Rainbow flourished as a bookseller's shop; as appears by the
title-page of Trussell's _History of England_, which states it to be
"printed by M. D., for Ephraim Dawson, and are to bee sold in Fleet
Street, at the signe of the Rainbowe, neere the Inner-Temple Gate,
1636."
NANDO'S COFFEE-HOUSE
Was the house at the east corner of Inner Temple-lane, No. 17,
Fleet-street, and next-door to the shop of Bernard Lintot, the
bookseller; though it has been by some confused with Groom's house,
No. 16. Nando's was the favourite haunt of Lord Thurlow, before he
dashed into law practice. At this Coffee-house a large attendance of
professional loungers was attracted by the fame of the punch and the
charms of the landlady, which, with the small wits, were duly admired
by and at the bar. One evening, the famous cause of Douglas _v._. the
Duke of Hamilton was the topic of discussion, when Thurlow being
present, it was suggested, half in earnest, to appoint him junior
counsel, which was done. This employment brought him acquainted with
the Duchess of Queensberry, who saw at once the value of a man like
Thurlow, and recommended Lord Bute to secure him by a silk gown.
The house, formerly Nando's, has been for many years a hair-dresser's.
It is inscribed "Formerly the palace of Henry VIII. and Cardinal
Wolsey." The structure is of the time of James I., and has an enriched
ceiling inscribed P (triple plumed).
This was the office in which the Council for the Management of the
Duchy of Cornwall Estates held their sittings; for in the Calendar of
State Papers, edited by Mrs. Green, is the following entry, of the
time of Charles, created Prince of Wales four years after the death of
Henry:--"1619, Feb. 25; Prince's _Council Chamber, Fleet-street_.
--Council of the Prince of Wales to the Keepers of Brancepeth, Raby,
and Barnard Castles: The trees blown down are only to be used for
mending the pales, and no wood to be cut for firewood, nor browse for
the deer."
DICK'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
This old Coffee-house, No. 8, Fleet-street (south side, near Temple
Bar), was originally "Richard's," named from Richard Torner, or
Turner, to whom the house was let in 1680. The Coffee-room retains
its olden paneling, and the staircase its original balusters.
The interior of Dick's Coffee-house is engraved as a frontispiece to a
drama, called _The Coffee-house_, performed at Drury-lane Theatre in
1737. The piece met with great opposition on its representation, owing
to its being stated that the characters were intended for a particular
family (that of Mrs. Yarrow and her daughter), who kept Dick's, the
coffee-house which the artist had inadvertently selected as the
frontispiece.
It appears that the landlady and her daughter were the reigning toast
of the Templars, who then frequented Dick's; and took the matter up so
strongly that they united to condemn the farce on the night of its
production; they succeeded, and even extended their resentment to
every thing suspected to be this author's (the Rev. James Miller) for
a considerable time after.
Richard's, as it was then called, was frequented by Cowper, when he
lived in the Temple. In his own account of his insanity, Cowper tells
us: "At breakfast I read the newspaper, and in it a letter, which, the
further I perused it, the more closely engaged my attention. I cannot
now recollect the purport of it; but before I had finished it, it
appeared demonstratively true to me that it was a libel or satire upon
me. The author appeared to be acquainted with my purpose of
self-destruction, and to have written that letter on purpose to secure
and hasten the execution of it. My mind, probably, at this time began
to be disordered; however it was, I was certainly given to a strong
delusion. I said within myself, 'Your cruelty shall be gratified; you
shall have your revenge,' and flinging down the paper in a fit of
strong passion, I rushed hastily out of the room; directing my way
towards the fields, where I intended to find some house to die in; or,
if not, determined to poison myself in a ditch, where I could meet
with one sufficiently retired."
It is worth while to revert to the earlier tenancy of the
Coffee-house, which was, wholly or in part, the original printing
office of Richard Tottel, law-printer to Edward VI., Queens Mary and
Elizabeth; the premises were attached to No. 7, Fleet-street, which
bore the sign of "The Hand and Starre," where Tottel lived, and
published the law and other works he printed. No. 7 was subsequently
occupied by Jaggard and Joel Stephens, eminent law-printers, temp.
Geo. I.-III.; and at the present day the house is most appropriately
occupied by Messrs. Butterworth, who follow the occupation Tottel did
in the days of Edward VI., being law-publishers to Queen Victoria; and
they possess the original leases, from the earliest grant, in the
reign of Henry VIII., the period of their own purchase.
THE "LLOYD'S" OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II.
During the reign of Charles II., Coffee-houses grew into such favour,
that they quickly spread over the metropolis, and were the usual
meeting-places of the roving cavaliers, who seldom visited home but to
sleep. The following song, from Jordan's _Triumphs of London_, 1675,
affords a very curious picture of the manners of the times, and the
sort of conversation then usually met with in a well-frequented house
of the sort,--the "Lloyd's" of the seventeenth century:--
"You that delight in wit and mirth,
And love to hear such news
That come from all parts of the earth,
Turks, Dutch, and Danes, and Jews:
I'll send ye to the rendezvous,
Where it is smoaking new;
Go hear it at a coffee-house,
It cannot but be true.
"There battails and sea-fights are fought,
And bloudy plots displaid;
They know more things than e'er was thought,
Or ever was bewray'd:
No money in the minting-house
Is half so bright and new;
And coming from the _Coffee-House_,
It cannot but be true.
"Before the navies fell to work,
They knew who should be winner;
They there can tell ye what the Turk
Last Sunday had to dinner.
Who last did cut Du Ruiter's[3] corns,
Amongst his jovial crew;
Or who first gave the devil horns,
Which cannot but be true.
"A fisherman did boldly tell,
And strongly did avouch,
He caught a shole of mackerell,
They parley'd all in Dutch;
And cry'd out _Yaw, yaw, yaw, mine hare_,
And as the draught they drew,
They stunk for fear that Monk[4] was there:
This sounds as if 'twere true.
"There's nothing done in all the world,
From monarch to the mouse;
But every day or night 'tis hurl'd
Into the coffee-house:
What Lilly[5] what Booker[6] cou'd
By art not bring about,
At Coffee-house you'll find a brood,
Can quickly find it out.
"They know who shall in times to come,
Be either made or undone,
From great St. Peter's-street in Rome,
To Turnbal-street[7] in London.
"They know all that is good or hurt,
To damn ye or to save ye;
There is the college and the court,
The country, camp, and navy.
So great an university,
I think there ne'er was any;
In which you may a scholar be,
For spending of a penny.
"Here men do talk of everything,
With large and liberal lungs,
Like women at a gossiping,
With double tire of tongues,
They'll give a broadside presently,
'Soon as you are in view:
With stories that you'll wonder at,
Which they will swear are true.
"You shall know there what fashions are,
How perriwigs are curl'd;
And for a penny you shall hear
All novels in the world;
Both old and young, and great and small,
And rich and poor you'll see;
Therefore let's to the Coffee all,
Come all away with me."
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The Dutch admiral who, in June, 1667, dashed into the Downs with a
fleet of eighty sail, and many fire-ships, blocked up the mouths of
the Medway and Thames, destroyed the fortifications at Sheerness, cut
away the paltry defences of booms and chains drawn across the rivers,
and got to Chatham, on the one side, and nearly to Gravesend on the
other; the king having spent in debauchery the money voted by
Parliament for the proper support of the English navy.
[4] General Monk and Prince Rupert were at this time commanders of the
English fleet.
[5] Lilly was the celebrated astrologer of the Protectorate, who
earned great fame at that time by predicting, in June, 1645, "if now
we fight, a victory stealeth upon us:" a lucky guess, signally
verified in the King's defeat at Naseby. Lilly thenceforth always saw
the stars favourable to the Puritans.
[6] This man was originally a fishing-tackle-maker in Tower-street,
during the reign of Charles I.; but turning enthusiast, he went about
prognosticating "the downfall of the King and Popery;" and as he and
his predictions were all on the popular side, he became a great man
with the superstitious "godly brethren" of that day.
[7] Turnbal, or Turnbull-street as it is still called, had been for a
century previous of infamous repute. In Beaumont and Fletcher's play,
the _Knight of the Burning Pestle_, one of the ladies who is
undergoing penance at the barber's, has her character sufficiently
pointed out to the audience, in her declaration, that she had been
"stolen from her friends in Turnbal-street."
LLOYD'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
Lloyd's is one of the earliest establishments of the kind; it is
referred to in a poem printed in the year 1700, called the _Wealthy
Shopkeeper, or Charitable Christian_:
"Now to Lloyd's coffee-house he never fails,
To read the letters, and attend the sales."
In 1710, Steele (_Tatler_, No. 246,) dates from Lloyd's his Petition
on Coffee-house Orators and Newsvendors. And Addison, in _Spectator_,
April 23, 1711, relates this droll incident:--"About a week since
there happened to me a very odd accident, by reason of which one of
these my papers of minutes which I had accidentally dropped at Lloyd's
Coffee-house, where the auctions are usually kept. Before I missed it,
there were a cluster of people who had found it, and were diverting
themselves with it at one end of the coffee-house. It had raised so
much laughter among them before I observed what they were about, that
I had not the courage to own it. The boy of the coffee-house, when
they had done with it, carried it about in his hand, asking everybody
if they had dropped a written paper; but nobody challenging it, he was
ordered by those merry gentlemen who had before perused it, to get up
into the auction-pulpit, and read it to the whole room, that if
anybody would own it, they might. The boy accordingly mounted the
pulpit, and with a very audible voice read what proved to be minutes,
which made the whole coffee-house very merry; some of them concluded
it was written by a madman, and others by somebody that had been
taking notes out of the _Spectator_. After it was read, and the boy
was coming out of the pulpit, the Spectator reached his arm out, and
desired the boy to give it him; which was done according. This drew
the whole eyes of the company upon the Spectator; but after casting a
cursory glance over it, he shook his head twice or thrice at the
reading of it, twisted it into a kind of match, and lighted his pipe
with it. 'My profound silence,' says the Spectator, 'together with the
steadiness of my countenance, and the gravity of my behaviour during
the whole transaction, raised a very loud laugh on all sides of me;
but as I had escaped all suspicion of being the author, I was very
well satisfied, and applying myself to my pipe and the _Postman_, took
no further notice of anything that passed about me.'"
Nothing is positively known of the original Lloyd; but in 1750, there
was issued an Irregular Ode, entitled _A Summer's Farewell to the
Gulph of Venice, in the Southwell Frigate_, Captain Manly, jun.,
commanding, stated to be "printed for Lloyd, well-known for obliging
the public with the Freshest and Most Authentic Ship News, and sold by
A. More, near St. Paul's, and at the Pamphlet Shops in London and
Westminster, MDCCL."
In the _Gentleman's Magazine_, for 1740, we read:--"11 March, 1740,
Mr. Baker, Master of Lloyd's Coffee-house, in Lombard-street, waited
on Sir Robert Walpole with the news of Admiral Vernon's taking
Portobello. This was the first account received thereof, and proving
true, Sir Robert was pleased to order him a handsome present."
Lloyd's is, perhaps, the oldest collective establishment in the City.
It was first under the management of a single individual, who started
it as a room where the underwriters and insurers of ships' cargoes
could meet for refreshment and conversation. The Coffee-house was
originally in Lombard-street, at the corner of Abchurch-lane;
subsequently in Pope's-head-alley, where it was called "New Lloyd's
Coffee-house;" but on February 14th, 1774, it was removed to the
north-west corner of the Royal Exchange, where it remained until the
destruction of that building by fire.
In rebuilding the Exchange, a fine suite of apartments was provided
for Lloyd's "Subscription Rooms," which are the rendezvous of the most
eminent merchants, ship-owners, underwriters, insurance, stock, and
exchange brokers. Here is obtained the earliest news of the arrival
and sailing of vessels, losses at sea, captures, recaptures,
engagements, and other shipping intelligence; and proprietors of ships
and freights are insured by the underwriters. The rooms are in the
Venetian style, with Roman enrichments. They are--1. The Subscribers'
or Underwriters', the Merchants', and the Captains' Room. At the
entrance of the room are exhibited the Shipping Lists, received from
Lloyd's agents at home and abroad, and affording particulars of
departures or arrivals of vessels, wrecks, salvage, or sale of
property saved, etc. To the right and left are "Lloyd's Books," two
enormous ledgers: right hand, ships "spoken with," or arrived at their
destined ports; left hand: records of wrecks, fires, or severe
collisions, written in a fine Roman hand, in "double lines." To assist
the underwriters in their calculations, at the end of the room is an
Anemometer, which registers the state of the wind day and night;
attached is a rain-gauge.
The life of the underwriter is one of great anxiety and speculation.
"Among the old stagers of the room, there is often strong antipathy to
the insurance of certain ships. In the case of one vessel it was
strangely followed out. She was a steady trader, named after one of
the most venerable members of the room; and it was a curious
coincidence that he invariably refused to 'write her' for 'a single
line.' Often he was joked upon the subject, and pressed to 'do a
little' for his namesake; but he as often declined, shaking his head
in a doubtful manner. One morning the subscribers were reading the
'double lines,' or the losses, and among them was this identical ship,
which had gone to pieces, and become a total wreck."--_The City_, _2nd
edit._, 1848.
The Merchants' Room is superintended by a master, who can speak
several languages: here are duplicate copies of the books in the
underwriters' room, and files of English and foreign newspapers.
The Captains' Room is a kind of coffee-room, where merchants and
ship-owners meet captains, and sales of ships, etc. take place.
The members of Lloyd's have ever been distinguished by their loyalty
and benevolent spirit. In 1802, they voted 2000_l._ to the Life-boat
subscription. On July 20, 1803, at the invasion panic, they commenced
the Patriotic Fund with 20,000_l._ 3-per-cent. Consols; besides
70,312_l._ 7_s._ individual subscriptions, and 15,000_l._ additional
donations. After the battle of the Nile, in 1798, they collected for
the widows and wounded seamen 32,423_l._; and after Lord Howe's
victory, June 1, 1794, for similar purposes, 21,281_l._ They have also
contributed 5000_l._ to the London Hospital; 1000_.l_ for the
suffering inhabitants of Russia in 1813; 1000_l._ for the relief of
the militia in our North American colonies, 1813; and 10,000_l._ for
the Waterloo subscription, in 1815. The Committee vote medals and
rewards to those who distinguish themselves in saving life from
shipwreck.
Some years since, a member of Lloyd's drew from the books the
following lines of names contained therein:--
"A Black and a White, with a Brown and a Green,
And also a Gray at Lloyd's room may be seen;
With Parson and Clark, then a Bishop and Pryor,
And Water, how Strange adding fuel to fire;
While, at the same time, 'twill sure pass belief,
There's a Winter, a Garland, Furze, Bud, and a Leaf;
With Freshfield, and Greenhill, Lovegrove, and a Dale;
Though there's never a Breeze, there's always a Gale.
No music is there, though a Whistler and Harper;
There's a Blunt and a Sharp, many flats, but no sharper.
There's a Danniell, a Samuel, a Sampson, an Abell;
The first and the last write at the same table.
Then there's Virtue and Faith there, with Wylie and Rasch,
Disagreeing elsewhere, yet at Lloyd's never clash,
There's a Long and a Short, Small, Little, and Fatt,
With one Robert Dewar, who ne'er wears his hat:
No drinking goes on, though there's Porter and Sack,
Lots of Scotchmen there are, beginning with Mac;
Macdonald, to wit, Macintosh and McGhie,
McFarquhar, McKenzie, McAndrew, Mackie.
An evangelized Jew, and an infidel Quaker;
There's a Bunn and a Pye, with a Cook and a Baker,
Though no Tradesmen or Shopmen are found, yet herewith
Is a Taylor, a Saddler, a Paynter, a Smyth;
Also Butler and Chapman, with Butter and Glover,
Come up to Lloyd's room their bad risks to cover.
Fox, Shepherd, Hart, Buck, likewise come every day;
And though many an ass, there is only one Bray.
There is a Mill and Miller, A-dam and a Poole,
A Constable, Sheriff, a Law, and a Rule.
There's a Newman, a Niemann, a Redman, a Pitman,
Now to rhyme with the last, there is no other fit man.
These, with Young, Cheap, and Lent, Luckie, Hastie, and Slow,
With dear Mr. Allnutt, Allfrey, and Auldjo,
Are all the queer names that at Lloyd's I can show."
Many of these individuals are now deceased; but a frequenter of
Lloyd's in former years will recognize the persons mentioned.
THE JERUSALEM COFFEE-HOUSE,
Cornhill, is one of the oldest of the City news-rooms, and is
frequented by merchants and captains connected with the commerce of
China, India, and Australia.
"The subscription-room is well-furnished with files of the principal
Canton, Hongkong, Macao, Penang, Singapore, Calcutta, Bombay, Madras,
Sydney, Hobart Town, Launceston, Adelaide, and Port Phillip papers,
and Prices Current: besides shipping lists and papers from the various
intermediate stations or ports touched at, as St. Helena, the Cape of
Good Hope, etc. The books of East India shipping include arrivals,
departures, casualties, etc. The full business is between two and
three o'clock, p.m. In 1845, John Tawell, the Slough murderer, was
captured at [traced to] the Jerusalem, which he was in the habit of
visiting, to ascertain information of the state of his property in
Sydney."--_The City_, 2nd edit., 1848.
BAKER'S COFFEE-HOUSE,
Change-alley, is remembered as a tavern some forty years since. The
landlord, after whom it is named, may possibly have been a descendant
from "Baker," the master of Lloyd's Rooms. It has been, for many
years, a chop-house, with direct service from the gridiron, and upon
pewter; though on the first-floor, joint dinners are served: its
post-prandial punch was formerly much drunk. In the lower room is a
portrait of James, thirty-five years waiter here.
COFFEE-HOUSES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
Of Ward's _Secret History_ of the Clubs of his time we have already
given several specimens. Little is known of him personally. He was,
probably, born in 1660, and early in life he visited the West Indies.
Sometime before 1669, he kept a tavern and punch-house, next door to
Gray's Inn, of which we shall speak hereafter. His works are now
rarely to be met with. His doggrel secured him a place in the
_Dunciad_, where not only his elevation to the pillory is mentioned,
but the fact is also alluded to that his productions were extensively
shipped to the Plantations or Colonies of those days,--
"Nor sail with Ward to ape-and-monkey climes,
Where vile mundungus trucks for viler rhymes,"
the only places, probably, where they were extensively read. In return
for the doubtful celebrity thus conferred upon his rhymes, he attacked
the satirist in a wretched production, intituled _Apollo's Maggot in
his Cups_; his expiring effort, probably, for he died, as recorded in
the pages of our first volume, on the 22nd of June, 1731. His remains
were buried in the churchyard of Old St. Pancras, his body being
followed to the grave solely by his wife and daughter, as directed by
him in his poetical will, written some six years before. We learn
from Noble that there are no less than four engraved portraits of Ned
Ward. The structure of the _London Spy_, the only work of his that at
present comes under our notice, is simple enough. The author is
self-personified as a countryman, who, tired with his "tedious
confinement to a country hutt," comes up to London; where he
fortunately meets with a quondam school-fellow,--a "man about town,"
in modern phrase,--who undertakes to introduce him to the various
scenes, sights, and mysteries of the, even then, "great metropolis:"
much like the visit, in fact, from Jerry Hawthorn to Corinthian Tom,
only anticipated by some hundred and twenty years. "We should not be
at all surprised (says the _Gentleman's Magazine_,) to find that the
stirring scenes of Pierce Egan's _Life in London_ were first suggested
by more homely pages of the _London Spy_."
At the outset of the work we have a description--not a very flattering
one, certainly--of a common coffee-house of the day, one of the many
hundreds with which London then teemed. Although coffee had been only
known in England some fifty years, coffee-houses were already among
the most favourite institutions of the land; though they had not as
yet attained the political importance which they acquired in the days
of the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_, some ten or twelve years later:--
"'Come,' says my friend, 'let us step into this coffee-house here; as
you are a stranger in the town, it will afford you some diversion.'
Accordingly in we went, where a parcel of muddling muckworms were as
busy as so many rats in an old cheese-loft; some going, some coming,
some scribbling, some talking, some drinking, some smoking, others
jangling; and the whole room stinking of tobacco, like a Dutch scoot
[schuyt], or a boatswain's cabin. The walls were hung round with gilt
frames, as a farrier's shop with horse-shoes; which contained
abundance of rarities, viz., Nectar and Ambrosia, May-dew, Golden
Elixirs, Popular Pills, Liquid Snuff, Beautifying Waters, Dentifrices,
Drops, and Lozenges; all as infallible as the Pope, 'Where every one
(as the famous Saffolde has it) above the rest, Deservedly has gain'd
the name of best:' every medicine being so catholic, it pretends to
nothing less than universality. So that, had not my friend told me
'twas a coffee-house, I should have taken it for Quacks' Hall, or the
parlour of some eminent mountebank. We each of us stuck in our mouths
a pipe of sotweed, and now began to look about us."
A description of Man's Coffee-house, situate in Scotland-yard, near
the water-side, is an excellent picture of a fashionable coffee-house
of the day. It took its name from the proprietor, Alexander Man, and
was sometimes known as Old Man's, or the Royal Coffee-house, to
distinguish it from Young Man's and Little Man's minor establishments
in the neighbourhood:--
"We now ascended a pair of stairs, which brought us into an
old-fashioned room, where a gaudy crowd of odoriferous _Tom-Essences_
were walking backwards and forwards with their hats in their hands,
not daring to convert them to their intended use, lest it should put
the foretops of their wigs into some disorder. We squeezed through
till we got to the end of the room, where, at a small table, we sat
down, and observed that it was as great a rarity to hear anybody call
for a dish of _Politician's porridge_, or any other liquor, as it is
to hear a beau call for a pipe of tobacco; their whole exercise being
to charge and discharge their nostrils, and keep the curls of their
periwigs in their proper order. The clashing of their snush-box lids,
in opening and shutting, made more noise than their tongues. Bows and
cringes of the newest mode were here exchanged, 'twixt friend and
friend, with wonderful exactness. They made a humming like so many
hornets in a country chimney, not with their talking, but with their
whispering over their new _Minuets_ and _Bories_, with their hands in
their pockets, if only freed from their snush-box. We now began to be
thoughtful of a pipe of tobacco; whereupon we ventured to call for
some instruments of evaporation, which were accordingly brought us,
but with such a kind of unwillingness, as if they would much rather
have been rid of our company; for their tables were so very neat, and
shined with rubbing, like the upper-leathers of an alderman's shoes,
and as brown as the top of a country housewife's cupboard. The floor
was as clean swept as a Sir Courtly's dining-room, which made us look
round, to see if there were no orders hung up to impose the forfeiture
of so much Mop-money upon any person that should spit out of the
chimney-corner. Notwithstanding we wanted an example to encourage us
in our porterly rudeness, we ordered them to light the wax-candle, by
which we ignified our pipes and blew about our whiffs; at which
several Sir Foplins drew their faces into as many peevish wrinkles, as
the beaux at the Bow-street Coffee-house, near Covent-garden did, when
the gentleman in masquerade came in amongst them, with his
oyster-barrel muff and turnip-buttons, to ridicule their fopperies."
A cabinet picture of the Coffee-house life of a century and a half
since is thus given in the well-known _Journey through England_ in
1714: "I am lodged," says the tourist, "in the street called Pall
Mall, the ordinary residence of all strangers, because of its vicinity
to the Queen's Palace, the Park, the Parliament House, the Theatres,
and the Chocolate and Coffee-houses, where the best company frequent.
If you would know our manner of living, 'tis thus: we rise by nine,
and those that frequent great men's levees, find entertainment at them
till eleven, or, as in Holland, go to tea-tables; about twelve the
_beau monde_ assemble in several Coffee or Chocolate houses: the best
of which are the Cocoa-tree and White's Chocolate-houses, St. James's,
the Smyrna, Mrs. Rochford's, and the British Coffee-houses; and all
these so near one another, that in less than an hour you see the
company of them all. We are carried to these places in chairs (or
sedans), which are here very cheap, a guinea a week, or a shilling per
hour, and your chairmen serve you for porters to run on errands, as
your gondoliers do at Venice.
"If it be fine weather, we take a turn into the Park till two, when we
go to dinner; and if it be dirty, you are entertained at piquet or
basset at White's, or you may talk politics at the Smyrna or St.
James's. I must not forget to tell you that the parties have their
different places, where, however, a stranger is always well received;
but a Whig will no more go to the Cocoa-tree or Ozinda's, than a Tory
will be seen at the Coffee-house, St. James's.
"The Scots go generally to the British, and a mixture of all sorts to
the Smyrna. There are other little Coffee-houses much frequented in
this neighbourhood,--Young Man's for officers, Old Man's for
stock-jobbers, pay-masters, and courtiers, and Little Man's for
sharpers. I never was so confounded in my life as when I entered into
this last: I saw two or three tables full at faro, heard the box and
dice rattling in the room above stairs, and was surrounded by a set of
sharp faces, that I was afraid would have devoured me with their eyes.
I was glad to drop two or three half crowns at faro to get off with a
clear skin, and was overjoyed I so got rid of them.
"At two, we generally go to dinner; ordinaries are not so common here
as abroad, yet the French have set up two or three good ones for the
convenience of foreigners in Suffolk-street, where one is tolerably
well served; but the general way here is to make a party at the
Coffee-house to go to dine at the tavern, where we sit till six, when
we go to the play; except you are invited to the table of some great
man, which strangers are always courted to, and nobly entertained."
We may here group the leading Coffee-houses,[8] the principal of which
will be more fully described hereafter:
"Before 1715, the number of Coffee-houses in London was reckoned at
two thousand. Every profession, trade, class, party, had its favourite
Coffee-house. The lawyers discussed law or literature, criticized the
last new play, or retailed the freshest Westminster Hall "bite" at
Nando's or the Grecian, both close on the purlieus of the Temple. Here
the young bloods of the Inns-of-Court paraded their Indian gowns and
lace caps of a morning, and swaggered in their lace coats and Mechlin
ruffles at night, after the theatre. The Cits met to discuss the rise
and fall of stocks, and to settle the rate of insurance, at Garraway's
or Jonathan's; the parsons exchanged university gossip, or commented
on Dr. Sacheverel's last sermon at Truby's or at Child's in St. Paul's
Churchyard; the soldiers mustered to grumble over their grievances at
Old or Young Man's, near Charing Cross; the St. James's and the Smyrna
were the head-quarters of the Whig politicians, while the Tories
frequented the Cocoa-tree or Ozinda's, all in St. James's-street;
Scotchmen had their house of call at Forrest's, Frenchmen at Giles's
or Old Slaughter's, in St. Martin's-lane; the gamesters shook their
elbows in White's and the Chocolate-houses round Covent Garden; the
_virtuosi_ honoured the neighbourhood of Gresham College; and the
leading wits gathered at Will's, Button's, or Tom's, in Great
Russell-street, where after the theatre was playing at piquet and the
best of conversation till midnight. At all these places, except a few
of the most aristocratic Coffee or Chocolate-houses of the West-End,
smoking was allowed. A penny was laid down at the bar on entering, and
the price of a dish of tea or coffee seems to have been two-pence:
this charge covered newspapers and lights. The established frequenters
of the house had their regular seats, and special attention from the
fair lady at the bar, and the tea or coffee boys.
"To these Coffee-houses men of all classes, who had either leisure or
money, resorted to spend both; and in them, politics, play, scandal,
criticism, and business, went on hand-in-hand. The transition from
Coffee-house to Club was easy. Thus Tom's, a Coffee-house till 1764,
in that year, by a guinea subscription, among nearly seven hundred of
the nobility, foreign ministers, gentry, and geniuses of the age,
became the place of meeting for the subscribers exclusively.[9] In the
same way, White's and the Cocoa-tree changed their character from
Chocolate-house to Club. When once a house had customers enough of
standing and good repute, and acquainted with each other, it was quite
worth while--considering the characters who, on the strength of
assurance, tolerable manners, and a laced coat, often got a footing in
these houses while they continued open to the public, to purchase
power of excluding all but subscribers."
Thus, the chief places of resort were at this period Coffee and
Chocolate-houses, in which some men almost lived, as they do at the
present day, at their Clubs. Whoever wished to find a gentleman
commonly asked, not where he resided, but which coffee-house he
frequented. No decently attired idler was excluded, provided he laid
down his penny at the bar; but this he could seldom do without
struggling through the crowd of beaux who fluttered round the lovely
bar-maid. Here the proud nobleman or country squire was not to be
distinguished from the genteel thief and daring highwayman. "Pray,
sir," says Aimwell to Gibbet, in Farquhar's _Beaux Stratagem_, "ha'n't
I seen your face at Will's Coffee-house?" The robber's reply is: "Yes,
Sir, and at White's too."
Three of Addison's papers in the _Spectator_, (Nos. 402, 481, and
568,) are humorously descriptive of the Coffee-houses of this period.
No. 403 opens with the remark that "the courts of two countries do not
so much differ from one another, as the Court and the City, in their
peculiar ways of life and conversation. In short, the inhabitants of
St. James's, notwithstanding they live under the same laws, and speak
the same language, are a distinct people from those of Cheapside, who
are likewise removed from those of the Temple on the one side, and
those of Smithfield on the other, by several climates and degrees in
their way of thinking and conversing together." For this reason, the
author takes a ramble through London and Westminster, to gather the
opinions of his ingenious countrymen upon a current report of the King
of France's death. "I know the faces of all the principal politicians
within the bills of mortality; and as every Coffee-house has some
particular statesman belonging to it, who is the mouth of the street
where he lives, I always take care to place myself near him, in order
to know his judgment on the present posture of affairs. And, as I
foresaw, the above report would produce a new face of things in
Europe, and many curious speculations in our British Coffee-houses, I
was very desirous to learn the thoughts of our most eminent
politicians on that occasion.
"That I might begin as near the fountain-head as possible, I first of
all called in at St. James's, where I found the whole outward room in
a buzz of politics; the speculations were but very indifferent towards
the door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the room,
and were so much improved by a knot of theorists, who sat in the inner
room, within the steams of the coffee-pot, that I there heard the
whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, and all the line of Bourbons
provided for in less than a quarter of an hour.
"I afterwards called in at Giles's, where I saw a board of French
gentlemen sitting upon the life and death of their grand monarque.
Those among them who had espoused the Whig interest very positively
affirmed that he had departed this life about a week since, and
therefore, proceeded without any further delay to the release of their
friends in the galleys, and to their own re-establishment; but,
finding they could not agree among themselves, I proceeded on my
intended progress.
"Upon my arrival at Jenny Man's I saw an alert young fellow that
cocked his hat upon a friend of his, who entered just at the same time
with myself, and accosted him after the following manner: 'Well, Jack,
the old prig is dead at last. Sharp's the word. Now or never, boy. Up
to the walls of Paris, directly;' with several other deep reflections
of the same nature.
"I met with very little variation in the politics between Charing
Cross and Covent Garden. And, upon my going into Will's, I found their
discourse was gone off, from the death of the French King, to that of
Monsieur Boileau, Racine, Corneille, and several other poets, whom
they regretted on this occasion as persons who would have obliged the
world with very noble elegies on the death of so great a prince, and
so eminent a patron of learning.
"At a Coffee-house near the Temple, I found a couple of young
gentlemen engaged very smartly in a dispute on the succession to the
Spanish monarchy. One of them seemed to have been retained as advocate
for the Duke of Anjou, the other for his Imperial Majesty. They were
both for regarding the title to that kingdom by the statute laws of
England: but finding them going out of my depth, I pressed forward to
Paul's Churchyard, where I listened with great attention to a learned
man, who gave the company an account of the deplorable state of France
during the minority of the deceased King.
"I then turned on my right hand into Fish-street, where the chief
politician of that quarter, upon hearing the news, (after having taken
a pipe of tobacco, and ruminated for some time,) 'If,' says he, 'the
King of France is certainly dead, we shall have plenty of mackerel
this season: our fishery will not be disturbed by privateers, as it
has been for these ten years past.' He afterwards considered how the
death of this great man would affect our pilchards, and by several
other remarks infused a general joy into his whole audience.
"I afterwards entered a by-coffee-house that stood at the upper end of
a narrow lane, where I met with a conjuror, engaged very warmly with a
laceman who was the great support of a neighbouring conventicle. The
matter in debate was whether the late French King was most like
Augustus Cæsar, or Nero. The controversy was carried on with great
heat on both sides, and as each of them looked upon me very frequently
during the course of their debate, I was under some apprehension that
they would appeal to me, and therefore laid down my penny at the bar,
and made the best of my way to Cheapside.
"I here gazed upon the signs for some time before I found one to my
purpose. The first object I met in the coffee-room was a person who
expressed a great grief for the death of the French King; but upon his
explaining himself, I found his sorrow did not arise from the loss of
the monarch, but for his having sold out of the Bank about three days
before he heard the news of it. Upon which a haberdasher, who was the
oracle of the Coffee-house, and had his circle of admirers about him,
called several to witness that he had declared his opinion, above a
week before, that the French King was certainly dead; to which he
added, that, considering the late advices we had received from France,
it was impossible that it could be otherwise. As he was laying these
together, and debating to his hearers with great authority, there came
a gentleman from Garraway's, who told us that there were several
letters from France just come in, with advice that the King was in
good health, and was gone out a hunting the very morning the post came
away; upon which the haberdasher stole off his hat that hung upon a
wooden peg by him, and retired to his shop with great confusion. This
intelligence put a stop to my travels, which I had prosecuted with so
much satisfaction; not being a little pleased to hear so many
different opinions upon so great an event, and to observe how
naturally, upon such a piece of news, every one is apt to consider it
to his particular interest and advantage."
FOOTNOTES:
[8] From the National Review, No. 8.
[9] We question whether the Coffee-house general business was entirely
given up immediately after the transition.
COFFEE-HOUSE SHARPERS IN 1776.
The following remarks by Sir John Fielding[10] upon the dangerous
classes to be found in our metropolitan Coffee-houses three-quarters
of a century since, are described as "necessary Cautions to all
Strangers resorting thereto."
"A stranger or foreigner should particularly frequent the
Coffee-houses in London. These are very numerous in every part of the
town; will give him the best insight into the different characters of
the people, and the justest notion of the inhabitants in general, of
all the houses of public resort these are the least dangerous. Yet,
some of these are not entirely free from sharpers. The deceivers of
this denomination are generally descended from families of some
repute, have had the groundwork of a genteel education, and are
capable of making a tolerable appearance. Having been equally profuse
of their own substance and character, and learned, by having been
undone, the ways of undoing, they lie in wait for those who have more
wealth and less knowledge of the town. By joining you in discourse, by
admiring what you say, by an officiousness to wait upon you, and to
assist you in anything you want to have or know, they insinuate
themselves into the company and acquaintance of strangers, whom they
watch every opportunity of fleecing. And if one finds in you the least
inclination to cards, dice, the billiard-table, bowling-green, or any
other sort of gaming, you are morally sure of being taken in. For this
set of gentry are adepts in all the arts of knavery and tricking. If,
therefore, you should observe a person, without any previous
acquaintance, paying you extraordinary marks of civility; if he puts
in for a share of your conversation with a pretended air of deference;
if he tenders his assistance, courts your acquaintance, and would be
suddenly thought your friend, avoid him as a pest; for these are the
usual baits by which the unwary are caught."
FOOTNOTE:
[10] 'The Magistrate: Description of London and Westminster,' 1776.
DON SALTERO'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
Among the curiosities of Old Chelsea, almost as well known as its
china, was the Coffee-house and Museum, No. 18, Cheyne Walk, opened by
a barber, named Salter, in 1695. Sir Hans Sloane contributed some of
the refuse gimcracks of his own collection; and Vice-Admiral Munden,
who had been long on the coast of Spain, where he had acquired a
fondness for Spanish titles, named the keeper of the house _Don
Saltero_, and his coffee-house and museum, _Don Saltero's_.
The place, however, would, in all probability, have enjoyed little
beyond its local fame, had not Sir Richard Steele immortalized the Don
and Don Saltero's in _The Tatler_, No. 34, June 28, 1700; wherein he
tells us of the necessity of travelling to know the world by his
journey for fresh air, no further than the village of Chelsea, of
which he fancied that he could give an immediate description, from the
five fields, where the robbers lie in wait, to the Coffee-house, where
the literati sit in council. But he found, even in a place so near
town as this, there were enormities and persons of eminence, whom he
before knew nothing of.
The Coffee-house was almost absorbed by the Museum. "When I came into
the Coffee-house," says Steele, "I had not time to salute the company,
before my eyes were diverted by ten thousand gimcracks round the room,
and on the ceiling. When my first astonishment was over, comes to me a
sage of thin and meagre countenance, which aspect made me doubt
whether reading or fretting had made it so philosophic; but I very
soon perceived him to be of that sort which the ancients call
'gingivistee,' in our language 'tooth-drawers,' I immediately had a
respect for the man; for these practical philosophers go upon a very
practical hypothesis, not to cure, but to take away the part affected.
My love of mankind made me very benevolent to Mr. Salter, for such is
the name of this eminent barber and antiquary."
The Don was famous for his punch and his skill on the fiddle; he also
drew teeth, and wrote verses; he described his museum in several
stanzas, one of which is--
"Monsters of all sorts are seen:
Strange things in nature as they grew so;
Some relicks of the Sheba Queen,
And fragments of the fam'd Bob Crusoe."
Steele then plunges into a deep thought why barbers should go further
in hitting the ridiculous than any other set of men; and maintains
that Don Saltero is descended in a right line, not from John
Tradescant, as he himself asserts, but from the memorable companion of
the Knight of Mancha. Steele then certifies that all the worthy
citizens who travel to see the Don's rarities, his double-barrelled
pistols, targets, coats of mail, his sclopeta, and sword of Toledo,
were left to his ancestor by the said Don Quixote, and by his ancestor
to all his progeny down to Saltero. Though Steele thus goes far in
favour of Don Saltero's great merit, he objects to his imposing
several names (without his licence) on the collection he has made, to
the abuse of the good people of England; one of which is particularly
calculated to deceive religious persons, to the great scandal of the
well-disposed, and may introduce heterodox opinions. [Among the
curiosities presented by Admiral Munden was a coffin, containing the
body or relics of a Spanish saint, who had wrought miracles.] "He
shows you a straw hat, which," says Steele, "I know to be made by
Madge Peskad, within three miles of Bedford; and tells you 'It is
Pontius Pilate's wife's chambermaid's sister's hat.' To my knowledge
of this very hat, it may be added that the covering of straw was never
used among the Jews, since it was demanded of them to make bricks
without it. Therefore, this is nothing but, under the specious
pretence of learning and antiquities, to impose upon the world. There
are other things which I cannot tolerate among his rarities, as, the
china figure of the lady in the glass-case; the Italian engine, for
the imprisonment of those who go abroad with it; both of which I
hereby order to be taken down, or else he may expect to have his
letters patent for making punch superseded, be debarred wearing his
muff next winter, or ever coming to London without his wife."
Babillard says that Salter had an old grey muff, and that, by wearing
it up to his nose, he was distinguishable at the distance of a quarter
of a mile. His wife was none of the best, being much addicted to
scolding; and Salter, who liked his glass, if he could make a trip to
London by himself, was in no haste to return.
Don Saltero's proved very attractive as an exhibition, and drew crowds
to the coffee-house. A catalogue was published, of which were printed
more than forty editions. Smollett, the novelist, was among the
donors. The catalogue, in 1760, comprehended the following
rarities:--Tigers' tusks; the Pope's candle; the skeleton of a
Guinea-pig; a fly-cap monkey; a piece of the true Cross; the Four
Evangelists' heads cut on a cherry-stone; the King of Morocco's
tobacco-pipe; Mary Queen of Scots' pincushion; Queen Elizabeth's
prayer-book; a pair of Nun's stockings; Job's ears, which grew on a
tree; a frog in a tobacco-stopper; and five hundred more odd relics!
The Don had a rival, as appears by "A Catalogue of the Rarities to be
seen at Adams's, at the Royal Swan, in Kingsland-road, leading from
Shoreditch Church, 1756." Mr. Adams exhibited, for the entertainment
of the curious, "Miss Jenny Cameron's shoes; Adam's eldest daughter's
hat; the heart of the famous Bess Adams, that was hanged at Tyburn
with Lawyer Carr, January 18, 1736-7; Sir Walter Raleigh's
tobacco-pipe; Vicar of Bray's clogs; engine to shell green peas with;
teeth that grew in a fish's belly; Black Jack's ribs; the very comb
that Abraham combed his son Isaac and Jacob's head with; Wat Tyler's
spurs; rope that cured Captain Lowry of the head-ach, ear-ach,
tooth-ach, and belly-ach; Adam's key of the fore and back door of the
Garden of Eden, &c., &c." These are only a few out of five hundred
others equally marvellous.
The Don, in 1723, issued a curious rhyming advertisement of his
Curiosities, dated "Chelsea Knackatory," and in one line he calls it
"My Museum Coffee-house."
In Dr. Franklin's _Life_ we read:--"Some gentlemen from the country
went by water to see the College, and Don Saltero's Curiosities, at
Chelsea." They were shown in the coffee-room till August, 1799, when
the collection was mostly sold or dispersed; a few gimcracks were left
until about 1825, when we were informed on the premises, they were
thrown away! The house is now a tavern, with the sign of "The Don
Saltero's Coffee-house."
The success of Don Saltero, in attracting visitors to his
coffee-house, induced the proprietor of the Chelsea Bun-house to make
a similar collection of rarities, to attract customers for the buns;
and to some extent it was successful.
SALOOP-HOUSES.
What was, in our time, occasionally sold at stalls in the streets of
London, with this name, was a decoction of sassafras; but it was
originally made from Salep, the roots of _Orchis mascula_, a common
plant of our meadows, the tubers of which, being cleaned and peeled,
are lightly browned in an oven. Salep was much recommended in the last
century by Dr. Percival, who stated that salep had the property of
concealing the taste of salt water, which property it was thought
might be turned to account in long sea-voyages. The root has been
considered as containing the largest portion of nutritious matter in
the smallest space; and when boiled, it was much used in this country
before the introduction of tea and coffee, and their greatly reduced
prices. Salep is now almost entirely disused in Great Britain; but we
remember many saloop-stalls in our streets. We believe the last house
in which it was sold, to have been Read's Coffee-house, in
Fleet-street. The landlord of the noted Mug-house, in Salisbury-square,
was one Read. (See CLUBS, p. 52.)
THE SMYRNA COFFEE-HOUSE,
In Pall Mall, was, in the reign of Queen Anne, famous for "that
cluster of wise-heads" found sitting every evening, from the left side
of the fire to the door. The following announcement in the _Tatler_,
No. 78, is amusing: "This is to give notice to all ingenious gentlemen
in and about the cities of London and Westminster, who have a mind to
be instructed in the noble sciences of music, poetry, and politics,
that they repair to the Smyrna Coffee-house, in Pall Mall, betwixt the
hours of eight and ten at night, where they may be instructed gratis,
with elaborate essays by word of mouth," on all or any of the
above-mentioned arts. The disciples are to prepare their bodies with
three dishes of bohea, and to purge their brains with two pinches of
snuff. If any young student gives indication of parts, by listening
attentively, or asking a pertinent question, one of the professors
shall distinguish him, by taking snuff out of his box in the presence
of the whole audience.
"N.B. The seat of learning is now removed from the corner of the
chimney, on the left hand towards the window, to the round table in
the middle of the floor over against the fire; a revolution much
lamented by the porters and chairmen, who were much edified through a
pane of glass that remained broken all the last summer."
Prior and Swift were much together at the Smyrna: we read of their
sitting there two hours, "receiving acquaintance;" and one entry of
Swift's tells us that he walked a little in the Park till Prior made
him go with him to the Smyrna Coffee-house. It seemed to be the place
to _talk politics_; but there is a more agreeable record of it in
association with our "Poet of the Year," thus given by Cunningham: "In
the printed copy of Thomson's proposals for publishing, by
subscription, the Four Seasons, with a Hymn on their succession, the
following note is appended:--'Subscriptions now taken in by the
author, at the Smyrna Coffee-house, Pall Mall.'"[11] We find the
Smyrna in a list of Coffee-Houses in 1810.
FOOTNOTE:
[11] The Dane Coffee-house, between the Upper and Lower Malls,
Hammersmith, was frequented by Thomson, who wrote here a part of his
_Winter_. On the Terrace resided, for many years, Arthur Murphy, and
Loutherbourg, the painter. The latter died there, in 1812.
ST. JAMES'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
This was the famous Whig Coffee-house from the time of Queen Anne till
late in the reign of George III. It was the last house but one on the
south-west corner of St. James's-street, and is thus mentioned in No.
1 of the _Tatler_: "Foreign and Domestic News you will have from St.
James's Coffee-house." It occurs also in the passage quoted at page
39, from the _Spectator_. The St. James's was much frequented by
Swift; letters for him were left here. In his Journal to Stella he
says: "I met Mr. Harley, and he asked me how long I had learnt the
trick of writing to myself? He had seen your letter through the glass
case at the Coffee-house, and would swear it was my hand." The letters
from Stella were enclosed under cover to Addison.
Elliot, who kept the coffee-house, was, on occasions, placed on a
friendly footing with his guests. Swift, in his Journal to Stella,
Nov. 19, 1710, records an odd instance of this familiarity: "This
evening I christened our coffee-man Elliot's child; when the rogue had
a most noble supper, and Steele and I sat amongst some scurvy company
over a bowl of punch."
In the first advertisement of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's _Town
Eclogues_, they are stated to have been read over at the St. James's
Coffee-house, when they were considered by the general voice to be
productions of a Lady of Quality. From the proximity of the house to
St. James's Palace, it was much frequented by the Guards; and we read
of its being no uncommon circumstance to see Dr. Joseph Warton at
breakfast in the St. James's Coffee-house, surrounded by officers of
the Guards, who listened with the utmost attention and pleasure to his
remarks.
To show the order and regularity observed at the St. James's, we may
quote the following advertisement, appended to the _Tatler_, No.
25:--"To prevent all mistakes that may happen among gentlemen of the
other end of the town, who come but once a week to St. James's
Coffee-house, either by miscalling the servants, or requiring such
things from them as are not properly within their respective
provinces; this is to give notice that Kidney, keeper of the
book-debts of the outlying customers, and observer of those who go off
without paying, having resigned that employment, is succeeded by John
Sowton; to whose place of enterer of messages and first
coffee-grinder, William Bird is promoted; and Samuel Burdock comes as
shoe-cleaner in the room of the said Bird."
But the St. James's is more memorable as the house where originated
Goldsmith's celebrated poem, _Retaliation_. The poet belonged to a
temporary association of men of talent, some of them members of the
Club, who dined together occasionally here. At these dinners he was
generally the last to arrive. On one occasion, when he was later than
usual, a whim seized the company to write epitaphs on him as "the late
Dr. Goldsmith," and several were thrown off in a playful vein. The
only one extant was written by Garrick, and has been preserved, very
probably, by its pungency:--
"Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll;
He wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll."
Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially coming from such a
quarter; and, by way of _retaliation_, he produced the famous poem, of
which Cumberland has left a very interesting account, but which Mr.
Forster, in his _Life of Goldsmith_, states to be "pure romance." The
poem itself, however, with what was prefixed to it when published,
sufficiently explains its own origin. What had formerly been abrupt
and strange in Goldsmith's manners, had now so visibly increased, as
to become matter of increased sport to such as were ignorant of its
cause; and a proposition made at one of the dinners, when he was
absent, to write a series of epitaphs upon him (his "country dialect"
and his awkward person) was agreed to and put in practice by several
of the guests. The active aggressors appear to have been Garrick,
Doctor Bernard, Richard Burke, and Caleb Whitefoord. Cumberland says
he, too, wrote an epitaph; but it was complimentary and grave, and
hence the grateful return he received. Mr. Forster considers Garrick's
epitaph to indicate the tone of all. This, with the rest, was read to
Goldsmith when he next appeared at the St. James's Coffee-house, where
Cumberland, however, says he never again met his friends. But "the
Doctor was called on for Retaliation," says the friend who published
the poem with that name, "and at their next meeting, produced the
following, which I think adds one leaf to his immortal wreath."
"_Retaliation_," says Sir Walter Scott, "had the effect of placing the
author on a more equal footing with his Society than he had ever
before assumed."
Cumberland's account differs from the version formerly received, which
intimates that the epitaphs were written before Goldsmith arrived:
whereas the pun, "the late Dr. Goldsmith," appears to have suggested
the writing of the epitaphs. In the _Retaliation_, Goldsmith has not
spared the characters and failings of his associates, but has drawn
them with satire, at once pungent and good-humoured. Garrick is
smartly chastised; Burke, the Dinner-bell of the House of Commons, is
not let off; and of all the more distinguished names of the Club,
Thomson, Cumberland, and Reynolds alone escape the lash of the
satirist. The former is not mentioned, and the two latter are even
dismissed with unqualified and affectionate applause.
Still, we quote Cumberland's account of the _Retaliation_, which is
very amusing from the closely circumstantial manner in which the
incidents are narrated, although they have so little relationship to
truth:--"It was upon a proposal started by Edmund Burke, that a party
of friends who had dined together at Sir Joshua Reynolds's and my
house, should meet at the St. James's Coffee-house, which accordingly
took place, and was repeated occasionally with much festivity and
good fellowship. Dr. Bernard, Dean of Derry; a very amiable and old
friend of mine, Dr. Douglas, since Bishop of Salisbury; Johnson, David
Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund and Richard
Burke, Hickey, with two or three others, constituted our party. At one
of these meetings an idea was suggested of extemporary epitaphs upon
the parties present: pen and ink were called for, and Garrick,
off-hand, wrote an epitaph with a good deal of humour, upon poor
Goldsmith, who was the first in jest, as he proved to be in reality,
that we committed to the grave. The Dean also gave him an epitaph, and
Sir Joshua illuminated the Dean's verses with a sketch of his bust in
pen-and-ink, inimitably caricatured. Neither Johnson nor Burke wrote
anything, and when I perceived that Oliver was rather sore, and seemed
to watch me with that kind of attention which indicated his
expectation of something in the same kind of burlesque with theirs; I
thought it time to press the joke no further, and wrote a few couplets
at a side-table, which, when I had finished, and was called upon by
the company to exhibit, Goldsmith, with much agitation, besought me to
spare him; and I was about to tear them, when Johnson wrested them out
of my hand, and in a loud voice read them at the table. I have now
lost recollection of them, and, in fact, they were little worth
remembering; but as they were serious and complimentary, the effect
upon Goldsmith was the more pleasing, for being so entirely
unexpected. The concluding line, which was the only one I can call to
mind, was:--
"'All mourn the poet, I lament the man.'
This I recollect, because he repeated it several times, and seemed
much gratified by it. At our next meeting he produced his epitaphs,
as they stand in the little posthumous poem above mentioned, and this
was the last time he ever enjoyed the company of his friends."[12]
Mr. Cunningham tells us that the St. James's was closed about 1806;
and a large pile of building looking down Pall Mall, erected on its
site.
The globular oil-lamp was first exhibited by its inventor, Michael
Cole, at the door of the St. James's Coffee-house, in 1709; in the
patent he obtained, it is mentioned as "a new kind of light."
FOOTNOTE:
[12] _Cumberland's Memoirs_, vol. i.
THE BRITISH COFFEE-HOUSE,
In Cockspur-street, "long a house of call for Scotchmen," has been
fortunate in its landladies. In 1759, it was kept by the sister of
Bishop Douglas, so well known for his works against Lauder and Bower,
which may explain its Scottish fame. At another period it was kept by
Mrs. Anderson, described in Mackenzie's _Life of Home_ as "a woman of
uncommon talents, and the most agreeable conversation."[13]
The British figures in a political faction of 1750, at which date
Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann: "The Argyll carried all the Scotch
against the turnpike; they were willing to be carried, for the Duke of
Bedford, in case it should have come into the Lords, had writ to the
sixteen Peers, to solicit their votes; but with so little difference,
that he enclosed all the letters under one cover directed to the
British Coffee-house."
FOOTNOTE:
[13] _Cunningham's Walpole_, vol. ii. p. 196, note.
WILL'S COFFEE-HOUSE.[14]
Will's, the predecessor of Button's, and even more celebrated than
that Coffee-house, was kept by William Urwin, and was the house on the
north side of Russell-street at the end of Bow-street--the corner
house--now occupied as a ham and beef shop, and numbered twenty-three.
"It was Dryden who made Will's Coffee-house the great resort of the
wits of his time." (_Pope_ and _Spence_). The room in which the poet
was accustomed to sit was on the first floor; and his place was the
place of honour by fire-side in the winter; and at the corner of the
balcony, looking over the street, in fine weather; he called the two
places his winter and his summer seat. This was called the dining-room
floor in the last century. The company did not sit in boxes, as
subsequently, but at various tables which were dispersed through the
room. Smoking was permitted in the public room: it was then so much in
vogue that it does not seem to have been considered a nuisance. Here,
as in other similar places of meeting, the visitors divided themselves
into parties; and we are told by Ward, that the young beaux and wits,
who seldom approached the principal table, thought it a great honour
to have a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box.
Dean Lockier has left this life-like picture of his interview with the
presiding genius at Will's:--"I was about seventeen when I first came
up to town," says the Dean, "an odd-looking boy, with short rough
hair, and that sort of awkwardness which one always brings up at first
out of the country with one. However, in spite of my bashfulness and
appearance, I used, now and then, to thrust myself into Will's, to
have the pleasure of seeing the most celebrated wits of that time, who
then resorted thither. The second time that ever I was there, Mr.
Dryden was speaking of his own things, as he frequently did,
especially of such as had been lately published. 'If anything of mine
is good,' says he, ''tis _Mac-Flecno_; and I value myself the more
upon it, because it is the first piece of ridicule written in
heroics.' On hearing this I plucked up my spirit so far as to say, in
a voice but just loud enough to be heard, 'that _Mac-Flecno_ was a
very fine poem, but that I had not imagined it to be the first that
was ever writ that way.' On this, Dryden turned short upon me, as
surprised at my interposing; asked me how long 'I had been a dealer in
poetry;' and added, with a smile, 'Pray, Sir, what is it that you did
imagine to have been writ so before?'--I named Boileau's _Lutrin_, and
Tassoni's _Secchia Rapita_, which I had read, and knew Dryden had
borrowed some strokes from each. ''Tis true,' said Dryden, 'I had
forgot them.' A little after, Dryden went out, and in going, spoke to
me again, and desired me to come and see him the next day. I was
highly delighted with the invitation; went to see him accordingly; and
was well acquainted with him after, as long as he lived."
Will's Coffee-house was the open market for libels and lampoons, the
latter named from the established burden formerly sung to them:--
"Lampone, lampone, camerada lampone."
There was a drunken fellow, named Julian, who was a characterless
frequenter of Will's, and Sir Walter Scott has given this account of
him and his vocation:--
"Upon the general practice of writing lampoons, and the necessity of
finding some mode of dispersing them, which should diffuse the scandal
widely while the authors remained concealed, was founded the
self-erected office of Julian, Secretary, as he calls himself, to the
Muses. This person attended Will's, the Wits' Coffee-house, as it was
called; and dispersed among the crowds who frequented that place of
gay resort copies of the lampoons which had been privately
communicated to him by their authors. 'He is described,' says Mr.
Malone, 'as a very drunken fellow, and at one time was confined for a
liable.' Several satires were written, in the form of addresses to him
as well as the following. There is one among the _State Poems_
beginning--
"'Julian, in verse, to ease thy wants I write,
Not moved by envy, malice, or by spite,
Or pleased with the empty names of wit and sense,
But merely to supply thy want of pence:
This did inspire my muse, when out at heel,
She saw her needy secretary reel;
Grieved that a man, so useful to the age,
Should foot it in so mean an equipage;
A crying scandal that the fees of sense
Should not be able to support the expense
Of a poor scribe, who never thought of wants,
When able to procure a cup of Nantz.'
"Another, called a 'Consoling Epistle to Julian,' is said to have been
written by the Duke of Buckingham.
"From a passage in one of the _Letters from the Dead to the Living_,
we learn, that after Julian's death, and the madness of his successor,
called Summerton, lampoon felt a sensible decay; and there was no more
that brisk spirit of verse, that used to watch the follies and vices
of the men and women of figure, that they could not start new ones
faster than lampoons exposed them."
How these lampoons were concocted we gather from Bays, in the _Hind
and the Panther transversed_:--"'Tis a trifle hardly worth owning; I
was 'tother day at Will's, throwing out something of that nature; and,
i' gad, the hint was taken, and out came that picture; indeed, the
poor fellow was so civil as to present me with a dozen of 'em for my
friends; I think I have here one in my pocket.... Ay, ay, I can do it
if I list, tho' you must not think I have been so dull as to mind
these things myself; but 'tis the advantage of our Coffee-house, that
from their talk, one may write a very good polemical discourse,
without ever troubling one's head with the books of controversy."
Tom Brown describes "a Wit and a Beau set up with little or no
expense. A pair of red stockings and a sword-knot set up one, and
peeping once a day in at Will's, and two or three second-hand sayings,
the other."
Pepys, one night, going to fetch home his wife, stopped in Covent
Garden, at the Great Coffee-house there, as he called Will's, where he
never was before: "Where," he adds, "Dryden, the poet (I knew at
Cambridge), and all the Wits of the town, and Harris the player, and
Mr. Hoole of our College. And had I had time then, or could at other
times, it will be good coming thither, for there, I perceive, is very
witty and pleasant discourse. But I could not tarry; and, as it was
late, they were all ready to go away."
Addison passed each day alike, and much in the manner that Dryden did.
Dryden employed his mornings in writing, dined _en famille_, and then
went to Will's, "only he came home earlier o' nights."
Pope, when very young, was impressed with such veneration for Dryden,
that he persuaded some friends to take him to Will's Coffee-house, and
was delighted that he could say that he had seen Dryden. Sir Charles
Wogan, too, brought up Pope from the Forest of Windsor, to dress _à la
mode_, and introduce at Will's Coffee-house. Pope afterwards described
Dryden as "a plump man with a down look, and not very conversible;"
and Cibber could tell no more "but that he remembered him a decent old
man, arbitor of critical disputes at Will's." Prior sings of--
"the younger Stiles,
Whom Dryden pedagogues at Will's!"
Most of the hostile criticisms on his Plays, which Dryden has noticed
in his various Prefaces, appear to have been made at his favourite
haunt, Will's Coffee-house.
Dryden is generally said to have been returning from Will's to his
house in Gerard-street, when he was cudgelled in Rose-street by three
persons hired for the purpose by Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in the
winter of 1679. The assault, or "the Rose-alley Ambuscade," certainly
took place; but it is not so certain that Dryden was on his way from
Will's, and he then lived in Long Acre, not Gerard-street.
It is worthy of remark that Swift was accustomed to speak
disparagingly of Will's, as in his _Rhapsody on Poetry_:--
"Be sure at Will's the following day
Lie snug, and hear what critics say;
And if you find the general vogue
Pronounces you a stupid rogue,
Damns all your thoughts as low and little;
Sit still, and swallow down your spittle."
Swift thought little of the frequenters of Will's: he used to say,
"the worst conversation he ever heard in his life was at Will's
Coffee-house, where the wits (as they were called) used formerly to
assemble; that is to say, five or six men, who had writ plays or at
least prologues, or had a share in a miscellany, came thither, and
entertained one another with their trifling composures, in so
important an air as if they had been the noblest efforts of human
nature, or that the fate of kingdoms depended on them."
In the first number of the _Tatler_, Poetry is promised under the
article of Will's Coffee-house. The place, however, changed after
Dryden's time: "you used to see songs, epigrams, and satires in the
hands of every man you met; you have now only a pack of cards; and
instead of the cavils about the turn of the expression, the elegance
of the style, and the like, the learned now dispute only about the
truth of the game." "In old times, we used to sit upon a play here,
after it was acted, but now the entertainment's turned another way."
The _Spectator_ is sometimes seen "thrusting his head into a round of
politicians at Will's, and listening with great attention to the
narratives that are made in these little circular audiences." Then, we
have as an instance of no one member of human society but that would
have some little pretension for some degree in it, "like him who came
to Will's Coffee-house upon the merit of having writ a posie of a
ring." And, "Robin, the porter who waits at Will's, is the best man in
town for carrying a billet: the fellow has a thin body, swift step,
demure looks, sufficient sense, and knows the town."[15]
After Dryden's death in 1701, Will's continued for about ten years to
be still the Wits' Coffee-house, as we see by Ned Ward's account, and
by that in the _Journey through England_ in 1722.
Pope entered with keen relish into society, and courted the
correspondence of the town wits and coffee-house critics. Among his
early friends was Mr. Henry Cromwell, one of the _cousinry_ of the
Protector's family: he was a bachelor, and spent most of his time in
London; he had some pretensions to scholarship and literature, having
translated several of Ovid's Elegies, for Tonson's Miscellany. With
Wycherley, Gay, Dennis, the popular actors and actresses of the day,
and with all the frequenters of Will's, Cromwell was familiar. He had
done more than take a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box, which was a
point of high ambition and honour at Will's; he had quarrelled with
him about a frail poetess, Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, whom Dryden had
christened Corinna, and who was also known as Sappho. Gay
characterized this literary and eccentric beau as
"Honest, hatless Cromwell, with red breeches;"
it being his custom to carry his hat in his hand when walking with
ladies. What with ladies and literature, rehearsals and reviews, and
critical attention to the quality of his coffee and Brazil snuff,
Henry Cromwell's time was fully occupied in town. Cromwell was a
dangerous acquaintance for Pope at the age of sixteen or seventeen,
but he was a very agreeable one. Most of Pope's letters to his friend
are addressed to him at the Blue Ball, in Great Wild-street, near
Drury-lane; and others to "Widow Hambledon's Coffee-house at the end
of Princes-street, near Drury-lane, London." Cromwell made one visit
to Binfield; on his return to London, Pope wrote to him, "referring to
the ladies in particular," and to his favourite coffee:
"As long as Mocha's happy tree shall grow,
While berries crackle, or while mills shall go;
While smoking streams from silver spouts shall glide
Or China's earth receive the sable tide,
While Coffee shall to British nymphs be dear,
While fragrant steams the bended head shall cheer,
Or grateful bitters shall delight the taste,
So long her honours, name, and praise shall last."
Even at this early period Pope seems to have relied for relief from
headache to the steam of coffee, which he inhaled for this purpose
throughout the whole of his life.[16]
The Taverns and Coffee-houses supplied the place of the Clubs we have
since seen established. Although no exclusive subscription belonged to
any of these, we find by the account which Colley Cibber gives of his
first visit to Will's, in Covent Garden, that it required an
introduction to this Society not to be considered as an impertinent
intruder. There the veteran Dryden had long presided over all the
acknowledged wits and poets of the day, and those who had the
pretension to be reckoned among them. The politicians assembled at the
St. James's Coffee-house, from whence all the articles of political
news in the first _Tatlers_ are dated. The learned frequented the
Grecian Coffee-house in Devereux-court. Locket's, in Gerard-street,
Soho, and Pontac's, were the fashionable taverns where the young and
gay met to dine: and White's and other chocolate houses seem to have
been the resort of the same company in the morning. Three o'clock, or
at latest four, was the dining-hour of the most fashionable persons in
London, for in the country no such late hours had been adopted. In
London, therefore, soon after six, the men began to assemble at the
coffee-house they frequented if they were not setting in for hard
drinking, which seems to have been much less indulged in private
houses than in taverns. The ladies made visits to one another, which
it must be owned was a much less waste of time when considered as an
amusement for the evening, than now, as being a morning occupation.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Will's Coffee-house first had the title of the Red Cow, then of
the Rose, and, we believe, is the same house alluded to in the
pleasant story in the second number of the _Tatler_:--
"Supper and friends expect we at the Rose."
The Rose, however, was a common sign for houses of public
entertainment.
[15] _The Spectator_, No. 398.
[16] Carruthers: Life of Pope.
BUTTON'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
Will's was the great resort for the wits of Dryden's time, after whose
death it was transferred to Button's. Pope describes the houses as
"opposite each other, in Russell-street, Covent Garden," where Addison
established Daniel Button, in a new house, about 1712; and his fame,
after the production of _Cato_, drew many of the Whigs thither. Button
had been servant to the Countess of Warwick. The house is more
correctly described as "over against Tom's, near the middle of the
south side of the street."
Addison was the great patron of Button's; but it is said that when he
suffered any vexation from his Countess, he withdrew the company from
Button's house. His chief companions, before he married Lady Warwick,
were Steele, Budgell, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Brett. He
used to breakfast with one or other of them in St. James's-place, dine
at taverns with them, then to Button's, and then to some tavern again,
for supper in the evening; and this was the usual round of his life,
as Pope tells us, in Spence's _Anecdotes_; where Pope also says:
"Addison usually studied all the morning, then met his party at
Button's, dined there, and stayed five or six hours; and sometimes far
into the night. I was of the company for about a year, but found it
too much for me: it hurt my health, and so I quitted it." Again:
"There had been a coldness between me and Mr. Addison for some time,
and we had not been in company together for a good while anywhere but
at Button's Coffee-house, where I used to see him almost every day."
Here Pope is reported to have said of Patrick, the lexicographer, that
"a dictionary-maker might know the meaning of one word, but not of two
put together."
Button's was the receiving-house for contributions to _The Guardian_,
for which purpose was put up a lion's head letter-box, in imitation of
the celebrated lion at Venice, as humorously announced. Thus:--
"N.B.--Mr. Ironside has, within five weeks last past, muzzled three
lions, gorged five, and killed one. On Monday next the skin of the
dead one will be hung up, _in terrorem_, at Button's Coffee-house,
over against Tom's in Covent Garden."[17]
"Button's Coffee-house,--
"Mr. Ironside, I have observed that this day you make mention of
Will's Coffee-house, as a place where people are too polite to hold a
man in discourse by the button. Everybody knows your honour frequents
this house, therefore they will take an advantage against me, and say
if my company was as civil as that at Will's. You would say so.
Therefore pray your honour do not be afraid of doing me justice,
because people would think it may be a conceit below you on this
occasion to name the name of your humble servant, Daniel Button.--The
young poets are in the back room, and take their places as you
directed."[18]
"I intend to publish once every week the roarings of the Lion, and
hope to make him roar so loud as to be heard over all the British
nation.
"I have, I know not how, been drawn into tattle of myself, _more
majorum_, almost the length of a whole _Guardian_. I shall therefore
fill up the remaining part of it with what still relates to my own
person, and my correspondents. Now I would have them all know that on
the 20th instant it is my intention to erect a Lion's Head, in
imitation of those I have described in Venice, through which all the
private commonwealth is said to pass. This head is to open a most wide
and voracious mouth, which shall take in such letters and papers as
are conveyed to me by my correspondents, it being my resolution to
have a particular regard to all such matters as come to my hands
through the mouth of the Lion. There will be under it a box, of which
the key will be in my own custody, to receive such papers as are
dropped into it. Whatever the Lion swallows I shall digest for the use
of the publick. This head requires some time to finish, the workmen
being resolved to give it several masterly touches, and to represent
it as ravenous as possible. It will be set up in Button's
Coffee-house, in Covent Garden, who is directed to shew the way to the
Lion's Head, and to instruct any young author how to convey his works
into the mouth of it with safety and secrecy."[19]
"I think myself obliged to acquaint the publick, that the Lion's Head,
of which I advertised them about a fortnight ago, is now erected at
Button's Coffee-house, in Russell-street, Covent Garden, where it
opens its mouth at all hours for the reception of such intelligence as
shall be thrown into it. It is reckoned an excellent piece of
workmanship, and was designed by a great hand in imitation of the
antique Egyptian lion, the face of it being compounded out of that of
a lion and a wizard. The features are strong and well furrowed. The
whiskers are admired by all that have seen them. It is planted on the
western side of the Coffee-house, holding its paws under the chin,
upon a box, which contains everything that he swallows. He is, indeed,
a proper emblem of knowledge and action, being all head and paws."[20]
"Being obliged, at present, to attend a particular affair of my own, I
do empower my printer to look into the arcana of the lion, and select
out of them such as may be of publick utility; and Mr. Button is
hereby authorized and commanded to give my said printer free ingress
and egress to the lion, without any hindrance, lest, or molestation
whatsoever, until such time as he shall receive orders to the
contrary. And, for so doing, this shall be his warrant."[21]
"My Lion, whose jaws are at all times open to intelligence, informs
me that there are a few enormous weapons still in being; but that they
are to be met with only in gaming-houses and some of the obscure
retreats of lovers, in and about Drury-lane and Covent Garden."[22]
This memorable Lion's Head was tolerably well carved: through the
mouth the letters were dropped into a till at Button's; and beneath
were inscribed these two lines from Martial:--
"Cervantur magnis isti Cervicibus ungues:
Non nisi delictâ pascitur ille ferâ."
The head was designed by Hogarth, and is etched in Ireland's
_Illustrations_. Lord Chesterfield is said to have once offered for
the Head fifty guineas. From Button's it was removed to the
Shakspeare's Head Tavern, under the Piazza, kept by a person named
Tomkyns; and in 1751, was, for a short time, placed in the Bedford
Coffee-house immediately adjoining the Shakspeare, and there employed
as a letter-box by Dr. John Hill, for his _Inspector_. In 1769,
Tomkyns was succeeded by his waiter, Campbell, as proprietor of the
tavern and lion's head, and by him the latter was retained until Nov.
8, 1804, when it was purchased by Mr. Charles Richardson, of
Richardson's Hotel, for £17. 10_s._, who also possessed the original
sign of the Shakspeare's Head. After Mr. Richardson's death in 1827,
the Lion's Head devolved to his son, of whom it was bought by the Duke
of Bedford, and deposited at Woburn Abbey, where it still remains.
Pope was subjected to much annoyance and insult at Button's. Sir
Samuel Garth wrote to Gay, that everybody was pleased with Pope's
Translation, "but a few at Button's;" to which Gay adds, to Pope, "I
am confirmed that at Button's your character is made very free with,
as to morals, etc."
Cibber, in a letter to Pope, says:--"When you used to pass your hours
at Button's, you were even there remarkable for your satirical itch of
provocation; scarce was there a gentleman of any pretension to wit,
whom your unguarded temper had not fallen upon in some biting epigram,
among which you once caught a pastoral Tartar, whose resentment, that
your punishment might be proportionate to the smart of your poetry,
had stuck up a birchen rod in the room, to be ready whenever you might
come within reach of it; and at this rate you writ and rallied and
writ on, till you rhymed yourself quite out of the coffee-house." The
"pastoral Tartar" was Ambrose Philips, who, says Johnson, "hung up a
rod at Button's, with which he threatened to chastise Pope."
Pope, in a letter to Craggs, thus explains the affair:--"Mr. Philips
did express himself with much indignation against me one evening at
Button's Coffee-house, (as I was told,) saying that I was entered into
a cabal with Dean Swift and others, to write against the Whig
interest, and in particular to undermine his own reputation and that
of his friends, Steele and Addison; but Mr. Philips never opened his
lips to my face, on this or any like occasion, though I was almost
every night in the same room with him, nor ever offered me any
indecorum. Mr. Addison came to me a night or two after Philips had
talked in this idle manner, and assured me of his disbelief of what
had been said, of the friendship we should always maintain, and
desired I would say nothing further of it. My Lord Halifax did me the
honour to stir in this matter, by speaking to several people to
obviate a false aspersion, which might have done me no small prejudice
with one party. However, Philips did all he could secretly to continue
the report with the Hanover Club, and kept in his hands the
subscriptions paid for me to him, as secretary to that Club. The heads
of it have since given him to understand, that they take it ill; but
(upon the terms I ought to be with such a man,) I would not ask him
for this money, but commissioned one of the players, his equals, to
receive it. This is the whole matter; but as to the secret grounds of
this malignity, they will make a very pleasant history when we meet."
Another account says that the rod was hung up at the bar of Button's,
and that Pope avoided it by remaining at home--"his usual custom."
Philips was known for his courage and superior dexterity with the
sword: he afterwards became justice of the peace, and used to mention
Pope, whenever he could get a man in authority to listen to him, as an
enemy to the Government.
At Button's the leading company, particularly Addison and Steele, met
in large flowing flaxen wigs. Sir Godfrey Kneller, too, was a
frequenter.
The master died in 1731, when in the _Daily Advertiser_, Oct. 5,
appeared the following:--"On Sunday morning, died, after three days'
illness, Mr. Button, who formerly kept Button's Coffee-house, in
Russell-street, Covent Garden; a very noted house for wits, being the
place where the Lyon produced the famous _Tatlers_ and _Spectators_,
written by the late Mr. Secretary Addison and Sir Richard Steele,
Knt., which works will transmit their names with honour to posterity."
Mr. Cunningham found in the vestry-books of St. Paul's, Covent Garden:
"1719, April 16. Received of Mr. Daniel Button, for two places in the
pew No. 18, on the south side of the north Isle,--2_l._ 2_s._" J. T.
Smith states that a few years after Button, the Coffee-house declined,
and Button's name appeared in the books of St. Paul's, as receiving an
allowance from the parish.
Button's continued in vogue until Addison's death and Steele's
retirement into Wales, after which the house was deserted; the
coffee-drinkers went to the Bedford Coffee-house, the dinner-parties
to the Shakspeare.
Among other wits who frequented Button's were Swift, Arbuthnot,
Savage, Budgell, Martin Folkes, and Drs. Garth and Armstrong. In 1720,
Hogarth mentions "four drawings in Indian ink" of the characters at
Button's Coffee-house. In these were sketches of Arbuthnot, Addison,
Pope, (as it is conjectured,) and a certain Count Viviani, identified
years afterwards by Horace Walpole, when the drawings came under his
notice. They subsequently came into Ireland's possession.[23]
Jemmy Maclaine, or M'Clean, the fashionable highwayman, was a frequent
visitor at Button's. Mr. John Taylor, of the _Sun_ newspaper,
describes Maclaine as a tall, showy, good-looking man. A Mr. Donaldson
told Taylor that, observing Maclaine paid particular attention to the
bar-maid of the Coffee-house, the daughter of the landlord, he gave a
hint to the father of Maclaine's dubious character. The father
cautioned the daughter against the highwayman's addresses, and
imprudently told her by whose advice he put her on her guard; she as
imprudently told Maclaine. The next time Donaldson visited the
Coffee-room, and was sitting in one of the boxes, Maclaine entered,
and in a loud tone said, "Mr. Donaldson, I wish to _spake_ to you in a
private room." Mr. D. being unarmed, and naturally afraid of being
alone with such a man, said, in answer, that as nothing could pass
between them that he did not wish the whole world to know, he begged
leave to decline the invitation. "Very well," said Maclaine, as he
left the room, "we shall meet again." A day or two after, as Mr.
Donaldson was walking near Richmond, in the evening, he saw Maclaine
on horseback; but, fortunately, at that moment, a gentleman's carriage
appeared in view, when Maclaine immediately turned his horse towards
the carriage, and Donaldson hurried into the protection of Richmond as
fast as he could. But for the appearance of the carriage, which
presented better prey, it is probable that Maclaine would have shot
Mr. Donaldson immediately.
Maclaine's father was an Irish Dean; his brother was a Calvinist
minister in great esteem at the Hague. Maclaine himself has been a
grocer in Welbeck-street, but losing a wife that he loved extremely,
and by whom he had one little girl, he quitted his business with two
hundred pounds in his pocket, which he soon spent, and then took to
the road with only one companion, Plunket, a journeyman apothecary.
Maclaine was taken in the autumn of 1750, by selling a laced waistcoat
to a pawnbroker in Monmouth-street, who happened to carry it to the
very man who had just sold the lace. Maclaine impeached his companion,
Plunket, but he was not taken. The former got into verse: Gray, in his
_Long Story_, sings:
"A sudden fit of ague shook him;
He stood as mute as poor M'Lean."
Button's subsequently became a private house, and here Mrs. Inchbald
lodged, probably, after the death of her sister, for whose support she
practised such noble and generous self-denial. Mrs. Inchbald's income
was now 172_l._ a year, and we are told that she now went to reside in
a boarding-house, where she enjoyed more of the comforts of life.
Phillips, the publisher, offered her a thousand pounds for her
Memoirs, which she declined. She died in a boarding-house at
Kensington, on the 1st of August, 1821; leaving about 6000_l._
judiciously divided amongst her relatives. Her simple and parsimonious
habits were very strange. "Last Thursday," she writes, "I finished
scouring my bedroom, while a coach with a coronet and two footmen
waited at my door to take me an airing."
"One of the most agreeable memories connected with Button's," says
Leigh Hunt, "is that of Garth, a man whom, for the sprightliness and
generosity of his nature, it is a pleasure to name. He was one of the
most amiable and intelligent of a most amiable and intelligent class
of men--the physicians."
FOOTNOTES:
[17] _The Guardian_, No. 71.
[18] _The Guardian_, No. 85.
[19] _The Guardian_, No. 93.
[20] _The Guardian_, No. 114.
[21] _The Guardian_, No. 142.
[22] _The Guardian_, No. 171.
[23] From Mr. Sala's vivid "William Hogarth;" Cornhill Magazine, vol.
i. p. 428.
DEAN SWIFT AT BUTTON'S.
It was just after Queen Anne's accession that Swift made acquaintance
with the leaders of the wits at Button's. Ambrose Philips refers to
him as the strange clergyman whom the frequenters of the Coffee-house
had observed for some days. He knew no one, no one knew him. He would
lay his hat down on a table, and walk up and down at a brisk pace for
half an hour without speaking to any one, or seeming to pay attention
to anything that was going forward. Then he would snatch up his hat,
pay his money at the bar, and walk off, without having opened his
lips. The frequenters of the room had christened him "the mad parson."
One evening, as Mr. Addison and the rest were observing him, they saw
him cast his eyes several times upon a gentleman in boots, who seemed
to be just come out of the country. At last, Swift advanced towards
this bucolic gentleman, as if intending to address him. They were all
eager to hear what the dumb parson had to say, and immediately quitted
their seats to get near him. Swift went up to the country gentleman,
and in a very abrupt manner, without any previous salute, asked him,
"Pray, Sir, do you know any good weather in the world?" After staring
a little at the singularity of Swift's manner and the oddity of the
question, the gentleman answered, "Yes, Sir, I thank God I remember a
great deal of good weather in my time."--"That is more," replied
Swift, "than I can say; I never remember any weather that was not too
hot or too cold, too wet or too dry; but, however God Almighty
contrives it, at the end of the year 'tis all very well."
Sir Walter Scott gives, upon the authority of Dr. Wall, of Worcester,
who had it from Dr. Arbuthnot himself, the following anecdote--less
coarse than the version generally told. Swift was seated by the fire
at Button's: there was sand on the floor of the coffee-room, and
Arbuthnot, with a design to play upon this original figure, offered
him a letter, which he had been just addressing, saying at the same
time, "There--sand that."--"I have got no sand," answered Swift, "but
I can help you to a little _gravel_." This he said so significantly,
that Arbuthnot hastily snatched back his letter, to save it from the
fate of the capital of Lilliput.
TOM'S COFFEE-HOUSE,
In Birchin-lane, Cornhill, though in the main a mercantile resort,
acquired some celebrity from its having been frequented by Garrick,
who, to keep up an interest in the City, appeared here about twice in
a winter at 'Change time, when it was the rendezvous of young
merchants. Hawkins says: "After all that has been said of Mr. Garrick,
envy must own that he owed his celebrity to his merit; and yet, of
that himself seemed so diffident, that he practised sundry little but
innocent arts, to insure the favour of the public:" yet, he did more.
When a rising actor complained to Mrs. Garrick that the newspapers
abused him, the widow replied, "You should write your own criticisms;
David always did."
One evening, Murphy was at Tom's, when Colley Cibber was playing at
whist, with an old general for his partner. As the cards were dealt to
him, he took up every one in turn, and expressed his disappointment at
each indifferent one. In the progress of the game he did not follow
suit, and his partner said, "What! have you not a spade, Mr. Cibber?"
The latter, looking at his cards, answered, "Oh yes, a thousand;"
which drew a very peevish comment from the general. On which, Cibber,
who was shockingly addicted to swearing, replied, "Don't be angry, for
---- I can play ten times worse if I like."
THE BEDFORD COFFEE-HOUSE, IN COVENT GARDEN.
This celebrated resort once attracted so much attention as to have
published, "Memoirs of the Bedford Coffee-house," two editions, 1751
and 1763. It stood "under the Piazza, in Covent Garden," in the
north-west corner, near the entrance to the theatre, and has long
ceased to exist.
In _The Connoisseur_, No. 1, 1754, we are assured that "this
Coffee-house is every night crowded with men of parts. Almost every
one you meet is a polite scholar and a wit. Jokes and bon-mots are
echoed from box to box: every branch of literature is critically
examined, and the merit of every production of the press, or
performance of the theatres, weighed and determined."
And in the above-named _Memoirs_, we read that "this spot has been
signalized for many years as the emporium of wit, the seat of
criticism, and the standard of taste.--Names of those who frequented
the house:--Foote, Mr. Fielding, Mr. Woodward, Mr. Leone, Mr. Murphy,
Mopsy, Dr. Arne. Dr. Arne was the only man in a suit of velvet in the
dog-days."
Stacie kept the Bedford when John and Henry Fielding, Hogarth,
Churchill, Woodward, Lloyd, Dr. Goldsmith, and many others met there
and held a gossiping shilling rubber club. Henry Fielding was a very
merry fellow.
The _Inspector_ appears to have given rise to this reign of the
Bedford, when there was placed here the Lion from Button's, which
proved so serviceable to Steele, and once more fixed the dominion of
wit in Covent Garden.
The reign of wit and pleasantry did not, however, cease at the Bedford
at the demise of the _Inspector_. A race of punsters next succeeded. A
particular box was allotted to this occasion, out of the hearing of
the lady at the bar, that the _double entendres_, which were sometimes
very indelicate, might not offend her.
The Bedford was beset with scandalous nuisances, of which the
following letter, from Arthur Murphy to Garrick, April 10, 1769,
presents a pretty picture:
"Tiger Roach (who used to bully at the Bedford Coffee-house because
his name was Roach) is set up by Wilkes's friends to burlesque Luttrel
and his pretensions. I own I do not know a more ridiculous
circumstance than to be a joint candidate with the Tiger. O'Brien used
to take him off very pleasantly, and perhaps you may, from his
representation, have some idea of this important wight. He used to sit
with a half-starved look, a black patch upon his cheek, pale with the
idea of murder, or with rank cowardice, a quivering lip, and a
downcast eye. In that manner he used to sit at a table all alone, and
his soliloquy, interrupted now and then with faint attempts to throw
off a little saliva, was to the following effect:--'Hut! hut! a
mercer's 'prentice with a bag-wig;--d--n my s--l, if I would not
skiver a dozen of them like larks! Hut! hut! I don't understand such
airs!--I'd cudgel him back, breast, and belly, for three skips of a
louse!--How do you do, Pat! Hut! hut! God's blood--Larry, I'm glad to
see you;--'Prentices! a fine thing indeed!--Hut! hut! How do you,
Dominick!--D--n my s--l, what's here to do!' These were the
meditations of this agreeable youth. From one of these reveries he
started up one night, when I was there, called a Mr. Bagnell out of
the room, and most heroically stabbed him in the dark, the other
having no weapon to defend himself with. In this career the Tiger
persisted, till at length a Mr. Lennard brandished a whip over his
head, and stood in a menacing attitude, commanding him to ask pardon
directly. The Tiger shrank from the danger, and with a faint voice
pronounced--'Hut! what signifies it between you and me? Well! well! I
ask your pardon,' 'Speak louder, sir; I don't hear a word you say.'
And indeed he was so very tall, that it seemed as if the sound, sent
feebly from below, could not ascend to such a height. This is the hero
who is to figure at Brentford."
Foote's favourite Coffee-house was the Bedford. He was also a constant
frequenter of Tom's, and took a lead in the Club held there, and
already described.[24]
Dr. Barrowby, the well-known newsmonger of the Bedford, and the
satirical critic of the day, has left this whole-length sketch of
Foote:--"One evening (he says), he saw a young man extravagantly
dressed out in a frock suit of green and silver lace, bag-wig, sword,
bouquet, and point-ruffles, enter the room (at the Bedford), and
immediately join the critical circle at the upper end. Nobody
recognised him; but such was the ease of his bearing, and the point of
humour and remark with which he at once took up the conversation, that
his presence seemed to disconcert no one, and a sort of pleased buzz
of 'who is he?' was still going round the room unanswered, when a
handsome carriage stopped at the door; he rose, and quitted the room,
and the servants announced that his name was Foote, that he was a
young gentleman of family and fortune, a student of the Inner Temple,
and that the carriage had called for him on its way to the assembly of
a lady of fashion." Dr. Barrowby once turned the laugh against Foote
at the Bedford, when he was ostentatiously showing his gold repeater,
with the remark--"Why, my watch does not go!" "It soon _will go_,"
quietly remarked the Doctor. Young Collins, the poet, who came to town
in 1744 to seek his fortune, made his way to the Bedford, where Foote
was supreme among the wits and critics. Like Foote, Collins was fond
of fine clothes, and walked about with a feather in his hat, very
unlike a young man who had not a single guinea he could call his own.
A letter of the time tells us that "Collins was an acceptable
companion everywhere; and among the gentlemen who loved him for a
genius, may be reckoned the Doctors Armstrong, Barrowby, Hill, Messrs.
Quin, Garrick, and Foote, who frequently took his opinion upon their
pieces before they were seen by the public. He was particularly
noticed by the geniuses who frequented the Bedford and Slaughter's
Coffee-houses."[25]
Ten years later (1754) we find Foote again supreme in his critical
corner at the Bedford. The regular frequenters of the room strove to
get admitted to his party at supper; and others got as nearly as they
could to the table, as the only humour flowed from Foote's tongue. The
Bedford was now in its highest repute.
Foote and Garrick often met at the Bedford, and many and sharp were
their encounters. They were the two great rivals of the day. Foote
usually attacked, and Garrick, who had many weak points, was mostly
the sufferer. Garrick, in early life, had been in the wine trade, and
had supplied the Bedford with wine; he was thus described by Foote as
living in Durham-yard, with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar,
calling himself a wine-merchant. How Foote must have abused the
Bedford wine of this period!
One night, Foote came into the Bedford, where Garrick was seated, and
there gave him an account of a most wonderful actor he had just seen.
Garrick was on the tenters of suspense, and there Foote kept him a
full hour. At last Foote, compassionating the suffering listener,
brought the attack to a close by asking Garrick what he thought of Mr.
Pitt's histrionic talents, when Garrick, glad of the release, declared
that if Pitt had chosen the stage, he might have been the first actor
upon it.
One night, Garrick and Foote were about to leave the Bedford together,
when the latter, in paying the bill, dropped a guinea; and not finding
it at once, said, "Where on earth can it be gone to?"--"Gone to the
devil, I think," replied Garrick, who had assisted in the
search.--"Well said, David!" was Foote's reply; "let you alone for
making a guinea go further than anybody else."
Churchill's quarrel with Hogarth began at the shilling rubber club, in
the parlour of the Bedford; when Hogarth used some very insulting
language towards Churchill, who resented it in the _Epistle_. This
quarrel showed more venom than wit:--"Never," says Walpole, "did two
angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity."
Woodward, the comedian, mostly lived at the Bedford, was intimate with
Stacie, the landlord, and gave him his (W.'s) portrait, with a mask in
his hand, one of the early pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Stacie
played an excellent game at whist. One morning, about two o'clock, one
of his waiters awoke him to tell him that a nobleman had knocked him
up, and had desired him to call his master to play a rubber with him
for one hundred guineas. Stacie got up, dressed himself, won the
money, and was in bed and asleep, all within an hour.
Of two houses in the Piazza, built for Francis, Earl of Bedford, we
obtain some minute information from the lease granted in 1634, to Sir
Edmund Verney, Knight Marshal to King Charles I.; these two houses
being just then erected as part of the Piazza. There are also included
in the lease the "yardes, stables, coach-houses, and gardens now layd,
or hereafter to be layd, to the said messuages," which description of
the premises seems to identify them as the two houses at the southern
end of the Piazza, adjoining to Great Russell-street, and now occupied
as the Bedford Coffee-house and Hotel. They are either the same
premises, or they immediately adjoin the premises, occupied a century
later as the Bedford Coffee-house. (Mr. John Bruce, _Archæologia_,
XXXV. 195.) The lease contains a minute specification of the
landlord's fittings and customary accommodations of what were then
some of the most fashionable residences in the metropolis. In the
attached schedule is the use of the wainscot, enumerating separately
every piece of wainscot on the premises. The tenant is bound to keep
in repair the "Portico Walke" underneath the premises; he is at all
times to have "ingresse, egresse and regresse" through the Portico
Walk; and he may "expel, put, or drive away out of the said walke any
youth or other person whatsoever which shall eyther play or be in the
said Portico Walke in offence or disturbance to the said Sir Edmund
Verney."
The inventory of the fixtures is curious. It enumerates
every apartment, from the beer-cellar, and the strong
beer-cellar, the scullery, the pantry, and the buttery, to
the dining and withdrawing-rooms. Most of the rooms had
casement windows, but the dining-room next Russell-street,
and other principal apartments, had "shutting windowes." The
principal rooms were also "double creasted round for
hangings," and were wainscoted round the chimney-pieces, and
doors and windows. In one case, a study, "south towards
Russell-street, the whole room was wainscoted, and the hall
in part." Most of the windows had "soil-boards" attached;
the room-doors had generally "stock locks," in some places
"spring plate locks" and spring bolts. There is not
mentioned anything approaching to a fire-grate in any of the
rooms, except perhaps in the kitchen, where occurs "a
travers barre for the chimney."
FOOTNOTES:
[24] See "Club at Tom's Coffee-house," vol. i. pp. 159-164.
[25] Memoir by Moy Thomas, prefixed to Collins's Poetical Works. Bell
and Daldy, 1858.
MACKLIN'S COFFEE-HOUSE ORATORY.
After Macklin had retired from the stage, in 1754, he opened that
portion of the Piazza-houses, in Covent Garden, which is now the
Tavistock Hotel. Here he fitted up a large coffee-room, a theatre for
oratory, and other apartments. To a three-shilling ordinary he added a
shilling lecture, or "School of Oratory and Criticism;" he presided at
the dinner-table, and carved for the company; after which he played a
sort of "Oracle of Eloquence." Fielding has happily sketched him in
his _Voyage to Lisbon_: "Unfortunately for the fishmongers of London,
the Dory only resides in the Devonshire seas; for could any of this
company only convey one to the Temple of luxury under the Piazza,
where Macklin, the high priest, daily serves up his rich offerings,
great would be the reward of that fishmonger."
In the Lecture, Macklin undertook to make each of his audience an
orator, by teaching him how to speak. He invited hints and
discussions; the novelty of the scheme attracted the curiosity of
numbers; and this curiosity he still further excited by a very
uncommon controversy, which now subsisted either in imagination or
reality, between him and Foote, who abused one another very
openly--"Squire Sammy" having for his purpose engaged the Little
Theatre in the Haymarket.
Besides this personal attack, various subjects were debated here in
the manner of the Robin Hood Society, which filled the orator's
pocket, and proved his rhetoric of some value.
Here is one of his combats with Foote. The subject was Duelling in
Ireland, which Macklin had illustrated as far as the reign of
Elizabeth. Foote cried "Order;" he had a question to put. "Well, Sir,"
said Macklin, "what have you to say upon this subject?" "I think,
Sir," said Foote, "this matter might be settled in a few words. What
o'clock is it, Sir?" Macklin could not possibly see what the clock had
to do with a dissertation upon Duelling, but gruffly reported the hour
to be half-past nine. "Very well," said Foote, "about this time of the
night every gentleman in Ireland that can possibly afford it is in his
third bottle of claret, and therefore in a fair way of getting drunk;
and from drunkenness proceeds quarrelling, and from quarrelling,
duelling, and so there's an end of the chapter." The company were
much obliged to Foote for his interference, the hour being considered;
though Macklin did not relish the abridgment.
The success of Foote's fun upon Macklin's Lectures, led him to
establish a summer entertainment of his own at the Haymarket. He took
up Macklin's notion of applying Greek Tragedy to modern subjects, and
the squib was so successful that Foote cleared by it 500_l._, in five
nights, while the great Piazza Coffee-room in Covent Garden was shut
up, and Macklin in the _Gazette_ as a bankrupt.
But when the great plan of Mr. Macklin proved abortive, when as he
said in a former prologue, upon a nearly similar occasion--
"From scheming, fretting, famine, and despair,
We saw to grace restor'd an exiled player;"
when the town was sated with the seemingly-concocted quarrel between
the two theatrical geniuses, Macklin locked up his doors, all
animosity was laid aside, and they came and shook hands at the
Bedford; the group resumed their appearance, and, with a new master, a
new set of customers was seen.
TOM KING'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
This was one of the old night-houses of Covent Garden Market: it was a
rude shed immediately beneath the portico of St. Paul's Church, and
was one "well known to all gentlemen to whom beds are unknown."
Fielding in one of his Prologues says:
"What rake is ignorant of King's Coffee-house?"
It is in the background of Hogarth's print of _Morning_, where the
prim maiden lady, walking to church, is soured with seeing two fuddled
_beaux_ from King's Coffee-house caressing two frail women. At the
door there is a drunken row, in which swords and cudgels are the
weapons.
Harwood's _Alumni Etonenses_, p. 293, in the account of the Boys
elected from Eton to King's College, contains this entry: "A.D. 1713,
Thomas King, born at West Ashton, in Wiltshire, went away scholar in
apprehension that his fellowship would be denied him; and afterwards
kept that Coffee-house in Covent Garden, which was called by his own
name."
Moll King was landlady after Tom's death: she was witty, and her house
was much frequented, though it was little better than a shed.
"Noblemen and the first _beaux_," said Stacie, "after leaving Court,
would go to her house in full dress, with swords and bags, and in rich
brocaded silk coats, and walked and conversed with persons of every
description. She would serve chimney-sweepers, gardeners, and the
market-people in common with her lords of the highest rank. Mr.
Apreece, a tall thin man in rich dress, was her constant customer. He
was called Cadwallader by the frequenters of Moll's." It is not
surprising that Moll was often fined for keeping a disorderly house.
At length, she retired from business--and the pillory--to Hampstead,
where she lived on her ill-earned gains, but paid for a pew in church,
and was charitable at appointed seasons, and died in peace in 1747.
It was at that period that Mother Needham, Mother Douglass (_alias_,
according to Foote's _Minor_, Mother Cole), and Moll King, the
tavern-keepers and the gamblers, took possession of premises abdicated
by people of fashion. Upon the south side of the market-sheds was the
noted "Finish," kept by Mrs. Butler, open all night, the last of the
Garden taverns, and only cleared away in 1829. This house was
originally the Queen's Head. Shuter was pot-boy here. Here was a
picture of the Hazard Club, at the Bedford: it was painted by Hogarth,
and filled a panel of the Coffee-room.
Captain Laroon, an amateur painter of the time of Hogarth, who often
witnessed the nocturnal revels at Moll King's, made a large and
spirited drawing of the interior of her Coffee-house, which was at
Strawberry Hill. It was bought for Walpole, by his printer, some
seventy years since. There is also an engraving of the same room, in
which is introduced a whole-length of Mr. Apreece, in a full
court-dress: an impression of this plate is extremely rare.
Justice Welsh used to say that Captain Laroon, his friend Captain
Montague, and their constant companion, Little Casey, the Link-boy,
were the three most troublesome of all his Bow-street visitors. The
portraits of these three heroes are introduced in Boitard's rare print
of "the Covent Garden Morning Frolic." Laroon is brandishing an
artichoke. C. Montague is seated, drunk, on the top of Bet Careless's
sedan, which is preceded by Little Casey, as a link-boy.
Captain Laroon also painted a large folding-screen; the figures were
full of broad humour, two representing a Quack Doctor and his Merry
Andrew, before the gaping crowd.
Laroon was deputy-chairman, under Sir Robert Walpole, of a Club,
consisting of six gentlemen only, who met, at stated times, in the
drawing-room of Scott, the marine painter, in Henrietta-street, Covent
Garden; and it was unanimously agreed by the members, that they should
be attended by Scott's wife only, who was a remarkable witty woman.
Laroon made a beautiful conversation drawing of the Club, which is
highly prized by J. T. Smith.
PIAZZA COFFEE-HOUSE.
This establishment, at the north-eastern angle of Covent Garden
Piazza, appears to have originated with Macklin's; for we read in an
advertisement in the _Public Advertiser_, March, 5, 1756: "the Great
Piazza Coffee-room, in Covent-Garden."
The Piazza was much frequented by Sheridan; and here is located the
well-known anecdote told of his coolness during the burning of
Drury-lane Theatre, in 1809. It is said that as he sat at the Piazza,
during the fire, taking some refreshment, a friend of his having
remarked on the philosophical calmness with which he bore his
misfortune, Sheridan replied: "A man may surely be allowed to take a
glass of wine _by his own fireside_."
Sheridan and John Kemble often dined together at the Piazza, to be
handy to the theatre. During Kemble's management, Sheridan had
occasion to make a complaint, which brought a "nervous" letter from
Kemble, to which Sheridan's reply is amusing enough. Thus, he writes:
"that the management of a theatre is a situation capable of becoming
_troublesome_, is information which I do not want, and a discovery
which I thought you had made long ago." Sheridan then treats Kemble's
letter as "a nervous flight," not to be noticed seriously, adding his
anxiety for the interest of the theatre, and alluding to Kemble's
touchiness and reserve; and thus concludes:
"If there is anything amiss in your mind not arising from the
_troublesomeness_ of your situation, it is childish and unmanly not to
disclose it. The frankness with which I have dealt towards you
entitles me to expect that you should have done so.
"But I have no reason to believe this to be the case; and attributing
your letter to a disorder which I know ought not to be indulged, I
prescribe that thou shalt keep thine appointment at the Piazza
Coffee-house, to-morrow at five, and, taking four bottles of claret
instead of three, to which in sound health you might stint yourself,
forget that you ever wrote the letter, as I shall that I ever received
it.
"R. B. SHERIDAN."
The Piazza façade, and interior, were of Gothic design. The house has
been taken down, and in its place was built the Floral Hall, after the
Crystal Palace model.
THE CHAPTER COFFEE-HOUSE.
In our first volume, pp. 179-186, we described this as a literary
place of resort in Paternoster Row, more especially in connection
with the Wittinagemot of the last century.
A very interesting account of the Chapter, at a later period, (1848,)
is given by Mrs. Gaskell. The Coffee-house is thus described:--
"Paternoster Row was for many years sacred to publishers. It is a
narrow flagged street, lying under the shadow of St. Paul's; at each
end there are posts placed, so as to prevent the passage of carriages,
and thus preserve a solemn silence for the deliberations of the
'fathers of the Row.' The dull warehouses on each side are mostly
occupied at present by wholesale stationers; if they be publishers'
shops, they show no attractive front to the dark and narrow street.
Halfway up on the left-hand side is the Chapter Coffee-house. I
visited it last June. It was then unoccupied; it had the appearance of
a dwelling-house two hundred years old or so, such as one sometimes
sees in ancient country towns; the ceilings of the small rooms were
low, and had heavy beams running across them; the walls were
wainscoted breast-high; the staircase was shallow, broad, and dark,
taking up much space in the centre of the house. This then was the
Chapter Coffee-house, which, a century ago, was the resort of all the
booksellers and publishers, and where the literary hacks, the critics,
and even the wits used to go in search of ideas or employment. This
was the place about which Chatterton wrote, in those delusive letters
he sent to his mother at Bristol, while he was starving in London.
"Years later it became the tavern frequented by university men, and
country clergymen, who were up in London for a few days, and, having
no private friends or access into society, were glad to learn what was
going on in the world of letters, from the conversation which they
were sure to hear in the coffee-room. It was a place solely frequented
by men; I believe there was but one female servant in the house. Few
people slept there: some of the stated meetings of the trade were held
in it, as they had been for more than a century; and occasionally
country booksellers, with now and then a clergyman, resorted to it. In
the long, low, dingy room upstairs, the meetings of the trade were
held. The high narrow windows looked into the gloomy Row; nothing of
motion or of change could be seen in the grim dark houses opposite, so
near and close, although the whole breadth of the Row was between. The
mighty roar of London was round, like the sound of an unseen ocean,
yet every foot-fall on the pavement below might be heard distinctly,
in that unfrequented street."
Goldsmith frequented the Chapter, and always occupied one place,
which, for many years after was the seat of literary honour there.
There are Leather Tokens of the Chapter Coffee-house in existence.
CHILD'S COFFEE-HOUSE,
In St. Paul's Churchyard, was one of the _Spectator's_ houses.
"Sometimes," he says, "I smoke a pipe at Child's, and whilst I seem
attentive to nothing but the _Postman_, overhear the conversation of
every table in the room." It was much frequented by the clergy; for
the _Spectator_, No. 609, notices the mistake of a country gentleman
in taking all persons in scarfs for Doctors of Divinity, since only a
scarf of the first magnitude entitles him to "the appellation of
Doctor from his landlady and the _Boy at Child's_."
Child's was the resort of Dr. Mead, and other professional men of
eminence. The Fellows of the Royal Society came here. Whiston relates
that Sir Hans Sloane, Dr. Halley, and he were once at Child's, when
Dr. H., asked him, W., why he was not a member of the Royal Society?
Whiston answered, because they durst not choose a heretic. Upon which
Dr. H. said, if Sir Hans Sloane would propose him, W., he, Dr. H.,
would second it, which was done accordingly.
The propinquity of Child's to the Cathedral and Doctors' Commons, made
it the resort of the clergy, and ecclesiastical loungers. In one
respect, Child's was superseded by the Chapter, in Paternoster Row.
LONDON COFFEE-HOUSE.
This Coffee-house was established previous to the year 1731, for we
find of it the following advertisement:--
"May, 1731.
"Whereas, it is customary for Coffee-houses and other Public-houses,
to take 8_s._ for a quart of Arrack, and 6_s._ for a quart of Brandy
or Rum, made into Punch:
"This is to give Notice,
"That James Ashley has opened, on Ludgate Hill, the London
Coffee-house, Punch-house, Dorchester Beer and Welsh Ale Warehouse,
where the finest and best old Arrack, Rum, and French Brandy is made
into Punch, with the other of the finest ingredients--viz., A quart
of Arrack made into Punch for six shillings; and so in proportion to
the smallest quantity, which is half-a-quartern for fourpence
halfpenny. A quart of Rum or Brandy made into Punch for four
shillings; and so in proportion to the smallest quantity, which is
half-a-quartern for fourpence halfpenny; and gentlemen may have it as
soon made as a gill of Wine can be drawn."
The premises occupy a Roman site; for, in 1800, in the rear of the
house, in a bastion of the City Wall, was found a sepulchral monument,
dedicated to Claudina Martina by her husband, a provincial Roman
soldier; here also were found a fragment of a statue of Hercules, and
a female head. In front of the Coffee-house, immediately west of St.
Martin's church, stood Ludgate.
The London Coffee-house (now a tavern) is noted for its publishers'
sales of stock and copyrights. It was within the rules of the Fleet
prison: and in the Coffee-house are "locked up" for the night such
juries from the Old Bailey Sessions, as cannot agree upon verdicts.
The house was long kept by the grandfather and father of Mr. John
Leech, the celebrated artist.
A singular incident occurred at the London Coffee-house, many years
since: Mr. Brayley, the topographer, was present at a party here, when
Mr. Broadhurst, the famous tenor, by singing a high note, caused a
wine-glass on the table to break, the bowl being separated from the
stem.
At the bar of the London Coffee-house was sold Rowley's British
Cephalic Snuff.
TURK'S HEAD COFFEE HOUSE
IN CHANGE ALLEY.
From _The Kingdom's Intelligencer_, a weekly paper, published by
authority, in 1662, we learn that there had just been opened a "new
Coffee-house," with the sign of the Turk's Head, where was sold by
retail "the right Coffee-powder," from 4_s._ to 6_s._ 8_d._ per pound;
that pounded in a mortar, 2_s._; East India berry, 1_s._ 6_d._; and
the right Turkie berry, well garbled, at 3_s._ "The ungarbled for
lesse, with directions how to use the same." Also Chocolate at 2_s._
6_d._ per pound; the perfumed from 4_s._ to 10_s._; "also, Sherbets
made in Turkie, of lemons, roses, and violets perfumed; and Tea, or
Chaa, according to its goodness. The house seal was Morat the Great.
Gentlemen customers and acquaintances are (the next New Year's Day)
invited to the sign of the Great Turk at this new Coffee-house, where
Coffee will be on free cost." The sign was also Morat the Great. Morat
figures as a tyrant in Dryden's _Aurung Zebe_. There is a token of
this house, with the Sultan's head, in the Beaufoy collection.
Another token, in the same collection, is of unusual excellence,
probably by John Roettier. It has on the obverse, Morat ye Great Men
did mee call,--Sultan's head; reverse, Where eare I came I conquered
all.--In the field, Coffee, Tobacco, Sherbet, Tea, Chocolat, Retail in
Exchange Alee. "The word Tea," says Mr. Burn, "occurs on no other
tokens than those issued from 'the Great Turk' Coffee-house, in
Exchange-Alley;" in one of its advertisements, 1662, tea is from
6_s._ to 60_s._ a pound.
Competition arose. One Constantine Jennings in Threadneedle-street,
over against St. Christopher's Church, advertised that coffee,
chocolate, sherbet, and tea, the right Turkey berry, may be had as
cheap and as good of him as is any where to be had for money; and that
people may there be taught to prepare the said liquors gratis.
Pepys, in his _Diary_, tells, Sept. 25, 1669, of his sending for "a
cup of Tea, a China Drink, he had not before tasted." Henry Bennet,
Earl of Arlington, about 1666, introduced tea at Court. And, in his
Sir Charles Sedley's _Mulberry Garden_, we are told that "he who
wished to be considered a man of fashion always drank wine-and-water
at dinner, and a dish of tea afterwards." These details are condensed
from Mr. Burn's excellent _Beaufoy Catalogue_. 2nd edition, 1855.
In Gerard-street, Soho, also, was another Turk's Head Coffee-house,
where was held a Turk's Head Society; in 1777, we find Gibbon writing
to Garrick: "At this time of year, (Aug. 14,) the Society of the
Turk's Head can no longer be addressed as a corporate body, and most
of the individual members are probably dispersed: Adam Smith in
Scotland; Burke in the shades of Beaconsfield; Fox, the Lord or the
devil knows where."
This place was a kind of head-quarters for the Loyal Association
during the Rebellion of 1745.
Here was founded "The Literary Club," already described in Vol. I.,
pp. 204-219.
In 1753, several Artists met at the Turk's Head, and from thence,
their Secretary, Mr. F. M. Newton, dated a printed letter to the
Artists to form a select body for the Protection and Encouragement of
Art. Another Society of Artists met in Peter's-court, St.
Martin's-lane, from the year 1739 to 1769. After continued squabbles,
which lasted for many years, the principal Artists met together at the
Turk's Head, where many others having joined them, they petitioned the
King (George III.) to become patron of a Royal Academy of Art. His
Majesty consented; and the new Society took a room in Pall Mall,
opposite to Market-lane, where they remained until the King, in the
year 1771, granted them apartments in Old Somerset House.--_J. T.
Smith._
The Turk's Head Coffee-house, No. 142, in the Strand, was a favourite
supping-house with Dr. Johnson and Boswell, in whose Life of Johnson
are several entries, commencing with 1763--"At night, Mr. Johnson and
I supped in a private room at the Turk's Head Coffee-house, in the
Strand; 'I encourage this house,' said he, 'for the mistress of it is
a good civil woman, and has not much business.'" Another entry is--"We
concluded the day at the Turk's Head Coffee-house very socially." And,
August 3, 1673--"We had our last social meeting at the Turk's Head
Coffee-house, before my setting out for foreign parts."
The name was afterwards changed to "The Turk's Head, Canada and Bath
Coffee-house," and was a well frequented tavern and hotel: it was
taken down, and a very handsome lofty house erected upon the site, at
the cost of, we believe, eight thousand pounds; it was opened as a
tavern and hotel, but did not long continue.
At the Turk's Head, or Miles's Coffee-house, New Palace-yard,
Westminster, the noted Rota Club met, founded by Harrington, in 1659:
where was a large oval table, with a passage in the middle, for Miles
to deliver his coffee. (See _Clubs_, Vol. I., pp. 15, 16).
SQUIRE'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
In Fulwood's (_vulgo_ Fuller's) Rents, in Holborn, nearly opposite
Chancery-lane, in the reign of James I., lived Christopher Fulwood, in
a mansion of some pretension, of which an existing house of the period
is said to be the remains. "Some will have it," says Hatton, 1708,
"that it is called from being a _woody_ place before there were
buildings here; but its being called Fullwood's Rents (as it is in
deeds and leases), shows it to be the rents of one called Fullwood,
the owner or builder thereof." Strype describes the Rents, or court,
as running up to Gray's-Inn, "into which it has an entrance through
the gate; a place of good resort, and taken up by coffee-houses,
ale-houses, and houses of entertainment, by reason of its vicinity to
Gray's-Inn. On the east side is a handsome open place, with a handsome
freestone pavement, and better built, and inhabited by private
house-keepers. At the upper end of this court is a passage into the
Castle Tavern, a house of considerable trade, as is the Golden Griffin
Tavern, on the West side."
Here was John's, one of the earliest Coffee-houses; and adjoining
Gray's-Inn gate is a deep-coloured red-brick house, once Squire's
Coffee-house, kept by Squire, "a noted man in Fuller's Rents," who
died in 1717. The house is very roomy; it has been handsome, and has
a wide staircase. Squire's was one of the receiving-houses of the
_Spectator_: in No. 269, January 8, 1711-1712, he accepts Sir Roger de
Coverley's invitation to "smoke a pipe with him over a dish of coffee
at Squire's. As I love the old man, I take delight in complying with
everything that is agreeable to him, and accordingly waited on him to
the Coffee-house, where his venerable figure drew upon us the eyes of
the whole room. He had no sooner seated himself at the upper end of
the high table, but he called for a clean pipe, a paper of tobacco, a
dish of coffee, a wax candle, and the _Supplement_ [a periodical paper
of that time], with such an air of cheerfulness and good humour, that
all the boys in the coffee-room, (who seemed to take pleasure in
serving him,) were at once employed on his several errands, insomuch
that nobody else could come at a dish of tea, until the Knight had got
all his conveniences about him." Such was the coffee-room in the
_Spectator's_ day.
Gray's-Inn Walks, to which the Rents led, across Field-court, were
then a fashionable promenade; and here Sir Roger could "clear his
pipes in good air;" for scarcely a house intervened thence to
Hampstead. Though Ned Ward, in his _London Spy_, says--"I found none
but a parcel of superannuated debauchees, huddled up in cloaks, frieze
coats, and wadded gowns, to protect their old carcases from the
sharpness of Hampstead air; creeping up and down in pairs and leashes
no faster than the hand of a dial, or a county convict going to
execution: some talking of law, some of religion, and some of
politics. After I had walked two or three times round, I sat myself
down in the upper walk, where just before me, on a stone pedestal, we
fixed an old rusty horizontal dial, with the gnomon broke short off."
Round the sun-dial, seats were arranged in a semicircle.
Gray's-Inn Gardens were resorted to by dangerous classes. Expert
pickpockets and plausible ring-droppers found easy prey there on
crowded days; and in old plays the Gardens are repeatedly mentioned as
a place of negotiation for clandestine lovers, which led to the walks
being closed, except at stated hours.
Returning to Fulwood's Rents, we may here describe another of its
attractions, the Tavern and punch-house, within one door of
Gray's-Inn, apparently the King's Head. From some time before 1699,
until his death in 1731, Ward kept this house, which he thus
commemorates, or, in another word, puffs, in his _London Spy_: being a
vintner himself, we may rest assured that he would have penned this in
praise of no other than himself:
"To speak but the truth of my honest friend Ned,
The best of all vintners that ever God made;
He's free of the beef, and as free of his bread,
And washes both down with his glass of rare red,
That tops all the town, and commands a good trade;
Such wine as will cheer up the drooping King's head,
And brisk up the soul, though our body's half dead;
He scorns to draw bad, as he hopes to be paid;
And now his name's up, he may e'en lie abed;
For he'll get an estate--there's no more to be said."
We ought to have remarked, that the ox was roasted, cut up, and
distributed gratis; a piece of generosity which, by a poetic fiction,
is supposed to have inspired the above limping balderdash.
SLAUGHTER'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
This Coffee-house, famous as the resort of painters and sculptors, in
the last century, was situated at the upper end of the west side of
St. Martin's-lane, three doors from Newport-street. Its first landlord
was Thomas Slaughter, 1692. Mr. Cunningham tells us that a second
Slaughter's (New Slaughter's), was established in the same street
about 1760, when the original establishment adopted the name of "Old
Slaughter's," by which designation it was known till within a few
years of the final demolition of the house to make way for the new
avenue between Long-acre and Leicester-square, formed 1843-44. For
many years previous to the streets of London being completely paved,
"Slaughter's" was called "The Coffee-house on the Pavement." In like
manner, "The Pavement," Moor fields, received its distinctive name.
Besides being the resort of artists, Old Slaughter's was the house of
call for Frenchmen.
St. Martin's-lane was long one of the head-quarters of the artists of
the last century. "In the time of Benjamin West," says J. T. Smith,
"and before the formation of the Royal Academy, Greek-street, St.
Martin's-lane, and Gerard-street, was their colony. Old Slaughter's
Coffee-house, in St. Martin's-lane, was their grand resort in the
evenings, and Hogarth was a constant visitor." He lived at the Golden
Head, on the eastern side of Leicester Fields, in the northern half
of the Sabloniere Hotel. The head he cut out himself from pieces of
cork, glued and bound together; it was placed over the street-door. At
this time, young Benjamin West was living in chambers, in
Bedford-street, Covent Garden, and had there set up his easel; he was
married, in 1765, at St. Martin's Church. Roubiliac was often to be
found at Slaughter's in early life; probably before he gained the
patronage of Sir Edward Walpole, through finding and returning to the
baronet the pocket-book of bank-notes, which the young maker of
monuments had picked up in Vauxhall Gardens. Sir Edward, to remunerate
his integrity, and his skill, of which he showed specimens, promised
to patronize Roubiliac through life, and he faithfully performed this
promise. Young Gainsborough, who spent three years amid the works of
the painters in St. Martin's-lane, Hayman, and Cipriani, who were all
eminently convivial, were, in all probability, frequenters of
Slaughter's. Smith tells us that Quin and Hayman were inseparable
friends, and so convivial, that they seldom parted till daylight.
Mr. Cunningham relates that here, "in early life, Wilkie would enjoy a
small dinner at a small cost. I have been told by an old frequenter of
the house, that Wilkie was always the last dropper-in for a dinner,
and that he was never seen to dine in the house by daylight. The truth
is, he slaved at his art at home till the last glimpse of daylight had
disappeared."
Haydon was accustomed in the early days of his fitful career, to dine
here with Wilkie. In his _Autobiography_, in the year 1808, Haydon
writes: "This period of our lives was one of great happiness: painting
all day, then dining at the Old Slaughter Chop-house, then going to
the Academy until eight, to fill up the evening, then going home to
tea--that blessing of a studious man--talking over our respective
exploits, what he [Wilkie] had been doing, and what I had done, and
then, frequently to relieve our minds fatigued by their eight and
twelve hours' work, giving vent to the most extraordinary absurdities.
Often have we made rhymes on odd names, and shouted with laughter at
each new line that was added. Sometimes lazily inclined after a good
dinner, we have lounged about, near Drury-lane or Covent Garden,
hesitating whether to go in, and often have I (knowing first that
there was nothing I wished to see) assumed a virtue I did not possess,
and pretending moral superiority, preached to Wilkie on the weakness
of not resisting such temptations for the sake of our art and our
duty, and marched him off to his studies, when he was longing to see
Mother Goose."
J. T. Smith has narrated some fifteen pages of characteristic
anecdotes of the artistic visitors of Old Slaughter's, which he refers
to as "formerly the rendezvous of Pope, Dryden, and other wits, and
much frequented by several eminently clever men of his day."
Thither came Ware, the architect, who, when a little sickly boy, was
apprenticed to a chimney-sweeper, and was seen chalking the
street-front of Whitehall, by a gentleman, who purchased the remainder
of the boy's time; gave him an excellent education; then sent him to
Italy, and, upon his return, employed him, and introduced him to his
friends as an architect. Ware was heard to tell this story, while he
was sitting to Roubiliac for his bust. Ware built Chesterfield House
and several other noble mansions, and compiled a Palladio, in folio:
he retained the soot in his skin to the day of his death. He was very
intimate with Roubiliac, who was an opposite eastern neighbour of Old
Slaughter's. Another architect, Gwynn, who competed with Mylne for
designing and building Blackfriars Bridge, was also a frequent visitor
at Old Slaughter's, as was Gravelot, who kept a drawing-school in the
Strand, nearly opposite to Southampton-street.
Hudson, who painted the Dilettanti portraits; M'Ardell, the
mezzotinto-scraper; and Luke Sullivan, the engraver of Hogarth's March
to Finchley, also frequented Old Slaughter's; likewise Theodore
Gardell, the portrait painter, who was executed for the murder of his
landlady; and Old Moser, keeper of the Drawing Academy in
Peter's-court. Richard Wilson, the landscape painter, was not a
regular customer here: his favourite house was the Constitution,
Bedford-street, Covent Garden, where he could indulge in a pot of
porter more freely, and enjoy the fun of Mortimer, the painter.
Parry, the Welsh harper, though totally blind, was one of the first
draught-players in England, and occasionally played with the
frequenters of Old Slaughter's; and here, in consequence of a bet,
Roubiliac introduced Nathaniel Smith (father of John Thomas), to play
at draughts with Parry; the game lasted about half an hour: Parry was
much agitated, and Smith proposed to give in; but as there were bets
depending, it was played out, and Smith won. This victory brought
Smith numerous challenges; and the dons of the Barn, a public-house,
in St. Martin's-lane, nearly opposite the church, invited him to
become a member; but Smith declined. The Barn, for many years, was
frequented by all the noted players of chess and draughts; and it was
there that they often decided games of the first importance, played
between persons of the highest rank, living in different parts of the
world.
T. Rawle,[26] the inseparable companion of Captain Grose, the
antiquary, came often to Slaughter's.
It was long asserted of Slaughter's Coffee-house that there never had
been a person of that name as master of the house, but that it was
named from its having been opened for the use of the men who
slaughtered the cattle for the butchers of Newport Market, in an open
space then adjoining. "This," says J. T. Smith, "may be the fact, if
we believe that coffee was taken as refreshment by slaughtermen,
instead of purl or porter; or that it was so called by the
neighbouring butchers in derision of the numerous and fashionable
Coffee-houses of the day; as, for instance, 'The Old Man's
Coffee-house,' and 'The Young Man's Coffee-house.' Be that as it may,
in my father's time, and also within memory of the most aged people,
this Coffee-house was called '_Old_ Slaughter's,' and not The
Slaughter, or The Slaughterer's Coffee-house."
In 1827, there was sold by Stewart, Wheatley, and Adlard, in
Piccadilly, a picture attributed to Hogarth, for 150 guineas; it was
described A Conversation over a Bowl of Punch, at _Old_ Slaughter's
Coffee-house, in St. Martin's-lane, and the figures were said to be
portraits of the painter, Doctor Monsey, and the landlord, _Old_
Slaughter. But this picture, as J. T. Smith shows, was painted by
Highmore, for his father's godfather, Nathaniel Oldham, and one of the
artist's patrons; "it is neither a scene at Old Slaughter's, nor are
the portraits rightly described in the sale catalogue, but a scene at
Oldham's house, at Ealing, with an old schoolmaster, a farmer, the
artist Highmore, and Oldham himself."
FOOTNOTE:
[26] Rawle was one of his Majesty's accoutrement makers; and after his
death, his effects were sold by Hutchins, in King-street, Covent
Garden. Among the lots were a helmet, a sword, and several letters, of
Oliver Cromwell; also the doublet in which Cromwell dissolved the Long
Parliament. Another singular lot was a large black wig, with long
flowing curls, stated to have been worn by King Charles II.: it was
bought by Suett, the actor, who was a great collector of wigs. He
continued to act in this wig for many years, in _Tom Thumb_, and other
pieces, till it was burnt when the theatre at Birmingham was destroyed
by fire. Next morning, Suett, meeting Mrs. Booth, the mother of the
lively actress S. Booth, exclaimed, "Mrs. Booth, my wig's gone!"
WILL'S AND SERLE'S COFFEE-HOUSES.
At the corner of Serle-street and Portugal-street, most invitingly
facing the passage to Lincoln's Inn New-square, was Will's, of old
repute, and thus described in the _Epicure's Almanack_, 1815: "This
is, indubitably, a house of the first class, which dresses very
desirable turtle and venison, and broaches many a pipe of mature port,
double voyaged Madeira, and princely claret; wherewithal to wash down
the dust of making law-books, and take out the inky blots from rotten
parchment bonds; or if we must quote and parodize Will's, 'hath a
sweet oblivious antidote which clears the cranium of that perilous
stuff that clouds the cerebellum.'" The Coffee-house has some time
being given up.
Serle's Coffee-house is one of those mentioned in No. 49, of the
_Spectator_: "I do not know that I meet in any of my walks, objects
which move both my spleen and laughter so effectually as those young
fellows at the Grecian, Squire's, Serle's, and all other Coffee-houses
adjacent to the Law, who rise for no other purpose but to publish
their laziness."
THE GRECIAN COFFEE-HOUSE,
Devereux-court, Strand, (closed in 1843,) was named from Constantine,
of Threadneedle-street, the _Grecian_ who kept it. In the _Tatler_
announcement, all accounts of learning are to be "under the title of
the Grecian;" and, in the _Tatler_, No. 6: "While other parts of the
town are amused with the present actions, [Marlborough's,] we
generally spend the evening at this table [at the Grecian], in
inquiries into antiquity, and think anything new, which gives us new
knowledge. Thus, we are making a very pleasant entertainment to
ourselves in putting the actions of Homer's Iliad into an exact
journal."
The _Spectator's_ face was very well-known at the Grecian, a
Coffee-house "adjacent to the law." Occasionally, it was the scene of
learned discussion. Thus Dr. King relates that one evening, two
gentlemen, who were constant companions, were disputing here,
concerning the accent of a Greek word. This dispute was carried to
such a length, that the two friends thought proper to determine it
with their swords: for this purpose they stepped into Devereux-court,
where one of them (Dr. King thinks his name was Fitzgerald) was run
through the body, and died on the spot.
The Grecian was Foote's morning lounge. It was handy, too, for the
young Templar, Goldsmith, and often did it echo with Oliver's
boisterous mirth; for "it had become the favourite resort of the Irish
and Lancashire Templars, whom he delighted in collecting around him,
in entertaining with a cordial and unostentatious hospitality, and in
occasionally amusing with his flute, or with whist, neither of which
he played very well!" Here Goldsmith occasionally wound up his
"Shoemaker's Holiday" with supper.
It was at the Grecian that Fleetwood Shephard told this memorable
story to Dr. Tancred Robinson, who gave Richardson permission to
repeat it. "The Earl of Dorset was in Little Britain, beating about
for books to his taste: there was _Paradise Lost_. He was surprised
with some passages he struck upon, dipping here and there and bought
it; the bookseller begged him to speak in its favour, if he liked it,
for they lay on his hands as waste paper. Jesus!--Shephard was
present. My Lord took it home, read it, and sent it to Dryden, who in
a short time returned it. 'This man,' says Dryden, 'cuts us all out,
and the ancients too!'"
The Grecian was also frequented by Fellows of the Royal Society.
Thoresby, in his _Diary_, tells us, 22 May, 1712, that "having bought
each a pair of black silk stockings in Westminster Hall, they returned
by water, and then walked, to meet his friend, Dr. Sloane, the
Secretary of the Royal Society, at the Grecian Coffee-house, by the
Temple." And, on June 12th, same year, "Thoresby attended the Royal
Society, where were present, the President, Sir Isaac Newton, both the
Secretaries, the two Professors from Oxford, Dr. Halley and Kell, with
others, whose company we after enjoyed at the Grecian Coffee-house."
In Devereux-court, also, was Tom's Coffee-house, much resorted to by
men of letters; among whom were Dr. Birch, who wrote the History of
the Royal Society; also Akenside, the poet; and there is in print a
letter of Pope's, addressed to Fortescue, his "counsel learned in the
law," at this coffee-house.
GEORGE'S COFFEE-HOUSE,
No. 213, Strand, near Temple Bar, was a noted resort in the last and
present century. When it was a coffee-house, one day, there came in
Sir James Lowther, who after changing a piece of silver with the
coffee-woman, and paying twopence for his dish of coffee, was helped
into his chariot, for he was very lame and infirm, and went home: some
little time afterwards, he returned to the same coffee-house, on
purpose to acquaint the woman who kept it, that she had given him a
bad half-penny, and demanded another in exchange for it. Sir James had
about 40,000_l._ per annum, and was at a loss whom to appoint his
heir.
Shenstone, who found
"The warmest welcome at an inn,"
found George's to be economical. "What do you think," he writes, "must
be my expense, who love to pry into everything of the kind? Why, truly
one shilling. My company goes to George's Coffee-house, where, for
that small subscription I read all pamphlets under a three shillings'
dimension; and indeed, any larger would not be fit for coffee-house
perusal." Shenstone relates that Lord Orford was at George's, when
the mob that were carrying his Lordship in effigy, came into the box
where he was, to beg money of him, amongst others: this story Horace
Walpole contradicts, adding that he supposes Shenstone thought that
after Lord Orford quitted his place, he went to the coffee-house to
learn news.
Arthur Murphy frequented George's, "where the town wits met every
evening." Lloyd, the law-student, sings:--
"By law let others toil to gain renown!
Florio's a gentleman, a man o' the town.
He nor courts clients, or the law regarding,
Hurries from Nando's down to Covent Garden,
Yet, he's a scholar; mark him in the pit,
With critic catcall sound the stops of wit!
Supreme at George's, he harangues the throng,
Censor of style, from tragedy to song."
THE PERCY COFFEE-HOUSE,
Rathbone-place, Oxford-street, no longer exists; but it will be kept
in recollection for its having given name to one of the most popular
publications, of its class, in our time, namely, the _Percy
Anecdotes_, "by Sholto and Reuben Percy, Brothers of the Benedictine
Monastery of Mont Benger," in 44 parts, commencing in 1820. So said
the title pages, but the names and the locality were _supposé_. Reuben
Percy was Thomas Byerley, who died in 1824; he was the brother of Sir
John Byerley, and the first editor of the _Mirror_, commenced by John
Limbird, in 1822. Sholto Percy was Joseph Clinton Robertson, who died
in 1852; he was the projector of the _Mechanics' Magazine_, which he
edited from its commencement to his death. The name of the collection
of Anecdotes was not taken, as at the time supposed, from the
popularity of the _Percy Reliques_, but from the Percy Coffee-house,
where Byerley and Robertson were accustomed to meet to talk over their
joint work. The _idea_ was, however, claimed by Sir Richard Phillips,
who stoutly maintained that it originated in a suggestion made by him
to Dr. Tilloch and Mr. Mayne, to cut the anecdotes from the many
years' files of the _Star_ newspaper, of which Dr. Tilloch was the
editor, and Mr. Byerley assistant editor; and to the latter
overhearing the suggestion, Sir Richard contested, might the _Percy
Anecdotes_ be traced. They were very successful, and a large sum was
realized by the work.
PEELE'S COFFEE-HOUSE,
Nos. 177 and 178, Fleet-street, east corner of Fetter-lane, was one of
the Coffee-houses of the Johnsonian period; and here was long
preserved a portrait of Dr. Johnson, on the key-stone of a
chimney-piece, stated to have been painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Peele's was noted for files of newspapers from these dates: _Gazette_,
1759; _Times_, 1780; _Morning Chronicle_, 1773; _Morning Post_, 1773;
_Morning Herald_, 1784; _Morning Advertiser_, 1794; and the evening
papers from their commencement. The house is now a tavern.
Taverns.
THE TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON.
The changes in the manners and customs of our metropolis may be
agreeably gathered from such glimpses as we gain of the history of
"houses of entertainment" in the long lapse of centuries. Their
records present innumerable pictures in little of society and modes,
the interest of which is increased by distance. They show us how the
tavern was the great focus of news long before the newspaper fully
supplied the intellectual want. Much of the business of early times
was transacted in taverns, and it is to some extent in the present
day. According to the age, the tavern reflects the manners, the social
tastes, customs, and recreations; and there, in days when travelling
was difficult and costly, and not unattended with danger, the
traveller told his wondrous tale to many an eager listener; and the
man who rarely strayed beyond his own parish, was thus made acquainted
with the life of the world. Then, the old tavern combined, with much
of the comfort of an English home, its luxuries, without the
forethought of providing either. Its come-and-go life presented many a
useful lesson to the man who looked beyond the cheer of the moment.
The master, or taverner, was mostly a person of substance, often of
ready wit and cheerful manners--to render his public home attractive.
The "win-hous," or tavern, is enumerated among the houses of
entertainment in the time of the Saxons; and no doubt existed in
England much earlier. The peg-tankard, a specimen of which we see in
the Ashmolean Collection at Oxford, originated with the Saxons; the
pegs inside denoted how deep each guest was to drink: hence arose the
saying, "he is a peg too low," when a man was out of spirits. The
Danes were even more convivial in their habits than the Saxons, and
may be presumed to have multiplied the number of "guest houses," as
the early taverns were called. The Norman followers of the Conqueror
soon fell into the good cheer of their predecessors in England.
Although wine was made at this period in great abundance from
vineyards in various parts of England, the trade of the taverns was
principally supplied from France. The traffic for Bordeaux and the
neighbouring provinces is said to have commenced about 1154, through
the marriage of Henry II. with Eleanor of Aquitaine. The Normans were
the great carriers, and Guienne the place whence most of our wines
were brought; and which are described in this reign to have been sold
in the ships and in the wine-cellars near the public place of cookery,
on the banks of the Thames. We are now speaking of the customs of
seven centuries since; of which the public wine-cellar, known to our
time as _the Shades_, adjoining old London Bridge, was unquestionably
a relic.
The earliest dealers in wines were of two descriptions: the
_vintners_, or importers; and the _taverners_, who kept taverns for
them, and sold the wine by retail to such as came to the tavern to
drink it, or fetched it to their own homes.
In a document of the reign of Edward II., we find mentioned a
tenement called Pin Tavern, situated in the Vintry, where the Bordeaux
merchants _craned_ their wines out of lighters, and other vessels on
the Thames; and here was the famous old tavern with the sign of the
_Three Cranes_. Chaucer makes the apprentice of this period loving
better the tavern than the shop:--
"A prentis whilom dwelt in our citee,--
At ev'ry bridale would he sing and hoppe;
He loved bet' the _tavern_ than the shoppe,
For when ther any riding was in Chepe,
Out of the shoppe thider would he lepe;
And til that he had all the sight ysein
And dancid wil, he wold not com agen."
Thus, the idle City apprentice was a great tavern haunter, which was
forbidden in his indenture; and to this day, the apprentice's
indenture enacts that he shall not "haunt taverns."
In a play of 1608, the apprentices of old Hobson, a rich citizen, in
1560, frequent the _Rose and Crown_, in the Poultry, and the _Dagger_,
in Cheapside.
"_Enter Hobson, Two Prentices, and a Boy._
"1 PREN. Prithee, fellow Goodman, set forth the ware, and
looke to the shop a little. I'll but drink a cup of wine
with a customer, at the Rose and Crown in the Poultry, and
come again presently.
"2 PREN. I must needs step to the _Dagger in Cheape_, to
send a letter into the country unto my father. Stay, boy,
you are the youngest prentice; look you to the shop."
In the reign of Richard II., it was ordained by statute that "the
wines of Gascoine, of Osey, and of Spain," as well as Rhenish wines,
should not be sold above sixpence the gallon; and the taverners of
this period frequently became very rich, and filled the highest civic
offices, as sheriffs and mayors. The fraternity of vintners and
taverners, anciently the Merchant Wine Tonners of Gascoyne, became the
Craft of Vintners, incorporated by Henry VI. as the Vintners' Company.
The curious old ballad of London Lyckpenny, written in the reign of
Henry V., by Lydgate, a monk of Bury, confirms the statement of the
prices in the reign of Richard II. He comes to Cornhill, when the
wine-drawer of the Pope's Head tavern, standing without the
street-door, it being the custom of drawers thus to waylay passengers,
takes the man by the hand, and says,--"Will you drink a pint of wine?"
whereunto the countryman answers, "A penny spend I may," and so drank
his wine. "For bread nothing did he pay"--for that was given in. This
is Stow's account: the ballad makes the taverner, not the drawer,
invite the countryman; and the latter, instead of getting bread for
nothing, complains of having to go away hungry:--
"The taverner took me by the sleeve,
'Sir,' saith he, 'will you our wine assay?'
I answered, 'That cannot much me grieve,
A penny can do no more than it may;'
I drank a pint, and for it did pay;
Yet, sore a-hungered from thence I yede,
And, wanting money, I could not speed," etc.
There was no eating at taverns at this time, beyond a crust to relish
the wine; and he who wished to dine before he drank, had to go to the
cook's.
The furnishing of the Boar's Head, in Eastcheap, with sack, in Henry
IV., is an anachronism of Shakspeare's; for the vintners kept neither
sacks, muscadels, malmseys, bastards, alicants, nor any other wines
but white and claret, until 1543. All the other sweet wines before
that time, were sold at the apothecaries' shops for no other use but
for medicine.
Taking it as the picture of a tavern a century later, we see the
alterations which had taken place. The single drawer or taverner of
Lydgate's day is now changed to a troop of waiters, besides the under
skinker, or tapster. Eating was no longer confined to the cook's row,
for we find in Falstaff's bill "a capon 2_s._ 2_d._; sack, two
gallons, 5_s._ 8_d._; anchovies and sack, after supper, 2_s._ 6_d._;
bread, one halfpenny." And there were evidently _different rooms_[27]
for the guests, as Francis[28] bids a brother waiter "Look down in the
Pomgranite;" for which purpose they had windows, or loopholes,
affording a view from the upper to the lower apartments. The custom of
naming the principal rooms in taverns and hotels is usual to the
present day.
Taverns and wine-bibbing had greatly increased in the reign of Edward
VI., when it was enacted by statute that no more than 8_d._ a gallon
should be taken for any French wines, and the consumption limited in
private houses to ten gallons each person yearly; that there should
not be "any more or great number of taverns in London of such tavernes
or wine sellers by retaile, above the number of fouretye tavernes or
wyne sellers," being less than two, upon an average to each parish.
Nor did this number much increase afterwards; for in a return made to
the Vintners' Company, late in Elizabeth's reign, there were only one
hundred and sixty-eight taverns in the whole city and suburbs.
It seems to have been the fashion among old ballad-mongers, street
chroniclers, and journalists, to sing the praises of the taverns in
rough-shod verse, and that lively rhyme which, in our day, is termed
"patter." Here are a few specimens, of various periods.
In a black-letter poem of Queen Elizabeth's reign, entitled _Newes
from Bartholomew Fayre_, there is this curious enumeration:
"There hath been great sale and utterance of Wine,
Besides Beere, and Ale, and Ipocras fine,
In every country, region, and nation,
But chiefly in Billingsgate, at the _Salutation_;
And the _Bore's Head_, near London Stone;
The _Swan_ at Dowgate, a tavern well knowne;
The _Miter_ in Cheape, and then the _Bull Head_;
And many like places that make noses red;
The _Bore's Head_ in Old Fish-street; _Three Cranes_ in the Vintry;
And now, of late, St. Martins in the Sentree;
The _Windmill_ in Lothbury; the _Ship_ at th' Exchange;
_King's Head_ in New Fish-street, where roysterers do range;
The _Mermaid_ in Cornhill; _Red Lion_ in the Strand;
_Three Tuns_ in Newgate Market; Old Fish-street at the _Swan_."
This enumeration omits the Mourning Bush, adjoining Aldersgate,
containing divers large rooms and lodgings, and shown in Aggas's plan
of London, in 1560. There are also omitted The Pope's Head, The London
Stone, The Dagger, The Rose and Crown, etc. Several of the above
_Signs_ have been continued to our time in the very places mentioned;
but nearly all the original buildings were destroyed in the Great Fire
of 1666; and the few which escaped have been re-built, or so altered,
that their former appearance has altogether vanished.
The following list of taverns is given by Thomas Heywood, the author
of the fine old play of _A Woman killed with Kindness_. Heywood, who
wrote in 1608, is telling us what particular houses are frequented by
particular classes of people:--
"The Gentry to the King's Head,
The nobles to the Crown,
The Knights unto the Golden Fleece,
And to the Plough the Clown.
The churchman to the Mitre,
The shepherd to the Star,
The gardener hies him to the Rose,
To the Drum the man of war;
To the Feathers, ladies you; the Globe
The seaman doth not scorn;
The usurer to the Devil, and
The townsman to the Horn.
The huntsman to the White Hart,
To the Ship the merchants go,
But you who do the Muses love,
The sign called River Po.
The banquerout to the World's End,
The fool to the Fortune Pie,
Unto the Mouth the oyster-wife,
The fiddler to the Pie.
The punk unto the Cockatrice,
The Drunkard to the Vine,
The beggar to the Bush, then meet,
And with Duke Humphrey dine."
In the _British Apollo_ of 1710, is the following doggrel:--
"I'm amused at the signs,
As I pass through the town,
To see the odd mixture--
A Magpie and Crown,
The Whale and the Crow,
The Razor and the Hen,
The Leg and Seven Stars,
The Axe and the Bottle,
The Tun and the Lute,
The Eagle and Child,
The Shovel and Boot."
In _Look about You_, 1600, we read that "the drawers kept sugar folded
up in paper, ready for those who called for _sack_;" and we further
find in another old tract, that the custom existed of bringing two
cups of _silver_ in case the wine should be wanted diluted; and this
was done by rose-water and sugar, generally about a pennyworth. A
sharper in the _Bellman of London_, described as having decoyed a
countryman to a tavern, "calls for two pintes of sundry wines, the
drawer setting the wine with _two cups_, as the custome is, the
sharper tastes of one pinte, no matter which, and finds fault with the
wine, saying, ''tis too hard, but rose-water and sugar would send it
downe merrily'--and for that purpose takes up one of the cups, telling
the stranger he is well acquainted with the boy at the barre, and can
have two-pennyworth of rose-water for a penny of him; and so steps
from his seate: the stranger suspects no harme, because the fawne
guest leaves his cloake at the end of the table behind him,--but the
other takes good care not to return, and it is then found that he
hath stolen ground, and out-leaped the stranger more feet than he can
recover in haste, for the cup is leaped with him, for which the
wood-cock, that is taken in the springe,
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/41516