John Timbs

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.'

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.

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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 20l. 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 1s. and 2s. 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 6d. and 8d. 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.

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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.

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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 4d. 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, 1d., 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:

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:—

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:

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 2000l. to the Life-boat subscription. On July 20, 1803, at the invasion panic, they commenced the Patriotic Fund with 20,000l. 3-per-cent. Consols; besides 70,312l. 7s. individual subscriptions, and 15,000l. additional donations. After the battle of the Nile, in 1798, they collected for the widows and wounded seamen 32,423l.; and after Lord Howe's victory, June 1, 1794, for similar purposes, 21,281l. They have also contributed 5000l. to the London Hospital; 1000.l for the suffering inhabitants of Russia in 1813; 1000l. for the relief of the militia in our North American colonies, 1813; and 10,000l. 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:—

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,—

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 Saffold^e 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."

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."

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.

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:—

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:—

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."

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."

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:—

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—

"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—

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:—

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

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:

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.

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:—

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. 10s., 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,—2l. 2s." 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 172l. 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 6000l. 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."

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."

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 500l., 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—

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:

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 8s. for a quart of Arrack, and 6s. 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 4s. to 6s. 8d. per pound; that pounded in a mortar, 2s.; East India berry, 1s. 6d.; and the right Turkie berry, well garbled, at 3s. "The ungarbled for lesse, with directions how to use the same." Also Chocolate at 2s. 6d. per pound; the perfumed from 4s. to 10s.; "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 y^e 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 6s. to 60s. 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:

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."

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 40,000l. 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:—

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.