THE TAVERN.
The substitution of the Restaurant for the Tavern is of recent origin.
In the year 1837 there were restaurants, it is true, but they were
humble places, and confined to the parts of London frequented by the
French; for English of every degree there was the Tavern. Plenty of the
old Taverns still survive to show us in what places our fathers took
their dinners and drank their punch. The Cheshire Cheese is a survival;
the Cock, until recently, was another. Some of them, like the latter,
had the tables and benches partitioned off; others, like the former,
were partly open and partly divided. The floor was sanded; there was a
great fire kept up all through the winter, with a kettle always full
of boiling water; the cloth was not always of the cleanest; the forks
were steel; in the evening there was always a company of those who
supped--for they dined early--on chops, steaks, sausages, oysters, and
Welsh rabbit, of those who drank, those who smoked their long pipes,
and those who sang. Yes--those who sang. In those days the song went
round. If three or four Templars supped at the Coal Hole, or the
Cock, or the Rainbow, one of them would presently lift his voice in
song, and then be followed by a rival warbler from another box. At the
Coal Hole, indeed--where met the once famous Wolf Club, Edmund Kean,
President--the landlord, one Rhodes by name, was not only a singer but
a writer of songs, chiefly, I apprehend, of the comic kind. I suppose
that the comic song given by a private gentleman in character--that is,
with a pocket-handkerchief for a white apron, or his coat off, or a
battered hat on his head--is almost unknown to the younger generation.
They see the kind of thing, but done much better, at the music-halls.
[Illustration: EDMUND KEAN AS RICHARD THE THIRD]
Really, nothing marks the change of manners more than the fact that
fifty years ago men used to meet together every evening and sing songs
over their pipes and grog. Not young men only, but middle-aged men,
and old men, would all together join in the chorus, and that joyfully,
banging the tables with their fists, and laughing from ear to ear--the
roysterers are always represented as laughing with an absence of
restraint impossible for us quite to understand. The choruses, too,
were of the good old ‘Whack-fol-de-rol-de-rido’ character, which gives
scope to so much play of sentiment and lightness of touch.
[Illustration: OLD ENTRANCE TO THE COCK, FLEET STREET]
Beer, of course, was the principal beverage, and there were many more
varieties of beer than at present prevail. One reads of ‘Brook clear
Kennett’--it used to be sold in a house near the Oxford Street end of
Tottenham Court Road; of Shropshire ale, described as ‘dark and heavy;’
of the ‘luscious Burton, innocent of hops;’ of new ale, old ale, bitter
ale, hard ale, soft ale, the ‘balmy’ Scotch, mellow October, and good
brown stout. All these were to be obtained at taverns which made a
_spécialité_ as they would say now, of any one kind. Thus the best
stout in London was to be had at the Brace Tavern in the Queen’s Bench
Prison, and the Cock was also famous for the same beverage, served in
pint glasses. A rival of the Cock, in this respect, was the Rainbow,
long before the present handsome room was built. The landlord of the
Rainbow was one William Colls, formerly head-waiter at the Cock,
predecessor, I take it, of Tennyson’s immortal friend. But he left the
Cock to better himself, and as at the same time Mary--the incomparable,
the matchless Mary, most beautiful of barmaids--left it as well, gloom
fell upon the frequenters of the tavern. Mary left the Cock about
the year 1820, too early for the future Poet Laureate to have been
one of the worshippers of her Grecian face. Under Colls’s management
the Rainbow rivalled the Cock in popularity. The Cider Cellar, kept
by Evans of Covent Garden, had gone through a period of decline, but
was again popular and well frequented. Mention may also be made of
Clitter’s, of Offley’s, famous for its lamb in spring; of the Kean’s
Head, whose landlord was a great comic singer; of the Harp, haunt
of aspiring actors; of the Albion, the Finish, or the Royal Saloon,
Piccadilly, where one looked in for a ‘few goes of max’--what was
max?--in the very worst company that London could supply.
It is the fashion to lament the quantity of money still consumed in
drink. But our drink-bill is nothing, in proportion, compared with
that of fifty years ago. Thus, the number of visitors to fourteen
great gin-shops in London was found to average 3,000 each per diem; in
Edinburgh there was a gin-shop for every fifteen families; in one Irish
town of 800 people there were eighty-eight gin-shops; in Sheffield,
thirteen persons were killed in ten days by drunkenness; in London
there was one public-house to every fifty-six houses; in Glasgow one to
every ten. Yet it was noted at the time that a great improvement could
be observed in the drinking habits of the people. In the year 1742,
for instance, there were 19,000,000 gallons of spirits consumed by a
population of 6,000,000--that is to say, more than three gallons a head
every year; or, if we take only the adult men, something like twelve
gallons for every man in the year, which may be calculated to mean
one bottle in five days. But a hundred years later the population had
increased to 16,000,000, and the consumption of spirits had fallen to
8,250,000 gallons, which represents a little more than half a gallon,
or four pints, a head in the year. Or, taking the adult men only,
their average was two gallons and one sixteenth a head, so that each
man’s pint bottle would have lasted him for three weeks. In Scotland,
however, the general average was twenty-seven pints a head, and, taking
adults alone, thirteen gallons and a half a head; and in Ireland six
and a half gallons a head. It was noted, also, in the year 1837, that
the multiplication of coffee-houses, of which there were 1,600 in
London alone, proved the growth of more healthy habits among the people.
But though there was certainly more moderation in drink than in the
earlier years of the century, the drink-bill for the year 1837 was
prodigious. A case of total abstinence was a phenomenon. The thirst
for beer was insatiable; with many people, especially farmers, and
the working classes generally, beer was taken with breakfast. Even
in my own time--that is to say, when the Queen had been reigning for
one-and-twenty years or so--there were still many undergraduates
at Cambridge who drank beer habitually for breakfast, and at every
breakfast-party the tankard was passed round as a finish. In country
houses, the simple, light, home-brewed ale, the preparation of which
caused a most delightful anxiety as to the result, was the sole
beverage used at dinner and supper. Every farmhouse, every large
country house, and many town house keepers brewed their own beer,
just as they made their own wines, their own jams, and their own
lavender water. Beer was universally taken with dinner; even at great
dinner-parties some of the guests would call for beer, and strong ale
was always served with the cheese. After dinner, only port and sherry,
in middle-class houses, were put upon the table. Sometimes Madeira or
Lisbon appeared, but, as a rule, wine meant port or sherry, unless,
which sometimes happened, it meant cowslip, ginger, or gooseberry.
Except among the upper class, claret was absolutely unknown, as were
Burgundy, Rhone wines, Sauterne, and all other French wines. In
the restaurants every man would call for bitter ale, or stout, or
half-and-half with his dinner, as a matter of course, and after dinner
would either take his pint of port, or half-pint of sherry, or his
tumbler of grog. Champagne was regarded as the drink of the prodigal
son. In the family circle it never appeared at all, except at weddings,
and perhaps on Christmas Day.
In fact, when people spoke of wine in these days, they generally meant
port. They bought port by the hogshead, had it bottled, and laid down.
They talked about their cellars solemnly; they brought forth bottles
which had been laid down in the days when George the Third was king;
they were great on body, bouquet, and beeswing; they told stories about
wonderful port which they had been privileged to drink; they looked
forward to a dinner chiefly on account of the port which followed it;
real enjoyment only began when the cloth was removed, the ladies were
gone, and the solemn passage of the decanter had commenced.
There lingers still the old love for this wine--it is, without doubt,
the king of wines. I remember ten years ago, or thereabouts, dining
with one--then my partner--now, alas! gathered to his fathers--at
the Blue Posts, before that old inn was burned down. The room was a
comfortable old-fashioned first floor, low of ceiling; with a great
fire in an old-fashioned grate; set with four or five tables only,
because not many frequented this most desirable of dining-places. We
took with dinner a bottle of light claret; when we had got through the
claret and the beef, the waiter, who had been hovering about uneasily,
interposed. ‘Don’t drink any more of that wash,’ he said; ‘let me bring
you something fit for gentlemen to sit over.’ He brought us, of course,
a bottle of port. They say that the taste for port is reviving; but
claret has got so firm a hold of our affections that I doubt it.
As for the drinking of spirits, it was certainly much more common then
than it is now. Among the lower classes gin was the favourite--the
drink of the women as much as of the men. Do you know why they call it
‘blue ruin’? Some time ago I saw, going into a public-house, somewhere
near the West India Docks, a tall lean man, apparently five-and-forty
or thereabouts. He was in rags; his knees bent as he walked, his hands
trembled, his eyes were eager. And, wonderful to relate, the face was
perfectly blue--not indigo blue, or azure blue, but of a ghostly,
ghastly, corpse-like kind of blue, which made one shudder. Said my
companion to me, ‘That is gin.’ We opened the door of the public-house
and looked in. He stood at the bar with a full glass in his hand. Then
his eyes brightened, he gasped, straightened himself, and tossed it
down his throat. Then he came out, and he sighed as one who has just
had a glimpse of some earthly Paradise. Then he walked away with swift
and resolute step, as if purposed to achieve something mighty. Only
a few yards farther along the road, but across the way, there stood
another public-house. The man walked straight to the door, entered, and
took another glass, again with the quick grasp of anticipation, and
again with that sigh, as of a hurried peep through the gates barred
with the sword of fire. This man was a curious object of study. He went
into twelve more public-houses, each time with greater determination on
his lips and greater eagerness in his eyes. The last glass, I suppose,
opened these gates for him and suffered him to enter, for his lips
suddenly lost their resolution, his eyes lost their lustre, he became
limp, his arms fell heavily--he was drunk, and his face was bluer than
ever.
This was the kind of sight which Hogarth could see every day when
he painted ‘Gin Lane.’ It was in the time when drinking-shops had
placards stuck outside to the effect that for a penny one might get
drunk, and blind drunk for twopence. But an example of a ‘blue ruin,’
actually walking in the flesh, in these days one certainly does not
expect to see. Next to gin, rum was the most popular. There is a
full rich flavour about rum. It is affectionately named after the
delicious pineapple, or after the island where its production is the
most abundant and the most kindly. It has always been the drink of Her
Majesty’s Navy; it is still the favourite beverage of many West India
Islands, and many millions of sailors, niggers, and coolies. It is
hallowed by historical associations. But its effects in the good old
days were wonderful and awe-inspiring. It was the author and creator of
those flowers, now almost extinct, called grog-blossoms. You may see
them depicted by the caricaturists of the Rowlandson time, but they
survived until well past the middle of the century.
The outward and visible signs of rum were indeed various. First, there
was the red and swollen nose; next, the nose beautifully painted
with grog-blossoms. It is an ancient nose, and is celebrated by the
bacchanalian poet of Normandy, Olivier Basselin, in the fifteenth
century. There was, next, the bottle nose in all its branches. I am
uncertain, never having walked the hospitals, whether one is justified
in classifying certain varieties of the bottle nose under one head, or
whether each variety was a species by itself. All these noses, with the
red and puffy cheeks, the thick lips, the double chins, the swelling,
aldermanic corporation, and the gouty feet, in list and slippers, meant
Rum--Great God Rum. These symptoms are no longer to be seen. Therefore,
Great God Rum is either deposed, or he hath but few worshippers, and
those half-hearted.
The decay of the Great God Rum, and the Great Goddess Gin his consort,
is marked in many other ways. Formerly, the toper half filled a thick,
short rummer with spirit, and poured upon it an equal quantity of
water. Mr. Weller’s theory of drink was that it should be equal. The
modern toper goes to a bar, gets half a wineglass of Scotch whisky, and
pours upon it a pint of Apollinaris water. The ancient drank his grog
hot, with lemon and sugar, and sometimes spice. This made a serious
business of the nightly grog. The modern takes his cold, even with
ice, and without any addition of lemon. Indeed, he squashes his lemon
separately, and drinks the juice in Apollinaris, without any spirit at
all--a thing abhorrent to his ancestor.
Again, there are preparations of a crafty and cryptic character, once
greatly in favour, and now clean forgotten, or else fallen into a
pitiable contempt, and doomed to a stumbling, halt, and broken-winged
existence. Take, for instance, the punch-bowl. Fifty years ago it was
no mere ornament for the sideboard and the china cabinet. It was a
thing to be brought forth and filled with a fragrant mixture of rum,
brandy, and curaçoa, lemon, hot water, sugar, grated nutmeg, cloves,
and cinnamon. The preparation of the bowl was as much a labour of love
as that of a claret cup, its degenerate successor. The ladles were
beautiful works of art in silver--where are those ladles now, and what
purpose do they serve? Shrub, again--rum shrub--is there any living
man who now calls for shrub? You may still see it on the shelf of an
old-fashioned inn; you may even see the announcement that it is for
sale painted on door-posts, but no man regardeth it. I believe that
it was supposed to possess valuable medicinal properties, the nature
of which I forget. Again, there was purl--early purl. Once there was
a club in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, which existed for the
purpose of arising betimes, and drinking purl before breakfast. Or
there was dog’s-nose. Gentle reader, you remember the rules for making
dog’s-nose. They were explained at a now famous meeting of the Brick
Lane Branch of the Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association.
Yet I doubt whether dog’s-nose is still in favour. Again, there was
copus--is the making of copus-cup still remembered? There was bishop:
it was a kind of punch, made of port wine instead of rum, and was
formerly much consumed at the suppers of undergraduates; it was
remarkable for its power of making men’s faces red and their voices
thick; it also made them feel as if their legs and arms, and every
part of them, were filled out and distended, as with twice the usual
quantity of blood. These were, no doubt, valuable qualities, considered
medicinally, yet bishop is no longer in demand. Mulled ale is still,
perhaps, cultivated. They used to have pots made for the purpose of
warming the ale: these were long and shaped like an extinguisher, so
that the heat of the fire played upon a large surface, and warmed the
beer quickly. When it was poured out, spice was added, and perhaps
sugar, and no doubt a dash of brandy. Negus, a weak compound of sherry
and warm water, used to be exhibited at dancing parties, but is now,
I should think, unknown save by name. I do not speak of currant gin,
damson brandy, or cherry brandy, because one or two such preparations
are still produced. Nor need we consider British wines, now almost
extinct. Yet in country towns one may here and there find shops
where they provide for tastes still simple--the cowslip, delicate and
silky to the palate; the ginger, full of flavour and of body; the red
currant, rich and sweet--a ladies’ wine; the gooseberry, possessing
all the finer qualities of the grape of Epernay; the raisin, with fine
Tokay flavour; or the raspberry, full of bouquet and of beeswing. But
their day is passed--the British wines are, practically, made no more.
All these drinks, once so lovingly prepared and so tenderly cherished,
are now as much forgotten as the toast in the nut-brown ale, or the
October humming ale, or the mead drunk from the gold-rimmed horn--they
still drink something out of a gold-rimmed horn in the Hall of Corpus
Christi, Cambridge; or the lordly ‘ypocras’ wherewith Sir Richard
Whittington entertained his Sovereign, what day he concluded the
banquet by burning the King’s bonds; or the once-popular mixture of gin
and noyau; or the cup of hot saloop from the stall in Covent Garden, or
on the Fleet Bridge.
[Illustration: THE OLD TABARD INN, HIGH STREET, SOUTHWARK]
The Tavern! We can hardly understand how large a place it filled in the
lives of our forefathers, who did not live scattered about in suburban
villas, but over their shops and offices. When business was over, all
of every class repaired to the Tavern. Dr. Johnson spent the evenings
of his last years wholly at the Tavern; the lawyer, the draper, the
grocer, the bookseller, even the clergy, all spent their evenings at
the Tavern, going home in time for supper with their families. You
may see the kind of Tavern life in any small country town to this
day, where the shopkeepers assemble every evening to smoke and talk
together. The Tavern was far more than a modern club, because the
tendency of a club is to become daily more decorous, while the Tavern
atmosphere of freedom and the equality of all comers prevented the
growth of artificial and conventional restraints. Something of the
Tavern life is left still in London; but not much. The substantial
tradesman is no longer resident; there are no longer any clubs which
meet at Taverns; and the old inns, with their sanded floors and great
fireplaces, are nearly all gone. The Swan with Two Necks, the Belle
Sauvage, the Tabard, the George and Vulture, the Bolt-in-Tun--they
have either ceased their existence, or their names call forth no more
associations of good company and good songs. The Dog and Duck, the
Temple of Flora, Apollo’s Gardens, the Bull in the Pound, the Blue Lion
of Gray’s Inn Lane--what memories linger round these names? What man is
now living who can tell us where they were?
[Illustration: SIGN OF THE SWAN WITH TWO NECKS, CARTER LANE]
[Illustration: SIGN OF THE BOLT-IN-TUN, FLEET STREET]