and fashion, and divided the town with Vauxhall. Here you might see on
a Sunday afternoon, or other evenings, two thirds of the corporation
promenading with their wives and daughters; then there was a fine organ
in the splendid large room, which played for the entertainment of
the company, and such crowds of beautiful women, and gay fellows in
embroidered suits and lace ruffles, all powdered and perfumed like a
nosegay, with elegant cocked hats and swords in their sides; then there
were such rural walks to make love in, take tea or cyder, and smoke a
pipe; you know, Mrs. Marigold, you and I have had many a pleasant hour
in those gardens during our courting days, when the little naked Cupid
used to sit astride of a swan, and the water spouted from its beak as
high as the ~93~~monument; then the grotto was so delightful and
natural as life, and the little bridge, and the gold fish hopping about
underneath it, made it quite like a terrestrial paradise{2}; but about
that time Dr. Whitfield and the Countess of Huntingdon undertook to
save the souls of all the sinners, and erected a psalm-singing shop in
Tottenham Court Road, where they assembled the pious, and made wry
faces at the publicans and sinners, until they managed to turn the heads
without turning the hearts of a great number of his majesty's liege
subjects, and by the aid of cant and hypocrisy, caused the orthodox
religion of the land to be nearly abandoned; but we are beginning to
be more enlightened, Mr. Blackmantle, and Understand these _trading_
missionaries and _Bible merchants_ much better than they could wish us
to have done. Then, sir, the Pantheon, in Spa Fields, was a favourite
place of resort for the bucks and gay ladies of the time; and Sadler's
Wells and Islington Spa were then in high repute for their mineral
waters. At White Conduit House the Jews and Jewesses of the metropolis
held their carnival, and city apprentices used to congregate at Dobney's
bowling-green, afterwards named, in compliment to Garrick's Stratford
procession, the Jubilee tea-gardens; those were the times to grow rich,
Mr. Blackmantle, when half-a-crown would cover the day's expenditure of
five persons, and behave liberally too."--In our way through Islington,
the alderman pointed out to us the place as formerly celebrated for a
weekly consumption of cakes and ale; and as we passed through Holloway,
informed us that it was in former time equally notorious for its
cheese-cakes, the fame of which attracted vast numbers on
2 Upon reference to an old print of Bagnigge Wells, I find
the alderman's description of the place to be a very
faithful portrait. The Pantheon is still standing, but
converted into a methodist chapel.
~94~~the Sunday, who, having satiated themselves with pastry, would
continue their rambles to the adjacent places of Hornsey Wood House,
Colney Hatch, and Highgate, returning by the way of Hampstead to town.
The topographical reminiscences of the alderman were illustrated as
we proceeded by the occasional sallies of Mrs. Marigold's satire:
"she could not but regret the depravity of the times, that enabled low
shop-keepers and servants to dress equal to their betters: it is now
quite impossible to enjoy society and be comfortable in public, without
being associated with your tallow-chandler, or your butcher, or take a
pleasant drive out of town, without meeting your linen-draper, or your
tailor, better mounted or in a more fashionable equipage than yourself."
"All for the good of trade," said the alderman: "it would be very hard
indeed if those who enable others to cut a dash all the week could not
make a splash themselves on a Sunday; besides, my dear, it's a matter of
business now-a-days: many of your kickshaw tradesmen west of Temple Bar
find it as necessary to consult _appearances_ in the park and watch the
_new come outs_, as I do to watch the stock market: if they find their
customers there in good feather and high repute, they venture to cover
another leaf in their ledger; but if, on the contrary, they appear shy,
only show of a Sunday, and are cut by the nobs, why then they understand
it's high time to close the account, and it's very well for them if they
are ever able to _strike a balance_."
At the conclusion of this colloquy, we had arrived at the Gate House,
Highgate, just in time to hear the landlord proclaim that dinner was
that moment about to be served up: the civic rank of the alderman did
not fail to obtain its due share of servile attention from Boniface, who
undertook to escort our party into the room, and having announced the
consequence ~95~~of his guests, placed the alderman and his family at
the head of the table.
I have somewhere read, "there is as much valour expected in feasting as
in fighting; "and if any one doubts the truth of the axiom, let him try
with a hungry stomach to gratify the cravings of nature at a crowded
ordinary--or imagine a well disposed group of twenty persons, all in
high appetite and "eager for the fray" sitting down to a repast scantily
prepared for just half the number, and crammed into a narrow room, where
the waiters are of necessity obliged to wipe every dish against your
back, or deposit a portion of gravy in your pocket, to say nothing of
the sauce with which a remonstrance is sure to fill both your ears. Most
of the company present upon this occasion appeared to have the organs
of destructiveness to an extraordinary degree, and mine host of the
Gate House, who is considered an excellent physiognomist, looked on with
trembling and disastrous countenance, as he marked the eager anxiety of
the expectant _gourmands_ sharpening their knives, and spreading their
napkins, at the shrine of Sensuality, exhibiting the most voracious
symptoms of desire to commence the work of demolition.
A small tureen of mock turtle was half lost on its entrance, by being
upset over the leg of a dancing-master, who capered about the room to
double quick time, from the effects of a severe scalding; on which the
alderman (with a wink) observed, that the gentleman had no doubt caused
many a _calf s head to dance_ about in his time, and now he had met
with a rich return. "I'll bring an action against the landlord for the
carelessness of his waiter." "You had better not," said the alderman.
"Why not, sir?" replied the smarting son of Terpsichore. "Because you
have only _one leg to stand on_." This sally produced a general laugh,
and restored all to good humour. On the appearance of a fine cod's head
and shoulders, the ~96~~rosy gills of Marigold seemed to extend with
extatic delight; while a dozen voices assailed him at once with "I'll
take fish, if you please." "Ay, but you don't take me for a fag: if
you please, gentlemen, I shall help the ladies first, then myself and
friend, and afterwards you may divide the _omnium and scrip_ just as you
please."
"What a strange animal!" whispered the dancing master to his next
neighbour, an old conveyancer. "Yes, sir," replied the man of law, "a
city shark, I think, that will swallow all our share of the fish."
"Don't you think, Mr. Alderman," said a lusty lady on the opposite side
of the table, "the fish is rather _high_?"
"No, ma'ain, it's my opinion," (looking at the fragments) "the company
will find it rather low."
"Ay, but I mean, Mr. Alderman, it's not so _fresh_ as it might be."
"Why the head did whisper to me, ma'am, that he had not been at sea
these ten days; only I thought it rude to repeat what was told me
in confidence, and I'm not fond of _fresh things_ myself, am I, Mrs.
Marigold? Shall I help you to a little fowl, ma'am, a wing, or a merry
thought?"
"Egad! Mr. Alderman, you are always ready to assist the company with the
latter."
"Yes, ma'am, always happy to help the ladies to a __tit bit: shall I
send you the _recorder's nose_? Bless my heart, how warm it is! Here,
Joe, hang my wig behind me, and place that calf's-head before me." (See
Plate.)
"Very sorry, ma'am, very sorry indeed," said Mr. Deputy Flambeau to the
lady next him, whose silk dress he had just bespattered all over; "could
not have supposed this little pig had so much gravy in him," as Lady
Macbeth says.
"I wish you'd turn that ere nasty thing right round, Mr. Deputy,"
growled out a city ~97~~costermonger, "'cause my wife's quite alarmed
for her _grose_ de Naples."
"Not towards me, if you please, Mr. Deputy," simpered out Miss Marigold,
"because thereby hangs a tail, i.e. (tale)."
"That's my Biddy's ultimatum," said the alderman; "she never makes more
than one good joke a day."
"If they are all as good as the last, they deserve the benefit of
frequent resurrection, alderman."
"Why so, Mr. Blackmantle?"
"Because they will have the merit of being very funny upon a very grave
subject--_jeu d'esprits_ upon our latter end."
"Could you make room for three more gentlemen?" said the waiter,
ushering in three woe-begone knights of the trencher, who, having heard
the fatal clock strike when at the bottom of the hill, and knowing the
punctuality of the house, had toiled upwards with breathless anxiety
to be present at the first attack, and arrived at the end of the
second course, _just in time to be too late_. "Confound all clocks and
clockmakers! set my watch by Bishopsgate church, and made sure I was
a quarter too fast." "Very sorry, gentlemen, very sorry, indeed," said
Boniface; "nothing left that is eatable--not a chop or a steak in the
house; but there is an excellent ordinary at the Spaniards, about a mile
further down the lane; always half an hour later than ours." "Ay, it's
a grievous affair, landlord; but howsomdever, if there's nothing to
eat, why we must go: we meant to have done you justice to-day--but never
mind, we'll be in time for you another Sunday, old gentleman, depend
upon it; "and with this significant promise the three _hungarians_
departed, not a little disappointed.
"Those three men are no ordinary customers," said our host; "they have
done us the honour to dine here _before_, and what is more, of leaving
nothing _behind_; one of them is the celebrated Yorkshireman, Tom
~98~~Cornish, whom General Picton pitted against a Hanoverian glutton
to eat for a fortnight, and found, at the end of a week, that he was
a whole bullock, besides twelve quartern loaves, and half a barrel of
beer, ahead of his antagonist; and if the Hanoverian had not given up,
Tom would have eaten the rations of a whole company. His father is said
to have been equally gluttonous and penurious, and could eat any given
quantity: this person once dining with a member of the Society of
Friends, who was also a scion of Elwes' school, after having eat enough
for four moderate visitors, re-helped himself, exclaiming, 'You see it's
cut and come again with me! 'to which the sectarian gravely replied,
'Friend, cut again thou may'st, but come again thou never shalt.'"
"Ay, that's a very good joke, landlord," said the alderman; "but you
know I am up to your jokes: you think these long stories will save your
mutton, but there you're wrong--they only give time to take breath; so
bring in the sirloin and the saddle of mutton, waiter; and when
we've done dinner I'll tell you an anecdote of old Tattersall and his
beef-eater, which occurred at this house in a former landlord's time.
Come, Mr. Blackmantle, let me send you a slice of the sirloin, and tell
us what you think of good eating."
"That the wit of modern times directs all its rage _ad gulam_; and the
only inducement to study is _erudito luxu_, to please the palate, and
satisfy the stomach. Even my friend Ebony, the northern light, has cast
off the anchorite, and sings thus jollily:
'The science of eating is old,
Its antiquity no man can doubt:
Though Adam was squeamish, we're told,
Eve soon found a _dainty bit_ out.'
"We talk of the degeneracy of the moderns, as if men now-a-days were
in every respect inferior to their ~99~~ancestors; but I maintain, and
challenge contradiction, that there are many stout rubicund gentlemen
in this metropolis that might be backed for eating or drinking with
any Bacchanalian or masticator since the days of Adam himself. What was
_Offellius Bibulus_, the Roman parasite, or _Silenus Ebrius_, or _Milo_,
who could knock down an ox, and eat him up directly afterwards, compared
to Tom Cornish, or Richardson the oyster eater?{3} or what are all these
opposed to the Oxonian, who, a short time since, went to the Swan at
Bedford, and ordered dinner? a goose being brought, he hacked it in a
style at which Mrs. Glass would have fainted; indeed so wretched was
the mutilated anatomy, in appearance, from bad carving, that, being
perfectly ashamed of it, he seized the moment when some poor mendicant
implored his charity at the window, deposited the remains of the goose
in his apron, rang the bell, and asked for his bill: the waiter gazed a
moment at the empty dish, and then rushing to the landlord, exclaimed,
'Oh! measter, measter, the gentleman eat the goose, bones and all!' and
the worthies of Bedford believe the wondrous tale to this day."
To return to Tom Cornish, our host informed us his extraordinary powers
of mastication were well known, and dreaded by all the tavern-keeping
fraternity who had Sunday ordinaries within ten miles round London, with
some of whom he was a regular annuitant, receiving a trifle once a
year, in lieu of giving them a _benefit_, as he terms the filling of
his voracious paunch. A story is told of his father, who is said to have
kept a very scanty table, that dining one Saturday with
3 In 1762, says Evelyn in his Diary, "one Richardson,
amongst other feats, performed the following: taking a live
coal on his tongue, he put on it a raw oyster; the coal was
blown on with a bellows, till it flamed in his mouth, and so
remained till the oyster gaped, and was quite boiled."
Certainly the most simple of all cooking apparatus.
~100~~his son at an ordinary in Cambridge, he whispered in his ear,
"Tom, you must eat for to-day and to-morrow." "O yes," retorted the
half-starved lad, "but I han't eaten for yesterday, and the day before
yet, father." In short, Tom makes but one hearty meal in a week, and
that one might serve a troop of infantry to digest. The squalling of an
infant at the lower end of the room, whose papa was vainly endeavouring
to pacify the young gourmand with huge spoonfuls of mock-turtle, drew
forth an observation from the alderman, that had well nigh disturbed the
entire arrangement of the table, and broke up the harmony of the scene
"with most admired disorder;" for on the head of the Marigold family
likening the youngster's noise to a chamber organ, and quaintly
observing that they always had music during dinner at Fishmongers' Hall,
the lady mother of the infant, a jolly dame, who happened to be engaged
in the shell fish line, took the allusion immediately to herself, and
commenced such a furious attack upon the alderman as proved her having
been regularly matriculated at the college in Thames Street.
When the storm subsided the ladies had vanished, and the alderman moved
an adjournment to what he termed the _snuggery_, a pleasant little
room on the first floor, which commanded a delightful prospect over the
adjacent country. Here we were joined by three eccentric friends of the
Marigold family, who came on the special invitation of the alderman,
Mr. Peter Pendragon, a celebrated city punster, Mr. Philotus Wantley,
a vegetable dieter, and Mr. Galen Cornaro, an abominator of wine, and a
dyspeptic follower of Kitchener and Abernethy--a trio of singularities
that would afford excellent materials for my friend Richard Peake, the
dramatist, in mixing up a new _monopolylogue_ for that facetious child
of whim and wit, the inimitable Charles Mathews. Our first story, while
the wine was decantering, proceeded from the ~101~~alderman, who having
been driven from the dinner table somewhat abruptly by the amiable _caro
sposa_ of the fish-merchant, had failed in giving us his promised
anecdote of old Tattersall and his beef-eater. "I have dined with him
often in this house," said the alderman, "in my earlier days, and a
pleasant, jovial, kindhearted fellow he was, one who would ride a long
race to be present at a good joke, and never so happy as when he could
trot a landlord, or knock down an argument monger with his own weapons.
The former host of the Gate House was a bit of a screw, and old Tat knew
this; so calling in one day, as if by accident, Tat sat him down to a
cold round of beef, by way of luncheon, and having taken some half ounce
of the meat, with a few pickles, requested to know what he had to pay
for his eating. 'Three shillings, sir,' said the waiter. 'Three devils!'
ejaculated Tat, with strong symptoms of surprise, for in those days
three shillings would have nearly purchased the whole round: 'send in
your master.' In walks the host, and Tat renewed his question, receiving
in reply a reiteration of the demand, but accompanied with this
explanation, that peck high or peck low, it was all the same price: 'in
short, sir,' said the host, 'I keep this house, and I mean the house
should keep me, and the only way I find to insure that is to make the
short stomachs pay for the long ones.' 'Very well,' said Tat, paying the
demand, 'I shall remember this, and bring a friend to dine with you
another day.' At this time Tat had in his employ a fellow called Oxford
Will, notorious for his excessive gluttony, a very famine breeder, who
had won several matches by eating for a wager, and who had obtained the
appellation of Tattersall's beef-eater. This fellow Tat dressed in
decent style, and fixing him by his side in the chaise, drove up to the
Gate House on a Sunday to dine at the ordinary, taking care to be in
excellent time, and making a previous appointment with a few friends
~102~~to enjoy the joke. At dinner Will was, by arrangement, placed in
the chair, and being well instructed and prepared for execution, was
ably supported by Tat and his friends: the host, too, who was in
excellent humour, quite pleased to see such a numerous and respectable
party, apologised repeatedly, observing that he would have provided more
abundantly had he known of the intended honour: in this way all things
proceeded very pleasantly with the first course, Will not caring to make
any very wonderful display of his masticatory prowess with either of the
_unsubstantials_, fish or soup; but when a fine _aitch-bone_ of beef
came before the gourmand, he stuck his fork into the centre, and,
unheedful of the ravenous solicitations of those around him requesting a
slice, proceeded to demolish the whole joint, with as much celerity as
the hyena would the harmless rabbit: the company stared with
astonishment; the landlord, to whom the waiters had communicated the
fact, entered the room in breathless haste; and on observing the empty
dish, and hearing Will direct the waiter to take away the bone and bring
him a clean plate, was apparently thunder-struck: but how much was his
astonishment increased upon perceiving Will help himself to a fine young
turkey, stuffed with sausages, which he proceeded to dissect with
anatomical ability, and by this time the company understanding the joke,
he was allowed uninterruptedly to deposit it in his immense capacious
receptacle, denominated by old Tat the _fathomless vacuum_. Hitherto the
company had been so completely electrified by the extra-ordinary powers
of the glutton, that astonishment had for a short time suspended the
activity of appetite, as one great operation of nature will oftentimes
paralyze the lesser affections of the body; but, as Will became
satisfied, the remainder of the party, stimulated by certain
compunctious visitings of nature, called cravings of the stomach, gave
evident symptoms of ~103~~a very opposite nature: in vain the landlord
stated his inability to produce more viands, he had no other provisions
in the house, it was the sabbath-day, and the butchers' shops were shut,
not a chop or a steak could be had: here Will feigned to join his
affliction with the rest--he could have enjoyed a little snack more, by
way of finish. This was the climax; the party, according to previous
agreement, determined to proceed to the next inn to obtain a dinner; the
landlord's remonstrance was perfectly nugatory; they all departed,
leaving Tat and his man to settle with the infuriated host; and when the
bill was brought in they refused to pay one sixpence more than the usual
demand of three shillings each, repeating the landlord's own words, that
peck high or peck low, it was all the same price."
With the first glass of wine came the inspiring toast of "The Ladies,"
to which Mr. Philotus Wantley demurred, not on account of the sex, for
he could assure us he was a fervent admirer, but having studied the
wise maxims of Pythagoras, and being a disciple of the Brahma school,
abominators of flesh and strong liquors, he hoped to be excused, by
drinking the ladies in _aqua pura_.--" Water is a monstrous drink for
Christians!" said the alderman, "the sure precursor of coughs, colds,
consumptions, agues, dropsies, pleurisies, and spleen. I never knew
a water-drinker in my life that was ever a fellow of any spirit, mere
morbid anatomies, starvelings and hypochondriacs: your water-drinkers
never die of old age, but melancholy."--"Right, right, alderman," said
Mr. Pendragon; "a cup of generous wine is, in my opinion, excellent
physic; it makes a man lean, and reduces him to friendly dependence on
every thing that bars his way: sometimes it is a little grating to
his feelings, to be sure, but it generally passes off with an hic-cup.
According to Galen, sir, the waters of _Astracan_ breed worms in
those who taste them; those ~104~~of _Verduri_, the fairest river in
Macedonia, make the cattle who drink of them black, while those of
Peleca, in Thessaly, turn every thing white; and Bodine states that the
stuttering of the families of Aquatania, about Labden, is entirely owing
to their being water-drinkers: a man might as well drink of the river
Styx as the river Thames, '_Stygio monstrum conforme paludi_,' a
monstrous drink, thickened by the decomposition of dead Christians and
dead brutes, and purified by the odoriferous introduction of gas water
and puddle water, joined to a pleasant and healthy amalgamation of all
the impurities of the common sewers.
'As nothing goes in so thick,
And nothing comes out so thin,
It must follow, of course,
That no-thing can be worse,
As the dregs are all left within.'"