TAVERNS OF FLEET STREET AND THEREABOUTS.
Save for the High Street of Southwark, there was probably no
thoroughfare of old London which could boast so many inns and
taverns to the square yard as Fleet Street, but ere the pilgrim
explores that famous neighbourhood he should visit several other
spots where notable hostelries were once to be seen. He should, for
example, turn his steps towards St. Paul's Churchyard, which,
despite the fact that it was chiefly inhabited by booksellers, had
its Queen's Arms tavern and its Goose and Gridiron.
Memories of David Garrick and Dr. Johnson are associated with the
Queen's Arms. This tavern was the meeting-place of a select club
formed by a few intimate friends of the actor for the express
purpose of providing them with opportunities to enjoy his society.
Its members included James Clutterback, the city merchant who gave
Garrick invaluable financial aid when he started at Drury Lane, and
John Paterson, that helpful solicitor whom the actor selected as one
of his executors. These admirers of "little David" were a temperate
set; "they were 'none of them drinkers, and in order to make a
reckoning called only for French wine." Johnson's association with
the house is recorded by Boswell as belonging to the year 1781. "On
Friday, April 6," he writes, "he carried me to dine at a club which,
at his desire, had been lately formed at the Queen's Arms in St.
Paul's Churchyard. He told Mr. Hoole that he wished to have a City
_Club_, and asked him to collect one; but, said he, 'Don't let
them be _patriots_.' The company were to-day very sensible,
well-behaved men." Which, taken in conjunction with the abstemious
nature of the Garrick club, would seem to show that the Queen's Arms
was an exceedingly decorous house.
Concerning the Goose and Gridiron only a few scanty facts have
survived. Prior to the Great Fire it was known as the Mitre, but on
its being rebuilt it was called the Lyre. When it came into repute
through the concerts of a favourite musical society being given
within its walls, the house was decorated with a sign of Apollo's
lyre, surmounted by a swan. This provided too good an opportunity
for the wits of the town to miss, and they promptly renamed the
house as the Goose and Gridiron, which recalls the facetious
landlord who, on gaining possession of premises once used as a
music-house, chose for his sign a goose stroking the bars of a
gridiron and inscribed beneath, "The Swan and Harp." It is an
interesting note in the history of the St. Paul's Churchyard house
that early in the eighteenth century, on the revival of Freemasonry
in England, the Grand Lodge was established here.
Almost adjacent to St. Paul's, that is, in Queen's Head Passage,
which leads from Paternoster Row into Newgate Street, once stood the
famous Dolly's Chop House, the resort of Fielding, and Defoe, and
Swift, and Dryden, and Pope and many other sons of genius. It was
built on the site of an ordinary owned by Richard Tarleton, the
Elizabethan actor whose playing was so humorous that it even won the
praise of Jonson. He was indeed such a merry soul, and so great a
favourite in clown's parts, that innkeepers frequently had his
portrait painted as a sign. The chief feature of the establishment
which succeeded Tarleton's tavern appears to have been the
excellence of its beef-steaks. It should also be added that they
were served fresh from the grill, a fact which is accentuated by the
allusion which Smollett places in one of Melford's letters to Sir
Walkin Phillips in "Humphry Clinker": "I send you the history of
this day, which has been remarkably full of adventures; and you will
own I give you them like a beef-steak at Dolly's, _hot_ and
_hot_, without ceremony and parade."
Out into Newgate Street the pilgrim should now make his way in
search of that Salutation Tavern which is precious for its
associations with Coleridge and Lamb and Southey. Once more, alas!
the new has usurped the place of the old, but there is some
satisfaction in being able to gaze upon the lineal successor of so
noted a house. The Salutation was a favourite social resort in the
eighteenth century and was frequently the scene of the more formal
dining occasions of the booksellers and printers. There is a
poetical invitation to one such function, a booksellers' supper on
January 19, 1736, which reads:
"You're desired on Monday next to meet
'At Salutation Tavern, Newgate Street,
Supper will be on table just at eight."
One of those rhyming invitations was sent to Samuel Richardson, the
novelist, who replied in kind:
"For me I'm much concerned I cannot meet
At Salutation Tavern, Newgate Street."
Another legend credits this with being the house whither Sir
Christopher Wren resorted to smoke his pipe while the new St. Paul's
was being built. More authentic, however, and indeed beyond dispute,
are the records which link the memories of Coleridge and Lamb and
Southey with this tavern It was here Southey found Coleridge in one
of his many fits of depression, but pleasanter far are the
recollections which recall the frequent meetings of Lamb and
Coleridge, between whom there was so much in common. They would not
forget that it was at the nearby Christ's Hospital they were
schoolboys together, the reminiscences of which happy days coloured
the thoughts of Elia as he penned that exquisite portrait of his
friend: "Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring
of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee--the dark
pillar not yet turned--Samuel Taylor Coleridge--Logician,
Metaphysician, Bard!--How have I seen the casual passer through the
cloisters stand still, entranced with admiration to hear thee
unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of
Jamblichus, or Plotinus, or reciting Homer in his Greek, or
Pindar--while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the
accents of the inspired charity-boy!" As Coleridge was the elder by
two years he left Christ's Hospital for Cambridge before Lamb had
finished his course, but he came back to London now and then, to
meet his schoolmate in a smoky little room of the Salutation and
discuss metaphysics and poetry to the accompaniment of egg-hot,
Welsh rabbits, and tobacco. Those golden hours in the old tavern
left their impress deep in Lamb's sensitive nature, and when he came
to dedicate his works to Coleridge he hoped that some of the
sonnets, carelessly regarded by the general reader, would awaken in
his friend "remembrances which I should be sorry should be ever
totally extinct--the 'memory 'of summer days and of delightful
years,' even so far back as those old suppers at our old Salutation
Inn,--when life was fresh and topics exhaustless--and you first
kindled in me, if not the power, yet the love of poetry and beauty
and kindliness."
Continuing westward from Newgate Street, the explorer of the inns
and taverns of old London comes first to Holborn Viaduct, where
there is nothing of note to detain him, and then reaches Holborn
proper, with its continuation as High Holborn, which by the time of
Henry III had become a main highway into the city for the transit of
wood and hides, corn and cheese, and other agricultural products. It
must be remembered also that many of the principal coaches had their
stopping-place in this thoroughfare, and that as a consequence the
inns were numerous and excellent and much frequented by country
gentlemen on their visits to town. Although those inns have long
been swept away, the quaint half-timbered buildings of Staple Inn
remain to aid the imagination in repicturing those far-off days when
the Dagger, and the Red Lion, and the Bull and Gate, and the Blue
Boar, and countless other hostelries were dotted on either side of
the street.
With the first of these, the Dagger Tavern, we cross the tracks of
Ben Jonson once more. Twice does the dramatist allude to this house
in "The Alchemist," and the revelation that Dapper frequented the
Dagger would have conveyed its own moral to seventeenth century
playgoers, for it was then notorious as a resort of the lowest and
most disreputable kind. The other reference makes mention of "Dagger
frumety," which is a reminder that this house, as was the case with
another of like name, prided itself upon the excellence of its pies,
which were decorated with a representation of a dagger. That these
pasties were highly appreciated is the only conclusion which can be
drawn from the contemporary exclamation, "I'll not take thy word for
a Dagger pie," and from the fact that in "The Devil is an Ass"
Jonson makes Iniquity declare that the 'prentice boys rob their
masters and "spend it in pies at the Dagger and the Woolsack."
A second of these Holborn inns bore a sign which has puzzled
antiquaries not a little. The name was given as the Bull and Gate,
but the actual sign was said to depict the Boulogne Gate at Calais.
Here, it is thought, a too phonetic pronunciation of the French word
led to the contradiction of name and sign. What is more to the
point, and of greater interest, is the connection Fielding
established between Tom Jones and the Bull and Gate. When that hero
reached London in his search after the Irish peer who brought Sophia
to town, he entered the great city by the highway which is now
Gray's Inn Road, and at once began his arduous search. But without
success. He prosecuted his enquiry till the clock struck eleven, and
then Jones "at last yielded to the advice of Partridge, and
retreated to the Bull and Gate in Holborn, that being the inn where
he had first alighted, and where he retired to enjoy that kind of
repose which usually attends persons in his circumstances."
No less notable a character than Oliver Cromwell is linked in a
dramatic manner with the histories of the Blue Boar and the Red Lion
inns. The narrative of the first incident is put in Cromwell's own
mouth by Lord Broghill, that accomplished Irish peer whose
conversion from royalism to the cause of the Commonwealth was
accomplished by the Ironsides general in the course of one memorable
interview. According to this authority, Cromwell once declared that
there was a time when he and his party would have settled their
differences with Charles I but for an incident which destroyed their
confidence in that monarch. What that incident was cannot be more
vividly described than by the words Lord Broghill attributed to
Cromwell. "While we were busied in these thoughts," he said, "there
came a letter from one of our spies, who was of the king's
bed-chamber, which acquainted us, that on that day our final doom
was decreed; that he could not possibly tell us what it was, but we
might find it out, if we could intercept a letter, sent from the
king to the queen, wherein he declared what he would do. The letter,
he said, was sewed up in the skirt of a saddle, and the bearer of it
would come with the saddle upon his head, about ten of the clock
that night, to the Blue Boar Inn in Holborn; for there he was to
take horse and go to Dover with it. This messenger knew nothing of
the letter in the saddle, but some persons at Dover did. We were at
Windsor, when we received this letter; and immediately upon the
receipt of it, Ireton and I resolved to take one trusty fellow with
us, and with troopers' habits to go to the Inn in Holborn; which
accordingly we did, and set our man at the gate of the Inn, where
the wicket only was open to let people in and out. Our man was to
give us notice, when any one came with a saddle, whilst we in the
disguise of common troopers called for cans of beer, and continued
drinking till about ten o'clock: the sentinel at the gate then gave
notice that the man with the saddle was come in. Upon this we
immediately arose, and, as the man was leading out his horse
saddled, came up to him with drawn swords and told him that we were
to search all that went in and out there; but as he looked like an
honest man, we would only search his saddle and so dismiss him. Upon
that we ungirt the saddle and carried it into the stall, where we
had been drinking, and left the horseman with our sentinel: then
ripping up one of the skirts of the saddle, we there found the
letter of which we had been informed: and having got it into our own
hands, we delivered the saddle again to the man, telling him he was
an honest man, and bid him go about his business. The man, not
knowing what had been done, went away to Dover. As soon as we had
the letter we opened it; in which we found the king had acquainted
the queen, that he was now courted by both the factions, 'the Scotch
Presbyterians and the Army; and which bid fairest for him should
have him; but he thought he should close with the Scots, sooner than
the other. Upon this we took horse, and went to Windsor; and finding
we were not likely to have any tolerable terms with the king, we
immediately from that time forward resolved his ruin."
As that scene at the Blue Boar played so important a part in the
sequence of events which were to lead to Cromwell's attainment of
supreme power in England, so another Holborn inn, the Red Lion, was
to witness the final act of that petty revenge which marked the
downfall of the Commonwealth. Perplexing mystery surrounds the
ultimate fate of Cromwell's body, but the record runs that his
corpse, and those of Ireton and Bradshaw, were ruthlessly torn from
their graves soon after the Restoration and were taken to the Red
Lion, whence, on, the following morning, they were dragged on a
sledge to Tyburn and there treated with the ignominy hitherto
reserved for the vilest criminals. All kinds of legends surround
these gruesome proceedings. One tradition will have it that some of
Cromwell's faithful friends rescued his mutilated remains, and
buried them in a field on the north side of Holborn, a spot now
covered by the public garden in Red Lion Square. On the other hand
grave doubts have been expressed as to whether the body taken to the
Red Lion was really that of Cromwell. One legend asserts that it was
not buried in Westminster Abbey but sunk in the Thames; another that
it was interred in Naseby field; and a third that it was placed in
the coffin of Charles I at Windsor.
Impatient though he may be to revel in the multifarious associations
of Fleet Street, the pilgrim should turn aside into Ludgate Hill for
a few minutes for the sake of that Belle Sauvage inn the name of
which has been responsible for a rich harvest of explanatory theory.
Addison contributed to it in his own humorous way. An early number
of the Spectator was devoted to the discussion of the advisability
of an office being established for the regulation of signs, one
suggestion being that when the name of a shopkeeper or innkeeper
lent itself to "an ingenious sign-post" full advantage should be
taken of the opportunity. In this connection Addison offered the
following explanation of the name of the Ludgate Hill inn, which, it
has been shrewdly conjectured by Henry B. Wheatley, was probably
intended as a joke. "As for the bell-savage, which is the sign of a
savage man standing by a bell, I was formerly very much puzzled upon
the conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the reading of an
old romance translated out of the French; which gives an account of
a very beautiful woman who was found in a wilderness, and is called
in the French La Belle Sauvage; and is everywhere translated by our
countrymen the bell-savage."
Not quite so poetic is the most feasible explanation of this unusual
name for an inn. It seems that the original sign of the house was
the Bell, but that in the middle of the fifteenth century it had an
alternative designation. A deed of that period speaks of "all that
tenement or inn with its appurtenances, called Savage's inn,
otherwise called the Bell on the Hoop." This was evidently a case
where the name of the host counted for more than the actual sign of
the house, and the habit of speaking of Savage's Bell may easily
have led to the perversion into Bell Savage, and thence to the
Frenchified form mostly used to-day.
Leaving these questions of etymology for more certain matters, it is
interesting to recall that it was in the yard of the Belle Sauvage
Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion came to an inglorious end. That rising
was ostensibly aimed at the prevention of Queen Mary's marriage with
a prince of Spain, and for that reason won a large measure of
support from the men of Kent, at whose head Wyatt marched on the,
capital. At London Bridge, however, his way was blocked, and he was
obliged to make a détour by way of Kingston, in the hope of entering
the city by Lud Gate. But his men became disorganized on the long
march, and at each stage more and more were cut off from the main
body by the queen's forces, until, by the time he reached Fleet
Street, the rebel had only some three hundred followers. "He passed
Temple Bar," wrote Froude, "along Fleet Street, and reached Ludgate.
The gate was open as he approached, when some one seeing a number of
men coming up, exclaimed, 'These be Wyatt's ancients.' Muttered
curses were heard among the by-standers; but Lord Howard was on the
spot; the gates, notwithstanding the murmurs, were instantly closed;
and when Wyatt knocked, Howard's voice answered, 'Avaunt! traitor;
thou shall not come in here.' 'I have kept touch,' Wyatt exclaimed;
but his enterprise was hopeless now, He sat down upon a bench
outside the Belle Sauvage yard." That was the end. His followers
scattered in all directions, and in a little while he was a
prisoner, on his way to the Tower and the block.
[Illustration: YARD OF BELLE SAUVAGE INN.]
More peaceful are the records which tell how the famous carver in
wood, Grinling Gibbons, and the notorious quack, Richard Rock, once
had lodgings in the Belle Sauvage Yard, and more picturesque are the
memories of those days when the inn was the starting-place of those
coaches which lend a touch of romance to old English life. Horace
Walpole says Gibbons signalized his tenancy by carving a pot of
flowers over a doorway, so delicate in leaf and stem that the whole
shook with the motion of the carriages passing by. The quack, into
the hands of whom and his like Goldsmith declared all fell unless
they were "blasted by lightning, or struck dead with some sudden
disorder," was a "great man, short of stature, fat," and waddled as
he walked. He was "usually drawn at the top of his own bills,
sitting in his arm-chair, holding a little bottle between his finger
and thumb, and surrounded with rotten teeth, nippers, pills,
packets, and gallipots."
From the Belle Sauvage to the commencement of Fleet Street is but a
stone's throw, but the pilgrim must not expect to find any memorials
of the past in the eastern portion of that famous thoroughfare. The
buildings here are practically all modern, many of them, indeed,
having been erected in the last decade. As these lines are being
written, too, the announcement is made of a project for the further
transformation of the street at the cost of half a million pounds.
The idea is to continue the widening of the thoroughfare further
west, and if that plan is carried out, devastation must overtake
most of the ancient buildings which still remain.
By far the most outstanding feature of the Fleet Street of to-day is
the number and variety of its newspaper offices; two centuries ago
it had a vastly different aspect.
"From thence, along that tipling street,
Distinguish'd by the name of Fleet,
Where Tavern-Signs hang thicker far,
Than Trophies down at Westminster;
And ev'ry Bacchanalian Landlord
Displays his Ensign, or his Standard,
Bidding Defiance to each Brother,
As if at Wars with one another."
How thoroughly the highway deserved the name of "tipling street" may
be inferred from the fact that its list of taverns included but was
not exhausted by the Devil, the King's Head, the Horn, the Mitre,
the Cock, the Bolt-in-Tun, the Rainbow, the Cheshire Cheese,
Hercules Pillars, the Castle, the Dolphin, the Seven Stars, Dick's,
Nando's, and Peele's. No one would recognize in the Anderton's Hotel
of to-day the lineal successor of one of these ancient taverns, and
yet it is a fact that that establishment perpetuates the Horn tavern
of the fifteenth century. In the early seventeenth century the house
was in high favour with the legal fraternity, but its patronage of
the present time is of a more miscellaneous character. The present
building was erected in 1880.
[Illustration: THE CHESHIRE CHEESE--ENTRANCE FROM FLEET STREET.]
Close by, a low and narrow archway gives access to Wine Office
Court, a spot ever memorable for its having been for some three
years the home of Oliver Goldsmith. It was in 1760, when in his
thirty-second year, that he took lodgings in this cramped alleyway,
and here he remained, toiling as a journeyman for an astute
publisher, until towards the end of 1762. So improved were
Goldsmith's fortunes in these days that he launched out into supper
parties, one of which, in May, 1761, was rendered memorable by the
presence of Dr. Johnson, who attired himself with unusual care for
the occasion. To a companion who, noting the new suit of clothes,
the new wig nicely powdered, and all else in harmony, commented on
his appearance, Johnson rejoined, "Why, sir, I hear that Goldsmith,
who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness
and decency by quoting my practice, and I am desirous this night to
show him a better example." The house where that supper party was
held has disappeared, but in the Cheshire Cheese nearby there yet
survives a building which the centuries have spared.
Exactly how old this tavern is cannot be decided. It is inevitable
that there must have been a hostelry on this spot before the Great
Fire of 1666, inasmuch as there is a record to show that it was
rebuilt the following year. Which goes to show that the present
building has attained the ripe age of nearly two and a half
centuries. No one who explores its various apartments will be likely
to question that fact. Everything about the place wears an air of
antiquity, from the quaint bar-room to the more private chambers
upstairs. The chief glory of the Cheshire Cheese, however, is to be
seen downstairs on the left hand of the principal entrance. This is
the genuinely old-fashioned eating-room, with its rude tables, its
austere seats round the walls, its sawdust-sprinkled floor, and,
above all, its sacred nook in the further right hand corner which is
pointed out as the favourite seat of Dr. Johnson. Above this niche
is a copy of the Reynolds portrait of the sturdy lexicographer,
beneath which is the following inscription: "The Favourite Seat of
Dr. Johnson.--Born 18th Septr., 1709. Died 13th Decr., 1784. In him
a noble understanding and a masterly intellect were united with
grand independence of character and unfailing goodness of heart,
which won him the admiration of his own age, and remain as
recommendations to the reverence of posterity. 'No, Sir! there is
nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much
happiness has been produced as by a good tavern.'"
[Illustration: THE CHESHIRE CHEESE--THE JOHNSON ROOM.]
After all this it is surprising to learn that the authority for
connecting Dr. Johnson with the Cheshire Cheese rests upon a
somewhat late tradition. Boswell does not mention the tavern, an
omission which 'is accounted for by noting that "Boswell's
acquaintance with Johnson began when Johnson was an old man, and
when he had given up the house in Gough Square, and Goldsmith had
long departed from Wine Office Court. At the best," this apologist
adds, "Boswell only knew Johnson's life in widely separated
sections." As appeal cannot, then, be made to Boswell it is made to
others. The most important of these witnesses is a Cyrus Jay, who,
in a book of reminiscences published in 1868, claimed to have
frequented the Cheshire Cheese for fifty-five years, and to have
known a man who had frequently seen Johnson and Goldsmith in the
tavern. Another writer has placed on record that he often met in the
tavern gentlemen who had seen the famous pair there on many
occasions.
Taking into account these traditions and the further fact that the
building supplies its own evidence as to antiquity, it is not
surprising that the Cheshire Cheese enjoys an enviable popularity
with all who find a special appeal in the survivals of old London.
As a natural consequence more recent writing in prose and verse has
been bestowed upon this tavern than any other of the metropolis.
Perhaps the best of the many poems penned in its praise is that
"Ballade" written by John Davidson, the poet whose mysterious
disappearance has added so sad a chapter to the history of
literature.
"I know a house of antique ease
Within the smoky city's pale,
A spot wherein the spirit sees
Old London through a thinner veil.
The modern world so stiff and stale,
You leave behind you when you please,
For long clay pipes and great old ale
And beefsteaks in the 'Cheshire Cheese.'
"Beneath this board Burke's, Goldsmith's knees
Were often thrust--so runs the tale--
'Twas here the Doctor took his ease
And wielded speech that like a flail
Threshed out the golden truth. All hail,
Great souls! that met on nights like these
Till morning made the candles pale,
And revellers left the 'Cheshire Cheese.'
"By kindly sense and old decrees
Of England's use they set the sail
We press to never-furrowed seas,
For vision-worlds we breast the gale,
And still we seek and still we fail,
For still the 'glorious phantom' flees.
Ah well! no phantom are the ale
And beefsteaks of the 'Cheshire Cheese.'
"If doubts or debts thy soul assail,
If Fashion's forms its current freeze,
Try a long pipe, a glass of ale,
And supper at the 'Cheshire Cheese.'"
While the Cheshire Cheese was less fortunate than the Cock in the
Fire of London, the latter house, which escaped that conflagration,
has fallen on comparatively evil days in modern times. In other
words, the exterior of the original building, which dated from early
in the seventeenth century, was demolished in 1888, to make room for
a branch establishment of the Bank of England. Pepys knew the old
house and spent many a jovial evening beneath its roof. It was
thither, one April evening in 1667, that he took Mrs. Pierce and
Mrs. Knapp, the latter being the actress whom he thought "pretty
enough" besides being "the most excellent, mad-humoured thing, and
sings the noblest that ever I heard in my life." The trio had a gay
time; they "drank, and eat lobster, and sang" and were "mightily
merry." By and by the crafty diarist deleted Mrs. Pierce from the
party, and went off to Vauxhall with the fair actress, his
confidence in the enterprise being strengthened by the fact that the
night was "darkish." If she did not find out that excursion, Mrs.
Pepys knew quite enough of her husband's weakness for Mrs. Knapp to
be justified of her jealousy. And even he appears to have
experienced twinges of conscience on the matter. Perhaps that was
the reason why he took his wife to the Cock, and "did give her a
dinner" there. Other sinners have found it comforting to exercise
repentance on the scene of their offences.
Judging from an advertisement which was published in 1665, the
proprietor of the Cock did not allow business to interfere with
pleasure. "This is to certify," his announcement ran, "that the
master of the Cock and Bottle, commonly called the Cock Alehouse, at
Temple Bar, hath dismissed his servants, and shut up his house, for
this Long Vacation, intending (God willing) to return at Michaelmas
next."
But the tavern is prouder of its association with Tennyson than of
any other fact in its history. The poet was always fond of this
neighbourhood. His son records that whenever he went to London with
his father, the first item on their programme was a walk in the
Strand and Fleet Street. "Instead of the stuccoed houses in the West
End, this is the place where I should like to live," Tennyson would
say. During his early days he lodged in Norfolk Street close by,
dining with his friends at the Cock and other taverns, but always
having a preference for the room "high over roaring Temple-bar." In
the estimation of the poet, as his son has chronicled, "a perfect
dinner was a beef-steak, a potato, a cut of cheese, a pint of port,
and afterwards a pipe (never a cigar). When joked with by his
friends about his liking for cold salt beef and new potatoes, he
would answer humorously, 'All fine-natured men know what is good to
eat.' Very genial evenings they were, with plenty of anecdote and
wit."
All this, especially the pint of port, throws light on "Will
Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue," which, as the poet himself has
stated, was "made at the Cock." Its opening apostrophe is familiar
enough:
"O plump head-waiter at The Cock,
To which I most resort,
How goes the time? 'Tis five o'clock.
Go fetch a pint of port."
How faithfully that waiter obeyed the poet's injunction to bring him
of the best, all readers of the poem are aware:
"The pint, you brought me, was the best
That ever came from pipe."
Undoubtedly. As witness the flights of fancy which it created. Its
potent vintage transformed both the waiter and the sign of the house
in which he served and shaped this pretty legend.
"And hence this halo lives about
The waiter's hands, that reach
To each his perfect pint of stout,
His proper chop to each.
He looks not like the common breed.
That with the napkin dally;
I think he came like Ganymede,
From some delightful valley.
"The Cock was of a larger egg
Than modern poultry drop,
Stept forward on a firmer leg,
And cramm'd a plumper crop;
Upon an ampler dunghill trod,
Crow'd lustier late and early,
Sipt wine from silver, praising God,
And raked in golden barley.
"A private life was all his joy,
Till in a court he saw
A something-pottle-bodied boy
That knuckled at the law:
He stoop'd and clutch'd him, fair and good,
Flew over roof and casement:
His brothers of the weather stood
Stock-still for sheer amazement.
"But he, by farmstead, thorpe and spire,
And follow'd with acclaims,
A sign to many a staring shire
Came crowing over Thames.
Right down by smoky Paul's they bore,
Till, where the street grows straiter,
One fix'd for ever at the door,
And one became head-waiter."
Just here the poet bethought himself. It was time to rein in his
fancy. Truly it was out of place to make
"The violet of a legend blow
Among the chops and steaks."
So he descends to more mundane things, to moralize at last upon the
waiter's fate and the folly of quarrelling with our lot in life. It
is interesting to learn from Fitzgerald that the Cock's plump
head-waiter read the poem, but disappointing to know that his only
remark on the performance was, "Had Mr. Tennyson dined oftener here,
he would not have minded it so much." From which poets may learn the
moral that to trifle with Jove's cupbearer in the interests of a
tavern waiter is liable to lead to misunderstanding. But it is,
perhaps, of more importance to note that, notwithstanding the
destruction of the exterior of the Cock in 1888, one room of that
ancient building was preserved intact and may be found on the first
floor of the new house. There, for use as well as admiration, are
the veritable mahogany boxes which Tennyson knew,--
"Old boxes, larded with the steam
Of thirty thousand dinners--"
and not less in evidence is the stately old fireplace which Pepys
was familiar with.
Not even a seat or a fireplace has survived of the Mitre tavern of
Shakespeare's days, or the Mitre tavern which Boswell mentions so
often. They were not the same house, as has sometimes been stated,
and the Mitre of to-day is little more than a name-successor to
either. Ben Jonson's plays and other literature of the seventeenth
century make frequent mention of the old Mitre, and that was no
doubt the tavern Pepys patronized on occasion.
No one save an expert indexer would have the courage to commit
himself to the exact number of Boswell's references to the Mitre. He
had a natural fondness for the tavern as the scene of his first meal
with Johnson, and with Johnson himself, as his biographer has
explained, the place was a first favourite for many years. "I had
learned," says Boswell in recording the early stages of his
acquaintance with his famous friend, "that his place of frequent
resort was the Mitre Tavern in Fleet Street, where he loved to sit
up late, and I begged I might be allowed to pass an evening with him
there, which he promised I should. A few days afterwards I met him
near Temple-bar, about one o'clock in the morning, and asked if he
would then go to the Mitre. 'Sir,' said he, 'it is too late; they
won't let us in. But I'll go with you another night with all my
heart.'" That other night soon came. Boswell called for his friend
at nine o'clock, and the two were soon in the tavern. They had a
good supper, and port wine, but the occasion was more than food and
drink to Boswell. "The orthodox high-church sound of the Mitre,--the
figure and manner of the celebrated Samuel Johnson,--the
extraordinary power and precision of his conversation, and the pride
arising from finding myself admitted as his companion, produced a
variety of sensations, and a pleasing elevation of mind beyond what
I had ever before experienced."
[Illustration: DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.]
On the next occasion Goldsmith was of the company, and the visit
after that was brought about through Boswell's inability to keep his
promise to entertain Johnson at his own rooms. The little Scotsman
had a squabble with his landlord, and was obliged to take his guest
to the Mitre. "There is nothing," Johnson said, "in this mighty
misfortune; nay, we shall be better at the Mitre." And Boswell was
characteristically oblivious of the slur on his gifts as a host. But
that, perhaps, is a trifle compared with the complacency with which
he records further snubbings administered to him at that tavern. For
example, there was that rainy night when Boswell made some feeble
complaints about the weather, qualifying them with the profound
reflection that it was good for the vegetable creation. "Yes, sir,"
Johnson rejoined, "it is good for vegetables, and for the animals
who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those
animals." Then there was that other occasion when the note-taker
talked airily about his interview with Rousseau, and asked Johnson
whether he thought him a bad man, only to be crushed with Johnson's,
"Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you.
If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men."
Severer still was the rebuke of another conversation at the Mitre.
The ever-blundering Boswell rated Foote for indulging his talent of
ridicule at the expense of his visitors, "making fools of his
company," as he expressed it. "Sir," Johnson said, "he does not make
fools of his company; they whom he exposes are fools already: he
only brings them into action."
But, if only in gratitude for what Boswell accomplished, last
impressions of the Mitre should not be of those castigations. A far
prettier picture is that which we owe to the reminiscences of Dr.
Maxwell, who, while assistant preacher at the Temple, had many
opportunities of enjoying Johnson's company. Dr. Maxwell relates
that one day when he was paying Johnson a visit, two young ladies,
from the country came to consult him on the subject of Methodism, to
which they were inclined. "Come," he said, "you pretty fools, dine
with Maxwell and me at the Mitre, and we will take over that
subject." Away, they went, and after dinner Johnson "took one of
them upon his knee, and fondled her for half an hour together."
Dante Gabriel Rossetti chose that incident for a picture, but
neither his canvas nor Dr. Maxwell's record enlightens us as to
whether the "pretty fools" were preserved to the Church of England.
But it was a happy evening--especially for Dr. Johnson.
As with the Cock, a part of the interior of the Rainbow Tavern dates
back more than a couple of centuries. The chief interest of the
Rainbow, however, lies in the fact that it was at first a
coffee-house, and one of the earliest in London. It was opened in
1657 by a barber named James Farr who evidently anticipated more
profit in serving cups of the new beverage than in wielding his
scissors and razor. He succeeded so well that the adjacent
tavern-keepers combined to get his coffee-house suppressed, for,
said they, the "evil smell" of the new drink "greatly annoyed the
neighbourhood." But Mr. Farr prospered in spite of his competitors,
and by and by he turned the Rainbow into a regular tavern.
No one who gazes upon the century-old print of the King's Head can
do other than regret the total disappearance of that picturesque
building. This tavern stood at the west corner of Chancery Lane and
is believed by antiquaries to have been built in the reign of Edward
VI. It figures repeatedly in ancient engravings of the royal
processions of long-past centuries, and contributed a notable
feature to the progress of Queen Elizabeth as she was on her way to
visit Sir Thomas Gresham. The students of the Temple hit upon the
effective device of having several cherubs descend, as it were, from
the heavens, for the purpose of presenting the queen with a crown of
gold and laurels, together with the inevitable verses of an
Elizabethan ceremony, and the roof of the King's Head was chosen as
the heaven from whence these visitants came down. Only the first and
second floors were devoted to tavern purposes; on the ground floor
were shops, from one of which the first edition of Izaak Walton's
"Complete Angler" was sold, while another provided accommodation for
the grocery business of Abraham Cowley's father.
From 1679 the King's Head was the common headquarters of the
notorious Green Ribbon Club, which included a precious set of
scoundrels among its members, chief of them all being that
astounding perjurer, Titus Gates. Hence the tavern's designation as
a "Protestant house." It was pulled down in 1799.
Another immortal tavern of Fleet Street, the most immortal of them
all, Ben Jonson's Devil, has also utterly vanished. Its full title
was The Devil and St. Dunstan, aptly represented by the sign
depicting the saint holding the tempter by the nose, and its site,
appropriately enough, was opposite St. Dunstan's Church, on the
south side of Fleet Street and close to Temple-bar. One of Hogarth's
illustrations to "Hudibras" gives a glimpse of the tavern, but on
the wrong side of the street, as is so common in the work of that
artist.
No doubt the Devil had had a protracted existence prior to Jonson's
day, but its chief title to fame dates from the time when the
convivial dramatist made it his principal rendezvous. The exact date
of that event is difficult to determine. Nor is it possible to
explain why Jonson removed his patronage from the Mermaid in
Cheapside to the Devil in Fleet Street. The fact remains, however,
that while the earlier period of his life has its focus in Cheapside
the later is centred in the vicinity of Temple-bar.
[Illustration: TABLET AND BUST FROM THE DEVIL TAVERN.]
Perhaps Jonson may have found the accommodation of the Devil more
suited to his needs. After passing through those years of opposition
which all great poets have to face, there came to him the crown of
acknowledged leadership among the writers of his day. He accepted it
willingly. He seems to have been temperamentally fitted to the post.
He was, in fact, never so happy as when in the midst of a group of
men who owned his pre-eminence. What was more natural, then, than
that he should have conceived the idea of forming a club? And in the
great Apollo room at the Devil he found the most suitable place of
meeting. Over the door of this room, inscribed in gold letters on a
black ground, this poetical greeting was displayed.
"Welcome all who lead or follow
To the Oracle of Apollo--
Here he speaks out of his pottle,
Or the tripos, his tower bottle:
All his answers are divine,
Truth itself doth Bow in wine.
Hang up all the poor hop-drinkers,
Cries old Sam, the king of skinkers;
He the half of life abuses,
That sits watering with the Muses.
Those dull girls no good can mean us;
Wine it is the milk of Venus,
And the poet's horse accounted:
Ply it, and you all are mounted.
'Tis the true Phoebian liquor,
Cheers the brains, makes wit the quicker.
Pays all debts, cures all diseases,
And at once three senses pleases.
Welcome all who lead or follow,
To the Oracle of Apollo."
That relic of the Devil still exists, carefully preserved in the
banking establishment which occupies the site of the tavern; and
with it, just as zealously guarded, is a bust of Jonson which stood
above the verses. Inside the Apollo room was another poetical
inscription, said to have been engraved in black marble. These
verses were in the dramatist's best Latin, and set forth the rules
for his tavern academy. Much of their point is lost in the English
version, which, however, deserves quotation for the sake of the
inferences it suggests as to the conduct which was esteemed "good
form" in Jonson's club.
"As the fund of our pleasure, let each pay his shot,
Except some chance friend, whom a member brings in.
Far hence be the sad, the lewd fop, and the sot;
For such have the plagues of good company been.
"Let the learned and witty, the jovial and gay,
The generous and honest, compose our free state;
And the more to exalt our delight whilst we stay,
Let none be debarred from his choice female mate.
"Let no scent offensive the chamber infest.
Let fancy, not cost, prepare all our dishes.
Let the caterer mind the taste of each guest,
And the cook, in his dressing, comply with their wishes.
"Let's have no disturbance about taking places,
To show your nice breeding, or out of vain pride.
Let the drawers be ready with wine and fresh glasses,
Let the waiters have eyes, though their tongues must be ty'd.
"Let our wines without mixture or stum, be all fine,
Or call up the master, and break his dull noddle.
Let no sober bigot here think it a sin,
To push on the chirping and moderate bottle.
"Let the contests be rather of books than of wine,
Let the company be neither noisy nor mute.
Let none of things serious, much less of divine,
When belly and head's full profanely dispute.
"Let no saucy fidler presume to intrude,
Unless he is sent for to vary our bliss.
With mirth, wit, and dancing, and singing conclude,
To regale every sense, with delight in excess.
"Let raillery be without malice or heat.
Dull poems to read let none privilege take.
Let no poetaster command or intreat
Another extempore verses to make.
"Let argument bear no unmusical sound,
Nor jars interpose, sacred friendship to grieve.
For generous lovers let a corner be found,
Where they in soft sighs may their passions relieve.
"Like the old Lapithites, with the goblets to fight,
Our own 'mongst offences unpardoned will rank,
Or breaking of windows, or glasses, for spight,
And spoiling the goods for a rakehelly prank.
"Whoever shall publish what's said, or what's done,
Be he banished for ever our assembly divine.
Let the freedom we take be perverted by none
To make any guilty by drinking good wine."
By the testimony of those rules alone it is easy to see how
thoroughly the masterful spirit of Jonson ruled in the Apollo room.
His air was a throne, his word a sceptre that must be obeyed. This
impression is confirmed by many records and especially by Drummond's
character sketch. The natural consequence was that membership in the
Apollo Club came to be regarded as an unusual honour. There appears
to have been some kind of ceremony at the initiation of each new
member, which gave all the greater importance to the rite of being
"sealed of the tribe of Ben." Long after the dramatist was dead, his
"sons" boasted of their intimacy with him, much to the irritation of
Dryden and others. While he lived, too, they were equally elated at
being admitted to the inner circle at the Devil, and, after the
manner of Marmion, sung the praises of their "boon Delphic god,"
surrounded with his "incense and his altars smoking."
[Illustration: BEN JONSON.]
Incense was an essential if Jonson was to be kept in good humour.
Many anecdotes testify to that fact. There is the story of his loss
of patience with the country gentleman who was somewhat talkative
about his lands, and his interruption, "What signifies to us your
dirt and your clods? Where you have an acre of land, I have ten
acres of wit." And Howell tells of that supper party which, despite
good company, excellent cheer and choice wines, was turned into a
failure by Jonson engrossing all the conversation and "vapouring
extremely of himself and vilifying others." Yet there were probably
few of his own circle, the "sons of Ben," who would have had it
otherwise. Few indeed and fragmentary are the records of his
conversation in the Apollo room, but they are sufficient to prove
how ready a wit the poet possessed. Take, for example, the story of
that convivial gathering when the tavern keeper promised to forgive
Jonson the reckoning if he could tell what would please God, please
the devil, please the company, and please him. The poet at once
replied:
"God is pleased, when we depart from sin,
The devil's pleas'd, when we persist therein;
Your company's pleas'd, when you draw good wine,
And thou'd be pleas'd, if I would pay thee thine."
Some austere biographers have chided the memory of the poet for
spending so much of his time at the Devil. They forget, or are
ignorant of the fact that there is proof the time was well spent. In
a manuscript of Jonson which still exists there are many entries
which go to show that some of his finest work was inspired by the
merry gatherings in the Apollo room.
For many years after Jonson's death the Devil, and especially the
Apollo room, continued in high favour with the wits of London and
the men about town. Pepys knew the house, of course, and so did
Evelyn, and Swift dined there, and Steele, and many another genius
of the eighteenth century. It was in the Apollo room, too, that the
official court-day odes of the Poets Laureate were rehearsed, which
explains the point of the following lines:
"When Laureates make odes, do you ask of what sort?
Do you ask if they're good or are evil?
You may judge--From the Devil they come to the Court,
And go from the court to the Devil."
But the Apollo room is not without its idyllic memory. It was
created by the ever-delightful pen of Steele. Who can forget the
picture he draws of his sister Jenny and her lover Tranquillus and
their wedding morning? "The wedding," he writes, "was wholly under
my care. After the ceremony at church, I resolved to entertain the
company with a dinner suitable to the occasion, and pitched upon the
Apollo, at the Old Devil at Temple-bar, as a place sacred to mirth
tempered with discretion, where Ben Jonson and his sons used to make
their liberal meetings." The mirth of that assembly was threatened
by the indiscretion of that double-meaning speaker who is usually in
evidence at such gatherings to the confusion of the bride, but
happily his career was cut short by the plain sense of the soldier
and sailor, as may be read in the pages of the "Tatler."
Within easy hail of the Devil, on the site now occupied by St.
Clement's Chambers, Dane's Inn, there stood until 1853 a quaint old
hostelry known as the Angel Inn. It dated from the opening years of
the sixteenth century at least, for it is specifically named in a
letter of February 6th, 1503. In the middle of that century, too, it
figures in the progress of Bishop Harper to the martyr's stake, for
it was from this inn that prelate was taken to Gloucester to be
burnt. The Angel cannot hope to compete with the neighbouring
taverns of Fleet Street on the score of literary associations, but
the fact that seven or eight mail coaches started from its yard
every night will indicate how large a part it played in the life of
old London.