CHAPTER V.

INNS AND TAVERNS FURTHER AFIELD.

Outside the more or less clearly defined limits of the city, the

neighbourhood of St. Paul's, Fleet Street, the Strand and Covent

Garden, the explorer of the inns and taverns of old London may

encircle the metropolis from any given point and find something of

interest everywhere. Such a point of departure may be made, for

example, in the parish of Lambeth, where, directly opposite the

Somerset House of to-day, once stood the Feathers Tavern connected

with Cuper's Gardens. The career of that resort was materially

interfered with by the passing of an act in 1752 for the regulation

of places of entertainment "and punishing persons keeping disorderly

houses." The act stipulated that every place kept for public

dancing, music, or other entertainment, within twenty miles of the

city, should be under a license.

[Illustration: FEATHERS TAVERN. ]

Evidently it was found impossible to secure a license for Cuper's

Gardens, for in a public print of May 22nd, 1754, the Widow Evans

advertises that "having been deny'd her former Liberty of opening

her Gardens as usual, through the malicious representations of

ill-meaning persons, she therefore begs to acquaint the Public that

she hath open'd them as a Tavern till further notice. Coffee and Tea

at any hour of the day." There is no record of the Widow Evans ever

recovering her former "Liberty," and hence the necessity of

continuing the place as a tavern merely, with its seductive offer of

"coffee and tea at any hour." Even without a license, however, a

concert was announced for the night of August 30th, 1759, the law

being evaded by the statement that the vocal and instrumental

programme was to be given by "a select number of gentlemen for their

own private diversion." As there is no record of any other

entertainment having been given at the E'eathers, it is probable

that this attempt to dodge the law met with condign punishment, and

resulted in the closing of the place for good. After it had stood

unoccupied for some time Dr. Johnson passed it in the company of

Beauclerk, Langton, and Lady Sydney Beauclerk, and made a sportive

suggestion that he and Beauclerk and Langton should take it. "We

amused ourselves," he said, "with scheming how we should all do our

parts. Lady Sydney grew angry and said, 'An old man should not put

such things in young people's heads.' She had no notion of a joke,

sir; had come late into life, and had a mighty unpliable

understanding." Though Johnson did not carry his joke into effect,

the Feathers has not lacked for perpetuation, as is shown by the

modern public-house of that name in the vicinity of Waterloo Bridge.

From Lambeth to Westminster is an easy journey, but unhappily there

are no survivals of the numerous inns which figure in records of the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One of those hostelries makes

its appearance in the expense sheet of a Roger Keate who went to

London in 1575 on the business of his town of Weymouth. He notes

that on Friday the tenth day of February, "in the companie of

certain courtiars, and of Mr. Robert Gregorie, at Westminster, at

the Sarrazin's Head" he spent the sum of five shillings. This must

have been a particularly festive occasion, for a subsequent dinner

cost Mr. Keate but twenty pence, and "sundrie drinkinges" another

day left him the poorer by but two shillings and twopence.

Another document, this time of date 1641, perpetuates the memory of

a second Westminster inn in a lively manner. This is a petition of a

constable of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields to the House of Commons, and

concerned the misdoings of certain apprentices at the time of the

riot caused by Colonel Lunsford's assault on the citizens of

Westminster. The petitioner, Peter Scott by name, stated that he

tried to appease the 'prentices by promising to release their

fellows detained as prisoners in the Mermaid tavern. When he and

another constable approached the door of the house, his colleague

was thrust in the leg with a sword from within, which so enraged the

'prentices--though why is not explained--that they broke into the

tavern, and the keeper had since prosecuted the harmless Peter Scott

for causing a riot.

Numerous as were the taverns of Westminster, it is probable that the

greater proportion of them were to be found in one thoroughfare, to

wit, King Street. It was the residence and place of business of one

particularly aggressive brewer in the closing quarter of the

seventeenth century. This vendor of ale, John England by name, had

the distinction of being the King's brewer, and he appears to have

thought that that position gave him more rights than were possessed

by ordinary mortals. So when an order was made prohibiting the

passing of drays through King Street during certain hours of the

day, he told the constables that he, the King's brewer, cared

nothing for the order of the House of Lords. The example proved

infectious. Other brewers' draymen became obstreperous too, one

calling the beadle that stopped him "a rogue" and another vowing

that if he knew the beadle "he would have a touch with him at

quarterstaff." But all these fiery spirits of King Street were

brought to their senses, and are found expressing sorrow for their

offence and praying for their discharge.

According to the legend started by Ben Jonson, this same King Street

was the scene of poet Spenser's death of starvation. "He died," so

Jonson said, "for want of bread in King Street; he refused twenty

pieces sent him by my Lord Essex, and said he was sure he had no

time to spend them." This myth is continually cropping up, but no

evidence has been adduced in its support. The fact that he died in a

tavern in King Street tells against the story. That thoroughfare,

then the only highway between the Royal Palace of Whitehall and the

Parliament House, was a street of considerable importance, and

Spenser's presence there is explained by Stow's remark that "for the

accommodation of such as come to town in the terms, here are some

good inns for their reception, and not a few taverns for

entertainment, as is not unusual in places of great confluence."

There are ample proofs, too, that King Street was the usual resort

of those who were messengers to the Court, such as Spenser was at

the time of his death.

It is strange, however, that not many of the names of these taverns

have survived. Yet there are two, the Leg and the Bell, to which

there are allusions in seventeenth century records. There is one

reference in that "Parliamentary Diary" supposed to have been

written by Thomas Burton, the book which Carlyle characterized as

being filled "with mere dim inanity and moaning wind." This

chronicler, under date December 18th, 1656, tells how he dined with

the clothworkers at the Leg, and how "after dinner I was awhile at

the Leg with Major-General Howard and Mr. Briscoe." Being so near

Whitehall in one direction and the Parliament House in the other, it

is not surprising to learn that the nimble Pepys was a frequent

visitor at the tavern. After a morning at Whitehall "with my lord"

in June, 1660, he dined there with a couple of friends. Nearly a

year later business took him to the House of Lords, but as he failed

to achieve the purpose he had in view he sought consolation at the

Leg, where he "dined very merry." A more auspicious occasion took

place three years after. "To the Exchequer, and there got my tallys

for ~17,500, the first payment I ever had out of the Exchequer, and

at the Legg spent 14s. upon my old acquaintance, some of them the

clerks, and away home with my tallys in a coach, fearful every

moment of having one of them fall out, or snatched from me." He was

equally glowing with satisfaction when he visited the tavern again

in 1667. All sorts of compliments had been paid him that day, and he

had been congratulated even by the King and the Duke of York. "I

spent the morning thus walking in the Hall, being complimented by

everybody with admiration: and at noon stepped into the Legg with

Sir William Warren."

'Then there was that other house in King Street, the Bell, upon

which the diarist bestowed some of his patronage. On his first visit

he was caught in a neat little trap. "Met with Purser Washington,

with whom and a lady, a friend of his, I dined at the Bell Tavern in

King Street, but the rogue had no more manners than to invite me,

and to let me pay my club." Which was too bad of the Purser, when

Pepys' head and heart were full of "infinite business." The next

call, however, was more satisfactory and less expensive. He merely

dropped in to see "the seven Flanders mares that my Lord has bought

lately." But the Bell had a history both before and after Pepys'

time. It is referred to so far back as the middle of the fifteenth

century, and it was in high favour as the headquarters of the

October Club in the reign of Queen Anne.

During the eighteenth century many fashionable resorts were located

in Pall Mall and neighbouring streets. In Pall Mall itself was the

famous Star and Garter, and close by was St. Alban's Tavern,

celebrated for its political gatherings and public dinners. Horace

Walpole has several allusions to the house and tells an anecdote

which illustrates the wastefulness of young men about town. A number

of these budding aristocrats were dining at St. Alban's Tavern and

found the noise of the coaches outside jar upon their sensitive

nerves. So they promptly ordered the street to be littered with

straw, and probably cared little that the freak cost them fifty

shillings each.

No doubt the charges at the St. Allan's were in keeping with the

exclusive character of the house, and it might be inferred that the

same would have held good at the Star and Garter. But that was not

the case. Many testimonies to the moderate charges of that house

have been cited. Perhaps the most conclusive evidence on this point

is furnished by Swift, who was always a bit of a haggler as to the

prices he paid at taverns. It was 'at his suggestion that the little

club to which he belonged discarded the tavern they had been used to

meeting in and went to the Star and Garter for their dinner. "The

other dog," Swift wrote in one of his little letters to Stella, "was

so extravagant in his bills that for four dishes, and four, first

and second course, without wine or dessert, he charged twenty-one

pounds, six shillings and eightpence." That the bill at the Star and

Garter was more reasonable is a safe inference from the absence of

any complaint on the part of Swift.

Several clubs were wont to meet under this roof. Among these was the

Nottinghamshire Club, an association of gentlemen who had estates in

that county and were in the habit of dining together when in town.

One such gathering, however, had a tragic termination. It took place

on January 26th, 1765, and among those present were William

Chaworth, John Hewett, Lord Byron, a great-uncle of the poet, and

seven others. Perfect harmony prevailed until about seven o'clock,

when the wine was brought in and conversation became general. At

this juncture one member of the company started a conversation about

the best method of preserving game, and the subject was at once

taken up by Mr. Chaworth and Lord Byron, who seem to have held

entirely opposite views. The former was in favour of severity

against all poachers, the latter declaring that the best way to have

most game was to take no care of it all. Nettled by this opposition,

Mr. Chaworth ejaculated that he had more game on five acres than

Lord Byron had on all his manors. Retorts were bandied to and fro,

until finally Mr. Chaworth clenched matters by words which were

tantamount to a challenge to a duel.

Nothing more was said, however, and the company was separating when

Mr. Chaworth and Lord Byron happened to meet on a landing. What

transpired at first then is not known, but evidently the quarrel was

resumed in some form or other, for the two joined in calling a

waiter and asking to be shown into an empty room. The waiter obeyed,

opening the door and placing a small tallow candle on the table

before he retired. The next news from that room was the ringing of a

bell, and when it was answered it was found that Mr. Chaworth was

mortally wounded. What had happened was explained by Mr. Chaworth,

who said that he could not live many hours; that he forgave Lord

Byron, and hoped the world would; that the affair had passed in the

dark, only a small tallow candle burning in the room; that Lord

Byron asked him if he meant the conversation on the game to Sir

Charles Sedley or to him? To which he replied, if you have anything

to say, we had better shut the door; that while he was doing this,

Lord Byron bid him draw, and, in turning, he saw his lordship's

sword half drawn, on which he whipped out his own, and made the

first pass; the sword being through his lordship's waistcoat, he

thought he had killed him, and asking whether he was not mortally

wounded, Lord Byron, while he was speaking, shortened his sword, and

stabbed him in the abdomen. Mr. Chaworth survived but a few hours.

There was a trial, of course, but it ended in Lord Byron's acquittal

on the ground that he had been guilty of but manslaughter. And the

poet, the famous grand-nephew, rounds off this story of the Star and

Garter by declaring that his relative, so far from feeling any

remorse for the death of Mr. Chaworth, always kept the sword he had

used with such fatal effect and had it hanging in his bedroom when

he died.

Although the neighbouring Suffolk Street is a most decorous

thoroughfare at the present time, and entirely innocent of taverns,

it was furnished with two, the Cock and The Golden Eagle, in the

latter portion of the seventeenth century. At the former Evelyn

dined on one occasion with the councillors of the Board of Trade; at

the latter, on January 30th, 1735, occurred the riot connected with

the mythical Calf's Head Club. How the riot arose is something of a

mystery. It seems, however, that a mob was gathered outside the

tavern by the spreading of the report that some young nobles were

dining within on a calf's head in ridicule of the execution of

Charles I, and a lurid account was afterwards circulated as to how a

bleeding calf's head, wrapped in a napkin, was thrown out of the

window, while the merrymakers within drank all kinds of confusion to

the Stuart race. According to the narrative of one who was in the

tavern, the calf's head business was wholly imaginary. Nor was the

date of the dinner a matter of prearrangement. It seems that the

start of the commotion was occasioned by some of the company inside

observing that some boys outside had made a bonfire, which, in their

hilarity, they were anxious to emulate. So a waiter was commissioned

to make a rival conflagration, and then the row began. It grew to

such proportions that the services of a justice and a strong body of

guards were required ere peace 'could be restored to Suffolk Street.

Rare indeed is it to find a tavern in this district which can claim

a clean record in the matter of brawls, and duels, and sudden

deaths. Each of the two most famous houses of the Haymarket, that

is, Long's and the Blue Posts Tavern, had its fatality. It was at

the former ordinary, which must not be confused with another of the

same name in Covent Garden, that Philip Herbert, the seventh Earl of

Pembroke, committed one of those murderous assaults for which he was

distinguished. He killed a man in a duel in 1677, and in the first

month of the following year was committed to the Tower "for

blasphemous words." That imprisonment, however, was of brief

duration, for in February a man petitioned the House of Lords for

protection from the earl's violence. And the day before, in a

drunken scuffle at Long's he had killed a man named Nathaniel Cony.

This did not end his barbarous conduct, for two years later he

murdered an officer of the watch, when returning from a drinking

bout at Turnham Green. Mercifully for the peace of the community

this blood-thirsty peer died at the age of thirty. At the Blue Posts

Tavern the disputants were a Mr. Moon and a Mr. Hunt, who began

their quarrel in the house, "and as they came out at the door they

drew their swords, and the latter was run through and immediately

died." There was another Blue Posts in Spring Gardens close by,

which became notorious from being the resort of the Jacobites. This,

in fact, was the house in which Robert Charnock and his fellow

conspirators were at breakfast when news reached them which proved

that their plot had been discovered.

A more refined atmosphere hangs around the memory of the Thatched

House, that St. James's Street tavern which started on its

prosperous career in 1711 and continued it until 1865, at which date

the building was taken down to make room for the Conservative

Clubhouse. Its title would have led a stranger to expect a modest

establishment, but that seems to have been bestowed on the principle

which still prevails when a mansion is designated a cottage. It

reminds one of Coleridge and his

"the Devil did grin, for his darling sin

Is the pride that apes humility."

Swift was conscious of the incongruity of the name, as witness the

lines,

"The Deanery House may well be match'd,

Under correction, with the Thatch'd."

As a matter of fact the tavern was of the highest class and greatly

in repute with the leaders of society and fashion. And its

frequenters were not a little proud of being known among its

patrons. Hence the delightful retort of the Lord Chancellor Thurlow

recorded by Lord Campbell. "In the debates on the Regency, a prim

peer, remarkable for his finical delicacy and formal adherence to

etiquette, having cited pompously certain resolutions which he said

had been passed by a party of noblemen and gentlemen of great

distinction at the Thatched House Tavern, the Lord Chancellor

Thurlow, in adverting to these said, 'As to what the noble lord in

the red ribbon told us he had heard at the ale-house.'"

Town residences of a duke and several earls are now the most

conspicuous buildings in the Mayfair Stanhope Street, but in the

closing years of the eighteenth century there was a tavern here of

the name of Pitt's Head. On a June night in 1792 this house was the

scene of a gathering which had notable results. The host conceived

the idea of inviting a number of the servants of the neighbourhood

to a festivity in honour of the King's birthday, one feature of

which was to be a dance. The company duly assembled to the number of

forty, but some busybody carried news of the gathering to a

magistrate who, with fifty constables, quickly arrived on the scene

to put an end to the merrymaking. Every servant in the tavern was

taken into custody and marched off to a watch-house in Mount Street.

News of what had happened spread during the night, and early in the

morning the watch-house was surrounded by a furious mob. A riot

followed, which was not easily suppressed. But another consequence

followed. During the riot the Earl of Lonsdale was stopped in his

carriage while passing to his own house, and annoyed by that

experience he addressed some curt words to a Captain Cuthbert who

was on duty with the soldiers. Of course a duel was the next step.

After failing to injure each other at two attempts, the seconds

intervened, and insisted that, as their quarrel had arisen through a

mutual misconception, and as neither of them would make the first

concession, they should advance towards each other, step for step,

and both declare, in the same breath, that they were sorry for what

had happened.

In pre-railway days Piccadilly could boast of the White Horse

Cellar, which Dickens made famous as the starting-point of Mr.

Pickwick for Bath after being mulct in seven hundred and fifty

pounds damages by the fair widow Bardell. The fact that it was an

important coaching depot appears to have been its chief attraction

in those and earlier days, for the novelist's description of the

interior would hardly prove seductive to travellers were the house

existing in its old-time condition. "The travellers' room at the

White Horse Cellar," wrote Dickens, "is of course uncomfortable; it

would be no travellers' room if it were not. It is the right-hand

parlour, into which an aspiring kitchen fireplace appears to have

walked, accompanied by a rebellious poker, tongs, and shovel. It is

divided into boxes, for the solitary confinement of travellers, and

is furnished with a clock, a looking-glass, and a live waiter: which

latter article is kept in a small kennel for washing glasses, in a

corner of the apartment." Pierce Egan, in the closing pages of his

lively account of Jerry Hawthorn's visit to London, gives an outside

view of the tavern only. And that more by suggestion than direct

description. It is the bustle of the place rather than its

architectural features Egan was concerned with, and in that he was

seconded by his artist, George Cruikshank, whose picture of the

White Horse Cellar is mostly coach and horses and human beings.

Few if any London taverns save the Adam and Eve can claim to stand

upon ground once occupied by a King's palace. This tavern, which has

a modern representative of identical name, was situated at the

northern end of Tottenham Court Road, at the junction of the road

leading to Hampstead. It was built originally on the site of a

structure known as King John's Palace, which subsequently became a

manor house, and then gave way to the Adam and Eve tavern and

gardens. This establishment had a varied career. At one time it was

highly respectable; then its character degenerated to the lowest

depths; afterwards taking an upward move once more.

Something in the shape of a place for refreshments was standing on

this spot in the mid seventeenth century, for the parish books of

St. Giles in the Fields record that three serving maids were in 1645

fined a shilling each for "drinking at Totenhall Court on the

Sabbath daie." In the eighteenth century the resort was at the

height of its popularity. It had a large room with an organ,

skittle-alleys, and cosy arbours for those who liked to consume

their refreshments out of doors. At one time also its attractions

actually embraced "a monkey, a heron, some wild fowl, some parrots,

and a small pond for gold-fish." It was at this stage in its

history, when its surroundings were more rural than it is possible

to imagine to-day, that the tavern was depicted by Hogarth in his

"March to Finchley" plate. Early in the last century, however, it

"became a place of more promiscuous resort, and persons of the worst

character and description were in the constant habit of frequenting

it; highwaymen, footpads, pickpockets, and common women formed its

leading visitants, and it became so great a nuisance to the

neighbourhood, that the magistrates interfered, the organ was

banished, the skittle-grounds destroyed, and the gardens dug up." A

creepy story is told of a subterraneous passage having existed in

connection with the manor house which formerly stood on this spot, a

passage which many set out to explore but which has kept its secret

hidden to this day.

[Illustration: ADAM AND EVE TAVERN.]

Record has already been made of the fact that there was one

"Sarrazin's" Head tavern at Westminster; it must be added that there

was another at Snow Hill, which disappeared when the Holborn Viaduct

was built. Dickens, who rendered so many valuable services in

describing the buildings of old London, has left a characteristic

pen-picture of this tavern. "Near to the jail, and by consequence

near to Smithfield, and on that particular part of Snow Hill where

omnibuses going eastward seriously think of falling down on purpose,

and where horses in hackney cabriolets going westward not

unfrequently fall by accident, is the coachyard of the Saracen's

Head Inn; its portals guarded by two Saracens' heads and shoulders

frowning upon you from each side of the gateway. The Inn itself

garnished with another Saracen's head, frowns upon you from the top

of the yard. When you walk up this yard you will see the

booking-office on your left, and the tower of St. Sepulchre's Church

darting abruptly up into the sky on your right, and a gallery of

bedrooms upon both sides. Just before you, you will observe a long

window with the words 'Coffee Room' legibly painted above it." That

allusion to St. Sepulchre's Church recalls the fact that in that

building may be seen the brass to the memory of the redoubtable

Captain John Smith, who was to win the glory of laying the first

abiding foundations of English life in America. The brass makes due

record of the fact that he was "Admiral of New England," and it also

bears in the coat of arms three Turks' heads, in memory of Smith's

alleged single-handed victory over that number of Saracens. As

Selden pointed out, when Englishmen came home from fighting the

Saracens, and were beaten by them, they, to save their own credit,

pictured their enemy with big, terrible faces, such as frowned at

Dickens from so many coigns of vantage in the old Saracen's Head,

[Illustration: A TRIAL BEFORE THE PIE-POWDER COURT AT THE HAND AND

SHEARS TAVERN.]

During the closing decade of the famous Bartholomew Fair--an annual

medley of commerce and amusement which had its origin in the days

when it was the great cloth exchange of all England and attracted

clothiers from all quarters--the scene of what was known as the

Pie-Powder Court was located in a 'tavern known as the Hand and

Shears. Concerning this court Blackstone offered this interesting

explanation: "The lowest, and, at the same time, the most

expeditious court of justice known to the law of England, is the

Court of Pie-Powder, _curia pedis pulverizati_, so called from

the dusty feet of the suitors." Another explanation of the name is

that the court was so called "because justice is there done as

speedily as dust can fall from the foot." Whatever be the correct

solution, the curious fact remains that this court was a serious

affair, and had the power to enforce law and deal out punishment

within the area of the Fair. There is an excellent old print of the

Hand and Shears in which the court was held, and another not less

interesting picture showing the court engaged on the trial of a

case. It is evident from the garb of the two principal figures that

plaintiff and defendant belonged to the strolling-player fraternity,

who always contributed largely to the amusements of the Fair. This

curious example of swift justice, recalling the Old Testament

picture of the judge sitting at the gate of the city, became

entirely a thing of the past when Bartholomew Fair was abolished in

1854.

There are two other inns, one to the north, the other to the south,

the names of which can hardly escape the notice of the twentieth

century visitor to London. These are the Angel at Islington, and the

Elephant and Castle at Walworth. The former is probably the older of

the two, though both were in their day famous as the starting-places

of coaches, just as they are conspicuous to-day as traffic centres

of omnibuses and tram-cars. The Angel dates back to before 1665, for

in that year of plague in London a citizen broke out of his house in

the city and sought refuge here. He was refused admission, but was

taken in at another inn and found dead in the morning. In the

seventeenth century and later, as old pictures testify, the inn

presented the usual features of a large old country hostelry. As

such the courtyard is depicted by Hogarth in his print of the "Stage

Coach." Its career has been uneventful in the main, though in 1767

one of its guests ended his life by poison, leaving behind this

message: "I have for fifteen years past suffered more indigence than

ever gentleman before submitted to, I am neglected by my

acquaintance, traduced by my enemies, and insulted by the vulgar."

[Illustration: FALCON TAVERN, BANKSIDE.]

If he would complete the circle of his tour on the outskirts of

London proper, the pilgrim, on leaving the Elephant and Castle,

should wend his way to Bankside, though not in the expectation of

finding any vestige left of that Falcon tavern which was the daily

resort of Shakespeare and his theatrical companions; Not far from

Blackfriars Bridge used to be Falcon Stairs and the Falcon Glass

Works, and other industrial buildings bearing that name, but no

Falcon tavern within recent memory. It has been denied that

Shakespeare frequented the Falcon tavern which once did actually

exist. But so convivial a soul must have had some "house of call,"

and there is no reason to rob the memory of the old Falcon of what

would be its greatest honour. Especially does it seem unnecessary in

view of the fact that the Falcon and many another inn and tavern of

old London, has vanished and left "not a rack behind."

II.

COFFEE-HOUSES OF OLD LONDON.

CHAPTER I.

COFFEE-HOUSES ON 'CHANGE AND NEAR-BY.

Coffee-Houses still exist in London, but it would be difficult to

find one answering to the type which was so common during the last

forty years of the seventeenth century and the first half of the

eighteenth. The establishment of to-day is nothing more than an

eating-house of modest pretensions, frequented mostly by the

labouring classes. In many cases its internal arrangements follow

the old-time model, and the imitation extends to the provision of a

daily newspaper or two from which customers may glean the news of

the day without extra charge. Here and there, too, the coffee-house

of the present perpetuates the convenience of its prototype by

allowing customers' letters to be sent to its address. But the more

exalted type of coffee-house has lost its identity in the club.

It is generally agreed that 1652 was the date of the opening of the

first coffee-house in London. There are, however, still earlier

references to the drink itself. For example, Sir Henry Blount wrote

from Turkey in 1634 to the effect that the natives of that country

had a "drink called _cauphe_ ...in taste a little bitterish,"

and that they daily entertained themselves "two or three hours in

_cauphe-_houses, which, in Turkey, abound more than inns and

alehouses with us." Also it will be remembered that Evelyn, under

date 1637, recorded how a Greek came to Oxford and "was the first I

ever saw drink coffee."

Whether the distinction of opening the first coffee-house in London

belongs to a Mr. Bowman or to a Pasqua Rosee cannot be decided. But

all authorities are as one in locating that establishment in St.

Michael's Alley, Cornhill, and that the date was 1652. The weight of

evidence seems to be in favour of Rosee, who was servant to a Turkey

merchant named Edwards. Having acquired the coffee-drinking habit in

Turkey, Mr. Edwards was accustomed to having his servant prepare the

beverage for him in his London house, and the new drink speedily

attracted a levee of curious onlookers and tasters. Evidently the

company grew too large to be convenient, and at this juncture Mr.

Edwards suggested that Rosee should set up as a vendor of the drink.

He did so, and a copy of the prospectus he issued on the occasion

still exists. It set forth at great length "the virtue of the Coffee

Drink First publiquely made and sold in England by Pasqua Rosee,"

the berry of which was described as "a simple innocent thing" but

yielding a liquor of countless merits. But Rosee was frank as to its

drawbacks; "it will prevent drowsiness," he continued, "and make one

fit for business, if one have occasion to watch; and therefore you

are not to drink it after supper, unless you intend to be watchful,

for it will hinder sleep for three or four hours."

That Pasqua Rosee prospered amazingly in St. Michael's Alley, "at

the Signe of his own Head," is the only conclusion possible from the

numerous rival establishments which were quickly set up in different

parts of London. By the end of the century it was computed that the

coffee-houses of London numbered nearly three thousand.

But there were days of tribulation to be passed through before that

measure of success was attained. In eight years after Rosee had

opened his establishment the consumption of coffee in England had

evidently increased to a notable extent, for in 1660 the House of

Commons is found granting to Charles II for life the excise duty on

coffee "and other outlandish drinks." But it is a curious fact that

while the introduction of tea was accepted with equanimity by the

community, the introduction of coffee was strenuously opposed for

more than a decade. Poets and pamphleteers combined to decry the new

beverage. The rhyming author of "A Cup of Coffee, or Coffee in its

Colours," published in 1663, voiced his indignation thus:

"For men and Christians to turn Turks and think

To excuse the crime, because 'tis in their drink!

Pure English apes! ye might, for aught I know,

Would it but mode learn to eat spiders too.

Should any of your grandsires' ghosts appear

In your wax-candle circles, and but hear

The name of coffee so much called upon,

Then see it drank like scalding Phlegethon;

Would they not startle, think ye, all agreed

'Twas conjuration both in word and deed?"

By way of climax this opponent of the new drink appealed to the

shades of Ben Jonson and other libation-loving poets, and recalled

how they, as source of inspiration, "drank pure nectar as the Gods

drink too."

Three years later a dramatist seems to have tried his hand at

depicting the new resort on the stage, for Pepys tells how in

October, 1666, he saw a play called "The Coffee-House." It was not a

success; "the most ridiculous, insipid play that ever I saw in my

life," was Pepys' verdict. But there was nothing insipid about

the pamphlet which, under the title of "The Character of a

Coffee-House," issued from the press seven years later. The author

withheld his name, and was wise in so doing, for his cuts and

thrusts with his pen would have brought down upon him as numerous

cuts and thrusts with a more dangerous weapon had his identity been

known. "A coffee-house," he wrote, "is a lay-conventicle,

good-fellowship turned puritan, ill-husbandry in masquerade; whither

people come, after toping all day, to purchase, at the expense of

their last penny, the repute of sober companions: a rota-room, that,

like Noah's ark, receives animals of every sort, from the precise

diminutive band, to the hectoring cravat and cuffs in folio; a

nursery for training up the smaller fry of virtuosi in confident

tattling, or a cabal of kittling critics that have only learned to

spit and mew; a mint of intelligence, that, to make each man his

penny-worth, draws out into petty parcels what the merchant receives

in bullion. He, that comes often, saves two-pence a week in

Gazettes, and has his news and his coffee for the same charge, as at

a three-penny ordinary they give in broth to your chop of mutton; it

is an exchange where haberdashers of political smallwares meet, and

mutually abuse each other, and the public, with bottomless stories,

and headless notions; the rendezvous of idle pamphlets, and persons

more idly employed to read them; a high court of justice, where

every little fellow in a camlet cloke takes upon him to transpose

affairs both in church and state, to shew reasons against acts of

parliament, and condemn the decrees of general councils."

Having indulged in that trenchant generalization, this vigorous

assailant proceeded to describe a coffee-house in detail. The room

"stinks of tobacco worse than hell of brimstone;" the coffee itself

had the appearance of "Pluto's diet-drink, that witches tipple out

of dead men's skulls;" and the company included "a silly fop and a

worshipful justice, a griping rook and a grave citizen, a worthy

lawyer and an errant pickpocket, a reverend non-conformist and a

canting mountebank, all blended together to compose an oglio of

impertinence." There is a delightful sketch of one named "Captain

All-man-sir," as big a boaster as Falstaff, and a more delicately

etched portrait of the Town Wit, who is summed up as the

"jack-pudding of society" in the judgment of all wise men, but an

incomparable wit in his own. The peroration of this pamphlet,

devoted to a wholesale condemnation of the coffee-house, indulges in

too frank and unsavoury metaphors for modern re-publication.

Of course there was an answer. Pamphleteering was one of the

principal diversions of the age. "Coffee-Houses Vindicated" was the

title of the reply. The second pamphlet was not the equal of the

first in terseness or wit, but it had the advantage in argument. The

writer did not find it difficult to make out a good case for the

coffee-house. It was economical, conduced to sobriety, and provided

innocent diversion. When one had to meet a friend, a tavern was an

expensive place; "in an ale-house you must gorge yourself with pot

after pot, sit dully alone, or be drawn in to club for others'

reckonings." Not so at the coffee-house: "Here, for a penny or two,

you may spend two or three hours, have the shelter of a house, the

warmth of a fire, the diversion of company; and conveniency, if you

please, of taking a pipe of tobacco; and all this without any

grumbling or repining." On the score of sobriety the writer was

equally cogent. It was stupid custom which insisted that any and

every transaction should be carried out at a tavern, where continual

sipping made men unfit for business. Coffee, on the contrary, was a

"wakeful" drink. And the company of the coffee-house enabled its

frequenter to follow the proper study of man, mankind. The

triumphant conclusion was that a well-regulated coffee-house was

"the sanctuary of health, the nursery of temperance, the delight of

frugality, an academy of civility, and free-school of ingenuity."

But a still more serious-minded person took part in the assault upon

the coffee-house. He was one of those amateur statesmen, who

usually, as in this case, abrogate to themselves the title of "Lover

of his Country," who have a remedy for every disease of the body

politic. In a series of proposals offered for the consideration of

Parliament, this patriot pleaded for the suppression of

coffee-houses on the ground that if less coffee were drunk there

would be a larger demand for beer, and a larger demand for beer

meant the growing of more English grain. Apart from economics,

however, there were adequate reasons for suppression. These

coffee-houses have "done great mischiefs to the nation, and undone

many of the King's subjects: for they, being great enemies to

diligence and industry, have been the ruin of many serious and

hopeful young gentlemen and tradesmen, who, before frequenting these

places, were diligent students or shopkeepers, extraordinary

husbands of their time as well as money; but since these houses have

been set up, under pretence of good husbandry, to avoid spending

above one penny or two-pence at a time, have gone to these

coffee-houses; where, meeting friends, they have sat talking three

or four hours; after which, a fresh acquaintance appearing, and so

one after another all day long, hath begotten fresh discourse, so

that frequently they have staid five or six hours together," to the

neglect of shops and studies, etc., etc.

Even yet, however, the worst had not been said. The wives of England

had to be heard from. Hence the "Women's Petition against Coffee,"

which enlivens the annals of the year of grace 1674. The pernicious

drink was indicted on three counts: "It made men as unfruitful as

the deserts whence that unhappy berry is said to be brought;" its

use would cause the offspring of their "mighty ancestors" to

"dwindle into a succession of apes and pigmies;" and when a husband

went out on a domestic errand he "would stop by the way to drink a

couple of cups of coffee."

These assaults--or, what is more probable, the abuse of the

coffee-house for political purposes--had an effect, for a time. The

king, although enjoying the excise from that "outlandish" drink, did

issue a proclamation for the suppression of the coffee-houses, only

to cancel it almost ere the ink was dry. But later, to put a stop to

that public discussion of state affairs which was deemed sacrilege

in the seventeenth century, an order was issued forbidding

coffee-houses to keep any written or other news save such as

appeared in the Gazette.

But the coffee-house as an institution was not to be put down.

Neither pamphlets nor poems, nor petitions nor proclamations, had

any effect. It met a "felt want" apparently, or made so effective an

appeal to the social spirit of seventeenth century Londoners that

its success was assured from the start. Consequently Pasqua Rosee

soon had opposition in his own immediate neighbourhood. It may be

that the Rainbow of Fleet Street was the second coffee-house to be

opened in London, or that the honour belonged elsewhere; what is to

be noted is that the establishments multiplied fast and nowhere more

than in the vicinity of the Royal Exchange. Several were to be found

in Change Alley, while in the Royal Exchange of to-day, the third

building of that name, are the headquarters of Lloyd's, which

perpetuates in name at least one of the most remarkable

coffee-houses of the seventeenth century.

Evidence is abundant that the early coffee-houses took their colour

from the district in which they were established. Thus it would be

idle in the main to expect a literary atmosphere among the houses

which flourished in the heart of the city. They became the resorts

of men of business, and gradually acquired a specific character from

the type of business man most frequenting them. In a way Batson's

coffee-house was an exception to the rule, inasmuch as doctors and

not merchants were most in evidence here. But the fact that it was

tacitly accepted as the physicians' resort shows how the principle

acted in a general way. One of the most constant visitors at

Batson's was Sir Richard Blackmore, that scribbling doctor who was

physician to William III and then to Queen Anne. Although his

countless books were received either with ridicule or absolute

silence, he still persisted in authorship, and finally produced an

"Heroick Poem" in twelve books entitled, "Prince Alfred." Lest any

should wonder how a doctor could court the muse to that extent

without neglecting his proper work, he explained in his preface that

he had written the poem "by such catches and starts, and in such

occasional uncertain hours as his profession afforded, and for the

greater part in coffee-houses, or in passing up and down the

streets," an apology which, led to his being accused of writing "to

the rumbling of his chariot wheels." But in the main the real

literary folk of the day would have none of him. He belonged to the

city, and what had a mere city man to do with poetry? Even Dr.

Johnson, in taking note of a reply Blackmore made to his critics,

chided him with writing "in language such as Cheapside easily

furnished."

Other physicians, however, resorted to Batson's coffee-house in a

professional and not a poetic way. The character of its frequenters

was described in a lively manner in the first number of the

Connoisseur, published in January, 1754. Having devoted a few

sentences to a neighbouring establishment, the writer noted that it

is "but a short step to a gloomy class of mortals, not less intent

on gain than the stock-jobbers: I mean the dispensers of life and

death, who flock together like birds of prey watching for carcasses

at Batson's. I never enter this place, but it serves as a _memento

mori_ to me. What a formidable assemblage of sable suits, and

tremendous perukes! I have often met here a most intimate

acquaintance, whom I have scarce known again; a sprightly young

fellow, with whom I have spent many a jolly hour; but being just

dubbed a graduate in physic, he has gained such an entire conquest

over the risible muscles, that he hardly vouchsafes at any time to

smile. I have heard him harangue, with all the oracular importance

of a veteran, on the possibility of Canning's subsisting for a whole

month on a few bits of bread; and he is now preparing a treatise, in

which he will set forth a new and infallible method to prevent the

spreading of the plague from France to England. Batson's has been

reckoned the seat of solemn stupidity: yet it is not totally devoid

of taste and common sense. They have among them physicians, who can

cope with the most eminent lawyers or divines; and critics, who can

relish the _sal volatile_ of a witty composition, or determine

how much fire is requisite to sublimate a tragedy _secundum

artem_." The house served a useful purpose at a time when

physicians were not in the habit of increasing their knowledge by

visiting the wards of the hospitals. Batson's was a consulting-house

instead, not alone for patients but for the doctors themselves. In

this respect, then, it differed from the generally commercial

character of the coffee-houses under the shadow of the Exchange.

[Illustration: GARRAWAY'S COFFEE-HOUSE.]

But there was no mistaking the commercial character of a place like

Garraway's in Change Alley. The essayist just quoted is responsible

for a story to the effect that when a celebrated actor was cast for

the part of Shylock he made daily visits to the coffee-houses near

the Exchange that "by a frequent intercourse and conversation with

'the unforeskin'd race,' he might habituate himself to their air and

deportment." And the same chronicler goes on to say that personally

he was never more diverted than by a visit to Garraway's a few days

before the drawing of a lottery. "I not only could read hope, fear,

and all the various passions excited by a love of gain, strongly

pictured in the faces of those who came to buy; but I remarked with

no less delight, the many little artifices made use of to allure

adventurers, as well as the visible alterations in the looks of the

sellers, according as the demand for tickets gave occasion to raise

or lower their price. So deeply were the countenances of these

bubble-brokers impressed with attention to the main chance, and

their minds seemed so dead to all other sensations, that one might

almost doubt, where money is out of the case, whether a Jew 'has

eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, affections, passions.'" But lottery

tickets were not the only things offered-for sale at Garraway's.

Wine was a common article of sale there in the early days, and in

the latter career of the house it became famous as an auction-room

for land and house property.

Thomas Garraway was the founder of the house, the same who is

credited with having been the first to retail tea in England. On the

success of Pasqua Rosee he was not long, apparently, in adding

coffee to his stock, and then turning his place of business into a

coffee-house. The house survived till 1866, and even to its latest

years kept an old-time character. A frequenter of the place says the

ground-floor was furnished with cosy mahogany boxes and seats, and

that the ancient practice of covering the floor with sand was

maintained to the last.

Two other houses, Jonathan's and Sam's, were notorious for their

connection with stock-jobbing. The latter, indeed, figured

prominently in the gigantic South Sea Bubble fraud. And even when

that was exposed Sam's continued to be the headquarters of all the

get-rich-quick schemes of the day. Thus in one issue of a newspaper

of 1720 there were two announcements specially designed to catch the

unwary. One notice told that a book would be opened for entering

into a joint-partnership "on a thing that will turn to the advantage

of the concerned," and the other was a modest proposal to raise two

million pounds for buying and improving the Fens of Lincolnshire.

[Illustration: MAD DOG IN A COFFEE-HOUSE. _(From a Rowlandson

Caricature.)_]

Jonathan's is incidentally described by Addison as "the general mart

of stock-jobbers," and in that amusing account of himself to which

he devoted the first number of the Spectator he explained that he

had been taken for a merchant on the exchange, "and sometimes passed

for a Jew in the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's." Half a

century later than these allusions the Annual Register recorded a

case tried at the Guildhall arising out of an assault at this

coffee-house. It seems that the master, Mr. Ferres, pushed the

plaintiff, one Isaac Renoux, out of his house, for which he was

fined one shilling damages on it being proved at the trial that "the

house had been a market, time out of mind, for buying and selling

government securities."

Such houses as John's in Birchin Lane and the Jerusalem

coffee-house, which was situated in a court off Cornhill, were

typical places of resort for merchants trading to distant parts of

the world. One of Rowlandson's lively caricatures, that of a "Mad

Dog in a Coffee-House," is a faithful representation of the interior

of one of those houses. A bill on the wall shows how they were used

for the publication of shipping intelligence, that particular

placard giving details of the sailing of "The Cerebus" for the

Brazils. In a private letter of July 30th, 1715, is an account of an

exciting incident which had its origin in the Jerusalem

coffee-house. At that time England was in a state of commotion over

the Jacobite insurrection and the excitement seems to have turned

the head of a Captain Montague, who was reputed to be "a civil sober

man," of good principles and in good circumstances. He had entered

the Jerusalem coffee-house on the previous day, as the letter

relates, and, without any provocation, "of a sudden struck a

gentleman who knew him a severe blow on the eye; immediately after;

drawing his sword, ran out through the alley cross Cornhill still

with it drawn; and at the South entrance of the Exchange uttered

words to this effect, that he was come in the face of the Sun to

proclaim James the third King of England, and that only he was

heir." Whereupon he knocked down another gentleman, who, however,

had sense enough to see that the captain was out of his mind and

called for assistance to secure him. It took half a dozen men to

hold him in the coach which carried him to a magistrate, who

promptly committed him to a mad-house.

Tom's coffee-house was situated in the same thoroughfare as John's.

This was the resort affected by Garrick on his occasional visits to

the city, and is also thought to have been the house frequented by

Chatterton. In a letter to his sister that ill-fated poet excused

the haphazard nature of his epistle he was writing her from Tom's on

the plea that there was "such a noise of business and politics in

the room." He explained that his present business--the concocting of

squibs, tales and songs on the events of the day--obliged him to

frequent places of the best resort.

[Illustration: TOM'S COFFEE-HOUSE.]

In view of its subsequent career no coffee-house of the city proper

was of so much importance as that founded by Edward Lloyd. He first

appears in the history of old London as the keeper of a coffee-house

in Tower Street in 1688, but about four years later' he removed to

Lombard Street in close proximity to the Exchange, and his house

gradually became the recognized centre of shipbroking and marine

insurance business, for which the corporation still bearing the name

of Lloyd's is renowned all over the world.

Two pictures of Lloyd's as it was in the first decade of the

eighteenth century are to, be found in the gallery of English

literature, one from the pen of Steele, the other from that of

Addison. The first is in the form of a petition to Isaac

Bickerstaff, Esq., from the customers of the house, and begged that

he would use his influence to get other coffee-houses to adopt a

custom which prevailed at Lloyd's. Great scandal, it seems, had been

caused by coffee-house orators of the irresponsible order. Such

nuisances were not tolerated at Lloyd's. The petitioners

explained--and by inference the explanation preserves a record of

the internal economy of the house--that at Lloyd's a servant was

deputed to ascend the pulpit in the room and read the news on its

arrival, "while the whole audience are sipping their respective

liquors." The application of the petition lay in the suggestion that

this method should be adopted in all coffee-houses, and that if any,

one wished to orate at large on any item of the news of the day he

should be obliged to ascend the pulpit and make his comments in a

formal manner.

[Illustration: LLOYD'S COFFEE-HOUSE.]

Evidently the pulpit at Lloyd's was a settled institution. It played

a conspicuous part in that ludicrous incident which Addison

describes at his own expense. It was his habit, he explained, to jot

down from time to time brief hints such as could be expanded into

Spectator papers, and a sheetful of such hints would naturally look

like a "rhapsody of nonsense" to any one save the writer himself.

Such a sheet he accidentally dropped in Lloyd's one day, and before

he missed it the boy of the house had it in his hand and was

carrying it around in search of its owner. But Addison did not know

that until it was too late. Many of the customers had glanced at its

contents, which had caused them so much merriment that the boy was

ordered to ascend the pulpit and read the paper for the amusement of

the company at large. "The reading of this paper," continues

Addison, "made the whole coffee-house very merry; some of them

concluded that it was written by a madman, and others by somebody

that had been taking notes out of the Spectator. One who had the

appearance of a very substantial citizen told us, with several

political winks and nods, that he wished there was no more in the

paper than what was expressed in it: that for his part, he looked

upon the dromedary, the gridiron, and the barber's pole, to signify

something more than what was usually meant by those words: and that

he thought the coffee-man could not do better than to carry the

paper to one of the secretaries of state." In the midst of the

numerous other comments, wise and otherwise, Addison reached for the

paper, pretended to look it over, shook his head twice or thrice,

and then twisted it into a match and lit his pipe with it. The ruse

diverted suspicion, especially as Addison applied himself to his

pipe and the paper he was reading with seeming unconcern. And he

consoled the readers of the Spectator with the reflection that he

had already used more than half the hints on that unfortunate sheet

of notes.

Since those almost idyllic days, Lloyd's has played a notable part

in the life of the nation. At its headquarters in the Royal Exchange

building are preserved many interesting relics of the history of the

institution. From a simple coffee-house open to all and sundry, it

has developed into the shipping-exchange of the world, employing

1,500 agents in all parts of the globe.

CHAPTER II.

ROUND ST. PAUL'S.

If there was a certain incongruity in the physicians having their

special coffee-house in the heart of the city, there was none in

clerics affecting the St. Paul's coffee-house under the shadow of

the cathedral of that name. This being the chief church of the

metropolis, notwithstanding the greater historic importance of

Westminster Abbey, it naturally became the religious centre of

London so far as clergymen were concerned. But the frequenters of

this house were of a mixed type. That historian of Batson's who was

quoted in the previous chapter, related that after leaving its

dismal vicinity he was glad to "breathe the pure air in St. Paul's

coffee-house," but he was obliged to add that as he entertained the

highest veneration for the clergy he could not "contemplate the

magnificence of the cathedral without reflecting on the abject

condition of those 'tatter'd crapes,' who are said to ply here for

an occasional burial or sermon, with the same regularity as the

happier drudges who salute us with the cry of 'coach, sir,' or

'chair, your honour.'" Somewhat late in the eighteenth century St.

Paul's coffee-house had a distinguished visitor in the person of

Benjamin Franklin, who here made the acquaintance of Richard Price,

that philosophical dissenting divine whose pamphlet on American

affairs is said to have had no inconsiderable part in determining

Americans to declare their independence. The fact that Dr. Price

frequented the St. Paul's coffee-house is sufficient proof that its

clients were not restricted to clergymen of the established church.

More miscellaneous was the patronage of Child's, another resort in

St. Paul's Church-yard. It is sometimes described as having been a

clerical house like the St. Paul's, and one reference in the

Spectator gives some support to that view. The writer told how a

friend of his from the country had expressed astonishment at seeing

London so crowded with doctors of divinity, necessitating the

explanation that not all the persons in scarfs were of that dignity,

for, this authority on London life continued, "a young divine, after

his first degree in the university, usually comes hither only to

show himself; and on that occasion, is apt to think he is but half

equipped with a gown and cassock for his public appearance, if he

hath not the additional ornament of a scarf of the first magnitude

to entitle him to the appellation of Doctor from his landlady and

the boy at' Child's." There is another allusion to the house in the

Spectator. "Sometimes I"--the writer is Addison--"smoke a pipe at

Child's, and while I seem attentive to nothing but the Postman,

overhear the conversation of every table in the room." Apart from

such decided lay patrons as Addison, Child's could also claim a

large constituency among the medical and learned men of the day.

Notwithstanding its ecclesiastical name, the Chapter coffee-house in

Paul's Alley was not a clerical resort. By the middle of the

eighteenth century it had come to be recognized as the rendezvous of

publishers and booksellers. "The conversation here," to appeal to

the Connoisseur once more, "naturally turns upon the newest

publications; but their criticisms are somewhat singular. When they

say a good book, they do not mean to praise the style or sentiment,

but the quick and extensive sale of it. That book in the phrase of

the Conger is best, which sells most; and if the demand for Quarles

should be greater than for Pope, he would have the highest place on

the rubric-post. There are also many parts of every work liable to

their remarks, which fall not within the notice of less accurate

observers. A few nights ago I saw one of these gentlemen take up a

sermon, and after seeming to peruse it for some time with great

attention, he declared that 'it was very good English.' The reader

will judge whether I was most surprised or diverted, when I

discovered that he was not commending the purity and elegance of the

diction, but the beauty of the type; which, it seems, is known among

printers by that appellation. We must not, however, think the

members of the Conger strangers to the deeper parts of literature;

for as carpenters, smiths, masons, and all mechanics, smell of the

trade they labour at, booksellers take a peculiar turn from their

connexions with books and authors."

Could the writer of that gentle satire have looked forward about a

quarter of a century he would have had knowledge on which to have

based a greater eulogy of the Congers. It should be explained

perhaps that Conger was the name of a club of booksellers founded in

1715 for co-operation in the issuing of expensive works. Booklovers

of the present generation may often wonder at the portly folios of

bygone generations, and marvel especially that they could have been

produced at a profit when readers were so comparatively few. Many of

those folios owed their existence to the scheme adopted by the

members of the Conger, a scheme whereby several publishers shared in

the production of a costly work.

Such a sharing of expense and profit was entered into at that

meeting at the Chapter coffee-house which led to Dr. Johnson's

"Lives of the English Poets." The London booksellers of that time

were alarmed at the invasion of what they called their literary

property by a Scottish publisher who had presumed to bring out an

edition of the English poets. To counteract this move from Edinburgh

the decision was reached to print "an elegant and accurate edition

of ail the English poets of reputation, from Chaucer down to the

present time." The details were thoroughly debated at the Chapter

coffee-house, and a deputation was appointed to wait upon Dr.

Johnson, to secure his services in editing the series. Johnson

accepted the task, "seemed exceedingly pleased" that it had been

offered him, and agreed to carry it through for a fee of two hundred

pounds. His moderation astonished Malone; "had he asked one

thousand, or even fifteen hundred guineas, the booksellers, who knew

the value of his name, would doubtless have readily given it."

But writers of books as well as makers and sellers of books could be

found on occasion within the portals of the Chapter coffee-house.

Two memories of Goldsmith, neither of them pleasant, are associated

with the house. One is concerned with his acceptance of an

invitation to dinner here with Charles Lloyd, who, at the end of the

meal, walked off and left his guest to pay the bill. The other

incident introduces the vicious William Kenrick, that hack-writer

who slandered Goldsmith without cause on so many occasions, Shortly

after the publication of one of his libels in the press, Kenrick was

met by Goldsmith accidentally in the Chapter and made to admit that

he had lied. But no sooner had the poet left the house than the

cowardly retractor began his abuse again to the company at large.

Chatterton, too, frequented the house in his brief days of London

life. "I am quite familiar at the Chapter Coffee-House," he wrote

his mother, "and know all the geniuses there." And five years later

there is this picture of the democratic character of the resort from

the shocked pen of one who had been attracted thither by the report

of its large library and select company: "Here I saw a specimen of

English freedom. A whitesmith in his apron and some of his saws

under his arm came in, sat down, and called for his glass of punch

and the paper, both which he used with as much ease as a lord. Such

a man in Ireland and, I suppose, in France too, and almost any other

country, would, not have shown himself with his hat on, nor any way,

unless sent for by some gentleman."

Perhaps the most interesting association of the Chapter coffee-house

was that destined to come to it when its race was nearly run. On a

July evening in 1548 the waiter was somewhat startled at the

appearance of two simply-dressed, slight and timid-looking ladies

seeking accommodation. Women guests were not common at the Chapter.

But these two were strangers to London; they had never before

visited the great city; and the only hostelry they knew was the

Chapter they had heard their father speak about. So it was to the

Chapter that Charlotte and Anne Bronté went when they visited London

to clear up a difficulty with their publishers, Smith and Elder.

Mrs. Gaskell describes the house as it was in those July days. "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 stairs were shallow,

broad, and dark, taking up much space in the centre of the house.

The gray-haired elderly man who officiated as waiter seems to have

been touched from the very first by the quiet simplicity of the two

ladies, and he tried to make them feel comfortable and at home in

the long, low, dingy room upstairs. The high, narrow windows looked

into the gloomy Row; the sisters, clinging together in the most

remote window-seat (as Mr. Smith tells me he found them when he came

that Saturday evening), could see nothing of motion or of change in

the grim, dark houses opposite, so near and close, although the

whole breadth of the Row was between." If it were only for the sake

of those startled sisters from the desolate Yorkshire moors one

could wish that the Chapter coffee-house were still standing. But it

is not. Nor are there any vestiges remaining of the St. Paul's or

Child's.

Nor will the pilgrim fare better in the adjacent thoroughfare of

Ludgate Hill. Not far down that highway could once be found the

London coffee-house, which Benjamin Franklin frequented, and where

that informal club for philosophical discussions of which Dr.

Priestly was the chairman held its social meetings. The London

continued in repute among American visitors for many years. When

Charles Robert Leslie, the artist, reached London in 1811 intent on

prosecuting his art studies, he tells how he stopped for a few days

"at the London Coffee-house on Ludgate Hill, with Mr. Inskeep and

other Americans."

Further west, in the yard of that Belle Sauvage inn described in an

earlier chapter, there existed in 1730 a coffee-house known as

Wills', but of which nothing gave one somewhat pathetic incident is

on record. The memory of this incident is preserved among the

manuscripts of the Duke of Portland in the form of two letters to

the Earl of Oxford. The first letter is anonymous. It was written to

the earl on February 8th, 1730, in the interests of William

Oldisworth, that unfortunate miscellaneous writer whose adherence to

the Stuart cause helped, along with a liking for tavern-life, to mar

his career. This anonymous correspondent had learnt that Oldisworth

was in a starving condition, out of clothes likewise, and labouring

under many infirmities. "Though no man has deserved better of his

country, yet is none more forgot." The letter also hinted at the

fact that Oldisworth would not complain, nor suffer any one to do

that office for him. But the writer was wise enough to enclose the

address of the man in whose behalf he made so adroit an appeal, that

address being Wills' coffee-house in the Belle Sauvage yard.

Edward Harley, that Earl of Oxford who preferred above all things to

surround himself with poets and men of letters, and whose generosity

helped to bring about his financial ruin, was not the man to ignore

a letter of that kind. Some assistance was speedily on its way to

Will's coffee-house, for on February 2lst Oldisworth was penning an

epistle which was to "wait in all humility on your Lordship to

return you my best thanks for the late kind and generous favour you

conferred on me." He sent the earl an ancient manuscript as token of

his gratitude, explained that he was ignorant of the one who had

written in his behalf, and for the rest was determined to keep his

present station, low as it was, with content and resignation. The

inference is that Will's coffee-house was but a lowly and

inexpensive abode and hence it is not surprising that it makes so

small a showing in the annals of old London.

At the western end of Fleet Street the passer-by cannot fail to be

attracted by the picturesque, timbered house which faces Chancery

Lane. This unique survival of the past, which has been carefully

restored within recent years, has often been described as "Formerly

the Palace of Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey." Another legend is

that the room on the first floor was the council-chamber of the

Duchy of Cornwall under Henry, the eldest son of James I. More

credible is the statement that Nando's coffee-house was once kept

under this roof. In the days when he was a briefless barrister,

Thurlow was a frequent visitor here, attracted, it is said, as were

so many more of the legal fraternity, by the dual merits of the

punch and the physical charms of the landlady's daughter. Miss

Humphries was, as a punster put it, "always admired at the bar by

the bar." The future Lord Chancellor had no cause to regret his

patronage of Nando's. So convincingly did he one day prove his skill

in argument that a stranger present bestirred himself, and

successfully, to have the young advocate retained in a famous law

case of the time, an apppointment which led to Thurlow's becoming

acquainted with the Duchess of Queensbury, with after important

results.

During those stirring days when the "Wilkes and Liberty" riots

caused such intense excitement in London, one worthy merchant of the

city found Nando's a valuable place of refuge. Arrangements had been

made for a body of merchants and tradesmen of the city to wait on

George III at St. James's with a loyal address and as token of their

sympathy with the position assumed by that obstinate monarch. But on

the night before handbills had been scattered broadcast desiring all

true and loyal subjects to meet on the following day and form a

procession towards the city, taking particular care "not to

interfere with the Merchants going to St. James's" The handbill had

the desired effect. The cavalcade of merchants was scattered in

confusion long before it reached Temple-bar, and isolated members of

the party, few in number, did their best to reach the royal palace'

by roundabout ways. Even so they were a sorry spectacle. For the

other loyal subjects of the king had liberally bespattered them with

mud. Nor was this the most disconcerting feature of their situation.

Having reached the presence of their sovereign it was certainly

annoying that they could not present the address which had brought

them into all this trouble. But the fact was the address was

missing. It had been committed to the care of a Mr. Boehm, and he

was not present. As a matter of fact Mr. Boehm had fled for refuge

to Nando's coffee-house, leaving the precious address under the seat

of his coach. The rioters were not aware of that fact, and it seems

that the document was eventually recovered, after his Majesty had

been "kept waiting till past five."

There is a fitness in the fact that as Thurlow's name is linked with

Nando's coffee-house so Cowper's memory is associated with the

adjacent establishment known as Dick's. The poet and the lawyer had

been fellow clerks in a solicitor's office, had spent their time in

"giggling and making giggle" with the daughters of Cowper's uncle,

and been boon friends in many ways. The future poet foretold the

fame of his friend, and extorted a playful promise that when he was

Lord Chancellor he would provide for his fellow clerk. The prophecy

came true, but the promise was forgotten. Thurlow did not even deign

to notice the poetical address of his old companion, nor did he

acknowledge the receipt of his first volume of verse. "Be great,"

the indignant poet wrote--

"Be great, be fear'd, be envied, be admired;

To fame as lasting as the earth pretend,

But not hereafter to the name of friend!"

For Thurlow the ungrateful, Nando's was associated with his first

step up the 'ladder of success; for Cowper, Dick's was the scene of

an agony that he remembered to his dying day. For it was while he

was at breakfast in this coffee-house that he was seized with one of

his painful delusions. A letter he read in a paper he interpreted as

a satire on himself, and he threw the paper down and rushed from the

room with a resolve either to find some house in which to die or

some ditch where he could poison himself unseen.

Reference has already been made to the Rainbow as one of the famous

taverns of Fleet Street, and also to the fact that it was a

coffee-house ere it became a tavern. But somehow it was as a

coffee-house that it was usually regarded. It is so described in

1679, in 1708, in 1710, and in 1736. Under the earliest date it

appears as playing a part in the astounding story of Titus Gates.

One of the victims of that unrivalled perjurer was Sir Philip Lloyd,

whom Oates declared had "in a sort of bravery presented himself in

the Rainbow coffee-house, and declared he did not believe any kind

of plot against the King's person, notwithstanding what any had said

to the contrary." This was sufficient to arouse the enmity of the

wily Oates, who had the knight haled before the council and closely

examined. Sir Philip explained that he had only said he knew of no

other than a fantastic plot, but, as a contemporary letter puts it,

"Oates had got ready four shrewd coffee-drinkers, then present, who

swore the matter point blank." So the perjurer won again, and Sir

Philip was suspended during the king's pleasure as the outcome of

his Rainbow coffee-house speech.

But there is a pleasanter memory with which to bid this famous

resort farewell. It is enshrined in a letter of the early eighteenth

century, wishing that the recipient might, if he could find a

leisure evening, drop into the Rainbow, where he would meet several

friends of the writer in the habit of frequenting that house,

gentlemen of great worth and whom it would be a pleasure to know.

CHAPTER III.

THE STRAND AND COVENT GARDEN.

How markedly the coffee-houses of London were differentiated from

each other by the opening of the eighteenth century is nowhere more

clearly demonstrated than in Steele's first issue of the Tatler.

After hoodwinking his readers into thinking he had a correspondent

"in all parts of the known and knowing world," he informed them that

it was his intention to print his news under "such dates of places"

as would provide a key to the matter they were to expect. Thus, "all

accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under

the article of White's Chocolate-house; poetry, under that of Will's

Coffee-house; learning, under the title of the Grecian; foreign and

domestic news, you shall have from Saint James's Coffee-house, and

what else I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from

my own apartment."

Several days elapsed ere there was anything to report from the

Grecian coffee-house, which was situated in Devereux Court, Strand,

and derived its name from the fact that it was kept by a Greek named

Constantine. When it does make its appearance, however, the

information given under its name is strictly in keeping with the

character Steele gave the house. "While other parts of the town are

amused with the present actions, we generally spend the evening at

this table in inquiries into antiquity, and think anything news

which gives us new knowledge." And then follow particulars of how

the learned Grecians had been amusing themselves by trying to

arrange the actions of the Iliad in chronological order. This task

seems to have been accomplished in a friendly manner, but there was

an occasion when a point of scholarship had a less placid ending.

Two gentlemen, so the story goes, who were constant companions,

drifted into a dispute at the Grecian one evening over the accent of

a Greek word. The argument was protracted and at length grew angry.

As neither could convince the other by mere words, the resolve was

taken to decide the matter by swords. So the erstwhile friends

stepped out into the court, and, after a few passes, one of them was

run through the body, and died on the spot.

That the Grecian maintained its character as the resort of learned

disputants may be inferred from the heated discussions which took

place within its walls when Burke confused the public with his

imitation of the style and language of Bolinbroke in his

"Vindication of Natural Society." All the critics were completely

deceived. And Charles Macklin in particular distinguished himself by

rushing into the Grecian one evening, flourishing a copy of the

pamphlet, and declaring, "Sir, this must be Harry Bolinbroke; I know

him by his cloven foot!"

[Illustration: GRECIAN COFFEE-HOUSE.]

Even if it were not for that fatal duel between the two Greek

scholars, there are anecdotes to show that some frequenters of the

house were of an aggressive nature. There is the story, for example,

of the bully who insisted upon a particular seat, but came in one

evening and found it occupied by another.

"Who is that in my seat?"

"I don't know, sir," replied the waiter.

"Where is the hat I left on it?"

"He put it in the fire."

"Did he? damnation! but a fellow who would do _THAT_ would not

mind flinging me after it!" and with that he disappeared.

Men of science as well as scholars gave liberal patronage to the

Grecian. It was a common thing for meetings of the Royal Society to

be continued in a social way at this coffee-house, the president,

Sir Isaac Newton, being frequently of the parties. Hither, too, came

Professor Halley, the great astronomer, to meet his friends on his

weekly visit to London from Oxford, and Sir Hans Sloane, that

zealous collector of curiosities, was often to be met at the

Grecian. Nor did the house wholly lack patrons of the pen, for

Goldsmith, among others, used the resort quite frequently.

Goldsmith was also a faithful customer of George's coffee-house

which was situated close to the Grecian. This was one of the places

to which he had his letters addressed, and the house figures in one

of his essays as the resort of a certain young fellow who, whenever

he had occasion to "ask his friend for a guinea, used to prelude his

request as if he wanted two hundred, and talked so familiarly of

large sums" that no one would have imagined him ever to be in need

of small ones. It was the same young fellow at George's who,

whenever he wanted credit for a new suit from his tailor, used to

dress himself in laced clothes in which to give the order, for he

had found that to appear shabby on such occasions defeated the

purpose he had in view.

Most likely Goldsmith sketched his certain young fellow from life.

There was another frequenter of the place who would have provided an

original for another character study. This was that Sir James

Lowther, afterwards Earl of Lonsdale, of whom the story is told that

having one day changed a piece of silver in the coffee-house, and

paid twopence for his cup of coffee, he was helped into his carriage

and driven home, only to return a little later to call attention to

the fact that he had been given a bad halfpenny in his change and

demand another in exchange. All this was in keeping with the

character of the man, for despite the fact that he had an income of

forty thousand pounds a year, he was notorious for his miserly

conduct, and would not pay even his just debts.

There was another legend connected with George's which Horace

Walpole ought not to have destroyed. In telling a correspondent of

the amusement with which he had been reading Shenstone's letters, he

took occasion to characterize as vulgar and devoid of truth an

anecdote told of his father, Lord Orford. This was the story that

his father, "sitting in George's, was asked to contribute to a

figure of himself that was to be beheaded by the mob. I do remember

something like it," Walpole continued, "but it happened to myself. I

met a mob, just after my father was put out, in Hanover-square, and

drove up to it to know what was the matter. They were carrying about

a figure of my sister." Walpole traded so largely in traditional

stories himself that it was ungrateful of him to spoil so good a

one.

On the way to Bedford Street, where Wildman's coffee-house was

situated, the pilgrim will pass the site of the Somerset

coffee-house, which was notable in its day from the fact that some

of the letters of Junius were left here, the waiters being paid tips

for taking them in. Wildman's was notorious as being the favourite

headquarters of the supporters of John Wilkes, and hence the lines

of Churchill:

"Each dish at Wildman's of sedition smacks;

Blasphemy may be Gospel at Almacks.

Peace, good Discretion, peace,--thy fears are vain;

Ne'er will I herd with Wildman's factious train."

Among the notable coffee-houses of Covent Garden were the Bedford,

King's, Rawthmell's and Tom's. The first was situated under the

Piazza, and could count among its patrons Fielding, Pope, Sheridan,

Churchill, Garrick, Foote, Quinn, Collins, Horace Walpole and

others. Its characters, according to the Connoisseur, 'afforded a

greater variety of nearly the same type as those to be found at

George's. It was, this authority asserts, crowded every night with

men of parts. Almost every one to be met there was 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 at the theatres,

weighed and determined. This school (to which. I am myself indebted

for a great part of my education, and in which, though unworthy, I

am now arrived at the honour of being a public lecturer) has bred up

many authors, to the amazing entertainment and instruction of their

readers."

But the Bedford coffee-house has a more sensational association. It

was here, according to Horace Walpole, that James Hackman spent his

last few hours of freedom ere he murdered Martha Ray as she was

leaving Covent Garden theatre on the night of April 17th, 1779. No

tragedy of that period caused so great a sensation. Miss Ray had for

some years been the mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, at whose house

Hackman first met and fell in love with her. There are good reasons

for believing that his love was returned for a time, but that

afterwards Miss Ray determined to continue in her irregular relation

with the nobleman. On learning that his suit was wholly hopeless,

Hackman conceived the plan which had so fatal an ending. The

question as to whether the fact that he provided himself with two

pistols was proof that he intended to take his own life as well as

that of Miss Ray was the theme of a warm discussion between Dr.

Johnson and his friend Beauclerk, the latter 'arguing that it was

not, and the former maintaining with equal confidence that it was.

King's coffee-house was nothing more than a humble shed, an early

representative of the peripatetic coffee-stall which is still a

common sight of London streets in the early morning. Kept by a

Thomas King who absconded from Eton because he feared that his

fellowship would be denied him, it was the resort of every rake

according to Fielding, and, in the phrase of another, was "well

known to all gentlemen to whom beds are unknown." On the other hand

Rawthmell's was an exceedingly fashionable house, and witnessed the

founding of the Society of Arts in 1754. It had another claim to

slight distinction as being the resort of Dr. John Armstrong, the

poet of the "Art of Preserving Health," and a man so generally

unsociable that one acquaintance described him as having a rooted

aversion against the whole human race, except a few friends, and

they were dead!

Judging from a poetical allusion of 1703, Tom's coffee-house was at

that time a political resort. A little later it was distinguished

for its fashionable gatherings after the theatre. A traveller

through England in 1722 records that at Tom's there was "playing at

Picket, and the best of conversation till midnight. Here you will

see blue and green ribbons and Stars sitting familiarly, and talking

with the same freedom as if they had left their quality and degrees

of distance at home." But the most interesting picture of this house

is given by William Till. He writes: "The house in which I reside

was the famous Tom's Coffee-House, memorable in the reign of Queen

Anne; and for more than half a century afterwards: the room in which

I conduct my business as a coin dealer is that which, in 1764, by a

guinea subscription among nearly seven hundred of the nobility,

foreign ministers, gentry, and geniuses of the age--was made the

card-room, and place of meeting for many of the now illustrious

dead, and remained so till 1768, when a voluntary subscription among

its members induced Mr. Haines, the then proprietor, to take in the

next door westward, as a coffee-room; and the whole floor _en_

suite was constructed into card and conversation rooms." It seems

that the house took its name originally from the first landlord, a

Captain Thomas West, who, driven distracted by the agony of gout,

committed suicide by throwing himself from his own windows.

Interesting, as has been seen, as are the associations which cluster

round the coffee-houses of this district already mentioned, their

fame is slight compared with the glory of the houses known as Will's

and Button's.

Macaulay has given us a glowing picture of the wits' room on the

first floor at Will's. Through the haze of tobacco smoke with which

he filled the apartment we can see earls, and clergymen, and

Templars, and university lads, and hack-workers. We can hear, too,

the animated tones in which discussions are being carried on,

discussions as to whether "Paradise Lost" should have been written

in rhyme, and many another literary question of little interest in

these modern days. But, after all, the eye does not seek out earls,

or clergy, or the rest; nor does the ear wish to fill itself with

the sound of their voices. There is but one face, but one voice at

Will's in which the interest of this time is as keen as the interest

of the seventeenth century. That face and voice were the face and

voice of John Dryden.

Exactly in what year Dryden first chose this coffee-house as his

favourite resort is unknown. He graduated at Cambridge in 1654, and

is next found in London lodging with a bookseller for whom he worked

as a hack-writer. By 1662 he had become a figure of some consequence

in London life, and a year later his first play was acted at the

King's theatre. Then, in the pages of Pepys, he is seen as the

centre of that group of the wits which he was to dominate for a

generation. "In Covent Garden to-night," wrote Pepys under the date

February 3rd, 1664, "going to fetch home my wife, I stopped at the

great Coffee-house there, where I never was before; where 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 hither,

for there, I perceive, is very witty and pleasant discourse."

[Illustration: JOHN DRYDEN.]

With what persistence this tradition survived, the tradition of

Dryden as the arbiter of literary criticism at Will's is illustrated

by the story told by Dr. Johnson. When he was a young man he had a

desire to write the life of Dryden, and as a first step in the

gathering of his materials he applied to the 'only two persons then

alive who had known him, Swinney and Cibber. But all the assistance

the former could give him was to the effect that at Will's.

Coffee-house Dryden had a particular chair for himself, which was

set by the fire in winter, and removed to the balcony in summer; and

the extent of Cibber's information was that he remembered the poet

as a decent old man, judge of critical disputes at Will's. But

happily a more detailed picture of Dryden as the centre of the wits

at Will's has survived. On his first trip to London as a youth of

seventeen, Francis Lockier, the future dean of Peterborough,

although an odd-looking boy of awkward manners, thrust himself into

the coffee-house that he might gaze on the celebrated men of the

day. "The second time that ever I was there," Lockier said, "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 Flecknoe; 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 to say, in a voice

just loud enough to be heard, that 'Mac Flecknoe was a very fine

poem; but that I had not imagined it to be the first that ever was

writ that way.' On this, Dryden turned short upon me, as surprised

at my interposing; asked how long I had been a dabbler 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 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."

As a companion to this picture in prose there is the poetic vignette

which Prior and Montague inserted in their "Country Mouse and the

City Mouse," written in burlesque of Dryden's "Hind and Panther."

"Then on they jogg'd; and since an hour of talk

Might cut a banter on the tedious walk,

As I remember, said the sober mouse,

I've heard much talk of the Wits' Coffee-house;

Thither, says Brindle, thou shalt go and see

Priests supping coffee, sparks and poets tea;

Here rugged frieze, there quality well drest,

These baffling the grand Senior, those the Test,

And there shrewd guesses made, and reasons given,

That human laws were never made in heaven;

But, above all, what shall oblige thy sight,

And fill thy eyeballs with a vast delight,

Is the poetic judge of sacred wit,

Who does i' th' darkness of his glory sit;

And as the moon who first receives the light,

With which she makes these nether regions bright,

So does he shine, reflecting from afar

The rays he borrowed from a better star;

For rules, which from Corneille and Rapin flow,

Admired by all the scribbling herd below,

From French tradition while he does dispense

Unerring truths, 'tis schism, a damned offence,

To question his, or trust your private sense."

Dryden appears to have visited Will's every day. His rule of life

was to devote his mornings to writing at home, where he also dined,

and then to spend the remainder of the day at the coffee-house,

which he did not leave till late. There came a night for the poet

when this regularity of habit had unpleasant consequences. A

Newsletter of December 23rd, 1679, tells the story: "On Thursday

night last Mr. Dryden, the poet, comeing from the coffee-house in

Covent Garden, was set upon by three or four fellows, and very

soarly beaten, but likewise very much cutt and wounded with a sword.

It is imagined that this has happened to him because of a late satyr

that is laid at his door, though he positively disowned it." The

compiler of that paragraph was correct in his surmise. The hired

ruffians who assaulted the solitary poet on that December night were

in the pay of Lord Rochester, who had taken umbrage at a publication

which, although not written by Dryden, had been printed with such a

title-page as suggested that it was his work. A reward of fifty

pounds was offered for the discovery of the perpetrators of this

outrage, but to no effect. Still it is some consolation to know that

the cowardly Rochester immediately fell under suspicion as the

author of the attack. Less reprehensible is the story told of a Mr.

Finch, "an ingenious young gentleman," who, nearly a decade later,

"meeting with Mr. Dryden in a coffee-house in London, publickly

before all the company wished him joy of his _new_ religion.

'Sir,' said Dryden, 'you are very much mistaken; my religion is the

old religion.' 'Nay,' replied the other, 'whatever it be in itself I

am sure 'tis new to you, for within these three days you had no

religion at all.'"

[Illustration: JOSEPH ADDISON.]

Dryden died in 1700 and for a time Will's maintained its position as

the resort of the poets. Did not Steele say that all his accounts of

poetry in the Tatler would appear under the name of that house? But

the supremacy of Will's was slowly undermined, so that even in the

Tatler the confession had soon to be made that the place was very

much altered since Dryden's time. The change had been for the worse.

"Where you used to see songs, epigrams, and satires in the hands of

every man you met, you now have 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." This is all confirmed by that traveller who took notes in

London in 1722, and found there was playing at Picket at Will's

after the theatre.

Addison was the chief cause of this transformation. And Steele

helped him. The fact is that about 1713 Addison set up coffee-house

keeper himself. That is to say, he was the means of getting one

Daniel Button, once servant with the Countess of Warwick, to open

such an establishment in close proximity to Will's. For Addison to

remove his patronage from Will's to Button's meant the transference

of the allegiance of the wits of the town also, consequently it soon

became known that the wits were gone from the haunt of Dryden to the

new resort affected by Addison. And a close scrutiny of the pages of

the Guardian will reveal how adroitly Steele aided Addison's plan.

Thus, the issue of the Guardian for June 17th, 1713, was devoted to

the habits of coffee-house orators, and especially to the

objectionable practice so many had of seizing a button on a

listener's coat and twisting it off in the course of argument. This

habit, however, was more common in the city than in the West-end

coffee-houses; indeed, Steele added, the company at Will's was so

refined that one might argue and be argued with and not be a button

the poorer. All that delightful nonsense paved the way for a letter

in the next number of the Guardian, a letter purporting to come from

Daniel Button of Button's coffee-house.

[Illustration: SIR RICHARD STEELE.]

"I have observed," so ran the epistle, "that this day you made

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 taken 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." And then there is this naïve postscript:

"The young poets are in the back room, and take their places as you

directed."

Nor did that end the plot. A few days later Steele found another

occasion to mention Button's. His plan this time was to concoct a

letter from one Hercules Crabtree, who offered his services as

lion-catcher to the Guardian, and incidentally mentioned that he

already possessed a few trophies which, he wished to present to

Button's coffee-house. This lion business paved the way for

Addison's interference in the clever scheme to divert the wits from

Will's. Hence that paper of the Guardian which he wound up by

announcing that it was his intention to erect, as a letter-box for

the receipt of contributions, a lion's head in imitation of those he

had described in Venice, through which all the private intelligence

of that commonwealth was said to pass.

"This head," he explained, "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 kept 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 public. This head requires some time to finish, the

workman 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 young authors how to convey his

works into the mouth of it with safety and secrecy."

[Illustration: LION'S HEAD AT BUTTON'S COFFEE-HOUSE.]

That lion's head was no myth. A fortnight later the leonine

letter-box was actually placed in position at Button's, and, after

doing service there for some years, was used by Dr. Hill when

editing the Inspector. It was sold in 1804, the notice of the sale

in the Annual Register stating that "The admirable gilt lion's head

letter-box, which was formerly at Button's coffee-house, and in

which the valuable original copy of the Guardian was received, was

yesterday knocked down at the Shakespeare-tavern, Cove & Garden, to

Mr. Richardson, for seventeen pounds ten shillings." It changed

hands again in more recent times, and is now the property of the

Duke of Bedford, who preserves it at Woburn.

For some months after the installation of the lion's head at

Button's, constant references are made in the Guardian to that

unique letter-box, Addison being mainly responsible for the quaint

conceits which helped to keep attention on the house where it was

placed. In the final number of the Guardian there is a lively letter

in response to an attack on masquerading which had reached the

public via the lion's head. "My present business," the epistle ran,

"is with the lion; and since this savage has behaved himself so

rudely, I do by these presents challenge him to meet me at the next

masquerade, and desire you will give orders to Mr. Button to bring

him thither, in all his terrors, where, in defenee of the innocence

of these midnight amusements, I intend to appear against him, in the

habit of Signior Nicolimi, to try the merits of this cause by single

combat."

But Addison and his lion's head and Steele were not the only notable

figures to be seen at Button's. Pope was a constant visitor there,

as he was reminded by Cibber in his famous letter. Those were the

days when, in Cibber's phrase, the author of the "Dunciad" was

remarkable for his satirical itch of provocation, when there were

few upon whom he did not fall in some biting epigram. He so fell

upon Ambrose Philips, who forthwith hung a rod up in Button's, and

let Pope know that he would use it on him should he ever catch him

under that roof. The poet took a more than ample revenge in many a

stinging line of satire afterwards.