It was about the year 1805 that we were first ushered into the
dining-house called the Cheshire Cheese, in Wine-office-court. It is known
that Johnson once lodged in this court, and bought an enormous cudgel
while there, to resist a threatened attack from Macpherson, the author, or
editor, of _Ossian's Poems_. At the time we first knew the place (for its
visiters and keepers are long since changed for the third or fourth time,)
many came there who remembered Johnson and Goldsmith spending their
evenings in the coffee-room; old half-pay officers, staid tradesmen of the
neighbourhood, and the like, formed the principal portion of the company.
Few in this vast city know the alley in Fleet-street which leads to the
sawdusted floor and shining tables; those tables of mahogany, parted by
green-curtained seats, and bound with copper rims to turn the edge of the
knife which might perchance assail them during a warm debate; John Bull
having a propensity to commit such mutilations in the "torrent, tempest,
and whirlwind" of argument. Thousands have never seen the homely clock
that ticks over the chimney, nor the capacious, hospitable-looking
fire-place under,[3] both as they stood half a century ago, when
Fleet-street was the emporium of literary talent, and every coffee-house
was distinguished by some character of note who was regarded as the oracle
of the company.
[3] We may add that still fewer have seen the characteristic
whole-length portrait of "_Harry_," _the waiter_, which has
been placed over the fireplace, by subscription among the
frequenters of the room. _Wageman_ is the painter, and nothing
can describe the _bonhommie_ of Harry, who has just drawn the
cork of a pint of port, exulting in all the vainglory of crust
and bees' wing.--ED. MIRROR.
Among these was old Colonel L----e, in person short and thick-set. He
often sacrificed copiously to the jolly god, in his box behind the door;
he was a great smoker, and had numbered between seventy and eighty years.
Early in the evening he was punctually at his post; he called, for his
pipe and his "go of rack," according to his diurnal custom; and surveying
first the persons at his own table, and then those in other parts of
the room, he commonly sat a few minutes in silence, as if waiting the
stimulating effect of the tobacco to wind up his conversational powers,
or perhaps he was bringing out defined images from the dim reminiscences
which floated in his sensorium. If a stranger were near, he commonly
addressed him with an old soldier's freedom, on some familiar topic which
little needed the formalities of a set introduction; but soon changed the
subject, and commenced fighting "his battles o'er again." He talked much
of Minden, and the campaigns of 1758 and 59. He boasted of having carried
the colours of the 20th regiment, that bore the brunt of the day there,
and mainly contributed to obtain a "glorious victory," as Southey, in his
days of uncourtliness, called that of Blenheim. But though thus fond of
showing "how fields were won," he was equally delighted with recounting
his acquaintance with more peaceful subjects. He had known Johnson and
Goldsmith, together with the list of worthies who honoured Fleet-street by
making it their abode between thirty and forty years before, and were at
that time visitants of the house. "At this very table," said he, speaking
of that which is situated on the right-hand behind the door, "Johnson used
always to sit when he came here, and Goldsmith also. I knew them well.
Johnson overawed us all, and every one became silent when he spoke." The
colonel observed of Goldsmith, "That no one would have thought much of him
from his company, though he had a great name in the world."
The colonel also knew something of Churchill, described him as by no means
prepossessing in person, and one of the last who could have been supposed
capable of writing as he wrote. The colonel, in his old age, imagined he
too had a taste for poetry, and boasted of Goldsmith's having asserted
(perhaps jokingly) that he possessed a talent for writing verse. This idea
working in his mind for years, had induced him to print, in his old age,
what he called, to the best of my recollection, "A Continuation of the
Deserted Village." He always brought a copy with him of an evening, and
was fond of referring to it, and passing it round for the company to look
at--a weakness pardonable in a garrulous old man. On revisiting the house,
for old acquaintance sake, after an absence of some years from London, I
missed him from his accustomed place, which I observed to be occupied by a
stranger. On inquiry, I found that he was departed to where human vanity
and human wisdom are upon a level, and where man is alike deaf to the
voice of literary and military ambition.--_New Monthly Magazine_.
* * * * *