Coffee-houses in London. These are very numerous in every part of the
town; will give him the best insight into the different characters of
the people, and the justest notion of the inhabitants in general, of
all the houses of public resort these are the least dangerous. Yet,
some of these are not entirely free from sharpers. The deceivers of
this denomination are generally descended from families of some
repute, have had the groundwork of a genteel education, and are
capable of making a tolerable appearance. Having been equally profuse
of their own substance and character, and learned, by having been
undone, the ways of undoing, they lie in wait for those who have more
wealth and less knowledge of the town. By joining you in discourse, by
admiring what you say, by an officiousness to wait upon you, and to
assist you in anything you want to have or know, they insinuate
themselves into the company and acquaintance of strangers, whom they
watch every opportunity of fleecing. And if one finds in you the least
inclination to cards, dice, the billiard-table, bowling-green, or any
other sort of gaming, you are morally sure of being taken in. For this
set of gentry are adepts in all the arts of knavery and tricking. If,
therefore, you should observe a person, without any previous
acquaintance, paying you extraordinary marks of civility; if he puts
in for a share of your conversation with a pretended air of deference;
if he tenders his assistance, courts your acquaintance, and would be
suddenly thought your friend, avoid him as a pest; for these are the
usual baits by which the unwary are caught."
FOOTNOTE:
[10] 'The Magistrate: Description of London and Westminster,' 1776.
DON SALTERO'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
Among the curiosities of Old Chelsea, almost as well known as its
china, was the Coffee-house and Museum, No. 18, Cheyne Walk, opened by
a barber, named Salter, in 1695. Sir Hans Sloane contributed some of
the refuse gimcracks of his own collection; and Vice-Admiral Munden,
who had been long on the coast of Spain, where he had acquired a
fondness for Spanish titles, named the keeper of the house _Don
Saltero_, and his coffee-house and museum, _Don Saltero's_.
The place, however, would, in all probability, have enjoyed little
beyond its local fame, had not Sir Richard Steele immortalized the Don
and Don Saltero's in _The Tatler_, No. 34, June 28, 1700; wherein he
tells us of the necessity of travelling to know the world by his
journey for fresh air, no further than the village of Chelsea, of
which he fancied that he could give an immediate description, from the
five fields, where the robbers lie in wait, to the Coffee-house, where
the literati sit in council. But he found, even in a place so near
town as this, there were enormities and persons of eminence, whom he
before knew nothing of.
The Coffee-house was almost absorbed by the Museum. "When I came into
the Coffee-house," says Steele, "I had not time to salute the company,
before my eyes were diverted by ten thousand gimcracks round the room,
and on the ceiling. When my first astonishment was over, comes to me a
sage of thin and meagre countenance, which aspect made me doubt
whether reading or fretting had made it so philosophic; but I very
soon perceived him to be of that sort which the ancients call
'gingivistee,' in our language 'tooth-drawers,' I immediately had a
respect for the man; for these practical philosophers go upon a very
practical hypothesis, not to cure, but to take away the part affected.
My love of mankind made me very benevolent to Mr. Salter, for such is
the name of this eminent barber and antiquary."
The Don was famous for his punch and his skill on the fiddle; he also
drew teeth, and wrote verses; he described his museum in several
stanzas, one of which is--
"Monsters of all sorts are seen:
Strange things in nature as they grew so;
Some relicks of the Sheba Queen,
And fragments of the fam'd Bob Crusoe."
Steele then plunges into a deep thought why barbers should go further
in hitting the ridiculous than any other set of men; and maintains
that Don Saltero is descended in a right line, not from John
Tradescant, as he himself asserts, but from the memorable companion of
the Knight of Mancha. Steele then certifies that all the worthy
citizens who travel to see the Don's rarities, his double-barrelled
pistols, targets, coats of mail, his sclopeta, and sword of Toledo,
were left to his ancestor by the said Don Quixote, and by his ancestor
to all his progeny down to Saltero. Though Steele thus goes far in
favour of Don Saltero's great merit, he objects to his imposing
several names (without his licence) on the collection he has made, to
the abuse of the good people of England; one of which is particularly
calculated to deceive religious persons, to the great scandal of the
well-disposed, and may introduce heterodox opinions. [Among the
curiosities presented by Admiral Munden was a coffin, containing the
body or relics of a Spanish saint, who had wrought miracles.] "He
shows you a straw hat, which," says Steele, "I know to be made by
Madge Peskad, within three miles of Bedford; and tells you 'It is
Pontius Pilate's wife's chambermaid's sister's hat.' To my knowledge
of this very hat, it may be added that the covering of straw was never
used among the Jews, since it was demanded of them to make bricks
without it. Therefore, this is nothing but, under the specious
pretence of learning and antiquities, to impose upon the world. There
are other things which I cannot tolerate among his rarities, as, the
china figure of the lady in the glass-case; the Italian engine, for
the imprisonment of those who go abroad with it; both of which I
hereby order to be taken down, or else he may expect to have his
letters patent for making punch superseded, be debarred wearing his
muff next winter, or ever coming to London without his wife."
Babillard says that Salter had an old grey muff, and that, by wearing
it up to his nose, he was distinguishable at the distance of a quarter
of a mile. His wife was none of the best, being much addicted to
scolding; and Salter, who liked his glass, if he could make a trip to
London by himself, was in no haste to return.
Don Saltero's proved very attractive as an exhibition, and drew crowds
to the coffee-house. A catalogue was published, of which were printed
more than forty editions. Smollett, the novelist, was among the
donors. The catalogue, in 1760, comprehended the following
rarities:--Tigers' tusks; the Pope's candle; the skeleton of a
Guinea-pig; a fly-cap monkey; a piece of the true Cross; the Four
Evangelists' heads cut on a cherry-stone; the King of Morocco's
tobacco-pipe; Mary Queen of Scots' pincushion; Queen Elizabeth's
prayer-book; a pair of Nun's stockings; Job's ears, which grew on a
tree; a frog in a tobacco-stopper; and five hundred more odd relics!
The Don had a rival, as appears by "A Catalogue of the Rarities to be
seen at Adams's, at the Royal Swan, in Kingsland-road, leading from
Shoreditch Church, 1756." Mr. Adams exhibited, for the entertainment
of the curious, "Miss Jenny Cameron's shoes; Adam's eldest daughter's
hat; the heart of the famous Bess Adams, that was hanged at Tyburn
with Lawyer Carr, January 18, 1736-7; Sir Walter Raleigh's
tobacco-pipe; Vicar of Bray's clogs; engine to shell green peas with;
teeth that grew in a fish's belly; Black Jack's ribs; the very comb
that Abraham combed his son Isaac and Jacob's head with; Wat Tyler's
spurs; rope that cured Captain Lowry of the head-ach, ear-ach,
tooth-ach, and belly-ach; Adam's key of the fore and back door of the
Garden of Eden, &c., &c." These are only a few out of five hundred
others equally marvellous.
The Don, in 1723, issued a curious rhyming advertisement of his
Curiosities, dated "Chelsea Knackatory," and in one line he calls it
"My Museum Coffee-house."
In Dr. Franklin's _Life_ we read:--"Some gentlemen from the country
went by water to see the College, and Don Saltero's Curiosities, at
Chelsea." They were shown in the coffee-room till August, 1799, when
the collection was mostly sold or dispersed; a few gimcracks were left
until about 1825, when we were informed on the premises, they were
thrown away! The house is now a tavern, with the sign of "The Don
Saltero's Coffee-house."
The success of Don Saltero, in attracting visitors to his
coffee-house, induced the proprietor of the Chelsea Bun-house to make
a similar collection of rarities, to attract customers for the buns;
and to some extent it was successful.
SALOOP-HOUSES.
What was, in our time, occasionally sold at stalls in the streets of
London, with this name, was a decoction of sassafras; but it was
originally made from Salep, the roots of _Orchis mascula_, a common
plant of our meadows, the tubers of which, being cleaned and peeled,
are lightly browned in an oven. Salep was much recommended in the last
century by Dr. Percival, who stated that salep had the property of
concealing the taste of salt water, which property it was thought
might be turned to account in long sea-voyages. The root has been
considered as containing the largest portion of nutritious matter in
the smallest space; and when boiled, it was much used in this country
before the introduction of tea and coffee, and their greatly reduced
prices. Salep is now almost entirely disused in Great Britain; but we
remember many saloop-stalls in our streets. We believe the last house
in which it was sold, to have been Read's Coffee-house, in
Fleet-street. The landlord of the noted Mug-house, in Salisbury-square,
was one Read. (See CLUBS, p. 52.)
THE SMYRNA COFFEE-HOUSE,
In Pall Mall, was, in the reign of Queen Anne, famous for "that
cluster of wise-heads" found sitting every evening, from the left side
of the fire to the door. The following announcement in the _Tatler_,
No. 78, is amusing: "This is to give notice to all ingenious gentlemen
in and about the cities of London and Westminster, who have a mind to
be instructed in the noble sciences of music, poetry, and politics,
that they repair to the Smyrna Coffee-house, in Pall Mall, betwixt the
hours of eight and ten at night, where they may be instructed gratis,
with elaborate essays by word of mouth," on all or any of the
above-mentioned arts. The disciples are to prepare their bodies with
three dishes of bohea, and to purge their brains with two pinches of
snuff. If any young student gives indication of parts, by listening
attentively, or asking a pertinent question, one of the professors
shall distinguish him, by taking snuff out of his box in the presence
of the whole audience.
"N.B. The seat of learning is now removed from the corner of the
chimney, on the left hand towards the window, to the round table in
the middle of the floor over against the fire; a revolution much
lamented by the porters and chairmen, who were much edified through a
pane of glass that remained broken all the last summer."
Prior and Swift were much together at the Smyrna: we read of their
sitting there two hours, "receiving acquaintance;" and one entry of
Swift's tells us that he walked a little in the Park till Prior made
him go with him to the Smyrna Coffee-house. It seemed to be the place
to _talk politics_; but there is a more agreeable record of it in
association with our "Poet of the Year," thus given by Cunningham: "In
the printed copy of Thomson's proposals for publishing, by
subscription, the Four Seasons, with a Hymn on their succession, the
following note is appended:--'Subscriptions now taken in by the
author, at the Smyrna Coffee-house, Pall Mall.'"[11] We find the
Smyrna in a list of Coffee-Houses in 1810.
FOOTNOTE:
[11] The Dane Coffee-house, between the Upper and Lower Malls,
Hammersmith, was frequented by Thomson, who wrote here a part of his
_Winter_. On the Terrace resided, for many years, Arthur Murphy, and
Loutherbourg, the painter. The latter died there, in 1812.
ST. JAMES'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
This was the famous Whig Coffee-house from the time of Queen Anne till
late in the reign of George III. It was the last house but one on the
south-west corner of St. James's-street, and is thus mentioned in No.
1 of the _Tatler_: "Foreign and Domestic News you will have from St.
James's Coffee-house." It occurs also in the passage quoted at page
39, from the _Spectator_. The St. James's was much frequented by
Swift; letters for him were left here. In his Journal to Stella he
says: "I met Mr. Harley, and he asked me how long I had learnt the
trick of writing to myself? He had seen your letter through the glass
case at the Coffee-house, and would swear it was my hand." The letters
from Stella were enclosed under cover to Addison.
Elliot, who kept the coffee-house, was, on occasions, placed on a
friendly footing with his guests. Swift, in his Journal to Stella,
Nov. 19, 1710, records an odd instance of this familiarity: "This
evening I christened our coffee-man Elliot's child; when the rogue had
a most noble supper, and Steele and I sat amongst some scurvy company
over a bowl of punch."
In the first advertisement of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's _Town
Eclogues_, they are stated to have been read over at the St. James's
Coffee-house, when they were considered by the general voice to be
productions of a Lady of Quality. From the proximity of the house to
St. James's Palace, it was much frequented by the Guards; and we read
of its being no uncommon circumstance to see Dr. Joseph Warton at
breakfast in the St. James's Coffee-house, surrounded by officers of
the Guards, who listened with the utmost attention and pleasure to his
remarks.
To show the order and regularity observed at the St. James's, we may
quote the following advertisement, appended to the _Tatler_, No.
25:--"To prevent all mistakes that may happen among gentlemen of the
other end of the town, who come but once a week to St. James's
Coffee-house, either by miscalling the servants, or requiring such
things from them as are not properly within their respective
provinces; this is to give notice that Kidney, keeper of the
book-debts of the outlying customers, and observer of those who go off
without paying, having resigned that employment, is succeeded by John
Sowton; to whose place of enterer of messages and first
coffee-grinder, William Bird is promoted; and Samuel Burdock comes as
shoe-cleaner in the room of the said Bird."
But the St. James's is more memorable as the house where originated
Goldsmith's celebrated poem, _Retaliation_. The poet belonged to a
temporary association of men of talent, some of them members of the
Club, who dined together occasionally here. At these dinners he was
generally the last to arrive. On one occasion, when he was later than
usual, a whim seized the company to write epitaphs on him as "the late
Dr. Goldsmith," and several were thrown off in a playful vein. The
only one extant was written by Garrick, and has been preserved, very
probably, by its pungency:--
"Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll;
He wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll."
Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially coming from such a
quarter; and, by way of _retaliation_, he produced the famous poem, of
which Cumberland has left a very interesting account, but which Mr.
Forster, in his _Life of Goldsmith_, states to be "pure romance." The
poem itself, however, with what was prefixed to it when published,
sufficiently explains its own origin. What had formerly been abrupt
and strange in Goldsmith's manners, had now so visibly increased, as
to become matter of increased sport to such as were ignorant of its
cause; and a proposition made at one of the dinners, when he was
absent, to write a series of epitaphs upon him (his "country dialect"
and his awkward person) was agreed to and put in practice by several
of the guests. The active aggressors appear to have been Garrick,
Doctor Bernard, Richard Burke, and Caleb Whitefoord. Cumberland says
he, too, wrote an epitaph; but it was complimentary and grave, and
hence the grateful return he received. Mr. Forster considers Garrick's
epitaph to indicate the tone of all. This, with the rest, was read to
Goldsmith when he next appeared at the St. James's Coffee-house, where
Cumberland, however, says he never again met his friends. But "the
Doctor was called on for Retaliation," says the friend who published
the poem with that name, "and at their next meeting, produced the
following, which I think adds one leaf to his immortal wreath."
"_Retaliation_," says Sir Walter Scott, "had the effect of placing the
author on a more equal footing with his Society than he had ever
before assumed."
Cumberland's account differs from the version formerly received, which
intimates that the epitaphs were written before Goldsmith arrived:
whereas the pun, "the late Dr. Goldsmith," appears to have suggested
the writing of the epitaphs. In the _Retaliation_, Goldsmith has not
spared the characters and failings of his associates, but has drawn
them with satire, at once pungent and good-humoured. Garrick is
smartly chastised; Burke, the Dinner-bell of the House of Commons, is
not let off; and of all the more distinguished names of the Club,
Thomson, Cumberland, and Reynolds alone escape the lash of the
satirist. The former is not mentioned, and the two latter are even
dismissed with unqualified and affectionate applause.
Still, we quote Cumberland's account of the _Retaliation_, which is
very amusing from the closely circumstantial manner in which the
incidents are narrated, although they have so little relationship to
truth:--"It was upon a proposal started by Edmund Burke, that a party
of friends who had dined together at Sir Joshua Reynolds's and my
house, should meet at the St. James's Coffee-house, which accordingly
took place, and was repeated occasionally with much festivity and
good fellowship. Dr. Bernard, Dean of Derry; a very amiable and old
friend of mine, Dr. Douglas, since Bishop of Salisbury; Johnson, David
Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund and Richard
Burke, Hickey, with two or three others, constituted our party. At one
of these meetings an idea was suggested of extemporary epitaphs upon
the parties present: pen and ink were called for, and Garrick,
off-hand, wrote an epitaph with a good deal of humour, upon poor
Goldsmith, who was the first in jest, as he proved to be in reality,
that we committed to the grave. The Dean also gave him an epitaph, and
Sir Joshua illuminated the Dean's verses with a sketch of his bust in
pen-and-ink, inimitably caricatured. Neither Johnson nor Burke wrote
anything, and when I perceived that Oliver was rather sore, and seemed
to watch me with that kind of attention which indicated his
expectation of something in the same kind of burlesque with theirs; I
thought it time to press the joke no further, and wrote a few couplets
at a side-table, which, when I had finished, and was called upon by
the company to exhibit, Goldsmith, with much agitation, besought me to
spare him; and I was about to tear them, when Johnson wrested them out
of my hand, and in a loud voice read them at the table. I have now
lost recollection of them, and, in fact, they were little worth
remembering; but as they were serious and complimentary, the effect
upon Goldsmith was the more pleasing, for being so entirely
unexpected. The concluding line, which was the only one I can call to
mind, was:--
"'All mourn the poet, I lament the man.'
This I recollect, because he repeated it several times, and seemed
much gratified by it. At our next meeting he produced his epitaphs,
as they stand in the little posthumous poem above mentioned, and this
was the last time he ever enjoyed the company of his friends."[12]
Mr. Cunningham tells us that the St. James's was closed about 1806;
and a large pile of building looking down Pall Mall, erected on its
site.
The globular oil-lamp was first exhibited by its inventor, Michael
Cole, at the door of the St. James's Coffee-house, in 1709; in the
patent he obtained, it is mentioned as "a new kind of light."
FOOTNOTE:
[12] _Cumberland's Memoirs_, vol. i.
THE BRITISH COFFEE-HOUSE,
In Cockspur-street, "long a house of call for Scotchmen," has been
fortunate in its landladies. In 1759, it was kept by the sister of
Bishop Douglas, so well known for his works against Lauder and Bower,
which may explain its Scottish fame. At another period it was kept by
Mrs. Anderson, described in Mackenzie's _Life of Home_ as "a woman of
uncommon talents, and the most agreeable conversation."[13]
The British figures in a political faction of 1750, at which date
Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann: "The Argyll carried all the Scotch
against the turnpike; they were willing to be carried, for the Duke of
Bedford, in case it should have come into the Lords, had writ to the
sixteen Peers, to solicit their votes; but with so little difference,
that he enclosed all the letters under one cover directed to the
British Coffee-house."
FOOTNOTE:
[13] _Cunningham's Walpole_, vol. ii. p. 196, note.
WILL'S COFFEE-HOUSE.[14]
Will's, the predecessor of Button's, and even more celebrated than
that Coffee-house, was kept by William Urwin, and was the house on the
north side of Russell-street at the end of Bow-street--the corner
house--now occupied as a ham and beef shop, and numbered twenty-three.
"It was Dryden who made Will's Coffee-house the great resort of the
wits of his time." (_Pope_ and _Spence_). The room in which the poet
was accustomed to sit was on the first floor; and his place was the
place of honour by fire-side in the winter; and at the corner of the
balcony, looking over the street, in fine weather; he called the two
places his winter and his summer seat. This was called the dining-room
floor in the last century. The company did not sit in boxes, as
subsequently, but at various tables which were dispersed through the
room. Smoking was permitted in the public room: it was then so much in
vogue that it does not seem to have been considered a nuisance. Here,
as in other similar places of meeting, the visitors divided themselves
into parties; and we are told by Ward, that the young beaux and wits,
who seldom approached the principal table, thought it a great honour
to have a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box.
Dean Lockier has left this life-like picture of his interview with the
presiding genius at Will's:--"I was about seventeen when I first came
up to town," says the Dean, "an odd-looking boy, with short rough
hair, and that sort of awkwardness which one always brings up at first
out of the country with one. However, in spite of my bashfulness and
appearance, I used, now and then, to thrust myself into Will's, to
have the pleasure of seeing the most celebrated wits of that time, who
then resorted thither. The second time that ever I was there, 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-Flecno_; 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 so far as to say, in
a voice but just loud enough to be heard, 'that _Mac-Flecno_ was a
very fine poem, but that I had not imagined it to be the first that
was ever writ that way.' On this, Dryden turned short upon me, as
surprised at my interposing; asked me how long 'I had been a dealer 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 the 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."
Will's Coffee-house was the open market for libels and lampoons, the
latter named from the established burden formerly sung to them:--
"Lampone, lampone, camerada lampone."
There was a drunken fellow, named Julian, who was a characterless
frequenter of Will's, and Sir Walter Scott has given this account of
him and his vocation:--
"Upon the general practice of writing lampoons, and the necessity of
finding some mode of dispersing them, which should diffuse the scandal
widely while the authors remained concealed, was founded the
self-erected office of Julian, Secretary, as he calls himself, to the
Muses. This person attended Will's, the Wits' Coffee-house, as it was
called; and dispersed among the crowds who frequented that place of
gay resort copies of the lampoons which had been privately
communicated to him by their authors. 'He is described,' says Mr.
Malone, 'as a very drunken fellow, and at one time was confined for a
liable.' Several satires were written, in the form of addresses to him
as well as the following. There is one among the _State Poems_
beginning--