lodged, probably, after the death of her sister, for whose support she
practised such noble and generous self-denial. Mrs. Inchbald's income
was now 172_l._ a year, and we are told that she now went to reside in
a boarding-house, where she enjoyed more of the comforts of life.
Phillips, the publisher, offered her a thousand pounds for her
Memoirs, which she declined. She died in a boarding-house at
Kensington, on the 1st of August, 1821; leaving about 6000_l._
judiciously divided amongst her relatives. Her simple and parsimonious
habits were very strange. "Last Thursday," she writes, "I finished
scouring my bedroom, while a coach with a coronet and two footmen
waited at my door to take me an airing."
"One of the most agreeable memories connected with Button's," says
Leigh Hunt, "is that of Garth, a man whom, for the sprightliness and
generosity of his nature, it is a pleasure to name. He was one of the
most amiable and intelligent of a most amiable and intelligent class
of men--the physicians."
FOOTNOTES:
[17] _The Guardian_, No. 71.
[18] _The Guardian_, No. 85.
[19] _The Guardian_, No. 93.
[20] _The Guardian_, No. 114.
[21] _The Guardian_, No. 142.
[22] _The Guardian_, No. 171.
[23] From Mr. Sala's vivid "William Hogarth;" Cornhill Magazine, vol.
i. p. 428.
DEAN SWIFT AT BUTTON'S.
It was just after Queen Anne's accession that Swift made acquaintance
with the leaders of the wits at Button's. Ambrose Philips refers to
him as the strange clergyman whom the frequenters of the Coffee-house
had observed for some days. He knew no one, no one knew him. He would
lay his hat down on a table, and walk up and down at a brisk pace for
half an hour without speaking to any one, or seeming to pay attention
to anything that was going forward. Then he would snatch up his hat,
pay his money at the bar, and walk off, without having opened his
lips. The frequenters of the room had christened him "the mad parson."
One evening, as Mr. Addison and the rest were observing him, they saw
him cast his eyes several times upon a gentleman in boots, who seemed
to be just come out of the country. At last, Swift advanced towards
this bucolic gentleman, as if intending to address him. They were all
eager to hear what the dumb parson had to say, and immediately quitted
their seats to get near him. Swift went up to the country gentleman,
and in a very abrupt manner, without any previous salute, asked him,
"Pray, Sir, do you know any good weather in the world?" After staring
a little at the singularity of Swift's manner and the oddity of the
question, the gentleman answered, "Yes, Sir, I thank God I remember a
great deal of good weather in my time."--"That is more," replied
Swift, "than I can say; I never remember any weather that was not too
hot or too cold, too wet or too dry; but, however God Almighty
contrives it, at the end of the year 'tis all very well."
Sir Walter Scott gives, upon the authority of Dr. Wall, of Worcester,
who had it from Dr. Arbuthnot himself, the following anecdote--less
coarse than the version generally told. Swift was seated by the fire
at Button's: there was sand on the floor of the coffee-room, and
Arbuthnot, with a design to play upon this original figure, offered
him a letter, which he had been just addressing, saying at the same
time, "There--sand that."--"I have got no sand," answered Swift, "but
I can help you to a little _gravel_." This he said so significantly,
that Arbuthnot hastily snatched back his letter, to save it from the
fate of the capital of Lilliput.
TOM'S COFFEE-HOUSE,
In Birchin-lane, Cornhill, though in the main a mercantile resort,
acquired some celebrity from its having been frequented by Garrick,
who, to keep up an interest in the City, appeared here about twice in
a winter at 'Change time, when it was the rendezvous of young
merchants. Hawkins says: "After all that has been said of Mr. Garrick,
envy must own that he owed his celebrity to his merit; and yet, of
that himself seemed so diffident, that he practised sundry little but
innocent arts, to insure the favour of the public:" yet, he did more.
When a rising actor complained to Mrs. Garrick that the newspapers
abused him, the widow replied, "You should write your own criticisms;
David always did."
One evening, Murphy was at Tom's, when Colley Cibber was playing at
whist, with an old general for his partner. As the cards were dealt to
him, he took up every one in turn, and expressed his disappointment at
each indifferent one. In the progress of the game he did not follow
suit, and his partner said, "What! have you not a spade, Mr. Cibber?"
The latter, looking at his cards, answered, "Oh yes, a thousand;"
which drew a very peevish comment from the general. On which, Cibber,
who was shockingly addicted to swearing, replied, "Don't be angry, for
---- I can play ten times worse if I like."
THE BEDFORD COFFEE-HOUSE, IN COVENT GARDEN.
This celebrated resort once attracted so much attention as to have
published, "Memoirs of the Bedford Coffee-house," two editions, 1751
and 1763. It stood "under the Piazza, in Covent Garden," in the
north-west corner, near the entrance to the theatre, and has long
ceased to exist.
In _The Connoisseur_, No. 1, 1754, we are assured that "this
Coffee-house is every night crowded with men of parts. Almost every
one you meet is 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 of the theatres, weighed and determined."
And in the above-named _Memoirs_, we read that "this spot has been
signalized for many years as the emporium of wit, the seat of
criticism, and the standard of taste.--Names of those who frequented
the house:--Foote, Mr. Fielding, Mr. Woodward, Mr. Leone, Mr. Murphy,
Mopsy, Dr. Arne. Dr. Arne was the only man in a suit of velvet in the
dog-days."
Stacie kept the Bedford when John and Henry Fielding, Hogarth,
Churchill, Woodward, Lloyd, Dr. Goldsmith, and many others met there
and held a gossiping shilling rubber club. Henry Fielding was a very
merry fellow.
The _Inspector_ appears to have given rise to this reign of the
Bedford, when there was placed here the Lion from Button's, which
proved so serviceable to Steele, and once more fixed the dominion of
wit in Covent Garden.
The reign of wit and pleasantry did not, however, cease at the Bedford
at the demise of the _Inspector_. A race of punsters next succeeded. A
particular box was allotted to this occasion, out of the hearing of
the lady at the bar, that the _double entendres_, which were sometimes
very indelicate, might not offend her.
The Bedford was beset with scandalous nuisances, of which the
following letter, from Arthur Murphy to Garrick, April 10, 1769,
presents a pretty picture:
"Tiger Roach (who used to bully at the Bedford Coffee-house because
his name was Roach) is set up by Wilkes's friends to burlesque Luttrel
and his pretensions. I own I do not know a more ridiculous
circumstance than to be a joint candidate with the Tiger. O'Brien used
to take him off very pleasantly, and perhaps you may, from his
representation, have some idea of this important wight. He used to sit
with a half-starved look, a black patch upon his cheek, pale with the
idea of murder, or with rank cowardice, a quivering lip, and a
downcast eye. In that manner he used to sit at a table all alone, and
his soliloquy, interrupted now and then with faint attempts to throw
off a little saliva, was to the following effect:--'Hut! hut! a
mercer's 'prentice with a bag-wig;--d--n my s--l, if I would not
skiver a dozen of them like larks! Hut! hut! I don't understand such
airs!--I'd cudgel him back, breast, and belly, for three skips of a
louse!--How do you do, Pat! Hut! hut! God's blood--Larry, I'm glad to
see you;--'Prentices! a fine thing indeed!--Hut! hut! How do you,
Dominick!--D--n my s--l, what's here to do!' These were the
meditations of this agreeable youth. From one of these reveries he
started up one night, when I was there, called a Mr. Bagnell out of
the room, and most heroically stabbed him in the dark, the other
having no weapon to defend himself with. In this career the Tiger
persisted, till at length a Mr. Lennard brandished a whip over his
head, and stood in a menacing attitude, commanding him to ask pardon
directly. The Tiger shrank from the danger, and with a faint voice
pronounced--'Hut! what signifies it between you and me? Well! well! I
ask your pardon,' 'Speak louder, sir; I don't hear a word you say.'
And indeed he was so very tall, that it seemed as if the sound, sent
feebly from below, could not ascend to such a height. This is the hero
who is to figure at Brentford."
Foote's favourite Coffee-house was the Bedford. He was also a constant
frequenter of Tom's, and took a lead in the Club held there, and
already described.[24]
Dr. Barrowby, the well-known newsmonger of the Bedford, and the
satirical critic of the day, has left this whole-length sketch of
Foote:--"One evening (he says), he saw a young man extravagantly
dressed out in a frock suit of green and silver lace, bag-wig, sword,
bouquet, and point-ruffles, enter the room (at the Bedford), and
immediately join the critical circle at the upper end. Nobody
recognised him; but such was the ease of his bearing, and the point of
humour and remark with which he at once took up the conversation, that
his presence seemed to disconcert no one, and a sort of pleased buzz
of 'who is he?' was still going round the room unanswered, when a
handsome carriage stopped at the door; he rose, and quitted the room,
and the servants announced that his name was Foote, that he was a
young gentleman of family and fortune, a student of the Inner Temple,
and that the carriage had called for him on its way to the assembly of
a lady of fashion." Dr. Barrowby once turned the laugh against Foote
at the Bedford, when he was ostentatiously showing his gold repeater,
with the remark--"Why, my watch does not go!" "It soon _will go_,"
quietly remarked the Doctor. Young Collins, the poet, who came to town
in 1744 to seek his fortune, made his way to the Bedford, where Foote
was supreme among the wits and critics. Like Foote, Collins was fond
of fine clothes, and walked about with a feather in his hat, very
unlike a young man who had not a single guinea he could call his own.
A letter of the time tells us that "Collins was an acceptable
companion everywhere; and among the gentlemen who loved him for a
genius, may be reckoned the Doctors Armstrong, Barrowby, Hill, Messrs.
Quin, Garrick, and Foote, who frequently took his opinion upon their
pieces before they were seen by the public. He was particularly
noticed by the geniuses who frequented the Bedford and Slaughter's
Coffee-houses."[25]
Ten years later (1754) we find Foote again supreme in his critical
corner at the Bedford. The regular frequenters of the room strove to
get admitted to his party at supper; and others got as nearly as they
could to the table, as the only humour flowed from Foote's tongue. The
Bedford was now in its highest repute.
Foote and Garrick often met at the Bedford, and many and sharp were
their encounters. They were the two great rivals of the day. Foote
usually attacked, and Garrick, who had many weak points, was mostly
the sufferer. Garrick, in early life, had been in the wine trade, and
had supplied the Bedford with wine; he was thus described by Foote as
living in Durham-yard, with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar,
calling himself a wine-merchant. How Foote must have abused the
Bedford wine of this period!
One night, Foote came into the Bedford, where Garrick was seated, and
there gave him an account of a most wonderful actor he had just seen.
Garrick was on the tenters of suspense, and there Foote kept him a
full hour. At last Foote, compassionating the suffering listener,
brought the attack to a close by asking Garrick what he thought of Mr.
Pitt's histrionic talents, when Garrick, glad of the release, declared
that if Pitt had chosen the stage, he might have been the first actor
upon it.
One night, Garrick and Foote were about to leave the Bedford together,
when the latter, in paying the bill, dropped a guinea; and not finding
it at once, said, "Where on earth can it be gone to?"--"Gone to the
devil, I think," replied Garrick, who had assisted in the
search.--"Well said, David!" was Foote's reply; "let you alone for
making a guinea go further than anybody else."
Churchill's quarrel with Hogarth began at the shilling rubber club, in
the parlour of the Bedford; when Hogarth used some very insulting
language towards Churchill, who resented it in the _Epistle_. This
quarrel showed more venom than wit:--"Never," says Walpole, "did two
angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity."
Woodward, the comedian, mostly lived at the Bedford, was intimate with
Stacie, the landlord, and gave him his (W.'s) portrait, with a mask in
his hand, one of the early pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Stacie
played an excellent game at whist. One morning, about two o'clock, one
of his waiters awoke him to tell him that a nobleman had knocked him
up, and had desired him to call his master to play a rubber with him
for one hundred guineas. Stacie got up, dressed himself, won the
money, and was in bed and asleep, all within an hour.
Of two houses in the Piazza, built for Francis, Earl of Bedford, we
obtain some minute information from the lease granted in 1634, to Sir
Edmund Verney, Knight Marshal to King Charles I.; these two houses
being just then erected as part of the Piazza. There are also included
in the lease the "yardes, stables, coach-houses, and gardens now layd,
or hereafter to be layd, to the said messuages," which description of
the premises seems to identify them as the two houses at the southern
end of the Piazza, adjoining to Great Russell-street, and now occupied
as the Bedford Coffee-house and Hotel. They are either the same
premises, or they immediately adjoin the premises, occupied a century
later as the Bedford Coffee-house. (Mr. John Bruce, _Archæologia_,
XXXV. 195.) The lease contains a minute specification of the
landlord's fittings and customary accommodations of what were then
some of the most fashionable residences in the metropolis. In the
attached schedule is the use of the wainscot, enumerating separately
every piece of wainscot on the premises. The tenant is bound to keep
in repair the "Portico Walke" underneath the premises; he is at all
times to have "ingresse, egresse and regresse" through the Portico
Walk; and he may "expel, put, or drive away out of the said walke any
youth or other person whatsoever which shall eyther play or be in the
said Portico Walke in offence or disturbance to the said Sir Edmund
Verney."
The inventory of the fixtures is curious. It enumerates
every apartment, from the beer-cellar, and the strong
beer-cellar, the scullery, the pantry, and the buttery, to
the dining and withdrawing-rooms. Most of the rooms had
casement windows, but the dining-room next Russell-street,
and other principal apartments, had "shutting windowes." The
principal rooms were also "double creasted round for
hangings," and were wainscoted round the chimney-pieces, and
doors and windows. In one case, a study, "south towards
Russell-street, the whole room was wainscoted, and the hall
in part." Most of the windows had "soil-boards" attached;
the room-doors had generally "stock locks," in some places
"spring plate locks" and spring bolts. There is not
mentioned anything approaching to a fire-grate in any of the
rooms, except perhaps in the kitchen, where occurs "a
travers barre for the chimney."
FOOTNOTES:
[24] See "Club at Tom's Coffee-house," vol. i. pp. 159-164.
[25] Memoir by Moy Thomas, prefixed to Collins's Poetical Works. Bell
and Daldy, 1858.
MACKLIN'S COFFEE-HOUSE ORATORY.
After Macklin had retired from the stage, in 1754, he opened that
portion of the Piazza-houses, in Covent Garden, which is now the
Tavistock Hotel. Here he fitted up a large coffee-room, a theatre for
oratory, and other apartments. To a three-shilling ordinary he added a
shilling lecture, or "School of Oratory and Criticism;" he presided at
the dinner-table, and carved for the company; after which he played a
sort of "Oracle of Eloquence." Fielding has happily sketched him in
his _Voyage to Lisbon_: "Unfortunately for the fishmongers of London,
the Dory only resides in the Devonshire seas; for could any of this
company only convey one to the Temple of luxury under the Piazza,
where Macklin, the high priest, daily serves up his rich offerings,
great would be the reward of that fishmonger."
In the Lecture, Macklin undertook to make each of his audience an
orator, by teaching him how to speak. He invited hints and
discussions; the novelty of the scheme attracted the curiosity of
numbers; and this curiosity he still further excited by a very
uncommon controversy, which now subsisted either in imagination or
reality, between him and Foote, who abused one another very
openly--"Squire Sammy" having for his purpose engaged the Little
Theatre in the Haymarket.
Besides this personal attack, various subjects were debated here in
the manner of the Robin Hood Society, which filled the orator's
pocket, and proved his rhetoric of some value.
Here is one of his combats with Foote. The subject was Duelling in
Ireland, which Macklin had illustrated as far as the reign of
Elizabeth. Foote cried "Order;" he had a question to put. "Well, Sir,"
said Macklin, "what have you to say upon this subject?" "I think,
Sir," said Foote, "this matter might be settled in a few words. What
o'clock is it, Sir?" Macklin could not possibly see what the clock had
to do with a dissertation upon Duelling, but gruffly reported the hour
to be half-past nine. "Very well," said Foote, "about this time of the
night every gentleman in Ireland that can possibly afford it is in his
third bottle of claret, and therefore in a fair way of getting drunk;
and from drunkenness proceeds quarrelling, and from quarrelling,
duelling, and so there's an end of the chapter." The company were
much obliged to Foote for his interference, the hour being considered;
though Macklin did not relish the abridgment.
The success of Foote's fun upon Macklin's Lectures, led him to
establish a summer entertainment of his own at the Haymarket. He took
up Macklin's notion of applying Greek Tragedy to modern subjects, and
the squib was so successful that Foote cleared by it 500_l._, in five
nights, while the great Piazza Coffee-room in Covent Garden was shut
up, and Macklin in the _Gazette_ as a bankrupt.
But when the great plan of Mr. Macklin proved abortive, when as he
said in a former prologue, upon a nearly similar occasion--
"From scheming, fretting, famine, and despair,
We saw to grace restor'd an exiled player;"
when the town was sated with the seemingly-concocted quarrel between
the two theatrical geniuses, Macklin locked up his doors, all
animosity was laid aside, and they came and shook hands at the
Bedford; the group resumed their appearance, and, with a new master, a
new set of customers was seen.
TOM KING'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
This was one of the old night-houses of Covent Garden Market: it was a
rude shed immediately beneath the portico of St. Paul's Church, and
was one "well known to all gentlemen to whom beds are unknown."
Fielding in one of his Prologues says:
"What rake is ignorant of King's Coffee-house?"
It is in the background of Hogarth's print of _Morning_, where the
prim maiden lady, walking to church, is soured with seeing two fuddled
_beaux_ from King's Coffee-house caressing two frail women. At the
door there is a drunken row, in which swords and cudgels are the
weapons.
Harwood's _Alumni Etonenses_, p. 293, in the account of the Boys
elected from Eton to King's College, contains this entry: "A.D. 1713,
Thomas King, born at West Ashton, in Wiltshire, went away scholar in
apprehension that his fellowship would be denied him; and afterwards
kept that Coffee-house in Covent Garden, which was called by his own
name."
Moll King was landlady after Tom's death: she was witty, and her house
was much frequented, though it was little better than a shed.
"Noblemen and the first _beaux_," said Stacie, "after leaving Court,
would go to her house in full dress, with swords and bags, and in rich
brocaded silk coats, and walked and conversed with persons of every
description. She would serve chimney-sweepers, gardeners, and the
market-people in common with her lords of the highest rank. Mr.
Apreece, a tall thin man in rich dress, was her constant customer. He
was called Cadwallader by the frequenters of Moll's." It is not
surprising that Moll was often fined for keeping a disorderly house.
At length, she retired from business--and the pillory--to Hampstead,
where she lived on her ill-earned gains, but paid for a pew in church,
and was charitable at appointed seasons, and died in peace in 1747.
It was at that period that Mother Needham, Mother Douglass (_alias_,
according to Foote's _Minor_, Mother Cole), and Moll King, the
tavern-keepers and the gamblers, took possession of premises abdicated
by people of fashion. Upon the south side of the market-sheds was the
noted "Finish," kept by Mrs. Butler, open all night, the last of the
Garden taverns, and only cleared away in 1829. This house was
originally the Queen's Head. Shuter was pot-boy here. Here was a
picture of the Hazard Club, at the Bedford: it was painted by Hogarth,
and filled a panel of the Coffee-room.
Captain Laroon, an amateur painter of the time of Hogarth, who often
witnessed the nocturnal revels at Moll King's, made a large and
spirited drawing of the interior of her Coffee-house, which was at
Strawberry Hill. It was bought for Walpole, by his printer, some
seventy years since. There is also an engraving of the same room, in
which is introduced a whole-length of Mr. Apreece, in a full
court-dress: an impression of this plate is extremely rare.
Justice Welsh used to say that Captain Laroon, his friend Captain
Montague, and their constant companion, Little Casey, the Link-boy,
were the three most troublesome of all his Bow-street visitors. The
portraits of these three heroes are introduced in Boitard's rare print
of "the Covent Garden Morning Frolic." Laroon is brandishing an
artichoke. C. Montague is seated, drunk, on the top of Bet Careless's
sedan, which is preceded by Little Casey, as a link-boy.
Captain Laroon also painted a large folding-screen; the figures were
full of broad humour, two representing a Quack Doctor and his Merry
Andrew, before the gaping crowd.
Laroon was deputy-chairman, under Sir Robert Walpole, of a Club,
consisting of six gentlemen only, who met, at stated times, in the
drawing-room of Scott, the marine painter, in Henrietta-street, Covent
Garden; and it was unanimously agreed by the members, that they should
be attended by Scott's wife only, who was a remarkable witty woman.
Laroon made a beautiful conversation drawing of the Club, which is
highly prized by J. T. Smith.
PIAZZA COFFEE-HOUSE.
This establishment, at the north-eastern angle of Covent Garden
Piazza, appears to have originated with Macklin's; for we read in an
advertisement in the _Public Advertiser_, March, 5, 1756: "the Great
Piazza Coffee-room, in Covent-Garden."
The Piazza was much frequented by Sheridan; and here is located the
well-known anecdote told of his coolness during the burning of
Drury-lane Theatre, in 1809. It is said that as he sat at the Piazza,
during the fire, taking some refreshment, a friend of his having
remarked on the philosophical calmness with which he bore his
misfortune, Sheridan replied: "A man may surely be allowed to take a
glass of wine _by his own fireside_."
Sheridan and John Kemble often dined together at the Piazza, to be
handy to the theatre. During Kemble's management, Sheridan had
occasion to make a complaint, which brought a "nervous" letter from
Kemble, to which Sheridan's reply is amusing enough. Thus, he writes:
"that the management of a theatre is a situation capable of becoming
_troublesome_, is information which I do not want, and a discovery
which I thought you had made long ago." Sheridan then treats Kemble's
letter as "a nervous flight," not to be noticed seriously, adding his
anxiety for the interest of the theatre, and alluding to Kemble's
touchiness and reserve; and thus concludes: