December, 1660. After the Great Fire, he rebuilt the Sun Tavern,
behind the Royal Exchange: he was a loyal man, and appears to have
been sufficiently wealthy to have advanced money to the Crown; his
autograph was attached to several receipts among the Exchequer
documents lately destroyed.
Hollar's Map of London, 1667, shows the site of the Devil Tavern, and
its proximity to the barrier designated Temple Bar, when the house had
become the resort of lawyers and physicians. In the rare volume of
_Cambridge Merry Jests_, printed in the reign of Charles II., the will
of a tavern-hunter has the bequeathment of "ten pounds to be drank by
lawyers and physicians at the Devil's Tavern, by Temple Bar."
_The Tatler_, October 11, 1709, contains Bickerstaff's account of the
wedding entertainment at the Devil Tavern, in honour of his sister
Jenny's marriage. He mentions "the Rules of Ben's Club in gold
letters over the chimney;" and this is the latest notice of this
celebrated ode. When, or by whom, the board was taken from "over the
chimney," Mr. Burn has failed to discover.
Swift tells Stella that Oct. 12, 1710, he dined at the Devil Tavern
with Mr. Addison and Dr. Garth, when the doctor treated.
In 1746, the Royal Society held here their Annual Dinner; and in 1752,
concerts of vocal and instrumental music were given in the great room.
A view of the exterior of the Devil Tavern, with its gable-pointed
front, engraved from a drawing by Wale, was published in Dodsley's
_London and its Environs_, 1761. The sign-iron bears its pendent
sign--the Saint painted as a half-length, and the devil behind him
grinning grimly over his shoulder. On the removal of projecting signs,
by authority, in 1764, the Devil Tavern sign was placed flat against
the front, and there remained till the demolition of the house.
Brush Collins, in March, 1775, delivered for several evenings, in the
great room, a satirical lecture on Modern Oratory. In the following
year, a Pandemonium Club was held here; and, according to a notice in
Mr. Burn's possession, "the first meeting was to be on Monday, the 4th
of November, 1776. These devils were lawyers, who were about
commencing term, to the annoyance of many a hitherto happy
_bon-vivant_."
From bad to worse, the Devil Tavern fell into disuse, and Messrs.
Child, the bankers, purchased the freehold in 1787, for £2800. It was
soon after demolished, and the site is now occupied by the houses
called Child's-place.
We have selected and condensed these details from Mr. Burn's
exhaustive article on the Devil Tavern, in the Beaufoy Catalogue.
There is a token of this tavern, which is very rare. The initials
stand for Simon Wadloe, embalmed in Squire Western's favourite air
"Old Sir Simon the King:"--"AT THE D. AND DVNSTANS. The representation
of the saint standing at his anvil, and pulling the nose of the 'D.'
with his pincers.--R. WITHIN TEMPLE BARRE. In the field, I. S. W."
FOOTNOTE:
[33] Jesse's 'London and its Celebrities.'
THE YOUNG DEVIL TAVERN.
The notoriety of the Devil Tavern, as common in such cases, created an
opponent on the opposite side of Fleet-street, named "The Young
Devil." The Society of Antiquaries, who had previously met at the Bear
Tavern, in the Strand, changed their rendezvous Jan. 9, 1707-8, to the
Young Devil Tavern; but the host failed, and as Browne Willis tells
us, the Antiquaries, in or about 1709, "met at the Fountain Tavern, as
we went down into the Inner Temple, against Chancery Lane."
Later, a music-room, called the Apollo, was attempted, but with no
success: an advertisement for a concert, December 19, 1737, intimated
"tickets to be had at Will's Coffee-house, formerly the Apollo, in
Bell Yard, near Temple Bar." This may explain the Apollo Court, in
Fleet-street, unless it is found in the next page.
COCK TAVERN, FLEET-STREET.
The Apollo Club, at the Devil Tavern, is kept in remembrance by Apollo
Court, in Fleet-street, nearly opposite; next door eastward of which
is an old tavern nearly as well known. It is, perhaps, the most
primitive place of its kind in the metropolis: it still possesses a
fragment of decoration of the time of James I., and the writer
remembers the tavern half a century ago, with considerably more of its
original panelling. It is just two centuries since (1665), when the
Plague was raging, the landlord shut up his house, and retired into
the country; and there is preserved one of the farthings referred to
in this advertisement:--"This is to certify that the master of the
Cock and Bottle, commonly called the Cock Alehouse, at Temple Bar,
hath dismissed his servants, and shut up his house, for this long
vacation, intending (God willing) to return at Michaelmas next; so
that all persons whatsoever who may have any accounts with the said
master, or _farthings belonging to the said house_, are desired to
repair thither before the 8th of this instant, and they shall receive
satisfaction." Three years later, we find Pepys frequenting this
tavern: "23rd April, 1668. Thence by water to the Temple, and there to
the Cock Alehouse, and drank, and eat a lobster, and sang, and
mightily merry. So almost night, I carried Mrs. Pierce home, and then
Knipp and I to the Temple again, and took boat, it being now night."
The tavern has a gilt signbird over the passage door, stated to have
been carved by Gibbons. Over the mantelpiece is some carving, at
least of the time of James I.; but we remember the entire room
similarly carved, and a huge black-and-gilt clock, and settle. The
head-waiter of our time lives in the verse of Laureate Tennyson--"O
plump head-waiter of the Cock!" apostrophizes the "Will Water-proof"
of the bard, in a reverie wherein he conceives William to have
undergone a transition similar to that of Jove's cup-bearer:--
"And hence (says he) this halo lives about
The waiter's hands, that reach
To each his perfect pint of stout,
His proper chop to each.
He looks not with the common breed,
That with the napkin dally;
I think he came, like Ganymede,
From some delightful valley."
And of the redoubtable bird, who is supposed to have performed the
eagle's part in this abduction, he says:--
"The Cock was of a larger egg
Than modern poultry drop,
Stept forward on a firmer leg,
And cramm'd a plumper crop."
THE HERCULES' PILLARS TAVERNS.
Hercules Pillars Alley, on the south side of Fleet-street, near St.
Dunstan's Church, is described by Strype as "altogether inhabited by
such as keep Publick Houses for entertainment, for which it is of
note."
The token of the Hercules Pillars is thus described by Mr.
Akerman:--"ED. OLDHAM AT Y HERCVLES. A crowned male figure standing
erect, and grasping a pillar with each hand.--Rx. PILLERS IN FLEET
STREET. In the field, HIS HALF PENNY, E. P. O." "From this example,"
illustratively observes Mr. Akerman, "it would seem that the locality,
called Hercules Pillars Alley, like other places in London, took its
name from the tavern. The mode of representing the pillars of Hercules
is somewhat novel; and, but for the inscription, we should have
supposed the figure to represent Samson clutching the pillars of
temple of Dagon. At the trial of Stephen Colledge, for high-treason,
in 1681, an Irishman named Haynes, swore that he walked to the
Hercules Pillars with the accused, and that in a room upstairs
Colledge spoke of his treasonable designs and feeling. On another
occasion the parties walked from Richard's coffee-house[34] to this
tavern, where it was sworn they had a similar conference. Colledge, in
his defence, denies the truth of the allegation, and declares that the
walk from the coffee-house to the tavern is not more than a bow-shot,
and that during such walk the witness had all the conversation to
himself, though he had sworn that treasonable expressions had been
made use of on their way thither.
"Pepys frequented this tavern: in one part of his _Diary_ he says,
'With Mr. Creed to Hercules Pillars, where we drank.' In another, 'In
Fleet-street I met with Mr. Salisbury, who is now grown in less than
two years' time so great a limner that he is become excellent and gets
a great deal of money at it. I took him to Hercules Pillars to
drink.'"
Again: "After the play was done, we met with Mr. Bateller and W.
Hewer, and Talbot Pepys, and they followed us in a hackney-coach; and
we all supped at Hercules Pillars; and there I did give the best
supper I could, and pretty merry; and so home between eleven and
twelve at night." "At noon, my wife came to me at my tailor's, and I
sent her home, and myself and Tom dined at Hercules Pillars."
Another noted "Hercules Pillars" was at Hyde Park Corner, near
Hamilton-place, on the site of what is now the pavement opposite Lord
Willoughby's. "Here," says Cunningham, "Squire Western put his horses
up when in pursuit of Tom Jones; and here Field Marshal the Marquis of
Gransby was often found." And Wycherley, in his _Plain Dealer_, 1676,
makes the spendthrift, Jerry Blackacre, talk of picking up his
mortgaged silver "out of most of the ale-houses between Hercules
Pillars and the Boatswain in Wapping."
Hyde Park Corner was noted for its petty taverns, some of which
remained as late as 1805. It was to one of these taverns that Steele
took Savage to dine, and where Sir Richard dictated and Savage wrote a
pamphlet, which he went out and sold for two guineas, with which the
reckoning was paid. Steele then "returned home, having retired that
day only to avoid his creditors, and composed the pamphlet only to
discharge his reckoning."
FOOTNOTE:
[34] Subsequently "Dick's."
HOLE-IN-THE-WALL TAVERNS.
This odd sign exists in Chancery-lane, at a house on the east side,
immediately opposite the old gate of Lincoln's-Inn; "and," says Mr.
Burn, "being supported by the dependants on legal functionaries,
appears to have undergone fewer changes than the law, retaining all
the vigour of a new establishment." There is another "Hole in the
Wall" in St. Dunstan's-court, Fleet-street, much frequented by
printers.
Mr. Akerman says:--"It was a popular sign, and several taverns bore
the same designation, which probably originated in a certain tavern
being situated in some umbrageous recess in the old City walls. Many
of the most popular and most frequented taverns of the present day are
located in twilight courts and alleys, into which Phoebus peeps at
Midsummer-tide only when on the meridian. Such localities may have
been selected on more than one account: they not only afforded good
skulking 'holes' for those who loved drinking better than work; but
beer and other liquors keep better in the shade. These haunts, like
Lady Mary's farm, were--
'In summer shady, and in winter warm.'
Rawlins, the engraver of the fine and much coveted Oxford Crown, with
a view of the city under the horse, dates a quaint supplicatory letter
to John Evelyn, 'from the Hole in the Wall, in St. Martin's;' no
misnomer, we will be sworn, in that aggregation of debt and
dissipation, when debtors were imprisoned with a very remote chance of
redemption. In the days of Rye-house and Meal-Tub plots, philanthropy
overlooked such little matters; and Small Debts Bills were not dreamt
of in the philosophy of speculative legislators. Among other places
which bore the designation of the Hole in the Wall, there was one in
Chandos-street, in which the famous Duval, the highwayman, was
apprehended after an attack on--two bottles of wine, probably drugged
by a 'friend' or mistress."
THE MITRE, IN FLEET-STREET.
This was the true Johnsonian Mitre, so often referred to in _Boswell's
Life_; but it has earlier fame. Here, in 1640, Lilly met Old Will
Poole, the astrologer, then living in Ram-alley. The Royal Society
Club dined at the Mitre from 1743 to 1750, the Society then meeting in
Crane-court, nearly opposite. The Society of Antiquaries met some time
at the Mitre. Dr. Macmichael, in _The Gold-headed Cane_, makes Dr.
Radcliffe say:--"I never recollect to have spent a more delightful
evening than that at the Mitre Tavern, in Fleet-street, where my good
friend Billy Nutly, who was indeed the better half of me, had been
prevailed upon to accept of a small temporary assistance, and joined
our party, the Earl of Denbigh, Lords Colepeper and Stowel, and Mr.
Blackmore."
The house has a token:--WILLIAM PAGET AT THE. A mitre.--Rx. MITRE IN
FLEET STREET. In the field, W. E. P.
Johnson's Mitre is commonly thought to be the tavern with that sign,
which still exists in Mitre-court, over against Fetter-lane; where is
shown a cast of Nollekens' bust of Johnson, in confirmation of this
house being his resort. Such was not the case; Boswell distinctly
states it to have been the Mitre Tavern _in_ _Fleet-street_; and the
records by Lilly and the Royal Society, alike specify "in
Fleet-street," which Mr. Burn, in his excellent account of the Beaufoy
Tokens, explains was the house, No. 39, Fleet-street, that Macklin
opened, in 1788, as the Poet's Gallery; and lastly, Saunders's
auction-rooms. It was taken down to enlarge the site for Messrs.
Hoares' new banking-house. The now Mitre Tavern, in Mitre-court, was
originally called Joe's Coffee-house; and on the shutting up of the
old Mitre, in Fleet-street, took its name; this being four years after
Johnson's death.
The Mitre was Dr. Johnson's favourite supper-house, the parties
including Goldsmith, Percy, Hawkesworth, and Boswell; there was
planned the tour to the Hebrides. Johnson had a strange nervous
feeling, which made him uneasy if he had not touched every post
between the Mitre and his own lodgings. Johnson took Goldsmith to the
Mitre, where Boswell and the Doctor had supped together in the
previous month, when Boswell spoke of Goldsmith's "very loose, odd,
scrambling kind of life," and Johnson defended him as one of our first
men as an author, and a very worthy man;--adding, "he has been loose
in his principles, but he is coming right." Boswell was impatient of
Goldsmith from the first hour of their acquaintance. Chamberlain
Clarke, who died in 1831, aged 92, was the last surviving of Dr.
Johnson's Mitre friends. Mr. William Scott, Lord Stowell, also
frequented the Mitre.
Boswell has this remarkable passage respecting the house:--"We had a
good supper, and port-wine, of which he (Johnson) sometimes drank a
bottle. The orthodox high-church sound of THE MITRE--the figure and
manner of the celebrated SAMUEL JOHNSON--the extraordinary power and
precision of his conversation, and the pride arising from finding
myself admitted as his companion, produced a variety of sensations,
and a pleasing elevation of mind, beyond what I had ever experienced."
SHIP TAVERN, TEMPLE BAR.
This noted Tavern, the site of which is now denoted by Ship-yard, is
mentioned among the grants to Sir Christopher Hatton, 1571. There is,
in the Beaufoy Collection, a Ship token, dated 1649, which is evidence
that the inner tavern of that sign was then extant. It was also called
the Drake, from the ship painted as the sign being that in which Sir
Francis Drake voyaged round the world. Faithorne, the celebrated
engraver, kept shop, next door to the Drake. "The Ship Tavern, in the
Butcher-row, near Temple Bar," occurs in an advertisement so late as
June, 1756.
The taverns about Temple Bar were formerly numerous; and the folly of
disfiguring sign-boards was then, as at a later date, a street frolic.
"Sir John Denham, the poet, when a student at Lincoln's-Inn, in 1635,
though generally temperate as a drinker, having stayed late at a
tavern with some fellow-students, induced them to join him in 'a
frolic,' to obtain a pot of ink and a plasterer's brush, and blot out
all the signs between Temple Bar and Charing Cross. Aubrey relates
that R. Estcourt, Esq., carried the ink-pot: and that next day it
caused great confusion; but it happened Sir John and his comrades were
discovered, and it cost them some moneys."
THE PALSGRAVE HEAD, TEMPLE BAR.
This once celebrated Tavern, opposite the Ship, occupied the site of
Palsgrave-place, on the south side of the Strand, near Temple Bar. The
Palsgrave Frederick, afterwards King of Bohemia, was affianced to the
Princess Elizabeth (only daughter of James I.), in the old banqueting
house at Whitehall, December 27, 1612, when the sign was, doubtless,
set up in compliment to him. There is a token of the house in the
Beaufoy Collection. (See _Burn's Catalogue_, p. 225.)
Here Prior and Montague, in _The Hind and Panther Transversed_, make
the Country Mouse and the City Mouse bilk the Hackney Coachman:
"But now at Piccadilly they arrive,
And taking coach, t'wards Temple Bar they drive,
But at St. Clement's eat out the back;
And slipping through the Palsgrave, bilkt poor hack."
HEYCOCK'S, TEMPLE BAR,
Near the Palsgrave's Head tavern, was Heycock's Ordinary, much
frequented by Parliament men and gallants. Andrew Marvell usually
dined here: one day, having eaten heartily of boiled beef, with some
roasted pigeons and asparagus, he drank his pint of port; and on the
coming in of the reckoning, taking a piece of money out of his
pocket, held it up, and addressing his associates, certain members of
Parliament, known to be in the pay of the Crown, said, "Gentlemen, who
would lett himself out for hire, while he can have such a dinner for
half-a-crown?"
THE CROWN AND ANCHOR, STRAND.
This famous tavern extended from Arundel-street eastward to
Milford-lane, in the rear of the south side of the Strand, and
occupied the site of an older house with the same sign. Strype, in
1729, described it as "the Crown Tavern; a large and curious house,
with good rooms and other conveniences fit for entertainments." Here
was instituted the Academy of Music in 1710; and here the Royal
Society Club, who had previously met at the Mitre in Fleet-street,
removed in 1780, and dined here for the first time on December 21, and
here they continued until the tavern was converted into a club-house
in 1847.
The second tavern was built in 1790. Its first landlord was Thomas
Simpkin, a very corpulent man, who, in superintending the serving of a
large dinner, leaned over a balustrade, which broke, when he fell from
a considerable height to the ground, and was killed. The sign appears
to have been originally "The Crown," to which may have been added the
Anchor, from its being the emblem of St. Clement's, opposite; or from
the Lord High Admiral having once resided on the site. The tavern
contained a ball-room, 84 feet by 35 feet 6 inches; in 1798, on the
birthday of C. J. Fox, was given in this house, a banquet to 2000
persons, when the Duke of Norfolk presided. The large room was noted
for political meetings in the stormy Tory and Radical times; and the
Crown and Anchor was long the rallying-point of the Westminster
electors. The room would hold 2500 persons: one of the latest popular
orators who spoke here was Daniel O'Connell, M.P. There was originally
an entrance to the house from the Strand, by a long passage, such as
was the usual approach to our old metropolitan taverns. The premises
were entirely destroyed by fire, in 1854, but have been rebuilt.[35]
Here Johnson and Boswell occasionally supped; and here Johnson
quarrelled with Percy about old Dr. Monsey. Thither was brought the
altar-piece (St. Cecilia), painted by Kent for St. Clement's Church,
whence it was removed, in 1725, by order of Bishop Gibson, on the
supposition that the picture contained portraits of the Pretender's
wife and children.
FOOTNOTE:
[35] See Whittington Club, Vol. I. p. 313.
THE CANARY-HOUSE, IN THE STRAND.
There is a rare Token of this house, with the date, 1665. The locality
of the "Canary House in the Strande," says Mr. E. B. Price, "is now,
perhaps, impossible to trace; and it is, perhaps, as vain to attempt a
description of the wine from which it took its name, and which was so
celebrated in that and the preceding century. Some have erroneously
identified it with sack. We find it mentioned among the various
drinks which Gascoyne so virtuously inveighs against in his _Delicate
Diet for daintie mouthde Droonkardes_, published in 1576: "_We_ must
have March beere, dooble-dooble Beere, Dagger ale, Bragget, Renish
wine, White wine, French wine, Gascoyne wine, Sack, Hollocke, Canaria
wine, _Vino greco_, _Vinum amabile_, and al the wines that may be
gotten. Yea, wine of its selfe is not sufficient; but Suger, Limons,
and sundry sortes of Spices must be drowned therein." The bibbers of
this famed wine were wont to be termed "Canary birds." Of its
qualities we can perhaps form the best estimate from the colloquy
between "mine hostess of the Boar's Head and Doll Tearsheet;" in which
the former charges the latter with having "drunk too much _Canaries_;
and that's a _marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere
one can say, What's this?_"[36]
FOOTNOTE:
[36] We learn from Collier's _Roxburghe Ballads_ (_Lit. Gaz._ No.
1566) that in the reign of James I. "sparkling sack" was sold at 1_s._
6_d._ per quart, and "Canary--pure French wine," at 7 pence.
THE FOUNTAIN TAVERN,
Strand, now the site of Nos. 101 and 102, Ries's Divan, gave the name
to the Fountain Club, composed of political opponents of Sir Robert
Walpole. Strype describes it as "a very fine Tavern, with excellent
vaults, good rooms for entertainment, and a curious kitchen for
dressing of meat, which, with the good wine there sold, make it well
resorted to." Dennis, the Critic, describes his supping here with
Loggan, the painter, and others, and that after supper they "drank Mr.
Wycherley's health by name of Captain Wycherley."
Here, Feb. 12, 1742, was held a great meeting, at which near 300
members of both Houses of Parliament were present, to consider the
ministerial crisis, when the Duke of Argyll observed to Mr. Pulteney,
that a grain of honesty was worth a cart-load of gold. The meeting was
held too late to be of any avail, to which Sir Charles Hanbury
Williams alludes in one of his odes to Pulteney, invoking his Muse
thus:--
"Then enlarge on his cunning and wit;
Say, how he harang'd at the Fountain;
Say, how the old patriots were bit,
And a mouse was produc'd by a mountain."
Upon the Tavern site was a Drawing Academy, of which Cosway and
Wheatley were pupils; here also was the lecture-room of John Thelwall,
the political elocutionist. At No. 101, Ackermann, the printseller,
illuminated his gallery with cannel coal, when gas-lighting was a
novelty.
In Fountain-court, named from the Tavern, is the Coal-hole Tavern,
upon the site of a coal-yard; it was much resorted to by Edmund Kean,
and was one of the earliest night taverns for singing.
TAVERN LIFE OF SIR RICHARD STEELE.
Among the four hundred letters of Steele's preserved in the British
Museum, are some written from his tavern haunts, a few weeks after
marriage, to his "Dearest being on earth:"
"_Eight o'clock, Fountain Tavern, Oct. 22, 1707._
"My dear,
"I beg of you not to be uneasy; for I have done a great deal
of business to-day very successfully, and wait an hour or
two about my _Gazette_."
In the next, he does "not come home to dinner, being obliged to attend
to some business abroad." Then he writes from the Devil Tavern, Temple
Bar, January 3, 1707-8, as follows:--
"I have partly succeeded in my business, and enclose two
guineas as earnest of more. Dear Prue, I cannot come home to
dinner; I languish for your welfare, and will never be a
moment careless more.
"Your faithful husband," etc.
Within a few days, he writes from a Pall Mall tavern:--
"Dear Wife,
"Mr. Edgecombe, Ned Ask, and Mr. Lumley, have desired me to
sit an hour with them at the George, in Pall Mall, for which
I desire your patience till twelve o'clock, and that you
will go to bed," etc.
When money-matters were getting worse, Steele found it necessary to
sleep away from home for a day or two, and he writes:--
"_Tennis-court Coffee-house, May 5, 1708._
"Dear Wife,
"I hope I have done this day what will be pleasing to you;
in the meantime shall lie this night at a baker's, one Leg,
over against the Devil Tavern, at Charing Cross. I shall be
able to confront the fools who wish me uneasy, and shall
have the satisfaction to see thee cheerful and at ease.
"If the printer's boy be at home, send him hither; and let
Mr. Todd send by the boy my night-gown, slippers, and clean
linen. You shall hear from me early in the morning," etc.