and recognised as the “Wits’,” from its company, was on the first floor
of the house at the west corner of Bow-street and Russell-street,
Covent Garden. In the last half of the seventeenth century, it was at
the height of its good fortune and reputation. The shop beneath it was
kept by a woollen-draper.
Tom Brown says that a wit was set up at a small cost; he was made
by “peeping once a day in at Will’s,” and by relating “two or three
second-hand sayings.” It was at Will’s that Dryden “pedagogued”
without restraint, accepted flattery without a blush, and praised with
happy complacency the perfection of his own works. He was the great
attraction of the place, and his presence there of an evening filled
the room with admiring listeners, or indiscreet adulators. Dryden
had the good sense to retire early, when the tables were full, and
he knew he had made a favourable impression, which the company might
improve in his absence. Addison, more given to jolly fellowship, sat
late with those who tarried to drink. Pepys, recording his first visit,
in February, 1663-4, says that he stepped in on his way to fetch his
wife, “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, as I could at other times, it will be good coming
thither; for there I perceive is very witty and pleasant discourse. But
I could not tarry; and, as it was late, they were all ready to go away.”
The reign of Dryden at Will’s was not, however, without its pains.
Occasionally, a daring stranger, like young Lockier, raw from the
country, would object to the _dicta_ of the despot. Thus, when Dryden
praised his “Mac Flecknoe,” as the first satire “written in heroics,”
the future Dean timidly suggested that the “Lutrin” and the “_Secchia
Rapita_” were so written; and Dryden acknowledged that his corrector
was right. The London beaux would have been afraid, or incapable,
of setting Dryden right; they were sufficiently happy if they were
but permitted to dip their fingers into the poet’s snuff-box, and,
at a separate table, listen to the criticisms uttered by the graver
authorities who were seated round another, at the upper end of the
room. Of the disputes that there arose, “glorious John” was arbiter;
for his particular use a chair was especially reserved; therein
enthroned, he sat by the hearth or the balcony, according to the
season, and delivered judgments which were not always final.
No man was better qualified to do so, for the “specialty” of Will’s
Coffee-house was poetry. Songs, epigrams, and satires, circulated from
table to table; and the wits judged plays, even Dryden’s, until the
playwrights began to satirize the wits. With Dryden, “Will’s” lost
some of its dignity. Late hours, card-playing, and politics; poets
more didactic in their verse, and essayists more instructive in their
prose, than in their daily practice; “dissipateurs” like Addison, and
peers who shared in Addison’s lower tastes, without either his talent
or occasional refinement,--spoiled the character of “Will’s,” where, by
the way, Pope had been introduced by Sir Charles Wogan, though, years
before, in his youth, he had been proud to follow old Wycherley about
from coffee-house to coffee-house; and then “Button’s” attracted the
better portion of the company, and left Will’s to the vulgar and the
witless.
“Button’s” Coffee-house was so named from its original proprietor, who
had been a servant of the Countess of Warwick, the wife of Addison.
It was situated in Great Russell-street, on the south side, about two
doors from Covent Garden. What Dryden had been at “Will’s,” Addison was
at “Button’s.” There,--after writing during the morning at his house
in St. James’s Place, where his breakfast-table was attended by such
men as Steele, Budgell, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Brett,
with some of whom he generally dined at a tavern,--he was to be found
of an evening, until the supper hour called him and his companions to
some other tavern, where, if not at Button’s, they made a night of
it. Pope was of the company for almost a year, but left it because
the late hours injured his health; and furthermore, perhaps, for the
reason, that his irritable temper had rendered him unpopular, and
that he had so provoked Ambrose Philips, that the latter suspended a
birchen rod over Pope’s usual seat, in intimation of what the ordinary
occupant would get if he ventured into it. The Buttonians were famous
for the fierceness of their criticism, but it appears to have been
altogether a better organized establishment than Will’s; for while
the parish registers show that the landlord of the latter was fined
for misdemeanour, the vestry-books of St. Paul (Covent Garden), prove
that Button paid “for two places in the pew No. 18, on the south side
of the north aisle, £2. 2_s._;” and charity leads us to conclude that
Daniel and his wife occupied the places so paid for, and were orthodox
as well as loyal. The “Lion’s Head” of the “Guardian,” which was put
up at Button’s, over the box destined to receive contributions for the
editor, is now at Woburn, in the possession of the Duke of Bedford.
Of coffee-houses that went by the name of “Tom’s” there were three. At
the one in Birchin-lane, Garrick occasionally appeared among the young
merchants; and Chatterton, before despair slew even ambition, more than
once dined. At the second house so called, in Devereux-court, many of
the scholars, critics, and scientific men of the last century used to
congregate. There Akenside essayed to rule over the tables as Dryden
had done at “Will’s,” and Addison at “Button’s;” but his imperious rule
was often overthrown by “flat rebellion.” _The_ “Tom’s” was opposite
“Button’s,” and stood on the north side of Great Russell-street, No.
17. It received its name from the Christian appellation of its master,
Thomas West, who committed suicide in 1722. If guests gained celebrity
in the latter days at “Will’s” for writing a “posie for a ring,” so at
“Tom’s” Mr. Ince was held in due respect, for the reason that he had
composed a solitary paper for the “Spectator.” It was a place where the
tables were generally crowded from the time of Queen Anne to that of
George III. Seven hundred of the nobility, foreign Ministers, gentry,
and geniuses of the age, subscribed a guinea each, in 1714, for the
erection of a card-room; and this fact, with the additional one that,
only four years later, an enlarged room for cards and conversation was
constructed, may serve to show by what sort of people, and for what
particular purposes, “Tom’s” was patronized.
At the time that White’s Chocolate-house was opened at the bottom of
St. James’s-street,--the close of the last century,--it was probably
thought vulgar; for there was a garden attached, and it had a suburban
air. At the tables in the house or garden more than one highwayman
took his chocolate, or threw his main, before he quietly mounted his
horse and rode slowly down Piccadilly towards Bagshot. Before the
establishment was burned down, in 1733, it was famous rather for
intensity of gaming than excellence of chocolate. It arose from its
ashes, and settled, at the top of the street, into a fixedness of
fashion that has never swerved. Gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment
were the characteristics of the place. The celebrated Lord Chesterfield
there “gamed, and pronounced witticisms among the boys of quality.”
Steele dated all his love-news in the “Tatler” from White’s. It was
stigmatized as “the common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble
cullies;” and bets were laid to the effect that Sir William Burdett,
one of its members, would be the first Baronet who would be hanged. The
gambling went on till dawn of day; and Pelham, when Prime Minister,
was not ashamed to divide his time between his official table and the
picquet-table at White’s. Selwyn, like Chesterfield, enlivened the room
with his wit. As a sample of the spirit of betting which prevailed,
Walpole quotes “a good story made at White’s.” A man dropped down
dead at the door, and was carried in; the Club immediately made bets
whether he was dead or not, and, when they were going to bleed him,
the wagerers for his death interposed, and said it would affect the
fairness of the bet!
Some of the old rules of the houses are rich in “table traits.” Thus,
in 1736, every member was required to pay an extra guinea a year
“towards having a good cook.” The supper was on table at ten o’clock;
the bill at twelve. In 1758, it was agreed that he who transgressed
the rules for balloting should pay the supper reckoning. In 1797
we find, “Dinner at 10_s._ 6_d._ per head, (malt liquor, biscuits,
oranges, apples, and olives included,) to be on table at six o’clock;
the bill to be brought at nine.” “That no hot suppers be provided,
unless particularly ordered; and then be paid for at the rate of 8_s._
per head. That in one of the rooms there be laid every night (from the
Queen’s to the King’s birthday) a table, with cold meat, oysters, &c.
Each person partaking thereof to pay 4_s._, malt liquors only included.”
Colley Cibber was a member, but, as it would seem, an honorary one
only, who dined with the Manager of the Club, and was tolerated
afterwards by the company for the sake of his wit. Mr. Cunningham
states, that at the supper given by the Club in 1814, at Burlington
House, to the Allied Sovereigns, there were covers laid for 2,400
people, and that the cost was “£9,849. 2_s._ 6_d._” “Three weeks after
this, (July 6, 1814,) the Club gave a dinner to the Duke of Wellington,
which cost £2,840. 10_s._ 9_d._” The dinner given, in the month of
February of the present year, to Prince George of Cambridge, was one
not to welcome a victorious warrior, but to cheer an untried, about to
go forth to show himself worthy of his spurs. White’s ceased to be an
open Chocolate-house in 1736, from which period it has been as private
an establishment as a Club can be said to be.
The politicians had their coffee-houses as well as the wits. The “Cocoa
Tree,” in St. James’s-street, was the Tory house in the reign of Queen
Anne. The “St. James’s” was the Whig house. It was a well-frequented
house in the latter days of George II., when Gibbon recorded his
surprise at seeing a score or two of the noblest and wealthiest in the
land, seated in a noisy coffee-room, at little tables covered by small
napkins, supping off cold meat or sandwiches, and finishing with strong
punch and confused politics.
The St. James’s Coffee-house ranked Addison, Swift, Steele, and,
subsequently, Goldsmith and Garrick, among its _habitués_. It had a
more solid practical reputation than any of the other coffee-houses;
for within its walls Goldsmith’s poem of “Retaliation” originated.
But politics was its “staple;” and poor politicians seem to have been
among its members, seeing that many of them were in arrears with their
subscriptions: but these were probably the outer-room men; for the
magnates, who were accustomed to sit and watch the line of Bourbon,
within the steam of the great coffee-pot, were doubtless punctual
in their payments ere they could have earned the privilege. And yet
their poetical acumen was often more correct than their political
discernment; for while the company at Button’s ascribed the “Town
Eclogues” to Gay, the coffee-drinkers at St. James’s were unanimous in
giving them to a lady of quality.
Of the coffee-houses of a second order, the “Bedford,” in Covent
Garden, was probably the first; but, for good-fellowship, it equalled
any of the more exclusive houses; for Garrick, and Quin, and Murphy,
and Foote, were of the company. Wit was the serious occupation of all
its members; and it never gave any of them serious trouble to produce
in abundance. Quin, above all, was brilliant in the double achievements
of Epicureanism and sparkling repartee. Garrick, in allusion to the
sentiments often expressed here by his brother actor, wrote the
epigrammatic lines, supposed to be uttered by Quin, in reference
to a discussion on embalming the dead, and which will be found in
a subsequent chapter, under the head of “Table Traits of the last
Century.”
Æsopus, the actor, who was to Cicero what Quin was to George the
Third,--he “taught the boy to speak,”--Æsopus was as great an epicure,
in his way, as Quin himself. It is related of him, that one day he
dined off a costly dish of birds, the whole of which, when living, had
been taught either to sing or speak. Æsopus was as fond of such a dish
as his fellow-comedian, Quin, was of mullet; for which, and for some
other of his favourite _morceaux_, he used to say that a man ought to
have a swallow as long as from London to Botany Bay, and palate all the
way! When the fish in question was in season, his first inquiry of the
servant who used to awaken him was, “Is there any mullet in the market
this morning, John?” and if John replied in the negative, his master’s
reported rejoinder was, “Then call me at nine to-morrow, John.”
The Bedford Coffee-house had its disadvantages, as when bullies, like
Tiger Roach, endeavoured to hold sovereignty over the members. But
usurpers like the Tiger were deposed as easily by the cane as by the
sword; but such occurrences marred the peace of the coffee-house,
nevertheless. It was, indeed, a strange company that sometimes was to
be found within these houses. At Batem’s, the City House, patronized
by Blackmore, the brother of Lord Southwell was to be found enacting
the parasite, and existing by the aid of men who thought his wit
worth paying for. Child’s Coffee-house, St. Paul’s Church-yard,
was patronized by the Clergy, who assembled there, especially the
younger Clergy, in gowns, cassocks, and scarfs, smoked till they were
invisible, and obtained the honorary appellation of “Doctor” from the
waiters. Clerical visitants were also to be found at the “Smyrna,” in
Pall Mall. Swift was often there with Prior; and the politics of the
day were so loudly discussed, that the chairmen and porters in waiting
outside used to derive that sort of edification therefrom which is now
to be had in the cheap weekly periodicals. “Garraway’s” takes us once
more into the City. Garway, as the original proprietor was called,
was one of the earliest sellers of tea in London; and his house was
frequented by nobles who had business in the City, who attended the
lotteries at his house, or who wished to partake of his tea and coffee.
Foreign Bankers and Ministers patronized “Robin’s;” the buyers and
sellers of Stock collected at “Jonathan’s;” and the shipping interest
went, as now, to “Lloyd’s.” All these places were in full activity of
business and coffee-drinking in the reign of Queen Anne. Finally, the
lawyers crowded “Squire’s,” in Fulwood’s Rents; and there, it will be
remembered, Sir Roger de Coverley smoked a pipe, over a dish of coffee,
with the Spectator. But enough of these places, whose names are more
familiar to many of us than their whereabout, but whose connexion
with what may be called the table life of past times gives me warrant
for the notice of them, with which, perhaps, I have only troubled the
reader. I will only add, that the ceremony of serving chocolate was
never such a solemnity in England as in France. In the latter country,
as late as the days of Louis XVI., a “man of condition” required no
less than four footmen, each with two watches in his fob, according to
the fashion, to help him to take a single cup of chocolate. One bore
the tray, and one the chocolate-pot, a third presented the cup, and a
fourth stood in waiting with a napkin!--and all this coil to carry a
morning draught to a poor wretch, whose red heels to his shoes were
symbols of the rank which gave him the privilege of being helpless.
The old coffee-houses were not simply resorts for the critics, the
politicians, and the fine gentlemen. Gay, writing to Congreve, in
1715, says, “Amidst clouds of tobacco, at a coffee-house, I write
this letter. There is a grand revolution at Will’s. Moira has quitted
for a coffee-house in the City; and Titcomb is restored, to the great
joy of Cromwell, who was at a great loss for a person to converse
with upon the Fathers and church history. The knowledge I gain from
him is entirely in painting and poetry; and Mr. Pope owes all his
skill in astronomy to him and Mr. Whiston.” Pope learnt his astronomy
by the assistance of what Moore calls, “the sun of the table;” for,
adding a postscript to Gay’s letter to Congreve, he says, “I sit up
till two o’clock, over Burgundy and Champagne.” Ten years before, the
coffee-house and London life had less charms for him. Witness the
paragraph in the letter to Wycherley, in 1705, to this effect: “I have
now changed the scene from town to country,--from Will’s Coffee-house
to Windsor Forest. I found no other difference than this betwixt the
common town wits and the downright country fools,--that the first are
partly in the wrong, with a little more flourish and gaiety; and the
last, neither in the right nor the wrong, but confirmed in a stupid
settled medium, betwixt both.” But, ten years later than the period of
Pope’s postscript to Congreve, in which he boasted of sitting over wine
during the “wee short hours ayont the twal’,” as Burns calls them, we
find the boaster stricken. Swift, writing to him, in 1726, remarks,
“I always apprehend most for you after a great dinner; for the least
transgression of yours, if it be only two bits and one sup more than
your stint, is a great debauch, for which you certainly pay more than
those sots who are carried drunk to bed.”
In England, the chocolate and coffee-houses were not confined to the
metropolis and its rather rakish inhabitants. The Universities had
their coffee-houses, as London had; and the company there, albeit
_alumni_ of the various Colleges, do not appear to have been remarkable
for refinement. Dr. Ewins, at Cambridge, in the last century, acquired
the ill-will both of Town and Gown for exercising a sort of censorship
over their conduct. According to Cole, the Antiquary, they needed
it; for he says, with especial allusion to the Undergraduates, that
“they never were more licentious, riotous, and debauched. They often
broke the Doctor’s windows,” he adds, “as they said he had been caught
listening on their staircases and (at their) doors.” The Doctor, like
his adversaries, was in the habit of visiting the Union Coffee-house,
opposite St. Radigund’s (or Jesus) lane,--a fashionable rendezvous. He
was there one night about Christmas, 1771, or January, 1772, “when some
Fellow-Commoners, who owed him a grudge, sitting in the box near him,
in order to affront him, pretended to call their dog ‘Squintum,’ and
frequently repeated the name very loudly in the coffee-house; and, in
their joviality, swore many oaths, and caressed their dog. Dr. Ewin, as
did his father, squinted very much, as did Whitefield, the Methodist
teacher, who was vulgarly called Dr. Squintum, from the blemish in
his eyes. Dr. Ewin was sufficiently mortified to be so affronted in
public. However, he carefully marked down the number of oaths sworn
by these gentlemen, whom he made to pay severely the penalty of five
shillings for each oath, which amounted to a good round sum.” The next
week, ballad-singers sang, in the streets of Cambridge, a ballad, which
they gave away to all who would accept a copy, and from which the
following verses are extracted. They will show--if nothing else--that
the University coffee-house poet was less elegant than Horace, and
that the “well of English” into which he had dipped was not altogether
“undefiled:”--
“Of all the blockheads in the Town,
That strut and bully up and down,
And bring complaints against the Gown,
There’s none like Dr. Squintum.
“With gimlet eyes and dapper wig,
This Justice thinks he looks so big:
A most infernal stupid gig
Is this same Dr. Squintum.
“What pedlar can forbear to grin,
Before his Worship that has been,
To think what folly lurks within
This Just Ass Dr. Squintum?”
Old René d’Anjou used to say, that, as soon as a man had breakfasted,
it was his bounden duty to devote himself to the great business of the
day,--think of dinner. We will in some wise follow the instructions
given,--first, however, saying a word or two upon French coffee-houses,
and then upon those who naturally take precedence of “dinners,”--the
cooks by whom dinners are prepared.
THE FRENCH CAFÉS.
In the reign of Louis XV. there were not less than six hundred _cafés_
in Paris. London, at the same period, could not count as many dozens.
Under Louis Napoleon, the _cafés_ have reached to the amazing number of
between three and four thousand. All these establishments acknowledge
the _Café Procope_ as the founder of the dynasty, although, indeed,
there were coffee-vendors in Paris before the time of the accomplished
Sicilian. “_Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona._”
The consumption of coffee in Paris, at the period of the breaking out
of the Revolution, was something enormous. The French West-Indian
Islands furnished eighty millions of pounds annually, and this
was irrespective of what was derived from the East. The two
sources together were not sufficient to supply the kingdom. Thence
adulterations, fortunes to the adulterators, and that supremacy of
chicory, which has destroyed the well-earned reputation of French
coffee.
I have already spoken of the _Café Procope_, and here I will only add
an anecdote illustrative of the scenes that sometimes occurred there,
and of the national character generally in the reign of Louis XV. One
afternoon that M. de Saint Foix was seated at his usual table, an
officer of the King’s Body-Guard entered, sat down, and ordered “a
cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll,” adding, “It will serve me for
a dinner!” At this Saint Foix remarked aloud, that “a cup of coffee,
with milk, and a roll, was a confoundedly poor dinner.” The officer
remonstrated; Saint Foix reiterated his remark, and again and again
declared, that nothing the gallant officer could say to the contrary,
would convince him that a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll, was
_not_ a confoundedly poor dinner. Thereupon a challenge was given and
accepted, and the whole of the persons present adjourned as spectators
of a fight, which ended by Saint Foix receiving a wound in the arm.
“That is all very well,” said the wounded combatant; “but I call you
to witness, gentlemen, that I am still profoundly convinced, that a
cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll, is a confoundedly poor dinner!”
At this moment, the principals were arrested, and carried before the
Duke de Noailles, in whose presence Saint Foix, without waiting to
be questioned, said, “Monseigneur, I had not the slightest intention
of offending the gallant officer, who, I doubt not, is an honourable
man; but Your Excellency can never prevent my asserting, that a cup
of coffee, with milk, and a roll, is a confoundedly poor dinner.”
“Why, so it is,” said the Duke. “Then I am not in the wrong,” remarked
Saint Foix; “and a cup of coffee,”----at these words Magistrates,
delinquents, and auditory, burst into a roar of laughter, and the
antagonists became friends. It was a more bloodless issue than that
which occurred to Michel Lepelletier, in later years, at the _Café
Février_. He was seated at dinner there, when an _ex-garde-du-corps_,
named Paris, approached him, inquired if he were the Lepelletier who
had voted for the death of Louis XVI., and, receiving an affirmative
reply, drew forth a dagger, and swiftly slew him on the spot.