It is related of Jean Jacques Rousseau that once when he was walking in

the Tuileries he caught the aroma of roasting coffee. Turning to his

companion, Bernardino de Saint-Pierre, he said, "Ah, that is a perfume

in which I delight; when they roast coffee near my house, I hasten to

open the door to take in all the aroma." And such was the passion for

coffee of this philosopher of Geneva that when he died, "he just missed

doing it with a cup of coffee in his hand".

Barthez, confidential physician of Napoleon the first, drank a great

deal of it, freely, calling it "the intellectual drink."

Bonaparte, himself, said: "Strong coffee, and plenty, awakens me. It

gives me a warmth, an unusual force, a pain that is not without

pleasure. I would rather suffer than be senseless."

Edward R. Emerson[356] tells the following story of the Café Procope.

One day while M. Saint-Foix was seated at his usual table in this café

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, adding that nothing he

could say to the contrary would convince him that it was _not_ a

confoundedly poor dinner. Thereupon a challenge was given and accepted,

and the whole company present adjourned as spectators to a duel 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 this

gallant officer who, I doubt not, is an honorable 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," persisted Saint-Foix; "and a cup of

coffee"--at these words magistrates, delinquents, and auditory burst

into a roar of laughter, and the antagonists forthwith became warm

friends.

"Boswell in his _Life of Johnson_ tells a story of an old chevalier de

Malte, of _ancienne noblesse_, but in low circumstances, who was in a

coffee house in Paris, where was also Julien, the great manufacturer at

Gobelins, of fine tapestry, so much distinguished for the figures and

the colours. The chevalier's carriage was very old. Says Julien with a

plebeian insolence, 'I think, sir, you had better have your carriage new

painted.'

"The chevalier looked at him with indignant contempt, and answered:

"'Well, sir, you may take it home and dye it.'

"All the coffee house rejoiced at Julien's confusion."

Sydney Smith (1771-1845) the English clergyman and humorist, once said:

"If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee; it is the

intellectual beverage."

Our own William Dean Howells pays the beverage this tribute: "This

coffee intoxicates without exciting, soothes you softly out of dull

sobriety, making you think and talk of all the pleasant things that ever

happened to you."

The wife of the president of the United States prefers coffee to tea.

Afternoon guests at the White House may be refreshed, if they choose, by

a sip of tea. But while tea is on tap for callers, Mrs. Harding always

has coffee for those who, like herself, prefer it.

_Old London Coffee-House Anecdotes_

A good-sized volume might be compiled of the many anecdotes that have

been written about habitués of the London coffee houses of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

[Illustration: DR. JOHNSON'S SEAT AT THE CHESHIRE CHEESE]

Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the lexicographer, was one of the most

constant frequenters of the coffee houses of his day. His big, awkward

figure was a familiar sight as he went about attended by his satellite,

young James Boswell, who was to write about him for the delight of

future generations in his marvelous _Life of Johnson_. The intellectual

and moral peculiarities of the man found a natural expression in the

coffee house. Johnson was fifty-four and Boswell only twenty-three when

the two first met in Tom Davies' book-shop in Covent Garden. The story

is told by Boswell with great particularity and characteristic naiveté:

Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to

him. I was much agitated, and recollecting his prejudice against

the Scotch, of which I had heard so much, I said to Davies, "Don't

tell him where I come from." "From Scotland," cried Davies

roguishly. "Mr. Johnson," said I, "I do indeed come from Scotland,

but I cannot help it." I am willing to flatter myself that I meant

this as a light pleasantry to sooth and conciliate him, and not as

a humiliating abasement at the expense of my country. But however

that might be, this speech was somewhat unlucky, for with that

quickness of wit for which he was so remarkable, he seized the

expression, "come from Scotland!" which I used In the sense of

being of that country; and, as if I had come away from it, or left

it, he retorted, "That, sir, I find is what a great many of your

countrymen cannot help."

Nothing daunted, however, Boswell within a week called upon Johnson in

his chambers. This time the doctor urged him to tarry. Three weeks later

he said to him, "Come to me as often as you can." Within a fortnight

thereafter Boswell was giving the great man a sketch of his own life and

Johnson was exclaiming, "Give me your hand; I have taken a liking to

you."

[Illustration: ORIGINAL COFFEE ROOM, OLD COCK TAVERN]

When people began to ask, "Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels?"

Goldsmith replied: "He is not a cur; he is only a bur. Tom Davies flung

him at Johnson in sport, and he has the faculty of sticking."

Thus began one of the strangest friendships, out of which developed the

most delightful biography in all literature. Boswell's taste for

literary adventures, and Johnson's literary vagrancy met in a

companionship that found much satisfaction in the bohemianism of the

inns and coffee houses of old London. Boswell thus describes the

eccentric doctor's outlook on this mode of living:

We dined today at an excellent inn at Chapel-House, where Mr.

Johnson commented on English coffee houses and inns remarking that

the English triumphed over the French in one respect, in that the

French had no perfection of tavern life. There is no private house,

(said he) in which people can enjoy themselves so well, as at a

capital tavern. Let there be ever so great plenty of good things,

ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much desire

that everybody should be easy; in the nature of things it cannot

be: there must always be some degree of care and anxiety. The

master of the house is anxious to entertain his guests; the guests

are anxious to be agreeable to him; and no man, but a very impudent

dog indeed, can as freely command what is in another man's house,

as if it were his own. Whereas, at a tavern, there is a general

freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome: and the more

noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you

call for, the welcomer you are. No servants will attend you with

the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the prospect of

an immediate reward in proportion as they please. No, Sir, there is

nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much

happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn. He then repeated,

with great emotion, Shenstone's lines:

"Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round,

Where'er his stages may have been,

May sigh to think he still has found

His warmest welcome at an inn."

Patient delving into Johnsoniana is rewarded with many anecdotes about

the mad doctor philosopher and his faithful reporter who delighted in

translating his genius to the world.

Boswell was a wine-bibber, but Johnson confessed to being "a hardened

and shameless tea drinker." When Boswell twigged him for abstaining from

the stronger drink, the doctor replied: "Sir, I have no objection to a

man's drinking wine if he can do it in moderation. I find myself apt to

go to excess in it and therefore, after having been for some time

without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to

it."

Another time he said of tea: "What a delightful beverage must that be

that pleases all palates at a time when they can take nothing else at

breakfast."

[Illustration: FIREPLACE IN THE COFFEE ROOM OF THE OLD COCK TAVERN]

[Illustration: MORNING GOSSIP IN THE COFFEE ROOM OF THE OLD COCK

TAVERN]

In his early days Johnson had David Garrick as an unwilling pupil. After

the actor had become famous and his prosperity had turned his head, he

was wont to "put the table in a roar" by mimicking the doctor's

grimaces. There is a story that on the occasion of a certain dinner

party where both were guests, Garrick indulged in a coarse jest on the

great man's table manners. After the merriment had subsided, Doctor

Johnson arose solemnly and said:

"Gentlemen, you must doubtless suppose from the extreme familiarity with

which Mr. Garrick has thought fit to treat me that I am an acquaintance

of his; but I can assure you that until I met him here, I never saw him

but once before--and then I paid five shillings for the sight."

A certain sycophant, thinking to curry favor with Johnson, took to

laughing loud and long at everything he said. Johnson's patience at last

became exhausted, and after a particularly objectionable outburst, he

turned upon the boor with:

"Pray sir, what is the matter? I hope I have not said anything which you

can comprehend!"

Because of his physical and mental disabilities Dr. Johnson was not a

good social animal. Nevertheless, when it pleased his humor, he could be

the cavalier, for his mind overcame every impediment.

It is related of him that once when a lady who was showing him around

her garden expressed her regret at being unable to bring a particular

flower to perfection, he arose gallantly to the occasion by taking her

hand and remarking:

"Then, madam, permit me to bring perfection to the flower!"

Again, when Mrs. Siddons, the great English tragedienne, called upon him

in his chambers and the servant did not promptly bring her a chair, his

quick wit made capital of the incident by the remark:

"You see, madam, wherever you go there are no seats to be had!"

John Thomas Smith in his _Antiquarian Rambles in the Streets of London_

(1846), tells an amusing incident in the life of Sir George Etherege,

the playright, who having run up a bill at Locket's ordinary, a coffee

house much frequented by dramatists of the period, and finding himself

unable to pay, began to absent himself from the place. Mrs. Locket

thereupon sent a man to dun and to threaten him with prosecution if he

did not pay. Sir George sent back word that if she stirred a step in the

matter he would kiss her. On receiving this answer, the good lady, much

exasperated, called for her hood and scarf, and told her husband, who

interposed, that "she would see if there was any fellow alive who would

have the impudence--" "Prithee! my dear, don't be so rash," said her

husband; "there is no telling what a man may do in his passion."

Richard Savage, the English poet and friend of Johnson, who included him

in his famous _Lives of the Poets_, was arrested for the murder of James

Sinclair after a drunken brawl in Robinson's coffee house in 1727. He

was found guilty, but narrowly escaped the death penalty by the

intercession of the countess of Hertford. A feature of his trial was the

extraordinary charge to the jury of Judge Page, who for his hard words

and his love of hanging, is damned to everlasting fame in the verse of

Pope. The charge was:

Gentlemen of the jury! You are to consider that Mr. Savage is a

very great man, a much greater man than you or I, gentlemen of the

jury; that he wears very fine clothes, much finer than you or I,

gentlemen of the jury; that he has an abundance of money in his

pocket, much more money than you or I, gentlemen of the jury; but,

gentlemen of the jury, is it not a very hard case, gentlemen of the

jury, that Mr. Savage should therefore kill you or me, gentlemen of

the jury?

Albert V. Lally[357] has made a collection of old coffee-house

anecdotes. Among them are the following:

The story is told of how Sir Richard Steele in Button's Coffee

House was once made the umpire in an amusing difference between two

unnamed disputants. These two were arguing about religion, when one

of them said: "I wonder, sir, you should talk of religion, when

I'll hold you five guineas you can't say the Lord's prayer."

"Done," said the other, "and Sir Richard Steele shall hold the

stakes." The money being deposited the gentleman began with, "I

believe in God", and so went right through the creed. "Well," said

the other when he had finished, "I didn't think he could have done

it."

* * * * *

There is another story of a famous judge, Sir Nicholas Bacon, who

was importuned by a criminal to spare his life on account of

kinship. "How so," demanded the judge. "Because my name is Hog and

yours is Bacon; and hog and bacon are so near akin that they cannot

be separated."

"Ay," responded the judge dryly, "but you and I cannot yet be

kindred, for hog is not bacon until it is well hanged."

* * * * *

On another occasion a nervous barrister, pleading before this same

judge, began with repeated references to his "unfortunate client."

"Go on, sir," said the judge, "so far the Court is with you."

* * * * *

Of Jonathan Swift it is related that a gentleman who had sought to

persuade him to accept an invitation to dinner said, in way of

special inducement, "I'll send you my bill of fare." "Send me

rather your bill of company," retorted Swift, showing his

appreciation of the truth that not that which is eaten, but those

who eat, form the more important part of a good dinner.

On the occasion when the "dreadful Judge Jeffreys" was trying Compton,

bishop of London, before the Court of High Commission, that prelate, as

Campbell relates in his _Lives of the Lord Chancellors_, complained of

having no copy of the indictment. Jeffreys replied to this excuse that

"all the coffee houses had it for a penny." The case being resumed after

the lapse of a week, the bishop again protested that he was unprepared,

owing to his continued difficulty in obtaining a copy of the necessary

document. Jeffreys was obliged once more to adjourn the case, and in so

doing offered this bantering apology:

"My lord," said he, "in telling you our commission was to be seen in

every coffee house, I did not speak with any design to reflect on your

lordship, as if you were a haunter of coffee houses. I abhor the

thoughts of it!"

As the Judge had once been distinctly opposed to the party and

principles which he went to such a length in supporting, so had he

formerly owed something to the very institution against which his last

blow was directed. Roger North relates (and Campbell repeats the story)

that, "after he was called to the bar, he used to sit in coffee houses

and order his man to come and tell him that company attended him at his

chamber; at which he would huff and say, 'let them stay a little, I will

come presently,' and thus made a show of business."

John Timbs, in his _Clubs and Club Life in London_, has a host of

anecdotes and stories of the old London coffee houses, among them the

following:

Garraway's noted coffee-house, situated in Change-alley, Cornhill,

had a threefold celebrity; tea was first sold in England here; it

was a place of great resort in the time of the South Sea Bubble;

and was later a place of great mercantile transactions. The

original proprietor was Thomas Garway, tobacconist and coffee-man,

the first who retailed tea, recommending it as a cure of all

disorders.

[Illustration: "HIS WARMEST WELCOME AT AN INN"

The George Inn of today has retained a portion of its old

galleries, the original of which completely surrounded the

courtyard in typical "Dickens Inn" style. The visitor can imagine

Mr. Pickwick emerging from the door of one of the bedrooms and

calling into the yard to Sam Weller. In the old-fashioned coffee

room on the ground floor one may still lunch and dine enclosed in

high bench seats]

Ogilby, the compiler of the _Britannia_, had his standing lottery

of books at Mr. Garway's Coffee-house from April 7, 1673, till

wholly drawn off. And, in the "Journey through England," 1722,

Garraway's, Robins's, and Joe's are described as the three

celebrated coffee-houses: "In the first, the People of Quality, who

have business in the City, and the most considerable and wealthy

citizens frequent. In the second the Foreign Banquiers, and often

even Foreign Ministers. And in the third, the buyers and sellers of

stock."

Wines were sold at Garraway's in 1673, "by the candle", that is, by

auction, while an inch of candle burns. In the _Tatler_, No. 147,

we read: "Upon my coming home last night, I found a very handsome

present of French wine, left for me, as a taste of 216 hogshead,

which are to be put on sale at 20£ a hogshead, at Garraway's

Coffee-house, in Exchange alley" etc. The sale by candle is not,

however, by candlelight, but during the day. At the commencement of

the sale, when the auctioneer has read a description of the

property, and the conditions on which it is to be disposed of, a

piece of candle, usually an inch long, is lighted, and he who is

the last bidder at the time the light goes out is declared the

purchaser.

Swift, in his _Ballad on the South Sea Scheme_, 1721, did not

forget Garraway's:

There is a gulf, where thousands fell,

Here all the bold adventurers came,

A narrow sound, though deep as hell,

'Change alley is the dreadful name.

Subscribers here by thousands float,

And jostle one another down,

Each paddling in his leaky boat,

And here they fish for gold and drown.

Now buried in the depths below,

Now mounted up to heaven again,

They reel and stagger to and fro,

At their wits' end, like drunken men.

Meantime secure on Garway cliffs,

A savage race, by shipwrecks fed,

Lie waiting for the founder'd skiffs,

And strip the bodies of the dead.

Dr. Jno. Radcliff, who was a rash speculator in the South Sea

Scheme, was usually planted at a table at Garraway's about Exchange

time, to watch the turn of the market; and here he was seated when

the footman of his powerful rival, Dr. Edward Hannes, came into

Garraway's and inquired by way of a puff, if Dr. H. was there. Dr.

Radcliff, who was surrounded with several apothecaries and

chirurgeons that flocked about him, cried out, "Dr. Hannes is not

here," and desired to know "who wants him?" The fellow's reply was,

"such a lord and such a lord;" but he was taken up with the dry

rebuke, "No, no, friend, you are mistaken; the Doctor wants those

lords." One of Radcliff's ventures was five thousand guineas upon

one South Sea project. When he was told at Garraway's that 'twas

all lost, "Why," said he, "'tis but going up five thousand pair of

stairs more." "This answer," says Tom Brown, "deserved a statue."

* * * * *

Jonathan's Coffee-house was another Change-alley coffee-house,

which is described in the _Tatler_, No. 38, as "the general mart of

stock-jobbers," and the _Spectator_, No. 1, tells us that he

"sometimes passes for a Jew in the assembly of stock-jobbers at

Jonathan's." This was their rendezvous, where gambling of all sorts

was carried on, notwithstanding a former prohibition against the

assemblage of the jobbers, issued by the City of London, which

prohibition continued unrepealed until 1825.

* * * * *

The _Spectator_, No. 16, notices some gay frequenters of the

Rainbow Coffee-house in Fleet Street: "I have received a letter

desiring me to be very satirical upon the little muff that is now

in fashion; another informs me of a pair of silver garters buckled

below the knee, that have been lately seen at the Rainbow

Coffee-house in Fleet Street."

Mr. Moncrieff, the dramatist, used to tell that about 1780, this

house was kept by his grandfather, Alexander Moncrieff, when it

retained its original title of "The Rainbow Coffee-house."

* * * * *

Nando's Coffee-house at the east corner of Inner Temple-lane, No.

17, Fleet-Street, by some confused with Groom's house, No. 16, was

the favourite haunt of Lord Thurlow before he dashed into law

practice. At this coffee-house a large attendance of professional

loungers was attracted by the fame of the punch and the charms of

the landlady, which, with the small wits, were duly admired by and

at the bar. One evening, the famous cause of Douglas _v._ the Duke

of Hamilton was the topic of discussion, when Thurlow being

present, it was suggested, half in earnest, to appoint him junior

counsel, which was done. This employment brought him acquaintance

with the Duchess of Queensberry, who saw at once the value of a man

like Thurlow, and recommended Lord Bute to secure him by a silk

gown.

* * * * *

Dick's Coffee-house, at No. 8, Fleet-street, (south side, near

Temple Bar) was originally "Richard's", named from Richard Torner,

or Turner, to whom the house was let in 1680. Richard's was

frequented by Cowper, when he lived in the Temple. In his own

account of his insanity, Cowper tells us:

"At breakfast I read the newspaper, and in it a letter, which, the

further I perused it, the more closely engaged my attention. I

cannot now recollect the purport of it; but before I had finished

it, it appeared demonstratively true to me that it was a libel or

satire upon me. The author appeared to be acquainted with my

purpose of self-destruction, and to have written that letter on

purpose to secure and hasten the execution of it. My mind,

probably, at this time began to be disordered; however it was, I

was certainly given to a strong delusion. I said within myself,

'Your cruelty shall be gratified; you shall have your revenge,' and

flinging down the paper in a fit of strong passion, I rushed

hastily out of the room; directing my way towards the fields, where

I intended to find some house to die in; or, if not, determined to

poison myself in a ditch, where I could meet with one sufficiently

retired."

* * * * *

Lloyd's Coffee-house was one of the earliest establishments of its

kind; it is referred to in a poem printed in the year 1700, called

the _Wealthy Shopkeeper, or Charitable Christian_:

Now to Lloyd's Coffee-house he never fails,

To read the letters, and attend the sales.

In 1710, Steele (_Tatler_, No. 246) dates from Lloyd's his Petition

on Coffee-house Orators and Newsvendors. And Addison, in

_Spectator_, April 23, 1711, relates this droll incident: "About a

week since there happened to me a very odd accident, by reason of

one of these my papers of minutes which I had accidentally dropped

at Lloyd's Coffee-house, where the auctions are usually kept.

Before I missed it, there were a cluster of people who had found

it, and were diverting themselves with it at one end of the

coffee-house. It had raised so much laughter among them before I

observed what they were about, that I had not the courage to own

it. The boy of the coffee-house, when they had done with it,

carried it about in his hand, asking everybody if they had dropped

a written paper; but nobody challenging it, he was ordered by those

merry gentlemen who had before perused it, to get up into the

auction pulpit, and read it to the whole room, that if anybody

would own it they might. The boy accordingly mounted the pulpit,

and with a very audible voice read what proved to be minutes, which

made the whole coffee-house very merry; some of them concluded it

was written by a madman, and others by somebody that had been

taking notes out of the _Spectator_. After it was read, and the boy

was coming put of the pulpit, the _Spectator_ reached his arm out,

and desired the boy to given it him; which was done according. This

drew the whole eyes of the company upon the _Spectator_; but after

casting a cursory glance over it, he shook his head twice or thrice

at the reading of it, twisted it into a kind of match, and lighted

his pipe with it. 'My profound silence,' says the _Spectator_,

'together with the steadiness of my countenance, and the gravity of

my behaviour during the whole transaction, raised a very loud

laugh on all sides of me; but as I had escaped all suspicion of

being the author, I was very well satisfied, and applying myself to

my pipe and the _Postman_, took no further notice of anything that

passed about me.'"

* * * * *

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."

* * * * *

St. James's Coffee-house 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 southwest 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 previously 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."

Elliott, who kept the coffee-house, was, on occasions, placed on a

friendly footing with his guests. Swift, in his Journal to Stella,

November 19, 1710, records an odd instance of this familiarity:

"This evening I christened our coffee-man Elliott'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, offhand, 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

... and this was the last time he ever enjoyed the company of his

friends."

* * * * *

Will's Coffee-house, the predecessor of Button's, and even more

celebrated than that coffee-house, was kept by William Urwin. It

first had the title of the Red Cow, then of the Rose, and, we

believe, is the same house alluded to in the pleasant story in the

second number of the _Tatler_. "Supper and friends expect we at the

Rose."

Dean Lockier has left this life-like picture of his interview with

the presiding genius (Dryden) 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 called 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 libel.'"

* * * * *

Tom Brown describes 'a Wit and a Beau set up with little or no

expense. A pair of red stockings and a swordknot set up one, and

peeping once a day in at Will's, and two or three second-hand

sayings, the other.'

* * * * *

Pepys, one night, going to fetch home his wife, stopped in Covent

Garden, at the Great Coffee-house there, as he called Will's, where

he never was before: "Where," he adds, "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, or 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."

Addison passed each day alike, and much in the manner that Dryden

did. Dryden employed his mornings in writing, dined _en famille_,

and then went to Will's, "only he came home earlier o' nights."

Pope, when very young, was impressed with such veneration for

Dryden, that he persuaded some friends to take him to Will's

Coffee-house, and was delighted that he could say that he had seen

Dryden. Sir Charles Wogan, too, brought up Pope from the Forest of

Windsor, to dress _a la mode_, and introduce at Will's

Coffee-house. Pope afterwards described Dryden as "a plump man with

a down look, and not very conversible," and Cibber could tell no

more "but that he remembered him a decent old man, arbiter of

critical disputes at Will's." Prior sings of--

The younger Stiles,

Whom Dryden pedagogues at Will's!

Most of the hostile criticism on his Plays, which Dryden has

noticed in his various Prefaces, appear to have been made at his

favourite haunt, Will's Coffee-house.

Dryden is generally said to have been returning from Will's to his

house in Gerard Street, when he was cudgelled in Rose Street by

three persons hired for the purpose by Wilmot, Earl of Rochester,

in the winter of 1679. The assault, or "the Rose-alley Ambuscade,"

certainly took place; but it is not so certain that Dryden was on

his way from Will's, and he then lived in Long-acre, not Gerard

Street.

It is worthy of remark that Swift was accustomed to speak

disparagingly of Will's, as in his "Rhapsody on Poetry:"

Be sure at Will's the following day

Lie snug, and hear what critics say;

And if you find the general vogue

Pronounces you a stupid rogue,

Damns all your thoughts as low and little;

Sit still, and swallow down your spittle.

Swift thought little of the frequenters of Will's: "he used to say,

the worst conversation he ever heard in his life was at Will's

Coffee-house, where the wits (as they were called) used formerly to

assemble; that is to say, five or six men who had writ plays or at

least prologues, or had a share in a miscellany, came thither, and

entertained one another with their trifling composures, in so

important an air as if they had been the noblest efforts of human

nature, or that the fate of kingdoms depended on them."

In the first number of the _Tatler_, poetry is promised under the

article of Will's Coffee-house. The place, however, changed after

Dryden's time: "you used to see songs, epigrams, and satires in the

hands of every man you met, you have now only a pack of cards; and

instead of the cavils about the turn of the expression, the

elegance of the style, and the like, the learned now dispute only

about the truth of the game." "In old times, we used to sit upon a

play here, after it was acted, but now the entertainment's turned

another way."

The _Spectator_ is sometimes seen "thrusting his head into a round

of politicians at Will's, and listening with great attention to the

narratives that are made in these little circular audiences." Then,

we have as an instance of no one member of human society but that

would have some little pretension for some degree in it, "like him

who came to Will's Coffee-house upon the merit of having writ a

posie of a ring." And, "Robin, the porter who waits at Will's, is

the best man in town for carrying a billet: the fellow has a thin

body, swift step, demure looks, sufficient sense, and knows the

town."

After Dryden's death, in 1701, Will's continued for about ten years

to be still the Wits' Coffee-house, as we see by Ned Ward's

account, and by the "Journey through England" in 1722.

Pope entered with keen relish into society, and courted the

correspondence of the town wits and coffee-house critics. Among his

early friends was Mr. Henry Cromwell, one of the _cousinry_ of the

Protector's family: he was a bachelor, and spent most of his time

in London; he had some pretensions to scholarship and literature,

having translated several of Ovid's Elegies, for Tonson's

Miscellany. With Wycherly, Gay, Dennis, the popular actors and

actresses of the day, and with all the frequenters of Will's,

Cromwell was familiar. He had done more than take a pinch out of

Dryden's snuff-box, which was a point of high ambition and honor at

Will's; he had quarrelled with him about a frail poetess, Mrs.

Elizabeth Thomas, whom Dryden had christened Corinna, and who was

also known as Sappho. Gay characterized this literary and eccentric

beau as

Honest, hatless Cromwell, with red breeches:

it being his custom to carry his hat in his hand when walking with

ladies. What with ladies and literature, rehearsals and reviews,

and critical attention to the quality of his coffee and Brazil

snuff, Henry Cromwell's time was fully occupied in town. Cromwell

was a dangerous acquaintance for Pope at the age of sixteen or

seventeen, but he was a very agreeable one. Most of Pope's letters

to his friends are addressed to him at the Blue Hall, in Great

Wild-street, near Drury Lane, and others to "Widow Hambledon's

Coffee-house, at the end of Princes-street, near Drury-lane,

London." Cromwell made one visit to Binfield; on his return to

London, Pope wrote to him, "referring to the ladies in particular,"

and to his favorite coffee.

* * * * *

Will's was the great resort for the wits of Dryden's time, after

whose death it was transferred to Button's. Pope describes the

houses as "opposite each other, in Russell-street, Covent Garden,"

where Addison established Daniel Button, in a new house, about

1712; and his fame, after the production of _Cato_, drew many of

the Whigs thither. Button had been servant to the Countess of

Warwick. The house is more correctly described as "over against

Tom's, near the middle of the south side of the street."

Addison was the great patron of Button's; but it is said that when

he suffered any vexation from his Countess, he withdrew from

Button's house. His chief companions, before he married Lady

Warwick, were Steele, Budgell, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and

Colonell Brett. He used to breakfast with one or other of them in

St. James's-place, dine at taverns with them, then to Button's, and

then to some tavern again, for supper in the evening; and this was

the usual round of his life, as Pope tells us in Spencer's

Anecdotes, where Pope also says: "Addison usually studied all the

morning, then met his party at Button's, dined there, and stayed

five or six hours; and sometimes far into the night. I was of the

company for about a year, but found it too much for me; it hurt my

health, and so I quitted it." Again: "There had been a coldness

between me and Mr. Addison for some time, and we had not been in

company together for a good while anywhere but at Button's

Coffee-house, where I used to see him almost every day."

Here Pope is reported to have said of Patrick, the lexicographer,

that "a dictionary-maker might know the meaning of one word, but

not of two put together."

Button's was the receiving house for contributions to _The

Guardian_, for which purpose was put up a lion's head letter box,

in imitation of the celebrated lion at Venice, as humorously

announced. Thus:

"N.B.--Mr. Ironside has, within five weeks last past, muzzled three

lions, gorged five, and killed one. On Monday next the skin of the

dead one will be hung up, _in terrorem_, at Button's Coffee-house."

* * * * *

"I intend to publish once every week the roarings of the Lion, and

hope to make him roar so loud as to be heard over all the British

nation. I have, I know not how, been drawn into tattle of myself,

more majorum, almost the length of a whole _Guardian_. I shall

therefore fill up the remaining part of it with what still relates

to my own person, and my correspondents. Now I would have them all

know that on the 20th instant, it is my intention to erect a Lion's

Head, in imitation of those I have described in Venice, through

which all the private commonwealth is said to pass. This head is to

open a most wide and voracious mouth, which shall take in such

letters and papers as are conveyed to me by my correspondents, it

being my resolution to have a particular regard to all such matters

as come to my hands through the mouth of the Lion. There will be

under it a box, of which the key will be in my own custody, to

receive such papers as are dropped into it. Whatever the Lion

swallows I shall digest for the use of the publick. This head

requires some time to finish, the workmen being resolved to give it

several masterly touches, and to represent it as ravenous as

possible. It will be set up in Button's Coffee-house, in Covent

Garden, who is directed to show the way to the Lion's Head, and to

instruct any young author how to convey his works into the mouth of

it with safety and secrecy."

* * * * *

"I think myself obliged to acquaint the publick, that the Lion's

Head, of which I advertised them about a fortnight ago, is now

erected at Button's Coffee-house, in Russell-street, Covent Garden,

where it opens its mouth at all hours for the reception of such

intelligence as shall be thrown into it. It is reckoned an

excellent piece of workmanship, and was designed by a great hand in

imitation of the antique Egyptian lion, the face of it being

compounded out of that of a lion and a wizard. The features are

strong and well furrowed. The whiskers are admired by all that have

seen them. It is planted on the western side of the Coffee-house,

holding its paws under the chin, upon a box, which contains

everything that he swallows. He is, indeed, a proper emblem of

knowledge and action, being all head and paws."

* * * * *

"Being obliged, at present, to attend a particular affair of my

own, I do empower my printer to look into the arcana of the Lion,

and select out of them such as may be of publick utility; and Mr.

Button is hereby authorized and commanded to give my said printer

free ingress and egress to the lion, without any hindrance, let, or

molestation whatsoever, until such time as he shall receive orders

to the contrary. And, for so doing, this shall be his warrant."

* * * * *

"My Lion, whose jaws are at all times open to intelligence, informs

me that there are a few enormous weapons still in being; but that

they are to be met with only in gaming houses and some of the

obscure retreats of lovers, in and about Drury-lane and Covent

Garden."

* * * * *

This memorable Lion's Head was tolerably well carved: through the

mouth the letters were dropped into a till at Button's; and beneath

were inscribed these two lines from Martial:

_Cervantur magnis isti Cervicibus ungues;

Non nisi delicta pascitur ille fera._

The head was designed by Hogarth, and is etched in Ireland's

"Illustrations." Lord Chesterfield is said to have once offered for

the Head fifty guineas. From Button's it was removed to the

Shakspeare's Head Tavern, under the Piazza, kept by a person named

Tomkyns; and in 1751, was, for a short time, placed in the Bedford

Coffee-house immediately adjoining the Shakspeare, and there

employed as a letter-box by Dr. John Hill, for his _Inspector_. In

1769, Tomkyns was succeeded by his waiter, Campbell, as proprietor

of the tavern and lion's head, and by him the latter was retained

until November 8, 1804, when it was purchased by Mr. Charles

Richardson, of Richardson's Hotel, for 17£ 10s., who also possessed

the original sign of the Shakspeare's Head. After Mr. Richardson's

death in 1827, the Lion's Head devolved to his son, of whom it was

bought by the Duke of Bedford, and deposited at Woburn Abbey, where

it still remains.

Pope was subjected to much annoyance and insult at Button's. Sir

Samuel Garth wrote to Gay, that everybody was pleased with Pope's

Translation, "but a few at Button's;" to which Gay adds, to Pope,

"I am confirmed that at Button's your character is made very free

with, as to morals, etc."

[Illustration: ALEXANDER POPE AT BUTTON'S COFFEE HOUSE--1730

From a drawing by Hogarth. The man opposite the seated figure is thought

to be Pope]

Cibber, in a letter to Pope, says: "When you used to pass your

hours at Button's, you were even there remarkable for your

satirical itch of provocation; scarce was there a gentleman of any

pretension to wit, whom your unguarded temper had not fallen upon

in some biting epigram, among which you once caught a pastoral

Tartar, whose resentment, that your punishment might be

proportionate to the smart of your poetry, had stuck up a birchen

rod in the room, to be ready whenever you might come within reach

of it; and at this rate you writ and rallied and writ on, till you

rhymed yourself quite out of the coffee-house." The "pastoral

Tartar" was Ambrose Philips, who, says Johnson, "hung up a rod at

Button's, with which he threatened to chastise Pope."

Pope, in a letter to Crags, thus explains the affair: "Mr. Philips

did express himself with much indignation against me one evening at

Button's Coffee-house (as I was told), saying that I was entered

into a cabal with Dean Swift and others, to write against the Whig

interest, and in particular to undermine his own reputation and

that of his friends, Steele and Addison; but Mr. Philips never

opened his lips to my face, on this or any like occasion, though I

was almost every night in the same room with him, nor ever offered

me any indecorum. Mr. Addison came to me a night or two after

Philips had talked in this idle manner, and assured me of his

disbelief of what had been said, of the friendship we should always

maintain, and desired I would say nothing further of it. My Lord

Halifax did me the honour to stir in this matter, by speaking to

several people to obviate a false aspersion, which might have done

me no small prejudice with one party. However, Philips did all he

could secretly to continue to report with the Hanover Club, and

kept in his hands the subscriptions paid for me to him, as

secretary to that Club. The heads of it have since given him to

understand, that they take it ill; but (upon the terms I ought to

be with such a man) I would not ask him for this money, but

commissioned one of the players, his equals, to receive it. This is

the whole matter; but as to the secret grounds of this malignity,

they will make a very pleasant history when we meet."

Another account says that the rod was hung up at the bar of

Button's, and that Pope avoided it by remaining at home--"his

usual custom." Philips was known for his courage and superior

dexterity with the sword; he afterwards became justice of the

peace, and used to mention Pope, whenever he could get a man in

authority to listen to him, as an enemy to the Government.

At Button's the leading company, particularly Addison and Steele,

met in large flowing flaxen wigs. Sir Godfrey Kneller, too, was a

frequenter.

The master died in 1731, when in the _Daily Advertiser_, October 5

appeared the following:

"On Sunday morning, died, after three days' illness, Mr. Button,

who formerly kept Button's Coffee-house, in Russell-street, Covent

Garden: a very noted house for wits, being the place where the Lyon

produced the famous _Tatlers_ and _Spectators_, written by the late

Mr. Secretary Addison and Sir Richard Steele, Knt., which works

will transmit their names with honour to posterity."

* * * * *

Among other wits who frequented Button's were Swift, Arbuthnot,

Savage, Budgell, Martin Folkes, and Drs. Garth and Armstrong. In

1720, Hogarth mentions "four drawings in Indian ink" of the

characters at Button's Coffee-house. In these were sketches of

Arbuthnot, Addison, Pope (as it is conjectured) and a certain Count

Viviani, identified years afterwards by Horace Walpole, when the

drawings came under his notice. They subsequently came into

Ireland's possession.

Jemmy Maclaine, or M'Clean, the fashionable highwayman, was a

frequent visitor at Button's. Mr. John Taylor, of the _Sun_

newspaper, describes Maclaine as a tall, showy, good-looking man. A

Mr. Donaldson told Taylor that, observing Maclaine paid particular

attention to the barmaid of the Coffee-house, the daughter of the

landlord, he gave a hint to the father of Maclaine's dubious

character. The father cautioned the daughter against the

highwayman's addresses, and imprudently told her by whose advice he

put her on her guard; she as imprudently told Maclaine. The next

time Donaldson visited the coffee-room, and sitting in one of the

boxes, Maclaine entered, and in a loud tone said, "Mr. Donaldson, I

wish to _spake_ to you in a private room." Mr. D. being unarmed,

and naturally afraid of being alone with such a man, said, in

answer, that as nothing could pass between them that he did not

wish the whole world to know, he begged leave to decline the

invitation. "Very well," said Maclaine, as he left the room, "we

shall meet again." A day or two after, as Mr. Donaldson was walking

near Richmond, in the evening, he saw Maclaine on horseback; but

fortunately, at that moment, a gentleman's carriage appeared in

view, when Maclaine immediately turned his horse towards the

carriage, and Donaldson hurried into the protection of Richmond as

fast as he could. But for the appearance of the carriage, which

presented better prey, it is possible that Maclaine would have shot

Mr. Donaldson immediately.

Maclaine's father was an Irish Dean; his brother was a Calvinist

minister in great esteem at the Hague. Maclaine himself had been a

grocer in Welbeck-street, but losing a wife that he loved

extremely, and by whom he had one little girl, he quitted his

business with two hundred pounds in his pockets which he soon

spent, and then took to the road with only one companion, Plunket,

a journeyman apothecary.

Maclaine was taken in the autumn of 1750, by selling a laced

waistcoat to a pawnbroker in Monmouth-street, who happened to carry

it to the very man who had just sold the lace. Maclaine impeached

his companion, Plunket, but he was not taken. The former got into

verse: Gray, in his "Long Story," sings:

A sudden fit of ague shook him;

He stood as mute as poor M'Lean.

Button's subsequently became a private house, and here Mrs.

Inchbald 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£ 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 6,000£ 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."

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 so diffident, that he practiced 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 celebrated Bedford Coffee-house, in Covent Garden, 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 northwest 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 smart 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

hearing of the lady of 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, 1768,

presents a pretty picture:

"Tiger Roach (who used to bully at the Bedford Coffee-house because

his name was Roach) is set up by Wilke'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 do, 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.

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 recognized him;

but such was the ease of his bearing, and the point of humor 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, and 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 opinions 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."

* * * * *

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 near as

they could to the table, as the only humor 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. Foote 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.

Another 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 the 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.

* * * * *

After Macklin had retired from the stage, in 1754, he opened that

portion of the Piazza-houses, in Covent Garden, afterwards known as

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 on 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 this 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£ 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 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 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[358].

Harwood's _Alumni Etonenses_, p. 239, 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

Hempstead, 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.

* * * * *

The Piazza Coffee-house at the northeastern angle of Covent Garden

Piazza, appears to have originated with Macklin's; for we read in

an advertisement in the _Publick Adviser_, 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 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:

"If there is anything amiss in your mind not arising from the

_troublesomeness_ of your situation, it is childish and unmanly not

to disclose it. The frankness with which I have dealt towards you

entitles me to expect that you should have done so.

"But I have no reason to believe this to be the case; and

attributing your letter to a disorder which I know ought not to be

indulged, I prescribe that thou shalt keep thine appointment at the

Piazza Coffee-house, tomorrow at five, and, taking four bottles of

claret instead of three, to which in sound health you might stint

yourself, forget that you ever wrote the letter, as I shall that I

ever received it."

"R.B. Sheridan."

The Piazza facade, and interior, were of Gothic design. When the

house was demolished, in its place was built the Floral Hall, after

the Crystal Palace model.

* * * * *

The Chapter Coffee-house was a literary place of resort in

Paternoster Row, more especially in connection with the

Wittinagemot of the last century. A very interesting account of the

Chapter, at a later period (1848) is given by Mrs. Gaskell.

Goldsmith frequented the Chapter, and always occupied one place,

which for many years after was the seat of literary honor there.

There are leather tokens of the Chapter Coffee-house in existence.

* * * * *

Child's Coffee-house, in St. Paul's Churchyard, was one of the

_Spectator's_ houses. "Sometimes," he says, "I smoke a pipe at

Child's and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the _Postman_,

overhear the conversation of every table in the room." It was much

frequented by the clergy; for the _Spectator_, No. 609, notices the

mistake of a country gentleman in taking all persons in scarfs for

Doctors of Divinity, since only a scarf of the first magnitude

entitles him to "the appellation of Doctor from his landlady and

the _Boy at Child's_."

Child's was the resort of Dr. Mead, and other professional men of

eminence. The Fellows of the Royal Society came here. Whiston

relates that Sir Hans Sloane, Dr. Halley and he were once at

Child's when Dr. H. asked him, W., why he was not a member of the

Royal Society? Whiston answered, because they durst not choose a

heretic. Upon which Dr. H. said, if Sir Hans Sloane would propose

him, W., he, Dr. H., would second it, which was done accordingly.

The propinquity of Child's to the Cathedral and Doctors' Commons,

made it the resort of the clergy, and ecclesiastical loungers. In

that respect, Child's was superseded by the Chapter, in Paternoster

Row.

* * * * *

The London Coffee-house was established previous to the year 1731,

for we find of it the following advertisement:

"May, 1731.

"Whereas, it is customery for Coffee-houses and other

Public-houses, to take 8s. for a quart of Arrack, and 6s. for a

quart of Brandy or Rum, made into Punch:

"This is to give notice,

"That James Ashley has opened on Ludgate Hill, the London

Coffee-house, Punch-house, Dorchester Beer and Welsh Ale Warehouse,

where the finest and best old Arrack, Rum and French Brandy is made

into Punch, with the other of the finest Ingredients--viz., A quart

of Arrack made into Punch for six shillings; and so in proportion

to the smallest quantity, which is half-a-quartern for fourpence

half-penny. A quart of Rum or Brandy made into Punch for four

shillings; and so in proportion to the smallest quantity, which is

half-a-quartern for fourpence half-penny; and gentlemen may have it

as soon made as a gill of Wine can be drawn."

The premises occupied a Roman site; for, in 1800, in the rear of

the house, in a bastion of the City Wall, was found a sepulchral

monument dedicated to Claudina Martina by her husband, a provincial

Roman soldier; here also were found a fragment of a statue of

Hercules and a female head. In front of the Coffee-house

immediately west of St. Martin's Church, stood Ludgate.

* * * * *

The London Coffee-house was noted for its publishers' sales of

stock and copyrights. It was within the rules of the Fleet prison;

and in the Coffee-house were "locked up" for the night such juries

from the Old Bailey Sessions, as could not agree upon verdicts. The

house was long kept by the grandfather and father of Mr. John

Leech, the celebrated artist.

A singular incident occurred at the London Coffee-house, many years

since: Mr. Brayley, the topographer, was present at a party here,

when Mr. Broadhurst, the famous tenor, by singing a high note,

caused a wine-glass on the table to break, the bowl being separated

from the stem.

* * * * *

From _The Kingdom's Intelligencer_, a weekly paper, published by

authority, in 1662, we learn that there had just been opened a "new

coffee-house," with the sign of the Turk's Head, where was sold by

retail "the right coffee-powder," from 4s. to 6s. 8d. per pound;

that pounded in a mortar, 2s; East Indian berry, 1s. 6d.; and the

right Turkie berry, well garbled, at 3s. "The ungarbled for lesse,

with directions how to use the same." Also Chocolate at 2s. 6d. per

pound; the perfumed from 4s. to 10s.; "also, Sherbets made in

Turkie, of lemons, roses and violets perfumed; and Tea, or Chaa,

according to its goodness. The house seal is Morat the Great.

Gentlemen customers and acquaintances are (the next New Year's Day)

invited to the sign of the Great Turk at this new Coffee-house,

where Coffee will be on free cost." Morat figures as a tyrant in

Dryden's "Aurung Zebe." There is a token of this house, with the

sultan's head, in the Beaufoy collection[359].

Another token in the same collection, is of unusual excellence,

probably by John Roettier. It has on the obverse, Morat ye Great

Men did mee call,--Sultan's head; reverse, Where eare I came I

conquered all.--In the field, Coffee, Tobacco, Sherbet, Tea,

Chocolate, retail in Exchange Alee. "The word Tea," says Mr. Burn,

"occurs on no other tokens than those issued from 'the Great Turk'

Coffee-house, in Exchange alley;" in one of its advertisements,

1662, tea is from 6s. to 60s. a pound.

Competition arose. One Constantine Jennings in Threadneedle-street,

over against St. Christopher's Church, advertised that coffee,

chocolate, sherbet, and tea, the right Turkey berry, may be had as

cheap and as good of him as is anywhere to be had for money; and

that people may there be taught to prepare the said liquors gratis.

Pepys, in his "Diary," tells, September 25, 1669, of his sending

for "a cup of Tea, a China Drink, he had not before tasted." Henry

Bennet, Earl of Arlington, about 1666, introduced tea at Court.

And, in his "Sir Charles Sedley's Mulberry Garden," we are told

that "he who wished to be considered a man of fashion always drank

wine-and-water at dinner, and a dish of tea afterwards." These

details are condensed from Mr. Burn's excellent "Beaufoy

Catalogue," 2nd edition, 1855.

* * * * *

In Gerard-street, Soho, also, was another Turk's Head Coffee-house,

where was held a Turk's Head Society; in 1777, we find Gibbon

writing to Garrick: "At this time of year (August 14) the Society

of the Turk's Head can no longer be addressed as a corporate body,

and most of the individual members are probably dispersed: Adam

Smith, in Scotland; Burke in the shades of Beaconsfield; Fox, the

Lord or the devil knows where."

The place was a kind of headquarters for the Loyal Association

during the Rebellion of 1745. Here was founded "The Literary Club"

and a select body for the Protection and Encouragement of Art.

Another Society of Artists met in Peter's-court, St. Martin's-lane,

from the year 1739 to 1769. After continued squabbles, which lasted

for many years, the principal artists met together at the Turk's

Head, where many others having joined them, they petitioned the

King (George III) to become patron of a Royal Academy of Art. His

Majesty consented; and the new Society took a room in Pall Mall,

opposite to Market-lane, where they remained until the King, in the

year 1771, granted them apartments in Old Somerset House.

* * * * *

The Turk's Head Coffee-house, No. 142, in the Strand, was a

favourite supping-house with Dr. Johnson and Boswell, in whose Life

of Johnson are several entries, commencing with 1763--"At night,

Mr. Johnson and I supped in a private room at the Turk's Head

Coffee-house, in the Strand; 'I encourage this house,' said he,

'for the mistress of it is a good civil woman, and has not much

business'." Another entry is--"We concluded the day at the Turk's

Head Coffee-house very socially." And, August 3, 1673--"We had our

last social meeting at the Turk's Head Coffee-house, before my

setting out for foreign parts."

The name was afterwards changed to "The Turk's Head, Canada and

Bath Coffee-house," and was a well frequented tavern and hotel.

* * * * *

At the Turk's Head, or Miles's Coffee-house, New Palace-yard,

Westminster, the noted Rota Club met, founded by Harrington, in

1659; where was a large oval table, with a passage in the middle,

for Miles to deliver his coffee.[360]

* * * * *

For many years previous to the streets of London being completely

paved, "Slaughter's Coffee-house" was called "The Coffee-house on

the Pavement." Besides being the resort of artists, Old Slaughter's

was the house of call for Frenchmen.

St. Martin's-lane was long one of the headquarters of the artists

of the last century. "In the time of Benjamin West," says J.T.

Smith, "and before the formation of the Royal Academy,

Greek-street, St. Martin's-lane, and Gerard-street, was their only

colony. Old Slaughter's Coffee-house, in St. Martin's-lane, was

their grand resort in the evenings, and Hogarth was a constant

visitor." He lived at the Golden Head, on the eastern side of

Leicester Fields, in the northern half of the Sabloniere Hotel. The

head he cut out himself from pieces of cork, glued and bound

together; it was placed over the street-door. At this time, young

Benjamin West was living in chambers, in Bedford-street, Covent

Garden, and had there set up his easel; he was married in 1765, at

St. Martin's Church. Roubiliac was often to be found at Slaughter's

in early life; probably before he gained the patronage of Sir

Edward Walpole, through finding and returning to the baronet the

pocket-book of bank-notes which the young maker of monuments had

picked up in Vauxhall Gardens. Sir Edward, to remunerate his

integrity, and his skill, of which he showed specimens, promised to

patronize Roubiliac through life, and he faithfully performed this

promise. Young Gainsborough, who spent three years amid the works

of the painters in St. Martin's-lane, Hayman, and Cipriani, who

were all eminently convival, were, in all probability, frequenters

of Slaughter's. Smith tells us that Quin and Hayman were

inseparable friends, and so convival, that they seldom parted till

daylight.

Mr. Cunningham relates that here, "in early life, Wilkie would

enjoy a small dinner at a small cost. I have been told by an old

frequenter of the house, that Wilkie was always the last dropper-in

for dinner, and that he was never seen to dine in the house by

daylight. The truth is, he slaved at his art at home till the last

glimpse of daylight had disappeared."

Haydon was accustomed, in the early days of his fitful career, to

dine here with Wilkie. In his "Autobiography," in the year 1808,

Haydon writes: "This period of our lives was one of great

happiness; painting all day, then dining at the Old Slaughter

Chop-house, then going to the Academy until eight to fill up the

evening, then going home to tea--that blessing of a studious

man--talking over respective exploits, what he, Wilkie, had been

doing and what I had been doing, and, then frequently to relieve

our minds fatigued by their eight and twelve hours' work, giving

vent to the most extraordinary absurdities. Often have we made

rhymes on odd names, and shouted with laughter at each new line

that was added. Sometimes lazily inclined after a good dinner, we

have lounged about, near Drury Lane or Covent Garden, hesitating

whether to go in, and often have I (knowing first that there was

nothing I wished to see) assumed a virtue I did not possess, and

pretending moral superiority, preached to Wilkie on the weakness of

not resisting such temptations for the sake of our art and our

duty, and marched him off to his studies, when he was longing to

see Mother Goose."

J.T. Smith refers to Old Slaughter's as "formerly the rendezvous of

Pope, Dryden and other wits, and much frequented by several

eminently clever men of his day."

Thither came Ware, the architect, who, when a little sickly boy,

was apprenticed to a chimney-sweeper, and was seen chalking the

street-front of Whitehall, by a gentleman who purchased the

remainder of the boy's time; gave him an excellent education; then

sent him to Italy, and, upon his return, employed him, and

introduced him to his friends as an architect. Ware was heard to

tell this story while he was sitting to Roubiliac for his bust.

Ware built Chesterfield House and several other noble mansions, and

compiled a Palladio, in folio: he retained the soot in his skin to

the day of his death. He was very intimate with Roubiliac, who was

an opposite eastern neighbour of Old Slaughter's. Another

architect, Gwynn, who competed with Mylne for designing and

building Blackfriars Bridge, was also a frequent visitor at Old

Slaughter's, as was Gravelot, who kept a drawing-school in the

Strand, nearly opposite to Southampton-street.

Hudson, who painted the Dilettanti portraits; M'Ardell, the

mezzotinto-scraper; and Luke Sullivan, the engraver of Hogarth's

March to Finchley, also frequented Old Slaughter's; likewise

Theodore Gardell, the portrait painter, who was executed for the

murder of his landlady: and Old Moser, keeper of the Drawing

Academy in Peter's-court.

Parry, the Welsh harper, though totally blind, was one of the first

draught-players in England, and occasionally played with the

frequenters of Old Slaughter's; and here in consequence of a bet.

Roubiliac introduced Nathaniel Smith (father of John Thomas), to

play at draughts with Parry; the game lasted about half an hour;

Parry was much agitated, and Smith proposed to give in; but as

there were bets depending, it was played out, and Smith won. This

victory brought Smith numerous challenges; and the dons of the

Barn, a public-house, in St. Martin's-lane, nearly opposite the

church, invited him to become a member; but Smith declined. The

Barn, for many years, was frequented by all the noted players of

chess and draughts; and it was there that they often decided games

of the first importance, played between persons of the highest

rank.

* * * * *

The Grecian Coffee-house, Devereux-court, Strand, (closed in 1843)

was named from Constantine, of Threadneedle street, the _Grecian_

who kept it. In the _Tatler_ announcement, all accounts of learning

are to be "under the title of the Grecian;" and, in the _Tatler_,

No. 6: "While other parts of the town are amused with the present

actions (Marlborough's) we generally spend the evening at this

table (at the Grecian) in inquiries into antiquity, and think

anything new, which gives us new knowledge. Thus, we are making a

very pleasant entertainment to ourselves in putting the actions of

Homer's Iliad into an exact journal."

The _Spectator's_ face was very well known at the Grecian, a

coffee-house "adjacent to the law." Occasionally it was the scene

of learned discussion. Thus Dr. King relates that one evening, two

gentlemen, who were constant companions, were disputing here,

concerning the accent of a Greek word. This dispute was carried to

such a length, that the two friends thought proper to determine it

with their swords; for this purpose they stepped into

Devereux-court, where one of them (Dr. King thinks his name was

Fitzgerald) was run through the body, and died on the spot.

The Grecian was Foote's morning lounge. It was handy, too, for the

young Templar, Goldsmith, and often did it echo with Oliver's

boisterous mirth; for "it had become the favourite resort of the

Irish and Lancashire Templars, whom he delighted in collecting

around him, in entertaining with a cordial and unostentatious

hospitality, and in occasionally amusing with his flute, or with

whist, neither of which he played very well!" Here Goldsmith

occasionally wound up his "Shoemaker's Holiday" with supper.

It was at the Grecian that Fleetwood Shephard told this memorable

story to Dr. Tancred Robinson, who gave Richardson permission to

repeat it. "The Earle of Dorset was in Little Britain, beating

about for books to his taste: there was 'Paradise Lost'. He was

surprised with some passages he struck upon, dipping here and there

and bought it; the bookseller begged him to speak in his favour, if

he liked it, for they lay on his hands as waste paper.... Shephard

was present. My Lord took it home, read it, and sent it to Dryden,

who in a short time returned it. 'This man,' says Dryden, 'cuts us

all out, and the ancients, too!'"

* * * * *

George's Coffee-house, No. 213, Strand, near Temple Bar, was a

noted resort in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. When it

was a coffee-house, one day, there came in Sir James Lowther, who

after changing a piece of silver with the coffee-woman, and paying

twopence for his dish of coffee, was helped into his chariot, for

he was very lame and infirm, and went home: some little time

afterwards, he returned to the same coffee-house, on purpose to

acquaint the woman who kept it, that she had given him a bad

half-penny, and demanded another in exchange for it. Sir James had

about £40,000 per annum.

Shenstone, who found "the warmest welcome at an inn," found

George's to be economical. "What do you think," he writes, "must be

my expense, who love to pry into everything of the kind? Why, truly

one shilling. My company goes to George's Coffee-house, where, for

that small subscription I read all pamphlets under a three

shillings' dimension; and indeed, any larger would not be fit for

coffee-house perusal." Shenstone relates that Lord Oxford was at

George's, when the mob, that were carrying his Lordship in effigy,

came into the box where he was, to beg money of him, amongst

others; this story Horace Walpole contradicts, adding that he

supposes Shenstone thought that after Lord Oxford quitted his place

he went to the coffee-house to learn news.

Arthur Murphy frequented George's, "where the town wits met every

evening." Lloyd, the law-student, sings:

By law let others toil to gain renown!

Florio's a gentleman, a man o' the town.

He nor courts clients, or the law regarding,

Hurries from Nando's down to Covent Garden.

Yet, he's a scholar; mark him in the pit,

With critic catcall sound the stops of wit!

Supreme at George's, he harangues the throng,

Censor of style, from tragedy to song.

* * * * *

The Percy Coffee-house, Rathbone-place, Oxford-street, no longer

exists; but it will be kept in recollection for its having given

name to one of the most popular publications of its class, namely,

the "Percy Anecdotes," by Sholto and Reuben Percy, Brothers of the

Benedictine Monastery of Mont Benger, in forty-four parts,

commencing in 1820. So said the title pages, but the names and the

locality were _supposé_. Reuben Percy was Thomas Byerly, who died

in 1824; he was the brother of Sir John Byerley, and the first

editor of the _Mirror_, commenced by John Limbird, in 1822. Sholto

Percy was Joseph Clinton Robertson, who died in 1852; he was the

projector of the _Mechanics' Magazine_, which he edited from its

commencement to his death. The name of the collection of Anecdotes

was not taken, as at the time supposed, from the popularity of the

"Percy Reliques," but from the Percy Coffee-house, where Byerley

and Robertson were accustomed to meet to talk over their joint

work. The _idea_ was, however, claimed by Sir Richard Phillips, who

stoutly maintained that it originated in a suggestion made by him

to Dr. Tilloch and Mr. Mayne, to cut the anecdotes from the many

years' files of the _Star_ newspaper, of which Dr. Tilloch was the

editor; and Mr. Byerley assistant editor; and to the latter

overhearing the suggestion, Sir Richard contested, might the "Percy

Anecdotes" be traced. They were very successful, and a large sum

was realised by the work.

* * * * *

Peele's Coffee-house, Nos. 177 and 178, Fleet-street, east corner

of Fetter-lane, was one of the coffee-houses of the Johnsonian

period; and here was long preserved a portrait of Dr. Johnson, on

the keystone of a chimney-piece, stated to have been painted by Sir

Joshua Reynolds. Peele's was noted for files of newspapers from

these dates: _Gazette_, 1759; _Times_, 1780; _Morning Chronicle_,

1773; _Morning Post_, 1773; _Morning Herald_, 1784; _Morning

Advertiser_, 1794; and the evening papers from their commencement.

The house is now a tavern.

_Coffee Literature and Ideals_

The bibliography at the end of this work will serve to indicate the

nature and extent of the general literature of coffee. Not that it is

complete or nearly so; it would require twice the space to include

mention of all the fugitive bits of verse, essays, and miscellaneous

writings in newspapers, and periodicals, dealing with the poetry and

romance, history, chemistry, and physiological effects of coffee. Only

the early works, and the more notable contributions of the last three

centuries, are included in the bibliography; but there is sufficient to

enable the student to analyze the lines of general progress.

A study of the literature of coffee shows that the French really

internationalized the beverage. The English and Italians followed. With

the advent of the newspaper press, coffee literature began to suffer

from its competition.

The complexities of modern life suggest that coffee drinking in

perfection, the esthetics, and a new literature of coffee may once more

become the pleasure of a small caste. Are the real pleasures of life,

the things truly worth while, only to the swift--the most efficient? Who

shall say? Are not some of us, particularly in America, rather prone to

glorify the gospel of work to such an extent that we are in danger of

losing the ability to understand or to enjoy anything else?

Granted that this is so, coffee, already recognized as the most grateful

lubricant known to the human machine, is destined to play another part

of increasing importance in our national life as a kind of national

shock-absorber as well. But its rôle is something more than this,

surely. When life is drab, it takes away its grayness. When life is sad,

it brings us solace. When life is dull, it brings us new inspiration.

When we are a-weary, it brings us comfort and good cheer.

The lure of coffee lies in its appeal to our finer sensibilities; and

signs are not wanting that that pursuit of the long, sweet happiness

that every one is seeking will lead some of us (even in big bustling

America) into footpaths that end in places where coffee will offer much

of its pristine inspiration and charm. It probably will not be a coffee

house anything like that of the long ago, but perhaps it will be a kind

of modernized coffee club. Why not?

[Illustration: A COFFEE HOUSE IN HOLLAND, ABOUT 1650

After the etching by J. Beauvarlet from a painting by Adriaen Van Ostade

(1610-1675), which is said to be the earliest picture of a coffee house

in western Europe]

CHAPTER XXXIII

COFFEE IN RELATION TO THE FINE ARTS

_How coffee and coffee drinking have been celebrated in painting,

engraving, sculpture, caricature, lithography, and music--Epics,

rhapsodies, and cantatas in praise of coffee--Beautiful specimens

of the art of the potter and the silversmith as shown in the coffee

service of various periods in the world's history--Some historical

relics_

Coffee has inspired the imagination of many poets, musicians, and

painters. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries those whose genius

was dedicated to the fine arts seem to have fallen under its spell and

to have produced much of great beauty that has endured. To the painters,

engravers, and caricaturists of that period we are particularly indebted

for pictures that have added greatly to our knowledge of early coffee

customs and manners.

Adriaen Van Ostade (1610-1685), the Dutch genre painter and etcher,

pupil of Frans Hals, in his "Dutch Coffee House" (1650), shows the

genesis of the coffee house of western Europe about the time it still

partook of some of the tavern characteristics. Coffee is being served to

a group in the foreground. It is believed to be the oldest existing

picture of a coffee house. The illustration is after the etching by J.

Beauvarlet in the graphic collection at Munich.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), the famous English painter and engraver of

satirical subjects, chose the coffee houses of his time for the scenes

of a number of his social caricatures. In his series, "Four Times of the

Day," which throws a vivid light on the street life of London of the

period of 1738, we are shown Covent Garden at 7:55 A.M. by the clock on

St. Paul's Church. A prim maiden lady (said to have been sketched from

an elderly relation of the artist, who cut him out of her will) on her

way home from early service, accompanied by a shivering foot-boy, is

scandalized by the spectacle presented by some roystering blades issuing

from Tom King's notorious coffee house to the right. The _beaux_ are

forcing their attentions upon the more comely of the market women in the

foreground. Tom King was a scholar at Eton before he began his ignoble

career. At the date of this picture, it is thought he had been succeeded

by his widow, Moll King, also of scandalous repute.

Scene VI of the "Rake's Progress" by Hogarth is laid at the club in

White's chocolate (coffee) house, which Dr. Swift described as "the

common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies." The rake has

lost all his recently acquired wealth, pulls off his wig and flings

himself upon the floor in a paroxysm of fury and execration. In allusion

to the burning of White's in 1733, flames are seen bursting from the

wainscot, but the pre-occupied gamblers take no heed, even of the

watchman crying "Fire!" To the left is seated a highwayman, with horse

pistol and black mask in a skirt pocket of his coat. He is so engrossed

in his thoughts that he does not notice the boy at his side offering a

glass of liquor on a tray. The scene well depicts the low estate to

which White's had fallen. It recalls a bit of dialogue from Farquhar's

_Beaux' Stratagem_ (act III, scene 2), where Aimwell says to Gibbet, who

is a highwayman: "Pray, sir, ha'nt I seen your face at Will's Coffee

House?" "Yes sir, and at White's, too," answers the highwayman.

[Illustration: IN THE CLUB AT WHITE'S COFFEE HOUSE, 1733

From a painting in the series, "The Rake's Progress," by William

Hogarth]

After the fire, the club and chocolate house were removed to Gaunt's

coffee house. The removal was thus announced in the _Daily Post_ of May

3:

This is to acquaint all noblemen and gentlemen that Mr. Arthur

having had the misfortune to be burnt out of White's Chocolate

House is removed to Gaunt's Coffee House, next the St. James Coffee

House in St. James Street, where he humbly begs they will favour

him with their company as usual.

Alessandro Longhi (1733-1813) the Italian painter and engraver, called

the Venetian Hogarth, in one of his pictures presenting life and manners

in Venice during the years of her decadence, shows Goldoni, the

dramatist, as a visitor in a café of the period, with a female mendicant

soliciting alms.

In the Louvre at Paris hangs the "Petit Déjeuner" by François Boucher

(1703-1770), famous court painter of Louis XV. It shows a French

breakfast-room of the period of 1744, and is interesting because it

illustrates the introduction of coffee into the home; it shows also the

coffee service of the time.

In Van Loo's portrait of Madame de Pompadour, second mistress and

political adviser of Louis XV of France, the coffee service of a later

period of the eighteenth century appears. The Nubian servant is shown

offering the marquise a demi-tasse which has just been poured from the

covered oriental pot which succeeded the original Arabian-Turkish

boiler, and was much in vogue at the time.

Coffee and Madame du Barry (or would it be more polite to say Madame du

Barry and coffee?) inspired the celebrated painting of Madame de

Pompadour's successor in the affections of Louis "the well beloved."

This is entitled "Madame du Barry at Versailles", and in the Versailles

catalog it is described as painted by Decreuse after Drouais. Decreuse

was a pupil of Gros, and painted many of the historical portraits at

Versailles.

[Illustration: TOM KING'S COFFEE HOUSE IS COVENT GARDEN, 1738

From a printing in the series, "Four Times of the Day," by William

Hogarth]

Malcolm C. Salaman, in his _French Color Prints of the XVIII Century_,

referring to Dagoty's print of this picture, done in 1771, says, "the

original has been attributed to François Hubert Drouais, but there can

be little doubt that the original portraiture was from the hand of the

engraver (Dagoty), as the style is far inferior to Drouais." He thus

describes it:

Here we see the last of Louis XV's mistresses, sitting in her

bedroom in that alluring retreat of hers at Louveciennes, near the

woods of Marly, as she takes her cup of coffee from her pet

attendant, the little negro boy, Zamore, as the Prince de Conti had

named him, all brave in red and gold. Doubtless she is expecting

the morning visit of the King, no longer the handsome young

gallant, but old and leaden-eyed, and puffy-cheeked; and perhaps it

will be on this very morning that she will wheedle Louis, in a

moment of extravagant badinage, into appointing the negro boy to be

Governor of the Chateau and Pavilion of Louveciennes at a handsome

salary, just as, on another day, she playfully teased the jaded old

sensualist into decorating with the cordon bleu her cuisinière when

it was triumphantly revealed to him that the dinner he had been

praising with enthusiastic gusto was, after all, the work of a

woman cook, the very possibility of which he had contemptuously

doubted. But as we look at these two, the royal mistress and her

little black favorite, we forget the "well beloved" and his

voluptuous pleasures and indulgences, for in the shadows we see

another picture, some twenty years on, when the proud

unconscionable beauty, no longer _reine de la main gauche_, stands

before the dreaded Tribunal of the Terror, while Zamore, the

treacherous, ungrateful negro, dismissed from his service at

Louveciennes and now devoted to the committee of public safety, and

one of her implacable accusers, sends her shrieking to the

guillotine.

[Illustration: "PETIT DÉJEUNER," BY BOUCHER

Showing the home coffee service of the period of 1744]

[Illustration: COFFEE SERVICE IN THE HOME OF MADAME DE

POMPADOUR--PAINTING BY VAN LOO]

The introduction of the coffee house into Europe was memorialized by

Franz Schams, the genre painter, pupil of the Vienna Academy, in a

beautiful picture entitled "The First Coffee House in Vienna, 1684,"

owned by the Austrian Art Society. A lithographic reproduction was

executed by the artist and printed by Joseph Stoufs in Vienna. There are

several specimens in the United States; and the illustration printed on

page 48 has been made from one of these in the possession of the author.

The picture shows the interior of the Blue Bottle, where Kolschitzky

opened the first coffee house in Vienna. The hero-proprietor stands in

the foreground pouring a cup of the beverage from an oriental coffee

pot, and another is suspended from the coffee-house sign that hangs over

the fireplace. In the fire alcove a woman is pounding coffee in a

mortar. Men and women in the costumes of the period are being served

coffee by a Vienna _mädchen_.

[Illustration: MADAME DU BARRY AND HER SLAVE BOY ZAMORE--PAINTING BY

DECREUSE]

The painters Marilhat, Descamps, and de Tournemine have pictured café

scenes; the first in his "Café sur une route de Syrie", which was shown

at the Salon of 1844; the second in his "Café Turc", which figured at

the Exposition of 1855; and the third in his "Café en Asia Mineure",

which received honors at the Salon of 1859, and attracted attention at

the Universal Exposition of 1867.

A decorative panel designed for the buffet at the Paris Opera House by

S. Mazerolles was shown at the Exposition of 1878. A French artist,

Jacquand, has painted two charming compositions; one representing the

reading room, and the other the interior, of a café.

Many German artists have shown coffee manners and customs in pictures

that are now hanging in well known European galleries. Among others,

mention should be made of C. Schmidt's "The Sweets Shop of Josty in

Berlin", 1845; Milde's "Pastor Rautenberg and His Family at the Coffee

Table", 1833; and his "Manager Classen and His Family at the Afternoon

Coffee Table", 1840; Adolph Menzel's "Parisian Boulevard Café", 1870;

Hugo Meith's "Saturday Afternoon at the Coffee Table"; John Philipp's

"Old Woman with Coffee Cup"; Friedrich Walle's "Afternoon Coffee in the

Court Gardens at Munich"; Paul Meyerheim's "Oriental Coffee House"; and

Peter Philippi's (Dusseldorf) "Kaffeebesuch."

At the Exposition des Beaux Arts, Salon of 1881, there was shown P.A.

Ruffio's picture, "Le café vient au secours de la Muse" (Coffee comes to

the aid of the Muse), in which the graceful form of an oriental ewer

appears.

The "Coffee House at Cairo," a canvas by Jean Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)

that hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, has been much

admired. It shows the interior of a typical oriental coffee house with

two men near a furnace at the left preparing the beverage; a man seated

on a wicker basket about to smoke a hooka; a dervish dancing; and

several persons seated against the wall in the background.

[Illustration: COFFEE HOUSE AT CAIRO--PAINTING BY GÉRÔME IN THE

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, NEW YORK]

The New York Historical Society acquired in 1907 from Miss Margaret A.

Ingram an oil painting of the "Tontine Coffee House." It was painted in

Philadelphia by Francis Guy, and was sold at a raffle, after having been

admired by President John Adams. It shows lower Wall Street in

1796-1800, with the Tontine coffee house on the northwest corner of Wall

and Water Streets, where its more famous predecessor, the Merchants

coffee house, was located before it moved to quarters diagonally

opposite.

Charles P. Gruppe's (_b._ 1860) painting showing General "Washington's

Official Welcome to New York by City and State Officials at the

Merchants Coffee House," April 23, 1789, just one week before his

inauguration as first president of the United States, is a colorful

canvas that has been much praised for its atmosphere and historical

associations. It is the property of the author.

The art museums and libraries of every country contain many beautiful

water-colors, engravings, prints, drawings, and lithographs, whose

creators found inspiration in coffee. Space permits the mention of only

a few.

T.H. Shepherd has preserved for us Button's, afterward the Caledonien

coffee house, Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, in a water-color

drawing of 1857; Tom's coffee house, 17 Great Russell Street, Covent

Garden, 1857; Slaughter's coffee house in St. Martin's Lane, 1841; also,

in 1857, the Lion's Head at Button's, put up by Addison and now the

property of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn.

[Illustration: "KAFFEEBESUCH"

From the painting by Peter Philippi]

[Illustration: "COFFEE COMES TO THE AID OF THE MUSE"

From the painting by Ruffio]

Hogarth figures in the Sam Ireland collection with several original

drawings of frequenters of Button's in 1730.

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) the great English caricaturist and

illustrator, has given us several fine pictures of English coffee-house

life. His "Mad Dog in a Coffee House" presents a lively scene; and his

water-color of "The French Coffee House" is one of the best pictures we

have of the French coffee house in London as it looked during the latter

half of the eighteenth century.

During the campaign in France in 1814, Napoleon arrived one day,

unheralded, in a country presbytery, where the good curé was quietly

turning his hand coffee-roaster. The emperor asked him, "What are you

doing there, abbé?" "Sire", replied the priest, "I am doing like you. I

am burning the colonial fodder." Charlet (1792-1845) made a lithograph

of the incident.

Several French poet-musicians resorted to music to celebrate coffee.

Brittany has its own songs in praise of coffee, as have other French

provinces. There are many epics, rhapsodies, and cantatas--and even a

comic opera by Meilhat, music by Deffes, bearing the title, _Le Café du

Roi_, produced at the Théâtre Lyrique, November 16, 1861.

[Illustration: "MAD DOG IN A COFFEE HOUSE"--CARICATURE BY ROWLANDSON]

Fuzelier wrote, in honor of coffee, a cantata, set to music by Bernier.

This is the burden of the poet's song:

Ah coffee, what climes yet unknown,

Ignore the clear fires that thy vapors inspire!

Thou countest, in thy vast empire

Those realms that Bacchus' reign disown.

Favored liquid, which fills all my soul with delights,

Thy enchantments to life happy hours persuade,

We vanquish e'en sleep by thy fortunate aid,

Thou hast rescued the hours sleep would rob from our nights.

Favored liquid which fills all my soul with delights,

Thy enchantments to life happy hours persuade.

Oh liquid that I love,

Triumphant stream of sable,

E'en for the gods above,

Drive nectar from the table.

Make thou relentless war

On treacherous juices sly,

Let earth taste and adore

The sweet calm of the sky.

Oh liquid that I love,

Triumphant stream of sable,

E'en for the gods above,

Drive nectar from the table.

During the early vogue of the café in Paris, a _chanson_, entitled

_Coffee_, reproduced here, was set to music with accompaniment for the

piano by M.H. Colet, a professor of harmony at the Conservatoire.

Printed in the form of a placard, and put up in cafés, it received the

approbation of, and was signed by, de Voyer d'Argenson, at that time

(1711) lieutenant of police. The poetry is not irreproachable. It can

hardly be attributed to any of the well known poets of the time; but

rather to one of those bohemian rimesters that wrote all too abundantly

on all sorts of subjects. It is the development of a theory concerning

the properties of coffee and the best method of making it. It is

interesting to note that the uses of advertising were known and

appreciated in Paris in 1711; for in the _chanson_ there appears the

name and address of one Vilain, a merchant, rue des Lombards, who was

evidently in fashion at that period. The translation of the stanza

reproduced is as follows:

COFFEE--A CHANSON

If you, with mind untroubled,

Would flourish, day by day,

Let each day of the seven

Find coffee on your tray.

It will your frame preserve from every malady,

Its virtues drive afar, la! la!

Migrain and dread catarrh--ha! ha!

Dull cold and lethargy.

The most notable contribution to the "music of coffee," if one may be

permitted the expression, is the _Coffee Cantata_ of Johann Sebastian

Bach (1685-1750) the German organist and the most modern composer of the

first half of the eighteenth century. He hymned the religious sentiment

of protestant Germany; and in his _Coffee Cantata_ he tells in music the

protest of the fair sex against the libels of the enemies of the

beverage, who at the time were actively urging in Germany that it should

be forbidden women, because its use made for sterility! Later on, the

government surrounded the manufacture, sale, and use of coffee with many

obnoxious restrictions, as told in chapter VIII.

[Illustration: NAPOLEON AND THE CURÉ--LITHOGRAPH BY CHARLET]

Bach's _Coffee Cantata_ is No. 211 of the _Secular Cantatas_, and was

published in Leipzig in 1732. In German it is known as _Schweigt stille,

plaudert nicht_ (Be silent, do not talk). It is written for soprano,

tenor, and bass solos and orchestra. Bach used as his text a poem by

Piccander. The cantata is really a sort of one-act operetta--a jocose

production representing the efforts of a stern parent to check his

daughter's propensities in coffee drinking, the new fashioned habit. One

seldom thinks of Bach as a humorist; but the music here is written in a

mock-heroic vein, the recitatives and arias having a merry flavor,

hinting at what the master might have done in light opera.

[Illustration: COFFEE--A CHANSON; MUSIC BY COLET, 1711]

The libretto shows the father Schlendrian, or Slowpoke, trying by

various threats to dissuade his daughter from further indulgence in the

new vice, and, in the end, succeeding by threatening to deprive her of a

husband. But his victory is only temporary. When the mother and the

grandmother indulge in coffee, asks the final trio, who can blame the

daughter?

Bach uses the spelling coffee--not _kaffee_. The cantata was sung as

recently as December 18, 1921, at a concert in New York by the Society

of the Friends of Music, directed by Arthur Bodanzky.

Lieschen, or Betty, the daughter, has a delightful aria, beginning, "Ah,

how sweet coffee tastes--lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter far

than muscatel wine!" the opening bars of which are reproduced on page

598.

As the text is not long, it is printed here in its entirety.

[Illustration: STATUE OF KOLSCHITZKY IN VIENNA]

_CHARACTERS_

MESSENGER AND NARRATOR _Tenor_

SLOWPOKE _Bass_

BETTY, DAUGHTER TO SLOWPOKE _Soprano_

TENOR (_Recitative_): Be silent, do not talk, but notice what will

happen! Here comes old Slowpoke with his daughter Betty. He's

grumbling like a common bear--just listen to what he says.

(_Enter_ SLOWPOKE _muttering_): What vexatious things one's

children are! A hundred thousand naughty ways! What I tell my

daughter Betty might as well be told to the moon! (_Enter_ BETTY.)

SLOWPOKE (_Recitative_): You naughty child, you mischievous girl,

oh when can I have my way--give up your coffee!

BETTY: Dear father, do not be so strict! If I can't have my little

demi-tasse of coffee three times a day, I'm just like a dried up

piece of roast goat!

BETTY (_Aria_): Ah! How sweet coffee tastes! Lovelier than a

thousand kisses, sweeter far than muscatel wine! I must have my

coffee, and if any one wishes to please me, let him present me

with--coffee!

SLOWPOKE _(Recitative_): If you won't give up coffee, young lady, I

won't let you go to any wedding feasts--I won't even let you go

walking!

BETTY: O yes! Do let me have my coffee!

SLOWPOKE: What a little monkey you are, anyway! I will not let you

have any whale-bone skirts of the present fashionable size!

BETTY: Oh, I can easily fix _that_!

SLOWPOKE: But I won't let you stand at the window and watch the new

styles!

BETTY: That doesn't bother me, either. But be good and let me have

my coffee!

SLOWPOKE: But from my hands you'll get no silver or gold ribbon for

your hair!

BETTY: Oh well! so long as I have what does satisfy me!

SLOWPOKE: You wretched Betty, you! You won't give in to me?

SLOWPOKE (_Air_): Oh these girls--what obstinate dispositions they

do have! They certainly are not easy to manage! But if one hits the

right spot--oh well, one _may_ succeed!

SLOWPOKE, _with an air of being sure of success this time_

(_Recitative_): Now please do what father says.

BETTY: In everything, except about coffee.

SLOWPOKE: Well, then, you must make up your mind to do without a

husband.

BETTY: Oh--yes? Father, a husband?

SLOWPOKE: I swear you can't have him--

BETTY: Till I give up coffee? Oh well--coffee--let it be

forgotten--dear father--I will not drink--none!

SLOWPOKE: _Then_ you can have one!

BETTY (_Aria_): Today, dear father--do it _today_. (_He goes out._)

Ah, a husband! Really this suits me exactly! When they know I must

have coffee, why, before I go to bed to-night I can have a valiant

lover! (_Goes out._)

TENOR (_Recitative_): Now go hunt up old Slowpoke, and just watch

him get a husband for his daughter--for Betty is secretly making it

known "that no wooer may come to the house, unless he promises me

himself, and has it put in the marriage contract that he will allow

me to make coffee whenever I will!"

[Illustration: "AH, HOW SWEET COFFEE TASTES--LOVELIER THAN A THOUSAND

KISSES, SWEETER FAR THAN MUSCATEL WINE!"

Opening bars of Betty's aria in Bach's _Coffee Cantata_, 1732]

(_Enter_ SLOWPOKE _and_ BETTY, _singing--as chorus--with_ TENOR.)

TRIO: The cat will not give up the mouse, old maids continue

"coffee-sisters!"--the mother loves her drink of coffee--grandma,

too, is a coffee fiend--_who_ now will blame the daughter!

[Illustration: THE MOST BEAUTIFUL COFFEE HOUSE IN THE WORLD

The Caffè Pedrocchi in Padua, Italy, empire period, erected by the poor

lemonade vendor and coffee seller, Antonio Pedrocchi.]

Research has discovered only one piece of sculpture associated with

coffee--the statue of the Austrian hero Kolschitzky, the patron saint of

the Vienna coffee houses. It graces the second-floor corner of a house

in the Favoriten Strasse, where it was erected in his honor by the

Coffee Makers' Guild of Vienna. The great "brother-heart" is shown in

the attitude of pouring coffee into cups on a tray from an oriental

service pot.

The celebrated Caffè Pedrocchi, the center of life in the city of Padua,

Italy, in the early part of the nineteenth century, is one of the most

beautiful buildings erected in Italy. Its use is apparent at first

glance. It was begun in 1816, opened June 9, 1831, and completed in

1842. Antonio Pedrocchi (1776-1852), an obscure Paduan coffee-house

keeper, tormented by a desire for glory, conceived the idea of building

the most beautiful coffee house in the world, and carried it out.

Artists and craftsmen of all ages since the discovery of coffee have

brought their genius into play to fashion various forms of apparatus

associated with the preparation of the coffee drink. Coffee roasters and

grinders have been made of brass, silver, and gold; coffee mortars, of

bronze; and coffee making and serving pots, of beautiful copper, pewter,

pottery, porcelain, and silver designs.

In the Peter collection in the United States National Museum there is to

be seen a fine specimen of the Bagdad coffee pot made of beaten copper

and used for making and serving; also, a beautiful Turkish coffee set.

In the Metropolitan Museum in New York there are some beautiful

specimens of Persian and Egyptian ewers in faience, probably used for

coffee service. Also, in American and continental museums are to be seen

many examples of seventeenth-century German, Dutch, and English bronze

mortars and pestles used for "braying" coffee beans to make coffee

powder.

[Illustration: COFFEE GRINDER SET WITH JEWELS

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]

A very beautiful specimen of the oriental coffee grinder, made of brass

and teakwood, set with red and green glass jewels, and inlaid in the

teakwood with ivory and brass, is at the Metropolitan. This is of

Indo-Persian design of the nineteenth century.

The Metropolitan Museum shows also many specimens of pewter coffee pots

used in India, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Russia, and England in

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

One can guess at the luxuriousness of the coffee pots in use in France

throughout the eighteenth century by noting that from March 20, 1754, to

April 16, 1755, Louis XV bought no fewer than three gold coffee pots of

Lazare Duvaux. They had carved branches, and were supplied with "chafing

dishes of burnished steel" and lamps for spirits of wine. They cost,

respectively, 1,950, 1,536, and 2,400 francs. In the "inventory of

Marie-Josephe de Saxe, Dauphine of France", we note, too, a "two cup

coffee pot of gold with its chafing dish for spirits of wine in a

leather case."

The Italian wrought-iron coffee roaster of the seventeenth century was

often a work of art. The specimen illustrated is rich in decorative

motifs associated with the best in Florentine art.

Madame de Pompadour's inventory disclosed a "gold coffee mill, carved in

colored gold to represent the branches of a coffee tree." The art of

gold, which sought to embellish everything, did not disdain these homely

utensils; and one may see at the Cluny Museum in Paris, among many mills

of graceful form, a coffee mill of engraved iron dating from the

eighteenth century, upon which are represented the four seasons. We are

told, however, that it graced the "sale after the death of Mme. de

Pompadour", which, of course, makes it much more valuable.

[Illustration: ITALIAN WROUGHT-IRON COFFEE ROASTER

Courtesy of _Edison Monthly_]

"The tea pot, coffee pot and chocolate pot first used in England closely

resembled each other in form", says Charles James Jackson in his

_Illustrated History of English Plate_, "each being circular in plan,

tapering towards the top, and having its handle fixed at a right angle

with the spout."

[Illustration: Tea Pot, 1670

Coffee Pot, 1681

Coffee Pot, 1689

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY TEA POTS AND COFFEE POTS]

He says further:

The earliest examples were of oriental ware and the form of these

was adopted by the English plate workers as a model for others of

silver. It apparently was not until after both tea and coffee had

been used for several years in this country [England] that the tea

pot was made proportionately less in height and greater in diameter

than the coffee pot. This distinction, which was probably due to

copying the forms of Chinese porcelain tea pots, was afterwards

maintained, and to the present day the difference between the tea

pot and the coffee pot continued to be mainly one of height.

The coffee pot illustrated (1681) formerly belonged to the East India

Company, and is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is

almost identical with a tea pot (1670) in the same museum, except that

its straight spout is fixed nearer to the base, as is its

leather-covered handle, which, with the sockets into which it fits,

forms a long recurving scroll fixed opposite to and in line with the

spout. Its cover, which is hinged to the upper handle socket, is high

like that of the 1670 tea-pot; but instead of the straight outline of

that cover, this is slightly waved and surmounted by a somewhat flat

button-shaped knob. Engraved on the body is a shield of arms, a chevron

between three crosses fleury, surrounded by tied feathers. The

inscription is, "The Guift of Richard Sterne Eq to ye Honorable East

India Compa."

This pot is nine and three-quarters inches in height by four and

seven-eighths inches in diameter at the base; it bears the London

hall-marks of 1681-82 and the maker's mark "G.G." in a shaped shield,

thought by Jackson to be George Garthorne's mark.

The 1689 coffee pot illustrated is the property of King George V. It

bears the London hall-marks of 1689-90, and the mark of Francis

Garthorne. Its tall, round body tapers toward the top, and has applied

moldings on the base and rim. Its spout is straight and tapers upward to

the level of the rim of the pot. Its handle is of ebony,

crescent-shaped, and riveted into two sockets fixed at a right angle

with the spout. The lid is a high cone surmounted by a small vase-shaped

finial, and is hinged to the upper socket of the handle. On no part of

the pot is there any ornamentation other than the royal cipher of King

William III and Queen Mary, which is engraved on the reverse side of the

body. This example, which measures nine inches in height to the top of

its cover, resembles very closely in form the East India Company's

tea-pot just referred to; but as teapots with much lower bodies appear

to have come into fashion before 1689, this pot was probably used as a

coffee pot from the first.

The 1692 coffee pot of lantern shape is the property of H.D. Ellis, and

has its spout curved upward at the top, being furnished with a small,

hinged flap and a scroll-shaped thumb-piece attached to the rim of the

cover. The body and cover were originally quite plain, the embossing and

chasing with symmetrical rococo decoration being added later, probably

about 1740. Jackson says the wooden handle is not the original one,

which was probably C-shaped. The pot bears the usual London hall-marks

for the year 1692 and the maker's mark is "G G" upon a shaped shield, a

mark recorded upon the copper plate belonging to the Goldsmiths'

company, which Mr. Cripps thinks was that of George Garthorne. The

characteristics of this lantern shaped coffee pot are:

1. The straight sides, so rapidly tapering from the base upward

that in a height of only six inches the base diameter of four and

three-eighths inches tapers to a diameter of no more than two and

one-half inches at the rim.

2. The nearly straight spout, furnished with a flap or shutter.

3. The true cone of the lid.

4. The thumb-piece, which is a familiar feature upon the tankards

of the period.

5. The handle fixed at right angles to the spout.

[Illustration: LANTERN COFFEE POT, 1692]

[Illustration: FOLKINGHAM POT, 1715-16]

Mr. Ellis, in a paper before the Society of Antiquaries[361] on the

earliest form of coffee pot, says:

If coffee was first introduced into this country by the Turkey

merchants, nothing is more probable than that those who first

brought the berry, brought also the vessel in which it was to be

served. Such a vessel would be the Turkish ewer whose shape is

familiar to us, the same today as two hundred years ago, for in the

East things are slow to change. And throughout the reign of the

second Charles, so long as the extended use of coffee in the houses

of the people was retarded by the opposition of the Women of

England, and by the scarcely less powerful influence of the King's

Court, the small requirements of a mere handful of coffee-houses

would be easily met by the importation of Turkish vessels.

Reference to the coffee-house keepers' tokens in the Beaufoy

collection in the Guildhall Museum shows that many of the traders

of 1660-1675 adopted as their trade sign a hand pouring coffee from

a pot. This pot is invariably of the Turkish ewer pattern. It is

true that there is nothing to show that the Turks themselves ever

served coffee from the ewer, but it is scarcely conceivable that

the English coffee-house keepers should have adopted as their trade

sign, their pictorial advertisement, so to speak, a vessel which

had no connection with the commodity in which they dealt, and which

would convey no meaning associated with coffee to the public. But

as soon as the extended use of the beverage created a demand which

stimulated a home manufacture of coffee-pots, a new departure is

apparent. The undulating outlines beloved by the Orientals, bowed

as their scimitars, curvilinear as their graceful flowing script,

do not commend themselves to the more severe Western taste of the

period which had then declared its preference for sweet simplicity

in silversmiths' work, such as we see in the basons, cups, and

especially the flat-topped tankards of that day. The beauty of the

straight line had asserted its power, and fashion felt its sway.

Such was the feeling that produced the coffee-pot of 1692, the

straight lines of which continued in vogue until the middle of the

following century, when a reaction in favour of bulbous bodies and

serpentine spouts set in.

[Illustration: WASTELL POT, 1720-21]

Some of the more notable of the coffee-house-keepers' tokens in the

Guildhall Museum were photographed for this work. They are described and

illustrated in chapter X.

There are illustrated other silver coffee pots in the Victoria and

Albert Museum, by Folkingham (1715-16), and by Wastell (1720-21), the

latter pot being octagonal.

There is illustrated also a design in tiles that were let into the wall

of an ancient coffee house in Brick Lane, Spitalfields, known as the

"Dish of Coffee Boy" in the catalog of the collection of London

antiquities in the Guildhall Museum. Mr. Ellis thinks this belongs to a

period a little earlier, but certainly not later, than 1692; the coffee

pot represented being exactly of the lantern shape. It is an oblong sign

of glazed Delft tiles, decorated in blue, brown, and yellow,

representing a youth pouring coffee. Upon a table, by his side, are a

gazette, two pipes, a bowl, a bottle, and a mug; above, on a scroll, is,

"dish of coffee boy."

[Illustration: "DISH OF COFFEE BOY" DESIGN IN DELFT TILES 1692]

Modifications of the lantern began to appear with great rapidity in

England. In the coffee pot of Chinese porcelain, illustrated, probably

made in China from an English model a few years later than the 1692 pot,

Mr. Ellis observes that "the spout has already lost its straightness,

the extreme taper of the body is diminished, and the lid betrays the

first tendency to depart from the straightness of the cone to the curved

outline of the dome." He adds:

These variations rapidly intensified, and at the commencement of

the eighteenth century we find the body still less tapering and the

lid has become a perfect dome. As we approach the end of Queen

Anne's reign the thumb piece disappears and the handle is no longer

set on at right angles to the spout. Through the reign of George I

but little modification took place, save that the taper of the body

became less and less. In the Second George's time we find the

taper has almost entirely disappeared, so that the sides are

nearly parallel, while the dome of the lid has been flattened down

to a very low elevation above the rim. In the second quarter of the

eighteenth century the pear shaped coffee pot was the vogue. In the

earlier years of George III, when many new and beautiful designs in

silversmiths' work were created, a complete revolution in

coffee-pots takes place, and the flowing outlines of the new

pattern recall the form of the Turkish ewer, which had been

discarded nearly one hundred years previously.

[Illustration: CHINESE PORCELAIN COFFEE POT

Late seventeenth century]

The evolution is shown by illustrations of Lord Swaythling's pot of

1731; the coffee jug of 1736; the Vincent pot of 1738; the Viscountess

Wolseley's coffee pot of copper plated with silver; the Irish coffee pot

of 1760; and the silver coffee pots of 1773-76 and of 1779-80 (see

illustrations on pages 604, 605 and 607).

[Illustration: Vincent Pot, Hall-marked, London, 1738

Lord Swaythling's Pot, 1731

SILVER COFFEE POTS, EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

From Jackson's "Illustrated History of English Plate"]

There are illustrated in this connection specimens of coffee pots in

stoneware by Elers (1700), and in salt glaze by Astbury, and another of

the period about 1725. These are in the department of British and

medieval antiquities of the British Museum, where are to be seen also

some beautiful specimens of coffee-service pots in Whieldon ware, and in

Wedgwood's jasper ware.

[Illustration: IRISH COFFEE POT, 1760

Hall-marked Dublin; the property of Col. Moore-Brabazon]

[Illustration: VISCOUNTESS WOLSELEY'S COFFEE POT]

[Illustration: A SCOFIELD POT OF 1779-80]

[Illustration: COFFEE JUG, 1736]

[Illustration: SILVER COFFEE POTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: SALT-GLAZE POT

By John Astbury]

[Illustration: ELERS WARE COFFEE POT

Stoneware, about 1700]

[Illustration: SALT-GLAZE POT

About 1725]

[Illustration: POTS IN POTTERY AND PORCELAIN 18TH TO 20TH CENTURIES

1--Staffordshire; 2--English, eighteen to twentieth centuries;

3--English, blue printed ware, eighteenth to nineteenth centuries;

4--Leeds, 1760-1790; 5--Staffordshire, nineteenth to twentieth

centuries]

Illustrated, too, are some beautiful examples of the art of the potter,

applied to coffee service, as found in the Metropolitan Museum, where

they have been brought from many countries. Included are Leeds and

Staffordshire examples of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth

centuries; a Sino-Lowestoft pot of the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries;

an Italian (_capodimonte_) pot of the eighteenth century; German pots of

the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; a Vienna coffee pot of the

eighteenth century; a French (_La Seine_) coffee pot of 1774-1793, a

Sèvres pot of 1792-1804; and a Spanish eighteenth-century coffee pot

decorated in copper luster.

At the Metropolitan may be seen also Hatfield and Sheffield-plate pots

of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and many examples of silver

tea and coffee service and coffee pots by American silversmiths.

[Illustration: SILVER COFFEE POTS, LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Left, 1776-77. Right, 1773-4.]

Silver tea pots and coffee pots were few in America before the middle of

the eighteenth century. Early coffee-pot examples were tapering and

cylindrical in form, and later matched the tea pots with swelling drums,

molded bases, decorated spouts, and molded lids with finials.

From notes by R.T. Haines Halsey and John H. Buck, collected by Florence

N. Levy and woven into an introduction to the Metropolitan Museum's art

exhibition catalog for the Hudson-Fulton celebration of 1909, we learn

that:

The first silver made in New England was probably fashioned by

English or Scotch emigrants who had served their time abroad. They

were followed by craftsmen who were either born here, or, like John

Hull, arriving at an early age, learned their trade on this side.

In England it was required that every master goldsmith should have

his mark and set it upon his work after it was assayed and marked

with the king's mark (hall-mark) testifying to the fineness of the

metal.

[Illustration: Sino-Lowestoft, Eighteenth To Nineteenth Centuries]

[Illustration: ITALIAN CAPODIMONTE, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: LA SEINE, 1774

SÈVRES, 1792

GERMAN POTS, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: PORCELAIN POTS IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, NEW YORK]

The Colonial silversmiths marked their wares with their initials,

with or without emblems, placed in shields, circles, etc., without

any guide as to place of manufacture or date. After about 1725 it

was the custom to use the surname, with or without an initial, and

sometimes the full name. Since the establishment of the United

States the name of the town was often added and also the letters D

or C in a circle, probably meaning dollar or coin, showing the

standard or coin from which the wares were made.

In the New York colony there were evolved silver tea pots of a unique

design, that was not used elsewhere in the colonies. Mr. Halsey says

they were used indiscriminately for both tea and coffee. In style they

followed, to a certain extent, the squat pear-shaped tea pots of the

period of 1717-18 in England, but had greater height and capacity.

The colonial silversmiths wrought many beautiful designs in coffee, tea,

and chocolate pots. Fine specimens are to be seen in the Halsey and

Clearwater loan collections in the Metropolitan Museum. Included in the

Clearwater collection is a coffee pot by Pygan Adams (1712-1776); and

recently, there was added a coffee pot by Ephraim Brasher, whose name

appears in the _New York City Directory_ from 1786 to 1805. He was a

member of the Gold and Silversmiths' Society, and he made the die for

the famous gold doubloon, known by his name, a specimen of which

recently sold in Philadelphia for $4,000. His brother, Abraham Brasher,

who was an officer in the continental army, wrote many popular ballads

of the Revolutionary period, and was a constant contributor to the

newspapers.

[Illustration: VIENNA COFFEE POT, 1830

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art]

[Illustration: SPANISH COFFEE POT, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

In the Metropolitan Museum]

Judge Clearwater's collection of colonial silver in the Metropolitan

Museum, to which he is constantly adding, is a magnificent one; and the

coffee pot is worthy of it. It is thirteen and one-half inches high,

weighs forty-four ounces, exclusive of the ebony handle, has a curved

body and splayed base, with a godrooned band to the base and a similar

edge to the cover. The spout is elaborate and curved; the cover has an

urn-shaped finial; and there is a decoration of an engraved medallion

surrounded by a wreath with a ribbon forming a true lover's knot.

[Illustration:

By Samuel Minott By Charles Hatfield By Pygan Adams

Halsey Collection Metropolitan Museum of Art Clearwater Collection

]

[Illustration:

London Pot, 1773-74 By Jacob Hurd By Paul Revere

FROM FRANCIS HILL BIGELOW'S "HISTORIC SILVER OF THE COLONIES"

]

[Illustration: ENGLISH SHEFFIELD PLATE COFFEE POTS AND COFFEE URN,

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: SILVER COFFEE POTS IN AMERICAN COLLECTIONS]

[Illustration: COFFEE POT BY WM. SHAW AND WM. PRIEST

Made for Peter Faneuil (about 1751-52), who gave to Boston Faneuil Hall,

called the cradle of American liberty]

[Illustration: POT OF SHEFFIELD PLATE, 18TH CENTURY

In the Metropolitan Museum]

[Illustration: SILVER POT BY EPHRAIM BRASHER

In the Clearwater Collection, Metropolitan Museum]

In the Halsey collection is shown a silver coffee pot by Samuel Minott,

and several beautiful specimens of the handiwork of Paul Revere, whose

name is more often connected with the famous "midnight ride" than with

the art of the silversmith. Of all the American silversmiths, Paul

Revere was the most interesting. Not only was he a silversmith of

renown, but a patriot, soldier, grand master Mason, confidential agent

of the state of Massachusetts Bay, engraver, picture-frame designer, and

die-sinker. He was born in Boston in 1735, and died in 1818. He was the

most famous of all the Boston silversmiths, although he is more widely

known as a patriot. He was the third of a family of twelve children, and

early entered his father's shop. When only nineteen, his father died;

but he was able to carry on the business. The engraving on his silver

bears witness to his ability. He engraved also on copper, and made many

political cartoons. He joined the expedition against the French at Crown

Point, and in the war of the Revolution was a lieutenant-colonel of

artillery. After the close of the war, he resumed his business of a

goldsmith and silversmith in 1783. Decidedly a man of action, he well

played many parts; and in all his manifold undertakings achieved

brilliant success. There clings, therefore, to the articles of silver

made by him an element of romantic and patriotic association which

endears them to those who possess them.

[Illustration: FRENCH SILVER COFFEE POT

Grand Prize, Union Centrale, 1886.]

Revere had a real talent that enabled him to impart an unwonted elegance

to his work, and he was famous as an engraver of the beautiful crests,

armorial designs, and floral wreaths that adorn much of his work. His

tea pots and coffee pots are unusually beautiful.

Revere coffee pots are to be seen in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts as

well as in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The Boston Museum of

Fine Arts has also a coffee pot made by William Shaw and William Priest

in 1751-52 for Peter Faneuil, the wealthiest Bostonian of his time, who

gave to Boston Faneuil Hall, New England's cradle of American liberty.

Among other American silversmiths who produced striking designs in

coffee pots, mention should be made of G. Aiken (1815); Garrett Eoff

(New York, 1785-1850); Charles Faris (who worked in Boston about 1790);

Jacob Hurd (1702-1758, known in Boston as Captain Hurd); John McMullin

(mentioned in the Philadelphia _Directory_ for 1796); James Musgrave

(mentioned in Philadelphia directories of 1797, 1808, and 1811); Myer

Myers (admitted as freeman, New York, 1746; active until 1790; president

of the New York Silversmiths Society, 1786); and Anthony Rasch (who is

known to have worked in Philadelphia, 1815).

In the museums of the many historical societies throughout the United

States are to be seen interesting specimens of coffee pots in pewter,

Britannia metal, and tin ware, as well as in pottery, porcelain, and

silver. Some of these are illustrated.

[Illustration: THE GREEN DRAGON TAVERN COFFEE URN]

As in other branches of art during the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries, the United States were indebted to England, Holland, and

France for much of the early pottery and porcelain. Elers, Astbury,

Whieldon, Wedgwood, their imitators, and the later Staffordshire

potters, flooded the American market with their wares. Porcelain was not

made in this country previous to the nineteenth century. Decorative

pottery was made here, however, from an early period. Britannia ware

began to take the place of pewter in 1825; and the introduction of

japanned tin ware and pottery gradually caused the manufacture of pewter

to be abandoned.

[Illustration: