TAVERNS.
The old London taverns and chop houses are disappearing year by year,
but there are a few quaint survivals which are interesting. Take it that
on some winter’s evening, we have passed through old Holywell Street,
where the gas is flaring wildly over the doors, and emerge at the foot
of the picturesque St. Clement Danes’ tower, in whose belfry windows are
red lights, while its bells are clanging away noisily, worked by the
strong arms of “the College of Bell Ringers.” We hurry on, passing
through the old Bar, which once seemed like entering a fortified town,
and only wanted a drawbridge; then see to the left, over a little low
porch, the illuminated beacon of “The Cock,” cheerfully inviting
entrance. The long bent passage, with the swing-door at the end, had an
air of ineffable comfort--there was a glimpse of the cozy bar beyond. To
the right hand, as the swing-door opened and shut, you saw the jovial
red curtains within, the blackened mahogany boxes, the hats hung up, and
the sanded floor. It seemed like a whiff of the “Old Maypole.” You
understood at once the significance of Dickens’s old inns, which he
seemed to revel in. How snug that corner seat near the fire--just
holding two--with the stout table in front--the kettle singing close to
you--from below came the sound of cheerful hissing, as the tender chops
or “dinner steak” was being prepared “to follow” or not, as it might
be--to be succeeded again by the peculiar “rare-bit,” the unapproachable
stout, fine port, and finer whiskey!
It was a curious sensation to find refuge here after a weary day, and
look round on the characteristic figures, mostly solitary, dried up, old
lawyers, who have spent their day in company with deeds and papers. They
would have their tumblers of old Scotch--more as a companion for their
thoughts--and you could see their faces wandering placidly to the fire
as if tracing some of their favourite quiddities and quillets there.
Here, too, was to be found the adventurer come to seek his fortune in
the great town, brooding over the buffets already met with, planning how
to fend off others, yet finding a soothing comfort in the placid
retirement of the old hostel.
“I may here mention,” wrote an old City solicitor named Jay, “that the
‘Cock Tavern’ in Fleet Street has been a noted resort of lawyers for
more than two centuries. When I first went there, no chops or steaks
were cooked, but gentlemen and tradesmen went there in the afternoon to
smoke their pipes (cigars being then very little used). The landlord at
that time held a high position in Whitbread’s brewery. It was at this
time kept open during the night, and until the early hours of morning
were far advanced it was often a difficult matter to find an unoccupied
seat. The gentlemen who frequented it were members of the Temple and
other Inns of Court, and used their own silver tankards bearing their
crests, which were exposed to view against the wall of the bar or
coffee-room; and I have still many pleasant reminiscences of oyster and
other suppers furnished at this house; a man from a neighbouring
fishmonger’s being specially retained to open oysters for the numerous
customers, who with sharp appetites kept him fully employed.”
To many persons who have never entered a tavern in their lives, “The
Cock” had a certain charm of association, mainly owing to its having
been celebrated in verse by the Poet Laureate. Perhaps few, again, are
familiar with all he has said or sung upon the subject, contenting
themselves with the oft-quoted lines to the “plump head waiter at ‘The
Cock,’” which gave that personage an immortality. The lines on “Will
Waterproof’s” visit have an extraordinary charm of pensive retrospect
and solitary meditation, and convey an idea of the tone of the old
place, and of the fancies it is likely to engender in some solitary and
perhaps depressed guest. A series of pictures and moods is unfolded in
this charming poem, a sort of dreamy rumination and pleasant sadness;
visions float upwards in the curling fumes of the smoker’s “long clay.”
But only a great poet could extract a refined quintessence from the
mixed vapours of chops and steaks.
WILL WATERPROOF’S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE.
MADE AT “THE COCK.”
O, plump head waiter at “The Cock,”
To which I most resort,
How goes the time? ’Tis five o’clock.
Go fetch a pint of port:
But let it not be such as that
You set before chance comers,
But such whose father-grape grew fat
On Lusitanian summers.
* * * * *
And hence this halo lives about
The waiter’s hands that reach
To each his perfect pint of stout,
His proper chop to each.
He looks not like the common breed
That with the napkin dally;
I think he came like Ganymede,
From some delightful valley.
* * * * *
Ah, let the rusty theme alone!
We know not what we know.
But for my pleasant hour, ’tis gone,
’Tis gone, and let it go.
’Tis gone: a thousand such have slipt
Away from my embraces,
And fallen into the dusty crypt
Of darken’d forms and faces.
* * * * *
This sketch of the “head waiter at the ‘Cock,’” is the portion of the
poem that is the best known and oftenest quoted. But the rest is full of
noble, sad pictures.
The region about is a sort of tavern-land; there used to be a strange
ramshackle place opposite, “Tom’s,” or “Sam’s,” or “Joe’s,” (we forget
which), with the old “Rainbow”; and hard by was “Carr’s”--the older
“Carr’s,”--which owed its repute to a sentence in “Household Words,”
which praised the “capital cut off the joint, washed down by a pint of
good Burgundy.”
You passed through a little squeezed and panelled passage to enter “The
Cock,” and at the end of the passage was seen the little window of the
“snuggery,” or bar, most inviting on a winter’s night, with something
simmering on the hob. There sat one whom we might call “Miss
Abbey”--like Dickens’s directress of the “Fellowship Porters”--to whom
came the waiters, to receive the good hunches, “new or stale?” which
she, according to old unvarying rule, chalked down, or up, on the
mahogany sill of the door. All was duly sawdusted. The ceiling of the
long, low tavern room seemed on our heads. The windows small, like
skylights, opened upon the hilly passage or lane outside. There were
“boxes” or pews all round, with green curtains, of mahogany black as
ebony. But the coveted places--say about a sharp Christmas-time--were
the two that faced the good fire, on which sang a huge kettle. The
curious old chimney-piece over it was of carved oak, with strange
grinning faces, one of which used to delight Dickens, who invited
people’s attention to it particularly. There was a quaintness, too, in
the china trays for the pewter mugs, each decorated with an effigy of a
cock. On application, those in office produced to you a well-thumbed
copy of Defoe’s “History of the Plague,” where allusion is made to the
establishment, and also a little circular box, in which was carefully
preserved one of the copper tokens of the house--a little lean, battered
piece, with the device of a cock, and the inscriptions “The Cock
Alehouse,” and “C. H. M. ATT. TEMPLE BARR, 1655.” The _Intelligencer_,
No. 45, contains the following advertisement: “This is to notify that
the Master of the Cock and Bottle, commonly called the Cock Alehouse, at
Temple Bar, hath dismissed his servants and shut up his house for this
long vacation, intending (God willing) to return at Michaelmas next, so
that all persons whatsoever, who have any Accompts with the said master,
_or Farthings belonging to the said house_, are desired to repair
thither before the 8th of this instant July, and they shall receive
satisfaction.”
It is a pity to find that there is not the conservative continuity in
the line of waiters which should be found in such a place. They seem to
come and go--go rather than come. They used to be all “in key,” as it
were--had grown stout and old in the service. Latterly, time, in its
whirligig changes, had brought round changes almost revolutionary, and
we found strange, unsuitable beings in office. One was a dry, wiry man
of despotic character, who administered on the new modern principles,
unsuited to the easy-going manners of the place. He dealt with the
customers in a prompt, almost harsh style. He knew and recognized no
distinction between old frequenters and new. I fancy he was not popular.
His place was really in the new “restaurants”; but here among the
“boxes” and pews, and on the sanded floor, he was an anachronism. With
the old habitués he was a perfect fly in the ointment. When he found
himself unpopular, he adopted a strange device to recommend himself--the
compounding a curious sauce, which he called “Pick-ant,” and which he
invited guests to try. It did not much avail him, and death has since
removed him to pay his own score.
Mr. Mark Lemon, who had to pass the tavern every day on his road to the
“Punch” office, lower down, has laid a scene in one of his novels at the
little tavern.
In early days, when the then unknown Tennyson dwelt in lofty chambers up
behind the balustraded parapet of No. 57 Lincoln’s Inn Fields (west
side), he used to resort to the “Cock” for his quiet five-o’clock
dinner, where after a pint of the special port, he probably wrote the
famous verses on Will.
An American visitor was fortunate enough to see the poet engaged in
discussing the favourite delicacies of the place:--
“I had the good fortune the other day to come upon Tennyson taking his
chop and kidney at that house, some three doors above the old Temple
Bar, which he has made famous, the ‘Cock.’ I had the curiosity to look
for the ‘half pint of port’ in the poem, but I saw at the bard’s elbow
no wine, fruity or crusted, but a plain pewter of stout, which the
author of ‘Locksley Hall’ discussed like any northern farmer of them
all. He is aged and worn, and bent in the back, with hollow chest; but I
think these are rather the effects of a brooding habit of mind and body
than the marks of physical debility, for he looked tough and muscular.
Tennyson is not a beauty. There was the head-waiter at the ‘Cock,’ and
it was fine to see him waiting on the Laureate. The man was
tremendously conscious of his distinction, and kept watching guests out
of the corner of his eye, to see if they were admiring him. His manner
to Mr. Tennyson was delightful, at once respectful and friendly--just as
if he felt himself a partner in the work which has given the ‘Cock’ a
sort of literary reputation.”
[Illustration: The Old Cock Tavern]
There were old rites and customs of service maintained according to
tradition. Your good clay pipe was brought to you, and the twist of good
and fragrant tobacco. An anchorite or Temperance League man would find
it hard to resist the apparatus for mixing the “brew” of “hot drink” or
“Scotch,” the little pewter “noggin,” the curling rind of lemon with the
more juicy fragment of the interior, and the tiny glass holding a
sufficiency of sugar, with the neat black jug filled from the copper
kettle always boiling on the hob.
Alas! we have now to lament the fate of the pleasant, social snug old
“Cock.” In course of time the buildings around it fell into decay, or
were demolished. The Law Courts were built and opened; the fish shop
close by was taken down and removed to another district. To this state
of things it came at last--that every house near it had gone, and there
only remained a sort of little tunnel with the swinging glass door, with
the gilt, defiant Cock above, while behind was the old tavern, standing
solitary in its decay. People wondered at this vitality, and how in the
general wreck and destruction the old hostel was not swept off. But the
heroic Colnett kept his ground. The old liquor, the old pipe and
“screws” were still supplied as of yore. The customers were staunch.
But, what consternation, when, one morning it became known that the gilt
presentment of the bird--the supposed “Grinling”--had disappeared, had
been stolen in a vulgar way, much as the famous Gainsborough Duchess had
been cut from her frame! Now it was felt indeed that the charm was gone;
there was nothing to rally round. Still we clung to the old place. But,
somehow, with the loss of the bird it was felt that a change had come
over the place.
But the last stroke came. One day it struck the visitor that the chop
had lost the old succulent flavour. It was a good chop, but had not the
aroma. So marked was this that inquiry was made. “The meat was
good--_the best Spiers and Pond could supply_.” What! Had it come to
this! Spiers and Pond! Yes, it was true--the eminent caterers had taken
over the place--the “Cock” of the Plague, of Pepys, of Tennyson, and of
the Templars! This was a sad business--the knell of the place was rung.
As the bird was gone the nest might go too. After that blow I fled the
place and never returned.
The end was not long in coming. The eminent firm of caterers did not
long pursue their venture. In a very short time hoardings began to be
set up, the tunnel was invaded, and the “Cock” closed for ever. Farewell
now to the dreaming, ruminating winter’s night, the mellow Scotch, the
screw of Birdseye. The last incident connected with this destruction
was, however, appropriate enough. One of the famous old tankards,
adorned with a suitable inscription--“a pint pot neatly graven”--was
sent to the Poet who, we say, had done so much for the place. The
Laureate wrote gracefully:--
“Mr. Earringford, I have this morning received the ‘Old Cock’
Tavern tankard. Will you give my best thanks to Messrs. Spiers and
Pond for their present, and tell them that I shall keep it as an
heirloom in my family, as a memorial not only of the old vanished
tavern, but also of their kindness.--Yours faithfully,
“TENNYSON.”
On the site of the old Tavern, where was the fish shop, etc., the Bank
of England has just reared a splendid and imposing Italian edifice,
which harmonizes well with the Law Courts. The proprietor has moved to
the other side of the street, taking with him all his properties--the
old mahogany boxes, fireplace, tankards, etc.--reconstructing a sort of
ghostly “Cock.” Even the gilt bird, a very spirited piece of work, even
if _not_ Grinling’s, flourishes away over the door. But it is not the
same thing--can never be.[18]
There were two other taverns almost _vis-à-vis_, and each with antique
claims. One, “The Rainbow,” which boasts a remote pedigree. But though
you enter in the favourite Fleet Street style, through a narrow passage,
the place itself has undergone much restoration. “Dicks’” the other, was
down one of the Temple lanes, dark and grimed, and somewhat rudely
appointed, as though it wished to rest its claims entirely upon its
“chops and steaks,” and upon nothing else. “Dicks’” used to be labelled
outside “Ben Jonson’s Noted House,” and boasted of having enjoyed the
custom of that eminent man. “Dicks’” however, has gone. It has fallen
into the hands of Germans, who hold a table d’hôte.
The art and science of cooking chops is not nearly so highly esteemed as
it used to be in the last century, when noblemen and gentlemen
frequented taverns, and clubs did not exist, save at taverns. The
history of the lately revived Beefsteak Club is familiar; its huge
gridiron is still to be seen in its old feasting room at the Lyceum
Theatre, with its admirable motto, “If it were done when ’tis done,”
etc. The greatest chop and steak eater of his day, and patron of this
club, was the Duke of Norfolk, a gross and coarse feeder, who often
astounded visitors by his consumption of successive steaks brought in
“hot and hot,” and consumed voraciously.
Fleet Street, interesting in so many ways, is remarkable for the curious
little courts and passages into which you make entry, under small
archways. These are “Johnson’s Court,” “Bolt Court,” “Racquet Court,”
and the like. Indeed, it is evident that the strange little passage
which led to the “Cock” must have been originally an entrance to one of
these courts on which the tavern gradually encroached. Much the same are
found in the Borough, only these lead into greater courts and inn yards.
But in Fleet Street there is one that is specially interesting. We can
fancy the Doctor tramping up to his favourite tavern, the “Cheshire
Cheese.”
Passing into the dark alley known as “Wine Office Court,” we come to a
narrow flagged passage, the house or wall on the other side quite close,
and excluding the light. The “Cheese” looks, indeed, a sort of dark den,
an inferior public-house, its grimed windows like those of a shop, which
we can look in at from the passage. On entering, there is the little bar
facing us, and always the essence of snugness and cosiness; to the right
a small room, to the left a bigger one. This is the favourite tavern,
with its dirty walls and sawdusted floor, a few benches put against the
wall, and two or three plain tables of the rudest kind. The grill is
heard hissing in some back region, where the chop or small steak is
being prepared; and it may be said _en passant_, that the flavour and
treatment of the chop and “small dinner steak”--are there breakfast and
luncheon steaks also?--are quite different from those “done” on the more
pretentious grills which have lately sprung up. On the wall is a
testimonial portrait of a rather bloated waiter--Todd, I think, by
name--quite suggestive of the late Mr. Liston. He is holding up his
corkscrew of office to an expectant guest, either in a warning or
exultant way, as if he had extracted the cork in a masterly style.
Underneath is a boastful inscription that it was painted in 1812, to be
hung up as an heirloom and handed down, having been executed under the
reign of Dolamore, who then owned the place. Strange to say, the waiter
of the “Cheshire Cheese” has been sung, like his brother at the “Cock,”
but not by such a bard. There is a certain irreverence; but the parody
is a good one:--
Waiter at the “Cheshire Cheese,”
Uncertain, gruff, and hard to please,
When “tuppence” smooths thy angry brow,
A ministering angel thou!
It has its regular habitués; and on Saturday or Friday there is a
“famous rump-steak pie,” which draws a larger attendance; for it is
considered that you may search the wide world round without matching
that succulent delicacy. These great savoury meat pies do not kindle the
ardour of many persons, being rather strong for the stomachs of babes.
Well, then, hither it was that Dr. Johnson used to repair. True,
neither Boswell, nor Hawkins, nor after them Mr. Croker, take note of
the circumstance; but there were many things that escaped Mr. Croker,
diligent as he was. There is, however, excellent evidence of the fact. A
worthy solicitor named Jay--who is garrulous but not unentertaining in a
book of anecdotes which he has written--frequented the “Cheshire Cheese”
for fifty years, during which long tavern life, he says, “I have been
interested in seeing young men when I first went there, who afterwards
married; then in seeing their sons dining there, and often their
grandsons, and much gratified by observing that most of them succeeded
well in life. This applies particularly to the lawyers, with whom I have
so often dined when students, when barristers, and some who were
afterwards judges.
“During the time I have frequented this house there have been only three
landlords--Mr. Carlton, Mr. Dolamore, and Mr. Beaufoy Moore, the present
one; and during each successive occupation the business has increased. I
may here mention that when I first visited the house, I used to meet
several very old gentlemen who remembered Dr. Johnson nightly at the
‘Cheshire Cheese’; and they have told me, what is not generally known,
that the Doctor, whilst living in the Temple, always went to the ‘Mitre’
or the ‘Essex Head’; but when he removed to Gough Square and Bolt Court
he was a constant visitor at the ‘Cheshire Cheese’, because nothing but
a hurricane would have induced him to cross Fleet Street. All round this
neighbourhood, if you want to rent a room or an office, you are sure to
be told that it was once the residence of either Dr. Johnson or Oliver
Goldsmith! Be that as it may, it is an interesting locality, and a
pleasing sign--the ‘Old Cheshire Cheese Tavern,’ Wine Office Court,
Fleet Street--which will afford the present generation, it is hoped, for
some time to come, an opportunity of witnessing the kind of tavern in
which our forefathers delighted to assemble for refreshment.”[19]
Doctor Johnson died in 1788--and this solicitor’s acquaintance with the
place began scarcely twenty years after the Doctor’s death. The old
frequenter’s memory would therefore have been very fresh. His style too,
is pleasant. This worthy reminiscent dedicates his labours, in a quaint
inscription, “To the Lawyers and Gentlemen with whom I have dined for
more than half a century at the ‘Old Cheshire Cheese Tavern,’ Wine
Office Court, Fleet Street; this work is respectfully dedicated by their
obedient servant, Cyrus Jay.”
On the other side of Fleet Street we can see the “Mitre Tavern,” closing
up the end of a court--but not the old original “Mitre,” where Johnson
sat with Boswell. It was pulled down within living memory, and with it
the corner in which the sage used to sit, and which was religiously
marked by his bust. Yet, even as it stands in its restoration, there is
something quaint in the feeling, as you enter a low, covered passage
from Fleet Street, and see its cheerful open door at the end. There are
other taverns with such approaches in the street. The “Old Bell” is
curiously retired. The passage to the “Mitre” is as it was in Johnson’s
day, and his eyes must have been often raised to the old beams that
support its roof. Even in its modern shape it retains much that is
old-fashioned and _rococo_. It is like a country tavern in London, with
its “ordinary” at noon--and a good one too--and its retirement; so close
and yet so far from the hum and clatter of Fleet Street.
From the old tavern we pass into the open _place_ where St. Clement
Danes stands--one of the most Dutch-like spots in London, to which idea
the quaint and rather elegant tower lends itself. To hear its chimes,
not at midnight, but on some December evening, when the steeple is
projected on a cold blue background, while you can see the shadows of
the ringers in the bell-tower, offers a picturesque effect. The bells
fling out their janglings more wildly than any peal in London: they are
nearer the ground, and the hurly-burly is melodious enough. Those tones
the Doctor often heard in Gough Square and Bolt Court, and within he had
his favourite seat, to this day reverently marked by a plate and
inscription. Yet St. Clement’s is in a precarious way, and before many
years its fate will be decided.
It is perhaps Gough Square, to which one of the little passages out of
Fleet Street leads, that most faithfully preserves the memory of
Johnson. It is rather a court than a square; so small is it that
carriages could never have entered, and it is surrounded with good old
brick houses that in their day were of some pretensions. The Society of
Arts has fixed a tablet in the wall, recording that “Here lived Samuel
Johnson.” The houses are of a good, sound old brick; some have carved
porticoes, and one is set off by two rather elegant Corinthian
pilasters. There is a pleasant flavour of grave old fashion and
retirement about the place, and little has as yet been touched or pulled
down. Johnson’s house faces us, and is about the most conspicuous. He
had, of course, merely rooms, as it is a rather large mansion; a little
shaken and awry, queerly shaped about the upper story, but snug and
compact. It was lately a “commercial family boarding-house,” and the
hall is “cosy” to a degree, with its panelled dado running round and up
the twisted stairs, in short easy lengths of four or five steps, with
landings--which would suit the Doctor’s chest. The whole is in harmony.
We can see him labouring up the creaking stairs. A few peaceful traders
are in occupation of the Square--printers, and the like. It is an
old-world spot, has an old-world air, and suggests a snug country inn.
But, turning back to Essex Street, and not many doors down on the left,
at the corner of a little cross passage leading to the pretty Temple
gate, with its light iron work, we come on the “Essex Head Tavern,” an
old, mean public-house of well-grimed brick. It was here, in his decay,
that Johnson set up a kind of inferior club. Boswell is angry with
Hawkins for calling it an “alehouse,” as if in contempt; but certainly,
while the “Cheshire Cheese,” the “Mitre,” and the “Cock” are taverns,
this seems to have been more within the category of an ale or
public-house. It has been so rearranged and altered to suit the
intentions and purposes of the modern “public,” that there is no tracing
its former shape. In the passage there is a little room known as the
“parlour,” underneath which accommodation has been found for a cobbler’s
stall. The proprietors should surely have Johnson’s “rules” hung up.
Probably they never heard of his name.
[Illustration: THE MAGPIE AND STUMP, Portsmouth Street.]