THE PRESS AND THE “CHEESE”
Crown high the goblets with a cheerful draught;
Enjoy the present hour; adjourn the future thought.
DRYDEN’S _Virgil_.
Among the earlier notices of the “Cheese” which have appeared in
newspapers is the following, taken from _Common Sense, or, the
Englishman’s Journal_,[6] of Saturday, April 23, 1737:—
“On Sunday, April 17, one Harper, who formerly lived with Mr.
Holyoake at the sign of the ‘Old Cheshire Cheese,’ in Wine Office
Court, Fleet Street, for eight years, found Means to conceal himself
in the House, and early on Monday Morning got into the Room where
the Daughter lay, and where Mr. Holyoake (as he well knew) kept his
Money; and accordingly he took away a small Box wherein was £200
and Notes to the Value of £600 more. The Child, hearing a Noise,
happily awaked, and cry’d out, ‘Mammy, Mammy, a Man has carried away
the Box;’ which alarm’d her Father and Mother, who lay near, and
immediately they got up; which oblig’d the Fellow to hide himself in
the Chimney, where he was discover’d, with the Box carefully ty’d up
in a Handkerchief, and being secur’d, was afterwards carried before
the Lord Mayor, who committed him to Newgate.”
In the _Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser_ of Monday, August 9,
1784, we read an account of an attempted murder at the “Cheese.”
It appears that a porter in the Temple named John Gromont induced
a woman who had cohabited with, and then deserted him, to accept a
drink at a public-house in Wine Office Court, “where, starting up in
a fit of frenzy, he cut the woman’s throat.”
“Before the transaction he had made several attempts to destroy
himself at Mr. Bosher’s, the Rainbow, opposite the end of Chancery
Lane, in Fleet Street, and other public-houses in the neighbourhood.”
Coming to a more recent period, we find the press notices of the
“Cheese” increase in frequency. _Punch_, for April 14, 1864,
describes a famous evening at the “Cheese.” Mr. John Cordy
Jeaffreson, no mean authority, in his “A Book about the Table,”
mentions the “Cheese” as one of the three houses in the immediate
neighbourhood of the Inns of Court worthy of comparison with those
near St. Paul’s, and so the references go on ever spreading till they
cross the Atlantic and even return from the Antipodes.
Considerations of space will only permit a few further quotations
from the vast mass of journalistic literature dealing with the
subject.
The _Kent Examiner and Ashford Chronicle_ of June 20, 1885,
referring to the “Cheese,” says:—“It is very generally believed that
Shakespeare was one of its numerous frequenters, but undoubtedly
one famous man was, namely—François Marie Arouet, otherwise
Voltaire—while often enough were present Bolingbroke, Pope, and
Congreve, and it is well known that Rare Ben Jonson was one of its
most jolly frequenters. Coming down to more modern times, among the
many customers of the house have been Douglas Jerrold, Mark Lemon,
Shirley Brooks, Tom Taylor, Tom Hood, and last, but not least,
Thackeray and Dickens.”
In “A Walk up Fleet Street,” which appeared in the _Sunday Times_,
the following passage occurs:—“The Cheshire Cheese is not imposing
in appearance, nor is it even to be seen from the street. Two
little courts lead to its somewhat dingy portals; portals much
frequented by the London correspondents of provincial journals and
gallery reporters. More or less throughout every day of the week
barristers and journalists—even members of Parliament are not always
missing—come to this house for their dinner, and sit contentedly
round the sides of two good old-fashioned rooms. But it is on
Saturday that the Cheshire Cheese is seen at its best. Then it is
that ‘rump-steak pudding’ makes its appearance; announced all the
week, anxiously expected, come at last!”
The _Reporter_, of October 28, 1874, says of the “Cheese”:—
“We have occasionally used this old-fashioned house for over a
quarter of a century, and can conscientiously assert that for its
chops and steaks, cold beef and salad, and marvellous rump-steak
pudding, and for the alacrity with which these edibles are supplied
the establishment is unmatchable in the metropolis. Besides, the malt
liquors are of the strongest and the best brew, and the whiskies are
mellow and old; whilst the ancient punch, which is served exactly as
compounded in the days of Dr. Johnson, is simply nectar worthy of
elevating even the gods.”
Under the heading “Some Gossip about Famous Taverns,” a writer in the
_Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette_ says:—
“What man who has ever been called into Fleet Street, either on
business or pleasure, does not know the sawdusted floor and old-time
appointments of the Cheshire Cheese? Who would dare to confess
ignorance of the Brobdingnagian chops, the world-famous point steaks,
the stewed cheese, which constitute its main attractions all the
year round? Who has not here devoted himself during the hot summer
months, in the cool dining-room which seems ever impervious to the
sun’s rays, to the manufacture of an elaborate salad to enjoy with
his cold beef? And who, again, has never yet been so fortunate as to
witness that appetising procession to be seen every Saturday during
the winter months, when Mr. Moore, the master of the house, in dress
coat clad, and armed with a mighty carver, precedes into the room
that mighty steak and oyster pudding, the secret of whose manufacture
has never been allowed to penetrate beyond the mazes of Wine Office
Court.”
And again the same writer observes:—“The secret of the success of the
Cheshire Cheese is that everything sold within its doors is good. For
this we prefer its sanded floors to marble halls, for this we listen
curiously to the weird cry of the waiter up the crooked staircase
of ‘Rudderhumbake,’ which, by old experience, we know heralds
the approach of a choice cut from the mighty rump of a succulent
shorthorn or an Aberdeen steer.”
The _Philadelphia Times_ of October, 1884, thus refers to the
“Cheese”:—
“A famous man who haunted the ‘Cheese’ was Voltaire, side by side
with Bolingbroke, Pope, and Congreve, and there is to-day an old play
in manuscript in Scotland, written in Rare Ben Jonson’s day, in which
these lines occur:—
“Heaven bless ‘The Cheese’ and all its goodly fare—
I wish to Jove I could go daily there.
Then fill a bumper up, my good friend, please—
May fortune ever bless the ‘Cheshire Cheese.’”
A reviewer in the _City Press_ (October 30, 1875) says:—“Ben Jonson
loved the ‘Cheese’; and at one time you had only to walk into a Fleet
Street coffee-house to become familiar with all the choice spirits of
the age. Dean Swift, Addison, and Steele affected the tavern; so did
Sheridan, and so did Lord Eldon, and so, indeed, did all men of mark
down to our own time.”
An article headed:—
“YE RUMPE STEAKE PUDDINGE”
in the _Fort Worth (Texas) Daily Gazette_ opens as follows:—
“While I am on the subject of ‘food’ I must be permitted to mention
that I enjoyed the privilege of partaking of ‘ye rumpe steake
puddinge’ a few days since at no less celebrated board than ‘The
Cheese,’ Wine Office Court, Fleet Street. ‘The Cheese,’ or, to
give it its full title, ‘Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese,’ is now the most
historical tavern of all the old taverns in London. Nearly all the
other taverns have had to make way for the more modern restaurant or
public-house. Little is known, it seems, of the very early history
of the place. A _brochure_ entitled ‘Round London,’ published in
1725, describes the house as ‘Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese tavern, near
ye Flete Prison, an eating house for goodly fare.’ And now in 1883,
or very near the beginning of the year 1884, I can bear cheerful
witness to the fact that it still deserves to be classed with the
very few public places in London where one can secure ‘goodly fare.’
The rump-steak pudding, which is the special feature of the place,
is certainly toothsome, and is not apt to be speedily forgotten by
the epicure. It has been served promptly at one o’clock p.m. every
Saturday ‘since when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,’
and the particular one that I assisted to dissect was enjoyed by
quite a hundred persons. Though nominally a ‘steak pudding,’ there
are very many other ingredients in the dish than rump steak. It is
said that for more than 200 years the old tavern has changed hands
but twice, and that it is now in the hands of the third family that
has helped to keep up its ancient reputation. It is also said that
the recipe by which the pudding is builded is a secret that belongs
to the place, and is as sacred an heirloom as the old oil painting
of Henry Todd, who, according to the inscription on the portrait,
commenced waiter at the ‘Old Cheshire Cheese’ February 17, 1812.
This picture was, according to the inscription again, ‘painted by
Wageman, July, 1827, subscribed for by the gentlemen frequenting the
coffee-room, and presented to Mr. Dolamore (the landlord) in trust,
to be handed down as a heirloom to all future landlords of the Old
Cheshire Cheese, Wine Office Court, Fleet Street.’”
“Henry Todd, ‘Old’ Harry as he was familiarly called by the visitors,
had made a considerable sum of money while in his situation,” writes
the compiler of the great work on which the British Museum so prides
itself, “Signs of Taverns,” “but I am informed that a spendthrift son
reduced his circumstances much. To a stranger he appears a morose,
cynical kind of man, apparently not by any means adapted for the
waitership of a tavern, although he is always attentive to the wants
of his customers. Perhaps he was a different being when younger, and
to those who were old customers of the house and who knew him well,
he used more freedom probably.
“The portrait, I am informed, is the first attempt in oil by
that exceedingly talented artist Wageman, and was painted at the
instigation of a visitor to the house, a Mr. Thomas Morell, a
well-known pen and quill dealer who resided in the Broadway, Ludgate
Hill (a brother of the Morell also pen and ink dealer in Fleet
Street), and who was well known to the public for his eccentricity by
the name of Peculiar Tom Morell, from the singularity of his puffs
and advertisements.”
“Old Harry” retired soon after the portrait-painting from age and
infirmity, but was alive at Christmas, 1838.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Printed and sold by J. Purser in White Fryars, and G. Hawkins at
Milton’s Head, between the Two Temple Gates, Fleet St. MDCCXXXVII.