THE “CHESHIRE CHEESE” IN LITERATURE
“THE FIELD OF ART” (“Scribner”), Feb. 1897:
“There is no date recorded of the building of the ‘Cheese,’ but
for over two hundred years it has been in existence, and has been
patronised by celebrities of every degree. Charles II. ate a chop
there with Nell Gwynne. A brass tablet in one corner informs you that
this was the favourite seat of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and the panelling
immediately below is quite polished by the heads of generations of
the faithful who have held it an honour to occupy the seat....
“Along Fleet Street nineteenth century humanity rushes in throngs,
feverishly intent on the main chance. But now and again units from
the mass fall out and disappear into a little doorway, so unobtrusive
in its character as to be easily passed by strangers in search of
it. A small passageway, a bit of court, and one enters the Old
Cheshire Cheese, treading in the footsteps of generations of wits
and philosophers. A wit the visitor may not be, but he is certain to
be the other in one way or another, and his purpose in coming here
can have little in common with the hurly-burly he has but just left
out there in Fleet Street. The tide of affairs has left him stranded
on an oasis of peculiar charm—a low-ceilinged room, brown as an old
meerschaum, heavily raftered, and carrying to the sensitive nostril
the scent of ages, the indescribable aroma inseparable from these
haunts of geniality: the merry glow of the fire in the old grate,
flirting tiny flames upwards that caress the steaming, singing kettle
hanging just above. The old copper scuttle glints with the fitful
gleams upon its burnished pudgy sides; the floor spread abundantly
with sawdust softens the sounds of footfalls. The white tablecloths
make the note of tidiness relieving the prevailing low tone of the
room.... The silk hats and trousers of modern London almost seem out
of harmony with the cosy quaintness of their environment; but smalls
and buckles, and cocked hats pass away, and architecture survives the
fashions and persons of its creators.
“The waiter before one looks very different from the picture on the
wall of his one-time predecessor, but, what is important, the spirit
remains the same. In an atmosphere of good fellowship the frequenters
of to-day converse over their chop and pint, or perhaps before the
cheery fire nurse their knees in reflective mood, drawn together by
the same instincts that animated this delightful company of old.
“But who among these, if appealed to, could define the æsthetic
charm of the place? Is it the rich colouring of yellow, and old
gold, and silver, and brown, the traditions mellow as old wine that
sweeten the atmosphere, the satisfaction of the senses, the pure
contentment of soul, the pause by the way for the furbishing of one’s
mental apparel? It is all these and more that make the Old Cheshire
Cheese a delight, and, when one has gone, leaves of its high-backed
benches and polished tables, its general aspect of warm and cheery
hospitality, a glowing memory.”
* * * * *
“CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL,” Saturday, June 2, 1883, after speaking of
an imaginary journey from Temple Bar eastward, thus describes the
“Cheese”:
“There is another old City tavern where Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith
often sat together over a snug dinner, a tavern in Wine Office
Court called the Old Cheshire Cheese. Passing along Fleet Street
and glancing up this court, those magic words seem to take up all
the space in the distance as completely as though they were being
glanced at through a telescope, and if you follow the instincts of
your nature you will dive down the telescope towards the attractive
lamp above the door, and enter the tavern. The customary pint of
stout in an old pewter will be placed before you, if your taste
lies that way; and when you have finished your chop, or steak, or
pudding as the case may be, there will follow that speciality for
which the Cheshire Cheese is principally noted, a dish of bubbling
and blistering cheese, which comes up scorching in an apparatus
resembling a tin of Everton toffee in size and shape.
“It was the same when frequented by Johnson and Goldsmith, and their
favourite seats in the north-east corner of the window are still
pointed out. Nothing is changed—except the waiters, in course of
nature—in this conservative and cosy tavern. If Goldsmith did not
actually write parts of the ‘Vicar of Wakefield’ in that corner, he
must have thought out more chapters than one while seated there. He
lived in Wine Office Court, and here it is supposed the novel begun
at Canonbury Tower was finished.”
* * * * *
“PICTURESQUE LONDON” (Percy Fitzgerald):
“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. 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 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 dingy 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 steak
are quite different from those ‘done’ on the more pretentious grills
which have lately sprung up. On the wall is the 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 an 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 _habitués_, and on Saturday there is a famous rump-steak
pudding 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 puddings 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, takes note
of the circumstances, 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 barristers with whom I have so often dined when students, when
barristers, and some who were afterwards judges.’”
Mr. Fitzgerald then goes on to quote from Jay the extract given in an
earlier chapter, and concludes by saying, “Be that as it may, it is
an interesting locality and a pleasing sign—the Old Cheshire Cheese,
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.”
* * * * *
G. A. S. (“Twice Round the Clock: Six P.M.”) (talking of the ancient
Roman repasts): “Better I take it, a mutton chop at the Cheshire
Cheese than those nasty ancient Roman repasts.”
* * * * *
THE “GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE,” April, 1895 (“A Six Days’ Tour in London
with a Pretty Cousin”):—
“We must take a glance at a tavern of the good old pattern close
by, which has a regular pedigree and has had books written about
it—the Cheshire Cheese to wit. We go up Wine Office Court and there
it stands with its blinking windows and somewhat shaky walls.... Not
so, Mr. Sylvanus Urban, the windows of the good old house may blink,
but there is nothing shaky about the walls, they at all events are
founded on a rock solid as the credit of the house. No wonder too,
for it carries its two hundred years or so bravely enough, and like
its extinct neighbour, the Cock, witnessed the Plague and Fire. It
is needless to say that the older Cheshire Cheese perished in the
Fire of London, which stopped about a hundred yards west of Wine
Office Court, just on the City side of St. Dunstan’s Church. Here the
floor is sanded—or rather sawdusted; here are boxes and rude tables;
the chop is done on a gridiron before you, and there is a beefsteak
pudding which delights epicures.”
* * * * *
WALTER THORNBURY (“Old and New London”):
“Goldsmith appears to have resided at No. 6 Wine Office Court from
1760 to 1762. They still point out Johnson and Goldsmith’s favourite
seats in the north-east corner of the window of that cosy though
utterly unpretentious tavern, the Cheshire Cheese in this court.
“It was while living in Wine Office Court that Goldsmith is
supposed to have partly written that delightful novel, the ‘Vicar
of Wakefield,’ which he had begun at Canonbury Tower. We like to
think that seated in the ‘Cheese’ he perhaps espied and listened
to the worthy but credulous vicar and his gosling son attending to
the profound theories of the learned and philosophic but shifty
Mr. Jenkinson. We think now, by the windows, with a cross light
upon his coarse Irish features and his round prominent brow, we
see the watchful poet sit eyeing his prey, secretly enjoying the
grandiloquence of the swindler and the admiration of the honest
country parson.”
* * * * *
MR. LEWIS HOUGH, in “Once a Week,” Oct. 26, 1867:
“The historical haunts of Fleet Street have a peculiar charm for
those who are open to the influences of association. The bench
may be hard, but Dr. Johnson has sat upon it; the oak panelling
is not luxurious to lean back against, but the periwigs of Steele
and Addison have pressed it; the little room may be dingy, but
the peach-coloured garments of Goldsmith once lent it a temporary
brilliancy.
“The Cock, immortalised by Tennyson, will live for ever in poetry,
but the architects, alas! have decided that it shall vanish from the
world of prose. But there is a favourite haunt of mine higher up in
Fleet Street. There you can feast upon marrow bones. On Saturdays
the _pièce de résistance_ is a wonderful pudding compounded of
steaks, oysters, kidneys, and other unknown delicacies; there is a
smoking-room upstairs, where punch is served in an old-fashioned
bowl, with glasses of the pattern in use in the last century.
THE CHEESE IN THE TIME OF JOHNSON
“‘As soon as I enter the door of a tavern’—and many were the taverns
whose doors the great Samuel entered—exclaimed Dr. Johnson from that
tavern chair which he regarded as the throne of human felicity, ‘I
experience an oblivion of care and a freedom from solitude; when I
am seated I find the master courteous’ (courtesy is thus hereditary
in the masters of the Cheshire Cheese) ‘and the servants obsequious
to my call, anxious to know and ready to supply my wants; wine then
exhilarates my spirits and prompts me to free conversation and an
interchange of discourse with those whom I most love: I dogmatise and
am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinion and sentiments I
delight.’
“One can picture to oneself Johnson when he had entered and taken his
favourite seat at the Cheshire Cheese, the fire blazing then as it
blazes to-day, after a lapse of more than a century, in the mighty
grate, and casting its flashes, as it casts them to-day, over the
same oak-wainscotted walls, infusing a ruddier glow into the red
curtains drawn across the windows, and dropping a deeper-dyed ruby
into the drink that was meant for men.
“All the other tavern haunts which Johnson and his disciples
frequented have passed away or been improved out of all semblance to
the Johnson era; but the Cheese remains, within and without, the same
as it did when Goldsmith reeled up the steps to his lodgings opposite
the main entrance in Wine Office Court, or Johnson rolled his huge
bulk past it to the house in Gough Square, where his wife died in
1752 and the Dictionary was completed in 1755.”
MR. PHILIP NORMAN, in the “Illustrated London News” for December,
1890, remarks, in his “Inns and Taverns of Old London”:
“The faithful journey to the Cheshire Cheese firm in the belief that
when Goldsmith lived hard by in Wine Office Court the two friends
must have spent many an hour together in those panelled rooms and
have sat on the seat assigned to them by tradition. Now that the Cock
has quitted his original home, though under his former proprietor”
(it must be remembered this was written in 1890, and does not hold
at present—he crows gallantly over the way) “the Cheshire Cheese is
unquestionably the most perfect specimen of an old-fashioned tavern
in London.”
JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON (“A Book about the Table,” vol. ii. page 43):
“But ere we pass from beef to less majestic delicacies, let us render
homage to the steak pudding, than which no goodlier fare can be
found for a strong hungry man on a cold day. Rising from his pudding
at the Cheshire Cheese, such a feaster is at a loss to say whether
he should be most grateful for the tender steak, savoury oyster,
seductive kidney, fascinating lark, rich gravy, ardent pepper, or
delicate paste.”
* * * * *
“SCRIBNER” (“In London with Dickens”), March, 1881:
“These noisy and nasty eating-houses” (in and about Chancery Lane)
“are in striking contrast with the staid old-fashioned taverns in the
same neighbourhood, the Cheshire Cheese, etc.”
* * * * *
“The tavern,” says SIR WALTER BESANT (in “Fifty Years Ago”), “We can
hardly understand how large a place it filled in the lives of our
forefathers, who did not live scattered about in suburban villas,
but over their shops and offices. When business was over, all, of
every class, repaired to the tavern. Dr. Johnson spent the evenings
of his last years wholly at the tavern; the lawyer, the draper, the
grocer, even the clergyman, all spent their evenings at the tavern,
going home in time for supper with their families. The Cheshire
Cheese is a survival; the Cock, until recently, was another. And
when one contrasts the cold and silent coffee-room of the new great
club, where the men glare at each other, with the bright and cheerful
tavern where every man talked with his neighbour, and the song went
round, and the great kettle bubbled upon the hearth, one feels that
civilisation has its losses.”
* * * * *
MARK LEMON (“Punch”):
“LINES WRITTEN AT THE ‘CHEESE.’
“DEDICATED TO LOVELACE.
“Champagne will not a dinner make,
Nor caviare a meal.
Men gluttonous and rich may take
Those till they make them ill.
If I’ve potatoes to my chop,
And after chop have cheese,
Angels in Pond & Spiers’s shops
Know no such luxuries.”
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 24 Changed: Views of the Honse
to: Views of the House
pg 24 Changed: Mecca of Anglo-Saxondum
to: Mecca of Anglo-Saxondom
pg 50 Changed: anl the natural result
to: and the natural result