Chapter II: Part 2

the only places, probably, where they were extensively read. In return for the doubtful celebrity thus conferred upon his rhymes, he attacked the satirist in a wretched production, intituled _Apollo's Maggot in his Cups_; his expiring effort, probably, for he died, as recorded in the pages of our first volume, on the 22nd of June, 1731. His remains were buried in the churchyard of Old St. Pancras, his body being followed to the grave solely by his wife and daughter, as directed by him in his poetical will, written some six years before. We learn from Noble that there are no less than four engraved portraits of Ned Ward. The structure of the _London Spy_, the only work of his that at present comes under our notice, is simple enough. The author is self-personified as a countryman, who, tired with his "tedious confinement to a country hutt," comes up to London; where he fortunately meets with a quondam school-fellow,--a "man about town," in modern phrase,--who undertakes to introduce him to the various scenes, sights, and mysteries of the, even then, "great metropolis:" much like the visit, in fact, from Jerry Hawthorn to Corinthian Tom, only anticipated by some hundred and twenty years. "We should not be at all surprised (says the _Gentleman's Magazine_,) to find that the stirring scenes of Pierce Egan's _Life in London_ were first suggested by more homely pages of the _London Spy_."

At the outset of the work we have a description--not a very flattering one, certainly--of a common coffee-house of the day, one of the many hundreds with which London then teemed. Although coffee had been only known in England some fifty years, coffee-houses were already among the most favourite institutions of the land; though they had not as yet attained the political importance which they acquired in the days of the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_, some ten or twelve years later:--

"'Come,' says my friend, 'let us step into this coffee-house here; as you are a stranger in the town, it will afford you some diversion.' Accordingly in we went, where a parcel of muddling muckworms were as busy as so many rats in an old cheese-loft; some going, some coming, some scribbling, some talking, some drinking, some smoking, others jangling; and the whole room stinking of tobacco, like a Dutch scoot [schuyt], or a boatswain's cabin. The walls were hung round with gilt frames, as a farrier's shop with horse-shoes; which contained abundance of rarities, viz., Nectar and Ambrosia, May-dew, Golden Elixirs, Popular Pills, Liquid Snuff, Beautifying Waters, Dentifrices, Drops, and Lozenges; all as infallible as the Pope, 'Where every one (as the famous Saffolde has it) above the rest, Deservedly has gain'd the name of best:' every medicine being so catholic, it pretends to nothing less than universality. So that, had not my friend told me 'twas a coffee-house, I should have taken it for Quacks' Hall, or the parlour of some eminent mountebank. We each of us stuck in our mouths a pipe of sotweed, and now began to look about us."

A description of Man's Coffee-house, situate in Scotland-yard, near the water-side, is an excellent picture of a fashionable coffee-house of the day. It took its name from the proprietor, Alexander Man, and was sometimes known as Old Man's, or the Royal Coffee-house, to distinguish it from Young Man's and Little Man's minor establishments in the neighbourhood:--

"We now ascended a pair of stairs, which brought us into an old-fashioned room, where a gaudy crowd of odoriferous _Tom-Essences_ were walking backwards and forwards with their hats in their hands, not daring to convert them to their intended use, lest it should put the foretops of their wigs into some disorder. We squeezed through till we got to the end of the room, where, at a small table, we sat down, and observed that it was as great a rarity to hear anybody call for a dish of _Politician's porridge_, or any other liquor, as it is to hear a beau call for a pipe of tobacco; their whole exercise being to charge and discharge their nostrils, and keep the curls of their periwigs in their proper order. The clashing of their snush-box lids, in opening and shutting, made more noise than their tongues. Bows and cringes of the newest mode were here exchanged, 'twixt friend and friend, with wonderful exactness. They made a humming like so many hornets in a country chimney, not with their talking, but with their whispering over their new _Minuets_ and _Bories_, with their hands in their pockets, if only freed from their snush-box. We now began to be thoughtful of a pipe of tobacco; whereupon we ventured to call for some instruments of evaporation, which were accordingly brought us, but with such a kind of unwillingness, as if they would much rather have been rid of our company; for their tables were so very neat, and shined with rubbing, like the upper-leathers of an alderman's shoes, and as brown as the top of a country housewife's cupboard. The floor was as clean swept as a Sir Courtly's dining-room, which made us look round, to see if there were no orders hung up to impose the forfeiture of so much Mop-money upon any person that should spit out of the chimney-corner. Notwithstanding we wanted an example to encourage us in our porterly rudeness, we ordered them to light the wax-candle, by which we ignified our pipes and blew about our whiffs; at which several Sir Foplins drew their faces into as many peevish wrinkles, as the beaux at the Bow-street Coffee-house, near Covent-garden did, when the gentleman in masquerade came in amongst them, with his oyster-barrel muff and turnip-buttons, to ridicule their fopperies."

A cabinet picture of the Coffee-house life of a century and a half since is thus given in the well-known _Journey through England_ in 1714: "I am lodged," says the tourist, "in the street called Pall Mall, the ordinary residence of all strangers, because of its vicinity to the Queen's Palace, the Park, the Parliament House, the Theatres, and the Chocolate and Coffee-houses, where the best company frequent. If you would know our manner of living, 'tis thus: we rise by nine, and those that frequent great men's levees, find entertainment at them till eleven, or, as in Holland, go to tea-tables; about twelve the _beau monde_ assemble in several Coffee or Chocolate houses: the best of which are the Cocoa-tree and White's Chocolate-houses, St. James's, the Smyrna, Mrs. Rochford's, and the British Coffee-houses; and all these so near one another, that in less than an hour you see the company of them all. We are carried to these places in chairs (or sedans), which are here very cheap, a guinea a week, or a shilling per hour, and your chairmen serve you for porters to run on errands, as your gondoliers do at Venice.

"If it be fine weather, we take a turn into the Park till two, when we go to dinner; and if it be dirty, you are entertained at piquet or basset at White's, or you may talk politics at the Smyrna or St. James's. I must not forget to tell you that the parties have their different places, where, however, a stranger is always well received; but a Whig will no more go to the Cocoa-tree or Ozinda's, than a Tory will be seen at the Coffee-house, St. James's.

"The Scots go generally to the British, and a mixture of all sorts to the Smyrna. There are other little Coffee-houses much frequented in this neighbourhood,--Young Man's for officers, Old Man's for stock-jobbers, pay-masters, and courtiers, and Little Man's for sharpers. I never was so confounded in my life as when I entered into this last: I saw two or three tables full at faro, heard the box and dice rattling in the room above stairs, and was surrounded by a set of sharp faces, that I was afraid would have devoured me with their eyes. I was glad to drop two or three half crowns at faro to get off with a clear skin, and was overjoyed I so got rid of them.

"At two, we generally go to dinner; ordinaries are not so common here as abroad, yet the French have set up two or three good ones for the convenience of foreigners in Suffolk-street, where one is tolerably well served; but the general way here is to make a party at the Coffee-house to go to dine at the tavern, where we sit till six, when we go to the play; except you are invited to the table of some great man, which strangers are always courted to, and nobly entertained."

We may here group the leading Coffee-houses,[8] the principal of which will be more fully described hereafter:

"Before 1715, the number of Coffee-houses in London was reckoned at two thousand. Every profession, trade, class, party, had its favourite Coffee-house. The lawyers discussed law or literature, criticized the last new play, or retailed the freshest Westminster Hall "bite" at Nando's or the Grecian, both close on the purlieus of the Temple. Here the young bloods of the Inns-of-Court paraded their Indian gowns and lace caps of a morning, and swaggered in their lace coats and Mechlin ruffles at night, after the theatre. The Cits met to discuss the rise and fall of stocks, and to settle the rate of insurance, at Garraway's or Jonathan's; the parsons exchanged university gossip, or commented on Dr. Sacheverel's last sermon at Truby's or at Child's in St. Paul's Churchyard; the soldiers mustered to grumble over their grievances at Old or Young Man's, near Charing Cross; the St. James's and the Smyrna were the head-quarters of the Whig politicians, while the Tories frequented the Cocoa-tree or Ozinda's, all in St. James's-street; Scotchmen had their house of call at Forrest's, Frenchmen at Giles's or Old Slaughter's, in St. Martin's-lane; the gamesters shook their elbows in White's and the Chocolate-houses round Covent Garden; the _virtuosi_ honoured the neighbourhood of Gresham College; and the leading wits gathered at Will's, Button's, or Tom's, in Great Russell-street, where after the theatre was playing at piquet and the best of conversation till midnight. At all these places, except a few of the most aristocratic Coffee or Chocolate-houses of the West-End, smoking was allowed. A penny was laid down at the bar on entering, and the price of a dish of tea or coffee seems to have been two-pence: this charge covered newspapers and lights. The established frequenters of the house had their regular seats, and special attention from the fair lady at the bar, and the tea or coffee boys.

"To these Coffee-houses men of all classes, who had either leisure or money, resorted to spend both; and in them, politics, play, scandal, criticism, and business, went on hand-in-hand. The transition from Coffee-house to Club was easy. Thus Tom's, a Coffee-house till 1764, in that year, by a guinea subscription, among nearly seven hundred of the nobility, foreign ministers, gentry, and geniuses of the age, became the place of meeting for the subscribers exclusively.[9] In the same way, White's and the Cocoa-tree changed their character from Chocolate-house to Club. When once a house had customers enough of standing and good repute, and acquainted with each other, it was quite worth while--considering the characters who, on the strength of assurance, tolerable manners, and a laced coat, often got a footing in these houses while they continued open to the public, to purchase power of excluding all but subscribers."

Thus, the chief places of resort were at this period Coffee and Chocolate-houses, in which some men almost lived, as they do at the present day, at their Clubs. Whoever wished to find a gentleman commonly asked, not where he resided, but which coffee-house he frequented. No decently attired idler was excluded, provided he laid down his penny at the bar; but this he could seldom do without struggling through the crowd of beaux who fluttered round the lovely bar-maid. Here the proud nobleman or country squire was not to be distinguished from the genteel thief and daring highwayman. "Pray, sir," says Aimwell to Gibbet, in Farquhar's _Beaux Stratagem_, "ha'n't I seen your face at Will's Coffee-house?" The robber's reply is: "Yes, Sir, and at White's too."

Three of Addison's papers in the _Spectator_, (Nos. 402, 481, and 568,) are humorously descriptive of the Coffee-houses of this period. No. 403 opens with the remark that "the courts of two countries do not so much differ from one another, as the Court and the City, in their peculiar ways of life and conversation. In short, the inhabitants of St. James's, notwithstanding they live under the same laws, and speak the same language, are a distinct people from those of Cheapside, who are likewise removed from those of the Temple on the one side, and those of Smithfield on the other, by several climates and degrees in their way of thinking and conversing together." For this reason, the author takes a ramble through London and Westminster, to gather the opinions of his ingenious countrymen upon a current report of the King of France's death. "I know the faces of all the principal politicians within the bills of mortality; and as every Coffee-house has some particular statesman belonging to it, who is the mouth of the street where he lives, I always take care to place myself near him, in order to know his judgment on the present posture of affairs. And, as I foresaw, the above report would produce a new face of things in Europe, and many curious speculations in our British Coffee-houses, I was very desirous to learn the thoughts of our most eminent politicians on that occasion.

"That I might begin as near the fountain-head as possible, I first of all called in at St. James's, where I found the whole outward room in a buzz of politics; the speculations were but very indifferent towards the door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the room, and were so much improved by a knot of theorists, who sat in the inner room, within the steams of the coffee-pot, that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, and all the line of Bourbons provided for in less than a quarter of an hour.

"I afterwards called in at Giles's, where I saw a board of French gentlemen sitting upon the life and death of their grand monarque. Those among them who had espoused the Whig interest very positively affirmed that he had departed this life about a week since, and therefore, proceeded without any further delay to the release of their friends in the galleys, and to their own re-establishment; but, finding they could not agree among themselves, I proceeded on my intended progress.

"Upon my arrival at Jenny Man's I saw an alert young fellow that cocked his hat upon a friend of his, who entered just at the same time with myself, and accosted him after the following manner: 'Well, Jack, the old prig is dead at last. Sharp's the word. Now or never, boy. Up to the walls of Paris, directly;' with several other deep reflections of the same nature.

"I met with very little variation in the politics between Charing Cross and Covent Garden. And, upon my going into Will's, I found their discourse was gone off, from the death of the French King, to that of Monsieur Boileau, Racine, Corneille, and several other poets, whom they regretted on this occasion as persons who would have obliged the world with very noble elegies on the death of so great a prince, and so eminent a patron of learning.

"At a Coffee-house near the Temple, I found a couple of young gentlemen engaged very smartly in a dispute on the succession to the Spanish monarchy. One of them seemed to have been retained as advocate for the Duke of Anjou, the other for his Imperial Majesty. They were both for regarding the title to that kingdom by the statute laws of England: but finding them going out of my depth, I pressed forward to Paul's Churchyard, where I listened with great attention to a learned man, who gave the company an account of the deplorable state of France during the minority of the deceased King.

"I then turned on my right hand into Fish-street, where the chief politician of that quarter, upon hearing the news, (after having taken a pipe of tobacco, and ruminated for some time,) 'If,' says he, 'the King of France is certainly dead, we shall have plenty of mackerel this season: our fishery will not be disturbed by privateers, as it has been for these ten years past.' He afterwards considered how the death of this great man would affect our pilchards, and by several other remarks infused a general joy into his whole audience.

"I afterwards entered a by-coffee-house that stood at the upper end of a narrow lane, where I met with a conjuror, engaged very warmly with a laceman who was the great support of a neighbouring conventicle. The matter in debate was whether the late French King was most like Augustus Cæsar, or Nero. The controversy was carried on with great heat on both sides, and as each of them looked upon me very frequently during the course of their debate, I was under some apprehension that they would appeal to me, and therefore laid down my penny at the bar, and made the best of my way to Cheapside.

"I here gazed upon the signs for some time before I found one to my purpose. The first object I met in the coffee-room was a person who expressed a great grief for the death of the French King; but upon his explaining himself, I found his sorrow did not arise from the loss of the monarch, but for his having sold out of the Bank about three days before he heard the news of it. Upon which a haberdasher, who was the oracle of the Coffee-house, and had his circle of admirers about him, called several to witness that he had declared his opinion, above a week before, that the French King was certainly dead; to which he added, that, considering the late advices we had received from France, it was impossible that it could be otherwise. As he was laying these together, and debating to his hearers with great authority, there came a gentleman from Garraway's, who told us that there were several letters from France just come in, with advice that the King was in good health, and was gone out a hunting the very morning the post came away; upon which the haberdasher stole off his hat that hung upon a wooden peg by him, and retired to his shop with great confusion. This intelligence put a stop to my travels, which I had prosecuted with so much satisfaction; not being a little pleased to hear so many different opinions upon so great an event, and to observe how naturally, upon such a piece of news, every one is apt to consider it to his particular interest and advantage."

FOOTNOTES:

[8] From the National Review, No. 8.

[9] We question whether the Coffee-house general business was entirely given up immediately after the transition.

COFFEE-HOUSE SHARPERS IN 1776.

The following remarks by Sir John Fielding[10] upon the dangerous classes to be found in our metropolitan Coffee-houses three-quarters of a century since, are described as "necessary Cautions to all Strangers resorting thereto."

"A stranger or foreigner should particularly frequent the Coffee-houses in London. These are very numerous in every part of the town; will give him the best insight into the different characters of the people, and the justest notion of the inhabitants in general, of all the houses of public resort these are the least dangerous. Yet, some of these are not entirely free from sharpers. The deceivers of this denomination are generally descended from families of some repute, have had the groundwork of a genteel education, and are capable of making a tolerable appearance. Having been equally profuse of their own substance and character, and learned, by having been undone, the ways of undoing, they lie in wait for those who have more wealth and less knowledge of the town. By joining you in discourse, by admiring what you say, by an officiousness to wait upon you, and to assist you in anything you want to have or know, they insinuate themselves into the company and acquaintance of strangers, whom they watch every opportunity of fleecing. And if one finds in you the least inclination to cards, dice, the billiard-table, bowling-green, or any other sort of gaming, you are morally sure of being taken in. For this set of gentry are adepts in all the arts of knavery and tricking. If, therefore, you should observe a person, without any previous acquaintance, paying you extraordinary marks of civility; if he puts in for a share of your conversation with a pretended air of deference; if he tenders his assistance, courts your acquaintance, and would be suddenly thought your friend, avoid him as a pest; for these are the usual baits by which the unwary are caught."

FOOTNOTE:

[10] 'The Magistrate: Description of London and Westminster,' 1776.

DON SALTERO'S COFFEE-HOUSE.

Among the curiosities of Old Chelsea, almost as well known as its china, was the Coffee-house and Museum, No. 18, Cheyne Walk, opened by a barber, named Salter, in 1695. Sir Hans Sloane contributed some of the refuse gimcracks of his own collection; and Vice-Admiral Munden, who had been long on the coast of Spain, where he had acquired a fondness for Spanish titles, named the keeper of the house _Don Saltero_, and his coffee-house and museum, _Don Saltero's_.

The place, however, would, in all probability, have enjoyed little beyond its local fame, had not Sir Richard Steele immortalized the Don and Don Saltero's in _The Tatler_, No. 34, June 28, 1700; wherein he tells us of the necessity of travelling to know the world by his journey for fresh air, no further than the village of Chelsea, of which he fancied that he could give an immediate description, from the five fields, where the robbers lie in wait, to the Coffee-house, where the literati sit in council. But he found, even in a place so near town as this, there were enormities and persons of eminence, whom he before knew nothing of.

The Coffee-house was almost absorbed by the Museum. "When I came into the Coffee-house," says Steele, "I had not time to salute the company, before my eyes were diverted by ten thousand gimcracks round the room, and on the ceiling. When my first astonishment was over, comes to me a sage of thin and meagre countenance, which aspect made me doubt whether reading or fretting had made it so philosophic; but I very soon perceived him to be of that sort which the ancients call 'gingivistee,' in our language 'tooth-drawers,' I immediately had a respect for the man; for these practical philosophers go upon a very practical hypothesis, not to cure, but to take away the part affected. My love of mankind made me very benevolent to Mr. Salter, for such is the name of this eminent barber and antiquary."

The Don was famous for his punch and his skill on the fiddle; he also drew teeth, and wrote verses; he described his museum in several stanzas, one of which is--

"Monsters of all sorts are seen:
Strange things in nature as they grew so;
Some relicks of the Sheba Queen,
And fragments of the fam'd Bob Crusoe."

Steele then plunges into a deep thought why barbers should go further in hitting the ridiculous than any other set of men; and maintains that Don Saltero is descended in a right line, not from John Tradescant, as he himself asserts, but from the memorable companion of the Knight of Mancha. Steele then certifies that all the worthy citizens who travel to see the Don's rarities, his double-barrelled pistols, targets, coats of mail, his sclopeta, and sword of Toledo, were left to his ancestor by the said Don Quixote, and by his ancestor to all his progeny down to Saltero. Though Steele thus goes far in favour of Don Saltero's great merit, he objects to his imposing several names (without his licence) on the collection he has made, to the abuse of the good people of England; one of which is particularly calculated to deceive religious persons, to the great scandal of the well-disposed, and may introduce heterodox opinions. [Among the curiosities presented by Admiral Munden was a coffin, containing the body or relics of a Spanish saint, who had wrought miracles.] "He shows you a straw hat, which," says Steele, "I know to be made by Madge Peskad, within three miles of Bedford; and tells you 'It is Pontius Pilate's wife's chambermaid's sister's hat.' To my knowledge of this very hat, it may be added that the covering of straw was never used among the Jews, since it was demanded of them to make bricks without it. Therefore, this is nothing but, under the specious pretence of learning and antiquities, to impose upon the world. There are other things which I cannot tolerate among his rarities, as, the china figure of the lady in the glass-case; the Italian engine, for the imprisonment of those who go abroad with it; both of which I hereby order to be taken down, or else he may expect to have his letters patent for making punch superseded, be debarred wearing his muff next winter, or ever coming to London without his wife." Babillard says that Salter had an old grey muff, and that, by wearing it up to his nose, he was distinguishable at the distance of a quarter of a mile. His wife was none of the best, being much addicted to scolding; and Salter, who liked his glass, if he could make a trip to London by himself, was in no haste to return.

Don Saltero's proved very attractive as an exhibition, and drew crowds to the coffee-house. A catalogue was published, of which were printed more than forty editions. Smollett, the novelist, was among the donors. The catalogue, in 1760, comprehended the following rarities:--Tigers' tusks; the Pope's candle; the skeleton of a Guinea-pig; a fly-cap monkey; a piece of the true Cross; the Four Evangelists' heads cut on a cherry-stone; the King of Morocco's tobacco-pipe; Mary Queen of Scots' pincushion; Queen Elizabeth's prayer-book; a pair of Nun's stockings; Job's ears, which grew on a tree; a frog in a tobacco-stopper; and five hundred more odd relics! The Don had a rival, as appears by "A Catalogue of the Rarities to be seen at Adams's, at the Royal Swan, in Kingsland-road, leading from Shoreditch Church, 1756." Mr. Adams exhibited, for the entertainment of the curious, "Miss Jenny Cameron's shoes; Adam's eldest daughter's hat; the heart of the famous Bess Adams, that was hanged at Tyburn with Lawyer Carr, January 18, 1736-7; Sir Walter Raleigh's tobacco-pipe; Vicar of Bray's clogs; engine to shell green peas with; teeth that grew in a fish's belly; Black Jack's ribs; the very comb that Abraham combed his son Isaac and Jacob's head with; Wat Tyler's spurs; rope that cured Captain Lowry of the head-ach, ear-ach, tooth-ach, and belly-ach; Adam's key of the fore and back door of the Garden of Eden, &c., &c." These are only a few out of five hundred others equally marvellous.

The Don, in 1723, issued a curious rhyming advertisement of his Curiosities, dated "Chelsea Knackatory," and in one line he calls it "My Museum Coffee-house."

In Dr. Franklin's _Life_ we read:--"Some gentlemen from the country went by water to see the College, and Don Saltero's Curiosities, at Chelsea." They were shown in the coffee-room till August, 1799, when the collection was mostly sold or dispersed; a few gimcracks were left until about 1825, when we were informed on the premises, they were thrown away! The house is now a tavern, with the sign of "The Don Saltero's Coffee-house."

The success of Don Saltero, in attracting visitors to his coffee-house, induced the proprietor of the Chelsea Bun-house to make a similar collection of rarities, to attract customers for the buns; and to some extent it was successful.

SALOOP-HOUSES.

What was, in our time, occasionally sold at stalls in the streets of London, with this name, was a decoction of sassafras; but it was originally made from Salep, the roots of _Orchis mascula_, a common plant of our meadows, the tubers of which, being cleaned and peeled, are lightly browned in an oven. Salep was much recommended in the last century by Dr. Percival, who stated that salep had the property of concealing the taste of salt water, which property it was thought might be turned to account in long sea-voyages. The root has been considered as containing the largest portion of nutritious matter in the smallest space; and when boiled, it was much used in this country before the introduction of tea and coffee, and their greatly reduced prices. Salep is now almost entirely disused in Great Britain; but we remember many saloop-stalls in our streets. We believe the last house in which it was sold, to have been Read's Coffee-house, in Fleet-street. The landlord of the noted Mug-house, in Salisbury-square, was one Read. (See CLUBS, p. 52.)

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. The disciples are to prepare their bodies with three dishes of bohea, and to purge their brains with two pinches of snuff. If any young student gives indication of parts, by listening attentively, or asking a pertinent question, one of the professors shall distinguish him, by taking snuff out of his box in the presence of the whole audience.

"N.B. The seat of learning is now removed from the corner of the chimney, on the left hand towards the window, to the round table in the middle of the floor over against the fire; a revolution much lamented by the porters and chairmen, who were much edified through a pane of glass that remained broken all the last summer."

Prior and Swift were much together at the Smyrna: we read of their sitting there two hours, "receiving acquaintance;" and one entry of Swift's tells us that he walked a little in the Park till Prior made him go with him to the Smyrna Coffee-house. It seemed to be the place to _talk politics_; but there is a more agreeable record of it in association with our "Poet of the Year," thus given by Cunningham: "In the printed copy of Thomson's proposals for publishing, by subscription, the Four Seasons, with a Hymn on their succession, the following note is appended:--'Subscriptions now taken in by the author, at the Smyrna Coffee-house, Pall Mall.'"[11] We find the Smyrna in a list of Coffee-Houses in 1810.

FOOTNOTE:

[11] The Dane Coffee-house, between the Upper and Lower Malls, Hammersmith, was frequented by Thomson, who wrote here a part of his _Winter_. On the Terrace resided, for many years, Arthur Murphy, and Loutherbourg, the painter. The latter died there, in 1812.

ST. JAMES'S COFFEE-HOUSE.

This 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 south-west 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 at page 39, 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." The letters from Stella were enclosed under cover to Addison.

Elliot, who kept the coffee-house, was, on occasions, placed on a friendly footing with his guests. Swift, in his Journal to Stella, Nov. 19, 1710, records an odd instance of this familiarity: "This evening I christened our coffee-man Elliot'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, off-hand, 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, as they stand in the little posthumous poem above mentioned, and this was the last time he ever enjoyed the company of his friends."[12]

Mr. Cunningham tells us that the St. James's was closed about 1806; and a large pile of building looking down Pall Mall, erected on its site.

The globular oil-lamp was first exhibited by its inventor, Michael Cole, at the door of the St. James's Coffee-house, in 1709; in the patent he obtained, it is mentioned as "a new kind of light."

FOOTNOTE:

[12] _Cumberland's Memoirs_, vol. i.

THE BRITISH COFFEE-HOUSE,

In Cockspur-street, "long a house of call for Scotchmen," has been fortunate in its landladies. In 1759, it was kept by the sister of Bishop Douglas, so well known for his works against Lauder and Bower, which may explain its Scottish fame. At another period it was kept by Mrs. Anderson, described in Mackenzie's _Life of Home_ as "a woman of uncommon talents, and the most agreeable conversation."[13]

The British figures in a political faction of 1750, at which date Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann: "The Argyll carried all the Scotch against the turnpike; they were willing to be carried, for the Duke of Bedford, in case it should have come into the Lords, had writ to the sixteen Peers, to solicit their votes; but with so little difference, that he enclosed all the letters under one cover directed to the British Coffee-house."

FOOTNOTE:

[13] _Cunningham's Walpole_, vol. ii. p. 196, note.

WILL'S COFFEE-HOUSE.[14]

Will's, the predecessor of Button's, and even more celebrated than that Coffee-house, was kept by William Urwin, and was the house on the north side of Russell-street at the end of Bow-street--the corner house--now occupied as a ham and beef shop, and numbered twenty-three. "It was Dryden who made Will's Coffee-house the great resort of the wits of his time." (_Pope_ and _Spence_). The room in which the poet was accustomed to sit was on the first floor; and his place was the place of honour by fire-side in the winter; and at the corner of the balcony, looking over the street, in fine weather; he called the two places his winter and his summer seat. This was called the dining-room floor in the last century. The company did not sit in boxes, as subsequently, but at various tables which were dispersed through the room. Smoking was permitted in the public room: it was then so much in vogue that it does not seem to have been considered a nuisance. Here, as in other similar places of meeting, the visitors divided themselves into parties; and we are told by Ward, that the young beaux and wits, who seldom approached the principal table, thought it a great honour to have a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box.

Dean Lockier has left this life-like picture of his interview with the presiding genius 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 calls 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 liable.' Several satires were written, in the form of addresses to him as well as the following. There is one among the _State Poems_ beginning--

"'Julian, in verse, to ease thy wants I write,
Not moved by envy, malice, or by spite,
Or pleased with the empty names of wit and sense,
But merely to supply thy want of pence:
This did inspire my muse, when out at heel,
She saw her needy secretary reel;
Grieved that a man, so useful to the age,
Should foot it in so mean an equipage;
A crying scandal that the fees of sense
Should not be able to support the expense
Of a poor scribe, who never thought of wants,
When able to procure a cup of Nantz.'

"Another, called a 'Consoling Epistle to Julian,' is said to have been written by the Duke of Buckingham.

"From a passage in one of the _Letters from the Dead to the Living_, we learn, that after Julian's death, and the madness of his successor, called Summerton, lampoon felt a sensible decay; and there was no more that brisk spirit of verse, that used to watch the follies and vices of the men and women of figure, that they could not start new ones faster than lampoons exposed them."

How these lampoons were concocted we gather from Bays, in the _Hind and the Panther transversed_:--"'Tis a trifle hardly worth owning; I was 'tother day at Will's, throwing out something of that nature; and, i' gad, the hint was taken, and out came that picture; indeed, the poor fellow was so civil as to present me with a dozen of 'em for my friends; I think I have here one in my pocket.... Ay, ay, I can do it if I list, tho' you must not think I have been so dull as to mind these things myself; but 'tis the advantage of our Coffee-house, that from their talk, one may write a very good polemical discourse, without ever troubling one's head with the books of controversy."

Tom Brown describes "a Wit and a Beau set up with little or no expense. A pair of red stockings and a sword-knot 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 _à 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, arbitor of critical disputes at Will's." Prior sings of--

"the younger Stiles,
Whom Dryden pedagogues at Will's!"

Most of the hostile criticisms 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."[15]

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 that in 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 Wycherley, 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 honour 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 friend are addressed to him at the Blue Ball, 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 favourite coffee:

"As long as Mocha's happy tree shall grow,
While berries crackle, or while mills shall go;
While smoking streams from silver spouts shall glide
Or China's earth receive the sable tide,
While Coffee shall to British nymphs be dear,
While fragrant steams the bended head shall cheer,
Or grateful bitters shall delight the taste,
So long her honours, name, and praise shall last."