Chapter IV: Part 4

In Fulwood's (_vulgo_ Fuller's) Rents, in Holborn, nearly opposite Chancery-lane, in the reign of James I., lived Christopher Fulwood, in a mansion of some pretension, of which an existing house of the period is said to be the remains. "Some will have it," says Hatton, 1708, "that it is called from being a _woody_ place before there were buildings here; but its being called Fullwood's Rents (as it is in deeds and leases), shows it to be the rents of one called Fullwood, the owner or builder thereof." Strype describes the Rents, or court, as running up to Gray's-Inn, "into which it has an entrance through the gate; a place of good resort, and taken up by coffee-houses, ale-houses, and houses of entertainment, by reason of its vicinity to Gray's-Inn. On the east side is a handsome open place, with a handsome freestone pavement, and better built, and inhabited by private house-keepers. At the upper end of this court is a passage into the Castle Tavern, a house of considerable trade, as is the Golden Griffin Tavern, on the West side."

Here was John's, one of the earliest Coffee-houses; and adjoining Gray's-Inn gate is a deep-coloured red-brick house, once Squire's Coffee-house, kept by Squire, "a noted man in Fuller's Rents," who died in 1717. The house is very roomy; it has been handsome, and has a wide staircase. Squire's was one of the receiving-houses of the _Spectator_: in No. 269, January 8, 1711-1712, he accepts Sir Roger de Coverley's invitation to "smoke a pipe with him over a dish of coffee at Squire's. As I love the old man, I take delight in complying with everything that is agreeable to him, and accordingly waited on him to the Coffee-house, where his venerable figure drew upon us the eyes of the whole room. He had no sooner seated himself at the upper end of the high table, but he called for a clean pipe, a paper of tobacco, a dish of coffee, a wax candle, and the _Supplement_ [a periodical paper of that time], with such an air of cheerfulness and good humour, that all the boys in the coffee-room, (who seemed to take pleasure in serving him,) were at once employed on his several errands, insomuch that nobody else could come at a dish of tea, until the Knight had got all his conveniences about him." Such was the coffee-room in the _Spectator's_ day.

Gray's-Inn Walks, to which the Rents led, across Field-court, were then a fashionable promenade; and here Sir Roger could "clear his pipes in good air;" for scarcely a house intervened thence to Hampstead. Though Ned Ward, in his _London Spy_, says--"I found none but a parcel of superannuated debauchees, huddled up in cloaks, frieze coats, and wadded gowns, to protect their old carcases from the sharpness of Hampstead air; creeping up and down in pairs and leashes no faster than the hand of a dial, or a county convict going to execution: some talking of law, some of religion, and some of politics. After I had walked two or three times round, I sat myself down in the upper walk, where just before me, on a stone pedestal, we fixed an old rusty horizontal dial, with the gnomon broke short off." Round the sun-dial, seats were arranged in a semicircle.

Gray's-Inn Gardens were resorted to by dangerous classes. Expert pickpockets and plausible ring-droppers found easy prey there on crowded days; and in old plays the Gardens are repeatedly mentioned as a place of negotiation for clandestine lovers, which led to the walks being closed, except at stated hours.

Returning to Fulwood's Rents, we may here describe another of its attractions, the Tavern and punch-house, within one door of Gray's-Inn, apparently the King's Head. From some time before 1699, until his death in 1731, Ward kept this house, which he thus commemorates, or, in another word, puffs, in his _London Spy_: being a vintner himself, we may rest assured that he would have penned this in praise of no other than himself:

"To speak but the truth of my honest friend Ned,
The best of all vintners that ever God made;
He's free of the beef, and as free of his bread,
And washes both down with his glass of rare red,
That tops all the town, and commands a good trade;
Such wine as will cheer up the drooping King's head,
And brisk up the soul, though our body's half dead;
He scorns to draw bad, as he hopes to be paid;
And now his name's up, he may e'en lie abed;
For he'll get an estate--there's no more to be said."

We ought to have remarked, that the ox was roasted, cut up, and distributed gratis; a piece of generosity which, by a poetic fiction, is supposed to have inspired the above limping balderdash.

SLAUGHTER'S COFFEE-HOUSE.

This Coffee-house, famous as the resort of painters and sculptors, in the last century, was situated at the upper end of the west side of St. Martin's-lane, three doors from Newport-street. Its first landlord was Thomas Slaughter, 1692. Mr. Cunningham tells us that a second Slaughter's (New Slaughter's), was established in the same street about 1760, when the original establishment adopted the name of "Old Slaughter's," by which designation it was known till within a few years of the final demolition of the house to make way for the new avenue between Long-acre and Leicester-square, formed 1843-44. For many years previous to the streets of London being completely paved, "Slaughter's" was called "The Coffee-house on the Pavement." In like manner, "The Pavement," Moor fields, received its distinctive name. Besides being the resort of artists, Old Slaughter's was the house of call for Frenchmen.

St. Martin's-lane was long one of the head-quarters of the artists of the last century. "In the time of Benjamin West," says J. T. Smith, "and before the formation of the Royal Academy, Greek-street, St. Martin's-lane, and Gerard-street, was their colony. Old Slaughter's Coffee-house, in St. Martin's-lane, was their grand resort in the evenings, and Hogarth was a constant visitor." He lived at the Golden Head, on the eastern side of Leicester Fields, in the northern half of the Sabloniere Hotel. The head he cut out himself from pieces of cork, glued and bound together; it was placed over the street-door. At this time, young Benjamin West was living in chambers, in Bedford-street, Covent Garden, and had there set up his easel; he was married, in 1765, at St. Martin's Church. Roubiliac was often to be found at Slaughter's in early life; probably before he gained the patronage of Sir Edward Walpole, through finding and returning to the baronet the pocket-book of bank-notes, which the young maker of monuments had picked up in Vauxhall Gardens. Sir Edward, to remunerate his integrity, and his skill, of which he showed specimens, promised to patronize Roubiliac through life, and he faithfully performed this promise. Young Gainsborough, who spent three years amid the works of the painters in St. Martin's-lane, Hayman, and Cipriani, who were all eminently convivial, were, in all probability, frequenters of Slaughter's. Smith tells us that Quin and Hayman were inseparable friends, and so convivial, that they seldom parted till daylight.

Mr. Cunningham relates that here, "in early life, Wilkie would enjoy a small dinner at a small cost. I have been told by an old frequenter of the house, that Wilkie was always the last dropper-in for a dinner, and that he was never seen to dine in the house by daylight. The truth is, he slaved at his art at home till the last glimpse of daylight had disappeared."

Haydon was accustomed in the early days of his fitful career, to dine here with Wilkie. In his _Autobiography_, in the year 1808, Haydon writes: "This period of our lives was one of great happiness: painting all day, then dining at the Old Slaughter Chop-house, then going to the Academy until eight, to fill up the evening, then going home to tea--that blessing of a studious man--talking over our respective exploits, what he [Wilkie] had been doing, and what I had done, and then, frequently to relieve our minds fatigued by their eight and twelve hours' work, giving vent to the most extraordinary absurdities. Often have we made rhymes on odd names, and shouted with laughter at each new line that was added. Sometimes lazily inclined after a good dinner, we have lounged about, near Drury-lane or Covent Garden, hesitating whether to go in, and often have I (knowing first that there was nothing I wished to see) assumed a virtue I did not possess, and pretending moral superiority, preached to Wilkie on the weakness of not resisting such temptations for the sake of our art and our duty, and marched him off to his studies, when he was longing to see Mother Goose."

J. T. Smith has narrated some fifteen pages of characteristic anecdotes of the artistic visitors of Old Slaughter's, which he refers to as "formerly the rendezvous of Pope, Dryden, and other wits, and much frequented by several eminently clever men of his day."

Thither came Ware, the architect, who, when a little sickly boy, was apprenticed to a chimney-sweeper, and was seen chalking the street-front of Whitehall, by a gentleman, who purchased the remainder of the boy's time; gave him an excellent education; then sent him to Italy, and, upon his return, employed him, and introduced him to his friends as an architect. Ware was heard to tell this story, while he was sitting to Roubiliac for his bust. Ware built Chesterfield House and several other noble mansions, and compiled a Palladio, in folio: he retained the soot in his skin to the day of his death. He was very intimate with Roubiliac, who was an opposite eastern neighbour of Old Slaughter's. Another architect, Gwynn, who competed with Mylne for designing and building Blackfriars Bridge, was also a frequent visitor at Old Slaughter's, as was Gravelot, who kept a drawing-school in the Strand, nearly opposite to Southampton-street.

Hudson, who painted the Dilettanti portraits; M'Ardell, the mezzotinto-scraper; and Luke Sullivan, the engraver of Hogarth's March to Finchley, also frequented Old Slaughter's; likewise Theodore Gardell, the portrait painter, who was executed for the murder of his landlady; and Old Moser, keeper of the Drawing Academy in Peter's-court. Richard Wilson, the landscape painter, was not a regular customer here: his favourite house was the Constitution, Bedford-street, Covent Garden, where he could indulge in a pot of porter more freely, and enjoy the fun of Mortimer, the painter.

Parry, the Welsh harper, though totally blind, was one of the first draught-players in England, and occasionally played with the frequenters of Old Slaughter's; and here, in consequence of a bet, Roubiliac introduced Nathaniel Smith (father of John Thomas), to play at draughts with Parry; the game lasted about half an hour: Parry was much agitated, and Smith proposed to give in; but as there were bets depending, it was played out, and Smith won. This victory brought Smith numerous challenges; and the dons of the Barn, a public-house, in St. Martin's-lane, nearly opposite the church, invited him to become a member; but Smith declined. The Barn, for many years, was frequented by all the noted players of chess and draughts; and it was there that they often decided games of the first importance, played between persons of the highest rank, living in different parts of the world.

T. Rawle,[26] the inseparable companion of Captain Grose, the antiquary, came often to Slaughter's.

It was long asserted of Slaughter's Coffee-house that there never had been a person of that name as master of the house, but that it was named from its having been opened for the use of the men who slaughtered the cattle for the butchers of Newport Market, in an open space then adjoining. "This," says J. T. Smith, "may be the fact, if we believe that coffee was taken as refreshment by slaughtermen, instead of purl or porter; or that it was so called by the neighbouring butchers in derision of the numerous and fashionable Coffee-houses of the day; as, for instance, 'The Old Man's Coffee-house,' and 'The Young Man's Coffee-house.' Be that as it may, in my father's time, and also within memory of the most aged people, this Coffee-house was called '_Old_ Slaughter's,' and not The Slaughter, or The Slaughterer's Coffee-house."

In 1827, there was sold by Stewart, Wheatley, and Adlard, in Piccadilly, a picture attributed to Hogarth, for 150 guineas; it was described A Conversation over a Bowl of Punch, at _Old_ Slaughter's Coffee-house, in St. Martin's-lane, and the figures were said to be portraits of the painter, Doctor Monsey, and the landlord, _Old_ Slaughter. But this picture, as J. T. Smith shows, was painted by Highmore, for his father's godfather, Nathaniel Oldham, and one of the artist's patrons; "it is neither a scene at Old Slaughter's, nor are the portraits rightly described in the sale catalogue, but a scene at Oldham's house, at Ealing, with an old schoolmaster, a farmer, the artist Highmore, and Oldham himself."

FOOTNOTE:

[26] Rawle was one of his Majesty's accoutrement makers; and after his death, his effects were sold by Hutchins, in King-street, Covent Garden. Among the lots were a helmet, a sword, and several letters, of Oliver Cromwell; also the doublet in which Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament. Another singular lot was a large black wig, with long flowing curls, stated to have been worn by King Charles II.: it was bought by Suett, the actor, who was a great collector of wigs. He continued to act in this wig for many years, in _Tom Thumb_, and other pieces, till it was burnt when the theatre at Birmingham was destroyed by fire. Next morning, Suett, meeting Mrs. Booth, the mother of the lively actress S. Booth, exclaimed, "Mrs. Booth, my wig's gone!"

WILL'S AND SERLE'S COFFEE-HOUSES.

At the corner of Serle-street and Portugal-street, most invitingly facing the passage to Lincoln's Inn New-square, was Will's, of old repute, and thus described in the _Epicure's Almanack_, 1815: "This is, indubitably, a house of the first class, which dresses very desirable turtle and venison, and broaches many a pipe of mature port, double voyaged Madeira, and princely claret; wherewithal to wash down the dust of making law-books, and take out the inky blots from rotten parchment bonds; or if we must quote and parodize Will's, 'hath a sweet oblivious antidote which clears the cranium of that perilous stuff that clouds the cerebellum.'" The Coffee-house has some time being given up.

Serle's Coffee-house is one of those mentioned in No. 49, of the _Spectator_: "I do not know that I meet in any of my walks, objects which move both my spleen and laughter so effectually as those young fellows at the Grecian, Squire's, Serle's, and all other Coffee-houses adjacent to the Law, who rise for no other purpose but to publish their laziness."

THE GRECIAN COFFEE-HOUSE,

Devereux-court, Strand, (closed in 1843,) was named from Constantine, of Threadneedle-street, the _Grecian_ who kept it. In the _Tatler_ announcement, all accounts of learning are to be "under the title of the Grecian;" and, in the _Tatler_, No. 6: "While other parts of the town are amused with the present actions, [Marlborough's,] we generally spend the evening at this table [at the Grecian], in inquiries into antiquity, and think anything new, which gives us new knowledge. Thus, we are making a very pleasant entertainment to ourselves in putting the actions of Homer's Iliad into an exact journal."

The _Spectator's_ face was very well-known at the Grecian, a Coffee-house "adjacent to the law." Occasionally, it was the scene of learned discussion. Thus Dr. King relates that one evening, two gentlemen, who were constant companions, were disputing here, concerning the accent of a Greek word. This dispute was carried to such a length, that the two friends thought proper to determine it with their swords: for this purpose they stepped into Devereux-court, where one of them (Dr. King thinks his name was Fitzgerald) was run through the body, and died on the spot.

The Grecian was Foote's morning lounge. It was handy, too, for the young Templar, Goldsmith, and often did it echo with Oliver's boisterous mirth; for "it had become the favourite resort of the Irish and Lancashire Templars, whom he delighted in collecting around him, in entertaining with a cordial and unostentatious hospitality, and in occasionally amusing with his flute, or with whist, neither of which he played very well!" Here Goldsmith occasionally wound up his "Shoemaker's Holiday" with supper.

It was at the Grecian that Fleetwood Shephard told this memorable story to Dr. Tancred Robinson, who gave Richardson permission to repeat it. "The Earl of Dorset was in Little Britain, beating about for books to his taste: there was _Paradise Lost_. He was surprised with some passages he struck upon, dipping here and there and bought it; the bookseller begged him to speak in its favour, if he liked it, for they lay on his hands as waste paper. Jesus!--Shephard was present. My Lord took it home, read it, and sent it to Dryden, who in a short time returned it. 'This man,' says Dryden, 'cuts us all out, and the ancients too!'"

The Grecian was also frequented by Fellows of the Royal Society. Thoresby, in his _Diary_, tells us, 22 May, 1712, that "having bought each a pair of black silk stockings in Westminster Hall, they returned by water, and then walked, to meet his friend, Dr. Sloane, the Secretary of the Royal Society, at the Grecian Coffee-house, by the Temple." And, on June 12th, same year, "Thoresby attended the Royal Society, where were present, the President, Sir Isaac Newton, both the Secretaries, the two Professors from Oxford, Dr. Halley and Kell, with others, whose company we after enjoyed at the Grecian Coffee-house."

In Devereux-court, also, was Tom's Coffee-house, much resorted to by men of letters; among whom were Dr. Birch, who wrote the History of the Royal Society; also Akenside, the poet; and there is in print a letter of Pope's, addressed to Fortescue, his "counsel learned in the law," at this coffee-house.

GEORGE'S COFFEE-HOUSE,

No. 213, Strand, near Temple Bar, was a noted resort in the last and present century. When it was a coffee-house, one day, there came in Sir James Lowther, who after changing a piece of silver with the coffee-woman, and paying twopence for his dish of coffee, was helped into his chariot, for he was very lame and infirm, and went home: some little time afterwards, he returned to the same coffee-house, on purpose to acquaint the woman who kept it, that she had given him a bad half-penny, and demanded another in exchange for it. Sir James had about 40,000_l._ per annum, and was at a loss whom to appoint his heir.

Shenstone, who found

"The warmest welcome at an inn,"

found George's to be economical. "What do you think," he writes, "must be my expense, who love to pry into everything of the kind? Why, truly one shilling. My company goes to George's Coffee-house, where, for that small subscription I read all pamphlets under a three shillings' dimension; and indeed, any larger would not be fit for coffee-house perusal." Shenstone relates that Lord Orford was at George's, when the mob that were carrying his Lordship in effigy, came into the box where he was, to beg money of him, amongst others: this story Horace Walpole contradicts, adding that he supposes Shenstone thought that after Lord Orford quitted his place, he went to the coffee-house to learn news.

Arthur Murphy frequented George's, "where the town wits met every evening." Lloyd, the law-student, sings:--

"By law let others toil to gain renown!
Florio's a gentleman, a man o' the town.
He nor courts clients, or the law regarding,
Hurries from Nando's down to Covent Garden,
Yet, he's a scholar; mark him in the pit,
With critic catcall sound the stops of wit!
Supreme at George's, he harangues the throng,
Censor of style, from tragedy to song."

THE PERCY COFFEE-HOUSE,

Rathbone-place, Oxford-street, no longer exists; but it will be kept in recollection for its having given name to one of the most popular publications, of its class, in our time, namely, the _Percy Anecdotes_, "by Sholto and Reuben Percy, Brothers of the Benedictine Monastery of Mont Benger," in 44 parts, commencing in 1820. So said the title pages, but the names and the locality were _supposé_. Reuben Percy was Thomas Byerley, who died in 1824; he was the brother of Sir John Byerley, and the first editor of the _Mirror_, commenced by John Limbird, in 1822. Sholto Percy was Joseph Clinton Robertson, who died in 1852; he was the projector of the _Mechanics' Magazine_, which he edited from its commencement to his death. The name of the collection of Anecdotes was not taken, as at the time supposed, from the popularity of the _Percy Reliques_, but from the Percy Coffee-house, where Byerley and Robertson were accustomed to meet to talk over their joint work. The _idea_ was, however, claimed by Sir Richard Phillips, who stoutly maintained that it originated in a suggestion made by him to Dr. Tilloch and Mr. Mayne, to cut the anecdotes from the many years' files of the _Star_ newspaper, of which Dr. Tilloch was the editor, and Mr. Byerley assistant editor; and to the latter overhearing the suggestion, Sir Richard contested, might the _Percy Anecdotes_ be traced. They were very successful, and a large sum was realized by the work.

PEELE'S COFFEE-HOUSE,

Nos. 177 and 178, Fleet-street, east corner of Fetter-lane, was one of the Coffee-houses of the Johnsonian period; and here was long preserved a portrait of Dr. Johnson, on the key-stone of a chimney-piece, stated to have been painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Peele's was noted for files of newspapers from these dates: _Gazette_, 1759; _Times_, 1780; _Morning Chronicle_, 1773; _Morning Post_, 1773; _Morning Herald_, 1784; _Morning Advertiser_, 1794; and the evening papers from their commencement. The house is now a tavern.

Taverns.

THE TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON.

The changes in the manners and customs of our metropolis may be agreeably gathered from such glimpses as we gain of the history of "houses of entertainment" in the long lapse of centuries. Their records present innumerable pictures in little of society and modes, the interest of which is increased by distance. They show us how the tavern was the great focus of news long before the newspaper fully supplied the intellectual want. Much of the business of early times was transacted in taverns, and it is to some extent in the present day. According to the age, the tavern reflects the manners, the social tastes, customs, and recreations; and there, in days when travelling was difficult and costly, and not unattended with danger, the traveller told his wondrous tale to many an eager listener; and the man who rarely strayed beyond his own parish, was thus made acquainted with the life of the world. Then, the old tavern combined, with much of the comfort of an English home, its luxuries, without the forethought of providing either. Its come-and-go life presented many a useful lesson to the man who looked beyond the cheer of the moment. The master, or taverner, was mostly a person of substance, often of ready wit and cheerful manners--to render his public home attractive.

The "win-hous," or tavern, is enumerated among the houses of entertainment in the time of the Saxons; and no doubt existed in England much earlier. The peg-tankard, a specimen of which we see in the Ashmolean Collection at Oxford, originated with the Saxons; the pegs inside denoted how deep each guest was to drink: hence arose the saying, "he is a peg too low," when a man was out of spirits. The Danes were even more convivial in their habits than the Saxons, and may be presumed to have multiplied the number of "guest houses," as the early taverns were called. The Norman followers of the Conqueror soon fell into the good cheer of their predecessors in England. Although wine was made at this period in great abundance from vineyards in various parts of England, the trade of the taverns was principally supplied from France. The traffic for Bordeaux and the neighbouring provinces is said to have commenced about 1154, through the marriage of Henry II. with Eleanor of Aquitaine. The Normans were the great carriers, and Guienne the place whence most of our wines were brought; and which are described in this reign to have been sold in the ships and in the wine-cellars near the public place of cookery, on the banks of the Thames. We are now speaking of the customs of seven centuries since; of which the public wine-cellar, known to our time as _the Shades_, adjoining old London Bridge, was unquestionably a relic.

The earliest dealers in wines were of two descriptions: the _vintners_, or importers; and the _taverners_, who kept taverns for them, and sold the wine by retail to such as came to the tavern to drink it, or fetched it to their own homes.

In a document of the reign of Edward II., we find mentioned a tenement called Pin Tavern, situated in the Vintry, where the Bordeaux merchants _craned_ their wines out of lighters, and other vessels on the Thames; and here was the famous old tavern with the sign of the _Three Cranes_. Chaucer makes the apprentice of this period loving better the tavern than the shop:--

"A prentis whilom dwelt in our citee,--
At ev'ry bridale would he sing and hoppe;
He loved bet' the _tavern_ than the shoppe,
For when ther any riding was in Chepe,
Out of the shoppe thider would he lepe;
And til that he had all the sight ysein
And dancid wil, he wold not com agen."

Thus, the idle City apprentice was a great tavern haunter, which was forbidden in his indenture; and to this day, the apprentice's indenture enacts that he shall not "haunt taverns."

In a play of 1608, the apprentices of old Hobson, a rich citizen, in 1560, frequent the _Rose and Crown_, in the Poultry, and the _Dagger_, in Cheapside.

"_Enter Hobson, Two Prentices, and a Boy._

"1 PREN. Prithee, fellow Goodman, set forth the ware, and
looke to the shop a little. I'll but drink a cup of wine
with a customer, at the Rose and Crown in the Poultry, and
come again presently.

"2 PREN. I must needs step to the _Dagger in Cheape_, to
send a letter into the country unto my father. Stay, boy,
you are the youngest prentice; look you to the shop."

In the reign of Richard II., it was ordained by statute that "the wines of Gascoine, of Osey, and of Spain," as well as Rhenish wines, should not be sold above sixpence the gallon; and the taverners of this period frequently became very rich, and filled the highest civic offices, as sheriffs and mayors. The fraternity of vintners and taverners, anciently the Merchant Wine Tonners of Gascoyne, became the Craft of Vintners, incorporated by Henry VI. as the Vintners' Company.

The curious old ballad of London Lyckpenny, written in the reign of Henry V., by Lydgate, a monk of Bury, confirms the statement of the prices in the reign of Richard II. He comes to Cornhill, when the wine-drawer of the Pope's Head tavern, standing without the street-door, it being the custom of drawers thus to waylay passengers, takes the man by the hand, and says,--"Will you drink a pint of wine?" whereunto the countryman answers, "A penny spend I may," and so drank his wine. "For bread nothing did he pay"--for that was given in. This is Stow's account: the ballad makes the taverner, not the drawer, invite the countryman; and the latter, instead of getting bread for nothing, complains of having to go away hungry:--

"The taverner took me by the sleeve,
'Sir,' saith he, 'will you our wine assay?'
I answered, 'That cannot much me grieve,
A penny can do no more than it may;'
I drank a pint, and for it did pay;
Yet, sore a-hungered from thence I yede,
And, wanting money, I could not speed," etc.

There was no eating at taverns at this time, beyond a crust to relish the wine; and he who wished to dine before he drank, had to go to the cook's.

The furnishing of the Boar's Head, in Eastcheap, with sack, in Henry IV., is an anachronism of Shakspeare's; for the vintners kept neither sacks, muscadels, malmseys, bastards, alicants, nor any other wines but white and claret, until 1543. All the other sweet wines before that time, were sold at the apothecaries' shops for no other use but for medicine.

Taking it as the picture of a tavern a century later, we see the alterations which had taken place. The single drawer or taverner of Lydgate's day is now changed to a troop of waiters, besides the under skinker, or tapster. Eating was no longer confined to the cook's row, for we find in Falstaff's bill "a capon 2_s._ 2_d._; sack, two gallons, 5_s._ 8_d._; anchovies and sack, after supper, 2_s._ 6_d._; bread, one halfpenny." And there were evidently _different rooms_[27] for the guests, as Francis[28] bids a brother waiter "Look down in the Pomgranite;" for which purpose they had windows, or loopholes, affording a view from the upper to the lower apartments. The custom of naming the principal rooms in taverns and hotels is usual to the present day.

Taverns and wine-bibbing had greatly increased in the reign of Edward VI., when it was enacted by statute that no more than 8_d._ a gallon should be taken for any French wines, and the consumption limited in private houses to ten gallons each person yearly; that there should not be "any more or great number of taverns in London of such tavernes or wine sellers by retaile, above the number of fouretye tavernes or wyne sellers," being less than two, upon an average to each parish. Nor did this number much increase afterwards; for in a return made to the Vintners' Company, late in Elizabeth's reign, there were only one hundred and sixty-eight taverns in the whole city and suburbs.

It seems to have been the fashion among old ballad-mongers, street chroniclers, and journalists, to sing the praises of the taverns in rough-shod verse, and that lively rhyme which, in our day, is termed "patter." Here are a few specimens, of various periods.

In a black-letter poem of Queen Elizabeth's reign, entitled _Newes from Bartholomew Fayre_, there is this curious enumeration:

"There hath been great sale and utterance of Wine,
Besides Beere, and Ale, and Ipocras fine,
In every country, region, and nation,
But chiefly in Billingsgate, at the _Salutation_;
And the _Bore's Head_, near London Stone;
The _Swan_ at Dowgate, a tavern well knowne;
The _Miter_ in Cheape, and then the _Bull Head_;
And many like places that make noses red;
The _Bore's Head_ in Old Fish-street; _Three Cranes_ in the Vintry;
And now, of late, St. Martins in the Sentree;
The _Windmill_ in Lothbury; the _Ship_ at th' Exchange;
_King's Head_ in New Fish-street, where roysterers do range;
The _Mermaid_ in Cornhill; _Red Lion_ in the Strand;
_Three Tuns_ in Newgate Market; Old Fish-street at the _Swan_."

This enumeration omits the Mourning Bush, adjoining Aldersgate, containing divers large rooms and lodgings, and shown in Aggas's plan of London, in 1560. There are also omitted The Pope's Head, The London Stone, The Dagger, The Rose and Crown, etc. Several of the above _Signs_ have been continued to our time in the very places mentioned; but nearly all the original buildings were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666; and the few which escaped have been re-built, or so altered, that their former appearance has altogether vanished.

The following list of taverns is given by Thomas Heywood, the author of the fine old play of _A Woman killed with Kindness_. Heywood, who wrote in 1608, is telling us what particular houses are frequented by particular classes of people:--

"The Gentry to the King's Head,
The nobles to the Crown,
The Knights unto the Golden Fleece,
And to the Plough the Clown.
The churchman to the Mitre,
The shepherd to the Star,
The gardener hies him to the Rose,
To the Drum the man of war;
To the Feathers, ladies you; the Globe
The seaman doth not scorn;
The usurer to the Devil, and
The townsman to the Horn.
The huntsman to the White Hart,
To the Ship the merchants go,
But you who do the Muses love,
The sign called River Po.
The banquerout to the World's End,
The fool to the Fortune Pie,
Unto the Mouth the oyster-wife,
The fiddler to the Pie.
The punk unto the Cockatrice,
The Drunkard to the Vine,
The beggar to the Bush, then meet,
And with Duke Humphrey dine."

In the _British Apollo_ of 1710, is the following doggrel:--

"I'm amused at the signs,
As I pass through the town,
To see the odd mixture--
A Magpie and Crown,
The Whale and the Crow,
The Razor and the Hen,
The Leg and Seven Stars,
The Axe and the Bottle,
The Tun and the Lute,
The Eagle and Child,
The Shovel and Boot."

In _Look about You_, 1600, we read that "the drawers kept sugar folded up in paper, ready for those who called for _sack_;" and we further find in another old tract, that the custom existed of bringing two cups of _silver_ in case the wine should be wanted diluted; and this was done by rose-water and sugar, generally about a pennyworth. A sharper in the _Bellman of London_, described as having decoyed a countryman to a tavern, "calls for two pintes of sundry wines, the drawer setting the wine with _two cups_, as the custome is, the sharper tastes of one pinte, no matter which, and finds fault with the wine, saying, ''tis too hard, but rose-water and sugar would send it downe merrily'--and for that purpose takes up one of the cups, telling the stranger he is well acquainted with the boy at the barre, and can have two-pennyworth of rose-water for a penny of him; and so steps from his seate: the stranger suspects no harme, because the fawne guest leaves his cloake at the end of the table behind him,--but the other takes good care not to return, and it is then found that he hath stolen ground, and out-leaped the stranger more feet than he can recover in haste, for the cup is leaped with him, for which the wood-cock, that is taken in the springe, must pay fifty shillings, or three pounds, and hath nothing but an old threadbare cloake not worth two groats to make amends for his losses."

Bishop Earle, who wrote in the first half of the seventeenth century, has left this "character" of a tavern of his time. "A tavern is a degree, or (if you will) a pair of stairs above an alehouse, where men are drunk with more credit and apology. If the vintner's nose be at the door, it is a sign sufficient, but the absence of this is supplied by the ivy-bush. It is a broacher of more news than hogsheads, and more jests than news, which are sucked up here by some spungy brain, and from thence squeezed into a comedy. Men come here to make merry, but indeed make a noise, and this music above is answered with a clinking below. The drawers are the civilest people in it, men of good bringing up, and howsoever we esteem them, none can boast more justly of their high calling. 'Tis the best theatre of natures, where they are truly acted, not played, and the business as in the rest of the world up and down, to wit, from the bottom of the cellar to the great chamber. A melancholy man would find here matter to work upon, to see heads, as brittle as glasses, and often broken; men come hither to quarrel, and come here to be made friends; and if Plutarch will lend me his simile, it is even Telephus's sword that makes wounds, and cures them. It is the common consumption of the afternoon, and the murderer or the maker away of a rainy day. It is the torrid zone that scorches the face, and tobacco the gunpowder that blows it up. Much harm would be done if the charitable vintner had not water ready for the flames. A house of sin you may call it, but not a house of darkness, for the candles are never out; and it is like those countries far in the north, where it is as clear at midnight as at mid-day. After a long sitting it becomes like a street in a dashing shower, where the spouts are flushing above, and the conduits running below, etc. To give you the total reckoning of it, it is the busy man's recreation, the idle man's business, the melancholy man's sanctuary, the stranger's welcome, the inns-of-court man's entertainment, the scholar's kindness, and the citizen's courtesy. It is the study of sparkling wits, and a cup of comedy their book, whence we leave them."

The conjunction of vintner and victualler had now become common, and would require other accommodation than those mentioned by the Bishop, as is shown in Massinger's _New Way to pay Old Debts_, where Justice Greedy makes Tapwell's keeping no victuals in his house as an excuse for pulling down his sign:

"Thou never hadst in thy house to stay men's stomachs,
A piece of Suffolk cheese, or gammon of bacon,
Or any esculent as the learned call it,
For their emolument, but _sheer drink only_.
For which gross fault I here do damn thy licence,
Forbidding thee henceforth to tap or draw;
For instantly I will in mine own person,
Command the constable to pull down thy sign,
And do't before I eat."

And the decayed vinter, who afterwards applies to Wellborn for payment of his tavern score, answers, on his inquiring who he is:

"A decay'd vintner, Sir;
That might have thriv'd, but that your worship broke me
With trusting you with muscadine and eggs,
And _five-pound suppers_, with your after-drinkings,
When you lodged upon the Bankside."

Dekker tells us, near this time, of regular ordinaries of three kinds: 1st. An ordinary of the longest reckoning, whither most of your courtly gallants do resort: 2nd. A twelvepenny ordinary, frequented by the justice of the peace, a young Knight; and a threepenny ordinary, to which your London usurer, your stale bachelor, and your thrifty attorney, doth resort. Then Dekker tells us of a custom, especially in the City, to send presents of wine from one room to another, as a complimentary mark of friendship. "Inquire," directs he, "what gallants sup in the next room; and if they be of your acquaintance, do not, after the City fashion, send them in a pottle of wine and your name." Then, we read of Master Brook sending to the Castle Inn at Windsor, a morning draught of sack.

Ned Ward, in the _London Spy_, 1709, describes several famous taverns, and among them the Rose, anciently, the Rose and Crown, as famous for good wine. "There was no parting," he says, "without a glass; so we went into the Rose Tavern in the Poultry, where the wine, according to its merit, had justly gained a reputation; and there, in a snug room, warmed with brash and faggot, over a quart of good claret, we laughed over our night's adventure."

"From hence, pursuant to my friend's inclination, we adjourned to the sign of the Angel, in Fenchurch-street, where the vintner, like a double-dealing citizen, condescended as well to draw carmen's comfort as the consolatory juice of the vine.

"Having at the King's Head well freighted the hold of our vessels with excellent food and delicious wine, at a small expense, we scribbled the following lines with chalk upon the wall." (See page 98.)

The tapster was a male vendor, not "a woman who had the care of the tap," as Tyrwhitt states. In the 17th century ballad, _The Times_, occurs:

"The bar-boyes and the tapsters
Leave drawing of their beere,
And running forth in haste they cry,
'See, where Mull'd Sack comes here!'"

The ancient drawers and tapsters were now superseded by the barmaid, and a number of waiters: Ward describes the barmaid as "all ribbon, lace, and feathers, and making such a noise with her bell and her tongue together, that had half-a-dozen paper-mills been at work within three yards of her, they'd have signified no more to her clamorous voice than so many lutes to a drum, which alarmed two or three nimble fellows aloft, who shot themselves downstairs with as much celerity as a mountebank's mercury upon a rope from the top of a church-steeple, every one charged with a mouthful of coming, coming, coming." The barmaid (generally the vintner's daughter) is described as "bred at the dancing-school, becoming a bar well, stepping a minuet finely, playing sweetly on the virginals, 'John come kiss me now, now, now,' and as proud as she was handsome."

Tom Brown sketches a flirting barmaid of the same time, "as a fine lady that stood pulling a rope, and screaming like a peacock against rainy weather, pinned up by herself in a little pew, all people bowing to her as they passed by, as if she was a goddess set up to be worshipped, armed with the chalk and sponge, (which are the principal badges that belong to that honourable station you beheld her in,) was the _barmaid_."

Of the nimbleness of the waiters, Ward says in another place--"That the chief use he saw in the Monument was, for the improvement of vintners' boys and drawers, who came every week to exercise their supporters, and learn the tavern trip, by running up to the balcony and down again."

Owen Swan, at the Black Swan tavern, Bartholomew Lane, is thus apostrophized by Tom Brown for the goodness of his wine:--

"Thee, _Owen_, since the God of wine has made
Thee steward of the gay carousing trade,
Whose art decaying nature still supplies,
Warms the faint pulse, and sparkles in our eyes.
Be bountiful like him, bring t'other _flask_,
Were the stairs wider we would have the _cask_.
This pow'r we from the God of wine derive,
Draw such as this, and I'll pronounce thou'lt live."

THE BEAR AT THE BRIDGE FOOT.

This celebrated tavern, situated in Southwark, on the west side of the foot of London Bridge, opposite the end of St. Olave's or Tooley-street, was a house of considerable antiquity. We read in the accounts of the Steward of Sir John Howard, March 6th, 1463-4 (Edward IV.), "Item, payd for red wyn at the Bere in Southwerke, iij_d._" Garrard, in a letter to Lord Strafford, dated 1633 intimates that "all back-doors to taverns on the Thames are commanded to be shut up, only the Bear at Bridge Foot is exempted, by reason of the passage to Greenwich," which Mr. Burn suspects to have been "the avenue or way called Bear Alley."

The Cavaliers' Ballad on the funeral pageant of Admiral Deane, killed June 2nd, 1653, while passing by water to Henry the Seventh's Chapel, Westminster, has the following allusion:--

"From Greenwich towards the Bear at Bridge foot,
He was wafted with wind that had water to't,
But I think they brought the devil to boot,
Which nobody can deny."

Pepys was told by a waterman, going through the bridge, 24th Feb. 1666-7, that the mistress of the Beare Tavern, at the Bridge foot, "did lately fling herself into the Thames, and drown herself."

The Bear must have been a characterless house, for among its gallantries was the following, told by Wycherley to Major Pack, "just for the oddness of the thing." It was this: "There was a house at the Bridge Foot where persons of better condition used to resort for pleasure and privacy. The liquor the ladies and their lovers used to drink at these meetings was canary; and among other compliments the gentlemen paid their mistresses, this it seems was always one, to take hold of the bottom of their smocks, and pouring the wine through that filter, feast their imaginations with the thought of what gave the zesto, and so drink a health to the toast."

The Bear Tavern was taken down in December, 1761, when the labourers found gold and silver coins, of the time of Elizabeth, to a considerable value. The wall that enclosed the tavern was not cleared away until 1764, when the ground was cleared and levelled quite up to Pepper Alley stairs. There is a Token of the Bear Tavern, in the Beaufoy cabinet, which, with other rare Southwark tokens, was found under the floors in taking down St. Olave's Grammar School in 1839.

MERMAID TAVERNS.

The celebrated Mermaid, in Bread-street, with the history of "the Mermaid Club," has been described in Vol. I. pp. 8-10; its interest centres in this famous company of Wits.

There was another Mermaid, in Cheapside, next to Paul's Gate, and still another in Cornhill. Of the latter we find in Burn's Beaufoy Catalogue, that the vintner, buried in St. Peter's, Cornhill, in 1606, "gave forty shillings yearly to the parson for preaching four sermons every year, so long as the lease of the Mermaid, in Cornhill, (the tavern so called,) should endure. He also gave to the poor of the said parish thirteen penny loaves every Sunday, during the aforesaid lease." There are tokens of both these taverns in the Beaufoy Collection.

THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN.

This celebrated Shakspearean tavern was situated in Great Eastcheap, and is first mentioned in the time of Richard II.; the scene of the revels of Falstaff and Henry V., when Prince of Wales, in Shakspeare's Henry IV., Part 2. Stow relates a riot in "the cooks' dwellings" here on St. John's eve, 1410, by Princes John and Thomas. The tavern was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, but was rebuilt in two years, as attested by a boar's head cut in stone, with the initials of the landlord, I. T., and the date 1668, above the first-floor window. This sign-stone is now in the Guildhall library. The house stood between Small-alley and St. Michael's-lane, and in the rear looked upon St. Michael's churchyard, where was buried a _drawer_, or waiter, at the tavern, d. 1720: in the church was interred John Rhodoway, "Vintner at the Bore's Head," 1623.

Maitland, in 1739, mentions the Boar's Head, as "the chief tavern in London" under the sign. Goldsmith (_Essays_), Boswell (_Life of Dr. Johnson_), and Washington Irving (_Sketch-book_), have idealized the house as the identical place which Falstaff frequented, forgetting its destruction in the Great Fire. The site of the Boar's Head is very nearly that of the statue of King William IV.

In 1834, Mr. Kempe, F.S.A., exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries a carved oak figure of Sir John Falstaff, in the costume of the 16th century; it had supported an ornamental bracket over one side of the door of the Boar's Head, a figure of Prince Henry sustaining that on the other. The Falstaff was the property of one Shelton, a brazier, whose ancestors had lived in the shop he then occupied in Great Eastcheap, since the Great Fire. He well remembered the last Shakspearean grand dinner-party at the Boar's Head, about 1784: at an earlier party, Mr. Wilberforce was present. A boar's head, with tusks, which had been suspended in a room of the tavern, perhaps the Half-Moon or Pomegranate, (see Henry IV. act ii. sc. 4,) at the Great Fire, fell down with the ruins of the house, and was conveyed to Whitechapel Mount, where, many years after, it was recovered, and identified with its former locality. At a public house, No. 12, Miles-lane, was long preserved a tobacco-box, with a painting of the original Boar's Head Tavern on the lid.[29]

In High-street, Southwark, in the rear of Nos. 25 and 26, was formerly the _Boar's Head Inn_, part of Sir John Falstolf's benefaction to Magdalen College, Oxford. Sir John was one of the bravest generals in the French wars, under the fourth, fifth, and sixth Henries; but he is not the Falstaff of Shakspeare. In the _Reliquiæ Hearnianæ_, edited by Dr. Bliss, is the following entry relative to this bequest:--

"1721. June 2.--The reason why they cannot give so good an
account of the benefaction of Sir John Fastolf to Magd.
Coll. is, because he gave it to the founder, and left it to
his management, so that 'tis suppos'd 'twas swallow'd up in
his own estate that he settled it upon the college. However,
the college knows this, that the _Boar's Head_ in Southwark,
which was then an inn, and still retains the name, tho'
divided into several tenements (which bring the college
about 150_l._ per ann.), was part of Sir John's gift."

The above property was for many years sublet to the family of the author of the present Work, at the rent of 150_l._ per annum; the cellar, finely vaulted, and excellent for wine, extended beneath the entire court, consisting of two rows of tenements, and two end houses, with galleries, the entrance being from the High-street. The premises were taken down for the New London Bridge approaches. There was also a noted Boar's Head in Old Fish-street.

Can he forget who has read Goldsmith's nineteenth Essay, his reverie at the Boar's Head?--when, having confabulated with the landlord till long after "the watchman had gone twelve," and suffused in the potency of his wine a mutation in his ideas, of the person of the host into that of Dame Quickly, mistress of the tavern in the days of Sir John, is promptly effected, and the liquor they were drinking seemed shortly converted into sack and sugar. Mrs. Quickly's recital of the history of herself and Doll Tearsheet, whose frailties in the flesh caused their being both sent to the house of correction, charged with having allowed the famed Boar's Head to become a low brothel; her speedy departure to the world of Spirits; and Falstaff's impertinences as affecting Madame Proserpine; are followed by an enumeration of persons who had held tenancy of the house since her time. The last hostess of note was, according to Goldsmith's account, Jane Rouse, who, having unfortunately quarrelled with one of her neighbours, a woman of high repute in the parish for sanctity, but as jealous as Chaucer's Wife of Bath, was by her accused of witchcraft, taken from her own bar, condemned, and executed accordingly!--These were times, indeed, when women could not scold in safety. These and other prudential apophthegms on the part of Dame Quickly, seem to have dissolved Goldsmith's stupor of ideality; on his awaking, the landlord is really the landlord, and not the hostess of a former day, when "Falstaff was in fact an agreeable old fellow, forgetting age, and showing the way to be young at sixty-five. Age, care, wisdom, reflection, begone! I give you to the winds. Let's have t'other bottle. Here's to the memory of Shakspeare, Falstaff, and all the merry men of Eastcheap."[30]

FOOTNOTES:

[27] This negatives a belief common in our day that a Covent Garden tavern was the first divided into rooms for guests.

[28] A successor of Francis, a waiter at the Boar's Head, in the last century, had a tablet with an inscription in St. Michael's Crooked-lane churchyard, just at the back of the tavern; setting forth that he died, "drawer at the Boar's Head Tavern, in Great Eastcheap," and was noted for his honesty and sobriety; in that--

"Tho' nurs'd among full hogsheads he defied
The charms of wine, as well as others' pride."

He also practised the singular virtue of drawing good wine and of taking care to "fill his pots," as appears by the closing lines of the inscription:--

"Ye that on Bacchus have a like dependance,
Pray copy Bob in measure and attendance.'"

[29] _Curiosities of London_, p. 265.

[30] _Burn's Catalogue of the Beaufoy Tokens._

THREE CRANES IN THE VINTRY.

This was one of Ben Jonson's taverns, and has already been incidentally mentioned. Strype describes it as situate in "New Queen-street, commonly called the Three Cranes in the Vintry, a good open street, especially that part next Cheapside, which is best built and inhabited. At the lowest end of the street, next the Thames, is a pair of stairs, the usual place for the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to take water at, to go to Westminster Hall, for the new Lord Mayor to be sworn before the Barons of the Exchequer. This place, with the Three Cranes, is now of some account for the costermongers, where they have their warehouse for their fruit." In Scott's _Kenilworth_ we hear much of this Tavern.

LONDON STONE TAVERN.