Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

The coffee-houses of England take precedence of those of France, though the latter have more enduringly flourished. In 1652, a Greek, in the service of an English Turkey merchant, opened a house in London. “I have discovered his hand-bill,” says Mr. Disraeli, “in which he sets forth the virtue of the coffee drink, first publiquely made and sold in England, by Pasqua Rosee, of St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill, at the sign of his own head.” Mr. Peter Cunningham cites a MS. of Oldys in his possession, in which some fuller details of much interest are given. Oldys says, “The first use of coffee in England was known in 1657, when Mr. Daniel Edwards, a Turkey merchant, brought from Smyrna to London one Pasqua Rosee, a Ragusan youth, who prepared this drink for him every morning. But the novelty thereof drawing too much company to him, he allowed his said servant, with another of his son-in-law’s, to sell it publicly; and they set up the first coffee-house in London, in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill. But they separating, Pasqua kept in the house; and he who had been his partner obtained leave to pitch a tent, and sell the liquor, in St. Michael’s churchyard.” Aubrey, in his Anecdotes, states that the first vendor of coffee in London was one Bowman, coachman to a Turkey merchant, named Hodges, who was the father-in-law of Edwards, and the partner of Pasqua, who got into difficulties, partly by his not being a freeman, and who left the country. Bowman was not only patronized, but a magnificent contribution of one thousand sixpences was presented to him, wherewith he made great improvements in his coffee-house. Bowman took an apprentice, (Paynter,) who soon learnt the mystery, and in four years set up for himself. The coffee-houses soon became numerous: the principal were Farres’, the Rainbow, at the Inner-Temple Gate, and John’s, in Fuller’s Rents. “Sir Henry Blount,” says Aubrey, “was a great upholder of coffee, and a constant frequenter of coffee-houses.”

The frequenters of these places, however, were considered as belonging to the idle and dissipated classes; and the reputation was not altogether undeserved. Respectable people denounced the coffee-drinking evils, illustriously obscure and loyal people dreaded the politics that were discussed at the drinking, and tipsy satirists hurled strong contempt and weak verse at the new-fangled fashion of abandoning Canary wine for the Arabian infusion. The fashion, however, extended rapidly; the more so, that cups were soon to be had at so low a price, that the shops where they were sold went by the name of “Penny Universities.” The ladies, who were excluded from public participation in the bitter enjoyment, made some characteristic complaints against the male drinkers, and intimated that the indulgence of coffee-drinking would in time deteriorate, if not destroy, the human race; but the imbibers heeded not the complaint, their answer to which was that of Béranger’s gay marital philosopher:--

“_Nous laisserions finir le monde,
Si nos femmes le voulaient bien._”

While the ladies, through their poetical representatives, were complaining, male philanthropists quickly discerned the social uses of the cup; and Sir Henry Blount acknowledges, with grateful pleasure, that the custom, on the part of labouring men and apprentices, of drinking a cup of coffee in the morning, instead of their ordinary matinal draught of beer or wine, was chiefly owing to Sir James Muddiford, “who introduced the practice hereof first in London.”

The Government of the Stuarts, hating free discussion, and not particularly caring for wit, watched the coffee-houses with much jealousy, and placed as much restriction upon them as they possibly could strain the law to. The vexatious proceeding did not secure the desired result; and the coffee-house wits laughed at the Government. The wits, however, were not always successful either in their praise of, or satire against, coffee. Pepys, on the 15th of October, 1667, went to the Duke’s House, to see the comedy of “Taruga’s Wiles; or, the Coffee-House,” of which he says, “The most ridiculous, insipid play that ever I saw in my life; and glad we were that Betterton had no part in it.” But Pepys was probably not in the true vein to decide critically that night; for his pretty maid Willett was sitting at his side; and his wife, who was on the other, spoiled the effect of the play by her remarks on the girl’s “confidence.” Perhaps one of the most curious apologies for coffee-houses was that of Aubrey, who declared that he should never have acquired so extensive an acquaintance but for “the modern advantages of coffee-houses in this great city, before which men knew not how to be acquainted but with their own relations _and societies_.” And Aubrey, who has been called the small Boswell of his day, “was a man who had more acquaintances than friends.”

Yemen is the accepted birth-place, if we may so speak, of the coffee-tree. Pietro de la Vallé introduced it into Italy, La Royne into Marseilles, and Thevenot brought it with him to Paris. In 1643, a Levantine opened a coffee-house in Paris, in the Place du Petit Chatelet; but it was Soleiman Aga, Turkish Ambassador in Paris, in 1689, who was the medium through which coffee found its way into the realm of fashion. Had it been really what some have supposed it to have been,--the black broth of the Lacedæmonians,--he could have made it modish by his method of service. This was marked by all the minute details of oriental fashion,--small cups and foot-boys, gold-fringed napkins and pages, coffee wreathing with smoke, and Ganymedes wreathed with garlands, the first all aroma, and the hand-bearers all otto of roses: the whole thing was too dazzling and dramatic to escape adoption. But the intolerable vulgar would imitate their betters, and coffee became as common at taverns as wine, beer, and smoking. It would have inevitably been abandoned to coarse appetites only, but for François Procope, a Sicilian, who, in the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, exactly opposite to the old play-house in the Faubourg St. Germain, opened an establishment expressly for the sale of coffee, but with such innocent additional articles as ices, lemonade, and the like harmless appliances, to make pleasant the seasons in their change. The _Café Procope_ became the immediate resort of all the wits, philosophers, and refined _roués_ of Paris. There Rousseau wrote or repeated the lines which brought him into such frequent trouble. There Piron muttered the verses with which the incitement of devils inspired him. There Voltaire tried to rule supreme, but found himself in frequent bitter contest with Palissot and Freron. The _Café Procope_ was the morning journal, the foreign news-mart, the exchange,--literary, witty, and emphatically charming. There Lamothe renewed the contest between the ancient and modern, the classical and the romantic, drama. There the brilliant Chevalier de St. Georges gave lessons in fencing to the men of letters; and thence Dorat addressed his amorous missives to Mademoiselle Saunier. There Marmontel praised Clairon, and the Marquis de Bièvre tried his calembourgs; and there Duclos and Mercier made their sketches of society, at once serious and sarcastic. The universal favour in which coffee is still held in Paris, and the crowds which still wait on “Andromaque,” sufficiently belie the famous prophecy of Madame de Sévigné, that “coffee and Racine would have their day.” The dark infusion reigns without a rival, the _demi-tasse_ follows dinner oftener than “grace,” Rachel helps to keep Racine alive, and _café_, in its turn, has the reputation of being _one_ of the favourite stimulants of the great _tragédienne_.

With regard to the making of coffee, there is no doubt that the Turkish method of pounding the coffee in a mortar is infinitely superior to grinding it in a mill, as with us. But after either method the process recommended by M. Soyer may be advantageously adopted; namely, “Put two ounces of ground coffee into a stew-pan, which set upon the fire, stirring the coffee round with a spoon until quite hot, then pour over a pint of boiling water; cover over closely for five minutes, pass it through a cloth, warm again, and serve.”

The chemist Laplace explained to Napoleon the results of various methods of manipulation. “How is it, Sir,” said the Emperor, “that a glass of water in which I melt a lump of sugar, always appears to me to be superior in taste to one in which I put the same quantity of powdered sugar?” “Sire,” said the sage, “there exist three substances, whose elements are precisely the same; namely, sugar, gum, and starch. They only differ under certain conditions, the secret of which Nature has reserved to herself; and I believe that it is possible, that, by the collision caused by the pestle, some of the portions of the sugar pass into the condition of gum or starch, and thence arises the result which has been observed.”

Medical men are widely at issue as to the merits of coffee. All, however, are agreed that it stimulates the brain, and banishes somnolency. Voltaire and Buffon were great coffee-drinkers; but I do not know that we are authorized to attribute the lucidity of the one or the harmony of the other to the habit in question. Ability would be cheaply purchased if that were the case; and the “royal road” would have been discovered where it had never been looked for.

The sleeplessness produced by coffee is not one of an unpleasant character. It is simply a painless vigilance; but, if often repeated, it may be exceedingly prejudicial. Brillat de Savarin illustrates the power of coffee by remarking, that a man may live many years who takes two bottles of wine daily; but the same quantity of strong coffee would soon make him imbecile, or drive him into a consumption.

Taken immediately after dinner, coffee aids the dyspeptic, especially to digest fat and oily aliment, which, without such stimulant, would undoubtedly create much disturbance. The Turks drink it to modify the effects of opium. _Café au lait_, that is, three parts milk to one of coffee, is the proper thing for breakfast; but the addition of milk to that taken after dinner is a cruelty to the stomach. A Dutchman, named Nieudorff, is said to have been the first who ventured on the experiment of mixing milk with coffee. When he had the courage to do this, the two liquids together were considered something of such an abomination as we should now consider brown sugar with oysters.

I must not omit to mention, that the favourite beverage of Voltaire, at the _Café Procope_, was “_choca_,”--a mixture of coffee (with milk) and chocolate. The Emperor Napoleon was as fond of the same mixture as he was of Chambertin; and, in truth, I do not know a draught which so perfectly soothes and revives as that of hot, well-frothed “_choca_.”

Substances mixed with coffee, or substitutes for the berry altogether, have been tried with various degrees of success. Roasted acorns have been made to pass for it when ground. There is more chicory than coffee consumed at the present time in France; and the infusion of the lupin does duty for it at poor hearths in Flanders; as that of roasted rye (the nearest resemblance to coffee) does in America. Experimentalists say, that an excellent substitute for coffee may be made from asparagus; and Frankfort, alarmed lest the complications of the “Eastern Question” should deprive it of the facilities for procuring the berry as heretofore, is gravely consulting as to whether asparagus coffee may be a beverage likely to be acceptable as a substitute for the much prized “_demi-tasse_.”

CHOCOLATE.

Ferdinand Cortez went to Mexico in search of gold; but the first discovery he made was of chocolate. The discovery was not welcomed ecclesiastically, as coffee was. This new substance was considered a sort of wicked luxury, at least for Monks, who were among the earliest to adopt it, but who were solemnly warned against its supposed peculiar effects. The moralists quite as eagerly condemned it; and in England Roger North angrily asserted, that “the use of coffee-houses seems much improved by a new invention, called ‘chocolate-houses,’ for the benefit of rooks and cullies of quality, where gambling is added to all the rest, and the summons of W---- seldom fails; as if the devil had erected a new university, and these were the colleges of its Professors, as well as his schools of discipline.” The Stuart jealousy of these localities, where free discussion was amply enjoyed, seems to have influenced the Attorney-General of James II.; for, although they may not have been frequented, he says, by “the factious gentry he so much dreaded,” he adds, “This way of passing time might have been stopped at first, before people had possessed themselves of some convenience from them of meeting for short dispatches, and passing evenings with small expenses.” Of what chiefly recommended these places, the stern official thus made a grievance.

Chocolate (or, as the Mexicans term it, _chocolalt_) is the popular name for the seeds of the cocoa, or, more correctly, the _cacao_, plant, in a prepared state, generally with sugar and cinnamon. The Mexicans improve the flavour of the inferior sorts of cacao seeds by burying them in the earth for a month, and allowing them to ferment. The nutritious quality of either cacao or chocolate is entirely owing to the oil or butter of cacao which it contains. Cacao-nibs, the best form of taking this production, are the seeds roughly crushed. When the seed is crushed between rollers, the result is flake cacao. Common cacao is the seed reduced to a paste, and pressed into cakes. The cheap kinds of chocolate are said to be largely adulterated with lard, sago, and red-lead,--a pernicious mixture for healthy stomachs; but what must it be for weak stomachs craving for food at once nutritious and easy of digestion? The “patent” chocolates of the shops are nothing more than various modes of preparing the cacao seeds.

The ladies of Mexico are so excessively fond of chocolate, that they not only take it several times during the day, but they occasionally have it brought to them in church, and during the service. A cup of good chocolate may, indeed, afford the drinker strength and patience to undergo a bad sermon. The Bishops opposed it for a time, but they at length closed their eyes to the practice. I am afraid there is no chance of the fashion being introduced into England. The advantages would be acknowledged; but then there would be a savour of Popery detected about it, that would inevitably cause its rejection. The Church herself found a boon in this exquisite supporter of strength. The Monks took it of a morning before celebrating Mass, even in Lent. The orthodox and strong-stomached raised a dreadful cry at the scandal; but Escobar metaphysically proved, that chocolate made with water did not break a fast; thus establishing the ancient maxim, “_Liquidum non frangit jejunium._”

Spain welcomed the gift of chocolate made her by Mexico with as much enthusiasm as she did that of gold by Peru; the metal she soon squandered, but chocolate is still to be found in abundance in the Peninsula: it is an especial favourite with ladies and Monks, and it always appears on occasions when courtesy requires that refreshments be offered. The Spanish Monks sent presents of it to their brethren in French monasteries; and Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip II. of Spain, when she brought across the Pyrenees her hand, but not her heart, to the unenergetic Louis XIII., brought a supply of chocolate therewith; and henceforth it became an established fact. In the days of the Regency it was far more commonly consumed than coffee; for it was then taken as an agreeable aliment, while coffee was still looked upon as a somewhat strange beverage, but certainly akin to luxury. In the opinion of Linnæus it must have surpassed all other nutritious preparations, or that naturalist would hardly have conferred upon it, as he did, the proud name of _Theobroma_, “food for the gods!”

Invalids will do well to remember, that chocolate made with vanilla is indigestible, and injurious to the nerves. Indeed, there are few stomachs at all that can bear chocolate as a daily meal. It is a highly concentrated aliment; and all such cease to act nutritiously if taken into constant use.

We will now look into some of those famous resorts of by-gone days, where coffee and chocolate were prepared, and wit was bright and spontaneous.

THE OLD COFFEE-HOUSES.

The “Grecian” appears to have been the oldest of the better-known coffee-houses, and to have lasted the longest. It was opened by Constantine, a Grecian, “living in Threadneedle-street, over against St. Christopher’s Church,” in the early part of the last half of the seventeenth century. Its career came to a close towards the middle of the nineteenth century; namely, in 1843, when the Grecian Coffee-house, then in Devereux-court, Strand, where it had existed for very many years, was converted into the “Grecian Chambers,” or lodgings for bachelors.

Constantine not only sold “the right Turkey coffee berry, or chocolate,” but gave instructions how to “prepare the said liquors gratis.” The “Grecian” was the resort rather of the learned than the dissipated. The antiquarians sat at its tables; and, despising the news of the day, discussed the events of the Trojan war, and similar lively, but remote, matters. The laborious trifling was ridiculed by the satirists; and it is clear that there were some pedants as well as philosophers there. It was a time when both sages and sciolists wore swords; and it is on record that two friendly scholars, sipping their coffee at the “Grecian,” became enemies in argument, the subject of which was the accent of a Greek word. Whatever the accent ought to have been, the quarrel was acute, and its conclusion grave. The scholars rushed into Devereux-court, drew their swords, and, as one was run through the body and killed on the spot, it is to be supposed that he was necessarily wrong. But the duel was the strangest method of settling a question in grammar that I ever heard of. Still it was rather the scholars than the rakes who patronized the “Grecian;” and there were to be found the Committee of the Royal Society, and Oxford Professors, enjoying their leisure and hot cups, after philosophical discussion and scientific lecturing; and even the Privy Council Board sometimes assembled there to take coffee after Council.

The “coffee-houses,” which were resorted to for mere conversation as well as coffee, began on a first floor; they were the seed, as it were, whence has arisen the political and exclusive “club” of the present day. The advantages of association were first experienced in coffee-houses; but at the same time was felt the annoyance caused by intrusive and unwelcome strangers. The club, with its ballot-box to settle elections of members, was the natural result.

William Urwin’s Coffee-house, known as “Will’s,” from its owner’s name, and recognised as the “Wits’,” from its company, was on the first floor of the house at the west corner of Bow-street and Russell-street, Covent Garden. In the last half of the seventeenth century, it was at the height of its good fortune and reputation. The shop beneath it was kept by a woollen-draper.

Tom Brown says that a wit was set up at a small cost; he was made by “peeping once a day in at Will’s,” and by relating “two or three second-hand sayings.” It was at Will’s that Dryden “pedagogued” without restraint, accepted flattery without a blush, and praised with happy complacency the perfection of his own works. He was the great attraction of the place, and his presence there of an evening filled the room with admiring listeners, or indiscreet adulators. Dryden had the good sense to retire early, when the tables were full, and he knew he had made a favourable impression, which the company might improve in his absence. Addison, more given to jolly fellowship, sat late with those who tarried to drink. Pepys, recording his first visit, in February, 1663-4, says that he stepped in on his way to fetch his wife, “where 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, as I 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.”

The reign of Dryden at Will’s was not, however, without its pains. Occasionally, a daring stranger, like young Lockier, raw from the country, would object to the _dicta_ of the despot. Thus, when Dryden praised his “Mac Flecknoe,” as the first satire “written in heroics,” the future Dean timidly suggested that the “Lutrin” and the “_Secchia Rapita_” were so written; and Dryden acknowledged that his corrector was right. The London beaux would have been afraid, or incapable, of setting Dryden right; they were sufficiently happy if they were but permitted to dip their fingers into the poet’s snuff-box, and, at a separate table, listen to the criticisms uttered by the graver authorities who were seated round another, at the upper end of the room. Of the disputes that there arose, “glorious John” was arbiter; for his particular use a chair was especially reserved; therein enthroned, he sat by the hearth or the balcony, according to the season, and delivered judgments which were not always final.

No man was better qualified to do so, for the “specialty” of Will’s Coffee-house was poetry. Songs, epigrams, and satires, circulated from table to table; and the wits judged plays, even Dryden’s, until the playwrights began to satirize the wits. With Dryden, “Will’s” lost some of its dignity. Late hours, card-playing, and politics; poets more didactic in their verse, and essayists more instructive in their prose, than in their daily practice; “dissipateurs” like Addison, and peers who shared in Addison’s lower tastes, without either his talent or occasional refinement,--spoiled the character of “Will’s,” where, by the way, Pope had been introduced by Sir Charles Wogan, though, years before, in his youth, he had been proud to follow old Wycherley about from coffee-house to coffee-house; and then “Button’s” attracted the better portion of the company, and left Will’s to the vulgar and the witless.

“Button’s” Coffee-house was so named from its original proprietor, who had been a servant of the Countess of Warwick, the wife of Addison. It was situated in Great Russell-street, on the south side, about two doors from Covent Garden. What Dryden had been at “Will’s,” Addison was at “Button’s.” There,--after writing during the morning at his house in St. James’s Place, where his breakfast-table was attended by such men as Steele, Budgell, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Brett, with some of whom he generally dined at a tavern,--he was to be found of an evening, until the supper hour called him and his companions to some other tavern, where, if not at Button’s, they made a night of it. Pope was of the company for almost a year, but left it because the late hours injured his health; and furthermore, perhaps, for the reason, that his irritable temper had rendered him unpopular, and that he had so provoked Ambrose Philips, that the latter suspended a birchen rod over Pope’s usual seat, in intimation of what the ordinary occupant would get if he ventured into it. The Buttonians were famous for the fierceness of their criticism, but it appears to have been altogether a better organized establishment than Will’s; for while the parish registers show that the landlord of the latter was fined for misdemeanour, the vestry-books of St. Paul (Covent Garden), prove that Button paid “for two places in the pew No. 18, on the south side of the north aisle, £2. 2_s._;” and charity leads us to conclude that Daniel and his wife occupied the places so paid for, and were orthodox as well as loyal. The “Lion’s Head” of the “Guardian,” which was put up at Button’s, over the box destined to receive contributions for the editor, is now at Woburn, in the possession of the Duke of Bedford.

Of coffee-houses that went by the name of “Tom’s” there were three. At the one in Birchin-lane, Garrick occasionally appeared among the young merchants; and Chatterton, before despair slew even ambition, more than once dined. At the second house so called, in Devereux-court, many of the scholars, critics, and scientific men of the last century used to congregate. There Akenside essayed to rule over the tables as Dryden had done at “Will’s,” and Addison at “Button’s;” but his imperious rule was often overthrown by “flat rebellion.” _The_ “Tom’s” was opposite “Button’s,” and stood on the north side of Great Russell-street, No. 17. It received its name from the Christian appellation of its master, Thomas West, who committed suicide in 1722. If guests gained celebrity in the latter days at “Will’s” for writing a “posie for a ring,” so at “Tom’s” Mr. Ince was held in due respect, for the reason that he had composed a solitary paper for the “Spectator.” It was a place where the tables were generally crowded from the time of Queen Anne to that of George III. Seven hundred of the nobility, foreign Ministers, gentry, and geniuses of the age, subscribed a guinea each, in 1714, for the erection of a card-room; and this fact, with the additional one that, only four years later, an enlarged room for cards and conversation was constructed, may serve to show by what sort of people, and for what particular purposes, “Tom’s” was patronized.

At the time that White’s Chocolate-house was opened at the bottom of St. James’s-street,--the close of the last century,--it was probably thought vulgar; for there was a garden attached, and it had a suburban air. At the tables in the house or garden more than one highwayman took his chocolate, or threw his main, before he quietly mounted his horse and rode slowly down Piccadilly towards Bagshot. Before the establishment was burned down, in 1733, it was famous rather for intensity of gaming than excellence of chocolate. It arose from its ashes, and settled, at the top of the street, into a fixedness of fashion that has never swerved. Gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment were the characteristics of the place. The celebrated Lord Chesterfield there “gamed, and pronounced witticisms among the boys of quality.” Steele dated all his love-news in the “Tatler” from White’s. It was stigmatized as “the common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies;” and bets were laid to the effect that Sir William Burdett, one of its members, would be the first Baronet who would be hanged. The gambling went on till dawn of day; and Pelham, when Prime Minister, was not ashamed to divide his time between his official table and the picquet-table at White’s. Selwyn, like Chesterfield, enlivened the room with his wit. As a sample of the spirit of betting which prevailed, Walpole quotes “a good story made at White’s.” A man dropped down dead at the door, and was carried in; the Club immediately made bets whether he was dead or not, and, when they were going to bleed him, the wagerers for his death interposed, and said it would affect the fairness of the bet!

Some of the old rules of the houses are rich in “table traits.” Thus, in 1736, every member was required to pay an extra guinea a year “towards having a good cook.” The supper was on table at ten o’clock; the bill at twelve. In 1758, it was agreed that he who transgressed the rules for balloting should pay the supper reckoning. In 1797 we find, “Dinner at 10_s._ 6_d._ per head, (malt liquor, biscuits, oranges, apples, and olives included,) to be on table at six o’clock; the bill to be brought at nine.” “That no hot suppers be provided, unless particularly ordered; and then be paid for at the rate of 8_s._ per head. That in one of the rooms there be laid every night (from the Queen’s to the King’s birthday) a table, with cold meat, oysters, &c. Each person partaking thereof to pay 4_s._, malt liquors only included.”

Colley Cibber was a member, but, as it would seem, an honorary one only, who dined with the Manager of the Club, and was tolerated afterwards by the company for the sake of his wit. Mr. Cunningham states, that at the supper given by the Club in 1814, at Burlington House, to the Allied Sovereigns, there were covers laid for 2,400 people, and that the cost was “£9,849. 2_s._ 6_d._” “Three weeks after this, (July 6, 1814,) the Club gave a dinner to the Duke of Wellington, which cost £2,840. 10_s._ 9_d._” The dinner given, in the month of February of the present year, to Prince George of Cambridge, was one not to welcome a victorious warrior, but to cheer an untried, about to go forth to show himself worthy of his spurs. White’s ceased to be an open Chocolate-house in 1736, from which period it has been as private an establishment as a Club can be said to be.

The politicians had their coffee-houses as well as the wits. The “Cocoa Tree,” in St. James’s-street, was the Tory house in the reign of Queen Anne. The “St. James’s” was the Whig house. It was a well-frequented house in the latter days of George II., when Gibbon recorded his surprise at seeing a score or two of the noblest and wealthiest in the land, seated in a noisy coffee-room, at little tables covered by small napkins, supping off cold meat or sandwiches, and finishing with strong punch and confused politics.

The St. James’s Coffee-house ranked Addison, Swift, Steele, and, subsequently, Goldsmith and Garrick, among its _habitués_. It had a more solid practical reputation than any of the other coffee-houses; for within its walls Goldsmith’s poem of “Retaliation” originated. But politics was its “staple;” and poor politicians seem to have been among its members, seeing that many of them were in arrears with their subscriptions: but these were probably the outer-room men; for the magnates, who were accustomed to sit and watch the line of Bourbon, within the steam of the great coffee-pot, were doubtless punctual in their payments ere they could have earned the privilege. And yet their poetical acumen was often more correct than their political discernment; for while the company at Button’s ascribed the “Town Eclogues” to Gay, the coffee-drinkers at St. James’s were unanimous in giving them to a lady of quality.

Of the coffee-houses of a second order, the “Bedford,” in Covent Garden, was probably the first; but, for good-fellowship, it equalled any of the more exclusive houses; for Garrick, and Quin, and Murphy, and Foote, were of the company. Wit was the serious occupation of all its members; and it never gave any of them serious trouble to produce in abundance. Quin, above all, was brilliant in the double achievements of Epicureanism and sparkling repartee. Garrick, in allusion to the sentiments often expressed here by his brother actor, wrote the epigrammatic lines, supposed to be uttered by Quin, in reference to a discussion on embalming the dead, and which will be found in a subsequent chapter, under the head of “Table Traits of the last Century.”

Æsopus, the actor, who was to Cicero what Quin was to George the Third,--he “taught the boy to speak,”--Æsopus was as great an epicure, in his way, as Quin himself. It is related of him, that one day he dined off a costly dish of birds, the whole of which, when living, had been taught either to sing or speak. Æsopus was as fond of such a dish as his fellow-comedian, Quin, was of mullet; for which, and for some other of his favourite _morceaux_, he used to say that a man ought to have a swallow as long as from London to Botany Bay, and palate all the way! When the fish in question was in season, his first inquiry of the servant who used to awaken him was, “Is there any mullet in the market this morning, John?” and if John replied in the negative, his master’s reported rejoinder was, “Then call me at nine to-morrow, John.”

The Bedford Coffee-house had its disadvantages, as when bullies, like Tiger Roach, endeavoured to hold sovereignty over the members. But usurpers like the Tiger were deposed as easily by the cane as by the sword; but such occurrences marred the peace of the coffee-house, nevertheless. It was, indeed, a strange company that sometimes was to be found within these houses. At Batem’s, the City House, patronized by Blackmore, the brother of Lord Southwell was to be found enacting the parasite, and existing by the aid of men who thought his wit worth paying for. Child’s Coffee-house, St. Paul’s Church-yard, was patronized by the Clergy, who assembled there, especially the younger Clergy, in gowns, cassocks, and scarfs, smoked till they were invisible, and obtained the honorary appellation of “Doctor” from the waiters. Clerical visitants were also to be found at the “Smyrna,” in Pall Mall. Swift was often there with Prior; and the politics of the day were so loudly discussed, that the chairmen and porters in waiting outside used to derive that sort of edification therefrom which is now to be had in the cheap weekly periodicals. “Garraway’s” takes us once more into the City. Garway, as the original proprietor was called, was one of the earliest sellers of tea in London; and his house was frequented by nobles who had business in the City, who attended the lotteries at his house, or who wished to partake of his tea and coffee. Foreign Bankers and Ministers patronized “Robin’s;” the buyers and sellers of Stock collected at “Jonathan’s;” and the shipping interest went, as now, to “Lloyd’s.” All these places were in full activity of business and coffee-drinking in the reign of Queen Anne. Finally, the lawyers crowded “Squire’s,” in Fulwood’s Rents; and there, it will be remembered, Sir Roger de Coverley smoked a pipe, over a dish of coffee, with the Spectator. But enough of these places, whose names are more familiar to many of us than their whereabout, but whose connexion with what may be called the table life of past times gives me warrant for the notice of them, with which, perhaps, I have only troubled the reader. I will only add, that the ceremony of serving chocolate was never such a solemnity in England as in France. In the latter country, as late as the days of Louis XVI., a “man of condition” required no less than four footmen, each with two watches in his fob, according to the fashion, to help him to take a single cup of chocolate. One bore the tray, and one the chocolate-pot, a third presented the cup, and a fourth stood in waiting with a napkin!--and all this coil to carry a morning draught to a poor wretch, whose red heels to his shoes were symbols of the rank which gave him the privilege of being helpless.

The old coffee-houses were not simply resorts for the critics, the politicians, and the fine gentlemen. Gay, writing to Congreve, in 1715, says, “Amidst clouds of tobacco, at a coffee-house, I write this letter. There is a grand revolution at Will’s. Moira has quitted for a coffee-house in the City; and Titcomb is restored, to the great joy of Cromwell, who was at a great loss for a person to converse with upon the Fathers and church history. The knowledge I gain from him is entirely in painting and poetry; and Mr. Pope owes all his skill in astronomy to him and Mr. Whiston.” Pope learnt his astronomy by the assistance of what Moore calls, “the sun of the table;” for, adding a postscript to Gay’s letter to Congreve, he says, “I sit up till two o’clock, over Burgundy and Champagne.” Ten years before, the coffee-house and London life had less charms for him. Witness the paragraph in the letter to Wycherley, in 1705, to this effect: “I have now changed the scene from town to country,--from Will’s Coffee-house to Windsor Forest. I found no other difference than this betwixt the common town wits and the downright country fools,--that the first are partly in the wrong, with a little more flourish and gaiety; and the last, neither in the right nor the wrong, but confirmed in a stupid settled medium, betwixt both.” But, ten years later than the period of Pope’s postscript to Congreve, in which he boasted of sitting over wine during the “wee short hours ayont the twal’,” as Burns calls them, we find the boaster stricken. Swift, writing to him, in 1726, remarks, “I always apprehend most for you after a great dinner; for the least transgression of yours, if it be only two bits and one sup more than your stint, is a great debauch, for which you certainly pay more than those sots who are carried drunk to bed.”

In England, the chocolate and coffee-houses were not confined to the metropolis and its rather rakish inhabitants. The Universities had their coffee-houses, as London had; and the company there, albeit _alumni_ of the various Colleges, do not appear to have been remarkable for refinement. Dr. Ewins, at Cambridge, in the last century, acquired the ill-will both of Town and Gown for exercising a sort of censorship over their conduct. According to Cole, the Antiquary, they needed it; for he says, with especial allusion to the Undergraduates, that “they never were more licentious, riotous, and debauched. They often broke the Doctor’s windows,” he adds, “as they said he had been caught listening on their staircases and (at their) doors.” The Doctor, like his adversaries, was in the habit of visiting the Union Coffee-house, opposite St. Radigund’s (or Jesus) lane,--a fashionable rendezvous. He was there one night about Christmas, 1771, or January, 1772, “when some Fellow-Commoners, who owed him a grudge, sitting in the box near him, in order to affront him, pretended to call their dog ‘Squintum,’ and frequently repeated the name very loudly in the coffee-house; and, in their joviality, swore many oaths, and caressed their dog. Dr. Ewin, as did his father, squinted very much, as did Whitefield, the Methodist teacher, who was vulgarly called Dr. Squintum, from the blemish in his eyes. Dr. Ewin was sufficiently mortified to be so affronted in public. However, he carefully marked down the number of oaths sworn by these gentlemen, whom he made to pay severely the penalty of five shillings for each oath, which amounted to a good round sum.” The next week, ballad-singers sang, in the streets of Cambridge, a ballad, which they gave away to all who would accept a copy, and from which the following verses are extracted. They will show--if nothing else--that the University coffee-house poet was less elegant than Horace, and that the “well of English” into which he had dipped was not altogether “undefiled:”--

“Of all the blockheads in the Town,
That strut and bully up and down,
And bring complaints against the Gown,
There’s none like Dr. Squintum.

“With gimlet eyes and dapper wig,
This Justice thinks he looks so big:
A most infernal stupid gig
Is this same Dr. Squintum.

“What pedlar can forbear to grin,
Before his Worship that has been,
To think what folly lurks within
This Just Ass Dr. Squintum?”

Old René d’Anjou used to say, that, as soon as a man had breakfasted, it was his bounden duty to devote himself to the great business of the day,--think of dinner. We will in some wise follow the instructions given,--first, however, saying a word or two upon French coffee-houses, and then upon those who naturally take precedence of “dinners,”--the cooks by whom dinners are prepared.

THE FRENCH CAFÉS.

In the reign of Louis XV. there were not less than six hundred _cafés_ in Paris. London, at the same period, could not count as many dozens. Under Louis Napoleon, the _cafés_ have reached to the amazing number of between three and four thousand. All these establishments acknowledge the _Café Procope_ as the founder of the dynasty, although, indeed, there were coffee-vendors in Paris before the time of the accomplished Sicilian. “_Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona._”

The consumption of coffee in Paris, at the period of the breaking out of the Revolution, was something enormous. The French West-Indian Islands furnished eighty millions of pounds annually, and this was irrespective of what was derived from the East. The two sources together were not sufficient to supply the kingdom. Thence adulterations, fortunes to the adulterators, and that supremacy of chicory, which has destroyed the well-earned reputation of French coffee.

I have already spoken of the _Café Procope_, and here I will only add an anecdote illustrative of the scenes that sometimes occurred there, and of the national character generally in the reign of Louis XV. One afternoon that M. de Saint Foix was seated at his usual table, an officer of the King’s Body-Guard entered, sat down, and ordered “a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll,” adding, “It will serve me for a dinner!” At this Saint Foix remarked aloud, that “a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll, was a confoundedly poor dinner.” The officer remonstrated; Saint Foix reiterated his remark, and again and again declared, that nothing the gallant officer could say to the contrary, would convince him that a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll, was _not_ a confoundedly poor dinner. Thereupon a challenge was given and accepted, and the whole of the persons present adjourned as spectators of a fight, which ended by Saint Foix receiving a wound in the arm. “That is all very well,” said the wounded combatant; “but I call you to witness, gentlemen, that I am still profoundly convinced, that a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll, is a confoundedly poor dinner!” At this moment, the principals were arrested, and carried before the Duke de Noailles, in whose presence Saint Foix, without waiting to be questioned, said, “Monseigneur, I had not the slightest intention of offending the gallant officer, who, I doubt not, is an honourable man; but Your Excellency can never prevent my asserting, that a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll, is a confoundedly poor dinner.” “Why, so it is,” said the Duke. “Then I am not in the wrong,” remarked Saint Foix; “and a cup of coffee,”----at these words Magistrates, delinquents, and auditory, burst into a roar of laughter, and the antagonists became friends. It was a more bloodless issue than that which occurred to Michel Lepelletier, in later years, at the _Café Février_. He was seated at dinner there, when an _ex-garde-du-corps_, named Paris, approached him, inquired if he were the Lepelletier who had voted for the death of Louis XVI., and, receiving an affirmative reply, drew forth a dagger, and swiftly slew him on the spot.

Before Procope, the Armenian, Pascal, sold coffee at the Fair of St. Germain, at three-halfpence a cup; and the beverage was sung by the poet Thomas in terms not exactly like those with which Delille subsequently sang the virtues of the tree. The French coffee-houses at once gained the popularity to which they aspired. To Pascal succeeded Maliban, and then Gregoire opened his establishment in the Rue Mazarin, in the vicinity of players and play-goers. At the same time, there was a man in Paris, called “the lame Candiot,” who carried ready-made coffee about from door to door, and sold it for a penny per cup, sugar included. The _café_ at the foot of the bridge of Notre-Dame was founded by Joseph; that at the foot of the bridge of St. Michel, by Etienne; and both of these are more ancient than that of Procope, who was the first, however, who made a fortune by his speculation. The _Quai de l’Ecole_ had its establishment, (the _Café Manoury_,) which I believe still exists, as does the _Café de la Régence_, which dates from the time of the Regent Duke of Orleans, and where Rousseau used to play at chess, and appear in his Armenian costume. It was also frequented, _incog._, by the Emperor Joseph. The oldest _café_ in the Palais Royal is the celebrated _Café de Foy_, so called from the name of its founder. Carl Vernet was one of its most constant patrons. He was there on one occasion, when some repairs were going on, and, in his impatience, he flung a wet colouring brush from him, which struck the ceiling and left a spot. He immediately ascended the ladder, and with a touch of his finger converted the stain into a swallow; and his handywork was still to be seen on the ceiling, when I was last in Paris. It was before the _Café de Foy_ that Camille Desmoulins harangued the mob, in July, 1789, with such effect, that they took up arms, destroyed the Bastille, and inaugurated the Revolution.

The _Café de Valois_ will long be remembered for its aristocratic character; that of Montansier, on the other hand, was remarkable for the coarseness of its frequenters, and the violence with which they discussed politics, especially at the period of the Restoration. The _Café du Caveau_ was more joyously noisy with its gay artists and broad songs. The Empire brought two establishments into popular favour, both of which appealed to the lovers of beauty as well as of coffee. The first was the _Café du Bosquet_, and the second the _Café des Mille Colonnes_. Each was celebrated for the magnificent attractions of the presiding lady,--the _belle limonadière_, as she was at first called, or the _dame du comptoir_, as refinement chose to name her. Madame Romain, at the _Mille Colonnes_, had a longer reign than her rival; and the lady was altogether a more remarkable person. In the reign of Louis XVIII., her seat was composed of the throne of Jerome, King of Westphalia,--which was sold by auction on the bankruptcy of his Majesty. Madame Romain descended from it, like a weary Queen, to take refuge in a nunnery; and, curiously enough, the ex-King has recovered his “throne,” which now figures, in the reduced aspect of a simple arm-chair, in the _salon_ of his residence at the Palais Royal. After the abdication of Madame Romain, the _Mille Colonnes_ endeavoured to secure success by very meretricious means. Girls of a brazen quality of beauty bore through the apartments flaming bowls of punch, usually taken after the coffee; and the beverage and the bearers were equally bad.

As the _Café Chrêtien_ was once thoroughly Jacobin, so the _Café Lemblin_ became entirely Imperial, and was the focus of the Opposition after the return of the Bourbons. It was famous for its chocolate, as well as for its coffee. When the Allies were at Paris, it was hardly safe for the officers to enter the _Café Lemblin_, and many scenes of violence are described as having occurred there, and many a duel was fought with fatal effect, after a _café_ dispute between French and foreign officers,--and all for national honour. The Bourbon officers were far more insulting in the _cafés_ to the ex-imperial “braves,” than the latter were to the invading Captains,--and they generally paid dearly for their temerity. Finally,--for to name all the _cafés_ in Paris, would require an encyclopædia,--it is worthy of notice that Tortoni’s, which is now a grave adjunct to the _Bourse_, first achieved success by the opposite process of billiard-playing. A broken-down provincial advocate, Spolar of Rennes, came to Paris with a bad character, and a capital cue; and the latter he handled so wonderfully at the _Café Tortoni_, that all Paris went to witness his feats. Talleyrand patronized him, backed his playing, and gained no inconsiderable sum by the cue-driving of Spolar, whose star culminated when he was appointed “Professor of Billiards to Queen Hortense,”--an appointment which sounds strange, but which was thought natural enough at the time; and, considering all things, so it was.

There is one feature in the French _cafés_ which strikes an observer as he first contemplates it. I allude to the intensity, gravity, and extent of the domino-playing. A quartett party will spend half the evening at this mystery, with nothing to enliven it but the gentlest of conversation, and the lightest of beer, or a simple _petit verre_. The Government wisely thinks that a grave domino-player can be given to neither immorality nor conspiracies. But a British Government proudly scorns to tolerate such insipidities in Britons. British tradesmen, at the end of the day, may be perfectly idle, spout blasphemy, and get as drunk as they please, in any London tavern, provided they do not therewith break the peace; _but_, let the reprobates only remain obstinately sober, and play at dominoes, then they offend the immaculate justice of Justices, and landlords and players are liable to be fined. So, on Sabbath nights, the working-classes have thrown open to their edification the gin-palaces, which invite not in vain; but if one of these same classes should, on the same Sunday evening, knock at the religiously-closed door of a so-called free library, the secretary’s maid who answers the appeal would be pale with horror at the atrocity of the applicant. And what is the bewildered Briton to do? He looks in at church, where, if there be a few free seats, they have a look about them so as to make him understand that he is in his fustian, and that he and the miserable sinners in their fine cloth are not on an equality in the house of God; and so he turns sighingly away, and goes where the law allows him,--to the house of gin.

But, leaving the further consideration of these matters to my readers, let us now address ourselves to the sketching of a class whose most illustrious members have borne witness to their own excellency, not exactly according to the fashion spoken of by Shakspeare; namely, by putting a strange face on their own perfection.

THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART.

It is an incontestable fact, that he who lives soberly does not depend upon his cook for the pleasure which he derives from his repast. Nevertheless, the cook is one of the most important of personages; and even appetite, without him, would not be of the value that it is at present. A great _artiste_ knows his vocation. When the cook of Louis XVIII. was reproached, by His Majesty’s Physician, with ruining the royal health by savoury juices, the dignitary of the kitchen sententiously remarked, that it was the office of the cook to supply His Majesty with pleasant dishes, and that it was the duty of the doctor to enable the King to digest them. The division of labour, and the responsibilities of office, could not have been better defined.

From old times the cook has had a proper sense of the solemn importance of his wonderful art. The _Coquus Gloriosus_, in a fragment of Philemon, shows us what these artists were in the very olden time. He swears by Minerva that he is delighted at his success, and that he cooked a fish so exquisitely, that it returned him admiring and grateful looks from the frying-pan! He had not covered it with grated cheese, not disguised it with sauce; but he had treated it with such daintiness and delicacy, that, even when fully cooked, it lay on the dish as fresh-looking as if it had just been taken from the lake. This result seems to have been a rarity; for, when the fish was served up at table, the delighted guests tore it from one another, and a running struggle was kept up around the board to get possession of this exquisitely prepared _morceau_. “And yet,” says the cook, “I had nothing better to exhibit my talent upon than a wretched river fish, nourished in mud. But, O Jupiter Saviour! if I had only had at my disposal some of the fish of Attica or Argos, or a conger from pleasant Sicyon, like those which Neptune serves to the gods in Olympus, why, the guests would have thought they had become divinities themselves. Yes,” adds the culinary boaster, “I think I may say that I have discovered the principle of immortality, and that the odour of my dishes would recall life into the nostrils of the very dead.” The resonant vaunt is not unlike that of Béchamel, who said that, with the sauce that he had invented, a man would experience nothing but delight in eating his own grandfather!