Chapter VI (2)

Pepys does not speak much of Betterton, the chief performer at the Portugal-street playhouse. The reason must be, either that Betterton played chiefly in tragedy, or that his comic talent (which is probable) was not equal to his tragic. He was the great actor of his time, as Garrick was of the last century, and Mr. Kean lately. His most admired character appears to have been that of Hamlet; though Steele, in a paper to his memory in the '_Tatler_,' seems to have been most impressed by his performance of Othello. If an actor's Othello is really fine, perhaps it must be his best part, as in Mr. Kean's instance, owing to the nature of the character. Hamlet speaks to the reflecting part of us; Othello to the sensitive. We will not present the reader with extracts from Cibber which contain little respecting this actor that might not be said of others; only it may be observed, that in the better parts of the performances of the old players we have something perhaps handed down to us of the manner of these ancient ornaments of the stage. The liveliest idea remaining of the genius of Betterton is furnished by an anecdote of Booth, who, when he first performed the Ghost to Betterton's Hamlet, is said to have been so astonished at the other's look of surprise, that for some moments he was unable to speak. Betterton died old and poor, rather, it should seem, from misfortune than imprudence. The actors in those times, though much admired, were not rewarded as they have been since; nor received anything like the modern salaries. His death is said to have been hastened by tampering with the gout, in order to perform on his benefit night. His person was rather manly than graceful. He was a good-natured man; and, like Molière, would perform when he was ill, rather than hinder the profits of his brother actors.[238] At Caen Wood, Hampstead, the seat of Lord Mansfield, there is a portrait of him by Pope, who was an amateur in painting. They became acquainted when the latter was young, and the actor old; and took such a liking to one another, that Pope is supposed to have had a hand in a volume of pieces from 'Chaucer,' purporting to have been modernised by Betterton.

Another celebrated actor in Portugal Street during the reign of Charles II. was Nokes, who appears, from Cibber's account of him to have been something between Liston and Munden. By a line in one of Dryden's Epistles, the town seem to have thought a comedy deficient in which he did not make his appearance. The poet says to Southern on his play of the '_Wives' Excuse_'--

"The hearers may for want of Nokes repine,
But rest secure, the readers will be thine."

Nokes was one of those actors who create a roar the moment they are seen, and make people ache with laughter.

These were among the older performers in Portugal Street. When Congreve took a share in the theatre, some others had joined it, and become celebrated, two of whom, Mr. Mountford and Mrs. Bracegirdle, we have already described. Another two, whose names remain familiar with posterity, are Mrs. Mountford and Mrs. Barry. Mrs. Mountford was a capital stage coquette; besides being able to act male coxcombs and country dowdies. Mrs. Barry was a fine tragedian, both of the heroic and tender cast. Dryden pronounced her the best actress he had seen. It is said she was a mistress of Lord Rochester's when young; that it was to her his love-letters were addressed; and that she owed her celebrity to his instructions. She was not handsome, and her mouth was a little awry, but her countenance was very expressive. This is the actress, who, in the delirium of her last moments, is said to have alluded in an extempore blank verse to a manoeuvre played by Queen Anne's ministry some time before:--

"Ha! ha! and so they make us lords by dozens!"

Cibber's sketch of Mrs. Mountford, in the character of Melantha is the masterpiece of his book, and presents a portrait sufficiently distinct to be extracted.

"Melantha," says our lively critic (himself a coxcomb of the
first water), "is as finished an impertinent as ever fluttered
in a drawing-room, and seems to contain the most complete
system of female foppery that could possibly be crowded into
the tortured form of a fine lady. Her language, dress, motion,
manners, soul and body, are in a continual hurry to do
something more than is necessary or commendable. And though I
doubt it will be a vain labour to offer you a just likeness of
Mrs. Mountford's action, yet the fantastic impression is still
so strong in my memory, that I cannot help saying something,
though fantastically, about it. The first ridiculous airs that
break from her are upon a gallant, never seen before, who
delivers her a letter from her father, recommending him to her
good graces, as an honourable lover. Here now, one would think,
she might naturally show a little of the sex's decent reserve,
though never so slightly covered. No, sir, not a tittle of it;
modesty is the virtue of a poor-souled country gentlewoman; she
is too much a court lady to be under so vulgar a confusion; she
reads the letter, therefore, with a careless dropping lip, and
an erected brow, humming it hastily over, as if she were
impatient to outgo her father's commands, by making a complete
conquest of him at once; and that the letter might not
embarrass her attack, crack! she scrambles it at once into her
palm, and pours upon him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and
motion; down goes her dainty diving body to the ground, as if
she were sinking under the conscious load of her own
attractions; then launches into a flood of fine language and
compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and
risings, like a swan upon waving water; and to complete her
impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit, that she
will not give her lover leave to praise it: silent assenting
bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the
conversation he is admitted to, which, at last, he is relieved
from, by her engagements to half-a-score visits, which she
swims from him to make, with a promise to return in a
twinkling."[239]

Three of Congreve's plays, '_Love for Love_,' the '_Mourning Bride_,' and the '_Way of the World_,' came out at the theatre in Portugal Street. In the first paper of the '_Tatler_,' Steele gives a criticism on the performance of '_Love for Love_,' which contains one or two curious points of information respecting the customs of play-goers in the reign of Anne. The "article" begins like that of a modern newspaper.

"On Thursday last was acted, for the benefit of Mr. Betterton,
the celebrated comedy called 'Love for Love.' Those excellent
players, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and Mr. Dogget, though
not at present concerned in the house, acted on that occasion.
There has not been known so great a concourse of persons of
distinction as at that time: the stage itself was covered with
gentlemen and ladies; and when the curtain was drawn, it
discovered even there a very splendid audience. This unusual
encouragement, which was given to a play for the advantage of
so great an actor, gives an undeniable instance that the true
relish for manly entertainments and rational pleasures is not
wholly lost. All the parts were acted to perfection: the actors
were careful of their carriage, and no one was guilty of the
affectation to insert witticism of his own; but a due respect
was had to the audience for encouraging this accomplished
player. It is not now doubted but plays will revive, and take
their usual course in the opinion of persons of wit and merit,
notwithstanding their late apostacy in favour of dress and
sound. The place is very much altered since Mr. Dryden
frequented it; where you used to see songs, epigrams, and
satires, in the hands of every man you met, you have now only a
pack of cards; and instead of the cavils about the turn of the
expression, the elegance of the style, and the like, the
learned now dispute only about the truth of the game."

The last proprietor of this theatre was Rich, the famous harlequin, who, having a poor company, unable to compete with Drury Lane, introduced that love of show and spectacle which has ever since been willing to forego the regular drama, however reproached by the critics. Pope has hitched him into the 'Dunciad,' (book iii.), as one of the ministers of Dulness.

"Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease,
'Midst snows of paper, and fierce hail of pease;
And proud his mistress' order to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm."

He had the merit, however, of producing the 'Beggar's Opera,' which was acted scores of nights together all over England, and finally rendered its heroine a duchess, and is said to have made "Gay Rich, and Rich Gay." Rich had no education. He was in the habit, when conversing, of saying mister, instead of sir.

One of Rich's actors was Quin, of whom more by and by. Garrick was never at this theatre. It closed a little before his time, and was never reopened. The vulgar attributed its desertion to a supernumerary devil, who made his appearance in the pantomine of '_Harlequin and Dr. Faustus_,' and took his exit through the roof instead of the door; which so frightened the manager that he had not the courage to open the theatre again. The only memorial now remaining in Portugal Street of theatres and play-goers, and all their lively generation, is a table set up in the burial-ground to the memory of the famous Joe Miller, author of so many posthumous good things. He was an actor in Congreve's time, and has the reputation of having been an honest, as well as a pleasant fellow. The jest-book, which passes for his publication, was collected by a companion of his, who is thought to have owed to him nothing but his name. It is but reasonable to conclude, however, that many of the jests were of the comedian's relating.

In Carey Street, when she was first married, lived Mrs. Chapone. She afterwards resided in Arundel Street. When we have no greater names to mention, we think it our duty to avail ourselves of those of any intelligent and amiable persons who are really worth mention, though they may not be of the first order. They will be welcome to the inhabitants of the street, and perhaps serve to throw a grace over neighbourhoods that want it. It is better to think of Mrs. Chapone in going along Carey Street, than of bailiffs and lock-up houses--unless, indeed the latter should make us zealous to reform the debtor and creditor laws; and even then we might be glad of the refreshment. Mrs. Chapone was one of the disciples of Richardson, and is well known for her '_Letters on the Improvement of the Mind_.' Ten months after her marriage she lost her husband, to whom she was greatly attached, and then she left Carey Street; so that the pleasantest part of her life was probably spent there.

Clare Market stands on a spot formerly called Clement's Inn Fields, the property of the Earls of Clare, one of whom built the market about the year 1657. He is said to have lived close by, in a style of magnificence. The names of the family, Denzel, Holles, &c., are retained in some of the neighbouring streets.

Clare Market became notorious in the time of Pope, for the extravagance of Orator Henley, a clever, but irregular-minded man, who overrated himself, and became, it may be said, mad with impudence. Some describe his Oratory as being in the Market, others in Duke Street, which is the street going out of the western side of Lincoln's Inn Square through the archway. Another writer says it was the old theatre of Sir William Davenant, in Gibbon's Tennis Court, of which we have just spoken, and which is said to have been in Vere Street. Most likely all these accounts are to be reconciled. A tenement is often described as existing in a certain street, when the street presents nothing but a passage to it; and we take Henley's Oratory to have been the old theatre, with a passage to it from the market, from Vere Street, and from Duke Street. Having settled this magnificent point, we proceed with the no less magnificent orator.

He was a native of Melton Mowbray, in the county of Leicester, the son of a clergyman, and after going to St. John's College, Cambridge, returned to his native place, and became master of the school there.

"Feeling, or fancying," says the author of the 'Lounger's
Common-Place Book,' "that a genius like his ought not to be
buried in so obscure a situation, having been long convinced
that many gross errors and impostures prevailed in the various
institutions and establishments of mankind; being also
ambitious of restoring ancient eloquence, but as his enemies
asserted, to avoid the scandalous embarrassments of illicit
love, he repaired to the metropolis, and for a short time
performed clerical functions at St. John's Chapel, near Bedford
Row, with the prospect of succeeding to the lectureship of an
adjoining parish (Bloomsbury), which soon became vacant.

"Several candidates offering for this situation, a warm contest
ensued; probation sermons were preached; and Henley's
predominating vanity made him expect an easy victory.

"We may guess at his disappointment, when this disciple of
Demosthenes and Cicero was informed that the congregation had
no objection to his language or his doctrine, but that he threw
himself about too much in the pulpit, and that another person
was chosen.

"Losing his temper as well as his election, he rushed into a
room where the principal parishioners were assembled, and thus
addressed them, in all the vehemence of outrageous passion:--

"'Blockheads! are _you_ qualified to judge of the degree of
action necessary for a preacher of God's word? Were you able to
read, or had you sufficient sense, you sorry knaves, to
understand the renowned orator of antiquity, he would tell you,
almost the only requisite of a public speaker was action,
action, action.

"'But I despise and defy you; _provoco ad populum_; the public
shall decide between us.' He then hastily retired, and, to
vindicate his injured fame, published the probationary
discourse he had delivered.

"Thus disappointed in the regular routine of his profession, he
became a quack divine; for this character he was eminently
qualified, possessing a strong voice, fluent language, an
imposing magisterial air, and a countenance, which no violation
of propriety, reproach, or self-correction, was ever known to
embarrass or discompose.

"He immediately advertised that he should hold forth publicly,
two days in the week, and hired for this purpose, a large room
in or near Newport Market, which he called the Oratory; but
previous to the commencement of his 'academical discourses,' he
chose to consult Mr. Whiston, a learned clergyman of
considerable mathematical and astronomical research, but who
had rendered himself remarkable by eccentric simplicity of
heart, and the whimsical heterodoxy of his creed.

"In a letter to this gentleman he desired to be informed,
whether he should incur any legal penalties by officiating as a
separatist from the Church of England. Mr. Whiston did not
encourage Henley's project, and a correspondence took place,
which, ending in virulence and ill-language, produced, a few
years after, the following letter:--

"'To Mr. William Whiston,

'Take notice, that I give you warning not to enter my room in
Newport Market, at your peril.

'JOHN HENLEY.'"[240]

Henley succeeded in his speculation, by lecturing, in the most important manner, on all sorts of subjects, from the origin of evil down to a shoe. He also published a variety of pamphlets, and a periodical farrago called the 'Hyp Doctor,' for which he is said to have had pay from Sir Robert Walpole; and as his popularity rapidly increased in consequence of his addressing himself to uneducated understandings, he removed from his Oratory in Newport Market to the more capacious room in Clare Market; for he seems to have had a natural propensity to the society of butchers, and they were fond of his trenchant style. He sometimes threatened his enemies with them. Pope, in answering the assertions of those who charged him with depriving people of their bread, asks whether Colley Cibber had not "still his lord," and Henley his butchers.

"And has not Colley still his lord----
His butchers Henley, his freemasons Moore."

Pope had been attacked by him. The poet speaks of him again, several times, in the 'Dunciad:'

"Imbrown'd with native bronze, lo! Henley stands,
Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands.
How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue!
How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung!
Still break the benches, Henley! with thy strain,
While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain.
O great restorer of the good old stage,
Preacher at once and zany of the age!
O worthy thou of Egypt's wise abodes,
A decent priest where monkeys were the gods."

Book iii., v. 199.

Pope says he had a "gilt tub," and insinuates that he sometimes got drunk. Among the sleeping worthies in the 'Dunciad,'

"---- Henley lay inspired beside a sink,
And to mere mortals seemed a priest in drink."

A contemporary journalist, who says that the fame of Henley induced him to be present at one of the lectures in Newport Market, describes him as entering like a harlequin by a door behind the pulpit, and "at one large leap jumping into it, and falling to work." "His notions," he says, "the orator beat into the audience with hands, arms, legs, and head, as if people's understandings were to be courted and knocked down with blows." The price of admission was a shilling. The following are samples of Henley's extraordinary advertisements:--

"At the Oratory in Newport Market, to-morrow, at half-an-hour
after ten, the sermon will be on the Witch of Endor. At
half-an-hour after five, the theological lecture will be on the
conversion and original of the Scottish nation, and of the
Picts and Caledonians; St. Andrew's relics and panegyric, and
the character and mission of the Apostles.

"On Wednesday, at six, or near the matter, take your chance,
will be a medley oration on the history, merits, and praise of
confusion, and of confounders, in the road and out of the way.

"On Friday, will be that on Dr. Faustus and Fortunatus, and
conjuration; after each, the Chimes of the Times, No. 23 and
24. N.B. Whenever the prices of the seats are occasionally
raised in the week days, notice will be given of it in the
prints. An account of the performances of the Oratory from the
1st of August is published, with the Discourse on Nonsense; and
if any bishop, clergyman, or other subject of his Majesty, or
the subject of any foreign prince or state, can at my years,
and in my circumstances and opportunities, without the least
assistance or any patron in the world, parallel the study,
choice, variety, and discharge of the said performances of the
Oratory by his own or any others, I will engage forthwith to
quit the said Oratory.

"J. HENLEY."[241]

In the bill of fare issued for Sunday, September 28, 1729, the most extraordinary theological speculations are followed by a list of the fashions in dress.

"At the Oratory, the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, near Clare
Market, to-morrow, at half-an-hour after ten: 1. The postil
will be on the turning of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. 2.
The sermon will be on the necessary power and attractive force
which religion gives the spirit of a man with God and good
spirits.

"II. At five: 1. The postil will be on this point: in what
language our Saviour will speak the last sentence on mankind.
2. The lecture will be on Jesus Christ's sitting at the right
hand of God; where that is; the honours and lustre of his
inauguration; the learning, criticism, and piety of that
glorious article.

"The Monday's orations will shortly be resumed. On Wednesday,
the oration will be on the skits of the fashions, or a live
gallery of family pictures in all ages; ruffs, muffs, puffs
manifold; shoes, wedding-shoes, two-shoes, slip-shoes, heels,
clocks, pantofles, buskins, pantaloons, garters,
shoulder-knots, periwigs, head-dresses, modesties, tuckers,
farthingales, corkins, minikins, slammakins, ruffles, round
robins, tollets, fans, patches; dame, forsooth, madam, my lady,
the wit and beauty of my grannum; Winnifred, Joan, Bridget,
compared with our Winny, Jenny, and Biddy; fine ladies, and
pretty gentlewomen; being a general view of the _beau monde_,
from before Noah's flood to the year 29. On Friday will be
something better than last Tuesday. After each, a bob at the
times."[242]

Henley must have lectured a long while; for one of his "bobs at the times" was occasioned by the dismissal of Dr. Cobden, a chaplain to George II. in the year 1748, for preaching from the following text: "Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness." The wicked, we believe, meant the king's mistresses. Next Saturday, Henley's advertisement appeared with an epigram on this text for a motto:--

"Away with the wicked before the king,
And away with the wicked behind him;
His throne it will bless
With righteousness,
And we shall know where to find him."

This must be what the reviewers call a "favourable specimen."

"Sometimes," says the 'Lounger's Common-Place Book,' "one of
his old Bloomsbury friends caught the speaker's eye; on these
occasions, he could not resist the temptation to gratify his
vanity and resentment; after a short pause he would address the
unfortunate interloper in words to the following effect: 'You
see, sir, all mankind are not exactly of your opinion; there
are, you perceive, a few sensible people in the world, who
consider me as not wholly unqualified for the office I have
undertaken.'

"His abashed and confounded adversaries, thus attacked in a
public company, a most awkward species of distress, were glad
to retire precipitately, and sometimes were pushed out of the
room by Henley's partizans."[243]

It is probable that Henley's partizans were sometimes necessary to secure him from the results of his imprudence, though his boldness appears to have been on a par with it. He once attracted an audience of shoemakers by announcing that he could teach them a method of making shoes with wonderful celerity. The secret consisted in cutting off the tops of old boots. His motto to the advertisement (_omne majus continet in se minus_, the greater includes the less) had a pleasantry in it, which makes the disappointment of the poor shoemakers doubly ludicrous.

Henley, on one occasion, was for several days in the custody of the King's messenger, having incurred the displeasure of the House of Lords. "Lord Chesterfield, at that time secretary of state," says the 'Lounger,' "amused himself and his associates in office by sporting with the hopes and fears of our restorer of ancient eloquence; during his examination before the privy council, he requested permission to sit, on account of a real, or, as it was supposed, pretended rheumatism. Occasioning considerable merriment by his eccentric answers, and sometimes by the oddity of his questions, he was observed to join heartily and loudly in the laugh he had himself created.

"The Earl having expostulated with him on the impropriety of
ridiculing the exertions of his native country, at the moment
rebellion raged in the heart of the kingdom, Henley replied, 'I
thought there was no harm, my Lord, in _cracking a joke on a
red-herring_:' alluding to the worthy primate of that name, who
proposed, and, I believe, had actually commenced, arming and
arraying the clergy.

"Many disrespectful and unwarrantable expressions he had
applied to persons high in office, being mentioned to him, he
answered, without embarrassment, 'My Lords, I must live.'

"'I see no kind of reason for that,' said Lord Chesterfield,
'but many against it.' The council were pleased, and laughed at
the retort; the prisoner, somewhat irritated, observed, 'That
is a good thing, but it has been said before.'

"A few days after, being reprimanded for his improper conduct,
and cautioned against repeating it, he was dismissed, as an
impudent, but entertaining fellow."[244]

To complete the history of this man, he struck medals for his tickets, with a star rising to the meridian; over it the motto, _Ad summa_ (to the height), and below, _Inveniam viam aut faciam_ (I will find a way or make one). As might be expected, he found no way at last, but that of falling into contempt. He appears to have been too imprudent to make money by his vagaries; and his manners, probably in consequence, became gross and ferocious. He died in 1756. His person makes a principal figure in two humorous plates, attributed to Hogarth.

Duke Street and Little Wild Street have had an inhabitant, as illustrious afterwards as he was then obscure, in the person of Benjamin Franklin, who, when he was first in England, worked in the printing office of Mr. Watts, in the latter street, and lodged in the former. When he came to England afterwards, as the agent of Massachusetts, he went into this office, "and going up," says his biography, "to a particular press [now in America], thus addressed the two workmen: 'Come, my friends, we will drink together: it is now forty years since I worked like you at this press, as a journeyman printer.'" The same publication gives an account of him during this period, which, besides containing more than one curious local particular, is highly worth the attention of those who confound stimulus with vigour.

"After the completion," says the writer, "of twelve months at
Palmer's" (in Bartholomew Close), "Franklin removed to the
printing-office of Mr. Watts, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he
continued during the whole of his subsequent stay in the
British metropolis. He found a contiguous lodging with a widow
lady in Duke Street, opposite the Catholic chapel, for which
he paid at his old rate of three and sixpence weekly, and
received no new impressions in favour of Christians from his
occasional notices of the Romish superstitions in this family
and neighbourhood. His landlady was a clergyman's daughter,
who, marrying a Catholic, had abjured Protestantism, and became
acquainted with several distinguished families of that
persuasion. She and Franklin found mutual pleasure in each
other's society. He kept good hours, and she was too lame
generally to leave her room; frugality was the habit of both;
half an anchovy, a small slice of bread and butter each, with
half a pint of ale between them, furnished commonly their
supper. So well pleased was the widow with her inmate, that
when Franklin talked of removing to another house, where he
could obtain the same accommodation as with her for two
shillings per week, she became generous in his favour, and
abated her charge for his room to that sum. He never paid her
more during the rest of his stay with her, which was the whole
time he continued in London. In the attic, was a maiden
Catholic lady, by choice and habit a nun. She had been sent
early in life to the Continent to take the veil; but the
climate disagreeing with her health, she returned home; devoted
her small estate to charitable purposes, with the exception of
about 12_l._ a-year; practised confession daily; and lived
entirely on water gruel. Her presence was thought a blessing to
the house, and several of its tenants in succession had charged
her no rent. Her room contained a mattress, table, crucifix,
and stool, as its only furniture. She admitted the occasional
visits of Franklin and her landlady; was cheerful, he says, and
healthful: and while her superstition moved his compassion, he
felt confirmed in his frugality by her example, and exhibits it
in his journal as another proof of the possibility of
supporting life, health, and cheerfulness on very small means.

"During the first weeks of his engagement with Mr. Watts, he
worked as a pressman, drinking only water, while his companions
had their five pints of porter each, per day; and his strength
was superior to theirs. He ridiculed the verbal logic of strong
beer being necessary for strong work; contending that the
strength yielded by malt liquor could only be in proportion to
the quantity of flour or actual grain dissolved in the liquor,
and that a pennyworth of bread must have more of this than a
pot of porter. The Water-American, as he was called, had some
converts to his system; his example, in this case, being
clearly better than his philosophy.[245]

"Franklin was born to be a revolutionist, in many good senses
of the word. He now proposed and carried several alterations in
the so-called _chapel_-laws of the printing office; resisted
what he thought the impositions, while he conciliated the
respect of his fellow-workmen; and always had cash and credit
in the neighbourhood at command, to which the sottish part of
his brethren were occasionally, and sometimes largely indebted.
He thus depicts this part of his prosperous life:--'On my
entrance, I worked at first as a pressman, conceiving that I
had need of bodily exercise, to which I had been accustomed in
America, where the printers work alternately, as compositors
and at the press. I drank nothing but water. The other workmen,
to the number of about fifty, were great drinkers of beer. I
carried occasionally a large form of letters in each hand, up
and down stairs, while the rest employed both hands to carry
one. They were surprised to see by this and many other
examples, that the _American aquatic_, as they used to call me,
was stronger than those that drank porter. The beer-boy had
sufficient employment during the whole day in serving that
house alone. My fellow-pressman drank every day a pint of beer
before breakfast, a pint with bread and cheese for breakfast,
one between breakfast and dinner, one at dinner, one again
about six o'clock in the afternoon, and another after he had
finished his day's work. This custom appeared to me abominable;
but he had need, he said, of all this beer, in order to acquire
strength to work.

"'I endeavoured to convince him, that the bodily strength
furnished by the beer could only be in proportion to the solid
part of the barley dissolved in the water of which the beer was
composed; that there was a larger portion of flour in a
penny-loaf, and that, consequently, if he ate this loaf, and
drank a pint of water, he would derive more strength from it
than from a pint of beer. This reasoning, however, did not
prevent him from drinking his accustomed quantity of beer, and
paying every Saturday night a score of four or five shillings
a-week for this cursed beverage; an expense from which I was
wholly exempt. Thus do these poor devils continue all their
lives in a state of voluntary wretchedness and poverty.

"'My example prevailed with several of them to renounce their
abominable practice of bread and cheese with beer; and they
procured, like me, from a neighbouring house, a good basin of
warm gruel, in which was a small slice of butter, with toasted
bread and nutmeg. This was a much better breakfast, which did
not cost more than a pint of beer, namely, three halfpence, and
at the same time preserved the head clearer. Those who
continued to gorge themselves with beer, often lost their
credit with the publican, from neglecting to pay their score.
They had then recourse to me to become security for them,
_their light_, as they used to call it, _being out_. I attended
at the table every Saturday evening to take up the little sums
which I had made myself answerable for, and which sometimes
amounted to near thirty shillings a-week.

"'This circumstance, added to the reputation of my being a
tolerable good _gabber_, or, in other words, skilful in the art
of burlesque, kept up my importance in the chapel. I had,
besides, recommended myself to the esteem of my master by my
assiduous application to business, never observing Saint
Monday. My extraordinary quickness in composing always procured
me such work as was most urgent, and which is commonly best
paid; and thus my time passed away in a very pleasant
manner.'"[246]

FOOTNOTES:

[215] Anecdotes of Painting, in his Works, 4to. vol. iii., p. 364.

[216] Walpole's Works, _ut supra_, vol iii., p. 364.

[217] Life of Edward Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, in the Autobiography p. 145. It is an honour to Grotius, who wrote a book, De Veritate, on the other side of the question, that he encouraged so renowned an antagonist to publish: though, perhaps, he saw less danger in it than singularity. At all events, he could anticipate no harm from the close.

[218] Malcolm's Customs and Manners of London, from the Roman Invasion to the Year 1700, vol. i., p. 318.

[219] Poems on Affairs of State, from the Time of Oliver Cromwell to the Abdication of King James the Second, vol. i., p. 147.

[220] It is still a phrase with the vulgar to say, a man "shams Abram."

[221] Manners and Customs, vol. i., p. 322.

[222] Historical Account of the English Stage, p. 320.

[223] It has recently been pulled down to make room for the enlargement of the museum of the College of Surgeons.

[224] See Malone, pp. 135, 136.

[225] Malone, p. 135.

[226] Ibid., p. 136.

[227] Malone, p. 136.

[228] Memoirs, _ut supra_, vol. i., p. 167.

[229] Memoirs of the English Court in the Reign of Charles II., &c., by the Countess of Dunois, part ii., p. 71.

[230] Memoirs of Count Grammont, 8vo. 1811, vol. ii. p. 142.

[231] With whom Charles II. was in love--afterwards Duchess of Richmond.

[232] The famous wit and debauchee.

[233] Pepys' Memoirs, vol. iii., p. 136.

[234] Pepys' Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 99.

[235] Id. p. 222.

[236] Pepys' Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 2.

[237] Cibber's Apology, chap. v., &c.

[238] See Tatler, No. 167.

[239] Cibber's Apology, 2d edit. p. 138.

[240] "Lounger's Common Place Book," vol. ii., p. 137.

[241] Malcolm's Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Century, vol. i., p. 417.

[242] Malcolm, _et seq._, p. 421.

[243] Lounger's Common-Place Book, vol. ii., p. 139.

[244] Lounger's Common-Place Book, vol. ii., p. 141.

[245] "For," says the note, "while the mucilaginous qualities of porter may form one criterion of the nourishment it yields, it does not follow that mere nourishment is or ought to be the only consideration in a labouring man's use of malt liquor, or any other aliment. It is well known that flesh-meats yield chyle in greater abundance than any production of the vegetable kingdom; but Franklin would not have considered this any argument for living wholly upon meat. The fact is, that the stimulating quality of all fermented liquors (when moderately taken) is an essential part of the refreshment, and therefore of the strength they yield.

'We curse not wine--the vile excess we blame.'"

[To this Franklin might have answered, that the want of stimulus is generally produced by a previous abuse of it, and that the having recourse to fermented liquors is likely to continue the abuse, whatever may be said about moderation. The moderation is so difficult, that it is better to abstain than to hazard it. It is true (not to quote the words irreverently) "man does not live by bread alone," but by sociality and good-humour; and that even a little excess occasionally is not to be narrowly considered; but for the purposes of labour we may surely gather from the recorded experience of those who have laboured most, whether physically or mentally, first, that the more temperate our _habits_, the more we can perform; and, secondly, that an habitual abstinence from some kinds of refreshment is the only way to secure them.]

[246] Life of Benjamin Franklin, 1826, p. 31.