Chapter VIII (1)

COVENT GARDEN CONTINUED AND LEICESTER SQUARE.

Bow Street once the Bond Street of London -- Fashions at that
time -- Infamous frolic of Sir Charles Sedley and others --
Wycherly and the Countess of Drogheda -- Tonson the Bookseller
-- Fielding -- Russell Street -- Dryden beaten by hired
ruffians in Rose Street -- His Presidency at Will's
Coffee-House -- Character of that Place -- Addison and Button's
Coffee-House -- Pope, Philips, and Garth -- Armstrong --
Boswell's introduction to Johnson -- The Hummums -- Ghost Story
there -- Covent Garden -- The Church -- Car, Earl of Somerset
-- Butler, Southern, Eastcourt, Sir Robert Strange -- Macklin
-- Curious Dialogue with him when past a century -- Dr. Walcot
-- Covent Garden Market -- Story of Lord Sandwich, Hackman, and
Miss Ray -- Henrietta Street -- Mrs. Clive -- James Street --
Partridge, the almanack-maker -- Mysterious lady -- King Street
-- Arne and his Father -- The four Indian Kings -- Southampton
Row -- Maiden Lane -- Voltaire -- Long Acre and its Mug-Houses
-- Prior's resort there -- Newport Street -- St. Martin's Lane,
and Leicester Square -- Sir Joshua Reynolds -- Hogarth -- Sir
Isaac Newton.

Bow Street was once the Bond Street of London. Mrs. Bracegirdle began an epilogue of Dryden's with saying--

"I've had to-day a dozen billet-doux
From fops, and wits, and cits, and Bow-street beaux;
Some from Whitehall, but from the Temple more:
A Covent-garden porter brought me four."

Sir Walter Scott says, in a note on the passage, "With a slight alteration in spelling, a modern poet would have written _Bond Street_ beaux. A billet-doux from Bow Street would now be more alarming than flattering."[274]

Mrs. Bracegirdle spoke this epilogue at Drury Lane. There was no Covent Garden theatre then. People of fashion occupied the houses in Bow Street, and mantuas floated lip and down the pavement. This was towards the end of the Stuart's reign, and the beginning of the next century--the times of Dryden, Wycherly, and the Spectator. The beau of Charles's time is well-known. He wore, when in full flower, a peruke to imitate the flowing locks of youth, a Spanish hat, clothes of slashed silk or velvet, the slashes tied with ribands, a coat resembling a vest rather than the modern coat, and silk stockings, with roses in his shoes. The Spanish was afterwards changed for the cocked hat, the flowing peruke for one more compact; the coat began to stiffen into the modern shape, and when in full dress, the beau wore his hat under his arm. His grimaces have been described by Dryden--

"His various modes from various fathers follow;
One taught the toss, and one the new French wallow;
His sword-knot this, his cravat that designed;
And this the yard-long snake that twirls behind.
From one the sacred periwig he gained,
Which wind ne'er blew, nor touch of hat profaned.
Another's diving bow he did adore,
Which with a shog casts all the hair before,
Till he, with full decorum, brings it back,
And rises with a water-spaniel shake."[275]

One of these perukes would sometimes cost forty or fifty pounds. The fair sex at this time waxed and waned through all the varieties of dishabilles, hoop-petticoats, and stomachers. We must not enter upon this boundless sphere, especially as we have to treat upon it from time to time. We shall content ourselves with describing a set of lady's clothes, advertised as stolen in the year 1709, and which would appear to have belonged to a belle resolved to strike even Bow Street with astonishment. They consisted of "a black silk petticoat, with a red-and-white calico border; cherry-coloured stays, trimmed with blue and silver; a red and dove-coloured damask gown, flowered with large trees; a yellow satin apron, trimmed with white Persian; muslin head-cloths, with crowfoot edging; double ruffles with fine edging; a black silk furbelowed scarf, and a spotted hood!"[276] It is probable, however, the lady did not wear all these colours at once.

A tavern in Bow Street, the Cock, became notorious for a frolic of Sir Charles Sedley, Lord Buckhurst, and others, frequently mentioned in the biographies, but too disgusting to be told. There was an account of it in Pepys' manuscript, but it was obliged to be omitted in the printing. Anthony à Wood found it out, and first gave it to the public. It was not commonly dissolute, there was a filthiness in it, which would have been incredible if told of any other period than that of the fine gentlemen of the court of Charles. What can be repeated has been told by Johnson in his life of Sackville, Lord Dorset.

"Sackville, who was then Lord Buckhurst, with Sir Charles
Sedley, and Sir Thomas Ogle, got drunk at the Cock, in Bow
Street, by Covent Garden, and going into the balcony, exposed
themselves to the company in very indecent postures. At last,
as they grew warmer, Sedley stood forth naked, and harangued
the populace in such profane language, that the public
indignation was awakened; the crowd attempted to force the
door, and being repulsed, drove in the performers with stones,
and broke the windows of the house. For this misdemeanour they
were indicted, and Sedley was fined five hundred pounds; what
was the sentence of the others is not known. Sedley employed
Killegrew and another to procure a remission of the King, but
(mark the friendship of the dissolute!) they begged the fine
for themselves, and exacted it to the last groat."

Opposite this tavern lived Wycherly, with his wife, the Countess of Drogheda. Charles paid him a visit there, before Wycherly knew the lady; and showed him a kindness which his marriage is said to have interrupted. The story begins and ends with Bow Street, and, as far as concerns the lady, is curious.

"Mr. Wycherly," says the biographer, "happened to be ill of a
fever at his lodgings in Bow Street, Covent Garden: during his
sickness, the King did him the honour of a visit: when, finding
his fever indeed abated, but his body extremely weakened, and
his spirits miserably shattered, he commanded him to take a
journey to the south of France, believing that nothing could
contribute more to the restoring his former state of health
than the gentle air of Montpelier during the winter season: at
the same time, the King assured him, that as soon as he was
able to undertake the journey, he would order five hundred
pounds to be paid him to defray the expenses of it.

"Mr. Wycherly accordingly went to France, and returned to
England the latter end of the spring following, with his health
entirely restored. The King received him with the utmost marks
of esteem, and shortly after told him he had a son, who he
resolved should be educated like the son of a king, and that he
could make choice of no man so proper to be his governor as Mr.
Wycherly; and that, for this service, he should have fifteen
hundred pounds a-year allotted to him; the King also added,
that when the time came that his office should cease, he would
take care to make such a provision for him as should set him
above the malice of the world and fortune. These were golden
prospects for Mr. Wycherly, but they were soon by a cross
accident dashed to pieces.

"Soon after this promise of his Majesty's, Mr. Dennis tells us
that Mr. Wycherly went down to Tunbridge, to take either the
benefit of the waters or the diversions of the place, when,
walking one day upon the Wells-walk with his friend, Mr.
Fairbeard, of Gray's Inn, just as he came up to the
bookseller's, the Countess of Drogheda, a young widow, rich,
noble, and beautiful, came up to the bookseller and inquired
for the 'Plain Dealer.' 'Madam,' says Mr. Fairbeard, 'since you
are for the "Plain Dealer," there he is for you,' pushing Mr.
Wycherly towards her. 'Yes,' says Mr. Wycherly, 'this lady can
bear plain-dealing, for she appears to be so accomplished, that
what would be a compliment to others, when said to her would be
plain-dealing.' 'No, truly, sir,' said the lady, 'I am not
without my faults more than the rest of my sex: and yet,
notwithstanding all my faults, I love plain-dealing, and am
never more fond of it than when it tells me of a fault.' 'Then,
Madam,' says Mr. Fairbeard, 'you and the plain dealer seem
designed by heaven for each other.' In short, Mr. Wycherly
accompanied her upon the walks, waited upon her home, visited
her daily at her lodgings whilst she stayed at Tunbridge; and
after she went to London, at her lodgings in Hatton Garden:
where, in a little time, he obtained her consent to marry her.
This he did, by his father's command, without acquainting the
King; for it was reasonably supposed, that the lady's having a
great independent estate, and noble and powerful relations, the
acquainting the King with the intended match would be the
likeliest way to prevent it. As soon as the news was known at
court, it was looked upon as an affront to the King, and a
contempt of his Majesty's orders; and Mr. Wycherly's conduct
after marrying made the resentment fall heavier upon him: for
being conscious he had given offence, and seldom going near the
court, his absence was construed into ingratitude.

"The Countess, though a splendid wife, was not formed to make a
husband happy; she was in her nature extremely jealous; and
indulged in it to such a degree, that she could not endure her
husband should be one moment out of her sight. Their lodgings
were in Bow Street, Covent Garden, over against the Cock
Tavern, whither, if Mr. Wycherly at any time went, he was
obliged to leave the windows open, that his lady might see
there was no woman in the company."[277]

"The Countess," says another writer, "made him some amends by dying in a reasonable time." His title to her fortune, however, was disputed, and his circumstances, though he had property, were always constrained. He was rich enough however to marry a young woman a few days before he died, in order to disappoint a troublesome heir. In his old age he became acquainted with Pope, then a youth, who vexed him by taking him at his word, when asked to correct his poetry. Wycherly showed a candid horror at growing old, natural enough to a man who had been one of the gayest of the gay, very handsome, and a "Captain." He was captain in the regiment of which Buckingham was colonel. We have mentioned the Duchess of Cleveland's visits to him when a student in the Temple. Wycherly is the greatest of all our comic dramatists for truth of detection in what is ill, as Congreve is the greatest painter of artificial life, and Farquhar and Hoadley the best discoverers of what is pleasant and good-humoured. When the profligacy of writers like Wycherly is spoken of, we should not forget that much of it is not only confined to certain characters, but that the detection of these characters leaves an impression on the mind highly favourable to genuine morals. A modern critic, as excellent in his remarks on the drama as the one quoted at the conclusion of our last chapter is upon the stage, says on this point, speaking of the comedy of the "Plain Dealer,"--"The character of Manly is violent, repulsive, and uncouth, which is a fault, though one that seems to have been intended for the sake of contrast; for the portrait of consummate, artful hypocrisy in Olivia, is, perhaps, rendered more striking by it. The indignation excited against this odious and pernicious quality by the masterly exposure to which it is here subjected, is 'a discipline of humanity.' No one can read this play attentively without being the better for it as long as he lives. It penetrates to the core; it shows the immorality and hateful effects of duplicity, by showing it fixing its harpy fangs in the heart of an honest and worthy man. It is worth ten volumes of sermons. The scenes between Manly, after his return, Olivia, Plausible, and Norel, are instructive examples of unblushing impudence, of shallow pretensions to principle, and of the most mortifying reflections on his own situation, and bitter sense of female injustice and ingratitude on the part of Manly. The devil of hypocrisy and hardened assurance seems worked up to the highest pitch of conceivable effrontery in Olivia, when, after confiding to her cousin the story of her infamy, she, in a moment, turns round upon her for some sudden purpose, and affecting not to know the meaning of the other's allusions to what she had just told her, reproaches her with forging insinuations to the prejudice of her character, and in violation of their friendship. 'Go! you're a censorious woman.' This is more trying to the patience than anything in the Tartuffe."

Tonson, the great bookseller of his time, had a private house in Bow Street. Rowe, in an amusing parody of Horace's dialogue with Lydia, has left an account of old Jacob's visitors here, and of his style of language.

Tonson got rich, but he was penurious; and his want of generosity towards Dryden (to say the least of it) has done him no honour with posterity. It may be said that he cared little for posterity or for anything else, provided he got his money; but a man who cares for money (unless he is a pure miser) only cares for power and consideration in another shape; and no man chooses to be disliked by his fellow-creatures, living, or to come. In the correspondence between Tonson and Dryden, we see the usual painful picture (when the bookseller is of this description) of the tradesman taking all the advantages, and the author made to suffer for being a gentleman and a man of delicacy. This is the common, and, perhaps, the natural order of things, till society see better throughout; though there have been, and still are, some handsome exceptions, as in the instances of Dodsley, the late Mr. Johnson, and others. The bookseller generally behaves well, in proportion to his intelligence; nothing being so eager to catch all petty advantages as the consciousness of having no other ground to go upon. It may be answered that Dryden's patience with Tonson sometimes got exhausted, and he became "captious and irritable:" and it is always to be remembered that the bookseller need not pretend to be anything more than a tradesman seeking his allowed profits; but he should not on every occasion retreat into the strongholds of trade, and yet claim the merit of acting otherwise; and Tonson, who undertook to be the familiar friend of Rowe and Congreve, ought not to have been able to insult the man whom they both respected, because he was not so well off as they. The following passage of mingled amusement and painfulness is out of Sir Walter Scott:--

"Dryden," says Sir Walter, in his life of the poet, "seems to
have been particularly affronted at a presumptuous plan of that
publisher (a keen whig, and Secretary to the Kit-Cat Club) to
drive him into inscribing the translation of 'Virgil' to King
William. With this view Tonson had an especial care to make the
engraver aggravate the nose of Eneas in the plates into a
sufficient resemblance of the hooked promontory of the
Deliverer's countenance, and foreseeing Dryden's repugnance to
his favourite plan, he had recourse, it would seem, to more
unjustifiable means to further it; for the poet expresses
himself as convinced that, through Tonson's means, his
correspondence with his sons, then at Rome, was intercepted. I
suppose Jacob, having fairly laid siege to his author's
conscience, had no scruple to intercept all foreign supplies,
which might have confirmed him in his pertinacity. But Dryden,
although thus closely beleagured, held fast his integrity; and
no prospect of personal advantage, or importunity on the part
of Tonson, could induce him to take a step inconsistent with
his religious and political sentiments. It was probably during
the course of these bickerings with his publisher, that Dryden,
incensed at some refusal of accommodation on the part of
Tonson, sent him three well-known coarse and forcible
satirical lines descriptive of his personal appearance:--

'With leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled fair,
With two left legs, and Judas-coloured hair,
And frouzy pores, that taint the ambient air.'

"'Tell the dog,' said the poet to the messenger, 'that he who
wrote these can write more.' But Tonson, perfectly satisfied
with this single triplet, hastened to comply with the author's
request, without requiring any further specimen of his poetical
powers. It would seem, on the other hand, that when Dryden
neglected his stipulated labour, Tonson possessed powers of
animadversion, which, though exercised in plain prose, were not
a little dreaded by the poet. Lord Bolingbroke, already a
votary of the Muses, and admitted to visit their high-priest,
was wont to relate, that one day he heard another person enter
the house. 'This,' said Dryden, 'is Tonson; you will take care
not to depart before he goes away, for I have not completed the
sheet which I promised him; and if you leave me unprotected, I
shall suffer all the rudeness to which his resentment can
prompt his tongue.'"[278]

Fielding lived some time in Bow Street, probably during his magistracy.

We turn out of Bow Street into Russell Street, so called from the noble family of that name, who possess great property in this quarter. It is pleasant to think that the name is accordant with the reputation of the place, for we are more than ever in the thick of wits and men of letters, especially of a race which was long peculiar to this country, literary politicians. At the north-east corner of the two streets was the famous Will's coffee-house, formerly the Rose, where Dryden presided over the literature of the town; and on the other side of the way, on a part of the site of the present Hummums, stood Button's coffee-house, no less celebrated as the resort of the wits and poets of the time of Queen Anne.

Dryden is identified with the neighbourhood of Covent Garden. He presided in the chair at Russell Street; his plays came out in the theatre at the other end of it; he lived in Gerrard Street, which is not far off; and, alas! for the anti-climax! he was beaten by hired bravos in Rose Street, now called Rose Alley. Great men come down to posterity with their proper aspects of calmness and dignity; and we do not easily fancy that they received anything from their contemporaries but the grateful homage which is paid them by ourselves. "But the life of a wit," says Steele, "is a warfare upon earth." Sir Walter Scott, speaking of the beautiful description given by Dryden of the Attic nights he enjoyed with Sir Charles Sedley and others, observes, "He had not yet experienced the disadvantages attendant on such society, or learned how soon literary eminence becomes the object of detraction, of envy, of injury, even from those who can best feel its merit, if they are discouraged by dissipated habits from emulating its flight, or hardened by perverted feeling against loving its possessors."[279]

The outrage perpetrated upon the sacred shoulders of the poet was the work of Lord Rochester, and originated in a mistake not creditable to that would-be great man and dastardly debauchee. The following is Sir Walter's account of the matter.

"The 'Essay on Satire' (by Lord Mulgrave, afterwards Duke of
Buckinghamshire), though written, as appears from the
title-page of the last edition, in 1675, was not made public
until 1679, with this observation:--I have sent you herewith a
libel, in which my own share is not the least. The king having
perused it, is no way dissatisfied with his. The author is
apparently Mr. Dr[yden], his patron Lord M[ulgrave], having a
panegyric in the midst. From hence it is evident that Dryden
obtained the reputation of being the author; in consequence of
which, Rochester meditated the base and cowardly revenge which
he afterwards executed; and he thus coolly expressed his
intention in another of his letters:--'You write me word that I
am out of favour with a certain poet, whom I have admired for
the disproportion of him and his attributes. He is a rarity
which I cannot but be fond of, as one would be of a hog that
could fiddle, or a singing owl. If he falls on me at the blunt,
which is his very good weapon in wit, I will forgive him if you
please, and _leave the repartee to black Will with a cudgel_.'

"In pursuance of this infamous resolution, upon the night of
the 18th December, 1679, Dryden was waylaid by hired ruffians,
and severely beaten, as he passed through Rose Street, Covent
Garden, returning from Will's coffee-house to his own house in
Gerrard Street. A reward of fifty pounds was in vain offered in
the 'London Gazette' and other newspapers, for the discoverers
of the perpetrators of this outrage. The town was, however, at
no loss to pitch upon Rochester as the employer of the bravos,
with whom the public suspicion joined the Duchess of
Portsmouth, equally concerned in the supposed affront thus
avenged. In our time, were a nobleman to have recourse to hired
bravos to avenge his personal quarrels against any one, more
especially a person holding the rank of a gentleman, he might
lay his account with being hunted out of society. But in the
age of Charles, the ancient high and chivalrous sense of honour
was esteemed Quixotic, and the civil war had left traces of
ferocity in the manners and sentiments of the people.
Encounters, where the assailants took all advantages of number
and weapons, were as frequent, and held as honourable, as
regular duels. Some of these approached closely to
assassination; as in the famous case of Sir John Coventry, who
was waylaid and had his nose slit by some young men of rank,
for a reflection upon the King's theatrical amours. This
occasioned the famous statute against maiming and wounding,
called the Coventry Act, an Act highly necessary, for so far
did our ancestors' ideas of manly forbearance differ from ours,
that Killegrew introduces the hero of one of his comedies, a
cavalier, and the fine gentleman of the piece, lying in wait
for, and slashing the face of a poor courtezan, who had cheated
him.

"It will certainly be admitted, that a man, surprised in the
dark, and beaten by ruffians, loses no honour by such a
misfortune. But if Dryden had received the same discipline from
Rochester's own hand, without resenting it, his drubbing could
not have been more frequently made a matter of reproach to him:
a sign, surely, of the penury of subjects for satire in his
life and character, since an accident, which might have
happened to the greatest hero that ever lived, was resorted to
as an imputation on his honour. The Rose Alley ambuscade became
almost proverbial; and even Mulgrave, the real author of the
satire, and upon whose shoulders the blows ought in justice to
have descended, mentions the circumstance in his 'Art of
Poetry,' with a cold and self-sufficient sneer:--

'Though praised and punished for another's rhymes,
His own deserve as great applause _sometimes_.'

To which is added in a note, 'A libel for which he was both
applauded and wounded, though entirely ignorant of the whole
matter.' This flat and conceited couplet, and note, the noble
author judged it proper to omit in the corrected edition of his
poem. Otway alone, no longer the friend of Rochester, and,
perhaps, no longer the enemy of Dryden, has spoken of the
author of this dastardly outrage with the contempt it
deserved:--

'Poets in honour of the truth should write,
With the same spirit brave men for it fight;
And though against him causeless hatreds rise,
And daily where he goes of late, he spies
The scowls of sudden and revengeful eyes;
'Tis what he knows with much contempt to bear.
And serves a cause too good to let him fear,
He fears no poison from incensed drab,
No ruffian's five-foot sword, nor rascal's stab;
Nor any other snares of mischief laid,
_Not a Rose-alley cudgel ambuscade_;
From any private cause where malice reigns,
Or general pique all blockheads have to brains.'"[280]

We dismiss this specimen of the times, that we may enjoy the look of Dryden as posterity sees it,--that is to say, as that of the first poet of his class, presiding over the tastes and aspirations of the town. Milton sat in his suburban bower, equally removed from outrage and compliment, and contemplating a still greater futurity. In the following passage from the 'Country and City Mouse,' by Prior and Montagu, Dryden, it is true, is spoken of with hostility, but his acknowledged predominance shines through it. Prior's instinct misgave him in writing against his natural master.

"Then on they jogg'd; and since an hour of talk
Might cut a banter on the tedious walk,
As I remember, said the sober mouse,
I've heard much talk of the Wits' Coffee-house;
Thither, says Brindle, thou shalt go and see
Priests supping coffee, sparks and poets tea;
Here rugged frieze, there quality well drest,
These baffling the grand Senior, those the Test,
And there shrewd guesses made, and reasons given,
That human laws were never made in heaven;
But, above all, what shall oblige thy sight,
And fill thy eye-balls with a vast delight,
Is the poetic judge of sacred wit,
Who does i' th' darkness of his glory sit;
And as the moon who first receives the light,
With which she makes these nether regions bright,
So does he shine, reflecting from afar
The rays he borrowed from a better star;
For rules, which from Corneille and Rapin flow,
Admired by all the scribbling herd below,
From French tradition while he does dispense
Unerring truths, 'tis schism, a damned offence,
To question his, or trust your private sense."[281]

Will's Coffee-house was at the western corner of Bow Street. It first had the title of the Red Cow, then of the Rose; and we believe is the same house alluded to in the pleasant story in the second number of the 'Tatler:'--

"Supper and friends expect we at the Rose."

The Rose, however, was a common sign for houses of public entertainment. The company, of which our poet was the arbiter, sat up-stairs in what was then called the dining, but now the drawing-room; and there was a balcony, to which his chair was removed in summer from its prescriptive corner by the fire-side in winter. "The appeal," says Malcolm, "was made to him upon every literary dispute. The company did not sit in boxes, as at present, but at various tables which were dispersed through the room. Smoking was permitted in the public room: it was then so much in vogue that it does not seem to have been considered a nuisance. Here, as in other similar places of meeting, the visitors divided themselves into parties; and we are told by Ward, that the young beaux and wits, who seldom approached the principal table, thought it a great honour to have a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box."[282]

A lively specimen of a scene with Dryden in this coffee-house has been afforded us by Dean Lockier. "I was about seventeen when I first came up to town," says the Dean, "an odd-looking boy, with short rough hair, and that sort of awkwardness which one always brings up at first out of the country with one. However, in spite of my bashfulness and appearance, I used, now and then, to thrust myself into Will's, to have the pleasure of seeing the most celebrated wits of that time, who then resorted thither. The second time that ever I was there, Mr. Dryden was speaking of his own things, as he frequently did, especially of such as had been lately published. 'If anything of mine is good,' says he, ''tis "Mac-Flecno;" and I value myself the more upon it, because it is the first piece of ridicule written in heroics.' On hearing this I plucked up my spirit so far as to say, in a voice but just loud enough to be heard, 'that "Mac-Flecno" was a very fine poem, but that I had not imagined it to be the first that was ever writ that way.' On this, Dryden turned short upon me, as surprised at my interposing; asked me how long 'I had been a dealer in poetry; and added, with a smile, 'Pray, sir, what is it that you did imagine to have been writ so before?'--I named Boileau's 'Lutrin,' and Tassoni's 'Secchia Rapita,' which I had read, and knew Dryden had borrowed some strokes from each. ''Tis true,' said Dryden, 'I had forgot them.' A little after, Dryden went out, and in going, spoke to me again, and desired me to come and see him the next day. I was highly delighted with the invitation; went to see him accordingly; and was well acquainted with him after, as long as he lived."[283]

Dryden's mixture of simplicity, good-nature, and good opinion of himself, is here seen in a very agreeable manner. It must not be omitted, that it was to this house Pope was taken when a boy, by his own desire, on purpose to get a sight of the great man; which he did. According to Pope, he was plump, with a fresh colour and a down look, and not very conversable. It appears, however, that what he did say was much to the purpose; and a contemporary mentions his conversation on that account as one of the few things for which the town was desirable. He was a temperate man; though, for the last ten years of his life, Davies informs us that he drank with Addison a great deal more than he used to do, "probably so far as to hasten his end."

It is curious, considering his peculiar sort of reputation with posterity, that Addison's name should be found so connected in his own time with this species of irregularity. The same cause is supposed to have hastened his own end; and it is related by Pope, that he was obliged to avoid the Russell Street Coffee-house, and the bad hours of Addison, otherwise they might have hastened his.

Will's Coffee-house was the great emporium of libels and scandal. The channels that have since abounded for the dregs of literature had scarcely then begun to exist; and, instead of purveying for periodical publications, the retailers of obloquy attended among the minor wits of this place, and distributed the last new lampoon in manuscript. There was a drunken fellow of that time, named Julian, who acquired an infamous celebrity in this way. Sir Walter Scott, in his edition of Dryden, has given the following account of him and his vocation.

"The extremity of license in manners necessarily leads to equal
license in personal satire, and there never was an age in which
both were carried to such excess as in that of Charles II.
These personal and scandalous libels acquired the name of
lampoons, from the established burden formerly sung to them:--

'Lampone lampone, camerada lampone,'

"Dryden suffered under these violent and invisible assaults, as
much as any of his age; to which his own words in several
places of his writing, and also the existence of many of the
pasquils themselves in the Luttrel Collection, bear ample
witness. In many of his prologues and epilogues, he alludes to
this rage for personal satire, and to the employment which it
found for the half and three-quarter wits and courtiers of the
time!

'Yet these are pearls to your lampooning rhymes;
Ye abuse yourselves more dully than the times;
Scandal, the glory of the English nation,
Is worn to rags, and scribbled out of fashion:
Such harmless thrusts, as if, like fencers wise,
They had agreed their play before their prize.
Faith, they may hang their harp upon the willows;
'Tis just like children when they box their pillows.'

"Upon the general practice of writing lampoons, and the
necessity of finding some mode of dispersing them, which should
diffuse the scandal widely while the authors remained
concealed, was founded the self-erected office of Julian,
Secretary, as he calls himself, to the Muses. This person
attended Will's, the Wits' Coffee-house, as it was called; and
dispersed among the crowds who frequented that place of gay
resort copies of the lampoons which had been privately
communicated to him by their authors. 'He is described,' says
Mr. Malone, 'as a very drunken fellow, and at one time was
confined for a libel.' Several satires were written, in the
form of addresses to him as well as the following. There is one
among the 'State Poems,' beginning--

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

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

"From a passage in one of the letters from the 'Dead to the
Living,' we learn, that after Julian's death, and the madness
of his successor, called Summerton, lampoon felt a sensible
decay; and there was no more that 'brisk spirit of verse, that
used to watch the follies and vices of the men and women of
figure, that they could not start new ones faster than lampoons
exposed them."[284]

These "brisk spirits" have still their descendants, and always will have till their betters cease to set the example of railing, or to encourage it. There is a difference, indeed, between the lampoons of such men and those of Dryden, or the literary personalities to which some ingenious minds will give way, before they well know what they are about, out of mere emulation, perhaps, of the names of Pope and Boileau. But it is not to be expected that the others will stop where they do, or refine with the progress of their years and knowledge. The most generous sometimes find it difficult to leave off saying ill-natured things of one another, out of shame of yielding, or the habit of indulging their irritability. They endeavour to reconcile themselves to it by trying to think that the abuse has a utility; but when they come to this point, the doubt is a proof that they ought to forego it, and help to teach the world better. Honest contention, however, is one thing, and scandal is another. The dealer in the latter has always a petty mind and inferior understanding, most likely accompanied with conscious unworthiness; the great secret of the love of scandal lying in the wish to level others with the calumniators.

"Will's continued to be the resort of the wits at least till
1710," says Mr. Malcolm. "Probably Addison established his
servant [Button] in a new house about 1712, and his fame after
the production of 'Cato,' drew many of the Whigs thither."[285]

"Addison," says Pope, "passed each day alike; and much in the
manner that Dryden did. Dryden employed his mornings in
writing, dined _en famille_, and then went to Will's: only he
came home earlier a'nights." And again: "Addison usually
studied all the morning; then met his party at Button's; dined,
and staid there five or six hours; and sometimes far into the
night. I was of the company for about a year, but found it too
much for me: it hurt my health, and so I quitted it."[286]

Button had been a servant of the Countess of Warwick, whom Addison married. It is said that when the latter was dissatisfied with the Countess (we believe during the period of his courtship), he used to withdraw the company from her servant's coffee-house. Unfortunately it is as easy to believe a petty story of Addison as a careless one of Steele. Addison, intellectually a great man, was complexionally a little one. He was timid, bashful, and reserved, and instinctively sought success by private channels and disingenous measures.

Under the influence of these eminent persons, Button's became the head-quarters of the Whig literati, as Will's had been that of the Tory. Steele, however, dated his poetical papers in the 'Tatler' from Will's, as the old haunt of the town muse. Perhaps the Whiggery of Button's was one of the reasons why Pope left off going there, as he did not wish to identify himself with either party. Ambrose Philips is said to have hung up a rod at that coffee-house, as an intimation of what Pope should receive at his hands, in case the satirist chose to hazard it. A similar threat is related of Cibber. The behaviour of both has been cried out against as unhandsome, considering the little person and bodily infirmities of the illustrious offender: but as the threateners were so much his inferiors in wit, and he exercised his great powers at their expense, it might not be difficult to show that their conduct was as good as his. Why attack a man, if he is to be allowed no equality of retaliation? The truth is, that personal satire is itself an unhandsome thing, and a childish one, and there will be no end to childish retorts, till the more grown understandings reform. Pope accused Philips of pilfering his pastorals, and of "turning a Persian tale for half-a-crown;" the one an offence not very likely, unless, indeed, all common-places may be said to be stolen; the other no offence at all, though it might have been a misfortune. These littlenesses in great men are a part of the childhood of society. They show us how young it still is, and what a parcel of wrangling schoolboys (in that respect) a future period may consider us.

One of the most agreeable memories connected with Button's is that of Garth, a man whom, for the sprightliness and generosity of his nature, it is a pleasure to name. He was one of the most amiable and intelligent of a most amiable and intelligent class of men--the physicians.

Armstrong, another poet and physician and not unworthy of either class, for genius and goodness of heart, though he had the weakness of affecting a bluntness of manners, and of swearing, drew his last breath in this street. He is well known as the author of the most elegant didactic poem in the language,--the 'Art of Preserving Health.' The affectations of men of genius are sometimes in direct contradiction to their best qualities, and assumed to avoid a show of pretending what they feel. Armstrong, who had bad health, and was afraid perhaps of being thought effeminate, affected the bully in his prose writings; and he was such a swearer, that the late Mr. Fuseli's indulgence in that infirmity has been attributed to his keeping company with the Doctor when a youth. We never met with a habitual swearer in whom the habit could not be traced to some feeling of conscious weakness. Fuseli swore as he painted, in the hope of making up for the defects of his genius by the violence of his style.

At No. 8, Russell Street, Boswell was introduced to his formidable friend of whom he became the biographer. The house then belonged to Davies the bookseller. The account given us of his first interview is highly characteristic of both parties. Boswell had a thorough specimen of his future acquaintance at once, and Johnson evidently saw completely through Boswell.

"Mr. Thomas Davies, the actor," saith the particular Boswell,
"who then kept a bookseller's shop in Russell Street, Covent
Garden, told me that Johnson was very much his friend, and came
frequently to his house, where he more than once invited me to
meet him; but by some unlucky accident or other he was
prevented from coming to us.

"Mr. Thomas Davies was a man of good understanding and talents,
with the advantage of a liberal education. Though somewhat
pompous, he was an entertaining companion; and his literary
performances have no inconsiderable share of merit. He was a
friendly and very hospitable man. Both he and his wife (who had
been celebrated for her beauty), though upon the stage for many
years, maintained an uniform decency of character, and Johnson
esteemed them, and lived in as easy an intimacy with them as
any family which he used to visit. Mr. Davies recollected
several of Johnson's remarkable sayings, and was one of the
best of the many imitators of his voice and manner, while
relating them. He increased my impatience more and more to see
the extraordinary man whose works I highly valued, and whose
conversation was reported to be so peculiarly excellent.

"At last," continues Mr. Boswell, "on the 16th of May, when I
was sitting in Mr. Davies's back parlour, after having drank
tea with him and Mrs. Davies, Johnson unexpectedly came into
the shop, and Mr. Davies having perceived him through the
glass-door in the room in which we were sitting, advancing
towards us--he announced his awful approach somewhat as an
actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet on the
appearance of his father's ghost, 'Look, my lord, it comes.' I
found that I had a very perfect idea of Johnson's figure, from
the portrait of him painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds soon after
he had published his 'Dictionary,' in the attitude of sitting
in his easy chair in deep meditation; which was the first
picture his friend did for him, which Sir Joshua very kindly
presented to me, and from which an engraving has been made for
this work. Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully
introduced me to him; I was much agitated, and recollecting his
prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said
to Davies, 'Don't tell where I come from.'--'From Scotland,'
cried Davies, roguishly. 'Mr. Johnson,' said I, 'I do indeed
come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.' I am willing to
flatter myself that I meant this as light pleasantry to soothe
and conciliate him, and not as a humiliating abasement at the
expense of my country. But however that might be, this speech
was somewhat unlucky; for with that quickness of wit for which
he was so remarkable, he seized the expression 'come from
Scotland!' which I used in the sense of being of that country;
and, as if I had come away from it, or left it, retorted,
'That, sir, I find, is what a great many of your countrymen
cannot help.' This stroke stunned me a good deal; and when we
had sat down, I felt myself not a little embarrassed, and
apprehensive of what might come next. He then addressed
himself to Davies: 'What do you think of Garrick? he has
refused me an order for the play for Miss Williams, because he
knows the house will be full, and that an order will be worth
three shillings.' Eager to take any opening to get into
conversation with him, I ventured to say, 'O, sir, I cannot
think Mr. Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you.' 'Sir
(said he, with a stern look,) I have known David Garrick longer
than you have done; and I know no right you have to talk to me
on the subject.' Perhaps I deserved this check; for it was
rather presumptuous in me, an entire stranger, to express any
doubt of the justice of his animadversion upon his old
acquaintance and pupil. I now felt myself much mortified, and
began to think that the hope I had long indulged of obtaining
his acquaintance was blasted. And, in truth, had not my ardour
been uncommonly strong, and my resolution uncommonly
persevering, so rough a reception might have deterred me for
ever from making any further attempts. Fortunately, however, I
remained upon the field, not wholly discomfited." * * * "I was
highly pleased with the extraordinary vigour of his
conversation, and regretted that I was drawn away from it by an
engagement at another place. I had, for a part of the evening,
been left alone with him, and had ventured to make an
observation now and then, which he received very civilly; so
that I was satisfied that, though there was a roughness in his
manner, there was no ill-nature in his disposition. Davies
followed me to the door, and when I complained to him a little
of the hard blows which the great man had given me, he kindly
took upon him to console me by saying, 'Don't be uneasy. I can
see he likes you very well.'"[287]

The Hummums Hotel and Coffee-house which occupies the south-west corner of this street, and stretches round into Covent Garden market, is so called from an eastern word signifying baths. It was one of the earliest houses set up in England of that kind, and thence called bagnios; and one of the few that retained their respectability. The generality were so much the reverse, that the word bagnio came to mean a brothel. It appears from a story we are about to relate, that people went to the Hummums not only to bathe, but to get themselves cupped. Bathing is too much neglected in this country; but the consequences of our sedentary habits have forced upon us a greater degree of attention to it, and the imitation of the Turkish system of cleanliness has been carried further in vapour baths and the startling luxury of shampooing, which makes people discover that they have in general two or three skins too many. Englishmen, in the pride of their greater freedom, often wonder how Eastern nations can endure their servitude. This is one of the secrets by which they endure it. A free man in a dirty skin is not in so fit a state to endure existence as a slave with a clean one; because nature insists, that a due attention to the clay which our souls inhabit, shall be the first requisite to the comfort of the inhabitant. Let us not get rid of our freedom; let us teach it rather to those that want it; but let such of us as have them, by all means get rid of our dirty skins. There is now a moral and intellectual commerce among mankind, as well as an interchange of inferior goods; we should send freedom to Turkey as well as clocks and watches, and import not only figs, but a fine state of the pores.

Of the Hummums there is a ghost-story in Boswell, a thing we should as little dream of in this centre of the metropolis, as look for a ghost at noonday. The reader will see how much credit is to be given it, by the style of the narrator, who, with all his good-will towards superstition (and it is no less a person that speaks than Dr. Johnson), had an inveterate love of truth, which led him to defeat his own object.

"Amongst the numerous prints," says Boswell, "pasted on the
walls of the dining-room at Streatham, was 'Hogarth's Modern
Midnight Conversation.' I asked him what he knew of Parson
Ford, who makes a conspicuous figure in the riotous group.
_Johnson._ 'Sir, he was my acquaintance and relation,--my
mother's nephew. He had purchased a living in the country, but
not simoniacally. I never saw him but in the country. I have
been told that he was a man of great parts, very profligate,
but I never heard he was impious.' _Boswell._ 'Was there not a
story of his ghost having appeared?' _Johnson._ 'Sir, it was
believed. A waiter at the Hummums, in which house Ford died,
had been absent some time, and returned, not knowing that Ford
was dead. Going down to the cellar, according to the story, he
met him; going down again he met him a second time. When he
came up, he asked some people of the house what Ford could be
doing there. They told him Ford was dead. The waiter took a
fever, in which he lay for some time. When he recovered he said
he had a message to deliver to some women from Ford; but he was
not to tell what, or to whom. He walked out; he was followed;
but somewhere about St. Paul's they lost him. He came back, and
said he had delivered the message, and the women exclaimed,
'Then we are all undone!' Dr. Pellett, who was not a credulous
man, inquired into the truth of this story, and he said, the
evidence was irresistible. My wife went to the Hummums (it is a
place where people get themselves cupped). I believe she went
with intention to hear about this story of Ford. At first they
were unwilling to tell her; but after they had talked to her,
she came away satisfied that it was true. To be sure the man
had a fever; and this vision may have been the beginning of it.
But if the message to the women, and their behaviour upon it,
were true as related, there was something supernatural. That
rests upon his word: and there it remains.'"[288]

At the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, Covent Garden (or, as it would be more properly spelt, _Convent_ Garden[289]) extended from Drury Lane to St. Martin's Lane, and was surrounded by a brick wall. It had lately belonged to the abbots of Westminster, whom it supplied, doubtless, with fruit and vegetables, as it has since done the metropolis, and hence its appellation. The reader will see it in the old print of London by Aggas. There was a break into it on the south-west, made by the garden of Bedford House, which stood facing the Strand between the present Bedford and Southampton Streets. On the dissolution of the monasteries, Covent Garden was given to the Duke of Somerset, and on his fall, to John, Earl of Bedford, whose family converted it into a pasture ground, including Long Acre, then part of the fields leading to St. Giles's. His descendant Francis, about seventy years afterwards, let the whole pasture on a building lease, and built the old church for the intended inhabitants. The architect was Inigo Jones. To the same hand we are indebted for the portico of the north-eastern quarter, which still remains. There was a continuation of it on the south-east, which was burnt down. It was to have been carried all round the square, and the absence of it might be regretted on the score of beauty; but porticoes are not fit for this climate, unless where the object is to furnish a walk during the rain. Covered walks devoted to that purpose, and conveniently distributed, might be temptations to out-of-door exercise in bad weather. If they succeeded, they would effect a very desirable end. But covered walks, however beautiful, which are not used in that way, are rather to be deprecated in this cold and humid climate. In Italy, where the summer sun at noon-day burns like a cauldron, they are much to the purpose; but the more sun we can get in England the better. Luckily, there is a convenience in this portico, as far as the theatre is concerned; otherwise the circuit would be more agreeable without it, and the coffee-houses of the place more light and cheerful.

Of the style of building observed in the church there is a well-known story. "The Earl is said to have told Inigo Jones he wished to have as plain and convenient a structure as possible, and but little better than a barn; to which the architect replied, he would build a barn, but that it should be the handsomest in England."[290]

Inigo Jones's church was burnt down in the year 1795, owing to the carelessness of some plumbers who were mending the roof. "When the flames were at their height," says Malcolm, "the portico and massy pillars made a grand scene, projected before a back-ground of liquid fire, which raged with so much uncontrolled fury, that not a fragment of wood, in or near the walls, escaped destruction."[291]

The barn-like taste, or in other words the Grecian (for usefulness and simplicity are the secrets of it, and the Temple of Theseus and a common barn have the same principles of structure), was copied in the new edifice. By a passage quoted in the _Londinium Redivivum_ from the _Weekly Journal_ of April 22, 1727, it appears that the portico of the old church had been altered by the inhabitants, and restored by the Earl of Burlington, "out of regard to the memory of the celebrated Inigo Jones, and to prevent our countrymen being exposed for their ignorance." The spirit of this portico has been retained, and the church of St. Paul's Covent garden is one of the most pleasing structures in the metropolis.