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 throughthe 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 retireearly, 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 thedictaof 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; andthe 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. 2s.;” 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 10s.6d.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 8s.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 4s., 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. 2s.6d.” “Three weeks after this, (July 6, 1814,) the Club gave a dinner to the Duke of Wellington, which cost £2,840. 10s.9d.” 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-frequentedhouse 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 itshabitués. 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 befound 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 favouritemorceaux, 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 chairmenand 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 oftobacco, 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, albeitalumniof 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 gigIs this same Dr. Squintum.“What pedlar can forbear to grin,Before his Worship that has been,To think what folly lurks withinThis Just Ass Dr. Squintum?”
“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 gigIs this same Dr. Squintum.“What pedlar can forbear to grin,Before his Worship that has been,To think what folly lurks withinThis Just Ass Dr. Squintum?”
“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.
“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 gigIs this same 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 withinThis Just Ass 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.