Part 11

No. 17, Newgate-street (north side), was, according to the tradition of the house, the tavern where Sir Christopher Wren used to smoke his pipe, whilst St. Paul's was re-building. There is more positive evidence of its being a place well frequented by men of letters at the above period. Thus, there exists a poetical invitation to a social feast held here on June 19, 1735-6, issued by the two stewards, Edward Cave and William Bowyer:

"Saturday, Jan. 17, 1735-6.

"Sir,

"You're desir'd on Monday next to meet At Salutation Tavern, Newgate-street. Supper will be on table just at eight, [_Stewards_] One of St. John's [Bowyer], 'tother of St. John's Gate [Cave]."

This brought a poetical answer from Samuel Richardson, the novelist, printed _in extenso_ in Bowyer's _Anecdotes_:

"For me, I'm much concerned I cannot meet 'At Salutation Tavern, Newgate-street.' Your notice, like your verse, so sweet and short! If longer, I'd sincerely thank you for it. Howe'er, receive my wishes, sons of verse! May every man who meets, your praise rehearse! May mirth, as plenty, crown your cheerful board, And ev'ry one part happy--as a lord! That when at home, (by such sweet verses fir'd) Your families may think you all inspir'd. So wishes he, who pre-engag'd, can't know The pleasures that would from your meeting flow."

The proper sign is the Salutation and Cat,--a curious combination, but one which is explained by a lithograph, which some years ago hung in the coffee-room. An aged dandy is saluting a friend whom he has met in the street, and offering him a pinch out of the snuff-box which forms the top of his wood-like cane. This box-nob was, it appears, called a "cat"--hence the connection of terms apparently so foreign to each other. Some, not aware of this explanation, have accounted for the sign by supposing that a tavern called "the Cat" was at some time pulled down, and its trade carried to the Salutation, which thenceforward joined the sign to its own; but this is improbable, seeing that we have never heard of _any_ tavern called "the Cat" (although we _do_ know of "the Barking Dogs") as a sign. Neither does the _Salutation_ take its name from any scriptural or sacred source, as the _Angel and Trumpets_, etc.

More positive evidence there is to show of the "little smoky room at the _Salutation and Cat_," where Coleridge and Charles Lamb sat smoking Oronoko and drinking egg-hot; the first discoursing of his idol, Bowles, and the other rejoicing mildly in Cowper and Burns, or both dreaming of "Pantisocracy, and golden days to come on earth."

"SALUTATION" TAVERNS.

The sign Salutation, from scriptural or sacred source, remains to be explained. Mr. Akerman suspects the original sign to have really represented the Salutation of the Virgin by the Angel--"Ave Maria, gratia plena"--a well-known legend on the jettons of the Middle Ages. The change of representation was properly accommodated to the times. The taverns at that period were the "gossiping shops" of the neighbourhood; and both Puritan and Churchman frequented them for the sake of hearing the news. The Puritans loved the good things of this world, and relished a cup of Canary, or Noll's nose lied, holding the maxim--

"Though the devil trepan The Adamical man, The saint stands uninfected."

Hence, perhaps, the Salutation of the Virgin was exchanged for the "booin' and scrapin'" scene (two men bowing and greeting), represented on a token which still exists, the tavern was celebrated in the days of Queen Elizabeth. In some old black-letter doggrel, entitled _News from Bartholemew Fayre_ it is mentioned for wine:--

"There hath been great sale and utterance of wine, Besides beere, and ale, and Ipocras fine; In every country, region, and nation, But chiefly in Billingsgate, _at the Salutation_."

_The Flower-pot_ was originally part of a symbol of the Annunciation to the Virgin.

QUEEN'S ARMS, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD.

Garrick appears to have kept up his interest in the City by means of clubs, to which he paid periodical visits. We have already mentioned the Club of young merchants, at Tom's Coffee-house, in Cornhill. Another Club was held at the Queen's Arms Tavern, in St. Paul's Churchyard, where used to assemble: Mr. Samuel Sharpe, the surgeon; Mr. Paterson, the City solicitor; Mr. Draper, the bookseller; Mr. Clutterbuck, the mercer; and a few others.

Sir John Hawkins tells us that "they were none of them drinkers, and in order to make a reckoning, called only for French wine." These were Garrick's standing council in theatrical affairs.

At the Queen's Arms, after a thirty years' interval, Johnson renewed his intimacy with some of the members of his old Ivy-lane Club.

Brasbridge, the old silversmith of Fleet-street, was a member of the Sixpenny Card-Club held at the Queen's Arms: among the members was Henry Baldwyn, who, under the auspices of Bonnel Thornton, Colman the elder, and Garrick, set up the _St. James's Chronicle_, which once had the largest circulation of any evening paper. This worthy newspaper-proprietor was considerate and generous to men of genius: "Often," says Brasbridge, "at his hospitable board I have seen needy authors, and others connected with his employment, whose abilities, ill-requited as they might have been by the world in general, were by him always appreciated." Among Brasbridge's acquaintance, also, were John Walker, shopman to a grocer and chandler in Well-street, Ragfair, who died worth 200,000_l._, most assuredly not gained by lending money on doubtful security; and Ben Kenton, brought up at a charity-school, and who realized 300,000_l._, partly at the Magpie and Crown, in Whitechapel.

DOLLY'S, PATERNOSTER ROW.

This noted tavern, established in the reign of Queen Anne, has for its sign, the cook Dolly, who is stated to have been painted by Gainsborough. It is still a well-appointed chop-house and tavern, and the coffee-room, with its projecting fireplaces, has an olden air. Nearly on the site of Dolly's, Tarlton, Queen Elizabeth's favourite stage-clown, kept an ordinary, with the sign of the Castle. The house, of which a token exists, was destroyed in the Great Fire, but was rebuilt; there the "Castle Society of Music" gave their performances. Part of the old premises were subsequently the Oxford Bible Warehouse, destroyed by fire in 1822, and rebuilt.

The entrance to the Chop-house is in Queen's Head passage; and at Dolly's is a window-pane painted with the head of Queen Anne, which may explain the name of the court.

At Dolly's and Horsman's beef-steaks were eaten with gill-ale.

ALDERSGATE TAVERNS.

Two early houses of entertainment in Aldersgate were the Taborer's Inn and the Crown. Of the former, stated to have been of the time of Edward II., we know nothing but the name. The Crown, more recent, stood at the End of Duck-lane, and is described in Ward's _London Spy_, as containing a noble room, painted by Fuller, with the Muses, the Judgment of Paris, the Contention of Ajax and Ulysses, etc. "We were conducted by the jolly master," says Ward, "a true kinsman of the bacchanalian family, into a large stately room, where at the first entrance, I discerned the master-strokes of the famed Fuller's pencil; the whole room painted by that commanding hand, that his dead figures appeared with such lively majesty that they begat reverence in the spectators towards the awful shadows. We accordingly bade the complaisant waiter oblige us with a quart of his richest claret, such as was fit only to be drank in the presence of such heroes, into whose company he had done us the honour to introduce us. He thereupon gave directions to his drawer, who returned with a quart of such inspiring juice, that we thought ourselves translated into one of the houses of the heavens, and were there drinking immortal nectar with the gods and goddesses:

"Who could such blessings when thus found resign? An honest vintner faithful to the vine; A spacious room, good paintings, and good wine."

Far more celebrated was the Mourning Bush Tavern, in the cellars of which have been traced the massive foundations of Aldersgate, and the portion of the City Wall which adjoins them. This tavern, one of the largest and most ancient in London, has a curious history.

The Bush Tavern, its original name, took for its sign the _Ivy-bush_ hung up at the door. It is believed to have been the house referred to by Stowe, as follows:--"This gate (Aldersgate) hath been at sundry times increased with building; namely, on the south or _inner side_, a great frame of timber, (or house of wood lathed and plastered,) hath been added and set up containing divers large rooms and lodgings," which were an enlargement of the Bush. Fosbroke mentions the Bush as the chief sign of taverns in the Middle Ages, (it being ready to hand,) and so it continued until superseded by "a thing to resemble one containing three or four tiers of hoops fastened one above another with vine leaves and grapes, richly carved and gilt." He adds: "the owner of the Mourning Bush, Aldersgate, was so affected at the decollation of Charles I., that he _painted his bush black_." From this period the house is scarcely mentioned until the year 1719, when we find its name changed to the Fountain, whether from political feeling against the then exiled House of Stuart, or the whim of the proprietor, we cannot learn; though it is thought to have reference to a spring on the east side of the gate. Tom Brown mentions the Fountain satirically, with four or five topping taverns of the day, whose landlords are charged with doctoring their wines, but whose trade was so great that they stood fair for the alderman's gown. And, in a letter from an old vintner in the City to one newly set up in Covent Garden, we find the following in the way of advice: "as all the world are wholly supported by hard and unintelligible names, you must take care to christen your wines by some hard name, the further fetched so much the better, and this policy will serve to recommend the most execrable scum in your cellar. I could name several of our brethren to you, who now stand fair to sit in the seat of justice, and sleep in their golden chain at churches, that had been forced to knock off long ago, if it had not been for this artifice. It saved the Sun from being eclipsed; the Crown from being abdicated; the Rose from decaying; and the Fountain from being dry; as well as both the Devils from being confined to utter darkness."

Twenty years later, in a large plan of Aldersgate Ward, 1739-40, we find the Fountain changed to the original Bush. The Fire of London had evidently, at this time, curtailed the ancient extent of the tavern. The exterior is shown in a print of the south side of Aldersgate; it has the character of the larger houses, built after the Great Fire, and immediately adjoins the gate. The last notice of the Bush, as a place of entertainment, occurs in Maitland's _History of London_, ed. 1722, where it is described as "the Fountain, commonly called the Mourning Bush, which has a back door into St. Anne's-lane, and is situated near unto Aldersgate." The house was refitted in 1830. In the basement are the original wine-vaults of the old Bush; many of the walls are six feet thick, and bonded throughout with Roman brick. A very agreeable account of the tavern and the antiquities of neighbourhood was published in 1830.

"THE MOURNING CROWN."

In Phoenix Alley, (now Hanover Court,) Long Acre, John Taylor, the Water Poet, kept a tavern, with the sign of "the Mourning Crown," but this being offensive to the Commonwealth (1652), he substituted for a sign his own head with this inscription--

"There's many a head stands for a sign; Then, gentle reader, why not mine?"

He died here in the following year; and his widow in 1658.

JERUSALEM TAVERNS, CLERKENWELL.

These houses took their name from the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, around whose Priory, grew up the village of Clerkenwell. The Priory Gate remains. At the Suppression, the Priory was undermined, and blown up with gunpowder; the Gate also would probably have been destroyed, but for its serving to define the property. In 1604, it was granted to Sir Roger Wilbraham for his life. At this time Clerkenwell was inhabited by people of condition. Forty years later, fashion had travelled westward; and the Gate became the printing-office of Edward Cave, who, in 1731, published here the first number of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, which to this day bears the Gate for its vignette. Dr. Johnson was first engaged upon the magazine here by Cave in 1737. At the Gate Johnson first met Richard Savage; and here in Cave's room, when visitors called, he ate his plate of victuals behind the screen, his dress being "so shabby that he durst not make his appearance." Garrick, when first he came to London, frequently called upon Johnson at the Gate. Goldsmith was also a visitor here. When Cave grew rich, he had St. John's Gate painted, instead of his arms, on his carriage, and engraven on his plate. After Cave's death in 1753, the premises became the "Jerusalem" public-house, and the "Jerusalem Tavern."

There was likewise another Jerusalem Tavern, at the corner of Red Lion-street on Clerkenwell-green, which was the original; St. John's Gate public-house, having assumed the name of "Jerusalem Tavern" in consequence of the old house on the Green giving up the tavern business, and becoming the "merchants' house." In its dank and cobwebbed vaults John Britton served an apprenticeship to a wine-merchant; and in reading at intervals by candle-light, first evinced that love of literature which characterized his long life of industry and integrity. He remembered Clerkenwell in 1787, with St. John's Priory-church and cloisters; when Spafields were pasturage for cows; the old garden-mansions of the aristocracy remained in Clerkenwell-close; and Sadler's Wells, Islington Spa, Merlin's Cave, and Bagnigge Wells, were nightly crowded with gay company.

In a friendly note, Sept. 11, 1852, Mr. Britton tells us: "Our house sold wines in _full_ quarts, _i.e._ twelve held three gallons, wine measure; and each bottle was marked with four lines cut by a diamond on the neck. Our wines were famed, and the character of the house was high, whence the Gate imitated the bottles and name."

In 1845, by the aid of "the Freemasons of the Church," and Mr. W. P. Griffith, architect, the north and south fronts were restored. The gateway is a good specimen of groining of the 15th century, with moulded ribs, and bosses ornamented with shields of the arms of the Priory, Prior Docwra, etc. The east basement is the tavern-bar, with a beautifully moulded ceiling. The stairs are Elizabethan. The principal room over the arch has been despoiled of its window-mullions and groined roof. The foundation-wall of the Gate face is 10 feet 7 inches thick, and the upper walls are nearly 4 feet, hard red brick, stone-cased: the view from the top of the staircase-turret is extensive. In excavating there have been discovered the original pavement, three feet below the Gate; and the Priory walls, north, south, and west. In 1851, there was published, by B. Foster, proprietor of the Tavern, _Ye History of ye Priory and Gate of St. John_. In the principal room of the Gate, over the great arch, meet the Urban Club, a society, chiefly of authors and artists, with whom originated the proposition to celebrate the tercentenary of the birth of Shakespeare, in 1864.

WHITE HART TAVERN, BISHOPSGATE WITHOUT.

About forty years since there stood at a short distance north of St. Botolph's Church, a large old _hostelrie_, according to the date it bore (1480), towards the close of the reign of Edward IV. Stow, in 1598, describes it as "a fair inn for receipt of travellers, next unto the Parish Church of St. Botolph without Bishopsgate." It preserved much of its original appearance, the main front consisting of three bays of two storeys, which, with the interspaces, had throughout casements; and above which was an overhanging storey or attic, and the roof rising in three points. Still, this was not the original front, which was altered in 1787: upon the old inn yard was built White Hart Court. In 1829, the Tavern was taken down, and rebuilt, in handsome modern style; when the entrance into Old Bedlam, and formerly called Bedlam Gate, was widened, and the street re-named Liverpool-street. A lithograph of the old Tavern was published in 1829.

Somewhat lower down, is the residence of Sir Paul Pindar, now wine-vaults, with the sign of Paul Pindar's Head, corner of Half-moon-alley, No. 160, Bishopsgate-street Without. Sir Paul was a wealthy merchant, contemporary with Sir Thomas Gresham. The house was built towards the end of the 16th century, with a wood-framed front and caryatid brackets; and the principal windows bayed, their lower fronts enriched with panels of carved work. In the first-floor front room is a fine original ceiling in stucco, in which are the arms of Sir Paul Pindar. In the rear of these premises, within a garden, was formerly a lodge, of corresponding date, decorated with four medallions, containing figures in Italian taste. In Half-moon-alley, was the Half-moon Brewhouse, of which there is a token in the Beaufoy Collection.

THE MITRE, IN FENCHURCH STREET,

Was one of the political taverns of the Civil War, and was kept by Daniel Rawlinson, who appears to have been a staunch royalist: his Token is preserved in the Beaufoy collection. Dr. Richard Rawlinson, whose Jacobite principles are sufficiently on record, in a letter to Hearne, the nonjuring antiquary at Oxford, says of "Daniel Rawlinson, who kept the Mitre Tavern in Fenchurch-street, and of whose being suspected in the Rump time, I have heard much. The Whigs tell this, that upon the King's murder, January 30th, 1649, he hung his sign in mourning: he certainly judged right; the honour of the mitre was much eclipsed by the loss of so good a parent to the Church of England; these rogues [the Whigs] say, this endeared him so much to the Churchmen, that he strove amain, and got a good estate."

Pepys, who expressed great personal fear of the Plague, in his Diary, August 6, 1666, notices that notwithstanding Dan Rowlandson's being all last year in the country, the sickness in a great measure past, one of his men was then dead at the Mitre of the pestilence; his wife and one of his maids both sick, and himself shut up, which, says Pepys, "troubles me mightily. God preserve us!"

Rawlinson's tavern, the Mitre, appears to have been destroyed in the Great Fire, and immediately after, rebuilt; as Horace Walpole, from Vertue's notes, states that "Isaac Fuller was much employed to paint the great taverns in London; particularly the Mitre, in Fenchurch-street, where he adorned all the sides of a great room, in panels, as was then the fashion;" "the figures being as large as life; over the chimney, a Venus, Satyr, and sleeping Cupid; a boy riding a goat, and another fallen down:" this was, he adds, "the best part of the performance. Saturn devouring a child, the colouring raw, and the figure of Saturn too muscular; Mercury, Minerva, Diana, and Apollo; Bacchus, Venus, and Ceres, embracing; a young Silenus fallen down, and holding a goblet into which a boy was pouring wine. The Seasons between the windows, and on the ceiling, in a large circle, two angels supporting a mitre."

Yet, Fuller was a wretched painter, as borne out by Elsum's _Epigram on a Drunken Sot_:--

"His head does on his shoulder lean, His eyes are sunk, and hardly seen: Who sees this sot in his own colour Is apt to say, 'twas done by Fuller."

_Burn's Beaufoy Catalogue._

THE KING'S HEAD, FENCHURCH STREET.

No. 53 is a place of historic interest; for, the Princess Elizabeth, having attended service at the church of Allhallows Staining, in Langbourn Ward, on her release from the Tower, on the 19th of May, 1554, dined off pork and peas afterwards, at the King's Head in Fenchurch Street, where the metal dish and cover she is said to have used are still preserved. The Tavern has been of late years enlarged and embellished, in taste accordant with its historical association; the ancient character of the building being preserved in the smoking-room, 60 feet in length, upon the walls of which are displayed corslets, shields, helmets, and knightly arms.

THE ELEPHANT, FENCHURCH STREET.

In the year 1826 was taken down the old Elephant Tavern, which was built before the Great Fire, and narrowly escaped its ravages. It stood on the north side of Fenchurch-street, and was originally the Elephant and Castle. Previous to the demolition of the premises there were removed from the wall two pictures, which Hogarth is said to have painted while a lodger there. About this time, a parochial entertainment which had hitherto been given at the Elephant, was removed to the King's Head (Henry VIII.) Tavern nearly opposite. At this Hogarth was annoyed, and he went over to the King's Head, when an altercation ensued, and he left, threatening to _stick them all up_ on the Elephant taproom; this he is said to have done, and on the opposite wall subsequently painted the Hudson's Bay Company's Porters going to dinner, representing Fenchurch-street a century and a half ago. The first picture was set down as Hogarth's first idea of his Modern Midnight Conversation, in which he is supposed to have represented the parochial party at the King's Head, though it differs from Hogarth's print. There was a third picture, Harlequin and Pierrot, and on the wall of the _Elephant_ first-floor was found a picture of Harlow Bush Fair, coated over with paint.

Only two of the pictures were claimed as Hogarth's. The _Elephant_ has been engraved; and at the foot of the print, the information as to Hogarth having executed these paintings is rested upon the evidence of Mrs. Hibbert, who kept the house between thirty and forty years, and received her information from persons at that time well acquainted with Hogarth. Still, his biographers do not record his abode in Fenchurch-street. The Tavern has been rebuilt.

THE AFRICAN, ST. MICHAEL'S ALLEY.

Another of the Cornhill taverns, the African, or Cole's Coffee-house, is memorable as the last place at which Professor Porson appeared. He had, in some measure, recovered from the effects of the fit in which he had fallen on the 19th of September, 1808, when he was brought in a hackney-coach to the London Institution, in the Old Jewry. Next morning he had a long discussion with Dr. Adam Clarke, who took leave of him at its close; and this was the last conversation Porson was ever capable of holding on any subject.