Part 12

Porson is thought to have fancied himself under restraint, and to convince himself of the contrary, next morning, the 20th, he walked out, and soon after went to the African, in St. Michael's Alley, which was one of his City resorts. On entering the coffee-room, he was so exhausted that he must have fallen, had he not caught hold of the curtain-rod of one of the boxes, when he was recognized by Mr. J. P. Leigh, a gentleman with whom he had frequently dined at the house. A chair was given him; he sat down, and stared around, with a vacant and ghastly countenance, and he evidently did not recollect Mr. Leigh. He took a little wine, which revived him, but previously to this his head lay upon his breast, and he was continually muttering something, but in so low and indistinct a tone as scarcely to be audible. He then took a little jelly dissolved in warm brandy-and-water, which considerably roused him. Still he could make no answer to questions addressed to him, except these words, which he repeated, probably, twenty times:--"The gentleman said it was a lucrative piece of business, and _I_ think so too,"--but in a very low tone. A coach was now brought to take him to the London Institution, and he was helped in, and accompanied by the waiter; he appeared quite senseless all the way, and did not utter a word; and in reply to the question where they should stop, he put his head out of the window, and waved his hand when they came opposite the door of the Institution. Upon this Dr. Clarke touchingly observes: "How quick the transition from the highest degree of intellect to the lowest apprehensions of sense! On what a precarious tenure does frail humanity hold even its choicest and most necessary gifts."

Porson expired on the night of Sunday, September 20, with a deep groan, exactly as the clock struck twelve, in the forty-ninth year of his age.

THE GRAVE MAURICE TAVERN.

There are two taverns with this name,--in St. Leonard's-road, and Whitechapel-road. The history of the sign is curious. Many years ago the latter house had a written sign, "The Grave Morris," but this has been amended.

But the original was the famous Prince of Orange, Grave Maurice, of whom we read in Howel's _Familiar Letters_. In Junius's _Etymologicon_, Grave is explained to be Comes, or Count, as Palsgrave is Palatine Count; of which we have an instance in Palsgrave Count, or Elector Palatine, who married Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I. Their issue were the Palsgrave Charles Louis, the Grave Count or Prince Palatine Rupert, and the Grave Count or Prince Maurice, who alike distinguished themselves in the Civil Wars.

The two princes, Rupert and Maurice, for their loyalty and courage, were after the Restoration, very popular; which induced the author of the _Tavern Anecdotes_ to conjecture: "As we have an idea that the Mount at Whitechapel was raised to overawe the City, Maurice, before he proceeded to the west, might have the command of the work on the east side of the metropolis, and a temporary residence on the spot where his sign was so lately exhibited." At the close of the troubles of the reign, the two princes retired. In 1652, they were endeavouring to annoy the enemies of Charles II. in the West Indies; when the Grave Maurice lost his life in a hurricane.

The sign of the Grave Maurice remained against the house in the Whitechapel-road till the year 1806, when it was taken down to be repainted. It represented a soldier in a hat and feather, and blue uniform. The tradition of the neighbourhood is, that it is the portrait of a prince of Hesse, who was a great warrior, but of so inflexible a countenance, that he was never seen to smile in his life; and that he was, therefore, most properly termed _Grave_.

MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY, SPITALFIELDS.

It is curious to find that a century and a half since, science found a home in Spitalfields, chiefly among the middle and working classes; they met at small taverns in that locality. It appears that a Mathematical Society, which also cultivated electricity, was established in 1717, and met at the Monmouth's Head in Monmouth-street, until 1725, when they removed to the White Horse Tavern, in Wheeler-street; from thence, in 1735, to Ben Jonson's Head in Pelham-street; and next to Crispin-street, Spitalfields. The members were chiefly tradesmen and artisans; among those of higher rank were Canton, Dollond, Thomas Simpson, and Crossley. The Society lent their instruments (air-pumps, reflecting telescopes, reflecting microscopes, electrical machines, surveying-instruments, etc.) with books for the use of them, on the borrowers giving a note of hand for the value thereof. The number of members was not to exceed the square of seven, except such as were abroad or in the country; but this was increased to the squares of eight and nine. The members met on Saturday evenings: each present was to employ himself in some mathematical exercise, or forfeit one penny; and if he refused to answer a question asked by another in mathematics, he was to forfeit twopence. The Society long cherished a taste for exact science among the residents in the neighbourhood of Spitalfields, and accumulated a library of nearly 3000 volumes; but in 1845, when on the point of dissolution, the few remaining members made over their books, records, and memorials to the Royal Astronomical Society, of which these members were elected Fellows.[32] This amalgamation was chiefly negotiated by Captain, afterwards Admiral Smyth.

FOOTNOTE:

[32] Curiosities of London, p. 678.

GLOBE TAVERN, FLEET-STREET.

In the last century, when public amusements were comparatively few, and citizens dwelt in town, the Globe in Fleet-street was noted for its little clubs and card-parties. Here was held, for a time, the Robin Hood Club, a Wednesday Club, and later, Oliver Goldsmith and his friends often finished their Shoemaker's Holiday by supping at the Globe. Among the company was a surgeon, who, living on the Surrey side of the Thames (Blackfriars Bridge was not then built), had to take a boat every night, at 3_s._ or 4_s._ expense, and the risk of his life; yet, when the bridge was built, he grumbled at having a penny to pay for crossing it. Other frequenters of the Globe were Archibald Hamilton, "with a mind fit for a lord chancellor;" Carnan, the bookseller, who defeated the Stationers' Company upon the almanac trial; Dunstall, the comedian; the veteran Macklin; Akerman, the keeper of Newgate, who always thought it most prudent not to venture home till daylight; and William Woodfall, the reporter of the parliamentary debates. Then there was one Glover, a surgeon, who restored to life a man who had been hung in Dublin, and who ever after was a plague to his deliverer. Brasbridge, the silversmith of Fleet-street, was a frequenter of the Globe. In his eightieth year he wrote his _Fruits of Experience_, full of pleasant gossip about the minor gaieties of St. Bride's. He was more fond of following the hounds than his business, and failure was the ill consequence: he tells of a sporting party of four--that he and his partner became bankrupt; the third, Mr. Smith, became Lord Mayor; and the fourth fell into poverty, and was glad to accept the situation of patrol before the house of his Lordship, whose associate he had been only a few years before. Smith had 100,000_l._ of bad debts on his books, yet died worth one-fourth of that sum. We remember the Globe, a handsomely-appointed tavern, some forty years since; but it has long ceased to be a tavern.

THE DEVIL TAVERN.

This celebrated Tavern is described in the present work, Vol. I., pp. 10-15, as the meeting-place of the Apollo Club. Its later history is interesting.

Mull Sack, _alias_ John Cottington, the noted highwayman of the time of the Commonwealth, is stated to have been a constant visitor at the Devil Tavern. In the garb and character of a man of fashion, he appears to have levied contributions on the public as a pick-pocket and highwayman, to a greater extent than perhaps any other individual of his fraternity on record. He not only had the honour of picking the pocket of Oliver Cromwell, when Lord Protector, but he afterwards robbed King Charles II., then living in exile at Cologne, of plate valued at £1500. Another of his feats was his robbing the wife of the Lord General Fairfax. "This lady," we are told, "used to go to a lecture on a weekday, to Ludgate Church, where one Mr. Jacomb preached, being much followed by the precisians. Mull Sack, observing this,--and that she constantly wore her watch hanging by a chain from her waist,--against the next time she came there, dressed himself like an officer in the army; and having his comrades attending him like troopers, one of them takes out the pin of a coach-wheel that was going upwards through the gate, by which means, it falling off, the passage was obstructed; so that the lady could not alight at the church-door, but was forced to leave her coach without. Mull Sack, taking advantage of this, readily presented himself to her ladyship; and having the impudence to take her from her gentleman usher, who attended her alighting, led her by the arm into the church; and by the way, with a pair of keen or sharp scissors for the purpose, cut the chain in two, and got the watch clear away: she not missing it till sermon was done, when she was going to see the time of the day." At the Devil Tavern Mull Sack could mix with the best society, whom he probably occasionally relieved of their watches and purses. There is extant a very rare print of him, in which he is represented partly in the garb of a chimney-sweep, his original avocation, and partly in the fashionable costume of the period.[33]

In the Apollo chamber, at the Devil Tavern, were rehearsed, with music, the Court-day Odes of the Poets Laureate: hence Pope, in the _Dunciad_:

"Back to the Devil the loud echoes roll, And 'Coll!' each butcher roars at Hockley Hole."

The following epigram on the Odes rehearsals is by a wit of those times:

"When Laureates make Odes, do you ask of what sort? Do you ask if they're good, or are evil? You may judge--From the Devil they come to the Court, And go from the Court to the Devil."

St. Dunstan's, or the Devil Tavern, is mentioned as a house of old repute, in the interlude, _Jacke Jugeler_, 1563, where Jack, having persuaded his cousin Jenkin,

"As foolish a knave withall, As any is now, within London wall,"

that he was not himself, thrusts him from his master's door, and in answer to Jenkin's sorrowful question--where his master and he were to dwell, replies,

"At the Devyll yf you lust, I can not tell!"

Ben Jonson being one night at the Devil Tavern, a country gentleman in the company was obtrusively loquacious touching his land and tenements; Ben, out of patience, exclaimed, "What signifies to us your dirt and your clods? Where you have an acre of land I have ten acres of wit!" "Have you so," retorted the countryman, "good Mr. Wise-acre?" "Why, how now, Ben?" said one of the party, "you seem to be quite stung!" "I was never so pricked by a hobnail before," grumbled Ben.

There is a ludicrous reference to this old place in a song describing the visit of James I. to St. Paul's Cathedral on Sunday, 26th of March, 1620:

"The Maior layd downe his mace, and cry'd, 'God save your Grace, And keepe our King from all evill!' With all my hart I then wist, the good mace had been in my fist, To ha' pawn'd it for supper at the _Devill_!"

We have already given the famous Apollo "Welcome," but not immortal Ben's Rules, which have been thus happily translated by Alexander Brome, one of the wits who frequented the Devil, and who left _Poems and Songs_, 1661: he was an attorney in the Lord Mayor's Court:

"_Ben Jonson's Sociable Rules for the Apollo._

"Let none but guests, or clubbers, hither come. Let dunces, fools, sad sordid men keep home. Let learned, civil, merry men, b' invited, And modest too; nor be choice ladies slighted. Let nothing in the treat offend the guests; More for delight than cost, prepare the feast. The cook and purvey'r must our palates know; And none contend who shall sit high or low. Our waiters must quick-sighted be, and dumb, And let the drawers quickly hear and come. Let not our wine be mix'd, but brisk and neat, Or else the drinkers may the vintners beat. And let our only emulation be, Not drinking much, but talking wittily. Let it be voted lawful to stir up Each other with a moderate chirping cup; Let not our company be, or talk too much; On serious things, or sacred, let's not touch With sated heads and bellies. Neither may Fiddlers unask'd obtrude themselves to play. With laughing, leaping, dancing, jests, and songs, And whate'er else to grateful mirth belongs, Let's celebrate our feasts; and let us see That all our jests without reflection be. Insipid poems let no man rehearse, Nor any be compelled to write a verse. All noise of vain disputes must be forborne, And let no lover in a corner mourn. To fight and brawl, like hectors, let none dare, Glasses or windows break, or hangings tear. Whoe'er shall publish what's here done or said From our society must be banishèd; Let none by drinking do or suffer harm, And, while we stay, let us be always warm."

We must now say something of the noted hosts. Simon Wadlow appears for the last time, as a licensed vintner, in the Wardmote return, of December, 1626; and the burial register of St. Dunstan's records: "March 30th, 1627, Symon Wadlowe, vintner, was buried out of Fleet-street." On St. Thomas's Day, in the last-named year, the name of "the widow Wadlowe" appears; and in the following year, 1628, of the eight licensed victuallers, five were widows. The widow Wadlowe's name is returned for the last time by the Wardmote on December 21st, 1629.

The name of John Wadlow, apparently the son of old Simon, appears first as a licensed victualler, in the Wardmote return, December 21, 1646. He issued his token, showing on its obverse St. Dunstan holding the devil by his nose, his lower half being that of a satyr, the devil on the signboard was as usual, _sable_; the origin of the practice being thus satisfactorily explained by Dr. Jortin: "The devils used often to appear to the monks in the figure of Ethiopian boys or men; thence probably the painters learned to make the devil black." Hogarth, in his print of the Burning of the Rumps, represents the hanging of the effigy against the sign-board of the Devil Tavern.

In a ludicrous and boasting ballad of 1650, we read:

"Not the Vintry Cranes, nor St. Clement's Danes, Nor the Devill can put us down-a."

John Wadlow's name occurs for the last time in the Wardmote return of December, 1660. After the Great Fire, he rebuilt the Sun Tavern, behind the Royal Exchange: he was a loyal man, and appears to have been sufficiently wealthy to have advanced money to the Crown; his autograph was attached to several receipts among the Exchequer documents lately destroyed.

Hollar's Map of London, 1667, shows the site of the Devil Tavern, and its proximity to the barrier designated Temple Bar, when the house had become the resort of lawyers and physicians. In the rare volume of _Cambridge Merry Jests_, printed in the reign of Charles II., the will of a tavern-hunter has the bequeathment of "ten pounds to be drank by lawyers and physicians at the Devil's Tavern, by Temple Bar."

_The Tatler_, October 11, 1709, contains Bickerstaff's account of the wedding entertainment at the Devil Tavern, in honour of his sister Jenny's marriage. He mentions "the Rules of Ben's Club in gold letters over the chimney;" and this is the latest notice of this celebrated ode. When, or by whom, the board was taken from "over the chimney," Mr. Burn has failed to discover.

Swift tells Stella that Oct. 12, 1710, he dined at the Devil Tavern with Mr. Addison and Dr. Garth, when the doctor treated.

In 1746, the Royal Society held here their Annual Dinner; and in 1752, concerts of vocal and instrumental music were given in the great room.

A view of the exterior of the Devil Tavern, with its gable-pointed front, engraved from a drawing by Wale, was published in Dodsley's _London and its Environs_, 1761. The sign-iron bears its pendent sign--the Saint painted as a half-length, and the devil behind him grinning grimly over his shoulder. On the removal of projecting signs, by authority, in 1764, the Devil Tavern sign was placed flat against the front, and there remained till the demolition of the house.

Brush Collins, in March, 1775, delivered for several evenings, in the great room, a satirical lecture on Modern Oratory. In the following year, a Pandemonium Club was held here; and, according to a notice in Mr. Burn's possession, "the first meeting was to be on Monday, the 4th of November, 1776. These devils were lawyers, who were about commencing term, to the annoyance of many a hitherto happy _bon-vivant_."

From bad to worse, the Devil Tavern fell into disuse, and Messrs. Child, the bankers, purchased the freehold in 1787, for £2800. It was soon after demolished, and the site is now occupied by the houses called Child's-place.

We have selected and condensed these details from Mr. Burn's exhaustive article on the Devil Tavern, in the Beaufoy Catalogue.

There is a token of this tavern, which is very rare. The initials stand for Simon Wadloe, embalmed in Squire Western's favourite air "Old Sir Simon the King:"--"AT THE D. AND DVNSTANS. The representation of the saint standing at his anvil, and pulling the nose of the 'D.' with his pincers.--R. WITHIN TEMPLE BARRE. In the field, I. S. W."

FOOTNOTE:

[33] Jesse's 'London and its Celebrities.'

THE YOUNG DEVIL TAVERN.

The notoriety of the Devil Tavern, as common in such cases, created an opponent on the opposite side of Fleet-street, named "The Young Devil." The Society of Antiquaries, who had previously met at the Bear Tavern, in the Strand, changed their rendezvous Jan. 9, 1707-8, to the Young Devil Tavern; but the host failed, and as Browne Willis tells us, the Antiquaries, in or about 1709, "met at the Fountain Tavern, as we went down into the Inner Temple, against Chancery Lane."

Later, a music-room, called the Apollo, was attempted, but with no success: an advertisement for a concert, December 19, 1737, intimated "tickets to be had at Will's Coffee-house, formerly the Apollo, in Bell Yard, near Temple Bar." This may explain the Apollo Court, in Fleet-street, unless it is found in the next page.

COCK TAVERN, FLEET-STREET.

The Apollo Club, at the Devil Tavern, is kept in remembrance by Apollo Court, in Fleet-street, nearly opposite; next door eastward of which is an old tavern nearly as well known. It is, perhaps, the most primitive place of its kind in the metropolis: it still possesses a fragment of decoration of the time of James I., and the writer remembers the tavern half a century ago, with considerably more of its original panelling. It is just two centuries since (1665), when the Plague was raging, the landlord shut up his house, and retired into the country; and there is preserved one of the farthings referred to in this advertisement:--"This is to certify that the master of the Cock and Bottle, commonly called the Cock Alehouse, at Temple Bar, hath dismissed his servants, and shut up his house, for this long vacation, intending (God willing) to return at Michaelmas next; so that all persons whatsoever who may have any accounts with the said master, or _farthings belonging to the said house_, are desired to repair thither before the 8th of this instant, and they shall receive satisfaction." Three years later, we find Pepys frequenting this tavern: "23rd April, 1668. Thence by water to the Temple, and there to the Cock Alehouse, and drank, and eat a lobster, and sang, and mightily merry. So almost night, I carried Mrs. Pierce home, and then Knipp and I to the Temple again, and took boat, it being now night." The tavern has a gilt signbird over the passage door, stated to have been carved by Gibbons. Over the mantelpiece is some carving, at least of the time of James I.; but we remember the entire room similarly carved, and a huge black-and-gilt clock, and settle. The head-waiter of our time lives in the verse of Laureate Tennyson--"O plump head-waiter of the Cock!" apostrophizes the "Will Water-proof" of the bard, in a reverie wherein he conceives William to have undergone a transition similar to that of Jove's cup-bearer:--

"And hence (says he) this halo lives about The waiter's hands, that reach To each his perfect pint of stout, His proper chop to each. He looks not with the common breed, That with the napkin dally; I think he came, like Ganymede, From some delightful valley."

And of the redoubtable bird, who is supposed to have performed the eagle's part in this abduction, he says:--

"The Cock was of a larger egg Than modern poultry drop, Stept forward on a firmer leg, And cramm'd a plumper crop."

THE HERCULES' PILLARS TAVERNS.

Hercules Pillars Alley, on the south side of Fleet-street, near St. Dunstan's Church, is described by Strype as "altogether inhabited by such as keep Publick Houses for entertainment, for which it is of note."

The token of the Hercules Pillars is thus described by Mr. Akerman:--"ED. OLDHAM AT Y HERCVLES. A crowned male figure standing erect, and grasping a pillar with each hand.--Rx. PILLERS IN FLEET STREET. In the field, HIS HALF PENNY, E. P. O." "From this example," illustratively observes Mr. Akerman, "it would seem that the locality, called Hercules Pillars Alley, like other places in London, took its name from the tavern. The mode of representing the pillars of Hercules is somewhat novel; and, but for the inscription, we should have supposed the figure to represent Samson clutching the pillars of temple of Dagon. At the trial of Stephen Colledge, for high-treason, in 1681, an Irishman named Haynes, swore that he walked to the Hercules Pillars with the accused, and that in a room upstairs Colledge spoke of his treasonable designs and feeling. On another occasion the parties walked from Richard's coffee-house[34] to this tavern, where it was sworn they had a similar conference. Colledge, in his defence, denies the truth of the allegation, and declares that the walk from the coffee-house to the tavern is not more than a bow-shot, and that during such walk the witness had all the conversation to himself, though he had sworn that treasonable expressions had been made use of on their way thither.

"Pepys frequented this tavern: in one part of his _Diary_ he says, 'With Mr. Creed to Hercules Pillars, where we drank.' In another, 'In Fleet-street I met with Mr. Salisbury, who is now grown in less than two years' time so great a limner that he is become excellent and gets a great deal of money at it. I took him to Hercules Pillars to drink.'"

Again: "After the play was done, we met with Mr. Bateller and W. Hewer, and Talbot Pepys, and they followed us in a hackney-coach; and we all supped at Hercules Pillars; and there I did give the best supper I could, and pretty merry; and so home between eleven and twelve at night." "At noon, my wife came to me at my tailor's, and I sent her home, and myself and Tom dined at Hercules Pillars."