Part 2

As a Coffee-house, and one of the oldest class, which has withstood, by the well-acquired fame of its proprietors, the ravages of time, and the changes that economy and new generations produce, none can be compared to Garraway's. This name must be familiar with most people in and out of the City; and, notwithstanding our disposition to make allowance for the want of knowledge some of our neighbours of the West-end profess in relation to men and things east of Temple Bar, it must be supposed that the noble personage who said, when asked by a merchant to pay him a visit in one of these places, "that he willingly would, if his friend could tell him where to change horses," had forgotten this establishment, which fostered so great a quantity of dishonoured paper, when in other City coffee-houses it had gone begging at 1_s._ and 2_s._ in the pound.[2]

Garraway's has long been famous as a sandwich and drinking room, for sherry, pale ale, and punch. Tea and coffee are still served. It is said that the sandwich-maker is occupied two hours in cutting and arranging the sandwiches before the day's consumption commences. The sale-room is an old fashioned first-floor apartment, with a small rostrum for the seller, and a few commonly grained settles for the buyers. Here sales of drugs, mahogany, and timber are periodically held. Twenty or thirty property and other sales sometimes take place in a day. The walls and windows of the lower room are covered with sale placards, which are unsentimental evidences of the mutability of human affairs.

"In 1840 and 1841, when the tea speculation was at its height, and prices were fluctuating 6_d._ and 8_d._ per pound, on the arrival of every mail, Garraway's was frequented every night by a host of the smaller fry of dealers, when there was more excitement than ever occurred on 'Change when the most important intelligence arrived. Champagne and anchovy toasts were the order of the night; and every one came, ate and drank, and went, as he pleased without the least question concerning the score, yet the bills were discharged; and this plan continued for several months."--_The City._

Here, likewise, we find this redeeming picture:--"The members of the little _coterie_, who take the dark corner under the clock, have for years visited this house; they number two or three old, steady merchants, a solicitor, and a gentleman who almost devotes the whole of his time and talents to philanthropic objects,--for instance, the getting up of a Ball for Shipwrecked Mariners and their families; or the organization of a Dinner for the benefit of the Distressed Needlewomen of the Metropolis; they are a very quiet party, and enjoy the privilege of their _séance_, uninterrupted by visitors."

We may here mention a tavern of the South Sea time, where the "Globe _permits_" fraud was very successful. These were nothing more than square pieces of card on which was a wax seal of the sign of the Globe Tavern, situated in the neighbourhood of Change-alley, with the inscription, "Sail-cloth Permits." The possessors enjoyed no other advantage from them than permission to subscribe at some future time to a new sail-cloth manufactory projected by one who was known to be a man of fortune, but who was afterwards involved in the peculation and punishment of the South Sea Directors. These Permits sold for as much as sixty guineas in the Alley.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] _The City_, 2nd edition.

JONATHAN'S COFFEE-HOUSE.

This is another Change-alley Coffee-house, which is described in the _Tatler_, No. 38, as "the general mart of stock-jobbers;" and the _Spectator_, No. 1, tells us that he "sometimes passes for a Jew in the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's." This was the rendezvous, where gambling of all sorts was carried on; notwithstanding a formal prohibition against the assemblage of the jobbers, issued by the City of London, which prohibition continued unrepealed until 1825.

In the _Anatomy of Exchange Alley_, 1719, we read:--"The centre of the jobbing is in the kingdom of Exchange-alley and its adjacencies. The limits are easily surrounded in about a minute and a half: viz. stepping out of Jonathan's into the Alley, you turn your face full south; moving on a few paces, and then turning due east, you advance to Garraway's; from thence going out at the other door, you go on still east into Birchin-lane; and then halting a little at the Sword-blade Bank, to do much mischief in fewest words, you immediately face to the north, enter Cornhill, visit two or three petty provinces there in your way west; and thus having boxed your compass, and sailed round the whole stock-jobbing globe, you turn into Jonathan's again; and so, as most of the great follies of life oblige us to do, you end just where you began."

Mrs. Centlivre, in her comedy of _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_, has a scene from Jonathan's at the above period: while the stock-jobbers are talking, the coffee-boys are crying "Fresh coffee, gentlemen, fresh coffee! Bohea tea, gentlemen!"

Here is another picture of Jonathan's, during the South Sea mania; though not by an eye-witness, it groups, from various authorities, the life of the place and the time:--"At a table a few yards off sat a couple of men engaged in the discussion of a newly-started scheme. Plunging his hand impatiently under the deep silver-buttoned flap of his frock-coat of cinnamon cloth and drawing out a paper, the more business-looking of the pair commenced eagerly to read out figures intended to convince the listener, who took a jewelled snuff-box from the deep pocket of the green brocade waistcoat which overflapped his thigh, and, tapping the lid, enjoyed a pinch of perfumed Turkish as he leaned back lazily in his chair. Somewhat further off, standing in the middle of the room, was a keen-eyed lawyer, counting on his fingers the probable results of a certain speculation in human hair, to which a fresh-coloured farmer from St. Albans, on whose boots the mud of the cattle market was not dry, listened with a face of stolid avarice, clutching the stag-horn handle of his thonged whip as vigorously as if it were the wealth he coveted. There strode a Nonconformist divine, with S. S. S. in every line of his face, greedy for the gold that perisheth; here a bishop, whose truer place was Garraway's, edged his cassock through the crowd; sturdy ship-captains, whose manners smack of blustering breezes, and who hailed their acquaintance as if through a speaking-trumpet in a storm--booksellers' hacks from Grub-street, who were wont to borrow ink-bottles and just one sheet of paper at the bar of the Black Swan in St. Martin's-lane, and whose tarnished lace, when not altogether torn away, showed a suspicious coppery redness underneath--Jews of every grade, from the thriving promoter of a company for importing ashes from Spain or extracting stearine from sunflower seeds to the seller of sailor slops from Wapping-in-the-Wose, come to look for a skipper who had bilked him--a sprinkling of well-to-do merchants--and a host of those flashy hangers-on to the skirts of commerce, who brighten up in days of maniacal speculation, and are always ready to dispose of shares in some unopened mine or some untried invention--passed and repassed with continuous change and murmur before the squire's eyes during the quarter of an hour that he sat there."--_Pictures of the Periods, by W. F. Collier LL.D._

RAINBOW COFFEE-HOUSE.

The Rainbow, in Fleet-street, appears to have been the second Coffee-house opened in the metropolis.

"The first Coffee-house in London," says Aubrey (MS. in the Bodleian Library), "was in St. Michael's-alley, in Cornhill, opposite to the church, which was set up by one ---- Bowman (coachman to Mr. Hodges, a Turkey merchant, who putt him upon it), in or about the yeare 1652. 'Twas about four yeares before any other was sett up, and that was by Mr. Farr." This was the Rainbow.

Another account states that one Edwards, a Turkey merchant, on his return from the East, brought with him a Ragusian Greek servant, named Pasqua Rosee, who prepared coffee every morning for his master, and with the coachman above named set up the first Coffee-house in St. Michael's-alley; but they soon quarrelled and separated, the coachman establishing himself in St. Michael's churchyard.--(See pp. 2 and 4, _ante._)

Aubrey wrote the above in 1680, and Mr. Farr had then become a person of consequence. In his _Lives_, Aubrey notes:--"When coffee first came in, Sir Henry Blount was a great upholder of it, and hath ever since been a great frequenter of coffee-houses, especially Mr. Farre's, at the Rainbowe, by Inner Temple Gate."

Farr was originally a barber. His success as a coffee-man appears to have annoyed his neighbours; and at the inquest at St. Dunstan's, Dec. 21st, 1657, among the presentments of nuisances were the following:--"We present James Farr, barber, for making and selling of a drink called coffee, whereby in making the same he annoyeth his neighbours by evill smells; and for keeping of fire for the most part night and day, whereby his chimney and chamber hath been set on fire, to the great danger and affrightment of his neighbours." However, Farr was not ousted; he probably promised reform, or amended the alleged annoyance: he remained at the Rainbow, and rose to be a person of eminence and repute in the parish. He issued a token, date 1666--an arched rainbow based on clouds, doubtless, from the Great Fire--to indicate that with him all was yet safe, and the Rainbow still radiant. There is one of his tokens in the Beaufoy collection, at Guildhall, and so far as is known to Mr. Burn, the rainbow does not occur on any other tradesman's token. The house was let off into tenements: books were printed here at this very time "for Samuel Speed, at the sign of the Rainbow, near the Inner Temple Gate, in Fleet-street." The Phoenix Fire Office was established here about 1682. Hatton, in 1708, evidently attributed Farr's nuisance to the _coffee itself_ saying: "Who would have thought London would ever have had three thousand such nuisances, and that coffee would have been (as now) so much drank by the best of quality, and physicians?" The nuisance was in Farr's chimney and carelessness, not in the coffee. Yet, in our statute-book anno 1660 (12 Car. II. c. 24), a duty of 4_d._ was laid upon every gallon of coffee made and sold. A statute of 1663 directs that all Coffee-houses should be licensed at the Quarter Sessions. And in 1675, Charles II. issued a proclamation to shut up the Coffee-houses, charged with being seminaries of sedition; but in a few days he suspended this proclamation by a second.

The _Spectator_, No. 16, notices some gay frequenters of the Rainbow:--"I have received a letter desiring me to be very satirical upon the little muff that is now in fashion; another informs me of a pair of silver garters buckled below the knee, that have been lately seen at the Rainbow Coffee-house in Fleet-street."

Mr. Moncrieff, the dramatist, used to tell that about 1780, this house was kept by his grandfather, Alexander Moncrieff, when it retained its original title of "The Rainbow Coffee-house." The old Coffee-room had a lofty bay-window, at the south end, looking into the Temple: and the room was separated from the kitchen only by a glazed partition: in the bay was the table for the elders. The house has long been a tavern; all the old rooms have been swept away, and a large and lofty dining-room erected in their place.

In a paper read to the British Archæological Association, by Mr. E. B. Price, we find coffee and canary thus brought into interesting comparison, illustrated by the exhibition of one of Farr's Rainbow tokens; and another inscribed "At the Canary House in the Strand, 1_d_., 1665," bearing also the word "Canary" in the monogram. Having noticed the prosecution of Farr, and his triumph over his fellow-parishioners, Mr. Price says:--"The opposition to coffee continued; people viewed it with distrust, and even with alarm: and we can sympathize with them in their alarm: when we consider that they entertained a notion that coffee would eventually put an end to the species; that the _genus homo_ would some day or other be utterly extinguished. With our knowledge of the beneficial effect of this article on the community, and its almost universal adoption in the present day, we may smile, and wonder while we smile, at the bare possibility of such a notion ever having prevailed. That it did so, we have ample evidence in the "Women's Petition against Coffee," in the year 1674, cited by D'Israeli, _Curiosities of Literature_, vol. iv., and in which they complain that coffee "made men as unfruitful as the deserts whence that unhappy berry is said to be brought: that the offspring of our mighty ancestors would dwindle into a succession of apes and pigmies," etc. The same authority gives us an extract from a very amusing poem of 1663, in which the writer wonders that any man should prefer Coffee to Canary, terming them English apes, and proudly referring them to the days of Beaumont and Fletcher and Ben Jonson. _They_, says he,

"Drank pure nectar as the gods drink too Sublimed with rich _Canary_; say, shall then These less than coffee's self, these coffee-men, These sons of nothing, that can hardly make Their broth for laughing how the jest does take, Yet grin, and give ye for the vine's pure blood A loathsome potion--not yet understood, Syrup of soot, or essence of old shoes, Dasht with diurnals or the book of news?"

One of the weaknesses of "rare Ben" was his _penchant_ for Canary. And it would seem that the Mermaid, in Bread-street, was the house in which he enjoyed it most:

"But that which most doth take my muse and me, Is a pure cup of rich _Canary wine_, Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine."

Granger states that Charles I. raised Ben's pension from 100 marks to 100 pounds, and added a tierce of canary, which salary and its appendage, he says, have ever since been continued to poets laureate.

Reverting to the Rainbow (says Mr. Price), "it has been frequently remarked by 'tavern-goers,' that many of our snuggest and most comfortable taverns are hidden from vulgar gaze, and unapproachable except through courts, blind alleys, or but half-lighted passages." Of this description was the house in question. But few of its many nightly, or rather midnightly patrons and frequenters, knew aught of it beyond its famed "stewed cheeses," and its "stout," with the various "et ceteras" of good cheer. They little dreamed, and perhaps as little cared to know, that, more than two centuries back, the Rainbow flourished as a bookseller's shop; as appears by the title-page of Trussell's _History of England_, which states it to be "printed by M. D., for Ephraim Dawson, and are to bee sold in Fleet Street, at the signe of the Rainbowe, neere the Inner-Temple Gate, 1636."

NANDO'S COFFEE-HOUSE

Was the house at the east corner of Inner Temple-lane, No. 17, Fleet-street, and next-door to the shop of Bernard Lintot, the bookseller; though it has been by some confused with Groom's house, No. 16. Nando's was the favourite haunt of Lord Thurlow, before he dashed into law practice. At this Coffee-house a large attendance of professional loungers was attracted by the fame of the punch and the charms of the landlady, which, with the small wits, were duly admired by and at the bar. One evening, the famous cause of Douglas _v._. the Duke of Hamilton was the topic of discussion, when Thurlow being present, it was suggested, half in earnest, to appoint him junior counsel, which was done. This employment brought him acquainted with the Duchess of Queensberry, who saw at once the value of a man like Thurlow, and recommended Lord Bute to secure him by a silk gown.

The house, formerly Nando's, has been for many years a hair-dresser's. It is inscribed "Formerly the palace of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey." The structure is of the time of James I., and has an enriched ceiling inscribed P (triple plumed).

This was the office in which the Council for the Management of the Duchy of Cornwall Estates held their sittings; for in the Calendar of State Papers, edited by Mrs. Green, is the following entry, of the time of Charles, created Prince of Wales four years after the death of Henry:--"1619, Feb. 25; Prince's _Council Chamber, Fleet-street_. --Council of the Prince of Wales to the Keepers of Brancepeth, Raby, and Barnard Castles: The trees blown down are only to be used for mending the pales, and no wood to be cut for firewood, nor browse for the deer."

DICK'S COFFEE-HOUSE.

This old Coffee-house, No. 8, Fleet-street (south side, near Temple Bar), was originally "Richard's," named from Richard Torner, or Turner, to whom the house was let in 1680. The Coffee-room retains its olden paneling, and the staircase its original balusters.

The interior of Dick's Coffee-house is engraved as a frontispiece to a drama, called _The Coffee-house_, performed at Drury-lane Theatre in 1737. The piece met with great opposition on its representation, owing to its being stated that the characters were intended for a particular family (that of Mrs. Yarrow and her daughter), who kept Dick's, the coffee-house which the artist had inadvertently selected as the frontispiece.

It appears that the landlady and her daughter were the reigning toast of the Templars, who then frequented Dick's; and took the matter up so strongly that they united to condemn the farce on the night of its production; they succeeded, and even extended their resentment to every thing suspected to be this author's (the Rev. James Miller) for a considerable time after.

Richard's, as it was then called, was frequented by Cowper, when he lived in the Temple. In his own account of his insanity, Cowper tells us: "At breakfast I read the newspaper, and in it a letter, which, the further I perused it, the more closely engaged my attention. I cannot now recollect the purport of it; but before I had finished it, it appeared demonstratively true to me that it was a libel or satire upon me. The author appeared to be acquainted with my purpose of self-destruction, and to have written that letter on purpose to secure and hasten the execution of it. My mind, probably, at this time began to be disordered; however it was, I was certainly given to a strong delusion. I said within myself, 'Your cruelty shall be gratified; you shall have your revenge,' and flinging down the paper in a fit of strong passion, I rushed hastily out of the room; directing my way towards the fields, where I intended to find some house to die in; or, if not, determined to poison myself in a ditch, where I could meet with one sufficiently retired."

It is worth while to revert to the earlier tenancy of the Coffee-house, which was, wholly or in part, the original printing office of Richard Tottel, law-printer to Edward VI., Queens Mary and Elizabeth; the premises were attached to No. 7, Fleet-street, which bore the sign of "The Hand and Starre," where Tottel lived, and published the law and other works he printed. No. 7 was subsequently occupied by Jaggard and Joel Stephens, eminent law-printers, temp. Geo. I.-III.; and at the present day the house is most appropriately occupied by Messrs. Butterworth, who follow the occupation Tottel did in the days of Edward VI., being law-publishers to Queen Victoria; and they possess the original leases, from the earliest grant, in the reign of Henry VIII., the period of their own purchase.

THE "LLOYD'S" OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II.

During the reign of Charles II., Coffee-houses grew into such favour, that they quickly spread over the metropolis, and were the usual meeting-places of the roving cavaliers, who seldom visited home but to sleep. The following song, from Jordan's _Triumphs of London_, 1675, affords a very curious picture of the manners of the times, and the sort of conversation then usually met with in a well-frequented house of the sort,--the "Lloyd's" of the seventeenth century:--

"You that delight in wit and mirth, And love to hear such news That come from all parts of the earth, Turks, Dutch, and Danes, and Jews: I'll send ye to the rendezvous, Where it is smoaking new; Go hear it at a coffee-house, It cannot but be true.

"There battails and sea-fights are fought, And bloudy plots displaid; They know more things than e'er was thought, Or ever was bewray'd: No money in the minting-house Is half so bright and new; And coming from the _Coffee-House_, It cannot but be true.

"Before the navies fell to work, They knew who should be winner; They there can tell ye what the Turk Last Sunday had to dinner. Who last did cut Du Ruiter's[3] corns, Amongst his jovial crew; Or who first gave the devil horns, Which cannot but be true.

"A fisherman did boldly tell, And strongly did avouch, He caught a shole of mackerell, They parley'd all in Dutch; And cry'd out _Yaw, yaw, yaw, mine hare_, And as the draught they drew, They stunk for fear that Monk[4] was there: This sounds as if 'twere true.

"There's nothing done in all the world, From monarch to the mouse; But every day or night 'tis hurl'd Into the coffee-house: What Lilly[5] what Booker[6] cou'd By art not bring about, At Coffee-house you'll find a brood, Can quickly find it out.

"They know who shall in times to come, Be either made or undone, From great St. Peter's-street in Rome, To Turnbal-street[7] in London.

"They know all that is good or hurt, To damn ye or to save ye; There is the college and the court, The country, camp, and navy. So great an university, I think there ne'er was any; In which you may a scholar be, For spending of a penny.

"Here men do talk of everything, With large and liberal lungs, Like women at a gossiping, With double tire of tongues, They'll give a broadside presently, 'Soon as you are in view: With stories that you'll wonder at, Which they will swear are true.

"You shall know there what fashions are, How perriwigs are curl'd; And for a penny you shall hear All novels in the world; Both old and young, and great and small, And rich and poor you'll see; Therefore let's to the Coffee all, Come all away with me."

FOOTNOTES:

[3] The Dutch admiral who, in June, 1667, dashed into the Downs with a fleet of eighty sail, and many fire-ships, blocked up the mouths of the Medway and Thames, destroyed the fortifications at Sheerness, cut away the paltry defences of booms and chains drawn across the rivers, and got to Chatham, on the one side, and nearly to Gravesend on the other; the king having spent in debauchery the money voted by Parliament for the proper support of the English navy.

[4] General Monk and Prince Rupert were at this time commanders of the English fleet.

[5] Lilly was the celebrated astrologer of the Protectorate, who earned great fame at that time by predicting, in June, 1645, "if now we fight, a victory stealeth upon us:" a lucky guess, signally verified in the King's defeat at Naseby. Lilly thenceforth always saw the stars favourable to the Puritans.

[6] This man was originally a fishing-tackle-maker in Tower-street, during the reign of Charles I.; but turning enthusiast, he went about prognosticating "the downfall of the King and Popery;" and as he and his predictions were all on the popular side, he became a great man with the superstitious "godly brethren" of that day.