Part 4
Three of Addison's papers in the _Spectator_, (Nos. 402, 481, and 568,) are humorously descriptive of the Coffee-houses of this period. No. 403 opens with the remark that "the courts of two countries do not so much differ from one another, as the Court and the City, in their peculiar ways of life and conversation. In short, the inhabitants of St. James's, notwithstanding they live under the same laws, and speak the same language, are a distinct people from those of Cheapside, who are likewise removed from those of the Temple on the one side, and those of Smithfield on the other, by several climates and degrees in their way of thinking and conversing together." For this reason, the author takes a ramble through London and Westminster, to gather the opinions of his ingenious countrymen upon a current report of the King of France's death. "I know the faces of all the principal politicians within the bills of mortality; and as every Coffee-house has some particular statesman belonging to it, who is the mouth of the street where he lives, I always take care to place myself near him, in order to know his judgment on the present posture of affairs. And, as I foresaw, the above report would produce a new face of things in Europe, and many curious speculations in our British Coffee-houses, I was very desirous to learn the thoughts of our most eminent politicians on that occasion.
"That I might begin as near the fountain-head as possible, I first of all called in at St. James's, where I found the whole outward room in a buzz of politics; the speculations were but very indifferent towards the door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the room, and were so much improved by a knot of theorists, who sat in the inner room, within the steams of the coffee-pot, that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, and all the line of Bourbons provided for in less than a quarter of an hour.
"I afterwards called in at Giles's, where I saw a board of French gentlemen sitting upon the life and death of their grand monarque. Those among them who had espoused the Whig interest very positively affirmed that he had departed this life about a week since, and therefore, proceeded without any further delay to the release of their friends in the galleys, and to their own re-establishment; but, finding they could not agree among themselves, I proceeded on my intended progress.
"Upon my arrival at Jenny Man's I saw an alert young fellow that cocked his hat upon a friend of his, who entered just at the same time with myself, and accosted him after the following manner: 'Well, Jack, the old prig is dead at last. Sharp's the word. Now or never, boy. Up to the walls of Paris, directly;' with several other deep reflections of the same nature.
"I met with very little variation in the politics between Charing Cross and Covent Garden. And, upon my going into Will's, I found their discourse was gone off, from the death of the French King, to that of Monsieur Boileau, Racine, Corneille, and several other poets, whom they regretted on this occasion as persons who would have obliged the world with very noble elegies on the death of so great a prince, and so eminent a patron of learning.
"At a Coffee-house near the Temple, I found a couple of young gentlemen engaged very smartly in a dispute on the succession to the Spanish monarchy. One of them seemed to have been retained as advocate for the Duke of Anjou, the other for his Imperial Majesty. They were both for regarding the title to that kingdom by the statute laws of England: but finding them going out of my depth, I pressed forward to Paul's Churchyard, where I listened with great attention to a learned man, who gave the company an account of the deplorable state of France during the minority of the deceased King.
"I then turned on my right hand into Fish-street, where the chief politician of that quarter, upon hearing the news, (after having taken a pipe of tobacco, and ruminated for some time,) 'If,' says he, 'the King of France is certainly dead, we shall have plenty of mackerel this season: our fishery will not be disturbed by privateers, as it has been for these ten years past.' He afterwards considered how the death of this great man would affect our pilchards, and by several other remarks infused a general joy into his whole audience.
"I afterwards entered a by-coffee-house that stood at the upper end of a narrow lane, where I met with a conjuror, engaged very warmly with a laceman who was the great support of a neighbouring conventicle. The matter in debate was whether the late French King was most like Augustus Cæsar, or Nero. The controversy was carried on with great heat on both sides, and as each of them looked upon me very frequently during the course of their debate, I was under some apprehension that they would appeal to me, and therefore laid down my penny at the bar, and made the best of my way to Cheapside.
"I here gazed upon the signs for some time before I found one to my purpose. The first object I met in the coffee-room was a person who expressed a great grief for the death of the French King; but upon his explaining himself, I found his sorrow did not arise from the loss of the monarch, but for his having sold out of the Bank about three days before he heard the news of it. Upon which a haberdasher, who was the oracle of the Coffee-house, and had his circle of admirers about him, called several to witness that he had declared his opinion, above a week before, that the French King was certainly dead; to which he added, that, considering the late advices we had received from France, it was impossible that it could be otherwise. As he was laying these together, and debating to his hearers with great authority, there came a gentleman from Garraway's, who told us that there were several letters from France just come in, with advice that the King was in good health, and was gone out a hunting the very morning the post came away; upon which the haberdasher stole off his hat that hung upon a wooden peg by him, and retired to his shop with great confusion. This intelligence put a stop to my travels, which I had prosecuted with so much satisfaction; not being a little pleased to hear so many different opinions upon so great an event, and to observe how naturally, upon such a piece of news, every one is apt to consider it to his particular interest and advantage."
FOOTNOTES:
[8] From the National Review, No. 8.
[9] We question whether the Coffee-house general business was entirely given up immediately after the transition.
COFFEE-HOUSE SHARPERS IN 1776.
The following remarks by Sir John Fielding[10] upon the dangerous classes to be found in our metropolitan Coffee-houses three-quarters of a century since, are described as "necessary Cautions to all Strangers resorting thereto."
"A stranger or foreigner should particularly frequent the Coffee-houses in London. These are very numerous in every part of the town; will give him the best insight into the different characters of the people, and the justest notion of the inhabitants in general, of all the houses of public resort these are the least dangerous. Yet, some of these are not entirely free from sharpers. The deceivers of this denomination are generally descended from families of some repute, have had the groundwork of a genteel education, and are capable of making a tolerable appearance. Having been equally profuse of their own substance and character, and learned, by having been undone, the ways of undoing, they lie in wait for those who have more wealth and less knowledge of the town. By joining you in discourse, by admiring what you say, by an officiousness to wait upon you, and to assist you in anything you want to have or know, they insinuate themselves into the company and acquaintance of strangers, whom they watch every opportunity of fleecing. And if one finds in you the least inclination to cards, dice, the billiard-table, bowling-green, or any other sort of gaming, you are morally sure of being taken in. For this set of gentry are adepts in all the arts of knavery and tricking. If, therefore, you should observe a person, without any previous acquaintance, paying you extraordinary marks of civility; if he puts in for a share of your conversation with a pretended air of deference; if he tenders his assistance, courts your acquaintance, and would be suddenly thought your friend, avoid him as a pest; for these are the usual baits by which the unwary are caught."
FOOTNOTE:
[10] 'The Magistrate: Description of London and Westminster,' 1776.
DON SALTERO'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
Among the curiosities of Old Chelsea, almost as well known as its china, was the Coffee-house and Museum, No. 18, Cheyne Walk, opened by a barber, named Salter, in 1695. Sir Hans Sloane contributed some of the refuse gimcracks of his own collection; and Vice-Admiral Munden, who had been long on the coast of Spain, where he had acquired a fondness for Spanish titles, named the keeper of the house _Don Saltero_, and his coffee-house and museum, _Don Saltero's_.
The place, however, would, in all probability, have enjoyed little beyond its local fame, had not Sir Richard Steele immortalized the Don and Don Saltero's in _The Tatler_, No. 34, June 28, 1700; wherein he tells us of the necessity of travelling to know the world by his journey for fresh air, no further than the village of Chelsea, of which he fancied that he could give an immediate description, from the five fields, where the robbers lie in wait, to the Coffee-house, where the literati sit in council. But he found, even in a place so near town as this, there were enormities and persons of eminence, whom he before knew nothing of.
The Coffee-house was almost absorbed by the Museum. "When I came into the Coffee-house," says Steele, "I had not time to salute the company, before my eyes were diverted by ten thousand gimcracks round the room, and on the ceiling. When my first astonishment was over, comes to me a sage of thin and meagre countenance, which aspect made me doubt whether reading or fretting had made it so philosophic; but I very soon perceived him to be of that sort which the ancients call 'gingivistee,' in our language 'tooth-drawers,' I immediately had a respect for the man; for these practical philosophers go upon a very practical hypothesis, not to cure, but to take away the part affected. My love of mankind made me very benevolent to Mr. Salter, for such is the name of this eminent barber and antiquary."
The Don was famous for his punch and his skill on the fiddle; he also drew teeth, and wrote verses; he described his museum in several stanzas, one of which is--
"Monsters of all sorts are seen: Strange things in nature as they grew so; Some relicks of the Sheba Queen, And fragments of the fam'd Bob Crusoe."
Steele then plunges into a deep thought why barbers should go further in hitting the ridiculous than any other set of men; and maintains that Don Saltero is descended in a right line, not from John Tradescant, as he himself asserts, but from the memorable companion of the Knight of Mancha. Steele then certifies that all the worthy citizens who travel to see the Don's rarities, his double-barrelled pistols, targets, coats of mail, his sclopeta, and sword of Toledo, were left to his ancestor by the said Don Quixote, and by his ancestor to all his progeny down to Saltero. Though Steele thus goes far in favour of Don Saltero's great merit, he objects to his imposing several names (without his licence) on the collection he has made, to the abuse of the good people of England; one of which is particularly calculated to deceive religious persons, to the great scandal of the well-disposed, and may introduce heterodox opinions. [Among the curiosities presented by Admiral Munden was a coffin, containing the body or relics of a Spanish saint, who had wrought miracles.] "He shows you a straw hat, which," says Steele, "I know to be made by Madge Peskad, within three miles of Bedford; and tells you 'It is Pontius Pilate's wife's chambermaid's sister's hat.' To my knowledge of this very hat, it may be added that the covering of straw was never used among the Jews, since it was demanded of them to make bricks without it. Therefore, this is nothing but, under the specious pretence of learning and antiquities, to impose upon the world. There are other things which I cannot tolerate among his rarities, as, the china figure of the lady in the glass-case; the Italian engine, for the imprisonment of those who go abroad with it; both of which I hereby order to be taken down, or else he may expect to have his letters patent for making punch superseded, be debarred wearing his muff next winter, or ever coming to London without his wife." Babillard says that Salter had an old grey muff, and that, by wearing it up to his nose, he was distinguishable at the distance of a quarter of a mile. His wife was none of the best, being much addicted to scolding; and Salter, who liked his glass, if he could make a trip to London by himself, was in no haste to return.
Don Saltero's proved very attractive as an exhibition, and drew crowds to the coffee-house. A catalogue was published, of which were printed more than forty editions. Smollett, the novelist, was among the donors. The catalogue, in 1760, comprehended the following rarities:--Tigers' tusks; the Pope's candle; the skeleton of a Guinea-pig; a fly-cap monkey; a piece of the true Cross; the Four Evangelists' heads cut on a cherry-stone; the King of Morocco's tobacco-pipe; Mary Queen of Scots' pincushion; Queen Elizabeth's prayer-book; a pair of Nun's stockings; Job's ears, which grew on a tree; a frog in a tobacco-stopper; and five hundred more odd relics! The Don had a rival, as appears by "A Catalogue of the Rarities to be seen at Adams's, at the Royal Swan, in Kingsland-road, leading from Shoreditch Church, 1756." Mr. Adams exhibited, for the entertainment of the curious, "Miss Jenny Cameron's shoes; Adam's eldest daughter's hat; the heart of the famous Bess Adams, that was hanged at Tyburn with Lawyer Carr, January 18, 1736-7; Sir Walter Raleigh's tobacco-pipe; Vicar of Bray's clogs; engine to shell green peas with; teeth that grew in a fish's belly; Black Jack's ribs; the very comb that Abraham combed his son Isaac and Jacob's head with; Wat Tyler's spurs; rope that cured Captain Lowry of the head-ach, ear-ach, tooth-ach, and belly-ach; Adam's key of the fore and back door of the Garden of Eden, &c., &c." These are only a few out of five hundred others equally marvellous.
The Don, in 1723, issued a curious rhyming advertisement of his Curiosities, dated "Chelsea Knackatory," and in one line he calls it "My Museum Coffee-house."
In Dr. Franklin's _Life_ we read:--"Some gentlemen from the country went by water to see the College, and Don Saltero's Curiosities, at Chelsea." They were shown in the coffee-room till August, 1799, when the collection was mostly sold or dispersed; a few gimcracks were left until about 1825, when we were informed on the premises, they were thrown away! The house is now a tavern, with the sign of "The Don Saltero's Coffee-house."
The success of Don Saltero, in attracting visitors to his coffee-house, induced the proprietor of the Chelsea Bun-house to make a similar collection of rarities, to attract customers for the buns; and to some extent it was successful.
SALOOP-HOUSES.
What was, in our time, occasionally sold at stalls in the streets of London, with this name, was a decoction of sassafras; but it was originally made from Salep, the roots of _Orchis mascula_, a common plant of our meadows, the tubers of which, being cleaned and peeled, are lightly browned in an oven. Salep was much recommended in the last century by Dr. Percival, who stated that salep had the property of concealing the taste of salt water, which property it was thought might be turned to account in long sea-voyages. The root has been considered as containing the largest portion of nutritious matter in the smallest space; and when boiled, it was much used in this country before the introduction of tea and coffee, and their greatly reduced prices. Salep is now almost entirely disused in Great Britain; but we remember many saloop-stalls in our streets. We believe the last house in which it was sold, to have been Read's Coffee-house, in Fleet-street. The landlord of the noted Mug-house, in Salisbury-square, was one Read. (See CLUBS, p. 52.)
THE SMYRNA COFFEE-HOUSE,
In Pall Mall, was, in the reign of Queen Anne, famous for "that cluster of wise-heads" found sitting every evening, from the left side of the fire to the door. The following announcement in the _Tatler_, No. 78, is amusing: "This is to give notice to all ingenious gentlemen in and about the cities of London and Westminster, who have a mind to be instructed in the noble sciences of music, poetry, and politics, that they repair to the Smyrna Coffee-house, in Pall Mall, betwixt the hours of eight and ten at night, where they may be instructed gratis, with elaborate essays by word of mouth," on all or any of the above-mentioned arts. The disciples are to prepare their bodies with three dishes of bohea, and to purge their brains with two pinches of snuff. If any young student gives indication of parts, by listening attentively, or asking a pertinent question, one of the professors shall distinguish him, by taking snuff out of his box in the presence of the whole audience.
"N.B. The seat of learning is now removed from the corner of the chimney, on the left hand towards the window, to the round table in the middle of the floor over against the fire; a revolution much lamented by the porters and chairmen, who were much edified through a pane of glass that remained broken all the last summer."
Prior and Swift were much together at the Smyrna: we read of their sitting there two hours, "receiving acquaintance;" and one entry of Swift's tells us that he walked a little in the Park till Prior made him go with him to the Smyrna Coffee-house. It seemed to be the place to _talk politics_; but there is a more agreeable record of it in association with our "Poet of the Year," thus given by Cunningham: "In the printed copy of Thomson's proposals for publishing, by subscription, the Four Seasons, with a Hymn on their succession, the following note is appended:--'Subscriptions now taken in by the author, at the Smyrna Coffee-house, Pall Mall.'"[11] We find the Smyrna in a list of Coffee-Houses in 1810.
FOOTNOTE:
[11] The Dane Coffee-house, between the Upper and Lower Malls, Hammersmith, was frequented by Thomson, who wrote here a part of his _Winter_. On the Terrace resided, for many years, Arthur Murphy, and Loutherbourg, the painter. The latter died there, in 1812.
ST. JAMES'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
This was the famous Whig Coffee-house from the time of Queen Anne till late in the reign of George III. It was the last house but one on the south-west corner of St. James's-street, and is thus mentioned in No. 1 of the _Tatler_: "Foreign and Domestic News you will have from St. James's Coffee-house." It occurs also in the passage quoted at page 39, from the _Spectator_. The St. James's was much frequented by Swift; letters for him were left here. In his Journal to Stella he says: "I met Mr. Harley, and he asked me how long I had learnt the trick of writing to myself? He had seen your letter through the glass case at the Coffee-house, and would swear it was my hand." The letters from Stella were enclosed under cover to Addison.
Elliot, who kept the coffee-house, was, on occasions, placed on a friendly footing with his guests. Swift, in his Journal to Stella, Nov. 19, 1710, records an odd instance of this familiarity: "This evening I christened our coffee-man Elliot's child; when the rogue had a most noble supper, and Steele and I sat amongst some scurvy company over a bowl of punch."
In the first advertisement of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's _Town Eclogues_, they are stated to have been read over at the St. James's Coffee-house, when they were considered by the general voice to be productions of a Lady of Quality. From the proximity of the house to St. James's Palace, it was much frequented by the Guards; and we read of its being no uncommon circumstance to see Dr. Joseph Warton at breakfast in the St. James's Coffee-house, surrounded by officers of the Guards, who listened with the utmost attention and pleasure to his remarks.
To show the order and regularity observed at the St. James's, we may quote the following advertisement, appended to the _Tatler_, No. 25:--"To prevent all mistakes that may happen among gentlemen of the other end of the town, who come but once a week to St. James's Coffee-house, either by miscalling the servants, or requiring such things from them as are not properly within their respective provinces; this is to give notice that Kidney, keeper of the book-debts of the outlying customers, and observer of those who go off without paying, having resigned that employment, is succeeded by John Sowton; to whose place of enterer of messages and first coffee-grinder, William Bird is promoted; and Samuel Burdock comes as shoe-cleaner in the room of the said Bird."
But the St. James's is more memorable as the house where originated Goldsmith's celebrated poem, _Retaliation_. The poet belonged to a temporary association of men of talent, some of them members of the Club, who dined together occasionally here. At these dinners he was generally the last to arrive. On one occasion, when he was later than usual, a whim seized the company to write epitaphs on him as "the late Dr. Goldsmith," and several were thrown off in a playful vein. The only one extant was written by Garrick, and has been preserved, very probably, by its pungency:--
"Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll; He wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll."
Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially coming from such a quarter; and, by way of _retaliation_, he produced the famous poem, of which Cumberland has left a very interesting account, but which Mr. Forster, in his _Life of Goldsmith_, states to be "pure romance." The poem itself, however, with what was prefixed to it when published, sufficiently explains its own origin. What had formerly been abrupt and strange in Goldsmith's manners, had now so visibly increased, as to become matter of increased sport to such as were ignorant of its cause; and a proposition made at one of the dinners, when he was absent, to write a series of epitaphs upon him (his "country dialect" and his awkward person) was agreed to and put in practice by several of the guests. The active aggressors appear to have been Garrick, Doctor Bernard, Richard Burke, and Caleb Whitefoord. Cumberland says he, too, wrote an epitaph; but it was complimentary and grave, and hence the grateful return he received. Mr. Forster considers Garrick's epitaph to indicate the tone of all. This, with the rest, was read to Goldsmith when he next appeared at the St. James's Coffee-house, where Cumberland, however, says he never again met his friends. But "the Doctor was called on for Retaliation," says the friend who published the poem with that name, "and at their next meeting, produced the following, which I think adds one leaf to his immortal wreath." "_Retaliation_," says Sir Walter Scott, "had the effect of placing the author on a more equal footing with his Society than he had ever before assumed."