Part 6

Ferdinand Cortez went to Mexico in search of gold; but the first discovery he made was of chocolate. The discovery was not welcomed ecclesiastically, as coffee was. This new substance was considered a sort of wicked luxury, at least for Monks, who were among the earliest to adopt it, but who were solemnly warned against its supposed peculiar effects. The moralists quite as eagerly condemned it; and in England Roger North angrily asserted, that “the use of coffee-houses seems much improved by a new invention, called ‘chocolate-houses,’ for the benefit of rooks and cullies of quality, where gambling is added to all the rest, and the summons of W---- seldom fails; as if the devil had erected a new university, and these were the colleges of its Professors, as well as his schools of discipline.” The Stuart jealousy of these localities, where free discussion was amply enjoyed, seems to have influenced the Attorney-General of James II.; for, although they may not have been frequented, he says, by “the factious gentry he so much dreaded,” he adds, “This way of passing time might have been stopped at first, before people had possessed themselves of some convenience from them of meeting for short dispatches, and passing evenings with small expenses.” Of what chiefly recommended these places, the stern official thus made a grievance.

Chocolate (or, as the Mexicans term it, _chocolalt_) is the popular name for the seeds of the cocoa, or, more correctly, the _cacao_, plant, in a prepared state, generally with sugar and cinnamon. The Mexicans improve the flavour of the inferior sorts of cacao seeds by burying them in the earth for a month, and allowing them to ferment. The nutritious quality of either cacao or chocolate is entirely owing to the oil or butter of cacao which it contains. Cacao-nibs, the best form of taking this production, are the seeds roughly crushed. When the seed is crushed between rollers, the result is flake cacao. Common cacao is the seed reduced to a paste, and pressed into cakes. The cheap kinds of chocolate are said to be largely adulterated with lard, sago, and red-lead,--a pernicious mixture for healthy stomachs; but what must it be for weak stomachs craving for food at once nutritious and easy of digestion? The “patent” chocolates of the shops are nothing more than various modes of preparing the cacao seeds.

The ladies of Mexico are so excessively fond of chocolate, that they not only take it several times during the day, but they occasionally have it brought to them in church, and during the service. A cup of good chocolate may, indeed, afford the drinker strength and patience to undergo a bad sermon. The Bishops opposed it for a time, but they at length closed their eyes to the practice. I am afraid there is no chance of the fashion being introduced into England. The advantages would be acknowledged; but then there would be a savour of Popery detected about it, that would inevitably cause its rejection. The Church herself found a boon in this exquisite supporter of strength. The Monks took it of a morning before celebrating Mass, even in Lent. The orthodox and strong-stomached raised a dreadful cry at the scandal; but Escobar metaphysically proved, that chocolate made with water did not break a fast; thus establishing the ancient maxim, “_Liquidum non frangit jejunium._”

Spain welcomed the gift of chocolate made her by Mexico with as much enthusiasm as she did that of gold by Peru; the metal she soon squandered, but chocolate is still to be found in abundance in the Peninsula: it is an especial favourite with ladies and Monks, and it always appears on occasions when courtesy requires that refreshments be offered. The Spanish Monks sent presents of it to their brethren in French monasteries; and Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip II. of Spain, when she brought across the Pyrenees her hand, but not her heart, to the unenergetic Louis XIII., brought a supply of chocolate therewith; and henceforth it became an established fact. In the days of the Regency it was far more commonly consumed than coffee; for it was then taken as an agreeable aliment, while coffee was still looked upon as a somewhat strange beverage, but certainly akin to luxury. In the opinion of Linnæus it must have surpassed all other nutritious preparations, or that naturalist would hardly have conferred upon it, as he did, the proud name of _Theobroma_, “food for the gods!”

Invalids will do well to remember, that chocolate made with vanilla is indigestible, and injurious to the nerves. Indeed, there are few stomachs at all that can bear chocolate as a daily meal. It is a highly concentrated aliment; and all such cease to act nutritiously if taken into constant use.

We will now look into some of those famous resorts of by-gone days, where coffee and chocolate were prepared, and wit was bright and spontaneous.

THE OLD COFFEE-HOUSES.

The “Grecian” appears to have been the oldest of the better-known coffee-houses, and to have lasted the longest. It was opened by Constantine, a Grecian, “living in Threadneedle-street, over against St. Christopher’s Church,” in the early part of the last half of the seventeenth century. Its career came to a close towards the middle of the nineteenth century; namely, in 1843, when the Grecian Coffee-house, then in Devereux-court, Strand, where it had existed for very many years, was converted into the “Grecian Chambers,” or lodgings for bachelors.

Constantine not only sold “the right Turkey coffee berry, or chocolate,” but gave instructions how to “prepare the said liquors gratis.” The “Grecian” was the resort rather of the learned than the dissipated. The antiquarians sat at its tables; and, despising the news of the day, discussed the events of the Trojan war, and similar lively, but remote, matters. The laborious trifling was ridiculed by the satirists; and it is clear that there were some pedants as well as philosophers there. It was a time when both sages and sciolists wore swords; and it is on record that two friendly scholars, sipping their coffee at the “Grecian,” became enemies in argument, the subject of which was the accent of a Greek word. Whatever the accent ought to have been, the quarrel was acute, and its conclusion grave. The scholars rushed into Devereux-court, drew their swords, and, as one was run through the body and killed on the spot, it is to be supposed that he was necessarily wrong. But the duel was the strangest method of settling a question in grammar that I ever heard of. Still it was rather the scholars than the rakes who patronized the “Grecian;” and there were to be found the Committee of the Royal Society, and Oxford Professors, enjoying their leisure and hot cups, after philosophical discussion and scientific lecturing; and even the Privy Council Board sometimes assembled there to take coffee after Council.

The “coffee-houses,” which were resorted to for mere conversation as well as coffee, began on a first floor; they were the seed, as it were, whence has arisen the political and exclusive “club” of the present day. The advantages of association were first experienced in coffee-houses; but at the same time was felt the annoyance caused by intrusive and unwelcome strangers. The club, with its ballot-box to settle elections of members, was the natural result.

William Urwin’s Coffee-house, known as “Will’s,” from its owner’s name, and recognised as the “Wits’,” from its company, was on the first floor of the house at the west corner of Bow-street and Russell-street, Covent Garden. In the last half of the seventeenth century, it was at the height of its good fortune and reputation. The shop beneath it was kept by a woollen-draper.

Tom Brown says that a wit was set up at a small cost; he was made by “peeping once a day in at Will’s,” and by relating “two or three second-hand sayings.” It was at Will’s that Dryden “pedagogued” without restraint, accepted flattery without a blush, and praised with happy complacency the perfection of his own works. He was the great attraction of the place, and his presence there of an evening filled the room with admiring listeners, or indiscreet adulators. Dryden had the good sense to retire early, when the tables were full, and he knew he had made a favourable impression, which the company might improve in his absence. Addison, more given to jolly fellowship, sat late with those who tarried to drink. Pepys, recording his first visit, in February, 1663-4, says that he stepped in on his way to fetch his wife, “where Dryden the poet, (I knew at Cambridge,) and all the wits of the town, and Harris the player, and Mr. Hoole of our College. And had I had time then, as I could at other times, it will be good coming thither; for there I perceive is very witty and pleasant discourse. But I could not tarry; and, as it was late, they were all ready to go away.”

The reign of Dryden at Will’s was not, however, without its pains. Occasionally, a daring stranger, like young Lockier, raw from the country, would object to the _dicta_ of the despot. Thus, when Dryden praised his “Mac Flecknoe,” as the first satire “written in heroics,” the future Dean timidly suggested that the “Lutrin” and the “_Secchia Rapita_” were so written; and Dryden acknowledged that his corrector was right. The London beaux would have been afraid, or incapable, of setting Dryden right; they were sufficiently happy if they were but permitted to dip their fingers into the poet’s snuff-box, and, at a separate table, listen to the criticisms uttered by the graver authorities who were seated round another, at the upper end of the room. Of the disputes that there arose, “glorious John” was arbiter; for his particular use a chair was especially reserved; therein enthroned, he sat by the hearth or the balcony, according to the season, and delivered judgments which were not always final.

No man was better qualified to do so, for the “specialty” of Will’s Coffee-house was poetry. Songs, epigrams, and satires, circulated from table to table; and the wits judged plays, even Dryden’s, until the playwrights began to satirize the wits. With Dryden, “Will’s” lost some of its dignity. Late hours, card-playing, and politics; poets more didactic in their verse, and essayists more instructive in their prose, than in their daily practice; “dissipateurs” like Addison, and peers who shared in Addison’s lower tastes, without either his talent or occasional refinement,--spoiled the character of “Will’s,” where, by the way, Pope had been introduced by Sir Charles Wogan, though, years before, in his youth, he had been proud to follow old Wycherley about from coffee-house to coffee-house; and then “Button’s” attracted the better portion of the company, and left Will’s to the vulgar and the witless.

“Button’s” Coffee-house was so named from its original proprietor, who had been a servant of the Countess of Warwick, the wife of Addison. It was situated in Great Russell-street, on the south side, about two doors from Covent Garden. What Dryden had been at “Will’s,” Addison was at “Button’s.” There,--after writing during the morning at his house in St. James’s Place, where his breakfast-table was attended by such men as Steele, Budgell, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Brett, with some of whom he generally dined at a tavern,--he was to be found of an evening, until the supper hour called him and his companions to some other tavern, where, if not at Button’s, they made a night of it. Pope was of the company for almost a year, but left it because the late hours injured his health; and furthermore, perhaps, for the reason, that his irritable temper had rendered him unpopular, and that he had so provoked Ambrose Philips, that the latter suspended a birchen rod over Pope’s usual seat, in intimation of what the ordinary occupant would get if he ventured into it. The Buttonians were famous for the fierceness of their criticism, but it appears to have been altogether a better organized establishment than Will’s; for while the parish registers show that the landlord of the latter was fined for misdemeanour, the vestry-books of St. Paul (Covent Garden), prove that Button paid “for two places in the pew No. 18, on the south side of the north aisle, £2. 2_s._;” and charity leads us to conclude that Daniel and his wife occupied the places so paid for, and were orthodox as well as loyal. The “Lion’s Head” of the “Guardian,” which was put up at Button’s, over the box destined to receive contributions for the editor, is now at Woburn, in the possession of the Duke of Bedford.

Of coffee-houses that went by the name of “Tom’s” there were three. At the one in Birchin-lane, Garrick occasionally appeared among the young merchants; and Chatterton, before despair slew even ambition, more than once dined. At the second house so called, in Devereux-court, many of the scholars, critics, and scientific men of the last century used to congregate. There Akenside essayed to rule over the tables as Dryden had done at “Will’s,” and Addison at “Button’s;” but his imperious rule was often overthrown by “flat rebellion.” _The_ “Tom’s” was opposite “Button’s,” and stood on the north side of Great Russell-street, No. 17. It received its name from the Christian appellation of its master, Thomas West, who committed suicide in 1722. If guests gained celebrity in the latter days at “Will’s” for writing a “posie for a ring,” so at “Tom’s” Mr. Ince was held in due respect, for the reason that he had composed a solitary paper for the “Spectator.” It was a place where the tables were generally crowded from the time of Queen Anne to that of George III. Seven hundred of the nobility, foreign Ministers, gentry, and geniuses of the age, subscribed a guinea each, in 1714, for the erection of a card-room; and this fact, with the additional one that, only four years later, an enlarged room for cards and conversation was constructed, may serve to show by what sort of people, and for what particular purposes, “Tom’s” was patronized.

At the time that White’s Chocolate-house was opened at the bottom of St. James’s-street,--the close of the last century,--it was probably thought vulgar; for there was a garden attached, and it had a suburban air. At the tables in the house or garden more than one highwayman took his chocolate, or threw his main, before he quietly mounted his horse and rode slowly down Piccadilly towards Bagshot. Before the establishment was burned down, in 1733, it was famous rather for intensity of gaming than excellence of chocolate. It arose from its ashes, and settled, at the top of the street, into a fixedness of fashion that has never swerved. Gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment were the characteristics of the place. The celebrated Lord Chesterfield there “gamed, and pronounced witticisms among the boys of quality.” Steele dated all his love-news in the “Tatler” from White’s. It was stigmatized as “the common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies;” and bets were laid to the effect that Sir William Burdett, one of its members, would be the first Baronet who would be hanged. The gambling went on till dawn of day; and Pelham, when Prime Minister, was not ashamed to divide his time between his official table and the picquet-table at White’s. Selwyn, like Chesterfield, enlivened the room with his wit. As a sample of the spirit of betting which prevailed, Walpole quotes “a good story made at White’s.” A man dropped down dead at the door, and was carried in; the Club immediately made bets whether he was dead or not, and, when they were going to bleed him, the wagerers for his death interposed, and said it would affect the fairness of the bet!

Some of the old rules of the houses are rich in “table traits.” Thus, in 1736, every member was required to pay an extra guinea a year “towards having a good cook.” The supper was on table at ten o’clock; the bill at twelve. In 1758, it was agreed that he who transgressed the rules for balloting should pay the supper reckoning. In 1797 we find, “Dinner at 10_s._ 6_d._ per head, (malt liquor, biscuits, oranges, apples, and olives included,) to be on table at six o’clock; the bill to be brought at nine.” “That no hot suppers be provided, unless particularly ordered; and then be paid for at the rate of 8_s._ per head. That in one of the rooms there be laid every night (from the Queen’s to the King’s birthday) a table, with cold meat, oysters, &c. Each person partaking thereof to pay 4_s._, malt liquors only included.”

Colley Cibber was a member, but, as it would seem, an honorary one only, who dined with the Manager of the Club, and was tolerated afterwards by the company for the sake of his wit. Mr. Cunningham states, that at the supper given by the Club in 1814, at Burlington House, to the Allied Sovereigns, there were covers laid for 2,400 people, and that the cost was “£9,849. 2_s._ 6_d._” “Three weeks after this, (July 6, 1814,) the Club gave a dinner to the Duke of Wellington, which cost £2,840. 10_s._ 9_d._” The dinner given, in the month of February of the present year, to Prince George of Cambridge, was one not to welcome a victorious warrior, but to cheer an untried, about to go forth to show himself worthy of his spurs. White’s ceased to be an open Chocolate-house in 1736, from which period it has been as private an establishment as a Club can be said to be.

The politicians had their coffee-houses as well as the wits. The “Cocoa Tree,” in St. James’s-street, was the Tory house in the reign of Queen Anne. The “St. James’s” was the Whig house. It was a well-frequented house in the latter days of George II., when Gibbon recorded his surprise at seeing a score or two of the noblest and wealthiest in the land, seated in a noisy coffee-room, at little tables covered by small napkins, supping off cold meat or sandwiches, and finishing with strong punch and confused politics.

The St. James’s Coffee-house ranked Addison, Swift, Steele, and, subsequently, Goldsmith and Garrick, among its _habitués_. It had a more solid practical reputation than any of the other coffee-houses; for within its walls Goldsmith’s poem of “Retaliation” originated. But politics was its “staple;” and poor politicians seem to have been among its members, seeing that many of them were in arrears with their subscriptions: but these were probably the outer-room men; for the magnates, who were accustomed to sit and watch the line of Bourbon, within the steam of the great coffee-pot, were doubtless punctual in their payments ere they could have earned the privilege. And yet their poetical acumen was often more correct than their political discernment; for while the company at Button’s ascribed the “Town Eclogues” to Gay, the coffee-drinkers at St. James’s were unanimous in giving them to a lady of quality.

Of the coffee-houses of a second order, the “Bedford,” in Covent Garden, was probably the first; but, for good-fellowship, it equalled any of the more exclusive houses; for Garrick, and Quin, and Murphy, and Foote, were of the company. Wit was the serious occupation of all its members; and it never gave any of them serious trouble to produce in abundance. Quin, above all, was brilliant in the double achievements of Epicureanism and sparkling repartee. Garrick, in allusion to the sentiments often expressed here by his brother actor, wrote the epigrammatic lines, supposed to be uttered by Quin, in reference to a discussion on embalming the dead, and which will be found in a subsequent chapter, under the head of “Table Traits of the last Century.”

Æsopus, the actor, who was to Cicero what Quin was to George the Third,--he “taught the boy to speak,”--Æsopus was as great an epicure, in his way, as Quin himself. It is related of him, that one day he dined off a costly dish of birds, the whole of which, when living, had been taught either to sing or speak. Æsopus was as fond of such a dish as his fellow-comedian, Quin, was of mullet; for which, and for some other of his favourite _morceaux_, he used to say that a man ought to have a swallow as long as from London to Botany Bay, and palate all the way! When the fish in question was in season, his first inquiry of the servant who used to awaken him was, “Is there any mullet in the market this morning, John?” and if John replied in the negative, his master’s reported rejoinder was, “Then call me at nine to-morrow, John.”

The Bedford Coffee-house had its disadvantages, as when bullies, like Tiger Roach, endeavoured to hold sovereignty over the members. But usurpers like the Tiger were deposed as easily by the cane as by the sword; but such occurrences marred the peace of the coffee-house, nevertheless. It was, indeed, a strange company that sometimes was to be found within these houses. At Batem’s, the City House, patronized by Blackmore, the brother of Lord Southwell was to be found enacting the parasite, and existing by the aid of men who thought his wit worth paying for. Child’s Coffee-house, St. Paul’s Church-yard, was patronized by the Clergy, who assembled there, especially the younger Clergy, in gowns, cassocks, and scarfs, smoked till they were invisible, and obtained the honorary appellation of “Doctor” from the waiters. Clerical visitants were also to be found at the “Smyrna,” in Pall Mall. Swift was often there with Prior; and the politics of the day were so loudly discussed, that the chairmen and porters in waiting outside used to derive that sort of edification therefrom which is now to be had in the cheap weekly periodicals. “Garraway’s” takes us once more into the City. Garway, as the original proprietor was called, was one of the earliest sellers of tea in London; and his house was frequented by nobles who had business in the City, who attended the lotteries at his house, or who wished to partake of his tea and coffee. Foreign Bankers and Ministers patronized “Robin’s;” the buyers and sellers of Stock collected at “Jonathan’s;” and the shipping interest went, as now, to “Lloyd’s.” All these places were in full activity of business and coffee-drinking in the reign of Queen Anne. Finally, the lawyers crowded “Squire’s,” in Fulwood’s Rents; and there, it will be remembered, Sir Roger de Coverley smoked a pipe, over a dish of coffee, with the Spectator. But enough of these places, whose names are more familiar to many of us than their whereabout, but whose connexion with what may be called the table life of past times gives me warrant for the notice of them, with which, perhaps, I have only troubled the reader. I will only add, that the ceremony of serving chocolate was never such a solemnity in England as in France. In the latter country, as late as the days of Louis XVI., a “man of condition” required no less than four footmen, each with two watches in his fob, according to the fashion, to help him to take a single cup of chocolate. One bore the tray, and one the chocolate-pot, a third presented the cup, and a fourth stood in waiting with a napkin!--and all this coil to carry a morning draught to a poor wretch, whose red heels to his shoes were symbols of the rank which gave him the privilege of being helpless.