All About Coffee Part 113

I ask your pardon.' 'Speak louder, Sir; I don't hear a word you say.' And indeed he was so very tall, that it seemed as if the sound, sent feebly from below, could not ascend to such a height.

This is the hero who is to figure at Brentford."

Foote's favourite coffee-house was the Bedford. He was also a constant frequenter of Tom's, and took a lead in the Club held there, and already described.

Dr. Barrowby, the well-known newsmonger of the Bedford, and the satirical critic of the day, has left this whole-length sketch of Foote:

"One evening (he says) he saw a young man extravagantly dressed out in a frock suit of green and silver lace, bag-wig, sword, bouquet, and point ruffles, enter the room (at the Bedford), and immediately join the critical circle at the upper end. n.o.body recognized him; but such was the ease of his bearing, and the point of humor and remark with which he at once took up the conversation, that his presence seemed to disconcert no one, and a sort of pleased buzz of 'who is he?' was still going round the room unanswered, when a handsome carriage stopped at the door; he rose, and quitted the room, and the servants announced that his name was Foote, and that he was a young gentleman of family and fortune, a student of the Inner Temple, and that the carriage had called for him on its way to the a.s.sembly of a lady of fashion". Dr. Barrowby once turned the laugh against Foote at the Bedford, when he was ostentatiously showing his gold repeater, with the remark--'Why, my watch does not go!' 'It soon _will go_,' quietly remarked the Doctor. Young Collins, the poet, who came to town in 1744 to seek his fortune, made his way to the Bedford, where Foote was supreme among the wits and critics. Like Foote, Collins was fond of fine clothes, and walked about with a feather in his hat, very unlike a young man who had not a single guinea he could call his own. A letter of the time tells us that "Collins was an acceptable companion everywhere; and among the gentlemen who loved him for a genius, may be reckoned the Doctors Armstrong, Barrowby, Hill, Messrs. Quin, Garrick, and Foote, who frequently took his opinions upon their pieces before they were seen by the public. He was particularly noticed by the geniuses who frequented the Bedford and Slaughter's Coffee-houses."

Ten years later (1754) we find Foote again supreme in his critical corner at the Bedford. The regular frequenters of the room strove to get admitted to his party at supper; and others got as near as they could to the table, as the only humor flowed from Foote's tongue. The Bedford was now in its highest repute.

Foote and Garrick often met at the Bedford, and many and sharp were their encounters. They were the two great rivals of the day. Foote usually attacked, and Garrick, who had many weak points, was mostly the sufferer. Garrick, in early life, had been in the wine trade, and had supplied the Bedford with wine; he was thus described by Foote as living in Durham-yard, with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself a wine-merchant. How Foote must have abused the Bedford wine of this period!

One night, Foote came into the Bedford, where Garrick was seated, and there gave him an account of a most wonderful actor he had just seen. Garrick was on the tenters of suspense, and there Foote kept him a full hour. Foote brought the attack to a close by asking Garrick what he thought of Mr. Pitt's histrionic talents, when Garrick, glad of the release, declared that if Pitt had chosen the stage, he might have been the first actor upon it.

Another night, Garrick and Foote were about to leave the Bedford together, when the latter, in paying the bill, dropped a guinea; and not finding it at once, said, "Where on earth can it be gone to?"--"Gone to the devil, I think," replied Garrick, who had a.s.sisted in the search.--"Well said, David!" was Foote's reply, "let you alone for making a guinea go further than anybody else."

Churchill's quarrel with Hogarth began at the shilling rubber club, in the parlour of the Bedford; when Hogarth used some very insulting language towards Churchill, who resented it in the _Epistle_. This quarrel showed more venom than wit. "Never," says Walpole, "did two angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity."

Woodward, the comedian, mostly lived at the Bedford, was intimate with Stacie, the landlord, and gave him his (W.'s) portrait, with a mask in his hand, one of the early pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Stacie played an excellent game at whist. One morning about two o'clock, one of the waiters awoke him to tell him that a n.o.bleman had knocked him up, and had desired him to call his master to play a rubber with him for one hundred guineas. Stacie got up, dressed himself, won the money, and was in bed and asleep, all within an hour.

After Macklin had retired from the stage, in 1754, he opened that portion of the Piazza-houses, in Covent Garden, afterwards known as the Tavistock Hotel. Here he fitted up a large coffee-room, a theatre for oratory, and other apartments. To a three-shilling ordinary he added a shilling lecture, or "School of Oratory and Criticism;" he presided at the dinner table, and carved for the company; after which he played a sort of "Oracle of Eloquence."

Fielding has happily sketched him in his "Voyage to Lisbon": "Unfortunately for the fishmongers of London, the Dory only resides in the Devonshire seas; for could any of this company only convey one to the Temple of luxury under the piazza, where Macklin, the high priest, daily serves up his rich offerings, great would be the reward of that fishmonger."

In the Lecture, Macklin undertook to make each of his audience an orator, by teaching him how to speak. He invited hints and discussions; the novelty of the scheme attracted the curiosity of numbers; and this curiosity he still further excited by a very uncommon controversy which now subsisted, either in imagination or reality, between him and Foote, who abused one another very openly--"Squire Sammy," having for his purpose engaged the Little Theatre in the Haymarket.

Besides this personal attack, various subjects were debated here in the manner of the Robin Hood Society, which filled the Orator's pocket, and proved his rhetoric of some value.

Here is one of his combats with Foote. The subject was Duelling In Ireland, which Macklin had ill.u.s.trated as far as the reign of Elizabeth. Foote cried, "Order;" he had a question to put. "Well, Sir," said Macklin, "what have you to say on this subject," "I think, Sir" said Foote, "this matter might be settled in a few words. What o'clock is it, Sir?" Macklin could not possibly see what the clock had to do with a dissertation upon Duelling, but gruffly reported the hour to be half-past nine. "Very well," said Foote, "about this time of the night every gentleman in Ireland that can possibly afford it is in his third bottle of claret, and therefore in a fair way of getting drunk; and from drunkenness proceeds quarrelling, and from quarrelling, duelling, and so there's an end of the chapter." The company were much obliged to Foote for his interference, the hour being considered; though Macklin did not relish this abridgment.

The success of Foote's fun upon Macklin's Lectures, led him to establish a summer entertainment of his own at the Haymarket. He took up Macklin's notion of applying Greek tragedy to modern subjects, and the squib was so successful that Foote cleared by it 500 in five nights, while the great Piazza Coffee-room in Covent Garden was shut up, and Macklin in the _Gazette_ as a bankrupt.

But when the great plan of Mr. Macklin proved abortive, when as he said in a former prologue, upon a nearly similar occasion--

From scheming, fretting, famine and despair.

We saw to grace restor'd an exiled player;

when the town was sated with the seemingly-concocted quarrel between the two theatrical geniuses, Macklin locked his doors, all animosity was laid aside, and they came and shook hands at the Bedford; the group resumed their appearance, and, with a new master, a new set of customers was seen.

Tom King's Coffee-house was one of the old night-houses of Covent Garden Market; it was a rude shed immediately beneath the portico of St. Paul's Church, and was one "well known to all gentlemen to whom beds are unknown." Fielding in one of his Prologues says:

What rake is ignorant of King's Coffee-house?

It is in the background of Hogarth's print of _Morning_ where the prim maiden lady, walking to church, is soured with seeing two fuddled _beaux_ from King's Coffee-house caressing two frail women.

At the door there is a drunken row, in which swords and cudgels are the weapons[358].

Harwood's _Alumni Etonenses_, p. 239, in the account of the Boys elected from Eton to King's College, contains this entry: "A.D.

1713, Thomas King, born at West Ashton, in Wiltshire, went away scholar in apprehension that his fellowship would be denied him; and afterwards kept that Coffee-house in Covent Garden, which was called by his own name."

Moll King was landlady after Tom's death: she was witty, and her house was much frequented, though it was little better than a shed.

"n.o.blemen and the first _beaux_," said Stacie, "after leaving Court would go to her house in full dress, with swords and bags, and in rich brocaded silk coats, and walked and conversed with persons of every description. She would serve chimney-sweepers, gardeners, and the market-people in common with her lords of the highest rank. Mr.

Apreece, a tall thin man in rich dress, was her constant customer.

He was called Cadwallader by the frequenters of Moll's." It is not surprising that Moll was often fined for keeping a disorderly house. At length, she retired from business--and the pillory--to Hempstead, where she lived on her ill-earned gains, but paid for a pew in church, and was charitable at appointed seasons, and died in peace in 1747.

The Piazza Coffee-house at the northeastern angle of Covent Garden Piazza, appears to have originated with Macklin's; for we read in an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Publick Adviser_, March 5, 1756; "The Great Piazza Coffee-room, in Covent Garden."

The Piazza was much frequented by Sheridan; and here is located the well-known anecdote told of his coolness during the burning of Drury-lane Theatre, in 1809. It is said that as he sat at the Piazza, during the fire, taking some refreshment, a friend of his having remarked on the philosophical calmness with which he bore his misfortune, Sheridan replied:

"A man may surely be allowed to take a gla.s.s of wine by his _own fireside_."

Sheridan and John Kemble often dined together at the Piazza, to be handy to the theatre. During Kemble's management, Sheridan had occasion to make a complaint, which brought a "nervous" letter from Kemble, to which Sheridan's reply is amusing enough. Thus, he writes: "that the management of a theatre is a situation capable of becoming _troublesome_, is information which I do not want, and a discovery which I thought you made long ago." Sheridan then treats Kemble's letter as "a nervous flight," not to be noticed seriously, adding his anxiety for the interest of the theatre, and alluding to Kemble's touchiness and reserve; and thus concludes:

"If there is anything amiss in your mind not arising from the _troublesomeness_ of your situation, it is childish and unmanly not to disclose it. The frankness with which I have dealt towards you ent.i.tles me to expect that you should have done so.

"But I have no reason to believe this to be the case; and attributing your letter to a disorder which I know ought not to be indulged, I prescribe that thou shalt keep thine appointment at the Piazza Coffee-house, tomorrow at five, and, taking four bottles of claret instead of three, to which in sound health you might stint yourself, forget that you ever wrote the letter, as I shall that I ever received it."

"R.B. Sheridan."

The Piazza facade, and interior, were of Gothic design. When the house was demolished, in its place was built the Floral Hall, after the Crystal Palace model.

The Chapter Coffee-house was a literary place of resort in Paternoster Row, more especially in connection with the Wittinagemot of the last century. A very interesting account of the Chapter, at a later period (1848) is given by Mrs. Gaskell.

Goldsmith frequented the Chapter, and always occupied one place, which for many years after was the seat of literary honor there.

There are leather tokens of the Chapter Coffee-house in existence.

Child's Coffee-house, in St. Paul's Churchyard, was one of the _Spectator's_ houses. "Sometimes," he says, "I smoke a pipe at Child's and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the _Postman_, overhear the conversation of every table in the room." It was much frequented by the clergy; for the _Spectator_, No. 609, notices the mistake of a country gentleman in taking all persons in scarfs for Doctors of Divinity, since only a scarf of the first magnitude ent.i.tles him to "the appellation of Doctor from his landlady and the _Boy at Child's_."

Child's was the resort of Dr. Mead, and other professional men of eminence. The Fellows of the Royal Society came here. Whiston relates that Sir Hans Sloane, Dr. Halley and he were once at Child's when Dr. H. asked him, W., why he was not a member of the Royal Society? Whiston answered, because they durst not choose a heretic. Upon which Dr. H. said, if Sir Hans Sloane would propose him, W., he, Dr. H., would second it, which was done accordingly.

The propinquity of Child's to the Cathedral and Doctors' Commons, made it the resort of the clergy, and ecclesiastical loungers. In that respect, Child's was superseded by the Chapter, in Paternoster Row.