The Joyous Neighbourhood of Covent Garden A Literary Souvenir of the Tavistock Hotel, Done in Celebration of its Hundredth Anniversary
Pascoe, Charles Eyre
1887
Chapter III: THE MART OF NEWS, POLITICS, AND SCANDAL.
Chapter III: THE MART OF NEWS, POLITICS, AND SCANDAL.
THACKERAY, who knew London better than most men, somewhere speaks of Covent Garden as "the joyous neighbourhood of Covent Garden." No part of the town has been more famous for its coffee-houses, taverns, and inns. From the end of the seventeenth to the middle of the nineteenth century it was the best known rendezvous of gentlemen visiting London. Russell Street, now given over chiefly to vegetable vendors and fruiterers, was once the social Exchange of the English capital, the Pall Mall of its day, the mart, that is to say, of news, politics, and scandal. In this little street stood the most noted of the coffeehouses of the reigns of William III. and Queen Anne, familiar to all who are conversant with the best parts of our literature. " Will's," " Button's," and " Tom's," | |
25 | the coffee-houses " sacred to polite letters," were the chief places of general resort in London. The locality was fashionable. In Bow Street not a few persons of distinction lived. That worthy representative of the old English country gentleman of Addison's creation, Sir Roger de Coverley, was accustomed to make it his London address toward the latter part of his career. In earlier time gossips Pepys and Evelyn, the historians of the Restoration, visited and lodged there. In the closing years of the seventeenth century Drury Lane and its neighbourhood was a part of great respectability. The national theatre (as in our time) drew all the town to its performances. Wych Street, Great and Little Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, Portugal Street, Long Acre, and the streets adjacent, exhibited some of the best residences of the well-to-do classes. York, Bedford, Tavistock, Henrietta, King, and what are now known as Garrick, Catherine, and Wellington Streets, were equally well represented by the houses of the gentry. Foreign princes were taken to see Bloomsbury Square as one of the wonders of England; and the district of Soho was the " Mayfair" of the town. The dedication to Lord North in the |
26 | original edition of "Earl Chesterfield's Letters to his Son " is dated from Golden Square, showing it to have been at that period (1774) what some of us would call a highly-desirable neighbourhood. The Great and Little Piazzas were once the daily lounging-place of the beaux and belles of the fashionable quarter, who thither came to shop, gossip, and flirt, much as they do in this our time in the less confined area of the West End. |
At the west corner of Bow and north side of Russell Street stood ' Will's," the oldest and most honourable of the coffee-houses of the Queen Anne period. "Coffee-houses" (we take leave to explain to him to whom the " Spectator " and " Tatler " are as yet unopened books) from the time of their commencement in 1652 down to 1740, or thereabout, when the tavern began to assert its pre-eminence, were the clubs of London. They differed in this respect only from the modern club, namely, that whereas the latter avails itself of the privilege of the black-ball, and exacts an entrance fee and subscription as a condition precedent of membership, the former admitted any decently-attired idler who presented himself, and paid his penny at the bar, and who could shoulder his way | |
27 | through the crowd of beaux who fluttered around the attractive bar-maid at the entrance. Though the times have changed, we still cling to the old fashion of paying our respects to beauty at the tavern. A century hence, perhaps, some chronicler of London life will relate to his contemporaries the traditional delights of the "Gaiety" and "Criterion," and the attractions of the "Lous" and "Tinys " who ruled there as Gay and his friends have bespoken our sympathy for charming Molly Mogg of " the Rose." The "Rose" (next which stood the barber's shop where the gay Templar had his shoes polished and his periwig powdered) was in Addison's day a much-frequented tavern at the end of a passage in Russell Street, adjoining the national theatre, which fronted upon Drury Lane. |
"Will's " was the rendezvous of the wits and poets. Dryden's patronage and frequent appearance there made the reputation of the house. After the play, all who knew London and whom London knew, gathered at " Will's" for a pipe, a gossip, and a cup of coffee. To quote an oft-quoted passage of Macaulay: " Under no roof was a greater variety of figures to be seen; | |
28 | earls in stars and garters, clergymen in cassocks and bands, pert Templars, sheepish lads from the universities, translators and index-makers in ragged coats of frieze. The great push was to get near the chair where John Dryden sat. In winter that chair was always in the warmest nook by the fire; in summer it stood in the balcony. To bow to him and hear his opinion of Racine's last tragedy, or of Bossu's treatise on epic poetry, was thought a privilege. A pinch from his snuff-box was an honour sufficient to turn the head of an enthusiast." |
A new generation of wits and authors assembled at "Button's" in the same street. " Button's" was on the south side, about two doors from where, at a later period, stood the old "Hummums," most comfortable of old London hostelries, sacred to the memory of the college " Don" and country parson. It was to " Button's " the gifted and eloquent Addison frequently withdrew from his vexatious after-dinner tete-a-tetes with the shrewish countess, his wife. That lady was never particularly fond of the wit that smells of wine, and Addison was debarred the company of many of his convivial friends at her table. "We | |
29 | could talk more freely at the tavern," are words that Landor (" Imaginary Conversations ") puts in the mouth of Addison addressing Steele: " there we have dined together some hundred times." " Aye," answers Steele, " most days for many years." * * * * *"Why cannot I see him again in his arm-chair, his right hand upon his breast under the fawn-coloured waistcoat, his brow erect and clear as his conscience, his wit even and composed as his temper, with measurely curls and antithetical top-knots, like his style; the calmest poet, the most quiet patriot: dear Addison! drunk, deliberate, moral, sentimental, foaming over with truth and virtue, with tenderness and friendship, and only worse in one ruffle for the wine." |
Addison and Steele are the most brilliant of the company to which "Button's" gave hospitality. Occasionally, Swift was numbered of it, and Gay Gay, to whom we owe our first ballad opera (the "Beggar's Opera"), suggested, it is said, by Swift, and first " performed at I)rury Lane" in the early years of the last century--and Prior and Pope. The lesser of their contemporaries to whom " But- | |
30 | ton's " was familiar, would include the names of all the writers of that day to whom the works of these six were familiar. To catch a glimpse of the ingenious Mr. Addison in friendly converse with Sir Richard Steele was a bait to the literary lounger too alluring to be withstood. |
" Tom's" at the corner of the Piazza, on the north side over against "Button's," was its most enterprising rival. "Tom's" was started in 1764 by a general subscription among nearly seven hundred of the nobility, foreign ministers, and gentry of that day. Its principal room occupied the whole of the upper floor extending back to the Bedford Tavern. It was frequented (among others) by Dr. Johnson, Garrick, Murphy, Dr. Dodd, Goldsmith, Sir J. Reynolds, Moody, Foote, Sir Philip Francis; and "dukes, lords, and actors of note " mingled in the daily crowd. We have seen a little account for refreshments supplied by Tom (originally a waiter at "Will's) to the vestry of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, in 1770. It would appear that "a dish of chocolate" cost no more then than it does now-6d. The vestry consumed 34 jellys at the same price, and 2s. 3d. worth of | |
31 | biscuits-not a costly entertainment in comparison of that which guardians or vestrymen occasionally indulge in now at the expense of the ratepayers. |
Not many yards eastward from Tom's (at No. 8, Russell Street,) was, in later years, the house of Tom Davies, the bookseller, in whose little back-parlour Boswell first met Johnson. The latter, who had just been refused a favour by Garrick, was in surliest humour. " He knows the house [i. e., Drury Lane] will be full, and an order would be worth three shillings," growled the Doctor to Davies, "and he refuses me an order for the play for Miss Williams." " O, Sir !" interpolates the adventurous Bozzy, " I cannot think Mr. Garrick would refuse such a trifle to you." " Sir," Johnson sternly replies, " I have known David Garrick longer than you; and I know no right you have to talk to me on the subject." Boswell took the unpleasant snub without flinching, and to that admirable quality of his of never knowing when he had been rebuffed, we are, perhaps, indebted for the best biography ever written. "Boswell's Life of Johnson," still maintains its place as the most instructive and entertaining book of its class in the | |
32 | English language. Its first lines may be said to have been jotted down in the shop of worthy Tom Davies of Russell Street, actor and bookseller. |
Covent Garden, indeed, was a favourite resort of the great Doctor. His first lodging, when he came to Lond on from Lichfield, was in Exeter Street, not far away. At the "Pine Apple" in New Street he took his frugal cut of meat for 6d., adding a penny for bread, and a penny for the waiter: "so that I was quite well served," he wrote, "nay, better than the | |
33 | rest" (who paid a shilling for their dinner), "for they gave the waiter nothing." That " tipping " the waiter appears to be a custom of an honourable antiquity, though, we may parenthetically remark, we find nowhere any authority for the waiter paying his master for his place, as some do now in London, to the obvious disadvantage of poorer customers to whom the fee, or rather tribute, is an exaction. It was into the "Market" Dr. Johnson shuffled with those lively young companions of his middle-age, Beauclerk and Langton, who on one occasion roused him from his bed for a frolic at three in the morning. " What, is it you, you dogs," he roared, wigless and coatless, poker in hand at his chamber-door in the Temple: " What, is it you, you dogs ? then I'll have a frisk with you." And off went the good-natured doctor in rusty-brown coat, baggy small-clothes, and frouzy wig for a morning's "frisk" among the Covent Garden porters, whose courtesy was none of the sweetest. By-and-by the trio adjourned to a tavern and breakfasted on a bowl of Bishop-a liquor which in Johnson's day, as he tells us, was composed of wine, oranges, and sugar. |
Savage, Sterne, Hogarth, Smollett, Fielding, and | |
34 | Goldsmith are all more or less connected with Covent Garden history. It was from the "Bedford Arms" Hogarth and his friends set forth on that holiday jaunt to Gravesend, Rochester, and Sheerness, which reminds us of a similar jaunt into Kent made a hundred years later by one Mr. Pickwick and his friends. At Billingsgate Hogarth and his party took boat, and "with straw to lie upon, and a tilt over their heads," made the journey at night, occasionally sleeping, but more often eating, drinking, and singing jolly choruses. One of Hogarth's most familiar works, by the way, the third print of the " Rake's Progress " (published in 1735), shows the chief room at the " Rose" in Russell Street, Covent Garden--the " Rose " which we have already mentioned. Leathercoat, the fellow with a bright pewter dish and candle, is a portrait. He had been for many years porter attached to the house. Smollett took one of his best known characters, Hugh Strap ("Life and Adventures of Roderick Random "), from a hairdresser of the neighbourhood. Fielding, the author of "Tom Jones," was for a time magistrate at Bow Street. " A predecessor of mine," he wrote, "used to boast that he made £ 1000 a year |
35 | in his office; but how he did this (if indeed he did it) is to me a secret. His clerk, now mine, told me I had more business than he had ever known there; I am sure I had as much as any man could do. By composing instead of inflaming the quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush when I say hath not been universally practised), and by refusing to take a shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another left, I had reduced an income of about £500 a year of the dirtiest money upon earth to a little more than £300." The office of magistrate at Bow Street was paid by fees in Fielding's time. |
