Part 5 (1/2)
Another story records the first visit to the ”Devil” of Randolph, a clever poet and dramatist, who became a clergyman, and died young. The young poet, who had squandered all his money away in London pleasures, on a certain night, before he returned to Cambridge, resolved to go and see Ben and his a.s.sociates at the ”Devil,” cost what it might. But there were two great obstacles--he was poor, and he was not invited.
Nevertheless, drawn magnetically by the voices of the ill.u.s.trious men in the Apollo, Randolph at last peeped in at the door among the waiters.
Ben's quick eye soon detected the eager, pale face and the scholar's threadbare habit. ”John Bo-peep,” he shouted, ”come in!” a summons Randolph gladly obeyed. The club-men instantly began rhyming on the meanness of the intruder's dress, and told him if he could not at once make a verse he must call for a quart of sack. There being four of his tormentors, Randolph, ready enough at such work, replied as quick as lightning:--
”I, John Bo-peep, and you four sheep, With each one his good fleece; If that you are willing to give me your s.h.i.+lling, 'Tis fifteen pence apiece.”
”By the Lord!” roared the giant president, ”I believe this is my son Randolph!” and on his owning himself, the young poet was kindly entertained, spent a glorious evening, was soaked in sack, ”sealed of the tribe of Ben,” and became one of the old poet's twelve adopted sons.
Shakerley Marmion, a contemporary dramatist of the day, has left a glowing Rubenesque picture of the Apollo evenings, evidently coloured from life. Careless, one of his characters, tells his friends he is full of oracles, for he has just come from Apollo. ”From Apollo?” says his wondering friend. Then Careless replies, with an inspired fervour worthy of a Cavalier poet who fought bravely for King Charles:--
”From the heaven Of my delight, where the boon Delphic G.o.d Drinks sack and keep his baccha.n.a.lia, And has his incense and his altars smoking, And speaks in sparkling prophecies; thence I come, My brains perfumed with the rich Indian vapour, And heightened with conceits....
And from a mighty continent of pleasure Sails thy brave Careless.”
Simon Wadloe, the host of the ”Devil,” who died in 1627, seems to have been a witty b.u.t.t of a man, much such another as honest Jack Falstaff; a merry boon companion, not only witty himself, but the occasion of wit in others, quick at repartee, fond of proverbial sayings, curious in his wines. A good old song, set to a fine old tune, was written about him, and called ”Old Sir Simon the King.” This was the favourite old-fas.h.i.+oned ditty in which Fielding's rough and jovial Squire Western afterwards delighted.
Old Simon's successor, John Wadloe (probably his son), made a great figure at the Restoration procession by heading a band of young men all dressed in white. After the Great Fire John rebuilt the ”Sun Tavern,”
behind the Royal Exchange, and was loyal, wealthy, and foolish enough to lend King Charles certain considerable sums, duly recorded in Exchequer doc.u.ments, but not so duly paid.
In the troublous times of the Commonwealth the ”Devil” was the favourite haunt of John Cottington, generally known as ”Mull Sack,” from his favourite beverage of spiced sherry negus. This impudent rascal, a sweep who had turned highwayman, with the most perfect impartiality rifled the pockets alternately of Cavaliers and Roundheads. Gold is of no religion; and your true cut-purse is of the broadest and most sceptical Church. He emptied the pockets of Lord Protector Cromwell one day, and another he stripped Charles II., then a Bohemian exile at Cologne, of plate valued at 1,500. One of his most impudent exploits was stealing a watch from Lady Fairfax, that brave woman who had the courage to denounce, from the gallery at Westminster Hall, the persons whom she considered were about to become the murderers of Charles I. ”This lady” (and a portly handsome woman she was, to judge by the old portraits), says a pamphlet-writer of the day, ”used to go to a lecture on a week-day to Ludgate Church, where one Mr. Jacomb preached, being much followed by the Puritans. Mull Sack, observing this, and that she constantly wore her watch hanging by a chain from her waist, against the next time she came there dressed himself like an officer in the army; and having his comrades attending him like troopers, one of them takes off the pin of a coach-wheel that was going upwards through the gate, by which means it falling off, the pa.s.sage was obstructed, so that the lady could not alight at the church door, but was forced to leave her coach without. Mull Sack, taking advantage of this, readily presented himself to her ladys.h.i.+p, and having the impudence to take her from her gentleman usher who attended her alighting, led her by the arm into the church; and by the way, with a pair of keen sharp scissors for the purpose, cut the chain in two, and got the watch clear away, she not missing it till the sermon was done, when she was going to see the time of the day.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: INTRODUCTION OF RANDOLPH TO BEN JONSON AT THE ”DEVIL”
TAVERN (_see page 40_).]
The portrait of Mull Sack has the following verses beneath:--
”I walk the Strand and Westminster, and scorn To march i' the City, though I bear the horn.
My feather and my yellow band accord, To prove me courtier; my boot, spur, and sword, My smoking-pipe, scarf, garter, rose on shoe, Show my brave mind t' affect what gallants do.
I sing, dance, drink, and merrily pa.s.s the day, And, like a chimney, sweep all care away.”
In Charles II.'s time the ”Devil” became frequented by lawyers and physicians. The talk now was about drugs and lat.i.tats, jalap and the law of escheats. Yet, still good company frequented it, for Steele describes Bickerstaff's sister Jenny's wedding entertainment there in October, 1709; and in 1710 (Queen Anne) Swift writes one of those charming letters to Stella to tell her that he had dined on October 12th at the ”Devil,” with Addison and Dr. Garth, when the good-natured doctor, whom every one loved, stood treat, and there must have been talk worth hearing. In the Apollo chamber the intolerable court odes of Colley Cibber, the poet laureate, used to be solemnly rehea.r.s.ed with fitting music; and Pope, in ”The Dunciad,” says, scornfully:--
”Back to the 'Devil' the loud echoes roll, And 'Coll' each butcher roars in Hockly Hole.”
But Colley had talent and he had bra.s.s, and it took many such lines to put him down. A good epigram on these public recitations runs thus:--
”When laureates make odes, do you ask of what sort?
Do you ask if they're good or are evil?
You may judge: from the 'Devil' they come to the Court, And go from the Court to the 'Devil.'”
Dr. Kenrick afterwards gave lectures on Shakespeare at the Apollo. This Kenrick, originally a rule-maker, and the malicious a.s.sailant of Johnson and Garrick, was the Croker of his day. He originated the _London Review_, and when he a.s.sailed Johnson's ”Shakespeare,” Johnson laughingly replied, ”That he was not going to be bound by Kenrick's rules.”
In 1746 the Royal Society held its annual dinner in the old consecrated room, and in the year 1752 concerts of vocal and instrumental music were given in the same place. It was an upstairs chamber, probably detached from the tavern, and lay up a ”close,” or court, like some of the old Edinburgh taverns.
The last ray of light that fell on the ”Devil” was on a memorable spring evening in 1751. Dr. Johnson (aged forty-two), then busy all day with his six amanuenses in a garret in Gough Square compiling his Dictionary, at night enjoyed his elephantine mirth at a club in Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row. One night at the club, Johnson proposed to celebrate the appearance of Mrs. Lennox's first novel, ”The Life of Harriet Stuart,” by a supper at the ”Devil Tavern.” Mrs. Lennox was a lady for whom Johnson--ranking her afterwards above Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Hannah More, or even his favourite, Miss Burney--had the greatest esteem. Sir John Hawkins, that somewhat malign rival of Boswell, describes the night in a manner, for him, unusually genial. ”Johnson,” says Hawkins (and his words are too pleasant to condense), ”proposed to us the celebrating the birth of Mrs. Lennox's first literary child, as he called her book, by a whole night spent in festivity. Upon his mentioning it to me, I told him I had never sat up a night in my life; but he continuing to press me, and saying that I should find great delight in it, I, as did all the rest of the company, consented.” (The club consisted of Hawkins, an attorney; Dr. Salter, father of a master of the Charter House; Dr.
Hawkesworth, a popular author of the day; Mr. Ryland, a merchant; Mr.
John Payne, a bookseller; Mr. Samuel Dyer, a young man training for a Dissenting minister; Dr. William M'Ghie, a Scotch physician; Dr. Barker and Dr. Bathurst, young physicians.) ”The place appointed was the 'Devil Tavern;' and there, about the hour of eight, Mrs. Lennox and her husband (a tide-waiter in the Customs), a lady of her acquaintance, with the club and friends, to the number of twenty, a.s.sembled. The supper was elegant; Johnson had directed that a magnificent hot apple-pie should make a part of it, and this he would have stuck with bay leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs. Lennox was an auth.o.r.ess and had written verses; and, further, he had prepared for her a crown of laurel, with which, but not till he had invoked the Muses by some ceremonies of his own invention, he encircled her brows. The night pa.s.sed, as must be imagined, in pleasant conversation and harmless mirth, intermingled at different, periods with the refreshment of coffee and tea. About five a.m., Johnson's face shone with meridian splendour, though his drink had been only lemonade; but the far greater part of the company had deserted the colours of Bacchus, and were with difficulty rallied to partake of a second refreshment of coffee, which was scarcely ended when the day began to dawn. This phenomenon began to put us in mind of our reckoning; but the waiters were all so overcome with sleep that it was two hours before a bill could be had, and it was not till near eight that the creaking of the street-door gave the signal of our departure.”
How one longs to dredge up some notes of such a night's conversation from the cruel river of oblivion! The Apollo Court, on the opposite side of Fleet Street, still preserves the memory of the great club-room at the ”Devil.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: TEMPLE BAR IN DR. JOHNSON'S TIME (_see page 29_).]
In 1764, on an Act pa.s.sing for the removal of the dangerous projecting signs, the weather-beaten picture of the saint, with the Devil gibbering over his shoulder, was nailed up flat to the front of the old gable-ended house. In 1775, Collins, a public lecturer and mimic, gave a satirical lecture at the ”Devil” on modern oratory. In 1776 some young lawyers founded there a Pandemonium Club; and after that there is no further record of the ”Devil” till it was pulled down and annexed by the neighbouring bankers. In Steele's time there was a ”Devil Tavern” at Charing Cross, and a rival ”Devil Tavern” near St. Dunstan's; but these compet.i.tors made no mark.