Volume Ii Part 5 (2/2)

”Cervantur magnis isti Cervicibus ungues: Non nisi delicta pascitur ille fera.”

The head was designed by Hogarth, and is etched in Ireland's _Ill.u.s.trations_. Lord Chesterfield is said to have once offered for the Head fifty guineas. From b.u.t.ton's it was removed to the Shakspeare's Head Tavern, under the Piazza, kept by a person named Tomkyns; and in 1751, was, for a short time, placed in the Bedford Coffee-house immediately adjoining the Shakspeare, and there employed as a letter-box by Dr. John Hill, for his _Inspector_. In 1769, Tomkyns was succeeded by his waiter, Campbell, as proprietor of the tavern and lion's head, and by him the latter was retained until Nov.

8, 1804, when it was purchased by Mr. Charles Richardson, of Richardson's Hotel, for 17. 10_s._, who also possessed the original sign of the Shakspeare's Head. After Mr. Richardson's death in 1827, the Lion's Head devolved to his son, of whom it was bought by the Duke of Bedford, and deposited at Woburn Abbey, where it still remains.

Pope was subjected to much annoyance and insult at b.u.t.ton's. Sir Samuel Garth wrote to Gay, that everybody was pleased with Pope's Translation, ”but a few at b.u.t.ton's;” to which Gay adds, to Pope, ”I am confirmed that at b.u.t.ton's your character is made very free with, as to morals, etc.”

Cibber, in a letter to Pope, says:--”When you used to pa.s.s your hours at b.u.t.ton's, you were even there remarkable for your satirical itch of provocation; scarce was there a gentleman of any pretension to wit, whom your unguarded temper had not fallen upon in some biting epigram, among which you once caught a pastoral Tartar, whose resentment, that your punishment might be proportionate to the smart of your poetry, had stuck up a birchen rod in the room, to be ready whenever you might come within reach of it; and at this rate you writ and rallied and writ on, till you rhymed yourself quite out of the coffee-house.” The ”pastoral Tartar” was Ambrose Philips, who, says Johnson, ”hung up a rod at b.u.t.ton's, with which he threatened to chastise Pope.”

Pope, in a letter to Craggs, thus explains the affair:--”Mr. Philips did express himself with much indignation against me one evening at b.u.t.ton's Coffee-house, (as I was told,) saying that I was entered into a cabal with Dean Swift and others, to write against the Whig interest, and in particular to undermine his own reputation and that of his friends, Steele and Addison; but Mr. Philips never opened his lips to my face, on this or any like occasion, though I was almost every night in the same room with him, nor ever offered me any indecorum. Mr. Addison came to me a night or two after Philips had talked in this idle manner, and a.s.sured me of his disbelief of what had been said, of the friends.h.i.+p we should always maintain, and desired I would say nothing further of it. My Lord Halifax did me the honour to stir in this matter, by speaking to several people to obviate a false aspersion, which might have done me no small prejudice with one party. However, Philips did all he could secretly to continue the report with the Hanover Club, and kept in his hands the subscriptions paid for me to him, as secretary to that Club. The heads of it have since given him to understand, that they take it ill; but (upon the terms I ought to be with such a man,) I would not ask him for this money, but commissioned one of the players, his equals, to receive it. This is the whole matter; but as to the secret grounds of this malignity, they will make a very pleasant history when we meet.”

Another account says that the rod was hung up at the bar of b.u.t.ton's, and that Pope avoided it by remaining at home--”his usual custom.”

Philips was known for his courage and superior dexterity with the sword: he afterwards became justice of the peace, and used to mention Pope, whenever he could get a man in authority to listen to him, as an enemy to the Government.

At b.u.t.ton's the leading company, particularly Addison and Steele, met in large flowing flaxen wigs. Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller, too, was a frequenter.

The master died in 1731, when in the _Daily Advertiser_, Oct. 5, appeared the following:--”On Sunday morning, died, after three days'

illness, Mr. b.u.t.ton, who formerly kept b.u.t.ton's Coffee-house, in Russell-street, Covent Garden; a very noted house for wits, being the place where the Lyon produced the famous _Tatlers_ and _Spectators_, written by the late Mr. Secretary Addison and Sir Richard Steele, Knt., which works will transmit their names with honour to posterity.”

Mr. Cunningham found in the vestry-books of St. Paul's, Covent Garden: ”1719, April 16. Received of Mr. Daniel b.u.t.ton, for two places in the pew No. 18, on the south side of the north Isle,--2_l._ 2_s._” J. T.

Smith states that a few years after b.u.t.ton, the Coffee-house declined, and b.u.t.ton's name appeared in the books of St. Paul's, as receiving an allowance from the parish.

b.u.t.ton's continued in vogue until Addison's death and Steele's retirement into Wales, after which the house was deserted; the coffee-drinkers went to the Bedford Coffee-house, the dinner-parties to the Shakspeare.

Among other wits who frequented b.u.t.ton's were Swift, Arbuthnot, Savage, Budgell, Martin Folkes, and Drs. Garth and Armstrong. In 1720, Hogarth mentions ”four drawings in Indian ink” of the characters at b.u.t.ton's Coffee-house. In these were sketches of Arbuthnot, Addison, Pope, (as it is conjectured,) and a certain Count Viviani, identified years afterwards by Horace Walpole, when the drawings came under his notice. They subsequently came into Ireland's possession.[23]

Jemmy Maclaine, or M'Clean, the fas.h.i.+onable highwayman, was a frequent visitor at b.u.t.ton's. Mr. John Taylor, of the _Sun_ newspaper, describes Maclaine as a tall, showy, good-looking man. A Mr. Donaldson told Taylor that, observing Maclaine paid particular attention to the bar-maid of the Coffee-house, the daughter of the landlord, he gave a hint to the father of Maclaine's dubious character. The father cautioned the daughter against the highwayman's addresses, and imprudently told her by whose advice he put her on her guard; she as imprudently told Maclaine. The next time Donaldson visited the Coffee-room, and was sitting in one of the boxes, Maclaine entered, and in a loud tone said, ”Mr. Donaldson, I wish to _spake_ to you in a private room.” Mr. D. being unarmed, and naturally afraid of being alone with such a man, said, in answer, that as nothing could pa.s.s between them that he did not wish the whole world to know, he begged leave to decline the invitation. ”Very well,” said Maclaine, as he left the room, ”we shall meet again.” A day or two after, as Mr.

Donaldson was walking near Richmond, in the evening, he saw Maclaine on horseback; but, fortunately, at that moment, a gentleman's carriage appeared in view, when Maclaine immediately turned his horse towards the carriage, and Donaldson hurried into the protection of Richmond as fast as he could. But for the appearance of the carriage, which presented better prey, it is probable that Maclaine would have shot Mr. Donaldson immediately.

Maclaine's father was an Irish Dean; his brother was a Calvinist minister in great esteem at the Hague. Maclaine himself has been a grocer in Welbeck-street, but losing a wife that he loved extremely, and by whom he had one little girl, he quitted his business with two hundred pounds in his pocket, which he soon spent, and then took to the road with only one companion, Plunket, a journeyman apothecary.

Maclaine was taken in the autumn of 1750, by selling a laced waistcoat to a p.a.w.nbroker in Monmouth-street, who happened to carry it to the very man who had just sold the lace. Maclaine impeached his companion, Plunket, but he was not taken. The former got into verse: Gray, in his _Long Story_, sings:

”A sudden fit of ague shook him; He stood as mute as poor M'Lean.”

b.u.t.ton's subsequently became a private house, and here Mrs. Inchbald lodged, probably, after the death of her sister, for whose support she practised such n.o.ble and generous self-denial. Mrs. Inchbald's income was now 172_l._ a year, and we are told that she now went to reside in a boarding-house, where she enjoyed more of the comforts of life.

Phillips, the publisher, offered her a thousand pounds for her Memoirs, which she declined. She died in a boarding-house at Kensington, on the 1st of August, 1821; leaving about 6000_l._ judiciously divided amongst her relatives. Her simple and parsimonious habits were very strange. ”Last Thursday,” she writes, ”I finished scouring my bedroom, while a coach with a coronet and two footmen waited at my door to take me an airing.”

”One of the most agreeable memories connected with b.u.t.ton's,” says Leigh Hunt, ”is that of Garth, a man whom, for the sprightliness and generosity of his nature, it is a pleasure to name. He was one of the most amiable and intelligent of a most amiable and intelligent cla.s.s of men--the physicians.”

FOOTNOTES:

[17] _The Guardian_, No. 71.

[18] _The Guardian_, No. 85.

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