Volume Ii Part 8 (1/2)
IN CHANGE ALLEY.
From _The Kingdom's Intelligencer_, a weekly paper, published by authority, in 1662, we learn that there had just been opened a ”new Coffee-house,” with the sign of the Turk's Head, where was sold by retail ”the right Coffee-powder,” from 4_s._ to 6_s._ 8_d._ per pound; that pounded in a mortar, 2_s._; East India berry, 1_s._ 6_d._; and the right Turkie berry, well garbled, at 3_s._ ”The ungarbled for lesse, with directions how to use the same.” Also Chocolate at 2_s._ 6_d._ per pound; the perfumed from 4_s._ to 10_s._; ”also, Sherbets made in Turkie, of lemons, roses, and violets perfumed; and Tea, or Chaa, according to its goodness. The house seal was Morat the Great.
Gentlemen customers and acquaintances are (the next New Year's Day) invited to the sign of the Great Turk at this new Coffee-house, where Coffee will be on free cost.” The sign was also Morat the Great. Morat figures as a tyrant in Dryden's _Aurung Zebe_. There is a token of this house, with the Sultan's head, in the Beaufoy collection.
Another token, in the same collection, is of unusual excellence, probably by John Roettier. It has on the obverse, Morat ye Great Men did mee call,--Sultan's head; reverse, Where eare I came I conquered all.--In the field, Coffee, Tobacco, Sherbet, Tea, Chocolat, Retail in Exchange Alee. ”The word Tea,” says Mr. Burn, ”occurs on no other tokens than those issued from 'the Great Turk' Coffee-house, in Exchange-Alley;” in one of its advertis.e.m.e.nts, 1662, tea is from 6_s._ to 60_s._ a pound.
Compet.i.tion arose. One Constantine Jennings in Threadneedle-street, over against St. Christopher's Church, advertised that coffee, chocolate, sherbet, and tea, the right Turkey berry, may be had as cheap and as good of him as is any where to be had for money; and that people may there be taught to prepare the said liquors gratis.
Pepys, in his _Diary_, tells, Sept. 25, 1669, of his sending for ”a cup of Tea, a China Drink, he had not before tasted.” Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, about 1666, introduced tea at Court. And, in his Sir Charles Sedley's _Mulberry Garden_, we are told that ”he who wished to be considered a man of fas.h.i.+on always drank wine-and-water at dinner, and a dish of tea afterwards.” These details are condensed from Mr. Burn's excellent _Beaufoy Catalogue_. 2nd edition, 1855.
In Gerard-street, Soho, also, was another Turk's Head Coffee-house, where was held a Turk's Head Society; in 1777, we find Gibbon writing to Garrick: ”At this time of year, (Aug. 14,) the Society of the Turk's Head can no longer be addressed as a corporate body, and most of the individual members are probably dispersed: Adam Smith in Scotland; Burke in the shades of Beaconsfield; Fox, the Lord or the devil knows where.”
This place was a kind of head-quarters for the Loyal a.s.sociation during the Rebellion of 1745.
Here was founded ”The Literary Club,” already described in Vol. I., pp. 204-219.
In 1753, several Artists met at the Turk's Head, and from thence, their Secretary, Mr. F. M. Newton, dated a printed letter to the Artists to form a select body for the Protection and Encouragement of Art. Another Society of Artists met in Peter's-court, St.
Martin's-lane, from the year 1739 to 1769. After continued squabbles, which lasted for many years, the princ.i.p.al Artists met together at the Turk's Head, where many others having joined them, they pet.i.tioned the King (George III.) to become patron of a Royal Academy of Art. His Majesty consented; and the new Society took a room in Pall Mall, opposite to Market-lane, where they remained until the King, in the year 1771, granted them apartments in Old Somerset House.--_J. T.
Smith._
The Turk's Head Coffee-house, No. 142, in the Strand, was a favourite supping-house with Dr. Johnson and Boswell, in whose Life of Johnson are several entries, commencing with 1763--”At night, Mr. Johnson and I supped in a private room at the Turk's Head Coffee-house, in the Strand; 'I encourage this house,' said he, 'for the mistress of it is a good civil woman, and has not much business.'” Another entry is--”We concluded the day at the Turk's Head Coffee-house very socially.” And, August 3, 1673--”We had our last social meeting at the Turk's Head Coffee-house, before my setting out for foreign parts.”
The name was afterwards changed to ”The Turk's Head, Canada and Bath Coffee-house,” and was a well frequented tavern and hotel: it was taken down, and a very handsome lofty house erected upon the site, at the cost of, we believe, eight thousand pounds; it was opened as a tavern and hotel, but did not long continue.
At the Turk's Head, or Miles's Coffee-house, New Palace-yard, Westminster, the noted Rota Club met, founded by Harrington, in 1659: where was a large oval table, with a pa.s.sage in the middle, for Miles to deliver his coffee. (See _Clubs_, Vol. I., pp. 15, 16).
SQUIRE'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
In Fulwood's (_vulgo_ Fuller's) Rents, in Holborn, nearly opposite Chancery-lane, in the reign of James I., lived Christopher Fulwood, in a mansion of some pretension, of which an existing house of the period is said to be the remains. ”Some will have it,” says Hatton, 1708, ”that it is called from being a _woody_ place before there were buildings here; but its being called Fullwood's Rents (as it is in deeds and leases), shows it to be the rents of one called Fullwood, the owner or builder thereof.” Strype describes the Rents, or court, as running up to Gray's-Inn, ”into which it has an entrance through the gate; a place of good resort, and taken up by coffee-houses, ale-houses, and houses of entertainment, by reason of its vicinity to Gray's-Inn. On the east side is a handsome open place, with a handsome freestone pavement, and better built, and inhabited by private house-keepers. At the upper end of this court is a pa.s.sage into the Castle Tavern, a house of considerable trade, as is the Golden Griffin Tavern, on the West side.”
Here was John's, one of the earliest Coffee-houses; and adjoining Gray's-Inn gate is a deep-coloured red-brick house, once Squire's Coffee-house, kept by Squire, ”a noted man in Fuller's Rents,” who died in 1717. The house is very roomy; it has been handsome, and has a wide staircase. Squire's was one of the receiving-houses of the _Spectator_: in No. 269, January 8, 1711-1712, he accepts Sir Roger de Coverley's invitation to ”smoke a pipe with him over a dish of coffee at Squire's. As I love the old man, I take delight in complying with everything that is agreeable to him, and accordingly waited on him to the Coffee-house, where his venerable figure drew upon us the eyes of the whole room. He had no sooner seated himself at the upper end of the high table, but he called for a clean pipe, a paper of tobacco, a dish of coffee, a wax candle, and the _Supplement_ [a periodical paper of that time], with such an air of cheerfulness and good humour, that all the boys in the coffee-room, (who seemed to take pleasure in serving him,) were at once employed on his several errands, insomuch that n.o.body else could come at a dish of tea, until the Knight had got all his conveniences about him.” Such was the coffee-room in the _Spectator's_ day.
Gray's-Inn Walks, to which the Rents led, across Field-court, were then a fas.h.i.+onable promenade; and here Sir Roger could ”clear his pipes in good air;” for scarcely a house intervened thence to Hampstead. Though Ned Ward, in his _London Spy_, says--”I found none but a parcel of superannuated debauchees, huddled up in cloaks, frieze coats, and wadded gowns, to protect their old carcases from the sharpness of Hampstead air; creeping up and down in pairs and leashes no faster than the hand of a dial, or a county convict going to execution: some talking of law, some of religion, and some of politics. After I had walked two or three times round, I sat myself down in the upper walk, where just before me, on a stone pedestal, we fixed an old rusty horizontal dial, with the gnomon broke short off.”
Round the sun-dial, seats were arranged in a semicircle.
Gray's-Inn Gardens were resorted to by dangerous cla.s.ses. Expert pickpockets and plausible ring-droppers found easy prey there on crowded days; and in old plays the Gardens are repeatedly mentioned as a place of negotiation for clandestine lovers, which led to the walks being closed, except at stated hours.
Returning to Fulwood's Rents, we may here describe another of its attractions, the Tavern and punch-house, within one door of Gray's-Inn, apparently the King's Head. From some time before 1699, until his death in 1731, Ward kept this house, which he thus commemorates, or, in another word, puffs, in his _London Spy_: being a vintner himself, we may rest a.s.sured that he would have penned this in praise of no other than himself:
”To speak but the truth of my honest friend Ned, The best of all vintners that ever G.o.d made; He's free of the beef, and as free of his bread, And washes both down with his gla.s.s of rare red, That tops all the town, and commands a good trade; Such wine as will cheer up the drooping King's head, And brisk up the soul, though our body's half dead; He scorns to draw bad, as he hopes to be paid; And now his name's up, he may e'en lie abed; For he'll get an estate--there's no more to be said.”
We ought to have remarked, that the ox was roasted, cut up, and distributed gratis; a piece of generosity which, by a poetic fiction, is supposed to have inspired the above limping balderdash.
SLAUGHTER'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
This Coffee-house, famous as the resort of painters and sculptors, in the last century, was situated at the upper end of the west side of St. Martin's-lane, three doors from Newport-street. Its first landlord was Thomas Slaughter, 1692. Mr. Cunningham tells us that a second Slaughter's (New Slaughter's), was established in the same street about 1760, when the original establishment adopted the name of ”Old Slaughter's,” by which designation it was known till within a few years of the final demolition of the house to make way for the new avenue between Long-acre and Leicester-square, formed 1843-44. For many years previous to the streets of London being completely paved, ”Slaughter's” was called ”The Coffee-house on the Pavement.” In like manner, ”The Pavement,” Moor fields, received its distinctive name.
Besides being the resort of artists, Old Slaughter's was the house of call for Frenchmen.