Volume Ii Part 15 (1/2)
FOOTNOTE:
[33] Jesse's 'London and its Celebrities.'
THE YOUNG DEVIL TAVERN.
The notoriety of the Devil Tavern, as common in such cases, created an opponent on the opposite side of Fleet-street, named ”The Young Devil.” The Society of Antiquaries, who had previously met at the Bear Tavern, in the Strand, changed their rendezvous Jan. 9, 1707-8, to the Young Devil Tavern; but the host failed, and as Browne Willis tells us, the Antiquaries, in or about 1709, ”met at the Fountain Tavern, as we went down into the Inner Temple, against Chancery Lane.”
Later, a music-room, called the Apollo, was attempted, but with no success: an advertis.e.m.e.nt for a concert, December 19, 1737, intimated ”tickets to be had at Will's Coffee-house, formerly the Apollo, in Bell Yard, near Temple Bar.” This may explain the Apollo Court, in Fleet-street, unless it is found in the next page.
c.o.c.k TAVERN, FLEET-STREET.
The Apollo Club, at the Devil Tavern, is kept in remembrance by Apollo Court, in Fleet-street, nearly opposite; next door eastward of which is an old tavern nearly as well known. It is, perhaps, the most primitive place of its kind in the metropolis: it still possesses a fragment of decoration of the time of James I., and the writer remembers the tavern half a century ago, with considerably more of its original panelling. It is just two centuries since (1665), when the Plague was raging, the landlord shut up his house, and retired into the country; and there is preserved one of the farthings referred to in this advertis.e.m.e.nt:--”This is to certify that the master of the c.o.c.k and Bottle, commonly called the c.o.c.k Alehouse, at Temple Bar, hath dismissed his servants, and shut up his house, for this long vacation, intending (G.o.d willing) to return at Michaelmas next; so that all persons whatsoever who may have any accounts with the said master, or _farthings belonging to the said house_, are desired to repair thither before the 8th of this instant, and they shall receive satisfaction.” Three years later, we find Pepys frequenting this tavern: ”23rd April, 1668. Thence by water to the Temple, and there to the c.o.c.k Alehouse, and drank, and eat a lobster, and sang, and mightily merry. So almost night, I carried Mrs. Pierce home, and then Knipp and I to the Temple again, and took boat, it being now night.”
The tavern has a gilt signbird over the pa.s.sage door, stated to have been carved by Gibbons. Over the mantelpiece is some carving, at least of the time of James I.; but we remember the entire room similarly carved, and a huge black-and-gilt clock, and settle. The head-waiter of our time lives in the verse of Laureate Tennyson--”O plump head-waiter of the c.o.c.k!” apostrophizes the ”Will Water-proof”
of the bard, in a reverie wherein he conceives William to have undergone a transition similar to that of Jove's cup-bearer:--
”And hence (says he) this halo lives about The waiter's hands, that reach To each his perfect pint of stout, His proper chop to each.
He looks not with the common breed, That with the napkin dally; I think he came, like Ganymede, From some delightful valley.”
And of the redoubtable bird, who is supposed to have performed the eagle's part in this abduction, he says:--
”The c.o.c.k was of a larger egg Than modern poultry drop, Stept forward on a firmer leg, And cramm'd a plumper crop.”
THE HERCULES' PILLARS TAVERNS.
Hercules Pillars Alley, on the south side of Fleet-street, near St.
Dunstan's Church, is described by Strype as ”altogether inhabited by such as keep Publick Houses for entertainment, for which it is of note.”
The token of the Hercules Pillars is thus described by Mr.
Akerman:--”ED. OLDHAM AT Y HERCVLES. A crowned male figure standing erect, and grasping a pillar with each hand.--Rx. PILLERS IN FLEET STREET. In the field, HIS HALF PENNY, E. P. O.” ”From this example,”
ill.u.s.tratively observes Mr. Akerman, ”it would seem that the locality, called Hercules Pillars Alley, like other places in London, took its name from the tavern. The mode of representing the pillars of Hercules is somewhat novel; and, but for the inscription, we should have supposed the figure to represent Samson clutching the pillars of temple of Dagon. At the trial of Stephen Colledge, for high-treason, in 1681, an Irishman named Haynes, swore that he walked to the Hercules Pillars with the accused, and that in a room upstairs Colledge spoke of his treasonable designs and feeling. On another occasion the parties walked from Richard's coffee-house[34] to this tavern, where it was sworn they had a similar conference. Colledge, in his defence, denies the truth of the allegation, and declares that the walk from the coffee-house to the tavern is not more than a bow-shot, and that during such walk the witness had all the conversation to himself, though he had sworn that treasonable expressions had been made use of on their way thither.
”Pepys frequented this tavern: in one part of his _Diary_ he says, 'With Mr. Creed to Hercules Pillars, where we drank.' In another, 'In Fleet-street I met with Mr. Salisbury, who is now grown in less than two years' time so great a limner that he is become excellent and gets a great deal of money at it. I took him to Hercules Pillars to drink.'”
Again: ”After the play was done, we met with Mr. Bateller and W.
Hewer, and Talbot Pepys, and they followed us in a hackney-coach; and we all supped at Hercules Pillars; and there I did give the best supper I could, and pretty merry; and so home between eleven and twelve at night.” ”At noon, my wife came to me at my tailor's, and I sent her home, and myself and Tom dined at Hercules Pillars.”
Another noted ”Hercules Pillars” was at Hyde Park Corner, near Hamilton-place, on the site of what is now the pavement opposite Lord Willoughby's. ”Here,” says Cunningham, ”Squire Western put his horses up when in pursuit of Tom Jones; and here Field Marshal the Marquis of Gransby was often found.” And Wycherley, in his _Plain Dealer_, 1676, makes the spendthrift, Jerry Blackacre, talk of picking up his mortgaged silver ”out of most of the ale-houses between Hercules Pillars and the Boatswain in Wapping.”
Hyde Park Corner was noted for its petty taverns, some of which remained as late as 1805. It was to one of these taverns that Steele took Savage to dine, and where Sir Richard dictated and Savage wrote a pamphlet, which he went out and sold for two guineas, with which the reckoning was paid. Steele then ”returned home, having retired that day only to avoid his creditors, and composed the pamphlet only to discharge his reckoning.”
FOOTNOTE:
[34] Subsequently ”d.i.c.k's.”
HOLE-IN-THE-WALL TAVERNS.