CLUB LIFE OF LONDON

WITH

ANECDOTES OF THE CLUBS, COFFEE-HOUSES
AND TAVERNS OF THE METROPOLIS

DURING THE 17th, 18th, AND 19th CENTURIES.

By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.

IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. II.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET

Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
1866.

PRINTED BY
JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, LITTLE QUEEN STREET,
LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.

CONTENTS.

CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.

Coffee-houses.

EARLY COFFEE-HOUSES.

Coffee is thus mentioned by Bacon, in his Sylva Sylvarum:—"They have in Turkey a drink called Coffee, made of a Berry of the same name, as Black as Soot, and of a Strong Sent, but not Aromatical; which they take, beaten into Powder, in Water, as Hot as they can Drink it; and they take it, and sit at it in their Coffee Houses, which are like our Taverns. The Drink comforteth the Brain, and Heart, and helpeth Digestion."

And in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, part i., sec. 2, occurs, "Turks in their coffee-houses, which much resemble our taverns." The date is 1621, several years before coffee-houses were introduced into England.

In 1650, Wood tells us, was opened at Oxford, the first coffee-house, by Jacobs, a Jew, "at the Angel, in the parish of St. Peter in the East; and there it was, by some who delighted in novelty, drank."

There was once an odd notion prevalent that coffee was unwholesome, and would bring its drinkers to an untimely end. Yet, Voltaire, Fontenelle, and Fourcroy, who were great coffee-drinkers, lived to a good old age. Laugh at Madame de Sévigné, who foretold that coffee and Racine would be forgotten together!

A manuscript note, written by Oldys, the celebrated antiquary, states that "The use of coffee in England was first known in 1657. [It will be seen, as above, that Oldys is incorrect.] Mr. Edwards, a Turkey merchant, brought from Smyrna to London one Pasqua Rosee, a Ragusan youth, who prepared this drink for him every morning. But the novelty thereof drawing too much company to him, he allowed his said servant, with another of his son-in-law, to sell it publicly, and they set up the first coffee-house in London, in St. Michael's alley, in Cornhill. The sign was Pasqua Rosee's own head." Oldys is slightly in error here; Rosee commenced his coffee-house in 1652, and one Jacobs, a Jew, as we have just seen, had established a similar undertaking at Oxford, two years earlier. One of Rosee's original shop or hand-bills, the only mode of advertising in those days, is as follows:—

"THE VERTUE OF THE COFFEE DRINK,

"First made and publickly sold in England by Pasqua Rosee.

"The grain or berry called coffee, groweth upon little trees only in the deserts of Arabia. It is brought from thence, and drunk generally throughout all the Grand Seignour's dominions. It is a simple, innocent thing, composed into a drink, by being dried in an oven, and ground to powder, and boiled up with spring water, and about half a pint of it to be drunk fasting an hour before, and not eating an hour after, and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured; the which will never fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise any blisters by reason of that heat.

"The Turks' drink at meals and other times is usually water, and their diet consists much of fruit; the crudities whereof are very much corrected by this drink.

"The quality of this drink is cold and dry; and though it be a drier, yet it neither heats nor inflames more than hot posset. It so incloseth the orifice of the stomach, and fortifies the heat within, that it is very good to help digestion; and therefore of great use to be taken about three or four o'clock afternoon, as well as in the morning. It much quickens the spirits, and makes the heart lightsome; it is good against sore eyes, and the better if you hold your head over it and take in the steam that way. It suppresseth fumes exceedingly, and therefore is good against the head-ache, and will very much stop any defluxion of rheums, that distil from the head upon the stomach, and so prevent and help consumptions and the cough of the lungs.

"It is excellent to prevent and cure the dropsy, gout,[1] and scurvy. It is known by experience to be better than any other drying drink for people in years, or children that have any running humours upon them, as the king's evil, &c. It is a most excellent remedy against the spleen, hypochondriac winds, and the like. It will prevent drowsiness, and make one fit for business, if one have occasion to watch, and therefore you are not to drink of it after supper, unless you intend to be watchful, for it will hinder sleep for three or four hours.

"It is observed that in Turkey, where this is generally drunk, that they are not troubled with the stone, gout, dropsy, or scurvy, and that their skins are exceeding clear and white. It is neither laxative nor restringent.

"Made and sold in St. Michael's-alley, in Cornhill, by Pasqua Rosee, at the sign of his own head."

The new beverage had its opponents, as well as its advocates. The following extracts from An invective against Coffee, published about the same period, informs us that Rosee's partner, the servant of Mr. Edwards's son-in-law, was a coachman; while it controverts the statement that hot coffee will not scald the mouth, and ridicules the broken English of the Ragusan:—

"A BROADSIDE AGAINST COFFEE.

Notwithstanding this opposition, coffee soon became a favourite drink, and the shops, where it was sold, places of general resort.

There appears to have been a great anxiety that the Coffee-house, while open to all ranks, should be conducted under such restraints as might prevent the better class of customers from being annoyed. Accordingly, the following regulations, printed on large sheets of paper, were hung up in conspicuous positions on the walls:—

In a print of the period, five persons are shown in a coffee-house, one smoking, evidently, from their dresses, of different ranks of life; they are seated at a table, on which are small basins without saucers, and tobacco-pipes, while a waiter is serving the coffee.

GARRAWAY'S COFFEE-HOUSE.

This noted Coffee-house, situated in Change-alley, Cornhill, has a threefold celebrity: tea was first sold in England here; it was a place of great resort in the time of the South Sea Bubble; and has since been a place of great mercantile transactions. The original proprietor was Thomas Garway, tobacconist and coffee-man, the first who retailed tea, recommending for the cure of all disorders; the following is the substance of his shop bill:—"Tea in England hath been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and sometimes for ten pounds the pound weight, and in respect of its former scarceness and dearness, it hath been only used as a regalia in high treatments and entertainments, and presents made thereof to princes and grandees till the year 1651." The said Thomas Garway did purchase a quantity thereof, and first publicly sold the said tea in leaf and drink, made according to the directions of the most knowing merchants and travellers into those Eastern countries; and upon knowledge and experience of the said Garway's continued care and industry in obtaining the best tea, and making drink thereof, very many noblemen, physicians, merchants, and gentlemen of quality, have ever since sent to him for the said leaf, and daily resort to his house in Exchange-alley, aforesaid, to drink the drink thereof; and to the end that all persons of eminence and quality, gentlemen, and others, who have occasion for tea in leaf, may be supplied, these are to give notice that the said Thomas Garway hath tea to sell from "sixteen to fifty shillings per pound." (See the document entire in Ellis's Letters, series iv. 58.)

Ogilby, the compiler of the Britannia, had his standing lottery of books at Mr. Garway's Coffee-house from April 7, 1673, till wholly drawn off. And, in the Journey through England, 1722, Garraway's, Robins's, and Joe's, are described as the three celebrated Coffee-houses: in the first, the People of Quality, who have business in the City, and the most considerable and wealthy citizens, frequent. In the second the Foreign Banquiers, and often even Foreign Ministers. And in the third, the Buyers and Sellers of Stock.

Wines were sold at Garraway's in 1673, "by the candle," that is, by auction, while an inch of candle burns. In The Tatler, No. 147, we read: "Upon my coming home last night, I found a very handsome present of French wine left for me, as a taste of 216 hogsheads, which are to be put to sale at 20l. a hogshead, at Garraway's Coffee-house, in Exchange-alley," &c. The sale by candle is not, however, by candle-light, but during the day. At the commencement of the sale, when the auctioneer has read a description of the property, and the conditions on which it is to be disposed of, a piece of candle, usually an inch long, is lighted, and he who is the last bidder at the time the light goes out is declared the purchaser.

Swift, in his "Ballad on the South Sea Scheme," 1721, did not forget Garraway's:—

Dr. Radcliffe, who was a rash speculator in the South Sea Scheme, was usually planted at a table at Garraway's about Exchange time, to watch the turn of the market; and here he was seated when the footman of his powerful rival, Dr. Edward Hannes, came into Garraway's and inquired, by way of a puff, if Dr. H. was there. Dr. Radcliffe, who was surrounded with several apothecaries and chirurgeons that flocked about him, cried out, "Dr. Hannes was not there," and desired to know "who wanted him?" the fellow's reply was, "such a lord and such a lord;" but he was taken up with the dry rebuke, "No, no, friend, you are mistaken; the Doctor wants those lords." One of Radcliffe's ventures was five thousand guineas upon one South Sea project. When he was told at Garraway's that 'twas all lost, "Why," said he, "'tis but going up five thousand pair of stairs more." "This answer," says Tom Brown, "deserved a statue."

As a Coffee-house, and one of the oldest class, which has withstood, by the well-acquired fame of its proprietors, the ravages of time, and the changes that economy and new generations produce, none can be compared to Garraway's. This name must be familiar with most people in and out of the City; and, notwithstanding our disposition to make allowance for the want of knowledge some of our neighbours of the West-end profess in relation to men and things east of Temple Bar, it must be supposed that the noble personage who said, when asked by a merchant to pay him a visit in one of these places, "that he willingly would, if his friend could tell him where to change horses," had forgotten this establishment, which fostered so great a quantity of dishonoured paper, when in other City coffee-houses it had gone begging at 1s. and 2s. in the pound.[2]

Garraway's has long been famous as a sandwich and drinking room, for sherry, pale ale, and punch. Tea and coffee are still served. It is said that the sandwich-maker is occupied two hours in cutting and arranging the sandwiches before the day's consumption commences. The sale-room is an old fashioned first-floor apartment, with a small rostrum for the seller, and a few commonly grained settles for the buyers. Here sales of drugs, mahogany, and timber are periodically held. Twenty or thirty property and other sales sometimes take place in a day. The walls and windows of the lower room are covered with sale placards, which are unsentimental evidences of the mutability of human affairs.

"In 1840 and 1841, when the tea speculation was at its height, and prices were fluctuating 6d. and 8d. per pound, on the arrival of every mail, Garraway's was frequented every night by a host of the smaller fry of dealers, when there was more excitement than ever occurred on 'Change when the most important intelligence arrived. Champagne and anchovy toasts were the order of the night; and every one came, ate and drank, and went, as he pleased without the least question concerning the score, yet the bills were discharged; and this plan continued for several months."—The City.

Here, likewise, we find this redeeming picture:—"The members of the little coterie, who take the dark corner under the clock, have for years visited this house; they number two or three old, steady merchants, a solicitor, and a gentleman who almost devotes the whole of his time and talents to philanthropic objects,—for instance, the getting up of a Ball for Shipwrecked Mariners and their families; or the organization of a Dinner for the benefit of the Distressed Needlewomen of the Metropolis; they are a very quiet party, and enjoy the privilege of their séance, uninterrupted by visitors."

We may here mention a tavern of the South Sea time, where the "Globe permits" fraud was very successful. These were nothing more than square pieces of card on which was a wax seal of the sign of the Globe Tavern, situated in the neighbourhood of Change-alley, with the inscription, "Sail-cloth Permits." The possessors enjoyed no other advantage from them than permission to subscribe at some future time to a new sail-cloth manufactory projected by one who was known to be a man of fortune, but who was afterwards involved in the peculation and punishment of the South Sea Directors. These Permits sold for as much as sixty guineas in the Alley.

JONATHAN'S COFFEE-HOUSE.

This is another Change-alley Coffee-house, which is described in the Tatler, No. 38, as "the general mart of stock-jobbers;" and the Spectator, No. 1, tells us that he "sometimes passes for a Jew in the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's." This was the rendezvous, where gambling of all sorts was carried on; notwithstanding a formal prohibition against the assemblage of the jobbers, issued by the City of London, which prohibition continued unrepealed until 1825.

In the Anatomy of Exchange Alley, 1719, we read:—"The centre of the jobbing is in the kingdom of Exchange-alley and its adjacencies. The limits are easily surrounded in about a minute and a half: viz. stepping out of Jonathan's into the Alley, you turn your face full south; moving on a few paces, and then turning due east, you advance to Garraway's; from thence going out at the other door, you go on still east into Birchin-lane; and then halting a little at the Sword-blade Bank, to do much mischief in fewest words, you immediately face to the north, enter Cornhill, visit two or three petty provinces there in your way west; and thus having boxed your compass, and sailed round the whole stock-jobbing globe, you turn into Jonathan's again; and so, as most of the great follies of life oblige us to do, you end just where you began."

Mrs. Centlivre, in her comedy of A Bold Stroke for a Wife, has a scene from Jonathan's at the above period: while the stock-jobbers are talking, the coffee-boys are crying "Fresh coffee, gentlemen, fresh coffee! Bohea tea, gentlemen!"

Here is another picture of Jonathan's, during the South Sea mania; though not by an eye-witness, it groups, from various authorities, the life of the place and the time:—"At a table a few yards off sat a couple of men engaged in the discussion of a newly-started scheme. Plunging his hand impatiently under the deep silver-buttoned flap of his frock-coat of cinnamon cloth and drawing out a paper, the more business-looking of the pair commenced eagerly to read out figures intended to convince the listener, who took a jewelled snuff-box from the deep pocket of the green brocade waistcoat which overflapped his thigh, and, tapping the lid, enjoyed a pinch of perfumed Turkish as he leaned back lazily in his chair. Somewhat further off, standing in the middle of the room, was a keen-eyed lawyer, counting on his fingers the probable results of a certain speculation in human hair, to which a fresh-coloured farmer from St. Albans, on whose boots the mud of the cattle market was not dry, listened with a face of stolid avarice, clutching the stag-horn handle of his thonged whip as vigorously as if it were the wealth he coveted. There strode a Nonconformist divine, with S. S. S. in every line of his face, greedy for the gold that perisheth; here a bishop, whose truer place was Garraway's, edged his cassock through the crowd; sturdy ship-captains, whose manners smack of blustering breezes, and who hailed their acquaintance as if through a speaking-trumpet in a storm—booksellers' hacks from Grub-street, who were wont to borrow ink-bottles and just one sheet of paper at the bar of the Black Swan in St. Martin's-lane, and whose tarnished lace, when not altogether torn away, showed a suspicious coppery redness underneath—Jews of every grade, from the thriving promoter of a company for importing ashes from Spain or extracting stearine from sunflower seeds to the seller of sailor slops from Wapping-in-the-Wose, come to look for a skipper who had bilked him—a sprinkling of well-to-do merchants—and a host of those flashy hangers-on to the skirts of commerce, who brighten up in days of maniacal speculation, and are always ready to dispose of shares in some unopened mine or some untried invention—passed and repassed with continuous change and murmur before the squire's eyes during the quarter of an hour that he sat there."—Pictures of the Periods, by W. F. Collier LL.D.

RAINBOW COFFEE-HOUSE.

The Rainbow, in Fleet-street, appears to have been the second Coffee-house opened in the metropolis.

"The first Coffee-house in London," says Aubrey (MS. in the Bodleian Library), "was in St. Michael's-alley, in Cornhill, opposite to the church, which was set up by one —— Bowman (coachman to Mr. Hodges, a Turkey merchant, who putt him upon it), in or about the yeare 1652. 'Twas about four yeares before any other was sett up, and that was by Mr. Farr." This was the Rainbow.

Another account states that one Edwards, a Turkey merchant, on his return from the East, brought with him a Ragusian Greek servant, named Pasqua Rosee, who prepared coffee every morning for his master, and with the coachman above named set up the first Coffee-house in St. Michael's-alley; but they soon quarrelled and separated, the coachman establishing himself in St. Michael's churchyard.—(See pp. 2 and 4, ante.)

Aubrey wrote the above in 1680, and Mr. Farr had then become a person of consequence. In his Lives, Aubrey notes:—"When coffee first came in, Sir Henry Blount was a great upholder of it, and hath ever since been a great frequenter of coffee-houses, especially Mr. Farre's, at the Rainbowe, by Inner Temple Gate."

Farr was originally a barber. His success as a coffee-man appears to have annoyed his neighbours; and at the inquest at St. Dunstan's, Dec. 21st, 1657, among the presentments of nuisances were the following:—"We present James Farr, barber, for making and selling of a drink called coffee, whereby in making the same he annoyeth his neighbours by evill smells; and for keeping of fire for the most part night and day, whereby his chimney and chamber hath been set on fire, to the great danger and affrightment of his neighbours." However, Farr was not ousted; he probably promised reform, or amended the alleged annoyance: he remained at the Rainbow, and rose to be a person of eminence and repute in the parish. He issued a token, date 1666—an arched rainbow based on clouds, doubtless, from the Great Fire—to indicate that with him all was yet safe, and the Rainbow still radiant. There is one of his tokens in the Beaufoy collection, at Guildhall, and so far as is known to Mr. Burn, the rainbow does not occur on any other tradesman's token. The house was let off into tenements: books were printed here at this very time "for Samuel Speed, at the sign of the Rainbow, near the Inner Temple Gate, in Fleet-street." The Phoenix Fire Office was established here about 1682. Hatton, in 1708, evidently attributed Farr's nuisance to the coffee itself saying: "Who would have thought London would ever have had three thousand such nuisances, and that coffee would have been (as now) so much drank by the best of quality, and physicians?" The nuisance was in Farr's chimney and carelessness, not in the coffee. Yet, in our statute-book anno 1660 (12 Car. II. c. 24), a duty of 4d. was laid upon every gallon of coffee made and sold. A statute of 1663 directs that all Coffee-houses should be licensed at the Quarter Sessions. And in 1675, Charles II. issued a proclamation to shut up the Coffee-houses, charged with being seminaries of sedition; but in a few days he suspended this proclamation by a second.

The Spectator, No. 16, notices some gay frequenters of the Rainbow:—"I have received a letter desiring me to be very satirical upon the little muff that is now in fashion; another informs me of a pair of silver garters buckled below the knee, that have been lately seen at the Rainbow Coffee-house in Fleet-street."

Mr. Moncrieff, the dramatist, used to tell that about 1780, this house was kept by his grandfather, Alexander Moncrieff, when it retained its original title of "The Rainbow Coffee-house." The old Coffee-room had a lofty bay-window, at the south end, looking into the Temple: and the room was separated from the kitchen only by a glazed partition: in the bay was the table for the elders. The house has long been a tavern; all the old rooms have been swept away, and a large and lofty dining-room erected in their place.

In a paper read to the British Archæological Association, by Mr. E. B. Price, we find coffee and canary thus brought into interesting comparison, illustrated by the exhibition of one of Farr's Rainbow tokens; and another inscribed "At the Canary House in the Strand, 1d., 1665," bearing also the word "Canary" in the monogram. Having noticed the prosecution of Farr, and his triumph over his fellow-parishioners, Mr. Price says:—"The opposition to coffee continued; people viewed it with distrust, and even with alarm: and we can sympathize with them in their alarm: when we consider that they entertained a notion that coffee would eventually put an end to the species; that the genus homo would some day or other be utterly extinguished. With our knowledge of the beneficial effect of this article on the community, and its almost universal adoption in the present day, we may smile, and wonder while we smile, at the bare possibility of such a notion ever having prevailed. That it did so, we have ample evidence in the "Women's Petition against Coffee," in the year 1674, cited by D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature, vol. iv., and in which they complain that coffee "made men as unfruitful as the deserts whence that unhappy berry is said to be brought: that the offspring of our mighty ancestors would dwindle into a succession of apes and pigmies," etc. The same authority gives us an extract from a very amusing poem of 1663, in which the writer wonders that any man should prefer Coffee to Canary, terming them English apes, and proudly referring them to the days of Beaumont and Fletcher and Ben Jonson. They, says he,