metropolis. Antedate my life, for one short hour, to the seventeenth century, and place me in the Mermaid Tavern in Friday-street; let me witness one sitting of the Raleigh Club, and I will not ask Mecænas to introduce me to Augustus. Let me be seated between Shakspeare and Selden, with Beaumont and Fletcher before me, and I will contentedly resign the pleasure of shaking hands with Cicero, and drinking a cup of Falernian with Horace. From the time of the Raleigh club we have almost a regular succession of literary societies, rich in genius, learning, and amusement. I have already incidentally mentioned Ben Jonson's club. The celebrated Kit-cat is well known to every one. Its sittings were held in a small street near Temple-bar, and seldom has any society been able to boast so bright a mixture of wit, patriotism, and nobility. In later time we have the literary club, of which Johnson and Goldsmith and Sir Joshua Reynolds were such distinguished ornaments. But, in addition to these regular assemblies, the different coffee-houses furnished for nearly the two last centuries a place of mutual resort for all who were either desirous of displaying wit and information, or of seeing them displayed by others. The reign of Queen Anne was certainly the age of coffee-houses; and though Dr. Johnson, who merited equally well with "the Irish peer" the title of "Lord Mount Coffee-house," for a while supported their fading literary glories, those haunts of genius have at last sunk into the mere resorts of hungry bachelors and ill-humoured husbands. If an eulogy were wanted on a tavern-life, it might be found in the Doctor's answer to Boswell :-" Sir, there is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as in a capital tavern.-No, Sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by men, by which so much happiness has been produced as by a good tavern or inn." Every one remembers Shenstone's verses on the same subject. But I am wandering far from Wills's. Wills's was situated on the north side of Russell-street, at the end of Bow-street, and in Malone's time the house was occupied by a perfumer, and numbered 23. This was Dryden's favourite resort, where in winter he had a seat by the fire, and in summer on the balcony, which he called his winter and summer seats. The company usually met in the first or diningroom floor, as it was called in the last century. There were no boxes at that time, but the company assembled round different tables. Here all the wits of the day used to meet, from "Glorious John" down to the meanest patron-hunter, and display their brilliancy to the admiring spectators, amongst whom the Templars, "spruce, pert, and loquacious," as Mr. Maturin calls them, occasionally mingled, and ventured upon their bad jokes.* The younger part of the assembly, however, seldom approached the principal table, and thought it a great honour to have a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box. Wills's continued to be the favourite of the wits till 1710; and about 1712 Addison established his servant Button in a new house, whither the fame of the author of Cato *Bolingbroke in his letter to Wyndham, reproaches Harley with a deficiency in gentlemanly refinement, and tells him that his jokes smell of the Inns of Court. The Spectator gives a better account of the Templars : "The gentleman next in esteem and authority amongst us is another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner Temple, a man of great probity, wit, and understanding.” drew many of the Whigs. The reader may, perhaps, remark the similarity of the account I have just given of Wills's, with that which Mr. Claude Halcro so kindly bestowed upon Mordaunt Mertoun at the Udaller's feast: the reason, I believe, is that they are both drawn from the same source, a note of Mr. Malone's in Spence's Anecdotes. In the same book we have a very accurate account left us of the manner in which Addison used to pass his time, which gives us no bad idea of the occupations and amusements of a literary man a century ago. He usually employed all the morning in study, then met his party at Button's, and dined there a good deal earlier, it must be remembered, than our modern fashionables do at Brunet's: after dinner he was accustomed to sit five or six hours, and sometimes pretty far into the night. It seems that Pope was of this company for about a year, but he found it too much for his health, and therefore seceded. If I remember aright, for I cannot at this moment discover the passage, it was at Button's that pastoral Phillips hung up a rod, with which he threatened to chastise poor Pope, should he ever venture to make his appearance there. The principal coffee-houses after Wills's were Child's in St. Paul's church-yard, which used to be a great resort of the clergy; St. James's coffee-house, famous for its politicians; Jonathan's in 'Changealley, the Rose near Temple-bar, the Grecian, and the Cocoa-tree. I have already remarked that the tavern-system is entirely out of fashion at the present day; for although pleasant people are occasionally to be met with in such places, our literati are seldom seen within their precincts. The observation made by a modern man of letters, that our booksellers' shops are now what the coffee-houses were formerly, is very just. He instances Ridgway's in Piccadilly, where many celebrated political characters might frequently be met with, but the latter class of gentlemen are still fond of congregating at coffee-houses, as White's and Brookes's and Boodle's sufficiently testify. The After leaving Wills's, and passing through a region sacred to the drama, I resolved to make the best of my way to the Green-park, and then through St. James's to Westminster. On my road, however, I made a pilgrimage to Dryden's house, in Gerrard-street-the fifth on the left hand, in coming from Little Newport-street. The apartments behind looked into the gardens of Leicester House; but the poet generally wrote in a room on the ground floor, next the street. celebrated Literary club also had its domicile in this street, at a house called the Turk's Head. Having inspected the mansion of Glorious John, I speedily arrived at the Park. These great spiracles of the metropolis can never be sufficiently praised. They furnish the smokedried citizens with both air and exercise; to take advantage of which, they at the same time afford an inducement by the gaiety and liveliness of the scene. The Parks have long been classic ground. They were formerly a notorious scene of action for the duellists, when swords were in fashion; so that no report of fire-arms alarmed the neighbourhood. Thus the fatal duel which Burnet relates, in which Duke Hamilton fell, took place in the Park; and in the same place, Fielding has laid the scene of the encounter between Captain Booth and the valiant Major Gascoigne. As I proceeded, the fresh air gave a keener edge to my appetite, and brought to my mind Goldsmith's friend, the strolling player, whom he discovered in St. James's park, about the hour at which company leave it to go to dinner. It seems to have been the practice at that time, for such unfortunates as were compelled to pass the day impransi, to take a walk in this place, in lieu of satisfying their cravings in a more substantial manner. The Parks have many curious recollections connected with them; but alas! how seldom in these days do the feet of the wise and the witty traverse them. "This evening," says Swift, "I met Addison and Pastoral Phillips in the Park, and supped with them at Addison's lodgings. We were very good company." Who would doubt it? We are better enabled to trace the Dean's perambulations than those of any other of the illustrious dead, by the minute details which he has left of all his proceedings in his Journal to Stella. I love to follow the doctor's footsteps, as he proceeded in his wig and gown (for at that time the sons of mother church ever went thus attired), and to trace him in his various walks through the metropolis. He appears always to have been a great advocate for exercise. In his youth he used to run up and down hill till he was tired, for the sake of the exertion; and in his maturer years he was accustomed, with childish playfulness, to drive his friends the Grattans before him, and pursue them through the spacious apartments of the Deanery. Whilst residing in London, during Harley's administration, he lived in various parts of the town. His first lodging appears to have been in Bury-street, where, says he, "I have a first floor, a dining-room, and a bedchamber, at eight shillings a week-plaguy deep, but I spend nothing for eating; never go to a tavern, and very seldom in a coach; yet, after all, it will be expensive." How would the Dean have groaned at the present price of lodgings? He next removed to St. Alban's-street, where he paid at the same rate, and "had the use of a parlour to receive persons of quality." He afterwards took a lodging in Suffolk-street, and "designed to walk the park and the town," to supply his walks to Chelsea. Of his excursions to the latter place, he has left a most particular account: "My way is this: I leave my best gown and periwig at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's, then walk up the Pall Mall, through the Park, out at Buckingham House, and so to Chelsea, a little beyond the church. I set out about sunset, and get here in something less than an hour. It is two good miles, and just 5748 steps; so there is four miles a-day walking, without reckoning what I walk whilst I stay in London." At one time he resided near Leicester-Fields, where he paid the enormous sum of ten shillings a week; upon which he observes, "that won't hold out long, 'faith." He appears, before he became so intimate with the Vanhomrigh's, to have been very fond of walking in the Park. "The days are now long enough to walk in the Park after dinner, and so I do whenever it is fair. This walking is a strange remedy: Mr. Prior walks to make himself fat, and I to bring myself down. We often walk round the Park together." It is curious to observe, as his acquaintance with Vanessa grew more intimate, how he forsook the Park, and preferred a walk into the city, which was not, in all probability, merely for walking's sake. "I had good walking to-day in the city, and take all opportunities of it on purpose for my health; but I can't walk in the Park, because it is only for walking's sake, and loses time, so I mix it with business." In one of his letters he relates, in his own whimsical way, an incident which I cannot forbear repeating. The chair men who were carrying him through the Park, squeezed a great fellow against the wall, who wisely turned his back, and broke one of the side-glasses into a thousand pieces. The Dean began scolding, pretending he was nearly cut to pieces, and made the chairmen set down the chair while they picked out the bits of the glass; and when he paid them, he still appeared to quarrel, so that they dared not grumble; and he came off for his fare, but plaguy afraid, as he tells his correspondent, lest they should have said, "God bless your honour, won't you give us something for our glass?" The Dean must have been highly pleased thus to have been able to gratify, at one time, his love both of fun and money. Emerging from the Park, I strolled past the venerable Hall, and more venerable Abbey, not without offering due homage to the Genius loci. But the recollections of these scenes are too numerous and splendid to require the aid of my humble pen: I therefore passed on my way, and took boat at the Whitehall stairs. What burthens of royalty and beauty, and wisdom and wit, noble river! hast thou borne on thy bosom! Who shall forget the magnificent description which the great northern enchanter has given us, of the princely company which floated upon thy waters when Elizabeth and her court were borne along thy waves? But never did the Thames exhibit a more imposing spectacle, than when the seven bishops were borne on its tide to the Tower, while upon its banks thousands upon thousands encouraged their persecuted pastors with acclamations, or accompanied their course with fervent prayers. Nor is the river devoid of lighter associations; and amongst these, the visit of Sir Roger de Coverley to Vauxhall, or, as it was then called, Spring Garden, must not be forgotten. I have been very anxious to discover the exact spot in which the Dean of St. Patrick used to perform the ceremony of ablution, but I have hitherto been unsuccessful. The account he gives of his bathing in the Thames after walking home, when he was so miserably hot that he was in "as perfect a passion as ever he was in his life at the greatest affront or provocation," is highly diverting. "I was every moment," says he, "disturbed by boats-rot them; and that puppy Patrick standing ashore would let them come within a yard or two, and then call sneakingly to them: the only comfort I proposed here in hot weather is gone, for there is no joking with these boats after 'tis dark. I had none last night: I dived to dip my head, and held my cap on with both my hands for fear of losing it." Notwithstanding this instance of his negligence, I have always had the highest esteem for Patrick, the Dean's servant; and, indeed, I purpose, should my avocations permit, to compose a little essay on his "character and genius." 66 I have hitherto traced but a few of the many interesting literary and historical recollections with which the metropolis abounds. The city is richly stored with them; and I have not yet perambulated " a street they call Southwark," as one of Mackenzie's rustic heroes expresses himself. But while the relics of antiquity afford no mean amusement, the living excellence which London can boast ought not to be forgotten. It is the variety of its learned, accomplished, and cultivated society, which, after all, is its chief charm, and which renders a residence even in the heart of this murky mass of brick, preferable to a seclusion in the most romantic solitude. "The happiness of London," says John son, " is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all the rest of the kingdom." For my own part, I must confess I rather agree with Pope's fair correspondent, than with the poet himself; " You sigh out," says he, in the ardour of your heart-Oh! playhouses, parks, operas, assemblies, London! I cry with rapture-Oh! woods, gardens, rookeries, fishponds, arbours!" R*. 66 PARTED LOVE "Thou wert too like a dream of heaven WE parted, and we knew it was for ever We knew it, yet we parted: then each thought And inmost feeling of our souls, which never Had else been breath'd in words, rush'd forth and sought They lived and grew 'mid sadness and despair. It was not with the bonds of common love Our hearts were knit together; they had been Each other's strength and truth of mind, and hence And virtue was the great bond that united To Heaven and virtue, and we both resign'd With sorrow that its chords were forced to fail : R. |