Star.
London, England, 1826-01-21 00:00:00

COFFEE HOUSES.

Coffee-houses began to supersede the use of truss and
Taverns, as places of public entertainment, about this
period. Aubrey, io his "Lives," speaking of Sir Henry
Blount, one of the fashionables of Charles the Second's
day, tells us, « wheu coffee first came in he was a great
upholder of it, and had ever since been a constant fre-
quenter of Coffee-houses, especially Mr. F.trre's at the
Rainbow, by Inner Temple gate, and lately Joho's
Coffee-house, in Fuller's Rents ;" and adds, " the first
Coffee-house in London was in St. Michael's alley,
Cornhill, opposite to the Church, which was sett up by
one Bowman (coachman to Mr. Hodges, a Turkey
merchant, who put him upon it), in or about the year
1652. 'Twos about four years before any other was sett
up, and that was by Mr. Farre. Jonathan Poynter,
opposite to Sr. Michael's Church, was the first appren-
tice to the trade, viz. to Bowman. Mem. The Bognio
in Newgate-street, was built and first opened in 1679,
by a company of Turkish merchants."
Coffee, he informs us in his Memoir of the great Dr.
Harvey, had been previously used both by him and his
brother. " I remember he was wont to drink coffee,
which he and his -brother Eliab did, before Coffee-
houses were in fashion in London."

M4ckay, in his Journey through England, gives the
following entertaining account of the Chocolate a. d
Coffee-houses of the metropoiis in 1724, and the different
sorts of company by which they were then, acc.,rding
to their kinds, usually frequented :-
811 am lodged in the street called Pall-mall, the ordi-
nary residence of all strangers, because of its vicinity to
the King's Palace, the Park, the Parliament House, the
Theatres, aad the Chocolate and the Coffee-houses,
where the best company frequent. If you would know
our manner of living, it is thuss—we rise by nine, and
those that frequent great men's levees find entertain-
ment at them till eleven, or, as in Holland, go to tea-
tables. About twelve the beau monde assembles in seve-
ral Chocolate and Coffee-houses, the best of which are
the Cocoa Tree and White's Chocolate-houses, St. James's,
the &nyrna, and the British Coffee houses, and all these
so near one another, that in less than an hour you see
the company in them all. We are carried to these places
in cha;rs (or sedans), which are here very chea?. nett:,
at White's, you are entertained at picket or bas,et, or
you may talk politics at the Smyrna or St. Janicis. I
must not forget to tell you that the patties have then'
different places, where, however, a stranger is always
well received, but a IVhig will no more go to the Cocoa-
lt) ee or Uzinda's, tban a Tory will be seen at the Coffee-
house of Si. James's.

" The Scots go generally to the British, and a mix-
ture of all sorts to the Smyrna. There are other little
Coffee-houses much frequented, in this neighbourhood.
Young•man's for officers, uld-inaa's for stock jobbers,
paymasters and courtiers ; and Little min's for sharpers.
I never was co confounded in my life as when I entered
this last: 1 saw two or three tables full at faro, heard
the box and slice rattling in the ro )m above stairs, and
was surrounded by a set of sharp-faces, that I was afraid
would have devoured me with their eyes. Iss as glad
to drop two or three half crowns at faro, to get off
with a clear skin, and was overjoyed 1 had so got rid
of them.

After the play is over of a night, the best company
genet ally go to Tom's and Will's Coffee-houses, nearly
adjoining the theatres, where there is p!aying at picket,
and the best conve:sation till midnight. Here you will
see blue and green tibboas and stars, sitting familiarly
with p:ivate Gentlemen, and talking with the same
freedom, as if they had left their quail y and degrees of
Distance at home, and a strangtr tastes with pleasu e
the universal liberty of speech of the English nati,n.
And in ail the Coffee-houses you have not only the
foreign et juts, but sevei al E %fish ones, with the foreign
occurrences, besides pipets of morality and patty
disputes.

4 The Royal Exchange is the resoit of all the trading
part of this city, toseign and domestic, from half an
hour after one, until neatly three in the afternoon; but
the better sots generally noel in Exctiange alley a little
befote, at three celebrated Coffee-houses. called Garra-
tufty's, Robins's, and Jonathan's. In the first, the ;senile
of quality, who have business in the city, and the most
considerable and wealthy citizens frequ,ut. In die
second, the foreign bankers, and often even foreign
Ministers. And in the third, the buyers and sellers
of stock."

al When I entered into this last, I was afraid I had
got into Little•man's Coffee house again ; for busy faces
ran about here as there, with ihe same sharp intent
looks, with the d fference only, that here it is selling of
Bank Stock, East India, South Sea, and Lottety
TickAs; and there it is all cards and dice. You will see a
fellow in shabby clothes selling ten or twelve thousand
pounds in Stock, though perhaps he may not be worth
at the s ime time, ten shillings, and with as much zeal
as if he were a Director, which they call yelling a bear-
skin ; and these often find bubb:e, e.ouill) to get Brea
by it, as the others do by gaming, and some of them
manage it sr? as to get pretty large estates."
Or, the occasion of soliciting a subscription for the
rd ef of Mrs. Clark,the aged and only surviving daugh-
ter of Milton, in 1727, a writer recommending liberal
contributions, draws the following distinction between
White's Chocolate-house in Pall•mall, and Tom's
Coff.e.hnuse, in Cornhill:

" At White's we see not'ing but what wears the
mask at least of gaiety and pleasure; powder and em-
broidery are the ornaments of the place. Conversation
is not known here; the inquiries alter news turn chiefly
upon what happened last night at the Groom Porter's.
The business of the place is to promote som? musical
subscription; to make all possible court to some young
man of quality, that is next expected to take possession
of a great estate; and to take cote to be very well with
a knot of well-dressed people that meet heie, ani
modestly call themselves 1 he Woad. At Tom's Coffee-
house, there is a very different face of things. Plenty,
the parent of Cheerfulness, seems to have fixed her resi-
dence on this spot I while Joy, which is the offspring of
Folly, seems to be utterly unknown. Industry, the
first principle of a citizen, is an infallit•le specific to
keep the spirits awake, and prevent that stagnation and
corruption o: humours which make our fine Gentlemen
such horrible torments to one another and to them-
selves. Decency in dress is finery enough in a place
where they are taught from their childhood to expect
no honours from what they seem to be, but from what
they really are. The conversation turns chiefly on the
interests of Europe, in which they themselves were
principally concerned ; and the business here is to en-
large the commerce of their country, by which the
public is to gain much more than the merchant him-
self. Of their generous principles, I need only g've an
instance; it is, that in this place was first projected the

sub,ciipti .n tnr the relief of the sightless old age o'
daughter."
The character of Tom King's Coffets.house in Covent-garden,
and the sort of company who frequented it about 1735, is satiri-
cally hinted at in some lines iii " A Covent-garden Eclogue" of
the time:

" The watch bad cry'd past one with hollow strain,
And to tilt ir stolid; returned to sleep again;
Jephson's and Mitchell's hurry now was done,
And now Tbns King's (so rakes ordain'd) begun
Bright shene the moon, and calm around the sky,
Ne cinder-wench, nor straggling link-boy nigh,
When in that garden, where with mimic power
Strut the mock-purple heroes of an hour;
Where by grave matrons cabbages are sold,
Who all the live-long day drink gin ant! scald," atc.,

Hogarth has introduced a view of this receptacle of vice, and Its
intemperate company, in the print of Marniug, in his Four Times of
the Day. Its successor, on the same spot, is what has been very
appropriately termed " the Finials."
The Coffee-houses of London, which have become extremely
numerous since this period, are no longer distinguished, as in Emitter
times, for the meeting of particular sets of company—if we except
Garraway's, and some of the old one, mentioned in the City—and
consequently have nothing peculiar in their character worth re-
marking. Of the ancient taverns in the metropolis, a few noticed
by Stowe are yet in existence. Others, though the buildings are
partly standing, are occupi:d in different trades, as is the Boar's
Head, in Rastcheap. The oldest Inn is the Talbot, or Tabard, in
the Borough, noticed by Chaucer as the place from which himself
and the nine and twenty pilgrims started on their way to Canter-
bury, in the reign of Richard 11. and to commemorate which
event, there has lately been a new sign put up in the inn yard.