Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-02-17
TAVERNS, OLD AND NEW
characteristics of Life in the Old English
Coffee House.
Comparison With Modern Clubs and
Hotels With Their Up-to-Dats
Appointments.


says Walter Mapcs whose famous drinkfnr,
song, though meant originally as a satire
on the mediaeval clergy, has been adopted
oS genera tons OF topers for Goo years In
deed, as tavern life existed once upon a
ume- there was always a good chance that
d lover of ii might come to a bad end-or
good one, as it might be-in a public
mouse, though not in the sense intended by
the Latin lyrist. Some of these most ia
nous duels in the days when single combat
hourished arose out of tavern brawls.
When the wine was in the sword was out
as well as the wit. But in these degenerate
uayS neither cold steel nor hot punch is as
Hluch IN request as they both were I'm Ih,,
age OF chivalry, which, if We are to accep;
revolution.
1t was practically brought to an end
through the multiplication Of clubs, which
nave had good deal to do with the decline
OF heavy drinking by creating taste f,r
more refined surroundings than the best of
taNerns ever pretended to afford and by
providing ways of spending the evening
without sitting for hours in a stuffy littl,.
box- But though We may have no wish 10
restore the old system, it has its interesting
siue-the charm, that is, arising from its
close connection with so many distinguished
men OF letters, and from its representing a
phase of social life in which men of an
GINS anu classes-authors, actors, soldiers,
peers, lawyers, parsons-met together upon
common ground, without any of the exclu-
sNeness winch In some respects distin-
CUISINES contemporary manners Grub
street and st. James Street If they did
not exactly kiss each other occsSionaII,r
we should imagine, lay down together and
lne humorous or tragic situations the
strong contrasts and vivid colors to which
TINS curious medley gave birth imparts even
10 tne second-rate essayists and dramatists
OF the period an interest which their liter
airy merit alone would scarcely have So
cured Tor them. 1t is often said that con-
Nersauon is a lost art-with what truth we
VIII not undertake to decide-but though, III
IS py no means dependent on tavern society
Tor Its cultivation, both the tavern and the
Gomez house obviously did much to encour-
age H. The two Were not ALWAYS identical
though in time they became So Some cof-
lee houses were taverns, and some taverns
were coffee houses, but down 10 the end of
t sie Iast century distinction was kept up
between them, with which however we
nave long ceased to be familiar
Inc coffee house was a morning lounge
Men went there really to drink coffee and
business over their tobacco II was here
that friends met one another to make mn
their party for dinner, for which they adj
1ourned to the tavern, and sometimes came
pack again afterward. Addison and his
party, however, when once they had sat
down at Buttons, generally remained there
Tor the rest of the evening. The system
lasted long after Addson's time The cot
described in the Spectator, was still 10 he
found in Cumberand's day. and toward
the end of George lis reign the Cnyent
Garden coffee houses prided themselves on
keeping up the Augustan traditions. though
according to Colman-they were bur very
degenerate representatives of their classi,
predecessors. But the tavern and tavern
life still hOurished in unabated yieor down
to within living memory. The Bedford the
Rose, the Grecian, Dicks. the Cock the
Mitre and the Cheshire Cheese are All to
be met with in the literature of the eigh-
teenth century and the first half of the
nineteenth. The customers who SUMMARIZED
them came mostly from a class the mem
bers OF which now dine regularly at West
End clubs, but who then had nowhere but
a Covent Garden or Fleet street tavern to
take their meals. Johnson, of course is
the great luminary who sheds luster on the
tavern dinner.
When we think of this as it was more
than a century ago, We naturally think of
him. Could Jornson and Cowper. in Cow
per's early days, have been brought To-
gether at the Mitre, the talk would have
been worth listening to. Cowper, who had
chambers in the Temple from 1852 to lTI3
used" Dicks, and 1t is no great stretch
OF imagination to suppose that he was often
Joined there at dinner by Colman. BonneIl.
Thornton, Lloyd, and even, perhaps by
Lloyd's friend, Churchill. Dicks, now ex-
tinct, continued to be the resort of Tenn
plars and men of letters down to thirty
years ago, and. perhaps, the genuine old
tavern life of London, as known to John
son, Fielding and their contemporaries
was last seen there. There are capital
chop houses and restaurants still 10 be
found in London, some bearing old and
honored names, but none of them quite cor
responding to the tavern when il stood
in place of the club, and men like Tenny-
son and Thackeray dined, drank and spent
the evening there. That particular form of
conyiviality is now extinct, so far as con-
Germs the class Of men in question There
are plenty of literary and other clubs which
still meet in taverns; but they have their
own rooms, and only meet at intervals. To
the man in chambers, who had to dine at
a tavern every day when he was not asked
out, the system presented itself in quite a
different light. The coffee room became a
kind of home to him, and the walters were
like his own servants. At most of these
houses in their prosperous days the cook
cry was fairly good. They did not offer
you the kind of dinner which is now set
before you at the fashionable West End
restaurant-that was not their way. But
what you did get was of the best: and
at almost all of them there was good port
wine in the cellar, if you could persuade
the landlord 10 bring it out.
Such was the old life. Men now middle
aged just witnessed its departing fringe
1t had a certain joviality and sociability
the loss of which was, perhaps not too
high price to pay for the more orderly
and temperate mode of life which has
succeeded ii. But what must chiefly have
recommended the old tavern TO its habi-
tues was the complete independence and
freedom which secured them. Even in
the most easy-going West End clubs a
man cannot do exactly as he likes. John
son, of course, could only compare q tav-
ern and a private house. But in a modi-
fled degree his dictum holds good of a tav-
ern and a club, too. No man, he saws,
Unless gifted with an unusual share of i'm
pudence, can use another mans house as
his own. Nor can he use his cluN with the
same degree of freedom. He is surrounded
by certain invisible and unwritten conyen-
tional limitations, which he cannot trans
greSs without making himself disagreeably
conspicuous. In a tavern he could do Just
as he liked; sit in box by himself If he
chose, smoking and drinking till . o'clock
il the morning or till the house shut up,
without a waiter even looking at him. ex-
cept when he renewed his liquor. Parties
of three or four could do just the same,
and often did. We are far from saying that
this was desirable practice or calculated
to keep mans body in the condition pre-
scribed by the catechism. We only give It
as specimen of THE genial license" per-
mitted in these ancient hostelries
Any one who seriously applauds 1t stands
in need of the petition of Walter Mapes
aforesaid. Deus sit propitius huic potatori.
thus Englished by Father Prout, '-God be
merciful to a soul of this gentleman's way
of thinking" But IL the license of tavern