"While misty night, with silent pace,
Steals gradual o'er the wanton chase."
There is something very romantic in prowling the streets of the metropolis at midnight, in quest of adventure; at least, so my companions insisted, and I had embarked too deeply in the night's debauch to moralize upon its consequences. How many a sober-looking face demure when morning dawns would blush to meet the accusing spirit of the night, dressed out in all the fantasies of whim and eccentricity with which the rosy god of midnight revelry clothes his laughter-loving bacchanals—
"While sleep attendant at her drowsy fane,
Parent of ease, envelopes all your train!"
The lamentations of old Crony brought to mind the complaints of honest Jack Falstaff against his associates. "There is no truth in villanous man!" said our monitor. "I remember when a gentleman might have reeled round the environs of Covent Garden, in and out of every establishment, from the Bedford to Mother Butlers, without having his pleasures broken in upon by the irruptions of Bow-street mohawks, or his person endangered by any association he chose to mix with; but we are returning to the times of the Roundheads and the Puritans; cant, vile hypocritical cant, has bitten the ear of authority, and the great officers of the state are infected with the Jesuitical mania.
'Man is a ship that sails with adverse winds,
And has no haven till he land at death.
Then, when he thinks his hands fast grasp the bank,
Conies a rude billow betwixt him and safety,
And beats him back into the deep again.'"
"I subscribe to none of their fooleries," said I; "for I am of the true orthodox—love my king, my girl, my friend, and my bottle: a truce with all their raven croakings; they would overload mortality, and press our shoulders with too great a weight of dismal miseries. But come, my boys, we who have free souls, let us to the banquet, while yet Sol's fiery charioteer lies sleeping at his eastern palace in the lap of Thetis—let us chant carols of mirth to old Jove or bully Mars; and, like chaste votaries, perform our orgies at the shrine of Venus, ere yet Aurora tears aside the curtain that conceals our revels." In this way we rallied our cameleon-selves, until we again found shelter from the dews of night in Carpenter's coffee-house; a small, but well-conducted place, standing at the east end of the market, which opens between two and three o'clock in the morning, for the accommodation of those who are hourly arriving with waggon loads of vegetable commodities. Here, over a bottle of mulled port, Crony gave us the history of what Covent Garden used to be, when the eminent, the eccentric, and the notorious in every walk of life, were to be found nightly indulging their festivities within its famous precincts. "Covent Garden," said Crony, once so celebrated for its clubs of wits and convents of fine women, is grown as dull as modern Athens, and its ladies of pleasure almost as vulgar as Scotch landladies; formerly, the first beauties of the time assembled every evening under the Piazzas, and promenaded for hours to the soft notes of the dulcet lute, and the silver tongues of amorous and persuasive beaus; then the gay scene partook of the splendour of a Venetian carnival, and such beauties as the Kitten, Peggy Yates, Sally Hall the brunette, Betsy Careless, and the lively Mrs. Stewart, graced the merry throng, with a hundred more, equally famed, whose names are enrolled in the cabinet of Love's votaries. Then there was a celebrated house in Charles-street, called the field of blood, where the droll fellows of the time used nightly to resort, and throw down whole regiments of black artillery; and then at Tom or Moll King's, a coffee-house so called, which stood in the centre of Covent Garden market, at midnight might be found the bucks, bloods, demireps, and choice spirits of London, associated with the most elegant and fascinating Cyprians, congregated with every species of human kind that intemperance, idleness, necessity, or curiosity could assemble together. There you might see Tom King enter as rough as a Bridewell whipper, roaring down the long room and rousing all the sleepers, thrusting them and all who had empty glasses out of his house, setting everything to rights,—when in would roll three or four jolly fellows, claret-cosey, and in three minutes put it all into uproar again; playing all sorts of mad pranks, until the guests in the long room were at battle-royal together; for in those days pugilistic encounters were equally common as with the present times, owing to the celebrity of Broughton and his amphitheatre, where the science of boxing was publicly taught. Then was the Spiller's Head in Clare-market, in great vogue for the nightly assemblage of the wits; there might be seen Hogarth, and Betterton the actor, and Dr. Garth, and Charles Churchill, the first of English satirists, and the arch politician, Wilkes, and the gay Duke of Wharton, and witty Morley, the author of Joe Miller, and Walker, the celebrated Macheath, and the well-known Bab Selby, the oyster-woman, and Fig, the boxer, and old Corins, the clerical attorney.—All "hail, fellow, well met."{6} And a friend of mine has in his possession a most extraordinary picture of Hogarth's, on this subject, which has never yet been engraved from. It is called St. James's Day, or the first day of oysters, and represents the interior of the Spiller's Head in Clare-market, as it then appeared. The principal figures are the gay and dissolute Duke of Wharton, for whom the well-known Bab Selby, the oyster-wench, is opening oysters; Spiller is standing at her back, patting her shoulder; the figure sitting smoking by the side of the duke is a portrait of Morley, the author of Joe Miller; and the man standing behind is a portrait of the well-known attendant on the duke's drunken frolics, Fig, the brother of Fig, the boxer: the person drinking at the bar is Corins, called the parson-attorney, from his habit of dressing in clerical attire; the two persons sitting at the table represent portraits of the celebrated Dr. Garth, and Betterton, the actor; the figures, also, of Walker, the celebrated Macheath, and Lavinia Fenton, the highly-reputed Polly, afterwards Duchess of Bolton, may be recognised in the back-ground.
The circumstances of this picture having escaped the notice of the biographer of Hogarth is by no means singular. Mr. Halls, one of the magistrates at Bow-street, has, among other choice specimens by Hogarth, the lost picture of the Harlot's Progress; the subject telling her fortune by the tea-grounds in her cup, admirably characteristic of the artist and his story. In my own collection I have the original picture of the Fish-Women of Calais, with a view of the market-place, painted on the spot, and as little known as the others to which I have alluded. There are, no doubt, many other equally clever performances of Hogarth's prolific pencil which are not generally known to the public, or have not yet been engraved. in the same neighbourhood, in Russel-court, at the old Cheshire Cheese, the inimitable but dissolute Tom Brown wrote many of his cleverest essays. Then too commenced the midnight revelries and notoriety of the Cider Cellar, in Maiden-lane, when Sim Sloper, Bob Washington, Jemmy Tas well, Totty Wright, and Harry Hatzell, led the way for a whole regiment more of frolic-making beings who, like Falstaff, were not only, witty themselves, but the cause of keeping it alive in others: to these succeeded Porson the Grecian, Captain Thompson, Tom Hewerdine, Sir John Moore, Mr. Edwin, Mr. Woodfall, Mr. Brownlow, Captain Morris, and a host of other highly-gifted men, the first lyrical and political writers of the day,—who frequented the Cider Cellar after the meetings of the Anacreontic, beefsteak, and humbug clubs then held in the neighbourhood, to taste the parting bowl and swear eternal friendship. In later times, Her Majesty the Queen of Bohemia{7} raised her standard in Tavistock-row, Covent Garden, where she held a midnight court for the wits; superintended by the renowned daughter of Hibernia, and maid of honour to her majesty, the facetious Mother Butler—the ever-constant supporter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, esquire, and a leading feature in all the memorable Westminster elections of the last fifty years. How many jovial nights have I passed and jolly fellows have I met in the snug sanctum sanctorum! a little crib, as the fishmongers would call it, with an entrance through the bar, and into which none were ever permitted to enter without a formal introduction and the gracious permission of the hostess. Among those who were thus specially privileged, and had the honour of the entré, were the reporters for the morning papers, the leading members of the eccentrics, the actors and musicians of the two Theatres Royal, merry members of both Houses of
7 The sign of the house.
Parliament, and mad wags of every country who had any established claim to the kindred feelings of genius. Such were the frequenters of the Finish. Here, poor Tom Sheridan, with a comic gravity that set discretion at defiance, would let fly some of his brilliant drolleries at the improvisatore, Theodore Hook; who, lacking nothing of his opponent's wit, would quickly return his tire with the sharp encounter of a satiric epigram or a brace of puns, planted with the most happy effect upon the weak side of his adversary's merriment. There too might be seen the wayward and the talented George Cook, gentlemanly in conduct, and full of anecdote when sober, but ever captious and uproarious in his cups. Then might be heard a strange encounter of expressions between the queen of Covent Garden and the voluptuary, Lord Barrymore,{8} seconded by his brother, the pious Augustus. In one corner might be seen poor Dermody, the poet, shivering with wretchedness, and Mother Butler pleading his cause with a generous feeling that does honour to her heart, collecting for him a temporary supply which, alas! his imprudence generally dissipated with the morrow. Here, George Sutton Manners,{9} and Peter Finnerty,{10} and James Brownly,{11} inspired by frequent potations of the real
8 Designated Cripplegate and Newgate.
9 The relative of the present Archbishop of Canterbury, and
then editor of the Satirist magazine.
10 Peter Finnerty was a reporter on the Chronicle. The his-
tory of Finnerty's political persecutions in his own country
(Ireland), and afterwards in this, are interwoven with our
history. The firmness and honesty of his mind had endeared
him to a very large circle of patriot friends. He was
eloquent, but impetuous, his ideas appearing to flow too
fast for delivery. With all the natural warmth of his
country, he had a heart of sterling gold. Finnerty died
in 1822, very shortly after his friend Perry.
11 James Brownly, formerly a reporter on the Times; of
whom Sheridan said, hearing him speak, that his situation
ought to have been in the body of the House of Commons,
instead of the gallery. Brownly possessed very rare
natural talents, was originally an upholsterer in Catherine-
street, Strand, and by dint of application acquired a very
correct knowledge of the tine arts: he was particularly
skilled in architecture and heraldry. In addition to
his extraordinary powers as an orator, he was a most elegant
critic, and a very amiable man. He died in 1822, much
regretted by all who knew him.