Most of the great names of eighteenth-and nineteenth-century England may be found in these old ledgers. David Garrick and Inigo Jones were customers, and so were my Lord Halifax, Lady Shrewsbury and the Duchess of Grafton. Beau Brummell’s accounts lie, cheek by jowl as he would have them, with those of the Earl of Dorchester and the Duke of Bedford, and the long array of famous names of men and women to be found in the yellowing papers might well have served as a list of guests present at any brilliant political function of the time.
The snuff-taking of those days has passed with the lace jabots and the silk knee-breeches, but the fashion died hard, and so recent a figure as Lord Russell of Killowen was one of the last of the famous snuff-takers. The twentieth century turns up its nose at what it calls a disgusting habit, yet it had its graces and was responsible for the creation of the beautiful boxes and bottles now treasured as heirlooms.
The actual owners of this fascinating shop have carried on the business in their family
THE OLD SNUFF HOUSE, 34 ST. JAMES’ HAYMARKET
since 1780, when the founder, M. Fribourg, retired. One of the present partners, Mr. George Evans, has written a delightful monograph on the Old Snuff House of Fribourg and Treyer, “At the Rasp and Crown, at the upper End of the Haymarket, London.” It is a charming book, filled with illustrations and reminiscences of the leisurely days before the arrival of the departmental store, when an old-established firm had time to have intimate courtly relations with its customers.
What Lord Petersham could now change his mind and return 216 pounds of anything and be urbanely credited with £75 12s.; and do grateful customers now make presents of gold-lined amboyna snuff boxes to mark their satisfaction?
If they do, I am as ignorant of the fact as the ordinary pedestrian of the historical interest of the unnoticed shop he passes daily on his way to Piccadilly Circus.