referred, the subject was the propriety of erecting on the ruins of Turkey a united Greece. The Philhellenists came down in great force, and young Greeks, Sophocles and Ionides, and many more screaming at the top of their voices, were there as well. What with the excitement of the subject and what with the excitement of the drink, the whole affair settled into a regular orgie, and the tumult of that night still rings wildly in my ear. Dumbiedikes would have stared at the gift of tongues exhibited on that occasion.
If you admire pot-house oratory, then attend one of these places. The chair is generally taken about nine, and the proceedings close at twelve. A gentleman already agreed on commences the discussion, then the debate is left to drag its slow length along, sometimes giving rise to animated discussions, and at other times being a terrible failure. What is considered the treat of the evening is generally something of this sort—An indifferent speaker, perhaps a stranger, gets up and makes a short speech, which brings up one of the old seasoned debaters, great in his own eyes and in those of almost every one present. I assure you he is down upon
the modest debutant in fine style, making mincemeat of his facts, and ridiculing his logic. The easier his work is, the more does he labour at it. The audience frantically applaud, and the orator, as he sits down, evidently thinks Brougham could not have slashed an opponent in better style. The gravity of these speakers is really amusing. Did they speak the language of millions—did principles of eternal import dwell upon their tongue—did nations breathlessly wait for their decisions—did they shake the arsenal and fulmine over Greece—they could not set about their work in a more determined manner. And Jones, from his tremendous castigation of Palmerston, or fierce diatribe against Lord John, will sneak off quietly to his back garret in Pentonville, just as we can imagine Diocletian abandoning an empire to plant cabbages at Salone. It is clear some of the speakers are naturally good orators; but the regular stagers have a seedy appearance, and that peculiar redness of the nose or soddenness of the skin which indicates the drinker; and if you go much, you will find a paper with five-shilling subscriptions, and you will be asked to give your name, for the benefit of some prominent debater whose affairs do not
seem to have prospered, in spite of their master’s matchless powers of oratory. The truth is, the money has been spent here in drink that was required elsewhere, and wife and children have starved at home while the orator was declaiming against Despotism abroad. I fear the only class benefited by these discussions are the landlords, who point to their door and whisper in your ears; Admission gratis. Yes, that is true; but the egress, ah, there’s the rub! It is that for which you must pay, and pay handsomely, too, as hundreds of poor fellows have found to their cost.
THE CYDER CELLARS.
In the days of the gay and graceless Charles, Bow-street was the Bond-street of London. In the taverns of that quarter were the true homes and haunts of the British poets. That they were much better for all their drinking and worship of the small hours, I more than doubt. Pope tried the pace, but found it killing, and had the wisdom to go and live at Twickenham, and cease to play the part of a man about town. Describing Addison’s life at this period, he says, “He usually studied all the morning, then met his party at Button’s, and dined there, and stayed there five or six hours, and sometimes far into the night. I was of the company for about a year, but found it too much for me. I hurt my health, and so I quitted it.” But the wits died off, and Tom’s, Will’s, Button’s became desolate, and in their place the Cyder Cellars grew famous.
You know Maiden-lane, where an old hair-dresser
had a son born to him, who, under the name of Turner, won his way to the first rank amongst English painters,—where Voltaire, “so witty, profligate, and thin,” lodged at the house of a French peruke-maker, and corresponded with Swift, and Pope, and the other literary men of the times,—where Fielding laid the foundation of an eternal fame,—where Andrew Marvell refused courtly bribes, and in sublime poverty proudly picked his mutton-bone: there, some long time since, stood a mansion, the residence, in a green old age, of that Nell Gwynne of whom, with a strange perversity, the world speaks as kindly as if she were a Grace Darling, or a Florence Nightingale, or a Margaret Fuller, or an Elizabeth Fry. A portion of the old house still remains, with its ancient wainscotting. Well, on the site of this mansion was, and is, the Cyder Cellars, the oldest house of its class in London, actually referred to in a rare pamphlet now extant in the British Museum, entitled “Adventures Under-ground in the Year 1750.” In those days to drink deep was deemed a virtue, and the literary class, after the exhausting labours of the day, loved nothing better than to sit soaking all night in the Cyder Cellars,
where all restraints were thrown on one aide,—where the song was sung and the wine was quaffed, and men were fools enough to think they were getting happy when they were only getting drunk. I can understand why the wits went to the Cyder Cellars then. Few of them lived in a style in which they would like to receive their friends. In a place like the Cyder Cellars they could meet after the theatres were closed, and the occupations of the day over, and sup and talk and drink with more freedom than in any private house; and no doubt many were the ingenuous youths who went to the Cyder Cellars to see the learned Mr. Bayle, or the great Grecian Porson, or the eminent tragedian Mr. Edmund Kean, and thought it a fine thing to view those distinguished men maudlin, or obscene, or blasphemous, over their cups. But the wits do not go to the Cyder Cellars now. Even the men about town do not go there much. I remember when that dismal song, “Sam Hall,” was sung—a song in which a wretch is supposed to utter all the wretchedness in his soul, all his sickness of life, all his abhorrence of mankind, as he was on his way to Tyburn drop. Horrible as the song was—revolting
as it was to all but blazé men, the room was crammed to suffocation,—it was impossible often to get a seat, and you might have heard a pin drop. Where are the crowds that listened to that song? My own companion—where is he? A finer young man, with richer promise, I knew not. He had a generous disposition, a taste for study, and was blessed with the constitution of a horse; he had received a liberal education; his morals had been carefully attended to; his parents were people of large property, and this son I always deemed his mother’s favourite son; and now in his very prime, when he might have been a blessing to society, when in his successful professional career his parents might have reaped a reward, when the heart of some loving, tender, trusting woman might have joyed in his love, when fair young children, calling him father, might have clustered round his knees, he is dying, I am told, before their very eyes, slowly, and with agony, from the terrible effects of drink. And does it not really seem as if there were a curse attaching to those connected with the trade? A week or two since, had you been passing down Bridges-street into the Strand late on a Saturday night, or early on a Sunday