The carcase of Robinson Crusoe."
He was a bacchanalian customer at the Salutation, and his nightly quantum of wine was liberal: he would sometimes take eight pints at a sitting, without being the least intoxicated.
THE CONSTITUTION TAVERN, COVENT GARDEN.
In Bedford-street, near St. Paul's church-gate, was an old tavern, the Constitution (now rebuilt), noted as the resort of working men of letters, and for its late hours; indeed, the sittings here were perennial. Among other eccentric persons we remember to have seen here, was an accomplished scholar named Churchill, who had travelled much in the East, smoked and ate opium to excess, and was full of information. Of another grade were two friends who lived in the same house, and had for many years "turned night into day;" rising at eight o'clock in the evening, and going to bed at eight next morning. They had in common some astrological, alchemical, and spiritual notions, and often passed the whole night at the Constitution. This was the favourite haunt of Wilson, the landscape-painter, who then lived in the Garden; he could, at the Constitution, freely indulge in a pot of porter, and enjoy the fun of his brother-painter, Mortimer, who preferred this house, as it was near his own in Church-passage.
THE CIDER CELLAR.
This strange place, upon the south side of Maiden-lane, Covent Garden, was opened about 1730, and is described as a "Midnight Concert Room," in Adventures Underground, 1750. Professor Porson was a great lover of cider, the patronymic drink for which the cellar was once famed; it became his nightly haunt, for wherever he spent the evening, he finished the night at the Cider Cellar. One night, in 1795, as he sat here smoking his pipe, with his friend George Gordon, he abruptly said, "Friend George, do you think the widow Lunan an agreeable sort of personage, as times go?" Gordon assented. "In that case," replied Porson, "you must meet me to-morrow morning at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, at eight o'clock;" and without saying more, Porson paid his reckoning, and went home. Next morning, Gordon repaired to the church, and there found Porson with Mrs. Lunan and a female friend, and the parson waiting to begin the ceremony. The service being ended, the bride and her friend retired by one door of the church, and Porson and Gordon by another. The bride and bridegroom dined together with friends, but after dinner Porson contrived to slip away, and passed the rest of the day with a learned friend, and did not leave till the family were about to retire for the night, when Porson adjourned to the Cider Cellar, and there stayed till eight o'clock next morning. One of his companions here is said to have shouted before Porson, "Dick can beat us all: he can drink all night and spout all day," which greatly pleased the Professor.
We remember the place not many years after Porson's death, when it was, as its name implied, a cellar, and the fittings were rude and rough: over the mantelpiece was a large mezzotint portrait of Porson, framed and glazed, which we take to be the missing portrait named by the Rev. Mr. Watson, in his Life of the Professor. The Cider Cellar was subsequently enlarged; but its exhibitions grew to be too sensational for long existence.