Mrs. Barbauld informs us, that having spent the evening with Oxford, Bolingbroke, Pope, and Swift, he would go to Long Acre and there drink a bottle of ale with a common soldier and his wife. Thus does the dog return to his vomit. Swift has left us a lively picture of manners in his descriptive breakfast with my Lady Smart at 11 a.m. Lord Smart, who was absent at the levee, returns to dinner at 3 p.m. to receive the guests. Seven of them dined, and were joined by a country baronet, who had no appetite, having already eaten a beefsteak and drunk two mugs of ale, besides a tankard of March beer when he got up in the morning. They drank claret, which the host said should always be drunk after fish, and my Lord Smart particularly recommended some cider to my Lord Sparkish. When the host called for wine, he nodded to one or other of his guests, and said, ‘Tom Neverout, my service to you.’ After the first course came pudding. Wine and small beer were drunk during this second course.... After the puddings came the third course.... Beer and wine were freely imbibed during this course, the gentlemen always pledging somebody with every glass which they drank.... After the goose, some of the gentlemen took a dram of brandy. Dinner ended, Lord Smart bade the butler bring up the great tankard full of October to Sir John. The great tankard was passed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth; but when pressed by the noble host upon the gallant Tom Neverout, he said, ‘No faith, my lord, I like your wine, and won’t put a churl upon a gentleman. Your honour’s claret is good enough for me.’ The cloth removed, a bottle of Burgundy was set down, of which the ladies were invited to partake before they went to tea. When they left, fresh bottles were brought, the ‘dead men’—meaning the empty bottles—removed, and ‘D’you hear, John? bring clean glasses,’ my Lord Smart said. On which the Colonel said, ‘I’ll keep my glass; for wine is the best liquor to wash glasses in.’
It was at this time that the works were published of one who was at once the creature and exponent of the times, Edward (better known as Ned) Ward. Campbell observes that ‘his works give a complete picture of the mind of a vulgar but acute cockney. His sentiment is the pleasure of eating and drinking.’[197] Ward possessed two qualifications for his depiction of manners; he was a tavern-keeper, and a poet. At any rate his doggerel secured him notice in the Dunciad. His Secret History of Clubs is the authority for that kind of life at the beginning of the eighteenth century. His London Spy describes the coffee-houses of the day:—‘In we went (says he), where a parcel of muddling muckworms were as busy as so many rats in an old cheese-loft; some going; some coming; some scribbling, some talking, some drinking, some smoking, others jangling; and the whole room stinking of tobacco, like a Dutch scoot or a boatswain’s cabin.’
Some of the famous taverns are also described in this work, such as the ‘Angel’ in Fenchurch Street, ‘where the vintner, like a double-dealing citizen, condescended as well to draw carman’s comfort, as the consolatory juice of the vine.’ The ‘Rose,’ in the Poultry, has gained a reputation:—‘There in a snug room, warmed with brash and faggot, over a quart of good claret, we laughed over our night’s adventure.’
Convivial life at the Universities may find its illustration in the person of Bentley.
The following is told about Lord Cartaret and Bentley, in Monk’s Life of Bentley, vol. ii. p. 324 (2nd edit. 1833).
Lord Cartaret was a great scholar, and, being an old Westminster boy, especially fond of Terence, which Dr. Bentley had edited. Kippis relates this anecdote, in the Biographia Britannica, vol. ii. p. 280:—
Dr. Bentley, when he came to town, was accustomed, in his visits to Lord Cartaret, sometimes to spend the evenings with his lordship. One day old Lady Granville reproached her son with keeping the country clergyman, who was with him the night before, till he was intoxicated. Lord Cartaret denied the charge; upon which the lady replied that the clergyman could not have sung in so ridiculous a manner unless he had been in liquor. The truth of the case was, that the singing thus mistaken by her ladyship was Dr. Bentley’s endeavour to instruct and entertain his noble friend by reciting Terence according to the true cantilena of the ancients.
Kippis, however, ought not to have called Lord Cartaret’s mother Lady Granville, as her son was the first Lord Granville, to which title he was not yet appointed. She was the Dowager Lady Cartaret.
Bentley himself ‘is stated to have been an admirer of good port wine, while he thought contemptuously of claret, which, he said, “would be port if it could.”’[198]