Lived Here
B. 1709. D. 1784.
CHAPTER IX
THE “CHEESE” AND ITS FARE—A GREAT FALL IN PUDDING
Resurgam.
La découverte d’un mets nouveau fait plus pour le bonheur du genre humain que la découverte d’une étoile.—Brillat-Savarin.
If, as Brillat-Savarin says, the discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star, how much more deserving of human gratitude is the discoverer of the “Cheese” pudding than a Herschel or an Adams?
The Sportsman of March 30, 1887, has a long and eulogistic article on the “Cheese,” but exigencies of space preclude its being quoted in its entirety. The writer says: “Happily the most famous of London ancient taverns is left to us in the Old Cheshire Cheese, which is yet nightly haunted by the shade of Dr. Johnson, whose modern prototypes still enjoy their steaks and punch, and discuss politics, polemics, and plays, though they wear short hair and masher collars instead of full-bottomed wigs and ruffles.
“The ‘Old C.C.’ is a retiring, respectable, very conservative, and hoary-headed aristocrat of the bygone school. Changes are made with a very rebellious spirit, and the introduction of a patent American machine for squeezing lemons savoured so much of modern progress that its appearance nearly raised a riot amongst the patrons of the sawdust-strewed bar. The ‘Cheese’ has no glaring front, nor does it invite custom by acres of plate glass, glittering gasaliers, or gorgeous frescoes. A modest representation of a cheese in dingy glass does duty for a sign, so far as the street of Fleet is concerned. The house has its school of customers, who look upon it as a species of club, without the expense of entrance fee. How old the original edifice was I am not prepared to say, but I notice by an ancient sideboard that it was rebuilt in 1667.