Mr. Gliddon’s Cigar Divan.
King Street, Covent Garden.
Our readers, whom, between ourselves, and without flattery, we take to be as social a set of persons as can be, people of an impartial humanity, and able to relish whatever concerneth a common good, whether a child’s story or a man’s pinch of snuff, (for snuff comes after knowledge,) doubtless recollect the famous tale of the Barmecide and his imaginary dinner in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. We hereby invite them to an imaginary cigar and cup of coffee with us in a spot scarcely less oriental—to wit, our friend Gliddon’s Divan in King-street. Not that our fictitious enjoyment is to serve them instead of the real one. Quite the contrary; our object being to advance the good of all parties,—of our readers, inasmuch as they are good fellows in their snuffs,—of our friend, who can supply them in a manner different from any body else,—and of ourselves, because the subject is a pleasant one, and brings us all together agreeably. Those who have the greatest relish for things real, have also the best taste of them in imagination. We confess, that for our private eating (for a cigar, with coffee, may truly be said to be meat and drink to us) we prefer a bower with a single friend; but for public smoking, that is to say, for smoking with a greater number of persons, or in a coffee-room, especially now that the winter is coming on, and people cannot sit in bowers without boots, commend us to the warmth, and luxury, and conspiracy of comforts, in the Cigar Divan.
In general, the room is occupied by individuals, or groups of individuals, sitting apart at their respective little mahogany tables, and smoking, reading, or talking with one another in a considerate undertone, in order that nobody may be disturbed. But on the present occasion we will have the room to ourselves, and talk as we please. In the East it is common to see dirty streets and poor looking houses, and on being admitted into the interior of one of them, to find yourself in a beautiful room, noble with drapery, and splendid with fountains and gilded trellices. We do not mean to compare King-street with a street in Bagdad or Constantinople. We have too much respect for that eminent thoroughfare, clean in general, and classical always; where you cannot turn, but you meet recollections of the Drydens and Hogarths. The hotel next door to the Divan is still the same as in Hogarth’s picture of the Frosty Morning; and looking the other way, you see Dryden coming out of Rose Alley to spend his evening at the club in Russell-street. But there is mud and fog enough this weather to render the contrast between any thoroughfare and a carpeted interior considerable; and making due allowance for the palace of an effendi and the premises of a tradesman, a person’s surprise would hardly be greater, certainly his comfort not so great, in passing from the squalidness of a Turkish street into the gorgeous but suspicious wealth of the apartment of a pasha, as in slipping out of the mud, and dirt, and mist, and cold, and shudder, and blinking misery of an out-of-door November evening in London, into the oriental and carpeted warmth of Mr. Gliddon’s Divan. It is pleasant to think, what a number of elegant and cheerful places lurk behind shops, and in places where nobody would expect them. Mr. Gliddon’s shop is a very respectable one; but nobody would look for the saloon beyond it; and it seems in good oriental keeping, and a proper sesame, when on touching a door in the wall, you find yourself in a room like an eastern tent, the drapery festooned up around you, and views exhibited on all sides of mosques, and minarets, and palaces rising out of the water.
But here we are inside ourselves. What do you think of it?
B. This is a tent indeed, exactly as you have described it. It seems pitched in the middle of the Ganges or Tigris; for most of the views are in the midst of water.
J. Yes; we might fancy ourselves a party of British merchants, who had purchased a little island in an Eastern gulf, and built themselves a tent on it to smoke in. The scenes, though they have a panoramic effect, are really not panoramic daubs. This noble edifice on the left, touched in that delicate manner with silver, (or is it rather not gold?) unites the reality of architecture built by mortal hands, with the fairy lustre of a palace raised by enchantment. One has a mind to sail to it, and get an adventure.
E. And this on the left. What a fine sombre effect that mountain with a building on it has in the background;—how dark yet aerial! You would have a very solemn adventure there,—nothing under a speaking stone-gentleman, or the loss of your right eye.
O. Well, this snug little corner for me, under the bamboos; two gigantic walking-sticks in leaf! A cup of coffee served by a pretty Hindoo would do very well here; and there is a temple to be religious in, when convenient. ’Tis pleasant to have all one’s luxuries together.
T. If there is any fault, it is in the scene at the bottom of the room, which is perhaps too full of scattered objects. But all is remarkably well done; and as the newspapers have observed, as oriental as any thing in the paintings of Daniel or Hodges.
C. Are you sure we are not all Mussulmen? I begin to think I am a Turk under the influence of opium, who take my turban for a hat, and fancy I’m speaking English. We shall have the sultan upon us presently.