“Button had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's family, who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a coffee-house on the south side of Russell Street, about two doors from Covent Garden. Here it was that the wits of that time used to assemble. It is said that when Addison had suffered any vexation from the Countess, he withdrew the company from Button's house.
“From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late and drank too much wine.”—Dr. Johnson.
Will's coffee-house was on the west side of Bow Street, and “corner of Russell Street”. See Handbook of London.
LORD BOLINGBROKE TO THE THREE YAHOOS OF TWICKENHAM.
“July 23, 1726.
“Jonathan, Alexander, John, most excellent Triumvirs Of Parnassus,—
“Though you are probably very indifferent where I am, or what I am doing, yet I resolve to believe the contrary. I persuade myself that you have sent at least fifteen times within this fortnight to Dawley farm, and that you are extremely mortified at my long silence. To relieve you, therefore, from this great anxiety of mind, I can do no less than write a few lines to you; and I please myself beforehand with the vast pleasure which this epistle must needs give you. That I may add to this pleasure, and give further proofs of my beneficent temper, I will likewise inform you, that I shall be in your neighbourhood again, by the end of next week: by which time I hope that Jonathan's imagination of business will be succeeded by some imagination more becoming a professor of that divine science, la bagatelle. Adieu. Jonathan, Alexander, John, mirth be with you!”
“Arbuthnot was the son of an episcopal clergyman in Scotland, and belonged to an ancient and distinguished Scotch family. He was educated at Aberdeen; and, coming up to London—according to a Scotch practice often enough alluded to—to make his fortune—first made himself known by ‘an examination of Dr. Woodward's account of the Deluge’. He became physician, successively to Prince George of Denmark and to Queen Anne. He is usually allowed to have been the most learned, as well as one of the most witty and humorous members of the Scriblerus Club. The opinion entertained of him by the humourists of the day is abundantly evidenced in their correspondence. When he found himself in his last illness, he wrote thus, from his retreat at Hampstead, to Swift:
“Hampstead, Oct. 4, 1734.
“My Dear and Worthy Friend,—