In the last century, when public amusements were comparatively few, and citizens dwelt in town, the Globe in Fleet-street was noted for its little clubs and card-parties. Here was held, for a time, the Robin Hood Club, a Wednesday Club, and later, Oliver Goldsmith and his friends often finished their Shoemaker's Holiday by supping at the Globe. Among the company was a surgeon, who, living on the Surrey side of the Thames (Blackfriars Bridge was not then built), had to take a boat every night, at 3_s._ or 4_s._ expense, and the risk of his life; yet, when the bridge was built, he grumbled at having a penny to pay for crossing it. Other frequenters of the Globe were Archibald Hamilton, "with a mind fit for a lord chancellor;" Carnan, the bookseller, who defeated the Stationers' Company upon the almanac trial; Dunstall, the comedian; the veteran Macklin; Akerman, the keeper of Newgate, who always thought it most prudent not to venture home till daylight; and William Woodfall, the reporter of the parliamentary debates. Then there was one Glover, a surgeon, who restored to life a man who had been hung in Dublin, and who ever after was a plague to his deliverer. Brasbridge, the silversmith of Fleet-street, was a frequenter of the Globe. In his eightieth year he wrote his _Fruits of Experience_, full of pleasant gossip about the minor gaieties of St. Bride's. He was more fond of following the hounds than his business, and failure was the ill consequence: he tells of a sporting party of four--that he and his partner became bankrupt; the third, Mr. Smith, became Lord Mayor; and the fourth fell into poverty, and was glad to accept the situation of patrol before the house of his Lordship, whose associate he had been only a few years before. Smith had 100,000_l._ of bad debts on his books, yet died worth one-fourth of that sum. We remember the Globe, a handsomely-appointed tavern, some forty years since; but it has long ceased to be a tavern. THE DEVIL TAVERN. This celebrated Tavern is described in the present work, Vol. I., pp. 10-15, as the meeting-place of the Apollo Club. Its later history is interesting.