Club Life of London, Vol. 2 (of 2): With Anecdotes of the Clubs, Coffee-Houses and Taverns of the Metropolis During the 17th, 18th, and 19th CenturiesTimbs, John
History
Club Life of London, Vol. 2 (of 2): With Anecdotes of the Clubs, Coffee-Houses and Taverns of the Metropolis During the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries
Timbs, John
Clubs -- England -- London; Literary landmarks -- England -- London; London (England) -- Social life and customs
Here is another picture of Jonathan's, during the South Sea mania;
though not by an eye-witness, it groups, from various authorities, the
life of the place and the time:--"At a table a few yards off sat a
couple of men engaged in the discussion of a newly-started scheme.
Plunging his hand impatiently under the deep silver-buttoned flap of
his frock-coat of cinnamon cloth and drawing out a paper, the more
business-looking of the pair commenced eagerly to read out figures
intended to convince the listener, who took a jewelled snuff-box from
the deep pocket of the green brocade waistcoat which overflapped his
thigh, and, tapping the lid, enjoyed a pinch of perfumed Turkish as he
leaned back lazily in his chair. Somewhat further off, standing in the
middle of the room, was a keen-eyed lawyer, counting on his fingers
the probable results of a certain speculation in human hair, to which
a fresh-coloured farmer from St. Albans, on whose boots the mud of the
cattle market was not dry, listened with a face of stolid avarice,
clutching the stag-horn handle of his thonged whip as vigorously as if
it were the wealth he coveted. There strode a Nonconformist divine,
with S. S. S. in every line of his face, greedy for the gold that
perisheth; here a bishop, whose truer place was Garraway's, edged his
cassock through the crowd; sturdy ship-captains, whose manners smack
of blustering breezes, and who hailed their acquaintance as if through
a speaking-trumpet in a storm--booksellers' hacks from Grub-street,
who were wont to borrow ink-bottles and just one sheet of paper at the
bar of the Black Swan in St. Martin's-lane, and whose tarnished lace,
when not altogether torn away, showed a suspicious coppery redness
underneath--Jews of every grade, from the thriving promoter of a
company for importing ashes from Spain or extracting stearine from
sunflower seeds to the seller of sailor slops from Wapping-in-the-Wose,
come to look for a skipper who had bilked him--a sprinkling of
well-to-do merchants--and a host of those flashy hangers-on to the
skirts of commerce, who brighten up in days of maniacal speculation,
and are always ready to dispose of shares in some unopened mine or
some untried invention--passed and repassed with continuous change and
murmur before the squire's eyes during the quarter of an hour that he
sat there."--_Pictures of the Periods, by W. F. Collier LL.D._
RAINBOW COFFEE-HOUSE.
The Rainbow, in Fleet-street, appears to have been the second
Coffee-house opened in the metropolis.
"The first Coffee-house in London," says Aubrey (MS. in the Bodleian
Library), "was in St. Michael's-alley, in Cornhill, opposite to the
church, which was set up by one ---- Bowman (coachman to Mr. Hodges, a
Turkey merchant, who putt him upon it), in or about the yeare 1652.
'Twas about four yeares before any other was sett up, and that was by
Mr. Farr." This was the Rainbow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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