Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was once brought by her father to this club when a child, and made the toast for the year. “Petted, praised, fondled, and fed with sweetmeats,” she used to say in her old age that it was the happiest day of her life![153] No. 59 is Coutts’s Bank. It was built for Mr. Coutts, in 1768, by the Adam brothers--to whom we are indebted for the Adelphi. The old house of the firm, of the date of Queen Anne, was situated in St. Martin’s Lane. The present house contains some fine marble chimney-pieces of the Cipriani and Bacon school. The dining-room is hung with quaint Chinese subjects on paper, sent to Mr. Coutts by Lord Macartney, while on his embassy to China, in 1792-95. In another room hang portraits of some early friends of this son of Mammon, including Dr. Armstrong, the poet and physician, Fuseli’s friend, by Reynolds. The strong rooms consist of cloistered vaults, wherein the noblemen and rich commoners who bank in the house deposit patents, title-deeds, and plate of fabulous value. Mr. Coutts was the son of a Dundee merchant. His first wife was a servant, a Lancashire labourer’s offspring. He had three daughters, one of whom became the wife of Sir Francis Burdett, a second Countess of Guilford, and a third Marchioness of Bute. On becoming acquainted with Miss Mellon, and inducing her to leave the stage to avoid perpetual insults, Mr. Coutts bought for her of Sir W. Vane Tempest, a small villa called Holly Lodge, at the foot of Highgate Hill, for which he gave £25,000. His banking-house strong rooms alone cost £10,000 building. The first deposit in the enlarged house was the diamond aigrette that the Grand Signor had placed in Nelson’s hat. Mr. Coutts, though very charitable, was precise and exact. On one occasion, there being a deficit of 2s. 10d. in the day’s accounts, the clerks were detained for hours, or, as is said, all night. One of Coutts’s clerks, who took the western walk, was discovered to be missing with £17,000.[154] Rewards were offered, and the town placarded, but all in vain. The next day, however, the note-case arrived from Southampton. The clerk’s story was, that on his way through Piccadilly, being seized with a stupor, he had got into a coach in order to secure the money. He had remained insensible the whole journey, and had awoke at Southampton. Mr. Coutts gave him a handsome sum from his private purse, but dismissed him.