Peele’s Coffee-house, at Nos. 177, 178, Fleet Street, which afterwards became a tavern, was also supposed to have been a haunt of Dr. Johnson, whose portrait, painted on the keystone of a chimney-piece, for years after his death formed one of the attractions of the house. The artist was supposed to have been Sir Joshua Reynolds. Peele’s was once noted for its collection of old newspapers. Here were preserved files from the following dates: The _Gazette_, 1759; _Times_, 1780; _Morning Chronicle_, 1773; _Morning Post_, 1773; _Morning Herald_, 1784; _Morning Advertiser_, 1794. Nearly every literary man of that time had his favourite coffee-house. George’s, at No. 213 Strand, near Temple Bar, was the resort of Shenstone, who found it an economical place. Probably it was for this reason that the eccentric Sir James Lowther, a very rich man, but penurious, also went there. On his first visit he got the proprietors to change a piece of silver in order to pay twopence for his coffee. A few days later he returned expressly to tell the woman that she had given him a bad halfpenny, and demanded another in exchange for it. Clients of this coffee-house could read pamphlets and papers for a very moderate subscription. London hours were very different in those days. Three o’clock, or at latest four, was the dining hour of the most fashionable people, for in the country no such late hours had been adopted. In London, therefore, the men began to assemble soon after six at the coffee-house they frequented—unless, indeed, they were setting in for hard drinking, which seems to have prevailed much less in private houses than in taverns. The conversation varied in different coffee-houses. In those about the Temple, legal matters formed the principal subject of discussion. On the other hand, at Daniel’s, the Welsh coffee-house in Fleet Street, it was mostly of births, pedigrees, and descents; Child’s and the Chapter, upon glebes, tithes, advowsons, rectories, and lectureships; North’s, undue elections, false pollings, scrutinies, and the like; Hamlin’s, infant baptism, lay ordination, free-will, election, and reprobation; Batson’s, the prices of pepper, indigo, and saltpetre; and all those about the Exchange, where the merchants met to transact their affairs, were in a perpetual hurry about stock-jobbing—cheating, and tricking widows and orphans, and committing spoil and rapine on the public, malicious people said. In some coffee-houses and taverns political feeling ran high. One noted chop-house near Holborn lost its business owing to the democratic character of a number of its frequenters, and eventually had to be shut up. A new landlord, however, seeking to restore its prosperity, exhibited the sign of the King’s Head, referring to which a friend said to him: “Do you think your new sign will keep away old customers? Why, there is not one of them but would like as much as ever to have a chop at the King’s Head.”