house in Charles-street, called the _field of blood_, where the droll fellows of the time used nightly to resort, and throw down whole regiments of _black_ artillery; and then at Tom or Moll King's, a coffee-house so called, which stood in the centre of Covent Garden market, at midnight might be found the bucks, bloods, demireps, and choice spirits of London, associated with the most elegant and fascinating Cyprians, congregated with every species of human kind that intemperance, idleness, necessity, or curiosity could assemble together. There you might see Tom King enter as rough as a Bridewell whipper, roaring down the long room and rousing all the sleepers, thrusting them and all who had empty glasses out of his house, setting everything to rights,--when in would roll three or four jolly fellows, claret-cosey, and in three minutes put it all into uproar again; playing all sorts of mad pranks, until the guests in the long room were at battle-royal together; for in those days pugilistic encounters were equally common as with the present ~349~~times, owing to the celebrity of Broughton and his amphitheatre, where the science of boxing was publicly taught. Then was the Spiller's Head in Clare-market, in great vogue for the nightly assemblage of the wits; there might be seen Hogarth, and Betterton the actor, and Dr. Garth, and Charles Churchill, the first of English satirists, and the arch politician, Wilkes, and the gay Duke of Wharton, and witty Morley, the author of Joe Miller, and Walker, the celebrated Macheath, and the well-known Bab Selby, the oyster-woman, and Fig, the boxer, and old Corins, the clerical attorney.--All "hail, fellow, well met."{6} And a friend of mine has in his possession a most extraordinary picture of Hogarth's, on this subject, which has never yet been engraved from. It is called St. James's Day, or the first day of oysters, and represents the interior of the Spiller's Head in Clare-market, as it then appeared. The principal figures are the gay and dissolute Duke of Wharton, for whom the well-known Bab Selby, the oyster-wench, is opening oysters; Spiller is standing at her back, patting her shoulder; the figure sitting smoking by the side of the duke is a portrait of Morley, the author of Joe Miller; and the man standing behind is a portrait of the well-known attendant on the duke's drunken frolics, Fig, the brother of Fig, the boxer: the person drinking at the bar is Corins, called the parson-attorney, from his habit of dressing in clerical attire; the two persons sitting at the table represent portraits of the celebrated Dr. Garth, and Betterton, the actor; the figures, also, of Walker, the celebrated Macheath, and Lavinia Fenton, the highly-reputed Polly, afterwards Duchess of Bolton, may be recognised in the back-ground.