be fine, we take a turn in the Park till two, when we go to dinner. It was to these coffee or chocolate houses that a stranger would turn if he wished to find out what the men of London were interested in and thoughtful about. They were the places of rendezvous for the wits, the gallants, the politicians, the poets, the merchants, the essayists of the age. The highwayman that, well-masked, had robbed you the night before as you rode into London might brush against you as you laid your penny of admission down at the bar. The great Dr. Swift, the satirist of the town, might be stalking up and down, grim and silent, between the tables. Many a poor scribbler for the booksellers, who slept all night in a garret, picked out some coffee-house as his regular place of address, and made all his appointments and received his few letters there. It was the place to see the latest fashion of the fop, to hear the brilliant conversation of men of letters, and to learn the latest news of the English armies against the French. "I first of all called in at St. James's, says one of the writers of the Spectator, "where I found the whole outward room in a buzz of politics. The speculations were but very indifferent towards the door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the room, and were so very much improved by a knot of theorists, who sat in the inner room, within the steams of the coffee-pot, that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, and all the line of Bourbon provided for in less than a quarter of an hour."

12. Special CoffeeHouses.

Of the two thousand coffee-houses in London at this time, the Sir Roger de Coverley papers refer to seven. The oldest coffee-house in town was the Grecian, the resort of the Learned Club. At Will's, situated over a retail shop near Covent Garden and the theatres, the wits and the poets had congregated for many years. The great poet Dryden had gathered all his disciples there; but one of the editors of the Spectator, Joseph Addison, had set up a new literary circle at Button's, and Will's was losing some of its old reputation. It was card-playing, not wit, which was now its chief attraction. Child's, in St. Paul's churchyard, was frequented by ecclesiastics and other professional men, Jonathan's by stockjobbers, Squire's by lawyers and law students, the coffee-house in the Tilt Yard by 'military and mock-military fellows who manfully pulled the noses of quiet citizens who wore not swords," the Chocolate House, also known as the Cocoa Tree, by the Tories, and St. James by the Whigs. There is a tale of this last coffee-house worth quoting because it concerns the chief editor of the Spectator, Sir Richard Steele. "Lord Forbes," says the narrator, "happened to be in company with two military gentlemen . . . in St. James's CoffeeHouse, when two or three well-dressed men, all unknown to his lordship or to his company, came into the room, and in a public, outrageous manner abused Captain Steele as the author of the Tatler. One of

1 A tri-weekly journal which preceded the Spectator.

them, with great audacity and vehemence, swore that he would cut Steele's throat or teach him better manners. In this country,' said Lord Forbes, 'you will find it easier to cut a purse than to cut a throat.' His brother officers joined with his lordship, and turned the cut-throats out with every mark of disgrace.

13. The City.

By this time the thoughtful reader will begin to wonder where all the money came from to support the life of London. It came from great landed estates in the country on the one hand, and from a rapidly growing commerce on the other. "When I have been upon the 'Change,' says the Spectator in one of its issues, "I have often fancied one of our old kings standing in person where he is represented in effigy and looking down upon the wealthy concourse of people with which that place is every day filled. In this case how would he be surprised to hear all the languages of Europe, spoken in this little spot of his former dominions, and to see so many private men, who in his time would have been the vassals of some powerful baron, negotiating like princes for greater sums of money than were formerly to be met with in the royal treasury. The community centering about this enormous mine of wealth was called in distinction from the court and the aristocracy the "city," and its members were known as

1 For further descriptions of the Coffee-House, see the Spectator, Nos. 46, 49, 148, 197, 403.

2 Exchange.

"citizens." In this region were gathered the great merchants of the realm. Every day they increased in power; every day they grew prouder of their increasing wealth. Their wealth, however, could not save them from the witticisms of the clever fellows about town. Too often, indeed, the witticisms were well deserved. The average merchant was apt to be pompous and self-important, and the very fact that he could not get admittance to a lord's levees or a lady's routs1 only made him strut a little more vaingloriously. There were few merchants as dignified as Sir Andrew Freeport,2 and few clever writers willing to treat him with as much respect as the editors of the Spectator show to that worthy gentleman. It was not from the "city," however, that men of fashion drew their wealth. It came for the most part from the rents of landed estates in the country. This land had descended to them from their fathers, and, however great the debts which they slipped off their shoulders when they too went to their graves, this land would for the most part descend to their eldest sons, who could neither dispose of it nor bequeath it elsewhere. Creditors might make up their losses as best they could, and younger sons, at least those who could not live on the generosity of their elder brothers, were left to their own resources. To these younger sons,

14. The Landed Interest.

1 The term used for fashionable assemblies in the eighteenth century.

2 See page 58, in this volume.

only three kinds of employment seemed honorable,statecraft, fighting in her Majesty's army or navy, and the Church; or, if the estates of the father had been comparatively small, they might, without disgrace, try law or medicine. Meanwhile, their elder brothers kept up the honor of the family name.

15. Travel into the Country.

Many landlords, however, seldom, if ever saw the city of London. To know their manner of life, one must travel into the country districts; and journeying was slow and dangerous. Every highway of importance was marked by gibbets, and from many a gibbet hung the corpse of a highwayman. The coaches were without springs, and the roads were almost intolerable. "On the best lines of communication," says one writer, "ruts were so deep and obstructions so formidable that it was only in fine weather that the whole breadth of the road became available. Seldom could two vehicles pass each other unless one of them stopped." The inns along the route were identified to a passer-by by their grotesque signs, but to the old stager they must have stood out even more distinctly for the oddities of the host or hostess. Few of these worthies probably had ever stepped out of their own county. Many of them probably had never been a half-day's ride from home. A journey made from county to county was like an ocean voyage thirty years ago. The passengers quickly got acquainted. And wherever they stopped the men always paid for the women's refreshments as well as their own.