James's Street, with thy lacquered boots, thy dyed whiskers, and thy suffocating waistband, what art thou to thy brilliant predecessor in the same quarter? The Brougham from which thou descendest at the portal of the "Carlton" or the "Travellers'," is like everybody else's; thy black coat has no more plaits, nor buttons, nor fancy in it than thy neighbor's; thy hat was made on the very block on which Lord Addlepate's was cast, who has just entered the Club before thee. You and he yawn together out of the same omnibus-box every night; you fancy yourselves men of pleasure;you fancy yourselves men of fashion; you fancy yourselves men of taste; in fancy, in taste, in opinion, in philosophy, the newspaper legislates for you; it is there you get your jokes and your thoughts, and your facts and your wisdom--poor Pall Mall dullards.
Stupid slaves of the press, on that ground which you at present occupy, there were men of wit and pleasure and fashion, some five-and-twenty lustres ago.
We are at Button's--the well-known sign of the "Turk's Head." The crowd of periwigged heads at the windows--the swearing chairmen round the steps (the blazoned and coronalled panels of whose vehicles denote the lofty rank of their owners),--the throng of embroidered beaux entering or departing, and rendering the air fragrant with the odors of pulvillio and pomander, proclaim the celebrated resort of London's Wit and Fashion. It is the corner of Regent Street. Carlton House has not yet been taken down.
A stately gentleman in crimson velvet and gold is sipping chocolate at one of the tables, in earnest converse with a friend whose suit is likewise embroidered, but stained by time, or wine mayhap, or wear. A little deformed gentleman in iron-gray is reading the Morning Chronicle newspaper by the fire, while a divine, with a broad brogue and a shovel hat and cassock, is talking freely with a gentleman, whose star and ribbon, as well as the unmistakable beauty of his Phidian countenance, proclaims him to be a member of Britain's aristocracy.
Two ragged youths, the one tall, gaunt, clumsy and scrofulous, the other with a wild, careless, beautiful look, evidently indicating Race, are gazing in at the window, not merely at the crowd in the celebrated Club, but at Timothy the waiter, who is removing a plate of that exquisite dish, the muffin (then newly invented), at the desire of some of the revellers within.
"I would, Sam," said the wild youth to his companion, "that I had some of my mother Macclesfield's gold, to enable us to eat of those cates and mingle with yon springalds and beaux.""To vaunt a knowledge of the stoical philosophy," said the youth addressed as Sam, "might elicit a smile of incredulity upon the cheek of the parasite of pleasure; but there are moments in life when History fortifies endurance: and past study renders present deprivation more bearable. If our pecuniary resources be exiguous, let our resolution, ****, supply the deficiencies of Fortune. The muffin we desire to-day would little benefit us to-morrow. Poor and hungry as we are, are we less happy, ****, than yon listless voluptuary who banquets on the food which you covet?"And the two lads turned away up Waterloo Place, and past the "Parthenon" Club-house, and disappeared to take a meal of cow-heel at a neighboring cook's shop. Their names were Samuel Johnson and Richard Savage.
Meanwhile the conversation at Button's was fast and brilliant. "By Wood's thirteens, and the divvle go wid 'em," cried the Church dignitary in the cassock, "is it in blue and goold ye are this morning, Sir Richard, when you ought to be in seebles?""Who's dead, Dean?" said the nobleman, the dean's companion.
"Faix, mee Lard Bolingbroke, as sure as mee name's Jonathan Swift--and I'm not so sure of that neither, for who knows his father's name?--there's been a mighty cruel murther committed entirely. Achild of **** Steele's has been barbarously slain, dthrawn, and quarthered, and it's Joe Addison yondther has done it. Ye should have killed one of your own, Joe, ye thief of the world.""I!" said the amazed and Right Honorable Joseph Addison; "I kill ****'s child! I was godfather to the last.""And promised a cup and never sent it," **** ejaculated. Joseph looked grave.
"The child I mean is Sir Roger de Coverley, Knight and Baronet.
What made ye kill him, ye savage Mohock? The whole town is in tears about the good knight; all the ladies at Church this afternoon were in mourning; all the booksellers are wild; and Lintot says not a third of the copies of the Spectator are sold since the death of the brave old gentleman." And the Dean of St.
