written in heroicks.' Lockier overhearing this, plucked up his spirit so far, as to say, in a voice just loud enough to be heard, that MAC-FLECKNOE was a very fine poem, but that he had not imagined it to be the first that ever was wrote that way. On this Dryden turned short upon him, as surprised at his interposing; asked him, how long he had been a dealer in poetry; and added, with a smile, But pray, Sir, what is it, that you did imagine to have been writ so before?' Lockier named Boileau's LUTRIN and Tassoni's SECCHIA RAPITA; which he had read, and knew Dryden had borrowed some strokes from each. "Tis true,' says Dryden;-I had forgot them. A little after, Dryden went out, and in going spoke to Lockier again, and desired him to come to him the next day. Lockier was highly delighted with the invitation, and was well acquainted with him as long as he lived." 8 So early as in the year 1674, it was observed in a controversial tract, that Dryden had spent seven years at Cambridge, and was then of twice that standing in Covent-Garden Coffee-House; of which one of his adversaries says, he might be said to be almost an inhabitant. The first house of this kind • Notes and Observations on the EMPRESS of MoROCCO, revised. 9 THE MEDAL OF JOHN BAYES, 1682, Pref. See also a Note on LE BABILLARD, No. 1.: M. Dryden etoit tous les jours dans ce Caffé, ou il se rendoit un nombre considerable de gens d'epée, poëtes, et beaux esprits. Cet auteur parloit-là fort librement de in London had been opened but a few years before the Restoration. The house which soon afterwards became the place where the Wits assembled,* and continued for at least half a century to be frequented by authors, criticks, beaus, and politicians, was that which has been just mentioned, Will's Coffeehouse; which was kept by William Urwin,' and ses ouvrages et de ceux d'autrui. Dans ses discours et dans ses ecrits, il affectoit un grand mepris pour les poëtes Francois, qu'il pilloit néanmoins impitoiablement.' LE BABILLARD is a French translation of the first 176 Numbers of THE TATIER, with Notes, in two volumes, 12mo. printed at Amsterdam in 1735, and again at Basle in 1737. The first volume had been published singly, in 1723. See the new edition of THE TATLER, in 6 vols. 1786; vol. ii. p. 196. The translator, as I am informed by a very accurate inquirer, (for I have never seen LE BABILLARD,) appears to have been a foreigner, resident in England at or about the time of the original publication of THE TATLER. * Dryden, in his Prologue to THE INDIAN EMPEROR, acted in 1665, speaks of Coffee-criticks; and Steele, in THE TATLER, No. 84, October 22, 1709, mentions a friend, who had gained some applause by an Epigram written soon after the Restoration, on the credit of which he had lived ever afterwards, having in virtue of it been a frequenter of Will's Coffee-House for forty years. In a Letter from Dennis to Walter Moyle, on the Master of this House having absconded for debt, dated from Will's, Nov. 5, 1695, the writer asks his corre spondent," Have not you heard "These sounds upon the Cornish shore, was situated on the North side of Russel-street, at the end of Bow-street. Here, as Dr. Johnson Urwin was probably a corrupt provincial pronunciation of Irwin.-In MS. Harl. 7317, p. 246, is an address" to Will's Coffee-house, 1691," which exhibits this grave personage, as he usually appeared among his customers: "Tell me, sage Will, thou that the town around Thy house is cramm'd eternally with beaus, "How shall I that strange animal define; "What are his marks, his virtues, and his sign? "So may'st thou still keep in the Wits' good graces, "And never lose a farthing more at races. "Thus I inquir'd, and straight sage Will reply'd, "His nutmeg, spoon, and garter [grater] laid aside :"He that like Mountford sings, like Sackville writes, "Dresses like Russel, like Tredenham fights," &c. As the mixture now called Negus, which was invented in Queen Anne's time by Colonel Negus, was then unknown, Will's nutmeg was probably employed in adding a flavour to punch, a beverage which appears to have ori. ginally come to us from India. So, in an old poem, entitled THE CHARACTER OF A COFFEE-HOUSE, 4to.1665: "The Germans' mum, Teag's usquebagh, Metheglin, which the Britons tope, "Hot brandy-wine, the Hogans' hope, "Stout meade, which makes the Russ to laugh, "Spiced PUNCH, in bowls, the Indians quaff, "All these have had their pens, to raise The situation of this Coffee-house is ascertained by an advertisement in the London Gazette, No. 2053, July was informed by Mr. Swiney, who was himself a dramatick writer, and one of Dryden's contemporaries, "his armed chair, which in the winter had a settled and prescriptive place by the fire, was in the summer placed in the balcony; and he called the two places his winter and his summer seat." The only intelligence that old Mr. Cibber, another of his contemporaries, could furnish, was, that at this house "the appeal was made to him upon any literary dispute." It should be remembered, that at 23, 1685,-that "tickets for the Annual Feast of the loyal inhabitants of Westminster in Westminster-Hall, are to be had at Will's Coffee-house in Bow-street end," -compared with other publications of the last age. Dennis's Letters were printed in 1696, for Samuel Briscoc in Russel-street, at the corner of Charles-street, in Co. vent-Garden; and in the titlepage of a comedy published in 1693, by the same bookseller, he is described as living in Russel-street, in Covent-Garden, over-against Will's, Coffee-house. This once celebrated house is now occupied by a perfumer, and is No. 23, in Great Russel-street. Dr. Johnson has not mentioned the names of his informers, in the Life of Dryden; but they are supplied (with some slight addition) by Mr. Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, ii. 437, 2d edit. "Talking [in 1776] of the great difficulty of obtaining authentick information for biography, Johnson told us, When I was a young fellow, I wanted to write the Life of Dryden, and, in order to get materials, I applied to the only two persons then alive, who had seen him; and these were old Swiney and old Cibber. Swiney's information was no more than this; that Dryden had a particular chair, &c. Cibber could tell no more, than that he remembered him a decent old man, Will's, the company, ascending a pair of stairs, assembled on the first, or dining-room, floor, as it arbiter of critical disputes at Will's-You are to consider, that Cibber was then at a great distance from Dryden; had perhaps one leg only in the room, and durst not draw in the other." BoSWELL. "Yet Cibber was a man of observation ?-JOHNSON. "I think not." In a conversation which I had with Dr. Johnson a few months before his death, he said, that he had not lived in any intimacy with Colley Cibber, but that he had been sometimes in company with him: and that he was much more ignorant than he could well have conceived any man to be, who had lived for near sixty years with authors, criticks, and some of the most celebrated characters of the age. He died in 1757, and Swiney in 1754. + See Ward's LONDON SPY, Part X. "From thence we adjourned to the Wits' Coffee-house; ---- up stairs we went, and found much company, and but little talk, as if every one remembered the old proverb-that a close mouth makes a wise head; and so endeavoured by his silence to be counted a man of judgment, rather than by speaking to stand the censure of so many criticks." The company did not sit in boxes, as at present, but at various tables, which were dispersed through the room. So, ibid. "We shouldered through this moving crowd of philosophical mutes to the upper end of the room, where three or four Wits of the upper classis were rendezvouzed at a table. At a second table were seated a parcel of young raw second-rate beaus and wits." See also THE TATLER, No. 90, and No. 106; and the Prologue to Sir BARNABY WHIGG, a comedy, 1681: "In a Coffee-house, just now among the rabbie, "I bluntly ask 'd, which is the treason-table ?" |