memories of Dryden and for the
_Tatler's_ dramatic criticisms, had ceased to exist in 1714. Its place
was taken by Button's, at the other side of Russell Street, started by
Addison in 1712. Here, later, was the lion-head letter-box for the
_Guardian_, designed by Hogarth. At Child's, in St. Paul's
Church-yard, the _Spectator_ often smoked a pipe. Sir Roger de
Coverley was beloved at Squire's, near Gray's Inn Gate. Slaughter's,
in St. Martin's Lane, was often honored by the presence first of
Dryden, and then of Pope. Serle's, near Lincoln's Inn, was cherished
by the law. At the "Grecian," in Devereux Court, Strand, learned men
met and {76} quarrelled; a fatal duel was once fought in consequence of
an argument there over the accent on a Greek word. At the "Grecian,"
too, Steele amused himself by putting the action of Homer's "Iliad"
into an exact journal and planning his "Temple of Fame." From White's
chocolate-house, which afterwards became the famous club, came Mr.
Isaac Bickerstaff's "Accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure, and
Entertainment." The "Cocoa Tree" was the Tory coffee-house, in St.
James's Street. Ozinda's chocolate-house, next to St. James's Palace,
was also a Tory resort, and its owner was arrested in 1715 for supposed
complicity in Jacobite conspiracy.

[Sidenote: 1714--Humors of the time]

To these coffee and chocolate houses came all the wit and all the
fashion of London. Men of letters and statesmen, men of the robe and
men of the sword, lawyers, dandies, poets, and philosophers, met there
to discuss politics, literature, scandal, and the play. There were
often very strange figures among the motley crowd behind the
red-curtained windows of a St. James's coffee-house. The gentleman who
made himself so agreeable to the bar-maid or who chatted so affably
about the conduct of the allies or the latest news from Sweden, might
meet you again later on if your road lay at all outside town, and
imperiously request you to stand and deliver. But of all the varied
assembly the strangest figures must have been the beaux and exquisites,
in all their various degrees of "dappers," "fops," "smart fellows,"
"pretty fellows," and "very pretty fellows." They made a brave show in
many-colored splendor of attire, heavily scented with orange-flower
water, civet-violet, or musk, with large falbala periwigs, or long,
powdered duvilliers, with snuff-boxes and perspective glasses
perpetually in their hands, and drago