he
house of Thomas Britton.

Britton, the small coal merchant of Clerkenwell Green, deserves a
passing remark.

Thomas Britton belonged to that class of men whom persons of limited
views are accustomed to term _the lower orders_ of society, for he
gained his daily bread by crying small coal, which he carried about the
streets in a sack upon his shoulders. He lived near Clerkenwell Green, a
quarter of the town with which fashionable people were scarcely
acquainted before he made it illustrious.

How it came to pass that he learnt to play upon the _viola de gamba_ is
not known, but he played upon it, and he was so much of an artist, that
he grouped around him a number of amateurs who were happy to perform
concerted music under his direction.

Britton was the tenant of a stable which he divided horizontally by a
floor--on the ground floor was his coal shop. The upper story formed a
long and narrow room, and it was in this chamber that the first meetings
in the nature of private concerts took place in England, and
instrumental music was first played regularly. Here it was that from
1678 to 1714 (the period of his death), the itinerant small coal
merchant weekly entertained the intelligent world of London at his
musical soirees, always gratuitously. Among others, the Duchess of
Queensbury, one of the most celebrated beauties of the Court, was very
regular in her attendance.

Pepusch and Handel played the harpsichord and the organ there.

Hawkins mentions, as a proof of the great consideration which Britton
acquired, that he was called "_Sir_;" and many persons, unable to
believe that a man of that class and of such a business could arrive by
natural means to be called "Sir," took him for a magician, an atheist,
and a Jesuit.

In 1715, Handel had produced at the theatre in the Haymarket, a new
opera _Amadiji_. The _poem_ of Amadiji is signed, in right of his
authorship, by the new manager of the theatre James Heidegger, commonly
called the "_Swiss Count_." He was said to be the ugliest man of his
time; Lord Chesterfield wagered that it was impossible to discover a
human being so disgraced by nature. After having searched through the
town, a hideous old woman was found, and it was agreed that Heidegger
was handsomer. But as Heidegger was pluming himself upon his victory,
Chesterfield required that he should put on the old woman's bonnet.
Thus attired the Swiss Count appeared horribly ugly, and Chesterfield
was unanim