tnote A: Will's and Child's were popular coffee-houses, as were
also the Grecian, St. James', and the Cocoa Tree.]

[Footnote B: See footnote on page 97.]

* * * * *

It is easy to fancy Addison, shy but ever observant, mingling with the
people who thronged the coffee-houses and there settled the affairs
of the nation, discussed their neighbours, and sipped their coffee
or stronger drink, as the case might be. He must have laughed in his
sleeve many a time as he heard the know-it-alls predicting that the
British nation was on the brink of perdition or announcing, in the
most confidential of manners, the secret policies of his Christian
Majesty, Louis XIV. of France. Probably Joe agreed with Steele,
who, in speaking of a certain coffee-house, observed that in it men
differed rather in the time of day wherein they made a figure, than in
any real greatness above one another.

[Illustration: JOSEPH ADDISON By SIR GODFREY KNELLER]

"I, who am at the coffee-house at six in the morning," Dick writes
on,[A] "know that my friend Beaver the haberdasher has a levee of
more undissembled friends and admirers than most of the courtiers
or generals of Great Britain. Every man about him has, perhaps, a
newspaper in his hand; but none can pretend to guess what step will be
taken in any one court of Europe, till Mr. Beaver has thrown down his
pipe, and declares what measures the allies must enter into upon this
new posture of affairs. Our coffee-house is near one of the inns of
court, and Beaver has the audience and admiration of his neighbours
from six till within a quarter of eight, at which time he is
interrupted by the students of the house; some of whom are ready
dressed for Westminster at eight in a morning, with faces as busy as
if they were retained in every cause there; and others come in their
night gowns to saunter away their time, as if they never designed to
go thither.

[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 49.]

"I do not know that I meet in any of my walks, objects which move both
my spleen and laughter so effectually as those young fellows at the
Greecian, Squire's, Searle's, and all other coffee-houses adjacent
to the law, who rise early for no other purpose but to publish their
laziness. One would think these young virtuosos take a gay cap and
slippers, with a scarf and party-coloured gown, to be ensigns of
dignity; for the vain things approach each other with an air which
shews they reg