Fielding
laid the foundation of an eternal fame,--where Andrew Marvell refused
courtly bribes, and in sublime poverty proudly picked his mutton-bone:
there, some long time since, stood a mansion, the residence, in a green
old age, of that Nell Gwynne of whom, with a strange perversity, the
world speaks as kindly as if she were a Grace Darling, or a Florence
Nightingale, or a Margaret Fuller, or an Elizabeth Fry. A portion of the
old house still remains, with its ancient wainscotting. Well, on the
site of this mansion was, and is, the Cyder Cellars, the oldest house of
its class in London, actually referred to in a rare pamphlet now extant
in the British Museum, entitled "Adventures Under-ground in the Year
1750." In those days to drink deep was deemed a virtue, and the literary
class, after the exhausting labours of the day, loved nothing better than
to sit soaking all night in the Cyder Cellars, where all restraints were
thrown on one aide,--where the song was sung and the wine was quaffed,
and men were fools enough to think they were getting happy when they were
only getting drunk. I can understand why the wits went to the Cyder
Cellars then. Few of them lived in a style in which they would like to
receive their friends. In a place like the Cyder Cellars they could meet
after the theatres were closed, and the occupations of the day over, and
sup and talk and drink with more freedom than in any private house; and
no doubt many were the ingenuous youths who went to the Cyder Cellars to
see the learned Mr. Bayle, or the great Grecian Porson, or the eminent
tragedian Mr. Edmund Kean, and thought it a fine thing to view those
distinguished men maudlin, or obscene, or blasphemous, over their cups.
But the wits do not go to the Cyder Cellars now. Even the men about town
do not go there much. I remember when that dismal song, "Sam Hall," was
sung--a song in which a wretch is supposed to utter all the wretchedness
in his soul, all his sickness of life, all his abhorrence of mankind, as
he was on his way to Tyburn drop. Horrible as the song was--revolting as
it was to all but _blaze_ men, the room was crammed to suffocation,--it
was impossible often to get a seat, and you might have heard a pin drop.
Where are the crowds that listened to that song? My own companion--where
is he? A finer young man, with richer promise, I knew not. He had a
generous disposition, a taste for study, and was blessed with the
constitution