rd Street, when he was cudgelled in Rose Street by
three persons hired for the purpose by Wilmot, Earl of Rochester,
in the winter of 1679. The assault, or "the Rose-alley Ambuscade,"
certainly took place; but it is not so certain that Dryden was on
his way from Will's, and he then lived in Long-acre, not Gerard
Street.

It is worthy of remark that Swift was accustomed to speak
disparagingly of Will's, as in his "Rhapsody on Poetry:"

Be sure at Will's the following day
Lie snug, and hear what critics say;
And if you find the general vogue
Pronounces you a stupid rogue,
Damns all your thoughts as low and little;
Sit still, and swallow down your spittle.

Swift thought little of the frequenters of Will's: "he used to say,
the worst conversation he ever heard in his life was at Will's
Coffee-house, where the wits (as they were called) used formerly to
assemble; that is to say, five or six men who had writ plays or at
least prologues, or had a share in a miscellany, came thither, and
entertained one another with their trifling composures, in so
important an air as if they had been the noblest efforts of human
nature, or that the fate of kingdoms depended on them."

In the first number of the _Tatler_, poetry is promised under the
article of Will's Coffee-house. The place, however, changed after
Dryden's time: "you used to see songs, epigrams, and satires in the
hands of every man you met, you have now only a pack of cards; and
instead of the cavils about the turn of the expression, the
elegance of the style, and the like, the learned now dispute only
about the truth of the game." "In old times, we used to sit upon a
play here, after it was acted, but now the entertainment's turned
another way."

The _Spectator_ is sometimes seen "thrusting his head into a round
of politicians at Will's, and listening with great attention to the
narratives that are made in these little circular audiences." Then,
we have as an instance of no one member of human society but that
would have some little pretension for some degree in it, "like him
who came to Will's Coffee-house upon the merit of having writ a
posie of a ring." And, "Robin, the porter who waits at Will's, is
the best man in town for carrying a billet: the fellow has a thin
body, swift step, demure looks, suffi