tess of
Warwick. The house is more correctly described as "over against
Tom's, near the middle of the south side of the street."

Addison was the great patron of Button's; but it is said that when
he suffered any vexation from his Countess, he withdrew from
Button's house. His chief companions, before he married Lady
Warwick, were Steele, Budgell, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and
Colonell Brett. He used to breakfast with one or other of them in
St. James's-place, dine at taverns with them, then to Button's, and
then to some tavern again, for supper in the evening; and this was
the usual round of his life, as Pope tells us in Spencer's
Anecdotes, where Pope also says: "Addison usually studied all the
morning, then met his party at Button's, dined there, and stayed
five or six hours; and sometimes far into the night. I was of the
company for about a year, but found it too much for me; it hurt my
health, and so I quitted it." Again: "There had been a coldness
between me and Mr. Addison for some time, and we had not been in
company together for a good while anywhere but at Button's
Coffee-house, where I used to see him almost every day."

Here Pope is reported to have said of Patrick, the lexicographer,
that "a dictionary-maker might know the meaning of one word, but
not of two put together."

Button's was the receiving house for contributions to _The
Guardian_, for which purpose was put up a lion's head letter box,
in imitation of the celebrated lion at Venice, as humorously
announced. Thus:

"N.B.--Mr. Ironside has, within five weeks last past, muzzled three
lions, gorged five, and killed one. On Monday next the skin of the
dead one will be hung up, _in terrorem_, at Button's Coffee-house."

* * * * *

"I intend to publish once every week the roarings of the Lion, and
hope to make him roar so loud as to be heard over all the British
nation. I have, I know not how, been drawn into tattle of myself,
more majorum, almost the length of a whole _Guardian_. I shall
therefore fill up the remaining part of it with what still relates
to my own person, and my correspondents. Now I would have them all
know that on the 20th instant, it is my intention to erect a Lion's
Head, in imitation of those I have described in Ve