n;" and, in the _Tatler_,
No. 6: "While other parts of the town are amused with the present
actions (Marlborough's) we generally spend the evening at this
table (at the Grecian) in inquiries into antiquity, and think
anything new, which gives us new knowledge. Thus, we are making a
very pleasant entertainment to ourselves in putting the actions of
Homer's Iliad into an exact journal."

The _Spectator's_ face was very well known at the Grecian, a
coffee-house "adjacent to the law." Occasionally it was the scene
of learned discussion. Thus Dr. King relates that one evening, two
gentlemen, who were constant companions, were disputing here,
concerning the accent of a Greek word. This dispute was carried to
such a length, that the two friends thought proper to determine it
with their swords; for this purpose they stepped into
Devereux-court, where one of them (Dr. King thinks his name was
Fitzgerald) was run through the body, and died on the spot.

The Grecian was Foote's morning lounge. It was handy, too, for the
young Templar, Goldsmith, and often did it echo with Oliver's
boisterous mirth; for "it had become the favourite resort of the
Irish and Lancashire Templars, whom he delighted in collecting
around him, in entertaining with a cordial and unostentatious
hospitality, and in occasionally amusing with his flute, or with
whist, neither of which he played very well!" Here Goldsmith
occasionally wound up his "Shoemaker's Holiday" with supper.

It was at the Grecian that Fleetwood Shephard told this memorable
story to Dr. Tancred Robinson, who gave Richardson permission to
repeat it. "The Earle of Dorset was in Little Britain, beating
about for books to his taste: there was 'Paradise Lost'. He was
surprised with some passages he struck upon, dipping here and there
and bought it; the bookseller begged him to speak in his favour, if
he liked it, for they lay on his hands as waste paper.... Shephard
was present. My Lord took it home, read it, and sent it to Dryden,
who in a short time returned it. 'This man,' says Dryden, 'cuts us
all out, and the ancients, too!'"

* * * * *

George's Coffee-house, No. 213, Strand, near Temple Bar, was a
noted resort in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. When it
was a co