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Primero and a 'pair' of cards followed the wine. Here the practised player learnt to lose with endurance, and neither to tear the cards nor crush the dice with his heel. Perhaps the jest may be true, and that men sometimes played till they sold even their beards to cram tennis-balls or stuff cushions. The patron often paid for the wine or disbursed for the whole dinner. Then the drawer came round with his wooden knife, and scraped off the crusts and crumbs, or cleared off the parings of fruit and cheese into his basket. The torn cards were thrown into the fire, the guests rose, rapiers were re-hung, and belts buckled on. The post news was heard, and the reckonings paid. The French lackey and Irish footboy led out the hobby horses, and some rode off to the play, others to the river-stairs to take a pair of oars to the Surrey side.
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Castle, where Tarleton has so often talked of Shakespeare and his wit, perished in the Great Fire; but was afterwards rebuilt, and here
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The Castle Society of Music gave their performances, no doubt aided by many of the St. Paul's Choir. Part of the old premises were subsequently (says Mr. Timbs) the Oxford Bible Warehouse, destroyed by fire in 1822, and since rebuilt.
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Dolly's Tavern, which stood near the
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Castle, derived its name from Dolly, an old cook of the establishment, whose portrait Gainsborough painted. Bonnell Thornton mentions the beefsteaks and gill ale at
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Dolly's. The coffee-room, with its projecting fire-places, is as old as Queen Anne. The head of that queen is painted on a window at
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Dolly's,
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Chapter
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Chapter Coffee House, at the corner of Chapter House Court, was in the last century famous for its punch, its pamphlets, and its newspapers. As lawyers and authors frequented the Fleet Street taverns, so booksellers haunted the
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Chapter. Bonnell Thornton, in the _Connoisseur_, Jan., 1754, says:--
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The conversation here naturally turns upon the newest publications, but their criticisms are somewhat singular. When they say a _good_ book they do not mean to praise the style or sentiment, but the quick and extensive sale of it. That book is best which sells most.
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I am quite familiar at the 'Chapter Coffee House,' and know all the geniuses there. He desires a friend to send him whatever he has published, to be left at the
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Chapter. So, again, writing from the King's Bench, he says a gentleman whom he met at the
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Chapter had promised to introduce him as a travelling tutor to the young Duke of Northumberland;
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Chapter
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Chapter in 1848, with its low heavy-beamed ceilings, wainscoted rooms, and its broad, dark, shallow staircase. She describes it as formerly frequented by university men, country clergymen, and country booksellers, who, friendless in London, liked to hear the literary chat. Few persons slept there, and in a long, low, dingy room upstairs the periodical meetings of the trade were held.
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The high, narrow windows looked into the gloomy Row.