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Globe Tavern (No. 134, north), though now only a memory, abounds with traditions of Goldsmith and his motley friends. The house, in 1649, was leased to one Henry Hottersall for forty-one years, at the yearly rent of £75, ten gallons of Canary sack, and £400 fine. Mr. John Forster gives a delightful sketch of Goldsmith's Wednesday evening club at the
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Globe, in 1767. When not at Johnson's great club, Oliver beguiled his cares at a shilling rubber club at the
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Devil Tavern, or at a humble gathering in the parlour of the
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Bedford, Covent Garden. A hanger-on of the theatres, who frequented the
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Globe, has left notes which Mr. Forster has admirably used, and which we now abridge without further apology. Grim old Macklin belonged to the club it is certain; and among the less obscure members was King, the comedian, the celebrated impersonator of Lord Ogleby. Hugh Kelly, another member, was a clever young Irishman, who had chambers near Goldsmith in the Temple. He had been a stay-maker's apprentice, who, turning law writer, and soon landing as a hack for the magazines, set up as a satirist for the stage, and eventually, through Garrick's patronage, succeeded in sentimental comedy. It was of him Johnson said,
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Sir, I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read. Poor Kelly afterwards went to the Bar, and died of disappointment and over-work. A third member was Captain Thompson, a friend of Garrick's, who wrote some good sea songs and edited
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Andrew Marvell; but foremost among all the boon companions was a needy Irish doctor named Glover, who had appeared on the stage, and who was said to have restored to life a man who had been hung; this Glover, who was famous for his songs and imitations, once had the impudence, like Theodore Hook, to introduce Goldsmith, during a summer ramble in Hampstead, to a party where he was an entire stranger, and to pass himself off as a friend of the host.
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Our Dr. Glover, says Goldsmith,
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Gordon, the fattest man in the club, was renowned for his jovial song of
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Nottingham Ale; and on special occasions Goldsmith himself would sing his favourite nonsense about the little old woman who was tossed seventeen times higher than the moon. A fat pork-butcher at the
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Globe used to offend Goldsmith by constantly shouting out,
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Come, Noll, here's my service to you, old boy. After the success of _The Good-natured Man_, this coarse familiarity was more than Goldsmith's vanity could bear, so one special night he addressed the butcher with grave reproof. The stolid man, taking no notice, replied briskly,
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Thankee, Mister Noll.
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Well, where is the advantage of your reproof? asked Glover.
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In truth, said Goldsmith, good-naturedly,
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I give it up; I ought to have known before that there is no putting a pig in the right way. Sometimes rather cruel tricks were played on the credulous poet. One evening Goldsmith came in clamorous for his supper, and ordered chops. Directly the supper came in, the wags, by pre-agreement, began to sniff and swear. Some pushed the plate away; others declared the rascal who had dared set such chops before a gentleman should be made to swallow them himself. The waiter was savagely rung up, and forced to eat the supper, to which he consented with well-feigned reluctance, the poet calmly ordering a fresh supper and a dram for the poor waiter,
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Poor Goldy! kindly even at his most foolish moments. A sadder story still connects Goldsmith with the
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Globe. Ned Purdon, a worn-out booksellers' hack and a _protégé_ of Goldsmith's, dropped down dead in Smithfield. Goldsmith wrote his epitaph as he came from his chambers in the Temple to the
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Globe.
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Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed, Who long was a booksellers' hack; He led such a miserable life in this world, I don't think he'll wish to come back.
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I don't think he'll wish to come back.
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It is not without a certain pathos to me, indeed, that he should have so repeated it.
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Globe were Boswell's friend Akerman, the keeper of Newgate, who always thought it prudent never to return home till daybreak; and William Woodfall, the celebrated Parliamentary reporter. In later times Brasbridge, the sporting silversmith of Fleet Street, was a frequenter of the club. He tells us that among his associates was a surgeon, who, living on the Surrey side of the Thames, had to take a boat every night (Blackfriar's Bridge not being then built). This nightly navigation cost him three or four shillings a time, yet, when the bridge came, he grumbled at having to pay a penny toll. Among other frequenters of the
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Globe, Mr. Timbs enumerates
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Archibald Hamilton, whose mind was 'fit for a lord chancellor;' Dunstall, the comedian; Carnan, the bookseller, who defeated the Stationers' Company in the almanack trial; and, later still, the eccentric Hugh Evelyn, who set up a claim upon the great Surrey estate of Sir Frederic Evelyn.
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was originally an evening paper alone. In 1826 a deputation of the leading men opposed to Catholic Emancipation waited on Mr. Charles Baldwin, proprietor of the _St. James's Chronicle_, and begged him to start an anti-Catholic evening paper, but Mr. Baldwin refused unless a preliminary sum of £15,000 was lodged at the banker's. A year later this sum was deposited, and in 1827 the _Evening Standard_, edited by Dr. Giffard, ex-editor of the _St. James's Chronicle_, appeared. Mr. Alaric Watts, the poet, was succeeded as sub-editor of the _Standard_ by the celebrated Dr. Maginn. The daily circulation soon rose from 700 or 800 copies to 3,000 and over. The profits Mr. Grant calculates at £7,000 to £8,000 a year. On the bankruptcy of Mr. Charles Baldwin, Mr. James Johnson bought the _Morning Herald_ and _Standard_, plant and all, for £16,500. The proprietor reduced the _Standard_ from fourpence to twopence, and made it a morning as well as an evening paper. In 1858 he reduced it to a penny only. The result was a great success. The annual income of the _Standard_ is now, Mr. Grant says,