THE CONNOISSEUR. BY MR. TOWN, CRITIC AND CENSOR GENERAL. N° 1. THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1754. -Ordine gentis Mores, et studia, et populos, et prælia dicam. VIRG. Their studies and pursuits in order shown, As I have assumed the character of Censor-General, I shall follow the example of the old Roman Censor; the first part of whose duty was to review the people, and distribute them into their several divisions. I shall therefore enter upon my office, by taking a cursory survey of what is usually called The Town. In this I shall not confine myself to the exact method of a geographer, but carry the reader from one quarter to another, as it may suit my convenience, or best contribute to his entertainment. When a comedian, celebrated for his excellence in the part of Shylock, first undertook that character, he made daily visits to the centre of business, the VOL. XXX. 'Change and the adjacent coffee-houses; that by a frequent intercourse and conversation with "the unforeskinn'd race," he might habituate himself to their air and deportment. A like desire of penetrating into the most secret springs of action in these people has often led me there; but I was never more diverted than at Garraway's a few days before the drawing of the lottery. I not only could read hope, fear, and all the various passions excited by a love of gain, strongly pictured in the faces of those who came to buy; but I remarked with no less delight, the many little artifices made use of to allure adventurers, as well as the visible alterations in the looks of the sellers, according as the demand for tickets gave occasion to raise or lower their price. So deeply were the countenances of these bubble-brokers impressed with an attention to the main chance, and their minds seemed so dead to all other sensations, that one might almost doubt, where money is out of the case, whether a Jew "has eyes, "hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, pas "sions." From Garraway's it is but a short step to a gloomy class of mortals, not less intent on gain than the stockjobber: I mean the dispensers of life and death, who flock together, like birds of prey watching for carcases, at Batson's. I never enter this place, but it serves as a memento mori to me. What a formal assemblage of sable suits, and tremendous perukes! I have often met here a most intimate acquaintance, whom I have scarce known again; a sprightly young fellow, with whom I have spent many a jolly hour; but being just dubbed a graduate in physic, he has gained such an entire conquest over the risible muscles, that he hardly vouchsafes at any time to smile. I have heard him harangue, with all the oracular importance of a veteran, on the possibility of Canning's subsisting for a whole month on a few bits of bread; : and he is now preparing a treatise, in which will be set forth a new and infallible method to prevent the spreading of the plague from France into England. Batson's has been reckoned the seat of solemn stupidity yet it is not totally devoid of taste and comThey have among them physicians, who can cope with the most eminent lawyers or divines; and critics, who can relish the sal volatile of a witty composition, or determine how much fire is requisite to sublimate a tragedy secundùm artem. mon sense. Emerging from these dismal regions, I am glad to breathe the pure air in St. Paul's coffee-house: where (as I profess the highest veneration for our clergy) I cannot contemplate the magnificence of the cathedral without reflecting on the abject condition of those tatter'd crapes, who are said to ply here for an occasional burial or sermon, with the same regularity as the happier drudges, who salute us with the cry of "coach, sir," or 66 chair, your honour." And here my publisher would not forgive me, was I to leave the neighbourhood without taking notice of the Chapter Coffee-house, which is frequented by those encouragers of literature, and (as they are styled by an eminent critic) "not the worst judges of merit, the booksellers." 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 in the phrase of the Conger is best, which sells most; and if the demand for Quarles should be greater than for Pope, he would have the highest place on the rubricpost. There are also many parts of every work liable to their remarks, which fall not within the notice of less accurate observers. A few nights ago I saw one of these gentlemen take up a sermon, and after seeming to peruse it for some time with great attention, he declared, "it was very good English." The reader will judge whether I was most surprised or diverted, when I discovered, that he was not commending the purity and elegance of the diction, but the beauty of the type; which, it seems, is known among the printers by that appellation. We must not, however, think the members of the Conger strangers to the deeper parts of literature; for as carpenters, smiths, masons, and all mechanics smell of the trade they labour at, booksellers take a peculiar turn from their connexions with books and authors. The character of the bookseller is commonly formed on the writers in his service. Thus one is a politician or a deist another affects humour, or aims at turns of wit and repartee; while a third perhaps is grave, moral, and sententious. The Temple is the barrier, that divides the city and suburbs; and the gentlemen who reside there, seem influenced by the situation of the place they inhabit. Templars are, in general, a kind of citizencourtiers. They aim at the air and mien of the drawing-room; but the holyday smartness of a prentice, heightened with some additional touches of the rake or coxcomb, betrays itself in every thing they do. The Temple, however, is stocked with its peculiar beaux, wits, poets, critics, and every character in the gay world and it is a thousand pities, that so pretty a society should be disgraced with a few dull. fellows, who can submit to puzzle themselves with cases and reports, and have not taste enough to follow the genteel method of studying the law. : I shall now, like a true student of the Temple, hurry from thence to Covent-Garden, the acknowledged region of gallantry, wit, and criticism; and hope to be excused for not stopping at George's in my way, as the Bedford affords a greater variety of nearly the same characters. This coffee-house is every night Almost every one you crowded with men of parts. -meet is a polite scholar and a wit. Jokes and bons mots are echoed from box to box; every branch of literature is critically examined, and the merit of -every production of the press, or performance at the theatres, weighed and determined. This school (to which I am myself indebted for a great part of my education, and in which, though unworthy, I am now arrived at the honour of being a public lecturer) has bred up many authors, to the amazing entertainment and instruction of their readers. Button's, the grand archetype of the Bedford, was frequented by Addison, Steele, Pope, and the rest of that celebrated set, who flourished at the beginning of this century; and was regarded with just deference on account of the real geniusses who frequented it. But we can now boast men of superior abilities; men, who without any one acquired excellence, by the mere dint of an happy assurance, can exact the same tribute of veneration, and receive it as due to the illustrious characters, the scribblers, players, fiddlers, gamblers, that make so large a part of the company at the Bedford. I shall now take leave of Covent-Garden, and desire the reader's company to White's. Here (as Vanbrugh says of Locket's) "he may have a dish no "bigger than a saucer, that shall cost him fifty shillings." The great people, who frequent this place, do not interrupt their politer amusements, like the wretches at Garraway's, with business, any farther than to go down to Westminster one sessions to vote for a bill, and the next to repeal it. Nor do they trouble themselves with literary debates, as at the Bedford. Learning is beneath the notice of a man of quality. They employ themselves more fashionably at whist for the trifle of a thousand pounds the rubber, or by making bets on the lye of the day. From this very genteel place the reader must not be |