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"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."--JOHNSON.

One of the most touching things about "The Cheese" is the way in which it treasures the memory of its old servants. "William" has actually given his name to a room, and there over the fireplace of the bar just opposite the door is his portrait, the portrait of William Simpson, who commenced waiter at "Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese" Chop-house in 1829. "This picture," says the inscription below, "was subscribed for by the gentlemen frequenting the Coffee Room, and presented to Mr. Dolamore to be handed down as an heirloom to all future Landlords of 'Ye old Cheshire Cheese,' Wine Office Court Fleet Street." The name of the artist is unknown. It is worth noting that in this inscription the room in which we stand is called a Coffee Room. Its modern designation of "the bar" therefore is of comparatively recent origin.

The two small oil paintings on either side this heirloom were painted in 1883 by William Allen. One of them depicts the interior of the old bar, the other its exterior. To the right of the fireplace is a striking and important painting. It is a portrait, but it is not certainly known of whom. Tradition varies, and while according to some it is a portrait of Dean Swift, others maintain that here we have the counterfeit presentment of the first proprietor of the house after the Great Fire, Theophilus B. Cruneble. There are other objects of interest in the room, particularly worth notice being the old china and glass. Nor must we omit to mention the young ladies behind the bar, but it is for the visitor to appraise their grace and charm. Beauty draws the human heart in every generation, and the men of Johnson's day were no less susceptible to its appeal than are we. The picture upstairs, near the "Grandfather's Clock," would have fired their imaginations as readily as it does ours.

But now, turning from the bar over which Hebes of our twentieth century so efficiently preside, we pass to the room opposite, and immediately on the left of the passage way as we enter. This room has not changed its character or its furniture for centuries. If Dr. Johnson were to come in now and go by us to his corner seat there to the right of the fireplace, he would find things essentially much as he left them. If his ghost wanders about Fleet Street, it must be a great relief to it to get, when it can, back safe into its unchanging old haunt, out of reach of the structural revolutions which elsewhere time has wrought.

As in the bar, the important picture in this room is that of a waiter. It is a portrait of Henry Todd, as the inscription informs us, who commenced waiter at the Olde Cheshire Cheese the 27th February, 1812. It was painted by Wageman, July, 1827, and "subscribed for by the gentlemen frequenting the Coffee Room, and presented to Mr. Dolamore in trust to be handed down as an heirloom to all future landlords of the Old Cheshire Cheese, Wine Office Court, Fleet Street."

Two oil paintings by Seymour Lucas, R.A., of the dining-room, with portraits of customers, will repay inspection, while above Dr. Johnson's old seat is an oil painting of the Lexicographer himself, a copy of the famous portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, now preserved in the National Gallery. Underneath may be read the following inscription:--"The Favourite Seat of Dr. Johnson. Born 18th Septr., 1709. Died 13th Decr., 1784. In him a noble understanding and a masterly intellect were united. With grand independence of character, and unfailing goodness of heart, which won the admiration of his own age and remain as recommendations to the reverence of posterity. 'No, Sir! there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness has been produced as by a good tavern.--JOHNSON.'"

Hard by are two interesting old prints, one of Dr. Johnson rescuing Oliver Goldsmith from his landlady, the other of a literary party at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Then there is an oil painting of a family group in which the Doctor is easily to be recognised. More modern, but still well worthy of inspection, is an artist's proof, signed by the artist himself, of the well-known picture--"Toddy at the Cheese." This is the painter, Mr. Dendy Sadler's own gift to the house, the interior of whose dining-room he has so genially portrayed. Noticeable adjuncts of the apartments also are two old water-bottles, one of leather, the other of stone, and of what is known as Godstone ware.

The old staircase is well worth careful attention, having stood marvellously the test of time. If we ascend it we arrive at the first floor and William's room, to which an announcement on the wainscot at the foot of the stairs served as a guide. It is immediately on our left when we reach the landing, perpetuating with its name the memory of Mr. Dolamore's faithful old henchman. Its most interesting feature is a second copy in oils of the portrait of Dr. Johnson by Sir Joshua Reynolds, to which I have just made allusion. But it is much more than a mere replica of the copy downstairs in the dining-room. It is a copy, indeed, but a very old copy, and dates back to the Doctor's own time. It was painted in order that it might adorn the room at "The Mitre," in Chancery Lane, where the club founded by Dr. Johnson first held its meetings. Dr. Johnson's "Mitre" has long since been pulled down, but the club he founded exists, and meets several times a year in William's room. Two prints next claim our attention--a coloured one of Dr. Johnson's House in Gough Square, the other a book print of Dr. Johnson, who is also shown to us in a framed wax bas-relief model.

About the room also are a number of sepia drawings of the various parts of the house--the work of that accomplished artist, F. Cox--while there are several pictures on the wall which serve to show that the tastes of the frequenters of the "Cheese" are not limited to literature and journalism. For example, we have "Roach, Perch and Dace," and "Salmon Trout" and "Trout," by C. Foster, a coloured print of steeple-chasing, a portrait of Lord Palmerston, engraved by F. Holl from the painting by F. Grant; a landscape of considerable merit by an unknown artist, and a view of Fleet Street, showing the entrance to Wine Office Court. Very interesting too is a print of the meeting of Dr. Johnson and Flora Macdonald in the Isle of Skye in the year 1773. This valuable work was recently exhibited at the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908 at Shepherd's Bush.

Issuing from this room, which embalms the memory of "William," we must pause at the foot of the flight of stairs leading to the next floor to admire a handsome old grandfather's clock, which even in Dr. Johnson's time was venerable by reason of its years, as it was almost certainly part of the furniture of "The Cheese" when the hostelry was rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1667. It is not impossible it was ticking off the flight of time when Hawkins and other Elizabethan sea captains were harrying the warships of the great Armada in its progress up the British Channel. Shakespeare and Ben Jonson may have studied that ancient clock-face which would warn them that it was desirable to cut short their pleasant revelry and hasten to the theatre. We pass on with a lingering look, and the next turn in the old staircase brings us to a private room, containing one of the most valued treasures of the Cheshire Cheese, nothing less than the original chair used by Dr. Johnson at the Mitre, the old Chancery Lane tavern, patronised occasionally by the Doctor and now pulled down. This chair was acquired by the proprietor of the Cheshire Cheese, and sedulously protected from all accident and injury. The better to ensure this end it is now enclosed in a glass case. On the back of the chair is a medallion of Dr. Johnson with the inscription--"Born Sept. 7th, 1709. Died Dec. 13th, 1784." Copies of the chair can be supplied to order in oak at ?5 each, but the medallion and inscriptions, which are perhaps modern, or at least post-Johnsonian additions to the original chair, are not copied. A notice card upon the seat of the chair announces to the visitor that "This chair was in daily use by Dr. Samuel Johnson," while below follows the quotation:--"More regal in his state than many kings." Though he passed away when George Washington was in the zenith of his renown after splendid epoch-making achievement in arms and diplomacy and council, the memory of the great Doctor is as fresh and fragrant as ever, as on the day when he last sat in the chair before us, the oracle of a select company of wits and scholars. It is idle to moralise further on this more than royal relic. Each intelligent visitor, as he reverently contemplates it, will pursue his own line of reflection.

The great artistic treasures of this room are, however, three important paintings, which have recently been restored by Messrs. William Marchant & Co., of the Goupil Gallery, 5 Regent Street. The first, which looks down on the chair of Dr. Johnson in its glass shrine, is an oil painting of a boy and dog. On the back of the picture is written:--"David Boyle, aged 10." "Ye 19th of July, 1691." So that it was painted eighteen years before the birth of Dr. Johnson. On the opposite wall is another oil painting, a still life picture, attributed by competent critics to Peter Boel, who lived from 1626 to 1680, and was a pupil of Snyders. The third of these oil paintings is a figure picture, probably of "Diana," by Charles Le Brun, or the school .

In the smoking-room adjoining there is nothing of special interest for visitors, since this apartment is mainly devoted to the smoking of churchwarden pipes and to the consumption of "goes" of rack, cork, and, above all, of Punch, for the right compounding of which Ye Old Cheshire Cheese enjoys a reputation so deservedly high. Here take place noteworthy arguments, conducted with much skill and logical acumen by the regular customers, each in his own special chair, and each with his own churchwarden pipe in his mouth, or held gracefully poised to emphasise a rhetorical point. A case is provided in which gentlemen may keep from harm the favourite pipes to which use and wont have made them attached. In this room, too, the evening clubs hold their meetings. The subject of "Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Clubs" is, however, dealt with elsewhere. Still attention may be drawn to the fact that on the walls of the smoking-room are some interesting pen and ink sketches and drawings relating to the clubs. It would be unbecoming perhaps to omit mention of an engraving of "The Empty Chair at Gadshill," since it serves to remind us of the intimate association of Charles Dickens with "Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese," while it suggests that other empty chair in the next room. Further, a pen and ink drawing of the old bar downstairs, by Joseph Pennell, must not be forgotten, any more than three Phil May sketches, the gift of the Goupil Gallery.

At the foot of the staircase leading up to the apartments sacred to the fair Hebes of the House a sepia drawing by F. Cox claims our notice. It is entitled "An interesting episode in the family history of the House." A stalwart favourite of the bar is snatching a kiss, while two lovely colleagues of his beautiful victim are tip-toeing down these very stairs to see the fun, and one pretty forehead has just reached the corner of the wainscoting. And now as the smiling beauties to the right of the picture bar our further progress, let us descend to the kitchen, where the most interesting objects are the original coal range and coal grill, which have been in use for over a hundred years. Possibly nowhere in the wide world is there a gastronomic temple of greater renown or more worthy of it, for here have always been cooked in huge copper boilers the famous pudding, the fire being fed and the pudding tended throughout the whole night previous to the solemn and regular introduction of this mammoth delicacy to the longing gaze of its patrons. That is the hour when the analytical observer might make valuable studies of the watering mouth.

Dinners, by the way, are now served in the Annexe. This room has been formed by roofing with glass what was originally a court-yard. It contains amongst the rest two famous original prints by H. Bunbury--"A City Hunt" and "Hyde Park, 1780." Other interesting prints are "Destruction of the Bastile, July 14, 1789," after a painting by H. Singleton, and a line engraving by James Heath from a painting by F. Wheatley of "The Riot in Broad Street on the 17th of June, 1773." Here also is a cabinet containing various articles which may be purchased by visitors. The price list may be conveniently appended here. It runs as follows:--

Sugar Basins 1 0 Mustard Pots 1 0 Salt Cellars 1 0 Pepper Pots 1 0 Tea Pots --

POST CARDS. No. 1 Series 6d. per packet. No. 2 Series 6d. per packet. Coloured Interior 1d. each. Views of the House 6d. and 1s.

The above is a fairly complete inventory of the relics and art treasures of the Cheshire Cheese, that ancient hostelry which has become a place of pilgrimage for all in the wide realms of Anglo-Saxondom who cherish the memory of a unique figure in the literary history of the English-speaking peoples. Much has been said and written of the great men of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries who have eaten good fare and waxed honestly merry within the precincts of the Cheshire Cheese, but little of the men of note of this generation and the preceding one who have at one time or another been its guests. There are few distinguished Englishmen who have not partaken of its hospitality, and few persons of eminence, whether hailing from the far Antipodes or from the great country over which floats the Stars and Stripes, who would deem a visit to England complete if due homage to the memory of the great Lexicographer in the Johnsonian shrine in Wine Office Court had not been paid. There is nothing to compare with this worship of the mighty literary monarch, unless it is to be found in that of which Shakespeare is the centre, which has made of Stratford-on-Avon the other Mecca of Anglo-Saxondom.

MR. JOSEPH PENNELL AND LADY COLIN CAMPBELL ON "THE CHEESE"

Hard by there is the Cheshire Cheese, A famous tap.--T. HOOD.

In the last chapter no mention was made of the fact that in 1887 a remarkable picture of the Cheshire Cheese by Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A., was exhibited at the Royal Academy, since it is not among the art treasures of the house. It can, however, not be passed by, since Mr. Seymour Lucas and the Cheshire Cheese are mutual friends. We will therefore quote here the description given of the picture by a well-known London evening paper. To Mr. Dendy Sadler's picture, "Toddy at the Cheshire Cheese," allusion has already been made.

"'Your steak, sir. Yes, sir. Anything else, sir? Napkin, sir? Oh, serviette! Yes, sir. All Americans like them, sir.'

"And so I found for the first time that napkins and bread, freely bestowed in decent restaurants at home, are in England looked upon as costly luxuries.

... "I have returned again and again to the Cheshire Cheese, and have, moreover, tried to induce others to go there with me. For if the place is not haunted, as it is said to be, by the shades of Ben Jonson and Herrick, of Samuel Johnson and Boswell, the waiter is perfectly willing, for a consideration, to point out to you the stains of their wigs on the wall. It is certain that Dickens, Forster, Tom Hood, Wilkie Collins, and many other worthies did frequent it, while Sala periodically puffs it, and a host of other lights have written about it. In my own small way I have endeavoured to lead some modern junior novelists and poets there, to show them how near they could come to some of the great masters whom they apparently worship so thoroughly. But on the only occasion when I succeeded in placing one probably in the seat of Goldsmith or Herrick, he sniffed at the chops and remarked that if Johnson had had a napkin it would have been better for his personal appearance.

"I hardly know myself what is the attraction of the place, for you can only get chops and steaks, kidneys and sausages, or on Saturdays a gigantic pudding, to eat your money's worth of which you must have the appetite of a Gargantua, or, on Shrove Tuesdays, pancakes. If you should happen to want anything else, you would probably get the answer which Mr. Sala says was given to a friend of his who asked for a hard boiled egg with his salad: 'A hegg! If Halbert Hedward 'imself wuz to cum 'ere he couldn't 'ave a hegg.' Whoever really cares to see the last of the Old London chop-houses, let him, when next in London, look up the sign of YE OLDE CHESHYRE CHEESE."

FOOTNOTES:

Serviettes are now provided as a matter of course.

A more extensive menu is now provided.

ABOUT THE PUDDING

Now, good digestion wait on appetite And health on both.--SHAKESPEARE.

"How do you make it?" asked a fair American of the proprietor.

The answer is not recorded, for in the manner of making chiefly lies the speciality of the Old Cheshire Cheese. The hand of the proprietor himself compounds the ingredients in a secret room, secure from the gaze of even his most inquisitive attendants.

Yet when we look on the immense bowl from which sixty or seventy people are to be fed, one cannot wonder at the lady's desire to know how such a Brobdingnagian dish could be so exquisitely prepared.

The proportions of the bowl are emblematic of the profusion with which its contents are dispensed, and even Gargantua would find himself vanquished in presence of the "Cheese" hospitality.

Old "William," for many years the head-waiter, could only be seen in his real glory on Pudding Days. He used to consider it his duty to go round the tables insisting that the guests should have second or third, ay, and with wonder be it spoken, fourth helpings.

"Any gentleman say pudden?" was his constant query; and his habit was not broken when a crusty customer growled:

William either never saw the point or disdained to make reply.

The narrow limits of this volume are all too small for a complete collection of the prose and verse written in praise of the pudding. A few examples must serve.

If you'd dine at your ease Try "Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese." At this famous resort In the Wine Office Court Kickshaws, entr?es or slops You'll not get, but the chops Devil'd kidneys and steaks He will say who partakes Are all second to none-- To a turn they are done! But the pudding!--oh my! You look on with a sigh, As it comes piping hot From the cauldron or pot-- Oh the savour, the taste, Of its lining, its paste! How it wells! how it swells! In its bosom there dwells Food for gods, meat for men, Who resort to Moore's den.

A parody by the same author will appeal to the sentiment of those who scorn a foreign yoke. It is inscribed to Beaufoy A. Moore, and was published by Mr. J. H. Wadsworth, of Boston :--

YE PUDDING'S REQUIEM

AIR: DEATH OF NELSON.

We sought "The Cheese," with thirst and hunger prest, And own we love the pudding day the best. But no one quarrels with the chops cook'd here, Or steaks, when wash'd down by Old English beer!

'Twas on Saint Andrew's day, Our way thro' Fleet Street lay; We sniff'd the pudding then! We scorn'd all foreign fare, True British food was there, To "cut and come agen." Our landlord carved with manner grave, Brave portions to each guest he gave, Nor thought he of his booty, Nor thought he of his booty. Along the boards the signal ran, "Charlie" expects that ev'ry man Will pay and do his duty, Will pay and do his duty.

And now the waiters pour Prime "Burton" foaming o'er "Old William" marks his prey! No tips that waiter claimed, Long be that waiter famed, Who smiles and makes it pay! Not dearly was that pudding bought, For ev'ry hungry Briton sought A "follow" from that beauty, A "follow" from that beauty. With plate on plate each waiter ran; "Charlie" confessed that ev'ry man That day had done his duty, That day had done his duty.

At last the fatal sound, Which spread dismay around, The pudding's off, the pudding's off at last! "The vict'ry's on your side, The day's your own" Moore cried! "I serve and have to fast! However large that pudding be, No scrap is ever left for me! Content I do my duty! Content I do my duty! For to complain was ne'er my plan." Let all confess that Moore, good man, Has ever done his duty, Has ever done his duty!

It is satisfactory to be able to state that the pudding eventually passed the Customs House none the worse for its detention. The guests were eloquent in its praise, and several of them have since visited England merely to track the pudding to the place of its nativity.

THE BAR

If on thy theme I rightly think, There are five reasons why men drink: Good wine, a friend, because I'm dry, At least, I should be by-and-bye, Or any other reason why.--H. ALDRICH.

The "Cheese" bar resembles no other in London. The customers are unique, and the names of their drinks are peculiar. The simplest and amplest is "whisky," and that means Scotch whisky. No old customer of the "Cheese" would ever think of asking for "Scotch." If anyone dares to say "Scotch," he is marked down at once as one not yet inured to the ways of the bar. On the other hand, neither must he whisper "Irish"--certainly not! If he knows his "Cheese" he asks for "Cork," and if he says "Irish" he is an ignoramus. Then who would mention "gin?" The word is absolutely vulgar, and should be confined to the East End and Mrs. Harris. No, no! the cognoscente calls for "rack"--an odd name, which may be meant to suggest the state of mind of the drinker on the morrow, or it may be a mere contraction of arrack.

Punch, a mysterious and delectable compound, we had better not order in the bar, its consumption is so much more pleasant upstairs; but there is no reason why we should not admire the punch bowls, and having considered them and studied the portrait of an erstwhile waiter over the fireplace as much as they deserve, we probably turn about, and, as the eyes become accustomed to the darkness, find ourselves confronted with the way out. But don't go for a while. You would probably like to see somebody in the bar. Adequately to people the bar would task the pencil of a Hogarth, the pen of a Thackeray. That more genial Hogarth of our time, the late Phil May, has indeed done it exceedingly well in his "Parson and the Painter." But the human constituents of the bar's society vary with the hour of the day. In the morning the journalistic element predominates. But it is when night begins to fall that the life of the bar is at its brightest. Then the blinds are drawn, the gas is lighted, and the full orchestra tunes up. The Cheeseites are in their glory, and what might be copy for a dozen comic papers elicits a little passing laughter and then is forgotten. When the sparkle has fled from the champagne, who can restore it? Here, however, are a few fragments of typical conversation.

The bar is crowded, and floating in the ambient air one detects the rich voice of a Scotch poet who is being taken to task for his grammar.

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