Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: August 19, 2024
Murray used to argue as well as 'drink champagne' with the wits; Thurlow was the irrepressible talker of Nando's; Erskine used to carry his scarlet uniform from Lincoln's Inn Hall, to the smoke-laden atmosphere of Coachmakers' Hall, at which memorable 'discussion forum' Edward Law is known to have spoken in the presence of a closely packed assembly of politicians, idlers upon town, shop-men, and drunkards.
In the days when he was a briefless barrister, Thurlow was a frequent visitor here, attracted, it is said, as were so many more of the legal fraternity, by the dual merits of the punch and the physical charms of the landlady's daughter. Miss Humphries was, as a punster put it, "always admired at the bar by the bar." The future Lord Chancellor had no cause to regret his patronage of Nando's.
* A stage-coach sets out exactly at six from Nando's coffee-house to Mr. Tiptoe's dancing-school, and returns at eleven every evening, for one shilling and four-pence. N.B. Dancing shoes, not exceeding four inches height in the heel, and periwigs, not exceeding three feet in length, are carried in the coach-box gratis. From my own Apartment, October 20.
How thoroughly the highway deserved the name of "tipling street" may be inferred from the fact that its list of taverns included but was not exhausted by the Devil, the King's Head, the Horn, the Mitre, the Cock, the Bolt-in-Tun, the Rainbow, the Cheshire Cheese, Hercules Pillars, the Castle, the Dolphin, the Seven Stars, Dick's, Nando's, and Peele's.
So the entire journal transpires at length by piece-meal. Seldom-readers are slow readers, and, without this expedient no one in the company would probably ever travel through the contents of a whole paper. Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment. What an eternal time that gentleman in black, at Nando's, keeps the paper!
During those stirring days when the "Wilkes and Liberty" riots caused such intense excitement in London, one worthy merchant of the city found Nando's a valuable place of refuge. Arrangements had been made for a body of merchants and tradesmen of the city to wait on George III at St. James's with a loyal address and as token of their sympathy with the position assumed by that obstinate monarch.
From that prying and all-powerful God of Chance none, great or small, escaped. James's Street, and the beautiful barmaid of Nando's in whom my Lord Thurlow was said to be interested. All these, and much more not to be repeated, were duly set down in the betting-books at White's and Brooks's.
"Be great, be fear'd, be envied, be admired; To fame as lasting as the earth pretend, But not hereafter to the name of friend!" For Thurlow the ungrateful, Nando's was associated with his first step up the 'ladder of success; for Cowper, Dick's was the scene of an agony that he remembered to his dying day.
Boehm had fled for refuge to Nando's coffee-house, leaving the precious address under the seat of his coach. The rioters were not aware of that fact, and it seems that the document was eventually recovered, after his Majesty had been "kept waiting till past five."
There is a fitness in the fact that as Thurlow's name is linked with Nando's coffee-house so Cowper's memory is associated with the adjacent establishment known as Dick's. The poet and the lawyer had been fellow clerks in a solicitor's office, had spent their time in "giggling and making giggle" with the daughters of Cowper's uncle, and been boon friends in many ways.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking