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CHAPTER XI

COVENT GARDEN

HEN describing some highly convivial scene,
Thackeray generally places his characters in one

of the quaint chophouses and taverns of old London, rather than around the mahogany tables of the more famous clubs.

The Cave of Harmony, fronting Covent Garden Market he knew in his youth. There to quote from "The Newcomes," "song and cup song and cup " passed merrily, and I daresay the songs and bumpers were encored.

We have his own words as proof that the tap room was near Covent Garden, for in "A Night's Pleasure" there occurs these words:

"What! is the old Cave of Harmony still extant?' I asked. 'I have not been there these twenty years.'

"And memory carried me back to the days when Lightsides, of Corpus, myself, and little Oaks, the Johnian, came up to town in a chaise-and-four, at the long vacation at the end of our freshman's year, ordered turtle and venison for dinner at the Bedford, blubbered over 'Black-eyed Susan' at the play, and then finished the evening at that very Harmonic Cave, where the famous English Improvisatore

sang with such prodigious talent that we asked him to stay with us in the country.

"And so the Cave of Harmony is open,' I said, looking at little Grigg with a sad and tender interest, and feeling that I was about a hundred years old.

“I believe you my baw-aw-oy!' said he, adopting the tone of an exceedingly refined and popular actor, whose choral and comic powers render him a general favourite.

"Does Bivins keep it?' I asked, in a voice of profound melancholy.

"Hoh! What a flat you are! You might as well ask if Mrs. Siddons acted Lady Macbeth to-night, and if Queen Anne's dead or not. I tell you what, Spec, my boy you're getting a regular old flat fogy, sir, a positive old fogy. How the deuce do you pretend to be a man about town, and not know that Bivins has left the Cavern? Law bless you! Come in and see: I know the landlord - I'll introduce you to him.'

"This was an offer which no man could resist; and so Grigg and I went through the Piazza, and down the steps of that well-remembered place of conviviality.

"The room was full of young, rakish-looking lads, with a dubious sprinkling of us middle-aged youth, and stalwart, red-faced fellows from the country, with whiskey noggins before them, and bent upon seeing life."

"He said he would have a sixth glass if we would stop: but we didn't; and he took his sixth glass without us. My melancholy young friend had begun another comic song,

and I could bear it no more. The market carts were rattling into Covent Garden; and the illuminated clock marked all sorts of small hours as we concluded this night's pleasure."

Costigan was generally to be seen at the Cave of Harmony and in the opening chapters of "The Newcomes" we are told how the outraged Colonel, after listening to one of his ribald songs, denounced the old reprobate in unmeasured terms, and catching Clive by the arm, marched the boy out of the polluted atmosphere into "the fresh night air of Covent Garden Market."

"Holding on by various tables, the Captain had sidled up, without accident to himself or any of the jugs and glasses round about him, to the table where we sat, and had taken his place near the writer, his old acquaintance.

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'He's a great character,' whispered that unlucky King of Corpus to his neighbour, the Colonel 'Captain Costigan, will you take something to drink?' "Bedad, I will,' says the Captain, ‘and I'll sing ye a song tu.'

"The unlucky wretch, who scarcely knew what he was doing, or saying, selected one of the most outrageous performances of his repertoire, fired off a tipsy howl by way of overture, and away he went. At the end of the second verse the Colonel started up, clapping on his hat, seizing his stick, and looking as ferocious as though he had been going to do battle with a Pindaree. 'Silence!' he roared out.

"Hear, hear!' cried certain wags at a farther table. 'Go on, Costigan!' said others.

"Go on!' cries the Colonel, in his high voice, trembling with anger. 'Does any gentleman say, "Go on"? Does any man who has a wife and sisters, or children at home, say "Go on" to such disgusting ribaldry as this? Do you dare, sir, to call yourself a gentleman, and to say that you hold the king's commission, and to sit down amongst Christians and men of honour, and defile the ears of young boys with this wicked balderdash?'

"Why do you bring young boys here, old boy?' cries a voice of the malcontents.

"Why? Because I thought I was coming to a society of gentlemen,' cried out the indignant Colonel. 'Because I never could have believed that Englishmen could meet together and allow a man, and an old man, so to disgrace himself. For shame, you old wretch! Go home to your bed, you hoary old sinner! And for my part, I'm not sorry that my son should see, for once in his life, to what shame and degradation and dishonour, drunkenness and whiskey may bring a man. Never mind the change, sir! Curse the change!' says the Colonel, facing the amazed waiter. 'Keep it till you see me in this place again; which will be never - by George, never!' And shouldering his stick, and scowling round at the company of scared bacchanalians the indignant gentleman stalked away, his boy after him."

It is generally conceded that this Cave was no other than the old chophouse known as "Evans's" a resort to which Thackeray once took Mr. Lowell to listen to the last chapters of "The Newcomes." Since then a new stone front has been added and the name changed to that of