HKB
nobleman does not care to run any hazard, or have the trouble of keeping horses in town, they will agree to furnish him with a set all the year round.
The principal taverns are large handsome edifices, made as commodious for the entertaining a variety of company as can be contrived, with some spacious rooms for the accommodation of numerous assemblies. Here a stranger may be furnished with wines, and excellent food of all kinds, dressed after the best manner:—each company, and every particular man, if he pleases, has a room to himself, and a good fire if it be winter time, for which he pays nothing, and is not to be disturbed or turned out of his room by any other man of what quality soever, till he thinks fit to leave it. And as many people meet here upon business, at least an equal-number resort hither purely for pleasure, or to refresh themselves in an evening after a day’s fatigue.
And though the taverns are very numerous, yet ale-houses are much more so, being visited by the inferior tradesmen, mechanics, journeymen, porters, coachmen, carmen, servants, and others whose pockets will not reach a glass of wine. Here they sit promiscuously in common dirty rooms, with large fires, and clouds of tobacco, where one that is not used to them can scarce breathe or see; but as they are a busy sort of people, they seldom stay long, returning to their several employments, and are succeeded by fresh sets of the same rank of men, at their leisure hours, all day long.
Of eating-houses and cook-shops there are not many, considering the largeness of the town, unless it be about the Inns of Court and Chancery, Smithfield, and the Royal Exchange, and some other places, to which the country-people and strangers resort when they come to town. Here is good butcher’s meat of all kinds, and in the best of them fowls, pigs, geese, &c., the last of which are pretty dear; but one that can make a meal of butcher’s meat, may have as much as he cares to eat for sixpence; he must be content indeed to sit in a public room, and use the same linen that forty people have done before him. Besides meat, he finds very good white bread, table-beer, &c.
Coffee-houses are almost as numerous as ale-houses, dispersed in every part of the town, where they sell tea, coffee, chocolate, drams, and in many of the great ones arrack and other punch, wine, &c. These consist chiefly of one large common room, with good fires in winter; and hither the middle sort of people chiefly resort, many to breakfast, read the news, and talk politics; after which they retire home: others, who are strangers in town, meet here about noon, and appoint some tavern to dine at; and a great many attend at the coffee-houses near the Exchange, the Inns of Court, and Westminster, about their business. In the afternoon about four, people resort to these places again, from whence they adjourn to the tavern, the play, &c.; and some, when they have taken a handsome dose, run to the coffee-house at midnight for a dish of coffee to set them right; while others conclude the day here with drams, or a bowl of punch.
There are but few cider-houses about London, though this be liquor of English growth, because it is generally thought too cold for the climate, and to elevate the spirits less than wine or strong beer.
The four grand distinctions of the people are these:—(1) The nobility and gentry; (2) the merchants and first-rate tradesmen; (3) the lawyers and physicians; and (4) inferior tradesmen, attorneys, clerks, apprentices, coachmen, carmen, chairmen, watermen, porters, and servants.