Stupid slaves of the press, on that ground which you at present occupy,
there were men of wit and pleasure and fashion, some five-and-twenty
lustres ago.
We are at Button's--the well-known sign of the "Turk's Head." The crowd
of periwigged heads at the windows--the swearing chairmen round the
steps (the blazoned and coronalled panels of whose vehicles denote the
lofty rank of their owners),--the throng of embroidered beaux entering
or departing, and rendering the air fragrant with the odors of pulvillio
and pomander, proclaim the celebrated resort of London's Wit and
Fashion. It is the corner of Regent Street. Carlton House has not yet
been taken down.
A stately gentleman in crimson velvet and gold is sipping chocolate
at one of the tables, in earnest converse with a friend whose suit is
likewise embroidered, but stained by time, or wine mayhap, or wear. A
little deformed gentleman in iron-gray is reading the Morning Chronicle
newspaper by the fire, while a divine, with a broad brogue and a shovel
hat and cassock, is talking freely with a gentleman, whose star and
ribbon, as well as the unmistakable beauty of his Phidian countenance,
proclaims him to be a member of Britain's aristocracy.
Two ragged youths, the one tall, gaunt, clumsy and scrofulous, the other
with a wild, careless, beautiful look, evidently indicating Race, are
gazing in at the window, not merely at the crowd in the celebrated Club,
but at Timothy the waiter, who is removing a plate of that exquisite
dish, the muffin (then newly invented), at the desire of some of the
revellers within.
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