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QUEEN'S ARMS, St Pauls church yard
Garrick appears to have kept up his interest in the City by means of clubs, to
which he paid periodical visits.
We have already mentioned the Club of young merchants, at Tom's Coffee-house, in
Cornhill. Another Club was held at the Queen's Arms Tavern, in St. Paul's
Churchyard, where used to assemble: Mr. Samuel Sharpe, the surgeon ; Mr.
Paterson, the City solicitor ; Mr. Draper, the bookseller ; Mr. Clutterbuck, the
mercer ; and a few others.
Sir John Hawkins tells us that " they were none of them drinkers, and in order
to make a reckoning, called only for French wine." These were Garrick's standing
council in theatrical affairs.
At the Queen's Arms, after a thirty years' interval, Johnson renewed his
intimacy with some of the members of his old Ivy lane Club.
Brasbridge, the old silversmith of Fleet-street, was a member of the Sixpenny
Card-Club held at the Queen's Arms : among the members was Henry Baldwyn, who,
under the auspices of Bonnel Thornton, Colman the elder, and Garrick, set up the
St. James's Chronicle, which once had the largest circulation of any evening
paper this worthy newspaper-proprietor was considerate and generous to men of
genius : " Often," says Brasbridge, "at his hospitable board I have seen needy
authors, and others connected with his employment, whose abilities, ill-requited
as they might have been by the world in general, were by him always
appreciated." Among Brasbridge's acquaintance, also, were John Walker, shopman
to a grocer and chandler in Well-street, Rag fair, who died worth 200,000/.,
most assuredly not gained by lending money on doubtful security ; and Ben
Kenton, brought up at a charity school, and who realized 300,000l, partly at the
Magpie and Crown, in Whitechapel.
References :
Lots of references are made to two sources on the
internet archive
:
Edward Callows, Old London Taverns &
John Timbs, Club life of London Volume 2
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