[14] Will's Coffee-house first had the title of the Red Cow, then of the Rose, and, we believe, is the same house alluded to in the pleasant story in the second number of the _Tatler_:--
"Supper and friends expect we at the Rose."
The Rose, however, was a common sign for houses of public entertainment.
Will's was the great resort for the wits of Dryden's time, after whose death it was transferred to Button's. Pope describes the houses as "opposite each other, in Russell-street, Covent Garden," where Addison established Daniel Button, in a new house, about 1712; and his fame, after the production of _Cato_, drew many of the Whigs thither. Button had been servant to the Countess of Warwick. The house is more correctly described as "over against Tom's, near the middle of the south side of the street."
Addison was the great patron of Button's; but it is said that when he suffered any vexation from his Countess, he withdrew the company from Button's house. His chief companions, before he married Lady Warwick, were Steele, Budgell, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Brett. He used to breakfast with one or other of them in St. James's-place, dine at taverns with them, then to Button's, and then to some tavern again, for supper in the evening; and this was the usual round of his life, as Pope tells us, in Spence's _Anecdotes_; where Pope also says: "Addison usually studied all the morning, then met his party at Button's, dined there, and stayed five or six hours; and sometimes far into the night. I was of the company for about a year, but found it too much for me: it hurt my health, and so I quitted it." Again: "There had been a coldness between me and Mr. Addison for some time, and we had not been in company together for a good while anywhere but at Button's Coffee-house, where I used to see him almost every day."
Here Pope is reported to have said of Patrick, the lexicographer, that "a dictionary-maker might know the meaning of one word, but not of two put together."
Button's was the receiving-house for contributions to _The Guardian_, for which purpose was put up a lion's head letter-box, in imitation of the celebrated lion at Venice, as humorously announced. Thus:--
"N.B.--Mr. Ironside has, within five weeks last past, muzzled three lions, gorged five, and killed one. On Monday next the skin of the dead one will be hung up, _in terrorem_, at Button's Coffee-house, over against Tom's in Covent Garden."[17]