Note 301 — Chapter XVIII · COFFEE-HOUSES AND TAVERNS.

Jonathan's was essentially a stockjobbers' house, and was in Exchange Alley, as was also Baker's, which had a similar clientèle. 'I have been taken for a Merchant upon the Exchange for above these Ten Years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the assembly of Stock Jobbers at Jonathan's,' writes Addison in the first number of the Spectator. 'Stock Jobbers busie at Jonathan's from Twelve to Three,' says Ward. The St. James's was as thoroughly a Whig house as White's was Tory; and 'Foreign and Domestic News you will have from St. James's Coffee House' was part of the Tatler programme. We have seen how Swift used it, and how his letters used to be directed there; but what he wrote to Stella was hardly the reason of his frequenting the house. He seems to have got on very friendly terms with Elliot, the proprietor, rather early in his London career, for he writes: 'I dined to day with poor Lord Mountjoy, who is ill of the gout; and this evening I christened our Coffeeman Elliot's child; where the rogue had a most noble supper, and Steele and I sat among some scurvy company over a bowl of punch, so that I am come home late, young woman, and cannot stay to write to little rogues.'[301] The Jamaica is still in existence, although not where it was in Anne's reign. It was then in Cornhill, 'by the Ship and Castle.' The Jerusalem was then, as it used to be not so long since, 'near Garraway's.'