Rawlins, the engraver of the fine and much coveted Oxford Crown, with a view of the city under the horse, dates a quaint supplicatory letter to John Evelyn, 'from the Hole in the Wall, in St. Martin's;' no misnomer, we will be sworn, in that aggregation of debt and dissipation, when debtors were imprisoned with a very remote chance of redemption. In the days of Rye-house and Meal-Tub plots, philanthropy overlooked such little matters; and Small Debts Bills were not dreamt of in the philosophy of speculative legislators. Among other places which bore the designation of the Hole in the Wall, there was one in Chandos-street, in which the famous Duval, the highwayman, was apprehended after an attack on--two bottles of wine, probably drugged by a 'friend' or mistress."
This was the true Johnsonian Mitre, so often referred to in _Boswell's Life_; but it has earlier fame. Here, in 1640, Lilly met Old Will Poole, the astrologer, then living in Ram-alley. The Royal Society Club dined at the Mitre from 1743 to 1750, the Society then meeting in Crane-court, nearly opposite. The Society of Antiquaries met some time at the Mitre. Dr. Macmichael, in _The Gold-headed Cane_, makes Dr. Radcliffe say:--"I never recollect to have spent a more delightful evening than that at the Mitre Tavern, in Fleet-street, where my good friend Billy Nutly, who was indeed the better half of me, had been prevailed upon to accept of a small temporary assistance, and joined our party, the Earl of Denbigh, Lords Colepeper and Stowel, and Mr. Blackmore."
The house has a token:--WILLIAM PAGET AT THE. A mitre.--Rx. MITRE IN FLEET STREET. In the field, W. E. P.
Johnson's Mitre is commonly thought to be the tavern with that sign, which still exists in Mitre-court, over against Fetter-lane; where is shown a cast of Nollekens' bust of Johnson, in confirmation of this house being his resort. Such was not the case; Boswell distinctly states it to have been the Mitre Tavern _in_ _Fleet-street_; and the records by Lilly and the Royal Society, alike specify "in Fleet-street," which Mr. Burn, in his excellent account of the Beaufoy Tokens, explains was the house, No. 39, Fleet-street, that Macklin opened, in 1788, as the Poet's Gallery; and lastly, Saunders's auction-rooms. It was taken down to enlarge the site for Messrs. Hoares' new banking-house. The now Mitre Tavern, in Mitre-court, was originally called Joe's Coffee-house; and on the shutting up of the old Mitre, in Fleet-street, took its name; this being four years after Johnson's death.