There was a multitude of famous shops and coffee-houses in this quarter, all of which make a figure in the _Tatler_ and other works, such as Nando's coffee-house; Dick's (still extant as Richard's); the Rainbow (which is said to have been indicted in former times for the _nuisance_ of selling coffee); Ben Tooke's (the bookseller); Lintot's; and Charles Mather's, _alias_ Bubble-boy, the Toyman, who, when Sir Timothy Shallow accuses him of selling him a cane "for ten pieces, while Tom Empty had as good a one for five," exclaims, "Lord! Sir Timothy, I am concerned that you, whom I took to understand canes better than anybody in town, should be so overseen! Why, Sir Timothy, yours is a true _jambee_, and esquire Empty's only a plain dragon."[101]
The fire of London stopped at the Temple Exchange coffee-house; a circumstance which is recorded in an inscription, stating the house to have been the last of the houses burnt, and the first restored. The old front of this house was taken down about a century ago; but on its being rebuilt, the stone with the inscription was replaced.
But we must now cross over the way to Shire Lane, which is close to Temple Bar on the opposite side.
Here, "in ancient times," says Maitland, writing in the middle of the last century, "were only posts, rails, and a chain, such as are now at Holborn, Smithfield, and Whitechapel bars. Afterwards there was a house of timber erected across the street, with a narrow gateway, and an entry on the south side of it under the house." The present gate was built by Wren after the great fire, but although the work of so great a master, is hardly worth notice as a piece of architecture. It must be allowed that Wren could do poor things as well as good, even when not compelled by a vestry. As the last of the city gates, however, we confess we should be sorry to see it pulled down, though we believe there is a general sense that it is in the way. If it were handsome or venerable we should plead hard for it, because it would then be a better thing than a mere convenience. The best thing we know of it is a jest of Goldsmith's; and the worst, the point on which the jest turned. Goldsmith was coming from Westminster Abbey, with Dr. Johnson, where they had been looking at the tombs in Poets' Corner, and Johnson had quoted a line from Ovid:--