nor did you see any of the lower or middle classes of London intruding
themselves in regions which, with a sort of tacit understanding, were
then given up exclusively to persons of rank and fashion.


LONDON HOTELS IN 1814


There was a class of men, of very high rank, such as Lords Wellington,
Nelson, and Collingwood, Sir John Moore and some few others who never
frequented the clubs. The persons to whom I refer, and amongst whom
were many members of the sporting world, used to congregate at a few
hotels. The Clarendon, Limmer's, Ibbetson's, Fladong's, Stephens',
and Grillon's, were the fashionable hotels. The Clarendon was then kept
by a French cook, Jacquiers, who contrived to amass a large sum of money
in the service of Louis the Eighteenth in England, and subsequently
with Lord Darnley. This was the only public hotel where you could get
a genuine French dinner, and for which you seldom paid less than three
or four pounds; your bottle of champagne or of claret, in the year 1814,
costing you a guinea.

Limmer's was an evening resort for the sporting world; in fact, it was
a midnight Tattersal's, where you heard nothing but the language of
the turf, and where men with not very clean hands used to make up their
books. Limmer's was the most dirty hotel in London; but in the gloomy,
comfortless coffee-room might be seen many members of the rich squirearchy,
who visited London during the sporting season. This hotel was frequently
so crowded that a bed could not be obtained for any amount of money;
but you could always get a very good plain English dinner, an excellent
bottle of port, and some famous gin-punch. Ibbetson's hotel was chiefly