Taverns.

THE TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON.

The changes in the manners and customs of our metropolis may be agreeably gathered from such glimpses as we gain of the history of "houses of entertainment" in the long lapse of centuries. Their records present innumerable pictures in little of society and modes, the interest of which is increased by distance. They show us how the tavern was the great focus of news long before the newspaper fully supplied the intellectual want. Much of the business of early times was transacted in taverns, and it is to some extent in the present day. According to the age, the tavern reflects the manners, the social tastes, customs, and recreations; and there, in days when travelling was difficult and costly, and not unattended with danger, the traveller told his wondrous tale to many an eager listener; and the man who rarely strayed beyond his own parish, was thus made acquainted with the life of the world. Then, the old tavern combined, with much of the comfort of an English home, its luxuries, without the forethought of providing either. Its come-and-go life presented many a useful lesson to the man who looked beyond the cheer of the moment. The master, or taverner, was mostly a person of substance, often of ready wit and cheerful manners—to render his public home attractive.

The "win-hous," or tavern, is enumerated among the houses of entertainment in the time of the Saxons; and no doubt existed in England much earlier. The peg-tankard, a specimen of which we see in the Ashmolean Collection at Oxford, originated with the Saxons; the pegs inside denoted how deep each guest was to drink: hence arose the saying, "he is a peg too low," when a man was out of spirits. The Danes were even more convivial in their habits than the Saxons, and may be presumed to have multiplied the number of "guest houses," as the early taverns were called. The Norman followers of the Conqueror soon fell into the good cheer of their predecessors in England. Although wine was made at this period in great abundance from vineyards in various parts of England, the trade of the taverns was principally supplied from France. The traffic for Bordeaux and the neighbouring provinces is said to have commenced about 1154, through the marriage of Henry II. with Eleanor of Aquitaine. The Normans were the great carriers, and Guienne the place whence most of our wines were brought; and which are described in this reign to have been sold in the ships and in the wine-cellars near the public place of cookery, on the banks of the Thames. We are now speaking of the customs of seven centuries since; of which the public wine-cellar, known to our time as the Shades, adjoining old London Bridge, was unquestionably a relic.

The earliest dealers in wines were of two descriptions: the vintners, or importers; and the taverners, who kept taverns for them, and sold the wine by retail to such as came to the tavern to drink it, or fetched it to their own homes.

In a document of the reign of Edward II., we find mentioned a tenement called Pin Tavern, situated in the Vintry, where the Bordeaux merchants craned their wines out of lighters, and other vessels on the Thames; and here was the famous old tavern with the sign of the Three Cranes. Chaucer makes the apprentice of this period loving better the tavern than the shop:—

Thus, the idle City apprentice was a great tavern haunter, which was forbidden in his indenture; and to this day, the apprentice's indenture enacts that he shall not "haunt taverns."

In a play of 1608, the apprentices of old Hobson, a rich citizen, in 1560, frequent the Rose and Crown, in the Poultry, and the Dagger, in Cheapside.

"Enter Hobson, Two Prentices, and a Boy.

"1 Pren. Prithee, fellow Goodman, set forth the ware, and looke to the shop a little. I'll but drink a cup of wine with a customer, at the Rose and Crown in the Poultry, and come again presently.

"2 Pren. I must needs step to the Dagger in Cheape, to send a letter into the country unto my father. Stay, boy, you are the youngest prentice; look you to the shop."

In the reign of Richard II., it was ordained by statute that "the wines of Gascoine, of Osey, and of Spain," as well as Rhenish wines, should not be sold above sixpence the gallon; and the taverners of this period frequently became very rich, and filled the highest civic offices, as sheriffs and mayors. The fraternity of vintners and taverners, anciently the Merchant Wine Tonners of Gascoyne, became the Craft of Vintners, incorporated by Henry VI. as the Vintners' Company.

The curious old ballad of London Lyckpenny, written in the reign of Henry V., by Lydgate, a monk of Bury, confirms the statement of the prices in the reign of Richard II. He comes to Cornhill, when the wine-drawer of the Pope's Head tavern, standing without the street-door, it being the custom of drawers thus to waylay passengers, takes the man by the hand, and says,—"Will you drink a pint of wine?" whereunto the countryman answers, "A penny spend I may," and so drank his wine. "For bread nothing did he pay"—for that was given in. This is Stow's account: the ballad makes the taverner, not the drawer, invite the countryman; and the latter, instead of getting bread for nothing, complains of having to go away hungry:—

There was no eating at taverns at this time, beyond a crust to relish the wine; and he who wished to dine before he drank, had to go to the cook's.

The furnishing of the Boar's Head, in Eastcheap, with sack, in Henry IV., is an anachronism of Shakspeare's; for the vintners kept neither sacks, muscadels, malmseys, bastards, alicants, nor any other wines but white and claret, until 1543. All the other sweet wines before that time, were sold at the apothecaries' shops for no other use but for medicine.

Taking it as the picture of a tavern a century later, we see the alterations which had taken place. The single drawer or taverner of Lydgate's day is now changed to a troop of waiters, besides the under skinker, or tapster. Eating was no longer confined to the cook's row, for we find in Falstaff's bill "a capon 2s. 2d.; sack, two gallons, 5s. 8d.; anchovies and sack, after supper, 2s. 6d.; bread, one halfpenny." And there were evidently different rooms[27] for the guests, as Francis[28] bids a brother waiter "Look down in the Pomgranite;" for which purpose they had windows, or loopholes, affording a view from the upper to the lower apartments. The custom of naming the principal rooms in taverns and hotels is usual to the present day.

Taverns and wine-bibbing had greatly increased in the reign of Edward VI., when it was enacted by statute that no more than 8d. a gallon should be taken for any French wines, and the consumption limited in private houses to ten gallons each person yearly; that there should not be "any more or great number of taverns in London of such tavernes or wine sellers by retaile, above the number of fouretye tavernes or wyne sellers," being less than two, upon an average to each parish. Nor did this number much increase afterwards; for in a return made to the Vintners' Company, late in Elizabeth's reign, there were only one hundred and sixty-eight taverns in the whole city and suburbs.

It seems to have been the fashion among old ballad-mongers, street chroniclers, and journalists, to sing the praises of the taverns in rough-shod verse, and that lively rhyme which, in our day, is termed "patter." Here are a few specimens, of various periods.

In a black-letter poem of Queen Elizabeth's reign, entitled Newes from Bartholomew Fayre, there is this curious enumeration:

This enumeration omits the Mourning Bush, adjoining Aldersgate, containing divers large rooms and lodgings, and shown in Aggas's plan of London, in 1560. There are also omitted The Pope's Head, The London Stone, The Dagger, The Rose and Crown, etc. Several of the above Signs have been continued to our time in the very places mentioned; but nearly all the original buildings were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666; and the few which escaped have been re-built, or so altered, that their former appearance has altogether vanished.

The following list of taverns is given by Thomas Heywood, the author of the fine old play of A Woman killed with Kindness. Heywood, who wrote in 1608, is telling us what particular houses are frequented by particular classes of people:—

In the British Apollo of 1710, is the following doggrel:—

In Look about You, 1600, we read that "the drawers kept sugar folded up in paper, ready for those who called for sack;" and we further find in another old tract, that the custom existed of bringing two cups of silver in case the wine should be wanted diluted; and this was done by rose-water and sugar, generally about a pennyworth. A sharper in the Bellman of London, described as having decoyed a countryman to a tavern, "calls for two pintes of sundry wines, the drawer setting the wine with two cups, as the custome is, the sharper tastes of one pinte, no matter which, and finds fault with the wine, saying, ''tis too hard, but rose-water and sugar would send it downe merrily'—and for that purpose takes up one of the cups, telling the stranger he is well acquainted with the boy at the barre, and can have two-pennyworth of rose-water for a penny of him; and so steps from his seate: the stranger suspects no harme, because the fawne guest leaves his cloake at the end of the table behind him,—but the other takes good care not to return, and it is then found that he hath stolen ground, and out-leaped the stranger more feet than he can recover in haste, for the cup is leaped with him, for which the wood-cock, that is taken in the springe, must pay fifty shillings, or three pounds, and hath nothing but an old threadbare cloake not worth two groats to make amends for his losses."

Bishop Earle, who wrote in the first half of the seventeenth century, has left this "character" of a tavern of his time. "A tavern is a degree, or (if you will) a pair of stairs above an alehouse, where men are drunk with more credit and apology. If the vintner's nose be at the door, it is a sign sufficient, but the absence of this is supplied by the ivy-bush. It is a broacher of more news than hogsheads, and more jests than news, which are sucked up here by some spungy brain, and from thence squeezed into a comedy. Men come here to make merry, but indeed make a noise, and this music above is answered with a clinking below. The drawers are the civilest people in it, men of good bringing up, and howsoever we esteem them, none can boast more justly of their high calling. 'Tis the best theatre of natures, where they are truly acted, not played, and the business as in the rest of the world up and down, to wit, from the bottom of the cellar to the great chamber. A melancholy man would find here matter to work upon, to see heads, as brittle as glasses, and often broken; men come hither to quarrel, and come here to be made friends; and if Plutarch will lend me his simile, it is even Telephus's sword that makes wounds, and cures them. It is the common consumption of the afternoon, and the murderer or the maker away of a rainy day. It is the torrid zone that scorches the face, and tobacco the gunpowder that blows it up. Much harm would be done if the charitable vintner had not water ready for the flames. A house of sin you may call it, but not a house of darkness, for the candles are never out; and it is like those countries far in the north, where it is as clear at midnight as at mid-day. After a long sitting it becomes like a street in a dashing shower, where the spouts are flushing above, and the conduits running below, etc. To give you the total reckoning of it, it is the busy man's recreation, the idle man's business, the melancholy man's sanctuary, the stranger's welcome, the inns-of-court man's entertainment, the scholar's kindness, and the citizen's courtesy. It is the study of sparkling wits, and a cup of comedy their book, whence we leave them."

The conjunction of vintner and victualler had now become common, and would require other accommodation than those mentioned by the Bishop, as is shown in Massinger's New Way to pay Old Debts, where Justice Greedy makes Tapwell's keeping no victuals in his house as an excuse for pulling down his sign:

And the decayed vinter, who afterwards applies to Wellborn for payment of his tavern score, answers, on his inquiring who he is:

Dekker tells us, near this time, of regular ordinaries of three kinds: 1st. An ordinary of the longest reckoning, whither most of your courtly gallants do resort: 2nd. A twelvepenny ordinary, frequented by the justice of the peace, a young Knight; and a threepenny ordinary, to which your London usurer, your stale bachelor, and your thrifty attorney, doth resort. Then Dekker tells us of a custom, especially in the City, to send presents of wine from one room to another, as a complimentary mark of friendship. "Inquire," directs he, "what gallants sup in the next room; and if they be of your acquaintance, do not, after the City fashion, send them in a pottle of wine and your name." Then, we read of Master Brook sending to the Castle Inn at Windsor, a morning draught of sack.

Ned Ward, in the London Spy, 1709, describes several famous taverns, and among them the Rose, anciently, the Rose and Crown, as famous for good wine. "There was no parting," he says, "without a glass; so we went into the Rose Tavern in the Poultry, where the wine, according to its merit, had justly gained a reputation; and there, in a snug room, warmed with brash and faggot, over a quart of good claret, we laughed over our night's adventure."

"From hence, pursuant to my friend's inclination, we adjourned to the sign of the Angel, in Fenchurch-street, where the vintner, like a double-dealing citizen, condescended as well to draw carmen's comfort as the consolatory juice of the vine.

"Having at the King's Head well freighted the hold of our vessels with excellent food and delicious wine, at a small expense, we scribbled the following lines with chalk upon the wall." (See page 98.)

The tapster was a male vendor, not "a woman who had the care of the tap," as Tyrwhitt states. In the 17th century ballad, The Times, occurs:

The ancient drawers and tapsters were now superseded by the barmaid, and a number of waiters: Ward describes the barmaid as "all ribbon, lace, and feathers, and making such a noise with her bell and her tongue together, that had half-a-dozen paper-mills been at work within three yards of her, they'd have signified no more to her clamorous voice than so many lutes to a drum, which alarmed two or three nimble fellows aloft, who shot themselves downstairs with as much celerity as a mountebank's mercury upon a rope from the top of a church-steeple, every one charged with a mouthful of coming, coming, coming." The barmaid (generally the vintner's daughter) is described as "bred at the dancing-school, becoming a bar well, stepping a minuet finely, playing sweetly on the virginals, 'John come kiss me now, now, now,' and as proud as she was handsome."

Tom Brown sketches a flirting barmaid of the same time, "as a fine lady that stood pulling a rope, and screaming like a peacock against rainy weather, pinned up by herself in a little pew, all people bowing to her as they passed by, as if she was a goddess set up to be worshipped, armed with the chalk and sponge, (which are the principal badges that belong to that honourable station you beheld her in,) was the barmaid."

Of the nimbleness of the waiters, Ward says in another place—"That the chief use he saw in the Monument was, for the improvement of vintners' boys and drawers, who came every week to exercise their supporters, and learn the tavern trip, by running up to the balcony and down again."

Owen Swan, at the Black Swan tavern, Bartholomew Lane, is thus apostrophized by Tom Brown for the goodness of his wine:—

THE BEAR AT THE BRIDGE FOOT.

This celebrated tavern, situated in Southwark, on the west side of the foot of London Bridge, opposite the end of St. Olave's or Tooley-street, was a house of considerable antiquity. We read in the accounts of the Steward of Sir John Howard, March 6th, 1463-4 (Edward IV.), "Item, payd for red wyn at the Bere in Southwerke, iijd." Garrard, in a letter to Lord Strafford, dated 1633 intimates that "all back-doors to taverns on the Thames are commanded to be shut up, only the Bear at Bridge Foot is exempted, by reason of the passage to Greenwich," which Mr. Burn suspects to have been "the avenue or way called Bear Alley."

The Cavaliers' Ballad on the funeral pageant of Admiral Deane, killed June 2nd, 1653, while passing by water to Henry the Seventh's Chapel, Westminster, has the following allusion:—

Pepys was told by a waterman, going through the bridge, 24th Feb. 1666-7, that the mistress of the Beare Tavern, at the Bridge foot, "did lately fling herself into the Thames, and drown herself."

The Bear must have been a characterless house, for among its gallantries was the following, told by Wycherley to Major Pack, "just for the oddness of the thing." It was this: "There was a house at the Bridge Foot where persons of better condition used to resort for pleasure and privacy. The liquor the ladies and their lovers used to drink at these meetings was canary; and among other compliments the gentlemen paid their mistresses, this it seems was always one, to take hold of the bottom of their smocks, and pouring the wine through that filter, feast their imaginations with the thought of what gave the zesto, and so drink a health to the toast."

The Bear Tavern was taken down in December, 1761, when the labourers found gold and silver coins, of the time of Elizabeth, to a considerable value. The wall that enclosed the tavern was not cleared away until 1764, when the ground was cleared and levelled quite up to Pepper Alley stairs. There is a Token of the Bear Tavern, in the Beaufoy cabinet, which, with other rare Southwark tokens, was found under the floors in taking down St. Olave's Grammar School in 1839.

MERMAID TAVERNS.

The celebrated Mermaid, in Bread-street, with the history of "the Mermaid Club," has been described in Vol. I. pp. 8-10; its interest centres in this famous company of Wits.

There was another Mermaid, in Cheapside, next to Paul's Gate, and still another in Cornhill. Of the latter we find in Burn's Beaufoy Catalogue, that the vintner, buried in St. Peter's, Cornhill, in 1606, "gave forty shillings yearly to the parson for preaching four sermons every year, so long as the lease of the Mermaid, in Cornhill, (the tavern so called,) should endure. He also gave to the poor of the said parish thirteen penny loaves every Sunday, during the aforesaid lease." There are tokens of both these taverns in the Beaufoy Collection.

THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN.

This celebrated Shakspearean tavern was situated in Great Eastcheap, and is first mentioned in the time of Richard II.; the scene of the revels of Falstaff and Henry V., when Prince of Wales, in Shakspeare's Henry IV., Part 2. Stow relates a riot in "the cooks' dwellings" here on St. John's eve, 1410, by Princes John and Thomas. The tavern was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, but was rebuilt in two years, as attested by a boar's head cut in stone, with the initials of the landlord, I. T., and the date 1668, above the first-floor window. This sign-stone is now in the Guildhall library. The house stood between Small-alley and St. Michael's-lane, and in the rear looked upon St. Michael's churchyard, where was buried a drawer, or waiter, at the tavern, d. 1720: in the church was interred John Rhodoway, "Vintner at the Bore's Head," 1623.

Maitland, in 1739, mentions the Boar's Head, as "the chief tavern in London" under the sign. Goldsmith (Essays), Boswell (Life of Dr. Johnson), and Washington Irving (Sketch-book), have idealized the house as the identical place which Falstaff frequented, forgetting its destruction in the Great Fire. The site of the Boar's Head is very nearly that of the statue of King William IV.

In 1834, Mr. Kempe, F.S.A., exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries a carved oak figure of Sir John Falstaff, in the costume of the 16th century; it had supported an ornamental bracket over one side of the door of the Boar's Head, a figure of Prince Henry sustaining that on the other. The Falstaff was the property of one Shelton, a brazier, whose ancestors had lived in the shop he then occupied in Great Eastcheap, since the Great Fire. He well remembered the last Shakspearean grand dinner-party at the Boar's Head, about 1784: at an earlier party, Mr. Wilberforce was present. A boar's head, with tusks, which had been suspended in a room of the tavern, perhaps the Half-Moon or Pomegranate, (see Henry IV. act ii. sc. 4,) at the Great Fire, fell down with the ruins of the house, and was conveyed to Whitechapel Mount, where, many years after, it was recovered, and identified with its former locality. At a public house, No. 12, Miles-lane, was long preserved a tobacco-box, with a painting of the original Boar's Head Tavern on the lid.[29]

In High-street, Southwark, in the rear of Nos. 25 and 26, was formerly the Boar's Head Inn, part of Sir John Falstolf's benefaction to Magdalen College, Oxford. Sir John was one of the bravest generals in the French wars, under the fourth, fifth, and sixth Henries; but he is not the Falstaff of Shakspeare. In the Reliquiæ Hearnianæ, edited by Dr. Bliss, is the following entry relative to this bequest:—

"1721. June 2.—The reason why they cannot give so good an account of the benefaction of Sir John Fastolf to Magd. Coll. is, because he gave it to the founder, and left it to his management, so that 'tis suppos'd 'twas swallow'd up in his own estate that he settled it upon the college. However, the college knows this, that the Boar's Head in Southwark, which was then an inn, and still retains the name, tho' divided into several tenements (which bring the college about 150l. per ann.), was part of Sir John's gift."

The above property was for many years sublet to the family of the author of the present Work, at the rent of 150l. per annum; the cellar, finely vaulted, and excellent for wine, extended beneath the entire court, consisting of two rows of tenements, and two end houses, with galleries, the entrance being from the High-street. The premises were taken down for the New London Bridge approaches. There was also a noted Boar's Head in Old Fish-street.

Can he forget who has read Goldsmith's nineteenth Essay, his reverie at the Boar's Head?—when, having confabulated with the landlord till long after "the watchman had gone twelve," and suffused in the potency of his wine a mutation in his ideas, of the person of the host into that of Dame Quickly, mistress of the tavern in the days of Sir John, is promptly effected, and the liquor they were drinking seemed shortly converted into sack and sugar. Mrs. Quickly's recital of the history of herself and Doll Tearsheet, whose frailties in the flesh caused their being both sent to the house of correction, charged with having allowed the famed Boar's Head to become a low brothel; her speedy departure to the world of Spirits; and Falstaff's impertinences as affecting Madame Proserpine; are followed by an enumeration of persons who had held tenancy of the house since her time. The last hostess of note was, according to Goldsmith's account, Jane Rouse, who, having unfortunately quarrelled with one of her neighbours, a woman of high repute in the parish for sanctity, but as jealous as Chaucer's Wife of Bath, was by her accused of witchcraft, taken from her own bar, condemned, and executed accordingly!—These were times, indeed, when women could not scold in safety. These and other prudential apophthegms on the part of Dame Quickly, seem to have dissolved Goldsmith's stupor of ideality; on his awaking, the landlord is really the landlord, and not the hostess of a former day, when "Falstaff was in fact an agreeable old fellow, forgetting age, and showing the way to be young at sixty-five. Age, care, wisdom, reflection, begone! I give you to the winds. Let's have t'other bottle. Here's to the memory of Shakspeare, Falstaff, and all the merry men of Eastcheap."[30]

THREE CRANES IN THE VINTRY.

This was one of Ben Jonson's taverns, and has already been incidentally mentioned. Strype describes it as situate in "New Queen-street, commonly called the Three Cranes in the Vintry, a good open street, especially that part next Cheapside, which is best built and inhabited. At the lowest end of the street, next the Thames, is a pair of stairs, the usual place for the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to take water at, to go to Westminster Hall, for the new Lord Mayor to be sworn before the Barons of the Exchequer. This place, with the Three Cranes, is now of some account for the costermongers, where they have their warehouse for their fruit." In Scott's Kenilworth we hear much of this Tavern.

LONDON STONE TAVERN.

This tavern, situated in Cannon-street, near the Stone, is stated, but not correctly, to have been the oldest in London. Here was formed a society, afterwards the famous Robin Hood, of which the history was published in 1716, where it is stated to have originated in a meeting of the editor's grandfather with the great Sir Hugh Myddelton, of New River memory. King Charles II. was introduced to the society, disguised, by Sir Hugh, and the King liked it so well, that he came thrice afterwards. "He had," continues the narrative, "a piece of black silk over his left cheek, which almost covered it; and his eyebrows, which were quite black, he had, by some artifice or other, converted to a light brown, or rather flaxen colour; and had otherwise disguised himself so effectually in his apparel and his looks, that nobody knew him but Sir Hugh, by whom he was introduced." This is very circumstantial, but is very doubtful; since Sir Hugh Myddelton died when Charles was in his tenth year.

THE ROBIN HOOD.

Mr. Akerman describes a Token of the Robin Hood Tavern:—"IOHN THOMLINSON AT THE. An archer fitting an arrow to his bow; a small figure behind, holding an arrow.—℞. IN CHISWELL STREET, 1667. In the centre, HIS HALFE PENNY, and I. S. T." Mr. Akerman continues:

"It is easy to perceive what is intended by the representation on the obverse of this token. Though 'Little John,' we are told, stood upwards of six good English feet without his shoes, he is here depicted to suit the popular humour—a dwarf in size, compared with his friend and leader, the bold outlaw. The proximity of Chiswell-street to Finsbury-fields may have led to the adoption of the sign, which was doubtless at a time when archery was considered an elegant as well as an indispensable accomplishment of an English gentleman. It is far from obsolete now, as several low public-houses and beer-shops in the vicinity of London testify. One of them exhibits Robin Hood and his companion dressed in the most approved style of 'Astley's,' and underneath the group is the following irresistible invitation to slake your thirst:—

"Our London readers could doubtless supply the variorum copies of this elegant distich, which, as this is an age for 'Family Shakspeares,' modernized Chaucers, and new versions of 'Robin Hood's Garland,' we recommend to the notice of the next editor of the ballads in praise of the Sherwood freebooter."

PONTACK'S, ABCHURCH LANE.

After the destruction of the White Bear Tavern, in the Great Fire of 1666, the proximity of the site for all purposes of business, induced M. Pontack, the son of the President of Bordeaux, owner of a famous claret district, to establish a tavern, with all the novelties of French cookery, with his father's head as a sign, whence it was popularly called "Pontack's Head." The dinners were from four or five shillings a head "to a guinea, or what sum you pleased."

Swift frequented the tavern, and writes to Stella:—"Pontack told us, although his wine was so good, he sold it cheaper than others; he took but seven shillings a flask. Are not these pretty rates?" In the Hind and Panther Transversed, we read of drawers:—

The Fellows of the Royal Society dined at Pontack's until 1746, when they removed to the Devil Tavern. There is a Token of the White Bear in the Beaufoy collection; and Mr. Burn tells us, from Metamorphoses of the Town, a rare tract, 1731, of Pontack's "guinea ordinary," "ragout of fatted snails," and "chickens not two hours from the shell." In January, 1735, Mrs. Susannah Austin, who lately kept Pontack's, and had acquired a considerable fortune, was married to William Pepys, banker, in Lombard-street.

POPE'S HEAD TAVERN.

This noted tavern, which gave name to Pope's Head Alley, leading from Cornhill to Lombard-street, is mentioned as early as the 4th Edward IV. (1464) in the account of a wager between an Alicant goldsmith and an English goldsmith; the Alicant stranger contending in the tavern that "Englishmen were not so cunning in workmanship of goldsmithry as Alicant strangers;" when work was produced by both, and the Englishman gained the wager. The tavern was left in 1615, by Sir William Craven to the Merchant Tailors' Company. Pepys refers to "the fine painted room" here in 1668-9. In the tavern, April 14, 1718, Quin, the actor, killed in self-defence, his fellow-comedian, Bowen, a clever but hot-headed Irishman, who was jealous of Quin's reputation: in a moment of great anger, he sent for Quin to the tavern, and as soon as he had entered the room, Bowen placed his back against the door, drew his sword, and bade Quin draw his. Quin, having mildly remonstrated to no purpose, drew in his own defence, and endeavoured to disarm his antagonist. Bowen received a wound, of which he died in three days, having acknowledged his folly and madness, when the loss of blood had reduced him to reason. Quin was tried and acquitted. (Cunningham, abridged.) The Pope's Head Tavern was in existence in 1756.

THE OLD SWAN, THAMES-STREET,

Was more than five hundred years ago a house for public entertainment: for, in 1323, 16 Edw. II., Rose Wrytell bequeathed "the tenement of olde tyme called the Swanne on the Hope in Thames-street," in the parish of St. Mary-at-hill, to maintain a priest at the altar of St. Edmund, King and Martyr, "for her soul, and the souls of her husband, her father, and mother:" and the purposes of her bequest were established; for, in the parish book, in 1499, is entered a disbursement of fourpence, "for a cresset to Rose Wrytell's chantry." Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, in 1440, in her public penance for witchcraft and treason, landed at Old Swan, bearing a large taper, her feet bare, etc.

Stow, in 1598, mentions the Old Swan as a great brew-house. Taylor, the Water-poet, advertised the professor and author of the Barmoodo and Vtopian tongues, dwelling "at the Old Swanne, neare London Bridge, who will teach them at are willing to learne, with agility and facility."

In the scurrilous Cavalier ballad of Admiral Deane's Funeral, by water, from Greenwich to Westminster, in June, 1653, it is said:—

The Old Swan Tavern and its landing-stairs were destroyed in the Great Fire; but rebuilt. Its Token, in the Beaufoy Collection, is one of the rarest, of large size.

COCK TAVERN, THREADNEEDLE-STREET.

This noted house, which faced the north gate of the old Royal Exchange, was long celebrated for the excellence of its soups, which were served at an economical price, in silver. One of its proprietors was, it is believed, John Ellis, an eccentric character, and a writer of some reputation, who died in 1791. Eight stanzas addressed to him in praise of the tavern, commenced thus:—

After comparing it to other houses, the Pope's Head, the King's Arms, the Black Swan, and the Fountain, and declaring the Cock the best, it ends:

This house was taken down in 1841; when, in a claim for compensation made by the proprietor, the trade in three years was proved to have been 344,720 basins of various soups—viz. 166,240 mock turtle, 3,920 giblet, 59,360 ox-tail, 31,072 bouilli, 84,128 gravy and other soups: sometimes 500 basins of soup were sold in a day.

CROWN TAVERN, THREADNEEDLE-STREET.

Upon the site of the present chief entrance to the Bank of England, in Threadneedle-street, stood the Crown Tavern, "behind the 'Change:" it was frequented by the Fellows of the Royal Society, when they met at Gresham College hard by. The Crown was burnt in the Great Fire, but was rebuilt; and about a century since, at this tavern, "it was not unusual to draw a butt of mountain wine, containing 120 gallons, in gills, in a morning."—Sir John Hawkins.

Behind the Change, we read in the Connoisseur, 1754, a man worth a plum used to order a twopenny mess of broth with a boiled chop in it; placing the chop between the two crusts of a half-penny roll, he would wrap it up in his check handkerchief, and carry it away for the morrow's dinner.

THE KING'S HEAD TAVERN, IN THE POULTRY.

This Tavern, which stood at the western extremity of the Stocks' Market, was not first known by the sign of the King's Head, but the Rose: Machin, in his Diary, Jan. 5, 1560, thus mentions it: "A gentleman arrested for debt; Master Cobham, with divers gentlemen and serving-men, took him from the officers, and carried him to the Rose Tavern, where so great a fray, both the sheriffs were feign to come, and from the Rose Tavern took all the gentlemen and their servants, and carried them to the Compter."

The house was distinguished by the device of a large, well-painted Rose, erected over a doorway, which was the only indication in the main street of such an establishment. In the superior houses of the metropolis in the sixteenth century, room was gained in the rear of the street-line, the space in front being economized, so that the line of shops might not be interrupted. Upon this plan, the larger taverns in the City were constructed, wherever the ground was sufficiently spacious behind: hence it was that the Poultry tavern of which we are speaking, was approached through a long, narrow, covered passage, opening into a well-lighted quadrangle, around which were the tavern-rooms. The sign of the Rose appears to have been a costly work, since there was the fragment of a leaf of an old account-book preserved, when the ruins of the house were cleared after the Great Fire, on which were written these entries:—"Pd. to Hoggestreete, the Duche Paynter, for y^e Picture of a Rose, w^th a Standing-bowle and Glasses, for a Signe, xxli. besides Diners and Drinkings. Also for a large Table of Walnut-tree, for a Frame; and for Iron-worke and Hanging the Picture, vli." The artist who is referred to in this memorandum, could be no other than Samuel Van Hoogstraten, a painter of the middle of the seventeenth century, whose works in England are very rare. He was one of the many excellent artists of the period, who, as Walpole contemptuously says, "painted still-life, oranges and lemons, plate, damask curtains, cloth-of-gold, and that medley of familiar objects that strike the ignorant vulgar."

But, beside the claims of the painter, the sign of the Rose cost the worthy tavern-keeper, a still further outlay, in the form of divers treatings and advances made to a certain rather loose man of letters of his acquaintance, possessed of more wit than money, and of more convivial loyalty than either discretion or principle. Master Roger Blythe frequently patronized the Rose Tavern as his favourite ordinary. Like Falstaff, he was "an infinite thing" upon his host's score; and, like his prototype also, there was no probability of his ever discharging the account. When the Tavern-sign was about to be erected, this Master Blythe contributed the poetry to it, after the fashion of the time, which he swore was the envy of all the Rose Taverns in London, and of all the poets who frequented them. "There's your Rose at Temple Bar, and your Rose in Covent-garden, and the Rose in Southwark: all of them indifferent good for wits, and for drawing neat wines too; but, smite me, Master King," he would say, "if I know one of them all fit to be set in the same hemisphere with yours! No! for a bountiful host, a most sweet mistress, unsophisticated wines, honest measures, a choicely-painted sign, and a witty verse to set it forth withal,—commend me to the Rose Tavern in the Poultry!"

Even the tavern-door exhibited a joyous frontispiece; since the entrance was flanked by two columns twisted with vines carved in wood, which supported a small square gallery over the portico surrounded by handsome iron-work. On the front of this gallery was erected the sign, in a frame of similar ornaments. It consisted of a central compartment containing the Rose, behind which appeared a tall silver cup, called in the language of the time "a standing-bowl," with drinking-glasses. Beneath the painting was this inscription:—

"THIS IS THE ROSE TAVERNE in the Poultrey: KEPT BY WILLIAM KING, Citizen and Vintner.

The authorities of St. Peter-upon-Cornhill soon determined, on the 10th of May, 1660, in Vestry, "that the King's Arms, in painted-glass, should be refreshed, and forthwith be set up by the Churchwarden at the parish-charges; with whatsoever he giveth to the glazier as a gratuity, for his care in keeping of them all this while."

The host of the Rose resolved at once to add a Crown to his sign, with the portrait of Charles, wearing it in the centre of the flower, and openly to name his tavern "The Royal Rose and King's Head." He effected his design, partly by the aid of one of the many excellent pencils which the time supplied, and partly by the inventive muse of Master Blythe, which soon furnished him with a new poesy. There is not any further information extant concerning the painting, but the following remains of an entry on another torn fragment of the old account-book already mentioned, seem to refer to the poetical inscription beneath the picture:— ... "on y^e Night when he made y^e Verses for my new Signe, a Soper, and v. Peeces." The verses themselves were as follow:—

Beside this inscription, Master King also recorded the auspicious event referred to, by causing his painter to introduce into the picture a broad-sheet, as if lying on the table with the cup and glasses—on which appeared the title "A Kalendar for this Happy Yeare of Restauration 1660, now newly Imprinted."

As the time advanced when Charles was to make his entry into the metropolis, the streets were resounding with the voices of ballad-singers pouring forth loyal songs, and declaring, with the whole strength of their lungs, that

Then, there were also to be heard, the ceaseless horns and proclamations of hawkers and flying-stationers, publishing the latest passages or rumours touching the royal progress; which, whether genuine or not, were bought and read, and circulated, by all parties. At length all the previous pamphlets and broad-sheets were swallowed up by a well-known tract, still extant, which the newsmen of the time thus proclaimed:—"Here is A True Accompt and Narrative—of his Majestie's safe Arrival in England—as 'twas reported to the House of Commons, on Friday, the 25th day of this present May—with the Resolutions of both Houses thereupon:—Also a Letter very lately writ from Dover—relating divers remarkable Passages of His Majestie's Reception there."

On every side the signs and iron-work were either refreshed, or newly gilt and painted: tapestries and rich hangings, which had engendered moth and decay from long disuse, were flung abroad again, that they might be ready to grace the coming pageant. The paving of the streets was levelled and repaired for the expected cavalcade; and scaffolds for spectators were in the course of erection throughout all the line of march. Floods of all sorts of wines were consumed, as well in the streets as in the taverns; and endless healths were devotedly and energetically swallowed, at morning, noon, and night.

At this time Mistress Rebecca King was about to add another member to Master King's household: she received from hour to hour accounts of the proceedings as they occurred, which so stimulated her curiosity, that she declared, first to her gossips, and then to her husband, that she "must see the King pass the tavern, or matters might go cross with her."

A kind of arbour was made for Mistress Rebecca in the small iron gallery surmounting the entrance to the tavern. This arbour was of green boughs and flowers, hung round with tapestry and garnished with silver plate; and here, when the guns at the Tower announced that Charles had entered London, Mistress King took her seat, with her children and gossips around her. All the houses in the main streets from London-bridge to Whitehall, were decorated like the tavern with rich silks and tapestries, hung from every scaffold, balcony, and window; which, as Herrick says, turned the town into a park, "made green and trimmed with boughs." The road through London, so far as Temple-Bar, was lined on the north side by the City Companies, dressed in their liveries, and ranged in their respective stands, with their banners; and on the south by the soldiers of the trained-bands.

One of the wine conduits stood on the south side of the Stocks' Market, over which Sir Robert Viner subsequently erected a triumphal statue of Charles II. About this spot, therefore, the crowd collected in the Market-place, aided by the fierce loyalty supplied from the conduit, appears for a time to have brought the procession to a full stop, at the moment when Charles, who rode between his brothers the Dukes of York and Gloucester, was nearly opposite to the newly-named King's Head Tavern. In this most favourable interval, Master Blythe, who stood upon a scaffold in the doorway, took the opportunity of elevating a silver cup of wine and shouting out a health to his Majesty. His energetical action, as he pointed upwards to the gallery, was not lost; and the Duke of Buckingham, who rode immediately before the King with General Monk, directed Charles's attention to Mistress Rebecca, saying, "Your Majesty's return is here welcomed even by a subject as yet unborn." As the procession passed by the door of the King's Head Tavern, the King turned towards it, raised himself in his stirrups, and gracefully kissed his hand to Mistress Rebecca. Immediately such a shout was raised from all who beheld it or heard of it, as startled the crowd up to Cheapside conduit; and threw the poor woman herself into such an ecstasy, that she was not conscious of anything more, until she was safe in her chamber and all danger happily over.[31]

The Tavern was rebuilt after the Great Fire, and flourished many years. It was long a depôt in the metropolis for turtle; and in the quadrangle of the Tavern might be seen scores of turtle, large and lively, in huge tanks of water; or laid upward on the stone floor, ready for their destination. The Tavern was also noted for large dinners of the City Companies and other public bodies. The house was refitted in 1852, but has since been closed.

Another noted Poultry Tavern was the Three Cranes, destroyed in the Great Fire, but rebuilt, and noticed in 1698, in one of the many paper controversies of that day. A fulminating pamphlet, entitled "Ecclesia et Factio: a Dialogue between Bow Church Steeple and the Exchange Grasshopper," elicited "An Answer to the Dragon and Grasshopper: in a Dialogue between an Old Monkey and a Young Weasel, at the Three Cranes Tavern, in the Poultry."

THE MITRE, IN WOOD STREET,

Was a noted old Tavern. Pepys, in his Diary, Sept. 18, 1660, records his going "to the Mitre Tavern, in Wood-street, (a house of the greatest note in London,) where I met W. Symons, D. Scoball, and their wives. Here some of us fell to handicap, a sport I never knew before, which was very good." The tavern was destroyed in the Great Fire.

THE SALUTATION AND CAT TAVERN,

No. 17, Newgate-street (north side), was, according to the tradition of the house, the tavern where Sir Christopher Wren used to smoke his pipe, whilst St. Paul's was re-building. There is more positive evidence of its being a place well frequented by men of letters at the above period. Thus, there exists a poetical invitation to a social feast held here on June 19, 1735-6, issued by the two stewards, Edward Cave and William Bowyer:

This brought a poetical answer from Samuel Richardson, the novelist, printed in extenso in Bowyer's Anecdotes:

The proper sign is the Salutation and Cat,—a curious combination, but one which is explained by a lithograph, which some years ago hung in the coffee-room. An aged dandy is saluting a friend whom he has met in the street, and offering him a pinch out of the snuff-box which forms the top of his wood-like cane. This box-nob was, it appears, called a "cat"—hence the connection of terms apparently so foreign to each other. Some, not aware of this explanation, have accounted for the sign by supposing that a tavern called "the Cat" was at some time pulled down, and its trade carried to the Salutation, which thenceforward joined the sign to its own; but this is improbable, seeing that we have never heard of any tavern called "the Cat" (although we do know of "the Barking Dogs") as a sign. Neither does the Salutation take its name from any scriptural or sacred source, as the Angel and Trumpets, etc.

More positive evidence there is to show of the "little smoky room at the Salutation and Cat," where Coleridge and Charles Lamb sat smoking Oronoko and drinking egg-hot; the first discoursing of his idol, Bowles, and the other rejoicing mildly in Cowper and Burns, or both dreaming of "Pantisocracy, and golden days to come on earth."

"SALUTATION" TAVERNS.

The sign Salutation, from scriptural or sacred source, remains to be explained. Mr. Akerman suspects the original sign to have really represented the Salutation of the Virgin by the Angel—"Ave Maria, gratia plena"—a well-known legend on the jettons of the Middle Ages. The change of representation was properly accommodated to the times. The taverns at that period were the "gossiping shops" of the neighbourhood; and both Puritan and Churchman frequented them for the sake of hearing the news. The Puritans loved the good things of this world, and relished a cup of Canary, or Noll's nose lied, holding the maxim—

Hence, perhaps, the Salutation of the Virgin was exchanged for the "booin' and scrapin'" scene (two men bowing and greeting), represented on a token which still exists, the tavern was celebrated in the days of Queen Elizabeth. In some old black-letter doggrel, entitled News from Bartholemew Fayre it is mentioned for wine:—

The Flower-pot was originally part of a symbol of the Annunciation to the Virgin.

QUEEN'S ARMS, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD.

Garrick appears to have kept up his interest in the City by means of clubs, to which he paid periodical visits. We have already mentioned the Club of young merchants, at Tom's Coffee-house, in Cornhill. Another Club was held at the Queen's Arms Tavern, in St. Paul's Churchyard, where used to assemble: Mr. Samuel Sharpe, the surgeon; Mr. Paterson, the City solicitor; Mr. Draper, the bookseller; Mr. Clutterbuck, the mercer; and a few others.

Sir John Hawkins tells us that "they were none of them drinkers, and in order to make a reckoning, called only for French wine." These were Garrick's standing council in theatrical affairs.

At the Queen's Arms, after a thirty years' interval, Johnson renewed his intimacy with some of the members of his old Ivy-lane Club.

Brasbridge, the old silversmith of Fleet-street, was a member of the Sixpenny Card-Club held at the Queen's Arms: among the members was Henry Baldwyn, who, under the auspices of Bonnel Thornton, Colman the elder, and Garrick, set up the St. James's Chronicle, which once had the largest circulation of any evening paper. This worthy newspaper-proprietor was considerate and generous to men of genius: "Often," says Brasbridge, "at his hospitable board I have seen needy authors, and others connected with his employment, whose abilities, ill-requited as they might have been by the world in general, were by him always appreciated." Among Brasbridge's acquaintance, also, were John Walker, shopman to a grocer and chandler in Well-street, Ragfair, who died worth 200,000l., most assuredly not gained by lending money on doubtful security; and Ben Kenton, brought up at a charity-school, and who realized 300,000l., partly at the Magpie and Crown, in Whitechapel.

DOLLY'S, PATERNOSTER ROW.

This noted tavern, established in the reign of Queen Anne, has for its sign, the cook Dolly, who is stated to have been painted by Gainsborough. It is still a well-appointed chop-house and tavern, and the coffee-room, with its projecting fireplaces, has an olden air. Nearly on the site of Dolly's, Tarlton, Queen Elizabeth's favourite stage-clown, kept an ordinary, with the sign of the Castle. The house, of which a token exists, was destroyed in the Great Fire, but was rebuilt; there the "Castle Society of Music" gave their performances. Part of the old premises were subsequently the Oxford Bible Warehouse, destroyed by fire in 1822, and rebuilt.

The entrance to the Chop-house is in Queen's Head passage; and at Dolly's is a window-pane painted with the head of Queen Anne, which may explain the name of the court.

At Dolly's and Horsman's beef-steaks were eaten with gill-ale.

ALDERSGATE TAVERNS.

Two early houses of entertainment in Aldersgate were the Taborer's Inn and the Crown. Of the former, stated to have been of the time of Edward II., we know nothing but the name. The Crown, more recent, stood at the End of Duck-lane, and is described in Ward's London Spy, as containing a noble room, painted by Fuller, with the Muses, the Judgment of Paris, the Contention of Ajax and Ulysses, etc. "We were conducted by the jolly master," says Ward, "a true kinsman of the bacchanalian family, into a large stately room, where at the first entrance, I discerned the master-strokes of the famed Fuller's pencil; the whole room painted by that commanding hand, that his dead figures appeared with such lively majesty that they begat reverence in the spectators towards the awful shadows. We accordingly bade the complaisant waiter oblige us with a quart of his richest claret, such as was fit only to be drank in the presence of such heroes, into whose company he had done us the honour to introduce us. He thereupon gave directions to his drawer, who returned with a quart of such inspiring juice, that we thought ourselves translated into one of the houses of the heavens, and were there drinking immortal nectar with the gods and goddesses:

Far more celebrated was the Mourning Bush Tavern, in the cellars of which have been traced the massive foundations of Aldersgate, and the portion of the City Wall which adjoins them. This tavern, one of the largest and most ancient in London, has a curious history.

The Bush Tavern, its original name, took for its sign the Ivy-bush hung up at the door. It is believed to have been the house referred to by Stowe, as follows:—"This gate (Aldersgate) hath been at sundry times increased with building; namely, on the south or inner side, a great frame of timber, (or house of wood lathed and plastered,) hath been added and set up containing divers large rooms and lodgings," which were an enlargement of the Bush. Fosbroke mentions the Bush as the chief sign of taverns in the Middle Ages, (it being ready to hand,) and so it continued until superseded by "a thing to resemble one containing three or four tiers of hoops fastened one above another with vine leaves and grapes, richly carved and gilt." He adds: "the owner of the Mourning Bush, Aldersgate, was so affected at the decollation of Charles I., that he painted his bush black." From this period the house is scarcely mentioned until the year 1719, when we find its name changed to the Fountain, whether from political feeling against the then exiled House of Stuart, or the whim of the proprietor, we cannot learn; though it is thought to have reference to a spring on the east side of the gate. Tom Brown mentions the Fountain satirically, with four or five topping taverns of the day, whose landlords are charged with doctoring their wines, but whose trade was so great that they stood fair for the alderman's gown. And, in a letter from an old vintner in the City to one newly set up in Covent Garden, we find the following in the way of advice: "as all the world are wholly supported by hard and unintelligible names, you must take care to christen your wines by some hard name, the further fetched so much the better, and this policy will serve to recommend the most execrable scum in your cellar. I could name several of our brethren to you, who now stand fair to sit in the seat of justice, and sleep in their golden chain at churches, that had been forced to knock off long ago, if it had not been for this artifice. It saved the Sun from being eclipsed; the Crown from being abdicated; the Rose from decaying; and the Fountain from being dry; as well as both the Devils from being confined to utter darkness."

Twenty years later, in a large plan of Aldersgate Ward, 1739-40, we find the Fountain changed to the original Bush. The Fire of London had evidently, at this time, curtailed the ancient extent of the tavern. The exterior is shown in a print of the south side of Aldersgate; it has the character of the larger houses, built after the Great Fire, and immediately adjoins the gate. The last notice of the Bush, as a place of entertainment, occurs in Maitland's History of London, ed. 1722, where it is described as "the Fountain, commonly called the Mourning Bush, which has a back door into St. Anne's-lane, and is situated near unto Aldersgate." The house was refitted in 1830. In the basement are the original wine-vaults of the old Bush; many of the walls are six feet thick, and bonded throughout with Roman brick. A very agreeable account of the tavern and the antiquities of neighbourhood was published in 1830.

"THE MOURNING CROWN."

In Phœnix Alley, (now Hanover Court,) Long Acre, John Taylor, the Water Poet, kept a tavern, with the sign of "the Mourning Crown," but this being offensive to the Commonwealth (1652), he substituted for a sign his own head with this inscription—

He died here in the following year; and his widow in 1658.

JERUSALEM TAVERNS, CLERKENWELL.

These houses took their name from the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, around whose Priory, grew up the village of Clerkenwell. The Priory Gate remains. At the Suppression, the Priory was undermined, and blown up with gunpowder; the Gate also would probably have been destroyed, but for its serving to define the property. In 1604, it was granted to Sir Roger Wilbraham for his life. At this time Clerkenwell was inhabited by people of condition. Forty years later, fashion had travelled westward; and the Gate became the printing-office of Edward Cave, who, in 1731, published here the first number of the Gentleman's Magazine, which to this day bears the Gate for its vignette. Dr. Johnson was first engaged upon the magazine here by Cave in 1737. At the Gate Johnson first met Richard Savage; and here in Cave's room, when visitors called, he ate his plate of victuals behind the screen, his dress being "so shabby that he durst not make his appearance." Garrick, when first he came to London, frequently called upon Johnson at the Gate. Goldsmith was also a visitor here. When Cave grew rich, he had St. John's Gate painted, instead of his arms, on his carriage, and engraven on his plate. After Cave's death in 1753, the premises became the "Jerusalem" public-house, and the "Jerusalem Tavern."

There was likewise another Jerusalem Tavern, at the corner of Red Lion-street on Clerkenwell-green, which was the original; St. John's Gate public-house, having assumed the name of "Jerusalem Tavern" in consequence of the old house on the Green giving up the tavern business, and becoming the "merchants' house." In its dank and cobwebbed vaults John Britton served an apprenticeship to a wine-merchant; and in reading at intervals by candle-light, first evinced that love of literature which characterized his long life of industry and integrity. He remembered Clerkenwell in 1787, with St. John's Priory-church and cloisters; when Spafields were pasturage for cows; the old garden-mansions of the aristocracy remained in Clerkenwell-close; and Sadler's Wells, Islington Spa, Merlin's Cave, and Bagnigge Wells, were nightly crowded with gay company.

In a friendly note, Sept. 11, 1852, Mr. Britton tells us: "Our house sold wines in full quarts, i.e. twelve held three gallons, wine measure; and each bottle was marked with four lines cut by a diamond on the neck. Our wines were famed, and the character of the house was high, whence the Gate imitated the bottles and name."

In 1845, by the aid of "the Freemasons of the Church," and Mr. W. P. Griffith, architect, the north and south fronts were restored. The gateway is a good specimen of groining of the 15th century, with moulded ribs, and bosses ornamented with shields of the arms of the Priory, Prior Docwra, etc. The east basement is the tavern-bar, with a beautifully moulded ceiling. The stairs are Elizabethan. The principal room over the arch has been despoiled of its window-mullions and groined roof. The foundation-wall of the Gate face is 10 feet 7 inches thick, and the upper walls are nearly 4 feet, hard red brick, stone-cased: the view from the top of the staircase-turret is extensive. In excavating there have been discovered the original pavement, three feet below the Gate; and the Priory walls, north, south, and west. In 1851, there was published, by B. Foster, proprietor of the Tavern, Ye History of ye Priory and Gate of St. John. In the principal room of the Gate, over the great arch, meet the Urban Club, a society, chiefly of authors and artists, with whom originated the proposition to celebrate the tercentenary of the birth of Shakespeare, in 1864.

WHITE HART TAVERN, BISHOPSGATE WITHOUT.

About forty years since there stood at a short distance north of St. Botolph's Church, a large old hostelrie, according to the date it bore (1480), towards the close of the reign of Edward IV. Stow, in 1598, describes it as "a fair inn for receipt of travellers, next unto the Parish Church of St. Botolph without Bishopsgate." It preserved much of its original appearance, the main front consisting of three bays of two storeys, which, with the interspaces, had throughout casements; and above which was an overhanging storey or attic, and the roof rising in three points. Still, this was not the original front, which was altered in 1787: upon the old inn yard was built White Hart Court. In 1829, the Tavern was taken down, and rebuilt, in handsome modern style; when the entrance into Old Bedlam, and formerly called Bedlam Gate, was widened, and the street re-named Liverpool-street. A lithograph of the old Tavern was published in 1829.

Somewhat lower down, is the residence of Sir Paul Pindar, now wine-vaults, with the sign of Paul Pindar's Head, corner of Half-moon-alley, No. 160, Bishopsgate-street Without. Sir Paul was a wealthy merchant, contemporary with Sir Thomas Gresham. The house was built towards the end of the 16th century, with a wood-framed front and caryatid brackets; and the principal windows bayed, their lower fronts enriched with panels of carved work. In the first-floor front room is a fine original ceiling in stucco, in which are the arms of Sir Paul Pindar. In the rear of these premises, within a garden, was formerly a lodge, of corresponding date, decorated with four medallions, containing figures in Italian taste. In Half-moon-alley, was the Half-moon Brewhouse, of which there is a token in the Beaufoy Collection.

THE MITRE, IN FENCHURCH STREET,

Was one of the political taverns of the Civil War, and was kept by Daniel Rawlinson, who appears to have been a staunch royalist: his Token is preserved in the Beaufoy collection. Dr. Richard Rawlinson, whose Jacobite principles are sufficiently on record, in a letter to Hearne, the nonjuring antiquary at Oxford, says of "Daniel Rawlinson, who kept the Mitre Tavern in Fenchurch-street, and of whose being suspected in the Rump time, I have heard much. The Whigs tell this, that upon the King's murder, January 30th, 1649, he hung his sign in mourning: he certainly judged right; the honour of the mitre was much eclipsed by the loss of so good a parent to the Church of England; these rogues [the Whigs] say, this endeared him so much to the Churchmen, that he strove amain, and got a good estate."

Pepys, who expressed great personal fear of the Plague, in his Diary, August 6, 1666, notices that notwithstanding Dan Rowlandson's being all last year in the country, the sickness in a great measure past, one of his men was then dead at the Mitre of the pestilence; his wife and one of his maids both sick, and himself shut up, which, says Pepys, "troubles me mightily. God preserve us!"

Rawlinson's tavern, the Mitre, appears to have been destroyed in the Great Fire, and immediately after, rebuilt; as Horace Walpole, from Vertue's notes, states that "Isaac Fuller was much employed to paint the great taverns in London; particularly the Mitre, in Fenchurch-street, where he adorned all the sides of a great room, in panels, as was then the fashion;" "the figures being as large as life; over the chimney, a Venus, Satyr, and sleeping Cupid; a boy riding a goat, and another fallen down:" this was, he adds, "the best part of the performance. Saturn devouring a child, the colouring raw, and the figure of Saturn too muscular; Mercury, Minerva, Diana, and Apollo; Bacchus, Venus, and Ceres, embracing; a young Silenus fallen down, and holding a goblet into which a boy was pouring wine. The Seasons between the windows, and on the ceiling, in a large circle, two angels supporting a mitre."

Yet, Fuller was a wretched painter, as borne out by Elsum's Epigram on a Drunken Sot:—

THE KING'S HEAD, FENCHURCH STREET.

No. 53 is a place of historic interest; for, the Princess Elizabeth, having attended service at the church of Allhallows Staining, in Langbourn Ward, on her release from the Tower, on the 19th of May, 1554, dined off pork and peas afterwards, at the King's Head in Fenchurch Street, where the metal dish and cover she is said to have used are still preserved. The Tavern has been of late years enlarged and embellished, in taste accordant with its historical association; the ancient character of the building being preserved in the smoking-room, 60 feet in length, upon the walls of which are displayed corslets, shields, helmets, and knightly arms.

THE ELEPHANT, FENCHURCH STREET.

In the year 1826 was taken down the old Elephant Tavern, which was built before the Great Fire, and narrowly escaped its ravages. It stood on the north side of Fenchurch-street, and was originally the Elephant and Castle. Previous to the demolition of the premises there were removed from the wall two pictures, which Hogarth is said to have painted while a lodger there. About this time, a parochial entertainment which had hitherto been given at the Elephant, was removed to the King's Head (Henry VIII.) Tavern nearly opposite. At this Hogarth was annoyed, and he went over to the King's Head, when an altercation ensued, and he left, threatening to stick them all up on the Elephant taproom; this he is said to have done, and on the opposite wall subsequently painted the Hudson's Bay Company's Porters going to dinner, representing Fenchurch-street a century and a half ago. The first picture was set down as Hogarth's first idea of his Modern Midnight Conversation, in which he is supposed to have represented the parochial party at the King's Head, though it differs from Hogarth's print. There was a third picture, Harlequin and Pierrot, and on the wall of the Elephant first-floor was found a picture of Harlow Bush Fair, coated over with paint.

Only two of the pictures were claimed as Hogarth's. The Elephant has been engraved; and at the foot of the print, the information as to Hogarth having executed these paintings is rested upon the evidence of Mrs. Hibbert, who kept the house between thirty and forty years, and received her information from persons at that time well acquainted with Hogarth. Still, his biographers do not record his abode in Fenchurch-street. The Tavern has been rebuilt.

THE AFRICAN, ST. MICHAEL'S ALLEY.

Another of the Cornhill taverns, the African, or Cole's Coffee-house, is memorable as the last place at which Professor Porson appeared. He had, in some measure, recovered from the effects of the fit in which he had fallen on the 19th of September, 1808, when he was brought in a hackney-coach to the London Institution, in the Old Jewry. Next morning he had a long discussion with Dr. Adam Clarke, who took leave of him at its close; and this was the last conversation Porson was ever capable of holding on any subject.

Porson is thought to have fancied himself under restraint, and to convince himself of the contrary, next morning, the 20th, he walked out, and soon after went to the African, in St. Michael's Alley, which was one of his City resorts. On entering the coffee-room, he was so exhausted that he must have fallen, had he not caught hold of the curtain-rod of one of the boxes, when he was recognized by Mr. J. P. Leigh, a gentleman with whom he had frequently dined at the house. A chair was given him; he sat down, and stared around, with a vacant and ghastly countenance, and he evidently did not recollect Mr. Leigh. He took a little wine, which revived him, but previously to this his head lay upon his breast, and he was continually muttering something, but in so low and indistinct a tone as scarcely to be audible. He then took a little jelly dissolved in warm brandy-and-water, which considerably roused him. Still he could make no answer to questions addressed to him, except these words, which he repeated, probably, twenty times:—"The gentleman said it was a lucrative piece of business, and I think so too,"—but in a very low tone. A coach was now brought to take him to the London Institution, and he was helped in, and accompanied by the waiter; he appeared quite senseless all the way, and did not utter a word; and in reply to the question where they should stop, he put his head out of the window, and waved his hand when they came opposite the door of the Institution. Upon this Dr. Clarke touchingly observes: "How quick the transition from the highest degree of intellect to the lowest apprehensions of sense! On what a precarious tenure does frail humanity hold even its choicest and most necessary gifts."

Porson expired on the night of Sunday, September 20, with a deep groan, exactly as the clock struck twelve, in the forty-ninth year of his age.

THE GRAVE MAURICE TAVERN.

There are two taverns with this name,—in St. Leonard's-road, and Whitechapel-road. The history of the sign is curious. Many years ago the latter house had a written sign, "The Grave Morris," but this has been amended.

But the original was the famous Prince of Orange, Grave Maurice, of whom we read in Howel's Familiar Letters. In Junius's Etymologicon, Grave is explained to be Comes, or Count, as Palsgrave is Palatine Count; of which we have an instance in Palsgrave Count, or Elector Palatine, who married Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I. Their issue were the Palsgrave Charles Louis, the Grave Count or Prince Palatine Rupert, and the Grave Count or Prince Maurice, who alike distinguished themselves in the Civil Wars.

The two princes, Rupert and Maurice, for their loyalty and courage, were after the Restoration, very popular; which induced the author of the Tavern Anecdotes to conjecture: "As we have an idea that the Mount at Whitechapel was raised to overawe the City, Maurice, before he proceeded to the west, might have the command of the work on the east side of the metropolis, and a temporary residence on the spot where his sign was so lately exhibited." At the close of the troubles of the reign, the two princes retired. In 1652, they were endeavouring to annoy the enemies of Charles II. in the West Indies; when the Grave Maurice lost his life in a hurricane.

The sign of the Grave Maurice remained against the house in the Whitechapel-road till the year 1806, when it was taken down to be repainted. It represented a soldier in a hat and feather, and blue uniform. The tradition of the neighbourhood is, that it is the portrait of a prince of Hesse, who was a great warrior, but of so inflexible a countenance, that he was never seen to smile in his life; and that he was, therefore, most properly termed Grave.

MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY, SPITALFIELDS.

It is curious to find that a century and a half since, science found a home in Spitalfields, chiefly among the middle and working classes; they met at small taverns in that locality. It appears that a Mathematical Society, which also cultivated electricity, was established in 1717, and met at the Monmouth's Head in Monmouth-street, until 1725, when they removed to the White Horse Tavern, in Wheeler-street; from thence, in 1735, to Ben Jonson's Head in Pelham-street; and next to Crispin-street, Spitalfields. The members were chiefly tradesmen and artisans; among those of higher rank were Canton, Dollond, Thomas Simpson, and Crossley. The Society lent their instruments (air-pumps, reflecting telescopes, reflecting microscopes, electrical machines, surveying-instruments, etc.) with books for the use of them, on the borrowers giving a note of hand for the value thereof. The number of members was not to exceed the square of seven, except such as were abroad or in the country; but this was increased to the squares of eight and nine. The members met on Saturday evenings: each present was to employ himself in some mathematical exercise, or forfeit one penny; and if he refused to answer a question asked by another in mathematics, he was to forfeit twopence. The Society long cherished a taste for exact science among the residents in the neighbourhood of Spitalfields, and accumulated a library of nearly 3000 volumes; but in 1845, when on the point of dissolution, the few remaining members made over their books, records, and memorials to the Royal Astronomical Society, of which these members were elected Fellows.[32] This amalgamation was chiefly negotiated by Captain, afterwards Admiral Smyth.

GLOBE TAVERN, FLEET-STREET.

In the last century, when public amusements were comparatively few, and citizens dwelt in town, the Globe in Fleet-street was noted for its little clubs and card-parties. Here was held, for a time, the Robin Hood Club, a Wednesday Club, and later, Oliver Goldsmith and his friends often finished their Shoemaker's Holiday by supping at the Globe. Among the company was a surgeon, who, living on the Surrey side of the Thames (Blackfriars Bridge was not then built), had to take a boat every night, at 3s. or 4s. expense, and the risk of his life; yet, when the bridge was built, he grumbled at having a penny to pay for crossing it. Other frequenters of the Globe were Archibald Hamilton, "with a mind fit for a lord chancellor;" Carnan, the bookseller, who defeated the Stationers' Company upon the almanac trial; Dunstall, the comedian; the veteran Macklin; Akerman, the keeper of Newgate, who always thought it most prudent not to venture home till daylight; and William Woodfall, the reporter of the parliamentary debates. Then there was one Glover, a surgeon, who restored to life a man who had been hung in Dublin, and who ever after was a plague to his deliverer. Brasbridge, the silversmith of Fleet-street, was a frequenter of the Globe. In his eightieth year he wrote his Fruits of Experience, full of pleasant gossip about the minor gaieties of St. Bride's. He was more fond of following the hounds than his business, and failure was the ill consequence: he tells of a sporting party of four—that he and his partner became bankrupt; the third, Mr. Smith, became Lord Mayor; and the fourth fell into poverty, and was glad to accept the situation of patrol before the house of his Lordship, whose associate he had been only a few years before. Smith had 100,000l. of bad debts on his books, yet died worth one-fourth of that sum. We remember the Globe, a handsomely-appointed tavern, some forty years since; but it has long ceased to be a tavern.

THE DEVIL TAVERN.

This celebrated Tavern is described in the present work, Vol. I., pp. 10-15, as the meeting-place of the Apollo Club. Its later history is interesting.

Mull Sack, alias John Cottington, the noted highwayman of the time of the Commonwealth, is stated to have been a constant visitor at the Devil Tavern. In the garb and character of a man of fashion, he appears to have levied contributions on the public as a pick-pocket and highwayman, to a greater extent than perhaps any other individual of his fraternity on record. He not only had the honour of picking the pocket of Oliver Cromwell, when Lord Protector, but he afterwards robbed King Charles II., then living in exile at Cologne, of plate valued at £1500. Another of his feats was his robbing the wife of the Lord General Fairfax. "This lady," we are told, "used to go to a lecture on a weekday, to Ludgate Church, where one Mr. Jacomb preached, being much followed by the precisians. Mull Sack, observing this,—and that she constantly wore her watch hanging by a chain from her waist,—against the next time she came there, dressed himself like an officer in the army; and having his comrades attending him like troopers, one of them takes out the pin of a coach-wheel that was going upwards through the gate, by which means, it falling off, the passage was obstructed; so that the lady could not alight at the church-door, but was forced to leave her coach without. Mull Sack, taking advantage of this, readily presented himself to her ladyship; and having the impudence to take her from her gentleman usher, who attended her alighting, led her by the arm into the church; and by the way, with a pair of keen or sharp scissors for the purpose, cut the chain in two, and got the watch clear away: she not missing it till sermon was done, when she was going to see the time of the day." At the Devil Tavern Mull Sack could mix with the best society, whom he probably occasionally relieved of their watches and purses. There is extant a very rare print of him, in which he is represented partly in the garb of a chimney-sweep, his original avocation, and partly in the fashionable costume of the period.[33]

In the Apollo chamber, at the Devil Tavern, were rehearsed, with music, the Court-day Odes of the Poets Laureate: hence Pope, in the Dunciad:

The following epigram on the Odes rehearsals is by a wit of those times:

St. Dunstan's, or the Devil Tavern, is mentioned as a house of old repute, in the interlude, Jacke Jugeler, 1563, where Jack, having persuaded his cousin Jenkin,

that he was not himself, thrusts him from his master's door, and in answer to Jenkin's sorrowful question—where his master and he were to dwell, replies,

Ben Jonson being one night at the Devil Tavern, a country gentleman in the company was obtrusively loquacious touching his land and tenements; Ben, out of patience, exclaimed, "What signifies to us your dirt and your clods? Where you have an acre of land I have ten acres of wit!" "Have you so," retorted the countryman, "good Mr. Wise-acre?" "Why, how now, Ben?" said one of the party, "you seem to be quite stung!" "I was never so pricked by a hobnail before," grumbled Ben.

There is a ludicrous reference to this old place in a song describing the visit of James I. to St. Paul's Cathedral on Sunday, 26th of March, 1620:

We have already given the famous Apollo "Welcome," but not immortal Ben's Rules, which have been thus happily translated by Alexander Brome, one of the wits who frequented the Devil, and who left Poems and Songs, 1661: he was an attorney in the Lord Mayor's Court:

"Ben Jonson's Sociable Rules for the Apollo.

We must now say something of the noted hosts. Simon Wadlow appears for the last time, as a licensed vintner, in the Wardmote return, of December, 1626; and the burial register of St. Dunstan's records: "March 30th, 1627, Symon Wadlowe, vintner, was buried out of Fleet-street." On St. Thomas's Day, in the last-named year, the name of "the widow Wadlowe" appears; and in the following year, 1628, of the eight licensed victuallers, five were widows. The widow Wadlowe's name is returned for the last time by the Wardmote on December 21st, 1629.

The name of John Wadlow, apparently the son of old Simon, appears first as a licensed victualler, in the Wardmote return, December 21, 1646. He issued his token, showing on its obverse St. Dunstan holding the devil by his nose, his lower half being that of a satyr, the devil on the signboard was as usual, sable; the origin of the practice being thus satisfactorily explained by Dr. Jortin: "The devils used often to appear to the monks in the figure of Ethiopian boys or men; thence probably the painters learned to make the devil black." Hogarth, in his print of the Burning of the Rumps, represents the hanging of the effigy against the sign-board of the Devil Tavern.

In a ludicrous and boasting ballad of 1650, we read:

John Wadlow's name occurs for the last time in the Wardmote return of December, 1660. After the Great Fire, he rebuilt the Sun Tavern, behind the Royal Exchange: he was a loyal man, and appears to have been sufficiently wealthy to have advanced money to the Crown; his autograph was attached to several receipts among the Exchequer documents lately destroyed.

Hollar's Map of London, 1667, shows the site of the Devil Tavern, and its proximity to the barrier designated Temple Bar, when the house had become the resort of lawyers and physicians. In the rare volume of Cambridge Merry Jests, printed in the reign of Charles II., the will of a tavern-hunter has the bequeathment of "ten pounds to be drank by lawyers and physicians at the Devil's Tavern, by Temple Bar."

The Tatler, October 11, 1709, contains Bickerstaff's account of the wedding entertainment at the Devil Tavern, in honour of his sister Jenny's marriage. He mentions "the Rules of Ben's Club in gold letters over the chimney;" and this is the latest notice of this celebrated ode. When, or by whom, the board was taken from "over the chimney," Mr. Burn has failed to discover.

Swift tells Stella that Oct. 12, 1710, he dined at the Devil Tavern with Mr. Addison and Dr. Garth, when the doctor treated.

In 1746, the Royal Society held here their Annual Dinner; and in 1752, concerts of vocal and instrumental music were given in the great room.

A view of the exterior of the Devil Tavern, with its gable-pointed front, engraved from a drawing by Wale, was published in Dodsley's London and its Environs, 1761. The sign-iron bears its pendent sign—the Saint painted as a half-length, and the devil behind him grinning grimly over his shoulder. On the removal of projecting signs, by authority, in 1764, the Devil Tavern sign was placed flat against the front, and there remained till the demolition of the house.

Brush Collins, in March, 1775, delivered for several evenings, in the great room, a satirical lecture on Modern Oratory. In the following year, a Pandemonium Club was held here; and, according to a notice in Mr. Burn's possession, "the first meeting was to be on Monday, the 4th of November, 1776. These devils were lawyers, who were about commencing term, to the annoyance of many a hitherto happy bon-vivant."

From bad to worse, the Devil Tavern fell into disuse, and Messrs. Child, the bankers, purchased the freehold in 1787, for £2800. It was soon after demolished, and the site is now occupied by the houses called Child's-place.

We have selected and condensed these details from Mr. Burn's exhaustive article on the Devil Tavern, in the Beaufoy Catalogue.

There is a token of this tavern, which is very rare. The initials stand for Simon Wadloe, embalmed in Squire Western's favourite air "Old Sir Simon the King:"—"AT THE D. AND DVNSTANS. The representation of the saint standing at his anvil, and pulling the nose of the 'D.' with his pincers.—R. within temple barre. In the field, I. S. W."

THE YOUNG DEVIL TAVERN.

The notoriety of the Devil Tavern, as common in such cases, created an opponent on the opposite side of Fleet-street, named "The Young Devil." The Society of Antiquaries, who had previously met at the Bear Tavern, in the Strand, changed their rendezvous Jan. 9, 1707-8, to the Young Devil Tavern; but the host failed, and as Browne Willis tells us, the Antiquaries, in or about 1709, "met at the Fountain Tavern, as we went down into the Inner Temple, against Chancery Lane."

Later, a music-room, called the Apollo, was attempted, but with no success: an advertisement for a concert, December 19, 1737, intimated "tickets to be had at Will's Coffee-house, formerly the Apollo, in Bell Yard, near Temple Bar." This may explain the Apollo Court, in Fleet-street, unless it is found in the next page.

COCK TAVERN, FLEET-STREET.

The Apollo Club, at the Devil Tavern, is kept in remembrance by Apollo Court, in Fleet-street, nearly opposite; next door eastward of which is an old tavern nearly as well known. It is, perhaps, the most primitive place of its kind in the metropolis: it still possesses a fragment of decoration of the time of James I., and the writer remembers the tavern half a century ago, with considerably more of its original panelling. It is just two centuries since (1665), when the Plague was raging, the landlord shut up his house, and retired into the country; and there is preserved one of the farthings referred to in this advertisement:—"This is to certify that the master of the Cock and Bottle, commonly called the Cock Alehouse, at Temple Bar, hath dismissed his servants, and shut up his house, for this long vacation, intending (God willing) to return at Michaelmas next; so that all persons whatsoever who may have any accounts with the said master, or farthings belonging to the said house, are desired to repair thither before the 8th of this instant, and they shall receive satisfaction." Three years later, we find Pepys frequenting this tavern: "23rd April, 1668. Thence by water to the Temple, and there to the Cock Alehouse, and drank, and eat a lobster, and sang, and mightily merry. So almost night, I carried Mrs. Pierce home, and then Knipp and I to the Temple again, and took boat, it being now night." The tavern has a gilt signbird over the passage door, stated to have been carved by Gibbons. Over the mantelpiece is some carving, at least of the time of James I.; but we remember the entire room similarly carved, and a huge black-and-gilt clock, and settle. The head-waiter of our time lives in the verse of Laureate Tennyson—"O plump head-waiter of the Cock!" apostrophizes the "Will Water-proof" of the bard, in a reverie wherein he conceives William to have undergone a transition similar to that of Jove's cup-bearer:—

And of the redoubtable bird, who is supposed to have performed the eagle's part in this abduction, he says:—

THE HERCULES' PILLARS TAVERNS.

Hercules Pillars Alley, on the south side of Fleet-street, near St. Dunstan's Church, is described by Strype as "altogether inhabited by such as keep Publick Houses for entertainment, for which it is of note."

The token of the Hercules Pillars is thus described by Mr. Akerman:—"ED. OLDHAM AT Y HERCVLES. A crowned male figure standing erect, and grasping a pillar with each hand.—℞. PILLERS IN FLEET STREET. In the field, HIS HALF PENNY, E. P. O." "From this example," illustratively observes Mr. Akerman, "it would seem that the locality, called Hercules Pillars Alley, like other places in London, took its name from the tavern. The mode of representing the pillars of Hercules is somewhat novel; and, but for the inscription, we should have supposed the figure to represent Samson clutching the pillars of temple of Dagon. At the trial of Stephen Colledge, for high-treason, in 1681, an Irishman named Haynes, swore that he walked to the Hercules Pillars with the accused, and that in a room upstairs Colledge spoke of his treasonable designs and feeling. On another occasion the parties walked from Richard's coffee-house[34] to this tavern, where it was sworn they had a similar conference. Colledge, in his defence, denies the truth of the allegation, and declares that the walk from the coffee-house to the tavern is not more than a bow-shot, and that during such walk the witness had all the conversation to himself, though he had sworn that treasonable expressions had been made use of on their way thither.