6

tleman who sat next me, that no wine was sold here, but that punch was quite the thing;' and a large bowl was immediately introduced. The conversation hitherto had been insipid, and at intervals: it now became general and lively. The women, who, to do them justice, are much more entertaining than their neighbours in England, discovered a great deal of vivacity and fondness for repartee. A thousand things were hazarded, and met with applause; to which the oddity of the scene gave propriety, and which could have been produced in no other place. The general ease with which they conducted themselves, the innocent-freedom of their manners, and their unaffected good-nature, all conspired to make us forget that we were regaling in a cellar, and was a convincing proof that, let local customs operate as they may, a truly polite woman is every where the same. When the company were tired of conversation they began to dance reels, their favourite dance, which they performed with great agility and perseverance. One of the gentlemen, however, fell down in the most active part of it, and lamed himself; so the dance was at an end for that evening. On looking at their watches, the ladies now found it time to retire; the coaches were therefore called, and away they went, and with them all our mirth. The company were now reduced to a party of gentlemen; pipes and politics were introduced: I took my hat and wished them good night. The bill for entertaining half a dozen very fashionable women, amounted only to two shillings apiece. If you will not allow the entertainment an elegant one, you must at least confess that it was cheap."*

It may be amusing to wander for a moment to another place of public entertainment, for the sake of a character of it two centuries ago, by bishop Earle.

THE TAVERN, 1628,

Is a degree, or (if you will) a pair of stairs above an ale-house, 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: the rooms are ill breathed like the drinkers that have been washed well over night, and are smelt-to fasting next morning. It is a broacher of

Letters from Edinburgh, written in the years 1774 And 1775.

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 musick above is answered with the clinking below. The drawers are the civilest people in it, men of good bringing up; and howsoever we esteem of them, none can boast more justly of their high calling. 'Tis the best theater 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 hither 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 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 these 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 mid-night as at mid-day. 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 canary their book, whence we leave them.

Bishop Earle, in his character of a "Poor Fiddler," describes him as "in league with the tapsters for the worshipful of the inn, whom he torments next morning with his art, and has their names more perfect than their men." Sir John Hawkins, who cites this in his History of Music, also abstracts a curious view of the customs at inns, from Fyne Moryson's "Itinerary," rather later in the same age :

"As soone as a passenger comes to an inne, the seruants run to him, and one takes his horse and walkes him till he be cold, then rubs him, and giues him meate, yet I must say that they are not much to be trusted in this last point, without the eye of the master or his seruant to ouersee them. Another seruant giues the passenger his

priuate chamber, and kindles his fier, the third puls of his bootes, and makes them cleane. Then the host or hostesse visits him, and if he will eate with the host, or at a common table with others, his meale will cost him sixepence, or in some places but foure pence, (yet this course is lesse honour able, and not vsed by gentlemen): but if he will eate in his chamber, he commands what meate he will according to his appetite, and as much as he thinkes fit for him and his company, yea, the kitchen is open to him, to command the meat to be dressed as he best likes; and when he sits at table, the host or hostesse will accompany him, or if they haue many guests, will at least visit him, taking it for curtesie to be bid sit downe: while he eates, if he haue company especially, he shall be offred musicke, which he may freely take or refuse, and if he be solitary, the musitians will giue him the good day with musicke in the morning. It is the custome, and no way disgracefull, to set vp part of supper for his breakefast: in the euening or in the morning after breakefast, (for the common sort vse not to dine, but ride from breakefast to supper time, yet comming early to the inne for better resting of their horses) he shall haue a reckoning in writing, and if it seeme vnreasonable, the host will satisfie him, either for the due price, or by abating part, especially if the seruant deceiue him any way, which one of experience will soone find. I will now onely adde, that a gentleman and his man shall spend as much, as if he were accompanied with another gentleman and his man ; and if gentlemen will in such sort ioyne together, to eate at one table, the expences will be much deminished. Lastly, a man cannot more freely command at home in his owne house, than hee may doe in his inne; and at parting, if he giue some few pence to the chamberlin and ostler, they wish him a happy iourney."

Through a most diligent collector of archæological authorities, we find in the time of Elizabeth only eight-pence paid at an inn for a physician all night; and in the time of Chailes II. only two-pence for a man and horse at Bristol.*

Bristol has now attained to so great wealth and prosperity, as to provide inns of importance equal perhaps to any in the

Fosbroke.

A history of inns would be curious. It is not out of the way to observe, that the old inns of the metropolis are daily undergoing alterations that will soon destroy their original character. "Courts with bedchambers, below and around the old inns, occur in the middle age, and are probably of Roman fashion; for they resemble the barracks at Tivoli."* There are specimens of this inn-architecture still remaining to be observed at the Bell Savage, Ludgatehill; the Saracen's Head, Snow-hill; the George, and the Ram, in Smithfield; the Bull and Mouth; the Swan and two necks; the Green Dragon, Bishopsgatestreet, and a few others; not forgetting the

Talbot inn, in the Borough, from whence Chaucer's pilgrims set out to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket, at Canterbury; of which there is a modern painting placed in front of one of its galleries facing the street entrance. Stow, in his time, calls it, under the name of the "Tabard," "the most ancient" of the inns on the Surrey side of London, In Southwark, he says, "bee many

faire innes for receit of travellers-amongst the which, the most ancient is the Tabard, so called of the signe, which as wee now terme it, is of a jacket, or sleevelesse coate, whole before, open on both sides, with a square collar, winged at the shoulders; a stately garment, of old time commonly worne of noblemen and others, both at home and abroad in the wars; but then (to wit, in the warres,) their armes embroidered, or otherwise depict upon them, that every man by his coat of armes might bee knowne from others: but now these tabards are onely worne by the heralds, and bee called their coats of armes in service." Stowe then quotes Chaucer in commendation of the "Inne of the Tabard :"

It befelle in that season, on a day
In Southwerk, at the Tabard as I lay
Ready to wend on my pilgrimage
To Canterbury with devout courage;
That night was come into that hostelrie
Well nine and twenty in a compagnie
Of sundry folke, by aventure yfalle
In felawsship, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Canterbury wolden ride :
The chambers and stables weren wide, &c.

Chaucer, whom it pleases to Stowe to call "the most famous poet of England," relates

shortly in a clause

Th' estat, th' araie, the nombre, and eke the cause,
Why that assembled was this compagnie
In Southwerk, at this gentil hostelrie,
That hight the Tabard, faste by the Bell.

In course of time the original name of the sign seems to have been lost, and its meaning forgotten. The "Tabard" is cor rupted or perverted into the "Talbot" inn; and as already, through Stowe, I have shown the meaning of the Tabard, some readers perhaps may excuse me for adding, that the Talbot, which is now only a term for an armorial bearing, is figured in heraldry as a dog, a blood-hound, or hunting bound.*

Academy of Armory, b. ii. c. 9.

are other pictures in the same taste, particularly a portrait of one of Mr. Young's horses.

The ostler at "Keston Cross" is the most remarkable of its obliging, humble servants. The poor fellow has lost an eye, and is like the "high-mettled racer" in his decline-except that he is well used. While looking about me I missed W., and found he had deemed him a picturesque subject, and that he was in the act of sketching him from behind the door of the stableyard, while he leaned against the stabledoor with his corn-sieve in his hand. I know not why the portrait should not come into a new edition of Bromley's Catalogue, or an appendix to Granger: sure I am that many far less estimable persons figure in the Biographical History of England. As an honest man, (and if he were not he would not be in Mr. Young's service,) I craved my friend W. to engrave him on a wood-block; I have no other excuse to offer for presenting an impression of it, than the intrinsic worth of the industrious original, and the merit of the likeness; and that apology it is hoped very few will

decline.

Dr. Johnson derives "ostler" from the French word hostelier," but "hostelier " in French, now spelt "hotelier," signifies an innkeeper, or host, not an ostler; to express the meaning of which term the French word is wholly different in spelling and pronunciation. It seems to me that “ostler” is derived from the word "hostel," which was formerly obtained from the French, and was in common use here to signify an inn; and the innkeeper was from thence called the "hosteller." This was at a period when the innkeeper or "hosteller" would be required by his guests to take and tend their horses, which, before the use of carriages, and when most goods were conveyed over the country on the backs of horses, would be a chief part of his employment; and hence, the "hosteller" actually became the "hostler," or ostler," that is, the horse-keeper.

We will just glean, for two or three minutes, from as many living writers who have gone pleasantly into inns, and so conclude.

Washington Irving, travelling under the name of "Geoffrey Crayon, gent." and reposing himself within a comfortable hostel

at Shakspeare's birth-place, says :-" To a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide world which he can truly call his own, there is a momentary feeling of something like independence and territorial consequence, when, after a weary day's travel, he kicks off his boots, thrusts his feet into slippers, and stretches himself before an inn fire. Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the time being, the very monarch of all he surveys. The arm chair is his throne, the poker his sceptre, and the little parlour, of some twelve feet square, his undisputed empire. It is a morsel of certainty, snatched from the midst of the uncertainties of life; it is a sunny moment gleaming out kindly on a cloudy day; and he who has advanced some way on the pilgrimage of existence, knows the importance of husbanding even morsels and moments of enjoyment. Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?' thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back in my elbow chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlour of the Red Horse, at Stratford-on

Avon."

ELIA, to illustrate the "astonishing composure" of some of the society of "friends," tells a pleasant anecdote, which regards

a custom at certain inns, and is there

fore almost as fairly relatable in this place, as it is delightfully related in his volume of "Essays:"-" I was travelling," says ELIA, "in a stage-coach with three male quakers, buttoned up in the straitest non-conformity of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover, where a meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set before us. My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. I in my way took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my companions discovered that she had charged for both meals. This was resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild arguments were used on the part of the quakers, for which the heated mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard came in with his usual peremptory notice. The quakers pulled out their money, and formally tendered it so much for tea-I, in humble imitation, tendering mine-for the supper which I had taken. She would not relax in her demand. So they all three quietly put up their silver, as did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and gravest going first, with myself closing up