INNKEEPERS.
The inn-keeper of former times seems to have been a person of less humble station than now—he shared his calling with the monastery and with the village-pastor. Travellers had to choose (as they still have in Roman Catholic countries) between the refectory of the monk, the parsonage of the minister, and the tavern of mine host—payment for the night's lodging, where he was in a condition to pay, being expected of him, in one shape or other, at all. The keeper of the Tabard in the Canterbury Tales appears to be upon a level with his guests, both in rank and information, and to play the part of one who felt that he was receiving his equals, and no more, under his roof; yet his company was not of the lowest; and in those times it seems to have been usual for the landlord to preside at the common board, and act in every respect as the hospitable master of the house, save only in exacting the shot; as indeed is the custom in many parts of Germany at the present day. When the system of lay impropriations had begun to take effect, it was by no means an uncommon thing for the minister himself to be also the tavern-keeper, a circumstance, however, which, it must be confessed, may be thought to argue the extreme impoverishment of the church, which drove the clergy to such expedients for a living, rather than the respectability of the calling to which they thus betook themselves.—Quarterly Review.