COURTYARD OF AN OLD TAVERN.
And what a glorious time they have had of it! To recall only Fuller's description of the "wit combates" between Shakespeare's "quickness of wit and invention" against Ben Jonson's "far higher learning," and "solid, but slow performances," at the historic Mermaid; and Beaumont's rapturous praise in his epistle to Jonson of the banquet of wit and admirable conversation which they had enjoyed at the same place!
Oh to have been at the Mermaid on the night when Jonson had been burnt out at the Bankside Globe! or on the night of Shakespeare's first performance before Elizabeth—when he had first, perhaps, set eyes on Mary Fitton!
All the wits of that age of giants were wont to assemble, after the theatre, at the Mermaid, the Devil, and the Boar. Exuberant Fletcher and graver Beaumont would "wentle" in from their lodging on Bankside, wearing each other's clothes, and wrangling perhaps about their plots—a habit which on one occasion caused them to be arrested, a fussy listener having heard them disputing in a tavern as to whether they should or should not assassinate the king. Poor, drunken, profligate Greene, and his debauched companions, Marlowe and George Peele,—all of whom ended their riotous courses with painful and shameful deaths,—are sure to have lurched in on many a razzling night. Regular visitors, too, were "Crispinus" Dekker, and his friend Wilson the actor, whom Beaumont mentions as a boon-companion over the Mermaid wine:—
Filled with such moisture, in most grievous qualms
Did Robert Wilson write his singing psalms.
From Whitehall, with "their port so proud, their buskin, and their plume," would swagger in Raleigh, Surrey, Spenser, and others of the wits from Elizabeth's ruffling Court. Drummond of Hawthornden came here at least once on a visit to Ben Jonson; but this must have been after Shakespeare had deserted the festive board for the crested pomp of a gentlemanly life at Stratford, "coming up every term to take tobacco and see new motions."
Sombre John Webster would be here sometimes, sometimes Massinger, Thomas Middleton, Lilly, Thomas Heywood, William Rowley, Day, Wilkins, Ford, Camden, Ned Drayton, Fulke Greville, Harrington, Edmund Waller, Martin, Morley, Selden, the future Bishop of Winchester, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!
What a galaxy! what a feast!