Inaccessible à la tristesse
Là nous serons servis de la main d’une hôtesse
Plus belle que l’astre qui luit,
Et mêlant au bon vin quelque peu de tendresse,
Contents du jour, nous attendrons la nuit.”
The classical literary tavern of England was without doubt “The Mermaid Tavern,” once situated in Bread Street not far from Milton’s birthplace. Here the famous club, founded by Ben Jonson, in 1603, assembled, among them the immortal Shakespeare. The fascination of this mermaid was still in the nineteenth century so great as to inspire Keats with his charming “Lines on the Mermaid Tavern,” which we feel inclined to quote in full from Anning Bell’s illustrated edition, where it stands under a graceful reconstruction of the sign:—
“Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?