Circumstantial as the description of this parlor and the situation of the inn is, it is impossible to say which out of the many English inns Browning had in mind. Inns date back to the days of the Romans, who had ale-houses along the roads, the most interesting feature of which was the ivy garland or wreath of vine-leaves in honor of Bacchus, wreathed around a hoop at the end of a long pole to point out the way where good drink could be had. A curious survival of this in early English times was the "ale-stake," a tavern so called because it had a long pole projecting from the house front wreathed like the old Roman poles with furze, a garland of flowers or an ivy wreath. This decoration was called the "bush," and in time the London taverners so vied with each other in their attempt to attract attention by very long poles and very prominent bushes that in 1375[286] a law was passed according to which all taverners in the city of London owning ale-stakes projecting or extending over the King's highway more than seven feet in length, at the utmost, should be fined forty pence, and compelled to remove the sign. Here is the origin, too, of the proverb, "good wine needs no bush." In the later development of the inn the signs lost their Bacchic character and became most elaborate, often being painted by artists.
The poet says this inn was the "Something-arms," and had perhaps once been a house. Many inns were the "Something (?) arms" and certainly many inns had been houses. One such is the Pounds Bridge Inn on a secluded road between Speldhurst and Penshurst in Kent. It was built by the rector of Penshurst, William Darkenoll, who lived in it only three years, when it became an inn. The inn of the poem might have been a combination in Browning's memory of this and the "White Horse" at Woolstone, which is described as a queerly pretty little inn with a front distantly resembling a Chippendale bureau-bookcase. "It is tucked away under the mighty sides of White Horse Hill, Berkshire, and additionally overhung with trees and encircled with shrubberies and under-[287]woods, and is finally situated on a narrow road that presently leads, as it would seem, to the end of the known world." So writes the enthusiastic lover of inns, Charles Harper. Or, perhaps, since there is a river to be seen from the inn of the poem the "Swan" at Sandleford Water, where a foot bridge and a water splash on the river Enborne mark the boundaries of Hampshire and Berkshire. Here "You have the place wholly to yourself, or share it only with the squirrels and the birds of the overarching trees." The illustration given of the Black Bear Inn, Tewksbury, is a quite typical example of inn architecture, and may have helped the picture in Browning's mind, though its situation is not so rural as that described in the poem.
Inns have, from time immemorial, been the scenes of romances and tragedies and crimes. There have been inns like the "Castle" where the "quality" loved to congregate. The "inn album" of this establishment had inscribed in it almost every eighteenth-century name of any distinction. There have been inns which were noted as the resort of the wits of the day. Ben Jonson loved to take "mine ease in mine inn," and Dr. Johnson declared that a seat in a tavern chair was the height of human felicity. "He was thinking," as it has[288] been pertinently put, "not only of a comfortable sanded parlor, a roaring fire, and plenty of good cheer and good company, but also of the circle of humbly appreciative auditors who gathered round an accepted wit, hung upon his words, offered themselves as butts for his ironic or satiric humor, and—stood treat." Or there was the inn of sinister aspect where highwaymen might congregate, or inns with hosts who let their guests down through trap-doors in the middle of the night to rob and murder them—or is this only a vague remembrance of a fanciful inn of Dickens? Then there was the pilgrim's inn in the days when Chaucerian folks loved to go on pilgrimages, and in the last century the cyclists inn, and to-day the inn of the automobilist. The particular inn in the poem belongs to the class, rural inn, and in spite of its pictures by noted masters was "stuffy" as to the atmosphere.
An English Inn
The "inn album" or visitors' book is a feature of inns. In this country we simply sign our names in the visitors' book, but the "album" feature of the visitors' book of an English inn is its glory and too often its shame, for as Mr. Harper says, "Bathos, ineptitude, and lines that refuse to scan are the stigmata of visitors' book verse. There is[289] no worse poetry on earth than that which lurks between those covers, or in the pages of young ladies' albums." He declares that "The interesting pages of visitors' books are generally those that are not there, as an Irishman might say; for the world is populated very densely with those appreciative people who, whether from a love of literature, or with an instinct for collecting autographs that may have a realizable value, remove the signatures of distinguished men, and with them anything original they may have written."
Browning pokes fun at the poetry of his inn album, but at the same time uses it as an important part of the machinery in the action. His English "Iago" writes in it the final damnation of his own character—the threat by means of which he hopes to ruin his victims, but which, instead, causes the lady to take poison and the young man to murder "Iago."
The presence of the two men at this particular inn is explained in the following bit of conversation between them.
"You wrong your poor disciple. Oh, no airs!
Because you happen to be twice my age
And twenty times my master, must perforce
No blink of daylight struggle through the web
[290] There's no unwinding? You entoil my legs,
And welcome, for I like it: blind me,—no!
A very pretty piece of shuttle-work
Was that—your mere chance question at the club—
'Do you go anywhere this Whitsuntide?
I'm off for Paris, there's the Opera—there's
The Salon, there's a china-sale,—beside
Chantilly; and, for good companionship,
There's Such-and-such and So-and-so. Suppose
We start together?' 'No such holiday!'
I told you: 'Paris and the rest be hanged!
Why plague me who am pledged to home-delights?
I'm the engaged now; through whose fault but yours?
On duty. As you well know. Don't I drowse
The week away down with the Aunt and Niece?
No help: it's leisure, loneliness and love.
Wish I could take you; but fame travels fast,—
A man of much newspaper-paragraph,
You scare domestic circles; and beside
Would not you like your lot, that second taste
Of nature and approval of the grounds!
You might walk early or lie late, so shirk
Week-day devotions: but stay Sunday o'er,
And morning church is obligatory:
No mundane garb permissible, or dread
The butler's privileged monition! No!
Pack off to Paris, nor wipe tear away!'
Whereon how artlessly the happy flash
Followed, by inspiration! 'Tell you what—
Let's turn their flank, try things on t'other side!
Inns for my money! Liberty's the life!
We'll lie in hiding: there's the crow-nest nook,
The tourist's joy, the Inn they rave about,
Inn that's out—out of sight and out of mind[291]
And out of mischief to all four of us—
Aunt and niece, you and me. At night arrive;
At morn, find time for just a Pisgah-view
Of my friend's Land of Promise; then depart.
And while I'm whizzing onward by first train,
Bound for our own place (since my Brother sulks
And says I shun him like the plague) yourself—
Why, you have stepped thence, start from platform, gay
Despite the sleepless journey,—love lends wings,—
Hug aunt and niece who, none the wiser, wait
The faithful advent! Eh?' 'With all my heart,'
Said I to you; said I to mine own self:
'Does he believe I fail to comprehend
He wants just one more final friendly snack
At friend's exchequer ere friend runs to earth,
Marries, renounces yielding friends such sport?'
And did I spoil sport, pull face grim,—nay, grave?
Your pupil does you better credit! No!
I parleyed with my pass-book,—rubbed my pair
At the big balance in my banker's hands,—
Folded a cheque cigar-case-shape,—just wants
Filling and signing,—and took train, resolved
To execute myself with decency
And let you win—if not Ten thousand quite,
Something by way of wind-up-farewell burst
Of firework-nosegay! Where's your fortune fled?
Or is not fortune constant after all?
You lose ten thousand pounds: had I lost half
Or half that, I should bite my lips, I think.
You man of marble! Strut and stretch my best
On tiptoe, I shall never reach your height.
How does the loss feel! Just one lesson more!"