Boniface. Strong! It must be so; or how would we be strong that drink it?
Hawthorne tried hard to find Mr. Boniface’s inn at Lichfield, but in vain. He had to content himself with the Black Swan, once owned by Dr. Johnson. Farquhar was careful not to indicate the particular inn referred to, if it ever existed there. Not that the dramatists in bygone days lived in fear of a libel action. Witness a farce by J. M. Morton, in which Mrs. Fidget, the landlady of the Dolphin at Portsmouth, is most cruelly pilloried for her dishonesty and meanness. In “Naval Engagements” Charles Dance portrays Mr. Short of the Fountain in the same town as a scurvy impudent rascal, taking advantage of customers who had spent the night not wisely nor too well, to charge them for an unordered and unserved breakfast. Short’s sanctimonious morality and his devices to detain customers in a hurry, so that they are compelled to stay in the inn for dinner, are a valuable humorous element of this play.
Fielding’s innkeepers are all exquisitely drawn, with the lifelike touches of a fine student of human nature in its infinite variety. We love best of all the host of that inn where Parson Adams met the braggart, untruthful squire who offered him a fine living and endless other benefits without the slightest intention of fulfilling his promises. Mine Host stands by chuckling inwardly at the good jest when the squire undertakes to defray the bill for the lodging and entertainment of the party. Nor does he lose his good-humour when he finds next morning the joke turned against himself and that the worthy curate has not a farthing in his purse.
“Trust you, master? that I will with all my heart. I honour the clergy too much to deny trusting one of them for such a trifle; besides, I like your fear of never paying me. I have lost many a debt in my lifetime; but was promised to be paid them all in a very short time. I will score this reckoning for the novelty of it; it is the first, I do assure you, of its kind. But what say you, master, shall we have t’other pot before we part? It will waste but a little chalk more; and, if you never pay me a shilling, the loss will not ruin me.”
By way of contrast we are given the termagant Mrs. Tow-wouse, whose ill-temper and selfish grasping ways were always counteracting her easy-going spouse’s mild attempts in the direction of generosity:
“Mrs. Tow-wouse had given no utterance to the sweetness of her temper. Nature had taken such pains in her countenance, that Hogarth himself never gave more expression to a picture. Her person was short, thin, and crooked; her forehead projected in the middle and thence descended in a declivity to the top of her nose, which was sharp and red, and would have hung over her lips, had not Nature turned up the end of it; her lips were two bits of skin, which, whenever she spoke, she drew together in a purse; her chin was peaked; and at the upper end of that skin which composed her cheeks, stood two bones, that almost hid a pair of small red eyes. Add to this a voice most wonderfully adapted to the sentiments it was to convey, being both loud and hoarse.”
Surely such a picture is worthy of being beside Skelton’s description of the frowsy ale wife of Leatherhead.
Dean Swift encountered a lady of the same contrary nature at the Three Crosses, on the road between Dunchurch and Daventry. He left his opinion of his hostess on one of the windows:
“To the Landlord.
There hang three crosses at thy door,
Hang up thy wife and she’ll make four.”
And here we may be permitted to introduce an adventure of our own. A party of three, we were engaged on a walk across the Dunes, near Nieuport, and had lost our way. Flemish was the language of the district, and this in its spoken form was a sealed book to all three. By and by we came to a little roadside estaminet which we entered, and in correct exercise-book French inquired the nearest way to Furnes. The proprietor replied by placing before us three large glasses of the local beverage. It was a hot, dusty day, we were thirsty and the beer light and harmless. So we drank it and then again inquired the way to Furnes. For answer our glasses were forthwith refilled. When we shook our heads in dissent, the obliging caterer brought out in turn every different kind of bottle and brand of cigar and cigarette the establishment could muster. It was no good. We did not wish to drink or smoke.