Innkeepers have been reckoned among the poets. John Taylor, the “Water Poet,” so called because he commenced life as a waterman, and because so many of his voluminous works deal with aquatic matters, kept a tavern in Phœnix Alley, Longacre. Being a faithful royalist he set up the sign of the Mourning Crown over his house to express his sorrow at the tragic death of Charles I, but was compelled by the Parliament to take it down. He replaced it with his own portrait and the following lines:
“There is many a head hangs for a sign;
Then, gentle reader, why not mine?”
The episode is commemorated in a rhyming pamphlet issued by him at the same time:
“My signe was once a Crowne, but now it is
Changed by a sudden metamorphosis.
The Crowne was taken downe, and in the stead
Is placed John Taylor’s or the Poet’s Head.”
Of Taylor’s works, the mere enumeration of which occupies eight closely printed pages in “Lownde’s Bibliographer’s Manual,” the best known are his “Prayse of Cleane Linen,” and “The Pennyless Pilgrimage,” descriptive of a journey on foot from London to Edinburgh, “not carrying any money to and fro, neither begging, borrowing or asking meat, drink or lodging.” In 1620, he made a similar journey from London to Prague, and published an account of it.
Scarcely less eminent in his way was Ned Ward, the “Publican Poet,” immortalised in the “Dunciad.” His works are scurrilous and coarse, yet not to be despised by students of London topography in the reign of Queen Anne. His writings in the London Spy describe the London taverns and inns of his day, and he produced several imitations of Butler’s “Hudibras,” including a versified translation of “Don Quixote,” and “Hudibras Redivivus.” The latter work obtained for its author the privilege of standing twice in the pillory and of paying a fine of forty marks. His inn stood in Woodbridge Street, Clerkenwell, and his poetical invitation to customers includes a reference to the Red Bull Theatre, close by, made famous by Shakespeare and Edward Alleyn, the founder of Dulwich College:
“There on that ancient, venerable ground,
Where Shakespeare in heroic buskins trod,
Within a good old fabrick may be found
Celestial liquors, fit to charm a god.”
Very different was the side in politics favoured by Sam House, “the patriotic publican.” Apprenticed as a brewhouse cooper, his active industrious habits enabled him, when only twenty-five years of age, to lease an inn at the corner of Peter Street, Wardour Street, Soho, called the Gravel Pits, which name he changed to the Intrepid Fox, or The Cap of Liberty. In 1763 he very warmly espoused the cause of John Wilkes, and sold his beer at threepence a pot in honour of the champion of freedom. Of unflinching political integrity, Sam House was in most respects a well-meaning, good-hearted man, with but one reprehensible vice—a habit of swearing most horribly, no matter what the company. Many are the unprintable anecdotes related with regard to this failing, when the most exalted personages were conversing with him. Another eccentric feature of his character was illustrated when he had laid a wager with a young man to race him in Oxford Road. Just when his victory seemed assured, a mischievous wag in the crowd suddenly shouted, “D——n Fox and all his friends, say I!” Forthwith Sam forgot all about his race, and regardless of protests from his backers, turned round and administered a sound drubbing to the blasphemer. This gave great amusement to the spectators, but meanwhile his rival had passed the winning-post. Sam cheerfully paid the penalty, consoling himself that he had lost the race in a good cause, while avenging an insult to his political idol.