‘As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be,
Built in the old colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality;
A kind of old Hobgoblin hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge and tiled and tall.
A region of repose it seems,
A place of slumber and of dreams,
Remote among the wooded hills!’
The facilities of modern travel and its vast increase, while they have modified the characteristic features of the inn, have given it new economical importance; and, not long since, the American hotel-system was earnestly discussed in the English and French journals, as a substitute for the European: the method by which all the wants of the traveller are supplied at an established price per diem, instead of the details of expense and the grades of accommodation in vogue abroad. In Paris, London, some of the West India Islands, and elsewhere, the American hotel has, in a measure, succeeded. But it is in its historical and social aspect that we find the interest of the subject; as regards convenience, economy, and comfort, the question can perhaps only be met in an eclectic spirit, each country having its own merits and demerits as regards the provision for public entertainment of man and beast. The inns of Switzerland will bear the test of reminiscence better than those of any other part of the Continent; the solitary system of the English inn is objectionable; discomfort is proverbial in Havannah hotels; the garden-tables and music in the German hostels are pleasant social features; and, with all their frugal resources, the farm-stations in Norway boast the charm of a candid and naïve hospitality which sweetens the humble porridge of the weary traveller. ‘It is scarcely credible,’ says an ‘unprotected female,’ in her record of travel there, ‘that such pre-adamite simplicity of heart still exists on earth.’ In pictures and diaries, the German landlord is always light-haired, and holds a beer tankard; and the hotels in the British West Indies, according to a recent traveller, are always kept by ‘fat, middle-aged, coloured ladies, who have no husbands.’ Rose, writing to Hallam from Italy, hints the union of romantic and classical associations which some of the inns conserve and inspire; that of ‘Civita Castellana,’ he remarks, ‘is on the classic route from Rome to Florence, and is a type of the large Italian inns, such as one finds in romances: balconies, terraces, flowers of the south, large courts open for post-chaises—nothing is wanting.’ When Heine visited Germany, he tells us how the conservative habits of his fatherland newly impressed him in the familiar and old-fashioned dishes, ‘sour-krout, stuffed chestnuts in green cabbages, stockfish swimming in butter, eggs and bloaters, sausages, fieldfares, roasted angels with apple-sauce, and goose.’
In mediæval times, in that part of Europe, from the isolation of inns they were emphatically the places to find an epitome of the age—soldiers, monks, noblemen, and peasants surrounded the same stove, shared the contents of the same pot, and often the straw which formed their common bed; the proverb was, ‘Inns are not built for one.’ The salutations, benisons, and curses; the motley guests, the lack of privacy, the trinkgeld and stirrup-cup, the murders and amours, the converse and precautions, the orgies and charities thereof; were each and all characteristic of the unsettled state of society, the diversities of rank, the common necessities, and the priestly, military, and boorish elements of life and manners. But the rarity of any public-house, as we understand the term, is more characteristic of those times than the incongruous elements therein occasionally exhibited. ‘There seems,’ says an ancient historian, ‘to have been no inns or houses of entertainment for the reception of travellers during the middle ages. This is a proof of the little intercourse which took place between different nations. The duty of hospitality was so necessary in that state of society, that it was enforced by statutes; it abounded, and secured the stranger a kind reception under any roof where he chose to take shelter.’[4]
On first entering an inn at Havre-de-Grace, I found the landlady taking leave of the captain of an American packet ship. He had paid his bill, not without some remonstrance, and his smiling hostess, with true French tact, was now in the act of bidding so pleasing a farewell as would lure him to take up his quarters there on the return voyage. She had purchased at the market a handsome bouquet, and tied it up jauntily with ribbons. The ruddy sea-dog face of the captain was half turned aside with a look of impatience at the idea of being inveigled into good-nature after her extortion; but she, not a whit discouraged, held her flowers up to him, and smiling, with her fair hand on his rough dread-naught overcoat, turned full to his eye a sprig of yellow blossom, and with irresistible naïveté whispered,—‘Mon cher Capitaine, c’est immortel comme mon attachement pour vous.’ It was a little scene worthy of Sterne, and brought the agreeableness and the imposition of the innkeepers of the Continent at once before me. One evening, in Florence, I was sent for by a countryman, who lodged at the most famous hotel in that city, and found him perambulating his apartment under strong excitement of mind. He told me, with much emotion, that the last time he had visited Florence was twenty years before, with his young and beautiful wife. The belle of the season that winter was the Marchesa ——. She gave a magnificent ball, and in the midst of the festivities took the young American couple into her boudoir, and sung to them with her harp. Her vocal talent was celebrated, but it was a rare favour to hear her, and this attention was prized accordingly. ‘You know,’ added my friend, ‘that I came abroad to recover the health which grief at my wife’s death so seriously impaired; and you know how unavailing has proved the experiment. On my arrival here I inquired for the best inn, and was directed hither; upon entering this chamber, which was assigned me, something in the frescoes and tiles struck me as familiar; they awoke the most vivid associations, and at last I remembered that this is the very room to which the beautiful Marchesa brought us to hear her sing on that memorable evening; the family are dispersed, and her palace is rented for an hotel; hence this coincidence.’
Among the minor local associations to be enjoyed at Rome, not the least common and suggestive are those which belong to the old ‘Bear Inn,’ where Montaigne lodged. Not only the vicissitudes but the present fortunes of European towns are indicated by the inns. I arrived at ancient Syracuse at sunset on a spring afternoon, and dismounted at an inn that looked like an episcopal residence or government house, so lofty and broad were the dimensions of the edifice; but not a person was visible in the spacious court, and as I wandered up the staircases and along the corridors, no sound but the echo of my steps was audible. At length a meagre attendant emerged from an obscure chamber, and explained that this grand pile was erected in anticipation of the American squadron in the Mediterranean making their winter quarters in the harbour of Syracuse: a project abandoned at the earnest request of the King of Naples, who dreaded the example of a republican marine in his realm; and then so rarely did a visitor appear, that the poor lonely waiter was thrown into a fit of surprise, from which he did not recover during my stay.
To the stranger, no more characteristic evidence of our material prosperity and gregarious habits can be imagined than that afforded by the large, showy, and thronged hotels of our principal cities. They are epitomes of the whole country; at a glance they reveal the era of upholstery, the love of ostentation, the tendency to live in herds, and the absence of a subdued and harmonious tone of life and manners. The large mirrors and bright carpets which decorate these resorts are entirely incongruous—the brilliancy of the sunshine and the stimulating nature of the climate demand within doors a predominance of neutral tints to relieve and freshen the eye and nerves. It is characteristic of that devotion to the immediate which De Tocqueville ascribes to republican institutions, that these extravagant and gregarious establishments in our country are so often named after living celebrities in the mercantile, literary, and political world. This custom gives those who enjoy this distinction while living ‘the freedom of the house.’ It greatly amused the friends of our modest Geoffery Crayon, when, encouraged by his affectionate kinswoman and his friend Kennedy to ‘travel on his capital,’ under the pressure of necessity he once thus desperately claimed the privileges of his honoured name, wherefrom his sensitive nature habitually shrunk. ‘I arrived in town safe,’ he writes from New York to his niece, ‘and proceeded to the “Irving House,” where I asked for a room. What party had I with me? None. Had I not a lady with me? No; I was alone. I saw my chance was a bad one, and I feared to be put in a dungeon as I was on a former occasion. I bethought myself of your advice; and so, when the book was presented to me, wrote my name at full length—“from Sunnyside.” I was ushered into an apartment on the first floor, furnished with rosewood, yellow damask, and pier-glasses, with a bed large enough for an alderman and his wife, a bath-room adjoining. In a word, I was accommodated completely en prince. The negro waiters all call me by name, and vie with each other in waiting on me. The chambermaid has been at uncommon pains to put my room in first-rate order; and if she had been pretty, I absolutely should have kissed her; but as she was not, I shall reward her in sordid coin. Henceforth I abjure all modesty with hotel-keepers, and will get as much for my name as it will fetch. Kennedy calls it travelling on one’s capital.’
The extravagant scale upon which these establishments are conducted is another national feature, at once indicating the comparative ease with which money is acquired in the New World, and the passion that exists here for keeping up appearances. It would be useful to investigate the influence of hotel life in this country upon manners: whatever may be the result as to the coarser sex, its effect upon women and children is lamentable—lowering the tone, compromising the taste, and yielding incessant and promiscuous excitement to the love of admiration; the change in the very nature of young girls, thus exposed to an indiscriminate crowd, is rapid and complete; modesty and refinement are soon lost in over-consciousness and moral hardihood. But, perhaps, the most singular trait in the American hotel is the deference paid to the landlord: instead of being the servant of the public, he is apparently the master; and a traveller who makes the now rapid transition from a New York to a Liverpool hotel, might think himself among a different race; the courteous devotion, almost subserviency, in the one case, being in total contrast with the nonchalance and even despotism of the other. The prosperous security of the host with us, and the dependence of his guest for any choice of accommodation, is doubtless the most obvious reason for this anomaly; but it is also, in a degree at least, to be referred to the familiarity with which even gentlemen treat the innkeepers. To use a vulgar phrase, they descend to curry favour and minister to the self-esteem of a class of men in whom it is already pampered beyond endurable bounds. No formula of republican equality justifies this behaviour; and it usually reacts unfavourably for the self-respect of the individual. Some foreigner remarked, with as much truth as irony, that our aristocracy consisted of hotel-keepers and steamboat captains; and appearances certainly warrant the sarcasm. It was not always thus. When Washington lodged at the old Walton Mansion-house, which had been converted to an inn, the old negro who kept it was the ideal of a host; an air of dignity as well as comfort pervaded the house; through the open upper half of the broad door played the sunshine upon the sanded threshold; at the head of the long easy staircase ticked the old-fashioned clock; full-length portraits, by Copley, graced the parlour wall; the old Dutch stoop looked the emblem of hospitality; no angular figures were ranged to squirt tobacco-juice; no pert clerks lorded it from behind a mahogany barricade; but the glow of the windows at night, the alacrity of the sedate waiter, the few but respectable guests, and the prolonged meals, of which but two or three partook, gave to the inn the character of a home. Lafayette wrote to his wife in 1777, while descanting with enthusiasm upon the simplicity of manners in this country: ‘The very inns are different from those in Europe; the host and hostess sit at table with you, and do the honours of a comfortable meal; and, on going away, you pay your fare without higgling.’ An English traveller, who visited this country soon after the Revolutionary War, speaks of the ‘uncomplying temper of the landlords of the country inns in America.’ ‘They will not,’ says another, ‘bear the treatment we too often give ours at home. They feel themselves in some degree independent of travellers, as all of them have other occupations to follow; nor will they put themselves into a bustle on your account; but with good language they are very civil, and will accommodate you as well as they can. The general custom of having two or three beds in a room, to be sure, is very disagreeable; it arises from the great increase of travelling within the last few years, and the smallness of their houses, which were not built for houses of entertainment.’
It is a most significant indication of our devotion to the external, that ovations at which the legislators of the land discourse, and eulogies that fill the columns of the best journals, celebrate the opening of a new tavern, or the retirement of a publican. The confined and altitudinous cells into which so many of the complacent victims of these potentates are stowed, and their habits of subserviency to the rules of the house which are perked up on their chamber-walls, induced a Sicilian friend of mine to complain that sojourners at inns in this land of liberty were treated like friars. The gorgeous luxury of the metropolitan inns is reversed in the small towns, where, without the picturesque situation, we often find the discomfort of the Continent.
Under date of March 4, 1634, John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts, records in his journal: ‘Samuel Cole set up the first house of common entertainment’ in Boston. According to the famous literary ruse of Irving and Wirt, Knickerbocker’s facetious history and the Letters of a British Spy were found in the inn-chamber of a departed traveller. Of old, the American inn, or tavern as it was called, subserved a great variety of purposes. One of New England’s local historians says:—
‘The taverns of olden time were the places of resort for gentlemen; and one consequence was, good suppers and deep drinking. They also performed the office of newspapers. The names posted on the several tavern-doors were a sufficient notice for jurors. Saturday afternoon was the time when men came from all quarters of the town to see and hear all they could at the tavern, where politics and theology, trade, barter, and taxes, were all mixed up together over hot flip and strong toddy.