And pleasant was his absolucioun

He knew the tavernes well in every toun, And everych hostiler and tappestere.

{202}

—The Merchant with his forked beard and “Flaundrisch bevere hat”—The Clerk of Oxenford—The Sergeant of Law, “war and wys”—The Franklin—The Ploughman—The Cook, and every other of that goodly company—How fresh their pictures are to-day! Each touch, each tint, as clear, as bright, as though the great father of English poetry had but yesterday laid aside his pencil! And then the Host, none other than the Henry Bayley of the Tabard, who represented the borough of Southwark in Parliament in 1376, and again in 1378, how interesting it is to observe his demeanour, as depicted by Chaucer. Quite at his ease, and on an equality with his guests, he talks with them, jests with them, in person presides over the table, acts as umpire and judge of the tales they tell upon the journey, and generally behaves more like a man who entertains his friends than a landlord serving his guests; and, be it remembered, these guests were not by any means of the lowest rank of life:

A seemly man our hoste was withal, For to have ben a marshall in an hall, A large man he was with eyen steep, A fairer burgess was there none in Chepe: Bold of his speeche, and wys and well y-taught, And of manhood him lackede righte noughte.

The Tabard in 1722.

The old Tabard was partly burnt down in the great South­wark fire in 1676, and on re­build­ing the ruined portion “that ig­no­rant land­lord or ten­ant,” Aubrey tells us, “in­stead of the an­cient sign of the Ta­bard put up the Tal­bot or doge.” In this con­di­tion it re­mained un­til a few years ago, when, de­spite the pro­tests of the an­ti­quarian world, de­spite the pages of re­mon­strance with which the news­papers and mag­a­zines were filled, it was pulled down, and is now re­placed by a tall brick build­ing. Had we not enough and to spare of these tall brick build­ings?

At the time when Knight wrote his History of London, the original house was sufficiently complete for him to leave us a description of the old arched entrance to the inn-yard, the balustraded galleries on which the bedrooms opened, the gabled roofs, the panelled rooms, and last, {203} but not least, the Pilgrim’s room, which tradition said was the veritable scene of the supper on the night before the guests set out upon their world-famed pilgrimage.