Ah, Ben! Say how, or when, Shall we thy guests, Meet at those lyric feasts Made at the Sun, The Dog, the Triple Tun? Where we such clusters had, As made us nobly wild, not mad; And yet each verse of thine Out-did the meat, out-did the wine.
Ben Jonson, in inviting a friend to sup with him at the Mermaid, promises him—
A cup of pure Canary wine, Which is the Mermaid’s now, but shall be mine.
The Swan at Charing Cross, however, was the house where Jonson was always most sure of getting the best draught of his favourite liquor.
Aubrey relates that the poet was upon one occasion dining with King James, and when called upon to say grace produced the following lines:—
Our King and Queen, the Lord God blesse, The Palsgrave and the Lady Besse, And God blesse every living thing That lives and breathes and loves the King. God blesse the Councill of Estate, And Buckingham the fortunate. God blesse them all, and keep them safe, And God blesse me, and God blesse Ralph.
Whereupon “the King was mighty inquisitive to know who this Ralph was. Ben told him ’twas the drawer at the Swanne Taverne by Charing Crosse, who drew him good canarie. For this drollerie his Matie. gave him an hundred pounds.”
The legend of St. Dunstan, who, being tempted of the devil in bodily form, took the prince of darkness by the nose, and
With redhot tongs he made him roar Till he was heard three miles or more, {208}
was commemorated on the signboard of a celebrated inn in Fleet Street, which was called “The Devil” for short. The old inn stood on the site now occupied by Child’s Bank, and it was there that the meetings of the celebrated Apollo Club were held, and rare Ben Jonson, with other kindred spirits, passed the sparkling wine and still more sparkling jest. Here over the entrance of the Apollo Chamber were inscribed the well-known lines beginning