NOTES ON ODE
['Bards of Passion and of Mirth'].
[Page 128]. l. [1]. Bards, poets and singers.
l. [8]. parle, French parler. Cf. Hamlet, i. i. 62.
l. [12]. Dian's fawns. Diana was the goddess of hunting.
INTRODUCTION TO LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN.
The Mermaid Tavern was an old inn in Bread Street, Cheapside. Tradition says that the literary club there was established by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603. In any case it was, in Shakespeare's time, frequented by the chief writers of the day, amongst them Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Carew, Donne, and Shakespeare himself. Beaumont, in a poetical epistle to Ben Jonson, writes:
What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame,
As if that any one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And has resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.
NOTES ON LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN.