THE GEORGE INN, BOROUGH.
bustling air of business. It is a not unpicturesque courtyard from its very irregularity, the old wooden galleries being alternated with buildings of a different pattern, some projecting forward. The galleries are gay with paint and plenty of flowers; and altogether one might seem able to take one’s ease in one’s inn here very fairly. Even more picturesque is the “Queen’s Head,” a little lower down, a very effective gathering of irregular buildings. It has its two galleries on the left, but another portion has been boarded in for greater room and comfort. A tall archway in the centre block offers a De Hooghe-like glimpse of another court beyond, while a bow-windowed bar-parlour has been built out in front, and suggests a Captain Cuttle flavour. Here, too, is the heavy tiled roof, over which rises a little peaked cupola, not without effect. One hardly hears the hum of the Borough without. Who “puts up” at these places? What sort of “entertainment for man or beast” is there? How long do the guests stay? These are questions of high mystery. The people who dwell here must have ways of their own, and be influenced by the dispensations under which they abide. This conversing from aloft, with occasional pausing to look down and see what is going on, lends a sort of vitality to what would otherwise be a sleepy and antiquated kind of existence. To this old arrangement, as is well known, it is that we owe the form of our theatres. The old inn-yard being a favourite place of entertainment, the guests would gather in the galleries to look over; the floor suggested the later pit; while the stage was set up, facing the archway, at the far end.
In Covent Garden, under Inigo Jones’s loggia, are found some old inns of a thoroughly Pickwickian sort, with the bars and snuggeries which are fitting background for a gathering of Dickens’s men and women. These are “The Tavistock” and “The Bedford,” in high favour with country bachelors. They must be as old almost as the colonnade itself; while the “Bedford Coffee House” has quite a history of its own, resplendent with the names of Churchill, Hogarth, the steak-ordering Duke of Norfolk, and many a son of fame besides. Still flourishes also the “Hummums,” where Parson Ford saw the ghost, as described by Dr. Johnson; but it has been rebuilt.
On the top of Hampstead Heath, and situated in a most picturesque spot, is “Jack Straw’s Castle,” a little inn which has a reputation of its own. ’Tis said to be the highest point in the quarter, and though so close to town, has an antique and truly rustic air. The pleasant Hampstead mornings, with the keen air of those northern heights, the glimpses of cheerful old red-brick houses, the vicinity of Church Row, one of the most effective “bits” of old brick architecture in the country, the delightful undulations of the Heath, all make “Jack Straw’s Castle” a most acceptable hostelry, though John Sadleir was found hard by, with his silver poison cup lying some yards away. Readers of Forster’s “Life of Dickens” will recall the many rides of the novelist, accompanied by his “trusty” friend, to this inn, and the pleasant tête-à-tête dinners that followed. Indeed, a pleasant volume might be made on “The History of Old Inns, and Those who Frequented Them.” One of the most famous is of course the “Red Lion” at Henley, where Johnson and Boswell stayed—Johnson, indeed, had a particular predilection for taverns. He was one of their most ardent votaries; he remains their most eloquent apologist. In the inn at Chapel-house, after “triumphing over the French for not having in any perfection the tavern life,” he went on to enlarge upon them in a discourse which has become historical. “There is no private house,” he declared, “in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so great plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much desire that every body should be easy; in the nature of things it cannot be: there must always be some degree of care and anxiety. The master of the house is anxious to entertain his guests; the guests are anxious to be agreeable to him; and no man, but a very impudent dog indeed, can as freely command what is in another man’s house as if it were his own. Whereas, at a tavern there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome; and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are. No servants will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the prospect of an immediate reward in proportion as they please. No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern or inn.” Thus did he discourse to Boswell; while to Hawkins he asserted that a tavern chair is the throne of human felicity.
CHAPTER XVIII.
TAVERNS.
THE old London taverns and chop houses are disappearing year by year, but there are a few quaint survivals which are interesting. Take it that on some winter’s evening, we have passed through old Holywell Street, where the gas is flaring wildly over the doors, and emerge at the foot of the picturesque St. Clement Danes’ tower, in whose belfry windows are red lights, while its bells are clanging away noisily, worked by the strong arms of “the College of Bell Ringers.” We hurry on, passing through the old Bar, which once seemed like entering a fortified town, and only wanted a drawbridge; then see to the left, over a little low porch, the illuminated beacon of “The Cock,” cheerfully inviting entrance. The long bent passage, with the swing-door at the end, had an air of ineffable comfort—there was a glimpse of the cozy bar beyond. To the right hand, as the swing-door opened and shut, you saw the jovial red curtains within, the blackened mahogany boxes, the hats hung up, and the sanded floor. It seemed like a whiff of the “Old Maypole.” You understood at once the significance of Dickens’s old inns, which he seemed to revel in. How snug that corner seat near the fire—just holding two—with the stout table in front—the kettle singing close to you—from below came the sound of cheerful hissing, as the tender chops or “dinner steak” was being prepared “to follow” or not, as it might be—to be succeeded again by the peculiar “rare-bit,” the unapproachable stout, fine port, and finer whiskey!
It was a curious sensation to find refuge here after a weary day, and look round on the characteristic figures, mostly solitary, dried up, old lawyers, who have spent their day in company with deeds and papers. They would have their tumblers of old Scotch—more as a companion for their thoughts—and you could see their faces wandering placidly to the fire as if tracing some of their favourite quiddities and quillets there. Here, too, was to be found the adventurer come to seek his fortune in the great town, brooding over the buffets already met with, planning how to fend off others, yet finding a soothing comfort in the placid retirement of the old hostel.
“I may here mention,” wrote an old City solicitor named Jay, “that the ‘Cock Tavern’ in Fleet Street has been a noted resort of lawyers for more than two centuries. When I first went there, no chops or steaks were cooked, but gentlemen and tradesmen went there in the afternoon to smoke their pipes (cigars being then very little used). The landlord at that time held a high position in Whitbread’s brewery. It was at this time kept open during the night, and until the early hours of morning were far advanced it was often a difficult matter to find an unoccupied seat. The gentlemen who frequented it were members of the Temple and other Inns of Court, and used their own silver tankards bearing their crests, which were exposed to view against the wall of the bar or coffee-room; and I have still many pleasant reminiscences of oyster and other suppers furnished at this house; a man from a neighbouring fishmonger’s being specially retained to open oysters for the numerous customers, who with sharp appetites kept him fully employed.”
To many persons who have never entered a tavern in their lives, “The Cock” had a certain charm of association, mainly owing to its having been celebrated in verse by the Poet Laureate. Perhaps few, again, are familiar with all he has said or sung upon the subject, contenting themselves with the oft-quoted lines to the “plump head waiter at ‘The Cock,’” which gave that personage an immortality. The lines on “Will Waterproof’s” visit have an extraordinary charm of pensive retrospect and solitary meditation, and convey an idea of the tone of the old place, and of the fancies it is likely to engender in some solitary and perhaps depressed guest. A series of pictures and moods is unfolded in this charming poem, a sort of dreamy rumination and pleasant sadness; visions float upwards in the curling fumes of the smoker’s “long clay.” But only a great poet could extract a refined quintessence from the mixed vapours of chops and steaks.