But from the time of Dr. Johnson down to the present day unbroken links of tradition connect the Cheshire Cheese of the twentieth century with the Cheshire Cheese of the eighteenth, and through that with all the taverns in story, which begin with the Tabard and pass on, through the Mermaid and the rest, to the old house in Wine Office Court. This venerable survivor of a vanished race has a double interest: to the lover of antiquity in general it appeals as the type of the place our forefathers loved; to the lover of the Johnsonian cycle, as enabling him to picture to himself what that race of giants did, where they ate and drank, and where they talked. That they had reason for their choice of an inn, and could give a reason for that choice too, is plain from a well-known passage in Boswell, which runs as follows:—
ENTRANCE TO THE “OLD CHESHIRE CHEESE” IN WINE OFFICE COURT.
From an Original Drawing by Herbert Railton.
“There is no private house 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 everybody 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” (we should remember that this was said in the rougher world of the last century), “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.”
Although the origin of the Old Cheshire Cheese (formerly spelt “Ye Olde Cheshire Chese”) is not altogether involved in obscurity, there is a decided want of complete, or even semi-complete, details as to its very early history; but it is much more affluent in literary anecdote.
It was in the Old Cheshire Cheese that the dispute arose about who would most quickly make the best couplet. One said:—
I, Sylvester,
Kiss’d your sister.
The other’s retort was: