I lerned never rhetorike certain;
Thing that I speke it mote be bare and plain:
I slept never on the mount of Pernaso,
Ne lerned Marcus Tullius Cicero.
Colours ne know I non, withouten drede,
But swiche colours as growen in the mede,
Or elles swiche as men die with, or peint;
Colours of rhetorike ben to me queinte;
My spirit feleth not of swiche matere:
But if you lust my tale shul ye here.[261]
In brief, if you “put up” at the “Red Cross,” and invite Mr. Young’s society, you will find him
—————a franklin faire und free,
That entertaines with comely courteous glee.[262]
The house itself is not one of your bold looking inns, that if you enter you assure yourself of paying toll at, in regard of its roystering appearance, in addition to every item in your bill; but one in which you have no objection to be “at charges,” in virtue of its cheerful, promising air. You will find these more reasonable perhaps than you expect, and you will not find any article presented to you of an inferior quality. In respect therefore of its self-commendations and locality, the “Cross” at Keston is suggested as a point d’appui to any who essay from town for a few hours of fresh air and comfort, and with a desire of leisurely observing scenery altogether new to most London residents.
The classical ancients had inns and public-houses. Nothing is a stronger proof of the size and populousness of the city of Herculaneum, which was destroyed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius on the 24th of August, A. D. 79, than its nine hundred public-houses. A placard or inscription, discovered on the wall of a house in that ruined city, was a bill for letting one of its public-houses on lease; and hence, it appears that they had galleries at the top, and balconies, or green arbours, and baths. The dining-rooms were in the upper story. Although it was the custom of the Romans to recline at their meals, yet when they refreshed themselves at these places they sat. The landlord had a particular dress, and landladies wore a succinct, or tucked up dress, and brought the wine in vases for the visitors to taste. They had common drinking vessels as with us, and sometimes the flaggons were chained to posts. In the inns on the roads there were both hot and cold meats. Until the time of Nero, inns provided every kind of delicacy: that emperor restricted them to boiled vegetables. Tiberius prohibited their selling any baker’s goods.
The company frequenting the ancient public-houses were usually artificers, sailors, drunken galli, thieves, &c. Chess was played, and the abacus, or chess-board, was made oblong. Hence came the common painted post still at the doors of our own public-houses, the sign of the chequer or chequers.[263] Sir William Hamilton presented to the Antiquarian Society a view of a street in Pompeii, another Italian city destroyed by Vesuvius, which contains the sign of the chequers, from whence there can be no doubt that it was a common one among the Romans.
Our Saxon ancestors had public-houses where they drank very hard out of vessels of earthenware, as the country people do still.
The Anglo-Saxons had the eala-hus, ale-house, win-hus, wine-house, and cumen-hus, or inn. Inns, however, were by no means common houses for travellers. In the time of Edward I. lord Berkeley’s farm-houses were used for that purpose. Travellers were accustomed to inquire for hospitable persons, and even go to the king’s palaces for refreshment. John Rous, an old traveller, who mentions a celebrated inn on the Warwick road, was yet obliged to go another way for want of accommodation.[264]