OLD LONDON TAVERNS.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 6, Issue 296, 9 October 1883, Page 5

OLD LONDON TAVERNS.

If cosiness is needed as- afconditibi^^ under ' which, authors gain indst linffl^ii^^ ation, such;: an -ajbundancel o^fEajjifj luxury has been {ie'stowed ; uJ3ons|&mj|N in one direction^ ever since thS meF of Shakespeare, that whatever hardships they may have endured in^pri-^ vate life, they have had little; pauj&^o $J complain of their public entertainment.. So closely, indeed,, ha^e f Jhe^ , old coffee-Kduses, inns, a'hd\tlt|§ijMj|^rJ the city of Lqndon become a'ssocialea 1 ' v with the names' of men of letters, so endless are the anecdotes told of these eccentric people, of th^ir sayings and doings, their witticisms ''and' tlMf~e|)i- w * grams, which have reached us from those snug retreats,, that no biography of a literary man of any note who has lived any time within the last three hundred y^ears, ,-would, , be : , .complete... without spme reference to' m6re'tiiati i/ one old city tavern. They were the "houses of call ", for. those .who .hajiahr fund of learning and were cager 1 to exchange ideas. The surroundings ,' ! were eminently characteristic o,f men who placed erudition, before every „ other circumstance by which our lives.:, are governed. 1 ' Here they could feasfc : over each other's' words, airid serve 1 ' : them up rechauffe,, with a bowl- of. „. punch. The floors were sanded, the- ' pipes were of clayj and the seats were • wooden high-backed benches.. , This ' may not.be the modern notion of com.; ■„. fort; but to men so conservative, by; . : nature, a warm room and a curtained, compartment, where Shakespeare anid '." Ben .Tofairison had sat in seats of hpni-' , our, was an ample compensation, for the absence of showiness and ease j and the gloom and mystery of" the ' courts and alleys in which these tay-' , , ems were invariably found, was, per- \, haps the secret of their attraction to-'..-- 1 men of a thoughtful 2nd retiring^-dis-***"' position. Kew faces were seldom seen; it was a sort of club-life, in which the choice of companionship was made in the manner naturally adopted by *' birds of a feather, flocking in taverns, as in trees. — :Chambers's. Journal. . .