THE INNS OF LITERATURE AND ART
John Ball, shut up in the Archbishop’s prison at Canterbury, fell
a’longing for “the green fields and the whitethorn bushes, and the lark
singing over the corn, and the talk of good fellows round the alehouse
bench.” The same craving for the real things of life comes to every
creative genius fretting against class restrictions. Sir Walter Scott,
when staying with Wordsworth at Grassmere, usually managed to give his
host the slip in order to spend an hour or two in the _Swan_ beyond the
village; just as Addison had fled the splendid state of Holland House for
the _Old White Horse_ in Kensington Road. Either this wayside inn or the
_Red Lion_ at Hampton, was the scene of the historic drinking bout between
Addison and Pope, which so upset the latter’s digestion and sense of
dignity that he ever afterwards described the great essayist as a terrible
drunkard. The _Bull and Bush_, in North End Hampstead, now chiefly
patronised by holiday makers on account of its attractive tea-gardens,
was another resort where Addison, Dryden, Steele, and the rest of the
famous galaxy of wits loved to gather. It is said also to have once been
the country seat of Hogarth.
[Illustration: The Falstaff, Canterbury]
More temperate in their devotion to the flowing bowl, but scarcely less
brilliant in their abilities, were the company who fifty years ago used to
visit the _Bull_ at Woodbridge. George Borrow, the gipsy wanderer; Edward
Fitzgerald, the translator of “Omar Khayyam,” and Charles Keene, the
_Punch_ Artist, were among the number. Old John Grout, who kept the house,
was himself an odd character. When Lord Tennyson came to stay with
Fitzgerald, at Woodbridge, the latter remarked to Grout that the town
ought to feel itself honoured. John was not a student of poetry, and
inquired of Mr. Groome (whose son tells the story in “Two Suffolk
Friends”) who was the gentleman that Mr. Fitzgerald had been talking of.
“Mr. Tennyson, the poet-laureate,” was the reply. “Dissay,” said John,
hazily; “anyhow, he didn’t fare to know much about hosses when I showed
him over my stables!” In these stables there is a tomb to the memory of
George Carlow, who was buried there in 1738, at his own special desire.
Many, who afterwards rose to eminence in the world of art and letters
were born at inns. David Garrick’s birthplace was at the _Raven_ at
Hereford; at the Garrick Theatre, hard by, Kitty Clive, Mrs. Siddons and
Kemble made some of their early successes. William Cobbett was born at the
_Jolly Farmer_ at Farnham; while at the little _Wheatsheaf_ in Kelvedon,
now disused, but still retaining the wrought-iron bracket from which the
sign used to swing, Charles Spurgeon, the famous preacher, first saw the
light. Cardinal Wolsey’s father is generally described as a butcher, but
he was also a tavern-keeper at Ipswich. Like dear old Tom Hughes, who kept
the _Black Lion_ at Walsingham, a few years ago, he combined with his inn,
branch shops for the sale of bread and meat. It was at the _Black Bear_ at
Devizes, then kept by his father, that Sir Thomas Lawrence first
discovered his talent as a painter. We may add that a personage with an
entirely different kind of reputation--Dick Turpin--was born at the
_Crown_, Hempstead, Essex.
A very large number of inns all over England are dedicated to the memory
of Shakespeare; in fact, a print dated 1823 shows the chief portion of the
house where the Bard was born at Stratford-on-Avon, as a very picturesque
inn--the _Swan and Maiden Head_--with a portly, good-humoured landlord
standing in the doorway and inviting visitors to enter and drink a bumper.
Of Shakespeare’s characters, the one best known on the signboards is Sir
John Falstaff. There are three _Falstaff_ inns on the Dover road. The
first is that on Gad’s Hill, the scene of the hero’s most glorious
exploit, and incidentally connecting him with his prototype, Sir John
Oldcastle. At Canterbury, just outside the West Gate, the _Falstaff_ is a
fine old-fashioned comfortable house with some very good linen-fold
panelling. But we love best to linger over the _Sir John Falstaff_ at
Newington, near Sittingbourne. The projecting upper storey, bracketed out
on grinning satyrs, the excellent portrait of the fat knight on the
signboard, the noble cornice, and the rakish lines of the great red-tiled
roof all give the distinctive character of the best Jacobean work.
Standing amid its homelier neighbours in the village street, it looks like
a rollicking cavalier who has come down in the world and is just a little
bit ashamed of being seen in such company. His finery is sadly faded; he
is obliged now to shift for himself and pick up what he can among these
common people. If we wait awhile, he will take us aside, and confide in us
about his doings, when he could share in the gay monarch’s revels with the
best of them. _Ben Jonson_, _Garrick_, and _Dr. Syntax_, are almost the
only other literary or dramatic signs that are at all common.
[Illustration: Sir John Falstaff, Newington]
The _Three Pigeons_ at Brentford was, in all likelihood, one of the haunts
of Shakespeare, and was certainly frequented by Ben Jonson, who mentions
it in the “Alchymist,” as also does Thomas Middleton in “The Roaring
Girl.” At this time the landlord was John Lowin, of the Globe Theatre,
said to have been the original creator of Falstaff in the “Merry Wives of
Windsor,” and of the part of Henry VIII. He died in great poverty during
the Commonwealth and the inn has lately been rebuilt.
Whether the _Bell_ at Edmonton is really the house at which John Gilpin
ought to have dined is a controversial point, in spite of the graphic
portrait of the hero on his mettlesome steed. More authentic is the fact
that, at the _Bell_, Charles Lamb was in the habit of taking a parting
glass with his friends before seeing them off by the London coach.
The _White Swan_ at Henley-in-Arden, and the _Red Lion_ at Henley, dispute
the claim to having inspired William Shenstone’s poem “Written at an Inn.”
Dr. Johnson decided in favour of the latter, and would repeat with emotion
the concluding verse which was scratched in the inn window:
“Whoe’er has travelled life’s dull round
Where’er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn.”
By way of antithesis we subjoin the following poem on a window in the
_Star and Garter_ at Brighton:
“WM. VEAR
Slept Here
October the 1st
Last Year.”
In the earlier chapters of “The Cloister and the Hearth,” a variety of
characteristic mediæval inns are described, with much archæological
accuracy and also with a sly satirical humour. “Like Father, like Son,” is
a proverb very true in the unchanging byways of Central Europe. Charles
Reade is for ever giving us graphic touches regarding the eccentricities
and shortcomings of Black Forest and Burgundian inns of our own time.
Delightful, too, is the scene at the _Pied Merlin_ in Conan Doyle’s “White
Company,” and we appreciate it none the less that some of the appointments
at Dame Eliza’s hostelry were scarcely likely to be found in a New Forest
inn so early as the reign of Edward III.
For the coaching inns recourse must be had to the pages of “Joseph
Andrews,” “Tom Jones,” and “Pickwick,” and for the smaller class of inns,
“The Old Curiosity Shop.” Fielding and Dickens are each inimitable in
their way; the earlier novelist concentrates on humanity in its many sorts
and conditions; Dickens, on the contrary, revels in surrounding details.
He loves to dally with every smoke-stained beam, lattice-window, or row of
battered pewter pots and blue mugs, before ushering in the motley throng
who gather round the tap-room fire, or the fine lady and gentleman in the
smartly-appointed chaise whom the landlord receives so obsequiously.
Many of the best scenes in old comedies are laid in the inns. When they
were a general place of resort for all classes, including men of rank and
fortune, they naturally lent themselves to the unexpected meetings and odd
blunders which serve to make up a farcical plot. County, racing and
hunting balls were all held in the principal inn of a town; just the
opportunity for a needy adventurer to introduce himself by impersonation
or otherwise. The details of the scheme are arranged in the Coffee Room;
and landlord or waiter supply the necessary information enabling the lover
to pose successfully as Simon Pure. Then, again, the audience were
familiar with the surroundings and were easily drawn into sympathetic
interest. Waiter, boots, and ostler were all valuable properties to be
utilized in supplying the humorous element as occasion served.
George Colman, the younger, chose for much of the action of his play,
“John Bull, or the Englishman’s Fireside,” a little wayside inn on the
Cornish border. Sir Walter Scott praised this comedy as “by far the best
example of our later comic drama. The scenes of broad humour are executed
in the best possible taste; and the whimsical, yet native characters,
reflect the manners of real life.” Not the least pleasing of these is
Denis Brulgruddery, the warm-hearted impulsive landlord of the _Red Cow_.
And so it ever is. We associate the inn with genial comfort and old
English hospitality; the sight of it kindles every good sentiment of human
kindness within us, and we hail with enthusiasm the reconciliation of
father and child, the union of two constant lovers, and happiness restored
all round. There is nothing so successful on the stage as an inn scene.
Artists have also shared in the making of the inns. A host of signboards
are attributed to Hogarth or that eccentric and profligate genius, George
Morland. Isaac Fuller was another eminent painter who turned his talents
in this direction. The _Royal Oak_ sign at Bettws-y-Coed, now in the
possession of the Willoughby d’Eresby family, was painted by David Cox,
the _George and Dragon_ at Hayes, in Kent, by Millais. Outside the
_King’s Head_ at Chigwell--the Maypole of “Barnaby Rudge”--hangs a
portrait of Charles I, by Miss Herring, while the sign of the _George and
Dragon_ at Wargrave is the work of Mr. George Leslie, R.A. St. George is
depicted as taking refreshment after the battle out of a tankard of
respectable size. The old inn by the bridge at Brandon on the Little Ouse,
and the _Old Swan_ at Fittleworth on the Arun, are full of paintings by
modern artists; the latter has one room ornamented with panel pictures by
various hands, and the sign (too delicate to hang outside) was painted by
Caton Woodville. There was at Horncastle, in Lincolnshire, a signboard
painted by Hilton, the Royal Academician, which hung over the inn door for
over forty years, finally being taken down and sold, on a change of
tenancy.
Mr. J. F. Herring, the animal painter, used to relate how he once painted
a signboard for a carpenter employed by him. The carpenter afterwards took
a beer shop and put the sign, which represented the “Flying Dutchman,”
over the door. Eventually he sold it for £50, and with the money emigrated
to Australia.
Most old inns contain pictures more or less valuable, or at least old
sporting prints. Few can compare in this respect with the _George_ at
Aylesbury, rebuilt about 1810, which from time immemorial has possessed a
remarkable collection of good pictures; portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds
and Mytens, besides some well executed copies of Rubens, Raphael and
others. It is supposed to have been brought from Eythorpe House,
demolished in the early years of the nineteenth century.