so many other traditional blessings, it has been sacrificed to the genius
of locomotion. The rapidity with which distance is consumed obviates the
need that so long existed of by-way retreats and halting-places. A hearty
meal or a few hours' sleep, caught between the arrival of the trains, is
all the railway traveller requires; and the modern habit of moving in
caravans has infinitely lessened the romantic probabilities and
comfortable realities of a journey: the rural alehouse and picturesque
hostel now exist chiefly in the domain of memory; crowds, haste, and
ostentation triumph here over privacy and rational enjoyment, as in nearly
all the arrangements of modern society. Old Walton would discover now but
few of the secluded inns that refreshed him on his piscatorial excursions;
the ancient ballads on the wall have given place to French paper; the
scent of lavender no longer makes the linen fragrant; instead of the
crackle of the open wood-fire, we have the dingy coal-smoke, and
exhalations of a stove; and green blinds usurp the place of the snowy
curtains. Not only these material details, but the social character of
the inn is sadly changed. Few hosts can find time to gossip; the clubs
have withdrawn the wits; the excitement of a stage-coach arrival is no
more; and a poet might travel a thousand leagues without finding a
romantic 'maid of the inn,' such as Southey has immortalized. Jollity,
freedom, and comfort are no longer inevitably associated with the name;
the world has become a vast procession that scorns to linger on its route,
and has almost forgotten how to enjoy. Thanks, however, to the
conservative spell of literature, we can yet appreciate, in imagination at
least, the good old English inn. Goldsmith's Village Alehouse has
daguerreotyped its humble species, while Dr. Johnson's evenings at the
'Mitre' keep vivid the charm of its metropolitan fame. Indeed, it is quite
impossible to imagine what British authors would have done without the
solace and inspiration of the inn. Addison fled thither from domestic
annoyance; Dryden's chair at 'Will's' was an oracular throne; when hard
pressed, Steele and Savage sought refuge in a tavern, and wrote pamphlets
for a dinner; Farquhar found there his best comic material; Sterne opens
his _Sentimental Journey_ with his landlord, Monsieur Dessein, Calais, and
his inn-yard; Shenstone confessed he found 'life's warmest welcome at an
inn;' Sheridan's convivial brilliancy shone there with peculiar lustre;
Hazlitt relished Congreve anew, reading him in the shady windows of a
village inn after a long walk; even an old Almanac, or Annual Register,
will acquire an interest under such circumstances; and a dog-eared copy of
the _Seasons_ found in such a place induced Coleridge to exclaim, 'This is
fame!' while Byron exulted when informed that a well-thumbed volume of the
_English Bards_ had been seen, soon after its publication, at a little
hostel in Albany. Elia's quaint anecdote of the Quakers when they all ate
supper without paying for it, and Irving's 'Stout Gentleman,' are
incidents which could only have been suggested by a country inn; and as
to the novelists, from Smollett and Fielding to Scott and Dickens, the
most characteristic scenes occur on this vantage-ground, where the strict
unities of life are temporarily discarded, and its zest miraculously
quickened by fatigue, hunger, a kind of infinite possibility of events, a
singular mood of adventure and pastime, nowhere else in civilized lands so
readily induced. It is, therefore, by instinct that these enchanting
chroniclers lead us thither, from old Chaucer to our own Longfellow. Gil
Bias acquired his first lesson in a knowledge of the world, by his
encounter with the parasite at the inn of Panafleur; and Don Quixote's
enthusiasm always reaches a climax at these places of wayside sojourn. The
'Black Bull,' at Islington, is said to have been Sir Walter Raleigh's
mansion; 'Dolly's Chop-House' is dear to authors for the sake of Goldsmith
and his friends, who used to go there on their way to and from Paternoster
Row. At the 'Salutation and Cat,' Smithfield, Coleridge and Lamb held
memorable converse; and Steele often dated his _Tatlers_ from the
'Trumpet.' How appropriate for Voltaire to have lodged, in London, at the
'White Peruke'! Spenser died at an inn in King Street, Westminster, on his
return from Ireland. At the 'Red Horse,' Stratford, is the 'Irving room,'
precious to the American traveller; and how renowned have sweet Anne Page
and jolly Falstaff made the very name of the 'Garter Inn'! In the East a
monastery, in the Desert a tent, on the Nile a boat, a _hacienda_ in South
America, a _kiosk_ in Turkey, a _caffé_ in Italy, but in Britain an inn,
is the pilgrim's home, and one not less characteristic. The subject, as
suggestive of the philosophy of civilization, is worth investigation.
In England and in towns of Anglo-Saxon origin, where the economies of life
have a natural sway, we find inns representative; in London, especially, a
glance at the parlour wall reveals the class to whose convenience the
tavern is dedicated: in one the portraits of actors, in another scenes in
the ring and on the racecourse; here the countenance of a leading
merchant, and there a military effigy, suggest the vocation of those who
chiefly frequent the inn. Nor are local features less certain to find
recognition: a view of the nearest nobleman's estate, or his portrait,
ornaments the sitting-room; and the observant eye can always discover an
historical hint at these public resorts. Heywood, the dramatist, aptly
specified this representative character of inns:--
'The gentry to the King's Head,
The nobles to the Crown,
The knights unto the Golden Fleece,
And to the Plough the clown;
The churchman to the Mitre,
The shepherd to the Star,
The gardener hies him to the Rose,
To the Drum the man of war;
To the Feathers, ladies, you; the Globe
The seamen do not scorn;
The usurer to the Devil, and
The townsman to the Horn;
The huntsman to the White Hart,
To the Ship the merchants go,
But you that do the Muses love
The sign called River Po;
The bankrupt to the World's End,
The fool to the Fortune hie,
Unto the Mouth the oyster-wife,
The fiddler to the Pie;
* * * *
The drunkard to the Vine,
The beggar to the Bush, then meet
And with Sir Humphrey dine.'
Inn signs are indeed historical landmarks: in the Middle Ages, the 'Cross
Keys,' the 'Three Kings,' and 'St. Francis,' abounded; the Puritans
substituted for 'Angel and Lady,' the 'Soldier and Citizen;' the
'Saracen's Head' was a device of the Crusades; and before the 'Coach and
Horses' was the sign of the 'Packhorse,' indicative of the days of
equestrian travel. Many current anecdotes attest the virtue of an old, and
the hazards of a new inn sign; as when the loyal host substituted the head
of George the Fourth for the ancient ass, which latter effigy being
successfully adopted by a neighbouring innkeeper, his discomfited rival
had inscribed under the royal effigy, 'This is the real ass.' Thackeray
cites an inn sign as illustrative of Scotch egotism: 'In Cupar-Fife,' he
writes, 'there's a little inn called the "Battle of Waterloo," and what do
you think the sign is? The "Battle of Waterloo" is _one_ broad Scotchman
laying about him with a broadsword.'
The coffee-room of the best class of English inns, carpeted and curtained,
the dark rich hue of the old mahogany, the ancient plate, the four-post
bed, the sirloin or mutton joint, the tea, muffins, Cheshire and Stilton,
the ale, the coal-fire, and _The Times_, form an epitome of England; and
it is only requisite to ponder well the associations and history of each
of these items, to arrive at what is essential in English history and
character. The impassable divisions of society are shown in the difference
between the 'commercial' and the 'coffee-room;' the time-worn aspect of
the furniture is eloquent of conservatism; the richness of the meats and
strength of the ale explain the bone and sinew of the race; the tea is
fragrant with Cowper's memory, and suggestive of East India conquests; the
cheese proclaims a thrifty agriculture, the bed and draperies comfort, the
coal-fire manufactures; while _The Times_ is the chart of English
enterprise, division of labour, wealth, self-esteem, politics, trade,
court-life, 'inaccessibility to ideas,' and bullyism.
The national subserviency to rank is as plainly evinced by the plates on
chamber-doors at the provincial inns, setting forth that therein on a
memorable night slept a certain scion of nobility. And from the visitor at
the great house of a neighbourhood, when sojourning at the inn thereof, is
expected a double fee. As an instance of the inappropriate, of that stolid
insensibility to taste and tact which belongs to the nation, consider the
English waiter. His costume is that of a clergyman, or a gentleman dressed
for company, and in ridiculous contrast with his menial obeisance; perhaps
it is the self-importance nourished by this costume which renders him such
a machine, incapable of an idea beyond the routine of handing a dish and
receiving a sixpence.
Old Hobson, whose name is proverbially familiar, went with his wain from
Cambridge to the 'Bull Inn,' Bishopsgate Street, London. 'Clement's Inn'
tavern was the scene of that memorable dialogue between Shallow and Sir
John; at the 'Cock,' in Bond Street, Sir Charles Sedley got scandalously
drunk. 'Will's Coffee-house' was formerly called the 'Rose;' hence the
line--
'Supper and friends expect me at the Rose.'
'Button's,' so long frequented by the wits of Queen Anne's time, was kept
by a former servant of Lady Warwick; and there the author of _Cato_
fraternized with Garth, Armstrong, and other contemporary writers. Ben
Jonson held his club at the 'Devil Tavern,' and Shakspeare and Beaumont
used to meet him at the 'Mermaid;' the same inn is spoken of by Pope, and
Swift writes 'Stella' of his dinner there. Beaumont thus reveals to Ben
Jonson their convivial talk:--
'What things have we seen
Done at the "Mermaid"! heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle fire,
As if that every one from whom they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.'
The author of _Peter Wilkins_ was a frequent visitor at an hostel near
Clifford's Inn, and Dr. Johnson frequented all the taverns in Fleet
Street. Old Slaughter's coffee-house, in St. Martin's Lane, was the
favourite resort of Hogarth; the house where Jeremy Taylor was born is
now an inn; and Prior's uncle kept an inn in London, where the poet was
seen, when a boy, reading Horace. This incident is made use of by Johnson,
in his _Lives of the Poets_, in a very caustic manner; for, after relating
it, he observes of Prior, that 'in his private relaxations he revived the
tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college.'
There is no city in Europe where an imaginative mood can be so
indefinitely prolonged as at Venice; and in the early summer, the
traveller, after gliding about all day in a gondola, and thinking of
Barbarossa, Faliero, Titian, and the creations of Shakspeare, Otway,
Byron, and Cooper, at evening, from under the arches of St. Mark's Square,
watches the picturesque, and sometimes mysterious figures, and then,
between moss-grown palaces and over lone canals, returns to his _locanda_
to find its aspect perfectly in accordance with his reverie; at least,
such was my experience at the 'Golden Lion.' The immense _salle-à-manger_
was dimly lighted, and the table for two or three guests set in a corner
and half surrounded by a screen; when I raised my eyes from my first
dinner there, they fell on a large painting of the Death of Seneca, a
print of which had been familiar to my childhood; and thus memory was ever
invoked in Venice, and her dissolving views reflected in the mirror of the
mind, unbroken by the interruptions from passing life that elsewhere
render them so brief. The mere fact of disembarking at the weedy steps,
the utter silence of the canal, invaded only by the plash of the
gondolier's oar, or his warning cry at the angle, the tessellated pavement
and quaintly-carved furniture of the bedroom, and a certain noiseless step
and secretive gravity observable in the attendants, render the Venetian
inn memorable and distinct in reminiscence, and in perfect harmony with
the place and its associations.
During the late revolutionary era in Europe, the inn tables of Germany
afforded the most reliable index of political opinion; the free discussion
which was there indulged brought out every variety of sentiment and
theory, as it included all classes, with a due sprinkling of foreigners.
From the old novel to the new farce, indeed, the extremes of public
opinion and the average tone of manners, the laughable _contre-temps_ and
the delightful adventure, are made to reveal themselves at inns, so that
political sects and all vocations are identified with them. To Rip Van
Winkle, the most astonishing change he discovered in his native village,
after his long nap, was the substitution of Washington's likeness for that
of King George on the tavern sign.
The dark staircase, rising from the mule stable of a _posada_, the bare
chambers, wool-knotted mattresses, odour of garlic, and vegetables
swimming in oil, are items of the Spanish inn not likely to be forgotten
by the epicurean traveller. But good beds and excellent chocolate are to
be found at the most uninviting Spanish inns; and the imaginative
traveller enjoys the privilege of sojourning at the very one where Don
Quixote was knighted. In highly-civilized lands, inns have not only a
national, but a professional character; the sign, the pictures on the
wall, and the company, have a certain individuality,--marine in sailors'
inns, pugilistic in sporting ones, and picturesque in those haunted by
artists; the lines of demarcation are as visible as those which separate
newspapers and shops; in the grand division of labour that signalizes
modern life, the inn also has thus become an organ and a symbol. Even
their mottoes and symbols give traditional suggestions, or emblazon phases
of opinion; natural history has been exhausted in supplying effigies;
mythology has yielded up all her deities and institutions; heroes and
localities are kept fresh in the traveller's imagination by their
association with 'creature comforts.' Thus he dreams of Cromwell at the
'Tumble-down Dick,' and of the Stuarts at the 'King Charles in the Oak,'
the days of chivalry at the 'Star and Garter' or the 'Croix de Malta,' of
brilliant campaigns at the 'Wagram and Montmorency,' of woman's love at
the 'Petrarch and Laura,' and of man's at the 'Freemasons' Tavern.'[1]
My host at Ravenna had been Byron's purveyor during the poet's residence
there; and he was never weary of descanting upon his character and the
incidents of his sojourn; in fact, upon discovering my interest in the
subject, he forgot the landlord in the _cicerone_, and gave no small part
of a day to accompanying me to the haunts of the bard. Our first visit was
to the Guiccioli Palace, and here he described his lordship's dinners with
the precision and enthusiasm of an antiquarian certifying a document or
medal; then he took me to the Pine Forest, and pointed out the track where
Byron used to wheel his horse at full gallop, and discharge his pistol at
a bottle placed on a stump--exercises preparatory to his Grecian campaign.
At a particular flagstone, in the main street, my guide suddenly paused;
'Signore,' said he 'just as milord had reached this spot one evening, he
heard the report of a musket, and saw an officer fall a few rods in
advance; dismounting, he rushed to his side, and found him to be a
familiar acquaintance, an agent of the government, who had thus become the
victim to private vengeance. Byron had him conveyed to his own apartment
and placed on a bed, where in half an hour he expired. This event made a
deep impression on his mind; he was dispirited for a week, and wrote a
description of death from a shot, which you will find in his poems,
derived from this scene.' With such local anecdotes my Byronic host
entertained me so well, that the departed bard ever since has seemed to
live in my remembrance rather than my fancy.
Whoever has eaten trout caught in the Arno at the little inn at Tivoli, or
been detained by stress of weather in that of Albano, will not forget the
evidences the walls of both exhibit that rollicking artists have felt at
home there. Such heads and landscapes, caricatures and grotesque animals,
as are there improvised, baffle description.
A well is the inn of the desert. 'The dragoman usually looks out for some
place of shelter,' says the author of _Over the Lebanon to Balbek_; 'the
shadow of a ruin or the covering of a grove of fig-trees is the most
common, and, if possible, near a well or stream. The first of all
considerations is to reach a spot where you can get water; so that
throughout the East the well answers to the old English "Half-way House,"
and road-side "Accommodation for Man and Beast," which gave their cheerful
welcome to the "Tally Ho" and "Red Rover" that flourished before this age
of iron.'
The pedestrian in Wales sometimes encounters a snug and
beautifully-situated hostel (perhaps the 'Angler's Rest'), where five
minutes beside the parlour fire, and a chat with the landlady or her
pretty daughter, give him so complete a home feeling that it is with
painful reluctance he again straps on his knapsack; at liberty to muse by
the ever-singing tea-kettle if the weather is unpropitious, stroll out in
view of a noble mountain or a fairy lake in the warm sunset, or hear the
news from the last wayfarer in the travellers' room; and there is thus
mingled a sense of personal independence, comfort, and solitude, which is
rarely experienced even in the most favoured domain of hospitality. An
equally winsome but more romantic charm holds the roaming artist who stops
at Albano or Volterra, where the dreamy _campagna_ or Etruscan ruins
alternate with groups of sunburnt _contadini_, lighted up by the
charcoal's glow in a way to fascinate Salvator, before his contented gaze;
his portfolio fills up with miraculous rapidity; and the still life is
agreeably varied by the scenic costumes and figures which grace the
vintage or a _festa_. Some humble Champollion could easily add to the
curiosities of literature by a volume gleaned among inn inscriptions--from
the marble tablet announcing the sojourn of a royal personage, to the rude
caricature on the whitewashed wall, and the sentimental couplet on the
window-pane; to say nothing of the albums which enshrine so many tributes
to Etna and the White Mountains--the heirlooms of Abbaté, the famous
_padrone_ of Catania, and Crawford of the Notch.
Sicily is famous for the absence of inns, and the intolerable discomfort
of those that do exist; but mine host of Catania was the prince of
landlords. A fine specimen of manly beauty, and with the manners of a
gentleman, he seemed to think his guests entitled to all the courtesy
which should follow an invitation; he made formal calls upon them, and
gave sage advice as to the best way to pass the time; fitted them out with
hospitable skill and experienced counsels for the ascent of Etna, and
brought home choice game from his hunting excursions, as a present to the
'stranger within his gates.' His discourse, too, was of the most bland and
entertaining description; he was 'a fellow of infinite wit, of most
excellent fancy;' and these ministrations derived a memorable charm from a
certain gracefulness and winsome cordiality. No wonder his scrap-book is
filled with eulogiums, and that the traveller in Sicily, by the mere
force of contrast, records in hyperboles the merits of the 'Corona d'Oro.'
Alas for the mutability of inns and their worthy hosts! Abbaté was killed
by an accidental shot, during an _émeute_ in Catania, in 1848.
The waxed floor, light curtains, and gay paper of a Parisian bedroom,
however cheerful, are the reverse of snug; but in the provincial inns of
the Continent, with less of comfort there is often more historical
interest than in those of England; the stone staircases and floors, and
the scanty furniture are forlorn; and the exuberance of the host's
civility is often in ludicrous contrast with the poverty of his larder. An
hour or two in the dreary _salle-à-manger_ of a provincial French inn on a
rainy day is the acme of a _voyageur's_ depression. The _restaurant_ and
_café_ have superseded the French inns, of whose gastronomic renown and
scenes of intrigue and violence we read in Dumas's historical novels;
romance and tragedy, the convivial and the culinary associations, are
equally prominent. 'Suburban _cabarets_,' observes a popular writer, 'were
long dangerous rendezvous for Parisians;' before and during the Grand
Monarque's reign the French taverns were representative, the army, court,
men of letters, and even ecclesiastics having their favourite haunt:
Molière went to the 'Croix de Lorraine,' and Racine to the 'Mouton Blanc;'
the actors met at 'Les Deux Faisans;' one of the last of the old-school
Parisian landladies--she who kept the 'Maison Rouge'--is celebrated in
Béranger's _Madame Gregoire_; Ravaillac went from a tavern to assassinate
Henry the Fourth; and fashionable orgies were carried on in the 'Temple
Cellars.' It is not uncommon to find ourselves in a friar's dormitory, the
large hotels in the minor towns having frequently been erected as
convents; and in Italy, such an inn as that of Terracina, with its legends
of banditti and its romantic site, the waves of the Mediterranean moaning
under its lofty windows, infallibly recalls Mrs. Radcliffe. In the cities
many of the hotels are palaces where noble families have dwelt for
centuries, and about them are perceptible the traces of decayed
magnificence and the spell of traditional glory and crime. To an
imaginative traveller these fanciful attractions often compensate for the
absence of substantial merit, and there is something mysterious and
winsome in the obsolete architecture and fallen grandeur of these
edifices;--huge shadows glide along the high cornices, the mouldy frescoes
look as if they had witnessed strange vicissitudes, and the imagination
readily wanders through a series of wonderful experiences of which these
old _palazzi_ have been the scene. Here, as elsewhere in the land, it is
the romantic element, the charm of antiquity, that is the redeeming
feature. For picturesque beauty of situation, neatness, and rural comfort,
some of the inns of Switzerland are the most delightful on the Continent,
inviting the stranger to linger amid the clear, fresh, and glorious
landscape, and relish the sweet butter, white bread, and unrivalled honey
and eggs, served so neatly every morning by a fair mountaineer with snowy
cap and gay bodice.
I am a lover of the woods, and sometimes cross the bay, with a friend, to
Long Island, and pass a few hours in the strip of forest that protected
our fugitive army at the Battle of Flatbush; there are devious and shadowy
paths intersecting it, and in spring and autumn the wild flowers, radiant
leaves, and balmy stillness cheer the mind and senses, fresh from the dust
and bustle of the city. Often after one of these woodland excursions we
have emerged upon a quiet road, with farm-houses at long intervals, and
orchards and grain-fields adjacent, and followed its course to a village,
whose gable-roofed domicile and ancient graveyard indicate an old
settlement; and here is a little inn which recalls our idea of the
primitive English alehouse. It has a little Dutch porch, a sunny garden,
the liquor is served from the square bottles of Holland, the back parlour
is retired and neat, and the landlady sits all day in the window at her
sewing, and, when a little acquainted, will tell you all about the
love-affairs of the village; the cheese and sour-krout at dinner suggest a
Flemish origin.
The old sign that hangs at the road-side was brought to this country by an
English publican, when the fine arts were supposed to be at so low a stage
as to furnish no Dick Tinto equal to such an achievement. It represents
the arms of Great Britain, and doubtless beguiled many a trooper of his
Majesty when Long Island was occupied by the English; no sooner, however,
had they retreated, than the republican villagers forced the landlord to
have an American eagle painted above the king's escutcheon. Indeed, it is
characteristic of inns that they perpetuate local associations: put your
head into an Italian boarding-house in New York, and the garlic, macaroni,
and red wine lead you to think yourself at Naples; the snuff, dominoes,
and gazettes mark a French _café_ all the world over; in Montreal you wake
up in a room like that you occupied at Marseilles; and at Halifax the malt
liquor is as English as the currency.