Volume Ii Part 9 (2/2)

”1 PREN. Prithee, fellow Goodman, set forth the ware, and looke to the shop a little. I'll but drink a cup of wine with a customer, at the Rose and Crown in the Poultry, and come again presently.

”2 PREN. I must needs step to the _Dagger in Cheape_, to send a letter into the country unto my father. Stay, boy, you are the youngest prentice; look you to the shop.”

In the reign of Richard II., it was ordained by statute that ”the wines of Gascoine, of Osey, and of Spain,” as well as Rhenish wines, should not be sold above sixpence the gallon; and the taverners of this period frequently became very rich, and filled the highest civic offices, as sheriffs and mayors. The fraternity of vintners and taverners, anciently the Merchant Wine Tonners of Gascoyne, became the Craft of Vintners, incorporated by Henry VI. as the Vintners' Company.

The curious old ballad of London Lyckpenny, written in the reign of Henry V., by Lydgate, a monk of Bury, confirms the statement of the prices in the reign of Richard II. He comes to Cornhill, when the wine-drawer of the Pope's Head tavern, standing without the street-door, it being the custom of drawers thus to waylay pa.s.sengers, takes the man by the hand, and says,--”Will you drink a pint of wine?”

whereunto the countryman answers, ”A penny spend I may,” and so drank his wine. ”For bread nothing did he pay”--for that was given in. This is Stow's account: the ballad makes the taverner, not the drawer, invite the countryman; and the latter, instead of getting bread for nothing, complains of having to go away hungry:--

”The taverner took me by the sleeve, 'Sir,' saith he, 'will you our wine a.s.say?'

I answered, 'That cannot much me grieve, A penny can do no more than it may;'

I drank a pint, and for it did pay; Yet, sore a-hungered from thence I yede, And, wanting money, I could not speed,” etc.

There was no eating at taverns at this time, beyond a crust to relish the wine; and he who wished to dine before he drank, had to go to the cook's.

The furnis.h.i.+ng of the Boar's Head, in Eastcheap, with sack, in Henry IV., is an anachronism of Shakspeare's; for the vintners kept neither sacks, muscadels, malmseys, b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, alicants, nor any other wines but white and claret, until 1543. All the other sweet wines before that time, were sold at the apothecaries' shops for no other use but for medicine.

Taking it as the picture of a tavern a century later, we see the alterations which had taken place. The single drawer or taverner of Lydgate's day is now changed to a troop of waiters, besides the under skinker, or tapster. Eating was no longer confined to the cook's row, for we find in Falstaff's bill ”a capon 2_s._ 2_d._; sack, two gallons, 5_s._ 8_d._; anchovies and sack, after supper, 2_s._ 6_d._; bread, one halfpenny.” And there were evidently _different rooms_[27]

for the guests, as Francis[28] bids a brother waiter ”Look down in the Pomgranite;” for which purpose they had windows, or loopholes, affording a view from the upper to the lower apartments. The custom of naming the princ.i.p.al rooms in taverns and hotels is usual to the present day.

Taverns and wine-bibbing had greatly increased in the reign of Edward VI., when it was enacted by statute that no more than 8_d._ a gallon should be taken for any French wines, and the consumption limited in private houses to ten gallons each person yearly; that there should not be ”any more or great number of taverns in London of such tavernes or wine sellers by retaile, above the number of fouretye tavernes or wyne sellers,” being less than two, upon an average to each parish.

Nor did this number much increase afterwards; for in a return made to the Vintners' Company, late in Elizabeth's reign, there were only one hundred and sixty-eight taverns in the whole city and suburbs.

It seems to have been the fas.h.i.+on among old ballad-mongers, street chroniclers, and journalists, to sing the praises of the taverns in rough-shod verse, and that lively rhyme which, in our day, is termed ”patter.” Here are a few specimens, of various periods.

In a black-letter poem of Queen Elizabeth's reign, ent.i.tled _Newes from Bartholomew Fayre_, there is this curious enumeration:

”There hath been great sale and utterance of Wine, Besides Beere, and Ale, and Ipocras fine, In every country, region, and nation, But chiefly in Billingsgate, at the _Salutation_; And the _Bore's Head_, near London Stone; The _Swan_ at Dowgate, a tavern well knowne; The _Miter_ in Cheape, and then the _Bull Head_; And many like places that make noses red; The _Bore's Head_ in Old Fish-street; _Three Cranes_ in the Vintry; And now, of late, St. Martins in the Sentree; The _Windmill_ in Lothbury; the _s.h.i.+p_ at th' Exchange; _King's Head_ in New Fish-street, where roysterers do range; The _Mermaid_ in Cornhill; _Red Lion_ in the Strand; _Three Tuns_ in Newgate Market; Old Fish-street at the _Swan_.”

This enumeration omits the Mourning Bush, adjoining Aldersgate, containing divers large rooms and lodgings, and shown in Aggas's plan of London, in 1560. There are also omitted The Pope's Head, The London Stone, The Dagger, The Rose and Crown, etc. Several of the above _Signs_ have been continued to our time in the very places mentioned; but nearly all the original buildings were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666; and the few which escaped have been re-built, or so altered, that their former appearance has altogether vanished.

The following list of taverns is given by Thomas Heywood, the author of the fine old play of _A Woman killed with Kindness_. Heywood, who wrote in 1608, is telling us what particular houses are frequented by particular cla.s.ses of people:--

”The Gentry to the King's Head, The n.o.bles 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 seaman doth not scorn; The usurer to the Devil, and The townsman to the Horn.

The huntsman to the White Hart, To the s.h.i.+p the merchants go, But you who do the Muses love, The sign called River Po.

The banquerout to the World's End, The fool to the Fortune Pie, Unto the Mouth the oyster-wife, The fiddler to the Pie.

The punk unto the c.o.c.katrice, The Drunkard to the Vine, The beggar to the Bush, then meet, And with Duke Humphrey dine.”

In the _British Apollo_ of 1710, is the following doggrel:--

”I'm amused at the signs, As I pa.s.s through the town, To see the odd mixture-- A Magpie and Crown, The Whale and the Crow, The Razor and the Hen, The Leg and Seven Stars, The Axe and the Bottle, The Tun and the Lute, The Eagle and Child, The Shovel and Boot.”

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