The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon
who first spread out these noble parks and magnificent pleasure-grounds
which surround this huge metropolis have done at least as much for
its health and morality as if they had expended the amount of cost in
hospitals, prisons, and penitentiaries.
THE BOAR’S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP.
A SHAKESPEARIAN RESEARCH.
“A tavern is the rendezvous, the exchange, the staple of good fellows.
I have heard my great-grandfather tell, how his great-great-grandfather
should say, that it was an old proverb when his great-grandfather was a
child, that ‘it was a good wind that blew a man to the wine.’”
MOTHER BOMBIE.
IT is a pious custom in some Catholic countries to honor the memory of
saints by votive lights burnt before their pictures. The popularity of
a saint, therefore, may be known by the number of these offerings.
One, perhaps, is left to moulder in the darkness of his little chapel;
another may have a solitary lamp to throw its blinking rays athwart his
effigy; while the whole blaze of adoration is lavished at the shrine
of some beatified father of renown. The wealthy devotee brings his huge
luminary of wax, the eager zealot, his seven-branched candlestick; and
even the mendicant pilgrim is by no means satisfied that sufficient
light is thrown upon the deceased unless he hangs up his little lamp
of smoking oil. The consequence is, that in the eagerness to enlighten,
they are often apt to obscure; and I have occasionally seen an unlucky
saint almost smoked out of countenance by the officiousness of his
followers.
In like manner has it fared with the immortal Shakespeare. Every writer
considers it his bounden duty to light up some portion of his character
or works, and to rescue some merit from oblivion. The commentator,
opulent in words, produces vast tomes of dissertations; the common herd
of editors send up mists of obscurity from their notes at the bottom of
each page; and every casual scribbler brings his farthing rushlight of
eulogy or research to swell the cloud of incense and of smoke.
As I honor all established usages of my brethren of the quill, I thought
it but proper to contribute my mite of homage to the memory of the
illustrious bard. I was for some time, however, sorely puzzled in what
way I should discharge this duty. I found myself anticipated in every
attempt at a new reading; every doubtful line had been explained a dozen
different ways, and perplexed beyond the reach of elucidation; and as
to fine passages, they had all been amply praised by previous admirers;
nay, so completely had the bard, of late, been overlarded with panegyric
by a great German critic that it was difficult now to find even a fault
that had not been argued into a beauty.
In this perplexity I was one morning turning over his pages when I
casually opened upon the comic scenes of Henry IV., and was, in a
moment, completely lost in the madcap revelry of the Boar’s Head Tavern.
So vividly and naturally are these scenes of humor depicted, and with
such force and consistency are the characters sustained, that they
become mingled up in the mind with the facts and personages of real
life. To few readers does it occur that these are all ideal creations
of a poet’s brain, and that, in sober truth, no such knot of merry
roisterers ever enlivened the dull neighborhood of Eastcheap.
For my part, I love to give myself up to the illusions of poetry. A hero
of fiction that never existed is just as valuable to me as a hero of
history that existed a thousand years since and, if I may be excused
such an insensibility to the common ties of human nature, I would not
give up fat Jack for half the great men of ancient chronicle. What
have the heroes of yore done for me or men like me? They have conquered
countries of which I do not enjoy an acre, or they have gained laurels
of which I do not inherit a leaf, or they have furnished examples of
hair-brained prowess, which I have neither the opportunity nor the
inclination to follow. But, old Jack Falstaff! kind Jack Falstaff! sweet
Jack Falstaff! has enlarged the boundaries of human enjoyment; he has
added vast regions of wit and good-humor, in which the poorest man may
revel, and has bequeathed a never-failing inheritance of jolly laughter,
to make mankind merrier and better to the latest posterity.
A thought suddenly struck me. “I will make a pilgrimage to Eastcheap,”
said I, closing the book, “and see if the old Boar’s Head Tavern still
exists. Who knows but I may light upon some legendary traces of Dame
Quickly and her guests? At any rate, there will be a kindred pleasure in
treading the halls once vocal with their mirth to that the toper enjoys
in smelling to the empty cask, once filled with generous wine.”
The resolution was no sooner formed than put in execution. I forbear to
treat of the various adventures and wonders I encountered in my travels;
of the haunted regions of Cock Lane; of the faded glories of Little
Britain and the parts adjacent; what perils I ran in Cateaton Street
and Old Jewry; of the renowned Guildhall and its two stunted giants, the
pride and wonder of the city and the terror of all unlucky urchins; and
how I visited London Stone, and struck my staff upon it in imitation of
that arch-rebel Jack Cade.
Let it suffice to say, that I at length arrived in merry Eastcheap, that
ancient region of wit and wassail, where the very names of the streets
relished of good cheer, as Pudding Lane bears testimony even at the
present day. For Eastcheap, says old Stow, “was always famous for its
convivial doings. The cookes cried hot ribbes of beef roasted, pies well
baked, and other victuals: there was clattering of pewter pots, harpe,
pipe, and sawtrie.” Alas! how sadly is the scene changed since the
roaring days of Falstaff and old Stow! The madcap roisterer has given
place to the plodding tradesman; the clattering of pots and the sound of
“harpe and sawtrie,” to the din of carts and the accurst dinging of the
dustman’s bell; and no song is heard, save, haply, the strain of some
syren from Billingsgate, chanting the eulogy of deceased mackerel.
I sought, in vain, for the ancient abode of Dame Quickly. The only
relict of it is a boar’s head, carved in relief in stone, which formerly
served as the sign, but at present is built into the parting line of two
houses which stand on the site of the renowned old tavern.
For the history of this little abode of good fellowship I was referred
to a tallow-chandler’s widow opposite, who had been born and brought up
on the spot, and was looked up to as the indisputable chronicler of the
neighborhood. I found her seated in a little back parlor, the window
of which looked out upon a yard about eight feet square laid out as a
flower-garden, while a glass door opposite afforded a distant view of
the street, through a vista of soap and tallow candles--the two views,
which comprised, in all probability, her prospects in life and the
little world in which she had lived and moved and had her being for the
better part of a century.
To be versed in the history of Eastcheap, great and little, from London
Stone even unto the Monument, was doubtless, in her opinion, to be
acquainted with the history of the universe. Yet, with all this, she
possessed the simplicity of true wisdom, and that liberal communicative
disposition which I have generally remarked in intelligent old ladies
knowing in the concerns of their neighborhood.
Her information, however, did not extend far back into antiquity. She
could throw no light upon the history of the Boar’s Head from the time
that Dame Quickly espoused the valiant Pistol until the great fire of
London when it was unfortunately burnt down. It was soon rebuilt,
and continued to flourish under the old name and sign, until a dying
landlord, struck with remorse for double scores, bad measures, and
other iniquities which are incident to the sinful race of publicans,
endeavored to make his peace with Heaven by bequeathing the tavern to
St. Michael’s Church, Crooked Lane, toward the supporting of a chaplain.
For some time the vestry meetings were regularly held there, but it
was observed that the old Boar never held up his head under church
government. He gradually declined, and finally gave his last gasp about
thirty years since. The tavern was then turned into shops; but she
informed me that a picture of it was still preserved in St. Michael’s
Church, which stood just in the rear. To get a sight of this picture
was now my determination; so, having informed myself of the abode of
the sexton, I took my leave of the venerable chronicler of Eastcheap, my
visit having doubtless raised greatly her opinion of her legendary lore
and furnished an important incident in the history of her life.
It cost me some difficulty and much curious inquiry to ferret out the
humble hanger-on to the church. I had to explore Crooked Lane and divers
little alleys and elbows and dark passages with which this old city is
perforated like an ancient cheese, or a worm-eaten chest of drawers.
At length I traced him to a corner of a small court surrounded by lofty
houses, where the inhabitants enjoy about as much of the face of heaven
as a community of frogs at the bottom of a well.
The sexton was a meek, acquiescing little man, of a bowing, lowly habit,
yet he had a pleasant twinkling in his eye, and if encouraged, would
now and then hazard a small pleasantry, such as a man of his low estate
might venture to make in the company of high churchwardens and other
mighty men of the earth. I found him in company with the deputy
organist, seated apart, like Milton’s angels, discoursing, no doubt,
on high doctrinal points, and settling the affairs of the church over a
friendly pot of ale; for the lower classes of English seldom deliberate
on any weighty matter without the assistance of a cool tankard to clear
their understandings. I arrived at the moment when they had finished
their ale and their argument, and were about to repair to the church
to put it in order; so, having made known my wishes, I received their
gracious permission to accompany them.
The church of St. Michael’s, Crooked Lane, standing a short distance
from Billingsgate, is enriched with the tombs of many fishmongers
of renown; and as every profession has its galaxy of glory and
its constellation of great men, I presume the monument of a mighty
fishmonger of the olden time is regarded with as much reverence by
succeeding generations of the craft, as poets feel on contemplating the
tomb of Virgil or soldiers the monument of a Marlborough or Turenne.
I cannot but turn aside, while thus speaking of illustrious men, to
observe that St. Michael’s, Crooked Lane, contains also the ashes of
that doughty champion, William Walworth, Knight, who so manfully clove
down the sturdy wight, Wat Tyler, in Smithfield--a hero worthy of
honorable blazon, as almost the only Lord Mayor on record famous for
deeds of arms, the sovereigns of Cockney being generally renowned as the
most pacific of all potentates.*
* The following was the ancient inscription on the monument
of this worthy, which, unhappily, was destroyed in the great
conflagration.
Hereunder lyth a man of Fame,
William Walworth callyd by name:
Fishmonger he was in lyfftime here,
And twise Lord Maior, as in books appere;
Who, with courage stout and manly myght,
Slew Jack Straw in Kyng Richard’s sight.
For which act done, and trew entent,
The Kyng made him knyght incontinent
And gave him armes, as here you see,
To declare his fact and chivaldrie.
He left this lyff the yere of our God
Thirteen hundred fourscore and three odd.
An error in the foregoing inscription has been corrected by the