Pepys's criticisms on the plays he saw acted at these theatres were not always satisfactory, and often they were contradictory. At the same time he was apparently judicious in the disposal of praise and blame on the actors he saw. Betterton was his ideal of the perfect actor, and, so far as it is possible to judge as to one who lived so long ago, public opinion formed by those capable of judging from contemporary report seems to be in agreement with that of Pepys.
Pepys was a great frequenter of taverns and inns, as were most of his contemporaries. There are about one hundred and thirty London taverns mentioned in the _Diary_, but time has swept away nearly all of these houses, and it is difficult to find any place which Pepys frequented.
These taverns may be considered as a link between the Court end of London and the city, for Pepys distributed his favours between the two places. King Street, Westminster, was full of inns, and Pepys seems to have frequented them all. Two of them--the "Dog" and the "Sun"--are mentioned in Herrick's address to the shade of "Glorious Ben":--
"Ah, Ben! Say how or when Shall we thy guests Meet at these feasts Made at the Sun, The Dog, the Triple Tunne? Where we such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad! And yet such verse of thine Outdid the meate, outdid the frolic wine."
The "Three Tuns" at Charing Cross, visited by Pepys, was probably the same house whose sign Herrick changes to "Triple Tun."
Among the Westminster taverns may be mentioned "Heaven" and "Hell," two places of entertainment at Westminster Hall; the "Bull Head" and the "Chequers" and the "Swan" at Charing Cross; the "Cock" in Bow Street and the "Fleece" in York Street, Covent Garden; the "Canary" house by Exeter Change; and the "Blue Balls" in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
The majority of these taverns patronised by Pepys were, however, in the city. There were several "Mitres" in London, but perhaps the most interesting one was that kept in Fenchurch Street by Daniel Rawlinson, a staunch royalist, who, when Charles I. was executed, hung his sign in mourning. Thomas Hearne says that naturally made him suspected by the Roundheads, but "endeared him so much to the Churchmen that he throve amain and got a good estate." His son, Sir Thomas Rawlinson, was Lord Mayor in 1700, and President of Bridewell Hospital. His two grandsons, Thomas and Richard Rawlinson, hold an honourable place in the roll of eminent book collectors. The "Samson" in St. Paul's Churchyard was another famous house, as also the "Dolphin" in Tower Street, a rendezvous of the Navy officers, which provided very good and expensive dinners.