[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.