darkness, for the candles are never out; and it is like those countries far in the north, where it is as clear at midnight as at mid-day. After a long sitting it becomes like a street in a dashing shower, where the spouts are flushing above, and the conduits running below, etc. To give you the total reckoning of it, it is the busy man's recreation, the idle man's business, the melancholy man's sanctuary, the stranger's welcome, the inns-of-court man's entertainment, the scholar's kindness, and the citizen's courtesy. It is the study of sparkling wits, and a cup of comedy their book, whence we leave them." The conjunction of vintner and victualler had now become common, and would require other accommodation than those mentioned by the Bishop, as is shown in Massinger's _New Way to pay Old Debts_, where Justice Greedy makes Tapwell's keeping no victuals in his house as an excuse for pulling down his sign: "Thou never hadst in thy house to stay men's stomachs, A piece of Suffolk cheese, or gammon of bacon, Or any esculent as the learned call it, For their emolument, but _sheer drink only_. For which gross fault I here do damn thy licence, Forbidding thee henceforth to tap or draw; For instantly I will in mine own person, Command the constable to pull down thy sign, And do't before I eat." And the decayed vinter, who afterwards applies to Wellborn for payment of his tavern score, answers, on his inquiring who he is: "A decay'd vintner, Sir; That might have thriv'd, but that your worship broke me With trusting you with muscadine and eggs, And _five-pound suppers_, with your after-drinkings, When you lodged upon the Bankside." Dekker tells us, near this time, of regular ordinaries of three kinds: 1st. An ordinary of the longest reckoning, whither most of your courtly gallants do resort: 2nd. A twelvepenny ordinary, frequented by the justice of the peace, a young Knight; and a threepenny ordinary, to which your London usurer, your stale bachelor, and your thrifty attorney, doth resort. Then Dekker tells us of a custom, especially in the City, to send presents of wine from one room to another, as a complimentary mark of friendship. "Inquire," directs he, "what gallants sup in the next room; and if they be of your acquaintance, do not, after the City fashion, send them in a pottle of wine and your name." Then, we read of Master Brook sending to the Castle Inn at Windsor, a morning draught of sack. Ned Ward, in the _London Spy_, 1709, describes several famous taverns, and among them the Rose, anciently, the Rose and Crown, as famous for good wine. "There was no parting," he says, "without a glass; so we went into the Rose Tavern in the Poultry, where the wine, according to its merit, had justly gained a reputation; and there, in a snug room, warmed with brash and faggot, over a quart of good claret, we laughed over our night's adventure."