This noted tavern, which gave name to Pope's Head Alley, leading from Cornhill to Lombard-street, is mentioned as early as the 4th Edward IV. (1464) in the account of a wager between an Alicant goldsmith and an English goldsmith; the Alicant stranger contending in the tavern that "Englishmen were not so cunning in workmanship of goldsmithry as Alicant strangers;" when work was produced by both, and the Englishman gained the wager. The tavern was left in 1615, by Sir William Craven to the Merchant Tailors' Company. Pepys refers to "the fine painted room" here in 1668-9. In the tavern, April 14, 1718, Quin, the actor, killed in self-defence, his fellow-comedian, Bowen, a clever but hot-headed Irishman, who was jealous of Quin's reputation: in a moment of great anger, he sent for Quin to the tavern, and as soon as he had entered the room, Bowen placed his back against the door, drew his sword, and bade Quin draw his. Quin, having mildly remonstrated to no purpose, drew in his own defence, and endeavoured to disarm his antagonist. Bowen received a wound, of which he died in three days, having acknowledged his folly and madness, when the loss of blood had reduced him to reason. Quin was tried and acquitted. (_Cunningham, abridged._) The Pope's Head Tavern was in existence in 1756. THE OLD SWAN, THAMES-STREET, Was more than five hundred years ago a house for public entertainment: for, in 1323, 16 Edw. II., Rose Wrytell bequeathed "the tenement of olde tyme called the Swanne on the Hope in Thames-street," in the parish of St. Mary-at-hill, to maintain a priest at the altar of St. Edmund, King and Martyr, "for her soul, and the souls of her husband, her father, and mother:" and the purposes of her bequest were established; for, in the parish book, in 1499, is entered a disbursement of fourpence, "for a cresset to Rose Wrytell's chantry." Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, in 1440, in her public penance for witchcraft and treason, landed at Old Swan, bearing a large taper, her feet bare, etc. Stow, in 1598, mentions the Old Swan as a great brew-house. Taylor, the Water-poet, advertised the professor and author of the Barmoodo and Vtopian tongues, dwelling "at the Old Swanne, neare London Bridge, who will teach them at are willing to learne, with agility and facility." In the scurrilous Cavalier ballad of Admiral Deane's Funeral, by water, from Greenwich to Westminster, in June, 1653, it is said:-- "The Old Swan, as he passed by, Said she would sing him a dirge, lye down and die: Wilt thou sing to a bit of a body? quoth I, Which nobody can deny." The Old Swan Tavern and its landing-stairs were destroyed in the Great Fire; but rebuilt. Its Token, in the Beaufoy Collection, is one of the rarest, of large size. COCK TAVERN, THREADNEEDLE-STREET.