In one of his oracular and sententious utterances, Dr. Johnson declared that “there is nothing that has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern or inn.” But, inasmuch as Boswell tells us that this opinion was pronounced just after the great doctor had “dined at an excellent inn,” we may fairly receive the sentiment as the pair received their meal—with a grain of salt. It would be foreign to the purpose of this paper to enlarge upon the benefits or to denounce the evils connected with inns and taverns. It is enough to know that they exercised on the domestic lives and habits of our forefathers an influence sufficiently potent to establish their claim to share the attention of historical writers with churches, and monasteries, and castles. The Royalist tendencies of the citizens were shown by the “King John Tavern,” in the Serge Market, at the head of South Street; the “Plume of Feathers,” at the bottom of North Street; the “Unicorn,” in the Butcher Row; the “King’s Head,” formerly in Spiller’s Lane; and the “Crown and Sceptre,” in North Street. The oldest of Exeter inns having anything like a connected history was known for centuries by the inappropriate title of the “New Inn.” We may enter it now without any suspicion of its antiquity. Of the ladies of the present day who are so familiar with the house, which bears over its alluring portal the name of “Green & Son,” probably not one in a hundred suspects that her ancestors knew it equally well as the principal inn in Exeter. The archives of the Corporation and of the Dean and Chapter, to whom it jointly belonged, make frequent mention of the “New Inn,” the earliest being a lease in 1456, by which the Master and Brethren of the Magdalen Hospital granted to Roger Schordych and Joan, his wife, two tenements opposite “le Newe Inne,” in the parish of St. Stephen. It appears from Shillingford’s _Letters_ (p. 85), that the inn was then “newly built,” and one of the frequent squabbles between the Cathedral and the City authorities arose out of a “purpresture” or encroachment said to have been made there by the Chapter. A few years later, as we learn from Mr. Cotton’s _Gleanings_ (p. 11), an entry was made in the accounts of the Receiver to the Chamber of 3_s._ 4_d._, disbursed for “four gallons of wine sent to Lord Stafford at the Newynne.” From this time it often occurs on successive renewals of the lease. In John Hoker’s _Extracts from the Act Books of the Chamber_, we find that on the 16th February, 1554, during the mayoralty of John Midwinter, that body resolved to establish at the “New Inn” the cloth mart previously kept at the “Eagle” from 1472—"The newe Inne to be bought of Christian, the wydowe of Thomas Petefyn, and the same to be converted into a commodious hall for all manner of clothe, Lynnen or wollyn, and for all other m’chandises and w^{ch} shalbe called the m’chaunts hall." In