London (England) -- Antiquities; London (England) -- History
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.
The "Cock" in Threadneedle Street was an old-established house when
Pepys visited it on March 7th, 1659-60, and it lasted till 1840, when
it was cleared away. In the eighteenth century it was a constant
practice for the frequenters of the "Cock" to buy a chop or steak at
the butcher's and bring it to be cooked, the charge for which was one
penny. Fox's friend, the notorious Duke of Norfolk, known as "Jockey of
Norfolk," often bought his chop and brought it here to be cooked, until
his rank was discovered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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