I have spoken sufficiently of Chaucer already. The Tabard Inn, from which the famous Company set out, was named after the ornamented coat or jacket worn by Kings at Coronations, and by heralds, or even by ordinary persons. In the fourteenth century it was the town house of the Abbot of Hyde, Winchester. Does this mean that the Abbot allowed the place to be used as an ordinary inn? It is clear that Chaucer speaks of it as an ordinary inn. Yet in 1307 the Bishop of Winchester licenses a chapel at the Abbot's Hospitium in the Parish of St. Margaret, Southwark. At the Dissolution it is surrendered as 'a hostelry called the Taberd, the Abbot's place, the Abbot's stable, the garden belonging, a dung place leading to the ditch going to the Thames.' It is explained in Spight's 'Chaucer,' 1598, that the old Tabard had much decayed, but that it had been repaired 'with the Abbot's house adjoining.' Until the inn was finally pulled down, a room used to be shown as that in which Chaucer's Company assembled. This, however, was not the room, though it may have been rebuilt on the site of the old room. For on Friday, May 26, 1676, a destructive fire broke out, which raged over a large part of the Borough and destroyed the Queen's Head, the Talbot, the George, the White Hart, the King's Head, the Green Dragon, the Borough Compter, the Meat Market, and about 500 houses. St. Thomas's Hospital was saved by a change of wind, which also seems to have saved St. Mary Overies. [Illustration: ST. GEORGE, SOUTHWARK: NORTH-WEST VIEW (_From an Engraving by B. Cole_)] Walk with me from the Bridge head southwards, noting the Inns first on the right or the west, and then on the left or east. We have, first, the Bear on Bridge Head: then, before getting to Ford Lane, the Bull's Head: opposite the market place, the Goat: next the Clement. Opposite St. George's Church we cross over, and are on the east side, going north again: here we have a succession of Inns: the Half Moon: the Blue Maid and the Mermaid: the Nag's Head: the Spur: the Christopher: the Cross Keys: the Tabard: the George: the White Hart: the King's Head: the Black Swan: the Boar's Head. There is a pleasing atmosphere of business mixed with festivity about this street of inns and courtyards: of stables and grooms: of drivers and guards: of coaches and waggons: of merchants and middlemen: of country squires come up on business, with the hope of combining a little pleasure amongst the excitements of the town with a profitable deal or two. There is the smell of roast meats hanging about the courtyards of the inns. There is a continual calling for the drawers, there is a clinking of hanaps and a murmur of voices.