The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick": With Some Observations on Their Other AssociationsMatz, B. W. (Bertram Waldrom)
History
The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick": With Some Observations on Their Other Associations
Matz, B. W. (Bertram Waldrom)
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870. Pickwick papers; Taverns (Inns) -- England
"La Belle Sauvage" has, like many other historic inns, gone into the
limbo of past, if not of forgotten, things, leaving nothing but its
name denoting a cul-de-sac, to remind the present generation of its
one-time fame.
This was the inn where Tony Weller, resplendent in many layers of
cloth cape and huge brimmed hat, stopped "wen he drove up" on the
box seat of one of the stage coaches of the period. For Tony was,
as everybody knows, a coachman typical of the period of the book,
and the "Belle Savage" (the spelling of "savage" here follows the
fashion of the period referred to) was where he started and ended
his journeys in London. But the anecdote related by his son of
how he was hoodwinked into taking out a licence to marry Mrs.
Clarke contains the chief of the only two actual references to
the fact that his head-quarters were the "Belle Savage," as he
called it. It is certainly recorded that he started from the
"Bull" in Whitechapel when he drove the Pickwickians to Ipswich,
but it is the "Belle Savage" that is associated with his name.
"'What's your name, sir?' says the lawyer.
"'Tony Weller,' says my father. 'Parish?' says the lawyer. 'Belle
Savage,' says my father; for he stopped there wen he drove up, and
he know'd nothing about parishes, he didn't."
Now it seems to us a curious fact that Dickens never made any
further use of this famous inn, either in Pickwick or in his other
books; indeed, we can only recall one other reference to it, and
that when Sam's father rather despondently told him that "a thousand
things may have happened by the time you next hears any news of the
celebrated Mr. Veller o' the 'Bell Savage:'" It is particularly
curious in regard to Pickwick, for the inn was not only close to the
Fleet Prison, which figures so prominently in the book, but its
outbuildings actually adjoined it. Meagre as is the reference, it
is, nevertheless, retained in the memory, and the inn proclaimed a
Pickwickian one with as much satisfaction as if it had been the
scene of many an incident such as connect others with the book.
Unfortunately there are only one or two landmarks remaining to show
that it ever existed. One of these is the archway out of Ludgate
Hill, just beyond the hideous bridge which runs across the road, at
the side of No. 68, which in Pickwickian days was No. 38. Perhaps
the shape of the yard which still bears the inn's name may be
considered as a trace of its former glory. This yard is now
surrounded by the business premises of Messrs. Cassell and Co.,
the well-known publishers, which occupy the whole site of the old
building.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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