THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN,
EASTCHEAP.
A SHAKSPEARIAN RESEARCH.
"A tavern is the rendezvous, the exchange, the
staple of good fellows. I have heard my great-grandfather
tell, how his great-great-grandfather
should say, that it was an old proverb when his
great-grandfather was a child, that `it was a good
wind that blew a man to the wine.' "
Mother Bombie.
It is a pious custom, in some Catholic
countries, to honour the memory of saints
by votive lights burnt before their pictures.
The popularity of a saint, therefore,
may be known by the number of
these offerings. One, perhaps, is left to
moulder in the darkness of his little chapel;
another may have a solitary lamp
to throw its blinking rays athwart his
effigy; while the whole blaze of adoration
is lavished at the shrine of some
beatified father of renown. The wealthy
devotee brings his huge luminary of wax;
the eager zealot his seven-branched candlestick,
and even the mendicant pilgrim
is by no means satisfied that sufficient
light is thrown upon the deceased, unless
he hangs up his little lamp of smoking
oil. The consequence is, that in the
eage
