our subject. We have only to record another
feature of vanishing England, the gradual disappearance of many of its
ancient and historic inns, and to describe some of the fortunate
survivors. Many of them are very old, and cannot long contend against
the fiery eloquence of the young temperance orator, the newly fledged
justice of the peace, or the budding member of Parliament who tries to
win votes by pulling things down.

We have, however, still some of these old hostelries left; medieval
pilgrim inns redolent of the memories of the not very pious companies
of men and women who wended their way to visit the shrines of St.
Thomas of Canterbury or Our Lady at Walsingham; historic inns wherein
some of the great events in the annals of England have occurred; inns
associated with old romances or frequented by notorious highwaymen, or
that recall the adventures of Mr. Pickwick and other heroes and
villains of Dickensian tales. It is well that we should try to depict
some of these before they altogether vanish.

There was nothing vulgar or disgraceful about an inn a century ago.
From Elizabethan times to the early part of the nineteenth century
they were frequented by most of the leading spirits of each
generation. Archbishop Leighton, who died in 1684, often used to say
to Bishop Burnet that "if he were to choose a place to die in it
should be an inn; it looked like a pilgrim's going home, to whom this
world was all as an Inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion
of it." His desire was fulfilled. He died at the old Bell Inn in
Warwick Lane, London, an old galleried hostel which was not demolished
until 1865. Dr. Johnson, when delighting in the comfort of the
Shakespeare's Head Inn, between Worcester and Lichfield, exclaimed:
"No, sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by
which so much happiness is provided as by a good tavern or inn." This
oft-quoted saying the learned Doctor uttered at the Chapel House Inn,
near King's Norton; its glory has departed; it is now a simple
country-house by the roadside. Shakespeare, who doubtless had many
opportunities of testing the comforts of the famous inns at Southwark,
makes Falstaff say: "Shall I not take mine ease at mine inn?"; and
Shenstone wrote the well-known rhymes on a window of the old Red Lion
at Henley-on-Thames:--

Whoe'er has travelled life's dull road,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has f