nkings; also for a large table of walnut-tree, for a
frame, and for iron-worke and hanging the picture, v _li._" The artist
who is referred to in this memorandum could be no other than Samuel Van
Hoogstraten, a painter of the middle of the seventeenth century, whose
works in England are very rare. He was one of the many excellent artists
of the period, who, as Walpole contemptuously says, "painted still life,
oranges and lemons, plate, damask curtains, cloth of gold, and that
medley of familiar objects that strike the ignorant vulgar." At a
subsequent date the landlord wrote under the sign--

"Gallants, rejoice! This flow're is now full-blowne!
'Tis a Rose-Noble better'd by a crowne;
All you who love the emblem and the signe,
Enter, and prove our loyaltie and wine."

The tavern was rebuilt after the Great Fire, and flourished many years.
It was long a depot in the metropolis for turtle; and in the quadrangle
of the tavern might be seen scores of turtle, large and lively, in huge
tanks of water; or laid upward on the stone floor, ready for their
destination. The tavern was also noted for large dinners of the City
Companies and other public bodies. The house was refitted in 1852, but
has since been pulled down. (Timbs.)

Another noted Poultry Tavern was the "Three Cranes," destroyed in the
Great Fire, but rebuilt and noticed in 1698, in one of the many paper
controversies of that day. A fulminating pamphlet, entitled "Ecclesia et
Factio: a Dialogue between Bow Church Steeple and the Exchange
Grasshopper," elicited "An Answer to the Dragon and Grasshopper; in a
Dialogue between an Old Monkey and a Young Weasel, at the Three Cranes
Tavern, in the Poultry."

No. 22 was the house of Johnson's friends, Edward and Charles Dilly, the
booksellers. Here, in the year 1773, Boswell and Johnson dined with the
Dillys, Goldsmith, Langton, and the Rev. Mr. Toplady. The conversation
was of excellent quality, and Boswell devotes many pages to it. They
discussed the emigration and nidification of birds, on which subjects
Goldsmith seems to have been deeply interested; the bread-fruit of
Otaheite, which Johnson, who had never tasted it, considered surpassed
by a slice of the loaf before him; toleration, and the early martyrs. On
this last subject, Dr. Mayo, "the literary anvil," as he was called,
because he bore Johnson's hardest blows without flinching, held out
boldly for unlimited toleration; Johnson for Baxter's prin