THE ANCIENT TABARD INN

The picture we see here is that of an inn whose fame is as widespread
as the love of English poetry, for it is at the Tabard Inn that
Chaucer more than five hundred years ago assembled his nine and twenty
pilgrims who were preparing to visit the tomb of Thomas a Becket at
Canterbury. The witchery of the springtime had stirred the blood of
these Londoners who, perhaps, were enticed from home more by the soft
April showers and the melody of the birds than by their need of
spiritual consolation. This, at least, is the impression we receive as
in imagination we join these immortal pilgrims at the Tabard. Our
guide is

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still,--

and as he moves among his motley group, let us take a glance at the
Tabard.

The picture we have is that of the typical old English inn. "As late
as 1870 the ruins of the famous Tabard could be found. It was near St.
Saviour in the Borough High Street. Turning from the street into one
of those courtyards which abound in the east of London, the visitor
comes upon the ruins of the once famous inn the very name of which has
been transformed by time. It is now known as the '_Talbot_,' but the
inscription above the doorway contradicts the modern signboard and
proclaims the house to be '_The Ancient Tabard Inn_.' The whole yard
is redolent of dilapidation. Facing the visitor on entering is an
interesting block of old buildings, forming part of the left side, and
the bottom of what once was an ample courtyard. This part of the
building contains not improbably the shell of the corresponding
portion of the original inn. The doors of the first floor all open
into one of the wide balustraded galleries or verandas so common in
the genuine old English hostelry. Until recently the landlord of the
_Talbot_, then a small public-house, and still forming part of the
modern mass of brick building that blocks up the right side and part
of the center of the courtyard, rented the rooms by which this
balustraded gallery was, and still is, surrounded. They were then let
as bedrooms, and kept in good repair; and are supposed to occupy the
site of the very rooms once tenanted by the Canterbury pilgrims; the
gallery probably differing but little in appearance from what it was
when Chaucer frequented it in search of good w