urned aside and left Field and Burbage to their business; while Dick
Burbage, the gay theatrical rake, invited us across the way to the Bull's
Head, where we irrigated our anatomy, and then returned to the printing
shop.

Field informed me that he had given us a great setting up with old Burbage;
and would see his partner Greene, the playwright, and add to our
recommendation for energy and learning.

We were invited to dine with Field that evening at eight o'clock at the
Boar's Head Tavern, where Dame Quickly dispensed the best food and fluid of
the lower town, and where the wags and wits of all lands congregated in
security.

_"At the very witching time of night
When church yards yawn and hell itself
Breathes out contagion to this world."_

CHAPTER VI.

TAVERNS. THEATRES. VARIEGATED SOCIETY.

_"Man's evil manners live in brass;
Their virtues we write in water."_

The Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap was one of the oldest and best inns in
London for free and easy rollicking mood, where prince and peasant, king or
clown, papist or puritan were welcome night and day, provided they intended
no wrong and kept good nature aglow even in their cups. Magistrate and
convent prior would sometimes raid the tavern until their physical and
financial wants were satisfied.

Dame Quickly, with ruffled collar, was the master spirit of the house, and
had been its light and glory for thirty years. Her round, full face, fat
neck and robust form was a constant invitation for good cheer, and her
matchless wit was a marvel to the guests that nightly congregated through
her three-story gabled stone monastery.

A tavern is the best picture of human folly, nature wearing no garb of
hypocrisy.

You must know that the Boar's Head had once been the home of the
"Blackfriars," then a residence of a bishop, a convent, a brewery, and
finally fell into the hands of the grandfather of Dame Quickly, who
bequeathed it to his posterity and the public as a depot for plum pudding,
roast beef, lamb, birds, fish, ale, wine, brandy and universal pleasure. A
boar's head, with a red light in its mouth was kept constantly burning from
sunset to sunrise, where wandering humanity found welcome and rest.

Supper parties from the adjacent theatres filled the tavern in midnight
hours, where actors, authors, politicians, statesmen and ladies of all hue,
reveled in jolly, generous freedom, beneath the ever-present
superintendence