f the special patronage of those who claimed respect
outside the tavern, would doubtless grant them such privileges as the
house afforded. At a time when the news of the day was brought to the
taverns, while men of affairs and those who had some _locus standi_ at
Court did not disdain the attractions of a favoured house, there must
have been a certain high standard of conversation, and many a friendly
battle of wits. The ready tongue and fluent pen might make a mark in the
tavern and all London hear of it. Ben Jonson established the Apollo room
at the "Devil Tavern" by Temple Bar and drew up his famous "Convivial
Laws," which, while granting admittance to "learned, urbane merry
goodfellows" and "choice women," forbade horseplay, and concluded "focus
perennis esto."

Sir Walter Raleigh founded a club at the "Mermaid Tavern," where, in
addition to Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, together
with many other dramatists of note, spent their leisure hours. In
Southwark the "Tabard Inn" enjoyed the fame conferred upon it by
Geoffrey Chaucer, as well as the additional honour of his patronage,
before Shakespeare arrived. "The Bell," "The George," and "The White
Hart" were among the "Tabard's" leading competitors; it is likely that
the poet knew them all. We have no record that he spent too much time in
taverns, as poor Ben Jonson did; but he knew them well enough to enter
into the spirit of those who served and those who gave orders, those who
paid promptly, and those who could say with Ancient Pistol, "Base is the
slave that pays."

Some of Shakespeare's biographers, who, because of their own virtues,
would abolish cakes and ale and forbid ginger to be hot in the mouth,
resent the mere suggestion that Shakespeare used the taverns as his
contemporaries did. There is no reason to suppose that he misused them
after the fashion of Robert Greene, Marlowe, and Ben Jonson, but at the
same time the temperance advocate will need to go very carefully through
plays and poems if he is searching for praise of water as opposed to
wine. The power of the Puritan was rising in Shakespeare's time, but the
Puritans did not number the poet among their supporters. A certain
spirit of conviviality marked the Elizabethan age, which enjoyed, among
other advantages, the benefit of wine and spirits that had not been
systematically adulterated. Then again, no playwright could remain
wholly indifferent to the taverns, for it was in the ya