Irving, Washington / 2008-09-07 00:00:00
1819-20
THE SKETCH BOOK
THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP
A SHAKSPEARIAN RESEARCH
by Washington Irving
"A tavern is the rendezvous, the exchange, the staple of good
fellows. I have heard my great-grandfather tell, how his
great-great-grandfather should say, that it was an old proverb when
his great-grandfather was a child, that 'it was a good wind that
blew a man to the wine.'"
MOTHER BOMBIE.
IT IS a pious custom, in some Catholic countries, to honor the
memory of saints by votive lights burnt before their pictures. The
popularity of a saint, therefore, may be known by the number of
these offerings. One, perhaps, is left to moulder in the darkness of
his little chapel; another may have a solitary lamp to throw its
blinking rays athwart his effigy; while the whole blaze of adoration
is lavished at the shrine of some beatified father of renown. The
wealthy devotee brings his huge luminary of wax; the eager zealot
his seven-branched candlestick, and even the mendicant pilgrim is by
no means satisfied that sufficient light is thrown upon the
deceased, unless he hangs up his little lamp of smoking oil.
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