Old London Taverns Identified With Masonry.

amongst early booksellers . . . For inns , also , it [ the sign ] was not an uncommon decoration . Thus the White Lion in St . John ' s Street , Clerkenwell , was originally an inn frequented by cattle drovers and other wayfarers connected with

Smithfield market . On the 25 th November , 1723 , the Grand Loclge met at the Crown Tavern , in Threadneedle Street , and congregated at this place nine times . The Grown already noticed was in a different locality .

The records show that the Grand Lodge held a meeting at the Bell Tavern , Westminster , on the 17 th March , 1724 , and some four or five times afterwards . One of the oldest Bell taverns in Middlesex stood in King Street , AVestminster ;

it is named in the expenses of Sir John Howard ( Jockey of Norfolk ) , in 1466 . Pepys dined at this house , July 1 , 1660 , invited by purser Washington , but came away greatly disgusted ; for , he says , "the rogue had no more manners than to invite

me , and let me pay my club . " In November of the same year he was there again , " to see the 7 Flander mares that mv Lord has bought lately . " In Queen Anne ' s reign , the October club , consisting of about one hundred and fifty county members of Parliament , all unmitigated Tories , used to meet at this tavern .

The first session of the Grand Loclge at the Devil Tavern , Temple Bar , was ' held on the 20 th May , 1725 . Between that year and 1767 , it convened there about seventy-five times , showing that it was a favourite place of resort for that body .

St . Dunstan , the patron saint of the parish of that name in London , was godfather to the Devil , —that is to say , to the sign of the famous tavern of the Devil and St . Dunstan , within Temple Bar . The legend runs , that one day , when working

at his trade of a goldsmith , he was sorely tempted by the devil , and at length got so exasperated that he took the red-hot tongs out of the fire and caught his infernal majesty by the nose . The identical pinchers with which the feat was performed

are still preserved at Mayfield , in Sussex . They are of a very respectable size , and formidable enough to fri ghten the arch-one himself . This episode in the saint ' s life was represented on the sign-board of that glorious old tavern . By way of abbreviation , the house was called the Devil , though

the landlord seems to have preferred the other saint ' s name ; for on his token we read " The D ( sic ) and Dunstan , " probably fearing , with a classic dread , the ill omen of that awful name . Allusions to this tavern are innumerable in the dramatists : one of the earliest is in

1563 , in the play of "Jack Jugeler . " AVilliani Rowley thus mentions it in his comedy of a " Match by Midnight , " 1633 : Bloodhound . As you come by Temple Bar , make a step to the Devil . Tim . To the Devilfather ?

, Sim . My master means the sign of the Devil , and he cannot hurt you , fool ; there ' s a saint holds him by the nose . Tim . Sniggers , what does the devil and a saint both on a sign 1 Sim . AVhat a question is that 'i What

does my master and his prayer-book o ' Sundays both in a pew 1 So fond was Ben . Johnson of this tavern , that he lived " without Temple Bar , at a combmaker ' s shop , " according to Aubrey , in order to be near his favourite haunt .

It must have been therefore , in a moment of ill-humour , when he found fault with the wine , and made the statement that his p lay of the " Devil is an Ass " ( which is certainly not among his best ) was written " when I and my hoys drank bad wine at

the Devil . " The principal room was called "the Oracle of Apollo , " a large room , evidently built apart from the tavern ; and from Prior ' s and Charles Montagu ' s Hind and Panther Transversed , it is shown to have

been an upper apartment : " Hence to the Devil——Thus to the place where Johnson sat , we climb , Leaning on the same rail that guided him . "

Here the famous Apollo Club was accustomed to meet . Above the door was the bust of Apollo and "the welcome"by "Rare Ben Johnson . " Over the fireplace were the rules of the club , which were greatly admired for the conciseness and elegance of their Latinity , Over the clock in the

kitchen , in 1731 , there remained "Sinocturna tibi noceat potatio vird , hoc in mane bibes ilerum , et fuerit medicina *