Old London Taverns Identified With Masonry.

An elegant rendering of the well-known p hrase , " A hair of the dog that bit you . " In the Apollo chamber were rehearsed , with music , the Court-day Odes of the Poets Laureate ; a practice which gave rise to the following epigram by a wit of the

time : " When Laureates make Odes , do you ask of what sort ? Do you ask if they ' re good , or are evil ?

You may judge—from the Devil they come to the Court , And go from the Court to the Devil . " Ben Johnson being one night at the Devil Tavern , a country gentleman in the company was obtrusively loquacious

touching his land and tenements ; Ben , out of patience , exclaimed , " AVhat signifies to us your dirt and your clods ? Where you have an acre of land , I have ten acres of wit ! " "Have you so , " retorted the countryman , " good Mr . Wiseacre ?"

"Why , how now , Ben ? " said one of the party , " you seem to be quite stung ! " "I was never so pricked b y a hobnail before , " grumbled Ben . The Tatler , October II , 1709 , contains Bickerstaff ' s account of the wedding

entertainment at the Devil Tavern , in honour of his sister Jenny ' s marriage . Swift tells Stella that on October 12 , 1710 , he dined at the Devil Tavern with Mr . Addison and Dr . Garth , when the doctor treated .

In 1 / 46 , the RoyalSociety held here their annual dinner ; and in 1752 , concerts of vocal and instrumental music were given in the great room . It was demolished in 1787 . Benj amin Johnson , the celebrated English poet , was born at WestminsterJune 11

, , 1-574 , and died from an attack of palsy , August 16 , 1637 . Previous to 1767 , but one meeting appears to have been held by the Grand Loclge at the Queen ' s Head Tavern , in Great Queen Street , namely , on the 26 th

November , 1728 . The elegant and commodious appartments now occupied by that body are in Great Queen Street , where they have been for many years . That Queen Elizabeth was for more than two centuries the almost unvarying type

of the Queens Head need not be wondered at when we consider her well-deserved popularity .

During the Queen ' s lifetime , however , the sign-painters had to mind how they represented " Queen Bess , " for Sir AValter Raleigh says that portraits of the queen made by " unskillful and common painters " were , by her order "knocked in pieces , and cast into the fire . "

In the bar of the Queens Head Tavern , Great Queen Street , is preserved a carved wooden sign , which formerly hung before this house , representing two men standing near a large tun . " Grand Lodgein ample format the

, , Three Tuns , Swithin ' s Alley , near the Royal Exchange , on March 27 , 1729 , with former Grand Officers , and those of thirtyone lodges . " But one meeting , that above named , was held at this inn . There seems to have been a kind of

fatality attached to this sign , for the London Gazette for September 15-18 , 1679 , relates a murder committed at the Three Tuns , in Chandos Street , and in the same house , Sally Pridden , alias Sally Salisbury , iu a fit of jealousy , stabbed the Honourable John Finchin 1723 . Sally was one of

, the handsomest " social evils " of that day , and had been nicknamed Salisbury , on account of her likeness to the countess of that name . For her attempt on the life of Finch she was committed to Newgate , where she died the year after"leaving

, behind her the character of the most notorious woman that ever infested the hundreds of old Drury . " Her portrait was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller . The record reads : " Grand Loclge in ample form at the Half Moon Tavern , in

Cheapside , on Thursday , 24 June , 1731 . " This is the only time it met here . Ben Johnson once desiring a glass of saoi ., went to the Half Moon Tavern , in Aldersgate Street , but found it closed , so he adjourned to the Sun Tavern , in Long Lane , and wrote this epigram : —

" Since the Half-Moon is so unkind , To make me go about , The Sun my money now shall have , And the Moon shall go without . " The Half Moon , Upper Hollo way , was famous in the last century for excellent

cheesecakes , which were hawked about the streets of London by a man on horseback , and formed one of the London cries . This circumstance is noticed in the Gentleman ' s Magazine for 1753 , entitled "A