. Old Boston taverns and tavern clubs . the manner of theold London inns, as the Cross Keys, Green Dragon,Anchor and Castle Chamber, Eose and Sun, Low Eoom,so making old associations bring in custom. It was in 1686 that John Dunton, a London booksellerwhom Pope lampoons in the Dunciad, came over toBoston to do a Httle business in the bookselling vicinity of the town-house was then crowded withbook-shops, all of which drove a thriving trade in print-ing and selling sermons, almanacs, or fugitive essays ofa sort now quite unknown outside of a few eager col-lectors. The time was a critic
. Old Boston taverns and tavern clubs . the manner of theold London inns, as the Cross Keys, Green Dragon,Anchor and Castle Chamber, Eose and Sun, Low Eoom,so making old associations bring in custom. It was in 1686 that John Dunton, a London booksellerwhom Pope lampoons in the Dunciad, came over toBoston to do a Httle business in the bookselling vicinity of the town-house was then crowded withbook-shops, all of which drove a thriving trade in print-ing and selling sermons, almanacs, or fugitive essays ofa sort now quite unknown outside of a few eager col-lectors. The time was a critical one in New England, asshe was feeling the tremor of the coming revolt whichsent King James into exile; yet to read Duntons ac-count of men and things as he thought he saw them,one would imagine him just dropped into Arcadia, ratherthan breathing the threatening atmosphere of a countrythat was tottering on the edge of revolution. But it is to him, at any rate, that we are indebtedfor a portrait of the typical landlord,—one whom we. JOHN DUNTON, Bookseller, 1659-1733 *^ VEVI YORK [ puBlIC library A^TOR, LENOXTILDEN FOUNDATIONS 1 THE EARLIER ORDINARIES. 29 feel at once we should like to have known, and, havingknown, to cherish in our memory. With a flourish ofhis goose-quill Dunton introduces us to George Monk,landlord of the Anchor, who, somehow, reminds us ofChaucers Harry Bailly, and Ben Jonsons we more than suspect from what follows thatDunton had tasted the Anchor Madeira, not onlyonce, but again. George Monk, mine host of the Anchor, Dunton tellsus, was a person so remarkable that, had I not beenacquainted with him, it would be a hard matter tomake any New England man believe that I had beenin Boston; for there was no one house in all the townmore noted, or where a man might meet with betteraccommodation. Besides he was a brisk and jolly man,whose conversation was coveted by all his guests asthe life and spirit of the company. In this off-hand sketch
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectbostonmasssociallife
