reference which sets forth that, although orders had been given to
have all the back-doors to taverns on the Thames closed up, owing to
the fact that wrong-doers found them convenient in evading the
officers of the law, an exception was made in the case of the Bear
owing to the fact that it was the starting-place for Greenwich.

[Illustration: BRIDGE-FOOT, SOUTHWARK. (_Showing the Bear Inn
in_ 1616.)]

Evidence in abundance might be cited to show that the inn was a
favourite meeting place with the wits and gallants of the court of
Charles I and the Restoration. "The maddest of all the land came to
bait the Bear," is one testimony; "I stuffed myself with food and
tipple till the hoops were ready to burst," is another. There is one
figure, however, of the thirties of the seventeenth century which
arrests the attention. This is Sir John Suckling, that gifted and
ill-fated poet and man of fashion of whom it was said that he "had
the peculiar happiness of making everything that he did become him."
His ready wit, his strikingly handsome face and person, his wealth
and generosity, his skill in all fashionable pastimes made him a
favourite with all. The preferences of the man, his delight in the
joys of the town as compared with the pleasures of secluded study in
the country, are clearly seen in those sprightly lines in which he
invited the learned John Hales, the "walking library," to leave Eton
and "come to town":

"There you shall find the wit and wine
Flowing alike, and both divine:
Dishes, with names not known in books,
And less among the college-cooks;