112 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS- 



yoiith, who, however, very courageously and with a 

 happy presence of mind, is said to have "rammed in 

 the volume and cried Gr cecum est," fairly choking the 

 savage with the sage.* 



We can scarcely dip into the history of the Wild 

 Boar in days gone by without being reminded of the 

 " Boar's Head" in Eastcheap, so happily referred to 

 by Shakespeare, and so pleasantly descanted on by 

 Goldsmith in his "Reverie at the Boar's Head 

 Tavern ;" and we are tempted to give an illus- 

 tration of this famous sign, in reduced facsimile 

 from the engraving in Pennant's "London." That 

 author thus alludes to it: — "A little higher up on 

 the left hand is Eastcheap, immortalized by Shake- 

 speare as the place of rendezvous of Sir John 

 Ealstaff and his merry companions. Here stood 

 the Boar's Head tavern ; the site is now covered 

 with modern houses, but in the front one is still 

 preserved the memory of the sign, the Boar's Head 

 cut in stone. Notwithstanding the house is gone, 

 we shall laugh at the humour of the jovial knight, 

 his hostess, Bardolph, and Pistol, as long as the 

 descriptive pages of our great dramatic writer exist 

 in our entertained imagination." 



Hone, in his "Year Book," gives a brief account 

 of a visit which he paid to this memorable hostelry. 

 " I could not," he says, " omit a sight of this remark- 

 able place ; but upon my approach to Eastcheap, the 

 inhabitants were fled, the house shut up, and instead 

 of an half timber building, with one story projecting 



* Wade's "Walks in Oxford," 1817, vol. i. p. 167. 



