One such was the pane at the "Yacht" inn at Chester, that hoary timbered and plastered tavern whose nodding gables scarce uphold the story that this was once the foremost hotel of this picturesque city. The Dean, then at the height of his fame, halting here on his way into Ireland, was in one of his companionable humours, and invited the Dean and the other dignified clergy of the Cathedral to supper; but not one of them acknowledged his intended hospitality. Deans, Canons, and Prebendaries all agreed among themselves, or resolved separately, to ignore the distinguished visitor, who, in his rage, decorated a window with the couplet:
Rotten without and mouldering within, This place and its clergy are all near akin.
On the whole, regarding this quite dispassionately, having regard to the gross affront on the one hand and Swift's malignant nature and very full sense of what was due to himself on the other, it can hardly be said that he rose to the heights of epigram or sank to the depths of abuse demanded by the occasion. Here he surely should have surpassed himself, in the one category or the other, or--even more characteristically--in both. We want more bitterness, more gall, an extra infusion of wormwood, and feel that this is an ineffectual thing that any affronted person, owning a diamond and merely capable of writing, could have achieved. And, even so, the historic pane itself has disappeared.
The guests at inns in the middle of the eighteenth century often did not, it seems, disdain the walls; for in _Columella_, a curious novel of travelling, published about that period, we read that the characters in it found time on their journey "to examine the inscriptions on walls and windows, and learned that the love of woman, the love of wine, and the love of fame were the three ruling passions that usually vented themselves" in this manner.
These were travellers who, come what might, determined to be unconventional.
"When they came to an inn, instead of complaining of their accommodations, or bullying the waiters, they diverted themselves with the humours of my landlord, criticising his taste in his furniture or his pictures, or in perusing the inscriptions on the walls or windows, or inquiring into the history of the neighbouring gentry. In short, they had determined to be pleased with everything, and therefore were not disappointed."