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The vast débris forming the steep slope which was thus produced now bears famous vineyards, but the vintners fancy that they from time to time hear deep in the earth the ringing of the bells which belonged to the overwhelmed church.
The ironmongers congregated in Ironmongers Lane; the vintners or wine-merchants were in the Vintry; and the makers of hosiery in Hosiery Lane. Now we'll go to Chancery Lane, and pay a short visit to the Record Office, for there are some things there which I want you to see."
Doubtless the vintners and the shipmen of Chaucer's day, the patrons and purveyors of the playhouse in Ben Jonson's, the fox-hunting squires and town wits of Cowper's, like their successors after them, were not specially anxious to distinguish nicely between more or less abominable varieties of saintliness. Whereupon the "Shipman" protests not less characteristically:
Besides this saucy-looking personage, who was addressed as Dick Taverner by his comrades, there were many others, who, to judge from their habiliments and their cudgels, belonged to the same fraternity as himself; that is to say, they were apprentices to grocers, drapers, haberdashers, skinners, ironmongers, vintners, or other respectable artificers or tradesfolk.
Men, women, and children were moving about in all directions; now stopping before the mercers' shops, or the sempsters from Cheapside, or looking into those of the goldsmiths: while the vintners were never without a crowd inside or out of their booths. Here was a quack doctor selling his infallible specifics from his cart, promising an unfailing cure for all manner of diseases.
So I charged the vintners and confectioners and fruiterers and chandlers and bagnio-keepers to acquaint me of these two, when ever they should anywhere be engaged in drinking or debauchery, whether together or apart, and that, if they or either of them bought of them aught for the purpose of carousal, they should not conceal it from me. And they replied, "We hear and obey."
He was skilful in all the arts and methods of cheating; but his masterpiece was his personating men of quality, getting credit for watches, coats, and horses; borrowing money, bilking vintners and tradesmen, lying and romancing to the degree of imposing upon any man of good nature.
Among the invited guests, for example, were the Master of the Mercers' Company, the Master of the Grocers' Company, the Master of the Drapers' Company, the Master of the Skinners' Company, the Master of the Haberdashers' Company, the Master of the Salters' Company, the Master of the Ironmongers' Company, the Master of the Vintners' Company, and the Master of the Clothworkers' Company.
The ordinary was held in the principal room in the house; which was well enough adapted for the purpose, being lofty and spacious, and lighted by an oriel window at the upper end. Over the high carved chimney-piece were the arms of the Vintners' Company, with a Bacchus for the crest. The ceiling was moulded, and the wainscots of oak; against the latter several paintings were hung.
It is evident that he wished officially to recognise national wines as equal to the foreign, in favour of Italian vintners; so that Julius Cæsar, that universal man, has a place not only in the history of the great Italian conquests, but also in that of Italian viticulture. The wines of the valley of the Po were not long in making place for themselves after those of southern Italy.
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