iv. THE BEL SAVAGE INN

The Bel Savage is named as an early London play-house in the 1596 edition of Lambarde’s _Perambulation of Kent_. This inn, of which the name is still preserved on Ludgate Hill, where it stood until 1873 (Harben, 63), must be distinguished from another in Gracechurch Street once kept by Tarlton, which in his time was known as the Saba.[1088] The origin of the name is obscure; a deed of 1452 refers to an ‘inn ... called Savages Inn, otherwise called the Bell on the Hoop, in the parishe of St. Bride in Fleet Street’ (_L. T. R._ ii. 71). Probably therefore the notion of the Belle Sauvage is a later perversion. Gascoigne, in the prologue to his _Glass of Government_ (1575), repudiates the ‘worthie jests’ and ‘vain delights’ of ‘Bellsavage fair’.[1089] Gosson, in 1579, excepts from his general condemnation of plays ‘the two prose books, played at the Belsavage, where you shall find never a word without wit, never a line without pith, never a letter placed in vain’.[1090] A play-house ‘on Ludgate Hill’ is included by Rawlidge in his list of those ‘put down’ in Elizabeth’s time. Probably the Queen’s men were acting at the Bel Savage in 1588, for after the death of Tarlton in that year was published ‘a sorowfull newe sonnette, intituled Tarltons Recantacion uppon this theame gyven him by a gentleman at the Belsavage without Ludgate (nowe or els never) beinge the laste theame he songe’.[1091] Prynne’s reference to _Dr. Faustus_ (q.v.) at the Bel Savage suggests that at some time the Admiral’s also played there. It was also occasionally used for the playing of ‘prizes’; the earliest recorded date in the Register of the School of Defence being in 1575–7 and the latest on 31 January 1589.[1092]