Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/44

 one. Early in the nineteenth century the inn which had once had two names was for a time divided, one house being known as the "Bell" and the other as the "Bell Savage."

In 1568 the "Bell Savage," together with another property known as the " Rose," was bequeathed by a citizen, John Craythorne, to one of the ancient trade guilds of the City, the Cutlers' Company, for the provision of exhibitions at Oxford and Cambridge and the benefit of the poor of St. Bride's. A portrait of the donor's wife is to be seen to this day in the Cutlers' Hall, and the Cutlers are still the ground landlords of the property. At that time it consisted of two courts, the outer one entered through an archway from Ludgate Hill, the inner one through a second archway. The inn itself surrounded the inner court, and was made picturesque by two tiers of covered balconies, which, when plays were performed in the Yard in the sixteenth century, served as the "upper circle" and the "lower circle," while the rooms of the inn were the "boxes," and the open yard formed the "pit," its patrons being derisively called the " groundlings," as in Hamlet. The stage was a scaffold built against one side of the Yard, and, with the section of balcony above it, was curtained off. In Queen Elizabeth's day a "school of defence" was carried on here for the benefit of those who wanted to acquire the art of fencing, and here, too, Bankes, the showman, delighted gaping crowds with the surprising feats of his horse, Marocco, the subject of the "discourse" already mentioned as having been published in 1595. This was the discerning beast that on one occasion sent the spectators into fits of laughter by picking out Tarleton, the low comedian who was associated with Shakespeare, as the biggest fool in the company.

In the outer court of the Yard were some private houses, one of which was occupied, for some time before 1677, by Grinling Gibbons, whose inimitable wood carving graces so many City churches and City Companies' halls. Horace Walpole notes that while living here