I slipped into the Lamb & Flag through the back alley, that old Covent Garden bolthole where in 1679 the Earl of Rochester hired thugs to knock out the poet John Dryden. But then Rochester died of syphilis at the age of 33 while Dryden made 68. Some run, then.
Perhaps such longevity was down to Dryden’s moderate temperance, or perhaps it was because it takes almost a poetic sea change to get a pint in the Lamb & Flag. If Dryden had the same service as on display last week, he was more likely to die of boredom than some heady vice.
