In 1666 the inn succumbed to the Great Fire; but after the rebuilding its fame was re-established and has never since waned.  John Strype, the ecclesiastical historian, in his addenda to Stow’s Survey of London, records that “Near Ball Alley was the George Inn, since the fire rebuilt, with very good houses and warehouses, being a large open yard, and called George Yard, at the farther end of which is the ‘George and Vulture’ Tavern, which is a large house and having great trade, and having a passage into St. Michael’s Alley.”

The yard referred to is now filled with large buildings, but when it existed as part of the inn was used, like other inn yards, by the travelling companies of players for the enactment of their mystery and morality plays.  It was in the “George and Vulture,” so it is recorded, that the first Beefsteak Club was formed by Richard Estcourt, the Drury Lane comedian, a fashion which spread in all directions.  And so the history of the “George and Vulture” could be traced, and anecdotes relating to it set down to fill many pages.  But whilst admitting that these antiquarian notes have their interest for their own sake, we must leave them in order that we may glance at the Pickwickian traditions, through which the tavern is known to-day.

In our last chapter we left Mr. Pickwick at the “Great White Horse,” Ipswich.  On his return to London he had, perforce, to abandon his lodgings in Goswell Street and so transferred his abode to very good old-fashioned and comfortable quarters, to wit, the George and Vulture Tavern and Hotel, George Yard, Lombard Street, and forthwith sent Sam to settle the little matters of rent and such-like trifles and to bring back his little odds and ends from Goswell Street.  This done they shortly left the tavern for Dingley Dell, where they had a royal Christmas time.  That the tavern appealed to Mr. Pickwick as ideal for the entertainment of friends is incidentally revealed in the record that after one of the merry evenings at Mr. Wardle’s he, on waking late next morning, had “a confused recollection of having severally and confidentially invited somewhere about five and forty people to dine with him at the ‘George and Vulture’ the very first time they came to London.”

Just before they left Dingley Dell, Bob Sawyer, “thrusting his forefinger between two of Mr. Pickwick’s ribs and thereby displaying his native drollery and his knowledge of the anatomy of the human frame at one and the same time, enquired—­’I say, old boy, where do you hang out?’ Mr. Pickwick replied that he was at present suspended at the ’George and Vulture’!”