The field of history is a wide one, and when the beaten tracks have beeu
well traversed, there will yet remain some of the lesser paths to explore.
The following attempt at a " History of Signboards " may be deemed, the
result of an exploration in one of these by-ways.

Although from the days of Addison's Spectator down to the present
time many short articles have been written upon house-signs, nothing¹ like
a general inquiry into the subject has, as yet, been published in this
country. The extraordinary number of examples and the numerous absurd
combinations afforded such a mass of entangled material as doubtless
deterred writers from proceeding beyond an occasional article in a maga-
zine, or a chapter in a book,—when only the more famous signs would be
cited as instances of popular humour or local renown. How best to classify
and treat the thousands of single and double signs was the chief difficulty
in compiling the present work. That it will in every respect satisfy the
reader is more than is expected—indeed much more than could be
hoped for under the best of circumstances.

In these modern days, the signboard is a very unimportant object: it
was not always so. At a time when but few persons could read and write,
house-signs were indispensable in city life. As education spread they were
less needed; and when in the last century, the system of numbering houseb
was introduced, and every thoroughfare had its name painted at the begin-
ning and end, they were no longer a positive necessity—their original value
was gone, and they lingered on, not by reason of their usefulness, but as
instances of the decorative humour (lour ancestors, or as advertisements
of established reputation and busine.i«. success. For the names of many of
our streets we are indebted to the sign of the old inn or public-house, which
frequently was the first building in the street—commonly enough suggest-
ing its erection, or at least a few houses by way of commencement. The
huge " London Directory " contains the names of hundreds of streets in
the metropolis which derived their titles from taverns or public-houses in
the immediate neighbourhood. As material for the etymology of the
names of persons and places, the various old signs may be studied with
advantage. In many other ways the historic importance of house-signH
could be shown.

sary at the outset, although from the indefinite nature of many signs the
divisions " Historic," " Heraldic," "Animal," &c.—under which the various
examples have been arranged—must be regarded as purely arbitrary, for in
many instances it would be impossible to say whether such and such a
sign should be included under the one head or under the other. The
explanations offered as to origin and meaning are based rather upon con-
jecture and speculation than upon fact—as only in very rare instances
reliable data could be produced to bear them out. Compound signs but
increase the difficulty of explanation : if the road was uncertain before,
almost all traces of a pathway are destroyed here. When, therefore, a solu-
tion is offered, it must be considered only as a suggestion of the 'possible
meaning. As a rule, and unless the symbols be very obvious, the reader
would do well to consider the majority of compound signs as quarterings
or combinations of others, without any hidden signification. A double
signboard has its parallel in commerce, where for a common advantage,
two merchants will unite their interests under a double name ; but as in
the one case so in the other, no rule besides the immediate interests of
those concerned can be laid down for such combinations.

A great many signs, both single and compound, have been omitted. To
have included all, together with such particulars of their history as could
be obtained, would have required at least half-a-dozen folio volumes.
However, but few signs of any importance are known to have been omitted,
and care has been taken to give fair samples of the numerous varieties of
the compound sign. As the work progressed a large quantity of material
accumulated for which no space could be found, such as " A proposal to the
House of Commons for raising above half a million of money per annum,
with a great ease to the subject, by a tax upon signs, London, 1695," a very
curious tract; a political jeu-d'esprit from the Harleian MSS., (5953,) en-
titled " The Civill War res of the Citie," a lengthy document prepared for
a journal in the reign of William of Orange by one " E. I.," and giving
"Vhe names and whereabouts of the principal London signs at that time.
Acts of Parliament for the removal or limitation of signs ; and various
religious pamphlets upon the subject, such as "Helps for Spiritual Medi-
tation, earnestly Kecommended to the Perusal of all those who desire to
have their Hearts much with God," a chap-book of the time of Wesley
and Whitfield, in which the existing " Signs of London are Spiritualized,
with an Intent, that when a person walks along the Street, instead of hav-
ing their Mind fill'd with Yanity, and their Thoughts amus'd with the
trifling Things that continually present themselves, they may be able to
Think of something Profitable."

Anecdotes and historical facts have been introduced with a double view ;
first, as authentic proofs of the existence and age of the sign ; secondly, in
the hope that they may afford variety and entertainment. They will call up
many a picture of the olden time ; many a trait of bygone manners and
customs—old shops and residents, old modes of transacting business, in short,
much that is now extinct and obsolete. There is a peculiar pleasure in
pondering over these old houses, and picturing them to ourselves as again
inhabited by the busy tenants of former years; in meeting the great
names of history in the hours of relaxation, in calling up the scenes which
must have been often witnessed in the haunt of the pleasure-seeker,—the
tavern with its noisy company, the coffee-house with its politicians and

smart beaux ; and, on the other hand, the quiet, unpretending shop of the
ancient bookseller filled with the monuments of departed minds. Such
scraps of history may help to picture this old London as it appeared dur-
ing the last three centuries. For the contemplative mind there is some
charm even in getting at the names and occupations of the former inmates
of the houses now only remembered by their signs ; in tracing, by means
of these house decorations, their modes of thought or their ideas of
humour, and in rescuing from oblivion a few little anecdotes and minor
facts of history connected with the house before which those signs swung
in the air.

It is a pity that such a task as the following was not undertaken many
years ago; it would have been much better accomplished then than
now. London is so rapidly changing its aspect, that ten years hence many
of the particulars here gathered could no longer be collected. Already, dur-
ing the printing of this work, three old houses famous for their signs have
been doomed to destruction—the Mitre in Fleet Street, the Tabard in
Southwark, (where Chaucer's pilgrims lay,) and Don Saltero's house in
Chcyne Walk, Chelsea. The best existing specimens of old signboards may
be seen in our cathedral towns. Antiquaries cling to these places, and the
inhabitants themselves are generally animated by a strong conservative feel-
ing. In London an entire street might be removed with far less of publio
discussion than would attend the taking down of an old decayed sign in one
of these provincial cities. Does the reader remember an article in Punch,
about two years ago, entitled " Asses in Canterbury ?" It was in ridicule of
the Canterbury Commissioners of Pavement, who had held grave delibera-
tions on the well-known sign of Sir John Falstaff, hanging from the front
of the hotel of that name,—a house which has been open for public enter-
tainment these three hundred years. The knight with sword and buckler
(from " Henry the Fourth,") was suspended from some ornamental iron-
work, far above the pavement, in the open thoroughfare leading to the
famous Westgate, and formed one of the most noticeable objects in this
part of Canterbury. In 1787, when the general order was issued for the
removal of all the signs in the city—many of them obstructed the thor-
oughfares— this was looked upon with so much veneration that it was
allowed to remain until 1863, when for no apparent reason it was sen-
tenced to destruction. However, it was only with the greatest difficulty
that men could be found to pull it down, and then several cans of beer
bad first to be distributed amongst them as an incentive to action—in so
great veneration was the old sign held even by the lower orders of the
place. Eight pounds were paid for this destruction, which, for fear of a
riot, was effected at three in the morning, "amid the groans and hisses of the
assembled multitude," says a local paper. Previous to the demolition the
greatest excitement had existed in the place; the newspapers were filled
with articles; a petition with 400 signatures—including an M.P., the pre-
bends, minor canons, and clergy of the cathedral—prayed the local "com-
missioners " that the sign might be spared; and the whole community was
in an uproar. No sooner was the old portrait of Sir John removed than
another was put up ; but this representing the knight as seated, and with
a can of ale by his side, however much it may suit the modern publican's
notion of military ardour, does not please the owner Of the property, and a
facsimile of the time-honoured original is in course of preparation.

Concerning the internal arrangement of the following work, a few ex-
planations seem necessary.

Where a street is mentioned without the town being specified, it in all
cases refers to a London thoroughfare.

The trades tokens so frequently referred to, it will be scarcely neces
sary to state, were the brass farthings issued by shop or tavern keepers,
and generally adorned with a representation of the sign of the house.
Nearly all the tokens alluded to belong to the latter part of the seventeenth
century, mostly to the reign of Charles II.

As the work has been two years in the press, the passing events
mentioned in the earlier sheets refer to the year 1864.

In a few instances it was found impossible to ascertain whether certain
signs spoken of as existing really do exist, or whether those mentioned
as things of the past are in reality so. The wide distances at which they
are situated prevented personal examination in every case, and local his-
tories fail to give such small particulars.

The rude unattractive woodcuts inserted in the work are in most
instances facsimiles, which have been chosen aà genuine examples of the
style in which the various old signs were represented. The blame of the
coarse and primitive execution, therefore, rests entirely with the ancient
artist, whether sign painter or engraver.

Translations of the various quotations from foreign languages have been
added for the following reasons :— It was necessary to translate the nume-
rous quotations from the Dutch signboards ; Latin was Englished for the
benefit of the ladies, and Italian and French extracts were Anglicised to
correspond with rest.

Errors, both of fact and opinion, may doubtless be discovered in the
book. If, however, the compilers have erred in a statement or an explana-
tion, they do not wish to remain in the dark, and any light thrown upon
a doubtful passage will be acknowledged by them with thanks. Numerous
local signs—famous in their own neighbourhood—will have been omitted,
(generally, however, for the reasons mentioned on a preceding page,) whilst
many curious anecdotes and particulars concerning their history may be
within the knowledge of provincial readers. For any information of this
kind the compilers will be much obliged ; and should their work ever pass
to a second edition, they hope to avail themselves of such friendly contri-
butions.

bonnell thornton's signboard exhibition,
INDEX of all the signs mentioned in the work,

In the cities of the East all trades are confined to certain streets,
or to certain rows in the various bazars and wekalehs. Jewel-
lers, silk-embroiderers, pipe-dealers, traders in drugs,—each of
these classes has its own quarter, where, in little open shops, the
merchants sit enthroned upon a kind of low counter, enjoying
their pipes and their coffee with the otium cum dignitate char-
acteristic of the Mussulman. The purchaser knows the row to go
to ; sees at a glance what each shop contains ; and, if he be an
habitue, will know the face of each particular shopkeeper, so that,
under these circumstances, signboards would be of no use.

With the ancient Egyptians it was much the same. As a rule,
no picture or description affixed to the shop announced the trade
of the owner ; the goods exposed for sale were thought sufficient
to attract attention. Occasionally, however, there were inscrip-
tions denoting the trade, with the emblem which indicated it ;*
whence we may assume that this ancient nation was the first to
appreciate the benefit that might be derived from signboards.

What we know of the Greek signs is very meagre and indefi-
nite. Aristophanes, Lucian, and other writers, make frequent
allusions, which seem to prove that signboards were in use with
the Greeks. Thus Aristotle says : wansg iiri rain Kctnrfklwv yecupé-
usvoij /aixço! jjjiv eioi, puivovrai be £%ovriç KAurîj xa,! And

Athenseus : in wçorsçoTç ôrjxf] ôiôa<rx.a\/9But what their signs
were, and whether carved, painted, or the natural object, is en-
tirely unknown.

With the Romans only we begin to have distinct data. In the
Eternal City, some streets, as in our mediaeval towns, derived their
names from signs. Such, for instance, was the vicus Ursi Pileati,
(the street of " The Bear with the Hat on,") in the Esquilise.
The nature of their signs, also, is well known. The Bush, their
tavern-sign, gave rise to the proverb, "Vino vendibili suspensa
hedera non opus est and hence we derive our sign of the Bush,

* Sir Gardiner Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, voL iii. p. 158. Also, RoBellinl
Monumenti dell' Egitto e della Nubia.

t Aristotle, l'roblematum x. 14: "As with the things drawn above the shops, which,
though they are small, appear to have breadth and depth."

and our proverb, "Good Wine needs no Busli." An ansa, or handle
of a pitcher, was the sign of their post-houses, (stathmoi or
allagcc,) and hence these establishments were afterwards denomi-
nated ansae* That they also had painted signs, or exterior deco-
rations which served their purpose, is clearly evident from various
authors:—

" Quum victi Mures Mustelarum exercitu
(Historia quorum in tabernis pingitur.)" +

These Roman street pictures were occasionally no mean works
of art, as we may learn from a passage in Horace :—

" Contento poplite miror
Proelia, rubrico picta aut carbone; velut si
Re vera pugnent, feriant vitentque moventes
Arma viri." +

"Jam ostendamcujus modi sis : quum ille 'ostende quseso' demonstravi
digito pictum Galium in Mariano scuto Cimbrico, sub Novis, distortum
ejecta linguS,, buccis fluentibus, risus est commotus."§

Pliny, after saying that Lucius Mummius was the first in Rome
who affixed a picture to the outside of a house, continues :—

" Deinde video et in foro positas vulgo. Hine enim Crassi oratoris lepos,
[here follows the anecdote of the Cock of Marius the Cimberiau] ... In
foro fuit et ilia pastoris senis cum baculo, de qua Teutonorum legatus re*
spondit, interrogatus quanti eum sestimaret, sibi donari nolle talem vivum
verumque." II

Fabius also, according to some, relates the story of the cock,
and his explanation is cited:—"Taberna autem erant circa Forum,
ac scutum illud signi gratia positum." IT

t "When the mice were conquered by the army of the weasels, (a stoi-y which we see
painted on the taverns.)"

t Lib. ii. sat. vii. : "I admire the position of the men that are fighting, painted in
red or in black, as if they were really alive; striking and avoiding each other's weapons,
as if they were actually moving."

J De Oratore, lib, ii. ch. 71: "Now I shall shew you how you are, to which he answered,
' l)o, please.' Then I pointed with my finger towards the Cock painted on the signboard
of Marius the Cimberiau, on the New Jorum, distorted, with his tongue out and hanging
cheeks. Everybody began to laugh."

|| Hist. Nat., xxxv. ch. 8 : "After this I find that they were also commonly placed on
the Forum, Hence that joke of Crassus, the orator. ... On the Forum was also that
of an old shepherd with a staff, concerning which a German legate, being asked at how
much he valued it, answered that he would not care to have such a man given to him as
a present, even if he were real and alive."

■[ "There were, namely, taverns round about the Forum, and that picture [the Cock]
had been put up as a sign."

signs themselves, as they have come down to us amongst the ruins
of Herculaneum and Pompeii A few were painted; but, as a
rule, they appear to have been made of stone, or terra-cotta
relievo, and let into the pilasters at the side of the open shop-
fronts. Thus there have been found a goat, the sign of a dairy ;
a mule driving a mill, the sign of a baker, (plate 1.) At the door
of a schoolmaster was the not very tempting sign of a boy re-
ceiving a good birching. Very similar to our Two Jolly Brewers,
carrying a tun slung on a long pole, a Pompeian public-house
keeper had two slaves represented above his door, carrying an am-
phora ; and another wine-merchant had a painting of Bacchus
pressing a bunch of grapes. At a perfumer's shop, in the street of
Mercury, were represented various items of that profession—viz..
four men carrying a box with vases of perfume, men occupied in
laying out and perfuming a corpse, &c. There was also a sign
similar to the one mentioned by Horace, the Two Gladiators,
under which, in the usual Pompeian cacography, was the follow-
ing imprecation :—Abiat Venerem Pompeiianama iradam qui
hoc LjESERIT, i.e., Iiabeat Venerem Pompeianam iratam, <fcc.
Besides these there were the signs of the Anchor, the Ship, (perhaps
a ship-chandler's,) a sort of a Cross, the Chequers, the Phallus on
a baker's shop, with the words, Hie habitat felicitas'; whilst
in Herculaneum there was a very cleverly painted Amorino, or
Cupid, carrying a pair of ladies' shoes, one on his head and the
other in his hand.

It is also probable that, at a later period at all events, the va-
rious artificers of Rome had their tools as the sign of their house,
to indicate their profession. We find that they sculptured them
on their tombs in the catacombs, and may safely conclude that
they would do the same 011 their houses in the land of the living.
Thus on the tomb of Diogenes, the grave-digger, there is a pick-
axe and a lamp ; Bauto and Maxima have the tools of carpenters,
a saw, an adze, and a chisel; Yeneria, a tire-woman, has a mirror
and a comb :—then there are others who have Avool-combers' im-
plements ; a physician, who has a cupping-glass; a poulterer, a
case of poultry; a surveyor, a measuring rule; a baker, a bushel,
a millstone, and ears of corn ; in fact, almost every trade had its
symbolic implements. Even that cockney custom of punning 011
the name, so common 011 signboards, finds its precedent in those
mansions of the dead. Owing to this fancy, the grave of Dracon-
tius bore a dragon; Onager, a wild ass; Umbricius, a shady

tree ; Leo, a lion; Doleus, father and son, two casks; Herbacia,
two baskets of herbs; and. Porcula, a pig. JSTow it seems most
probable that, since these emblems were used to indicate where a
baker, a carpenter, or a tire-woman was buried, they would adopt
similar symbols above ground, to acquaint the public where a
baker, a carpenter, or a tire-woman lived.

We may thus conclude that our forefathers* adopted the sign-
board from the Romans; and though at first there were certainly
not so many shops as to require a picture for distinction,—as the
open shop-front did not necessitate any emblem to indicate the
trade carried on within,—yet the inns by the road-side, and in the
towns, would undoubtedly have them. There was the Roman
bush of evergreens to indicate the sale of wine ;* and certain de-
vices would doubtless be adopted to attract the attention of the
different classes of wayfarers, as the Cross for the Christian cus-
tomer,t and the Sun or the Moon for the pagan. Then we find
various emblems, or standards, to court respectively the custom
of the Saxon, the Dane, or the Briton. He that desired the pa-
tronage of soldiers might put up some weapon ; or, if he sought
his customers among the more quiet artificers, there were the
various implements of trade with which he could appeal to the
different mechanics that frequented his neighbourhood.

Along with these very simple signs, at a later period, coats of
arms, crests, and badges, would gradually make their appearance
at the doors of shops and inns. The reasons which dictated the
choice of such subjects were various. One of the principal was
this. In the Middle Ages, the houses of the nobility, both in
town and country, when the family was absent, were used as hos-
telries for travellers. The family arms always hung in front of
the house, and the most conspicuous object in those arms gave a
name to the establishment amongst travellers, who, unacquainted
with the mysteries of heraldry, called a lion gules or azure by the
vernacular name of the Red or Blue Lion.% Such coats of arms
gradually became a very popular intimation that there was—

* The Bush certainly must be counted amongst the most ancient and popular of signs.
Traces of its use are notonlyfound among Roman and other old-world remains, butduring
the Middle Ages 're have evidence of its display. Indications of it are to be seen in the
Bayeux tapestry, In that part where a house is set on fire, with the inscription, Hicdomu»
ineenditur, next to which appears a large building, from which projects something very
like a pole and a bush, both at the front and the back of the building.

t In Cajdmon's Metrical Paraphrase of Scripture History, (circa a.d. 1000,) in the
drawings relating to the history of Abraham, there are distinctly represented certain
cruciform ornaments painted on the walls, which might serve the purpose of signs. (Sc.«
unon this subject under "Reliqiods Signs.")

and innkeepers began to adopt them, hanging out red lions and
green dragons as the best way to acquaint the public that they
offered food and shelter.

Still, as long as civilisation was only at a low ebb, the so-called
open-houses few, and competition trifling, signs were of but little
use. A few objects, typical of the trade carried on, would suffice ;
a knife for the cutler, a stocking for the hosier, a hand for the
glover, a pair of scissors for the tailor, a bunch of grapes for the
vintner, fully answered public requirements. But as luxury in-
creased, and the number of houses or shops dealing in the same
article multiplied, something more was wanted. Particular trades
continued to be confined to particular streets ; the desideratum
then was, to give to each shop a name or token by which it might
be mentioned in conversation, so that it could be recommended
und customers sent to it. Reading was still a scarce acquirement;
consequently, to write up the owner's name would have been of
little use. Those that could, advertised their name by a rebus ;
thus, a hare and a bottle stood for Harebottle, and two cocks for
Cox. Others, whose names no rebus could represent, adopted
pictorial objects; and, as the quantity of these augmented, new
subjects were continually required. The animal kingdom was
ransacked, from the mighty elephant to the humble bee, from the
eagle to the sparrow; the vegetable kingdom, from the palm-tree
and cedar to the marigold and daisy ; everything on the earth,
and in the firmament above it, was put under contribution. Por-
traits of the great men of all ages, and views of towns, both
painted with a great deal more of fancy than of truth ; articles of
dress, implements of trades, domestic utensils, things visible and
invisible, ea quoe sunt tamquam ea qua} non sunt, everything was
attempted in order to attract attention and to obtain publicity.
Finally, as all signs in a town were painted by the same small
number of individuals, whose talents and imagination were limited,

Duke of Suffolk, and also of the Dukes of Buckingham, was called the Rose, from that
badge being hung up in front of the house :—

" The Duke being at the Rose, within the parish
Of St Laurence Poultney."—Henry VIII., a. i. s. 2.

" A house in the town of Lewes was formerly known as tne Three Pelicans, the fact
of those birds constituting the arms of Pelham having been lost sight of. Another is
still called The Cats," which is nothing more than "the arms of the Dorset family,
whose supporters are two leopards argent, spotted sable."—Lower, Curios:lies of Her-
zldr>;.

it followed that the same subjects were naturally often repeated,
introducing only a change in the colour for a difference.

Since all the pictorial representations were, then, of much the
same quality, rival tradesmen tried to outvie each other in the
size of their signs, each one striving to obtrude his picture into
public notice by putting it out further in the street than his
neighbour's. The "Liber Albus," compiled in 1419, names this
subject amongst the Inquisitions at the Wardmotes : " Item, if
the ale-stake of any tavern is longer or extends further than ordi-
nary." And in book iii. part iii. p. 389, is said :—■

"Also, it was ordained that, whereas the ale-stakes projecting in front of
taverns in Chepe, and elsewhere in the said city, extend too far over the
King's highways, to the impeding of riders and others, and, by reason of
their excessive weight, to the great deterioration of the houses in which
they are fixed ;—to the end that opportune remedy might be made thereof,
it was by the Mayor and Aldermen granted and ordained, and, upon sum-
mons of all the taverners of the said city, it was enjoined upon them, under
pain of paying forty pence* unto the Chamber of the Guildhall, on every
occasion upon which they should transgress such ordinance, that no one
of them in future should have a stake, bearing either his sign, or leaves, ex-
tending or lying over the King's highway, of greater length than seveD feet
at most, and that this ordinance should begin to take effect at the Feast of
Saint Michael, then next ensuing, always thereafter to be valid and of full
effect."

The booksellers generally had a woodcut of their signs for the
colophon of their books, so that their shops might get known by
the inspection of these cuts. For this reason, Benedict Hector,
one of the early Bolognese printers, gives this advice to the
buyers in his " Justinus et Floras :"—

" Emptor, attende quando vis emere libros formatos in officina mea ex-
cussoria, inspice signum quod in liminari pagina est, ita numquam falleris.
Nam quidam malevoli Impressores libris suis inemendatis et maculosia
apponunt nomen meum ut fiant vendibiliores."+

" Oratum facimus lectorem ut signum inspiciat, nam sunt qui titulum
nomenque Badianum mentiantur et laborem suffurentur."J

Aldus, the great Venetian printer, exposes a similar fraud, and
points out how the pirate had copied the sign also in his colo-
phon ; but, by inadvertency, making a slight alteration :—

* Rather a heavy fine, as the best ale at that time was not to be sold for more than
three-halfpence a gallon.

t " Purchaser, be aware when you wish to buy books issued from my printing-office.
Look at my sign, which is represented on the title-page, and you can never be mistaken,
For some evil-disposed printers have affixed my name to their uncorrected and faulty
works, in order to secure a better sale for them."

} " We beg the reader to notice the sign, for there are men who have adopted the same
Utle, and the name of Badius, and so filch our labour."

" Extremum est ut admoneamus studiosissimum quemque, Florentines
quosdam impressores, cum viderint se diligentiam nostram in castigando et
imprimendo non posse assequi, ad artes confugisse solitas; hoc est Gram-
maticis Institutionibus Aldi in sua officina formatis, notam Delphini
Ancliorre Involuti nostram apposuisse; sed ita egerunt ut quivis mediocriter
versatus in libris impressionis nostrse animadvertit illos impudenter fecisse.
Nam rostrum Delphini in partem sinistram v erg it, cum tamen nostrum in
dexteram totum demittatur." *

No wonder, then, that a sign was considered an heirloom, and
descended from father to son, like the coat of arms of the nobility,
which was the case with the Brazen Serpent, the sign of Reynold
Wolfe, " His trade was continued a good while after his demise
by his wife Joan, who made her will the 1st of July 1574,
whereby she desires to be buried near her husband, in St Faith's
Church, and bequeathed to her son, Robert Wolfe, the cliapel-
house, [their printing-office,] the Brazen Serpent, and all the
prints, letters, furniture," &c.—Dibdin's Typ. Ant., vol. iv. p. 6.

As we observed above, directly signboards were generally
adopted, quaintness became one of the desiderata, and costliness
another. This last could be obtained by the quality of the
picture, but, for two reasons, was not much aimed at—firstly,
because good artists were scarce in those days ; and even had they
obtained a good picture, the ignorant crowd that daily passed
underneath the sign would, in all probability, have thought the
harsh and glaring daub a finer production of art than a Holy
Virgin by Rafaelle himself. The other reason was the instability
of such a work, exposed to sun, wind, rain, frost, and the nightly
attacks of revellers and roisters. Greater care, therefore, was
bestowed upon the ornamentation of the ironwork by which it
was suspended • and this was perfectly in keeping with the taste
of the times, when even the simplest lock or hinges could not be
launched into the world without its scrolls and strapwork.

The signs then were suspended from an iron bar, fixed either
in the wall of the house, or in a post or obelisk standing in front
of it; in both cases the ironwork was shaped and ornamented
with that taste so conspicuous in the metal-work of the Renaissance
period, of which many churches, and other buildings of that

* " Lastly, I must draw the attention of the student to the fact that some Florentine
printers, seeing that they could not equal cur diligence in correcting and printing, have
resorted to their usual artifices. To Aldus's Institutiones Grammatical, printed in their
offices, they have affixed our well-known sign of the Dolphin wound round the Anchor.
But they have so managed, that any person who is in the least acquainted with the hooks
of our production, cannot fail to observe that this is an impudent fraud. For the head
of the Dolphin is turned to the left, whereas that of ours is well known to be turn-id to
Uie right."—I'refacs to Aldus's Livy, 151K

period, still bear witness. In provincial towns and villages, wliere
there was sufficient room in the streets, the sign was generally
suspended from a kind of small triumphal arch, standing out in
the road, partly wood, partly iron, and ornamented with all that
carving, gilding, and colouring could bestow upon it, (see descrip-
tion of White-Hart Inn at Scole.) Some of the designs of this
class of ironwork have come down to us in the works of the old
masters, and are indeed exquisite.

Painted signs then, suspended in the way we have just pointed
out, Ave re more common than those of any other kind ; yet not a
few shops simply suspended at their doors some prominent article
in their trade, which custom has outlived the more elegant sign-
boards, and may be daily witnessed in our streets, where the iron-
monger's frying-pan, or dust-pan, the hardware-dealer's teapot, the
grocer's tea-canister, the shoemaker's last or clog, with the Golden
Boot, and many similar objects, bear witness to this old custom.

Lastly, there was in London another class of houses that had a
peculiar way of placing their signs—viz., the Stews upon the Bank-
side, w^rliich were, by a proclamation of 37 Hen. VIII., " whited
and painted with signs on the front, for a token of the said
houses." Stow enumerates some of these symbols, such as the
Cross-Keys, the Gun, the Castle, the Crane, the Cardinal's Hat,
the Bell, the Swan, Arc.

Still greater variety in the construction of the signs existed in
France; for besides the painted signs in the iron frames, the
shopkeepers in Paris, according to H. Sauvai, (" Antiquités de la
Ville de Paris,") had anciently banners hanging above their doors,
or from their windows, with the sign of the shop painted on
them ; whilst in the sixteenth century carved wooden signs were
very common. These, however, were not suspended, but formed
part of the wooden construction of the house ; some of them were
really chefs-d'œuvres, and as careful in design as a carved cathe-
dral stall Several of them are still remaining in Rouen and
other old towns ; many also have been removed and placed in
various local museums of antiquities. The most general rule,
however, on the Continent, as in England, was to have the painted
signboard suspended across the streets.

An observer of James I.'s time has jotted down the names
of all the inns, taverns, and side streets in the line of road be-
tween Charing Cross and the old Tower of London, which docu-
ment lies now embalmed amongst the Harl. MS., 6850, fol. 31.
In imagination we can walk with him through the metropolis :—

" On the way from Whitehall to Charing Cross we pass : the White
Hart, the Red Lion, the Mairmade, iij. Tuns, Salutation, the Graihound,
the Bell, the Golden Lyon. In sight of Charing Crosse: the Garter, the
Crown, the Bear and Ragged Staffe, the Angel, the King Harry Head.
Then from Charing Cross towards ye cittie : another White Hart, the Eagle
and Child, the Helmet, the Swan, the Bell, King Harry Head, the Flower-de-
luce, Angel, the Holy Lambe, the Bear and Harroe, the Plough, the
Shippe, the Black Bell, another King Harry Head, the Bull Head, the
Golden Bull, ' a sixpenny ordinarye,' another Flower-de-luce, the Red
Lyon, the Horns, the White Hors, the Prince's Arms, Bell Savadge's In, the
S. John the Baptist, the Talbot, the Shipp of War, the S. Dunstan, the
Hercules or the Owld Man Tavern, the Mitar, another iij. Tunnes Inn, and
a iij. Tunnes Tavern, and a Graihound, another Mitar, another King Harry
Head, iij. Tunnes, and the iij. Cranes."

Having walked from Wliitechapel "straight forward to the
Tower," the good citizen got tired, and so we hear no more of
him.

I11 the next reign we find the following enumerated by Taylor
the water-poet, hi one of his facetious pamphlets :—5 Angels, 4
Anchors, 6 Bells, 5 Bullslieads, 4 Black Bulls, 4 Bears, 5 Bears and
Dolphins, 10 Castles, 4 Crosses, (red or white,) 7 Three Crowns,
7 Green Dragons, 6 Dogs, 5 Fountains, 3 Fleeces, 8 Globes, 5
Greyhounds, 9 White Harts, 4 White Horses, 5 Harrows, 20
King's Heads, 7 King's Arms, 1 Queen's Head, 8 Golden Lyons,
C Bed Lyons, 7 Halfmoons, 10 Mitres, 33 Maidenheads, 10
Mermaids, 2 Mouths, 8 Nagsheads, 8 Prince's Arms, 4 Pope's
Heads, 13 Suns, 8 Stars, &c. Besides these he mentions an
Adam and Eve, an Antwerp Tavern, a Cat, a Christopher, a
Cooper's Hoop, a Goat, a Garter, a Hart's Horn, a Mitre, Arc.
These were all taverns in London ; and it will be observed that
their signs were very similar to those seen at the present day—
a remark applicable to the taverns not only of England, but of
Europe generally, at this period. In another work Taylor gives
us the signs of the taverns⁴⁵' and alehouses in ten shires and
counties about London, all similar to those Ave have just enumer-
ated ; but amongst the number, it may be noted, there is not
one combination of two objects, except the Eagle and Child, and
the Bear and Bagged Staff. In a black-letter tract entitled
" Newes from Bartholomew Fayre," the following are named :—

" There has been great sale and utterance of Wine,
Besides Beer, Ale, and Hippocrass fine,
In every Country, Region, and Nation,
Chiefly at Billingsgate, at the Salutation;

Drunken Barnaby, (1634,) in his travels, called at several of the
London taverns, which he has recorded in his vinous flights :—
" Country left I in a fury,
To the Axe in Aldermanbury
First arrived, that place slighted,
I at the Rose in Holborn lighted.
From the Rose in Flaggons sail I
To the Griffin i' th' Old Bailey,
Where no sooner do I waken,
Than to Three Cranes I am taken,

Yea, my merry mates and I, too,
Oft the Cardinal's Hat do fly to.
There at Hart's Horns we carouse," &c.

Already, in very early times, publicans were compelled by law
to have a sign; for we find that in the 16 Richard II., (1393,)
Florence North, a brewer of Chelsea, was " presented" " for not
putting up the usual sign."* In Cambridge the regulations were
equally severe; by an Act of Parliament, 9 Henry VI., it was
enacted : " Quicunq ; de villa Cantebrigg ' braciaverit ad vendend'
exponat signum suum, alioquin omittat cervisiam."—Rolls oj
Parliament, vol. v. fol. 426 a.+ But with the other trades it
was always optional. Hence Charles I., on his accession to the
throne, gave the inhabitants of London a charter by which,
amongst other favours, he granted them the right to hang out
signboards:—

" And further, we do give and grant to the said M«yor, and Commonalty,
and Citizens of the said city, and their successors, that it may and shall be
lawful to the Citizens of the same city and any of them, for the time
being, to expose and hang in and over the streets, and ways, and alleys of
the said city and suburbs of the same, signs, and posts of signs, affixed to
their houses and shops, for the better finding out such citizens' dwellings,

* " The original court roll of this presentation is still to be found amongst the records
of the Deitn and Chapter of Westminster."—Lyson's Env. of London, vol. iii. p. 74»

t "Whosoever shall brew ale in the town of Cambridge, with intention of selling it,
must hang out a sign, otherwise he shall forfeit his ale."

shops, arts, or occupations, without impediment, molestation, or interrup-
tion of his heirs or successors."

In France, the innkeepers were under the same regulations as
in England ; for there also, by the edict of Moulins, in 1567, all
innkeepers were ordered to acquaint the magistrates with their
name and address, and their " affectes et enseignes ; " and Henri
III., by an edict of March 1577, ordered that all innkeepers
should place a sign on the most conspicuous part of their houses,
" aux lieux les plus apparents ;" so that everybody, even those
that could not read, should be aware of their profession. Louis
XIV., by an ordnance of 1693, again ordered signs to be put up,
and also the price of the articles they were entitled to sell:—

" Art. XXIII.—Taverniers metront enseignes et bouclions. . . . Nul
ne pourra tenir taverne en cette dite ville et faubourgs, sans mettre enseigne
et bouchon." *

Hence, the taking away of a publican's licence was accompanied
by the taking away of his sign :—

" For this gross fault I here do damn thy licence,
Forbidding thee ever to tap or draw ;
For instantly I will in mine own person,
Command the constables to pull down tliy sign."

At the time of the great Civil War, house-signs played no in-
considerable part in the changes and convulsions of the state, and
took a prominent place in the politics of the day. We may cite
an earlier example, where a sign was made a matter of high
treason—namely, in the case of that unfortunate fellow in Cheap-
side, who, in the reign of Edward IV., kept the sign of the
Crown, and lost his head for saying he would " make his son
heir to the Crown." But more general examples are to be met
with in the history of the Commonwealth troubles. At the death
of Charles I., John Taylor the water-poet, a Royalist to the back-
bone, boldly shewed his opinion of that act, by taking as a sign
for his alehouse in Phcenix Alley, Long Acre, the Mourning
Crown; but he was soon compelled to take it down. Richard
Flecknoe, in his "Enigmatical Characters," (1665,) tells us how
many of the severe Puritans were shocked at anything smelling of
Popery:—" As for the signs, they have pretty well begun their
reformation already, changing the sign of the Salutation of Our
Lady into the Souldier and Citizen, and the Catherine Wheel

* " Art- XXIII.—Tavernkeepers must put up signboards and a bush. . . . Nobody
^be allowed to open a taTsrn in the said city and its suburbs without having a sigu
and a bush,"

into tlie Cat and Wheel; sucli ridiculous work they make of this
reformation, and so jealous they are against all mirth and jollity,
as they would pluck down the Cat and Fiddle too, if it durst but
play so loud as they might hear it." No doubt they invented
very godly signs, but these have not come down to us.

At that time, also, a fashion prevailed which continued, indeed,
as long as the signboard was an important institution—of using
house-signs to typify political ideas. Imaginary signs, as a part
of secret imprints, conveying most unmistakably the sentiments
of the book, Ave re often used in the old days of political plots and
violent lampoons. Instance the following :—

" Vox Borealis, or a Nor theme Discoverie, by Way of Dialogue, between
Jamie and Willie. Amidst the Babylonians—printed by Margery Marpre-
late, in Thwack Coat Lane, at the sign of the Crab-Tree Cudgell, without
any privilege of the Catercaps. 1641."

" Articles of High Treason made and enacted by the late Halfquarter
usurping Convention, and now presented to the publick view for a general
satisfaction of all true Englishmen. Imprinted for Erasmus Thorogood,
and to be sold at the signe of the Roasted Rump. 1659."

" A Catalogue of Books of the Newest Fashion, to be sold by auction
at the Whigs' Coffeehouse, at the sign of the Jackanapes in Prating Alley,
near the Deanery of Saint Paul's."

" The Censure of the Rota upon Mr Milton's book, entitled ' The
Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth,' &c. Printed at
London by Paul Giddy, Printer to the Rota, at the sign of the Windmill,
in Turn-again Lane. 1660."

Caiaphas the High Priest, with sixty original toasts, drank by the Ladies
at tlieir last Assembly, with Love-letters added. London : Printed for
John Pro Patria, at the sign of Vivat Rex. 1754."

" Chivalry no Trifle, or the Knight and his Lady : a Tale. To which
is added the Hue and Cry after Touzer and Spitfire, the Lady's two lap-
dogs. Dublin : Printed at the sign of Sir Tady's Press, etc. 1754."

" An Address from the Influential Electors of the County and City of
Galway, with a Collection of CO Original Patriot Toasts and 48 Munster
Toasts, with Intelligence from the Kingdom of Eutopia. Printed at the
sign of the Pirate's Sword in the Captain's Scabbard. London, 1754."

In the newspapers of the eighteenth century, Ave find that
signs w^rere constantly used as emblems of, or as sharp hits at, the
politics of the day ; thus, in the Weekly Journal for August 17,
1718, allusions are made to the sign of the Salutation, in NeAv-
gate Street, by the opposition party, to which the Original

IVf.elcly Journal, the week after, retaliates by a description and
explanation of an indelicate sign said to be in King Street, West-
minster. In 1763, the following pasquinade went the round of
the newspapers, said to have been sent over from Holland :—

Des Princes de l'Empire,
Au Roitelet, près de l'Hôpital des Incurables, rue des Charlatans.

On the morning of September 28, 1736, all the tavern-signs in
London were in deep mourning; and no wonder, their dearly
beloved patron and friend Gin was defunct,—killed by the new Act
against spirituous liquors ! But they soon dropped their mourn-
ing, for Gin had only been in a lethargic fit, and woke up much
refreshed by his sleep. Fifteen years after, when Hogarth painted
his " Gin Lane," royal gin was to be had cheap enough, if we
may believe the signboard in that picture, which informs us that
" gentlemen and others" could get " drunk for a penny," and
" dead drunk for twopence," in which last emergency, " clean
straw for nothing " was provided.

Of the signs which were to be seen in London at the period of
the Restoration,—to return to the subject we were originally con-
sidering,—we find a goodly collection of them in one of the
" Roxburghe Ballads," (vol. i. 212,) entitled :—

The Globe no Captaine will ecorne, _
The Huntsmen will goe to the Grayhouim below,
And some Townes-men to the Home.

The Cookes at the Holly Lambe,
The Drunkerds by noone, to the Man in the Moom,
And the Cuckholdes to the Ramme.

The Roarers will dine at the Lyon,
The Watermen at the Old Swan ;
And Bawdes will to the Negro goe,
And Whores to the Naked Man.

The Marchants unto the Shippe,
The Beggars they must take their way
To the Egge-shell and the Whippe.

The Blackesmith unto the Loclce,
The Butchers unto the Bull will goe,
And the Carmen to Bridewell Clocke.

The Fishmongers unto the Dolphin,
The Barbers to the Cheat Loafe,*
The Turners unto the Ladle will goe,
Where they may merrylie quaffe.

The Shooemakers will to the Boote,
The Welshmen they will take their way,
And dine at the signe of the Gote.

The Drapers at the signe of the Brush,
The Fletchers to Robin Hood will goe,
And the Spendthrift to Begger's Bush.

The Coopers will dine at the Hoope,
The Coblers to the Last will goe,
And the Bargemen to the Sloope.

The Porters take pain at the Labour in Vaine,
And the Horse-Courser to the White Nagge.

Tel on and tride then up Holborne they ride,
And they there end at the Gallowes."

Thomas Heywood introduced a similar song in his " Rape of
Lucrece." This, the first of the kind we have met with, is in all
probability the original, unless the ballad be a reprint from an
older one ; but the term Puritan used in it, seems to fix its data
to the seventeenth century.

" milE Gintry to the Kings Head,
JL The Nobles to the Crown,
The Knights unto ⁺he Golden Fleece,
And to the Plougn, the Clowne.

The Huntsmen to the White Ilart,
To the Ship the Merchants goe,
But you that doe the Muses love,
The sign called Iiiver Po.

The Fool to the Fortune hie,
Unto the Mouth the Oyster-wife,
The Fiddler to the Pie.

The Drunkard to the Vine,
The Begger to the Bush, there meet,
And with Duke Humphrey dine." t

After the great fire of 1666, many of the houses that were re-
built, instead of the former wooden signboards projecting in the
streets, adopted signs carved in stone, and generally painted or
gilt, let into the front of the house, beneath the first floor win-
dows. Many of these signs are still to be seen, and will be
noticed in their respective places. But in those streets not
visited by the fire, things continued on the old footing, each shop-
keeper being fired with a noble ambition to project his sign a few
inches farther than his neighbour. The consequence was that,
what with the narrow streets, the penthouses, and the signboards,
the air and light of the heavens were well-nigh intercepted from
the luckless wayfarers through the streets of London. We can
picture to ourselves the unfortunate plumed, feathered, silken gal-
lant of the period walking, in his low shoes and silk stockings,
through the ill-paved dirty streets, on a stormy November day,
when the honours were equally divided between fog, sleet, snow,
and rain, (and no umbrellas, be it remembered,) with flower-pots
blown from the penthouses, spouts sending down shower-baths
from almost every house, and the streaming signs swinging over-
head on their rusty, creaking hinges. Certainly the evil was
great, and demanded that redress which Charles II. gave in the
seventh year of his reign, when a new Act " ordered that in all
the streets no signboard shall hang across, but that the sign shall
be fixed against the balconies, or some convenient part of the side
of the house."

The Parisians, also, were suffering from the same enormities;
everything was of Brobdignagian proportions. " J'ai vu," says an
essayist of the middle of the seventeenth century, " suspendu aux
boutiques des volants de six pieds de hauteur, des perles grosses

* This was in those days a slang term for a mistress,
t i.e. Walk about m St Paul's during the dinner hour.

comme des tonneaux, des plumes qui allaient au troisième étage." *
There, also, the scalpel of the law was at last applied to the evil ;
for, in 1669, a royal order was issued to prohibit these monstrous
signs, and the practice of advancing them too far into the streets,
"which made the thoroughfares close in the daytime, and pre-
vented the lights of the lamps from spreading properly at night."

Still, with all their faults, the signs had some advantages for
the wayfarer ; even their dissonant creaking, according to the old
weather proverb, was not without its use :—

" But when the swinging signs your ears offend
With creaking noise, then rainy floods impend."

This indeed, from the various allusions made to it in the
literature of the last century, was regarded as a very general hint
to the lounger, either to hurry home, or hail a sedan-chair or a
coach. Gay, in his didactic—flâneur—poem, points out another
benefit to be derived from the signboards :—

" If drawn by Bus'ness to a street unknown,
Let the sworn Porter point thee through the town ;
Be sure observe the Signs, for Signs remain
Like faithful Landmarks to the walking Train."

Besides, they offered constant matter of thought, speculation,
and amusement to the curious observer. Even Dean Swift, and
the Lord High Treasurer Harley,

And certainly these productions of the country muse are often
highly amusing. Unfortunately for the compilers of the present
work, they have never been collected and preserved ; although
they would form a not unimportant and characteristic contribution
to our popular literature. Our Dutch neighbours have paid more
attention to this subject, and a great number of their signboard
inscriptions were, towards the close of the seventeenth century,
gathered in a curious little 12mo volume,+ to which we shall often
refer. Nay, so much attention was devoted to this branch of
literature in that country, that a certain H. van den Berg, in
1693, wrote a little volume,} which he entitled a "Banquet,"
giving verses adapted for all manner of shops and signboards ;

" I have seen, hanging from the shops, shuttlecocks six feet high, pearls as largo
as a hogshead, and feathers reaching up to the third story."

.J, , luige en ernstige opschriften op Luiffels, wagens, glazen, uithangbrrden en
anuere talereelen door Jeroen Jeroense. Amsterdam, 1682."

so that a shopkeeper at a loss for an inscription had only to open
the book and make his selection ] for there were rhymes in it
both serious and jocular, suitable to everybody's taste. The
majority of the Dutch signboard inscriptions of that day seem
to have been eminently characteristic of the spirit of the nation.
No such inscriptions could be brought before "a discerning
public," without the patronage of some holy man mentioned in
the Scriptures, whose name was to stand there for no other pur-
pose than to give the Dutch poet an opportunity of making a
jingling rhyme ; thus, for instance,—

Hier slypt men allerhande Barbiers gereedschappen, ook voor
vischwyven en slagers."¹

In the beginning of the eighteenth century, we find the
following signs named, which puzzled a person of an inquisitive
turn of mind, who wrote to the British Apollo,% (the meagre
Notes and Queries of those days,) in the hope of eliciting an ex-
planation of their quaint combination:—

" I 'in amazed at the Signs
As I pass through the Town,
To see the odd mixture :
A Magpie and Crown,
The Whale and the Crow,
The Razor and Hen,
The Leg and Seven Stars,
The Axe and the Bottle,
The Tun and the Lute,
The Eagle and Child,
The Shovel and Boot."

All these signs are also named by Tom Brown : §—¹¹ The first
amusements we encountered were the variety and contradictory
language of the signs, enough to persuade a man there were no
rules of concord among the citizens. Here we saw Joseph's Dream,
the Bull and Mouth, the Whale and Crow, the Shovel and Boot,
the Leg and Star, the Bible and Swan, the Frying-pan and Drum,

All sorts of barbers' tools ground here, also fishwives' and butchers' knives."
t "Moses was plck'd up among the rushes.

Teeth and grinders drawn here."
t The British Apolln, 1710, vol. iii. p. 34.
( Amusements for the Meridian of London, 1708, p. 72.

the Lute and Tun, the Hog in Armour, and a thousand others
that the wise men that put them there can give no reason for."

From this enumeration, we see that a century had worked
great changes in the signs. Those of the beginning of the
seventeenth century were all simple, and had no combinations.
But now we meet very heterogeneous objects joined together.
Various reasons can be found to account for this. First, it must
be borne in mind that most of the London signs had no inscrip-
tion to tell the public "this is a lion," or, "this is a bear;"
hence the vulgar could easily make mistakes, and call an object
by a wrong name, which might give rise to an absurd combination,
as in the case of the Leg and Star; which, perhaps, was nothing
else but the two insignia of the order of the Garter ; the garter
being represented in its natural place, on the leg, and the star of
the order beside it. Secondly, the name might be corrupted
through faulty pronunciation; and when the sign was to ba
repainted, or imitated in another street, those objects would
be represented by which it was best known. Thus the Shovel
and Boot might have been a corruption of the Shovel and Boat,
since the Shovel and Ship is still a very common sign in places
where grain is carried by canal boats; whilst the Bull and Mouth
is said to be a corruption of the Boulogne Mouth—the Mouth
of Boulogne Harbour. Finally, whimsical shopkeepers would
frequently aim at the most odd combination they could imagine,
for no other reason but to attract attention. Taking these
premises into consideration, some of the signs which so puzzled
Tom Brown might be easily accounted for; the Axe and Bottle,
in this way, might have been a corruption of the Battle-axe.
The Bible and Swan, a sign in honour of Luther, who is generally
represented by the symbol of a swan, a figure of which many
Lutheran Churches have on their steeple instead of a weather-
cock ; whilst the Lute and Tun was clearly a pun on the name
of Luton, similar to the Bolt and Tun of Prior Bolton, who
adopted this device as his rebus.

Other causes of combinations, and many very amusing and
instructive remarks about signs, are given in the following from
the Spectator, No. 28, April 2, 1710:—

" There is nothing like sound literature and good sense to be
met with in those objects, that are everywhere thrusting them-
selves out to the eye and endeavouring to become visible. Our
streets are filled with blue boars, black sivans, and red lions, not

to mention flying-figs and hogs in armour, with many creatures
more extraordinary than any in the deserts of Africa. Strange
that one, who has all the birds and beasts in nature to choose out
of, should live at the sign of an ens rationis.

" My first task, therefore, should be like that of Hercules, to
clear the city from monsters. In the second place, I should
forbid that creatures of jarring and incongruous natures should
be joined together in the same sign : such as the Bell and the
Neat's Tongue, the Dog■ and the Gridiron. The Fox and the
Goose may be supposed to have met, but what has the Fox and
the Seven Stars to do together 1 And when did the Lamb and
Dolphin ever meet except upon a signpost 1 As for the Gat and
Fiddle, there is a conceit in it, and therefore I do not intend
that anything I have here said should affect it. I must, however,
observe to you upon this subject, that it is usual for a young
tradesman, at his first setting up, to add to his own sign that
of the master whom he served, as the husband, after maniage,
gives a place to Ms mistress's arms in his own coat. This I take
to have given rise to many of those absurdities which are com-
mitted over our heads; and, as I am informed, first occasioned
the Three Nuns and a Hare, which we see so frequently joined
together. I would therefore establish certain rules for the deter-
mining how far one tradesman may give the sign of another, and
in what case he may be allowed to quarter it with his own.

" In the third place, I would enjoin every shop to make use
of a sign which bears some affinity to the wares in which it deals.
What can be more inconsistent than to see a bawd at the sign
of the Angel, or a tailor at the Lion ? A cook should not live at
the Boot, nor a shoemaker at the Boasted Pig; and yet, for
want of this regulation, I have seen a Goat set up before the
door of a perfumer, and the French King's Head at a sword-
cutler's.

" An ingenious foreigner observes that several of those gentle-
men who value themselves upon their families, and overlook
3uch as are bred to trades, bear the tools of their forefathers in
their coats of arms. I will not examine how true this is in fact;
but though it may not be necessary for posterity thus to set up
the sign of their forefathers, I think it highly proper that those
who actually profess the trade should shew some such mark of it
before their doors.

I would likewise advise the owner to take that opportunity of let-
ting the world know who he is. It would have been ridiculous
for the ingenious Mrs Salmon to have lived at the sign of the trout,
for which reason she has erected before her house the figure of the
fish that is her namesake. Mr Bell has likewise distinguished
himself by a device of the same nature. And here, sir, I must
beg leave to observe to you, that this particular figure of a Bell
has given occasion to several pieces of wit in this head. A man
of your reading must know that Abel Drugger gained great
applause by it in the time of Ben Jonson. Our Apocryphal
heathen god is also represented by this figure, which, in conjunc-
tion with the Dragon,¹ makes a very handsome picture in several
of our streets. As for the Bell Savage, which is the sign of a
savage man standing by a bell, I was formerly very much
puzzled upon the conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the
reading of an old romance translated out of the French, which
gives an account of a very beautiful woman, who was found in a
wilderness, and is called la Belle Sauvage, and is everywhere
translated by our countrymen the Bell Savage.\ This piece of
philology will, I hope, convince you that I have made signposts
my study, and consequently qualified myself for the employment
which I solicit at your hands. But before I conclude my letter,
I must communicate to you another remark which I have made
upon the subject with which I am now entertaining you—
namely, that I can give a shrewd guess at the humour of the
inhabitant by the sign that hangs before his door. A surly,
choleric fellow generally makes choice of a Bear, as men of
milder dispositions frequently live at the Lamb. Seeing a Punch-
bowl painted upon a sign near Charing Cross, and very curiously
garnished, with a couple of angels hovering over it and squeezing
a lemon into it, I had the curiosity to ask after the master of
the house, and found upon inquiry, as I had guessed by the
little agremens upon his sign, that he was a Frenchman."

Another reason for " quartering " signs was on removing from
one shop to another, when it was customary to add the sign of
the old shop to that of the new one.

WHEREAS Anthony Wilton, who lived at the Green Cross publick-
house against the new Turnpike on New Cross Hill, has been
removed for two years past to the new boarded house now the sign of the

t Addison is wrong in this derivation, (see under Miscellaneous SignSj at the end.)

Green Cross and Kross Keyes on the same hill," &c.—Weekly Journal,
November 22,1718.

J_ the Seven Stars on Ludgate Hill to the Black Lion and Seven
Stars over the way."—Daily Courant, November 17, 1718.
" "DETER BUNCOMBE and Saunders Dancer, who lived at the Naked
JL Boy in Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, removed to the Naked
Boy and Mitre, near Sommerset House, Strand," &c.—Postboy, January
2-4, 1711.

" T) ICHARD MEARES, Musical Instrument maker, is removed from
JLV y' Golden Viol in Leaden Hall Street to y' North side of St Paul's
Churchyard, at y' Golden Viol and Hautboy, where he sells all sorts of
musical instruments," &c.—[Bagford bills.] <■

To increase this complexity still more, came the corruption of
names arising from pronunciation; thus Mr Burn, in his intro-
duction to the " Beaufoy Tokens," mentions the sign of Pique and
Carreau, on a gambling-house at Newport, Isle of Wight, which
was Englished into the Pig and Carrot; again, the same sign at
Godmancliester was still more obliterated into the Pig and
Checkers. The sign of the Island Queen I have frequently heard,
either in jest or in ignorance, called the Iceland Queen. The
editor of the recently-published " Slang Dictionary " remarks that
he has seen the name of the once popular premier, George Can-
ning, metamorphosed on an alehouse-sign into the George and
Cannon; so the Golden Farmer became the Jolly Farmer;
whilst the Four Alls, in Whitechapel, were altered into the Four
Awls. Along with this practice, there is a tendency to translate
a sign into a sort of jocular slang phrase ; thus, in the seventeenth
century, the Blackmoorshead and Woolpack, in Pimlico, was
called the Devil and Bag op Nails by those that frequented
that tavern, and by the last part of that name the house is still
called at the present day. Thus the Elephant and Castle is vul-
garly rendered as the Pig and Tinderbox ; the Bear and Bagged
Staff, the Angel and Flute; the Eagle and Child, the Bird and
Bantling; the Hog in Armour, the Pig in Misery; the Pig in
the Pound, the Gentleman in Trouble, &c.

Some further information, in illustration of the different sign-
boards, is to be obtained from the Adventurer, No. 9, (1752;)—

" It cannot be doubted but that signs were intended originally
to express the several occupations of their owners, and to bear some
affinity in their external designations with the wares to be dis-
posed of, or the business carried on within. Hence the Hand
And Shears is justly appropriated to tailors, and the Hand and

Pen to writing-masters; though the very reverend and right
worthy order of my neighbours, the Fleet-parsons, have assumed
it to themselves as a mark of ' marriages performed without im-
position.' The Woolpack plainly points out to us a woollen
draper; the Naked Boy elegantly reminds us of the necessity of
clothing; and the Golden Fleece figuratively denotes the riches
of our staple commodity; but are not the Hen and Chickens and
the Three Pigeons the unquestionable right of the poulterer, and
not to be usurped by the vender of silk or linen 1

" It would be useless to enumerate the gross blunders committed
in this point by almost every branch of trade. I shall therefore
confine myself chiefly to the numerous fraternity of publicans,
whose extravagance in this affair calls aloud for reprehension and
restraint. Their modest ancestors were contented with a plain
Bough stuck up before their doors, whence arose the wise proverb,
' Good Wine needs no Bush;' but how have they since deviated
from their ancient simplicity! They have ransacked earth, air,
and seas, called down sun, moon, and stars to their assistance,
and exhibited all the monsters that ever teemed from fantastic
imagination. Their Hogs in Armour, their Blue Boars, Black
Bears, Green Dragons, and Golden Lions, have already been suf-
ficiently exposed by your brother essay-writers :—■

' With foamy tusks to seem a bristly boar,
Or imitate the lion's angry roar;
Or kiss a dragon, or a tiger stare.'—Dryden.

It is no wonder that these gentlemen who indulged themselves in
such unwarrantable liberties, should have so little regard to the
choice of signs adapted to their mystery. There can be no ob-
jection made to the Bunch of Grapes, the Bummer, or the Tuns;
but would not any one inquire for a hosier at the Leg, or for a
locksmith at the Cross Keys 1 and who would expect anything
but water to be sold at the Fountain? The Turkshead may
fairly intimate that a seraglio is kept within; the Rose may be
strained to some propriety of meaning, as the business transacted
there may be said to be done ' under the rose;' but why must
the Angel, the Lamb, and the Mitre be the designations of the
seats of drunkenness or prostitution 1

Some regard should likewise be paid by tradesmen to their
situation; or, in other words, to the propriety of the place; and

in this, too, the publicans are notoriously faulty. The King's
Arms, and the Star and Garter, are aptly enough placed at the
■court end of the town, and in the neighbourhood of the royal
palace; Shakespeare's Head takes his station by one playhouse,
and Ben Jonson's by the other; Hell is a public-house adjoining
to Westminster Hall, as the Devil Tavern is to the lawyers' quar-
ter in the Temple : but what has the Crown to do by the 'Change,
or the Gun, the Ship, or the Anchor anywhere but at Tower Hill,
at Wapping, or Deptford 1

" It was certainly from a noble spirit of doing honour to a supe-
rior desert, that our forefathers used to hang out the heads of
those who were particularly eminent in their professions. Hence
we see Galen and Paracelsus exalted before the shops of chemists;
and the great names of Tully, Dryden, and Pope, &c., immortal-
ised 011 the rubric posts* of booksellers, while their heads denom-
inate the learned repositors of their works. But I know not
whence it happens that publicans have claimed a right to the
physiognomies of kings and heroes, as I cannot find out, by the
most painful researches, that there is any alliance between them.
Lebec, as he was an excellent cook, is the fit representative of
luxury; and Broughton, that renowned athletic champion, has an
indisputable right to put up his own head if he pleases ; but what
reason can there be why the glorious Duke William should draw
porter, or the brave Admiral "Vernon retail flip 1 Why must
Queen Anne keep a ginshop, and King Charles inform us of a
skittle-ground? Propriety of character, I think, require that
these illustrious personages should be deposed from their lofty
stations, and I would recommend hereafter that the alderman's
effigy should accompany his Intire Butt Beer, and that the comely
face of that public-spirited patriot who first reduced the price of
punch and raised its reputation Pro Bono Publico, should be set
up wherever three penn'orth of warm rum is to be sold.

"I have been used to consider several signs, for the frequency
of which it is difficult to give any other reason, as so many hiero-
glyphics with a hidden meaning, satirising the follies of the
people, or conveying instruction to the passer-by. I am afraid
that the stale jest on our citizens gave rise to so many Horns in
public streets; and the number of Castles floating with the wind

* From Martial and other Latin poets, we learn that it was usual for the bibliopoles of
those days to advertise new works by affixing copies of the title-pages to a post outside
their shops ; but whether this method obtained in the last century, the history of Patei*
noiter Row does not inform us.

was probably designed as a ridicule on those erected by soaring
projectors. Tumbledown Dick, in the borough of Southwark, is
a fine moral on the instability of greatness, and the consequences
of ambition ; but there is a most ill-natured sarcasm against the
fair sex exhibited on a sign in Broad Street, St Giles's, of a head-
less female figure called the Good Woman.

' Quale portentum neque militaris
Daunia in latis alit esculetis,
Nec JubEe tellus generat, leonum
Arida Nutrix.'—Horace.

¹ No beast of such portentous size
In warlike Daunia's forest lies,
Nor such the tawny lion reigns
Fierce on his native Afric's plains.'—Francis.

" A discerning eye may also discover in many of our signs evi-
dent marks of the religion prevalent amongst us before the Re-
formation. St George, as the tutelary saint of this nation, may
escape the censure of superstition; but St Dunstan, with his
tmigs ready to take hold of Satan's nose, and the legions of
Angels, Nuns, Crosses, and Holy Lambs, certainly had their
origin in the days of Popery.

" Among the many signs which are appropriated to some parti-
cular business, and yet have not the least connexion with it, I
cannot as yet find any relation between blue balls and pawnbrokers.
Nor could I conceive the intent of that long pole putting out at
the entrance of a barber's shop, till a friend of mine, a learned
etymologist and glossariographer, assured me that the use of this
pole took its rise from the corruption of an old English word.
' It is probable,' says he, ' that our primitive tonsors used to
stick up a wooden block or head, or poll, as it was called, before
their shop windows, to denote their occupation; and afterwards,
through a confounding of different things with a like pronuncia-
tion, they put up the parti-coloured staff of enormous length,
which is now called a pole, and appropriated to barbers.' "*

The remarks of the Adventurer have brought us down to the
middle of the eighteenth century, when the necessity for signs
was not so great as formerly. Education was spreading fast, and
reading had become a very general acquirement; vet it would
appear that the exhibitors of signboards wished to make up in
extravagance what they had lost in use. ⁴⁴ Be it known, however,

Tkm Balls of the Pawnbrokers, see under Miscellaneous Signs; for tha
Briber's Pole, under Trades' Signe.

to posterity," says a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, " that
long after signs became unnecessary, it was not unusual for an
opulent shopkeeper to lay out as much upon a sign, and the
curious ironwork with which it was fixed in the house, so as to
project nearly in the middle of the street, as would furnish a less
considerable dealer with a stock in trade. I have been credibly
informed that there were many signs and sign irons upon Ludgate
Hill which cost several hundred pounds, and that as much was
laid out by a mercer on the sign of the Queen's Head, as would
have gone a good way towards decorating the original for a birth-
day." Misson, a French traveller who visited England in 1719,
thus speaks about the signs :—

" By a decree of the police, the signs of Paris must be small, and not too
far advanced from the houses. At London, they are commonly very large,
and jut out so far, that in some narrow streets they touch one another;
nay, and run across almost quite to the other side. They are generally
adorned with carving and gilding; and there are several that, with the
branches of iron which support them, cost above a hundred guineas. They
eeldom write upon the signs the name of the thing represented in it, so
that there is no need of Moliere's inspector. But this does not at all please
the German and other travelling strangers; because, for want of the things
being so named, they have not an opportunity of learning their names in
England, as they stroll along the streets. Out of London, and par-
ticularly in villages, the signs of inns are suspended in the middle of a
great wooden portal, which may be looked upon as a kind of triumphal
arch to the honour of Bacchus."

M. Grosley, another Frenchman, who made a voyage through
England in 1765, makes very similar remarks. As soon as he
landed at Dover, he observes,—

" I saw nothing remarkable, but the enormous size of the public-house
signs, the ridiculous magnificence of the ornaments with which they are
overcharged, the height of a sort of triumphal arches that support them,
and most of which cross the streets," &c. Elsewhere he says, " In fact
nothing can be more inconsistent than the choice and the placing of the
ornaments, with which the signposts and the outside of the shops, of the
citizens are loaded."

But gaudy and richly ornamented as they were, it would seem
that, after all, the pictures were bad, and that the absence of
inscriptions was not to be lamented, for those that existed only
"made fritters of English." The Tatler, No. 18, amused his
readers at the expense of their spelling :—" There is an offence I
have a thousand times lamented, but fear I shall never see
remedied, which is that, in a nation where learning is so frequent
as in Great Britain, there should be so many gross errors as there

are, in the very direction of things wherein accuracy is necessary
for the conduct of life. This is notoriously observed by all men
of letters when they first come to town, (at which time they are
usually curious that way,) in the inscriptions on signposts. I
have cause to know this matter as well as anybody, for I have,
when I went to Merchant Taylor's School, suffered stripes for
spelling after the signs I observed in my way; though at the
same time, I must confess, staring at those inscriptions first gave
me an idea and curiosity for medals, in which I have since arrived
at some knowledge. Many a man has lost his way and his dinner,
by this general want of skill in orthography; for, considering
that the paintings are usually so very bad that you cannot know
the animal under whose sign you are to live that day, how must
the stranger be misled, if it is wrong spelled as well as ill painted¹?
I have a cousin now in town, who has answered under bachelor
at Queen's College, whose name is Humphrey Mopstaff, (he is
akin to us by his mother;) this young man, going to see a
relation in Barbican, wandered a whole day by the mistake of
one letter; for it was written, ¹ This is the Beer,' instead of
' This is the Bear.' He was set right at last by inquiring for
the house of a fellow who could not read, and knew the place
mechanically, only by having been often drunk there. ... I
propose that every tradesman in the city of London and West-
minster shall give me a sixpence a quarter for keeping their
signs in repair as to the grammatical part; and I will take into
my house a Swiss count * of my acquaintance, who can remember
all their names without book, for despatch' sake, setting up the
liead of the said foreigner for my sign, the features being strong
and fit to hang high."

Had the signs murdered only the king's English, it might have
been forgiven; but even the lives of his majesty's subjects were
nut secure from them; for, leaving alone the complaints raised
about their preventing the circulation of fresh air, a more serious
charge was brought against them in 1718, when a sign in Bride's
Lane, Fleet Street, by its weight dragged down the front of the
house, and in its fall killed two young ladies, the king's jeweller,
and a cobbler. A commission of inquiry into the nuisance wag
appointed; but, like most commissions and committees, they
talked a great deal and had some dinners ; in the meantime the

In the year 17G2 considerable attention was directed to sign-
boards by Bonnell Thornton, a clever wag, who, to burlesque the
exhibitions of the Society of Artists, got up an Exhibition of
Signboards. In a preliminary advertisement, and in his pub-
lished catalogue, he described it as the "Exhibition of the
Society of Sign-painters of all the curious signs to be met
with in town or country, together with such original designs as
might be transmitted to them, as specimens of the native genius
of the nation." Hogarth, who understood a joke as well as any
man in England, entered into the spirit of the humour, was on
the hanging committee, and added a few touches to heighten the
absurdity. The whole affair proved a great success.*

This comical exhibition was the greatest glory to which sign-
boards were permitted to attain, as not more than four years
after they had a fall from which they never recovered. Educa-
tion had now so generally spread, that the majority of the people
could read sufficiently well to decipher a name and a number.
The continual exhibition of pictures in the streets and thorough-
fares consequently became useless; the information they con-
veyed could be imparted in a more convenient and simple
manner, whilst their evils could be avoided. The strong feeling
of corporations, too, had set in steadily against signboards, and
henceforth they were doomed.

Paris, this time, set the example : by an act of September 17.
1761, M. de Sartines, Lieutenant de Police, ordered that, in a
month's time from the publication of the act, all signboards in
Paris and its suburbs were to be fixed against the walls of the
houses, and not to project more than four inches, including the
border, frame, or other ornaments ;—also, all the signposts and
sign irons were to be removed from the streets and thoroughfares,
and the passage cleared.

London soon followed : in the Daily News, November 1762,
we find :—" The signs in Duke's Court, St Martin's Lane, were
all taken down and affixed to the front of the houses." Thus
Westminster had the honour to begin the innovation, by pro-
curing an act with ample powers to improve the pavement, &c.,
of the streets; and this act also sealed the doom of the sign-

* For a fall account of the " Exhibition," see in the Supplement at the end of thin
jvork.

boards, which, as in Paris, were ordered to be affixed to the
houses. This was enforced by a statute of 2 Geo. III. c. 21,
enlarged at various times. Other parishes were longer in mak-
ing up their mind ; but the great disparity in the appearance of
the streets westward from Temple Bar, and those eastward, at
last made the Corporation of London follow the example, and
adopt similar improvements. Suitable powers to carry out the
scheme were soon obtained. In the 6 Geo. III. the Court of
Common Council appointed commissions, and in a few months
all the parishes began to clear away : St Botolph in 1767 ; St
Leonard, Shoreditcli, in 1768 ; St Martin's-le-Grand in 1769 ;
and Marylebone in 1770* By these acts—

" The commissioners are empowered to take down and remove all signs
or other emblems used to denote the trade, occupation, or calling of any
person or persons, signposts, signirons, balconies, penthouses, showboards,
spouts, and gutters, projecting into any of the said streets, &c., and all other
encroachments, projections, and annoyances whatsoever, within the said
cities and liberties, and cause the same, or such parts thereof as they think
fit, to be affixed or placed on the fronts of the houses, shops, warehouses, or
buildings to which they belong, and return to the owner so much as shall
not be put up again or otherwise made use of in such alterations; and any
person having, placing, erecting, or building any sign, signpost, or other
post, signirons, balcony, penthouse, obstruction, or annoyance, is subject to
a penalty of £5, and twenty shillings a day for continuing the same." +

With the signboards, of course, went the signposts. The re-
moving of the posts, and paving of the streets with Scotch
granite, gave rise to the following epigram:—

" The Scottish new pavement well deserves our praise ;
To the Scotch we 're obliged, too, for mending our ways;
But this we can never forgive, for they say
As that they have taken our posts all away."

After the signs and posts had been removed, we can imagine
how bleak and empty the streets at first appeared; how silent
in the night-time : what a difficulty there must have been in
finding out the houses and shops; and how everybody, particu-
larly the old people, grumbled about the innovations.

* The last streets that kept them swinging were Wood Street and Whitecross Street,
where they remained till 1773 ; whilst in Holywell Street, Strand, not more than twenty
years ago, some were still dangling above the shop doors. In the suburbs many mar
be observed even at the present day.

—VCustoms, Usages, and Regulations of the City and Port of London. By Alex-
ander Pull,ng. London, 1854.

Under the 72d section of the 57 Geo. III. ch. 29, post. 315, Mr Ballantlne, soma
years ago, decided against a pawnbroker's sign being considered a nuisance, notwith-
standing it projected over the footway, unless it obstructed the circulation oflight and
uir, or was inconvenient or incommodious.

attempt had been made in Paris at numbering sixty-eiglit new
houses, built in that year on the Pont Notre-Dame, which were
all distinguished by 1, 2, 3, 4, &c. ; yet more than two centuries
elapsed before the numerical arrangement was generally adopted.
In 1787 the custom in France had become almost universal,
but was not enforced by police regulations until 1805. In
London it appears to have been attempted in the beginning of
the eighteenth century ; for in Hatton's " New View of London,"
1708, we see that "in Prescott Street, Goodman's Fields, instead
of signs the houses are distinguished by numbers, as the stair-
cases in the Inns of Court and Chancery." In all probability
reading was not sufficiently widespread at that time to bring
this novelty into general practice. Yet how much more simple
is the method of numbering, for giving a clear and unmistakable
direction, may be seen from the means resorted to to indicate a
house under the signboard system ; as for instance :—

" mo be lett, Newbury House, in St James's Park, next door but one to
JL Lady Oxford's, having two balls at the gate, and iron rails before
the door," &c., &e.—Advertisement in the original edition of the Specta-
tor, No. 207.

"at her house, the Red Ball and Acorn, over against the Globs
f\ Tavern, in Queen Street, Cheapside, near the Three Crowns,
liveth a Gentlewoman," &c.

At night the difficulty of finding a house was greatly increased,
for the light of the lamps was so faint that the signs, generally
hung rather high, could scarcely be discerned. Other means,
therefore, were resorted to, as we see from the advertisement of
" Doctor James Tilbrogh, a German Doctor," who resides " over
against the New Exchange in Bedford Street, at the sign of the
Peacock, where you shall see at night two candles burning
within one of the chambers before the balcony, and a lanthorn
with a candle in it upon the balcony." And in that strain all
directions were given : over against, or next door to, were among
the consecrated formulae. Hence many dispensed with a picture of
their own, and clung, like parasites, to the sign opposite or next
door, particularly if it was a shop of some note. Others resorted
to painting their houses, doors, balconies, or doorposts, in some
striking colour; hence those Red, Blue, or White Houses still so
common; hence also the Blue Posts and the Green Posts. So
we find a Dark House in Chequer Alley, Moorfields, a Green
Door in Craven Building, and a Blue Balcony in Little Queen
Street, all of which figure on the seventeenth century trades

tokens.* Those who did much trade by night, as coffee-houses,
quacks, &c., adopted lamps with coloured glasses, by which they
distinguished their houses. This custom has come down to us,
and is still adhered to by doctors, chemists, public-houses, and
occasionally by sweeps.

Yet, though the numbers were now an established fact, tha
shopkeepers still clung to the old traditions, and for years con-
tinued to display their signs, grand, gorgeous, and gigantic as
ever, though affixed to the houses. As late as 1803, a traveller
thus writes about London :—" As it is one of the principal
secrets of the trade to attract the attention of that tide of people
which is constantly ebbing and flowing in the streets, it may
easily be conceived that great pains are taken to give a striking
form to the signs and devices hanging out before their shops.
The whole front of a house is frequently employed for this pur-
pose. Thus, in the vicinity of Ludgate Hill, the house of S-,

who has amassed a fortune of £40,000 by selling razors, is
daubed with large capitals three feet high, acquainting the public
that ' the most excellent and superb patent razors are sold here.'
As soon, therefore, as a shop has acquired some degree of repu-
tation, the younger brethren of the trade copy its device. A
grocer in the city, who had a large Beehive for his sign hanging
out before his shop, had allured a great many customers. No
sooner were the people seen swarming about this hive than
the old signs suddenly disappeared, and Beehives, elegantly gilt,
were substituted in their places. Hence the grocer was obliged
to insert an advertisement in the newspapers, importing ' that
he was the sole proprietor of the original and celebrated Beehive.''

who has a considerable demand for his goods on account of their
cheapness and excellence. The sign of this gentleman consists
in a prodigious Grasshopper, and as this insect had quickly pro-
pagated its species through every part of the city, Mr E-has

111 his advertisements repeatedly requested the public to observe
that ' the genuine Grasshopper is only to be found before his
warehouse.' He has, however, been so successful as to persuade
several young beginners to enter into engagements with him, on
conditions very advantageous to himself, by which they have
obtained a licence for hanging out the sign of a Grasshopper

* Trades tokens were brass farthings issued by shopkeepers in the seventeenth cea-
inry, ana stirvpeC with the sign of the shop and the name of its owner.

before tlieir shops, expressly adding this clause in large capitals,
that ' they are genuine descendants of the renowned and match-
less Grasshopper of Mr E-in Cheapside.'"*

Such practices as these, however, necessarily gave the deathblow
to signboards ; for, by reason of this imitation on the part of rival
shopkeepers, the main object—distinction and notoriety—was
lost. How was a stranger to know which of those innumerable
Beehives in the Strand was the Beehive ; or which of all those
" genuine Grasshoppers" was the genuine one 1 So, gradually,
the signs began to dwindle away, first in the principal streets,
then in the smaller thoroughfares and the suburbs; finally, in
the provincial towns also. The publicans only retained them,
and even they in the end were satisfied Avith the name without
the sign, vox et prceterea nihil.

In the seventeenth century signs had been sung in sprightly
ballads, and often given the groundwork for a biting satire.
They continued to inspire the popular Muse until the end, but
her latter productions were more like a wail than a ballad.
There is certainly a rollicking air of gladness about the following
song, but it was the last flicker of the lamp :—

At each inn on the road I a welcome could find :—
At the Fleece I'd my skin full of ale ;

The Two Jolly Brewers were just to my mind ;
At the Dolphin I drank like a whale.

Tom Tun at the Hogshead sold pretty good stuff;
They'd capital flip at the Boar ;

Then I'd always a sweetheart so snug at the Car ;
At the Rose I'd a lily so white;

I've had many a hug at the sign of the Bear ;
In the Sun courted morning and noon;

And when night put an end to my happiness there,-
I'd a sweet little girl in the Moon.

Hand-in-hand the Good Woman I look for in you,
And the Horns I hope ne'er will be mine.

Once guard to the mail, I'm now guard to the fair;
But though my commission's laid down,

Tet while the King's Arms I'm permitted to bear,
Like a Lion I '11 fight for the Crown."
• Memorials of Nature and Art collected on a Journey in Great Britain during thf
tears 1802 and 1803. By C. A. Q. Goede. London, 1808. Vol. i. p. 68.

This was written in the beginning of the century, when eighteen,
hundred was still in her teens. A considerable falling off may be
observed in the following, contributed by a correspondent of
William Hone :—

" SIGNS OF LOVE AT OXFORD.
By an Inn-consolable Lover.
She's as light as The Greyhound, as fair as The Angel,
Her looks than The Mitre more sanctified are;
But she flies like The Roebuck, and leaves me to range ill,
Still looking to her as my true polar Star.
New /wn-ventions I try, with new art to adore,
But my fate is, alas, to be voted a Boar j
My Goats I forsook to contemplate her charms,
And must own she is fit for our noble King's Arms;
Now Cross'd, and now Jockey'd, now sad, now elate,
The Checquers appear but a map of my fate;
I blush'd like a Blue Cur, to send her a Pheasant,
But she call'd me a Turk, and rejected my present;
So I moped to The Barley Mow, grieved in my mind,
That The Ark from the Flood ever rescued mankind!
In my dreams Lions roar, and The Green Dragon grins,
And fiends rise in shape of The Seven Deadly Sins,
When I ogle The Bells, should I see her approach,
I skip like a Nag and jump into The Coach.
She is crimson and white like a Shoidder of Mutton,
Not the red of The Ox was so bright when first put on;
Like The Holly-bush prickles she scratches my liver,
While I moan and die like a Swan by the river."

But tame as this last performance is, it is " merry as a brass
band" when compared with a ballad sung in the streets some
twenty years later, entitled, " Laughable and Interesting Picture
of Drunkenness." Speaking of the publicans, who call them-
selves " Lords," it says :—

" If these be the Lords, there are many kinds,
For over their doors you will see many signs;
^ There is The King, and likewise The Crown,

And beggars are made in every town.
There is The Queen, and likewise her Head,
And many I fear to the gallows are led;
There is The Angel, and also The Deer,
Destroying health in every sphere.

There's The Hare and Hounds that never did run,
And many's been hung for the deeds they've done.
There are Two Fighting Cocks that never did crow,
Where men often meet to break God's holy vow ;
There is The New Inn, and the Rodney they say,
Which send men to jail their debts for to pay.
The Hope and The Anchor, The Turk and his Head,
Hundreds they've caused for to wander for bread ;
There is The White Horse, also The WoolpacTc,
Take the shoes off your feet, and the clothes off your back.
The Axe and the Cleaver, The Jockey and Horse,
Some they've made idle, some they've made worse;
The George and the Dragon, and Nelson the brave,
Many lives they've shorten'd and brought to the grave.
The Fox and the Goose, and The Guns put across,
But all the craft is to get hold of the brass;
The Bird in the Cage, and the sign of The Thrush,
But one in the hand is worth two in the bush."

There is an unpleasant musty air about this ballad, a taint of
Seven Dials, an odour of the ragged dresscoat, and the broken, ill-
used hat. The gay clays of signboard poetry, when sparks in
feathers and ruffles sang their praises, are no more. Our fore-
fathers were content to buy " at the Golden Frying-pan," but we
must needs go to somebody's emporium, mart, repository, or
make our purchases at such grand places as the Pantocapelleion,
Pantometallurgicon, or Panklibanon. The corruptions and mis-
applications of the old pictorial signboards find a parallel in the
modern rendering of our ancient proverbs and sayings. When
the primary use and purpose of an article have fallen out of
fashion, or become obsolete, there is no knowing how absurdly it
may not be treated by succeeding generations. We were once
taken many miles over fields and through lanes to see the great
stone coffins of some ancient Romans, but the farmer, a sulky
man, thought we were impertinent in wishing to see his pig-
troughs. In Haarlem, we were once shewn the huge cannon-ball
which killed Heemskerk, the discoverer of Nova Zembla. When
not required for exhibition, however, the good man in charge
found it of great use in grinding his mustard-seed. Amongst the
middle classes of to-day, no institution of ancient times has been
more corrupted and misapplied than heraldry. The modern
" Forrester," or member of the " Ancient Order of Druids," is
scarcely a greater burlesque upon the original than the beer-
retailers' " Arms " of the present hour

Good wine and beer were formerly to be bad at the Boar's
Head, or the Three Tuns ; but those emblems will not do now,
it must be the " Arms " of somebody or something ; whence we
find such anomalies as the Angel Anns, (Clapham Road ;) Dun«
stan's Anns, (City Road;) Digger's Arms, (Petworth, Surrey;)
Farmer's Arms and Gardener's Arms, (Lancashire;) Grand Junc-
tion Arms, (Praed Street, London;) Griffin's Arms, (Warrington ;)
Mount Pleasant Arms, Paragon Arms, (Kingston, Surrey;) St
Paul's Arms, (Newcastle;) Portcullis Arms, (Ludlow;) Puddler's
Arms, (Wellington, Shropshire ;) Railway Arms, (Ludlow;) Sol's
Arms, (Hampstead Row ;) the Vulcan Arms, (Sheffield ;) General's
Anns, (Little Baddon, Essex ;) the Waterloo Arms, (High Street,
Marylebone,) &c. Besides these, a quantity of newfangled, high-
sounding, but unmeaning names seem to be the order of the day
with gin-palaces and refreshment-houses, as, Perseverance, Enter-
prise, Paragon, Criterion.

Notwithstanding these innovations, the majority of the old
objects still survive, in name at least, on the signboards of ale-
houses and taverns. Their use may still be regarded as a rule
with publicans and innkeepers, although they have become the
exception in other trades. Occasionally, also, we may still come
upon a painted signboard, but these are daily becoming scarcer.
Not so in France ; there the good old tradition of the painted
signboard is yet kept up. We get a good glimpse of this subject
in the following : *—" But it is the signs that so amuse and abso-
lutely arrest a stranger. This is a practice that has grown into a
mania at Paris, and is even a subject for the ridicule of the stage,
since many a shopkeeper considers his sign as a primary matter,
and spends a little capital in this one outfit. Many of them
exhibit figures as large as life, painted in no humble or shabby
style; while history, sacred and classical, religion, the stage, &c.,
furnish subjects. You may see the Horatii and Curiatii—a
scene from the ' Fourberies de Scapin ' of Molière—a group of
French soldiers, with the inscription, A la Valeur des Soldats
Français, or a group of children inscribed à la reunion des Bons
Enfants,+—or d la Baigneuse, depicting a beautiful nymph just
issuing from the bath ; or a la Somnambule, a pretty girl walking,
in her sleep and nightdress, and followed by her gallant.^

* ^>1¹,^(!™^ent0f; Historical and Classical, of a Tour through part of France, Switzerland,
and Italy, m the Years 1821 and 1822. London, 1824.

I £ , ^{ton en}/^ari( is in French "a jolly good fellow," as well as a "good child,"

' La Nature donne barbe et cheveux,
Et moi, je les coupe tous les deux.' *
' A toutes les figures dédiant mes rasoirs,
Je nargue la censure des fidèles miroirs.' f

Duchesse de Devonshire. A perruquier exhibits a sign, very well
painted, of an old fop trying on a new wig, entitled, Au ci-devant
jeune homme. A butcher displays a bouquet of faded flowers,
with this inscription, Au tendre Souvenir. An eating-house ex-
hibits a punning sign, with an ox dressed up with bonnet, lace veil,
shawl, &c., which naturally implies, Bœuf à-la-mode. A pastry-
cook has a very pretty little girl climbing up to reach some cakes
in a cupboard, and this sign he calls, A la petite Gourmande.
A stocking-maker has painted for him a lovely creature, trying
on a new stocking, at the same time exhibiting more charms than
the occasion requires to the young fellow who is on his knees at
her feet, with the very significant motto, A la belle occasion" ;};

Though it is forty years since these remarks were written, they
still, mutatis mutandis, apply to the present day. Even the
greatest and most fashionable shops on the Boulevards have their
names or painted signs ; the subjects are mostly taken from the
principal topic of conversation at the time the establishment
opened, whether politics, literature, the drama, or fine arts : thus
we have à la Présidence; au Prophète; au Palais d'In-
dustrie ; aux Enfants dⁱEdouard, (the Princes in the Tower ;)
au Colosse de lihocles ; à la Tour de Malakoff; à la Tour de
Nesles, (tragedy ;) au Sonneur de St Paul, (tragedy •) à la
Dame Blanche; à la Bataille de Solferino ; au Trois Mous-
quetaires; au Lingot d'Or, (a great lottery swindle in 1852 ■) d
la Reine Blanche, &c.§ Some of these signs are remarkably well
painted, in a vigorous, bold style, with great bravura of brush ;
for instance, les Noces de Vulcain, on the Quai aux Fleurs, is
painted in a style which would do no discredit to the artist of
les Romains de la Décadence. Roger Bontemps is still frequent

{ A sort of pun, "la belle occasion" implying the same idea that our shopkeepers ex-
press by their " Now is your time," and similar puffs.

} Similar instances may also be occasionally met with in London ; for instance, the
Ccrsican Brothers, (Coffee-house, Fulham Road.)

on the French signboard, where he is represented as a jolly
rubicund toper, crowned with vine-leaves and seated astride a
tun, with a brimming tumbler in his hand; this is a favourite
sign with publicans. At the tobacconist's door we may see a sign
representing an elderly Paul Pry-looking gentleman enjoying a
pinch of snuff. The Bureaux des ^emplacements Militaires par-
ticularly excel in a gaudy display of military subjects, where the
various passages of a soldier's life are represented with all the
romance of the warriors of the comic opera. Here can be seen
the gallant troopers now courting Jeanette or Fanchon ; now
charging Russians, Cabylcs, or Austrians, according to the date of
the picture. Elsewhere a lancer on a fantastic wild horse ; a
guide, walking with a pretty vivandiere, or an old grenadier
with the Legion of Honour upon his breast;—" all the glorious
pomp and circumstance of war" portrayed to entice the French
clodhopper to sell himself " to death or to glory." More pacific
pictures may be observed at the door of the midwife ; there we
see a sedate-looking matron in ecstasy over the interesting young
stranger she has just ushered forth into the world, whilst pater-
familias stands with a triumphant look in the background. Then
there is the Herculean coalheaver at the door of the auvergnat,
who sells coals and firewood; and landscapes with cattle at the
dairyshops. But amongst the best painted are those at the doors
of the marchands de vins et de comestibles, where we see fre-
quently bunches of fruit, game, flowers, glasses, hams, fowls, fish,
all cleverly grouped together, and painted in a dashing style.
There is one, for instance, in the Rue Bellechasse, and another in
the Rue St Lazare, that are well worth inspection. These paint-
ings are generally on the door-posts and window-frames; they
are painted on thin white canvas, fixed with varnish at the back
- of a thick piece of plateglass, and so let into the woodwork

And now a few words concerning the painters of signs. Their
head-quarters were in Harp Alley, Shoe Lane, where, until lately,
gilt grapes, sugar-loaves, lasts, teapots, &c., &c., were displayed
ready for the market. Here Messrs Barlow, Craddock, and
others, whose names are now as completely lost as their works,
had their studios, aud produced some very creditable signs, both
carved and painted. A few, however, were the productions of no
mean artists. The Spectator, January 8, 1743, No. 744, says :—

" The other day, going down Ludgate Street, several people were gaping
as a very splendid sign of Queen Elizabeth, which by far exceeded all the

other signs in the street, the painter having shewn a masterly judgment,
and the carver and gilder much pomp and splendour. It looked rather
like a capital picture in a gallery thau a sign in the street."

Those who produced the best signs, however, were not exactly
the Harp Alley sign-painters, but the coach-painters, who often
united these two branches of art. In the last century, both the
coaches and sedans of the wealthy classes were walking picture
galleries, the panels being painted with all sorts of subjects.*
And when the men that painted these turned their hands to sign-
painting, they were sure ' to produce something good. Such was
Clarkson, to whom J. T. Smith ascribed the beautiful sign of
Shakespeare that formerly hung in Little Russell Street, Drury
Lane, for which he was paid £500.—John Baker, (ob. 1771,)
who studied under the same master as Catton, and was made
a member of the Royal Academy at its foundation.—Charles
Catton (ob. 1798) painted several very good signs, particularly a
Lion for his friend Wright, a famous coachmaker, at that time
living in Long Acre. This picture, though it had weathered
many a storm, was still to be seen in J. T. Smith's time, at a
coachmaker's on the west side of Well Street, Oxford Street. A
Turk's head, painted by him, was long admired as the sign of a
mercer in York Street, Covent Garden.—John Baptist Cipriani,
(ob. 1785,) a Florentine carriage-painter, living in London, also
a Royal Academician.—Samuel Wale, RA. (ob. 178G) painted a
celebrated Falstaff and various other signs ; the principal one
was a whole length of Shakespeare, about five feet high, which
was executed for and displayed at the door of a public-house
at the north-west corner of Little Russell Street, Drury Lane.
It was enclosed in a most sumptuous carved gilt frame, and was
suspended by rich ironwork. But this splendid object of attrac-
tion did not hang long before it was taken down, in consequence
of the Act of Parliament for removing the signs and other obstruc-
tions in the streets of London. Such was the change in the
public appreciation consequent on the new regulations in signs,
that this representation of our great dramatic poet was sold for
a trifle to Mason the broker in Lower Grosvenor Street, where it
stood at his door for several years, until it was totally destroyed
by the weather and other accidents, t

The universal use of signboards furnished no little employment
for the inferior rank of painters, and sometimes even to the supe-
rior professors. Among the most celebrated practitioners in this
branch was a person of the name of Lamb, who possessed con-
siderable ability. His pencil was bold and masterly, and well
adapted to the subjects on which it was generally employed.
There was also Gwynne, another coach-painter, who acquired
some reputation as a marine painter, and produced a few good
signs. Robert Dalton, keeper of the pictures of King George III.,
had been apprenticed to a sign and coach-painter ; so were Ralph
lvirby, drawing-master to George IV. when Prince of Wales,
Thomas Wright of Liverpool, the marine painter, Smirke, RA.,
and many artists who acquired considerable after-reputation.

Peter Monarny (ob. 1749) was apprenticed to a sign and house-
painter on London Bridge. It was this artist who decorated the
carriage of Admiral Byng with ships and naval trophies, and
painted a portrait of Admiral Vernon's ship for a famous public-
house of the day, well known by the sign of the Portobello, a few
doors north of the church in St Martin's Lane.*

Besides these, we have the " great professors," as Edwards
calls them, who occasionally painted a sign for a freak. At the
head of these stands Hogarth, whose Man loaded with Mischief
is still to be seen at 414 Oxford Street, where it is a fixture in
the alehouse of that name.

Richard Wilson, RA., (ob. 1782,) painted the Three Logger-
heads for an alehouse in North Wales, which gave its name to
the village of Loggerheads, near the town of Mould. The paint-
ing was still exhibited as a signboard in 1824, though little of
Wilson's work remained, as it had been repeatedly touched up.

George Morland painted several; the Goat in Boots on the
Fulliam R,oad is attributed to him, but has since been painted
often over; he also painted a White Lion for an inn at Padding-
ton, where he used to carouse with his boon companions, Ibbetson
and Rathbone ; and in a small public-house near Chelsea Bridge,
Surrey, there was, as late as 1824, a sign of the Cricketers
painted by him. This painting by Morland, at the date mentioned,
had been removed inside the house, and a copy of it hung up
for the sign ; unfortunately, however, the landlord used to travel
about with the original, and put it up before his booth at Staines
and Egham races, cricket matches, and similar occasions.

Ibbetson painted a sign for the village alehouse at Troutbeck,
near Ambleside, to settle a bill run up in a sketching, fishing,
and dolce-far-niente expedition; the sign represented two faces,
the one thin and pale, the other jolly and rubicund ; under it
was the following rhyme :—

David Cox painted a Royal Oak for the alehouse at Bettws-y-
Coed, Denbighshire ; fortunately this has been taken down, and
is now preserved behind glass inside the inn.

The elder Crome produced a sign of the Sawyers at St Martins,
Norwich; it was afterwards taken down by the owner, framed,
and hung up as a picture.

At New Inn Lane, Epsom, Harlow painted a front and a back
view of Queen Charlotte, to settle a bill he had run up ; he imi-
tated Sir Thomas Lawrence's style, and signed it "T. L.," Greek
Street, Solio. When Lawrence heard this, he got in a terrible
rage and said, if Harlow were not a scoundrel, he would kick
him from one street's end to the other; upon which Harlow very
coolly remarked, that when Sir Thomas should make up his
mind to it, he hoped he would choose a short street.

In his younger days Sir Charles Ross painted a sign of tlie
Magpie at Sudbury, and the landlady of the bouse, with no small
pride, gave the informant to understand that, more than thirty
years after, the aristocratic portrait-painter came in a carriage to
her house, and asked to be shewn the old sign once more.

Herring is said to have painted some signs. Amongst them
are the Flying Dutchman, at Cottage Green, Camberwell, and a
White Lion at Doncaster; underneath the last are the words,—-
" Painted by Herring."

Millais painted a Saint George and Dragon, with grapes round
it, for the Yidler's Inn, Hayes, Kent; and we learn that a sign
at Singleton, Lancashire, was painted by an RA. and an R.S.,
each painting one side of it; on the front was represented a
wearied pilgrim, at the back the same refreshed, but the sign was
never hung up.

* Tommy Burkett was the name of mine host The painting is now gone, but the
rerses remain,

in the museum at Basle, in Switzerland, there are two pictures
of a school, painted by Holbein when fourteen years old, for a
sign of the schoolmaster of the town. The Mule and Muleteer
in the Sutherland collection, is said to have been painted by
Correggio as a sign for an inn ; a similar legend is told about the
Young Bull of Paul Potter, in the museum of the Hague, in
Holland, which is reported to have been painted for a butcher's
signboard. The Chaste Susannah (la chaste Susanne) was for-
merly a fine stone bas-relief in the Rue aux Fèves, Paris ; it was
attributed to Goujon, and bought as such by an amateur. A
piaster cast of it now occupies its place. Watteau executed a
sign for a milliner on the Pont Nôtre-Dame, which was thought
sufficiently good to be engraved. Horace Yernet lias the name
of having produced some signs in his younger days ; and there is
still at the present time a sign of the White Horse, in one of the
villages in the neighbourhood of Paris, which is pointed out as a
work of Guéricault.

Besides these, there are, and have been at various times, excel-
lent signboards in Paris, the artists of which are not known.
Thus there was, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, a sign
at the foot of the Pont Neuf, called le Petit Bunker que, which
was greatly admired ; and in the reign of Louis XY. an armourer
on the Pont Saint Michel had a sign, which was so fine a work
of art that it was bought as a cabinet picture by a wealthy
citizen. In the beginning of this century there was a much
admired sign on the shutters of a glass and china shop in the Rue
Royale St Honoré, which unfortunately was destroyed during
some repairs that took place upon the building passing into other
hands. In 1808, the sign of la Fille mal gardée, (a vaudeville,)
at a mercer's, attracted great attention. About this period the
^ Rue Vivienne was very rich in good signboards ; there were la
Toison de Cachemire ; les Trois Sultanes ; le Couronnement de
la Rosiere, and la Joconde, all very good works of art. There
was a gay Comte Ory on the Boulevard des Italiens, and la
Blanche Marguerite, most comely to look upon, in the Rue Mont-
martre. ^ All these are now gone, but many good specimens of
Frencli signboard painting may yet be met with.

Before closing this general survey of signboard history, we
must direct attention to the number of streets named after signs,
both in England and abroad, A walk down Fleet Street will
give, in a small compass, as many illustrations as are to be met

with in any other thoroughfare in town, for there nearly all the
courts are named after signs that were either hung within them,
or at their entrance. Not only streets, but families also have to
thank signs for their names.

" Many names that seem unfitting for men, as of brutish beasts, etc.,
come from the very signes of the houses where they inhabited; for I have
heard of them which sayd they spake of knowledge, that some in late time
dwelling at the signe of the Dolphin, Bull, White Horse, Racket, Pea-
cocke, etc., were commonly called Thomas at the Dolphin, Will at the Bull,
George at the White Horse, Robin at the Racket, which names, as many
other of like sort, with omitting at the, became afterwards hereditary to
their children."—Camden's Rcmaines, p. 102.

As examples of such names we have, " Arrow, Axe, Barrell,
Bullhead, Bell, Block, Board, Banner, Bowles, Baskett, Cann,
Coulter, Chisell, Clogg, Crosskeys, Crosier, Bunnell, Forge, Fire-
brand, Grapes, Griffin, Horns, Hammer, Hamper, Hodd, Harrow,
Image, (the sign originally in honour of some saint perhaps,)
Jugg, Kettle, Knife, Lance, Mallet, Maul, Mattock, Needle, Pail,
Pott, Potts, Plowe, Plane, Pipes, Pottle, Patten, Posnet, (a purse
or money-bag,) Pitcher, Bule, Bainbow, Sack, Saw, Shovel,
Shears, Scales, Silverspoon, Swords, Tankard, Tabor, (a drum,)
Trowel, Tubb and Weclge, and a good many others." *

And now, having taken a passing glance at signboard history,
from the earliest times down to the present day, we may not im-
properly conclude this chapter with an enumeration of the inn,
tavern, and public-house signs which occur most frequently in
London, in this present year of grace, 1864 :—

12 Adam and Eves, 13 Albions, 5 Alfred's Heads, 13 Anchor
and Hopes, 18 Angels, 8 Angels and Crowns, 3 Antigallicans,
5 Artichokes, 13 Barley Mows, 9 Beehives, 31 Bells, 7 Ben
Jonsons, 5 Birds in Hand, 5 Black Boys, 16 Black Bulls, 5 Black
Dogs, 29 Black Horses, 10 Black Lions, 6 Black Swans, 19 Blue
Anchors, 5 Blue Coat Boys, 6 Blue Lasts, 14 Blue Peters, 27
Bricklayers'Arms, 5 Bridge Houses, 22 Britannias, 15 Brown Bears,
8 Builders' Arms, 17 Bulls, (some combined with Bells, Butchers,
&c.,) 22 Bull's Heads, 4 Camden Heads, 6 Capes of Good Hope,
14 Carpenters' Arms, 19 Castles, 6 Catherine Wheels, 7 Champions,
5 Chequers, 5 Cherry-trees, 8 Cheshire Cheeses, 11 City Arms,
18 Cities of London, and other cities, (as Canton, Paris, Quebec,
ifcc.,) 52 Coach and Horses, 12 Cocks, 16 Cocks in combination
with Bottles, Hoops, Lions, Magpies, <fcc., 6 Constitutions, 17

Coopers' Arms, 7 Crooked Billets, 5 Cross Keys, 61 Crowns, 18
Crown and Anchors, 5 Crown and Cushions, 11 Crown and
Sceptres, 17 Crowns, combined with other objects, as Anvils,
Barley Mows, Thistles, Dolphins, &c., (in all, 112 Crowns;
certainly we are a loyal nation !) 12 Devonshire Arms, 2 Devon-
shire Castles, 10 Dolphins, 6 Dover Castles, 34 Dukes of
Wellington, 32 Dukes of York, 6 Dukes of Sussex, 16 Dukes of
Clarence, 7 Dukes of Cambridge, 26 other Dukes, (including
Albemarle, Argyle, Bedford, Bridgewater, Gloucester, &c.,) 7
various Duchesses, (as Kent, York, Oldenburgh, &c.,) 14 Duke's
Heads, 18 Earls, (Aberdeen, Cathcart, Chatham, Durham, Essex,
ccc.,) 6 Edinburgh Castles, 5 Elephants and Castles, 9 Falcons,
21 Feathers, 4 Fishmongers' Arms, 4 Five Bells, 5 Fleeces, 6
Flying Horses, 5 Fortunes of War, 24 Fountains, 8 Foxes, 12
Foxes, combined witli Grapes, Hounds, Geese, &c., 8 Freemasons'
Arms, 8 various Generals, (Elliott, Hill, Abercrombie, Picton,
Wolfe, &c.,) 52 Georges, 14 George and Dragons, '19 George the
Fourths, 31 Globes, 6 Gloster Arms, 7 Goats, 5 Golden Anchors,
5 Golden Fleeces, 15 Golden Lions, 6 Goldsmith's Arms, 56 Grapes,
15 Green Dragons, 4 Green Gates, 24 Green Men, 9 Greyhounds,

7 Griffins, 5 Grosvenor Arms, 8 Guns, 4 Guy of Warwicks, 6
Half-moons, 4 Hercules, 2 Hercules Pillars, 5 Holes in the Wall,
5 Hoop and Grapes, 4 Hop-poles, 12 Hopes, 11 Horns, 21
Horses and Grooms, 7 Horseshoes, 5 Horseshoe and Magpies, 6
Jacob's Wells, 5 John Bulls, 16 various "Jolly" people, as Jolly
Anglers, Caulkers, Gardeners, &c., 12 Kings of Prussia, 10 Kings
and Queens, 89 King's Arms, 63 King's Heads, (loyalty again!)

8 Lambs, 3 Lambs and Flags, 4 Lion and Lambs, 55 different
Lords, amongst which, 23 Lord Nelsons, 4 Magpie and Stumps,

3 Mail-coaches, 3 Men in the Moon, 2 Marlborough Arms, 6
Marlborough Heads, 18 Marquis of Granbys, 6 Marquis of
Cornwallises, 14 various Marquises, 9 Masons' Arms, 17 Mitres,

4 Mulberry-trees, 15 Nag's Heads, 3 Nell Gwynns, 7 Noah's
Arks, 7 Norfolk Arms, 4 North Poles, 9 Northumberland Arms,
3 Old Parr's Heads, 6 Olive Branches, 6 Oxford Arms, 10 Pea-
cocks, (1 Peahen,) 5 Perseverances, 5 Pewter Platters, 10 Phoe-
nixes, 3 Pied Bulls, 5 Pine Apples, 9 Pitt's Heads, 15 Ploughs, 6
Portland Arms, 5 Portman Arms, 19 Prince Alberts, 5 Prince
Alfreds, 3 Prince Arthurs, 15 other Princes, (mostly of the Royal
Family,) 43 Princes of Wales, 12 Prince Regents, 6 Princess
Royals, 3 Princess Victorias, and a few of the younger Princesses,

2 Punchbowls, 3 Queens, 3 Queen and Prince Alberts, 17 Queen
Victorias, 23 Queen's Arms, 49 Queen's Heads, 8 Railway Taverns,

8 Red Cows, 4 Red Crosses, 73 Red Lions, 26 Rising Suns, 9
Robin Hoods, 5 Rodney Heads, 10 Roebucks, 14 Roses, 48 Rose
and Crowns, 4 Royal Alberts, 28 various Royal personages and
objects, as Champions, Cricketers, Crowns, Dukes, Forts, &c., 8
Royal Georges, 26 Royal Oaks, 13 Royal Standards, 7 Running
Horses, 23 Saints, (3 Saint Andrews, 4 St Georges, 3 St Jameses,

3 St Johns, 2 St Luke's Heads, 2 St Martins, 2 St Pauls, &c.,)
5 Salisbury Arms, 2 Salmons, 4 Salutations, 6 Scotch Stores, 4
Seven Stars, 8 Shakespeare Heads, 2 Shepherds and Flocks, 2
Shepherds and Shepherdesses, 53 Ships, (23 in combination, on
launch, aground, &c.,) 3 Ship and Stars, 2 Ships and Whales,
19 Sirs, (including 4 Falstaffs, Sir John Barleycorn, Middleton,
Newton, Wren, Abercrombie, Pindar, Peel, Raleigh, Walworth,
&c.,) 5 Skinners' Arms, 4 Southampton Arms, 4 Sportsmen, 3
Spotted Dogs, 14 Spread Eagles, 3 Stags, 3 Staghounds, 11
Stars, 17 Star and Garters, 8 Sugar-loaves, 19 Suns, 19 Swans,

9 Talbots, 4 Telegraphs, 3 Thatched Houses, 5 Thistles and
Crowns, 21 Three Compasses, 8 Three Crowns, 3 Three Cranes,
3 Three Cups, 3 Three Kings, 19 Three Tuns, 8 Tigers, (1 Tiger
Cat,) 10 Turk's Heads, 28 Two Brewers, 5 Two Chairmen, 4
Unicorns, 10 Unions, 2 Union Flags, 11 Victories, 5 Vines, 3
Waggon and Horses, 10 Watermen's Arms, 9 Weavers' Arms,
3 Westminster Arms, 20 Wheat Sheaves, 15 White Bears, 63
White Harts, 44 White Horses, 25 White Lions, 35 White
Swans, 3 Whittington and Cats, (1 Whittington and Stone,) 16
William the Fourths, 11 Windmills, 12 Windsor Castles, 4 Wood-
men, 8 Woolpacks, 10 York Arms and York Minster, 12 York-
shire Greys.

The Greeks honoured their great men and successful command-
ers by erecting statues to them; the Romans rewarded their
popular favourites with triumphal entries and ovations; modern
nations make the portraits of their celebrities serve as signs for
public-houses.

Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good have had their tithe of talk,

As Byron hints, popular admiration is generally very short-
lived ; and when a fresh hero is gazetted, the next new alehouse
will most probably adopt him for a sign in preference to the last
great man. Thus it is that even the Duke of Wellington is now
neglected, and in his place we see General Havelock, Sir Colin
Campbell, Lord Palmerston, and Mr Gladstone, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, not omitting the fair Princess of Denmark. We
will not now dwell upon these modern celebrities, but rather
direct our attention to those illustrious dead upon whom the
signboard honours were bestowed in bygone ages.

Many signboards have an historic connexion of some sort with
the place where they are exhibited. Thus the Alfred's Head,
at Wantage, in Berkshire, was in all probability chosen as a sign
because Wantage was the birthplace of King Alfred. So the
Canute Castle, at Southampton, owes its existence to a local
tradition; whilst admiration for the great Scotch patriot made
an innkeeper in Stowell Street, Newcastle, adopt Sir William
Wallace's Arms. The Gesar's Head was, in 1761, to be seen
near the New Church in the Strand,* and, in the beginning of
this century, was the sign of a tavern in Soho, which afterwards
removed to Great Palace Yard, Westminster. Even at the pre-
sent day, his head may be seen outside certain village alehouses;
but this we may attribute to that provincial popularity which the
Roman hero shares with Oliver Cromwell; for as the Protector
gets the blame of having made nearly all the ruins which are to
be found in the three kingdoms, so Caesar is generally named by
country people as the builder of every old wall or earthwork the
origin of which is unknown.

Notwithstanding the popular censure, Cromwell is still hon-
oured with signboards in places where his memory has lingered,
as at Kate's Hill, near Dudley.

In most cases, however, signboard popularity is rather short-
lived ; " dulcique animos novitate tenebo " seems to be essentially
the motto of those that choose popular characters for their sign.
Had this modern tribute of admiration been in use at the time of
the Preacher, it might have afforded him one more illustration of
the vanity of vanities to be found in all sublunary things. Horace
Walpole noticed this fickleness of signboard fame in one of his
letters :—

" I was yesterday out of town, and the very signs, as I passed through
the villages, made me make very quaint reflections on the mortality of
fame and popularity. I observed how the Duke's Head had succeeded
almost universally to Admiral Vernon's, as his had left but few traces of
the Duke of Ormond's. I pondered these things in my breast, and said to
myself, 'Surely all glory is but as a sign !' " *

Some favourites of the signboard have, however, been more
fortunate than others. Henry VIII., for instance, may still be
seen in many places; indeed, for more than two centuries after
his death, almost every King's Head invariably gave a portrait
of Bluff Harry.

Older kings occasionally occur, but their memories seem to
have been revived rather than handed down by successive inn-
keepers. If we are to believe an old Chester legend, however,
The King Edgar Inn, in Bridge Street of that city, has existed
by the same name since the time of the Saxon king. The sign
represents King Edgar rowed clown the river Dee by the eight
tributary kings. The present house has the appearance of being
built anterior to the reign of Elizabeth, and the sign looks almost
as old, but it would be unwise to give the place or the sign a
much higher antiquity. King John is the sign under whose
auspices Jem Mace, the pugilist, keeps a public-house in Holywell
Lane, Shoreditch. The same king also figures in Albemarle Street
and in Bermondsey; whilst the great event of his reign, Magna
Charta, is a sign at New Holland, Hull. John of Gaunt may
be seen in many places; and we may surmise that his upholders
are stanch Protestants, who value his character as a reformer and
supporter of Wicliffe. The Black Prince may not unlikely
have come down to us in an uninterrupted line of signboards; so
little was his identity sometimes understood, that there is a shop-

bill in tha " Banks Collection " * on which this hero is represented
as a negro!

There is a Queen Eleanor in London Fields, Hackney, pro-
bably the beautiful and affectionate queen of Edward L, buried in
Westminster Abbey, 1290, in honour of whom Charing Cross,
Cheapcross, and seven other crosses, were erected on the places
where her body rested on its way to the great Abbey. What
prompted the choice of this sign it is hard to say.

At Hever, in Kent, a rude portrait of Henry VIII. may be
seen. Near this village the Bolleyn or Bullen family formerly
held large possessions; and old people in the district yet shew
the spot where, as the story goes, King Henry often used to meet
Sir Thomas Bolleyn's daughter Anne. Be this as it may, years
after the unhappy death of Anne, the village alehouse had for its
sign, Bullen Butchered ; but the place falling into new hands,
the name of the house was altered to the Bull and Butcher,
which sign existed to a recent date, and would probably have
swung at this moment, but for a desire of the resident clergyman
to see something different. He suggested the King's Head ; and
the village painter was forthwith commissioned to make the alter-
ation. The latter accepted the task, drew the bluff features of
the monarch, and represented it as other King's Heads, but in
his hands placed a large axe, which signboard exists to this day.

As for Queen Elizabeth, she was the constant type of the
Queen's Head, as her father was of the King's Head; and, like
him, she may still be seen in many places. It is somewhat more
difficult to ascertain who is meant by the Queen Catherine in
Brook Street, Ratcliffe Highway ; whether it be Queen Catherine
of Aragon, or Queen Catherine of Braganza. Queen Anne, in
South Street, Walworth, has evidently come down to us as the
token of that house since the day of its opening, just as the Queen
of Bohemia, who, until about fifty years ago, continued as a sign
in Drury Lane. + This was Elizabeth, daughter of James I., mar-
ried to Frederic V., Elector-Palatine, who, after her husband's
death, lived at Craven House, Drury Lane, and died there,
February 13, 1661, having been privately married, it is thought,
to Lord Craven, who was foremost in fighting the battles of her
husband,

cord. But this does not prove that he was the first; for, as there
lived great men before Agamemnon, so most kings during their
reign will, in all probability, have had their signs. Among
Henry's successors, we find the head of Edward VI. on a trades
token ; whilst Charles the First's Head was the portrait hang-
ing from the house of that scoundrel Jonathan "Wild, in the Old
Bailey. Even at the present day there is a sign of Charles the
First at Goring Heath, Beading. The Martyr's Head in Smith-
field, 1710, seems also to have been a portrait of Charles I.; so,
at least, the following allusion gives us to understand :—
" May Hyde, near Smitlifield, at the Martyr's Head,
"Who charms the nicest judge with noble red,
Thrive on by drawing wines, which none can blame,
But those who in his sign behold their shame ;" *

which seems to be an allusion to Puritanical water-drinkers.
To this unfortunate king belongs also the sign of the Mourning
Bush, set up by Taylor the water-poet over his tavern in Phoenix
Alley, Long Acre, to express his grief at the beheading of Charles I.;
but he was soon compelled to take it down, when he put up the
Poet's Head, his own portrait, with this inscription :—
" There is many a head hangs for a sign;

This " Poeta Aquaticus," as he sometimes called himself, was
a boatman on the Thames, and alehouse-keeper by profession,
besides being the author of fourscore books of very original
poetry. At the same time that he put up his new sign of the
Poet's Head, he issued a rhyming pamphlet, in which occur the
following lines :—

" My signe was once a Crowne, but now it is
Changed by a sudden metamorphosis.
The crowne was taken downe, and in the stead
Is placed John Taylor's, or the Poet's Head.
A painter did my picture gratis make,
And (for a signe) I hang'd it for his sake.
Now, if my picture's drawing can prevayle,
'Twill draw my friends to me, and I'll draw ale.
Two strings are better to a bow than one;
And poeting does me small good alone.
So ale alone yields but small good to me,
Except it have some spice of poesie.
The fruits of ale are unto drunkards such,
To make 'em sweare and lye that drinke too much.
But my ale, being drunk with moderation,
* "TheQuack Vintners, 1710," a tract written against Brooke and Ililliers, the famous
wine-merchants of that time, frequently mentioned by the Spectator.

Will quench thirst, and make merry recreation.
My book and signe were publisli'd for two ends,
T' invite my honest, civill, sober friends.
From such as are not such, I kindly pray,
Till I send for 'em, let 'em keep away.
From Phoenix Alley, the Globe Taverne neare,
The middle of Long Acre, I dwell there.

The Mourning Crown was afterwards revived, and in the last
century it was the sign of a tavern in Aldersgate, where, on Satur-
days, when Parliament was not sitting, the Duke of Devonshire,
the Earls of Oxford, Sunderland, Pembroke, and Winchelsea, Mr
Bagford the antiquary, and Britton the musical small-coalman,
used to refresh themselves, after having passed the forepart of
the day in hunting for antiquities and curiosities in Little Britain
and its neighbourhood.

Not only was the Crown put in mourning at the death of
Charles I., but also the Mitre. Hearne has an anecdote which
he transcribed from Dr Richard Rawlinson :—" Of Daniel Rawlin-
son, who kept the Mitre Tavern in Fencliurch Street, and of
whose being sequestered in the Rump time, I have heard much.
The Whigs tell this, that upon the king's murder he hung his - sign
in mourning. He certainly judged right; the honour of the mitra
was much eclipsed through the loss of so good a parent of the
Church of England. Those rogues say, this endeared him so
much to the Churchmen that he soon throve amain, and got a
good estate."

Charles the Second's Head swung at the door of a " music-
house" for seafaring men and others, in Stepney, at the end of the
seventeenth century In a great room of this house there was an
organ and a band of fiddles and hautboys, to the music whereof
it was no unusual thing for parties, and sometimes single per-
sons,—and those not of very inferior sort,—to dance. At the pre-
sent day, that king's memory is still kept alive on a signboard in
Herbert Street, Hoxton, under the name" of the Merry Monarch.

To his miraculous escape at Boscobel we owe the Royal Oak,
which, notwithstanding a lapse of two centuries and a change of
dynasty, still continues a very favourite sign. In London alone
it occurs on twenty-six public-houses, exclusive of beerhouses,
coffee-houses, &c. Sometimes it is called King Charles in the
Oak, as at Willen Hall, Warwickshire. The Royal Oak, soon
after the Restoration, became a favourite with, the shops of

London; tokens of some half a dozen houses bearing that sign
are extant. What is rather curious is that, not many years since,
one of the descendants of trusty Dick Pendrell kept an inn at
Lewes, in Sussex, called the Royal Oak.

There is a trades token of " William Hagley, at the Restora-
tion, in St George's Fieldsbut how this event was represented
does not appear. At Charing Cross it was commemorated by
the sign of the Pageant Tavern, which represented the triumphal
arch erected at that place on occasion of the entry of Charles II.,
and which remained standing for a year after. This was evi-
dently the same house which Pepys calls the Triumph. It seems
to have been a fashionable place, for he went there, on the 25th
May 1662, to see the Portuguese ladies of Queen Catherine.
" They are not handsome," says he, " and their fardingales a
strange dress. Many ladies and persons of quality come to see
them. I find nothing in them that is pleasing; and I see they
have learned to kiss and look freely up and down already, and, I
believe, will soon forget the recluse practice of their own country.
They complain much for lack of good water to drink." The
Triumph is still the sign of a public-house in Skinner Street,
Somers Town.

Queen Mary was in her day a very popular sign, as may bo
gathered from many of the shop-bills in the Banks Collection;
whilst William and Mary are still to be seen in Maiden Cause-
way, Cambridge. The accession of the house of Brunswick pro-
duced the Brunswick, still very common, particularly in the
West Riding of Yorkshire. Then come the Georges, of whom
George III. and George IY. still survive in nearly as many
instances as their successor, William IV.; with them a few of
the royal Dukes of Clarence, Suffolk, and, above all, " the
Butcher Cumberland until at length we come to Princess
Victoria, and, finally, the Queen Victoria, the British Queen,
Island Queen, &c. Under one of her signs at Coopersale, in
Essex, is the following inscription :—

" The Queen some day
May pass this way,
And see our Tom and Jerry.
Perhaps she'll stop,
And stand a drop,
To make her subjects merry."

Among the foreign kings and potentates who have figured in
our open-air walhalla, the Turkish sultans seem to have stood

foremost. Morat (Amurat) and Soliman were constant coffee-
house signs in the seventeenth century. Trades tokens are extant,
in the Beaufoy and other collections, of a coffee-house in Exchange
Alley, the sign of Morat, with this distich:—

"Morat . y^e . Great . Men . Did . Mee . Call
Where . Ere . I . Came . I . Conquer'd . All."
On the reverse : " Coffee, tobacco, sherbett, tea, and chocolat retold
in Exchange Alley" The same house figures in advertisements of
the time, giving the prices of those various articles :—

" AT the Coffee-house in Exchange Alley is sold by Retail the right
XI. Coffee-powder, from 4s. to 6s. per pound, as in goodness: that
pounded in a mortar at 3s. per pound ; also that termed the right Turkie
Berry, well garbled, at 3s. per pound—the ungarbled for less; that termed
the East India Berry at 20d. per pound, with directions gratis how to make
and use the same. Likewise, there you may have TobaCco, Verinas and
Virginia, Chocolatta— the ordinary pound-boxes at 2s. per pound; also
Sherbets (made in Turkie) of Lemons, Roses, and Violets perfumed; and
Tea according to its goodness, from 6s. to 60s. per pound. For all of which,
if any Gentleman shall write or send, they shall be sure of the best as they
shall order; and to avoid deceit, warranted under the House Seal—viz.,
Morat the Great," &c.—Mercurius Publicus, March 12-19, 1662.

The Great Mogol also had his share of signboards, of which
a few still survive; one, for instance, in New Bartholomew
Street, Birmingham. Kouli Khan we find only in one instance,
(though there were probably many more,) namely, on the sign of
a tavern by the Quayside, Newcastle, in 1746.* This house had
formerly been called the Crown, but changed its sign in honour
of Thomas Nadir Shah, or Kouli Khan, who, from having been
chief of a band of robbers, at last sat himself on the throne of
Persia. He was killed in 1747. One of the reasons of his popu-
larity in this country was the permission he granted to the Eng-
lish nation to trade with Persia, the most chimerical ideas being
entertained of the advantages to be derived from that commerce.
Han way, the philanthropist, was for some time concerned in it',
but died before he could carry out the scheme; ultimately, the
death of Nadir Shah himself put an end to it.

The Indian King, which we meet with so frequently, is an
extremely vague personage, which various Indian potentates might
take for themselves as the cap fitted. It was generally set up
when some king from the far East visited the metropolis, and for
a short time created a sensation. Thus, in 1710, there were four
Indian kings from " states between New England, New York

and Canada," who had audiences with Queen Anne, and seems to
have been a good deal talked about. (See Spectator, No. 50.)

Again, in 1762, London was honoured with the visit of a
Cherokee king, and thus many before and after him have created
their nine clays' wonder.

Visits of European monarchs were also commemorated by •
complimentary signs. One of the oldest was the King of Den-
mark, and few kings better than he deserved the exalted place at
the alehouse door ; yet, such is the ingratitude of the world, that
he seems now completely forgotten. The sign originated in the
reign of James I., who married a daughter of Christian IV., King
of Denmark. In July 1606, the royal father-in-law came over
on a visit, when the two kings began "bousing" and carousing
right royally, the court, of course, duly following the example.
" I came here a day or two before the Danish king came," says
Sir John Harrington, " and from that day he did come till this
hour, I have been well-nigh overwhelmed with carousal and
sport of all kinds. I think the Dane has strangely wrought on
dur English nobles; for those whom I could never get to taste
good liquor, now follow the fashion and wallow in beastly delights.
The ladies abandon their society, and are seen to roll about in
intoxication," &c.¹ So late as thirty years ago, not less than
three of these signs were left, the most notorious being in the
Old Bailey. It used to be open all night for the sale of creature
comforts to the drunkard, the thief, the nightwalker, and profli-
gates of every description. Slang was the language of the place,
and doubtless the refreshments were mostly paid for with stolen
money. On execution nights, the landlord used to reap a golden
harvest; then there were such scenes of drunkenness as must
have done the old king on the signboard good to survey, ancl
made him wish to be inside. The visit of another crowned votarv
of Bacchus is commemorated by the sign of the Czar's Head,
Great Tower Street:—

" Peter the Great ancl his companions, having finished their day's work,
used to resort to a public-house in Great Tower Street, close to Tower
Hill, to smoke their pipes and drink beer and brandy. The landlord had
the Czar of Muscovy's Head painted, and put it up for his sign, which con-
tinued till the year 1808, when a person of the name of Waxel took a fancy
to the old sign, and offered the then occupier of the house to paint him
a new one for it. A copy was accordingly made of the original, which
maintains its station to the present day as the Czar of Muscovy." +

The sign is now removed, but the public-house still bears the
same name. Prince Eugene also was at one time a popular
tavern portrait in England, more particularly after his visit to this
country in January 1712. It is named as one of the signs in
Norwich in 1750,* but is now, we believe, completely extinct in
England ; in Paris there is still one surviving on the Boulevard
St Martin.

The Grave Maurice is of very old standing in London, being
named by Taylor the water-poet as an inn at Knightsbridge in
1636 ; at present there are two left, one in Whitechapel Eoad,
the other in St Leonard's Road. Who this Grave Maurice was
is not quite clear. Grave (Ger. Graf, Dutch Graaf, i.e. Count,)
Maurice of Nassau, afterwards Maurice, Prince of Orange, was,
on account of his successful opposition to the Spanish domination
in the Netherlands, very popular in this country. In Baker's
Chronicles, anno 1612, we read that:—"Upon St Thomas-day,
the Paltzgrave and Grave Maurice were elected Knights of the
Garter; and the 27th of December, the Paltzgrave was betrothed
to the Lady Elizabeth. On Sunday the 7th of February, the
Paltzgrave in person was installed a Knight of the Garter at
Windsor, and at the same time was Grave Maurice installed by
his deputy, Count Lode wick of Nassau." The Garter conferred
on the Grave Maurice was that which had been previously worn
by Henri Quatre, King of France and Navarre. The Palzgrave
was Grave Maurice's nephew, the Palatine Count Frederick, by
whose marriage with King James's daughter were born the bro-
thers Rupert and Maurice, (the latter in 1620,) who distinguished
themselves in England during the civil wars. It was this Prince
Maurice's great uncle, the Grave Maurice of Nassau, whose coun-
terfeit presentment still gives a name to two of our taverns.
Another Maurice, about this period, was very popular in England
—viz., Maurice Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who " carried away
the palm of excellency in whatever is to be wished in a brave
prince."+ Peacham, enumerating this prince's qualifications, says
that he was a good musician, spoke ten or twelve languages, was
a universal scholar, could dispute, " even in boots and spurs," for
an hour with the best professors on any subject, and was the best
bone-setter in the country. He gained, too, much of his popu-
larity by his adherence to the Protestant religion during the
Thirty Years' War.

The Paltsgrave became a popular sign at the marriage of
Frederick Casimir V., Elector and Count Palatine of the Rhine,
King of Bohemia, with Elizabeth, daughter of James I. Trades
tokens are extant of a famous tavern, the sign of the Palsgrave's
Head, without Temple Bar,* which gave its name to Paltsgrave
Court, whilst the Palatine Head was an inn near the French
'Change, Soho. Prince Rupert, the Palsgrave's son, who be-
haved so gallantly in many of the fights during the Civil War, was
no doubt a favourite sign after the Restoration. We have an in-
stance of one on the trades token of Jacob Robins, in the Strand.

One of the last foreign princes to whom the signboard honour
was accorded, was the King op Prussia. This still occurs in
many places. After the battle of Rosbach, Frederick the Great,
our ally, became the popular hero in England. Ballads were
made, in which he was called " Frederick of Prussia, or the Hero."
" Portraits of the hero of Bosbach, with his cocked hat and long
pigtail, were in every house. An attentive observer will at this
day find in the parlours of old-fashioned inns, and in the port-
folios of printsellers, twenty portraits of Frederick for one of
George II. The sign-painters were everywhere employed in
touching up Admiral Vernon into the King of Prussia.+ "

These words of Macaulay remind us of a passage in the Mirror,
No. 82, Saturday, February 19, 1780, bearing on the same sub-
ject. In 1739, after the capture of Portobello, Admiral Vernon's
" portrait dangled from every signpost, and he may be figuratively
said to have sold the ale, beer, porter, and purl of England for
six years. Towards the close of that period, the admiral's favour
began to fade apace with the colours of his uniform, and the
battle of Culloden was total annihilation for him. . . . The
Duke of Cumberland kept possession of the signboard a long
time. In the beginning of the last war. our admirals in the
Mediterranean, and our generals in North America, did nothing
that could tend in the least degree to move his Royal Highness
from his place; but the doubtful battle of Hamellan, followed
by the unfortunate convention of Stade, and the rising fame of

* The taverns of the seventeenth century appear in many instances to have been up-
stairs. above shops. In 1679, there was a " Mr Crutch, goldsmith, near Temple Bar, at
tiie Palsgrave Head." In a similar way, a bookseller lived at the sign of the Rainbow,
at thp same time as one Farr, who opened this place as a coffee-house. Another bookseller,
.lames Roberts, who printed most of the satires, epigrams, and other wasp-stings against
l'ope, lived at the Oxford Arms, a carriers' inn in Warwick Lane. Finally, Isaac Wal-
ton sold his "Complete Angler" "at his shopp in Fleet Street under the King's Head
Tavern."

the King of Prussia, obliterated the glories of the Duke of Cum-
berland as effectually as his Royal Highness and the battle of
Culloden had effaced the figure, the memory, and the renown of
Admiral Vernon. The duke was so completely displaced by his
Prussian majesty, that we have some doubts whether he met with
fair play. One circumstance, indeed, was much against him; his
figure being marked by a hat with the Kevenhuller cock, a mili-
tary uniform, and a very fierce look, a slight touch of the painter
converted him into the King of Prussia. But what crowned the
success of his Prussian majesty, was the title bestowed upon him
by the brothers of the brush, ' The Glorious Protestant Hero,'
words which added splendour to every signpost, and Avliich no
British hero could read without peculiar sensation of veneration
and of thirst.

" For two years, ' the glorious Protestant hero' was unrivalled ;
but the French being defeated at Minden, upon the 1st of August
1759, by the army under Prince Frederick of Brunswick, the
King of Prussia began to give place a little to two popular
favourites, who started at the same time; I mean Prince
Ferdinand, and the Marquis of Granby. Prince Ferdinand was
supported altogether by his good conduct at Minden, and by his
high reputation over Europe as a general. The Marquis of
Granby behaved with spirit and personal courage everywhere ;
but his success on the signposts of England was very much owing
to a comparison generally made between him and another British
general of higher rank, but who was supposed not to have be-
haved so well. Perhaps, too, he was a good deal indebted to
another circumstance—to wit, the baldness of his head."

That crowned heads, as well as other human beings, were sub-
ject to the law of change on the signboard, is amusingly illustrated
in an anecdote told by Goldsmith :—

" An alehouse keeper near Islington, who had long lived at the sign cf
the French King, upon the commencement of the last war, pulled down
his old sign, and put up that of the Queen op Hungary. Under the
influence of her red nose and golden sceptre, he continued to sell ale, till
she was no longer the favourite of his customers; he changed her therefore,
some time ago, for the King of Prussia, who may probably be changed in
turn for the next great man that shall be set up for vulgar admiration."*

Of all great men, "bene meriti de patria," military men
appear at all times to have captivated the popular favour much
more than those men who promoted the welfare of the country in

the Cabinet, or who made themselves famous by the arts of peace,
and the more quiet productions of their genius. We find hundreds
of admirals and generals on the signboard, but we are not awaro
that there is one Watt, or one Sir Walter Scott; yet, what glory
and pleasure has the nation not derived from their genius! Book-
sellers formerly honoured the heads and names of great authors
with a signboard; but that custom fell into disuse when signs
became unnecessary. At present, the publicans only have signs,
and they and their customers can much better appreciate ^<s the
glorious pomp and pageantry of war," than a parliamentary de-
bate. A victory, with so many of the enemy killed and wounded,
and so many colours and stands of arms captured, awakens much
more thrilling emotions in their breasts than the most useful in-
vention, or the most glorious work of art.

The sea being our proper element, admirals have always had
the lion's share of the popular admiration, and their fame appears
more firmly rooted than that of generals. Signs of Admirai
Drake, Sir Francis Drake, or the Drake Arms, so common
at the water-side in our seaports, shew that the nation has not yet
forgotten the bold navigator of good Queen Bess. Sir Walter
Raleigh has not been quite so fortunate ; for though he also
came in for a great share of signboard honour, yet it was lesa
owing to his qualities as a commander, than to his reputation of
having introduced tobacco into England, whence he became a
favourite tobacconist's sign ; and in that quality, we find him on
several of the shop-bills in the Banks Collection. Signs being
frequently used in the last century for political pasquinades, ad-
vantage was taken of a tobacconist's sign for the following sharp
hit at Lord North :—

" Sir,—Being a smoaker, I take particular notice of the devices used by
different dealers in tobacco, by way of ornament to the papers in which
that valuable plant is enclosed for sale; and that used by the worthy
Alderman in Ludgate Street, has often given me much pleasure, it having
the head of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the following motto round it:—
' Great Britain to great Raleigh owes
This plant and country where it grows.'
To which I offer the following lines by way of contrast; the truth
thereof no one can doubt:—•

their insignia; but perhaps, when you have a spare corner in your
General Advertiser, it may not be inadmissible, which will oblige.—Yours,
k,c.. A Smoakeu.

Brave old Admiral Benbow, who held up the honour of the
British flag in the reign of William III., is still far from uncommon.
Admiral Duncan, Howe, and Jervis still preside over the sale
of many a hogshead of beer or spirits ; whilst Admiral Vernon
seems to have secured himself an everlasting place on the front
of the alehouse, by reason of his dashing capture of Portobello •
the name of that town, or sometimes the Portobello Arms, being
also frequently adopted, instead of the admiral's name. Admiral
Keppel is another great favourite. There is a public-house with
that sign, on the Fulham Road, where, some years ago, the por-
trait of the admiral used to court the custom of the passing
traveller, by a poetical appeal to both man and beast:—
" Stop, brave boys, and quench your thirst;
If you won't drink, your horses murst."

But, above all, Admiral Rodney seems to have obtained a
larger share of popularity than even Nelson himself. In Boston
there is the Rodney and Hood ; and in Creggin, Montgomery-
shire, the Rodney Pillar Inn, with the following Anacreontic
effusion on a double-sided signboard:—

" Under these trees, in sunny weather,
Just try a cup of ale, however;
And if in tempest or in storm,
A couple then to make you warm;
Eut when the day is very cold,
Then taste a mug a twelvemonth old."
On the reverse :—

" Rest and regal yourself, 'tis pleasant;
Enough is all the present need,
That's the due of the hardy peasant
"Who toils all sorts of men to feed.
Then muzzle not the ox when he treads out the corn,
Nor grudge honest labour its pipe and its horn."

The last addition to this portrait gallery, before Sir Charles
Napier, was the head of the gallant besieger of Algiers, Lord
Exmouth. In 1825, there was one at Barnstaple, in Devon, with
the following address to the wayfarer :—

" All you that pace round field or moor,
Pray do not pass John Armstrong's door;
There's what will cheer man in his course,
And entertainment for his horse."

Finally, there is still one sign left in honour of that deserving
but unfortunate commander, Captain Cook, murdered by the
natives of Owhyhee in 1779. His name is preserved as the sign
of an alehouse in Mariner Street, London.

Though the fame of generals seems to be more short-lived than
that of admirals, yet a few ancient heroes still remain. Amongst
these, General Elliott, or Lord Heatheield, the defender of
Gibraltar, seems to be one of the greatest favourites, perhaps his
popularity in London was not a little increased by the present
which he made to Astley, of his charger named Gibraltar ; who,
performing every evening in the ring, and shining forth in the
circus bills, would certainly act as an excellent puff for the
general's glory. This hero's popularity is only surpassed by that
of the Marquis of Granby. Though nearly a century has elapsed
since the death of the latter, (Oct. 19, 1770,) his portrait is still
one of the most common signs. In London alone, he presides over
eighteen public-houses, besides numerous beerhouses. The first
one is said to have been hung out at Hounslow, by one Sumpter,
a discharged trooper of the regiment of Horse Guards, which the
Marquis of Granby had commanded as colonel.

Among the generals of a later period, are Gfjsteral Tarleton,
(or, as he is called on a sign in Clarence Street, Newcastle, Colonel
Tarlton,) General Wolfe, General Moore, and Sir Ralph
Abercrombie. At a tavern of this last denomination in Lombard
Street, some thirty-five or forty years ago, the " House of Lords'
Club " used to meet, not composed, as might be expected from the
name, of members of the peerage, but simply of the good citizens
of the neighbourhood, each dubbed with a title. The president
was styled Lord Chancellor ; he wore a legal wig and robes, and a
mace was laid on the table before him. The title bestowed upon
the members depended on the fee—one shilling constituted a
Baron, two shillings a Viscount, three shillings an Earl, four
shillings a Marquis, and five shillings a Duke ; beyond that rank
their ambition did not reach. This club originated early in the
¹ eighteenth century, at the Fleece in Cornlnll, but removed to the
Three Tuns in Southwark, that the members might be more re-
tired from the bows and compliments of the London apprentices,
who used to salute the noble lords by their titles as they passed
to and fro in the streets about their business. One of their last
houses was the Yorkshire Grey, near Roll's Buildings. At
present they are, we believe, extinct. In Newcastle, also, there was

a House of Lords, of which Bewick the wood-engraver was a
member. They used to hold their meetings in the Groat Market
of that town.

The Duke's Head, and the Old Duke, are signs that, for the
last two or three centuries, have always been applied to some
ducal hero or other, for the time being basking himself in the
noontide sun of fame. One of the first to whom it was applied,
was Monck, Duke of Albemarle after the Restoration; then
came Ormond, Marlborough, Cumberland, York, and, at
present, Wellington and the Duke of Cambridge. The Duke's
Head in Upper Street, comer of Gad's Row, Islington, was the
sign of a public-house kept by Thomas Topham, the strong man,
who, in 1741, in honour of Admiral Vernon's birthday, lifted
three hogsheads of water, weighing 1859 lb., in Coldbath
Fields.*

The Duke of Albemarle figured on numberless signboards
after the Restoration; but at the same period, there existed still
older signs, on which his grace was simply called Monck; as for
instance, that hung out by " Will. Kidd, suttler to the Guard at
St James's," t which was the Monck's Head. Kidd had
probably followed the army in many a campaign in former years,
and was much more accustomed to the name of General Monck
than that of his Grace the Duke of Albemarle. Of the Duke of
Ormond there is still one instance remaining in Longstreet, Tet-
bury, Gloucester, under the name of the Ormond's Head. A
very few Dukes of Marlborough are also left. In the beginning
of the eighteenth century, the Duke of Marlborough's Head
in Fleet Street, was a tavern used for purposes very similar to
those which we are accustomed now-a-days to behold at the St
James' and the Egyptian Halls. Among the Bagford Bills, and
in the newspapers of the time, it is constantly mentioned as the
place where something wonderful or amusing was to be seen—
, panoramas, dioramas, moving pictures, marionnettes, curious pieces
of mechanism, &c.,

The Lord Craven was once a very popular sign in London.
It occurs amongst the trades tokens of Bishopsgate Street Without,
and even at present there is a Craven Head and two Craven

+ For several centuries. Fleet Street was the head-quarters for shows and exhibitions
out of fair-time. Ben Jonson speaks of " the City of Nineveh at Fleetbridge." This was
in the reign of James I, Mrs Salmon's waxworks were among the last remaining lights
in that locality.

Arms in London. These signs were in honour of William Ciaven,
eldest son of Sir William Craven, knt., (Sheriff of London temp.
Queen Elizabeth.) This nobleman passed the greater part of his
life abroad, serving the Protestant cause in Holland and in
Germany. During the Civil War, he at various times gave
pecuniary assistance to King Charles II., who at the Restoration
created him Viscount Craven of Uffington, &c. He is said to
have been privately married to Elizabeth, daughter of James I., the
Queen of Bohemia. He died, April 19, 1697. Though his
public and military career had certainly been brilliant, yet he
owed his popularity probably more to his civic virtues, shewn
during the plague period, when he and General Monck were
almost the only men of rank that remained in town to keep order.
He even erected a pesthouse at his own expense in Pesthouse
Field, Carnaby Market, (now Marshall Street, Golden Square.)
His assistance during the frequent London fires, also tended to
make him a favourite with the Londoners.

" Lord Craven, in the time of King Charles II., was a constant man at a
fire ; for which purpose he always had a horse ready saddled in his stables,
and rewarded the first that gave him notice of such an accident. It was a
good-natured fancy, and he did a good deal of service ; but in that reign
everything was turned to a joke. The king being told of a terrible fire
that was broke out, asked if Lord Craven was there yet. ' Oh !' says some-
body by, ' an't please your majesty, he was there before it began, waiting
for it, he has had two horses burnt under him already.' * On such occasions
he usually rode a white horse, well known to the London mob, which was
said to smell the fires from afar off."

The Earl of Essex, Elizabeth's quondam, favourite, might have
been met with on many signs long after the Restoration. There
are trades tokens of a shop or tavern with such a sign on the
Baukside, Southwark, and tokens are extant of two other shops
that had the Essex Arms. In the last century there was an
Essex Head in Essex Street; in this tavern the Robin Hood
Society, " a club of free and candid inquiry," used to meet. It
was originally established in 1613, at the house of Sir Hugh
Middleton, the projector of the New River for supplying London
with water. Its first meetings were held at the houses of mem-
bers, but afterwards, the numbers increasing, they removed to
the above tavern, and its name was altered into the " Essex
Head Society." In 1747 it removed to the Robin Hood in
Butcher Row, near Temple Bar. The society attained a position
of so much importance, that a history of its proceedings was pub-

listed in 1764, giving an account of the subjects debated, and re-
ports of some of the speeches. Seven minutes only were allowed
to each speaker, at the expiration of which the Baker, or president,
summed up. Many a young politician here winged his first flight."*

In 1784, the year of his death, Dr Johnson instituted at this
house a club of twenty-four members, in order to insure him-
self society for at least three days in the week. He composed the
regulations himself, and wrote above them the following motto
from Milton:—

" To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench
In mirth which after no repenting draws."

The house at that time was kept by Samuel Greaves, an old
Bervant of Mrs Thrale. Each night of non-attendance was visited
on the members by a fine of threepence. Members were to spend
at least sixpence, besides a penny for the waiter. Each member
bad to preside one evening a month.

That the Earl of Essex, who had taken up arms against Ma
queen, should have continued more than a century after his death,
is easily accounted for by the immense popularity he enjoyed, ex-
ceeding that of any of his cotemporaries. More difficult to explain
is the presence on English signboards of the Dutch Admiral van
Tromp ; yet we find him in Church Street, Shoreditch, and in St
Helen's, Lancashire. His countryman, Mynheer van Donck, would
certainly make a much more appropriate public-house sign.

Names of battles and glorious faits d' armes have also been
much used as signs,—thus, Gibraltar, Portobello, the Battle
of the Nile, the Mouth of the Nile, Trafalgar, the Battle
of Waterloo, the Battle of the Pyramids, are all more or
less common. The Bull and Mouth is said to have a similar
origin, being a corruption of Boulogne Mouth, the entry to
Boulogne Harbour, which grew into a popular sign after the cap-
ture of that place by Henry VIII. The first house with this sign
^ is said to have been an inn in Aldgate. In less than a century
the name was already corrupted into the " Bull and Mouth," and
the sign represented by a black bull and a large mouth. Thus it
appears on the trades tokens, and also in a sculpture in the fa9ade
of the Queen's Hotel, St Martin's-le-Grand, formerly the Bull
and Mouth Inn. Of the same time also dates the Bull and

* Grosley, in his Tour to London, 1772. vol i. p. 150, mentions this society, whi h
at that period was held at the Robin Hood, and says it was a semi-public club, into
which all sorts of people were admitted, and all sorts of topics, religious as wpII as politi-
cal, were discussed. He makes an odd mistake, however, when he says that the
president ,vas a baker by trade.

Gate, a corruption of tlie Boulogne Gates, whicli Henry VIII.
ordered to be taken away, and transported to Hardes, in Kent,
where they still (?) remain. The Bull and Gate was a noted inn
in the seventeenth century in Iiolborn, where Fielding makes his
hero Tom Jones put up on his arrival in London. It is still in
existence under the same name, though much reduced in size.
There is another in New Chapel Place, Kentish Town; and a
few imitations of it were carried to distant provincial towns by
the coaches of old times.

Another sign of the same period, although not commemorative
of a battle, was the Golden Field Gate, mentioned by Taylor
the water-poet, in 1632, as the sign of an inn at the upper end
of Holborn. It was put up in honour of the Champ du Drap
d'Or, where Henry VIII. and Francis I.,

" Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,
Met in the vale of Arde."—Henry VIII., a. i. s. 1.

The signs of great men who have distinguished themselves in
the civil walks of life are much more scarce. Archimedes we
meet with as an optician's sign. He had been adopted by that
class of workmen on account of the burning lenses with which he
set the Roman fleet on fire at Syracuse. Various implements of
their trade were added as distinctions by the several shops who
sold spectacles under his auspices, such as Golden Prospects oi
Perspectives, (i.e., spectacles or any other glass that assisted the
sight,) Globes, King's Arms, &c. Among the Bagford Bills there
is one of John Marshall, optician on Ludgate Hill, " at the sign
of the Old Archimedes and Two Golden Spectacles, which
represents Archimedes taking astronomical observations, a huge
pair of spectacles being suspended on one side of the sign, and on
the other a lantern* Archimedes and Three Pair of Golden
Spectacles was the sign of another optician in Ludgate Street,
1697, who evidently had adopted Marshall's sign with the addition
of one pair of spectacles, in the hope of filching some of his cus-
tomers. Sir Isaac Newton was another telescope-maker's sign
in Ludgate Street circa 1795. t At the present day he occurs
on a few public-houses ; but it is somewhat more gratifying for
our national pride to see a coffee-house in the Rue Arcade, Paris,

* This John Marshall afterwards, when he was appointed the king's optician, changed
his sign into the Archimedes and King's Arms, under which we find him, in 1713, adver-
tising his "chrystall dressing-glasses for ladies, which shew the face as nature hath
made it, which other looking-glasses do not."

named after him. Lord Bacon's Head was the sign of W.
Bickerton, a bookseller, without Temple Bar, in 1735 ; Locke's
Head, of T. Peele, between the Temple Gates, 1718; James
Ferguson figured at the door of an optical instrument maker in
New Bond Street in 1780.* No doubt this optician was a
Scotchman, who had given preference to a national celebrity.
Just so, Andrew Miller, the great publisher and friend of Thom-
son, Hume, Fielding, &c., took the Buchanan Head for the sign
of his shop in the Strand, opposite St Catherine Street, the house
where the famous Jacob Tonson had lived, in whose time it was
the Shakespeare's Head. But Miller preferred his countryman,
and put up the less known head of George Buchanan, (1525-1582.)
Buchanan was author of a version of the Psalms, and at various
times of his life tutor to Queen Mary Stuart, Moderator of the
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Principal of St
Leonard's, preceptor to James I., director of the Chancery, Privy
Seal, &c.

Cardinal Wolsey occurs in many places, particularly in Lon-
don, Windsor, and the neighbourhood of Hampton Court. An-
drew Marvel is still commemorated on a sign in Whitefriargate,
Hull, of which town he was a native. Thomas Gresham, the
founder of the Royal Exchange, was a favourite in London after
the opening of the first Exchange in 1566 ; and Sir Hugh
Middleton, the projector of the New River, is duly honoured
with two or three signs in Islington.

There exists a curious alehouse picture, called the Three
Johns, in Little Park Street, Westminster, and in White Lion
Street, Pentonville. The same sign, many years ago, might have
been seen in Bennett Street, near Queen Square, in the former
locality. It represented an oblong table, with John Wilkes in
the middle, the Rev. John Home Tooke at one end, and Sir John
Glynn (sergeant-at-law) at the other. There is a mezzotinto
print of this picture (or the sign may be from the print) drawn
" «™d engraved by Richard Houston, 1769. John Wilkes, on whom
the popular gratitude for writing the Earl of Bute out of power
conferred many a signboard, still survives in a few spots. In a
small Staffordshire town called Leek-with-Lowe, there is a stanch
re-publican, who to this day keeps the Wilkes'-Head as his sign ,
whilst another one occurs in Bridges Street, St Ives. Sir Francis
Burdett is also far from forgotten, and may still be seen " hung

In 1683, we find Sir Edmundbury Godfrey on the picture-
board of Langley Curtis, a bookseller near Fleetbridge. Being
the martyr of a party, he undoubtedly for a while must have been
a popular sign. Lord Anglesey was, in 1679, adopted by an inn
in Drury Lane. This, we suppose, was Arthur, second Yiscount
Yalentia, son of Sir Thomas Annesley, (Lord Mountmorris,) and
elevated to the British peerage by the title of Earl of Anglesey
in 1661 ; he died in 1686. One of the acts which probably con-
tributed most to his popularity was that he, with the Lord Caven-
dish, Mr Howard, Dr Tillotson, Dr Burnet, and a few others,
appeared to vindicate Lord Bussell in the face of the court, and
gave testimony to the good life and conversation of the prisoner.

The bulky figure of Paracelsus, or, as he called himself, Philip-
pus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombastus von Holienheim,
used formerly to be a constant apothecaries' symbol. From an
advertisement in the London Gazette, July 22-26, 1680, about a
stolen horse " with a sowre head," we gather that there was at
that time a sign of Paracelsus in Old Fish Street. Informa-
tion about the horse with "the sowre head" would also be re-
ceived at a house in Lambeth, with no less a dignitary for its
sign than the Bishop of Canterbury, his grace having been
thus honoured from a neighbourly feeling.

Doctor Butler, (ob. 1617,) physician to James I., and, accord-
ing to Fuller, " the ^Esculapius of that age," invented a kind of
medicated ale, called Dr Butler's ale, "which, if not now, (1784,)
was, a few years ago, sold at certain houses that had the Butler's
Head for a sign."* One of the last remaining Butler's Heads
was in a court leading from Basinghall into Coleman Street.

That singularly successful quack, Lilly, though he ought not
to be placed in such good company as the king's physician, was
also a constant sign, in the last century, at the door of sham
doctors and astrologers. Not unfrequently they combined the
Balls (a favourite sign of the quacks) with Lilly's head, as the
Black Ball and Lillyhead, the sign of Thomas Saffold, " an
approved and licensed physician and student in astrology: he
hath practised astronomy for twenty-four years, and hath had
the Bishop of London's licence to practise physick ever since the
4th day of September 1674, and hath, he thanks God for it,

great experience and wonderful success in those arts.'^-* He pro-
mised to perform the usual tours de force.

By consequence to come to pass;
As death of great men, alterations,
Diseases, battles, inundations,
Or search'd a planet's house to know
Who broke and robb'd a house below.
Examined Venus and the Moon
To find who stole a silver spoon."

This address was " at the Black Ball and Lilly Head, next door
to the Feather shops that are within Blackfriars gateway, which
is over against Ludgate Church, just by Ludgate in London." *

Classic authors also have come in for their share of signboard
popularity in this country, which, at the time they flourished,
was about as little civilized as the Sandwich Islands in the days
of Captain Cook. These signs were set up by booksellers ; thus
Homer's Head was, in 1735, the sign of Lawton Gilliver, against
St Dunstan's Church, publisher of some of Pope's works, and
in 1761, of J, Walker at Charing Cross. Cicero, under the
name of Tully's Head, hung at the door of Robert Dodsley, a
famous bookseller in Pall Mall. In a newspaper of 1756, ap-
peared some verses " on Tully's head in Pall Mall, by the Rev.

" Where Tully's bust and honour'd name
Point out the venal page,
There Dodsley consecrates to fame

Be Tully's head the sign,
Till future booksellers shall boast
To sell their tomes at thine."

About the same time, the favourite Tully's Head was also the
sign of T. Becket, and P. A. de Hondt, booksellers in the Strand,
near Surrey Street. Horace's Head graced the shop of J.
White in Fleet Street, publisher of several of Joseph Strutt's
antiquarian works; and Virgil's Head of Abraham van den
Hoeck and George Richmond, opposite Exeter Change in the
Strand, in the middle of the last century. Of Seneca's Head
two instances occur, J. Round in Exchange Alley in 1711, and

A few of our own poets are also common tavern pictures. As
early as 1655 we find a (Ben) Jonson's Head tavern in the
Strand, where Ben Jonson's chair was kept as a relic.* In that
same year it was the sign of Robert Pollard, bookseller, behind
the Royal Exchange. Ten years later it occurs in the following
advertisement:—

V V ing Chymists hath prepaired certain Medicynes for the cure and
prevention of the Plague, at cheap rates, without Benefit to himself, and
for the publick good, In pursuance of directions from authority, be it
known that these said Medicynes are to be had at Mr Thomas Fidges, in
Fountain Court, Shoe Lane, near Fleet Street, and are also left by him to
be disposed of at the Green Ball, within Ludgate, the Ben Jonson's
Head, near Yorkhouse," &c.f

There is still a Ben Jonson's Head tavern with a painted por-
trait of the poet in Shoe Lane, Fleet Street; a Ben Jonson's Inn
at Pemberton, "YVigan, Lancashire ; and another at Weston-on-tlie
Green, Bicester.

Shakespeare's Head is to be seen in almost every town
where there is a theatre. At a tavern with that sign in Great
Russell Street, Covent Garden, the Beefsteak Society (different
from the Beefsteak Club,) used to meet before it was removed to
the Lyceum Theatre. George Lambert, scene-painter to Covent
Garden Theatre, was its originator. This tavern was at one time
famous for its beautifully painted sign. The well-known Lion's
Head, first set up by Addison at Button's, was for a time placed
at this house. | There was another Shakespeare Head in Wych
Street, Drury Lane, a small public-house at the beginning of
this century, the last haunt of the Club of Owls, so called on
account of the late hours kept by its members. The house was

* "On the eliairof Ben Johnson, now remaining at Robert Wilson's, at the sign of
the Johnson's Head, in the Strand."—- Wit and Drollery, 1655, p. 79.

t The Newts, August 24,1655. This may have been the above-mentioned tavern, as
York House was situated in the Strand on the site of the present ^ork Buildings.

X Addison's Lion's Head, the box for the deposition of the correspondence of the
Guardian, was originally placed at Button's, over against Tom's in Great Russell
Street. " After having become a receptacle of papers and a spy for the Guardian, it
was moved to the Shakespeare's Head Tavern, under the Piazza in Covent Garden,
kept by a person named Tomkins. and in 1751 was for a short time placed in the Bed-
ford Coffeehouse, immediately adjoining the Shakespeare Tavern, and there employed
as a medium of literary communication by Dr John Hill, author of the ' Inspector.' In
1769, Tomkins was succeeded by his waiter, named Campbell, as proprietor of the
tavern and Lion's Head, and by him the latter was retained till 1804, when it was pur-
chased by the late Charles Richaruson, after whose death in 1827 it devolved to his son,
and has since become the property of his Grace the Duke of Bedford."—Till, in his
Preface to Descriptive Catalogue of English Medals.

then kept by a lady under the protection of Dutch Sam the
pugilist. After this it was for one year in the hands of the well-
known Mr Mark Lemon, present editor of Punch, then just newly
married to Miss Romer, a singer of some renown, who assisted him
in the management of this establishment. The house was chiefly
visited by actors from Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and the
Olympic, whilst a club of literati used to meet on the first floor.

Sir John Falstaff, who so dearly loved his sack, could not
fail to become popular with the publicans, and may be seen on
almost as many signboards as his parent Shakespeare.

Milton's Head was, in 1759, the sign of George Hawkins, a
bookseller at the corner of the Middle Temple gate, Fleet Street;
at present there are two Milton's Head public-houses in Notting-
ham. Dryden's Head was to be seen in 1761,, at the door of
H. Payne and Crossley, booksellers in Paternoster Eow. At
Kate's Cabin, on the Great Northern Road, between Chesterton
and Alwalton, there is a sign of Dryden's head, painted by Sir
William Beechey, when engaged as a house-painter on the decora-
tion of Alwalton Hall. Dryden was often in that neighbourhood
when on a visit to his kinsman, John Dryden of Chesterton.

Pope's Head was in favour with the booksellers of the last
century; thus the Gentleman's Magazine, Sept. 1770, mentions
a head of Alexander Pope in Paternoster Row, painted by an
eminent artist, but does not say who the painter was. Edmund
Curll, the notorious bookseller in Rose Street, Covent Garden,
had Pope's head for his sign, not out of affection certainly, but
out of hatred to the poet. After the quarrel which arose out of
Curll's piratical publication of Pope's literary correspondence,
Curll, in May 22, 1735, addressed a letter of thanks to the House
of Lords, ending thus,—" I have engraved a new plate of Mr
Pope' s head from Mr Jervas's painting, and likewise intend to
hang him up in effigy for a sign to all spectators of his falsehood
and my own veracity, which I will always maintain under the
Scotch motto, ^£ Nemo me impune lacessit.' " R. Griffiths, a
bookseller in St Paul's Churchyard since 1750, had the Dunciad
for his sign. He was agent for a very primitive social-evil move-
ment ; advertisements emanating from this " sett of gentlemen
sympathising with the misfortunes of young girls" occur in the
papers of June and July 1752. One of the regulations was,
" None need to apply but such as are Fifteen years of age,
and not above Twenty-five: older are thought past being re-

claim'd, unless good Recommendations are given. Drinkers of
spirits and swearers have a bad cliance."

The Man op Ross is at the present day a signboard at Wye
Terrace, Ross, Herefordshire ; the house in which John Kyrle, the
Man of Ross, dwelt, was, after his death, converted into an inn.
Twenty or thirty years ago the following poetical effusion was to
be read stuck up in that inn :—

" Here dwelt the Man of Ross, 0 traveller here,
Departed merit claims the rev'rent tear.
Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health,
With generous joy he view'd his modest wealth.
If 'neath this roof thy wine-cheer'd moments pass,
Fill to the good man's name one grateful glass.
To higher zest shall memory wake thy soul,
And virtue mingle in th' ennobled bowl.
Here cheat thy cares, in generous visions melt,
And dream of goodness thou hast never felt."

The head of Rowe, the first emendator, corrector, and illus-
trator of Shakespeare, was in 1735 the sign of a bookseller in
Essex Street, Strand. The Camden Head and Camden Arms
occur in four instances as the sign of London publicans. Cam-
den Town, however, may perhaps take the credit of this last sign.
Addison's Head was for above sixty years the sign of the then
well-known firm of Corbett & Co.—first of C. Corbett, after"
wards of his son Thomas, booksellers in Fleet Street from 1740
till the beginning of this century. Dr Johnson's Head, ex-
hibiting a portrait of the great lexicographer, is a modern
sign in Bolton Court, Fleet Street, opposite to where the great
man lived, and which was in his time occupied by an upholsterer.
It is sometimes asserted to be the house in which the Doctor
resided, but this statement is wrong, for the house in which he
had apartments was burned down in 1819. Finally, a portrait
of Sterne, under the name of the Yorick's Head, was the sign of
John Wallis, a bookseller in Ludgate Street in 1795.

Of modern poets Lord Byron is the only one who has been
exalted to the signboard. In the neighbourhood of Nottingham his
portrait occurs in several instances ; his Mazeppa also is a great
favourite, but it must be confessed its popularity has been greatly
assisted by the circus, by sensational engravings, and, above all,
by that love for horse flesh innate to the British character. Don
Juan also occurs on a publican's signboard at Cawood, Selby,
West Riding; and Don John at Maltby, Rotheram, in the same
(ounty ; but perhaps these are merely the names of race horses.

The latest of all literary celebrities who attained sufficient
popularity to entitle him to a signboard was Sheridan Knowles,
who was chosen as the sign of a tavern in Bridge Street, Covent
Garden, facing the principal entrance to Drury Lane Theatre,
(now a nameless eating-house.) There the Club of Owls used to
meet. Sheridan Knowles was one of the patrons, and Augustine
Wade, an author and composer of some fame, was chairman of
the club in those days. Pierce Egan and Leman Bede were
amongst its members ; so that it may be conjectured that the
nights were not passed in moping*

Mythological divinities and heroes, also, have been very fairly
represented on our signboards. At this head, of course, Bacchus
(frequently with the epithet of Jolly) well deserves to be placed.
In the time when the Bush was the usual alehouse sign, or
rather when it had swollen to a crown of evergreens, a chubby
little Bacchus astride on a tun was generally a pendant to the
crown. In Holland and Germany we have seen a Beer king, (a
modern invention, certainly,) named Cambrinus, taking the place
of Bacchus at the beer-house door ; but, according to the six-
teenth century notions, Bacchus included beer in his dominions.
Hence he is styled " Bacchus, the God of brew'd wine and sugar,
grand patron of robpots, upsey freesy tipplers, and supernaculum
takers, this Bacchus, who is head warden of Vintner's Hall, ale
connor, mayor of all victualling houses," &c.—Massinger's Virgin
Martyr, a. ii. s. 1. Next to Bacchus, Apollo is most frequent, but
whether as god of the sun or leader of the Muses it is difficult to
say. Sometimes he is called Glorious Apollo, which, in heraldic
language, means that he has a halo round his head.+ In the
beginning of this century there was a notorious place of amuse-
ment in St George's Fields, Westminster Boad, called the Apollo
Gardens—a Vauxhall or a Ranelagh of a very low description.
It was tastefully fitted up, but being small and having few attrac-
tions beyond its really good orchestra, it became the resort of
the vulgar and the depraved, and was finally closed and built
over.

Minerva also is not uncommon—probably not so much be-
cause she was the goddess of wisdom, but as " ye patroness of
scholars, shoemakers, diers," &c.J Juno has a temple in Church

* Our slang friends the burlesque writers and parodists, would probably say something
about mopping.—Er>.

Lane, Hull, and Neptune of course is of frequent occurrence in
a country that holds the

The smith being generally a thirsty soul, his patron Vulcan
constitutes an appropriate alehouse sign, and in that capacity he
frequently figures, particularly in the Black country. Amongst
the quaint Dutch signboard inscriptions there is one which, in
the seventeenth century, was written under a sign of Vulcan
lighting his pipe :—

" In Vulcanus. Hy steekt zyn pyp op aan't vyer
Die goed tabak wil hebben die konat alhier.

Vulcan, as the god of fire, without which there is no smoke, was
a common tobacconist's sign in Holland two hundred years ago.
One of these dealers had the following rhymes affixed to his
Vulcan sign:—

" Vulcan die lamme smid als hy was moci van smeden
Ging hy wat zitten neer en ruste zyne leden
De Goden zagen't aan, hy haalde uit zyn zak
Zyn pypye en zyn doos en rookte doen tabak." 1*

Mercury, the god of commerce, was of frequent occurrence,
as might be expected. Amongst the Banks collection of shop-
bills there is one of a fanshop in Wardour Street with the sign of
the Mercury and Fan. Both Cupid and Flora were signs at
Norwich in 1750, ^ and Comus is frequently the tutelary god of
our provincial public-houses. Castor and Pollux, represented
in the dress of Roman soldiers of the empire standing near a cask
of tallow, was the sign of T. & J. Bolt, tallow-chandlers, at the
corner of Berner Street, Oxford Street, at the end of the last
century, for the obvious reason that, like the Messrs Bolt, they
were two brothers that spread light over the world. Our ad-
miration for athletic strength and sports suggested the sign of
Hercules, as well as his biblical parallel Samson.

As for the Hercules Pillars, this was the classic name for
the Straits of Gibraltar, which by the ancients was considered
the end of the world; in the same classic sense it was adopted
on outskirts of towns, where it is more common now to see the

* At the Vulcan. He lights his pipe at the fire;—whosoever wants to buy good
tobacco let him come here;—you will get a pipe filled into the bargain, and a glass of
strong beer in fair time.

+ Vulcan, that lame blacksmith, when he got tired over his work, sat down a while to
rest his limbs. The gods saw it; he took his cutty pipe and his tobacco boK out of his
pocket and smoked a pipe of tobacco.

World's End. In 1667 it was the sign of Richard Fenck in
Pall Mall, and also of a public-house in Piccadilly, on the site
of the present Hamilton Place, both which spots were at that
period the end of the inhabited world of London. The sign
generally represented the demi-god standing between the pillars,
or pulling the pillars down—a strange cross between the biblical
and the pagan Hercules.

The Pillars of Hercules in Piccadilly is mentioned by Wycherley
in the " Plain Dealer," 1676 :—" I should soon be picking up all
our own mortgaged apostle spoons, bowls, and beakers out of
most of the alehouses betwixt the Hercules Pillars and the Boat-
swain in Wapping." The Marquis of Granby often visited the
former house, and here Fielding, in " Tom Jones," makes Squire
Western put up :—" The Squire sat cLown to regale himself over
a bottle of wine with his parson and the landlord of the Her-
cules Pillars, who, as the Squire said, would make an excellent
third man, and would inform them of the news of the town ; for,
to be sure, says he, he knows a- great deal, since the horses of
many of the quality stand at his house."* In Pepys' time there
was a. Hercules Pillars tavern in Fleet Street. Here the merry
clerk of the Admiralty supped with his wife and some friends on
Feb. 6, 1667-8 ; his return home gives a good idea of London
after the fire :—

" Coming from the Duke of York's playhouse I got a coach, and a
humour took us and I carried them to the Hercules Pillars, and there did
give them a kind of supper of about 7s. and very merry, and home round
the town, not through the ruins. And it was pretty how the coachman by
mistake drives us into the ruins from London Wall unto Coleman Street,
and would persuade me that I lived there. And the truth is, I did think
that he and the linkman had contrived some roguery, but it proved only a
mistake of the coachman; but it was a cunning place to have done us a
mischief in, as any I know, to drive us out of the road into the ruins, and
there stop, while nobody could be called to help us. But we came home
Bafe."

Atlas carrying the World was the very appropriate sign of
the map and chart makers. In 1674 there was one in Cornhill,t
and under a print of Blanket fair (the fair held on the Thames
when frozen over) occurs the following imprint:—" A map of
the river Thames merrily called Blanket-fair, as it was frozen in
the memorable year 1683-4, describing the Booths, Footpaths,
Coaches, Sledges, Bull-baitings, and other remarks. Sold by

Joseph Moxon on the West side of Fleet ditch, at the sign of tha
Atlas." Equally appropriate was Orpheus as the sign of the
music shop of L. Peppard, next door to BickerstafFe's coffee-
house, Russell Street, Covent Garden, 1711. No fault either
can be found with the Golden Fleece as the sign of a woollen
draper—Jason's golden fleece being an allegory of the wool
trade ; but at the door of an inn or public-house it looks very
like a warning of the fate the traveller may expect within—in
being fleeced. In the seventeenth century there was a Fleece
Tavern in St James's :—

J\. England.* If any person desire to come and hear it, they may
repair to the Fleece Tavern near St James's about 2 o'clock in the afternoon
every day in the week except Sundays. Every consort shall continue one
hour and so to begin again. The best places are 1 shilling, the others six-
pence."—London Gazette, Feb. 1-4, 1674.

This is amongst the earliest concerts on record in London.
Another example of this sign worth mentioning was the Fleece
Tavern, (in York Street,) Covent Garden, which, says Aubrey,
" was very unfortunate for homicides; there have been several
killed—three in my time. It is now (1692) a private house.
Clifton, the master, hanged himself, having perjured himself." +
Pepys does not give this house a better character :—¹" Decemb.
1, 1660. Mr Flower did tell me how a Scotch knight was
killed basely the other day at the Fleece in Covent Garden,
where there had been a great many formerly killed." On the
Continent, also, this symbol was used; for instance, in 1687, by
Jean Camusat, a printer in the Rue St Jacques, Paris ; his colo-
phon represented Jason taking the golden fleece off a tree, with
the motto—" Tegit et quos tangit inaurat."

Another sign, of which the application is not very obvious, is
Pegasus or the Flying Horse, unless it refers to this rhyme :—
" If with water you fill up your glasses,
You' 11 never write anything wise;

* This was not true, for Pepys went (24th Oct. 1667) to hear the same instrument
played by a Mr Prin, a Frenchman, "which he do beyond belief, and the truth is, it do
bo far outdo a trumpet as nothing more, and he do play anything very true. The instru-
ment is open at the end I discovered, but he would not let me look into it." Philips, in
his "New World of Words," 1696, describes it as "an instrument with a bellows, re-
sembling a lute, having a long neck with a striug, which being struck with a hairbow
sounds like a trumpet."

and Chancery Lane, 1680," is an imprint under many ballads.
John Gay undoubtedly had adopted this sign as a compliment to
the Templars, in whose vicinity he lived, and whose arms are a
Pegasus on a field arg. As for the poor balladmongers, whose
works Gay printed, they certainly put Pegasus too much to the
plough, to imagine that he alluded to theirs as a Flying Horse
Instead of the Flying Horse, a facetious innkeeper at Rogate
Petersfield, has put up a parody in the shape of the Flying Bull

The Hope and the Hope and Anchor are constant signb
with shop and tavern keepers. Pepys spent his Sunday, the
23d September 1660, at the Hope Tavern, in a not very godly
manner; and his account shews the curious business manage-
ment of the taverns in the time :—

" To the Hope and sent for Mr Chaplin, who with Nicholas Osborne and
one Daniel come to us, and we drank of two or three quarts of wine, which
was very good; the drawing of our wine causing a great quarrel in the
house between the two drawers which should draw us the best, which
caused a great deal of noise and falling out, till the master parted them,
and came up to us and did give us a long account of the liberty he gives
his servants, all alike, to draw what wine they will to please his customers ;
and we eat above two hundred walnuts."

In consequence of these excesses Master Pepys was very ill
next day, but the particulars of the illness, though very graphi-
cally entered into the diary, are " unfit for publication."

The Fortune was adopted from considerations somewhat
similar to those that prompted the choice of the Hope. It
occurs as the sign of a tavern in "VVapping in 1667. The trades
tokens of this house represent the goddess by a naked figure
standing on a globe, and holding a veil distended by the wind,—
a delicate hint to the customers, for it is a well-known fact that
a man who has " a sheet in the wind" is as happy as a king.
Doubtless the name of the Elysium, a public-house in Drury Lane
about thirty years ago, had also been adopted as suggestive of
the happiness in store for the customers who honoured the place
by their company.

Ballads, novels, chapbooks, and songs, have also given their
contingent. Thus, for instance, the Blind Beggar of Bethnal
Green—still a public-house in the Whitechapel Road—has deco-
rated the signpost for ages. The ballad was written in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth ; but the legend refers to Henry de Montfort,
son of the Earl of Leicester, who was supposed to have fallen at
the battle of Evesham in the reign of Henry III. Not only was

the Beggar adopted as a sign by publicans, but he also figured on
the staff of the parish beadle; and so convinced were the Bethnal
Green folks of the truth of the story, that the house called Kirby
Castle was generally pointed out as the Blind Beggar's palace, and
two turrets at the extremity of the court wall as the place where
he deposited his gains.

Still more general all over England is Guy of Warwick, who
occurs amongst the signs on trades tokens of the seventeenth cen-
tury : that of Peel Beckford, in Field Lane, represents him as an
armed man holding a boar's head erect on a spear. The wondrous
strange feats of this knight form the subject of many a ballad.
In the Roxburgh Collection there is one headed, " The valiant
deads of chivalry atchieved by that noble knight, Sir Guy of
Warwick, who, for the love of fair Phillis, became a hermit, and
dyed in a cave of a craggy rock a mile distant from Warwick.
In Normandy stoutly won by fight the Emperor's daughter of
Almayne from many a valiant, worthy knight." * His most
popular feat is the slaying of the Dun Cow on Dunsmore Heath,
which act of valour is commemorated on many signs.

" By gallant Guy of Warwick slain
Was Colbrand, that gigantick Dane.
Nor could this desp'rate champion daunt
A dun cow bigger than elephaunt.
But. he, to prove his courage sterling,
His whinyard in her blood embrued;
He cut from her enormous side a sirloin,
And in his porridge-pot her brisket stew'd,
Then butcher'd a wild boar, and eat him barbicu'd."

A public-house at Swainsthorpe, near Norwich, has the follow»
ing inscription on his sign of the Dun Cow :—
" Walk in, gentlemen, I trust you'll find
The Dun Cow's milk is to your mind."

Another on the road between Durham and York :—
" Oh, come you from the east,
Oh, come you from the west,
If ye will taste the Dun Cow's milk,
Ye'11 say it is the best."

The King and Miller is another ballad-sign seen in many
places. It alludes to the adventure of Henry II. with the Miller

* See in Bib. Top. Brit., vol. iv., a Critical Memoir on the Story of Guy of Warwick,
by the Rev. Samuel Pegge, who supposes that Guy lived in Saxon times, and was the
son of Simon, Baron of Wallingford. He married Felicia, (Phillis,) the daughter and
heiress of Rohand. Earl of Warwick, who flourished in the reign of Edward the Elder,
and eo became Earl of Warwick,

of Mansfield.* Similar stories are told of many different Icings :
of King John and the Miller of Charlton, (from whom Cuckold's
Point got its name ;) of King Edward and the tanner of Drayton
Basset; of Henry VIII.; of James Y. of Scotland, (the guidman
of Ballageicli;) of Henry IY. of France and the pig-merchant;
of Charles Y. of Spain and the cobbler of Brussels; of Joseph II.;
of Frederick the Great; and even of Haroun-al-Baschid, who used
to go about incognito under the name of II Bondocani.

The most frequent of all ballad signs is unquestionably Robin
Hood and Little John, his faithful accolyte. Robin Hood has
for centuries enjoyed a popularity amongst the English people
shared by no other hero. He was a crack shot, and of a manly,
merry temper, qualities which made the mob overlook his confused
notions about meum and tuum, and other peccadilloes. His sign
is frequently accompanied by the following inscription :—
" You gentlemen, and yeomen good,
Come in and drink with Robin Hood.
If Robin Hood be not at home,
Come in and drink with Little John."

Which last line a country publican, not very well versed in
ballad lore, thus corrected :—

" Call here, my boy, if you are dry,
The fault's in you, and not in I.
If Robin Hood from home is gone,
Step in and drink with Little John."

" Try Charrington's ale, you will find it good.
Step in and drink with Robin Hood.

And to shew the perfect application of the rhyme, mine host
informs the public that he is " Little John from the old Pack
House," (a public-house opposite.)

One of the ballads in Robin Hood's Garland has given another
signboard hero, namely, the Pindaii of Wakefield, t George a
Green.

t The "pindar " was the man who took care of stray cattle, which he kept in the pinfold,
or pound, until it was claimed and the expenses paid.

" In Wakefielde there lives a jolly Pindar,
In Wakefielde all on the greene.
' There is neither knight nor squire,' said the Pindar,
' Nor baron so bold, nor baron so bold,
Dares make a trespass to the town of Wakefielde,
But his pledge goes to the Pinfold.' "

" Straight at Wakefielde I was seen, a',
Where I sought for George-a-Green, a',
But could find not such a creature,
Yet on sign I saw his feature.
Whose strength of ale had so much stirr'd me,
That I grew stouter far than Jordie."

There was formerly a public-house near St Chad's Well,
Clerkenwell, bearing this sign, which at one period, to judge from
the following inscription, would seem to have been more famous
than the celebrated Bagnigge Wells hard by. A stone in the

Among the more uncommon ballad signs, we find the Babes
in the Wood at Hanging Heaton, Dewsbury, West Biding.
Jane Shore was commemorated in Shoreditch in the seventeenth
century, as we see from trades tokens. Valentine and Orson we
find mentioned as early as 1711,* as the sign of a coffee-house in
Long Lane, Bermondsey; and there they remain till the present day.

Other chapbook celebrities are Mother Shipton, Kentish
Town, and Low Bridge, Knaresboro'; which latter village disputes
with Shipton, near Londesborough, the honour of giving birth
to this remarkable character in the month of July 1488. The fact
is duly commemorated under her signboard in the former place :—
" Near to this petrifying wall +
I first drew breath, as records tell."

Her life and prophecies have at all times been a favourite theme
in popular literature. If we may believe her biographers, she

t The " Dropping Well," one of the most noted petrifying springs in England, and so
named on account of its percolating through the rock that hangs over it.

predicted tlie fall of Cardinal Wolsey, the dissolution of the
monasteries, the establishment of the Protestant religion under
Edward "VI., the cruelty of Queen Mary, the glorious reign of
Queen Elizabeth, the defeat of the Armada, the Plague and Great
Fire, and many things not yet come to pass. Like the Delphic
oracles, her predictions were given in metre, and veiled in mystery.
The plague and fire, for instance, are thus foretold :—
" Triumphant death rides London thro',
And men on tops of houses go."
She is represented as of a most unprepossessing appearance ;
although we certainly might have expected better from the
daughter of a necromancer, or "the phantasm of Apollo, or some
aerial dasmon who seduced her mother—" her body was long,
and very big-boned; she had great goggling eyes, very sharp and
fiery ; a nose of unproportionable length, having in it many crooks
and turnings, adorned with great pimples, and which, like vapours
of brimstone, gave such a lustre in the night, that the nurse
needed no other light to dress her by in her childhood."*

Another necromancer, Merlin, shares renown with Mother
Shipton, both in chapbooks and on signboards. Merlin's Cave
is the sign of a public-house in Great Audley Street, and in
Upper Rosomon Street, Clerkenwell, in which places he doubtless
still plays his old pranks, of changing men into beasts. In-
numerable romances and histories of Merlin were printed in the
middle ages. He appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth as early
as the twelfth century, and Alain de l'lsle gave an ample
explanation of his prophecies in seven books, printed in 1608.
" This Merlin," says M. de la Monnoye, " tout magicien et fils
du diable que l'on l'a cru," has by the good Carmelite, Baptiste
Mantuanus, been metamorphosed into a saint. At the end of his
" Tolentinum," a poem in three books, in honour of St Nicholas,
(anno 1509,) he thus speaks of Merlin :—-

"Werlinus, laris infando de semine cretus.
Hie satus infami coitu pietate refulsit
Eximia superum factus post funera consors."

* This information we gather from a chapbook entitled "The Strange anl WoDderfnl
History and Prophecies of Mother Shipton, by Ferraby, printer on the Market Place,
Hull. It is evidently a reprint of a chapbook of the time oi Charles II., as appears from
many allusions.

t Once there was a man who leJ a holy life, and was a prophet, who could see
■what would come to pass ; his name was Merlin, and he was the offspring of an evil and
fiendish spirit. But though born from such a lather, he shone forth in virtue, and aftef
his death, bc-came a companion of the saints.

His prophecies were also translated into Italian, and printed at
Venice in 1516. The annotators say it was reported that Merlin,
by his enchantments, transported from Ireland those huge stones
found in Salisbury plain. His cave was in Clerkenwell, on the
site where the alehouse now stands, and was in the reign of
Jaines I., one of the London sights strangers went to see.*

We have a well-known chapbook hero in Jack of Newbury,
who had already attained to the signboard honours in the
seventeenth century, when we find him on the token of John
Wheeler, in Soper Lane (now Queen Street, Cheapside,) whilst at
present, he may be seen in a full-length portrait in Chiswell Street,
Finsbury Square. This Jack of Newbury, alias Winchcombe,
alias Smallwoode, " was the most considerable clothier England
ever had. He kept an hundred looms in his house, each managed
by a man and a boy. He feasted King Henry VIII. and his first
Queen Catherine at his own house in Newbury, now divided into
sixteen clothiers' houses. He built the Church of Newbury,
from the pulpit westward to the town."t At the battle of
Flodden in 1513, he joined the Earl of Surrey with a corps of one
hundred men, well equipped at his sole expense, who distin-
guished themselves greatly in that fight. He is buried in New-
Dury, where his brass effigy is still to be seen, purporting that he
died February 15, 1519. An inn bearing his sign in Newbury, is
said to be built on the site of the house where he entertained
King Harry. Thomas Deloney, the ballad-writer, wrote a tale
about him, entitled, " The pleasant history of John Winchcomb, in
his younger years called Jack of Newberry, the famous and
worthy clothier of England, declaring his life and love, together
with his charitable deeds and great hospitalitie. Entered in the
Stationers' Book, May 7, 1596."

Whittington and his Cat is still very common, not only in
London but in the country also. Sometimes the cat is repre-
sented without her master, as on the token of a shop in Long-

New Court, Old Bailey, 1783, whose shopbill| represents a
large cat carved in wood holding an eye-glass by a chain. The
story of Whittington is still a favourite chapbook tale, and has
its parallel in the fairy tales of various other countries. Strapa-
rola, in his " Piacevole Notte," is, we believe, the first who men-

tions it. The earliest English narrative occurs in Johnson's
" Crown Garland of Golden Roses," 1612, but there is an allu-
sion to "Whittington and his Puss" in the play of "Eastward
Hoe !" 1603. For more than a century it was one of the stock
pieces of Punch and his dramatic troop. Sept. 21, 1688, Pepys
went to see it : " To Southwark Fair, very dirty, and there saw
the puppet-show of Whittington, which is pretty to see ; and how
that idle thing do work upon people that see it, and even myself
too." Foote, in his comedy of the " Nabob," makes Sir Matthew
Mite account for the legend by explaining the cat as the name
of some quick-sailing vessels by which Whittington imported
coals, which should have been the source of the Lord Mayor's
wealth. In the Ilighgate Road there is a skeleton of a cat in a
public-house window, which by the people who visit there is
firmly believed to be the earthly remains of Wliittington's identi-
cal cat. The house is not far distant from the spot where the
future Lord Mayor of London stopped to listen to the city bells
inviting him to return. It is now marked by a stone, with the
event duly inscribed thereon.

King Arthur's Round Table is to be seen on various public-
houses. There is one in St Martin's Court, Leicester Square,
where the American champion, Heenan, put np when he came
to contest the belt with the valiant Tom Sayers. The same
sign is also often to be met with on the Continent. In the seven-
teenth century there was a famous tavern called la Table
Roland in the Vallée de Misère at Paris. John-o'-Groat's
House is also used for a sign ; there was one some years ago
in Windmill Street, Haymarket ; and at present there is a John-
o'-Groat's in Gray Street, Blackfriars Road. Both these and
the Round Table contain, we conceive, some intimation of that
even-handed justice observed at the houses, where all comers are
treated alike, and one man is as good as another.

Darby and John, a corruption of Darby and Joan, and bor-
rowed from an old nursery fable, is a sign at Crowle, in Lin-
colnshire ; and Hob in the Well, with a similar origin, at Little
Port Street, Lynn ; whilst Sir John Barleycorn is the hero
of a ballad allegorical of the art of brewing, &c.

A favourite ballad of our ancestors originated the sign of the
London Apprentice, of which there are still numerous examples.
How they were represented appears from the Spectator, No. 428,
vis., "witli a lion's heart in each hand." The ballad informs us

that the apprentice came off with flying colours, after endless
adventures, one of which was that like Richard Coeur-de-Lion—
he "robbed the lion of his heart." The ballad is entitled " The
Honour of an Apprentice of London, wherein he declared his
matchless manhood and brave adventures done by him in Turkey,
and by what means he married the king's daughter of that same
country."

The Essex Serpent is a sign in King Street, Covent Garden,
and in Charles Street, Westminster, perhaps in allusion to a fabu-
lous monster recorded in a catalogue of wonders and awful prog-
nostications contained in a broadside of 1704,¹ from which we
learn that, " Before Henry the Second died, a dragon of marvel-
lous bigness was discovered at St Osyph, in Essex." Had we any
evidence that it is an old sign, we might almost be inclined to con-
sider it as dating from the civil war, and hung up with reference to
Essex, the Parliamentary general; for though we have searched
the chroniclers fondest of relating wonders and monstrous appari-
tions, we have not succeeded in finding any authority for the St
Osyph Dragon, other than the above-mentioned broadside.

Literature of a somewhat higher class than street ballads, has
likewise contributed material to the signboards. One of the oldest
instances is the Lucrece, the chaste felo-de-se of Roman history,
who, in the sixteenth century, was much in fashion among the
poets, and was even sung by Shakespeare. We find that " Thomas
Berthelet, prynter unto the kynges mooste noble grace, dwellynge
at the sygne of the Lucrece, in Fletestrete, in the year of our Lorde
1536." In 1557, it was the sign of Leonard Axtell, in St Paul's
Churchyard; and in the reign of Charles I., of Thomas Purfoot,
in New Rents, Newgate Market, both booksellers and printers.
The Complete Angler was the usual sign of fish-tackle sellers in
the last century, and the essays of the Spectator made the charac-
ter of Sir Roger de Coverley very popular with tobacconists.

1 This broadside is reprinted in Notes and Queries for January 15. 1859. Sussex had
its snake as late as 1614. There is a pamphlet in the Harl. Collection, entitled, " True
and Wonderful—a discourse relating a strange and monstrous serpent, (or dragon,)
.ately discovered, and yet living, to the great annoyance and divers slaughter both of
men and cattell, by his strong and violent Poyson, in Sussex, two miles from Horsam, in
a woode called St Leonard's Forrest, and thirtie miles from London, this present month
of August 1614." That this Sussex snake caused a great sensation, appears trom the
fact that seventeen years after, it is alluded to in "Whimsies: or, A New Cast of Cha-
racters," 1631: "Nor comes his [the ballad-monger's] invention far short of his imagi i-
ation. For want of truer relations for a neede, he can find you out a Sussex dragon,
some sea or inland monster, drawn out by some Shoe Lane man, [i. e., a sign-painter ;
they all lived in Harp Alley, Shoe Lane,] in Gorgon-like features, to enforce more horror
in the beholder."

Doctor Syntax hangs at the door of many public-houses, as at
Preston, Oldham, Newcastle, Gateshead, &c.; the Lady of this
Lake at Lowestoft; Dandie Dinmont at West Linton, Carlisle;
Pickwick in Newcastle; the Red Rover, Barton Street, Glou-
cester;* Tam o' Shanter, Laurence Street, York, and various
other towns; Robin Adair, Benwell, Newcastle. Popular songs
also belong to this class, as the Labs o' Gowrie, Sunderland and
Durham; Auld Lang Syne, Preston Street, Liverpool; Tulloch-
Gorum and Loch-na-Gar, both in Manchester; Rob Roy, Tithe-
burn Street, Liverpool; Flowers of tiie Forest, Blackfriars
Road. On the whole, however, this class of names is much more
prevalent in the northerly than in the southerly districts of Eng-
land. In the south, if we except This Old English Gentleman,
who occurs everywhere, the great Jim Crow is almost the only
instance of the hero of a song promoted to the signboard. Robin-
son Crusoe is common to all the seaports of the kingdom, whilst
Uncle Tom, or Uncle Tom's Cabin, is to be found everywhere,
not only in England, but also on the Continent. Any little un-
derground place of refreshment or beer-house difficult of access, is
considered as fittingly named by Mrs Beecher Stowe's novel.

A very appropriate, and not uncommon public-liouse sign is
the Toby Philpott. That he well deserves this honour, appears
from the following obituary notice, (in the Gent. Mag., Dec.
1810:)—

" At the Ewes farm-house, Yorkshire, aged 76, Mr Paul Parnell, farmer,
grazier, and maltster, who, during his lifetime, drank out of one silver pint
cup upwards of £2000 sterling worth of Yorkshire Stingo, being remark-
ably attached to Stingo tipple of the home-brewed best quality. The cal-
culation is taken at 2d. per cupful. He was the bon-vivant whom O'Keefe
celebrated in more than one of his Bacchanalian songs under the appella-
tion of Toby Philpott."

Between St Albans and Harpenden, there was, some years ago,
and perhaps there is still, a public-house called the Old Roson.
This name also appears to be borrowed from the well-known scng,
" Old Rosin the Beau," beginning thus :—

* The title of Cooper's novel seems to have taken hold of the popular fancy to an as-
tonishing degree: not only are there several public-houses who have adopted it as thcij
sign, but also race-horses, ships, and locomotive engines have been named after it-
There is even a baked potato-can in the streets of London, decorated with that name; it
is built in the shape of a locomotire-engine, japanned red, and wheeled about the ttwbr.
by an old woman. The name on a brass plate is screwed to the can, similar to the names
of locomotive-engines.

To welcome old Rosin the Beau (ter.)
When I am dead and laid out on the counter,

These stanzas, and one or two more to the same import, were
quite sufficient to make the old Beau a fit subject for the sign-
board, irrespective of his other amiable qualities held forth in the
song. The very common Old House at Home, too, is borrowed
from a once-popular ballad, the verse of which is too well known
to need quotation here.

"lama hearty good fellow,
I live at my ease,
I work when I am willing,
I play when I please.

Of signboards portraying artists, but few instances occur; and
when they do, they are almost exclusively the property of print-
sellers. We have only met with three: Rembrandt's Head, the
sign of J. Jackson, printseller, at the corner of Chancery Lane,
Fleet Street, 1759 ; and of Nathaniel Smith, the father (?) of J.
T. Smith, in Great May's Buildings, St Martin's Lane. Another
member of that family, J. Smith, who kept a printshop in Cheap-
side, where several of Hogarth's engravings were published,
assumed the Hogarth's Head for his sign. The third is the
Van Dyke's Head, the sign of C. Philips, engraver and print-
publisher in Portugal Street, in 1761. Hogarth also had a head
of Van Dyke as his trade symbol, made from small pieces of cork,
but being gilt, he called it the Golden Head, (see under Miscel-
laneous Signs.)

In old times, more than at present, music was deemed a neces-
sary adjunct to tavern hospitality and public-house entertainment.

Tlie fiddlers and ballad singers of the " tap " room, however, gave
way to the neAver brass band at the doors, and this, in its turn, is
now gradually fading before the "music hall" and so-called
" concert" arrangement. Singing, it may be remarked, is one of
the first follies into which a man falls after a too free indulgence
in the cup. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that musical
signboards should have swung from time to time over the ale-
house door. Paganini, who contributed so much to the popu-
larity of that well-known part of the " Carnival de Venise"—still
the shibboleth of all fiddlers—is of very common occurrence.

The love for music is also eloquently expressed by the sign of
the Fiddler's Arms, Gonial Wood, Staffordshire. Jenny Lind
seems to be the only musician of modern times who has found her
way to the signboard. In the last century, Handel's Head
was common; but at the present moment, no instance of its use
remains. The Maid and the Magpie, a very common tavern
title, is believed to be the only sign borrowed from an opera. In
Queen Anne's time, there was a Purcell's Head in Wych Street,
Drury Lane, the sign of a music-house. It represented that
musician in a brown, full-bottomed wig, and green nightgown,
and was very well painted. Purcell, who died in 1682, greatly
improved English melody; he composed sonatas, anthems, and
the music to various plays. His " Te Deum " and " Jubilate " are
still admired.

Actors, and favourite characters from plays, have frequently
been adopted as signs. The oldest instance we find is Tarleton,
or Dick Tarleton, who, in the sixteenth century, seems to have
been common enough to make Bishop Hall allude to him in hia
" Satyres," (b. vi., s. 1)—

" 0 honour far beyond a brazen shrine,
To sit with Tarlton on an ale-post's sign."

Tarleton is seen on the trades token of a house in Wheeler Street,
Southwark; and it is only within a very few years that this sign
, has been consigned to oblivion. Richard, or " Dick" Tarleton
was a celebrated low-comedy actor, born at Condover in Shrop-
shire, and brought to town in the household of the Earl of Lei-
cester. He first kept an ordinary in Paternoster Row, called the
Castle, much frequented by the booksellers and printers of St
Paul' s Churchyard. Afterwards, he kept the Tabor, in Grace-
clrarch Street He was one of Queen Elizabeth's twelve player,
in receipt of wages, and was at that time living as one of the

grooms of the chamber at Barn Elms, but lost his situation by
reason of some scurrilous reflections on Leicester and Raleigh.
He probably also performed at the Curtain in Shoreditch, in which
parish he was buried, September 3,1588. " The great popularity
which Tarlton possessed may be readily seen from the numerous
allusions to him in almost all the writers of the time, and few
actors have been honoured with so many practical tokens of
esteem. His portrait graced the ale-house, game-cocks were
named after him, and a century after his death, his effigy adorned
the jakes." * The portrait of this famous wit is prefixed to the
edition of his jests, printed in 1611, where he is represented in
the costume of a clown playing on the tabor and pipe. Another
portrait of him occurs as an accompaniment to the letter T, in a
collection of ornamental letters,t with the following rhymes :—

" This picture here set down within his letter T,
Aright doth shew the forme and shape of Tharleton unto thee.
When he in pleasaunt wise the counterfeit expreste,
Of clowne with cote of russet hew, and startups the reste;
Who merry many made when he appear'd in sight,
The grave, the wise, as well as rude, att him did take delight.
The partie now is gone, and closlie clad in claye;
Of all the jesters in the lande, he bare the praise awaie.
Now hath he plaied his parte, and sure he is of this,
If he in Christe did die to live with Him in lasting bliss."

Spiller's Head was the sign of an inn in Clare Market, where
one of the most famous tavern clubs was held. This meeting of
artists, wits, humorists, and actors originated with the per-
formances at Lincoln's Inn, about the year 1697. They counted
many men of note amongst their members. Colley Cibber was
one of the founders, and their best president, not even excepting
Tom d'Urfey. James Spiller, it should be stated, was a celebrated
actor circa 1700. His greatest character was " Mat o' the Mint,"
in the Beggar's Opera. He was an immense favourite with the
butchers of Clare Market, one of whom was so charmed with
his performances, that he took down his sign of the Bull and
Butcher, and put up Spilleu's Head. At Spillei's death,
(Feb. 7, 1729,) the following elegiac verse was made by one of
the butchers in that locality:—

" Down with your marrow-bones and cleavers all,
And on your marrow-bones ye butchers fall I
For prayers from you who never pray'd before,

Perhaps poor Jimime may to life restore.
' What have we done ?' the wretched bailiffs cry,
' That th' only man by whom we lived should die !'
Enraged they gnaw their wax and tear their writs,
While butchers' wives fall in hysteric fits ;
For, sure as they 're alive, poor Spiller's dead.
But, thanks to Jack Legar / we've got his head.
He was an inoffensive, merry fellow,
When sober, hipp'd, blythe as a bird when mellow."

A ticket for one of his benefit representations, engraved by
Hogarth, is still a morceau recherche amongst print collectors,
as much as £12 having been paid for one. " Spilier's Life and
Jests" is the title of a little book published at that time.

Garrick's Head was set up as a sign in his lifetime, and in
1768 it hung at the door of W. Griffiths, a bookseller of Cathe-
rine Street, Strand It is still common in the neighbourhood of
theatres. There is one in Leman Street, Whitechapel, not far
from the place of his first successes, where, in 1742, he played
at the theatre in Goodman's Fields, and " the town ran horn-mad
after him," so that there were " a dozen dukes of a night at
Goodman's Fields sometimes." *

Roxellana was, in the seventeenth century, the sign of
Thomas Lacy, of Cateaton Street, (now Gresham Street,) City.
It was the name of the principal female character in " The Siege
of Rhodes," and was originally the favourite part of the hand-
some Elizabeth Davenport, whose sham marriage to the Earl of
Oxford, (who deceived her by disguising a trumpeter of his troop
as a priest,) is told in De Grammont's Memoirs. After she had
found out the Earl's deception, she continued under his protec-
tion, and is occasionally mentioned, (always under the name of
Roxellana,) with a few words of encomium on her good looks by
that entertaining gossip, Pepys.

Formerly there was a sign of Joey Grimaldi at a public-house
nearly opposite Sadler's Wells Theatre ; not only had it the name,
-"but addidit vultum verbis, in the shape of a clown with a goose
under his arm, and a string of sausages issuing from his pocket.
Joey's name being less familiar to the public of the present day,
the house is now called the Clown. This, we think, is the last
instance of an actor being elevated to signboard honours.

Abel Drugger is one of the dramatis personœ in Ben Jon-
son's comedy of the Alchymist, and from the character giver

him by his friend Captain Face, we get some curious information
concerning the mysteries of the tobacco trade of that day :—
" This is my friend Abel, an honest fellow,

He lets me have good tobacco, and he does not
Sophisticate it with sack lees or oil,
Nor washes it with muscadel and grains,
Nor buries it in gravel underground,

But keeps it in fine lily pots, that open'd
Smell like conserve of roses, or French beans.
He has his maple block, his silver tongs,
Winchester pipes, and fire of juniper.
A neat, spruce, honest fellow, and no goldsmith."

This worthy was, in the end of the last century, the sign of
Peter Cockburn, a tobacconist in Fenchurch Street, formerly
shopman at the Sir Roger de Coverley, as he informs the
public on his tobacco paper.* According to the custom of the
times, and one which has yet lingered in old-fashioned neighbour-
hoods, this wrapper is adorned with some curious rhymes :—

Believe me, I'm not joking;
Tobacco, too, of every kind,
The very best you '11 always find,

For chewing or for smoaking.
Tho' Abel, when the Humour 'a in,
At Drury Lane to make you grin,

May sometimes take his station;
At number Hundred-Forty-Six,
In Fenchurch Street he now does fix

His present Habitation.
His best respects he therefore sends,
And thus acquaints his generous Friends,

From Limehouse up to Holborn,
That his rare snuffs are sold by none,
Except in Fenchurch Street alone,
And there by Peter Cockburn."

Falstaff, whom we have already mentioned when speaking
of Shakespeare, and Paul Pry, are both very common. The last
is even of more frequent occurrence than " honest Jack " himself.

Lower down in the scale of celebrities and public characters,
we find the court-jester of Henry VIII., Old Will Somers, the
sign of a public-house in Crispin Street, Spittalfields, at the pre-
sent day. He also occurs on a token issued from Old Fish
Street, in which he is represented very much the same as in liia

portrait by Holbein, viz., wearing a long gown, with hat on hia
head, and blowing a horn. Under an engraving of this picture
are the following lines :—

" What though thou think'st me clad in strange attire,
Knowe I am suted to my own deseire ;
And yet the characters described upon mee
May shew thee tbat a king bestowed them upon met».
This horn I have betokens Sommers' game,
Which sportive tyme will bid thee reade my name,
All with my nature well agreeing too,
As both the name, and tyme, and habit doe."

Formerly there used to be in the town a wooden figure of
Will with rams' horns and a pair of large spectacles ; and the
story was told that he never would believe that his wife had pre-
sented him with the " bull's feather" until he had seen it through
his spectacles.

Two portraits of Sommers are preserved at Hampton Court,
one in a picture after Holbein, representing Henry VII. with his
queen, Elizabeth, and Henry VIII. with his queen, Jane Sey-
mour. Will is on one side, his wife on the other. The other
portrait is by Holbein, three-quarter life size, where he is repre-
sented looking through a closed window.* He also figures in
Henry VIII.'s illuminated Psalter, + in which King Henry's
features are given to David, and those of Will Sommers to the
fool who accompanies him.

Sommers was born at Eston Neston, Northamptonshire,
where his father was a shepherd. His popularity arose from his
frankness, which is thus eulogised by Ascham in his " Toxo-
philus :"—"They be not much unlike in this to Wyll Sommers,
the kingis foole, which smiteth him that standeth alwayes before
his face, be he never so worshipful a man, and never greatlye
lokes for him which lurkes behinde another man's backe that
hurte him indeede."

We next come to Broughton, the champion pugilist of Eng-
land in the reign of George II. He kept a public-house in the
Haymarket, opposite the present theatre; his sign was a por-
trait of himself, without a wig, in the costume of a bruiser.
Underneath was the following line, from iEneid, v. 484 :—
" Hio victor cjestus, artemque refono."

* This is engraved in CaulGeld's Portraits of Remarkable and Eccentric Characters, as
«rell as the wooden figure in the Tower
t MSS. Reg., 2 A. xvi.

the auspices of the great Tom Sayers. One in Pimlico,
Brighton, deserves especial mention, as it is reported to be the
identical house in which the mighty champion made his entry
on the stage of this world, for the noble purpose of dealing and
receiving the blows of fistic fortune. But, as in the case of
Homer's birthplace, the honour is contested; almost every house
in Pimlico lays claim to his nativity, and unless the great man
writes his life and settles this mooted point, it is likely to give
serious trouble to future historiographers.

Another athlete, Topham, " the strong man," had also his
quantum of signboards. " The public interest which his extra-
ordinary exhibitions of strength had always excited did not die
with him. His feats were delineated on many signs which were
remaining up to 1800. One in particular, over a public-house
near the Maypole, in East Smithfield, represented his first great
feat of pulling against two dray horses." *

Thomas Topham was born in London in 1710. His strength
almost makes the feats of Homer's heroes credible, for, besides
pulling against two dray horses, in which he would have been
successful if he had been properly placed, he lifted three hogs-
heads of water, weighing 1836 lbs, broke a rope two inches in
circumference, lifted a stone roller, weighing 800 lbs., by a chain
with his hands only, lifted wdtli his teeth a table six feet long,
with half a hundredweight fastened to the end of it, and held it
a considerable time in a horizontal position, struck an iron poker,
a yard long and three inches thick, against his bare left arm
until it was bent into a right angle, placed a poker of the same
dimensions against the back of his neck, and bent it until the
ends met, and performed innumerable other remarkable feats.

In Daniel Lambert, whose portly figure acts as sign to a
coffee-house on Ludgate Hill, and to a public-house in the High
Street, St Martins, Stamford, Lincolnshire, we behold another
wonder of the age. This man weighed no less than 52 stone 11
lb. (14 lbs. to the stone.) He was in his 40th year when he
died, and the circumstances of his burial give a good idea of his
enormous proportions. His coffin, in which there was great
difficulty of placing him, was 6 ft. 4 in. long, 4 ft. 4 in. wide,
and 2 ft. 4 in. deep. The immense size of his legs made it
almost a square case. It consisted of 112 superficial feet of elm,
and was built upon two axletrees and four clogwheels, and upon

then, liis remains were rolled into the grave, a regular descent
having been made by cutting the earth away for some distance
slopingly down to the bottom. The window and part of the wall
had to be taken down to allow his exit from the house in which
he died. His demise took place on June 21, 1809.

Over the entrance to Bullhead Court, Newgate Street, there is
a stone bas-relief, according to Horace Walpole once the sign of
a house called The King's Porter and the Dwarf, with the
date 1660. The two persons represented are William Evans
and Jeffrey Hudson. Evans is mentioned by Fuller.* Jeffrey
Hudson, the dwarf, had a very chequered life. He was born in
1609 at Okeham in Rutlandshire, from a stalwart father, keeper
of baiting-bulls to the Duke of Buckingham. Having been intro-
duced at court by the Duchess, he entered the Queen's service.
On one occasion, at an entertainment given by Charles I. to his
queen, he was served up in a cold pie ; at another time at a court
ball, lie was drawn out of the pocket of Will Evans, the huga
door porter, or keeper, at the palace. In 1630 he was sent to
France to bring over a midwife for the queen, but on his return
was taken prisoner by Flemish pirates, who robbed him of £2500
worth of presents received in France. Sir John Davenant wrote
a comic poem on this occasion entitled " Jeffere'idos." During the
civil wars Jeffrey was a captain of horse in the royal army; he
followed the queen to France, and there had a duel with a Mr
Crofts (brother of Lord Crofts) whom he shot, for which mis-
demeanour he was expelled the court. Taken prisoner by pirates
a second time, he was sold as a slave in Barbary. When he ob-
tained his liberty he returned to London, but got into prison for
participation in the Titus Oates plot, and died shortly after his
release in 1682. Walter Scott has introduced him in his
" Peveril of the Peak."

Jeffrey is not the only dwarf who has figured on a signboard,
for in the last century there was a Dwarf Tavern in Chelsea
^ Fields, kept by John Coan, a Norfolk dwarf. It seems to have been
a place of some attraction, since it was honoured by the repeated
visits of an Indian king. " On Friday last the Cherokee king
and his two chiefs, were so greatly pleased with the curiosities of
the Dwarf's Tavern in Chelsea Fields, that they were there again
on Sunday at seven in the evening to drink tea, and will be there
again in a few days."—Daily Advertiser, July 12, 1762. Two

years after we find the following advertisement:—"Yesterday
died at the Dwarf Tavern in Chelsea Fields, Mr John Coan, the
unparalleled Norfolk Dwarf."—Daily Advertiser, March 17,
1764.

The name of Dirty Dick, which graces a public-house in
Bishopsgate Without, was transferred to those spirit stores from
the once famous Dirty Warehouse formerly in Leadenhall Street,
a hardware shop kept in the end of the last century by Bichard
Bentley, alias Dirty Dick, in which premises, until about fifteen or
twenty years ago, the signboard of the original shop was still
to be seen in the window. Bentley was an eccentric character, the
son of an opulent merchant, who kept his carriage and lived in
great style. In his early life he was one of the beaux in Paris,
was presented at the court of Louis XVI., and enjoyed the re-
putation of being the handsomest and best dressed Englishman
at that time in the capital of France. On his return to London
he became a new, though not a better, man. Brooms, mops, and
brushes were rigorously proscribed from his shop; all order was
abolished, jewellery and hardware were carelessly thrown together,
covered by the same shroud of undisturbed dust. So they re-
mained for more than forty years, when he relinquished business
in 1804. The outside of his house was as dirty as the inside, to
the great annoyance of his neighbours, who repeatedly offered
Bentley to have it cleaned, painted, and repaired at their expense;
but he would not hear of this, for his dirt had given him cele-
brity, and his house was known in the Levant, and the East and
West Indies, by no other denomination than the " Dirty Ware-
house in Leadenhall Street." The appearance of his premises is
thus described by a contemporary :—

" Who but has seen, (if he can see at all,)
'Twixt Aldgate's well-known pump and Leadenhall,
A curious hardware shop, in generall full
Of wares from Birmingham and Pontipool ?
Begrimed with dirt, behold its ample front,
With thirty years' collected filth upon't;
In festoon'd cobwebs pendant o'er the door,
While boxes, bales, and trunks are strew'd around the floor.

Behold how whistling winds and driving rain
Gain free admission at each broken pane,
Safe when the dingy tenant keeps them out,
With urn or tray, knife-case or dirty clout I

Here snuffers, waiters, patent screws for corks,
There castors, cardracks, cheesetrays, knives and forks;
There empty cases piled in heaps on high,
There packthread, papers, rope, in wild disorder lie."
&c. &c. &c.

The present Dirty Dick is a small public-house, or rather a tap
of a wholesale wine and spirit business in Bishopsgate Street
Without. It has all the appearance of one of those establish-
ments that started up in the wake of the army at Yarna and
Balaclava, or at newly-discovered gold-diggings. A warehouse
or barn without floorboards; a low ceiling, with cobweb festoons
dangling from the black rafters ; a pewter bar battered and dirty,
floating with beer ; numberless gas-pipes, tied anyhow along the
struts and posts, to conduct the spirits from the barrels to the
taps ; sample phials and labelled bottles of, wine and spirits on
shelves,—everything covered with virgin dust and cobweb,—in-
deed, a place that would set the whole Dutch nation frantic.

Yet, though it has been observed that cleanliness of the body
is conducive to cleanliness of the soul, and vice versa, the regu-
lations of this dirty establishment, (hung up in a conspicuous
place,) are more moral than those of the cleaner gin-palaces,
•—as, for instance:—"No man can be served twice."* "No
person to be served if in the least intoxicated." " No improper
language permitted." " No smoking permitted whilst the last
request, for fear of this charming place tempting customers to
lounge about, says, " Our shop being small, difficulty occasionally
arises in supplying the customers, who will greatly oblige by bear-
ing in mind the good old maxim :—

' When you are in a place of business,
Transact your business
And go about your business.' "

By a trades token we see that Old Parr's Head was already
in the seventeenth century the sign of a house in Chancery Lane.
Circa 1825, a publican in Aldersgate put up the old patriarch,
with the following medical advice :—

" Your head cool,
Your feet warm,
But a glass of good gin
Would do you no harm."

* This is an old "dodge," mentioned long ago by Decker in his "Seven Deadly Sins,
seven times pressed to Death," &c. :—"Then you have another brewing called Huff's ale,
at which, because no man must have but a pot at a tittino, and so be gone, the restraint
makes them more eager to come in, so that hv this oolicie one may huffe it four or flvt
times a dav."

Tliomas Parr was born in 1483, and dying November 15, 1635,
at the age of 152, had lived in the reigns of ten several princes,—
viz., Edward IV., Edward V., Richard III., Henry VII., Henry
VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, James I., and
Charles I. He was not the only one of the family who attained
to a great age, for the London Evening Post, August 24, 1757,
has the following note :—" Last week died at Kanne, in Shrop-
shire, Robert Parr, aged 124. He was great-grandson of old
Thomas Parr, who died in the reign of King Charles I., and lies
buried in "Westminster Abbey. What is very remarkable is, that
the father of Robert was 109; the grandfather 113; and the
great-grandfather, the said Thomas, is well known to have died
at the age of 152." Signs of old Parr are still remaining at
Gravesend and at Rochester.

Thomas Hobson, (Hobson's Choice,) the benevolent old carrier,
is the sign of two public-houses in Cambridge,—the one called Old
Hobson, the other Hobson's House. His own inn in London
was the Bull Inn in Bishopsgate Street, where he was repre-
sented in fresco, having a £100 bag under his arm, with the
words, " The fruitful mother of an hundred more." There is an
engraving of him by John Payne, his contemporary, which also
represents him holding a bag of money. Under it are these
lines :—

" Laugh not to see so plaine a man in print;
The shadow's homely, yet there's something in't.
Witness the Bagg he wears, (though seeming poore,)
The fertile Mother of a thousand more.
He was a thriving man, through lawful gain,
And wealthy grew by warrantable faime.
Men laugh at them that spend, not them that gather,
Like thriving sonnes of such a thrifty father."

The print also informs us that he died at the age of eighty-six,
in the year 1630. Milton, who w^Trote two epitaphs upon him,
says, that " he sickened in the time of his vacancy, being forbid
to go to London by reason of the plague."

Among this class of minor celebrities we may also place those
who put up their own head for signs. Taylor, the water poet,
(see Mourning Crown, pp. 49,) was one of the first. Next to him
followed Pasqua Rosee ; according to his handbill, " the first
who made and publicly sold coffee-drink in England." His
establishment was "in St Michael's Alley, in Cornliill, at the
sign of his own head." This handbill largely enters into the vir-
tues of the " coffee-drink," gives the natural history of the plant,

prescribes bow to make the drink, and advises that " it is to be
drunk, fasting an hour before, and not eating an hour after, and
to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured ; the which will
never fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise any blisters by reason
of that heat." The next enters upon a glowing description of all
the evils cured by that drink, as fumes, headaches, defluxions of
rhumes, dropsy, gout, scurvy, king's-evil, spleen, hypochondriac,
winds, stone, (fee. This coffee-house was opened in 1652.

Lebeck's Head was another instance of the owner setting up
his own head as a sign; and though his name has not filled the
trumpet of fame, yet had he many times bravely stood the fire,
and filled the mouths of his contemporaries, for he kept an ordi-
nary (about 1690) at the north-west corner of Half-moon Passage,
(since called Bradford Street.) The sign seems to have found
imitators at the time, and is even yet kept up by tradition.
There is Lebeck's Head in Shadwell, High Street; a Lebeck's
Inn and Lebeck's Tavern in Bristol; and a Lisbeck and Chaff-
cutter at a village in Gloucestershire.

A still more famous house was the Pontack's Head, formerly
called the White Bear, in Christ Church Passage, (leading from
Newgate Street to Christ Church.) This tavern having been de-
stroyed by fire, Pontack, the son of a president of the parliament
of Bordeaux, opened a new establishment on its site, and assum-
ing his father's portrait as its sign, called it the Pontack's Head.
It was the first fashionable eating-house in London, was opened
soon after the Restoration, and continued in favour until about the
year 1780, when it was pulled down to make room for the building
of the vestry hall of Christ Church. De Foe describes it as " a con-
stant ordinary for all comers at very reasonable prices, where you
may bespeak a dinner from four or five shillings a head to a guinea,
or what sum you please." * In the beginning of the eighteenth
century the dinners had become proverbially extravagant:—
" Now at Pontack's we '11 take a bit,
Shall quicken Nature's appetite.
Here, shew a room ! what have you got ?
The waiter (cries) What have we not t
All that the season can afford,
Fresh, fat, and fine, upon my word
A Guinea ordinary, sir."
This Guinea ordinary was :—

The waiter, however, gives the menu, which contains—Bird's
nest soup from China ; a ragout of fatted snails; bantam pig,
but one day old, stuffed with hard row and ambergris; French
peas stewed in gravy, with cheese and garlick ; an incomparable
tart of frogs and forced meat; cod, with shrimp sauce ; chickens
en surprise, (they had not been two hours from the shell,) and
similar dainties.* Pontack contributed much towards bringing
the French wines in fashion, being proprietor of some of the
Bordeaux vineyards which bore his name.

About the same time another tavern flourished, with its mas-
ter's head for sign ; this was Caveac's,+ celebrated for wine; of
him Amhurst sang :—

Though it cannot be said that Don Saltero put up his por-
trait for a sign, yet his coffee-house was named after him, and is
still extant under the same denomination in Cheyne Walk, Chel-
sea. This house was opened in 1695 by a certain Salter, who had
been servant to Sir Hans Sloane, and had accompanied him on his
travels. Chelsea at that time was a village, full of the suburban
residences of the aristocracy, and the pleasant situation of Salter's
house soon made it the resort of merry companions, on their way
to or from friends' villas, or Vauxhall, Jenny Whin's, and other
places of public resort in the neighbourhood. Vice-Admiral
Mundy, on his return from the coast of Spain, amused with the
pedantic dignity of Salter, christened him Don Saltero, and under
that name the house has continued till this day.

From his connexion with the great Sir Hans Sloane, and the
tradition of a descent from the Tradescants, Salter was of
course in duty bound to have a museum of curiosities, which, by
gifts from Sir Hans and certain aristocratic customers in the
army and navy, soon became sufficiently interesting to constitute
one of the London sights. It existed more than a century, and
was at last sold by auction in the summer of 1798. From his
catalogue J (headed with the words, " O Bare !") we gather that
the curiosities fully deserved that name, for amongst them we
find : " a piece of St Catherine's skin " a painted ribbon from
Jerusalem, with which our Saviour was tied to the pillar when

* Metamorphosis of the Town ; or, a View of the Present Fashions. London : Printed
for J, Wilford at the Three Flower de Ldces, behind the Chapter House in St Paul's
Churchyard, 1730.

scourged, with a motto;"* "a very curious young mermaid-
fish ;" " manna from Canaan, it drops from the clouds twice a
year, in May and June, one day in each month;" "a piece of
nun's skin ;" " a necklace made of Job's tears ;" " the skeleton
(sic) of a man's finger ;" "petrified rain;" " a petrified lamb, or a
stone of that animal;" " a starved cat in the act of catching two
mice, found between the walls of Westminster Abbey when re-
pairing ;" " Queen Elizabeth's chambermaid's hat," &c. +

A most amusing paper in the Tatler, No. 34, gives a full-
length portrait of Salter, who appears to have been an " original."
Music was his besetting sin, and with very little excuse for it.
In that paper the museum, too, is taken to task. Richard Crom-
well used to be a visitor to this house, where Pennant's father,
when a child, saw him, " a very neat old man, with a placid
countenance." Franklin also, when a printer's apprentice, " one
day made a party to go by water to Chelsea in order to see the
college, and Don Saltero's curiosities."

There is a rather amusing advertisement of the Don's in the
Weekly Journal for June 23, 1723 :—

" Sir,—Fifty years since to Chelsea great,
From Rodnam on the Irish main,
I stroll'd with maggots in my pate,
Where much improved they still remain.
Through various employs I've past,

* This motto was : " Misura della Colonna di Christo nro," i.e., Measure of the colamn
Of our Saviour.

t A brother Boniface, Adams, "at the Royal Swan in Kingsland Road, leading from
Shoreditch Church," (1750) had also a knackatory, which, from his catalogue, looks very
like a parody on the Don's. He exhibited, for instance, " Adam's eldest daughter's
hat;" " the heart of famous Bess Adams, that was hanged with Lawyer Carr, January
18,1736-37 ;" " the Vicar of Bray's clogs ;" "an engine to shell green peas with ;" "teeth
that grew in a fish's belly ;" "Black Jack's ribs ;" "the very comb that Adam combed
his son Isaac's and Jacob's head with ;" "rope that cured Captain Lowry of the head-
ach, earach, toothach, and bellyach;" "Adam's key to the fore and back door of the
garden of Eden," &c., kc., and 500 other curiosities.

And in requital for the timely favour
I '11 gratis bleed, draw teeth, and be your shaver.

Nay, that your pate may with my noddle tally,
And you shine bright as I do—marry shall ye.

Freely consult my revelation Molly;
Nor shall one jealous thought create a huff,
For she has taught me manners long enough.
" Chelsea Knackatory. Don Saltero."

At the end of his catalogue a list of the donors is added, most
of whom, doubtless, also frequented his house. Amongst them
the following names appear :—the Duke of Buccleuch, the Earl
of Sutherland, Sir John Balchen, Sir Rob. Cotton, Bart., Sir
John Cope, Bart., Sir Thomas de Veil, Sir Francis Drake, Lady
Humphrey, Sir Thomas Littleton, Sir John Molesworth, the Hon.
Capt. William Montague, Sir Yelverton Peyton, G-eorge Selwyn,
the Hon. Mr Yerney, Sir Francis Windham, &c., besides numbers
of naval and military officers,

The Mother Redcap is a sign that occurs in various places,
as in Upper Holloway, in the High Street, Camden Town, in
Blackburn, Lancashire, in Edmund's Lowland, Lincolnshire, &c. :
whilst there is a Father Redcap at Camberwell Green, but he
is merely a creature of the publican's fancy. From the way in
which Brathwaite mentions this sign in his " Whimsies of a new
Cast of Characters," 1631, it would seem to have been not
uncommon at that time. " He [the painter] bestows his pencile
on an aged piece of decayed canvas, in a sooty alehouse where
Mother Redcap must be set out in her colours." Who the
original Mother Redcap was, is believed to be unknown, but not
unlikely it is an im personification of Skelton's famous " Ellinor
Humming," the alewife.

The Mother Redcap at Holloway is named by Drunken
Barnaby in his travels. Formerly the following verses accom-
panied this sign :—

Lived twenty and a hundred years by drinking this good ale ;
It was her meat, it was her drink, and medicine besides,
And if she still had drank this ale, she never would have died."
At one time the Mother Redcap, in Kentish Town, was kept
by an old crone, from her amiable temper surnamed Mother
Damnable.* This was probably the same person we find else-

* Her portrait, with a poem upon her, too long to quote, occurs in "Portraits and
Lives of Remarkable and Eccentric Characters," Westminster, 1819.

where alluded to under the name of Mother Huff, as in Baker's
" Comedy of Hampstead Heath," 1706, a. ii. s. 1. " Arabella.—
Well, this Hampstead's a charming place, to dance all night at
the Wells, and be treated at Mother Huff's."

Only a few more celebrities now remain to be disposed of; but
they are of such a varied character, and so heterogeneous, that
they can scarcely be ranged under any of the former divisions :
thus we meet with the stern reformer, Melancthon's Head, as
the sign of an orthodox publican, in Park Street, Derby. Pretty
Nell Gwynn occurs on several London public-houses : one in
Chelsea, where she must have been well known, since her mother
resided in that neighbourhood, and popular tradition allows Nell
to have been one of the principal promoters of the erection of the
famous hospital there. Another house, named after Charles II.'s
favourite mistress, may be observed in Drury Lane, in which
street she lived, and where Pepys, on May-day, 1667, saw her
" standing at her lodgings door, in her smock sleeves and boddice,"
and thought her " a mighty pretty creature."

The Sir John Oldcastle was a tavern, in Coldbathfields, in
the beginning of the last century; near this house, Bagfoi'd and
a Mr Conyers, an antiquarian apothecary of Fleet Street, dis-
covered the skeleton of an elephant in a gravel pit.* This house
is also named in the following bill:—+

" All gentlemen, who are lovers of the ancient and noble exercise of
archery, are hereby invited, by the stewards of the annual feast for the
Clerkenwell Archers, to dine with them at Mrs Mary Birton's, at the sign
of Sir John Oldcastle, upon Friday, the 18th day of July 1707, at one of
the clock, and to pay the bearer, Thomas Beaumont, Master of the Regi-
ment of Archers, two shillings and sixpence, and to take a sealed ticket,
that the certain number may be known, and provision made accordingly.

Opposite this house stood the Lord Cobham's Head, as ap-
pears from the Daily Advertiser for August 9, 1742, which con-
tains an advertisement puff of this place, praising its beer at 3d.
a tankard, and mentioning the concert and illuminations. The
correspondent concludes his letter by saying : " Note-—In seeing
tine great preparation, I thought it a duty incumbent upon me
to inform my fellow-citizens and .others, that they may distinguish
this place from any pretended concerts, which are nothing but

noise and nonsense, in particular, one that is rightly-styled the
Hog-concert" &c.

Both these houses were named after " the Good Lord Cobham,"
—Sir John 01dcastle,who married the heiress of the Cobham family
—the first author, as well as the first martyr of noble family in
England. Being one of the Lollards, he was accused of rebellion,
hanged in chains, and burned alive at St Giles in the Fields, in
December 1417. Lord Cobham's estates were close to the site
of these two public-houses, which were supposed to comprise a
part of the ancient mansion of that nobleman.

The Sir Paul Pindar public-house, in Bisliopsgate Street
Without, is all that remains of the splendid mansion of the rich
merchant of that name, who had here a beautiful park, well
stocked with game. The house continues almost in its original
state, in the Cinque Cento style of ornament; the best part of it
is the facade. In " Londiniana," ii. p. 137, is an engraving of a
lodge, standing in Half-Moon Alley, ornamented with figures,
which tradition says was the keeper's lodge of Sir Paul Pindar's
Park. Mulberry trees, and other park-like vestiges, were still
within memory in 1829. In Pennant's time it was already a
public-house, having for a sign, " a head, called that of the ori-
ginal owner." Sir Paul was a contemporary of Gresham, the
founder of the Exchange. He travelled much, and by that
means acquired many languages, which, at that time, was a sure
way to advancement. James I. sent him as ambassador to the
Sultan, from whom he obtained valuable concessions for the
English trade throughout the Turkish dominions. After his
return, he was appointed farmer of the customs, and frequently
advanced money to King James, and afterwards to Charles I.
In 1639 he was esteemed worth £236,000, exclusive of bad
debts. He expended £19,000 in repairing St Paul's Cathedral,
and contributed large sums to various charities, yet, strange to
say, died insolvent, Aug. 22, 1650, the year after his royal master
had been beheaded. His executor, William Toomes, was so
shocked at the hopeless state of Sir Paul's affairs, that he com-
mitted suicide, and was buried with all the degrading ceremonies
of a felo-de-se.

The Welch Head was the sign of a low public-house in Dyot
Street, St Giles. In the last century there was a mendicants'
club held here, the origin of which dated as far back as 1660, at
which time they used to hold their meetings at the Three

Crowns in the Poultry. Saunders Welch was one of the justices
of the peace for Westminster, ancl kept a regular office for the
police of that district, in which he succeeded Fielding. He died
Oct. 31, 1784, and lies buried hi the church of St George's,
Bloomsbury. He was a very popular magistrate : a story is
told that in 1766 he went unattended into Cranbourne Alley, to
quell the riotous meetings of the journeymen shoemakers there,
who had struck for an advance of wages. One of the crowd
soon recognised him, when they at once mounted him on a beer
barrel, and patiently listened to all that he had to say. He
quieted the rioters, and prevailed upon the master shoemakers to
grant an additional allowance to the workmen. This little in-
cident, joined to his well-known benevolence, and skill in captur-
ing malefactors, gave him that popularity which rewards by a
signboard fame.

The Bedford Head, Covent Garden, represented the head of
one of the Dukes of Bedford, ground landlords of that district.
Pope twice alludes to this tavern, as a place where to obtain a
delicate dinner. This house Mr Cunningham * suspects to have
occupied the north-east corner of the Piazza, and there it appears
in a view of old Covent Garden, about 1780, preserved in the
" Crowle Pennant," (vii. p. 25.) There was another Bedford
Head in Southampton Street, which was kept by Wildman, the
brother-in-law of Home Tooke. A Liberal club used to meet at
this house, of which Wilkes was a member, for several years.
There is still a Bedford Head in Maiden Lane, hard by, at which
the Beunion Literary Club is held.

Under the historical signs may be ranged a class of more
modern signs, referring to local celebrities,—" mighty hunters
before the Lord" probably—such as Captain Harmer, White
Horse Plain, Yarmouth; Captain Ross on Clinker, at Nat-
land, a village in Westmoreland; Captain Digby (the name of
a vessel wrecked), at St Peter's, Margate; Colonel Linskill,
Charlotte Street. North Shields, &c.

The Don Cossack, so frequently seen, dates from the celebrity
acquired by those troops in the extermination of the unfortunate
half-starved and frozen soldiers, on their retreat from Moscow;
though a more intimate acquaintance with the formidable Cos-
sacks, during the Crimean campaign, considerably damaged then
ancient reputation. The signs of the Druid, the Druid's Head.

the Druid and Oak, and the Royal Arch Druid, are more to
be attributed to various kinds of masonic brotherhoods, than as a
mark of respect paid to our aboriginal clergy. The Union origi-
nated with the union of Ireland with this kingdom; the Jubilee
dates from the centenary of the revolution of 1688, held with
considerable pomp and national rejoicing, in 1788. The Hero
of Switzerland, Loughborough Road, Brixton, and in a few
other places, refers to William Tell; and the Spanish Patriot,
(Lambeth Lower Marsh and White Conduit Street,) dates from
the excitement of our proposed intervention in the Spanish Suc-
cession question, in 1833. The Spanish Galleon, Church
Street, Greenwich, simply owes its origin to the pictures of our
naval victories in the Greenwich Hospital.

These, then, are some of the principal and most curious historic
signs. From the perusal of this catalogue, we can draw one con-
clusion-—namely, that only a few of what we have termed " his-
torical signs." outlive the century which gave them birth. If the
term of their duration extends over this period, there is some
chance that they will remain in popular favour for a long time.
Thus, in the case of most heroes of the last century, few publicans
certainly will know anything about the Marquis of Granby,
Admiral Rodney, or the Duke of Cumberland, yet their names
are almost as familiar as the Red Lion, or the Green Dragon, and
have indeed become public-household words. Once that stage
past, they have a last chance of continuing another century or
two—namely, when those heroes are so completely forgotten, that
the very mystery of their names becomes their recommendation ;
such as the Grave Morris, the Will Sommers, the Jack of New-
bury, <bc.

Royalty stands prominently at the head of the heraldic signs
in its triple hieroglyphic of the Crown, (no coronets ever occur,)
the King's or Queen's Arms, and the various royal badges.

The Crown seems to be one of the oldest of English signs.
We read of it as early as 14G7, when a certain Walter Walters,
who kept the Crown in Cheapside, made an innocent Cockney
pun, saying he would make his son heir to the Crown, which so
displeased his gracious majesty, King Edward IV., that he
ordered the man to be put to death for high treason.

The Crown Inn at Oxford was kept by Davenant, (Sir William
Davenant's father.) Shakespeare, on his frequent journeys
between London and his native place, generally put up at this
inn, and the malicious world said that young Davenant (the
future Sir William) was somewhat nearer related to him than as
a godson only. One day, when Shakespeare was just arrived,
and the boy sent for from school to see him, a master of one of
the colleges, pretty well acquainted with the affairs of the family,
asked the boy why he was going home in so much haste, who
answered, that he was going to see his godfather Shakespeare.
"Fie, child," said the old gentleman, "why are you so super-
fluous 1 Have you not learnt yet that you should not use the
name of God in vain V'

On the site occupied by the present Bank of England there
used to stand four taverns ; one of them bore the sign of the
Crown, and was certainly in a good line of business, for, accord-
ing to Sir John Hawkins,* it was not unusual in those toping
days to draw a butt (120 gallons) of mountain in half-pints in
the course of a single morning.

About the same period there was another Crown Tavern in
.Duck Lane, W. Smithfield. One of the rooms in that house was
decorated by Isaac Fuller (ob. 1672) with pictures of the Muses,
Pallas, Mars, Ajax, Ulysses, &c. Ned Ward praises them highly
in his " London Spy." « The dead figures appeared with such
lively majesty that they begot reverence in the spectators towards
the awful shadows !" Such painted rooms in taverns were not
uncommon at that period.

The origin of the sign of the Three Crowns is thus accounted
for by Bagford :*—" The mercers trading with Collen (Cologne)
set vp ther singes ouer ther dores of tlier Houses the three kinges
of Collen, with the Armes of that Citye, which was the Three
Crouens of the former ldnges, in memory of them, and by those
singes the people knew in what wares they deld in." Afterwards,
like all other signs, it was used promiscuously, and thus it gave
a name to a good old-fashioned inn in Lichfield, the property of
Dr Johnson, and the very nest house to that in which the doctor
was born.

Frequently the Royal Crown is combined with other objects, to
amplify the meaning, or to express some particular prerogative;
such are the Crown and Cushion, being the Crown as it is
carried before the king in coronation, and other ceremonies. We
even meet with the Two Crowns and Cushions ; that is, the
Crown for the King and for the Queen, which was the sign of a
Mr Arne, an upholsterer in Covent Garden, the hero of several
Tatlers and Spectators, and father of the celebrated musician and
composer, Dr Arne. This political upholsterer also figures in a
farce by Murphy, entitled " The Upholsterer; or what news 1"
The four Indian princes referred to in Tatler, jSTo. 155, who came
to England in the reign of Queen Anne, to implore the help of
the British Government against the encroachments of the French
in Canada, seem to have lodged in this man's house,—a circum-
stance frequently alluded to in the papers of the Tatler and other
periodicals of the time.

The Crown and Glove refers to the well-known ceremony of
the Royal Champion at the Coronation. It occurs as a sign at
Stannington, Sheffield, Eastgate Row, South Chester, &c. The
Royal Champion himself figures in George Street, Oxford. In
the Gazetteer for August 20, 1784, we find an anecdote recorded
concerning the Royal Champion, which is almost too good to be
true :—" At the coronation of King William and Queen Mary,
the Champion of England dressed in armour of complete and
glittering steel; his horse richly caparisoned, and himself, and
beaver finely capped with plumes of feathers, entered Westminster
Hall while the King and Queen were at dinner. And, at giving

* Harl. MSS. 5910, vol. i. fol. 193. The reader will be amused with the spelling of
this extract from the original manuscript, written when Addison was penning " Spec-
tators," and many classic English compositions were issuing from the press. 01(1 Mr
Bagford was a genuine antiquary, and despised new hats, new coats, and anything
approaching the new style of spelling, with other changes then teing introduced.

the usual challenge to any one that disputed their majesties'
right to the crown of England, (when he has the honour to drink
the Sovereign's health out of a golden cup, always his fee,) after
he had flung down his gauntlet on the pavement, an old woman,
who entered the hall on crutches, (which she left behind her,)
took it up, and made off with great celerity, leaving her own
glove, with a challenge in it to meet her the next day at an
appointed hour in Hyde Park. This occasioned some mirth at
the lower end of the hall: and it was remarkable that every one
was too well engaged to pursue her. A person in the same dress
appeared the next day at the place appointed, though it was
generally supposed to be a good swordsman in that disguise.
However, the Champion of England politely declined any contest
of that nature with the fair sex, and never made his appear-
ance."

The Crown and Sceptre, another of the royal insignia, is
named by Misson* in the following incident:—" Butler, the
keeper of the Crown and Sceptre tavern, in St Martin's Lane,
told me that there was a tun of red port drunk at his wife's
burial, besides mulled white wine. Note.—No men ever goe to
women's burials, nor the women to the men's ; so f hat there
were none but women at the drinking of Butler's wine. Such
women in England will hold it out with the men, when they
have a bottle before them, as well as upon th' other occasion,
and tattle infinitely better than they."

The Crown and Mitre, indicative of royalty and the church,
is the sign of a High Church publican at Taunton; and the
Bible and Crown has for more than a century and a half been
the sign of Rivingtons the publishers. (See under Religious
Signs.) The King and Parliament are represented by the well-
known Crown and Woolpack, which at Gedney Holbeach, in
Lincolnshire, has been corrupted into the Crown and Wood-
pecker. The Crown and Tower, at Taunton, may refer to the
regalia kept in the Tower, or to the king being "a tower of
strength." A similar symbol seems to be intended in the
Crown and Column, Ker Street, Devonport, perhaps implying
the strength of royalty when supported by a powerful and united
nation.

The Crown and Anchor, the well-known badge of the Navy,
is a great favourite. One of the most famous tavems with this

sign was in tlie Strand, where Dr Johnson often used to " make a
night of it." "Soon afterwards," says Boswell, "in 1768, he
supped at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, with a company
whom I collected to meet him. There were Dr Percy, now
bishop of Dromore; Dr Douglas, now bishop of Salisbury; Mr
Langton ; Dr Eobertson, the historian; Dr Hugh Blair, and Mr
Thomas Davis." On this occasion the great doctor was unusually
colloquial, and according to his amiable custom " tossed and
gored several persons."

The famous "Crown and Anchor Association" against so-
called Republicans and Levellers—as the reformers were styled by
the ministerial party in 1792—owed its name to this tavern.
Its rise and progress is rather curious : it was undertaken at the
instance of Pitt and Dundas, by John Reeves, a barrister. Reeves,
at first, could get no one to join him, but, to meet the wishes of
his employers, used to go to the Crown and Anchor, draw up
some resolutions, pass them nem. con., and sign them John Reeves,
chairman : thus being in his own person, meeting, chairman, and
secretary. In this way they were inserted in all the papers of
the three kingdoms, the expense being no object to the persons
concerned. Meetings of the counties were advertised, but the
first, second, and third consisted of Reeves alone, and it was not
till the fourth meeting that he had any coadjutors. The political
effervescence created by this society, its imitations and branches,
form part of the history of the nation.

In the year 1800 the Farming Society proposed to have an
experimental dinner in order to ascertain the relative qualities
of the various breeds of cattle in the kingdom ; the dinner was
planned and patronised by Sir John Sinclair, and the execution
intrusted to Mr Simpkins, landlord of the Crown and Anchor,
who sent a tender of the most Brobdignagian dinner probably
ever heard of. Twelve kinds of oxen and sheep of the most
famous breed, eight kinds of pork, and various specimens of
poultry, were to bleed as victims in this holocaust to the devil
of gluttony; the fish was only to be from fresh waters, such as
were "entitled to the attention of British farmers;" there were
various kinds of vegetables, nine sorts of bread, besides veal, lamb,
hams, poultry, tarts and puddings, all of which were to be washed
down by a variety of strong and mild ales, stout, cider, Perry,
and " British" spirits. Tickets one guinea each.*

* England is the country, par excellence, for gigantic dinners, amongst which agri-

Tlie Anchor and Crown was also the sign of the great booth
at Greenwich fair ; it was 323 feet long, and 60 feet wide, was
used for dancing, and could easily accommodate 2000 persons at a
time. The other booths also had signs ; amongst them were the
Royal Standard, the Lads op the Village, the Black Boy
and Cat, the Moonrakers, and others.

The Crown and Dove, Bridewell Street, Bristol, may refer
to the order of the Holy Ghost, or may have been suggested by
the Three Pigeons and Sceptre.

Objects of various trades, with a crown above them, were very
common : the Crown and Fan was an ordinary fan-maker's sign.*
The Crown and Rasp, belonging to snuff-makers, occurs as the
sign of Fribourg and Treyer, tobacconists, at the upper end of
Pall Mall, near the Hay market, in 1781 : it is still to be seen 011
the façade of the house. The oldest form of taking snuff was to
scrape it with a rasp from the dry root of the tobacco plant ;
the powder was then placed on the back of the hand and so
snuffed up ; hence the name of râpé (rasped) for a kind of
snuff, and the common tobacconist's sign of la carotte d'or,
(the golden root,) in France. The rasps for this purpose were
carried in the waistcoat pocket, and soon became articles of
luxury, being carved in ivory and variously enriched. Some of
them, in ivory and inlaid wood, may be seen at the Hôtel Cluny
in Paris, and an engraving of such an object occurs in " Arclue-
ologia," vol. xiii. One of the first snuff-boxes was the so-called
râpé, or grivoise box, at the back of which was a little space for
a piece of the root, whilst a small iron rasp was contained in the
middle. When a pinch was wanted, the root was drawn a few
times over the iron rasp, and so the snuff was produced and
could be offered to a friend with much more grace than under the
above-mentioned process with the pocket grater.

The Crown and Last originated with shoemakers, but the
gentle craft having the reputation of being thirsty souls, it

cultural repasts stand foremost ; even that nuptial dinner of Camacho, at which honest
faancho lanza did such execution, would scarcely rank as a lunch beside the Homeric
dinners of our fanners. In our times we have seen Soyer roast a whole ox for the
Agricultural Society at Exeter ; the details of this culinary feat are somewnat interest-
ing : it was called a "baron with saddle back of beef à la magna charta, weighing 535
lbs , the joints being the whole length of the ox, rumps, rounds, loins, ribs, and shoulders
to the neck. It was roasted in the open'air within a temporary enclosure of brick
work, the monster joint steaming and frizzling away over 216 jets of gas from pipes of
an inch diameter the whole being covered in with sheet iron : when in h hours the
beef was dressed for 5 shillings."—Hints for the Table
* Various examples of it occur ia the Hanks Bills.

sea road, a silver watch, value 30 sh., is to be bowled for; three
bowls for six pence, to begin at Eight of the clock in the morning and
continues till Eight in the evening. JST.B.—They that win the watch may
have it or 30s." *

The Crown and Halbert was, in 1790, the sign of a cutler
in St Martin's Churchyard;+ the Crown and Can occurs in
St John Street; and the Crown and Trumpet at Broadway,
Worcester : this last may either allude to the trumpet of the
royal herald, or simply signify a crowned trumpet.

Of the King's Arms, and the Queen's Arms, there are in-
numerable instances; they are to be found in almost every town
or village. The story is told that a simple clodhopper once
Avalked ever so many miles to see King George IV. on one of
his journeys, and came home mightily disgusted, for the king
had arms like any other man, while he had always understood
that his majesty's right arm was a lion and his left arm a uni-
corn.

Grinling Gibbons, the celebrated carver and sculptor, lived at
the sign of the King's Arms in Bow Street, from 1678 until
1721, when he died. This house is alluded to in the Postman,
January 24, 1701-2

" On Thursday, the house of Mr Gibbons, the carver in Bow Street, fell
down, but by special providence none of the family were killed; but, 'tis
said, a young girl which was playing in the court being missed, is sup-
posed to be buried in the rubbish."

At the Haymarket, corner of Pall Mall, stood the Queen's
Arms tavern, in the reign of Queen Anne. At the accession of
George I. it was called the King's Arms, and there, in 1734, the
Whig party used to meet to plan opposition to Sir Robert Wal-
pole. This club went by the name of the Rump-steak Club.

Faulkner^ says that at the King's Arms, in the High Street,
Fulham, the Great Fire of London was annually commemorated
on the 1st of September, and had been continued without inter-
ruption until his time. It was said to have taken its rise from a
number of Londoners who had been burnt out, and who. having
no employment, strolled out to Fulham, on their way collecting
a quantity of hazel nuts, from the hedges, with which they

resorted to tliis house. A capital picture of the great conflagra-
tion used to be exhibited on that day.

In 1568 the prizes of the first lottery held in England were
exhibited at the Queen's Arms in Cheapside, the house of Mr
Dericke, goldsmith to Queen Elizabeth. There were no blanks,
and the prizes consisted of ready money, and " certain sorts of
merchandises having been valued and prized." It had 400,000
lots of 10s. each, and the profits were to go towards repairing the
havens of the kingdom. The drawing was at first intended to
have taken place at Dericke's house, but finally was done at the
west door of St Paul's. The programme of this lottery, printed
by Binneman, was exhibited to the Antiquarian Society by Dr
Rawlinson in 1748. The next lottery was in 1612. It was
drawn on the same plan, and granted by King James, as a special
favour, for the establishment of English colonies in Virginia.
Thomas Sharpley, a tailor, had the chief prize, which consisted of
£4000 of " fair plate."

"On Friday, April 6," (1781) says Boswell,* " Dr Johnson
carried me to dine at a club, which, at his desire, had been lately
formed at the Queen's Arms in St Paul's Churchyard. He told
Mr Hoole that he wished to have a City-club, and asked him to
collect one ; but, said he, don't let them be patriots. The com-
pany were that day very sensible well-behaved men." This same
tavern was also patronised by Garrick. " Garrick kept up an
interest in the city by appearing about twice in a winter at
Tom's coffeehouse in Cornhill, the usual rendezvous of young
merchants at Changetimes ; and frequented a club established for
the sake of his company at the Queen's Arms Tavern in St
Paul' s Churchyard, where were used to assemble Mr Samuel
Sharpe, the surgeon ; Mr Paterson, the City solicitor; Mr Draper,
the bookseller; Mr Clutterbuck, a mercer; and a few others :
they were none of them drinkers, and in order to make a reckon-
ing, called only for French wines. These w^rere his standing
counsel in theatrical affairs."+

Sometimes we meet with the King's or Queen's Arms in very
odd combinations; thus in the reign of Queen Anne there was
a Queen's Arms and Corncutter J in King Street, West-
minster ; the sign of Thomas Smith, who, according to his hand-

t This corncutter was probably the antique statue of the boy picking ft thorn out of
nis loot, and was usual with pedicures. See under the sign " Old pick my toe."

bill, (in the Bagford collection,) had, "by experience and ingenuity
learnt the art of taking out and curing all manner of corns
without any pain;" he also sold " the iamoustest ware in all
England, which never fails curing the toothache in half an hour."
It was customary with those who were " sworn servants to his
Majesty,"—i.e., who had the lord chamberlain's diploma, to set
up the royal arms beside their sign. The said Thomas, however,
does not appear to have had this honour, for not a word about
it is mentioned in his bill, so that he must have set up the
Queen's Arms merely to blind the public. The name of the
person who filled the important office of corncutter to Queen
Anne, I am afraid is lost to posterity, but, en revanche, we
know who drew King Charles II.'s teeth, for the Rev. John
Ward has recorded in his Diary,* " Upon a sign about Fleet-
bridge this is written,—¹ Here lives Peter de la Koch and George
Goslin, both which, and no others, are sworn operators to the
king's teeth.'"

Royal badges, and the supporters of the arms of various kings,
were in former times largely used as signs. The following is a
list of the supporters :—

" King Edward the first after the Conquest, sonne to Henry the third,
gave a Rose gold, the stalke vert.

" King Edward the iij gave a lyon in his proper coulor, armed azure
langued or. The oustrich fetlier gold, the pen gold, and a faucon in hia
proper coulor and the Sonne Rising.

" Edmond, Duk of York, sonne of Edward the iij, gave the Faucon arg,
and the Fetterlock or.

" Richard the second gave the White hart, armed, horned, crowned or,
and the golden son.

" Henry, sonne to the Erl of Derby, first Duk of Lancaster, gave the red
rose uncrowned, and his ancestors gave the Fox. tayle in his prop, coulor
and the ostrich fether ar. the pen ermyn.

" Henry the v gave the Antelope or, armed, crowned, spotted (?) and
horned gold and the Red Rose oncrowned and the Swan silver, crown and
collar gold, by the Erldom of Herford.

" Edward the iiij gave the Whyte Lyon and the Whyte Rose and the
Blak Bull uncrowned.

" Henry the seventh gave the hawthorn tree vert and the Porte Cullys
and the Red Rose and the Whyte Crowned.

" The Ostrycli fether silver, the pen gobone sylver and azur, is the
Duk of Somerset's bage.

" The Egle Russet with a maydenshead, abowt her neke a Crowne gold,
is the bage of the mannor of Conysborow.

Many of these badges, as will be seen afterwards, have come
down on signboards even to the present day. Equally common
are the Stuart badges, which were

The red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York frequently
placed on sunbeams; sometimes the red rose charged with the
white.

The rose dimidiated with the pomegranate, symbolical of
the connexion between England and Spain by the marriage of
Catherine of Arragon ; for the same reason the castle of Castille,
and the sheaf of arrows of Granada, occur amongst their badges.

The portcullis, borne by the descendants of John of Gaunt, who
was born in Beaufort Castle, whence, pars pro toto, the gate was
used to indicate the castle.

The falcon and fetterlock, badge of Henry VII., on account of
his descent from Edmond of Langley, Duke of York.

The red dragon, the ensign of the famous Cad waller, the last
of the British kings, from whom the Tudors descended.

The hawthorn bush crowned, which Henry VII. adopted in
allusion to the royal crown of Richard III. having been found
hidden in a hawthorn bush after the battle of Bosworth.

The white falcon crowned and holding a sceptre was the badge
of Queen Anna Boleyn, and of Queen Elizabeth her daughter.

The plicenix in flames was adopted by Edward VI. in allusion
to his birth, having been the cause of his mother's death; after-
wards he also granted this badge to the Seymour family.

In pondering over this class of signs great difficulty often arises
from the absence of all proof that the object under considera-
tion was set up as a badge, and not as a representation of the
actual animal. As no amount of investigation can decide this
matter, we have been somewhat profuse in our list of badges, in
order that the reader should be able to form his own opinion upon
that subject. Thus, for instance, with the first sign that offers
itself, the Angel and Trumpet, it is impossible to say whether
the supporters of Richard II. gave rise to it, or whether it repre-
sents Fame. Various examples of it still occur, and a very
good carved specimen may be seen above a draper's shop in Ox-
ford Street. It is also the name of alehouses in King Street,
Holborn, and in Stepney, High Street, &c.

The Antelope is not very common now, although in 1664 there
was a tavern with this sign in W. Smithfield, the trades token of
this house bearing the following legend :—Bibis . Vinum . Saluta .
Antelop. The Rev. John Ward tells a very feeble college joke
concerning the Antelope Tavern in Oxford :—

" I liave heard of a fellow at Oxford, one Ffrank Hil by name, who kept
the Antelope; and if one yawned, hee could not chuse but yawne, that
vppon a time some scliollars hawing stoln his ducks, hee had them to the
Vice chancelor, and one of the scholars got behind the Vice chaucelor, and
when the fellow beganne to speak hee would presently fall a yawning, in-
somuch that the Vice chancelor turned the fellow away in great indig-
nation." *

Macklin, the centenarian comedian, who died in 1797, used
for thirty years and upwards to visit a public-house called the
Antelope in White Hart yard, Covent Garden, where his usual

beverage was a pint of stout made hot and sweetened almost to a
syrup. This, he said, balmed his stomach, and kept him from
having any inward pains.* He died at the age of upwards of
107, a proof that if, as the teetotallers inform us, fermented
liquors be a poison, it is certainly a slow one.

The Dragon appears to have been one of the oldest heraldic
charges of this kingdom. It was the standard of the West
Saxons, and continued so until the arrival of William the Con-
queror, for in the Bayeux tapestry a winged dragon on a pole is
constantly represented near the person of King Harold. It was
likewise the supporter of the royal arms of Henry VII. and all
the Tudor sovereigns except Queen Mary. Before that time it
had been borne by some of the early Princes of Wales, and also
by several of the kings. Thus it is recorded, 28 Hen. III., the
king ordered to be made—

" Unum draconem in modum unius vexilli de quodam rubro sanulo, qui
ubique sit de auro extensillatus, cujus lingua sit facta tamquam ignis com-
burens et continue appareat moveatur, et ejus oculi fiaut de sappliiris vei
de aliis lapidibus eidein convenientibus." +

At the battle of Lewes, 1264, the chronicler says that—
" The king schewed forth his schild his Dragon full austere." J

In that time, however, it appears not to have been the royal
standard, but it was borne along with it, for Matthew of West-
minster says, " Regius locus erat inter Draconem et standardum." §
Edward III., at the battle of Crescy, also had a standard " with
a dragon of red silk adorned and beaten with very broad and fair
lilies of gold." Then, again, it occurs on a coin struck in the
reign of Henry VI., and was also one of the badges of Edward IV.

The Green Dragon was of very frequent occurrence on the
signboard. When Taylor, the water poet, wrote his " Travels
through London," there were not less than seven Green Dragons
amongst the metropolitan taverns of that day. One of these is
still in existence, the well-known Green Dragon in Bishopsgate
btreet, for nearly two centuries one of the most famous coach and
carriers' inns. At present it is simply a public-house. The Red
Dragon is much less common, whilst the White Dragon occurs

T A dragon in the manner of a banner, of a certain red silk embioidered with gold;
Its tongue like a flaming fire must always seem to be moving; its eyes must be made ol
sapphire, or of some other stone suitable for that purpose."

on a trades token of Holborn, representing a dragon pierced
with an arrow, evidently some family crest.

The White Hart was the favourite badge of Richard II.
At a tournament held in Smithfield in 1390, in honour of the
Count of St Pol, Count of Luxemburg, and the Count of Ostre-
vant, eldest son of Albert, Count of Holland and Zealand,
who had been elected members of the garter, " all the kynges
house were of one sute ; theyr cotys, theyr armys, theyr sheldes,
and theyr trappours, were browdrid all with wliyte liertys, with
crownes of gold about their neck, and cheynes of gold hanging
thereon, whiche hertys was the kynges leverye that he gaf to
lordes, ladyes, knyglites, and squyers, to knowe his household
people from others."*

The origin of this White Hart, with a collar of gold round its
neck, dates from the most remote antiquity. Aristotle + reports
that Diomedes consecrated a white hart to Diana, which, a thou-
sand years after, was killed by Agathocles, king of Sicily. Pliny;};
states that it was Alexander the Great, who caught a white stag
and placed a collar of gold round its neck. This marvellous
story highly pleased the fancy of the mediaeval writers, always in
quest of the wonderful. They substituted Julius Csesar for
Alexander the Great, and transplanted the fable to western
regions, in consequence of which various countries now claim the
honour of having produced the white hart, collared with gold.
One was said to have been caught in Windsor Forest, another
on Rothwell Haigh Common, in Yorkshire, a third at Senlis, in
France, and a fourth at Magdeburg. This last was killed by
Charlemagne. The same emperor is also reported to have caught
a white stag in the woods of Holstein, and to have attached the
usual golden collar round its neck. More than three centuries after,
in 117 2, this animal was killed by Henry the Lion, and the
whole story is, to this day, recorded in a Latin inscription on the
walls of Lubeck Cathedral.

Amongst the oldest inns which bore this sign, the White Hart,
in the High Street, Borough, ranks foremost in historical interest.
Here it was that Jack Cade established his headquarters, July 1,
1450. " And you, base peasants, do ye believe him 1 Will you
needs be hanged with your pardons about your necks 1 Hath
my sword therefore broken through London gates, that ye should

leave me at the White Hart in Southwark."—Henry VI., p. ii.
a. 1. s. 8. In the yard of that inn he beheaded " one Hawaydyne
of Sent Martyns." * Many and wild must have been the scenes
of riot and debauchery enacted in this place during the stay of
the reckless rebel. The original inn that had sheltered Cade
and his followers, remained standing till 1676, when it was burnt
down in the great fire that laid part of Southwark in ashes. It
was rebuilt, and the structure is still in existence; in Hatton's
time (1708) it could boast of the largest sign in London except
one, which was at the Castle Tavern in Fleet Street. Charles
Dickens has immortalised the White Hart Inn, by a most lifelike
description in his " Pickwick Papers."

The White Hart Tavern, in Bishopsgate, is also of very re-
spectable antiquity. It has the date 1480 in the front. Standing
on the boundary of the old hospital of Bethlehem, it is probable
that this building formed part of that religious house. Doubtless
it was the hostelry or inn for the entertainment of strangers,
which was a usual outbuilding belonging to the great hospitals
in those days.

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth there was a White Hart Inn
in the Strand, mentioned in a copy of an indenture of lease,
from the Earl of Bedford to Sir William Cecil (7th September
1570) of a portion of pasture in Covent Garden, "beinge thereby
devyeded from certayne gardens belonginge to the Inne called the
Whyte Heart, and other Tenements scituate in the high streate
of Westm' comunly called the Stronde." It is not improbable
that this inn gave its name to Hart Street and White Hart
Yard, in that neighbourhood.

There was another inn of this name in Whitechapel, connected
with the name of a rather curious character, Mrs Mapp, the
female bone-setter. " On Friday, several persons who had the
misfortune of lameness, crowded to the White Haiit Inn in
Whitechapel, on hearing Mrs Mapp, the famous bonesetter, was
there. Some of them were admitted to her, and were relieved as
they apprehended. But a gentleman who happened to come by
declared Mrs Mapp was at Epsom, on which the woman thought
proper to move off."+ The genuine Mrs Sarah Mapp was a
female bone-setter, or " shape mistress," the daughter of a bone-
setter of Hindon, Wilts. Her maiden name was Wallis. It

appears that she made some successful cures before Sir Hang
Sloane, in the Grecian Coffee-house. For a time she was in
affluent circumstances, kept a carriage and four, had a plate of
ten guineas run for at the Epsom races, where she lived, fre-
quented theatres, and was quite the lion of a season. Ballads
were made upon her, songs were introduced on the stage, in
which the " Doctress of Epsom" was exalted to the tune of
Derry Down; in short, she was called the " Wonder of the Age."
But, alas! the year after all this eclat, we read in the same Grub
Street Journal, that had recorded all her greatness—" December
22, 1737. Died last week at her lodgings, near the Seven Dialls,
the much-talked of Mrs Mapp, the bonesetter, so miserably poor,
that the parish was obliged to bury her." Sic transit gloria
mundi /

Lastly, we must mention the White Hart, at Scole, in Norfolk,
as most of all bearing upon our subject, for that inn had certainly
the most extensive and expensive sign ever produced. It is
mentioned by Sir Thomas Brown, March 4, 166§—"About
three miles further, I came to Scoale, where is a very handsome
inne, and the noblest sighnepost in England, about and upon which
are carved a great many stories as of Charon and Cerberus,
Actseon and Diana, and many others ; the signe itself is a White
Hart, which hanges downe carved in a stately wreath." A cen-
tury later, it is again mentioned. Speaking of Osmundestone,
or Scole, Blomefield says—" Here are two very good inns for
the entertainment of travellers. The White Hart is much noted
in these parts, being called by way of distinction Scole Inn ; the
house is a large brick building adorned with imagery and carved
work in several places, as big as the life ; it was built in 1655
by James Peck, Esq., whose arms impaling his wife's are over the
porch door. The sign is very large, beautified all over with a
great number of images of large stature carved in wood, and was
the work of Fairchild; the arms about it are those of the chief
towns and gentlemen in the county." " There was lately a very
round large bed, big enough to hold 15 or 20 couples, in imitation
(I suppose) of the remarkable great bed at Ware. The house was
in all things accommodated at first for large business; but the
road not supporting it, it is much in decay at present." A cor-
respondent in Notes and Queries says :—" I think the sign was not
taken down till after 1795, as I have a recollection of having
uassed under it when a boy, in going from Norwich to Ipswich."

We obtain full details of tbis wonderful erection from an engrav-
ing made in 1740, entitled :—

" The North East side of y^e sign of y® White Heart at Schoale Inn in
Norfolk, built in the year 1655 by James Peck, a merchant of Norwich,
which cost £1057. Humb'y Dedicated to James Betts, Gent., by his most
ob' serv^k, Harwin Martin."

The sign passed over the road, resting on one side on a pier of
brickwork, and joined to the house on the other; its height was
sufficient to allow carriages to pass beneath. Its ornamentation
was divided into compartments, which contained the following
subjects according to the numbers in the engraving :—1. Jonah
coming out of the fish's mouth. 2. A Lion supporting the arms
of Great Yarmouth. 3. A Bacchus. 4. The arms of Lindley.
5. The arms of Hobart. 6. A Shepherd playing on his pipe. 7.
An Angel supporting the arms of Mr Peck's lady. 8. An Angel
supporting the arms of Mr Peck. 9. A White Hart [the sign
itself] with this motto,—" Implentur veteris Bacchi pin-
guisque ferine. Anno dom. 1655." 10. The arms of the
Earl of Yarmouth. 11. The arms of the Duke of Norfolk. 12.
Neptune on a Dolphin. 13. A Lion supporting the arms of
Norwich. 14. Charon carrying a reputed Witch to Hades. 15.
Cerberus. 16. A Huntsman. 17. Actseon [addressing his dogs
with the words "Action ego sum, dominum cognoscite
vestrum."] 18. A White Hart couchant [underneath, the
name of the maker of the sign, Johannes Fair child, struxit.]
19. Prudence. 20. Fortitude, 21. Temperance. 22. Justice.
23. Diana. 24. Time devouring an infant [underneath, " Tempus
Edax rerum."] 25. An Astronomer, who is seated on a " cir-
cumferenter, and by some chymical preparations is so affected
that in fine weather he faces that quarter from which it is about
to come." There is a ballad on this sign in " Songs and other
Poems," by Alexander Brome, Gent. London, 1661, p. 123.

This herd of white harts has led us over a large tract of ground,
but we will now return to other royal badges, and note the Hawk
and Buckle, which occurs in Wrenbury, Nantwich, Cheshire ;
Etwall, Derby; and various other places. This is simply a
popular rendering of the Falcon and the Fetterlock, one of the
badges of the house of York. The Hawk and Buck, which
appears to be only another version of the last corruption, occurs
at Pearsly Sutton Street, St Helens, Lancashire ; the Falcon
and Horse-shoe, a sign in Poplar in the seventeenth century,

(see Trades' Tokens,) may have had the same origin, whilst the
Bull and Stirrup, in Upper Northgate, Chester, probably
comes from the Bull and Fetterlock, another combination of
badges of the house of York.

From this family are also derived the Blue Boar and the
White Boar. One of the badges of Bichard, Duke af York,
father of Edward IV., was " a blewe Bore with his tuskis and his
cleis and his membres of gold."* The heraldic origin of this
sign, of which there are still innumerable instances all over Eng-
land, is now so completely lost sight of, that in many places it
passes under the ignoble appellation of the Blue Pig.

The White Boar was the popular sign in Bichard the Third's
time, that king's cognisance being a boar passant argent, whence
the rhyme which cost William Collingborne his life :—
" The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell our Dogge,
Rulen all England vnder an Ilotjge." t

The fondness of Bichard for this badge appears from his
wardrobe accounts for the year 1483, one of which contains a
charge "for 8000 bores made and wrought upon fustian," and
5000 more are mentioned shortly afterwards. He also estab-
lished a herald of arms called Blanc Sanglier, and it was this
trusty squire who carried his master's mangled body from Bos-
worth battle-field to Leicester.

After Bichard's defeat and death the White Boars were changed
into Blue Boars, this being the easiest and cheapest way of chang-
ing the sign; and so the Boar of Bichard, now painted " true
blue," passed for the Boar of the Earl of Oxford, who had largely
contributed to place Henry VII. on the throne. Even the White
Boar Inn at Leicester, in which Bichard passed the last night of
his royalty and of his life, followed the general example, and
became the Blue Boar Inn, under which sign it continued until
taken down twenty-five or thirty years ago. The bed in which
the king slept was preserved, and continued for many generations
one of the curiosities shewn to strangers at Leicester. It was
said that a large sum of money had been discovered in its double
bottom, which the landlord himself quietly appropriated. The
discovery, however, got wind, and his widow was killed and
robbed by some of her guests, in connivance with a maid-servant.

* Badges of Cognizance of Richard, Duke of York, written on a blank leaf at the be-
ginning of Digby SIS. 82. Bodleian Library, Oxford. Archaeologia xvii. 1814.

t The Cat, William Catesby; the Rat, Sir Kichard Ratcliile ; _kLove!l our dog, Lord
Lovel.

They carried away seven horse-loads of treasure. This murder
was committed in 1605.*

The sign of the White Boar, however, did not become quite ex-
tinct with the overthrow of the York faction, for we find it still in
1542, as appears from the following title of a very scarce book :—

" David's Harp full of most delectable harmony newly strung and set in
Tune by Tho«. Basille y° Lord Cobham. Imprinted at London in Buttolp
lane at y_e sign of y^e White Boar by John Mayler for John Gough, 1542." +

The Firebeacon, a sign at Fulston, Lincolnshire, was a badge
of Edward IV., and also of the Admiralty.

The Hawthorn, or Hawthornbush, which we meet in so
many places, may be Henry VII.'s badge, but various other
causes may have contributed to the popularity of that sign, such
as the custom of gathering bunches of hawthorn on the first of
May. Magic powers, too, are attributed to this plant. " And
now," says Reginald Scott, " to be delivered from witches them-
selves they hange in their entrees an hearb called pentaphyllon,
cinquefole, also an oliue branch, also franckincense, myrrh, vale-
rian veruen, palme, anterihmon, &c. ; also Haytliorne, otherwise
whitelhorne, gathered on Maiedaie," &c.J

The Gun, or Cannon, was the cognizance of King Edward VI.,
Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth. In the beginning of the
eighteenth century it was of such frequent occurrence that the
Craftsman, No. 638, observed—" Nothing is more common in
England than the sign of a cannon." Sarah Milwood, the " wan-
ton" who led George Barnwell astray, lived, according to the
ballad, in Shoreditch, " next door unto the Gun." At the pres-
ent day it is still a great favourite. In the neighbourhood of
arsenals its adoption is easily explained.

About eighty years ago there was a famous Cannon Coffee-
house at the corner of Trafalgar Square, at the end of Wliitcombe
Street or Hedgelane; its site is now occupied by the Union
Club. From this coffeehouse Hackman saw Miss Ray drive past
on her way to Covent Garden Theatre, when he followed and
shot her as she was entering her coach after the performance.
The Gun was also a sign with many booksellers, as in the case of

* Sir Roger Twisd en's Commonplace Books, 1653, as quoted in extenso in Notes and
yueri«, Aug. 8, 1857. Mr James Thompson, in his "History of Leicester," informs us
that one man was hanged and a woman burned for this crime, and not seven persons
capitally executed, according to the popular tradition.

t uari. MS. 5910; of this printer Bagford says: "I do not find he prented many
books, or at lest few of them have come to mv hand."
t Reginald Scot, The Discovery of Witchcraft, b. xii. ch. xviii. p. 268, 1584.

Edward White at the Little North Door of St Paul's Church,
1579; Thomas Ewster in Ivy Lane, 1649 ; Henry Brome, at
the West End of St Paul's Churchyard, 1678, and various others.

The Swan was a favourite badge of several of our kings, as
Henry IV., Edward III. At a tournament in Smithfield the
last king wore the following rather profane motto :—
" Hay, hay, the wyth Swan,
By God's soule I am thy man."

Thomas Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, used the same cog-
nizance ; whence Gower. styles him " cignus de corde benignus;"
whilst Cecily Nevil, Duchess of York, mother of Edward IY. and
Richard III., likewise had a swan as supporter of her arms.

The sign of the Swan and Maidenhead, at Stratford-on-
Avon, may have originated in one of the royal badges; for we
find that in 1375 the Black Prince bequeathed to his son Richard
his hangings for a hall, embroidered with mermen, and a border
of red and black empaled, embroidered with swans having ladies'
heads* The Swan and Falcon (two badges of Edward III.)
was a sign in Hereford, in 1775, as appears from the following
advertisement:—

"HEREFORD MACHINE.
" TN a Day and a Half twice a week, continues flying from the Swan

JL and Falcon, in Hereford, Monday and Thursday mornings ; and from
the Bolt-in-Tun, in Fleet Street, London, Monday and Thursday evenings.
Fare 19s.; outsides half."—Hereford Journal, January 12, 1775.

The Swan and White Hart may have been originally the
Swan and Antelope, supporters of the arms of Henry IV., but as
it at present stands two distinct royal badges are represented.
This sign occurs on a trades-token of St Giles in the Fields, in
the second half of the seventeenth century.

The Rising Sun was a badge of Edward III., and forms part
of the arms of Ireland; but the Sun Shining was a cognizance of
several kings. Various other causes may have led to the adop-
tion of that luminary as a sign. (See Miscellaneous Signs.)

Lions have been at all times, and still continue, greater sign-
board favourites than any other heraldic animals. The lion ram-
pant most frequently occurs, although in late years naturalism has
crept in, and the fella leo is often represented standing or crouch-
ing, quite regardless of his heraldic origin. The lion of the sign-
board being seldom seen passant, it is more than probable that it
was not derived from the national coat of arms, but rather from

Borne badge, either that of Edward III. or from the White Lion
of Edward IV. Though silver in general was not used on Eng-
lish signboards yet, the White Lion was anything but uncommon.
Several examples occur amongst early booksellers. Thus in
1604 the " Shepherd's Calendar" was "printed at London by G.
Elde, for Thomas Adams, dwelling in Paule's Churchyarde, at
the signe of the White Lion." In 1652 we meet with another
bookseller, John Fey, near the New Exchange; and about the
same period John Andrews, a ballad printer, near Pye Corner,
who both had the sign of the White Lion. For inns, also, it was
not an uncommon decoration. Thus the White Lion in St
John's Street, Clerkenwell, was originally an inn frequented by
cattle-drovers and other wayfarers connected with Smithfield
market. Formerly it was a very extensive building, two of the
adjoining houses and part of White Lion Street, all being built
on its site. The house now occupied by an oilshop was in those
days the gateway to the inn-yard, and over it was the sign, in
stone relief, a lion rampant, painted white, inserted in the front
wall. It still remains in its original position, with the date
1714, when it was probably renewed. Pepys's cousin, Anthony
Joyce, drowned himself in a pond behind this inn. He was a
tavern-keeper himself, and kept the Three Stags at Holborn, (a
house of which tokens are extant.) Heavy losses by the fire of
1666 preyed upon his mind. He imagined that he had not
served God as he ought to have done, and in a moment of
despair committed the rash act. We have another, and not
uninteresting instance, of this sign. " Sir Thomas Lawrence's
father kept the White Lion Hotel at Bristol. He afterwards
removed to the Bear, at Devizes, where he failed in business. It
seemed that it was this last speculation in hotel-keeping which
ruined him, with reference to which local wits used to say, " It
was not the Lion but the Bear that eat him up."—Bristol Times,
June 4, 1859.

Since pictorial or carved signs have fallen into disuse, and
only names given, the Silver Lion is not uncommon, though
xn all probability simply adopted as a change from the very
frequent Golden Lion. Thus there is one in the High Street,
Poplar; in the London Road, and Midland Road, Derby; in the
Lilly Road, Luton, Herts, &c. The Red Lion is by far the most
common; doubtless it originated with the badge of John of
uaunt, Duke of Lancaster, married to Constance, daughter of

Don Pedro tlie Cruel, king of Leon and Castille. The duke bore
the lion rampant gules of Leon as his cognizance, to represent hi3
claim to the throne of Castille, when that was occupied by
Henry de Transtamare. In after years it may often have been
used to represent the lion of Scotland.

The Red Lion Inn at Sittingbourne is a very ancient estab-
lishment. A new landlord, who entered circa 1820, issued the
following advertisement:—

V V solicits the custom and support of the nobility and gentry, &c., &c.
" The antiquity of the inn, and the respectable character which it has in
history are recorded as under:—

" Sittingbourne, in Kent, is a considerable thoroughfare on the Dover
Road, where there are several good inns, particularly the Red Lion, which
is remarkable for an entertainment, made by Mr John Norwood, for King
Henry the Fifth, as he returned from the battle of Agincourt, in France, in
the year 1415, the whole amounting to no more than Nine Shillings and
Ninepence. Wine being at that time only a penny a pint, and all other
things being proportionably cheap.

P.S.—The same character in a like proportionate degree Wm. Whitaker
hopes to obtain by his moderate charges at the present time."

Red Lion Square, Holborn, was called after an inn known a?
the Red Lion. " Andrew Marvell lies interred under y^e pews in
the south side of St Giles church in y^e Fields, under the window
wherein is painted on glasse, a red lyon, (it was given by the
Inneholder of the Red lyon Inne, Holborn.)" *

Another celebrated tavern was the Old Red Lion, St John's
Road, Islington,—which has been honoured by the presence of
several great literary characters. Thomson, of the " Seasons," was
a frequent visitor; Paine, the author of the " Rights of Man,"
lived, hers; and Dr Johnson, with his friends, are said often to
have sat in the parlour. Hogarth introduced its gable end in
his picture of Evening.

The Black Lion is somewhat uncommon; it may have been
derived from the coat of arms of Queen Philippa of Hainault,
wife of Edward III.+ We find an example of it in the following
advertisement:— X

" \ T the Union Society at the Black Lion against Short's Garden in
.XJL Drury Lane, a Linen Draper's, on Thursday the 21st past, was

t Owen Glendower also bore a lion rampant sable, "the black lion of Pawyss;" his
arms were Paly of eight, arg, and gules, over all a lion sable. The black lion was the
royal ensign of his father Madoc ap Meredith, last sovereign prince of Powyss ; he died
at Winchester in 11PO, The black lion consequently might sometimes be set up by
Welshmen.

opened three offices of Insurance on the birth of Children, by way of
dividend At the same place there is two offices for marriages," &c.

In this advertisement we touch upon the joint-stock mania
then raging. Newspapers of the time teemed with advertise-
ments of insurance companies of all sorts : the above paper,
with less than a dozen advertisements, offers four schemes, by
which on payment of 10s. per week £1000 were eventually to be
received!

Among the badges of the Tudors, Henry VII. and Henry
VIII. left us the still common sign of the Portcullis.

" A portcullis, or porte-coulisse, is French for that wooden instrument or
machine, plated over with iron, made in the form of a harrow or lozenge,
hung up with pullies in the entries of gates or castles, to be let down upon
any occasion."—Anstis Garter.

It is the principal charge in the arms of the city of West-
minster, and is to be seen everywhere within and without the
beautiful chapel of Henry VII., whose favourite device it was
as importing his descent from the house of Lancaster. It was
also one of the badges of Henry VIII., with the motto, Securitas
Altera, and occurs on some of his coins.

To this same family we also owe the Rose and Crown, which
sign, at the present day, may be observed on not less than forty-eight
public-houses in London alone, exclusive of beer-houses. One of
the oldest is in the High Street, Knightsbridge, which has been
licensed above three hundred years, though not under that name,
for anciently it was called the Oliver Cromwell. The Protec-
tor's bodyguard is said to have been quartered here, and an in-
scription to that effect was formerly painted in front of the house,
accompanied by an emblazoned coat of arms of Cromwell, on an
ornamental piece of plaster work, which last is all that now
remains of it. It is the oldest house in Brompton, was formerly
its largest inn, and not improbably the house at which Sir Thomas
Wyatt put up, while his Kentish followers rested on the adjacent
green. Corbould painted this inn under the title of " The Old
Hostelrie at Knightsbridge," exhibited in 1849, but he trans-
ferred its date to 1497, altering the house according to his own
fancy.

During the persecutions, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, of
booksellers suspected as publishers of the mysterious Martin Mar-
prelate tracts, we find one Bogue, at the loyal sign of the Rose
and Crown, in St Paul's Churchyard, who fell into the category

of tlxe suspected, and who was so severely persecuted that he was
almost ruined by it.

One more royal, or rather princely badge remains to be men-
tioned,—The Feathers, Prince of Wales' Feathers, occasion-
ally varied to the Prince of Wales' Arms. Ostrich feathers were
from a very early period among the devices of our kings and
princes. King Stephen, for instance, according to Guillim, bore
a plume of ostrich feathers with the motto :—vi nulla inverti-
titr ordo, No force alters their fashion, meaning that no wind
can ruffle a feather into lasting disorder. Not only the Black
Prince, but also Edward III., himself and his sons, bore ostrich
feathers as their cognizances, each with some distinction in colour
or metal. The badge originally took the form of a single feather.
John Arclern, physician to the Black Prince, who is the first
to mention the derivation of the feathers from the King of
Bohemia, says:—

" Et nota quod talon pennam albam portabat Edwardus primogenitus
filius Edwardi regis super crestam suam, et Ulam pennam conquisivit de
lege Boemise, quem interfecit apud Cresse in Francia, et sic assumpsit sibi
illam pennam quae dicitur ostrich feather, quam prius dictus rex nobilis-
simus portabat super crestam." *

The feather, also, is drawn in the margin of the MS. as single,
and in that shape, too, it is represented on the Black Prince's
tomb. This feather, however, appears only to have been an
ornament on the helmet of King John of Bohemia. A contem-
porary Flemish poem, quoted by Baron van Beiffenberg, thus
describes his heraldic crest:—

" Twee gliiervogelen daer aen geleyt
Die al vol bespringelt zyn
Met Linden bladeren gult fyn,
Deze is, as in merken kan
Van Bohemen Koninck Jan." t

And in that shape it also occurs on the King's seal. More
difficulties are offered by the motto : Hou moet ich dien, for so
it is in full,—the Black Prince himself wrote it after this fashion
in a letter dated April 25, 1370. The last two words in Ger-
man mean "I serve," but no explanation is given of the remainder,
"Hou moet." Since no mottos in two languages occur, we must

* "And observe that such a white feather was borne on his crest by Edward the eldest
son of I£. Edward; and this feather he conquered from the King of Bohemia whom he
killed at Cressy in France, and so he assumed the feather, called the ostrich feather,
which that most noble king had formerly worn on his crest."-— Sloane MSS, No. 56.

t Added to this were two vultures, sprinkled all over with finely-gilt linden leavea
Therefore I know this is King John of Bohemia.

look for a language which can account for both parts of the
motto; and thus in Flemish we find these words to mean, "Keep
courage, I serve," or, in less concise language, " Keep courage, I
serve with you, I am your companion in arms ;" and though no
parentage has as yet been found for this motto, it may not im-
probably have been derived from the Black Prince's maternal
family, since his mother, Queen Pliilippa of Hainault, was a
Flemish princess.

Amongst the many shops which took the feathers for their
sign we find the following noted in an advertisement :—

JL upon divers infected persons with admirable success. The virtues
of it against the Plague and all malignant distempers are sufficiently known
to all the Physicians of Christendom, and the Powder itself prepared by
the only person living that has the true Receipt, is to be had at the third
part of the ordinary price at Mr Calvert's, at the Feathers in the old Pall
Mall near St James's," &c.

This, and other advertisements announcing equally efficacious
panacea, appeared daily in the London papers during the plague
of 1665. De Foe, in his little chronicle of the plague, often
speaks of these quack medicines.

Less dismal images are called up by " the Feathers at the
side of Leicester Fields," which sign was evidently complimentary
to its neighbour Frederick, Prince of Wales, son of George II.,
who lived at Leicester House, " the pouting house of princes,"
when on bad terms with his father, and died there in 1751.
The back parlour of this tavern was for some years the meeting-
place of a club of artists and well-known amateurs, amongst
whom Stuart, the Athenian traveller ; Scott, the marine painter;
Luke Sullivan, the miniature artist, engraver of the March to
Finchley; burly Captain Grose, author of the "Antiquities of
England," and the greatest wit of his day; Mr Hearne, the
antiquary; Nathaniel Smith, the father of J. T. Smith; Mr
John Ireland, then a watchmaker in Maidenlane, and afterwards
editor of Boydell's edition of Dr Trusler's " Hogarth Moralised,"
and several others. When this house was taken down to make
way for Dibdin's theatre, called the Sans-souci, the club ad-
journed to the Coach and Horses, in Castle Street, Leicester
Fields. But, in consequence of the members not proving cus-
tomers sufficiently expensive for that establishment, the landlord
one evening venturing to let them out with a farthing candle, they
betook themselves to Gerard Street and thence to the Blu*

Posts in Dean Street, where the club dwindled to two or
three members and at last died out.

An amusing anecdote is told about the Feathers, Grosvenor
Street "West. A lodge of Oddfellows was held at this house,
into the private chamber of which George, Prince of Wales, one
night intruded very abruptly with a roystering friend. The
society was, at the moment, celebrating some of its awful mys-
teries, which no uninitiated eye may behold, and these were
witnessed by the profane intruders. The only way to repair the
sacrilege was to make the Prince and his companion " Odd-
fellows," a title they certainly deserved as richly as any members
of the club. The initiatory rites were quickly gone through, and
the Prince was chairman for the remainder of the evening. In
1851 the old public-house was pulled down and a new gin palace
built on its site, in the parlour of which the chair used by the
distinguished Oddfellow is still preserved, along with a portrait
of his Royal Highness in the robes of the order.

Among the badges and arms of countries and towns, the
national emblem the Rose is most frequent, and has been so for
centuries. Bishop Earle observes, " If the vintner's Hose be at
the door it is sign sufficient, but the absence of this is supplied
by the ivy-bush." Hutton, in his " Battle of Bosworth," says
that " upon the death of Richard III., and the consequent over-
throw of the York faction, all the signboards with white roses
were pulled down, and that none are to be found at the present
day." This last part of the statement, we believe, is true, but
that the White Roses were not all immediately done away with
appears from the fact that, in 1503, a White Rose Tavern was
demolished to make room for the building of Henry VII.'s chapel
in Westminster; that tavern stood near the chapel of Our Lady,
behind the high altar of the fbbey church. At present, however,
as the rose on the signboard represents in the eye of the public
simply the Queen of Flowers,—its heraldic history having been
forgotten long ago,—it is painted any colour according to taste,
or occasionally gilt. Long after the famous battles between the
White and Red Roses had ceased, the custom was continued of
adding the colour to the name of the sign. Thus, in Stow,
" Then have ye one other lane called Rother Lane, or Red Rose
Lane, of such a sign," &c. In Lancashire we meet, in one or two
instances, with the old heraldic flower, as at Springwood, Chad-
derton, Manchester, where the Red Rose of Lancaster is still
in full bloom on a publican's signboard.

Skelton's " Armony of Byrdes" was " imprynted at Londo' by
John Wyght dwellig in Poule's Church yarde at the sygne of the
Rose." Machyn, in his Diary, mentions many instances :—" The
vij day of Aprill (1563) at seint Katheryns beyond the Toure,
the wyff of the syne of the Rose, a tavarne, was set on the pelere
for ettyng of rowe flesse and rostyd boyth,'' which in our modern
English means that she was put in the pillory for breaking fast
in Lent,

The Rose Tavern in Russell Street, Covent Garden, was a
noted place for debauchery in the seventeenth century ; constant
allusions are made to it in the old plays. " In those days a man
could not go from the Rose Tavern to the Piazzi once but he
must venture his life twice."—Shadwell, the Scowrers, 1691.
" Oh no, never talk on't. There will never be his fellow. Oh !
had you seen him scower as I did ; oh ! so delicately, so like a
gentleman ! How he cleared the Rose Tavern !"—Ibid. In this
house, November 14, 1712, the duel between the Duke of Hamil-
ton and Lord Mohun was arranged, in which the latter was killed.
In the reign of Queen Anne the place was still a great resort for
loose women ; hence in the " Rake Reformed," 1718—
" Not far from thence appears a pendant sign,
"Whose bush declares the product of the vine,
Where to the traveller's sight the full-blown Rose
Its dazzling beauties doth in gold disclose,
And painted faces flock in tallied cloaths."

Hogarth has represented one of the rooms of the house in his
" Rake's Progress." In 1766 this tavern was swallowed up in
the enlargements of Drury Lane by Garrick, but the sign was
preserved and hung up against the front wall, between the first
and second floor windows.*

" Between two Roses down I fell,
As 'twixt two stools a platter;
One held me up exceeding well,
Th' other did no such matter.
The Rose by Temple Bar gave wine
Exchanged for chalk, and tilled me,
But being for the ready coin,
The Rose in Wood Street killed me."

The " Rose by Temple Bar" stood at the corner of Thanet Place.
Strype says it was " a well customed house, with good conveni-
ences of rooms and a good garden." Walpole mentions a painted

room in tliis tavern in his letters of January 26 and March 1,
1776. The Rose in Wood Street was a spunging-house : "I
have been too lately under their [the Bayliffs'] clutches, to desire
any more dealings with them, and I cannot come within a furlong
of the Rose spunging-house without five or six yellow boys in my
pocket to cast out those devils there, who would otherwise infal-
libly take possession of me."—Tom Brown's Works, iii. p. 24.

Innumerable other Rose inns and taverns might be mentioned,
but we will conclude with noting the Rose Inn at Wokingham,
once famous as the resort of Pope and Gay. There was a room
here called " Pope's room," and a chair was shown in which the
great little man had sat. It is also celebrated in the well-known
song of Molly Mog, attributed to Gay, and printed in Swift's
"Miscellanies." "This cruel fair, who was daughter of John
Mog, the landlord of that inn, died a spinster at the age of 67.
Mr Standen of Arborfield, who died in 1730, is said to have
been the enamoured swain to whom the song alludes. The
current tradition of the place is, that Gay and his poetic friends
having met upon some occasion to dine at the Rose, and being
detained within doors by the weather, it was proposed that they
should write a song, and that each person present should contri-
bute a verse : the subject proposed was the Fair Maid of the Inn.
It is said that by mistake they wrote in praise of Molly, but that
in fact it was intended to apply to her sister Sally, who was tha
greater beauty. A portrait of Gay still remains at the inn."*
The house at present is changed into a mercer's shop.

Sometimes the Rose is combined with other objects, as the
Rose and Ball, which originated in the Rose as the sign of a
mercer, and the Ball as the emblem or device which silk
dealers formerly hung at their doors like the Berlin wool shops
of the present day. (See under Ball.) The Rose and Key
was a sign in Cheapside in 1682.+ This combination looks like
a hieroglyphic rendering of the phrase, " under the rose," but the
key is of very common occurrence in other signs, as will be seen
presently.

The Scotch Thistle and Crown is another not uncommon
national badge, adopted mostly by publicans of North British
origin. The Crown and Harp is less frequent; there is one at
Bishop's Cleeve, Cheltenham. Of the Crown and Leek we

know only one example, viz.. in Dean Street, Mile End; but
since both the rose and thistle are crowned, why not the leek
also? It is "a wholesome food," according to Fluellen, and
would no doubt look just as well under a crown as in a Welsh-
man's cap. The Shamrock also is of common occurrence, but
we have never seen it combined with the Crown.

Among heraldic signs referring to towns are the Bible and
Three Crowns, the coat of arms of Oxford, which was not un-
common with the booksellers in former times. To one of them,
probably, belonged the carved stone specimen walled up in a
house at the corner of Little Distaff Lane and St Paul's Church-
yard. Such a sign is also mentioned in a rather curious adver-
tisement in the Postboy, September 27, 1711 :—
" mHIS IS to give notice That ten Shillings over and above the Market

X price will be given for the Ticket in the £1,500,000 Lottery, No.
132, by Nath. Cliff at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside."

The Spectator in his 191st number took occasion from this
advertisement to write a very amusing paper on the various lot-
tery superstitions with regard to numbers.

There is also an Oxford Arms Inn in Warwick Lane, New-
gate Street; a fine, old, galleried inn, with exterior staircases
leading to the bed-rooms. This was already a carriers' inn before
the fire, as appears from the following advertisement:—•

removed his Inn in London from the Swan at Holborn Bridge, to
the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, where he did inne before the fire. Hia
coaches and waggons going forth on their usual days, Mondays, Wednes-
days, and Fridays. He hath also a hearse with all things convenient to
carry a corps to any part of England." *

The Buck in the Park, Curzon Street, Derby, is the ver-
nacular rendering of the arms of that town, which are—a hart
cumbant on a mount, in a park paled, all proper. The Three
Legs was the sign of a bookseller named Thomas Cockerill, over
against Grocer's Hall, in the Poultry, about 1700. Sometimes his
house is designated on his publications as the Three Legs and
Bible. These three legs were the Manx arms. It is still a not
uncommon alehouse sign. There is one, for instance, in Call
Lane, Leeds, which is known to the lower classes under the jocular
denomination of " the kettle with three spouts

County arms also are sometimes represented on the signboards;
as the Fifteen Balls, (which refer to the Cornish arms, fifteen

roundles arranged in triangular form) at Union Street, Bodmin,
Cornwall; One and All, the motto of the county of Cornwall,
occurs at Cheapside, St Heliers, Jersey; and in Market Jew
Street, Penzance. This motto has, besides the advantage of
being a hearty appeal to all the thirsty sons of Bacchus, and will
call to the mind of a thoughtful toper, the relative position of
one and many, or all, as explained by the al-fresco artists, who
decorate the pavement in Piccadilly—" Many can help one, one
cannot help many." The Staffordshire Knot is common in
the pottery districts; besides these almost every county is repre-
sented by its own arms, such as the Northumberland Arms, &c.,
but about these nothing need be said.

The Three Balls of the pawnbrokers are taken from the
lower part of the coat of arms of the Dukes of Medici, from
whose states, and from Lombardy, nearly all the early bankers
came. These capitalists also advanced money on valuable goods,
and hence gradually became pawnbrokers. The arms of the
Medici family were five bezants azure, whence the balls formerly
were blue, and only within the last half century have assumed a
golden exterior, evidently to gild the pill for those who have
dealings with " my uncle as for the position in which they are
placed, the popular explanation is that there are two chances to
one that whatever is brought there will not be redeemed.

The Lion and Castle, of which there are a few instances,
(Cherry Garden Stairs, Rotherhithe, for example,) need not be
derived from royal marriage alliances with Spain, as it may simply
have been borrowed from the brand of the Spanish arms on the
sherry casks, and have been put up by the landlord to indicate the
sale of genuine Spanish wines, such as sack, canary, mountain.

The Flower de Luce was a frequent English sign in old
times, either taken from the quartering of the French arms with
the English, or set up as a compliment to private families who
bear this charge in their arms or as crest. The preface of " Edyth,
the lying widow," ends with these words :—

^u In the cyte of Exeter by West away
The time not passed hence many a day,
There dwelled a yoman discret and wise,
At the siggne of the Flower de lyse
Which had to name John Hawkyn."

Tokens are extant of an inn at Dover, in the seventeenth century,
with the sign of the French Arms, a tavern name sufficiently com

mon also in London at tliat period to attract the travellers from
across the Channel. Thus James Johnson was a goldsmith, " that
kept running cash,"—i.e., a banker,—in Cheapside, in 1677, living
at the sign of the Three Flower de Luces.* In the fifteenth
century, Gascon merchants and other strangers in London were
allowed to keep hostels for their countrymen, and, in order to get
known, they most likely put up the arms of those countries as
their signs. No doubt the Three Frogs, London Road, Woking-
ham, is a travesty of Johnny Crapaud's Arms.

Boursault,+ in his letter to Bizotin, has a burst of indignation
at a "fournisseur " of something or other to the royal family, who
had adopted as his sign the English Arms, with the arms of
France in the first quarter, and endeavours to call down the ire
of the Parisian police upon the head of the unfortunate shop-
keeper who had committed this act of treason :—

" Laissons l'Angleterre se repaître de chimères," saitli he, "et s'imaginer
que ses souverains sont Rois de France, mais que des Français soyent assez
ignorants, ou assez mauvais sujets, pour mettre les armes do France écar-
telés dans celles d'Angleterre, c'est ce que des sujets aussi zélee; que Mon-
sieur d'Argenson et les autres officiera préposez pour la police ne doivent
nullement souffrir." î

He next, in a threatening manner, reminds the poor shopkeeper
how, according to " Candem [sic] Historien Angloys," Queen Mary
Stuart w^ras beheaded for having quartered the English arms with
those of Scotland, though she was the heir-presumptive of the
English throne ; and if such was the fate of that queen, what then
did the man deserve who quartered the arms of his sovereign with
those of a foreign king 1 Indeed he deserved the same fate as
the arms.

Another sign, apparently of French origin, is the Dolphin and
Crown, the armorial bearing of the French Dauphin, and the >
sign of B. Willington, a bookseller in St Paul's Churchyard
circa 1700. Some years after, this house seems to have been
occupied by James Young, a famous maker of violins and other
musical instruments, who lived at the west corner of London

* Little London Directory for 1677, the oldest printed lists of bankers and merchants
in London, reprinted, with historical introduction by John Camden Hotten, 1803.

t A very amusing French author of the time of Louis XIV., celebrated for his witty
letters. ¹

Î "Let England amuse herself with idle fancies, and imagine that her kings are kings
cf trance ; but that there be Frenchmen who are ignorant enough, or bad subjects
enough, to quarter the arms of France with those of England, that is a thing which »
Mich zealous subjects as M. d'Argenson, and the other police magistrates, ought by no
means to permit." ^J

" You scrapers that want a good fiddle well strung,
You must go to the man that is old while he's Young ;
But if this same fiddle you fain would play bold,
Tou must go to his son, who's Young when he's old.
There's old Young and young Young, both men of renown :
Old sells and young plays the best fiddle in town.
Young and old live together, and may they live long—
Young to play an old fiddle, old to sell a new song."

This Young family afterwards removed to the Queen's Head
Tavern in Paternoster Row, where in a few years they grew rich
by giving concerts, when they removed to the Castle in the
same street. The Castle concerts continued a long time to be
celebrated.

Many signs are exceedingly puzzling under the name by which
they pass with the public. Such was that of " Rowland Hall, dwell-
ing in Guttur Lane, at the sygne of the Half Eagle and Key."
This quaint sign is no other than the arms of Geneva, described
in the non-heraldic language of the mob. Rowland Hall, a
bookseller and printer, lived as a refugee in Geneva during the
reign of Queen Mary; hence on his return to London he set up
the arms of that town for his sign, as a graceful compliment to
the hospitality he had received, and as a tribute of admiration to
stanch Protestantism. Hall, at other periods of his life, lived
at the Cradle in Lombard Street, and at the Three Arrows
in Golden Lane, Cripplegate. In 1769 there was again the
Geneva Arms among the London signs, before the shop of Le
Grand, a " pastery-cook and cook," as he styled himself, in
Church Street, Soho. Formerly most pastry-cooks and con-
fectioners were Swiss, and many from that country still follow
those professions in Italy, Spain, and recently in England. This
last sign has found imitators in Soho ; for at the present day it
figures at a public-house in Hayes Court, where it is put up, no
doubt, in honour of the spirit which many call Geneva, but
which we may name Gin. The origin of this name, as applied
by publicans, is not a little curious. In Holland the juniper-
berry is used for flavouring the gin or hollands which they
distil there, and this, with the vulgar in that countiy, has
gradually become corrupted from Juniper to Jenever, the latter
term being still further corrupted here to Geneva, and Gin.

Tiie Cross Keys are tlie arms of the Papal See, the emblem of
St Peter and his successors:—

This sign was frequently adopted by innkeepers and other tenants
of religious houses, even after the Reformation ; for the Cross
Keys figure in the arms of the Bishops of York, Cashel, Exeter,
Gloster, and Peterborough. At the Cross Keys in Gracechurcli
Street, where Tarlton, the comic actor, went to see fashions,
Banks used to perform with his wonderful bay horse before
a crowded house. This was in the days of Queen Elizabeth,
when the inn consisted of a large court with galleries all round,
which, like many other old London inns, was often used as an
extempore theatre by our ancestors. It is named in 1681¹
amongst the carriers' inns, and is in existence at the present day.
The Cross Keys was the sign of a tavern near Thavies Inn in
1712 :—

" May the Cross Keys near Thavies Inn succeed,
And famous grow for choicest white and red;
That all may know, who view that costly sign,
Those golden keys command celestial wine."

Besides, it is famous as the sign of Bernard Lintot, 1736, tho
publisher of Gay's works, and many other popular books of that
day. His shop was situated between the Temple Gates, in Fleet
Street. The Cross Keys and Bible was the sign of J. Bell, in
Cornhill, 1711.

Most numerous among heraldic signs were the crests, arms,
and badges + of private families. The causes which dictated the

t These badges consisted of the master's arms, crest, or device, either on a small
silver shield or embroidered on a piece of cloth, and fastened on the left arm cf seivauts.
A ballad in the Roxburgh collection thus alludes to this custom: *—
" The nobles of our Land

of Tawnie, Red, or Blue ;
With crests on their sleeves showne
when this old cap was new."

" In towns the hospitality of the burghers was not always given gratis,
for it was a common custom even amongst the richer merchants to make a
profit by receiving guests. These letters of lodgings were distinguished
from the innkeepers or hostelers by the name of herbergeors, or people who
gave harbour to strangers, and in large towns they were submitted to
municipal regulations. The great barons and knights were in the custom
of taking up their lodgings with those herbergeors rather than going to the
public hostel, and thus a sort of relationship was formed between particu-
lar nobles or kings and particular burghers, on the strength of which the
latter adopted the arms of their habitual lodgers as their sign." *

Stow gives us a good picture of a great nobleman's retinue in the good old time, before
Mie nobility took to hotel-keeping :—" The late Earl of Oxford, father to him that now
Bveth, has been noted within these forty years, to have ridden into this city and so
to his house by London Stone, with eighty gentlemen, in a livery of Reading tawny, and
chains of gold about their necks, before him, and one hundred tall yeomen in the like
livery to follow him, without chains, but all having his cognisance of the blue boar
embroidered on their left shoulder." These badges fell into disuse in the reign of
James I

* Wright's Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages,
p. 333.

f " At Plombières he ordered me to leave with his hostess, according to the fashion of
the couutry, ac escutcheon of his arms in wood, which a painter of that town made for
a <;rown • and the hostess had it carefully hung uDon Uie wall outside the house."

feudal lord ; a retired soldier the arms of the knight under
whose banneret he had gathered both glory and plunder; an old
servant the badge he had worn when he stood at the trencher, or
followed his master in the chase; and, doubtless, many publicans
adopted for their sign the badge of the neighbouring wealthy
noble, in order to court the custom of his household and servants.

Bagford, in his MS. notes about the art of printing,¹ has
jotted down a list of signs originated from badges, which we will
transcribe in all the unrestrained freedom of Bagford's spelling,
in which, as well as in bad writing, he surpassed all his con-
temporaries, (see note, p. 102 :)—

" Then for ye original of eignes used to be set over ye douers of trades-
men, as Inkepers, Taverns, etc., thay hauing been domestic saruants to
some nobleman, thay leauing ther Masters saruis toke to themselves for
ther signes ye crest, bag,+ or ye arms of ther Ld., and thes was a destine-
eion or Mark of one Mannes house from anouther, and [not] only by
printers but all outher trades : and these seruants of kinges, queenes, or
noblemen, being ther domestick saruants, and wor ther LeuirsJ and
Bages, as may be sene these day ye maner of the Leuirs and Bagges by ye
wattermen:—

and ye Rose and Crown.
Ancok, Gould, ye Ld. of Lincolne and ye Lord High Admirall.
Bull, Black, with gould homes, ye House of Clarence.
Bull, Dun, ye Lord Nevill, Westmoreland, Burgayne, Latimer, and
Southamton.

Bulls head erased : White, ye Ld. Wharton; Red, ye Lord Ogle.
Crescent or hälfe Moune, ye Earle of Northumberland and ye Tem

Cat, ye Lord Euersj Cat of Mount and Leper,11 Mar. of Worster and ye
Ld. Buckhurst.

by sume that had ben seruants to Tho. Wollsey.
Dragon : Black, Wilsberg and Clifford; Red, Cumberland; Greene, ye
Earle of Pembroclce.

Elephant, Sr. Ffrances Knowles, (and Henery Wyke, a printer, liuing in
Fletstrete, 1570, was saruant to Sr. Ffr. Knowles, gaue ye Elephant
for his signe,) and likwise it was ye bag of ye Lord Beamont and ye
Ld. Sandes.

Grayi-iond, ye Ld. Clenton, Druery, and ye Lord Rich.f
Griffen, ye Ld. Wintworth.
Harpe, for Irland.

Portcullis, ye Earle of Somerset, Wayles, and ye Lord of Worster.
The Pye, ye Ld. Reuiers.J
Pelican, ye Lord Cromwell.
Pecocke, ye Earle of Rutland.

Plum of Ffeathers, ye Earle of Lincolne; azure, ye Lord Scrope.
Rauen, White, ye Earle of Comberland.
Rauen, Blaclce, ye King of Scots.

Sune, ye Spirituallaty, ye Lord Willoby and York.
Staffe : White Ragged, Warwick ; Black, Kent.
Starre, ye Earle of Sussen and ye Lord Ffitzwalter.
Sarasok Head, ye Ld. Audley and ye Ld. Cobham.
Talbot, ye Earl of Shrewsbury and ye Lord Mountagew.
Tiger's Head, Sr. Ffrancis Walsingam.
Whete-sheafe, ye Earle of Exeter, ye Lord Burley, etc.
Ape, clogged, ye House of Suffolcke.
Butterflie, white, ye Lord Audle.
Camel, ye Earle of Worster.
Ye 3 fluer de loses, ye King of France.
Fooles Head, ye Earle of Bath.

The arms of the lord of the manor were often put up as a sign,
■—a custom that has continued to our day, particularly in villages,
where the inn invariably displays the name or coat-armour of the
ground-landlord, whose steward once or twice in the year meets
at the house the tenantry with their rents and land dues. Should
the estate pass into other hands, the inn will most probably change
its sign for the arms of the new purchaser. The house, as it
were, wears the livery of the master, although, so far as heralds'
visitations are concerned, this may be as unauthorised as many
other advertisements of noble descent, or gentle extraction, in use
amongst the wealthy and the proud.

In ancient times, as we have seen, the great landowners per-
formed the duties of innkeepers, and their arms were hung or
carved at the entrances to the castles, as indications to wayfarers
who was the lord and master in those parts. The keep in those
days was rarely without a stranger or two, either travelling
mechanics or persons acquainted with mysteries,—as trades and
professions were termed in those days,—or vagabond soldiers on
the tramp for a new master to fight under. Greater people were
admitted further in the castle, but the common sort fared with
the servants. According to the good-nature of the all-powerful
lord was the fare good or bad, plentiful or meagre. It was, how-
ever, generally the custom in those early times to be profuse in
all matters of food-bounty. The house-steward made charges for
any extras, and the comfort obtainable generally depended on the
liberality or greediness of these personages. As population in-
creased, travellers became too numerous for the accommodation
provided. Stewards also became old, and detached premises were
given or built for them to carry on the business away from the
castle or great house. The arms of the landlord were of course
put up outside the house, and on occasion of predatory excur-
sions or family fights, when other nobles joined their troops with
those of the landlord, the soldiers were usually quartered at the

inn outside the castle. As in all cases of public resort, people
soon began to have fancies, and this Red Lion and that Grey-
hound became famous through the country for the good enter-
tainment to be had there. In this manner Red Lions and
Greyhounds found their way on to the signboards of the inns
within the walled cities. The men of the castle, too, used those
houses bearing their master's arms when they visited the town.
It will be readily seen that the name of a favourite tavern would
quickly suggest its adoption elsewhere, and in this way the heraldic
emblem of a family might be carried where that family was
neither known nor feared.

Latterly, however, as all traces of the origin and meaning of
these " Arms " have died out, or become removed from the under-
standing of publicans and brewers, the uses to which the word
has been applied are most absurd and ridiculous. Not only do
we meet constantly with arms of families nobody ever heard of,
nor cares to hear about, but all sorts of impossible "Arms" are
invented, as Junction Arsis, Griffin's Arms, Chaffcutter's
Arms, Union Arms,¹ General's Arms, Antigallican Arms,
Farmers' Arms, Drovers' Arms, &c., (see Introduction.)

In tavern heraldry the Adam's Arms ought certainly to have
the precedence : the publicans generally represent these by a
pewter pot and a couple of crossed tobacco pipes, differing in thi?
from Sylvanus Morgan, a writer on heraldry, who says that
Adam's arms were " Paly Tranchy divided every way and tinc-
tured of every colour."+ The shield was in the shape of a spade,
which was used

whilst from the spindle of our first mother the female lozenge-
shaped shield is said to be derived.

One of the most popular heraldic signs is the Bear and
Ragged Staff, the crest of the Warwick family :—

1 The Union Arms in Panton Street, Haymarket, was the public-house of Cribb. the
pugilist champion, a fact commemorated by a poet of the prize ring, in all probability
u better "fist" at smashing than at "wooing the Muses :"—
⁴¹ The champion I see is again on the list,
His standard—the Union Akms.

Then, ' lads of the fancy,' don't Tom's house pass.
But take a hand at the game of Cribb."
t Sylvanus Morgan's Sphere of Gentry. London, 1061.

" War. Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest,
The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,
This day I '11 wear aloft my burgonet."

Arthgal, the first Earl of Warwick, in the time of King
Arthur, was called by the ancient British the Bear, for having
strangled such an animal in his arms; and Morvidius, another
ancestor of this house, slew a giant with a club made out of
a young tree; hence the family bore the Bear and Bagged
Staff.

" When Bobert Dudley was governor in the Low Countries
with the high title of his Excellencie, disusing his own coat of
the Green Lion * with two tails, he signed all instruments with
the crest of the Bear and Bagged Staff. He was then suspected
by many of his jealous adversaries to hatch an ambitious design
to make himself absolute commander (as the lion is king of
beasts) over the Low Countries. Whereupon some—foes to his
faction and friends to the Dutch freedom—wrote under his crest
set up in public places :—

' Ursa caret cauda, non queat esse leo.'
' The Bear he never can prevail
To lion it for lack of tail.'

Which gave rise to a Warwickshire proverb, in use at this day,—<
The Bear wants a tail and cannot be a Lion."f

The Bear and Ragged Staff is still the sign of an inn at Cum-
nor, to which an historic interest is attached owing to its connexion
with the dark tragedy of poor Amy Robsart, who in this very
house fell a victim to that stony-hearted adventurer, Robert
Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Sir Walter Scott has introduced the
house in the first chapter of " Kenilworth." The power the
Warwick family once enjoyed gave this sign a popularity which
has existed to the present day, though the race of old Nevil, and
the kings he made and unmade, have each and all passed away.
Its heraldic designation has been better preserved than is the case
of some other signs ; only in one instance, at Lower Bridge Street,
Chester, it has been altered into the Bear and Billet. Some-
times the sign of the Bear and Ragged Staff, we may inform the
reader, is jocularly spoken of as the Angel and Flute.

» Tliere is a sign of the Gkeen Lion in Short Street, Cambridge, the only one I have
«verseen.

Tiers' inn in West Smitlifield possessed this sign in 1682.* In
the wall of a house at the corner of Little St Andrew Street and
West Street, St Giles, there is still a stone bas-relief sign of two
ragged staves placed salterwise, with the initials S. F. G, and
the date 1691. It was doubtless put there as a compliment to
Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, who in the reign of Charles II.
built Leicester House, which gave a name to Leicester Fields, now
the site of Leicester Square. Stow mentions that the king-maker,
Richard Warwick, came to town for the convention of 1458,
accompanied by 600 men, all in red jackets, " embroidered with
ragged staves before and behind."

Equally well known with the last sign is that of the Eagle
and Child, occasionally called the Bird and Bantling, to
obtain the favourite alliteration. It represents the crest of the
Stanley family, and the following legend is told to account for
its origin :—In the reign of Edward III., Sir Thomas Latham,
ancestor of the house of Stanley and Derby, had only one legiti-
mate child, a daughter named Isabel, but at the same time he
had an illegitimate son by a certain Mary Oscatell. This child
he ordered to be laid at the foot of a tree on which an eagle had
built its nest. Taking a walk with his lady over the estate, he
contrived to bring her past this place, pretended to find the boy,
took him home, and finally prevailed upon her to adopt him as
their son. This boy was afterwards called Sir Oscatell Latham,
and considered the heir to the estates. Compunction or other
motive, however, made the old nobleman alter his mind and con-
fess the fraud, and at his death the greater part of the fortune
was left to his daughter, who afterwards married Sir John
Stanley. At the adoption of the child, Sir Thomas had assumed
for crest an eagle looking backwards ; this, out of ill feeling
towards Sir Oscatell, was afterwards altered into an eagle preying
upon a child. How matters were afterwards arranged may be
seen in " Memoirs containing a Genealogical and Historical
Account of the House of Stanley," p. 22. Manchester, 1767.
Bishop Stanley made an historical poem upon the legend, which
is not without parallel, and seems to be either a corruption of or
suggested by the fable of Ganimede. Edward Stanley, in his
"History of Birds," (vol. i. p. 119,) cites several similar stories.
But the Stanley family is not the only one that bears this crest.
Randle Holme (b. iii. p. 403) gives the arms of the family of

Culcheth of Culcheth as " an infant in swaddling-clothes proper,
mantle gules, swaddle band or, with an eagle standing upon it,
with its wings expanded sable in a field argent." " The fause
fable of the Lo. Latham" is also told at length, with slight varia-
tions from the usual story, in a MS. in the College of Arms ;* in
this version the foundling is made the son of an Irish king. The
Eagle and Child occurs as the sign of a bookseller, Thomas Creede,
in the old Exchange, as early as 1581. Taylor the water-poet
also names some instances of the sign among inns and taverns,
and particularly extols one at Manchester :—
" I lodged at the Eagle and the Child,
Whereas my hostesse (a good ancient woman)
Did entertain me with respect not common,
She caused my linnen, shirts, and bands be washt,
And on my way she caused me be refresht;
She gave me twelve silke points, she gave me baken,
Which by me much refused at last was taken.
In troath she proued a mother unto me,
For which I ever more will thankefull be." +

Another crest of the Derby family also occurs as a sign—namely,
the Eagle's Eoot, which was adopted in the sixteenth century
by John Tysdall, a bookseller at the upper end of Lombard
Street.

The frequency of eagles in heraldry made them very common
on the signboard, although it is now impossible to say whose
armorial bearings eacli particular eagle was intended to represent.
The Spread Eagle occurs as the sign of one of the early printers and
booksellers, Gualter Lynne, who, in the middle of the sixteenth
century, had two shops with that sign,—one on Sommer's Key, near
Billingsgate, and another next St Paul's Wharf. In 1659 there
was a Black Spread Eagle at the west end of St Paul's, which
shop was also a bookseller's, one Giles Calvert. As the signs in
large towns and cities were generally not altered when the house
changed hands, it is not improbable but that this may be the
same Black Eagle mentioned by Stow in the following words:—

" During a great tempest at sea, in January 1506, Philip, King of Castillo,
and his queen, were weather-driven at Falmouth. The same tempest
blew down the Eagle of brass off the spire of St Paul's Church in London,
and in the falling the same eagle broke and battered the Black Eagle that
hung for a sign in St Paul's Churchyard."

* Printed in the Journal of Exit. Archreolog. Absoc., vol. vii. p. TL
t Taylor's Pennyljsse Pilgrimage, 1030.

Cheapside, at the sign of the Spread Eagle, which was his own
coat of arms, and in this house the great author of " Paradise
Lost" was born, December 9, 1608. When the poet's fame had
gone forth, strangers used to come to see the house, until it was
destroyed by the fire of 1666. Perhaps its memory is preserved
in Black Spread Eagle Court, which is the name of a passage in
that locality.

Another Spread Eagle was a noted "porter-house" in the
Strand at the end of the last century :-—

" And to some noted porter-house repair ;
The several streets or one or more can claim,
Alike in goodness and alike in fame.

Facing that street where Venus holds her reign,
And Pleasure's daughters drag a life of pain.*
There the Spread Eagle, with majestic grace,
Shows his broad wings and notifies the place.

There let me dine in plenty and in quiet."+
The Grasshoppers on the London signboards were all de-
scendants of Sir Thomas Gresham's sign and crest, which is still
commemorated by the weather-vane on the Boyal Exchange, of
which he was the first founder. The original sign appears to
have been preserved up to a very recent date.

" The shop of the great Sir Thomas Gresham," says Pennant, " stood in
this [Lombard] street: it is now occupied by Messrs Martin, bankers, who
are still in possession of the original sign of that illustrious person—the
Grasshopper. Were it mine, that honourable memorial of so great a pre-
decessor should certainly be placed in the most ostentatious situation I
could find." t

The ancients used the grasshopper as a fascinum, (fascination,
enchantment ;) for this purpose Pisistratus erected one as a
y.arct.yjw before the Acropolis at Athens ; hence grasshoppers, in

* Catherine Street, in the Strand, was a disreputable thoroughfare in the last century.
(Jay alludes to it in his " Trivia :"—

" Oil, may thy virtue guard thee through the roads
Of Drury's mazy courts and dark abodes I
The harlots' guileful path, who nightly stand
Where Catherine Street descends into the Strand.
With empty bandbox she delights to range,
And feigns a distant errand from the 'Change.
Nay, she will oft the Quaker's hood profane,
And trudge demure the rounds of Drury Lane."

Tom Brown describes, con amore, the wickedness of that part of the town. Catherine
Street at present is not quite so bad as formerly, but the hundred of Drury Lane cannot
by any means be called the most virtuous part of London.

t Art of Living in London. Printed for William Griffin, at the Garrickshead, la
Catherine Street, in the Strand, 1768.

all sorts of human occupations, were worn about the person to
bring good luck. The grasshopper sign certainly seems to have
been a lucky one. Charles Duncombe and Richard Kent, gold-
smiths, lived at the Grasshopper in Lombard Street, (no doubt
Gresham's old house,) in 1677,* and throve so well under its
fascinum that Duncombe gathered a fortune large enough to buy
the Hclmsley estate in Yorkshire from George Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham. The land is now occupied by the Earl of Fevers-
liam, (Duncombe's descendant,) under the name of Duncombe
Park.

It is impossible to determine whether the Maidenhead was
set up as a compliment to the Duke of Buckingham, to Catherine
Parr, or to the Mercers' Company, for it is the crest of the three.
But at all events the Mercers' crest had the precedence as being
the oldest. Amongst the badges of Henry VIII. it is some-
times seen issuing out of the Tudor Rose :—

" This combination," Willement says, " does not appear to have been
an entire new fancy, but to have been composed from the rose-badge of
King Henry VIII., and from one previously used by this queen's family.
The house of Parr had before this time assumed as one of their devices a
maiden's head couped below the breast, vested in ermine and gold, the
hair of the head and the temples encircled with a wreath of red and white
roses ; and this badge they had derived from the family of Eos of Ken-
dal."

It was a sign used by some of the early printers. On the last
page of a little work entitled "Salus Corporis, Salus Animse," we
find the following imprint:—

" Hos cme Richardus quos Fax impressit ad unguem calcographus
summa sedulitate libros.
Impressum est presens opusculum londiniis in divi pauli semiterio sub
virginei capitis signo. Anno millesimo quin getesimo nono. Mensis vero
Decembris die xii." +

Thomas Petit, another early printer, also lived " at the sygne
of the Maydenshead in Paulis Churchyard," 1541. He was
probably a successor of Richard Fax.

An amusing anecdote is told of old Hobson, the Londoner,
with regard to this sign :—

" Maister Hobson having one of his Prentices new come out of his
time, and being made a free man of London, desired to set up for himself;
bo, taking a house not far from St Laurence Lane, furnished it with store
* Little London Directory for 1677, the oldest list of London merchants,
t " Buy these books, which Richard Fax the printer has printed with the wedge, with
the greatest care. This little boos was printed at London, in St Paul's Churchyard, at
the Maidenhead, in the year 1509, on the 12th of December." The printing with the
wedge was the first attempt of the art, whence the books produced in this mariner are
sometimes called incuruibles.

of ware, and set up the signe of the Maydenliead ; hard by was a very rich
man of the same trade, had the same signe, and reported in every place
where he came; that the young man had set up the same signe that he had
onely to get away his customers, and daily vexed the young man therewith-
all, who, being grieved in his mind, made it known to Maister Hobson, his
late Maister, who, comming to the rich man, said, '1 marvell, sir,' (quoth
Maister Hobson,) 'why you wrong my man so much as to say he seketh to
get away your customers.' ' Marry, so he doth,' (quoth the other,) ' for he
lias set up a signe called the Maidenhead, and mine is.' ' That is not so,'
(replied Maister Hobson,) ' for his is the widdoe's head, and no maydenliead,
therefore you do him great wrong.' The rich man hereupon, seeing himself
requited with mocks, rested satisfied, and never after that envied Maister
Hobson's man, but let him live quietly." *

This sign occurs occasionally as the Maid's Head, but since
Queen Elizabeth's reign it has doubtless frequently referred to
the virgin queen.

The Cross Foxes—i.e.,two foxes counter saliant—is a common
sign in some parts of England. It is the sign of the principal
inn at Oswestry in Shropshire, and of very many public-houses
in North Wales, and has been adopted from the armorial bear-
ings of Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, Bart., whose family hold
extensive possessions in these parts. The late baronet, too, made
himself very popular as a patron of agricultural improvements.
Old Guillim, the heraldic writer's remarks upon this coat of arms,
which he says belongs to the Kadrod Hard family of Wales,
are quaint:—

" These are somewhat unlike Samson's foxes that were tied together by
the tails, and yet these two agree in aliquo tertio : They came into the
field like to enemies, but they meant nothing less than fight, and therefore
they pass by each other, like two crafty lawyers, which come to the Bar as
if they meant to fall out deadly about their clients' cause ; but when they
have done, and their clients' purses are well spunged, they are better friends
than ever they were, and laugh at those geese that will not believe them to
be foxes, till they (too late) find themselves foxbitten." f

The Tiger's Head was the sign of the house of Christopher
and Robert Barker, Queen Elizabeth's booksellers and printers,
in Paternoster Bow : it was borrowed from their crest; their
shop exhibited the sign of the Grasshopper, in St Paul's Church-
yard. They came of an ancient family, being descended from
Sir Christopher Barker, knight, king-at-arms, in the reign of
Henry VIII. Barker is said to have printed the first series of
English, news-sheets, or, as we now call them, newspapers. The

* Pleasant Conceits of old Hobson the Londoner, 1607. Hobson's answer proves the
truth of M sson's remark, that there were no inscriptions on the London signs to tel)
what they represented, otherwise the maid could not have beeD passed oil' as a widow

earliest of those which remain (copies are preserved among Dr
Birch's Historical Collections in the British Museum, No. 4106)
relate to the descent of the Spanish Armada upon the English
coasts; but as they are numbered 50, 51, and 54 in the corner
of their upper margins, it has been not improbably concluded
that a similar mode of publishing news had been resorted to con-
siderably earlier than the date of that event, though, as far as we
know, none of the papers have been preserved. The title is :—
"mHE ENGLISH MERCURIE, published by authorise, for the preven-

JL tion of false reports;''
and the last number contains an account of the queen's thanks-
giving at St Paul's for the victory she had gained over the
enemies of England. It is probable that when the great alarm
of the Armada had subsided, no more numbers were published.
The colophon runs :—

"Imprinted by Christopher Barker, her highnesse's printer, July 23, 1588."
It must not however be concealed that doubt is entertained of
the genuineness of these papers. Two of them are not of the
time, but printed in modern type ; and no originals are known :
the third is in manuscript of the eighteenth century, altered and
interpolated with changes in old language, such only as an author
would make.

The punning device, or printer's emblem, of Barker was a man
barking a tree, representations of which may be seen on the titles
and last leaves of many of the old folio and quarto Bibles and
New Testaments issued from his press. His descendants con-
tinued booksellers to the royal family until January 12, 1645,
when Bobert Barker, the last of the family, died a prisoner for
debt in the King's Bench. His misfortunes were probably occa-
sioned by the embarrassments of his royal master, who for three
years had been at war with the Parliament and a majority of
bis subjects.

Various other booksellers sold their books under the sign of
the Tiger's Head in St Paul's Churchyard : apparently they suc-
ceeded each other in the same house. Thus we find Toby Cook,
1579-1590; Felix Kingston, 1599 ; and Henry Seile, 1634.

At Nortwich and Altringham, Chester, there is a sign called
the Bleeding Wolf, which has not been found anywhere else.
Its origin is difficult to explain, and the only explanation that can
be immediately offered for it is the crest of Hugh Lupus and
Bichard, first and second- Earls of Chester, which was a wolfs

Lead erased; the neclc of the animal being erased may, by primi-
tive sign-painters, have been represented less conventionally than
is done now, and probably exhibited some of the torn parts,
whence the name of the Bleeding Wolf. As for the use of the
term "wolf," instead of "wolf's head," we have a parallel in-
stance in one of the gates of Chester, which, from this crest, was
called Wolfsgate instead of Wolfshead Gate. There is another
equally puzzling sign, peculiar to this county and to Lancashire—
namely, the Bear's Paw. Of this sign, it must be confessed that
no explanation can be offered; it certainly looks heraldic, and
lions jambs erased are the crest of many families.

Easy enough to explain is the sign of Parta Tueri, (Cellar-
head, Staffordshire,) which is the motto of the Lilford family:
this is the only instance as yet met with of a family motto
standing for a sign ; though in Essex a public-house sign, repre-
senting a sort of Bacchic coat of arms, with the motto, In Vino
Veritas, may be seen. The Oakley Arms, at Maidenhead,
near Bray, deserves passing mention, on account of some amusing
verses connected with the place. As it is frequently the custom
with publicans to choose for their sign the name or picture of
some real or imaginary hero connected with the locality in which
their house stands, the following verses were written on the
Oakley Arms, near Bray :—

" Friend Isaac, 'tis strange you that live so near Bray
Should not set up the sign of the Vicar.¹
Though it may be an odd one, you cannot but say
It must needs be a sign of good liquor."

" Indeed, master Poet, your reason's but poor,
For the Vicar would think it a sin
To stay, like a booby, and lounge at the door,—
'Twere a sign 'twas bad liquor within."

The Wentworth Arms, Kirby Mallory, Leicestershire, may also
be mentioned on account of its peculiar inscription, which has a
strange moral air about it, as if a pious Boniface drew beer and
uncorked wine, and wished to compromise matters on high moral
grounds, and limit with puritanical rigidity the government
regulation above his door, "to be Drunk on the Premises":—

1 The Vicar of Bray, the hero of Butler's comic poein, appears to have been a certain
Simon Aieyn, ob. 1588; he was by turns, and as the times suited, Roman Catholic und
Protestant, in the times of Henry VIII., E Jward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth

Other heraldic animals, different from those just mentioned,
belong to so many various families, that it is utterly impossible
to say in honour of whom they were first set up : such, for in-
stance, is the Griffin, the armorial bearing of the Spencers, and
innumerable other houses. Besides being an heraldic emblem,
the griffin was an animal in whose existence the early naturalists
firmly believed. Its supposed eggs and claws were carefully
preserved, and are frequently mentioned in ancient inventories
and lists of curiosities. "They shewed me," [in a church at
Batisbonne,] says Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in one of hei
letters, " a prodigious claw, set in gold, which they called the
claw of a griffin ; and I could not forbear asking the reverend
priest that shewed it, whether the griffin was a saint 1 The ques-
tion almost put him beside his gravity, but he answered, ' They
only kept it as a curiosity.'" The supposed eggs (no doubt
ostrich eggs) were frequently made into drinking cups. The
Tradescants had one in their collection, kept in countenance by
an egg of a dragon, two feathers of the tail of a plicenix, and the
claw of a ruck, " a bird able to trusse an elephant." Sir John
Mandeville gives the natural history of the griffin, in his " Bight
Merveylous Travels," chap. xxvi. From him we learn that the
body of this dreadful beast was larger and stronger than " 8
lions or 100 eagles," so that he could with ease fly off to his nest
with a great horse, or a couple of oxen yoked together, " for,''
says he, " he has his talouns so large and so longe, and so gret
upon his feet as thowghe thei weren homes of grete oxen, or of
bugles or of kijgn."

In the original edition of the Spectator, No. xxxiii.,* the
griffin is mentioned as the sign of a house in Sheer Lane,
Temple Bar. The advertisement begins oddly enough :—" Lost,
yesterday, by a Lady in a velvet furbelow scarf, a watch," &c.
The Golden Griffin was a famous tavern in Holborn, of which
there are trades tokens extant of the seventeenth century. Tom
Brown talks of a "fat squab porter at the Griffin Tavern, in
Fulwood's rents," which is the same house, as appears from
Strype :—" At the upper end of this court is a passage into the
Castle Tavern, a house of considerable trade, as is the Golden

* The original edition of the Spectator contained bona fide advertisements like any
other newspaper.

Griffin Tavern, on tlie west side, which has a passage into Ful-
wood's rents," (Book iii., p. 253.)

The variously-coloured lions come under the same category of
heraldic animals. Amongst them the Golden Lion stands fore-
most. A public-house with that sign in Fulham ought not to
be passed unnoticed ; it is one of the most ancient houses in the
village, having been built in the reign of Henry VII. The
interior is not much altered; the chimney-pieces are in their
original state, and in good preservation. Formerly there were
two staircases in the thick walls, but they are now blocked up.
Tradition says that the house once belonged to Bishop Bonner,
and that it lias subterraneous passages communicating with the
episcopal palace. When the old hostelry was pulled down in
1836, a tobacco-pipe of ancient and foreign fashion was found
behind the wainscot. The stem was a crooked bamboo, and a
brass ornament of an Elizabethan pattern formed the bowl of the
pipe. This pipe Mr Crofton Croker* tries to identify as the
property of Bishop Bonner, who. on the 15th June 1596, died
suddenly at Fulham, " while sitting in his chair and smoking
tobacco." If Mr Croker be right, this inn should also have been
honoured by the presence of Shakespeare, Fletcher, Henry
Condell, (Shakespeare's fellow actor,) John ISTorden, (author of
A Description of Middlesex and Hertfordshire,) Florio, the trans-
lator of Montaigne, and divers other notabilities.

The Blue Lion is far from uncommon, and may possibly have
been first put up at the marriage of James I. with Anne of Den-
mark. The Purple Lion occurs but once—namely, on a trades
token of Southampton Buildings.

Signs borrowed from Corporation arms form the last sub-
division of this chapter. Such, for instance, is the Three Com-
passes, a change in the arms of both the carpenters and
masons. This sign is a particular favourite in London, where
not less than twenty-one public-houses make a living under its
shadow. Perhaps this is partly owing to the compasses being a
masonic emblem, and a great many publicans " worthy brethren."
Frequently the sign of the compasses contains between the legs
the following good advice :—

Mil 1847, 4lr Crofton Croker read a paper at a meeting of the Brit, Arch. Assoc.

frequented by Shakespeare about the year 15U5 and 1596," in which the possible
genealogy of this pipe is given.

Three Compasses were a frequent sign with the French, German,
and Dutch printers of the sixteenth century. The Three Com-
passes, Grosvenor Row, Pimlico, a well-known starting point for
the Pimlico omnibuses, was formerly called the Goat and
Compasses, for which Mr P. Cunningham suggests the following
origin :—

" At Cologne, in the church of S. Maria di Capitolio, is a flat stone ou
tli£ floor, professing to be the ' Grabstein der Bruder und Schwester eines
Ehrbahren Wein und Fass Ampts, Anno 1693.' That is, as I suppose, a
vault belonging to the Wine Cooper's Company. The arms exhibit a
shield with a pair of compasses, an axe, and a dray or truck, with goats for
supporters. In a country like England, dealing so much at one time in
Rhenish wine, a more likely origin for such a sign could hardly be
imagined."

Others have considered the sign a corruption of a puritanical
phrase, " God encompasseth us." But why may not the Goat
have been the original sign, to which mine host added his
masonic emblem of the compasses, a practice yet of frequent
occurrence.

The Globe and Compasses seems to have originated in the
Joiners' arms, which are a chevron between two pairs of compasses
and a globe. It occurs, amongst other instances, as the sign of a
bookseller, in the following quaint title :—

" Sin discovered to be worse than a Toad; sold by Robert Walton, at the
Globe and Compasses, at the West end of Saint Paul's Church."

The Three Goatsheads, a public-house on the Wandsworth
Road, Lambeth, was originally the Cordwainers' (shoemakers)
arms, which are azure, a chevron or, between three goats' heads,
erased argent. Gradually the heraldic attributes have fallen
away, and the goats' heads now alone remain. As there were
rarely names under the London signs, the public unacquainted
with heraldry gave a vernacular to the objects represented.
Thus the Three Leopards' Heads is given on a token as the
name of a house in Bishopsgate ; yet the token represents a
chevron between three leopards' heads, the arms of the Weavers'
Company. The sign of the Leopard's Head was anciently called
the Lubber's Head. Thus in the second part of Henry IV., ii. 1,
the hostess says that Falstalf "is indited to dinner at the
Lubbar's Head in Lumbert Street, to Master Smooth's the silk-
man." "Libbard," vulgo "lubbar," was good old English for
"leopard."

The Green Man and Still is a common sign. There is one
in White Cross Street, representing a forester drinking what is
there called "drops of life" out of a glass barrel. This is a
liberty taken with the Distillers' arms, which are a fess wavy in
chief, the sun in splendour, in base a still; supporters two
Indians, with bows and arrows. These Indians were trans-
formed by the painters into wild men or green men, and the
green men into foresters ; and then it was said that the sign
originated from the partiality of foresters for the produce of the
still. The " drops of life," of course, are a translation of
aqua vitce.

The Three Tuns were derived from the Vintners, or the
Brewers' arms. On the 9th of May 1667, the Three Tuns in
Seething Lane was the scene of a frightful tragedy :—

" In our street," says Pepys, " at the Three Tuns Tavern, I find a great
hubbub; and what was it but two brothers had fallen out, and one killed
the other. And who should they be but the two Fieldings. One whereof,
Bazill, was page to my Lady Sandwich, and he hath killed the other, him-
self being very drunk, and so is sent to Newgate."*

Sometimes the sign of the One Tun may also be seen. It
occurs in the following newspaper item :—

" Last Thursday four highwaymen drinking at the One Tun Tavern near
Hungerford Market in the Strand, and falling out about dividing their
booty, the Drawer overheard them, sent for a constable, and secured them,
and next day they were committed to Newgate."—Weekly Journal, Decem-
ber 6, 1718.

* Pepys here makes a mistake, for lie tells us afterwards, July 4, when he went to
the Session House to hear the trial, that Basil was the murdered man.

t Caulfield's Memoirs of Remarkable Persons. A curious epitaph upon her occurs in
the Weekly Oracle., February 1, 1735; unfortunately it is too highly spiced to be intro-
uuced here.

article. They had a complete arsenal about them, viz., two blun-
derbusses, one loaded with fifteen balls, the other with seven,
and five pistols loaded with powder and shot.

The Golden Cup, from the form in which it was generally
represented, seems to have been derived from the Goldsmiths'
arms, which are quarterly azure, two leopards' heads or, (whence
the mint mark,) and two golden cups covered between two
buckles or. It was a sign much fancied by booksellers, as :
Abel Jeff's in the Old Bailey, 1564 ; Edward Allde, Without
Cripplegate, from 1587 until 1600; and John Bartlet the
Elder, in St Paul's Churchyard ; whilst the Three Cups was a
famous carriers' inn in Aldersgate in the seventeenth century.

The Ram and Teazel, Queenshead Street, Islington, is a part
of the Clothworkers' arms, which are sable, a chevron ermine be-
tween two habicks in chief arg., and a teasel in base or. The
crest is a ram statant or on a mount vert.

The Hammer and Crown appears from a trades token to
have been the sign of a shop in Gutter Lane, in the seventeenth
century. It was a charge from the Blacksmiths' arms : sable, a
chevron between three hammers crowned or. The Lion in the
Wood was a tavern of some note a hundred years ago in Salis-
bury Court, Fleet Street. It seems originally to have been the
Woodmongers' arms, whose crest is a lion issuing from a wood.
At the present day it is the sign of a public-house in the same
locality, namely, in Wilderness Lane, Dorset Street, Fleet Street.

To these Corporation arms we may add two belonging to
companies. During the South Sea mania the South Sea Arms
was a favourite sign; in 1718, the very year that Queen Anne
had established the company and granted them arms, they ap-
peared as the sign of a tavern near Austin Friars : they are a
curious heraldic compound. "Azure, a globe representing the
Straights of Magellan and Cape Horn, all proper. On a canton
the arms of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain, and in sinis-
ter chief two herrings salterwise arg., crowned or."

The Sol's Arms, Sol's Row, Hampstead Road, immortalised
by Dickens in " Bleak House," derives its name from the Sol's
Society, who were a kind of freemasons. They used to hold
their meetings at the Queen of Bohemia's Head, Drury Lane,
but 011 the pulling down of that house the society was dissolved

It is in many cases impossible to draw a line of demarcation
between signs borrowed from the animal kingdom and those
taken from heraldry : we cannot now determine, for instance,
whether by the White Horse is meant simply an equus caballus,
or the White Horse of the Saxons, and that of the House of
Hanover; nor, whether the White Greyhound represented ori-
ginally the supporter of the arms of Henry VII., or simply the
greyhound that courses " poor puss" on our meadows in the
hunting-season. For this reason this chapter has been placed as
a sequel to the heraldic signs.

As a rule, fantastically coloured animals are unquestionably of
heraldic origin : their number is limited to the Lion, the Boar,
the Hart, the Dog, the Cat, the Bear, and in a few instances the
Bull ; all other animals were generally represented in what was
meant for their natural colours. The heraldic lions have already
been treated of in the last chapter; but sometimes we meet with
the lion as a /era naturae, recognisable by such names as the
Brown Lion, the Yellow Lion, or simply the Lion. There is
a public-house in Philadelphia with the sign of the Lion, having
underneath the following lines :

Which inscription is certainly as unnecessary as that over the
nonformidable-looking lions under the celebrated fountain in
the Spanish Alhambra, " O thou who beholdest these lions
crouching, fear not, life is wanting to enable them to exhibit
their fury."

Lions occur in numerous combinations with other animals and
objects, which in many cases seem simply the union of two signs,
as the Lion and Dolphin, Market Place, Leicester; the Lion
and Tun, at Congleton : the Lion and Swan in the same lo-
cality may owe its joint title to the name of the street in which
the public-house is situated, viz., Swanbank. The combination of
the Lion and Pheasant, Wylecop, Shrewsbury, seems rather
mysterious, unless the Pheasant has been substituted for the Cock,
just as in the Three Pheasants and Sceptre, they were sub-
stituted for the Three Pigeons and Sceptre. As for the

Cock and Lion, a very common sign, tlieir meeting, if we may
believe ancient naturalists, is anything but agreeable to the lion.

" The lyon dreadeth the white cocke, because he breedeth a precious
stone called allectricium, like to the stone that bight Calcedonius. And
for that the Cocke beareth such a stone, the Lyon specially abhorreth
him."*

Some more information about this stone may be gathered from a
mediaeval treatise on natural history :

" Allectorius est lapis obscuro cristallo Bllis e vetriculo galli castrati
trahitur post quartu ana. Ultima eius quatitas e ad magnitudine fabe—
que gladiator, hns in ore penanct. ivictus ac sine siti." +

" Some report that those who rob the tiger of her young use a policy to
detaine their damme from following them, by casting sundry looking-
glasses in the way, whereat she useth to long to gaze, whether it be to
beholde her owne beauty or because when she seeth her shape in the glasse
Bhe thinketh she seeth one of her young ones, and so they escape the
swiftness of her pursuit." J

The looking-glass thrown to the tiger was spherical, so that
she could see her own image reduced as it rolled under her paw,
and would therefore be more likely to mistake it for her cub.
Lions and tigers being almost synonymous in mediaeval zoology,
the spherical glass was generally represented with both. In
sculpture it could only be represented by a ball, which afterwards
became a terrestrial globe, and the lion resting his paw upon it,
passed into an emblem of royalty.

In the last century an innkeeper at Goodwood put up as his
sign the Centurion's Lion, the figure-head of the frigate Cen-
turion, in which Admiral Anson made a voyage round the world
Under it was the following inscription :—

" Stay, Traveller, a while and view
One that has travelled more than you,
Quite round the Globe in each Degree,
Anson and I have plow'd the Sea;
Torrid and Frigid Zones have pass'd,
And safe ashore arriv'd at last.
In Ease and Dignity appear
He — in the House of Lords, I — here."

■f "Allectorius is a stone similar to a dark crystal, which is taken from the stomach of
a capon when it is four years old. Its utmost size is that of a bean. Qladif.tors take it
in their mouths in order to he invincible, and not to suffer from thirst,"—Tractatut dt
A nimalibus et Lapidibus, 4to, circa 1465-75.

X Oruillim's Display of Heraldry. The same is also related in the Latin Bestiarium,
Harl. MSS. 4751; and by Albertus Magnus, Camerarius, &.c.

When Anson was in general disfavour about the Minorca affair,
the following biting reply to this inscription went the round of
the newspapers:—

" 0 King of Beasts, what pity 'twas to sever
A pair whose Union had been just for ever!
So diff'rently advanced ! 'twas surely wrong,
When you'd been fellow-travellers so long.
Had you continued with him, had he born
To see the English Lion dragg'd and torn ?
Brittannia made at every vein to bleed,
A ravenous Crew of worthless Men to feed ?
No; Anson once had sought the Land's Relief;
Now — Ease and Dignity have banish'd Grief.
Go, rouse him then, to save a sinking nation,
Or call him up, the partner of your station.
We often see two Monsters for a sign,
Inviting to good Brandy, Ale, or Wine."

The Tiger is of rare occurrence on signboards; there is a
Golden Tiger in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle, and a bird-fancier
on Tower Dock, not far from the then famous menagerie which
attracted crowds to the Tower, chose the Leopard and Tiger
for his sign. In 1665 there was a Leopard Tavern in Chancery
Lane; the same animal is still occasionally seen on public-house
signs. Generally speaking, the carnivorous animals are not great
favourites, and those named above are almost the only examples
that occur. As for the popularity of the Bear, it is entirely to
be attributed to the old vulgar pleasure of seeing him ill-treated,
a relic of the once common amusements of bear-baiting and whip-
ping. The colours in which he is represented are the Black Bear,
the Brown Bear, the White Bear, and in a very few instances
(as at Leeds) the Bed Bear.

Besides bear-whipping and bear-baiting, another barbarous
fancy led sometimes to the choice of this animal for a sign,—
viz., the lamentable pun which the publican made upon the article
he sold, and the name of the animal. Will. Bose of Coleraine, in
Ireland, for instance, issued trades tokens with a bear passant, on
the reverse Exchange.for.a.can (i.e., of Bear i), and as if the
pun was not ridiculous enough, there was a rose as a rebus for
his name. Thomas Dawson of Leeds perpetrated a similar pun
on his token, dated 1670; it says,—Be ware. of. y^e. Be are, evi-
dently alluding to the strength of his beer.*

* "Boyne's and Akerman's Trades Tokens of the 17th Century," in England, Ireland,
and Wales.

Bears used often to be represented with chains round their
neck, (as on the stone sign in Addle Street, with the date 1610.)
This led to the following amusing rejoinder :—It happened that
a pedestrian artist had run up a bill at a road-side inn which he
was unable to pay, whereupon the landlord, in order to settle the
account, commissioned him to paint a bear for his sign. The
painter, wanting to make a little besides, suggested that, if the
bear was painted with a chain round his neck, which he strongly
advised him to have, it would cost him half-a-guinea more, 011
account of the gold, &c. But the host was not agreeable to this
extra expense; accordingly, the sign was painted, (but in dis-
temper,) and the painter went his way. Not many days after it
began to rain, and the bear was completely washed from the
board. The first time the landlord met the painter, he accused
him in great dudgeon of having imposed upon him, for that, in
less than a month, the bear had gone from his signboard. " Now,
look here," replied the painter ; " did not I advise you to have a
chain put about the bear's neck ? but you would not hear of it;
had that been done he could not have run away, and would still
be at your door."

Among the most famous Bear inns and taverns were,—the
Bear " at Bridgefoot," i.e., at the foot of London Bridge, on the
Southwarlc side, for many centuries one of the most popular Lon-
don taverns; as early as the reign of Bichard III. we find it the
resort of the aristocratic pleasure-seeker. Thus, in March 14-6f,
it was repeatedly visited by Jocky of Norfolk, the then Sir John
IloW'ard, who went there to drink wine and shoot at the target,
at which he lost 20 pence.* It is also frequently named by the
writers of the seventeenth century, t Pepys mentions it April 3,
1667. " I hear how the king is not so well pleased of this marriage
between the Duke of Bichmond and Mrs Stuart, as is talked ; and
that he by a wile did fetch her to the Bear at the Bridgefoot,
where a coach was ready, and they are stole away into Kent with-
out the king's leave." The wine of this establishment did not
meet with the approbation of the fastidious searchers after claret
ui 1,691.

" Through stinks of all sorts, both the simple and compound,
Which through narrow alleys, our senses do confound,
We came to the Bear, which we now understood
Was the first house in Southwark built after the flood:

* Steward's Accounts of Sir John Howard,
t See Cunningham's London Past and Present, p. 41.

And has such a succession of vintners known,
Not more names were e'er in Welsh pedigrees shown;
But claret with them was so much out of fashion,
That it has not been known there a whole generation."

This old tavern was pulled down in 1761, at the removal of the
houses from London Bridge. " Thursday last the workmen em-
ployed in pulling down the Bear Tavern, at the foot of London
Bridge, found several pieces of gold and silver coin of Queen
Elizabeth, ancl other money, to a considerable value."—Public
Advertiser, Dec. 26, 1761. Coins, no doubt, dropped between
the boards by the revellers of bygone generations.

There was another famous Bear Tavern at the foot of Strand-
bridge ; the vicinity of the "Bear" and "Paris Gardens" had
evidently suggested the choice of those signs. At the Bear
Tavern in the Strand, the earliest meetings of the Society of Anti-
quaries took place, when there were as yet only three members,
Mr Talman, Mr Bagford, and Mr Wanley. Their first meeting
was on Friday, Nov. 5, 1707 ; subsequently they met at the Young
Devil Tavern in Fleet Street, and then at the Fountain, opposite
Chancery Lane. Mr Talman was the first president; Mr Wanley
was a savant of considerable acquirements. It was he who pur-
chased Bagford's MS. collection for the Harleian Library.

The White Bear at Soper's Lane End, (now Queen Street,)
Cheapside, w^ras the shop in which Baptist Hicks, as a silk mercer,
by selling silks, velvets, lace, and plumes to the courtiers of James
I., amassed that fortune which led to the Peerage, and the title of
Viscount Campden. There was another White Bear Tavern in
Thames Street, of which the sign is still extant, a stone bas-relief
with the date 1670, and the initials M. E. In 1252, Henry III.
received a white bear as a present from the king of Norway; and
in King Edward VI.'s time, May 29, 1549, the French ambassa-
dors, after they had supped with the Duke of Somerset, went
to the Thames and saw the bear hunted in the river.* Such an
occurrence might easily lead to the adoption of this animal as
a sign in that locality. The following little fact connected with
another White Bear Inn forcibly calls up the dark ages before
gas was invented. In 1656, John Wardall gave by will to the
Grocers' Company a tenement called " The White Bear in Wal-

* Burnet's History of the Reformation, Lib. ii., vol. ii., p. 14. It is possible also
tnat the White Bear was set up in compliment to Anne, daughter of the Earl of War-
wick, queen to Richard III., who, as a difference from her fathers bear and ragged staff,
had adopted the White Bear as a badge.

brook/' upon condition that they should yearly pay to the church-
wardens of St Botolph's, Billingsgate, £4 to provide a lanthorn
with a candle, so that passengers might go with more security to
and from the waterside during the night. This lamp was to be
fixed at the north-east corner of the parish church of St Botolph,
from St Bartholomew's-day to Lady-day ; out of this sum £1
was to be paid to the sexton for taking care of the lanthorn.
The annuity is now applied to a lamp lighted with gas in the
place prescribed by the will.*

The White Bear Inn, at the east end of Piccadilly, was for
more than a century one of the busiest coaching houses. In
this house died Luke Sullivan, engraver of some of Hogarth's
works; also Chatelain, another engraver, the last in such pen-
urious circumstances, that he was buried at the expense of some
friends in the poor ground of St James's workhouse. It was in this
inn that West passed the first night in London on his arrival from
America. The sign of the White Bear is still common; at Spring-
bank, Hull, there is one called, with zoological precision, the
Polar Beak. This may, however, refer to the constellation.

The Bear's Head occurs in Congleton, Cheshire; probably it
is a family crest, the same as the Bear's Paw,—both of which,
it is believed, occur only in that county and in Lancashire. The
Bear is also met in frequent combinations; one of the most com-
mon is the Bear and Bacchus, which looks like a hieroglyphic
rendering of the words Beer and Wine, having the additional
attraction of alliteration. Since mythology does not mention
a Beer-God, the animal was probably chosen as a rebus for the
drink In the Bear and Rummer, Mortimer Street, the rummer
implies the sale of liquors, in the same manner as the Punchbowl
is often used. The Bear and Harrow seems to be a union of
two signs. In the seventeenth century it formed the house-
decoration of an ordinary at the entrance of Butcher Bow, (now
Picket Street, Strand.) One night in 1692, Nat Lee, the mad
poet, in going home drunk from this house, fell down in the
enow and was stifled.

The Elephant, in the middle ages, was nearly always repre-
sented with the castle on his back. For instance, in the Latin
MS., Bestiarium Harl., 4751, a tower is strapped to him, in
which are seen five knights in chain-armour, with swords, battle-
axes, and cross-bows, their emblazoned shields hanging round the

battlements; and, in the description of the animal, it is said,
" In eorum dorsis, P[er] si et Indi ligneis turribus collocati tam-
quam de muro jaculis dimicant." The rook, in Chinese chess-
boards, still represents an elephant thus armed.

Cutlers in the last century frequently used the Elephant and
Castle as their sign, on account of it being the crest of tbe
Cutlers' Company, who had adopted it in reference to the ivory
used in the trade. Hence the stone bas-relief in Belle Sauvage
Yard, which was the sign of some now forgotten shopkeeper, who
had chosen it out of regard to his landlords. The houses in the
yard are the property of the Cutlers' Company. The Elephant
and Castle public-house, Newington Butts, was formerly a
famous coaching inn, but, by the introduction of railways, it has
dwindled down to a starting-point for omnibuses. The occasion
of this sign being put up was the following :—Some time about
1714, a Mr Conyers, an apothecary in Fleet Street, and a great
collector of antiquities, was digging in a gravel-pit in a field near
the Fleet, not far from Battle Bridge, when he discovered the
skeleton of an elephant. A spear with a flint head, fixed to a
shaft of goodly length, was found near it, whence it was con-
jectured to have been killed by the British in a fight with the
Romans,* though now, since the late discoveries concerning the
flint implements, very different conclusions would be drawn from
this fact. But be this as it may, that elephant, whether post-
tertiary or Roman, gave its name to the public-house soon after
erected in that locality; and, regardless of the venerable anti-
quity of this origin, it is often now-a-days jocularly degraded
into the Pig and Tinder-box.

What is meant by the whimsical combination of the Elephant
and Fish, at Sandhill, Newcastle, is hard to say, unless we as-
sume the fish originally to have been a dragon. Between ele-
phants and dragons there was supposed to be a deadly strife,
and their battles are recorded by Strabo, Pliny, iElianus, and
their mediaeval followers. The fight always ended in the death
of both, the dragon strangling the elephant in the windings of
his tail, when the elephant, falling down dead, crushed the dragon
by his weight.

The Elephant and Friar, in Bristol, may possibly have ori-
ginated from the representation of an elephant accompanied by a

» Bagforl, who was present at the excavations, relates this story in a letter prefixed
to Leland's Collectanea, p. lxiii., 1770. See also Sir John OldcastliJ.

man in Eastern costume, whose flowing garment might be mis-
taken for the gown of a friar. That sign would have admirably-
suited the fancy of the landlord of the Elephant and Castle, for-
merly in Leeds; his name happening to be Priest, he had the
following inscription above his door :

In the seventeenth century, the Reindeer began to make its
appearance on the signboard, where it has kept its place to the
present day. At first it was called Rained Deer, as we see from
the newspapers of that period :—" Mr John Chapman, York car-
rier in Hull, at the sign of the Rained Deer." This led to the
answer of a sailor who had made a voyage to Lapland, and on
his return, being asked if he had seen any rained deer 1 " No,"
answered Jack, " I have seen it rain cats, dogs, and pitchforks,
but I never saw it rain deer." The first instance we find of this
animal on the signboards of London, is in 1G82, when there was

"Right Irish Usquebaugh to be sold at the Reindeer in Tuttle Street,
Westminster, in greater or smaller quantities, by one from Ireland."—
London Gazette, Nov. 23-27, 1682.

Pepys mentions it as early as October 7, 1667, at Bishop
Stortford, as the sign of a tavern kept by a Mrs Elizabeth Ayns-
worth. Of this woman a good story is told :—Mrs A. had been
a noted procuress at Cambridge, for which reason she was expelled
the town by the University authorities. Subsequently keeping
the Reindeer at Bishop Stortford, the Yice-chancellor and some
of the heads of colleges, on their way to London, had occasion to
sleep at her house, little thinking under whose roof they were.
She received them nobly, served the supper up in plate, and
brought forth the best wine; but, when the hour of reckoning
came, would receive no money, " for," said she, " I am too much
Indebted to the Vice-chancellor for expelling me from Cam-
bridge, which has been the means of making my fortune." For
all this, however, she does not seem to have mended her evil
courses, for, shortly after, she was implicated in the murder of
a Captain Wood in Essex, for which one man was executed,
whilst Mrs Aynsworth was only acquitted by some flaw in the
evidence.

Dragons, when apothecaries' signs, were not derived from
heraldry, but w^Tere used to typify certain chemical actions. In

an old German work on Alchemy,* one of the plates represents
a dragon eating his own tail; underneath are the words,—
" Das ist gros Wunder und seltsam List,
Die höchst Artzney im Drachen ist." +

In mediaeval alchemy, the dragon seems to have been the em-
blem of Mercury, which appears from these words on the same
print: " Mercurius recte et chymice prsecipitatus vel sublimatus
in sua propria aqua resolutus et rursum coagulatus." % To w^Thich
are added the following rhymes :—

"Ein Drach im Walde wohnend ist,
An Gifft demselben nichts gebrisst;
Wenn er die Sonne sieht und das Fewr
So speusst er Gifft fleugt ungehewr,
Kein Lebend Thier für ihm mag gnesn
Der Basilisc mag ihm nit gleich wesn.
Wer diesen Wurmb wol weiss zu todtn
Der kömpt. auss allen seinen Nöthen.
Sein Farber in seinem Todt sich vermehrn;
Auss seiner Giffb Artzney thut werden.
Sein Gifft verzehrt er gar und gans
Und frisst sein eign vergiften Schwantz.
Da mus er in sich selbst Volbringen
Der edelst Balsam auss ihm thut tringen,
Solch grosse Tugend wird man schawen
Welches alle Weysn sich hoch erfrawen." §

Hence the dragon became one of the " properties" of the che-
mist and apothecary, was painted on his drug-pots, hung up as
his sign, and some dusty, stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceil-
ing in the laboratory had to do service for the monster, and
inspire the vulgar with a profound awe for the mighty man who
had conquered the vicious reptile.

The Salamander was another animal of the same class, and
also represented certain chemical actions, owing to its fabled
powers of resisting the fire. The notions of early naturalists
concerning this creature were very extraordinary. A Bestiarium

* " Lambspring, das ist ein herzlichen Teutsclier Tractat von Philosophischen Steine,
•welchen für Jahren ein adelicher Teutscher Philosophus, Lampert Spring geheissen mit
schöne Figuren beschrieben hat. Frankfort am, Main, i625."

t " This is a great wonder, and very strange : the dragon contains the greatest medi-
cament."

} " Mercury rightly precipitated or sublimated in its own water dissolved and again
coagulated."

§ "There is a dragon lives in the forest who has no want of poison : when he sees the
sun or Are he spits venom, which flies about fearfully. No living animal can be cured
of it; even the basilisk does not equal him. He who can properly kill this serpent has
overcome all his danger. His colours increase in death; physic is produced from his
poison, which he entirely consumes, and eats his own venomous tail. This must be ac-
complished by him in order to produce the noblest balm. Such great virtue as will point
out herein that all the learned shall rejoice."

in the Royal Library of Brussels, No. 10074, says that it lives
on pure fire, and produces a substance which is neither silk nor
linen, nor yet wool, of which garments are made that can only be
cleaned by fire; and that if the animal itself falls into a burning
fire, it would at once extinguish the flames. Bossewell, besides
incombustibility, attributes to the salamander some other quali-
ties fully as extravagant.

"Among all venomenous beastes lie is the miglitiest of poyson and
venyme. For if he creepe upon a tree, he infecteth all the apples or other
fruit that groweth thereon with his poyson, and killeth them which eate
thereof. Which apples, also, if they happen to falle into any pitte of
water, the strength of the poyson killeth them that drinke thereof." *

The qualities attributed to the Unicorn caused this animal to
be used as a sign both by chemists and goldsmiths. It was be-
lieved that the only way to capture it was to leave a handsome
young virgin in one of the places where it resorted. As soon as
the animal had perceived her, he would come and lie quietly
down beside her, resting his head in her lap, and fall asleep, in
which state he might be surprised by the hunters who watched
for him. This laying his head in the lap of a virgin made the
first Christians choose the unicorn as the type of Christ born from
the Virgin Mary.t The horn, as an antidote to all poison, was
also believed to be emblematic of the conquering or destruction of
sin by the Messiah. Religious emblems being in great favour with
the early printers, some of them for this reason adopted the unicorn
as their sign; thus John Harrison lived at the Unicorn and
Bible in Paternoster Row 1603. Again, the reputed power of
the horn caused the animal to be taken as a supporter for the
apothecaries' arms, and as a constant signboard by chemists.
Albertus Magnus says:—" Cornu cerastis sunt qui dicunt
prassenti veneno sudare et ideo ferri ad mensas nobilium, et
fieri inde manubria cultellorum quae infixa inensis prodant

t Allusions to the unicorn occur frequently in the Old Testament, and commentators
inform us that these references were typical of the coming Saviour.

presens venerium. Sed hoc non satis probatum est." * What-
ever it was that passed for unicorn's horn, (probably the horn of
the narwal,) it was sold at an immense price. " The unicorn
whose horn is worth a city," says Decker in his Gull's Hornbook;
and Andrea Racci, a Florentine physician, relates that it had been
sold by the apothecaries at £24 per ounce, when the current
value of the same quantity of gold was only £2, 3s. 6d. In a
MS. table of customs entitled, " The Book of Rates in y^e first
yeare of Queen Mary 1531," t we find the duty paid upon " cornu
unicorni y^e ounce 20s." An Italian author who visited England
in the reign of Henry VII., X speaking of the immense wealth of the
religious houses in this country says:—"And I have been informed
that, amongst other things, many of these monasteries possess uni-
corns' horns of an extraordinary size." Hence such a horn was fit
to be placed among the royal jewels, and there it appears at the
head of an inventory taken in the first year of Queen Elizabeth,
and preserved in Pepys's library. § " Imprimis, a piece of unicorn's
horn," which, as the most valuable obiect, is named first.

This was no doubt the piece seen by the German traveller
Hentzner, at Windsor: "We were shown here, among other
things, the horn of a unicorn of above eight spans and a half in
length, valued at above j£1 0,000." j| Peacham places " that home
of Windsor (of an unicorne very likely)" IF amongst the sights
worth seeing. Fuller also speaks of a unicorn's horn—" in my
memory shewn to people in the Tower"**— and enters on a long
dissertation about its virtues; but it seems to have been lost, or
at least, no longer exhibited in his time.

The belief in the efficacy and value of this horn continued to
the close of the seventeenth century ; for the Rev. John Ward in
his diary, p. 172, says :—

" Mr Hartman had a piece of unicorn's horn, which one Mr Godeski gave
him; hee had itt att some foraine prince's court. I had the piece in my
hand. Hee desired l)r Willis to make use of itt in curing his ague; but
the Dr refusd because hee had never seen itt used. Mr Hartman told me
the forementioned gentleman has as much of itt as would make a cup, and

* "It is reported that the unicorn's horn sweats when it comes in the presence of
poison, and that for this reason it is laid on the tables of the great, and made into
knife-handles, which, when placed on the tables, show the presence of poison. But this
is not sufficiently proved."—Albertus Magnus, De Animalibus, lib. xxv.

he intended to make one of itt. It approved ittself as a true one, as he
said by this: if one drew a circle with itt about a spider, she would not
move out off itt." *

The great value set upon unicorns' horn caused the goldsmiths
to adopt this animal as their sign. There is one recorded in
Machyn's Diary: the first of May 1561, "at afternone dyd
Mastyr Godderyke's sune the goldsmyth go hup into hys father's
gyldyng house, toke a bowe-strynge, and hanged ymseylff at the
syne of the Unycorne in Chepesyd." In 1711 the Unicorn and
Dial was the sign of a watchmaker near the Strand Bridge.+

Another fabulous animal that formerly (though rarely) occurred
on signboards was the Cockatrice, which was the sign of a place
of amusement in Highbury circa 1611. The " Bestiaria," or
ancient natural histories, give most extraordinary particulars
about the birth of this creature :—

" When the cock is past seven years old an egg grows in his belly, and
when he feels this egg, he wonders very much, and sustains the greatest
anxiety any animal can suffer. He seeks, privately, a warm place on a
dunghill or in a stable, and scratches with his feet, until he has formed a
hole to lay his egg in. And when the cock has dug his hole he goes ten
times a day to it, for all day he thinks that he is going to be delivered.
And the nature of the toad is such that it smells the venom which the
cock carries in his belly, consequently it watches him, so that the cock
cannot go to the bole without being seen by it. And as soon as the cock
leaves the place where he has to lay his egg, the toad is immediately there
to see if the egg has been laid; for his nature is such, that he hatches the
egg if he can obtain it. And when he has hatched it, until it is time to
open, it produces an animal that has the head, and neck, and breast of a
cock, and from thence downwards, the body of a serpent."—Translation
from the 31S. Bestiarium, Bib. Roy. Brussels, No. 10074.

That cocks, sometimes in the middle ages, forgot themselves so
far as to lay eggs, appears from a lawsuit which poor chanticleer
had at Basle in 1474, when he was convicted, condemned, and,
with his egg, burned at the stake for a sorcerer, with as much pomp
and ceremony as if he had been a Protestant or other heretic.

The Ape was, in bygone times, the sign of an inn in Philip Lane,
near London wall; all that now remains of this ancient hostelry
is a stone carving of a monkey squatted on its haunches, and eat-
ing an apple; under it the date 1670, and the initial B. The

* "It is rather peculiar that the same superstitious notions should be found in India Id
connexion with the horn of the rhinoceros, whom some consider as the fabled unicorn
divested of his romantic garb. His horn, too, was thought useful in diseases, and for
H o ptrpose of discovering poisons."—Calmel's Dictionary of the Bible. "The fine
shavings were supposed to cure convulsions and spasms in children. Goblets made of
these would discover a poisonous draught that was poured into them, by making the
liquor ferment till it ran quite out of the ^ohl^V'—Thunberg's Journey to Caffraria.
f Daily Courant, February 2, 1711.

courtyard, where the lumbering coaches used to arrive and depart,
is now an open space, round which houses are built. The
Racoon" is a painted sign at Dalston, but a hyaena seems to have
sat for the portrait; the Hippopotamus occurs in New-England
Street, Brighton; the Ibex at Chadelworth, Wantage; the
Crocodile in Higham Street, Norwich ; the Camel may be met
with in a few instances, and at Weston Peverell, Plymouth, there
is the sign of the Camel's Head. Finally, there is the Kan-
garoo, of which, occasionally, an example may be seen, set up
probably by some landlord who had tried his luck in Australia.
The Civet is common all over Europe as a perfumer's sign, as
it was said to produce musk. A Dutch perfumer in the seven-
teenth century wrote under his sign :—
" Dit's in de Civet kat, gelyk gy kunt aanschouwen,

Maar komt hier binnen, hier zyn parfuimen voor mannen en vrouwen." *
The Hedgehog was never very common. In the reign of
Queen Elizabeth it was the sign of William Seeres, bookseller, in
St Paul's Churchyard, who put it up, according to Bagford, on
account of its being the badge of his former master Sir Henry
Sydney, f Apparently this same house was concerned in the
following strange affair :—

"By a lettere dated London, 11 May 1555, it appears that in Powles
Churchyearde at the sign of the Hedgehog, the goodwife of the house was
brought to bed of a manchild, being of the age of 6 dayes and dienge the
7^th daye followinge ; and half an hour before it departed spake these words
followinge : (rise and pray) and so continued half an houre in thes words
and then cryinge departed the worlde. Hereupon the Bishope of London
examined the goodman of the house and other credible persones who
affirmed it to be true and will dye uppon the same." J

The Hedgehog is now very scarce on signboards; at Dadling-
ton, near Market Bosworth, there is a Dog and Hedgehog,
doubtless borrowed from the well-known engraving of " A Rough
Customer."

Signs relating to sport or the chase are comparatively common;
thus we have the Rat and Ferret at Wilson, near Ashby de la
Zouch; the Three Conies, or rabbits, figure on an old trades

* " This is the Civet, as you may see ; but enter. Perfumes sold here for men and
women."

f The reason why the hedgehog was generally represented with apples stuck on his
quills, appears from the following words in Bossewell, (p. 61,)—" He clymeth upon a vine or
an apple-tree and biteth off their braunches and twigges, and when they [the apples] ba
fallen downe, he waloweth on them, and so they sticke on his prickes, and he beareth
them unto a hollow tree or some other hole." The early naturalists also said that if,
when he was so loaded, one of the apples happened to drop off, he would throw all the
others down in anger and return to the tree for a new load.

token of Blackman Street; tlie Hare, on the token of John
Ferris in the Strand, 1666; and Nicholas Warren, in Alders-
gate.* Warren evidently made a cockney mistake, thinking that
hares, instead of rabbits, lived in warrens. Another Hare was
the sign of Philip Hause in Waibrook in 1682.+ The Hare and
Squirrel occur together on a sign at Nuneaton; what the
combination means it is difficult to surmise.

" Cages with climbing Squirrels and bells to them were formerly the
indispensable appendages of the outside of a Tinman's shop, and were, in
fact, the only live sign. One, we believe, still (1826) hangs out on Holborn;
but they are fast vanishing with the good old modes of our ancestors." J

The Three Squirrels was the sign of an inn at Lambeth,
mentioned by Taylor the Water poet in 1636 ; and from a trades
token it appears that in the seventeenth century there was a
similar sign in Fleet Street. Probably it was the same house
which, in 167f, was occupied by Gosling the banker, "over
against St Dunstan's Church," where the triad of squirrels may
still be seen in the iron-work of the windows. Gosling's was one
of the leading banking establishments in the reign of Charles II.
Among the curiosities of this old firm is a bill for £640, 8s.,
paid out of the secret service money for gold lace and silver lace,
bought by the Duchess of Cleveland for the wedding clothes of
the Lady Sussex and Litchfield.

The Hare and Hounds are very common; some fifty years
ago it was the sign of a notorious establishment in St Giles's, one
of those places associated with " the good old customs of
our ancestors." As the few houses of this character that remain
are difficult of access, a description of this place may not be un-
interesting.

" The Hare and Hounds was to be reached by those going from the west
end towards the city, by going up a turning on the left hand, nearly oppo-
site St Giles's churchyard. The entrance to this turning or lane was ob-
structed or defended by posts with cross bars, which being passed, the lane
itself was entered. It extended some twenty or thirty yards towards the
north, through two rows of the most filthy, dilapidated, and execrable
buildings that could be imagined; and at the top or end of it stood the
citadel, of which ' Stunning Joe' was the corpulent castellan ;—I need not
say that it required some determination and some address to gain this strange
place of rendezvous. Those who had the honour of an introduction to
the great man were considered safe, wherever his authority extended, and in

t London Gazette, Sept. 18-21, 1682. I am confident the newspapers made a mispriDt,
and that the man's name was Haase, Dutch or German, for the Hare he represented on
his sign.

this locality it was certainly very extensive. He occasionally condes-
cended to act as a pilot through the navigation of the alley to persons of
aristocratic or wealthy pretensions, whom curiosity, or some other motive
best known to themselves, led to his abode. Those who were not under
his safe conduct frequently found it very unsafe to wander in the intricacies
of this region. In the salon of this temple of low debauchery were
assembled groups of all ' unutterable things,' all that class distinguished
in those days, and, I believe, in these, by the generic term ' cadgers,'
Hail cadgers, who in rags array'd,
Disport and play fantastic pranks;
Each Wednesday night in full parade,
Within the domicile of Bank's.
A ' lady' presided over the revels, collected largess in a platter, and, at
intervals, amused the company with specimens of her vocal talent.
Dancing was 'kept up till a late hour,' with more vigour than elegance,
and many terpsichorean passages, which partook rather of the animation
of the ' Nautch ' than the dignity of the minuet, increased the interest of
the performance. It may be supposed that those who assembled were not
the sort of people who would have patronised Father Matthew had he visited
St Giles's in those times. There was indeed an almost incessant com-
plaint of drought, which seemed to be increased by the very remedies ap-
plied for its cure; and had it not been for the despotic authority with
which the dispenser of the good things of the establishment exercised his
rule, his liberality in the dispensation would certainly have led to very
vigorous developments of the reprobation of man and of woman also. In
the lower tier, or cellars, or crypt of the edifice, beds or berths were pro*
vided for the company, who, packed in bins after the ' fitful fever' of the
evening, slept well." *

In 1750 there was a sign of the Hare and Cats at Norwich,+
which was clearly a travesty of the Hare and Hounds.

The Stag may in early times have been put up as a religious
type. As such it is of constant occurrence in the catacombs
and in early Christian sculptures, in allusion to Psalm xlii.,
" Like as the hart desireth the water brook, so longeth my soul
after thee, 0 God !"]: The Stag is still a very common sign.
A publican on the Fulham Road has put up the sign of the Stag,
and added to this on the tympanum : " Rex in regno suo non
liabet parem," the application of which is best known to mine
host himself.

The Baldeaced Stag is seen in many places : baldfaced is a
term applied to horses who have a white strip down the forehead
to the nose. At Chigwell in Essex there is a Bald Hind, and

* Rev. J. Richardson, LL.B., Recollections of the Last Half Century. See also
under Stunning Job Banks in the Slang Dictionary, recently issued by the publisher
of this work,
t Gentleman's Magazine, March 1842.
j See under Religious Signs.

in the High Street, Beading, a Bald Face, both evidently de-
rived from the last-named stag.

Various combinations also occur, as the Stag and Castle, at
Thornton, near Hinckly; the Stag and Pheasant, rather com-
mon ; both these, doubtless, allude to the game seen in parks, or
in the neighbourhood of noblemen's seats; the Stag and Oak,
the Cape, Warwickshire, points towards a similar origin, but the
Stag and Thorn at Traffick Street, Derby, seems to be a
union of two signs, for the Thorn appears in the same street 011
another public-house. There is, however, a sort of tree called
the Buck-Thorn, which possibly may have been corrupted into
the Buck and Thorn, and hence the Stag and Thorn. The
Kising Deer (Brampton-en-le-Morthen, Yorkshire) and the
Rising Buck (Sheinton, Shropshire) have a decided deer-stalking
smack about them, affording us a glimpse of the cautious stag
rising from the heather, pricking his ears and sniffing the wind.

The Ranged Deer was the sign of the King's gunsmith in
the Minories, 1673.* At that period this street was full of
Bmiths:

" The Mulcibers who in the Minories sweat
And massive bars on stubborn anvils beat,
Deform'd themselves, yet forge those stays of steel
Which arm Aurelia with a shape to kill."—Congreve.

This ranged deer was simply intended for the Reindeer,
which animal had then just newly come under the notice of
the public; their knowledge of it was still confused, and its
name was spelled in various ways, such as: rain-deer, rained-
deer, range-deer, and ranged-deer.

The Roebuck is equally common with the Stag; the Golden
Buck, near St Dunstan, was the shop of P. Overton, publisher
of " The Cries of the City of London, consisting of 74 copper-
prints, each figure drawn after the life, by the famous Mr Laron."
The Buck and Bell is a sign at Long Itchington : the bell was
frequently added to the signs of public-houses in honour of the
bell-ringers, who were in the habit of refreshing themselves there.
Hence we have the Bull and Bell, Briggate, Leeds; the Raven
and Bell, at Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton, and Newport; the
Bell and Talbot, at Bridgenorth; the Dolphin and Bell on
the token of John Warner, Aldersgate, 1668; the Fish and
Bell, (evidently the same sign,) Charles Street, Soho; the Three

Among the taverns with the sign of the Roebuck that have
become famous, the house in Cheapside may be mentioned as a
notorious place during the Whig riots in 1715.

Not only the Deer tribe themselves, but their Horns also
make a considerable figure on the signboard. It is probably to
the sign of the Horns that allusion is made in the roll of the
Pardoner, "Cocke Lorell's Bote —

" Here is Maryone Marchauntes at Allgate
Her Husbode dwells at ye siggne of ye CoJceldes Pate!'

"The xvj day of September (1557), cam owt of Spayn to the Quens
Cowrt in post Monser Regamus, gorgysly apparelled, with divers Spane-
ardes, and with grett cheynes, and their hats sett with stones and perlles,
and sopyd [supped], and by vij of the cloke were again on liorsebake, and
so tlirugh Flet Strett, and at the Hoenes they dronke, and at the Gray-
honde, and so tlirugh Chepesyde, and so over the bryge, and so rod all
nyglit toward Dover."—Machyn's Diary.

Sometimes the Horns are specified as the Hart's Horns Inn,
Smithfield, near Pie Corner, one of the houses in the yard of
which Joe Miller used to play during Bartholomew Fair time,
when he was associated with Pinketliman at the head of a troop
of actors. The London Daily Post for August 24, &c., 1721,
contains several advertisements of his troop, and the parts played
by himself.

What most contributed to the popularity of this sign in the
environs of London was the custom alluded to by Byron :
" And many to the steep of Highgate hie,
Ask ye, Boeotian shades! the reason why,
'Tis to the worship of the solemn horn,
Grasp'd in the holy hand of mystery,
In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn,
And consecrate the oath with draught and dance till morn." *
Highgate was the headquarters for this swearing on the horn.
Hone gives the oath in the following form :—

" An old and respectable inhabitant of the village says, that 60 years
ago, upwards of 80 stages stopped every day at the Red Lion, and that out
of every 5 passengers 3 were sworn. The oath was delivered standing,
and ran thus: ' Take notice what I now say unto you, for that is the first
word of your oath—mind that I You must acknowledge me to be your
adopted father, I must acknowledge you to be my adopted son (or daughter).
If you do not call me father, you forfeit a bottle of wine. If I do not call

you son, I forfeit the same. And now, my good son, if you are travelling
through this village of Highgate, and you have no money in your pocket,
go call for a bottle of wine at any house you think proper to go into, and
book it to your father's score. If you have any friends with you you may
treat them as well, but if you have money of your own you must pay for
it yourself. For you must not say you have no money when you have,
neither must you convey the money out of your own pockets into your
friends' pockets, for I shall search you as well as them; and if it is found
that you or they have money, you forfeit a bottle of wine for trying to
cozen and cheat your poor old ancient father. You must not eat brown
bread while you can get white, except you like the brown the best; you
must not drink small beer while you can get strong, except you like the
small the best. You must not kiss the maid while you can kiss the mis-
tress, except you like the maid the best, but sooner than lose a good
chance you may kiss them both. And now, my good son, for a word or
two of advice: keep from all houses of ill repute, and every place of
public resort for bad company. Beware of false friends, for they will turn
to be your foes, and inveigle you into houses where you may lose your
money and get no redress. Keep from thieves of every denomination.
And now, my good son, I wish you a safe journey through Higbgate and
this life. I charge you, my good son, that if you know any in this com-
pany who have not taken the oath you must cause them to take it, or
make each of them forfeit a bottle of wine, for if you fail to do bo you will
forfeit a bottle of wine yourself. So now my good son, God bless you.
Kiss the horns or a pretty girl, if you see one here which you like best, and
so be free of Highgate.'"

After that, the new-made member became fully acquainted
with the privileges of a freeman, which consisted in :

" If at any time you are going through Highgate, and want to rest your-
self, and you see a pig lying in the ditch, you have liberty to kick her
out and take her place; but if you see three lying together, you must only
kick out the middle one and lie between the other two."

These last liberties, however, are a later addition to the oath
introduced by a blacksmith, who kept the Coach and Horses.
Nearly every inn in Highgate used to keep a pair of horns for
this custom. In Hone's time the principal inn, the Gatehouse,
had stag-horns:—

The Mitre, stags'-horns. The Red-Lion, rams'- The Angel, rams'-horns.
The Green Dragon, do. horns. The Bull, stags'-horns.

Hone supposes the custom to have originated in a aort of
graziers' club.* Highgate being the place nearest London where

cattle rested on their way from the north, certain graziers were
accustomed to put up at the Gatehouse for the nigbt. But as
they could not wholly exclude strangers who, like themselves,
were travelling on business, they brought an ox to the door, and
those who clid not choose to kiss its horns, after going through
the ceremony described, were not deemed fit members of their
society. Similar customs prevailed in other places, as at Ware,
at the Griffin in Iioddesdon, &c.

On the Continent the sign of the Horns was formerly equally
common, often accompanied with some sly allusion to what Othello
calls "the forked plague." Thus in the Bue Bourg Chavin, in
Lyons, there is now a pair of horns with the inscription " Sunt
similia tuis )" and a Dutch shopkeeper of the seventeenth cen-
tury wrote under his sign of the Horns—
" Ik draag Hoornen dat ider ziet,
Maar menig draagt Hoornen en weet bet niet." *

The Fox, as might be expected, is to be seen in a great many
places; there is one at Frandley, Cheshire, with the following
rhymes :—

" Behold the Fox, near Frandley stocks,
Pray catch him when you can,
For they sell here, good ale and beer,
To any honest man."

A still more absurd inscription accompanies the sign cf the
Fox at Folkesworth, near Stilton, Hunts :—

To . Me . it . is . my . Mrs
Wish . to . place . me
Here . to . let . you . no .
He . sells . good . beere ."

Formerly there used to be a sign of the Three Foxes in
Clement's Lane, Lombard Street, carved in stone, representing
three foxes sitting in a row. But a few years ago the house
came into the possession of a legal firm, who, no doubt afraid of
the jokes to which the sign might lead, thought it advisable to
do away with the carving by covering it over with plaster.

One of the most favourite combinations is the Fox and
Goose, represented by a fox currant, with the neck of the goose
in his mouth and the body cast over his back. It seems sug

gested by an incident in the. old tale of " Reynard the Fox,"
and was a subject which mediaeval artists were never tired of
representing ; it occurs in stall carvings, as in Gloucester Cathe-
dral ; in the border of the Bayeux tapestry, and in endless MS.
illuminations. It is, or was, a coat of arms borne by the families
of Foxwist and Foxfeld. Derived from this sign are the Fox
and Duck, (two in Sheffield,) and the Fox and Hen, of which
there is an example at Long Itchington. Reynard's predatory
habits are further illustrated by the Fox and Lamb, in Pilgrim
Street, Newcastle, in Allendale, &e., and the Fox and Grapes,
borrowed from the fable. From the same well-known source
also arose the sign of the Fox and Crane. But we see the
punishment of all Reynard's misdemeanours in the Fox and
Hounds, a sign of old standing, as there is one in Putney on a
house which professes to have been "established above three
hundred years." The Fox and Owl at Nottingham, seems to
owe its origin to a curious qui pro quo in language. A bunch of
ivy, or ivy tod, was generally considered the favourite haunt of an
owl; but a tod also signifies a fox; and so the owl's nest, owls-
tod, may have led to the owl and tod, the fox and owl. The
Owl's Nest is still a sign at St Helen's, Lancashire. See under
Bird Signs.

In the sign of the Fox and Bull, at Knightsbridge, the bull
has been added of late years. About fifty years ago a magistrate
used to sit once a week at this public-house to settle the small
disputes of the neighbouring inhabitants. At that period Knights-
bridge was still in such a benighted condition that neither a
butcher's nor draper's shop was to be found between Hyde Park
Corner and Sloane Street; and the whole locality could only
boast of*one stationer where note-paper and newspapers could be
obtained. The voyage to London in those days was performed
in a sort of lumbering stagecoach, over an ill-paved and dimly-
lighted road. To this Fox Inn, by a very old wooden gate at the
back, the bodies of the drowned in the Serpentine used to be
conveyed, to the care of the Royal Humane Society, who had a
receiving-house here. Among the many unhappy young and fair
ones who were carried through that " Lasciate-ognisperanza''
gate, was Harriet Westbrook, the first wife of Shelley the poet,
who had drowned herself in the Serpentine upon hearing that
her husband had run off to Italy with Mary, the daughter of
William Godwin, bookseller and philosopher of Snow Hill. The

ancient inn remained much in its Elizabethan condition till the
year 1799, when certain alterations cleared away the old-fashioned
fire-places, chimney-pieces, and dog-irons, by which had sat the
weather-beaten soldiers of Cromwell, the highwaymen lying in
ambush for the mail coaches, and the fair London ladies out on a
sly trip.

Some other combinations are not so easily explained, such as
the Fox and Cap, Long Lane, Smithfield: but when we see the
bill of this shop¹ the mystery is explained ; it was the sign of
Tho. Tronsdale, a capmaker, and represented a fox running, with
a cap painted above him, to intimate the man's business. The
Fox and Crown, Nottingham and Newark, is evidently a com-
bination of two signs. The Fox and Knot, Snow Hill, seems
to be of old standing, as it has given its name to a court close
by. Its origin, doubtless, is exactly similar to that of the Fox
and Cap; the knot or top-knot being a head-dress worn by ladies
in the last century. The Flying Fox at Colchester, may either
allude to some kind of bat or flying squirrel (1) thus denomi-
nated, or is a landlord's caprice.

It is certainly somewhat strange that in this sporting country
the sign of the Brush or the Fox's Tail should be so rare ; in
fact, no instance of its use is now to be found, although, beside
the interest attached to it in the hunting field, it had the honour
of being one of the badges of the Lancaster family. What is still
more surprising is, that the Fox's Tail should have been the
sign of a Parisian bookseller, Jean Buelle, in 1540 ; but what
prompted him to choose this sign is now rather difficult to guess.

"At the sign of the Horse old Spintext of course
Each night took his pipe and his pot,"

the horse rarely or never occurs without a distinctive adjective
to determine its colour, action, or other attribute. All natural
colours of the horse, and some others, are found on the signboard
•—black, white, bay, sorrel, (rare,) pied, spotted, red, sometimes
golden, and in one instance, at Grantham, a Blub Horse is met

with. Frequently the sign of the Horse is accompanied by the
following hippophlle advice :—

Many years ago, at Greenwich, there was a public-house with
the sign of a Horse. Behind the house was a large grass field,
to which referred the following notice, painted under the sign :—
" Good Grass for Horses. Long Tails three shillings and six-
pence per week." An inquisitive person passing that way, and
not understanding the meaning of the notice, went in and ques-
tioned the landlord, who informed him that a difference was made
for the bob-tailed horses ; " for," said he, " long-tailed horses can
whisk off the flies, and eat at their leisure ; but bob-tails have to
shake their heads and run about from morning till night, and so
do eat much less."

The Bed Horse is now almost extinct; it occurs as the sign
of a house in Bond Street, in an advertisement about a spaniel
lost by the Duke of Grafton* By the term red was not meant
vermilion ; at that time it was the accepted word for Avhat we
now call roan. The Bay Horse is a great favourite in York-
shire ; in 1861 there were, in the West Biding alone, not less
than seventy-seven inns, taverns, and public-houses, with such a
sign, besides innumerable ale-houses. One would expect the
Yorkshire Grey more indigenous to that county. The Dapple
Grey is apparently a tribute of gratitude of the publicans to the
" Dapplo Grey" of the nursery rhyme—
" I had a little bonny nag,
His name was Dapple Grey,
And he would bring me to an ale-house
A mile out of the way."

Dappled grey, too, was the fashionable colour of horses in the
last century • thus Pope's mercenary Duchess—

" The gods, to curse Pamela with her prayers,
Gave her gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares."

Of the White Horse innumerable instances occur, and many
are connected with names known in history. At the White
Horse, near Burleigh-on-the-Hill, the noted Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham, spent the last years of his life, and died.

"The Duke of Queensbury being present at his death, knowing the
* Postman, February 1-3, 1711.

Duke to be a dissenter, and thinking he must be a Catholic, offered to «end
for a Catholic priest, to which the Duke answered, 'No,' said he, 'those
rascals eat God; but if you know of any set of fellows that eat the devil,
I should be obliged to you if you would send for one of them !' "

At the White Horse in Kensington, Addison wrote several of his
Spectators. His favourite dinner, when he stayed at this house,
was fillet of veal and a bottle of claret. The old inn remained in
its original state till about forty years ago, when it was pulled
down, and the name changed to the Holland Arms ; but the
sign is still preserved in the parlour of the new establishment.

Edinburgh also has its famous White Horse; in a close in the
Canongate, an inn dating from the time of Queen Mary Stuart,
and which Scott has introduced in one of his novels, may still be
seen. It was well-known to runaway couples, and hundreds have
been made happy or unhappy for life " at a moment's notice," in
its large room, in which, as well as in the White Hart in the
Grassmarket, these impromptu marriages were as regularly per-
formed as at Gretna Green. The White Horse Cellar, Picca-
dilly, now a tame omnibus office, was for more than a century
one of the bustling coaching inns for the West. " Some persons
think the sublimest object in nature is a ship launched on the
bosom of the ocean; but give me, for my private satisfaction, the
mail coaches that pour down Piccadilly of an evening, tear up
the pavement, and devour the way before them to the Land's-
Encl."—Hazlitt. This place calls up pleasant fancies of travel-
ling by the mail, through merry roads, with blooming hawthorn
and chestnut trees, larks singing aloft, the village bells, and the
blacksmith's hammer tinkling in the distance; but another White
Horse Inn shows the dark side of the picture—the unsafety of the
roads, for the White Horse, corner of Welbeck Street, Cavendish
Square, was long a detached public-house, where travellers cus-
tomarily stopped for refreshment, and to examine their firearms
before crossing the fields to Lisson Green, t The last White
Horse we shall mention was in Pope's Head Alley, the sign of
John Sudbury and George Humble, the first men that opened a
printshop in London, in the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Peacham, in his " Compleat Gentleman," says that Goltzius' en-

gravings wore commonly to be had in Pope's Head Alley. There
also, in 1611, the first edition of Speed's "Great Britain" was
published.

At a certain place in Warwickshire a fellow started a public-
house near four others, with signs respectively of the Bear, the
Angel, the Ship, and the Three Cups. Yet quite undaunted at
his neighbours, he put up the White Horse as his sign, and
under it wrote the following spirited and prophetic rhymes :—
" My White Horse shall bite the Bear,
And make the Angel fly;

Shall turn the Ship her bottom up,
And drink the Three Cups dry."
And so it did; the lines pleased the people, the other houses
soon lost their custom, and tradition says that the fellow made a
considerable fortune.

The Punning Horse or the Galloping Horse—perhaps
originally the horse of Hanover—is also very common. In the
London Gazette, Feb. 12-15, 1699, a horse race is advertised at
Lilly Iioo, in Hertford ; the advertisement concludes : " and on
the same day a smock worth £3 will be run for, besides other
encouragements for those that come in 2d. or 3d. Any woman
may run gratis, that enters her name at the Running Horse,
where articles may be seen," &c. Races by women were not un-
common in those days, and instances may yet occasionally be
heard of, particularly in the east end of London, where every
great match generally concludes with a race among the free and
easy ladies of the neighbourhood.

The combinations in which we meet with the Horse are all
very plain, and require no explanation. The Horse and Groom,
and the Horse and Jockey, are the most prevalent. Racing,
from time immemorial, has been a favourite English sport.
Fitzstephen mentions the races in the days of Henry II., and
in the ballad of Syr Bevys of Hampton,* full details are given.

" In somer at Whitsontide,
Whan knighten most on horseback ride,
A course let they make or a daye
Steedes and Palfraye for to assaye;
Which horse that best may ren,
Three miles the cours was then,
Who that might ride them shoulde
Have forty pounds of redy golde,"

and betting carried to great excess. The famous George Earl
of Cumberland is recorded to have wasted more money than any
of his ancestors, chiefly by racing and tilting. In 1599, private
matches by gentlemen who rode their own horses were of fre-
quent occurrence. In the reign of James I. public races were
celebrated at various places, under much the same regulations as
now. The most celebrated were called Bellcourses. In the
latter part of the reign of Charles I. there were races in Hyde Park
as well as at Newmarket. Charles II. was very fond of this diver-
sion, and appointed meetings at Datchet Mead when he resided
at Windsor. Gradually, however, Newmarket became the prin-
cipal place. The king, a constant attendant, established a house
for his own accommodation, and entered horses in his royal name.
Instead of bells, he gave a silver bowl or a cup, value 100 guineas,
on which the exploit and pedigree of the winning horse were
generally engraved. William III. and Queen Anne both added
to the plate. George I., towards the end of his reign, discon-
tinued the plate and gave 100 guineas instead ; George II. made
several racing regulations, about the age of horses, the weight of
jockeys, &c. Already, in 1768, the horses had obtained great
swiftness ; for Misson, in his " Travels," mentions one that ran 20
miles in 55 minutes upon uneven ground, which for those times
was certainly a remarkable feat.

The Bell and House is an old and still frequent sign; it
occurs on trades tokens; as John Harcourt at the Bell and
Black Horse in Finsbury, 1668, and on various others ; whilst
at the present day it may be seen at many a roadside alehouse.
Bells were a favourite addition to the trappings of horses in the
middle ages. Chaucer's abbot is described :—

" When he rode men his bridle hear,
Gingling in a whistling wind as clere.
And eke as loud as doth a chapel bell."

In a MS. in the Cottonian Library ¹ relating the journey of Mar-
garet of England to Scotland, there to be married to King James,
we find constant mention of these bells. The horse of Sir Wil-
liam Ikarguil, companion of Sir William Conyars, sheriff of York-
shire, is described as " his Ilors Harnays full of campanes [bells] of
silver and gylt." Whilst the master of the horse of the Duke of
Northumberland was " monted apon a gentyll horse, and cam-

panes of silver and gylt." And a company of knights is intro-
duced, " some of their hors harnes was full of campanes, sum of
gold and sylver, and others of gold." This led to the custom of
giving a golden bell as the reward of a race. In Chester, such a
bell was run for yearly on St George's day; it was " dedicated
to the kinge, being double gilt with the Kynges Armes upon it,''
and was carried in the procession by a man 011 horseback " upon
a septer in pompe, and before him a noise of trumpets in pompe."*
This custom of racing for a bell led to the adoption of the still
common phrase, bearing off the bell.

Names of celebrated race horses are found on signboards as
well as human celebrities. Such are Bay Childers at Dronfield,
Derby; Flying Childers at Melton Mowbray; Wild Dayrell,
Oldham • Filho da Puta, Nottingham ; and Filho tavern, Man-
chester. Blink Bonny is common in Northumberland ; Flying
Dutchman occurs in various places ; and the Arabian Horse at
Aberford, in Yorkshire, may perhaps represent the great Arabian
Godolphin, the sire of all our famous racers.

The Horse and Tiger, at Rotherham, is said to refer to the
accident in a travelling menagerie which took place many years
ago, when the tiger broke loose and sprang upon the leaders of a
passing mail coach, although visitors from London generally sup-
pose the " tiger " to mean the spruce groom, or horse attendant,
coming from the country to London in such numbers. Even that
poor hack, the Manage Horse, is not forgotten, as he may be
seen going through his paces before a public-house in Cottles
Lane, Bath. In one of the turnings in Cannon Street, City, there
is an old sign of the Horse and Dorsiter, which is simply an
old rendering of the more common Pack Horse, formerly the
usual sign of a posting inn. No doubt the Frighted Horse,
which occurs in many places, belongs to this class of horses,—■
the expression " flight" being a corruption of freight. Some
publicans who, with their trade combine the calling of farrier,
set up the sign of the Horse and Farrier,—in Ireland ren-
dered as the Bleeding Horse. A Dutch farrier in the village
of Schagen, in the seventeenth century, put up the sign of the
White Horse, and wrote under it the following very philosophi-
cal verse :—

* A ms. of the sixteenth century, Bib. Ilarl. 2150, fol. 356, gives full particulars of
this/«ie and procession.

Dat men tie mensclien dat mee kon doen zy hoefden dan geen schoenen
te dragen."*

Tlie Horse and Stag, (Finningley, Nottinghamshire,) and the
Horse and Gate, are both hunting signs ; yet the last may have
been suggested by the Bull and Gate. The Horse and Trum-
pet is a very common sign, illustrating the war horse ; the
Horse and Chaise (or shaze, as it is spelled) in the Broad
Gentry, (sanctuary,) Westminster, is named in an advertisement in
the Postboy, Jan. 23-25, 1711 ; whilst the Chaise and Pair is
still to be seen at Northill, Colchester.

The Nag's Head—which only in one instance is varied by the
Horse's Head, namely, at Brampton in Cumberland—is a sign
that has become famous in history ; it is represented on the print
of the entry of Queen Marie de' Medici on her visit to her daughter
Henriette Marie, Queen of Charles I., being the sign of a notori-
ous tavern opposite the Cheapside Cross. It is suspended from
a long square beam, at the end of which a large crown of ever-
greens is seen. As none of the other houses are decked with
greens, this apparently represents the Bush.t This tavern was
the fictitious scene of the consecration of the Protestant bishops
at the accession of Queen Elizabeth in 1559. It was pretended
by the adversaries of the Protestant faith, that a certain number
of ecclesiastics, in a hurry to take possession of the vacant sees,
assembled here; where they were to undergo the ceremony from
Antony Kitchen, alias Dunstane, Bishop of Llandaff, a sort of
occasional Nonconformist, who had taken the oath of supremacy
to Elizabeth; Bonner, Bishop of London, (then confined in the
Tower,) hearing of it, sent his chaplain to Kitchen, threatening
him with excommunication in case he proceeded. On this the
prelate refused to perform the ceremony; whereupon, according
to Catholics, Parker and the other candidates, rather than defer
possession of their dioceses, determined to consecrate one another,
which they did, without any sort of scruple. Scorey began with
Parker, who instantly rose Archbishop of Canterbury. The re-
futation of this tale may be read in Strype's life of Archbishop
Parker. $

t Crowns exactly similar to this, made of box, tinsel, and coloured paper, are yearly
hung out by the fishmongers in Holland on the first arrival of the salt herring after the
cummer fishery.

Golden Square, it appears, was originally called Gelding Square,
from the sign of a neighbouring inn; but the inhabitants, indignant
at the vulgarity of the name, changed it to its present title.

Some publicans appear to be of opinion that the Grey Mare
is the best horse for their signboards; in Lancashire, especially,
this sign abounds. Others put up the Mare and Foal ; but
they are evidently not very well acquainted with the old ballad
of the " Mare and Foal that went to church," for there the Mare
says :—

" Oh ! to pray for those publicans I am very loath,
They fill their pots full of nothing but froth,
Some fill them half full, and others the whole;
May the devil go with them !—Amen, says the foal.

Besides the Mare and Foal, there is the Cow and Calf, which
is very common. A still more happy mother, the Cow and Two
Calves, was, in 1762, a sign near Chelsea Pond; whilst a touching
picture of paternal bliss might have been seen on a sign in Isling-
ton in the last century, viz., the Bull and Three Calves ; that
animal, doubtless, was placed there in the company of his offspring,
to illustrate the homely old proverb, " He that bulls the cow
must keep the calf." The Goat and Kid was a sign at Nor-
wich in 1711 ;* the Sow and Pigs is common ; and the Ewe and
Lamb occurs on a trades token of Hatton Garden in 1668, and
may still be seen in many places. A practical traveller in the
coaching days, staying at the Ewe and Lamb in Worcester, wrote
on a pane of glass in that inn the following very true remark :—
" If the people suck your ale no more
Than the poor Lamb, th' Ewe at the door,
You in some other place may dwell,
Or hang yourself for all you '11 sell."

The Cat and Kittens was, about 1823, a sign near East-
cheap ; it may have come from the publican's slang expression,
cat and kittens, as applied to the large and small pewter pots. In
the police courts it is not uncommon to hear that such and such
low persons have been " had up " for " cat and kitten sneaking,"
i.e., stealing quart and pint pots.

So much for quadrupeds. Happy families of birds are equally
abundant; there was the Sparrow's Nest in Drary Lane, of
which trades tokens are extant; the Throstle Nest, (a not in-
appropriate name for a free-and-easy singing club !) is the sign of

a public-house at Buglawton, near Congleton; the Martin's Nest
at Thornhill Bridge, Normanton; the Kite's Nest, (an unpro-
mising name for an inn, if there be anything in a name,) at
Stretton, in Herefordshire; and finally, the Brood Hen, or Hen
and Chickens, which latter is more common than any of the
former. Not improbably it originated with the sign of the
Pelican's Nest, to which several of the above-named nests may be
referred. Under the name of the " Brood Hen," it occurs on a
trades token of Battle Bridge, Southwark; as the " Hen and
Chickens," it was also known in the seventeenth century, for there
are tokens of John Sell " at y^e Hen and Chickens on Hammond's
Key;" it is likewise mentioned in the following daily occurrence
of the good old times :—

" Wednesday night last, Captain Lambert was stopt by three footpads
near the Hen and Chickens, between Peckham and Camberwell, and robbed
of a sum of money and his gold watch." *

The prevalence of this sign may be accounted for by the
kindred love for the barleycorn in the human and gallinaceous
tribes. It was also used as a sign by Paulus Sessius, a book-
seller of Prague, in 1606, who printed some of Kepler's astrono-
mical works; above his colophon, representing the hen and her
offspring, is the motto : " grana dat a fimo scrutans," the
application of which is not very obvious.

Speaking of birds' nests figuring as signs, we may mention that,
at the beginning of the present century, the small shops under
the tree at the corner of Milk Street, City, used to describe them-
selves " as under the Crow's Nest, Cheapside." An old-fashioned
snuff shop, still in existence, issued its tobacco papers in this
way, and the small bookshop there at present advertises itself as
" under the tree," although it was only very recently that the
crow ceased to visit and repair his nest here.

The Three Colts, in Bride Lane, 1652, is represented on a
trades token by three colts running; such a sign gave its name
to a street in Limehouse. The Horseshoe is a favourite in
combination with other subjects. Aubrey, in his " Miscellanies,"
p. 148, says :—

" It is a very common thing to nail horseshoes on the thresholds of doors,
which is to hinder the power of witches that enter into the house. Most
houses of the West End of London have the horseshoe on the threshold;
it should be a horseshoe that one finds."
Elsewhere he says :—
" Under the Porch of Staninfield Church in Suffolk, I saw a tile with a
« Lloyd's Evening Pot, Jan. 16-19, 1761.

horseshoo upon it placed there for this purpose, though one would imagine
that the holy water would have been sufficient."

" I am told there are many other similar instances. In Monmouth Street
(probably the part alluded to by Aubrey) many horseshoes nailed to the
threshold are still to be seen. In 1813 not less than 17 remained, nailed
against the steps of doors. The bawds of Amsterdam believed in 1687,
that a horseshoe which had either been found or stolen placed on the
hearth would bring good luck to their houses." *

The charm of the horseshoe lies in its being forked and present-
ing two points ; thus Herrick says :—

" Hang up hooks and sheers, to scare
Hence the hag that rides the mare;
Till they be all over wet
With the mire and the sweat,
This observ'd the manes shall be
Of your horses all knot-free."')-

.Any forked object, therefore, has the power to drive witches away.
Hence the children in Italy and Spain are generally seen with
a piece of forked coral (coral is particularly efficacious) hung
round their necks, whilst even the mules and other cattle are
armed with a small crescent formed by two boars' tusks, or else a
forked piece of wood, to avert the spells of what Macbeth calls
"the juggling fiends." Even the two forefingers held out apart
are thought sufficient to avert the evil eye, or prevent the
machinations of the lord and master of the nether world. Great
power also lies in the pentagram and Solomon's seal, which,
being composed of two triangles, present not less than six forked
ends. Both these figures are much used by the Moors, with the
same object in view as the horseshoe by western nations. In
this country, at the present day, scarcely a stable can be seen
where there is not a horseshoe nailed on the door or lintel; there
is one very conspicuous at the gate of Meux's brewery at the
corner of Tottenham Court Boad, and conspicuous on the horse
trappings of this establishment the shoe in polished brass may
be seen; in fact, it has become the trade-mark of the firm, the
same as the red triangle which distinguishes the pale ale of the
Burton brewers. The iron heels of workmen's boots are also
frequently seen fixed against the doorpost, or behind the door, of
houses of the lower classes.

The Horseshoe, by itself, is comparatively a rare sign. There
is a Horseshoe Tavern, mentioned by Aubrey in connexion with

one of those reckless deeds of bloodshed so common in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries :—

"Captain Carlo Fantom, a Croatian, spake 13 languages, was a captain
under the Erie of Essex. He had a world of cuts about his body with
Bwords and was very quarrelsome and a great ravisher. He met coming
late at night out of the Horseshoe Tavern in Drury Lane with a lieutenant of
Colonel Rossiter, who had great jingling spurs on. Said he, the noise of
your spurrs doe offend me, you must come over the kennel and give me
satisfaction. They drew and passed at each other, and the lieutenant was
runne through and died in an hour or two, and it was not known who
killed him." *

This tavern was still in existence in 1692, as appears from the
deposition of one of the witnesses in the murder of Mountfort
the actor by Captain Hill, who, with his accomplice, Lord
Mohun, whilst they were laying in Avait for Mrs Bracegirdle,
drank a bottle of canary which had been bought at the Horse-
shoe Tavern.

The Three Horseshoes are not uncommon ; and the single
shoe may be met with in many combinations, arising from the
old belief in its lucky influences : thus the Horse and Horse-
shoe was the sign of William Warden, at Dover, in the seven-
teenth century, as appears from his token. The Sun and Horse-
shoe is still a public-house sign in Great Tichfield Street, and the
Magpie and Horseshoe may be seen carved in wood in Fetter-
lane ; the magpie is perched within the horseshoe, a bunch of grapes
being suspended from it. The Horns and Horseshoe is repre-
sented on the token of William Grainge in Gutterlane, 1666,—a
horseshoe within a pair of antlers. The Lion and Horseshoe
appears in the following advertisement of a shooting match :—

U a plate to be (sic) shot for, at twenty-five guineas value, in the
Artillerie Ground near Moorfields, No gun to exceed four feet and a half
in the barrel, the distance to bo 200 yards, and but one shot a piece, the
nearest the centre to win. No person that shoots to be less than one
guinea, but as many more as he pleases to compleat the sum. The money
to be put in the hands of Mr Jones, at the Lion and Horseshoe Tavern, or
Mr Turog, gunsmith in the Minories. Note, that if any gentleman has a
mind to shoot for the whole, there is a person will snoot with him fcr
it, being left out by mistake in our last." +

The Hoop and Horseshoe on Towerhill, was formerly called
the Horseshoe. This, like every old tavern, has its murder to
record :—

Jolin Buttler, a hackney coachman, at the Horse Shoe Tavern on Tower
Hill, without any other provocation 'tis said, hut refusing to carry him
and another gentleman pertaining to the law, from thence to Temple Bar
for Is. 6d. Amongst the many pranks that he hath played in other
countries 'tis believed this is one of the very worst. He is a very great vindi-
cator of the Salamanca Doctor. He is a lusty, tall man, squint eyed, thin

people would do well if they can to apprehend him that he may be
brought to justice." *

The Horseshoe and Crown is .named in the following hand-
bill, which is too characteristic to curtail:—

" Daughter of a Seventh daughter.
Removed to the sign of the Horseshoe and Crown in Castle Street,

near the 7 dlals in st glles.
Liveth a Gentlewoman, the Daughter of a Seventh Daughter, who far exceeds
all her sex, her business being very great amongst the quality, has now
thought fit to make herself known to the benefit of the Publiclc.

She resolves these questions following :—As to Life whether happy or
unhappy? the best time of it past or to come ? Servants or lodgers if
honest or not ? To marry the person desir'd or who they shall marry and
when ? A Friend if real or not ? a Woman with child or not, or ever
likely to have any ! A friend absent dead or alive, if alive when return ?
Journey by Land or voyages by Sea, the Success thereof. Lawsuits, which
shall gain the better ? She also Interprets Dreams. These and all other
lawful questions which for brevity sake are omitted, she fully resolves.

These quack " gentlewomen " were as much the order of that
day as the broken-down clergymen who advertise medicines for
nervous and rheumatic complaints are in our own time. Heywood,
in his play of " the Wise Woman of Hogsden," enumerates the
following occupations as their perquisites :—

" Let me see how many trades have I to live by: First, I am a wise
woman and a fortuneteller, and under that I deale in physick and fore-
speaking, in palmestry and things lost. Next I undertake to cure madd
folks; Then I keepe gentlewomen lodgers, to furnish such chambers as I
let out by the night; Then I am provided for bringing young wenches to
bed ; and for a need you see I can play the matchmaker,"

Generally they proclaimed themselves the seventh daughter of
a seventh daughter, a relationship that is still thought to be ac-
companied by powers not vouchsafed to ordinary mortals. This
belief in the virtue of the number 7 doubtless originated from
the Old Testament, where that number seems in greater favour
than all others. The books of Moses are full of references to it;
the creation cf the world in 7 days, sevenfold vengeance on who-

Boever slayeth Cain; Noah, had to take 7 males and females of
every clean beast, 7 males and females of every fowl of the air,
for in 7 days it would begin to rain; the ark rested in the 7th
month, &c., &c. From this the middle ages borrowed their pre-
dilection for this number, and its cabalistic power.*

Horned cattle are just as common as horses on the signboards;
the Bull, in particular, is a favourite with the nation, whether as
a namesake—so much so, indeed, as to have given it a popular
name abroad—or as the source of the favourite roast-beef, or
from the ancient sport of bull-baiting, it is difficult to say. From
Ben Jonson we gather that there was another reason which some-
times dictated the choice of this animal on the signboard. In the
"Alchymist" he introduces a shopkeeper, who wishes the learned
Doctor to provide him with a sign.

Sub. No, that is stale and common:
A Townsman bom in Taurus gives the Bull
Or the Bull's head : in A ries, the Ram,
A poor device."—Alchymist, a. ii. s. i.

Newton dates a letter from " the Bull," at Shoreditch, Septem-
ber 1693; it is addressed to Locke, and a curious letter it is,
containing an apology for having wished Locke dead.

The Bull is generally represented in his natural colour, black,
white, grey, pied, " spangled " (in Yorkshire,) and only rarely red
and blue ; yet these two last colours may simply imply the natural
red, brown, and other common hues, for newspapers of the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries often contain advertisements
about blue dogs ; and whatever shade that was intended for, it
may certainly with as much justice be applied to a bull as to a
dog. The Chained Bull at North Allerton, Leeds, and the Bull
and Chain, Langwortligate, Lincoln, doubtless refer to the old
cruel pastime of bull-baitings. Occasionally we meet also with a
Wild Bull, as at Gisburn, near Skipton.

Leigh Hunt observes :—" London has a modern look to the
inhabitants ; but persons who come from the country find as odd
and remote-looking things in it as the Londoners do in York and
Chester; and among these are a variety of old inns with corri-
dors running round the yard. They are well worth a glance from
anybody who has a respect for old times." Such a one is the

* Hence we have 7 ages, 7 churches, 7 champions, 7 penitential psalms, 7 sleepers of
Ephesus, 7 years' apprenticeship, 7 cardinal virtues and deadly sins, 7 make a gallows-
ful, boots of 7 leagues, 7 liberal arts, and innumerable other instances.

Bull's Inn in Bisliopsgate Street, where formerly plays were acted
by Burbadge, Shakespeare's fellow-comedian, and Tarlton in good
Queen Bess's time amused our forefathers on summers' afternoons
with his quaint jokes and comic parts.* This inn is also cele-
brated as the London house of the famous Hobson, (Hobson's
choice,) the rich Cambridge carrier. Here a. painted figure of
him was to be seen in the eighteenth century, with a hundred
pound bag under his arm, on which was the following inscrip-
tion :—" The fruitful Mother of a Hundred More." + At the
Bull public-house on Towerhill, Thomas Otway, the play Avriter,
died of want at the age of 33, on the 14tli of April 1685,
having retired to this house to escape his creditors. %

The Bull, at Ware, obtained a celebrity by its enormous bed.
Taylor, the Water poet, in 1636 remarked, " Ware is a great
thorowfare, and hath many fair innes, with very large bedding,
and one high and mighty Bed called the Great Bed of Ware; a
man may seeke all England over and not find a married couple
that can fill it." Hares, in his " Glossary," quotes Chauncey's,
Hertfordshire; for a story of twelve married couple who, laid
together in the bed, each pair being so placed at the top and
bottom of the bed, that the head of one pair was at the feet of
another. Shakespeare alludes to it in " Twelfth Night," where Sir
Toby Belch in his drunken humour advises Ague cheek to write :
" as many lies as will He in this sheet of paper, though the sheet
were big enough for the Bed of Ware in England," (a. iii. s. 2.)
Where the " high and mighty Bed " was located, seems a mooted
point; some say at the Bull, others at the Crown, and Clutter-
buck places it at the Saracen's Head, where there is or was a bed
of some twelve feet square, in an Elizabethan style of carved oak,
but with the date 1463 painted on the back. Tradition says that
it was the bed of Warwick the king-maker, and was bought at a
sale of furniture at Ware Park. Recently it has been sold, and
Charles Dickens is now said to be its possessor.

The Bull Inn at Buckland, near Dover, deserves to be men-
tioned for its comical caution to the customers :

♦ Collier's Annals, vol. iii. p. 271, and Halliwell's Introduction to Twlton's Jests,
p. 16.

i " He went about almost naked in the rage of hunger," says Dr Johnson, " and finding
a gentleman in a neighbouring coffeehouse asked him for a shilling ; and Otway goin?
uway bought a roll and was choked with the first mouthful."

The famous Old Pied Bull Inn, Islington, was pulled down
circa 1827, the house having existed from the time of Queen
Elizabeth. The parlour retained its original character to the
last. There was a chimney-piece containing Hope, Faith, and
Charity, with a border of cherubims, fruit and foliage, whilst the
ceiling in stucco represented the five senses. Sir Walter Raleigh
is said to have been an inhabitant of this house.

" This conjecture is somewhat strengthened by the nature of the border
[in a stained glass window,] which was composed of seahorses, mermaids,
parrots, &c., forming a most appropriate allusion to the character of Raleigh,
as a great navigator, and discoverer of unknown countries ; and the bunch
of green leaves [two seahorses supporting a bunch of green leaves,] has
been generally asserted to represent the tobacco plant, of which he is said
to have been the first importer into this country."*

At what time the house was converted into an inn does not
appear. The sign of the Pied Bull in stone relief, on the front
towards the south, bore the date 1730, which was probably the
year this addition was made to the building. That it was an inn
in 1665, appears from the following episode of the Plague-time :

" I remember one citizen, who, having thus broken out of his house in
Aldersgate Street, or there about, went along the road to Islington. Ha
attempted to have gone in at the Angel Inn, and after that at the White
Horse, two inns known still by the same signs, but was refused; after
which he came to the Pied Bull, an inn also still continuing the same
sign. He asked them for lodging for one night only, pretending to be
going into Lincolnshire, and assuring them of his being very sound, and
free from the infection, which also at that time had not reached much that
way. They told him they had no lodging, that they could spare but one
bed up in the garret, and that they could spare that bed but for one night,
some drovers being expected the next day with cattle; so if he would
accept of that lodging, he might have it, which he did; so a servant was
sent up with a candle with him, to show him the room. He was very well
dressed, and looked like a person not used to lie in a garret; and when he
came to the room he fetched a deep sigh, and said to the servant, ' I have
seldom lain in such a lodging as this ;' however, the servant assured him
again that they had no better. ' Well,' says he, ' I must make shift; this is
a dreadful time, but it is but for one niglit.' So he sat down upon the bed-
side, and bade the maid, I think it was, fetch him up a pint of warm ale.
Accordingly the servant went for the ale; but some hurry in the house,
which perhaps employed her otherwise, put it out of her head, and she
went up no more to him. The next morning, seeing no appearance of the
gentleman, somebody in the house asked the servant that had showed him
up stairs, what was become of him. She started; ' alas,' said she, ' I
never thought more of him ; he bade me carry him some warm ale, but I

forgot.' Upon which, not the maid, but some other person was sent up to
eee after him, who coming into the room found him stark dead, and almost
cold, stretched out across the bed. His clothes were pulled off, his jaw
fallen, his eyes open in a most frightful posture, the rug of the bed being
grasped hard in one of his hands; so that it was plain he died soon after
the maid left him; and that it is probable, had she gone up with the ale,
she had found him dead in a few minutes after he sat down upon the bed.
The alarm was great in the house, as any one may suppose, they having
been free from the distemper till that disaster; which bringing the infec-
tion to the house, spread it immediately to other houses round about it. I
do not remember how many died in the house itself, but I think the maid-
servant who went up first with him, fell presently ill by the fright, and
several others; for whereas there died but two in Islington of the plague
the week before, there died seventeen the week after, whereof fourteen were
of the plague. This was in the week from the 11th of July to the 18th."*

The Red Bull was the sign of another of the inn-playhouses
in Shakespeare's time ; but, like the Fortune, mostly frequented
by the meaner sorts of people. It was situated in Woodbridge
Street,t Clerkenwell, (its site is still called Bed Bull Yard,) and is
supposed to have been erected in the early part of Queen Eliza-
beth's reign. At all events, it was one of the seventeen play-
houses that arose in London between that period and the reign
of Charles I. Edward Alleyn the actor, founder of Dulwich
College, says in a memorandum, Oct. 3, 1617, "went to the
Bed Bull and received for the ' Younger Brother ' [a play], but
£3-6-4." Killigrew's troop of the king's players performed in
it until the theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-fields opened. The place was
then abandoned to exhibitions of gladiators and feats of strength.
The names of the principal theatres at the time of the Common-
wealth occur in the following puritanical curse :—

Wherein (quoth he) reigns a whole world of vice,
Had been consumed, the Phenix burnt to ashes,
The Fortune whipp'd for a blind—Blaclcfriars,
He wonders how it 'scaped demolishing
I' the time of Reformation; lastly he wished
The Bull might cross the Thames to the Bear-gardens,
And there be soundly baited." +
The Bull's Head is often seen instead of the Bull; its origin
may be from the butchers' arms, which are azure two axes salter-
wise, arg. between two roses arg. as many bulls' heads couped of

t There is still a Bull's IIkad public-house in this street, built on the site of the house
of Thomas Britton, the Musical Small-Coal Man, where he gave his celebrated concert«
for a period of 30 years, powdered duchesses and fastidious ladies of the Court tripping
through his coal repository, and climbing up a ladder to assist at these famous meetings.

the second attired or, etc.; in Holland a carved bull's head is
always a leather-seller's sign. At the Bull's Head, in Clare-
market, the artists' club used to meet, of which Hogarth was a
member, and Dr Ratcliffe a constant visitor. The Bull's Head
was already used in signs three hundred years ago, as we may
see from an entry in Machyn's Diary, which does not say much
for the morality of the period :—

"The sij day of June (1560) dyd ryd in a care* abowt London ij men
a,nd iij women; one man, for he was the bowd and to brynge women unto
strangers; and on women was the wyff of the Bell in Gracyous Strett;
and a-nodur the wyff of the Bull-lied besyd London Stone, and boyth were
bawdes and hores and the thodur man and the woman were brodur and
syster and wher taken nakyd together."

little dark brown Hair, a scar in his left cheek under his eye,
wears a canvass jacket lined with red and canvass Breeches, with a red cap,
run away from his Master the 7th instant. Whoever secures him and
gives Notice to Mr Henry Davis, Waxchandler at the Cow's Face in Miles
Lane in Canon Street, shall have a Guinea Reward, and reasonable charges."
—London Gazette, Jan. 13-17, 1697.

The Bull's Neck is a sign at Penny Hill, Holbeach, and the
Buffalo Head is common in many places. The latter was the
sign of one of the coffee-houses near the Exchange, during the
South Sea bubble, and was hung up over the head quarters of
a company for a grand dispensary, capital £3,000,000. The
rage for joint-stock companies had come to such a pitch at that
period, that an advertisement appeared stating :—
" rjlHIS day the 8th instant at Sam's Coffeehouse behind the Royal

JL Exchange, at three in the afternoon, a book will be opened, for
entering into a joint copartnership for carrying on a thing that will turn
to the advantage of those concerned."

Not less than £28,000,000 were asked for at that period to enter
upon various speculations. At the Buffalo Head Tavern, Charing
Cross, Duncan Campbell, the deaf and dumb fortune-teller, used
at one time to deliver his oracles. He is immortalised in the
Spectator, No. 474, where, in answer to the letter of a lady
inquiring about Duncan's address, a note is entered, " That the

* This riding in a cart was a very ancient punishment, probably introduced by the
Normans ; in the romance of Lancelot du Lac the cart is mentioned with the following re-
marks :—" At that time a cart was considered so vile that nobody ever went into it, but
those who had lost all honour and good name ; and when a person was to be degraded,
he was made to ride in a cart, for a cart served at that time for the same purpose as the
pillory now-a-days, and each town had only one of them." In the old English laws it
was called the Turnbrill; thus Edward I. in 1240 enacted a law by which millers stealing
corn were to be chastised by the Turnbrill.—See Fabian's Chronicles, 2 Edw. I.

Inspector I employ about "Wonders, inquire at the Golden Lyon,
opposite the Halfmoon Tavern, Drury Lane, into Ihe merit of
this silent sage," ¹

Among the combinations in which the Bull is met with on
signboards, the Bull and Dog is one of the most common,
derived, like the Bull and Chain, from the favourite sport of
bull-baiting, which amusement is described at full length and in
brilliant colours by Misson, in his " Travels." A comical variation
of this is the Bull and Bitch at Husborn Crawley, Woburn.
In the sign of the Bull and Butcher,t the bull is placed in
still worse company j this was very forcibly expressed on the
sign of a butcher in Amsterdam, who was represented with a
glass of wine in his hand, standing between two calves, and
pledging them with the cruel words,—

The Bull and Magpie, which occurs at Boston, has been
explained as meaning the Pie, and the Bull of the Romish

Church ; but this looks very like a cock-and-bull story. As
" some help to thicken other proofs that also demonstrate thinly,"
as Iago has it, it may be asked whether this might not have
arisen out of the sign of the " Pied Bull," thus leading to the
" Pie and Bull," or the "Bull and Magpie the transition seems
simple and easy enough ; but should this not be considered
satisfactory, since we have the " Cock and Bull," and the " Cock
and Pie," we may by a sort of rule of three manœuvre obtain the
Bull and Pie or Magpie. See under Bird Signs.

The Black Bull and Looking-Glass is named in an adver-
tisement in the original edition of the Spectator, No. lxviii, as
a house in Cornhill. It was evidently a combination of two
signs.

Still more puzzling is the Bull and Bedpost; but as the
actual use of this sign as a house decoration remains to be corro-
borated, we may dismiss it with the remark, that the Bedpost, in
all probability, was a jocular name for the stake to which the

1 For the chequered life of this strange individual, see Caulfield's Memoirs of Re-
markable Persons, vol. ii. From the Original Weekly Journal, Sept. 13, 1718, w«
gather the information that, "Last week Dr Campbell, the famous dumb fortune-teller,
was married to a gentlewoman of considerable fortune in Shadwell."

t A curious story of Bulleyn Butchered, the sign said to have been put up in commemo-
ration of Henry VIII.'s unfortunate queen, and its corruj ted form of Bull and Butcher,
will be found in the first division of this work. Vide Historical Signs.

bull was tied when being baited, in allusion to the stout stick for«
nierly used in bed-making to smooth the clothes in their place. The
Bull and Swan, High Street, Stamford, may be heraldic, both
these animals being badges of the York family; but the Swan
in all probability was the first sign, the Bull being added 011
account of the singular custom of Bull Bunning, which yearly
took place, both at Tamworth and Stamford, on St John's eve.
The Bull in the Pound, is the Bull punished for trespass, and
put in the pound or pinfold; whilst the Bull and Oak at
Wicker, Sheffield, (at Market Bosworth there is a house with the
sign of the Bull in the Oak,) may have originated from the
sign of "the Buir' being suspended from an oak tree, or referring to
an oak tree standing near the house. Bulls are often tied to trees or
posts in pastures, and this also may have given rise to the sign.

Visitors to the Isle of Wight will have noticed the word
Bugle frequently inscribed under the picture of a Bull on the
inn signboards there. Bugle is a provincial name in those parts
for a wild bull. It is an old English word, and is used by Sir
John Mandeville ; "homes of grete oxen, or of bugles, or of kygn."
It was still current in the seventeenth century, for Bandle
Holme, 1688, classes the "Bugle, or Bubalus," amongst "the
savage beasts of the greater sort." The horns of this animal,
used as a musical instrument, gave a name to the Buglehorn.
It may be remarked that the term bugle doubtless came, in old
times, with other Gallicisms common to Sussex and Hampshire,
from across the Channel, where the word bugle is still preserved
in the verb beugler, the common French word for the lowing of
cattle.

The Ox is rather uncommon; the Durham Ox and the
Craven Ox, two famous breeds, are sometimes met with; then
there is a Craven Ox Head, in George Street, York, and a
Grey Ox at Brighouse, in the West Biding. The Ox and Com-
passes at Poulton Swindon, in Cumberland, is evidently a jocular
imitation of the London sign of the Goat and Compasses.

The Cow is more common; its favourite colours being Bed,
Brown, White, Spotted, Spangled, &c. The Bed Cow occurs
as a sign near Holborn Conduit, on the seventeenth century
trades tokens. It also gave a name to the alehouse in Anchor
and Hope Lane, Wapping, in which Lord Chancellor Jeffries was
taken prisoner, disguised as a sailor, and trying to escape to the
Continent after the abdication of James II. Thinking himself

Bafe in this neighbourhood, he was looking out of the window to
while the time away, when he was recognised by a clerk who
bore him a grudge, and at once betrayed him. An heraldic
origin is not necessary for this colour of the cow.

" Cows (I mean that whole species of horned beasts) are more commonly
black than Red in England. 'Tis for this reason that they have a greater
value for Red Cow's Milk than for Black Cow's Milk. Whereas in France
we esteem the Black Cow's Milk, because Red Cows are more common
with us." *

Speaking of the Green Walk, St James's Park, Tom Brown says :
" There were a cluster of senators talking of state affairs, and the
price of corn and cattle, and were disturbed with the noisy Milk
folk crying: A can of Milk, Ladies; a can of Red Cow's Milk,
sirs 11 The preference for the Red Cow's milk may, however,
have a more remote origin, namely, from the ordinance of the
law contained in Numbers xix. 2, where a red heifer is enjoined
to be sacrificed as a purification for sin. Hence, Red Cow's
milk is particularly recommended in old prescriptions and
panacea, as, for instance, in the following receipt of " a Cock
water for a Consumption and Cough of the Lunges : "—

" Take a running cock and pull him alive, then kill him and cutt him in
pieces and take out his in trail es and wipe him cleane, breake the bones, then
put him into an ordinary still with a pottle of sack and a pottle of Red
Cow's MUk," &c., &c.J

The Bed Cow, in Bow Street, was the sign of a noted tavern,
(afterwards called the Bed Rose,) which stood at the corner
of Bose Alley. It was when going home from this tavern
that Dryden was cudgelled by bravoes, hired by Lord Bochester,
for some remarks in Lord Mulgrave's Essay on Satire, in the
composition of which Dryden had assisted his lordship. The
king offered £50, and a free pardon, but "Black Will with a
cudgel," to whom Lord Rochester had intrusted the task of
thrashing the laureate, showed that there was such a thing as
honour amongst rogues, and did not betray him for the king's
£50. In all probability, however, he received a larger sum from
his lordship. In Dryden's old age, Pope, then a boy, came here
to look at the great man whose fame in after years he was to

} From a MS., entitled "Medycine Boke" of one Samson Jones, doctor of Bett*-s,
Monmouthshire, 1650-90 ; a note on the flyleaf says, " I had this book from Mr Owen of
Bettws, Monmouth. lie assured me he knew for a fact it was the receipt bo ke of
Bamson Jones, a good doctor of that parish, a hundred and fifty years agone." It con-
tains some extraordinary prescriptions. Surely if Master Samson Jones made use of
them, the <sarth must very quickly have hidden his blunders.

equal if not to eclipse. This tavern was the famous mart for
libels and lampoons; one Julyan, a drunken dissipated " secretary
to the Muses," as he calls himself, was the chief manufacturer.

Near Marlborough, Wilts, there is an alehouse having the sign
of the Red Cow, with the following rhyme :—

The Heifer is to be met with sometimes in Yorkshire, but always
with some local adjective, as the Craven Heifer ; the Aires-
dale Heifer, the Durham Heifer, &c. The Pied Calf at
Spalding seems to present a solitary instance of a calf 011 the sign-
board. Neither are sheep very common ; the Bam was a noted
carrier's inn in the seventeenth century, in West Smithfield, and,
indeed, continued as such until the recent destruction of this old
cattle market. The crest of the cloth-workers was a mount
vert, thereon a ram statant; so that this sign in that locality was
very well chosen, being in honour of the cattle-dealers on ordinary
occasions, and serving for the cloth-workers in the time of Bar-
tholomew fair, for whose benefit the fair was founded. In 16C8
there were two Ram's Head inns in Fenchurch Street; one of
them was a carriers' inn for the Essex people. The Ram's Skin,
which occurs at Spalding in Lincolnshire, is another name for the
Fleece. The Black Tup figures on a sign near Rochdale, per-
haps in allusion to the black ram frail matrons used to bestride
in the old custom of Free Bench, thus related in Jacob's " Law
Dictionary:"—

" In the manors of East and West-Enbourne in the Co. of Berks, and
the manor of Torre in Devonshire, and other parts of the West of England,
there is a custom, that when a Copyhold Tenant dies his widow shall have
' Free Bench' in all his customary lands ' dum sola et casta fuerit,' but if
she commits incontinency she forfeits her estate. Yet nevertheless on her
coming into the court of the manor, riding backwards on a black ram with
his tai'l in her hand and saying the words following, the steward is bound
by the custom to readmit her to her free bench; The words are these :—■

Therefore pray, Mr Steward, let me have my land again.
This is a kind of penance among jocular tenures to purge the offence."

Though the ram is rarely, and the sheep never seen on the
signboard, the Lamb is not uncommon. In 1586, it was the
sign of Abraham Yeale, (agreeably to the punning practices of the
time, one would have expected the Calf from him,) a bookseller
in St Paul's Churchyard, and in 1728 of Thomas Cox, also a
bookseller, under the Royal Exchange in Cornhill. Doubtless,
these signs had originally represented the Lamb with the flag of
the Apocalypse. The sign was used by other trades : in 1673, it
was the distinctive ornament of a confectioner at the lower end
of Gracechurch Street f and an instance of an alehouse is found
in the following advertisement, which at the same time affords us
a peep at the homely proceedings of the Admiralty in those
days :—

JL Frigate Boreas, who were on Board her at the taking the Ship
Vrow Jacoba and Briggantyne Leon, that they will be paid their respective
Shares of said Prizes, on Wednesday the Eight of April next, at the sign
of the Lamb, in Abchurch Lane. Paying will begin at Eight o'clock of the
forenoon of the said Day." t

Think of that, ye clerks in Her Majesty's offices, eight o'clock in
the forenoon !

A few combinations also occur, as the Lamb and Breeches,
the sign of Churches & Christie, leather-sellers and breeches-
makers, on London Bridge, in the last century ; this was a sign
like that of the Hat and Beaver, in which the living animal,
and the article manufactured from its skin, were juxtaposed.
The Lamb and Crown was a sort of colonial or emigration office
in Threadneedle Street, near the Southsea House in 1759 J At
the present day there is a Lamb and Lark at Keynsham, Bath,
and in Printing House Lane, Blackfriars. It is a typical repre-
sentation of the proverb, " Go to bed with the Lamb and rise
with the Lark.¹' -

The Lamb and Hare figure together in Portsmouth Place,
Lower Kennington Lane. The Lamb and Still is a combina
tion intimating the sale of distilled waters. It was the sign of a
house in Compton Street, in 1711, which had the honour to lodge

Mr Fert, a dancing-master, and author of a work called " A Dis-
course or Explanation of the ground of Dancing."¹

If we except the heraldic Blue Boar, and the Sow and Pigs,
we shall find no other pigs on the signboard but the Pig and
Whistle,+ the Little Pig at Amblecote, Stourbridge, and
the Hog in the Pound in Oxford Street, jocularly called the
gentleman in trouble. This latter was formerly a starting-
point for coaches, and became notorious through the crime
committed by its landlady, Catherine Hayes. Having formed
an illicit connexion, she was induced by her paramour to murder
her husband, after which she cut off his head, put it in a bag,
and threw it in the Thames. It floated ashore, and was put on
a pole in St Margaret's Churchyard, Westminster, in order that
it might be recognised; and by this primitive means the murder-
ess was detected. The man was hanged, and Catherine burnt
ulive at Tyburn in 1726.

The Goat is not very common; there was a Goat Inn at
Hammersmith, taken clown in 1826, and rebuilt under the name
of Suspension Bridge Inn ; up to that time, the sign, and the
woodwork from which it was suspended, used to extend across
the street. The Goat in Boots, on the Fulham Boad,+ was in
old times called simply "the Goat." Besides these, there is a
Black Goat in Lincoln, and a Grey Goat in Penrith and Car-
lisle, and a few others without addition of colour.

A walk through town on a fine Sunday morning will at once
convince anybody of the good understanding that exists between
the Englishmen and the canine species, " l'ami de l'homme " as
Buffon calls the dog. From every lane and alley in the lower
parts of the town sally forth men and youths in clean moleskins
and corduroys, each invariably accompanied by some yelping cur,
the least of whose faults is to be ugly. It is no wonder, then,
that the Dog should be of frequent occurrence on the signboard.
Pepys mentions a tavern of that name in Westminster, where,
about the time of the Restoration, he used occasionally to show
his merry face. In 1768, the author of the "Art of Living in
London," recommended the Dog in Holywell Street for a quiet
good dinner :—

" Where disencumbered of all form or show,
We to a moment might or sit or go ;
Eat what the palate recommends us hot,
Yet not considered as a useless guest,"
* Postman, Feb. 13,1711. f See under Humorous Signs, further on.

For some unknown reason, the Black Dog seems the greatest
favourite; perhaps the English terrier is meant by it, a dog who
" once had its day," as the Scotch terrier appears to have it now.
In the seventeenth century, there was a Black DogTavern near New-
gate ; a house of old standing, of which trades tokens are yet extant,

Mr Akerman, in his work on " Trades Tokens issued between
1648-1672," makes a mistake in surmising that Luke Hut-
ton's "Black Dog of Newgate" had anything to do with this
tavern. That poem is simply against "coney-catchers," i.e., roguish
detectives or informers of the Jonathan Wild stamp, and even
worse. Such a one is impersonificated under the name of the
Black Dog of Newgate, because the coney-catchers used to hunt
people down threatening them with Newgate. This Black Dog
may have derived its name from the canine spectre that still
frightens the ignorant and fearful in our rural districts, just as
the terrible Dun Cow, and the Lambton Worm were the terror
of the people in old times. Near Lyme Begis, Dorset, there is
an alehouse which has this black fiend in all his ancient ugliness
painted over the door. Its adoption there arose from a legend
that the spectral black dog used to haunt at nights the kitchen
fire of a neighbouring farm-house, formerly a Boyalist mansion,
destroyed by Cromwell's troops. The dog would sit opposite the
farmer; but one night, a little extra liquor gave the man additional
courage, and he struck at the dog, intending to rid himself of the
horrid thing. Away, however, flew the dog and the farmer after
him, from one room to another, until it sprang through the roof,
and was seen no more that night. In mending the hole, a lot of
money fell down, which, of course, was connected in some way or
other with the dog's strange visit. Near the house is a lane still
called Dog Lane, which is now the favourite walk of the black dog,
and to this genius loci the sign is dedicated.

There was another notorious Black Dog next door to the Devil
Tavern, the shop of Abel Roper, who printed and distributed the
majority of the pamphlets and ballads that paved the way for the
Bevolution of 1688. He was the original printer of the famous
ballad of " Lillibulero." Whatever pleased the public, whether
good or bad, he was ajways ready to provide and send into the
world; he was also the editor of the newspaper called the Postman.
In the beginning of the reign of Charles II. he lived " at tho
Sun, over against St Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street."*

Tokens are extant of the Pied Dog in Seething Lane, 1667,
a sign still frequently to be seen at the present day.

We very rarely meet with the Blue Dog ; but there is an ex-
ample in Grantham, and the sign occurs in a few other places.

Sometimes a peculiar breed is chosen, as the Setter Dog at
Bedford, Notts ; the Pointer at Peckfield, Milford Junction ;
the Beagle at Shute, Axminster, and the Merry Harriers,
common in hunting counties. Equally common is the Grey-
hound, particularly in the North country, where coursing has
long been a favourite sport. In the seventeenth century, it was
the sign of a fashionable tavern in London, for in a sprightly
ballad in the Roxburgh collection,* a young gallant is introduced
who is going to forsake his evil courses and turn over a new leaf.
He gives a last farewell to all his doxies :

and remembers all those delightfully wicked places he used to
haunt formerly, and amongst them :

" Farewell unto the Greyhound,
And farewell to the Bell,
And farewell to my landlady,
"Whom I do love so well."

" The viij day of January (1557) dyd ryd in a care in Westmynster the
wyff of the Grayliound, and the Abbot's servand was wypyd [whipped] be-
cawse that he toke her owt of the car, at the care h—e, [the back of the
cart.] "

—another example that the course of true love never does run
smooth, even though it runs upon wheels.

The White Greyhound was the sign of John Harrison, in St
Paul's Churchyard, a bookseller who published some of Shakes-
peare's early works, as "The Rape of Lucrece," "Venus and
Adonis," &c. White greyhounds, or rather silver greyhounds,
were, until eighty years ago, the badges worn on the arm by
king's messengers.

* Tho Merry Man's Resolution, or his last farewell to his former acquaintance. Box
Ball. iii. f. 242.

Tlie sign of the Black Greyhound is also of frequent occur-
rence, and at Grantham there is a Blue Greyhound. Indeed,
although Lincoln was formerly famous for green, it seems also
to have taken a great fancy to blue, for there we find the Blue
Bull and the Blue Cow, the Blue Dog, the Blue Fox, (all in
Colsterworth,) besides the Blue Pig, the Blue Bam, in Grantham,
which town can also boast of the unique sign of the Blue Man.

The Talbot—old and now almost obsolete term for a large kind
of hunting dog—has acquired a literary celebrity from having
been substituted for the old sign of the Tabard Inn in Southwark,
whence the pilgrims started on their merry journey to Canter-
bury. In 1606, we find the Talbot the sign of Thomas Man,
bookseller in Paternoster Bow, which, however, at that time, was
not such a book market as now, being occupied by " eminent
mercers, silkmen, and lacemen; and their shops were so resorted
unto by the nobility and gentry in their coaches, that ofttimes
the street was so stopped up, that there was no passage for foot
passengers."* So it continued until the fire; and it was only in
the middle of the last century that the booksellers began to make
their appearance in it.

A Talbot Inn in the Strand is mentioned in the following very
quaint advertisement :—

JL hounds many times, rising six years and no more; moves as well as
most creatures upon earth, as good a road mare as any in 10 counties and
10 to that; trots at a confounded pace; is from the country, and her owner
will sell her for nine guineas; if some folks had her she would fetch near
three times the money. I have no acquaintance, and money I want, and a
service in a shop to carry parcels or to be in a gentleman's service. My
father gave me the mare to get rid of me, and to try my fortune in Lon-
don, and I am just come from Shropshire, and I can be recommended, as I
Buppose nobody takes servants without, and have a voucher for my mare,
Enquire for me at the Talbot Inn near the New Church at the Strand.

At the foot of Burdley's Hill, Gloucester, there is a Talbot Inn,
which has a sign painted with two inscriptions"; at the side where
the road is level, it says :—

A publican at Odell has cliosen the Mad Dog for a sign, evi.
dently his beau ideal of a " jolly fellow," one having a great hor-
ror for water; another at Pidley, Hunts, not to be behindhand
with the Mad Dog, has put up the Mad Oat. We have as odd
and apparently as unmeaning a sign in Tabernacle Walk, namely,
the Barking Dogs.

All the combinations of the sign of the Dog point towards
sports, as the Dog and Bear, which was very common in the
seventeenth century, when bear-baiting was in fashion, and kings
and queens countenanced it by their presence. The Dog and
Duck refers to another barbarous pastime, when ducks were
hunted in a pond by spaniels. The pleasure consisted in seeing
the duck make her escape from the dog's mouth by diving. It
was much practised in the neighbourhood of London till the be-
ginning of this century, when it went out of fashion, as most of
the ponds were gradually built over. One of the most notorious
Dog and Duck Taverns stood in St George's Fields, where Beth-
lem Hospital now stands; it had a long room with tables and
benches, and an organ * at the upper end. In its last days it waa
frequented only by thieves, prostitutes, and other low characters.
After a long and wicked existence it was at length put down by
the magistrates. In the seventeenth century it was famous for
springs, but already in Garrick's time its reputation was very
equivocal:

" St George's Fields, with taste and fashion struck,
Display Arcadia at the Dog and Duck,
And Drury Misses, here in tawdry pride.
Are there " Pastoras " by the fountain side ;
To frowsy bowers they reel through midnight damps,
With Fauns half drunk and Dryads breaking lamps." +

In an unpublished paper from the MS. collection of William
Hone, we have a mention of it :—

" It was a very small public-house till Hedger's mother took it, who had
been a barmaid to a tavern-keeper in London, who left this house to her
at his death. Her son Hedger then was a postboy to a yard I believe at
Epsom, and came to be master there. After making a good deal of money
he left the house to his nephew, one Miles, (though it still went in Hed-
ger's name,) who was to allow him £1000 per annum out of the profits.

» Organs were first introduced in taverns during the Commonwealth. When the
liturgy and the use of organs in Divine service were abolished, these instruments being
removed from churches, were set up in inDs and taverns. Hence a pamphlet of 1659
has these words :—"They have translated the organs out of their churches and set them
up in taverns, chaunting their dithy rambics and bestial Bacchanalias to the tune of
those instruments which were wonted to assist them in the celebration of God's praises."

and it was lie that allowed the house to acquire so bad a character that
the licence was taken away. I have this from one William Nelson who
was servant to old Mrs Hedger, and remembers the house before he had it.
He is now [1826] in the employ of the Lamb Street Water Works Com-
pany, and has been for thirty years. In particular, there never was any
duck hunting since he knew the Gardens. Therefore, if ever, it must
have been in a very early time indeed. Hedger, I am told, was the first
person who sold the mineral water, (whence the St George's Spa.) In
1787, when Hedger applied for a renewal of his licence, the magistrates of
Surrey refused, and the Lord Mayor came into Southwark and held a
court and granted the licence, in despite of the magistrates, which occa-
sioned a great disturbance and litigation in the law courts."

The old stone sign is still preserved, embedded in the brick
wall of the garden of Bethlehem Hospital, visible from the road,
and representing a dog squatted on his haunches, with a duck in
his mouth, and the date 1617.

Another famous Dog and Duck inn formerly stood on the site
of Hertford Street, in the now aristocratic precincts of May Fair.
It was an old-fashioned wooden public-house, extensively patron-
ised by the butchers and other rough characters during May Fair
time. The pond in which the cruel sport took place was situated
behind the house, and for the benefit of the spectators was
boarded round to the height of the knee, to preserve the over-
excited spectators from involuntary immersions. The pond was
surrounded by a gravel walk shaded with willow trees.

The Dog and Badger, Kingswood, Gloucester, refers to the
now obsolete sport of badger-baiting. More genial sports, how-
ever, are called to mind by the Dog and Gun, Dog and Par-
tridge, Dog and Pheasant, all of which are very common.

" As I was going through a street of London, where I never
had been till then, I felt a general clamp and faintness all over
me, which I could not tell how to account for, till I chanced to
cast my eyes upwards and found that I was passing under a sign-
post on which the picture of a cat was hung." This little incident
of the cat-hater, told in No. 538 of the Spectator, is a proof of
the presence of cats on the signboard, where, indeed, they are
still to be met with, but very rarely. There is a sign of the Cat
at Egremont, in Cumberland, a Black Cat at St Leonard's Gate,
Lancaster, and a Bed Cat at Birkenhead. There is also a
sign of the Bed Cat in the Hague, Holland, and "thereby hangs a
tale." It was put up by a certain Bertrand, a Frenchman, who
had left his native country, having been mixed up in some con-
spiracy against Mazarin. Arrived at the Hague, he opened a

cutler's shop, and put up a double sign, representing on the one
side a red cat, on the other a portrait of his Eminence Cardinal
Mazarin in his red gown, and with his bristling moustache ;
underneath he wrote " aux deux mechanics betes," (the two obnox-
ious animals. Holland, however, was at peace with France at
that time, and so the Burgomaster, afraid of offending the French
ambassador, requested Bertrand to alter his sign. Mazarin's face
was then painted out and another red cat put in its place.
Gradually as the first sign was forgotten, the name became un-
meaning, and was finally altered into the Bed Cat, and in this
shape it has come down to the present day, still the sign of a
cutler, and a descendant of Bertrand.¹

The Cat and Lion, which we meet with sometimes, as at
Stockport, was probably at one time the Tiger and Lion. It is
occasionally accompanied by the following elegant distich:—

" The lion is strong, the cat is vicious,
My ale is strong, and so is my liquors."

The Cat and Parrot was, in 1612, the sign of Thomas
Pauer, a bookseller, dwelling near the Royal Exchange. At
Santry, near Dublin, and in some other places, we meet with the
Cat and Cage, which is represented by a cat trying to pull a
bird out of a cage; but its origin may be found in the Cat in
the Basket, a favourite sign of the booths on the Thames when
that river was frozen over in 17£§. The sign was a living one,
a basket hanging outside the booth, with a cat in it. It was
revived when the river was again frozen in 1789, and seems to
have had many imitators, for on a print + representing a view of
the river at Rotherithe during the frost, there is a booth with a
merry company within, whose sign, inscribed the Original Cat
in the Cage, represents poor Tabby in a basket. This sign of
the Cat in the Basket, or in the Cage, doubtless originated from
tne cruel game, once practised by our ancestors, of shooting at a
cat in a basket. Brand, in his " Popular Superstitions," gives a
quotation, from which it appears that a similar cruel sport was
still practised at Kelso in 1789 ; but instead of shooting at the
cat, it was placed in a barrel, the bottom of which had to be
beaten out. The same game is still practised in Holland, and
generally, if not always, on the ice.

Thomas Coeyatt, a gentleman from Somerset, who travelled
over a, great part of Europe in the reign of King James I., and
wrote an amusing account of his travels, gives a curious instance
of the prevalence of signs in Paris representing birds. Speaking
of the bridges over the Seine, he says one of them is " the Bridge
of Birdes, formerly called the Millar's Bridge. The reason why
it is called the Bridge of Birdes is because all the signes belong-
ing unto shops on each side of the streete are signes of birdes." *
They never were so general in England, though certainly the
Cock and the Swan appear to have found more votaries than any
other signboard animals. The Eagle is not nearly so common;
some we have mentioned in a former part as undoubtedly of
heraldic origin. From this source the Golden Eagle may be
derived; it was the emblem of the Eastern Empire, and occurs
in various family arms; but it is also a /era naturae. It was, in
1711, the sign of James Levi, a bookseller in the Strand, near
the Fountain Tavern. The Eagle and Ball, of which there
are two in Birmingham, was suggested by the imperial eagle
standing on the globe, or the spread eagle with the globe in his
talon. The Eagle and Serpent, or the Eagle and Snake, is
a mediaeval emblem of courage united to prudence.

Mythical birds also have been in great favour. The burning
and reviving of the Phcenix, for instance, like the salamander
and the dragon, typified certain transformations obtained by
chemistry, whence he was a very general sign with chemists, and
may still be seen on their drug-pots and transparent lamps. The
firm of Godfrey and Cooke, for instance, have adhered to it
ever since the opening of their establishment, a.d. 1680. Persons
of a highly imaginative turn will probably shudder to think of
the awful quantities of physic prepared by this house in those
184 years. The pills, if piled up like cannon-balls, would make
pyramids higher than those of Gizeh; the draughts would be
sufficient to cover the earth with a nauseous deluge; and the
powders, if blown about by an evil wind, levelling valleys and
mountains, would change the whole of Europe into a medicated
desert. The original shop referred to by the date 1680 stood in
Southampton Street, and there phosphorus was first manufac-
tured by the predecessor of this firm, Hanckwitz, a Pole or
* Coryatt's Crudities, vol. 1. p. 29,

Russian by birth, who advertised it wholesale at 50s., and
retail at £3 the ounce. Ambrose Godfrey was bis successor.

Not only apothecaries used this emblem, but all kinds of
shops adopted it. In the time of James I. it was the sign of
one of the places where plays were acted in Drury Lane,—some-
times also called the Cockpit Theatre. This was destroyed by
the unruly apprentices during one of their saturnalia. Being re-
built, it was sacked a second time by the Parliamentary soldiers.
In Charles II.'s piping times of peace Killigrew^:s troop of " the
king's servants " played in it, until they removed to the theatre
in Lincoln's Inn.

The character ascribed to the Pelican was fully as fabulous
as that of the Phoenix. From a clumsy, gluttonous, piscivorous
water-bird, it was transformed into a mystic emblem of Christ,
whom Dante calls " nostro Pellicano." St Hieronymus gives the
story of the pelican restoring its young ones destroyed by ser-
pents, as an illustration of the destruction of man by the old
serpent, and his salvation by the blood of Christ. The " Besti-
arium," in the Royal Library at Brussels, says :—

" Phisiologus dist del Pellican qu'il aime moult ses oiseles et quant ils
sont nés et creu ils s'esbanoient en lor ni contre lor pere et le fierent de
lors eles en ventilant ensi come il li vont entor et tant le fierent qu'ils le
blechent es ex. Et lors les refiert li percs et les occit. Et la mere est de
tel nature que ele vient al ni al tierc jor et s'accoste sor ses oiselès mors
et ell oevre son costé de son bec et en espant son sanc sor ses oiseles et
ensi les resucite de mort ; car li oiseles par nature reckoivent le sang si
toit come il saut de la mere et le boivent."*

In the Armory of Birds by Skelton, a similar notion is expressed :
" Than sayd the Pellycane,
When my Byrdts be slayne,
With my Bloude I them reuyue,
Scrypture doth record
The same dyd our Lord,
And rose from deth to lyue."

There is still an old stone carving of the Pelican walled in the
front of a house in Aldermanbury, and as a sign the bird appears
to be a great favourite at the present day. An anecdote is told
of Jekyl's dissatisfaction at the prices at the Pelican Inn, Speen-

¹ " Phisiologus tells us that the Pelican is very fond of his young ones, and when they
are born and begin to grow, they rebel in their nest against their parent and strike him
with their wings, flying about him and beat him so much till they wound him in his
eyes. Then the father strikes again and kills them. And the mother is of such a
nature that she comes hack to the nest on the third day and sits down upon her dead
young ones, and opens her side with her bill and pours her blood over them, and so re-
suscitates them from death, for the young ones by their instinct receive the blood as
soon as it comes out of the mother, and drink it."—Bibl. Nat. Belg. No, 10074.

" The Pelican at Speenhamland,
That stands below the hill,
May well be called the Pelican,
From his enormous bill."

" Beware of the raven of Zurich,
'Tis a bird of omen ill,
With a noisy and unclean breast,
And a very, very long bill."

It is amusing to see how wit runs in the same channel. In
" Scrapeana, a Collection of Anecdotes, 1792," a similar anecdote
is fathered upon Foote. "Pray what is your name?" said
Foote to the Master of the Castle Inn at Salthill. " Partridge,
sir !"—"Partridge! it should be Woodcock by the length of your
bill/"

But the coincidence is most amusing in the case of Longfellow.
It is observed by a contributor to Notes and Queries * that the
verses may be a plagiarism; at anyrate they have a strange
family resemblance to the following, said to have been written
by a commercial traveller on an inside window shutter of the
Golden Lion, Brecon, kept by a Mr Longfellow, alias Torn
Longfellow :—

" Tom Longfellow's name is most justly his due,
Long his neck, long his bill, which is very long too ;
Long the time ere your horse to the stable is led,
Long before he's rubbed down, and much longer till fed.
Long indeed may you sit in a comfortless room,
Till from kitchen, long dirty, your dinners shall come.
Long the often-told tale that your host will relate,
Long his face while complaining how long people eat,
Long may Longfellow long ere he see me again,
Long 'twill be ere I long for Tom Longfellow's inn."

The Baven, or the Black Baven, is still a common inn sign.
There is one in Bishopsgate yet in existence, of which trades
tokens of the seventeenth century are extant; and on the Great
Western Road between Murrell Green and Basingstoke, the
Raven Inn is still, or was not many years ago, to be seen, in
which Jack the painter, alias James Aitken, the man who set fire
to Portsmouth Dockyard, Dec. 7, 1776, was taken prisoner.

This house was built in 1653, and has preserved much of its
original appearance. In 1711 the Raven or the Black Raven
was the sign of S. Popping, bookseller in Paternoster Row ; and
about the same time John Dunton published at the Black
Raven, in the Poultry, the earliest printed review of literary
works, under the name of " Literature from the North, and News
from all Nations." What the work was worth we may judge
from D'lsraeli's description of the man : " a crack-brained, scrib-
bling bookseller, who boasted he had a thousand projects, fancied
he had methodised six hundred, and was ruined by the fifty he
executed." Notwithstanding this, his autobiography, under the
name of the " Life .and Errors of John Dunton," is one of the most
curious works in existence. In Moleswortli Street, Dublin, there
is a sign of the Three Ravens, which may be called a living
sign, for there are always some ravens kept on the premises.
The Raven was the badge of the old Scotch kings, and thus may
have been adopted as a kind of Jacobite symbol. To this may
be attributed its frequency on the signboard as well as some
other sable birds. The common occurrence of the Blackbird
and the Cock and Blackbird as signs had long puzzled us, till
one day turning over some old Scotch ballads we came upon one,
which Allan Ramsay gives as a favourite old Scotch song. We
shall merely quote the first two stanzas, (there are six in all,)—-
quite sufficient, as far as the poetry is concerned :—

" Upon a fair morning for soft recreation,
I heard a fair lady was making her moan,
With sighing and sobbing, and sad lamentation,
Saying, my blackbird most royal is flown."
My thoughts they deceive me,
Reflections do grieve me,
And am o'erburthen'd with sad misery.

Yet if death should blind me,
As true love inclines me,
My blackbird I '11 seek out wherever he be.

" Once in fair England my blackbird did flourish,
He was the chief blackbird that in it did spring,
Prime ladies of honour his person did nourish,
Because he ivas the true son of a king.
. But since that false fortune,
Which still is uncertain,
Has caused this parting between him and me,
His name I'll advance,
In Spain and in France,
And I'll seek out my blackbird wherever he be."

To which dark-haired prince of the Stuart family the song
alludes is not known; but there is a passage in a letter of Sir
John Hinton, physician to Charles II., which seems to imply that
the black boy was a nickname for Charles II.

" The day before General Monk went into Scotland he dined with me;
and after dinner he called me into the next room, and after some dis-
course, taking a lusty glass of wine, he drank a health to his bonny black
boy, (as he called Your Majesty,) and whispered to me, that if ever he had
power, he would serve Your Majesty to the utmost of his life."*

What lends strength to the supposition is the occurrence of
such a sign as the Crow in the Oak, at Foleshill, Coventry,
which seems to have been a covert way of representing the royal
oak during the times of the Commonwealth, the disguise continu-
ing after there was no more need of it, similar to the " Cat and
Wheel," and other signs dating from the same period, for 110
other reason than because the house had become known by them.
In the same manner the Oak and Black Dog, (at Stretton on
Dunsmoor,) if not a combination of two signs, may have been
put up in derision of the Prince in the Boyal Oak. The Crow
or the Black Crow, is also a common sign; so are the Three
Blackbirds ; t then there is the Chough, at Chard in Sommer-
set, the Three Choughs at Yeovil; the Three Crows,—all of
which belong to the same family, and seem to have the same
origin.

On Friday, August 27, 1770, at the Three Crows in Brook
Street, Holborn, the coroner sat on the body of Thomas Chat-
terton, and the ten jurymen returned a verdict of felo de se. One
cannot think of this sign and the crowner (as the vulgar still term
this officer) sitting on the body of poor Chatterton without calling
to mind the ballad of the three corbies; but the poor suicide had
no " fallow doe " that

He was interred in the burying ground of Shoelane workhouse;
at the present day Farringdon market-place occupies the spot.

The Stork now is of frequent occurrence, although it does
not occur among the older English signs. Coryatt thus speaks
of these birds :—

* Letter of Memorial to King Charles II. from Sir John Hinton, physician in ordinary
to His Majesty, 1679. Ellis, Orig. Letters, 3(1 series, vol. iii. p. 307.

t The Three Blackbirds, Choughs, Crows, Ravens, &c., may allude to Charles, James,
and Rupert

before; yet I have much read of admirable things of them, in Aelianus
the Polyhistor, and other historians, even Storckes, which do much haunt
many cities and towns of the Netherlands, especially in the sominer. For
in Flushing, a tovvne of Zeland, I saw some of them, those men esteeming
themselves happy in [on] whose houses they harbour, and those most un-
happy whom they forsake. It is written of them that when the old one
is become so old that it is not able to helpe itselfe, the young one purvey-
eth foode for it, and sometime carryeth it about on his backe, and if it seeth
it so destitute of meate, that it knoweth not where to get any suste-
nance, it casteth out that which it hath eaten the day before, to the end to
feede his damme. This bird is called in Greeke ireXapyos where hence
Cometh the Greeke word avrnre\apyeiv which signifieth to imitate the
stork in cherishing our parents."¹

This fabled virtue of the stork suggested the sign to many
Continental booksellers and printers. The Two Storks was the
sign of Martin Nutius of Antwerp, 1500, and his son, Philip
Nutius. Their colophons, which were varied continually, all
represent a young stork feeding an old one, sometimes carrying
him on his back, with the motto: " pietas homini . tutissima .
virtus." A similar sign was used, circa 1682, by Franciscus
Canisius; and, in 1651, by Joan. Bapt. Verdussen, both of
Antwerp. The Parisian booksellers adopted it as well, for we
find it on the titlepages of Sebastien Nivelle, and of Sebastien
Cramoisy, the king's printer, of the Rue St Jacques, 1636. He
used a Scripture motto with it: "honora patrem tuum et
matrem tuam ut sis longaevus super terr am, Ecc. xx." In
the Banks' Collection of Bills there is one of the Stork Hotel
at Basle, of the end of the last century. It gives the address in
four languages. The English stands thus:—Christophe Imhoff,
" a the Seigne off the Storgk at Basel."

The Three Cranes was formerly a favourite London sign.
With the usual jocularity of our forefathers, an opportunity for
punning could not be passed, so instead of the three cranes,
which in the vintry used to lift the barrels of wine, three birds
were represented. The Three Cranes in Thames Street, or in
the vicinity, was a famous tavern as early as the reign of James
I. It was one of the taverns frequented by the wits in Ben
Jonson's time. In one of his plays he says :—

" A pox o' these pretenders to wit, your Three Cranes, Mitre and Mer-
maid men! not a corn of true salt, not a grain of right mustard among
them all! "—Bartholomew Fair, a. i. s. 1.

1 Coryatt's Crudities, vol. i. p. 39. In the East the same fable is current as to
the paternal affection of young storks; their name in Hebrew is chesadao, which Im-
plies mercy or pity.

Oil the 23d of January 166^, Pepys suffered a strong mortifi-
cation of the flesh in having to dine at this tavern with some
poor relations. The sufferings of the snobbish secretary must
have been intense:—

" By invitation to my uncle Fenner's and where I found his new wife, a
pitiful, old, ugly, ill-bred woman in a hatt, a midwife. Here were many
of his and as many of her relations, sorry mean people; and after choosing
our gloves we all went over to the Three Cranes Taverne, and though the
best room of the house in such a narrow dogghole we were crammed, and
I believe we were near 40, that it made me loath my company and victuals
and a very poor dinner it was too."

Opposite this tavern people generally left their boats to shoot
the bridge, walking round to Billingsgate, where they would re-
enter them.

The Cock occurs almost as frequently on the signboard as
alive at the head of his family in the farm yard. It is one of
the oldest signs, already in use at the time of the Bomans, who
record that one Eros, a freeman of Licius, Africanus Cerealis,
kept an inn at Narbonne at the sign of the Cock—"a gallo
gallinaceo." In Christian times the sign acquired a new prestige.
The cock is thus mentioned in " The Armory of Byrdes :"—*
" The Cocke dyd say
I use alway
To crow both first and last.
Lyke a Postle I am,
For I preche to Man,
And tell hym the nyght is past.

" I bring new tydynges
That the Kyng of all Kynges,
In tactu profudit chorus :
Then sang he mellodious
Te Gloriosus
Apostolorum chorus."

This bird, in the legends of the middle ages, was surrounded
with a mystical, religious halo :—

" It was about the time of cock-crowing when our Saviour was born,—
the circumstance of the time of cock-crowing being so natural a figure and
representation of the Morning of the Resurrection; the Night as shadowing
out the night of the Grave; the third Watch being as some suppose the
time our Saviour will come to judgment at; the noise of the cock awaken-
ing sleepy man and telling him as it were the night is far spent, and the
day is at hand, representing so naturally the voice of the Archangel
awakening the dead and calling up the righteous to everlasting day; so

* "Armory of Byrdes, Imprynted at Londo by John Wyght dwellTg in Ponies Church
yarde at the sygne of the Rose." A poem of the time of Henry VIII., attributed to
Skelton, the poet laureate

naturally does the time of cock-crowing shadow out these things, that
probably, Bome good, well meaning men might have been brought to be-
lieve that the very devils themselves when the cock crew and reminded
them of them did fear and tremble and shun the light." *
Ideas such as these continued a long time in the popular mind,
for Aubrey tells us that in his younger days people "had some
pious ejaculation too when the cock did crow, which put them
in mind of y^e Trumpet at y⁶ Resurrection." +

One of the oldest Cock taverns in London is the Cock in
Tothill Street, Westminster, lately re-christened as the Cock and
Tabard. An ancient coat of arms, carved in stone, England
quartered with France, discovered in this house, is now walled
up in the front of the building". In the back parlour is a jolly,
bluff-looking man in a red coat, said to represent the driver of
the first mail to Oxford, which started from this tavern. Tradi-
tion says that the workmen employed at the building of West-
minster Abbey, in the reign of Henry YII., used to receive theii
wages at this house. It was formerly entered by steps; the
building now exhibiting traces of great antiquity, and appears at
one time to have been a house of considerable pretensions. The
rafters and timber are principally of cedar wood. There is a
curious hiding-place on the staircase, and a massive carving of
Abraham about to offer his son Isaac; and another, in wood,
representing the Adoration of the Magi, said to have been left in
pledge, at some remote period, for an unpaid score. The cock
may have been adopted as a sign here on account of the vicinity
of the Abbey, of which St Peter was the patron, for in the
middle ages a cock crowing on the top of a pillar was often one
of the accessories in a picture of the apostle. This certainly was
a very unkind allusion for the poor saint, particularly when ac-
companied with such a sneering rhyme as that under the sign of
the Red Cock in Amsterdam in 1682. On the one side was
written:—

* Bourne's Observations on Popular Antiquities, 1725, p. 65.
f Aubrey's Remains of Gentilisme and Judaism.—Lansdown MRS.
i On the obverse :—

The Cock in Bow Street witnessed a disgraceful scene in tlie
reign of Charles II. :—

" Sackville, who was then Lord Buckhurst, with Sir Charles Sedley and
Sir Thomas Ogle, got drunk at the Cock, in Bow Street, by Covent Garden,
and going into the balcony, exposed themselves to the public, in very in-
decent postures. At last, as they grew warmer, Sedley stood forth naked,
and harangued the populace in such profane language, that the public in-
dignation was awakened. The crowd attempted to force the door, and be-
ing repulsed, drove in the performers with stones, and broke the windows
of the house. For this demeanour they were indicted, and Sedley was
fined £500. What was the sentence of the others is not known. Sedley
employed Killigrew and another to procure a remission of the king, but
(mark the friendship of the dissolute !) they begged the fine for themselves
and exacted it to the last groat."*

It was on his way home from supper at this house, December 21,
1670, that Sir John Coventry was attacked by several men, and
had his nose cut to the bone. Sir John had remonstrated in the
House of Commons against the improper distribution of public
money, and proposed to lay a tax on the theatres; this was op-
posed by the Court, the players being " the king's servants and a
part of his pleasure;" upon which Sir John asked "whether
the king's pleasure lay among the men or among the women that
acted 1" The assault was committed by Simon Parry, Miles
Reeves, O'Brian, and Sir Thomas Sandys, instigated by the Duke
of Monmouth.

" 15th March 1C69.—Mr Hewes and I did walke to the Cocke, at the end
of Suffolke Street, where I never was, a great ordinary mightily cried up, and
there bespoke a pullet, which, while dressing, he and I walked into St
James's Park, and thence back and dined very handsome with a good soup
and a pullet for 4s. 6d. the whole."

This first visit evidently had given great satisfaction, for, three
weeks after, he took Mrs P. and some friends there, and was, as
usual, " mighty merry, this house being famous for good meat,
and particularly pease porridge."

At the same period there was another celebrated Cock Tavern
in Fleet Street, near Temple Bar, properly called the Cock and
Bottle, a sign still of daily occurrence, which seems to be a
figurative rendering of liquor on draught and in bottle, cock being
an old English, and still provincial word for the spigot or tap in
a barrel. + The sign is, however, generally represented by a cock
standing on a bottle. The present sign of the house, still con-

t There was formerly a kind of ale called Cock ale, but what it was is not ezactlj
known.

spicuous in gilt over the door, is said to have been carved by
no less a hand than Grinling Gibbons. During the plague
time of 1665, the following advertisement appeared in the In-
telligencer :—

JL called the Cock alehouse, at Temple Bar, hath dismissed his servants
and shut up his house for this long vacation, intending (God willing) to
return at Michaelmass next so that all persons who have any accounts or
farthings belonging to the said house are desired to repair thither before
the 8th of this instant July and they shall receive satisfaction."
Certainly those were dull times, and well might that fashionable
establishment close for the " long vacation," for the plague was
then coming to its highest pitch ; all the gallant customers had
fled town, and according to Defoe's computation, " not less than
10,000 houses were forsaken of the inhabitants in the city and
suburbs:"—

" There was not so much velvet stirring as would have bene a cover to a
little booke in octavo, or seamde a Lieftenant's Buff-doublet; a French
hood would have been more wondered at in London, than the Polonyans
with their long-tayld Gaberdynes; and, which was most lamentable, there
was never a Gilt spur to be seene all the Strand over, never a feather wag-
ging in all Fleet Streete, vnlesse some country Fore-horse came by, by meere
cliaunce with a Raine-beaten Feather in his costrill; the streete looking
for all the world like a Sunday morning at six o'Clocke, three hours before
service, and the Bells ringing all about London, as if the Coronation day
had beene a half a yeare long."*

But there was a good time coming after the plague and fire,
when troops of gay courtiers might quaff their wine and sparkling
ale, as happy as the " merry monarch " himself. Amongst them,
our friend Pepys, who informs us, that on the 23d of April 1668,
he went "by water to the Temple, and then to the Cock alehouse,
and drank and eat a lobster, and sang, and mighty merry. So
almost night, I carried Mrs Pierce home, and then Knipp and I
to the Temple again and took boat, it being darkish, and to
Foxhall, it being now night, and a bonfire burning at Lambeth for
the king's coronation day."

Exactly one hundred years later, the Cock is named with en-
comiums on its porter, in the "Art of Living in London but
it is to be hoped the porter was better than the poetry ••—
" Nor think the Cock with these not on a par,
The celebrated Cock of Temple Bar,
Whose Porter best of all bespeaks its praise,
Porter that's worthy of the Poet's lays."+

* Meeting of Gallants at an Orclinarie. London, 1604. Percy Society, 1841.
Though this is a description of the state of <T<ondon in 1603, it perfectly applies to the
plague of lGGj.
t The Art of Living in London. Tocm in 2 cantos, 1708,

In "William Waterproofs Monologue, the fame of a waiter of
this tavern is handed down to posterity in the harmonious verses
of the Poet Laureate.

Jackson the pugilist, who has a pompous epitaph on his grave
in the Brompton burial-ground, kept for some time the Cock
alehouse, Sutton, on the Epsom Boad; but being patronised by
the Prince of Wales and a great many of the leading members
of the " nobility and gentry," he was in a very short time enabled
to retire with a £10,000 fortune. Finally, some twenty years
ago, there was a Cock and Bottle public-house in Bristol kept by
a man named John England, who added to his sign the well-
known words :—

" A LL persons that have any Household Goods, Plate, Rings, Watches,
iX Jewels, Wearing Apparel, etc., in the hands of Thomas Bastin, at
the Three Cocks in St John's Lane, Pawnbroker, which were pledged to
him before the 25th of December 1709, are desired to fetch them away by
the 25th of March next, or they will be disposed off."—London Gazette,
Jan. 18-21,1711.

From this and innumerable other similar advertisements, it
appears that pawnbrokers in those days did not always rigorously
adhere to the Three Balls; that is to say, they were occasionally
goldsmiths, and in that capacity used any sign.

It is rarely that the sign of the Cock designates any particular
colour. There is a Black Cock in Owen Street, Tipton ; a
cock of this colour was always considered something more than
an ordinary bird; with the Greeks it was a grateful sacrifice to
Esculapius and Pluto, and in the middle ages it played a promi-
nent part in matters of witchcraft. The Blue Cock is a sign at
Leicester; but neither colour is common. At Hargrave, near
Bury St Edmunds, there is a Cock's Head, put up either in
imitation of a nag's,—bull's,—bear's,—or boar's head, or as the
crest of a fool's cap, which, in old times, usually terminated with
a cock's head.

.Though some sort of religious prestige may at first have
prompted the choice of the cock, more profane ideas lattery con-
tributed to make it popular, such as the pastimes of cock-throw-
ing, or " shying," and cock-fighting. To this first practice alludes
the sign of William Brandon, on Dowgate Hill, which was called,

Have at it; Ms token representing a man about to throw a
stick at a cock. This cruel game was very common in alehouses
in former times ; the whole sport consisting in throwing a stick
at an unfortunate cock tied to a stake; if the animal was killed
it was the thrower's property; if not, he forfeited the small sum
paid for each " shy." What a slaughter of cocks was carried on
in this way may be judged from the following :—

" Last Tuesday a Brewer's servant in Southwark took his walk round
Towerkill, Moorfield, and Lincoln's Inn Fields, and knocked down so many
cocks that by selling them again, he returned home twenty shillings odd
pence richer man than he came out."*

Medals are extant of the reign of William III., on which John
Bull is represented throwing sticks at the French cock: not a
very lofty allegory, it must be confessed ; but in those days the
public taste was not very refined; thus, after the victory of Blen-
heim, the simile was in equal bad taste, the same idea being ex-
pressed by a huge lion tearing an unfortunate cock in pieces.

Cock-fighting was a favourite diversion with the Bomans, and
we find continual traces of it during their occupation here.
Fitz-Stephen says, it w^Tas the sport of schoolboys in his time;
but as they grew up it seems the taste adhered to them. That
sturdy bluebeard-king, Henry VIII., though always ready to
chop off the heads of his subjects, felt his heart melt at the
miseries of the cocks, and made edicts against cock-fights, yet
with the inconsistency that marked his other tastes built a cock-
pit unto himself at Whitehall. James I., also, was a great
amateur. Though habitually suppressed by various sovereigns,
the evil would always break out again, till it was finally abolished
by an Act of Parliament in the 12 & 13 Queen Victoria. In
Staffordshire, and other counties where this sport is still prac-
tised " on the sly," the Fighting Cocks is a favourite sign.

The cock occurs in innumerable combinations with all kind3
of heterogeneous objects, many of which seem merely selected for
their oddity : among the most explicable is the Cock and Bottle,
of which we have offered a solution, (p. 207) and which again
occurs in the following title :—

" A full account of the Life and Visions of Nicholas Hart who has every
year in his Life past, on the 5th of August, fall'n into a Deep Sleep and
cannot be awaked till 5 Days and Nights are expired, and then gives a sur-
prising Relation of what he hath seen in the other World. Taken from

hia own mouth in September last; after he had slept 5 days in St Bartho-
lomew's Hospital, the August before. By William Hill, of Lincoln's Inn.
The Truth of all which the said Nicholas Hart hath attested under his
Hand, the 3d Day of August 1711, before several credible Witnesses, and
declared his Readiness to take oath of the same. He began to sleepe as
usual the 5th Day of this instant August 1711 at Mr Dixies at the Cock
and Bottle in Little Britain. Entered according to Law. Printed for J.
Baker, at the Black Boy, in Paternoster Row, price 2d." *

This same book, under the title of " Life and Visions of
William Hart, in which are particularly described the state of
the Blessed Spirits in the Heavenly Canaan, and also a Descrip-
tion of the Condition of the Damned in a State of Punishment,
etc., by Will. Hill, senior of Lincoln's Inn, London," is still sold
as a chapbook by the "running stationers." The Spectator did
not believe in Nicholas Hart, and introduced the subject to the
public with his usual humour in No. 191. Hart seems to have
tested the truth of the proverb which says, that fortune comes
whilst we are sleeping, for he certainly made more by sleeping
than many others by waking. Stow tells a similar story of one
William Foxley, potmaker to the mint, who slept full fourteen
days and fifteen nights, and when he woke up " was in all points
found as if he had slept but one night."

The Cock and Trumpet is a common sign, typifying those
ideas about the cock expressed on p. 205. This simile is con-
stantly used by the poets; and most beautifully enlarged upon
by Shakespeare:—

" And now the Cock, the morning's trumpeter,
Play'd hunt's up to the day-star to appear."—Drayton.

" All the night shrill chaunticler,
Day's Proclaiming Trumpeter,
Claps his wings and loudly cries,
Mortals, mortals, wake, arise."—Nativity Hymn.f

The Cock and Bell, if not a simple combination of two signs,
may be derived from a custom formerly practised in some parts
of England, for boys to have cock-fights on Shrove Tuesday;
the party whose cock won. the most battles, was held victorious
in the cock-pit, and gained the prize—a small silver bell sus-
pended to the button of the victor's hat, and worn for three suc-
cessive Sundays. It is an old sign, and occurs on a Birchin Lano
trades token between 1648 and 1672.

t Bisson's Janus, or Small Tokens for the Old Year, and Little Gifts for the Nevf
Year. 1674. Luttrell Ballads, vol. ii. p IX).

The Cock and Breeches originated in a favourite form of gilt
gingerbread at Bartholomew Fair, although the very objectionable
anecdote of Joe Miller concerning such a sign is generally believed
to have had something to do with its origin.

The Cock and Bull is still frequently seen, but though the
meaning of the phrase is well understood, neither its origin, nor
the meaning of the two animals on the signboard, have as yet
been properly explained. As we have no sound theory to offer,
we shall abstain from entering on the subject, for fear of giving
an illustration of what a cock-and-bull story is, rather than clear-
ing up the mystery of the signboard. It occurs amongst the
seventeenth century trades tokens.

" JAMES NEVIL'S Coach to Hampstead comes to the Cock and Dolphin
in Gray's Inn Lane, in and out every day."—De Laune's Present State of
London, 1681.

Hatton, in 1708, placed this inn "on the east side of Gray's
Inn Lane, near the middle." At the present day it is a public-
house sign in Kendal, Westmoreland. It is more likely to be a
combination of two signs, than to refer to the French Cock and
the Dolphin in the arms of the Dauphin. The same applies to
the Cock and Anchor in Gateshead and Dublin; the Cock
and Swan, and the Cock and Crown, both in Wakefield; and
the Cock and Bear at Nuneaton; whilst the Cock and House
in Norwich may originally have been the cocking-house of the
district,—that is, the house where cock-fights were held.

Fully as general as the sign of the Cock is that of the Swan ;
the reason why, is perhaps truly, though coarsely, expressed
under an old Dutch signboard :—

" De Swaan voert ieder kroeg, zoowel in dorp als stad,
Om dat hy altyd graag is met de bek in't nat."*
Not only is there a conformity of aesthetic symbolism in vari-
ous parts of Europe, observable in the constant recurrence of the
same objects on signboards, but even the same jokes are found.
Thus the Swan at Bandon, near Cork, has the following rhymes,
nearly akin to the Dutch epigram above, but strongly flavoured
with Hibernian wit:—

* " The reason why so many alehouses in town and country have the sign of the swan,
Is because that bird is so fond of liquid."

[No English translation can convey the peculiar significance of the original. The
above gives only the bare sense.]

" This is the Swan that dips her neck in Water,
Why not we as well as she, drink plenty of Beamish and Crawford's
Porter."

" 'I find the Swan to be your usual sign by the River,' said I. 'Why,
yes,' replied George. ' I don't know what a Coach or a Waggon and
Horses or the High-mettled Racer have to do with our River.' ' Pray,
now,' said I to my oracle, 'do enumerate the signs of the Swan remaining
[this was in 1829] on the Banks of the River, between London and Batter-
sea Bridges.' 'Why, let me see, Master, there's the Old Swan at London
Bridge, that's one—there's the Swan in Arundel Street, two,—then ours
here, (Hungerford Stairs,) three,—the Swan at Lambeth; that's down
though. Well, then the Old Swan at Chelsea, but that has long been
turned into a Brewhouse, though that was where our people [the Water-
men] rowed to formerly, as mentioned in Doggett's will; now they row to
the sign of the New Swan, beyond the Physick Garden; we '11 say that's
four, then there's the two Swan signs at Battersea, six."*

The Swan, by London Bridge, was a very ancient house, and
gave a name to the Swan stairs. Trades tokens of this house
are extant, representing a Swan walking on Old London Bridge,
with the date 1657. This feat was performed by the Swan on
the token, to intimate that it was the Swan above the Bridge in
contradistinction to another tavern known as the Swan below the
Bridge. Pepys once dined at this house ; and though always very
ready to be pleased, he has not much good to say about it.
" 27 June, 1660. Dined with my Lord and all the officers of
his regiment, who invited my Lord and his friends, as many as
he would bring to dinner, at the Swan at Dowgate, a poor house
and ill dressed, but very good fish and plenty." The landlady of
this tavern is mentioned in a curious manner in a tract printed in
1712, entitled "The Quack Vintners :"—

" May the chaste widow prosper at the Swan
Near London Bridge, where richest wines are drawn,
And win by her good humour and her trade,
Some jolly son of Bacchus to her bed."

Previous to 1598 there was a Swan Theatre on the Bank-
side, near the Globe; so named from " a house and tenement
called the Swan," mentioned in a charter of Edward VI, grant-

ing the manor of Southwark to the City of London. It fell into
decay in the reign of James I., was closed in 1613, and subse-
quently only used for gladiatorial exhibitions. Yet, in its time,
it had been well frequented, for a cotemporary author says—" it
was the Continent of the world, because half the year a world of
beauties and brave spirits resorted to it." One of the oldest Swan
signs on record is that of the old printer, Wynkyn cle Worde,
assistant, and finally successor to Caxton, who, in the beginning
of the sixteenth century, issued some works " emprynted at the
signe of the Swane in Fletestrete."

From an anecdote preserved by Aubrey, iii. 415, it appears
that Ben Jonson did not always " go to the Devil," but was also
in the habit of having his cup of sack at a Swan tavern near Char-
ing Cross :—

" Our king and queen, the Lord God blesse,
The Palsgrave and the Lady Besse,
And God blesse every living thing
That lives and breathes and loves the King.
God blesse the Councill of Estate,
And Buckingham the fortunate.
God blesse them all and keep them safe,
And God blesse me, and God bless Ralph.

" The king was mighty inquisitive to know who this Ralph was. Ben told
him 'twas the drawer at the Swanne Tavern e by Charing crosse, who drew
him good canarie. For this drollerie, his Ma⁴¹' gave him an hundred poundes."

Tokens of this house of the plague year are extant, representing
a Swan with a sprig _in its mouth, and the inscription, "Marke
Bider at the Swan against the Mewes,¹ 1665. Ilis Halfe
Penny."

The Swan at Knightsbridge had a reputation which we should
call " fast." It was well known to young gallants, and was the
terror of all such jealous husbands and fathers as the Sir David
Dunce who figures in Otway's " Soldier of Fortune," 1681 :—

" I have surely lost and never shall find her more. She promised me
strictly to stay at home till I came back again; for ought I know, she may
be up three pairs of stairs in the Temple now, or it may be taking the air
as far as Knightsbridge with some smoothfaced rogue or another; 'tis a
damned house that Swan; that Swan at Knightsbridge is a confounded
house! "

1 The king's stabies (which stood on the site now occupied by Trafalgar Square) callod
the "mews," because formerly his majesty's falcons were kept there, nine being a
French word for a certain kind of bird-cage or coop : whence the words "mewed up."

Tom Brown also alludes to it; Peter Pindar (Dr Woolcot) com-
memorates a vestry dinner there :—

" At Knightsbridge at a Tavern called the Swan,
Churchwardens, Overseers, a jolly clan,
Order'd a dinner for themselves,
A very handsome dinner," &c.

The Swan tavern in Exchange Alley, Cornhill, was well known
among the musical world in the last century. In this house,
some celebrated concerts were given, at a time when there were
no proper concert-rooms; they commenced in 1728, under the
management of one Barton, formerly a dancing-master, and con-
tinued for twelve years, when the place was burnt down ; at the
rebuilding, it was christened the King's Head.

In 1825, the landlord of the Swan tavern at Stratford, near
London, recommended the charms of his place in the following
poetical strain:—

" At the Swan Tavern kept by Lound
The best accommodation's found,—
Wine, Spirits, Porter, Bottled Beer,
You '11 find in high perfection here.
If in the Garden with your lass
You feel inclin'd to take a glass,
There Tea and Coffee of the best,
Provided is for every guest.
And females not to drive from hence,
The charge is only fifteen pence.
Or if disposed a Pipe to smoke,
To sing a song or crack a joke,
You may repair across the Green,
Where nought is heard, though much is seen.
There laugh, and drink, and smoke away,
And but a mod'rate reckoning pay.
Which is a most important object
To every loyal British subject.

The Black Swan, though formerly considered a rara avis in
terris, may now be seen in every town and village, swinging at
the door of mine host, the picture painted just as fancy may have
suggested, long before the actual bird was brought over from
Australia. At the Black Swan tavern in Tower Street, the Earl

Rochester, when banished from the Court, took lodgings under
the name of Alexander Bendo, his profession that of an Italiai.
quack, and there he had those comical adventures with the wait-
ing-maids of the Court. Hamilton says in his " Memoires de
Grammont," that the adventures Rochester had in this disguise
are by far the most amusing given in his works. Another Black
Swan alehouse is named in a broadside of 1704 :—

" A most strange but true account of a very large sea monster tliat was
found last Saturday in a common-shore in New Fleet Street in Spittlefields,
where at the Black Swan alehouse thousands of people resort to see it," &c.

This dreadful monster was simply " a dead Porpoise of a very
large size, it being above Four Foot in length, and Three Foot
about,'' and the fact of it " leaving the deep to rove up into Fresh
Water Rivers, and more especially to crawl up so far a common-
shore," prognosticated, it was thought, some dire calamities, which
are told in not very parliamentary language.

The Swan with Two Necks is another lusus naturae observ-
able on the signboard, said to owe its origin to the corruption of
the word 7iiclc into neck* This explanation, however ingenious,
is somewhat " sujet d, caution," for this reason : it is a well-known
and established fact that the London signs of old had no inscrip-
tions under them. Now, considering the small size of the nicks
in question, they would scarcely have been perceptible at the
height on which the sign was generally suspended, and even
if visible, would never have been sufficiently noticed or un-
derstood to give a name to the sign. We shall not venture to
propose another solution, as nothing of a sufficiently distinct
character occurs to us : but it is just possible that a sign of two

* These nicks were little horizontal, vertical, and diagonal notches cut in the swan's
bill, in order that each owner might know his own swans. In the Archwologia for
1812, a roll of 219 swan marks is given, together with the ordinances respecting
swans on the river Witham, in Lincoln, belonging to various gentlemen ; this paper
bears the date of June 1570. The nicking was done by swanherds, appointed by the
king's licence, who kept a register of all the various marks. None but freeholders were to
have marks, and these were to be perfectly distinct from those used by other gentlemen.
The Corporation of London had the right of keeping swans on the Thames for fourteen
leagues above and below bridge, and their flocks seem to have been very numerous, for
Paulus Jovius describing the approach to Loudon in 1552, says, " This river abounds in
swans swimming in flocks, the sight of which, and their noise, are very agreeable to the
fleets that meet them in their course." Those of the company of the vintners had two
nicJcs or marks on their bill, it is said, and hence the popular explanation of the sign. This
nicking of swans on the river was formerly a matter of great state. The members of the
Corporation of London used annually to go up the Thames in the month of August, in
gaily decorated barges, and after the swans were nicked and counted, to land off Barn
Elms, and there partake of a collation in the open air, ending which, history informs us,
they used to dance, but it would require very reliable authority to convince us that an
alderman could find enjoyment on the "light fantastic toe," particularly after z hearty
collation.

swans represented swimming side by side may bave given rise to
the " Swan with two necks," or that the symbol of two birds'
necks encircled by a coronet which was used by a foreign pub-
lisher—taken, it has been conjectured, by him from the arms of
some trade company—may have been the origin.

Machyn, in his " Diary," mentions the sign of "the Swane with
the ij nekes at Mylke Street end," in 1556, when 011 the 5th of
August, a woman living next door to that sign drowned herself in
Moorfields.

In 1636, the Two Necked Swan was already to be seen in
Berkshire, at the town of Lamburne, where Taylor the water
poet names it as the sign of a tavern. In later years it was a
famous carriers' inn in Lad Lane, Cheapside, whence, for more than
a century and a half, passengers and goods w^rere despatched to
the North. To this inn the following couplet alludes :—

" True sportsmen know nor dread nor fear,
Each rides, when once the saddle in,
As if he had a neck to spare,
Just like the Swan in Ladlane."

Huddersford Cape Hunt.
Notwithstanding the " double bill " suggested by the two heads,
it still continues a favourite inn sign. Four is rather an unusual
number on the signboard, but we have this quadruple alliance in
one solitary instance, the Four Swans, Bishopsgate, which is
internally one of the best remaining examples of those famous
galleried inns of old London.

The Swan and Bottle, Uxbridge, is a variation of the Cock
and Bottle; the Swan and Rummer was a coffee-house near the
Exchange, during the South Sea bubble—the Rummer, a common
addition, being simply joined to the Swan, to intimate that wine
was sold; the Swan and Salmon are combined on many signs,
doubtless in honour of the two ornaments of our English rivers.
The very name is sufficient to call up a pleasant picture.

The Swan and Hoop, Moorfields, was the birthplace of
Keats the poet. The Sw^Tan on the Hoop, " on the way called
old Fysshe Strete,'' is mentioned as early as 1413.* The same
combination may still be seen on London signboards.

With regard to the- Swan and Sugarloaf, which occurs
amongst the trades tokens, and is still seen, (as in Fetter Lane,
for instance,) the sugarloaf was at first added by a grocer, whose

sign having gained popularity as a noted landmark, or from other
causes, was imitated by rivals or juniors, particularly on account
of its presenting the favourite alliteration. Combinations with
the sugarloaf are very common, all arising from its being the
grocer's sign : thus the Three Crowns and Sugarloaf, Kid-
derminster; Wheatsheaf and Sugarloaf, Batcliff Highway,
seventeenth century, (trades token;) Tobacco Roll and Sugar-
loaf, Gray's Inn Gate, Holborn;* the Three Coffins and
Sugarloaf, Fleet Street, 1720.

In the sign of the Swan and Rushes, at Leicester, the
rushes were merely a pictorial accessory, placed in the background
to bring out the white plumage of the Swan, whilst the Swan
and Helmet, at Northampton, no doubt originated from a helmet
with a Swan for crest.

In one instance, a Drake occurs as a sign, namely, on the
token of Will. Johnson, at " ye Drake in Bell Yard," near Temple
Bar, 1667. The Duck is only to be seen in company with the Dog ;
in one instance it accompanies a Mallard. This last animal was
otherwise well known to the Londoners, since in 1520, amongst
" the articles of good gouernace of the cite of London," it was
recommended to magistrates—" also ye shall enquyre, yf ony per-
son kepe or norrysh hoggis, oxen, kyen, or mallardis within the
ward in noying of tlier neylibours."+ The Duck and Mallard
was the sign of a lock (and probably gun-) smith in East Smith-
field in 1673 +

The Pigeon was a tavern at Charing Cross in 1675.§ The
Three Pigeons were very common; there still exists an inn of
this name at Brentford :—

" It is a house of interest as being in all likelihood one of the few haunts
of Shakespeare now remaining; as being indeed the sole Elizabethan tavern
existing in England, which in the absence of direct evidence, may fairly be
presumed to have been occasionally visited by him." ||

It was kept at one time by Lowin, one of the original actors in
Shakespeare's plays, and is often named by the old dramatists :

" Thou art admirably suited for the Three Pigeons at Brentford, I swear
I know thee not."—The Roaring Girl.

" We will turn our courage to Braynford, westward,
My Bird of the Night—to the Pigeons:'

li Halli well's Local Illustrations to the '' Merry Wives of Windsor." Folio Shakespeare.

There, also, George Peel played some of Ms merry pranks. In
the parlour is an old painting dated 1704, representing a land-
lord attending to some customers seated at a table in the open
air, with these lines :—

" Wee are new beginners
And thrive wee would fain,
I am honest Ralph of Reading,
My wife Susana to name."

Bat Pidgeon, the famous hairdresser, immortalised by the Spec-
tator, lived at the sign of the Three Pigeons, "in the corner house of
St Clement's Churchyard, next to the Strand." There he remained
as late as 1740, when he cut the "boyish locks " of Pennant.

In 1663 it was the sign of a bookseller in St Paul's Church-
yard,* and in 1698 of John Newton, also a bookseller over against
Inner Temple Gate, Fleet Street.

The Dove was the sign of a coffeehouse on the riverside, be-
tween the two malls at Fulliam. " In a room in this house.
Thomson wrote part of his 'Winter.' He was in the habit of fre
quenting the house during the winter season, when the Thames
was frozen and the surrounding country covered with snow.
This fact is well authenticated, and many persons visit the house
to the present day."+ The Stockdove is a sign at Bomiley, Stock-
port ; the Dovecote is a public-house at Laxton, Carlton-on-Trent,
probably on account of the pigeons constantly flying out and in ;
and there is a Pigeon Box at Prior's Lee, near Shiffnall. The
pigeon-shooting matches may have something to do with the
selection of this sign.

The Falcon was another of the devices used by Wynkyn de
Worde over Ms shop in Fleet Street. Falcon Court, in that locality,
perhaps derives its name from this house. Subsequently, Gor-
dobuc, the earliest English tragedy, was "imprynted at London,
in Flete Strete, at the sign of the Faucon," no doubt Wynkyn's
house, by William Griffiths in 1565; and in 1612, Peacham's
" Garden of Heroical Devises" was published by Wa. Dight at the
sign of the Falcon in Shoe Lane. These booksellers, perhaps, bor-
rowed their device from the stationers' arms, which are, argent on
a chevron between three bibles, or, a falcon volant between two
roses, the Holy Ghost in chief; it was also a badge of some of
the kings. At the Falcon inn, Stratford-on-Avon, there is still a
thovelboard on which William Shakespeare is said often to have

* Kingdom's Intelligencer, March 30 to April 0, 1CG3.
t Faulkner's Account of Fulhaaj, 1813, p. 359,

played. Another Falcon Tavern connected with Shakespeare's
name used to stand on the Bankside, where he and his companions
occasionally refreshed themselves after the fatigues of the perform-
ances at the Globe. It long continued celebrated as a coaching
inn for all parts of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, till it was taken
down in 1808. The name is still preserved in the Falcon Glass-
house, which stands opposite its site, and in the Falcon Stairs.
There was another Falcon Inn in Fleet Street, bequeathed to the
company of cordwainers, by a gentleman named Fisher, under
the obligation that they were yearly to have a sermon preached
in the Church of St Dunstan, in the West, on the 10th of July.
Formerly, on that day, sack and posset used to be drunk by those
concerned, in the vestry of the church, if not to the health, at
least to the " pious memory" of this Fisher; but that good custom
has long since been abandoned.

The Falcon on the Hoop is named in 1443. "In the xxj
yer of Kyng Harry the vj'⁶," the brotherhood of the Holy Trinity
received " for the rent of ij yere of Wyllym Wylkyns for the
Sarrecyn Head v li. vj s. viij d., paynge by the yer liij s. iiij d. and
of the Faucon on the Hope, for the same ij yer vi li., that is to say
paynge by the yer iij li." Bent, it must be confessed, seems
small, and landlords exceedingly accommodating in those days.
Six days before that period, there is an entry in the church-
wardens' accounts for " kervyng and peinting of the seigne of the
Faucon vj sh."¹ This mention of the sign clearly shows that it
was not a picture, but a carved and coloured falcon, suspended in
a hoop, whence the name of the sign.

The Magpie being a bird of good omen, was, on that account,
very often chosen; with this another reason concurred, namely,
the sign of the eatable pie falling into disuse, it was transformed
into the Magpie, (see Cock and Pie;) and this transition was so
much the easier as the original name of the magpie was pie,
(Latin jnca, French pie,) and only subsequently for its knowing
antics, did it receive the nickname of maggoty + pie, which gradu-
ally was abbreviated into Magpie. The full form of the epithet
is preserved in the nursery rhyme :—

1 Hone's Ancient Mysteries Described, p. 81.
t Magot is in French a quaint, little figure.

The Maggoty Pie was an inn in the Strand during the reign
of James I. : it is alluded to in Shirley's Comedy of " The Ball,"
a. i. sc. 1, where Freshwater, the Italianised Englishman, says :—

As late as 1654, we find the name "maggoty pie" used in
"Mercurius Fumigosus, or the Smoking Nocturnal," July 26 to
August 3, where the Welshman's arms are described as a fly, a
maggoty pie, &c.* The Magpie and Stump represents the mag-
pie sitting on the stump of a tree ; it was the sign of one
of the Whig pothouses in the Old Bailey during the riots of 1715.
There is still an old house with such a sign in Cheyne Walk,
Chelsea. The Magpie and Pewter Platter, in Wood Street,
originated from a magpie standing by a dish and picking
out of it. The Magpie and Crown, says the author of
" Tavern Anecdotes," (1825,) is a ridiculous association ; but when
once joined is not to be separated without injury to the concern,
as it happened in the case of a Mr Benton, who was originally
waiter at a house of this name in Aldgate, famous for its ale,
which was sent out in great quantities. The landlord becoming
rich, pride followed, and he thought of giving wing to the Mag-
pie, retaining only the royal attribute of the crown. The ale went
out for a short time, as usual, but it was not from the Magpie
and Crown, and the customers fancied it was not so good as
usual; consequently the business fell off. The landlord died,
and Benton purchased the concern, caught the Magpie, and
restored it to its ancient situation; the ale improved in the
opinion of the public, and its consumption increased so much,
that Benton, at his death, left behind him property amounting
to £600,000, chiefly the profits of the Magpie and Crown ale.
This danger of altering a sign is also illustrated by another
example. When Joseph II., emperor of Germany, was at Maes-
tricht, in the Netherlands, he stayed at the Gray Ass Inn,
(L'Ane Gris,) in honour of which imperial visit the landlord dis-
carded his humble quadruped sign, and put up the Emperor's

* For the benefit of those curious in Cambrian heraldry we will give these arms in a
note :—"A fly, a maggoty pie, a gammon of bacon and a ——: the fly drinks before his
master; a magpie doth prate and chatter, a gammon of bacon is never good till it be
hanged, and a-when it is out never returns to its country, no more will a Welsh-
man ; otherwise, his arms are two trees verdant, a beam tressant, a ladder ramuant, and
Taffe pendant."

Head. The customers seeing the Old Gray Ass gone, thought
the business had fallen into other hands, and so went to various
inns in the neighbourhood, and particularly to a New Gray Ass,
which had just then opened in the same street. The landlord
seeing his business falling off, through the change of his sign, yet
unwilling to part with his Emperor's head, after long thinking
and pondering, at last hit upon a clever compromise : he kept up
the portrait of the Emperor, but wrote under it, " At the Origi-
nal Gray Ass, (au writable Ane Oris.)"

The Parrot, or Popinjay, is an old sign now almost out of
fashion, the Green Parrot, Swinegate, Leeds, being one of the
few remaining. Andrew Maunsell, a bookseller and printer,
resided at the Parrot in St Paid's Churchyard in 1570, and con
tinued to trade under this sign till 1600. Taylor, the water
poet, mentions the Popinjay at Ewell, in 1636. It was a very
appropriate sign for quacks, and one of these, at all events, had
candour enough to adopt it. His handbill begins in a grandi-
loquent style :"—

" Noble or Ignoble, you may be foretold anything that may happen to
your Elementary Life : as at what time you may expect prosperity; or if
in Adversity the End thereof, or when you may be so happy as to enjoy
the Thing desired. Also young Men may foresee their Fortunes as in a
Glass, and pretty Maids their Husbands in this Noble, yea, Heavenlie art
of Astrologie. At the sign of the Parrot opposite to Ludgate Church
within Blackfriars' Gateway," *

The Parrot and Cage, in St Martin's Lane, Strand, adver-
tised in 1711 as a "just and substantial office of insurance" on
marriages, births, &c. This office, apparently, had chambers in
some bird-fancier's house, at all events to that class of the com-
munity the sign belonged more exclusively. In 1787, there was
one near the monument, the sign of a cagemalcer who sold " like-
wise parrots and other forring birds."

The Peacock, in ancient times, was possessed of a mystic
character. The fabled incorruptibility of its flesh led to its
typifying the Resurrection; and from this incorruptibility, doubt-
less, originated the first idea of swearing " by the Peacock," an
oath that was to be inviolably kept. Its first introduction on
the signboard is lost in the unrecorded wastes of time; but the
oath was a common one in early times, especially on occasions of
military adventures. Near the Angel in Clerkenwell, there is the
Peacock public-house, which bears the date 1564. This was

formerly a great house of call for the mail and other coaches
travelling on the Great North Road, much the same as the Ele-
phant and Castle was for the southern counties. The Peacock
and Feathers was a sign in Cornhill in 1711.

The Ostrich seems more common at present than in ancient
times. There is one on a stone-carved sign in Bread Street, pro-
bably the sign of a feather shop. Generally, the ostrich is repre-
sented with a horseshoe in his mouth, in allusion to its diges-
tive powers; for this reason Cade says to Iden :—

" I '11 make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a
great pin."—Henry VI., 2d Part, a. iv. sc. 10.

The landlord of an alehouse at Calverley, near Leeds, has
put his premises under the protection of Minerva's bird, the
Owl. At St Helens, Lancashire, there is a still more curious
sign, viz., the Owl's Nest, or the Owl in the Ivy Bush. A busli
or tod of ivy was formerly supposed to be a favourite place for
the owl to make its nest in. The old dramatists abound in allu-
sions to this :

Roosted all day within an ivy-tod." *—Drayton.
" Michael von Owle, how dost thou ?
In what dark barn or tod of aged ivy
Hast thou been hid ?"—Beaumont and Fletcher, a. iv. sc. 3.

In a masque of Shirley's, entitled " The Triumph of Peace,"
1633, one of the scenes represented a wild, woody landscape, " a
place fit for purse-taking," where, " in the furthest part was
seene an ivy-bush, out of which came an owle." Opinion, one
of the dramatis personal, informed the public, that this scene
was intended for " a wood, a broad-faced owl, an ivy-bush, and
other birds beside her." t

In districts where Grouse and Moorcock are found, these
birds frequently court the patronage of the thirsty sportsman at
the village alehouse door. One publican, at Upper Haslam,
Sheffield, invites at oijce the follower of Nimrod and of Walton :
his sign is the Grouse and Trout.

* A tod is an old word for any entangled mass, but generally applied to flax and ivy.
t This comment of " Opinion " might lead to the conclusion that either there was no
painted scene at all, or at least that it was badly executed; yet such can scarcely have been
the case, for a notice occurs at the end of the masque, purporting that "the scene and
ornament was the act of Inigo Jones, Esq., surveyor of His Majesty's Works," This
play was acted by the gentlemen of the Inns-of-Court, in the presence of the king and
queen, at Whitehall, Feb. 3, 1633.

ably the most puzzling of all. It occurs on an old trades token of
Cornliill, and is there called " The Live Yultuke." That the
man should have kept a live vulture at his door seems very
improbable. The only explanation which occurs to us, is the
possibility that, at some period or other, a live vulture had been
exhibited at this house, and that from this event its name was
derived.¹

A curious instance of a tradesman exhibiting a living bird as
an attraction to his house, is supplied us in a recent letter of a
Paris correspondent, which gives at the same time an amusing
anecdote of the well-known Alexandre Dumas. The writer,
speaking of a magnificent new café which had recently been com-
pleted, says :—

" Writing of this newly started restaurant naturally recals the fact of
the disappearance of the historic pavilion of Henry IV. at St Germain-en-
Laye, kept for many years by the Duchess of Berry's maître d'hôtel,
Oollinet. He was the pupil of Carême, and learnt to make sauces from
Richout, saucemaker to the last of the Coudés, and pastry from Heliot,
"Ecuyer ordinaire de la bouche de Madame la Dauphine," a title I have
vainly searched for in the list of the queen's household. The result of this
combination of culinary instructions was that his " Bifsteaks à la Bearnaise,"
and his woodcock pies, attracted not only all the fashionable world, but a
brilliant galaxy of literary celebrities to the " Pavilion Henry IV." Alex-
andre Dumas's chateau of Monte Christo was close to St Germain. He
sent daily for his cutlets to Collinet, who let his bill run on till it amounted
to 25,000f. (£1000), in payment of which the distinguished chef received
an autograph letter from the great novelist, accompanied by a live eagle.
Alexandre Dumas expressed his regret at not being able to pay the bill,
but suggested his exhibiting the eagle and the letter, which exhibition
would inevitably attract crowds to his hotel, and there I myself have seen
the eagle and read the letter,"

1 That vultures were exhibited as great curiosities, will be seen from our notice of thv
George and Vulture. See under Rreijoroos StQ/lS.

The Mermaid, as a sign, must have had great attractions for
our forefathers. Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other dramatists,
notice this taste for strange fishes. The ancient chronicles teem
with captures of mermen, mermaids, and similar creatures. Old
Hollinshed gives a detailed account of a merman caught at Or-
ford, in Suffolk, in the reign of King John. He was kept alive
on raw meal and fish for six months, but at last " fledde secretelye
to the sea, and was neuer after seene nor heard off." Another
chronicler says, "About this time [1202] fishes of strange shapes
were taken, armed with helmets and shields like armed men, only
they were much bigger," And Gervase of Tilbury roundly
asserts that mermen and mermaids live in the British Ocean.
Even in more modern times, every now and then a mermaid (the
mermen seem to have been more scarce) made her appearance.
In an advertisement at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
we find :—

JL day, a living Mermaid, from the waist upwards of a party colour,
from thence downwards is very strange and wonderful.

After which follows a most promising and tempting little bit
of information in French; —" Son corps est de divers couleurs
avec beaucoup d'autres curiosités qu'on ne peut exprimer." Again,
in 1747 :—

" We hear from the north of Scotland, that some time this month a sea
creature, known by the name of Mermaid, which has the shape of a human
body from the trunk upwards, but below is wholly fish, was carried some
miles up the water of Devron." *

In 1824, a mermaid or merman (for the sex was discreetly left
in dubio) made its appearance before " an enlightened public,"
when, as the papers inform us, " upwards of 150 distinguished
fashionables" went to see it. At Bartholomew Fair, in 1830, a
stuffed mermaid was exhibited ; but if once she had been such a
"mulier formosa" as captivated the ancient mariners, she was
certainly much altered, t A very different specimen had been
exhibited in Fleet Street in 1822 ; but she disappeared all at

f It was sketched by George Cruikshank ; and a wood-cut of it may be seen in Morley's
"Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair," p. 488.

once most mysteriously, not, however, without a rumour of he*
being under the protection of the Lord Chancellor, which, as she
was a comely maiden with flaxen hair, " mulier superne et inferne,"
lies within the range of possibilities. The sea-serpent has now
almost done away with the mermaid; yet, as late as 1857, there
appeared an article in the Shipping Gazette, under the intelligence
of 4th June, signed by some Scotch sailors, and describing an
object seen off the North British coast, " in the shape of a woman,
with full breast, dark complexion, comely face," and the rest.

At one time it appears to have been a very common sign, if we
may judge from the way in which it is mentioned by Brathwait in
his New Cast of Characters, (1631):—

" If she [the hostess] aspire to the conceit of a sine and device, her birch
pole pull'd downe, he will supply her with one, which he performes so
poorely as none that sees it, but would take it for a sign he was drunk
when he made it. A long consultation is had before they can agree what
sign must be reared. ' A meere-mayde} says she, ' for she will sing catches
to the youths of the parish.' ' A lyon,' says he, ' for that is the onely sign
he can make; and this he formes so artlessly, as it requires his expression,
this is a lyon. "Which old Ellenor Rumming, his tapdame, denies, saying
it should have been a meere-mayde."

Among the most celebrated of the Mermaid taverns in London,
that in Bread Street stands foremost. As early as the fifteenth
century, it was one of the haunts of the pleasure-seeking Sir John
Howard, whose trusty steward records, anno 1464 :—" Paid for
wyn at the Mermayd in Bred Stret, for my mastyr and Syr
Nicholas Latimer, x d. ob." In 1603, Sir Walter Baleigh estab-
lished a literary club in this house, doubtless the first in England.
Amongst its members were Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont
and Fletcher, Selden, Carew, Martin, Donne, Cotton, &c. It is
frequently alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher in their come-
dies, but best known is that quotation from a letter of Beaumont
to Ben Jonson :—

" What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame,
As if that any one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
.And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life; then when there hath been thrown
Wit able enough to justify the town
For three days past; wit that might warrant be
For the whole city to talk foolishly,
Till that were cancell'd; and when that was gone,
We left an air behind us, which alone

There was another Mermaid in Cheapside, frequented by Jasper
Mayne, and in the next reign by the poet laureate, John Dryden.
Mayne mentions it in " The City Match," (1638 :)—

At one time the landlord's name was Dun, which is told us in
a somewhat amusing anecdote :—" When Dun, that kept the
Meremaid Tavern in Cornhill, being himself in a room with some
witty gallants, one of them (which, it seems, knew his wife) too
boldly cryd out in a fantastick humour, 'I'll lay five pound
there's a cuckhold in this company.' ' 'Tis Dun,' says another." ¹
In 1681, there was a Mermaid in Carter Lane, which had a great
deal of traffic as a carriers' inn.t

The sign was also used by printers. John Rastall, for instance,
brother-in-law of Sir Thomas More, " emprynted in the Cheape-
syde at the sygne of the Meremayde ; next to Poulysgate in 1527
and in 1576 a translation of the History of Lazarillo de Tormes,
dedicated to Sir Thomas Gresham, was printed by Henry Binne-
mann, the queen's printer, in Iiniglit-rider Street, at the sign of
the Mermaid. A representation of this fabulous creature was
generally prefixed to his books.

The Seahorse may be seen in Birmingham, York, and various
other places. Bossewell, in his peculiar mixture of English
and Latin, gives a quaint description of this animal:—

" This waterhorse of the sea is called an hyppotame, for that he is like
an horse in back, mayne, and neying: rostro resupinato a primis denlibus:
Cauda tortuosa, ungulis binis. He abideth in the waters on the day, and
eateth corn by night ct hunc Nilus gignit." +

The Dolphin is another sign of very old standing. One of
the first instances of its use was probably the following inn :—

" The other side of this High Street, from Bishopsgate and Houndsditch,
the first building is a large inn for the receipt of travellers, and is called
the Dolphin, of such a sign. In the year 1513, Margaret Ricroft, widow,
gave this house, with the gardens and appurtenances, unto William Gam,
R. Clye, their wives, her daughters, and to their heirs, with condition they
yearly do give to the warders or govornors of the Greyfriars' Church,
within Newgate, 40 shillings, to find a student of divinity in the university
for ever." §

Moser, in his " Vestiges Revived," mentions this same inn as the
"Dolphin, or rather, Dauphin Inn; and says that it was adorned
with fleur-de-lys, cognisances, and dolphins; and was reported to
have been the residence of one of the dauphins of France, pro-
bably Louis, the son of Philip August, who, in 1216, came to
England to contest the sceptre with King John.* The house
was still in existence at the end of the seventeenth century, when
it was a famous coaching inn. Perhaps it was to this tavern
that Pepys and his company adjourned on 27th March 1661 :—

" To the Dolphin to a dinner of Mr Harris's, where Sir William and my
Lady Batten and her two daughters, and other company, when a great deal
of mirth, and there staid till 11 o'clock at night, and in our mirth I sang
and sometimes fiddled, (there being a noise of fiddlers there,) and at last
we fell to dancing, the first time that ever I did in my life, which I did
wonder to see myself to do. At last we made Mingo, Sir W. Batten's
black, and Jack, Sir W. Penn's, dance, and it was strange how the first did
dance with a great deal of skill."

Pepys might well wonder what a man may come to, he who had
been born when " lascivious dancing" was considered a heinous
crime. Another Dolphin, well worthy of remembrance, was the
sign of Sam. Buckley, a bookseller in Little Brittain, at whose
house Steele and Addison's Spectator was published.

Ancient naturalists made a wonderful animal of the dolphin.
Bossewell, for instance, from whom we have just quoted, tells
most extraordinary stories about him ; but they are unfortunately
too long to quote. Londoners formerly might have seen the
living fish from the river banks, for old chroniclers every now
and then have entries to the effect that dolphins paid London a
visit. Thus : " 3 Henry V. Seven dolphins came up the river
Thames, whereof 4 were taken." "14 Bich. II. On Christmas
day a dolphin was taken at London Bridge, being 10 ft. long,
and a monstrous grown fish." t The Dolphin and Anchor is -
still a common sign; and the Fish and Anchor, at North Little-
ton, Warwickshire, evidently implies the same emblem. Aldus
Manutius, the celebrated Venetian printer, was the first to use
the sign, adopting it from a silver medal of the Emperor Titus,
presented to him by Cardinal Bembo, with the motto, eirtvbs

centuries. At the present day, 40s. would scarcely keep an Oxford or Cambridge student
in cigar-lights.

* Moser makes a slight error. The heir-apparent to the throne of France did not
assume the title of Dauphin till 1349, when Humbert II., Dauphin of Vienne, having no
posterity, retired to a monastery, and sold his estates to Philip VI., King of France, on
behalf of his grandson, afterwards Charles V.

fioabtug. Camerarius thus (in our translation) mentions this sign
in his book on Symbols :—

" That the dolphin wound round the anchor was an emblem of the Em-
perors August and Titus, to represent that maturity in business which is
the medium between too great haste and slowness; and that it was also
used in the last century by Aldus Manutius, that most famous printer, is
known to everybody. Erasmus clearly and abundantly explains the import
of that golden precept.

" Our emblem is taken from Alciatus, and has a different meaning. He
reports, namely, that ' when violent winds disturb the sea, as Lucretius says,
and the anchor is cast by seamen, the dolphin winds herself round it, out
of a particular love for mankind, and directs it, as with a human intellect,
so that it may more safely take hold of the ground; for dolphins have this
peculiar property, that they can, as it were, foretell storms. The anchor,
then, signifies a stay and security, whilst the dolphin is a hieroglyphic for
philanthropy and safety.'"—Joach. Camerarius, " Symlolorum et Emble-
matum Centurion Quatuor." Centuria iv. p. 19; Moguntia, 1697.

This sign was afterwards adopted by William Pickering, a
worthy " Discipulus Aldi," as he styled himself; Sir Egerton
Bridges made some verses upon it, amongst which occur the
following:—

The Dolphin and Comb was the sign of E. Heme, a milliner
on London Bridge in 1722. This is an instance of one of the
articles sold within being added to the original sign of the house.
Milliners in those days used to have a much more extensive
variety of objects for sale than they have now, comprehending
almost every article required for female apparel,—and including
knives, scissors, combs, pattens, patches, poking sticks, fans, bod-
kins, &c. Such additions to signs were of frequent occurrence,
thus the Fox and Topknot, the Lamb and Breeches, the Fox and
Cap, and the Lamb and Inkbottle, which last figures on the
imprint of Thomas Koch, Newgate Street, a bookseller who made

" the best ink for deeds and records," 1677. Frequently the sign
of the Fish is seen without any further specification ; in this case
it is probably meant for the Dolphin, which is the signboard-fish
par excellence. The Fish sign is a very common public house
decoration at the present day, probably for the same reason as the
Swan, because he is fond of liquor,—nay, to such an extent goes
his reputation for intemperance, that to " drink like a fish" is a
quality of no small excellence with publicans. In Carlisle, how-
ever, there are two signs of the Fish and Dolphin, a rather
puzzling combination,—unless it has reference to the dolphin's
chase after the shoals of small fishes. The Fish and Bell,
Soho, may either allude to a well-known anecdote of a certain
numskull, who, when he caught a fish, which he desired to keep
for dinner on some future grand occasion, put it back into the
river, with a bell round its neck, so that he should be able to know
its whereabouts the moment he wanted it; or it may be the usual
Bell added in honour of the bell-ringers. A quaint variety of
this sign is the Bell and Mackerel, in the Mile-End Road. The
Three Fishes was a favourite device in the Middle Ages, cross'
ing or interpenetrating each other in such a manner, that the
head of one fish was at the tail of another. We cannot prove
that it had any emblematic meaning, but it may possibly represent
the Trinity, the fish being a common symbol for Christ, derived
from the Greek monogram or abbreviation, IX 0X2. It occurs
as a sign in the following advertisement, which minutely de-
scribes the livery of a page in the year of the Restoration :—

" On Saturday night last run away from the Lord Rich, Christophilus
Cornaro, a Turk christened; a French youth of 17 or 18 years of age, with
flaxen hair, little blew eyes, a mark upon his lip, and another under his
right eye; of a fair complexion, one of his ears pierced, having a pearl-
coloured suit, trimmed with scarlet and blue ribbons, a coat of the same
colour with silver buttons; his name Jacob David. Give notice to the
Lord, lodging at the Three Fishes in New Street, in Covent Garden, a cook-
shop, and good satisfaction shall be given." *

The Three Herrings, the sign of James Moxton, a booksellei
in the Strand, near Yorkhouse, in 1675, is evidently but anothei
name for the Three Fishes; at the present day it is the sign of an
ale-house in Bell Yard, Temple Bar. Several taverns with this
sign are mentioned in the French tales and plays of the 17th
century; two of them seem to have been very celebrated, one in
the Faubourg St Marceau, the other near the Palais de Justice;

this last one seems to have been particularly famous, for it is
named as a rival to the celebrated Pomme de Pin. " Si je vay
an Palais, tous ces clercs sont alentour de moy ; l'un me mène
aux Trois Poissons, l'autre à la Pomme de Pin."—Comédie de la
Yefve, ac. iii. s. 3.* The Fish and Quart at Leicester must be
passed by in silence, as the combination cannot immediately be
accounted for. Were it in France a solution would be easier, for in
French slang a " poisson," or fish, means a small measure of wine.
The Fish and Eels at Roydon, in Essex ; the Fish and Kettle,
Southampton ; and the White Bait, Bristol, all tell their own
tale, and need no comment. The Salmon is seen occasionally
near places where it is caught. The Salmon and Ball is the
well-known Ball of the silkmercers in former times, added to the
sign of the Salmon ; whilst the Salmon and Compasses is the
masonic emblem that is added to the sign. Both these occur in
more than one instance in London. The Fishbone is rarely met
with as a public-house sign, though there is an example of it at
Netherton in Cheshire, and also amongst the seventeenth century
tokens of New Clieapside, Moorfields. But generally it is the sign of
a rag and bone shop, or, in the euphonious language of the day, a
" miscellaneous repository," or " bank of commerce." These shops,
as their title of " marine stores" implies, used to buy all the odds
and ends of rope, sails, seamen's old clothes, in short all the rub-
bish of which a ship is cleared after its return from a long voyage.
Bones of large fish would be often amongst the curiosities brought
home by the sailors, these also they bought and hung them up
outside their doors, and in the end these bones became their dis-
tinctive sign. The Sun and Whalebone at Latton, in Essex,
may have originated from a whalebone hanging outside the house,
or that the landlord had laid the foundation of his fortune as a
rag merchant. »

Insects are of very rare occurrence. The industrious habits of
the bees, however, made their habitation a favourite object to im-
ply a similar industry in the shopkeepers. Many years ago there
used to be at Grantham in Lincolnshire, a signpost on which was
placed a Beehive in full swarm, with the following lines under
it:—

* If I go to the Palace of Justice, all those clerks are constantly after me ; one takes
roe to the Three Fishes, the other to the Pine Cone."—Comedy of the Widow, a. iii. s. a.

Though the living bees were gone the following season, yet the
sign and inscription remained until very recently. The following
is a common inscription under the sign of the Beehive :—

A tea-dealer at the corner of Oxford Street, Tottenham Court
Boad, in the end of the last century, had for his sign the Walking
Leaf, (the Phyllium siccifolium of the naturalists,) an East Indian
insect, of an anything but agreeable association, when we
consider the remarkable vegetable appearance of this insect,
and the possibility that it might be dried among the tea-
leaves.

Although the frog cannot be considered either an insect or
a fish, yet we may include it in this chapter. Of frogs there
are some instances on the signboard; the Three Frogs, (see
under Heraldic Signs,) and Froghall, formerly a public-house
at the south end of Frog Lane, Islington. On the front of this
house there was exhibited the ludicrous sign of a plough drawn
by frogs. There is at the present day a Froghall Inn at Wolston,
near Coventry; and a public-house of that name at Layerthorpe
in the West Biding, but the picture of the sign was doubtless
unique. The principal inn on the island of Texel is called the
Golden Frog, (de Goude kiJcker.) We may wonder that there
are not more examples of this sign in Holland, for there are,
without doubt, as many frogs in that country as there are
Dutchmen; and even unto this day it is a mooted point, which
of the two na.tions has more right to the possession of the
country; both, however, are of a pacific disposition, so that they
live on in a perfect entente oordiale.

In old times, when signboards flourished, there would have
been many reasons for choosing these house-decorations. 1. Their
symbolic meaning, as the olive-tree, the fig-tree, the palm-tree.
2. To intimate what was sold within, as the vine, the coffee-plant,
&c. 3. The use of some plants as badges. 4. The vicinity of
some well-known tree or road-mark, near the place where the
sign was displayed. 5. The desire of a landlord to have an unusual
sign.

The oldest sign borrowed from the vegetable kingdom is the
Bush ; it was a bush or bunch of ivy, box or evergreen, tied to
the end of a pole, such as is represented in many of the suttler's
tents in the pictures of Wouverman. The custom came evidently
from the Romans, and with it the oft-repeated proverb, " Good
wine needs no Bush." (Vinum, vendibile liedera non est opus ;
in Italian, Al buon vino non bisogna frasca; in French, a bon
vin point d'enseigne.) Ivy was the plant commonly used : " The
Tavern Ivy clings about my money and kills it," says the sottish
slave in Massinger's " Virgin Martyr," (a. iii. s. 3.) It may have
been adopted as the plant sacred to Bacchus and the Bacchantes,
or perhaps simply because it is a hardy plant, and long continues
green. As late as the reign of King James I. many inns used it
as their only sign. Taylor, the water poet, in his perambulation
of ten shires around London, notes various places where there is
" a taverne with a bush onlyin other parts he mentions " the
signe of the Bush." Even at the present day " the Bush" is a
very general sign for inn and public-house, whilst sometimes it
assumes the name of the Ivy Bush, or the Ivy Green, (two in
Birmingham.) In Gloucester, Warwick, and other counties, where
at certain fairs the ordinary booth people and tradesmen enjoy
the privilege of selling liquors without a licence, they hang out
bunches of ivy, flowers, or boughs of trees, to indicate this sale.
As far away as the western States of North America, at the build-
ing of a new village, or station, it is no uncommon thing to see a
bunch of hay, or a green bough, hung from above the " grocery,"
or bar-room door, until such time as a superior decoration can be
provided The bunch being fixed to a long staff was also called
the Alepole; thus among the processions of odd characters that
came to purchase ale at the Tunnyng of Elinour Rummyng ;—

How these Alepoles, from the very earliest times, continued to
enlarge and encroach upon the public way, has been shown in our
Introduction, pp. 16,17. The Bunch gradually became a garland
of flowers of considerable proportions, whence Chaucer, describing
the Sompnour, says :—

" If these houses [ale-houses] have a boxe-bush, or an old post, it is
enough to show their profession. But if they be graced with a signe com-
pleat, it's a signe of a good custome." *

In a mask of 1633, the constituents of a tavern are thus described :
—" A flaminge red lattice, seueral drinking roomes, and a backe
doore, but especially a conceited signe and an eminent bush."
" Tavernes are quickly set up, it is but hanging out a bush at a
nobleman's or an alderman's gate, and 'tis made instantly."—Shir-
ley's Masque of the Triumph of Peace. In a woodcut from the
" Cent Nouvelle Nouvelles," introduced in Wright's " Domestic
Manners," the Bush is suspended from a square board, on which
the sign was painted ; for in France as well as in England, sign-
board and bush went together :—
" La taverne levée
L'enseigne et le bouchon,
La dame bien peignée
Les cheveux en bouchon." +
—Chanson nouvelle des Tavernes et Tavernières, Fleur des Chansons Nou-
velles, Lyon, 1586.

Whilst an English host in " Good News and Bad News," says :—
" I rather will take down my bush and sign than live by means
of riotous expense." Gradually, as signs became more costly, the
bunch was entirely neglected and the sign alone remained.

With signboard and bush ;
The landlady's hair neatly dressed.
Tied up in a knot.*

The Hand and Flower is a sign very frequently adopted by
alehouses in the vicinity of nursery grounds :—thus, there is one
in the High Street, Kensington, and one in the King's Road, a
little past Cremorne, though there the nursery ground has very
recently been built over.

The Rose, besides being the queen of flowers, and the national
emblem, had yet another prestige which alone would have been
sufficient to make it a favourite sign in the middle ages; this was
its religious import. On the monumental brass of Abbot Kirton,
formerly in "Westminster Abbey, there was a crowned rose with
E^.ffi. in its heart, and round it the words

And in Caxton's Psalter, above a woodcut representing an angel
holding a shield with a rose on it, occur the words:—

It was evidently an emblem of the Virgin, and may contain some
allusion to the Rose of Jericho, or to the Christmas rose.

Three centuries ago roses were still very scarce, as we learn
from an original MS. of the time of Henry VIII., and signed by
him, preserved at the Remembrance Office, in which it says that
a red rose cost two shillings; hence, roses were often amongst the
terms of a tenure. Sir Christopher Hatton, the handsome Lord
Chancellor, with the " bushy beard and shoe strings green," who
danced himself into Queen Elizabeth's favour, paid the Bishop of
Ely for the rent of Ely House for a term of twenty-one years in
1576, a red rose, ten loads of hay, and £10 a-year; but that roses
then were plentiful, in that garden at all events, is also evident,
for the Bishop and his successors had a right to gather yearly
twenty bushels of' roses out of it. Sir John Poulteney, 21 Ed-
ward III., gave and confirmed by charter to Humphrey de Bohun,
Earl of Hereford and Essex, his tenement of Cold Harborough,
and appurtenances, for one rose at Midsummer; a still more whim-
sical tenure was that of a farm at Brookhouse, Penistone, York,
for which yearly a payment was to be made of a red rose at Christ-
mas, and a snow ball at Midsummer.^ Unless the flower of the
Viburnum or Gueldres Rose, sometimes called a Snowball, was

meant, tlie payment -will have been almost impossible in those
days when ice-cellars were unknown.

At the present day some publicans take liberties with the old
sign of the Rose ; in Macclesfield, and at Preston, for instance, there
is the Moss Rose; on Silkstone Common, in Yorkshire, the Bunch
of Roses ; on the London Road, Preston, the Rosebud, &c. The
Three Roses was formerly a common sign; from the way they
are represented, they appear to have been heraldic roses, (see our
illustration of the ancient Lattice.) It was the sign of Jonathan
Edwin, bookseller in Luclgate Street in 1673. At the Rose Gar-
land, Robert Coplande, the bookseller and printer, published in
1534 Dame Juliana Berner's " Boke of Hawkyng, Huntyng, and
Fyshyng." This shop was in " the Elete Strete." Bose garlands
or chaplets were not only worn in the middle ages as head-dresses,
but also awarded as archery prizes.

Copland's Bose garland, doubtless, suggested the sign of another
bookseller, John Wayland, who also lived in Fleet Street about
the year 1540 ; his sign was the Blue Garland.

The colloquial phrase, Under the Bose, is sometimes used as
a sign, or written under the pictorial representation of the rose ;
it occurs on a trade's token of Cambridge,¹ and may be seen on
various public-houses of the present day. Numerous suppositions
have been made concerning its origin, some holding that it arose
from this flower being the emblem of Ilarpourates; others from
a rose painted on the ceiling, any conversations held under which
were not to be divulged; whilst Gregory Nazianzen seems to
imply that the rose, from its close bud, had been made the
emblem of silence.

"Utque latet rosa verna suo putamine clausa,
Sic os vincla ferat, validis arcietur habenis,
Indicatque suis prolixa silentia labris."+

At Lullingstone Castle, in Kent, the residence of Sir Percival
Dyke, Bart., there is, says a correspondent of Notes and Queries,

1 See Boynes' Tokens issued in the seventeenth century in England, Wales, and
Ireland.

f Like the rose in spring, hidden in its hud, so must the mouth be closed and restrained
with strong reins, enforcing silence to the loquacious rps.

a representation of a rose nearly two feet in diameter, surrounded
with the following inscription :—

The Dutch have a similar phrase. In an old Book of Inscrip-
tions of the seventeenth century is a device written round a rose
painted on the ceiling :—

There is one sign of the Bose, the origin of which it is difficult
to ascertain, this is the Bose of Normandy, a public-house in
the High Street, Marylebone. It was built in the seventeenth cen-
tury, and is the oldest house in that parish. In 1659 it is de-
scribed as having

" Outside a square brick wall set with fruit trees, gravel walks 204 paces
long, 7 broad; the circular wall 485 paces long, 6 broad ; the centre square,
a bowling-green, 112 paces one way, 88 another—all, except the first, double
Bet with quickset hedges, full grown, and kept in excellent order, and in-
dented like town walls." +

The street having been raised, the entrance to the house is at pre-
sent some steps beneath the roadway. The original form of the
exterior has been preserved, and the staircases and balusters are
coeval with the building; but the garden and large bowling-green
have dwindled into a miserable skittle-ground.

As a sign the Marygold, it is said, arose from a popular read-
ing of the sign of the Sun ; a very natural and plausible origin.
At the same time, it is just worth mentioning, that this flower
(originally called the Gold) seems to have been considered as an
emblem of Queen Mary; so, at least, it would appear from a
lengthy ballad of " the Marygolde," composed by her chaplain,
William Forrest, in which, amongst many other similar allu-
sions, the following words are found :—

" She [the Queen] may be called Marygolde well,
Of Marie (chiefe) Christes mother deere,
That as in heaven she doth excell,

And golde on earth to have no peere,
So certainly she shineth cleere,
In grace and honour double fold,

The flower was a favourite one in the middle ages, deriving the first
part of its name from the Virgin Mary. No mention of the actual
use of the sign, however, has been met with previous to 1638,
when it appears on the title-pages of Francis Eglisfield, a book-
seller in St Paul's Churchyard. His name still occurs at the
same house in 1673,¹ when it was also the sign of " Mr Cox,
milliner, over against St Clement's Church in the Strand." +
This must have been the same house in which Richard Blanchard
and Francis Child, the goldsmiths, kept their "running cashes." {
It is the oldest banking firm in London. Francis Child, the
founder, was, in the reign of Charles I., apprenticed to a gold-
smith, William Wheeler, whose shop stood on the same spot now
occupied by the bank. He married his master's daughter, and
thus laid the foundation of his immense fortune. Many bills and
other papers relating to Nell Gwynn are still preserved by this
firm, as well as various documents concerning the sale of Dun-
kerque. Alderman Blackwell, who was ruined by the shutting u p of
the Exchequer in the reign of Charles II., was at one time a part-
ner in this house. It was here that Dryden deposited the £50
offered for the discovery of the bullies of the " Rose-alley cudgel
ambuscade." § The old sign of the house is still preserved by
their successors, together with various relics of the Devil Tavern,
on the site of which it was built.

Only a few other flowers occur, mostly modern introductions.
The Daisey, Bramley, Leeds; the Tulip, Springfield, Chelms-
ford ; the Lilies of the Valley, Ible, near Wirksworth; the
Snowdrop, near Lewes •, Woodbine Tavern, South Shields; and
the Forest Blue Bell, Mansfield.¹ The Blue Bell is very com-
mon, but, inter doctores lis est, whether it signifies the little blue
flower, or a bell painted blue.

As a sequel to the flowers, we may name the Myrtle tree, of
which there are two in Bristol, and the Rosemary Branch, in
Camberwell, and in many other places. Rosemary was formerly an
emblem of Remembrance, in the same way as the Forget-me-not
is now; "There's Rosemary, that's for remembrance," says Ophelia,
(Hamlet, ac. iv., s. 5,) and in Winter's Tale, Perdita says:—

" For you, there's Rosemary and Rue, these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long,
Grace and remembrance be to you both."

Hence Rosemary and gloves were of old presented to those who
followed the funeral of a friend.

Fruit trees are much more common, particularly the Apple-
tree and the Pear-tree, which (owing to the favourite drinks of
cider and perry) are next to the Rose; and the Oak, the most
frequent among vegetable signs. The Apple-tree, near Coldbatk
Fields prison, was one of the numerous public-houses which
Topham the strong man kept in 1745. At the Apple-tree
Tavern, in Charles Street, Covent Garden, four of the leading
London Free Masons' lodges, considering themselves neglected by
Sir Christopher Wren in 1716, met and chose a grandmaster, pro
tem., until they should be able to place a noble brother at the head,
which they did the year following, electing the Duke of Montague.
Sir Christopher had been chosen in 1698. The three lodges that
joined with the Apple-tree Lodge use& to meet respectively at the
Goose and Gridiron, St Paul's Churchyard ; the Crown, Par-
ker's Lane ; and at the Rummer and Grapes Tavern, West-
minster. The Hand and Apple was the sign, in 1782, of a shop
in Thames Street, where " syder, Barcelona, cherry brandy, to-
bacco," &c., were sold. It represented a hand holding an apple,
and was chosen on account of the cider.¹ To this beverage other
signs owe their origin: for instance, the Red-streak Tree, from the
apple of which the best cider is made. Tickets used formerly to
be in the windows of houses where cider was sold, with the words,
" Bright Bed-streak Cyder sold here," illustrated with three merry
companions in cocked hats, sitting under an apple-tree drinking
cider, on the other side a pile of barrels, from which the landlord
is drawing the liquor. In Maylordsham, Hereford, this sign is
rendered as the " Red-streaked Tree ;" there was a Red-streaked
Tree Inn in that same town in 1775.+ The Apple-tree and
Mitre is an old painted sign, a great deal the worse for London
smoke, in Cursitor Street. It represents an apple-tree abundantly
loaded with fruit, standing in a landscape, with some figures;
above it a gdt mitre. It is evidently a combination of two signs.

The Pear-tree is as common as the Apple-tree. The Iron
Pear-tree at Appleshaw, Andover, Hants, and at Redenham in

the same county, may have been derived from some noted pear-
tree in that neighbourhood, whose hollow and broken stem was
secured with plates or bands of iron. Very general, also, is the
Cherry-tree. It was the sign of a once famous resort in Bowl-
ing-green Lane, Clerkenwell, and was adopted on account of the
quantities of cherry-trees which grew upon its grounds, even as
late as thirty or forty years ago. In our younger days, this house
was the resort of the fast men of Clerkenwell; its bowling-green
gave the name to the alley in which the house stood. Down the
river, at Botherhithe, was the Cherry-garden, a famous place
of entertainment in the reign of the Merry Monarch. Pepys
went to it on June 15, 1664, and, with his usual pleasant flow
of animal spirits, " came home by water, singing merrily."

" Over against the parish church, [St Olave's, Southwark,] on the south
Bide of the street, was some time one great house, builded of stone, with
arched gates, which pertained to the Prior of Lewis, in Sussex, and was his
lodging when he came to London; it is now a common hostelry for travel-
lers, and hath to sign the Walnut-tree." *

The Walnut-tree was alio the sign of a tavern at the south
side of St Paul's Churchyard, over against the New Vault, in
which place a concert is advertised in July 1718, which, from the
high price of the admission tickets—5s. each—must have been
something out of the common.t The Walnut-tree was frequently
adopted by cabinetmakers, and is at the present day a not un-
common alehouse sign.

The Mulberry-tree was introduced at an early period, but does
not seem to have been used as a sign until modern times. James I.,
in 1609, caused several shiploads of mulberry trees to be imported
from abroad to encourage the home manufacture of silk : these
were planted in a part of St James's Park; but the climate being
too cold for the silk worms, it was changed into a pleasure garden,
where even the serious Evelyn would occasionally relax. 10th
May 1654 :—

" My Lady Gerard treated us at the Mulberry Gardens, now ye only
place of refreshment about ye towne for persons of ye best quality to be
exceedingly cheated at; Cromwell and his partizans having shut up and
seized on Spring Gardens, which till now had been y^e usual rendezvous for
ye ladys and gallants at this season."

Here Dryden went to eat mulberry tarts, and here Pepys occa-
sionally dined, as 5th April 1669, when he indulged in what he
calls an " olio," evidently an olla podrida, since it was prepared

by a Spanish cook; and the dish was so " noble," and such a
success, that he and his friends left the rest of their dinners un-
touched ; and after a ride in a coach and a walk for digestion,
they took supper " upon what was left at noon, and very good."

Orange trees were one of the ornaments of St James' Park in
the reign of Charles II. ; and at that period and long after, were
mostly used as signboards of the seed-shops, and by Italian mer-
chants. The Orange-tree and Two Jars was the sign of a
shop of the latter description in the Hay market in 1753.* No
doubt, the orange tree must have obtained some popularity in the
reign of William III, as it is the emblem of the Orange family.
The orange tree is said to be originally a Chinese plant, (whence
they were formerly called China oranges.) They were unknown
to the ancients, and introduced by the Moors into Sicily in
the twelfth century. France possessed them in the fourteenth
century; and probably much about the same period they were
brought to England, for we find " pome d'orring" mentioned as
one of the items at the coronation dinner of Henry IV. in 1399,
where they occur in the third course, along with quincys en com,'
fyte doucettys, and other items of a modern dessert, t But a still
earlier instance* is mentioned in the " Book of Days," (vol. ii.
p. 694,) viz., in 1290, when a large ship from Spain arrived at
Portsmouth laden with spices. On this occasion, Queen Eleanor
of Castile, anxious to taste again the luscious fruit that reminded
her of her home in sunny Spain and the days of her girlhood,
bought out of the cargo " a frail of figs, of raisins, and of grapes,
a bale of dates, 230 pomegranates, 15 citrons, and 7 oranges."
This probably is the oldest mention of the orange being brought
to England. The tree is said to have been introduced into this
country by a member of the Carew family. Oranges are named
amongst the articles of diet consumed by the Lords of the Star
Chamber in 1509, when their price is quoted one day at iijd.,
and another at ijd., whilst the charge for strawberries was vijd.,
and on another day iiijd. j Perhaps, however, they were only used

X Lansdowne MS., No. 1, fol. 49. Three weeks' diet of the Lords of the Star Chamber,
These lords appear to have lived very well, as we may learn from some of the items of
one day's dinner;—fflrst for bread, xijd.; ale, iijs. iiijd. ; and wine, xvjd. Item to

wyne of moton ; maribones and beef; powdered beef; ij capons; ij geese; v conyes;

j leg moton; vj places; vj pegions; ij doz. larkes; salt and sause; butter and eggs,
&c., ic., &c.

as hors d'oeuvres, for Randle Holme, in his instructions how to ar-
range a dinner, (in that omnium gatherum, " Academy of Armory,"}
mentions oranges and lemons as the first item of the second course.
At all events, they were abundant enough in 1559, for on May
day of that year the revellers " at the queen's plasse at West-
mynster Ishott and threw eges and orengs on a-gaynst a-nodur."
In an "Account of several Gardens near London," in 1691,+
Beddington Gardens are mentioned—then in the hands of the
Duke of Norfolk, but belonging to the Carew family—as having
in it the best oranges in England. The orange and lemon trees
grew in the ground, " and had done so near one hundred years,
the house in which they were being above 200 feet long. Each
of the trees was about 13 feet high, and generally full of fruit,
producing above 10,000 oranges a year." Sir William Temple's
oranges at Sheen are also praised. It is, indeed, a pity that this
plant has so much gone out of fashion; for, besides being always
green, it bears fruit and flowers all the year round, both appearing
at the same time. The flowers have a delicious smell; the can-
died petals impart a very fine flavour to tea, if a few of them are
infused with it; whilst the fruit may be preserved in exactly the
same manner as other fruit. The sign of the orange-tree still
occurs at Highgate, Birmingham: the Lesion Tree at Beacon
Street, Lichfield.

The Olive Tree was a common Italian warehouse sign, but
was occasionally used by other shops. Amongst the tokens in
the Beaufoy Collection, there is the " Olfa Tree, Singon Strete,"
an example of the liberties taken with .our language on the old
tokens, as this stands for the Olive Tree in St John's Street. The
usefulness of the olive tree made it in very early times a symbol
of peace. In 1503 it was the sign of Henry Estienne, a book-
seller and printer at the end of the Bue de St Jean Beauvais,
otherwise Clos Bruneau, in Paris. This firm, for several genera-
tions, continued the leading publishers and printers in Paris;
Sauval, who wrote in 1650, says that in his time the olive tree,
carved in stone, was still to be seen in the front of the house.
Here Francis I., in 1539, visited Bobert Estienne, grandson of
the founder of the firm, in his workshops; and to give him a
proof of his favour, conferred upon him the title of Printer to
the King for Latin and Hebrew ; and presented him with those

beautiful letters which Estienne proudly mentions on his title-
pages : " Ex officina Boberti Stephani, typographi regii, typis
regiis."

The Vine, or the Bunch of Grapes, is a very natural sign at a
place where wine is sold. The last particularly was almost inse-
parable from every tavern, and was often combined with other
objects—

" Without there hangs a noble sign,
Where golden grapes in image sliine;
To crown the bush, a little Punch-
Gut Bacchus dangling of a bunch,
Sits loftily entliron'd upon
What's called (in miniature) a Tun."

The Bunch of Carrots, at Hampton Bishop, Hereford, is
probably meant as a joke upon the Bunch of Grapes. Bagford,
in a letter to his brother antiquary, Leland, * says :—

" I have often thought, and am now fully perswaded, that the planting
of vines in the adjacent parts about this city, was first of all begun, by the
Romans, an industrious people, and famous for their skill in agriculture
and gardening, as may appear from their rei agrarice scriptores, as well as
from Pliny and other authors. We had a vineyard in East Smithfield, an-
other in Hatton Garden, (which at this time is called Vine Street,) and a
third in St Giles-in-the-Fields. + Many places in the country bear the
name of the Vineyard to this day, especially in the ancient monasteries, as
Canterbury, Ely, Abingdon, &c., which were left as such by the Romans."

In Bede's time vineyards were abundant; and still later, tithes
on wine were common in Gloucester, Kent, Surrey, and the
adjacent counties. Winchester was famous for its vineyards in
olden times, for Bobert of Gloucester, in summing up the various
commodities of the English counties, says :—

The Isle of Ely was,called Isle des Yignes, and the tithe on
the vines yielded as much as three or four tuns of wine to the
bishop. Even in Bichard II.'s time, the Little Park at Windsor
was used as a vineyard for the home consumption; and the vale
of Gloucester, according to William of Malmesbury, produced, in

* Prefixed to Collectanea, 1770, p. Ixxv. ; there is also a paper on Vines in England in
Arcliajologia, i. p. 321; and Roacli Smith's Collectanea Antiqua, vol. vi., p. 78, el sej
may be consulted with advantage upon this subject.

t Curiously enough, until about 1820, a public-house, the sign of the Vine, in Dobie
Street, St Giles, occupied the verv site assigned to this vineyard iu Domesday liook,
a.D 1070.

the twelfth century, as good a wine as many of the provinces of
France; this county, in fact, produced the best wine :—

" There is 110 province in England hath so many or such good vineyards
as this county, [Gloucester,] either for fertility or sweetness of the grape;
the wine whereof carrieth no unpleasant tartness, being not much inferior
to French in sweetness." ¹

From the household expenses of Richard de Swinfield, Bishop
of Hereford, (1289-1290,) it appears that the white wine was at
that period chiefly home-grown, whilst the greater proportion of
red wine was imported from abroad. Even as late as the last
century wine was made in England : Faulknert quotes the fol-
lowing memorandum from the MS. notes of Peter Collinson :—

" October 18,1765.—T went to see Mr Roger's vineyards at Parson's Green
[at Fulham] all of Burgundy grapes, and seemingly all perfectly ripe; I
did not see a green, half-ripe grape in all this quantity. He does not expect
to make less than fourteen hogsheads of wine. The branches and fruit are
remarkably large, and the wine very strong."

Grosley| mentions a vineyard at Cobham, belonging to a Mr
Hamilton, of about half an acre, planted with Burgundian vines;
but the wine it produced will cause nobody to regret that the
culture has been abandoned, for " it was a liquor of a darkish
gray color; to the palate it was like verjuice and vinegar blended
together by a bad taste of the soil." This description, enough 4.0
set the teeth on edge, is most likely true, and gives us the reason
why English wine came to be abandoned.

As the vine was set up as a sign in honour of wine, so the Hop-
pole, or the Hop and Barleycorn, the Barley Mow, the Bar-
ley Stack, the Malt and Hops, and the Hopbtne, are very
general tributes of honour rendered to beer. In many ale-houses
a bunch of hops may be seen suspended in some conspicuous
place.

The Pine-apple, in the end of the last and the beginning of
this century, was generally the emblem adopted by confectioners,
though not exclusively, for it was the sign of an eating-house in
New Street, Strand, at which Dr Johnson, on his first coming to
town, used to dine.

" I dined very well for eightpence, with very good company, at the Pine-
apple in New Street, just by. § Several of them had travelled; they expected

,5 He lived then in Exeter Street, at a stay-maker's. Bos well's Johnson: London,
181 y, p, 67.

to meet every day, but did not know one another's names. It used to cost
the rest a shilling, for they drank wine; but I had a cut of meat for six-
pence, and bread for a penny, and gave the waiter a penny; so that I was
quite well served, nay, better than the rest, for they gave the waiter
nothing."

The pine-apple was first known at the discovery of America, and
w^ras preserved in sugar as early as 1556. The first pine-apple was
brought from Santa Cruz to the West Indies, thence to the East
Indies and China. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, writing in
October 1716, informs her sister that she had been at a supper of
the King of Hanover, " where there were," says she, " what I
thought worth all the rest, two ripe ananas, which, to my taste,
are a fruit perfectly delicious. You know they are naturally the
growth of Brazil, and I could not imagine how they came
there, but by enchantment." Upon inquiry she learned that they
had been forced in stoves or hot-houses, and is " surprised we
do not practise in England so useful an invention." It was not
till the end of the last century that they were introduced into
English gardens, having been brought over from hot-houses in
Holland ; and from that time seems to date their introduction on
the signboard. It is still in general use with public-houses.

Of the Fig Thee there are several examples among the London
trades tokens, some of them, no doubt, grocers' signs, but other
trades may have adopted it, either in allusion to the text of every
man " sitting under his own fig-tree," or because the fig-tree was a
symbol of quiet unassuming industry; as such, at least, Came-
rarius represents it:—

" Yerno tempore ficus arbor speciosi8 floribus aut fructuum prsecocium
abundantia minime sese ostentat, nullamque inanem hominibus de se spem
injicit: in autumno autem fructus suaviss. ac quidem in illis reconditoa
quasi flores quosdam proferre solet."*

The Almond Tree was the sign of John Webster in St Paul's
Churchyard, in 1663 ; and the Peach Tree occurs sometimes as
an ale-house sign, as, for instance, in Nottingham. Neither of
these signs, however, are of frequent occurrence.

Not only fruit-trees but various forest-trees are constantly met
with on the signboard : thus the Green Tree, which is very com-
mon, originally had allusion to the foresters of the " merry green-
wood," or was suggested by some large evergreen, or tree shelter-

* "In spring-time the fig-tree does not make any show of beautiful flowers or precocious
fruit to deceive mankind with idle hope; but in autumn it generally produces exceed-
ingly sweet fruit, with flowers as it were contained within them."—Joacliimus Camerarius,
v" Symbolorum Centuria Quatuor," 1097, Centur. i., p. 18.

ing, or standing near the inn; of this green tree the Green Seed-
ling in Chester is evidently a sprout. Again, in Sheffield there
are two signs of the Burnt Tree, which name possibly originated
from some tree having been damaged in a fire, and becoming a
well-known landmark. The Oak, the vigorous emblem of our
mighty state, is deservedly much used for a sign; sometimes it is
called the British Oak. At Kilpeck, in Herefordshire, the fol-
lowing rhyme accompanies it:—

Druidical recollections are called up by the Oak and Ivy, at Bil-
ston, Stafford; Hearts of Oak is the material out of which,
according to the song, our ships and seamen are constructed, and
therefore well deserves the favourite place it occupies amongst
the signboards of the present day; whilst the Acorn, the fruit of
the British oak, is nearly as common as the other oak signs.

Next to the oak the Elm seems to have had most followers.
From the trades tokens it appears that the Three Elms was the
sign of Edward Boswell in Chandos Street, in 1667 ; and also of
Isaac Elliotson, St John Street, Clerkenwell. Besides these there
was, about the same date, the One Elm, and the Elm. At pre-
sent we have the Nine Elms, and the Queen's Elm, Brompton,
which is mentioned under the name of the Queen's Tree, in the
parish books of 1586. This tree is said to derive its name from
the fact of Queen Elizabeth, when on a visit to Lord Burleigh,
being caught in a shower of rain, and taking shelter under the
branches of an elm-tree, then growing on this spot. The Seven
Sisters, the sign of two public-houses in Tottenham, were seven
elm-trees, planted in a circular form, w^Tith a walnut tree in the
middle; they were upwards of 500 years old, and the local tra-
dition said that a martyr had been burnt 011 that spot. They
stood formerly at the entrance from the high road at Page Green,
Tottenham. Within the last twenty years they have been removed.
The Chestnut, the Sycamore, the Beech Tree, the Fiii Tree, the
Birch Tree, and the Ash Tree, all occur in various places where
ale-houses are built in the shadow of such trees. The Thorn
Tree is peculiar to Derbyshire. The Buckthorn Tree was, in
1775, the sign of "William Blackwell in Covent Garden, or at
his garden in South Lambeth."' He had chosen this sign because
he sold, amongst other herbs, "bucktho?'?i and elder-berries, besides
leeches and vipers." What the use of the first was is well known;

as for the vipers, they were eaten in broth and soups, before
Madame Eachel's enamels were employed, by ladies who wished to
continue " young and beautiful for ever." The Crab Tree, our
indigenous apple-tree, is also seen in a great many places. A
house in Fulham, with that name, is well known to the oarsmen
on the Thames. It derives its denomination from a large crab-
tree growing near the public-house, which gave its name to the
whole village. The Willow Tree is very rare; in the seven-
teenth century it was the sign of a shop in the Old Exchange,
as appears from a trades token, but what business was carried on
under this gloomy sign does not appear. Fuller, in his Worthies,
(voce Cambridgeshire,) says of willows :—

" A sad tree whereof such who have lost their love make them mourning
garlands; and we know that exiles hung their harps upon such doleful
supporters; the twiggs hereoff are physick to drive out the folly of children.
Let me add that if green ash may burn before a queen, withered willows
may be allowed to burn before a lady."

" Sylli. If you forsake me,
Send me word, that I may provide a willow garland
To wear when I drown myself."

And in the same play Sylli, who thinks himself the preferred
lover, says to his rival:—

Shakespeare uses the same emblem frequently, particularly in
Desdeniona's famous willow song. There is a quaint ballad which
an old Northumberland woman used to sing, but which we have
never seen in print : it begins as follows :—

" Young men are false, and they are so deceitful:
Young men are false, and they seldom will prove true;
For wi' wrangling and jangling, their minds are always changing,
They 're always seeking for some pretty girl that's new.

It's all round my hat, I will wear a green willow,
It's all round my hat for a twelvemonth and a day;
If any one Bhould ask you the reason why I wear it,
Oh! tell them I have been slighted by my own true love."

Douce, in his "Illustrations to Shakespeare," says:—This tree might
have been chosen as the symbol of sadness from the verse in
Psalm cxxxvii. : " We hanged our harps upon the willows in tha

midst thereof '," or else from a coincidence between the weeping
willow and falling tears. Another reason has been assigned: the
A gnus cast us or vitex was supposed by the ancients to promote
chastity, " and the willow being of a much like nature," says an
old writer, " it is yet a custom that he which is deprived of bis
love must wear a willow garland."—Swan's Speculum Mundi,
ch, vi. sec. 4. 1635.

The frequency of the sign of the Yew Tree is not to be attri-
buted to its association with the churchyard, but to its being the
Avood from which those famous bows were made that did such
execution at Agincourt and Poictiers, and wherever the English
armies trod the field before the invention of gunpowder. So great
was the patronage our early kings granted to the practice of the
bow, that the patten-makers, by an Act of Parliament of 4 Henry
V., were forbidden, under a penalty of £5, to use in their craft any
kind of wood fit to make arrows of.

The Cotton Tree is a sign generally put up in the neighbour-
hood of cotton factories, as at Manchester. The Palm Tree is
one of the oldest symbols known : it was used as such by the
Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, and by them transmitted to
the early Christians. St Ambrosius, in a very forcible image,
compares the life of an early and faithful Christian to the palm
tree, rough and rugged below, like its stem, but increasing in
beauty upwards, where it bears heavenly fruit. It might also
illustrate a more homely truth, namely, that business cannot
flourish without patronage and custom ; thus, Camerarius says:—

" Inter alias multas singulares proprietates quas scriptores rerum natur-
aliuin Palmse attribuunt, ista non postrema est, quod hsec arbor non facile
crescat, nisi radus solaribus opt. foveatur nec non humore aliquo conveni-
ente irrigetur."¹

The Cocoa Tree was frequently the sign of chocolate-houses
when that beverage was newly imported and very fashion-
able. One of the most famous was in St James' Street; it was,
in the reign of Queen Anne, strictly a Tory house :—" A Whig
will no more go to the Cocoa Tree, or Ozinda's, [another chocolate-
house in the same neighbourhood,] than a Tory will be seen at the
coffee-house of St James'." t Deep play was the order of the day

1 " Among the many curious properties which the writers on natural history attribute
to the palm tree, it is not one of the least singular that this tree caunot well thrive unlesi
it be properly basked by the beams of the sun, and watered by some neighbouring stream."
—J. Camerarius, " Centuria," i., 1697.

in that as in all other fashionable resorts at the end of the last
century. Walpole, in 1780, wrote to one of his friends :—

" Within this week there has been a cast at hazard at the Cocoa Tree, tlio
difference of which amounted to an hundred and four score thousand pounds.
Mr O'Birne, an Irish gamester, had won £100,000 off a young Mr Harvey,
of Chigwell, just started from a midshipman into an estate by his elder
brother's death. O'Birne said, ' You can never pay me ?' '1 can,' said
the youth, ' my estate will sell for the debt.' ' No,' said O., ' I will win
ten thousand, you shall throw for the odd ninety.' They did, and Harvey
won." *

It afterwards became a club, of which Byron was a member.
This gambling seems to have been inseparable from the chocolate-
houses. Boger North, attorney-general to James II., says,—

" The use of coffee-houses seems newly improved by a new invention called
Chocolate-houses, for the benefit of rooks and cullies of all the quality,

fails : as if the devil had erected a new university, and those were the col-
leges of its professors, as well as his school of discipline." +

Chocolate was known in Germany as early as 1624, when Joan
Franz. Bauck wrote a treatise against that beverage and the monks.
In England, however, it seems to have been introduced much
later, for in 1657 it was advertised as a new drink :—

man's house, is an excellent West India drink called Chocolate to be
sold, where you may have it ready at anytime, and also unmade, at reason-
able rates.'' I

It is amusing to observe the fluctuating reputation of chocolate
on its first introduction. Mme, de S6vigne, in her letters, gives
many proofs of it; at one time she fervently recommends it to
her daughter as a perfect panacea, at other times she is as violently
against it, and puts it down as the root of all evil.

The Coffee House is the now inappropriate sign of a gin-
palace in Chalton Street, Somers Town. Early in the last cen-
tury this neighbourhood was a delightful rural suburb, with fields
and flower gardens. A short distance down the hill was the then
famous Bagnigge Wells, and close by were the remains of Totten-
Hall, with the Adam and Eve tea-gardens, and the so-called King
John's Palace. Many foreign Protestant refugees had taken up
their residence in this suburb, on account of the retirement it
afforded, and the low rates asked for the small houses. "Thh

* Horace Walpole's Letters to Mr Mann, February 6, 1780.
t As qucted in Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, ii. p. 326.
X Jfublick Advertiser, Tuesday, June 16-22, 1057.

Coffee House " was then the popular tea and coffee-gardens of
the district, and was visited by the foreigners of the neighbour-
hood, as well as the pleasure-seeking Cockney from the distant
city. There were other public-houses and places of entertainment
near at hand, but the specialty of this establishment was its
coffee. As the traffic increased, it became a posting-house, unit-
ing the business of an inn to the profits of a pleasure garden.
Gradually the demand for coffee fell off, and that for malt and
spirituous liquors increased. At present the gardens are all built
over, and the old gateway forms part of the modern bar; but
there are aged persons in the neighbourhood who remember Sun-
day-school excursions to the place, and pic-nic parties from the
crowded city, making merry here in the grounds.

The Holly Bush is a common public-house sign at the present
day. Among theLondon trades tokens there isone of the Hand and
Holly Bush at Templebar, evidently the same inn mentioned in
1708 by Hatton, " on the north side, and about the middle of the
backside of St Clements, near the church." ¹ This combination
with the hand does not seem to have any very distinct meaning,
and apparently arose simply from the manner of representing ob-
jects in those days, as being held by a hand issuing from a cloud.
Adorning houses and churches at Christmas with evergreens and
holly is a very ancient custom, supposed, like some others of our
old customs, to be derived from the Druids. Formerly the streets
also appear to have been decked out, for Stow tells us that

" Against the feast of Christmas every man's house, as also the parish
churches, were decked with holme, ivy, and bayes, and whatsoever tho
season of the year afforded to be given. The conduits and standards in the
streets were likewise garnished."

Thus flowers, fruit trees, and forest trees were represented on the
signboard, and with them even the homely but useful tenants of
the kitchen garden found a place. The Artichoke, above all,
used to be a great favourite, and still gives a name to some public-
houses. As a seedsman's sign it was common and rational; not so
for a milliner, yet both among the Bagford and Banks's shopbills
there are several instances of its being the sign of that business;
thus:—

" Susannah Fordham, att the IIarticiioake, in ye Royal Exchange," in the
reign of Queen Anne, sold " all sorts of fine poynts, laces, and linnens, and
all sorts of gloves and ribons, and all other sorts of millenary wares.' " t

Probably the novelty of the plant had more than anything else
to do with this selection; for though it was introduced in this
country in the reign of King Henry VIII., yet Evelyn observes :—

" 'Tis not very long since this noble thistle came first into Italy, improved
to this magnitude by culture, and so rare in England that they were com-
monly sold for a crowne a piece." *

The Cabbage is an ale-house sign at Hunslet, Leeds, and at Liver-
pool, and Cabbage Hall, opposite Chaney Lane, on the road to
the Lunatic Asylum, Oxford, was formerly the name of a public-
house kept by a tailor; but whether he himself had christened it
thus, or his customers had a sly suspicion that it owed its origin to
cabbaging, history has omitted to record. Another public-house,
higher up the hill, was known by the name of Caterpillar Hall,
a name clearly selected in compliment to Cabbage Hall, inti-
mating that it meant to draw away the customers from Cabbage
Hall, in other words, that the caterpillar would eat the cabbage.
The Oxnoble, a kind of potato, is the name of a public-house in
Manchester, and the homely mess of Pease and Beans was a sign
in Norwich in 1750.+ The Three Radishes was, in the seven-
teenth century, a common nursery and market gardener's sign in
Holland. There was one near Haarlem, to which was added a
representation of Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene in the
garden, with this rhyme—

" Christus vertoont men hier
Na zyn dood in verryzen,
Alseen groot hovenier
Die ieder een moet pryzen.
Dit's in de drie Iladyzen."J

Another, near Gouda, had a still more absurd inscription:—
" Adam en Eva leefden in den Paradyze
Zelden aten zy stokvisch maar veel warmoes, kropsla en radyzen.
Hier vindt gy allerley aardgewas om menschen mee te spyzen." §

The Wheatsheae is an extremely common inn, public-house,
and baker's sign ; it is a charge in the arms of these three corpora-

After his death and resurrection,
As a great gardener
Whom every body must praise.
This is at the Three Radishes."

They rarely ate stock fish, but a great deal of hotchpotch, lettuce, and radishes.
All sorts of vegetables sold here tor human food."

A similarly dull joke occurs in an old English comedy, "Law Tricks," by John Day,
1608. "I have heard old Adam was an honest man and a good gardener, loved lettuce
well, salads and cabbage reasonably well, yet no tobacco."

tions, besides that of the brewers. In the middle of Farringdon
Street, opposite the vegetable market, is Wheatsheaf Yard, once a
famous waggon inn, which also did a roaring trade in wine, spirits,
and Fleet Street marriages. Indeed, most of the large inns within
the liberties of the Fleet served as " marriage shops" between 1734
and 1749 ; amongst the most famous were the Bull and Garter,
the Hoop and Bunch of Grapes, the Bishop Blaize and Two
Sawyers, the Fighting Cocks, and numerous others. The gate-
way entrance to the old coach-yard is adorned with very fine carv-
ings of wheat ears and lions' heads intermixed, finished in a manner
not unworthy of Grinling Gibbons himself.

The Oatsiieaf is very rare; it was the sign of a shop in Cree
Church Lane, Leadenhall Street, in the seventeenth century, as
appears from a trades token; but this seems the only instance of
the sign.

With these plants we may also class Tobacco, that best abused
of all weeds. Sometimes we see a pictorial representation of the
Toeacco plant, but most usually it occurs in the form of To-
bacco rolls, representing coils of the so-called spun or twist
tobacco, otherwise pigtail, for the sake of ornament, painted brown
and gold alternately. Decker, in his " Gull's Hornbook," men-
tions Roll Trinidado, leaf, and pudding tobacco, which probably
were the three sorts smokers at that day preferred. That it was
used mixed may be conjectured from the introduction to " Cin-
thia's Revels," a play by Ben Jonson; one of the interlocutors
says,—" I have my three sorts of tobacco in my pocket."

The earlier signs were frequently representations of the most
important article sold in the shops before which they hung. The
stocking denoted the hosier, the gridiron the ironmonger, and so
on. The early booksellers, whose trade lay chiefly in religious
books, delighted in signs of saints, but at the Reformation the
Bible amongst those classes, to whom till then it had been a
sealed book, became in great request, and was sold in large num-
bers. Then the booksellers set it up for their sign; it became
the popular symbol of the trade, and at the present moment in-
stances of its use still linger with us. There was one day in the
year, St Bartholomew's, the 24th of August, when their shops
displayed nothing but Bibles and Prayer-books. It is not im-
possible that this may have been originally intended for a mani-
festation against Popery, since it was the anniversary of the
dreadful Protestant massacre in Paris in 1572. The following,
however, is the only allusion we have met with relating to this
custom :—" Like a bookseller's shop on Bartholomew day at
London, the stalls of which are so adorned with Bibles and
Prayer-books, that almost nothing is left within but heathen
knowledge."¹

One of the last Bible signs was about twenty years ago, at a
public-house in Shire Lane, Temple Bar. It was an old estab-
lished house of call for printers.

The Bible being such a common sign, booksellers had to " wear
their rue with a difference," as Ophelia says, and adopt different
colours, amongst which the Blue Bible was one of the most
common. " Prynne's Histrio-Mastrix " was " printed for Michael
Sparke, and sold at the Blue Bible, in Green Arbour Court, Little
Old Bailey, 1G32." This blue colour, so common on the sign-
board, was not chosen without meaning, but on account of its
symbolic virtue. Blue, from its permanency, being an emblem
of truth, hence Lydgate, speaking of Delilah, Samson's mistress,
in his translation from Boccacio, (MS. Harl. 2251,) says—

" Insteade of blew, which steadfaste is and clene,
She weraed colours of many a diverse grene."

1 New Essays and Characters, by John Stephens the younger, of Lrncoln's Inn, Genu
London, 1631, p.' 221.

"This colour, blew, doth represent the sky on a clear, sun-sliining day,
when all clouds are exiled. Job, speaking to the busy searchers of God's
mysteries, saith (Job xi. 17,) ' That then shall the residue of their lives be
as clear as the noonday.' Which to the judgment of men (through the
pureness of the air) is of azure colour or light blew, and signifieth piety and
sincerity."

Other booksellers chose the Three Bibles, which was a very
common sign of the trade on London Bridge in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries : of one of them, Charles Tyne, trades tokens
are extant,—great curiosities to the numismatist, as booksellers
were not in the habit of issuing them. The sign of the Three Bibles
seems to have originated from the stationers' arms, which are
arg. on a chevron between three bibles, or. a falcon volant between
two roses, the Holy Ghost in chief. One bookseller, on account
of his selling stationery, also added three inkbotlles to the favourite
three Bibles, as we see from an advertisement, giving the price of
playing cards in 1711 :—

" QOLD by Henry Parson, Stationer at the Three Bibles and Three Ink-
o bottles, near St Magnus' Church, on London Bridge, the best princi-
pal superfine Picket Cards, at 2s. 6d. a dozen; the best principal Ombro
Cards, at 2s. 9d, a dozen; the best principal superfine Basset Cards, at
3s. 6d. a dozen; with all other Cards and Stationery Wares at Reasonable
Rates." t

Combinations of the Bible with other objects were very com-
mon, some of them symbolic, as the Bible and Crown, which
sign originated during the political troubles in the reign of Charles
I. It was at this time when the clergy and the court party con-
stantly tried to convince the people of the divine prerogative of
the Crown, that the " Bible and Crown" became the standing
toast of the Cavaliers and those opposed to the Parliament leaders.
As a sign it has been used for a century and a half by the firm of
Bivington the publishers. The old wood carving, painted and
gilt in the style of the early signs, was taken down from over the
shop in Paternoster Bow in 1853, when this firm removed west-
ward. It is still in their possession. Cobbett, the political
agitator and publisher, in the beginning of this century chose the
sign of the Bible, Crown, and Constitution ; but the general
tenor of his life was such, that his enemies said he put them up
merely that he might afterwards be able to say he had pulled

tliem down. A Bible, Sceptre, and Crown, carved in wood,
may still be seen 011 the top of an ale-house of that name in High
Holborn. The crown and sceptre in this case are placed on two
closed Bibles.

The Bible and Lamb, i.e., the Holy Lamb, we find mentioned
in an advertisement in the Publick Advertiser, March 1, 1759—

Books also were sold here, for in those days booksellers and
toyshops were the usual repositories for quack medicines.

The Bible and Dove, i.e., the Holy Ghost, was the sign of
John Penn, bookseller, over against St Bride's Church, Fleet
Street, 1718 ; and the Bible and Peacock, the sign of Benjamin
Crayle, bookseller, at the west end of St Paul's, in 1688. If not
a combination of two signs, the bird may have been added on
account of its being the type of the Resurrection, in which, quality
it is found represented in the Catacombs, a symbolism arising
from the supposed incorruptibility of its flesh.'* Various other
combinations occur, as the Bible and Key. Bowland Hall, a
printer of the sixteenth century, had for his sign the Half Eagle
and Key, (see Heraldic Signs,) of which the Bible and Key may
be a free imitation. It was the sign of B. Dod, bookseller, in
Ave Maria Lane, 1761; whdst the Golden Key and Bible was
that of L. Stoke, a bookseller at Charing Cross, 1711. The
" Bible and Key " is also the name of a certain Coscinomanteia,
somewhat similar to the Sortes Virgilianae. This method of
divination was performed in two ways, in the first, (stated by
Matthew of Paris to have been frequently practised at the election
of bishops,) the Bible was opened on the altar, and the predic-
tion taken from the chapter which first caught the eye on opening
the book; the other was by placing two written papers, one
negative, the other affirmative, of the matter in question, under
the pall of the altar, which, after solemn prayers, was believed
would be decided by divine judgment. Gregory of Tours men-
tions another method by the Psalms. +

* "Notandum quoq. eius (pavonis) carnem quod D. Augustinug quoq., lib. xxi. d£
civitate Dei, cap. iii., et Isidorus, lib. xii., affirmant non putrescere."—Camerariw, Cen,
tur., iii. 20, 1097. How to make this agree with Skelton's idea it is not very easy t<'
explain—

" Then sayd the Pecocke,
All ye well wot,
I sing not musycal,
For my breast is decay'd."—Skelton's Armony of Birds.

At the present day " Bible and Key " divinations are often at-
tempted by those who believe in fortune-telling and vaticinations.
The method adopted is as follows :—A key is placed, with the bow
or handle sticking out, between the leaves of a Bible, on Buth
i. 16 :

A ND RUTH said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from fol-
£lowing after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where
thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my
God."

The Bible is then firmly tied up, most effectually with a garter,
and balanced by the bow of the key on the fore-fingers of the
right hands of two persons, the one who wishes to consult the
oracle, the other any person standing near. The book is then
addressed with these words—" Pray, Mr Bible, be good enough

affirmative the key will swing round, turn off the finger, and the
Bible fall down ; if in the negative, it will remain steady in its
position. Not only upon matrimonial, but upon all sorts of
questions, this oracle may be consulted.

Further combinations are the Bible and Sun. The Sun was
the sign of Wynkyn de Worde, and the printers that succeeded
him in his house. It may, however, in this combination have
been an emblem of the Sun of Truth, or the Light of the World.
It was the sign of J. Newberry, in St Paul's Churchyard, the
publisher of Goldsmith's "Vicarof Wakefield;" also of C. Bates,
near Pie Corner; and of Bichard Beynolds, in the Poultry, both
ballad printers in the times of Charles II. and William III.
Then there is the Bible and Ball, a sign of a bookseller in
Ave Maria Lane in 1761, who probably hung up a Globe to
indicate the sale of globes and maps; and the Bible and Dial,
over against St Dunstan's Church, Fleet Street, in 1720, was the
sign of the notorious Edmund Curll, who was pilloried at Charing
Cross, and pilloried in Pope's verses. The Dial was, in all likeli-
hood, a sun-dial on the front wall of his house.

Of the Apocryphal Books there is only one example among the
signboards, viz., Bel and the Dragon, which was at one time
not uncommon, more particularly with apothecaries. It was re-
presented by a Bell and a Dragon, as appears from the Spectator,
No. 28. " One Apocryphical Heathen God is also represented
by this figure [of a Bell], which, in conjunction with the Dragon,
makes a very handsome picture in several of our streets." Al-

though at the first glance this sign seems taken from the doubtful
books of the Old Testament, still there is nothing in the Apocry-
phal book which could in any way prompt the choice of it for a
signboard. After all, it may possibly be only a combination, or
corruption, of two other signs. There still remain a few public-
houses which employ it,—as in Worship Street; at Cookham,
Maidenhead; at Norton in the Moors, &c., whilst in Boss Street,
Horsely Down, there is a variation in the form of the Bell and
Griffin. From a handbill of Topham, the Strong Man,* we see
that it was vulgarly called the King Astyages Arms, for no better
reason than because King Astyages is the first name in the story :
the incident related in the Book of Bel and the Dragon having
taken place after his death.

A very common sign of old, as well as at present, is the Adam
and Eve. Our first parents were constant dramatis personce in
the mediaeval mysteries and pageants, on which occasions, with
the naivete of those times, Eve used to come on the stage exactly
in the same costume as she appeared to Adam before the Fall.t
The sign was adopted by various trades, including the publishers
of books, as we may see from the following quaint title :—
" A PROTESTANT Picture of Jesus Christ, drawn in Scripture colours,
J\_ both for light to sinners and delight to saints. By Tho. Sympson,
M.A., Preacher of the Word at London. Sold by Edw. Thomas at the Adam
and Eve, in Little Britain. 1662."

In Newgate Street there yet remains an old stone sign of the
Adam and Eve, with the date 1669. Eve is represented handing
the apple to Adam, the fatal tree is in the centre, round its stem
the serpent winding. It was the arms of the fruiterers' company.

There is still an Adam and Eve public-house in the High Street,
Kensington, where Sheridan, on his way to and from Holland
House, used to refresh himself, and in this way managed to run
up rather a long bill, which Lord Holland had to pay for him.
A still older place of public entertainment was the Adam and
Eve Tea-gardens, in Tottenham Court Boad, part of which was
the last remaining vestige " of the once respectable, if not mag-
nificent, manor-house appertaining to the Lords of Tottenhall."
Richardson, in 1819, said that the place had long been celebrated
as a tea-garden; there was an organ in the long room, and the
company was generally respectable, till the end of last century,

* For particulars of Topham, the Strong Man, see under Historical Signs.
t This statement is made on the authority of Hone, in his "Ancient Mysteries."
Doubts, however, have been expressed as to the accuracy of his data upon tlu« particuiai
subject.

■when highwaymen, footpads, pickpockets, and low women, be-
ginning to take a fancy to it, the magistrates interfered. The
organ was banished, and the gardens were dug up for the founda-
tion of Eden Street. In these gardens Lunardi came down after
his unsuccessful balloon ascent from the Artillery groundj May
16, 1783. Hogarth has represented the Adam and Eve in the
March of the Guards to luncliley. Upon the signboard of the
house is inscribed, " Tottenham Court Nursery," in allusion to
Broughton's Amphitheatre for Boxing, erected in this place. How
amusing is this advertisement of the great Professor's " Nur-
sery :"—

" From the Gymnasium at Tottenham Court
on Thursday next at Twelve o'clock will begin :
A lecture on Manhood or Gymnastic Physiology, wherein the whole Theory
and Practice of the Art of Boxing will be fully explained by various
Operators on the animal (Economy and the Principles of Championism,
illustrated by proper Experiments on the Solids and Fluids of the Body ;
together with the True Method of investigating the Nature of all Blows,
Stops, Cross Buttocks, etc., incident to Combatants. The whole leading
to the most successful Method of beating a Man deaf, dumb, lame, and
blind.

Thomas Dimmock, A.M.,
Athleta of Soulhwarlc,
(Both fellows of the At/detic Society.)

The Syllabus or Compendium for the use of students in Athleticks,
referring to Matters explained in this Lecture, may be had of Mr Pro-
fessor Broughton at the Crown in Market Lane, where proper instructions
in the Art and Practice of Boxing are delivered without Loss of Eye or
Limb to the student."

The tree with the forbidden fruit, always represented in the
sign of Adam and Eve, leads directly to the Flaming Sword,
" which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life."
Being the first sword 011 record, it was not inappropriately a
cutler's sign, and as such we find it in the Banks Collection, on
the shop-bill of a sword cutler in Sweeting's Alley, Boyal Ex-
change, 1780. It is less appropriate at the door of a public-
house in Nottingham, for the landlord evidently cannot desire to
keep anybody out, whether saint or sinner. The vessel by which
the life of the first planter of the vine was preserved, certainly
■well deserves to decorate the tavern : hence Noah's Ark is not
an uncommon public-house sign, though it looks very Uke a sar-
castic reflection on the mixed crowd that resort to the house,—not

to escape tlie " heavy wet," as the animals at the Deluge, but in
order to obtain some of it. Toy-shops also constantly use it,
since Noah's Ark is generally the favourite toy of children.
Evelyn, in 1644, mentions a shop near the Palais de Justice in
Paris :

" Here ia a shop called Noah's Ark, where are sold all curiosities, natural
or artificial, Indian or European, for luxury or use, as cabinets, shells, ivory,
porcelain, dried fishes, insects, birds, pictures, and a thousand exotic extra-
vagances."

The Deluge was one of the standard subjects of mediaeval dra-
matic plays. In the third part of the Chester Whitsun plays, for
instance, Noah and the Flood make a considerable item; and at
a much later period the same subject was exhibited at Bartholomew
Fair. A bill of the time of Queen Annet informs us that—

" i T Crawley's Booth, over against the Crown Tavern in Smithfield,
J\_ during the time of Bartholomew Fair, will be presented a little
Opera, called the Old Creation of the World, yet newly revived, with the
addition of Noah's Flood; also several fountains playing water during the
time of the play. The last scene presents Noah and his family coming out
of the Ark, with all the beasts, two by two, and all the fowls of the air,
seen in a prospect, sitting upon trees. Likewise over the Ark is seen
the sun rising in a most glorious manner: moreover, a multitude of angels
will be seen, in a double rank, which presents a double prospect—one for
the sun, the other for a palace, where will be seen 6 angels ringing of
bells, etc."

The Deluge w^ras the mystery performed at Whitsuntide by the
company of dyers in London, and from this their sign of the
Dove and Bainbow might have originated, unless it were adopted
by them on account of the various colours of the rainbow. On
the bill of John Edwards, a silk-dyer in Aldersgate Street, the
Dove, with an olive branch in her mouth, is represented flying
underneath the Bainbow, over a landscape, with villages, fenced
fields, and a gentleman in the costume of the reign of Charles
II. Besides this there are various other dyers' bills with the sign
of the Dove and Bainbow, both among the Bagford and Banks
Collections. A few public-houses at the present day still keep
up the memory of the sign; there is one at Nottingham, and
another in Leicester.

"Abraham Offering his Son" was the sign of a shop in
Norwich in 1750. A stone bas-relief of the same subject (Le
Sacrifice d'A braham) is still remaining in the front of a house in

the Rue des Prêtres, Lille, France. A Dutch, wood-merchant, in
the seventeenth century, also put up this sign, and illustrated its
application by the following rhyme :—

" 'T Hout is gehakt, opdat men't zou branden,
Daarom is dit in Abram's Offerhande. " ¹⁵

Thus, though the wood of the sacrifice played a very insignificant
part in the story, yet the simple mention of it was enough to
make it a fit subject for a Dutchman's signboard. We have a
similar instance in Jacob's Well, which is common in London, as
well as in the country. The allusion here is to the well at which
Christ met the woman of Samaria, who said to him :
" A RT thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and
J\ drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus an-
swered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst
again," (S. John iv. 12.)

How cruelly these words apply to the gin-tap, at which genera-
tion after generation drink, and after which they always thirst
again. Not unlikely the English use of this sign dates from the
Puritan period.t Not always, however, had the sign any direct
relation to the trade of the inmate of the house which it adorned ;
as, for example, Moses and Aaron, which occurs on a trades
token of Whitechapel. In allusion to this, or a similar sign,
Tom Brown says, " Other amusements presented themselves as
thick as hops, as Moses pictured with horns, to keep Cheapside
in countenance." X Even the Dutch shopkeeper, whose imagina-
tion was generally so fertile in finding a religious subject appro-
priate as his trade sign, was at a loss what to do with Moses ;
for a baker in Amsterdam, in the seventeenth century, put up the
sign of Moses, with this inscription :

" Moses wierd gevist in het water,
Die bier waar haalt krygt vry gist, een Paaschbrood,
En op Korstyd een Deuvekater," §

Therefore is this Abraham's sacrifice."
t Jacob's Inn is mentioned by Hatton, 1708, " on the east side of Red Cross Street
near the middle."
{ " Amusements for the Meridian of London," 1706.

Whosoever purchases his bread here shall have yeast for nought,
Besides a currant-loaf at Easter, aad a spice-cake at Christmas time."

mentioned by Ned Ward as the Old Pharaoh in the town of
Barley, in Cambridgeshire. It was so named, says he, " from a
stout, elevating malt liquor of the same name, for which this
house had been long famous."* Why this beer was called
Pharaoh, Ned Ward does not seem to have known ; but a story in
the county is current that it was so named because the beei, like
the Egyptian king of old, " would not let the people go !" It is
now no longer drunk in England, but a certain strong beer of the
same name is still a favourite beverage in Belgium. Next, in
chronological order, connected with the history of Moses, follows
the Brazen Serpent, the sign of Beynold Wolfe, a bookseller
and printer in St Paid's Churchyard, 1544, and also of both his
apprentices, Henry Binneman and John Shepperde. It had pro-
bably been imported by the foreign printers, for it was a favourite
amongst the early French and German booksellers. At the pre-
sent day it is a public-house sign in Bichardson Street, Bermond-
sey. What led to the adoption of this emblem was not the
historical association, but the mystical meaning which it had in
the middle ages :—

" A serpent torqued with a long cross ; others blazon Christ, supporting
the brazen serpent, because it was an anti-type of the passion and death of
our Saviour; for as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must
the Son of Man be lifted up, (Num. xxi. 8, 9; John iii. ] 4,) that all that
behold him, by a lively faith, may not perish, but have everlasting life.
This is the cognizance or crest of every true believer." f

The idea was no doubt borrowed from the Biblia Pauperum.
The Balaam's Ass, again, was one of the dramatis personal in
the Whitsuntide mystery of the company of cappers, (cap-makers,)
and this is the only reason we can imagine for his having found
his way to the signboard. It occurs in 1722 in a newspaper
paragraph, concerning a child born without a stomach, the details
of which are too nauseous to be introduced here. J

The Two Spies is the last sign belonging to the history of
Moses; it represents two of the spies that went into Canaan,
" and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes,
and they bare it between two upon a staff," (Num. xiii. 23.) This
bunch of grapes made it a favourite with publicans; at many
places it may still be seen, as in Catherine Street, Strand, (a house
of old standing;) in Long Acre, «fee. In Great Windmill Street,
Leicester Square, it has been corrupted into the Three Spies.

After Moses there is a blank until we come to Samson, to whom
our national admiration for athletic sports and muscular strength
has given a prominent place on the signboard. Samson and
the Lion occurs on the sign of various houses in London in the
seventeenth century, as appears from the trades tokens. It is still
of frequent occurrence in country towns, as at Dudley, Coventry,
<fec. It was also used on the Continent. In Paris there is, or
was, not many years ago, a della Bobbia ware medallion sign in
the Rue des Dragons, with the legend " le Fort Samson? repre-
senting the strong man tearing open the lion. To a sign of Sam-
son at Dordrecht, in the seventeenth century, the following satiri-
cal inscription had been added :—

" Toen Samson door zyn kraclit de leeuw belemmen kon,
De Philistynen sloeg, de vossen overwon.
Wiert by nog door een Vrouw van zyn gezigt beroofd,
Gelooft geen vrouw dan of zy moet zyn zonder hoofd." *

This admiration of strong men, which procured the signboard
honours to Samson, also made Goliah, or Golias, a great
favourite. In the Horse Market, Castle Barnard, he is actually
treated just like a duke, admiral, or any other public-house hero,
for there the sign is entitled the Goliah Head. Some doubts,
however, may be entertained whether by Golias or Goliah, (for
the name is spelt both ways,) the Philistine giant and champion
was always intended. Towards the end of the twelfth century there
lived a man of wit, with the real or assumed name of Golias, who
wrote the ^u Apocalypsis Golire," and other burlesque verses. He
was the leader of a jovial sect called Goliardois, of which Chaucer's
Miller was one. " He was a jangler and a goliardeis." Such a
person might, therefore, have been a very appropriate tutelary
deity for an alehouse, t

Goliali's conqueror, King David, liberally shared the honours
with his victim, and he still figures on various signboards.
There is a King David's inn in Bristol, and a David and

* " Though Samson by his strength could overcome the lion,
Defeat the Philistines and master the foxes,
Yet a woman deprived him of his sight;
Never, therefore, believe a woman unless she has no head."

Samson's history was not only painted on the signboard, but also sung in ballads, " to
the tune of the Spanish Pavin." Amongst the Roxburgh ballads (vol. i. fol. 366) there
is one entitled "A most excellent and famous ditty of Sampson, judge of Israel, how lieo
wedded a Phi listyne's daughter, who at length forsooke him ; also how hee slewalyonand
propounded a riddle, and after how hee was falsely betrayed by Dalila, and of his
death."

t See Bibliographia Britannica, voce Golias, and Wright's History of Caricature.

Harp in Limeliouse; whilst in Paris, the Eue de la Harpe
is said to owe its name to a sign of King David playing on
the harp. David's unfortunate son, Absalom, was a peruke-
maker's very expressive emblem, both in France and in England,
to show the utility of wigs. Thus a barber at a town in North-
amptonshire used this inscription :

Which a brother peruke-maker versified, under a sign represent-
ing the death of Absalom, with David weeping. He wrote up
thus :

" Oh Absalom ! oh Absalom I
Oh Absalom ! my son,
If thou hadst worn a perriwig,
Thou hadst not been undone."

Psalm xlii. seems to be very profanely hinted at in the sign of
the White Hart and Fountain, Royal Mint Street, which, if
not a combination of two well-known signs, apparently alludes to
the words, " As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so pant-
eth my soul after thee, O God." The Panting Hart (het
dorstige Hert, or het Heigent Hert,) was formerly a very common
beer-house sign in Holland. In the seventeenth century there
was one with the following inscription at Amsterdam :—

" Gelyk het hert by frisch water sig komt te verblyden,
Komt also in myn huys om u van dorst te bevryden." ¹

Another one at Leyden had the following rhyme :—
" Gelyk een hart van jagen moe lust te drinken water rein,
Alyso verkoopt men hier tot versterking van de maag, toebak, bier en
Brandewyn." +

The wise king Solomon does not appear to have ever been
honoured with a signboard portrait, but his enthusiastic admirer,
the Queen of Saba, figured before the tavern kept by Dick
Tarlton the jester, in Gracechurch Street. This Queen of Saba,
or Sheba, was a usual figure in pageants. There is a letter of
Secretary Barlow, in "Nugse Antiquas," telling how the Queen of
Sheba fell down and upset her casket in the lap of the King of
Denmark—when on his drunken visit to James I.—who " got not

1 " Like to the hart which comes to the water brook to refresh himself,
So you enter my house to quencn your thirst."
t The first six words are literally the beginning of the psalm in the Dutch version,—
jLike a hart the hunt escaped, wishes for the limpid water brooks,
5o there is here tobacco, beer, and brandy for a lie to strengthen the stomach,"

a little defiled with the presents of the queen ; such as wine,
cream, jelly, beverages, cakes, spices, and other good matters."

Douce, in his " Illustrations to Shakespeare," has a very in-
genious explanation for the sign of the Bell Savage, as derived
from the Queen of Saba, which though non e vero, ma ben trovato.
He bases his argument on a poem of the fourteenth century, the
" Romaunce of Kyng Alisaundre," wherein the Queen of Saba is
thus mentioned :—

" In heore lond is a cité,
On of the noblest in Christianté,
Hit hotith Sabba in langage,
Thence cam Sibely Savage.
Of all the world the fairest queene,
To Jerusalem Salomon to seone.
For hire fair head and for hire love,
Salomon forsok his God above." *
Elisha's Raven, represented with a chop in his mouth, is the
sign of a butcher in the Borough,—a curious conceit, and cer-
tainly his own invention ; at least we do not remember any
other instance of the sign. This tribute is certainly very disin-
terested in the butcher, for if there were any such ravens now, it
is probable that they would sadly interfere with the trade.

Few signs have undergone so many changes as the well-known
Salutation. Originally it represented the angel saluting the Vir-
gin Mary, in which shape it was still occasionally seen in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries, as appears from the tavern token
of Daniel Grey of Holborn. In the times of the Commonwealth,
however, " sacrarum ut humanarum rerum, lieu ! vicissitudo est,"
the Puritans changed it into the Soldier and Citizen, and in
such a garb it continued long after, with this modification, that it
was represented by two citizens politely bowing to each other.
The Salutation Tavern in Billingsgate shows it thus on its trades
token, and so it was represented by the Salutation Tavern in
Newgate Street, (an engraving of which sign may still be seen in
the parlour of that old established house.) At present it is
mostly rendered by two hands conjoined, as at the Salutation
Hotel, Perth, where a label is added with the words, " You 're
welcome to the city." That Salutation Tavern in Billingsgate
was a famous place in Ben Jonson's time ; it is named in " Bar-
tholomew Fayre" as one of the houses where there had been

During tlie civil war there was a Salutation Tavern in Holborn,
in which the following ludicrous incident happened,—if we may-
believe the Royalist papers :—

" A hotte combat lately happened at the Salutation Taverne in Hol-
burne, where some of the Commonwealth vermin, called soldiers, had
seized on an Amazonian Virago, named Mrs Strosse, upon suspicion of being
a loyalist, and selling the Man in the Moon; but shee, by applying beaten
pepper to their eyes, disarmed them, and with their own swordes forced
them to aslce her forgiveness; and down on their mary bones, and pledge
a health to the king, and confusion to their masters, and so lionourablie
dismissed them. Oh ! for twenty thousand such gallant spirits ; when you
see that one woman can beat two or three."¹

At the end of the last century there was a Salutation Tavern
in Tavistock Row, called also " Mr Bunch's," which was one of
the elegant haunts, patronised by " the first gentleman of Europe,"
otherwise the Prince Regent. Lord Surrey and Sheridan were
generally his associates in these escapades. The trio went under
the pseudonyms of Blackstock, Greystock, and Thinstock, and
disguised in bob wigs and smockfrocks. The night's entertain-
ment generally concluded with thrashing the " Charlies," wrench-
ing off knockers, breaking down signboards, and not unfrequently
with being taken to the roundhouse.

The Salutation in Newgate Street, some time called the Salu-
tation and Cat, (a combination of two signs,) was haunted by
many of the great authors of the last century. There is a poetical
invitation extant to a social feast held at this tavern, January 19,
173£, issued by the two stewards, Edward Cave (of the Gentle-
man's Magazine,) and William Bowyer, the antiquary and
printer :—

You're desired on Monday next to meet,
At Salutation Tavern, Newgate Street,
Supper will be on table just at eight.
(Stewards) one of St John, [Bowyer,] t'other of St John's
Gate, [Cave.]"

Richardson the novelist was one of the invites. He returned
a poetical answer, too long to quote at length : the following is
part of it :—

" For me, I'm much concern'd I cannot meet
At Salutation Tavern, Newgate Street.
Your notice, like your verse, (so sweet and short !)

1 A Rovalist paper, entitled, "TheMan in the Moon discovering a wo Id of trickednew
unuer the Sun," July 4, 1(349.

If longer I'd sincerely thank'd you for it.
Howev'r, receive my wishes, sons of verse!
May every man who meets your praise rehearse !
May mirth as plenty crown your cheerful board!

That when at home by such sweet verses fir'd,
Your families may think you all inspir'd.
So wishes he, who, pre-engag'd can't know
The pleasures that would from your meeting flow."

In this tavern Coleridge the poet, in one of his melancholy
moods, lived for some time in seclusion, until found out by
Southey, and persuaded by him to return to his usual mode of
life. Sir T. N. Talfourd, in his Life of Charles Lamb, informs us
that here Coleridge was in the habit of meeting Lamb when in
town on a visit from the University. Christ's Hospital, their
old school, was within a few paces of the place :—

" When Coleridge quitted the University and came to town, full of
mantling hopes and glorious schemes, Lamb became his admiring disciple.
The scene of these happy meetings was a little public house called the
Salutation and Cat, in the neighbourhood of Smithfield, where they used
to sup, and remain long after they had ' heard the chimes of midnight.'
There tliey discoursed of Bowles, who was the god of Coleridge's poetical
idolatry, and of Burns and Cowper, who of recent poets—in that season of
comparative barrenness—had made the deepest impression on Lamb;
there Coleridge talked of ' fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,' to one
who desired ' to find no end ' of the golden maze ; and there he recited his
early poems with that deep sweetness of intonation which sunk into the
heart of his hearers. To these meetings Lamb was accustomed, at all
periods of his life, to revert, as the season when his finer intellects were
quickened into action. Shortly after they had terminated, with Coleridge's
departure from London, he thus recalled them in a letter :—' When I read
in your little volume your nineteenth effusion, or what you call " The
Sigh," I think I hear you again. I imagine to myself the little smoky
room at the Salutation and Cat, where we have sat together through the
winter nights, beguiling the cares of life with poesy.' This was early in
1709, and in 1818, when dedicating his works—then first collected—to his
earliest friend, he thus spoke of the same meetings Some of the sonnets,
which shall be carelessly turned over by the general reader, may happily
awaken in you remembrances which I should be sorry should be ever totally
extinct—the memory " of summer days and of delightful years," even so far
back as those old suppers at our old inn—when life was fresh and topics
exhaustless—and you first kindled in me, if not the power, yet the love of
poetry, and beauty, and kindliness.'"

The Angel was derived from the Salutation, for that it ori-
ginally represented the angel appearing to the Holy Virgin at the
Salutation or Annunciation, is evident from the fact that, even
as late as the seventeenth century on nearly all the trades tokens

of houses with this sign, the Angel is represented with a scroll
in his hands; and this scroll we know, from the evidence of
paintings and prints, to contain the words addressed by the
angel to the Holy Virgin : " Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus
tecum." Probably at the Reformation it was considered too
Catholic a sign, and so the Holy Virgin was left out, and the
angel only retained. Among the famous houses with this sign,
the well-known starting-place of the Islington omnibuses stands
foremost. It is said to have been an established inn upwards of
two hundred years. The old house was pulled down in 1819 ;
till that time it had preserved all the features of a large country
inn, a long front, overhanging tiled roof, with a square inn-yard
having double galleries supported by columns and carved pilas-
ters, with caryatides and other ornaments. It is more than pro-
bable that it had often been used as a place for dramatic enter-
tainments at the period when inn-yards were customarily employed
for such purposes. " Even so late as fifty years since it was cus-
tomary for travellers approaching London, to remain all night at
the Angel Inn, Islington, rather than venture after dark to pro-
secute their journey along ways which were almost equally dan-
gerous from their bad state, and their being so greatly infested
with thieves."* On the other hand, persons walking from the
city to Islington in the evening, waited near the end. of John
Street, in what is now termed Northampton Street, (but was then
a rural avenue planted with trees,) until a sufficient party had
collected, who were then escorted by an armed patrol appointed
for that purpose. Another old tavern with this sign is extant in
London, behind St Clement's Church in the Strand. To this
house Bishop Hooper was taken by the Guards, on his way to
Gloucester, where he went to be burnt, in January 1555. The
house, until lately, preserved much of its ancient aspect: it had a
pointed gable, galleries, and a lattice in the passage. This inn is
named in the following curious advertisement:—

L who is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and speaks
French perfectly well; is of excellent temper and willing disposition. In-
quire of W. Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St Clement's Church, in the
Strand."—Publick Advertiser, March 28, 1769.

Older than either of these is the Angel Inn, at Grantham.
This building was formerly in the possession of the Knights

Templars, and still retains many remains of its former beauty,
particularly the gateway, with the heads of Edward III. and his
queen Philippa of Hainault on either side of the arch; the sof-
fits of the windows are elegantly groined, and the parapet of the
front is very beautiful. Kings have been entertained in this
house ; but it seemed to bring ill luck to them, for the reigns of
those that are recorded as having been guests in it, stand forth in
history as disturbed by violent storms—King John held his court
in it on February 23, 1213 ; King Richard III. on October 19,
1483 ; and King Charles I. visited it May 17, 1633.

Ben Jonson, it is said, used to visit a tavern with the sign of
the Angel, at Basingstoke, kept by a Mrs Hope, whose daughter's
name was Prudence. On one of his journeys, finding that the
house had changed both sign and mistresses, Ben wrote the follow-
ing smart but not very elegant epigram :—

" When Hope and Prudence kept this house, the Angel kept the door,
Now Hope is dead, the Angel fled, and Prudence turned a w-."

The Angel was the sign of one of the first coffee-houses in
England, for Anthony Wood tells us that, " in 1650 Jacob, a Jew,
opened a coffee-house at the Angel, in the parish of St Peter,
Oxon ; and there it [coffee] was by some, who delight in noveltie,
drank." Finally, there was an Angel Tavern in Smithfield, where
the famous Joe Miller, of joking fame—a comic actor by profes-
sion—used to play during Bartholomew Fair time. A playbill
of 1722 informs the public in large letters that—

" Miller is not with Pinkethman, but by himself, at the Angel Tavern,
next door to the King's Bench, who acts a new Droll, called the Faithful
Couple or the Koyal Shepherdess, with a very pleasant entertainment
between Old Hob and his Wife, and the comical humours of Mopsy and
Collin, with a variety of singing and dancing.

In France, also, the sign of the Angel is and was at all times,
very common. The Hotel de VAnge, Bue de la Huchette, ap-
pears to have been the best hotel in Paris in the sixteenth cen-
tury. It was frequently visited by foreign ambassadors : those
sent by Emperor Maximilian to Louis XII. took up their abode
here; so did the ambassadors from Angus, King of Achaia, who,
in 1552, came to see France, much in the same way as various
ambassadors from all sorts of high and low latitudes occasionally
honour our Court with a visit. Chapelle, a French poet of the

seventeenth century, thus celebrates a tavern with this sign in
Paris, frequented by the wits of the period :—

"Je n'ay pas vu vostre theâtre
Qu'aussitôt je ressors de là,
Pour un Ange que j'idolâtre,
A cause du bon vin qu'il a," *

There being, then, such a profusion of Angels everywhere,
it became necessary to make some distinctions, and the usual
means were adopted ; the Angel was gilded, and called the Golden
Angel ; this, for instance, was the sign of Ellis Gamble, a gold-
smith in Cranbourn Alley, Hogarth's master in the art of engrav-
ing on silver; shop-bills engraved for this house by Hogarth are
still in existence. Another variety was the Guardian Angel,
which is still the sign of an ale-house at Yarmouth. This, too,
was used in France, as we find VAnge Gardien, the sign of Pierre
Witte, a bookseller in the Rue St Jacques, Paris, in the seven-
teenth century.

Very common, also, were the Three Angels, which may have
been intended for the three angels that appeared to Abraham,
or simply the favourite combination of three,t so frequent on the

* "As soon as I had seen your theatre I left it, to go to an Angel whom I adore on ac-
count of his good wine."

f Even in the most remote periods of history three was considered a mystic number,
and regarded with reverence. The Assyrians had their triads. In Ancient Jigypt every
town or district had its own triad, which it worshipped, and which was a union of cer-
tain attributes, the third member proceeding from the other two. Sir Gardiner
Wilkinson, in his "Ancient Egyptians,'' vol. iv., ch. xii., p. 230, mentions a stone
with the words "one Bail, one Athor, one Akori, hail father of the world, hail
triformous God." Thorns, in his " Dissertation on Ancient Chinese Vases," says :
—" The Chinese have a remarkable preference for tile number three ; they say one
produced two, two produced three, and three produced all tilings. There is some-
thing remarkable in this last phrase ; perhaps it conveys an indistinct idea of the
Trinity. The Buddhists, who are of modern date in China, use the term ' the three
precious ones'—'the Deity that has ruled, the ruling Deity, and the Deity that shall
rule.' The Taore sect have also their ' three pure ones.' The number three has many
associations, as the three bonds—a prince and minister, father and son, husband
and wife ; the three superintendents—the treasurer, judge, and collector of customs ;
the three powers — heaven, earth, and man," &c. In the Hindoo religion combin-
ations of three are equally frequent : they have several trimustis or trinities ; three
principal deities, Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahadeva ; another triad is Brahma, Vishnu,
and Siva, or matter, spirit, and destruction ; there are three plaited locks on the head
of Radha, representing a mystical union of three principal rivers, Ganges, Yamuna, and
Sarawati. Siva has three eyes ; the sun is called three-bodied ; the triangle with the
Iliudoos is a favourite type for the triune co-equality, hence the pentagram (a figure
composed of two equilateral triangles, placed with the apex of the one towards the base
of the other, and so forming six triangles by the intersections of their sides) is in great
favour with them; further, they use three mystic letters to denote their deity; have
3x7 hells, (seven is also a mystic number with them and other ancient races,) and
many other combinations of three. The same preference for this number is observable
in the Greek and Roman mythology, which mentions three theocraties, three graces,
three fates, three harpies, three syrens, three heads of Cerberus, three eggs of Leda, &c.
And, taking 3 as a unit, 3X3 muses, 3x4 principal gods, (Dii Majores,) 3x4 labours
of Hercules, &c.

signboard and in heraldry. That three angels were thought to
possess mysterious power, is evident from the following Devon-
shire charm for a burn :—

" Three Angels came from the north, east, and west,
One brought fire, another ice,
And the third brought the Holy Ghost,
So out fire—and in frost—
In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

The Three Angels was a very general linen-draper's sign, for
which there seems no reason other than that the long flowing
garments in which they are generally represented, suggest their
having been good customers to the drapery business.

Angels appear in combination with various heterogenous ob-
jects, in many of which, however, the so-called Angel is simply a
Cupid. The Angel and Bible was a sign in the Poultry in
1680.* The Angel and Grown was a not uncommon tavern
decoration. The following stanza from a pamphlet, entitled, " The
Quack "Vintners," London, 1712, p. 18, shows the way in which
this sign was represented :—

" May Harry's Angel be a sign he draws
Angel ick nectar, that deserves applause,
Such that may make the city love the Throne,
And, like his Angel, still support the Crown!'

From this we learn it was a Cupid or Amorino supporting a
crown; the sign of the house had doubtless originally been the
Crown, and the Cupid, so common in the Renaissance style, had
been added by Avay of ornament, but was mistaken by the public
as a constituent of the sign. The verses probably applied to the
Angel and Crown, a famous tavern in Broad Street, behind the
Royal Exchange. There was another Angel and Crown in
Islington, where convivial dinners were held in the olden time.
It was a common practice in the last and preceding centuries for
the natives of a county or parish to meet once a year and dine
together. The ceremony often commenced by a sermon, preached
by a native, after which the day was spent in pleasant conviviality,
after-dinner speeches, and mutual congratulations. The custom
now has almost died out; but this is one of the invitation
tickets :

You are desidered to meet many other Natives of this place on Tuesday
y^e 11th day of April 1738 at Mrs Eliz. Grimstead's y^! Angel and Crown,
* London Gazette, Nov, 8 to 11,16s0.

in ye Upper Street, about y° liour of One; Then and there w^th Full
Dishes, Good Wine and Good Humour to improve and make lasting that
Harmony and Friendship which have so long reigned among us.

That same year, another Angel and Crown Tavern in Shire Lane
obtained an unenviable notoriety, for it was there that a Mr
Quarrington was murdered and robbed by Thomas Carr, an attor-
ney from the Temple, and Elisabeth Adams. They were hanged
at Tyburn, January 18, 1738.

The Angel and Gloves at first sight seems a whimsical com-
bination, but is easily explained when we advert to the woodcut
above the shop-bill of Isaac Dalvy, in Little Newport Street, Soho,
who, in the reign of Queen Anne, sold gloves, &c., under this
sign, which simply represented two Cupids, each carrying a glove,
—in fact, exactly the same conceit as that of the Herculanese shoe-
maker, noticed in a former chapter. It is more difficult to find a
rational explanation for the Angel and Stilliards. The Steel-
yard, or Stilliard, in Upper Thames Street, was the place where
the Hanse merchants exposed their goods for sale, and was so
called from the king's steelyard, or beam, there erected for weigh-
ing the tonnage of goods imported into London.* Whether this
sign represented a Cupid with such a weighing machine, or a view
of the hall of the Hanse merchants, with a Fame flying over it,
is now impossible to decide. It may be suggested that a variation
of the well-known figure of Justice, with steelyards in place of
the usual scales, was the origin. Be this as it may, the only
mention we have found of the sign is in the following advertise-
ment :—

} V Aldersgate, London, maketh Castle (Castille), Marble, and white Sope
as good as any Marseilles Sope; Tryed and Proved and sold at very Reason-
able Rates." —Domestic Intelligencer, January 2d, 1679.

A few years later we find the Angel and Still noticed, as in the
following advertisement:—

J\_ years, teeth broke before, and several scars in both his cheeks and
forehead, having absented from his Master, whosoever secures him and

t Soap, wax, tallow, and similar articles were part of the merchandise in which the
Hanse merchants dealt.

gives notice to Benjamin Maynard, at the Angel and Still, at Beptford,
shall have a Guinea Reward and reasonable charges,"—Weelcly Journal,
October 18, 1718.

In this case the still was simply added to intimate the sale of
spirituous liquors.

The Angel and Sun, apparently a combination of two signs,
is named as a shop or tavern near Strandbridge, in 1663,¹ and is
still the name of a public-house in the Strand. The Angel and
Woolpack, at Bolton, is the same sign which, near London
Bridge, is called the Naked Boy and Woolpack. A woolpack,
with a negro seated 011 it, was at one time very common; for a
change or distinction, this negro underwent the reputed impos-
sible process of being washed white, and thus became a naked boy,
which, in signboard phraseology, is equivalent to an angel.

The Virgin was unquestionably a very common sign before
the Reformation, and it may be met with even at the present day, as,
for instance, at Ebury Hill, Worcester, and in various other places.
In France it was, and is still, much more common than in Eng-
land, as might be expected. Tallemant des Beaux tells of a
miraculous tavern sign of Notre Dame, on the bridge of that
name, in Paris, which was observed by the faithful to cry and
shed tears, probably on account of the bad company she had to
harbour. It was taken down by order of the archbishop. At
the end of the seventeenth century there was, in the Rue de la
Seine, Paris, a quack doctor, who pretended to cure a great variety
of complaints. He put up a holy Virgin for his sign, with the
words, " Refugium Peccatorum," which is one of the usual
epithets of the holy Virgin in the Roman Catholic Church ser-
vice, very wittily, although profanely, applied in this instance.
The sign of the Virgin was also called Our Lady, as: " Newe
Inne was a guest Inne, the sign whereof was the picture of our
Lady, and thereupon it was also called Our Lady's Inne."+ Our
Lady of Pity was the sign of Johan Redman, a bookseller in
Paternoster Row, in 1542. Johan Byddell, also a bookseller, had
introduced this sign in the beginning of that century. This
Byddell, or Bedel, (who lived in Fleet Street, next to Fleet Bridge,)
had evidently borrowed it from a nearly similar figure in Corio's
History of Milan, 1505, He afterwards lived at the Sun, in
Fleet Street, the house formerly occupied by Wynkyn de Worde.

The prevalence of the Baptist's Head probably dated from the
time when pilgrimages across the sea were considered good works,
and the head of St John the Baptist at Amiens Cathedral came
in for a large share of visits from English worshippers. The old
monkish writers say that in 448 after Christ, the head was
found in Jerusalem; in 1206 it was transferred to Amiens, where
it was kept in a salver of gold, surrounded with a rim of pearls
and precious stones.* Various other reasons may be adduced for
the prevalence of this sign, as the conspicuous place occupied by
St John in the Roman Catholic hagiology, and hence in mediaeval
plays and mysteries; the festivities of Midsummer, (a day of
great moment in London for setting the watch;) and, finally, his
being the patron saint of the Knights of Jerusalem. It was
doubtless in compliment to those knights that the Baptist's Head
in St John's Lane, Clerkenwell, was named. This house seems
to be the remainder of some noble mansion of Queen Elizabeth's
time; it contains many Elizabethan ornaments, particularly a
chimney-piece, with the coats of arms of the Radcliff and Eorster
families. When the house was adapted to its present purpose,
it was distinguished by the head of St John the Baptist in a
charger, now gone. Doctor Johnson is said to have been an oc-
casional visitor here, when returning from Edward Cave's, the
editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, whose office was close by at
St John's Gate. Goldsmith is also reported to have made fre-
quent calls here, when business of a similar nature led him to the
same spot. In later years it became the house of call of the
prisoners on their way to the new prison in the parish—a circum-
stance commemorated by Dodd in the " Old Bailey Begisters."
Another St John's Head is mentioned by Stow in the following
accident:—

"The 11th of July (1553) Gilbert Pot, drawer to Ninion Saunders,
vintner, dwelling at St John's Head within Ludgate, who was accused by
the said Saunders, his maister, was set on the pillory in Cheape, with both
his ears nailed and cleane cut off, for wordes speaking at the time of the
proclamation of Lady Jane ; at which execution was a trumpet bloune and
a herault in his coat of armes redd his offence, in presence of William
Garrard, one of the Sheriffes of London. About 5 of the clocke the same
day, in the afternoone, Ninion Saunders, master to the said Gilbert Pot, and
John Owen, a gunmaker, both gunners of the Tower, comming from the
Tower of London by water in a whirrie and shooting London Bridge, to-

* See a woodcut of an Amiens pilgrim's token in the Journal of Brit. Arch. Assoc.,
vol. i., Oct. 1848 ; also a detailed accouat of this venerable relic in Coryatt's Crudities
vol. i., p. 17.

wards the Black Fryers, were drowned at S. Mary Loch * and the whirry-
man saved by their oars."

To this same saint also refers the John op Jerusalem, a sign at
the present day in Bosoman Street, Clerkenwell, put up, like the
Baptist Head, in remembrance of the Knights of St John of
Jerusalem, who formerly had their priory in this locality.

In France this sign was equally common. Jean Carcain, one
of the early Parisian publishers and printers, (1487,) adopted it for
his shop. One of his books has the following quaint impress :—■
" Parisii Sancti Pons est Michaelis in Urbe;
Multae illic aedes; notior una tamen ;

Hauc cano, quae Sacri Baptistae f route notata est
Hie respondebit Bibliopola tibi;

Vis impressoris nomen quoque nosse ? Joannis
Carcain nomen ei est. Ne pete plura, Vale." f

It was an old signboard jocularity in France to represent St John
the Baptist by a monkey with cambric (batiste) ruffles and wrist-
bands, (singe en batiste.) From the parables the sign of the Good
Samaritan was borrowed, which, even at the present clay, may be
seen in Turner Street, Whitechapel; Grimshaw Park, Blackburn,
&c. When barbers combined with their trade the practice of letting
blood—otherwise than by " easy shaving,"—of drawing teeth, and
setting bones, they frequently adopted this sign. In the seven-
teenth century, a barber-surgeon at Leeuwarden, in Holland, wrote
under his device of the Good Samaritan the following poetical
effusion:—

" Gelyk den "Wyn, fyn,
Dryft zorgen uit der lierten
Zoo geneest Medicyn, pyn,
En outlast van Smarten." J

The Samaritan Woman (la Samaritaine) is the French version
of our Jacob's Well, and was a common sign in Paris ; every-
body knows the Bains de la Samaritaine, in which the luxurious
Parisian indulges in a fresh water bath in his Seine, which at that
place is about as clear as the Thames at Blackwall. In the Bua

* Name of one of the arches of old London Bridge.
\ "In the;town of Paris there is a bridge named St Michael,

On which there are many houses ; but one of them is more known than the others,
That is the house I mean, which is known by the sign of the Baptist Head.
There the bookseller will answer you.

Would you also like to know the name of the printer? John
Carcain is his name. Now, do not ask any more. Farewell."

J " Like wine, fine,
Driveth away care;
So medicine cureth pain.
And delivers us from suffering."

Caquerel at Rouen there is a stone bas-relief of the Samaritan
woman at the well, with the date 1580. Jacques Dupuy, a
bookseller in the Rue St Jacques, also used the Samaritan woman
as his sign, evidently because it was a subject in which he could
introduce a well, and so have the satisfaction of punning on his
name. This kind of pun was none the less relished for being
far-fetched; thus there is a stone bas-relief in the Rue Froid, at
Caen, of the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, (la, Peche
Miraculeuse,) which, in the early part of the seventeen lh cen-
tury, was placed there by a bookseller of the name of Poisson,
(Fish,) who, being an " odd fish," adopted this sign as a pun on
his own name. At the present day, the house is still inhabited
by a bookseller of the same name and family.

Christ's Passion does not seem to have suggested any signs in
England, although the great symbol of His death, the Cross, was
comparatively common. In Paris there was, in 1G40, a book-
seller, George Josse, in the Rue St Jacques, who had the Crown
of Thorns (la Couronne d'Epine) for his sign, probably on
account of the original Crown of Thorns being one of the relies
kept at Paris. Coryatt's remarks on this relic are rather amus-
ing :—

" They report in Paris that the Thorny Crown, wherewith Christ was
crowned on the Crosse, is kept in the Palace, which vpon Corpus Cliristi
Day, in the afternoone, was publickly shewed, as some told me ; but it was
not my chance to see it. Truely, I wonder to see the contrarieties amongst
the Papists, and most ridiculous varieties concerning their reliques, but
especially about this of Christ's Thorny Crowne. For whereas I was after
that at the Citie of Yicenza in Italy, it was told me that in the monas-
tery of the Dominican Fryers of that Citie, this Crowne was kept, which
Saint Lewes, King of France, bestowed upon his brother Bartholomew,
Bishop of Vicenza, and before one of the Dominican family. Wherefore I
went to the Dominican Monastery and made suit to see it, but I had the
repulse; for they told me that it was kept vnder three or four lockes, and
neuer shewed to any by any favour whatsoeuer, but only upon Corpus
Christi Day. If this Crowne of Paris, whereof they so much bragge, be
true, that of Yicenza is false. Ho ! the truth and certainty of Papistical
reliques."*

Crosses of various colours were probably amongst the first
signs put up by the newly-converted Christians, (as soon as they
could effect this with impunity,) on account of the recommenda-
tion of the early fathers, and for their beneficial influence. Father
Lactantius, who lived in the fourth century, writes—" As Christ,
whilst He lived amongst men, put the devils to flight by His

words, and restored tliose to tlieir senses whom these evil spirits
had possessed; so now His followers in the name of their Master,
and by the sign of His passion, even exercise the same dominion
over them." St Ephrem says—¹¹ Let us paint and imprint on our
doors the life-giving cross; thus defended no evil will hurt you."
St Chrysostom says the same—" Wherefore let us with earnest-
ness impress this cross on our houses, and on our walls, and our
windows." St Cyril of Alexandria introduces the Emperor Julian
the apostate saying, " You Christians adore the wood of the
cross, you engrave it on the porches of your houses," &c. Hence the
still prevalent custom in Roman Catholic places of painting
crosses on the walls of houses, to' drive away witches, as it is
said ; and these crosses being painted in different colours, might
easily serve as a sign by which to designate the house. At the
Crusades the popularity of this emblem increased : a red cross
was the badge of the Crusader, and would be put up as a sign by
men who had been to the Holy Land, or wished to court the
patronage of those on their way thither. Finally, the different
orders of knighthood settled each upon a particular colour as
their distinctive mark. Thus the knights of St John wore white
crosses, the Templars red crosses, the knights of St Lazarus green
crosses, the Teutonic knights blade crosses, embroidered with gold,
tfce. But the most common in England was the red cross, which
was the cross of St George, and also of the red cross knights, who
acted as a sort of police on the roads between Europe and the
Holy Land to protect pilgrims. This badge, therefore, could not
fail to be very popular.

In France it used to be, and in all probability is still, a
common rebus to see le signe de la croix represented by a swan
with a cross on his back, (cygne de la croix.)

Only very few signs of the cross are now remaining. The
Golden Cross in the Strand is one of these, and has been in that
locality for centuries. It was one of the first upon which the
Puritans brooked their ill-humour and hatred of popery; for in
1643 it was taken doAvn by order of a committee from the House
of Commons, as " superstitious and idolatrous." This was the
precursor of the fall of old Charing Cross itself. The sign, how-
ever, was put up again at the Bestoration, and. figures promi-
nently in Canaletti's well-known view of Charing Cross, in the
Northumberland Collection. The tavern was probably pulled
down at the formation of Trafalgar Square.

At a point on the road between D unchurch and Daventry,
where three roads meet, there was formerly an inn with the sign
of the Three Crosses, in allusion to the three roads. Swift, in
one of his pedestrian excursions, happened to stop at that inn.
Not being very elegantly dressed, and rather importunate to be
served, the landlady told him that she could not leave her cus-
tomers for " such as he," upon which the Dean, who was not the
most modest, nor the most patient of men, wrote the following
epigram on one of the windows :—

The Resurrection was the sign of John Day, a bookseller,
who, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, dwelt in St Sepulchre's
parish, a little above Holbourne Conduit. It was a sort of con-
undrum or charade on his name, which was carried out by his
colophon, representing a man asleep, who is wakened by another
with the words, " Arise, for it is day:" This, although somewhat
profane, according to our present notions of such things, was
nothing strange in a time when the people, though Protestants by
name, were still strongly imbued with Roman Catholic ideas.
John Cawoode, also a printer and publisher of St Paul's Church-
yard in 1558, had a still more profane sign—viz., the Holy
Giiost. And this even continued till the beginning of the seven-
teenth century, for in 1602 we find this identical sign used by an-
other printer, William Leake, who was probably his successor,
and published in that year Shakespeare's " Venus and Adonis."
Worse still was the sign of another bookseller in St Paul's
Churchyard in 1520, which was the Trinity.* We must bear
in mind, however, that in Roman Catholic countries conversation
upon matters of religion is not nearly so strict and guarded as
amongst believers in Protestant nations. An amusing instance of
this once occurred to the w^rriter in Jerusalem, the great head-
quarters of Christianity, Usually the pilgrims or travellers stay-
ing at the Latin convent there, which serves as an hotel, dine all
together in a kind of table-d'hote fashion ; but for some reason it
so fell out that our party one day dined in private. The holy brother
who attended us happened to be a Spaniard, and as we had visited

* From his colophon we see that the Trinity on his sign was represented by a triangle
with a circle at each angle, respectively containing the words PATER, FILIUS, SPIRI-
TUS, and, between the circles, on each of the sides of the triangle, the words NON
EST, a mystical way of representing the Trinity, very common in the middle age».

that country, and were tolerably acquainted with Vallaclolid, his
native town, worldly recollections began to overcome the sanctity
of the good monk, and he became inexhaustible in reminiscences
of his younger days. Whilst talking with him, and refreshing
ourselves with a meal of salad, grown in the garden of Geth-
semane, we had indulged in two tumblers of a pithy white wine,
quite strong enough to justify our resisting the pressing invita-
tions of the reverend butler to take a third glass ; but the jovial
monk was not to be beaten, and finally convinced us with the fol-
lowing argument : " Oh come, brother, you must take another
glass, remember you are in Jerusalem, and so take one for the
Father, one for the Son, and one for the Holy Ghost 1"

Although the English ale and refreshment houses continue to
select fresh signs from the notabilities of the hour, the Palmer-
ston's Head and the Gladstone Arms for instance, they rarely
choose anything of a religious or devotional cast. One instance,
however, occurs to us, and that in the neighbourhood of London,
which deserves mention. In Kentish Town, under the Ilamp-
stead hills, the noisiest and most objectionable public-house in the
district bears the significant sign of the Gospel Oak. It is the
favourite resort of navvies and quarrelsome shoemakers, and took
its name, not from any inclination to piety on the part of the
landlord, but from an old oak tree in the neighbourhood, near the
boundary line of Hampstead and St Pancras parishes, a relic of
the once general custom of reading a portion of the gospel under
certain trees in the parish perambulations, equivalent to " beating
the bounds." " The boundaries and township of the parish of
Wolverhampton are," says Shaw, in his "History of Stafford-
shire," (vol. ii., p. 165,) "in many points marked out by what
are called Gospel Trees; " and Herrick, in his " Hesperides," (Ed.
1859, p. 26,) says

"Dearest, bury me
Under that holy oak, or gospel tree;
Where, though thou see'st not, thou may'st think upon
Me, when thou yeerly ffo'sl procession."

The old Kentish Town Gospel Oak was removed a short time
since, but not until it had given a name to the surrounding fields,
to a village, (Oak village,) and to a chapel, as well as to the
public-house alluded to.

At the end of the last chapter we spoke of the profane applica-
tion of some of the most sacred things to signboard purposes.
In France this was still worse than in England. That amusing
gossip, Tallemant des Réaux, in his " Contes et Ilistoriettes,"
tells us how an innkeeper of the Rue Montmartre, in Paris, put up
for his sign the God's head, (la Téte Dim,) and notwithstanding
all the efforts of the cure of St Eustache to make him take it
down he would not comply until compelled by the magistrates.
Though two centuries have elapsed, the French of the present
day are not much better; for in Paris, in the Rue Mondétour,
there is actually a café known as the Nom de Jesus.

Boursault, a clever writer of the time of Louis XIV., whose in-
dignant letter about the Royal Arms we have noticed in a former
chapter, addressed a letter to Bizoton, one of the police magis-
trates, in which he vents his anger at some of the religious
signs, and complains of the profanity of a lodging-house with the
sign of the Annunciation in the Rue de la Iluchette, in which
there were as many rogues and reprobates as there were honest
lodgers. Amongst the signs that shocked him most he names le
Saint Esprit, (the Holy Ghost,) la Trinité, (the Trinity,) VImage
Notre Dame, &c. ; but particularly one, representing Christ taken
prisoner, with the profane motto, " Au juste prix." This con-
tains a blasphemous pun,—juste prix at once signifying a fixed
price, and "just caught." The sign was set up at a little ordinary
in a lane between the Rue St Ilonoré and the Rue Richelieu.
And, though Boursault says in his letter that he had so fumed
and thundered against the landlord that he had taken it down,
yet it made its appearance again afterwards, and was handed down
to our time, since not many years ago it might have been observed
in the Cour du Dragon, above the shop of an ironmonger.

Saints are still in full feather on the signboards in Roman
Catholic countries. Amongst hundreds of others the following
may be seen in Paris 011 cafés and hotels in the present day :—St
Barbe, St Christophe, St Eustache, St Joseph, St Laurent, St
Marie, St Louis, St Merri, St Michel, St Paul, St Phar, St Pierre,
St Quentin, St Roc, St Thomas d'Aquin, St Vincent de Paul,
kc., &c.

A curious French sign is mentioned by Coryatt, which he saw
at Amiens. " I lay at the signe of the Aye Maria, where I
read these two verses, written in golden letters upon the linterne
of the doore, at the entry into the Inne. This in Greeke, Ttjg
<p/Xn^sv/'ae tvikavZûviGÔi, that is, Forget not your good enter-
tainment ) and this in Latine, Hospitibus hic tuta fides."*

Saints were formerly very common on signboards, and this
abuse also was wittily ridiculed by the pungent satire of Artus
Désiré, a French poet of the fifteenth century :—

" En leur logis plein de vers et de teignes,
Où est logé le grand diable d'enfer,
Mettent de Dieu et de saints les enseignes,
Leurs ditz logis où n'y a que desroys,
Pendre font tous sur le pavé du roy
De grands tableaux et enseignes dorées,
Pour des montres qu'ils ont fort bien de quoy,
Et qu'il y a de très grasses porées.
L'un pour enseigne aura la Trinité,
L'autre Saint Jehan, et l'autre Saint Savin,
L'autre Saint Maure, l'autre l'Humanité
De Jésus Christ notre Sauveur divin,
De Dieu, des saintz, sont leurs crieurs de viu,+
Tant aux citez que villes et villages,
Des susditz sainctz les devotes images,
En propbanant leur préciosité." J

f In those early days the sign alone of a house was not thought to give sufficient
publicity. Touters (crieurs) were therefore sent about town (a custom dating from tire
Romans.) Thus in the "Crieries de Paris," (Barbazan, Fabliaux et Contes, vol. ii., p.
277,)-

" D'autres cris on fait plusieurs,
Qui long seraient à reciter.
L'on crie vin nouveau et vieux,
Duquel l'on donne à tater."
These touters had their statutes and privileges granted to them by Philip Auguste in
1258, some of which are very curious.

J Not only had the innkeepers saints on their signboards, but the different reception-
rooms in their houses were also sanctified with some holy name. Artus Desire quaintly
inveighs against this practice in his " Loyaullé Consciencieuse des Tavernières :"—
" Semblablement toutes leurs chambres painctes,
Où il n'y a qu'ordure et ivrognise,
Portent les noms de benoistz sainctz et sainctes

Contre l'honneur de Dieu et son Eglise.
L'une s'apelle, à leur mode et devize,
Le Paradis et l'autre Sainct Clement.
Et quant quelqu'un rabaste fermement,
L'hostesse crie André, Guillot, Mornable,
Laisse -moy tout, et va legerement
En Paradis, compter de par le Diable.
S'on si veut chauffer,
Portent le faggot
Robin avec Margot,
De par Lucifer."

("In the same manner all their painted rooms, in which there is nothing but filth and

Many of these saints were patrons of particular trades, and were
constantly adopted as the signs of those that followed them
Thus St Crispin was generally a shoemaker's sign. At the pre-
sent day, the gentle craft represented by this saint live up to the
proverb, and keep to the "last;" but many publicans still have
the sign of Crispin, Saint Crispin, Jolly Crispin, or Crispin
and Crispian, and occasionally King Crispin, (as at Morpeth.)
And well may they put their houses under the protection of this
saint, since the proverb says, " Cobblers and tinkers are the best
ale drinkers." Crispin and Crispian were two Roman brothers,
sons of a king; they travelled to France to preach Christianity,
and worked at the trade of shoemakers, making sandals for the
poor, which they gave away, the angels supplying them with
leather. Hence they are considered the patrons of shoemakers.
They were beheaded at Soissons in 308. What may have contri-
buted to their popularity in this country is the fact of the battle
of Agincourt having been fought on their day, October 25,
1415 :—

" And Crispin Crispian shall never go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition,
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap, while any speaks
That fought with us upon St Crispin's day."

From Shakespeare we turn to the homely lhymes of a Dutch
shoemaker at the Hague, who, in the seventeenth century, had
this couplet over his door :—

" Dit is Sint Crispyn, maar ik hiet Stoffel,
Ik maak een laars, schoen en pantofFe]."*

A more spirited one about the same time was in Bergen op Zoom,
which is not bad satire for a Dutchman :—

drunkenness, are named after some blessed saint, contrary to the respect due to the
Lord and Ilis Church. According to this custom one is called the Paradise, and another
St Clement. And if anybody higgles about his bill the hostess calls out, Andrew, Will,
Mornable, leave everything, and run quickly up to the Paradise to make out the bill, in
the Devil's name. And if anybody wants a fire, Bob or Maggy has to carry up a faggot
in the name of Lucifer.")

* " This is Saint Crispin, but my name is Kit,
I make boots, shoes, and slippers."

" Hier in Krispyn kan min de minscli int beeste villen
Elk sclioenen 11a zyn voet voor gilt terstond bestillen,
Docli menig beest alheir steekt in een mensckevel,
Draagt zeep zyn breeder's buid en't staat dat beest nog wel."*

" The Delightful, Princely, and Entertaining History of the Gentle Craft,
&c. London' printed for J. Rhodes, at the corner of Bride Lane, in Fleet
Street, 1-725,"

we gather that Saint Hugh was a prince's son,+ deeply in love
with a saintly coquette called Winifred. Having been jilted by
this lady in a very pious manner, he went travelling, resisted the
temptations of Venice,% like another St Anthony, passed through
numberless adventures, compared to which those of Baron Mun-
chausen sink into insignificance, and was finally, by a jumble of
most amusing anachronism, martyred in the reign of Diocletian,
by being made to drink a cup of the blood of his lady-love,
mixed with " cold poison," after which, his body was hung on
the gallows. But among other misfortunes in his travels, he had
been shipwrecked and lost all his wealth, so that he had to choose
a profession, which was that of shoemaker, and so well he liked
his fellow-workmen that, having nothing else to give, he be-
queathed his bones to them. After they had been " well picked
by the birds," some shoemakers took them from the gallows, and
made them into tools, and hence their tools were named St
Hugh's Bones. They are specified in the following rhyme, which
appears to have been the shoemakers' shibboleth :—

" My friends, I pray, you listen to me,
And mark what Saint Hugh's Bones shall be :
First a Drawer and a Dresser,
Two Wedges, a more and a lesser.
A pretty Block, Three Inches high,
In fashion squared like a die;
Which shall be called by proper name
A Heeiblock, ah! the very same;
A Handleather and a Thumbleather likewise,
To put on Shooe-thread we must devise;

Immediately obtain shoes made out of animals' skins;
But many a brute in this town wears a human skin,
Nay, wears his own brothers skin, and the brute looks even well in it ^rt So were Crispin and Crispian, and hence the trade is called the "Gentie Craft."
j The gayest city in Europe three centuries ago.

The Needle and the Thimble shall not be left alone,
The Pinchers, the Pricking Awl, and Rubbing Stone;
The Awl, Steel and Jacks, the Sowing Hairs beside,
The Stirrop holding fast, while we sow the Cow hide;
The Whetstone, the Stopping Stick, and the Paring Knife,
All this does belong to a Journeyman's Life :
Our Apron is the shrine to wrap these Bones in,
Thus shroud we S. Hugh's Bones in a gentle lamb's skin,

" Now you good Yeomen of the Gentle Craft," the story goes on, " tell me
(qttoth he) how like you this ? As well (replied they) as Saint George does
of his horse : for as long as we can see him fight the Dragon, we will never
part with this poesie. And it shall be concluded, That what journeyman
soever he be hereafter that cannot handle his Sword and Buckler, his long
Sword and Quarterstaff, sound the Trumpet, or play upon the Flute, or bear
his part in a Three Man's song, and readily reckon up his Tools in Rhime,
(except he have borne colours in the Field, being a Lieutenant, a Sergeant
or Corporal,) shall forfeit and pay a Bottle of Wine, or be counted a Colt;
to which they answered all viva voce, Content, Content. And then, after
many merry songs, they departed. And never after did they travel with-
out these tools on their backs, which ever since have been called Saint
Hugh's Bones."

Bishop Blaze, or Blaize, otherwise St Blasius, is another
patron of a trade to be met with on the signboard. This worthy,
Bishop of Sebaste, in Cappadocia, is considered the patron of
woolcombers, whence the sign is very common in the clothing
districts. He is represented with the instrument of his martyr-
dom in his hands, an iron comb, with which the flesh was torn
from his body in 289 ; from this implement has been attributed
to him the invention of woolcombing. His holiday is celebrated
every seventh year by a procession and feast of the masters and
workmen of the woollen manufactories in Yorkshire and Bedford-
shire ; in sheep-shearing festivals, also, a representation of him
used to be introduced; a stripling in habiliments of wool was
seated on a milk-white steed, with a lamb in his lap, the horse,
the youthful bishop, and the lamb all covered with a profusion of
ribbons and flowers.

St Julian, the patron of travellers, wandering minstrels,
boatmen, &c., was a very common inn sign, because he was sup-
posed to provide good lodgings for such persons. Hence two
Saint Julian's crosses, in saltier, are in chief of the innholders'
arms, and the old motto was :—" When I was liarbourless ye
lodged me." This benevolent attention to travellers procured
him the epithet of " the good herbergeor," and in France " bon
herbet." His legend in a MS., Bodleian, 1596, fol. 4, alludes to
this:—

" Therfore yet to this day, thei that over lond wende,
They biddeth Seint Julian, anon, that gode herborw he hem aende,
And Seint Julianes Pater Noster ofte seggetli also
For his faders soule and his moderes that he hem bring therto."

" Tu as dit la patenotre
Saint Julian h, cest matin,
Soit en Roumans, soit en Latin,
Or tu seras bien ostil6." *

" Sommes tuit vostre.
Par Saint Pierre le bon Apostre,
L'ostel aurez Saint Julien," +

savs Mabile to her feigned uncle, in the fabliau of " Boivin de Pro-
vinsand a similar idea appears in " Cocke Lorell's bote," where
the crew, after the entertainment with the " relygyous women^rfrom the Stews' Bank, at Colman's Hatch,

" Blessyd theyr shyppe when they had done
And dranke about a Saint Julyan's tome."

St Martin's character as a saint was not unlike St Julian's;
hence we find him frequently on the signboard. The most favour-
ite representation being the saint on horseback cutting off with
his sword a piece of his cloak, in order to clothe a naked beggar.
Not only inns, but booksellers also used his sign, as for instance
Dionis Bose, (1514,) printer in the Bue St Jacques, Paris; and
Bernard Aubrey, another printer in the same street.

" Avoir l'hotel St Martin," in old French, meant exactly the
same as " avoir l'hotel St Julian :" thus, in the romance of
Floras and Blanche :—

And in the story of " L'Anneau," by Jean de Boves, (which is the
same as Chaucer's " Miller's Tale,") it is said of the two students
at the end :—" C'est ainsi qu'ils eurent a ses depens hostel Saint

St Juliau's prayer this morning,
Either in French or in Latin,
Now you are sure to be well lodged."
f We are entirely at your service.
By S. Peter the good apostle
You shall have St Julian inn (or welcome y
t " Often good wine makes them say,

Martin."* These two saints, it is believed, are no longer to be
found on the signboard, but another powerful patron of travellers,
St Christopher, may still occasionally be met with, as for in-
stance in Bath, where in the seventeenth century it was still very
common. Taylor the Water poet mentions it as the sign of an inn
at Eton, and it occurs on various trades tokens of London shops,
inns, and taverns. This saint's intercession was thought effica-
cious against all danger from fire, flood, and earthquake, whence
it became a custom to paint his image of a colossal si^e on walls
of churches and houses, sometimes occupying the whole height of
the building, so that it might be seen from a great distance.
Generally he was represented wading through a river, with the
infant Christ on his shoulders, and leaning on a flowering rod.
Such representations are met with in every part of Western Europe;
they still remain in many places in England, as at St James'
Church, South Elmham, Suffolk ; Bibury Church, Gloucester-
shire ; Beddington, Surrey ; Croydon; Hengrave ; West Wick-
ham, &c., (fee., &c. They were also very numerous on the Con-
tinent ; in the porch of St Mark's, Venice, there is a mosaic bust
of him, with these words :—

" Christophori Sancti speciem quicumque tuetur
Illo namque die nullo languore tenetur."t

A somewhat similar inscription occurs under one of the very
earliest block prints, (now in the possession of Earl Spencer,)
evidently made for pasting against the walls in inns, and other
places frequented by travellers and pilgrims. Under it are the
following words :—

" Cristofori faciem die quacumque tueris
Illo nempe die morte mala 11011 morieris.

Travellers even carried his figure about with them, either on their
hat or on their breast, as we gather from Chaucer's " Yeoman "—

" A Cristofre on Iris brest of silver shene."
In the "Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson the Londoner," 1607,
a jest is related, made by that dry old joker at the expense of
Saint Christopher, which again illustrates the levity with which
religious matters were treated in those days :—

* « Thus they had at his expense the inn of St Martin."
f " Whosoever sees the image of St Christopher,

Shall that day not feel any sickness."
} " The day that you see St Christopher's face,

" Maister Hobson and another of his neighboris on a time walking to
Southwarke faire, by chance dranke in a house, which had the signe of Sa.
Christopher, of the which signe the goodman of the house gave this com-
mendation, Saint Christopher (quoth he) when hee lived upon the earth
bore the greatest burden that ever was, which was this, he bore Christ
over a river ; nay, there was one (quoth Maister Hobson) that bore a greater
burden. Who was that? (quoth the innkeeper) Marry, (quoth Maister
Hobson) the asse that bore him and his mother. So was the innekeeper
called asse by craft."

The house in which this joke was perpetrated is enumerated by
Stowe amongst the principal inns of Southwark.

St Luke still figures as the sign of two or three public-houses
in London. Being the patron of painters, it certainly was the
least the sign-painters could do to honour his portrait with an
occasional appearance on the signboard. Yet it must be con-
fessed St Luke was but a sorry hand at painting. There is a
portrait of the Holy Yirgin painted by him preserved in the
Church of Silivria, on the shores of the Sea of Marmora; but
such a daub! the most modest village sign-painter would be
ashamed of the production. Yet, for all that, the thing works
miracles, and the only wonder is that its first effort in this line
was not to change itself into a good picture. "We wonder at the
Yirgin, too, and expected better from her taste ; for in Valencia
Cathedral there is another portrait of her painted by Alonzo
Cano, which is one of the most lovely female heads we ever had the
happiness to gaze upon. And so well pleased was the Holy Virgin
Avith this likeness, that she deigned to descend from heaven to com-
pliment the blessed artist upon his work. So says the legend,
and so the old beadle tells the travellers. But Luke possessed
other attributes. Aubrey tells us : " At Stoke Verdon, in the Parish
of Broad Chalke, was a chapell (in the chapell close by the farm-
house) dedicated to Saint Luke, who is the Patron or Tutelar Saint
of the Home Beasts, and those that have to do with them," &c.¹ This
arose evidently from the Ox being his emblem, as the Lion was
of St Mark, the Eagle of St John, and the Angel of St Matthew.
For this reason St Luke was doubtless often chosen as the sigp of
inns frequented by farmers and graziers.

Simon the Tanner op Joppa is an old-established house in
Long-lane, Bermondsey, and, as a sign, is supposed to be unique.
It seems to have been adopted with reference to the tanners, who
frequented the house, or it may have been the former occupation

of tlie landlord, wlio gave the sign to his house. Simon is named
in Acts x. 32, " Send therefore to Joppa, and call hither Simon,
whose surname is Peter; he is lodged in the house of one Simon
a tanner, by the sea-side."

But of all the signs coming under this class, Saint George
and the Dragon is undoubtedly the greatest favourite in Eng-
land, and it is equally well represented in other countries; for of
this saint may be said what Yelleius Paterculus said about
Pompey: " Quot partes terrarum sunt, tot fecit monumenta
victorias suae." In London alone there are at present not less
than sixty-six public-houses and taverns with this name, not
counting the beer-houses,' coffee-houses, &c. Yet, after all, it is
very doubtful if St George ever existed, and he may be only a
popular corruption of St Michael conquering Satan, or Perseus'
romantic delivery of Andromeda. Hence the little rhyme re-
corded by Aubrey, and various other seventeenth century collectors
of ana:

" To save a mayd St George the Dragon slew—
A pretty tale, if all is told be true.
Most say there are no dragons, and 'tis sayd
There was no George; pray God there was a mayd."

St George is mentioned by Bede, who calls the 23d of April
" Natale S. Georgii Martyris." He w^ras, however, at that time a
very recent importation, for Adamnanus (690), who lived just
before Bede, says, speaking of Arnulphus after his return from
the East: " Etiam nobis de quodam martyre Georgio nomine
narrationem contulit." In the reign of Canute, there was already
a house of regular canons sacred to St George at Thetford, in
Norfolk. The church of St George, Southwark, is also thought
to have existed before the Conqueror. But after the Conquest,
chapels were frequently erected to him, and on the seals of this
period he is often represented without the Dragon. Edward III.
had a particular veneration for him. Many of his statutes begin :
" Ad honorem omnipotentis Dei, Sanctae Marise Virginis gloriosaj,
et Sancti Georgii Martyris." It was after the foundation of the
Order of the Garter that it became such a favourite sign. The
fact that he was the patron of soldiers also assisted his popularity
on the signboard.

There still exists an old and much dilapidated stone sign of St
George and the Dragon in the front of a house on Snowhill.
Frequently this sign is abbreviated to the George. There was

an inn of this name, mentioned in 1554 as being situate on the
north side of the Tabard. This inn was very much damaged by th e
great fire of Southwark in 1670, and completely burned down
in 167 6. But it was rebuilt, and has come down to our time.

Machyn, in his Diary, mentions several Georges ; one of them
in connexion with an occurrence which gives a good view of these
lawless times :—

" The viij day of December 1559 was the day of the Conception of owre
Lade was a grett fyre in the Gorge in Bred stret; itt begane at vj of the
cloke at nyght and dyd gret harm to dyvers houses. The 9th of Decembet
cam serten fellows unto the Gorge in Bred stret where the fyre was and gutt
into the howse and brake up a chest of a clothear and toke owt xl. lb. and
after cryd fyre, fyre, so that ther cam ijc pepull, and so they took one."

The George in Lombard Street was a very old house, once the
town mansion of the Earl Ferrers, in which one of that family
was murdered as early as 1175, (see Stow.) At this house died,
in 1524, Bichard Earl of Kent, who had wasted his property in
gaming and extravagance ; it was then an inn, where the nobility
used to put up at. George Dowdall, Archbishop of Armagh, (1558,)
was buried from this house. Finally, we may mention a George
Inn at Derby, in connexion with the following advertisement
from the Daily Advertiser, Oct. 1758 :—

" k YOUNG LADY STRAYED.—A young Lady, just come out of
J\_ Derbyshire, strayed from her Guardian. She is remarkably genteel
and handsome. She has been brought up by a farmer near Derby, and
knows no other but that they are her parents ; but it is not so, for she is
a lady by birth, though of but little learning. She has no cloathes with
her, but a riding habit she used to go to market in. She will have a fine
estate, as she is an heiress, but knows not her birth, as her parents died
when she was a child, and I had the care of her, so she knows not but that
I am her mother. She has a brown silk gown that she borrowed of her
maid—that is, dy'd silk, and her rifling dress a light drab, lin'd with blue
Tammy, and it has blue loops at the button-holes; she has outgrown it;
and I am sure that she is in great distress both for money and cloaths ; but
whoever has relieved her I will be answerable if they will give me a letter,
where she may be found; she knows not her own sirname. I understand
she has been in Northampton for some time ; she has a cut in her forehead.
Whosoever will give an account where she is to be found shall receive twenty
guineas reward. Direct for M. W. at the George Inn, Derby."

Besides the Dragon, St George is found in various other com-
binations, as the George and Blue Boar, High Holborn, an
old inn lately come to its end. In the seventeenth century this
house was called the Blue Boar, and is said to have been the
house in which Cromwell and Ireton, disguised as common

troopers, intercepted a letter of King Charles to his queen.
Cromwell, the story goes on to say, finding by this letter that his
party were not likely to obtain good terms from the king, " from
that day forward resolved his ruin."* Unfortunately for lovers
of the romantic, there is 110 foundation for this dramatic incident.

The George and Thirteen Cantons, kept by the great Bob
Travers, is another odd combination, occurring in Church Street,
Soho; it is, however, easily explained when we learn that there
is another public-house called the Thirteen Cantons, in King
Street, also in Soho. This sign was put up in reference to the
thirteen Protestant cantons of Switzerland—a compliment to the
numerous Swiss who inhabit the neighbourhood.

But the strangest combination of all is that of the George
and Vulture. At present there are three public-houses in London
with this sign : one in St George-in-the-East, one in Wapping, and
one in Haberdasher Street, Hoxton. As in the " Live Vulture," (see
p. 224,) the only obvious explanation for this strange combination
seems to be the possibility of a vulture having been exhibited at
this house. Vultures were still considered great curiosities as lat<
as the eighteenth century. In 1726, one of the attractions at
Peckham Fair was a menagerie, and amongst the animals exhibited
the vulture was described in the following terms :—

" The noble Vulture Cock, brought from ArchaDgall, having the finest
talons of any bird that seeks her prey; the forepart of his head is covered
with hair; the second part resembles the wool of a black ; below that is a
white ring, having a ruff that he cloaks his head with at night."

It is a name of some standing. " Near Ball Alley was the
George Inn, since the Fire, rebuilt with very good houses, well
Inhabited, 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 of a great trade,
having a passage into St Michael's Alley," [Cornhilljf There
was another tavern of this name on the east side of the high
road, nearly opposite Bruce Green, Tottenham, in early times
much frequented by the citizens of London taking their recrea-
tions. It is mentioned in the " Search after Claret" as early as
1691. Several coins of the reign of Queen Elizabeth and Charles
I. were discovered on pulling down the old house. A coat of
irms of Queen Elizabeth was fixed over the front door, but at the

* Memoirs of Roger Earl of Orrery, by Rev. Mr Th. Morris, (Earl of Orrery's State
Letters,) 1742, fol. 15.

demolition of tlie building it was put up at the back of a house
in Hale Lane. After the fashion of the time, the house was
duly puffed up in newspaper poems. The following is copied
from a newspaper-cutting circa 1761-62, and as it enumerates
the attractions of a suburban tea-garden of the period, may be
quoted here at full length :—•

" If lur'd to roam in Summer Hours,
Your Thoughts incline tovv'rd Tott'nham Bow'rs. *
Here end your airing Tour and rest
"Where Cole invites each friendly Guest:
Intent on signs, the prying Eye,
The George and Vulture will descry;
Here the kind Landlord glad attends
To wellcome all his cliearfull Friends
Who, leaving City smoke, delight
To range where various scenes invite.
The spacious garden, verdant Field,
Pleasures beyond Expression yield,
The Angler here to sport inclined
In his Canal may Pastime find.
Neat racy Wine and Home-brew'd Ale
The nicest Palates may regale,
Nectarious Punch—and (cleanly grac'd)
A Larder stor'd for ev'ry Taste.
The cautious Fair may sip with Glee
The fresh'st Coffee, finest Tea.
Let none the outward Vulture fear,
No Vulture host inhabits here,
If too well us'd you deem ye—then
Take your Revenge and come again."

St Paul, the patron saint of London, was formerly a common
sign in the metropolis. One of the trades tokens of a house or
tavern in Petty France, Westminster, represents the saint before
his conversion, lying on the ground, with his horse standing by
him; this house was called " the Saul." Perhaps this was a
monkish pleasantry of the period, (as Westminster was under the
patronage of St Peter,) representing an unpleasant event in the
history of the great patron, and showing, by simple analogy, the
vast superiority of the converted St Peter. The usual way, how-
ever, of commemorating the saint on the signboard Avas the St
Paul's Head. This was the sign of a very old inn in Great
Carter Lane, (Doctors' Commons,) opposite which Bagford lived
in 1712. As an inn, it is mentioned by Maclivn, in his Diary, in
1562. " The 25 may Avas a yonge man did hang yms'eylff at the

Polles Head, the inn in Carterlane." Trades tokens of this house
are extant in the Beaufoy Collection. In the eighteenth century,
most of the celebrated libraries were sold at this inn : * amongst
others that of the bibliomaniac, Tom Rawlinson—the Tom Folio
of the Tatler, whose books were brought to the hammer between
1721-33—the sale extending to seventeen or eighteen separate
auctions. The disposal of his MSS. alone occupied sixteen days.
To this tavern formerly the new sheriffs, after having been sworn
in, used to resort to receive the keys of the different jails; that
ceremony terminated, they were regaled with sack and walnuts
by the keeper of Newgate. The St Paul's Coffee-house is built
on the site of this old inn. About 1820 there was another Paul's
Head in Cateaton Street, where a literary club used to be held
" for the cultivation of forensic eloquence." It was under the
patronage of several distinguished characters, and had for a motto
the modest words, " Sic itur ad astra." The vicinity of the cathe-
dral evidently had suggested both these signs, as well as that
exhibited by Philip Waterhouse, a bookseller " at the St Paul's
Head in Canning Street near Londonstone" in 1630. On another
sign, in the same locality, the two saints were united, viz., the
Saint Peter and Saint Paul, St Paul's Churchyard. Of this
house, also, trades tokens are extant.

Although St Peter was, doubtless, as common on the sign-
board before the Reformation as the other great saints of reli-
gious history, yet no instances of this have come down to us.
His keys, however—the famous Cross Keys—are very common.
At Dawdley, and on the road between Warminster and Salisbury,
there is a very curious sign called Peter's Finger, which is be-
lieved to occur nowhere else. In all probability this refers to the
benediction of the Pope, the finger of his Holiness being raised
whilst bestowing a blessing. St Peter being the first of the Papal
line, was doubtless often represented with his finger raised in old
pictures and carvings. The following passage from Bishop Hall's
" Satires " alludes to the finger :—

" But walk on cheerly 'till thou have espied
St Peter's finger, at the churchyard side."—Book v., sat. 2,

St Dunstan, the patron saint of the parish of that name in
London, w^Tas godfather to the Devil,—that is to say, to the sign
of the famous tavern of the Devil and St Dunstan, within

* The first library sold by auction in this country was that of Dr Seaman, of Warwick
Court, Warwick Lane, in 1076.

Temple Bar. The legend runs, that one day, when working at
his trade of a goldsmith, he was sorely tempted by the devil, and
at length got so exasperated that he took the red hot tongs out
of the fire and caught his infernal majesty by the nose. The
identical pinchers with which this feat was performed are still
preserved at Mayfield Palace, in Sussex. They are of a very re-
spectable size, and formidable enough to frighten the arch one
himself. This episode in the saint's life was represented on the
signboard of that glorious old tavern. By way of abbreviation,
this house was called The Devil, though the landlord seems to
have preferred the other saint's name ; for on his token we read :

Allusions to this tavern are innumerable in the dramatists;
one of the earliest is in 1563, in the play of " Jack Jugeler."
William Bowley thus mentions it in his comedy of a " Match
by Midnight," 1633 :—

Sim. My master means the sign of the Devil, and he cannot hurt you,
fool; there's a saint holds him by the nose.

Sim. What a question is that ? What does my master and his prayer-
book o' Sundays both in a pew ?"

So fond was Ben Jonson of this tavern, that he lived " without
Temple Bar, at a combmaker's shop," according to Aubrey, in
order to be near his favourite haunt. It must have been, there-
fore, in a moment of ill-humour, when he found fault with the
wine, and made the statement that his play of the " Devil is an
Ass," (which is certainly not amongst his best,) was written
" when I and my boys drank bad wine at the Devil." But
surely he would not have established his favourite Apollo Club
at a place where they sold bad wine. lie himself composed the
famous " Leges Conviviales" for this club, which are still pre-
served, with the respect due to so sacred a relic, in the banking
house of Messrs Child &, Co., erected in 1788 on the place where
the tavern formerly stood. They are twenty-four in number,
some of them rather characteristic :—

" 4. And the more to exact our delight whilst we stay,
Let none be debarr'd from his choice female mate.

10. Let our wines without mixture or scum be all fine,
Or call up the master and break his dull noddle.

16. With mirth, wit, and dancing, and singing conclude,
To regale every sense with delight in excess.

The last clause was, " Focus perennis esto,'' which proves that
rare old Ben understood comfort. Latin inscriptions were also
in other parts of the house. Over the clock in the kitchen
might have been seen, as late as 1731, "Si nocturna tibi noceat
potatio vini, hoc in mane bibis iterum, et erit medicina."* An
elegant rendering of the well-known phrase, " A hair of the dog
that bit you.'' Not only Ben Jonson, but almost all the great
poets of two centuries, honoured this house with their presence.
" I dined to-day," says Swift, in one of his letters to Stella,
" with Dr Garth and Mr Addison, at the Devil Tavern, near
Temple Bar, and Garth treated." Numerous similar quotations
might be found, showing the visits to this place of nearly all the
great literary stars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Simon Wadloe was one of the most famous landlords of this
tavern. Pepys, April 22, 1661,—" Wadlow, the Vintner at the
Devil, in Fleet Street, did lead a fine company of soldiers, ali
young comely men, in white Doublets" (this was on Charles II
going from the Tower to Whitehall.) Ben Jonson called him the
king of skinkers.t Among the verses on the door of the Apollo
room occurred the lines—

" Apollo et cohors Musarum,
Bacchus villi et uvarum,
Ceres pro pane et cervisia,
Adeste omnes cum tristitia.
Diique, Deajque, lamentate cuncti,
Simonis Vadloo funera defuncti,
Sub signo malo bene vixit, mirabile!
Si ad coelum recessit gratias Diaboli."%
* " If your potations overnight do not agree with you, take another glass of wine in th«
morning, and it will cure you."
t Sk inker, an old English word, synonymous to tapster, drawer.

" Bacchus the win him skinketh all about,"—Chaucee, Marcliant's Tale, 9008,
J " Apollo and you, band of Muses,
Bacchus, god of wine and grapes,
Ceres, goddess of bread and beer,
You all must share our sorrow.
Weep all ye gods and goddesses,
Over the bier of the defunct Simon Wadloe,
lie lived well under an evil sign,
If he goes to heaven, 0 miracle 1 thanks to the Pert."

In opposition to this Old Devil a Young Devil Tavern was
opened, also in Fleet Street, in 1707, and here the first meetings
of the Society of Antiquaries were held, hut the " Young Devil "
was not a success, and the house was soon closed.

Though the Devil is not a promising name for a public-house,
owing to his near connexion with evil spirits, yet there was a
third tavern named after—if not devoted to him—the Little
Devil, Goodman's Fields, WhitechapeL Ned Ward, in 1703,
highly commends the punch of this house, which he partook of
in "a room neat enough to entertain Venus and the graces."
It was a house entirely after jolly Ned's fancy. " My landlord
was good company, my landlady good humoured, her daughter
charmingly pretty, and her maid tolerably handsome, who can
laugh, cry, say her prayers, sing a song, all in a breath, and can
turn in a minute to all sublunary points of a female compass." *

The Devil (le Diable) was also a celebrated tavern in Paris,
near the Palais de Justice. It is thus named in the " Ode à
tous les Cabarets :"—

" Lieux sacré; où l'on est soumis
Aux saints oracles de Tliemis,
Encor que vous ayez la gloire,
De voir tout le monde à, genoux,
Sans le Diable et la Tête-Noire,f
Je n'approcliex-ais pas de vous."J

In the seventeenth century Paris also had its Petit Diable, (Little
Devil,) a tavern of some renown.

The Devil's House was the name of a favourite Sunday
resort in the last century, in the Hornsey Ptoad, Islington. It is
said to have been the retreat of Claude Duval (unde Duval's
house, Devil's house,) the elegant highwayman in the reign of
Charles II., who infested the lanes about Islington; but from a
survey taken in 1G11, it appears that the house bore already at
that time the name of " Devil's House." From its general ap-
pearance it seemed to date from Queen Elizabeth's reign. It was
surrounded by a moat filled with water, and passed by a wooden
bridge. Its attractions are held forth in the following laudatory

{ "Sacred precincts, where are delivered
The holy oracles of Themis,
Though you may boast
To see everybody kneel to you,
Were it not for the Devil and the Moor's head
I would never come near you."

epistle, an example of the florid and poetical advertising in vogue
when Richardson wrote novels of six volumes all in letters—com-
positions too painfully pathetic for our matter-of-fact age :—
" To the Printer of the Pullkk Advertiser.

" Sir,—Returning yesterday from a rural excursion to Hornsey, I casually
stopped for a little refreshment at an house, commonly known by the name
of Devil's House, situated within two fields of Hollo way-Turnpike. I own
that I was vastly surprised at so charming and delightful a place, so near
town, and at the great improvements lately made there. The garden is
well laid out, encompassed with a beautiful moat, and a good canal in the
orchard. On inquiry, I found the landlord (remarkable for his civil and
obliging behaviour) had stocked the same with plenty of tench, carp, and
other fish, with free liberty for his customers to angle therein. Tea and
hot loaves are ready at a moment's notice, and new milk from the cows
grazing in the pleasant meadows adjoining, with a good larder, and the best
wines, &c. In short, I know not a more agreeable place, where persons of
both sexes of genteel taste may enjoy a more innocent and delightful
amusement. But what surprised me most, was that the landlord, by a pecu-
liar turn of invention, had changed the Devil's House to the Summer House,
—a name I find it is for the future to be distinguished by. I wish, Mr
Printer, your readers as much pleasure as myself, and am, sir, your con-
stant reader, " H. G.

At Royston, Herts, there is a public-house known as the
Devil's Head, There is no signboard, but a carved representar
tion of his satanic majesty's head projects from the building, the
name being underneath.

St Patkick is exclusively an Irish sign. He is generally
represented in the costume of a bishop, driving a flock of snakes,
toads, and other vermin before him, which he is said to have
banished from Ireland. His life is more replete with miracles
than any of the other saints.

for his father was a noble Roman, who lived at Kirkpatrick, in
Scotland. The saint's life was very active; he founded 365
churches, ordained 365 bishops, and 3000 priests, converted
12,000 persons in one district, baptized seven kings at once,
established a purgatory, and with .his staff expelled every reptile
that stung or croaked. This last feat, however, has been per-
formed by a great many saints in different parts of the world.
Not so the feat he performed at his death, when, having been be-
headed, he coolly took his head under his arm, (or, according to
the best authorities, in his mouth,) and swam over the Shannon.

In sucli cases as the Bishop of Narbonne said about St Denis,
(who walked from Montmartre to St Denis with his head under
his arm,) " il rCy a que le premier pas qui coute."*

In many instances, no doubt, before the Beformation, the
shopkeeper would choose his patron saint for his sign, to act as
a sort of lares and penates to his house. An example of this
occurs 011 the following imprint :—" Manual of Prayers, 1539.
Imprynted in Bottol [St Botolph's] Lane, at the sygne of the
Whyt Beare, by me, Jhon Mayler, for John Waylande, and
be to sell in Powles Churchyarde, by Andrew Hester, at the
Whyt Horse, and also by Mychel Lobley, at the sygne of the
Saint Mychel ;" this last bookseller, therefore, had chosen his
own patron saint for his sign. For the same reason another
bookseller adopted, in the early part of the sixteenth century,
Saint John the Evangelist—" The Doctrynall of Good Ser-
vauntes. Imprynted at London, in Flete Strete, at the sygne of
Saynt Johan Evangelyste, by me, Johan Butler." This Butler
was a judge of the Common Pleas, as well as a bookseller. About
the same period the Evangelist was also the sign of another man
of the same profession—" Bobert Wyce, dwellinge at the sygne
of Seynt Johan Euagelyst, in Seynt Martyns parysshe, in the
lilde besyde Charynge Crosse, in the bysshop of Norwytclie
rentys." He was the printer of the well-known " Pronosty-
cacion for ever of Erra Pater; a Jewe borne in Jewry, a doctor
in Astronomye and Physicke," which was continued for ages
after him. Bobert Wyce must have been about the first book-
seller and printer in this neighbourhood, as in Queen Elizabeth's
reign the parish contained less than one hundred people liable to
be rated.t We find the same as one of the oldest printer's signs
in France, on an edition of Merlin's Prophecies, printed at Paris
in 1438, by Abraham Verard, dwelling near the church of Notre
Dame, at the sign of St John the Evangelist.

Other saints, again, have a local reputation, and are perpetuated
on the signboards in certain localities only, as for instance St
Thomas of Canterbury; St Edmund's Head, at Bury St Ed-
munds ; and St Cutiibert, at Monk's house, near Sunderland.
This saint was the first bishop of Northumberland.

* St Justin, another martyr, after his head was struck off, picked it up, and, 1 olding
In his hand, conversed with the bystanders.

says Sir Walter Scott, alluding to the stalks of the Encrinites,
which are called St Cuthbert's Beads, the saint, as the story goes,
amusing himself by stringing them together.

Hugh Singleton, a bookseller in the sixteenth century, lived at
the sign of the St Augustine ; probably he had chosen this
saint from the fact of his being a distinguished writer as well as
saint. George Carter, a shopkeeper in the seventeenth century,
adopted St Alban, the protomartyr, as his sign, evidently for 110
other reason but because he lived in " St Alban's Street, near
St James's Market;" and another, William Ellis of Tooley Street,
had the sign of St Clement, perhaps on account of his being a
native of the parish of St Clement's. Trades tokens of both
these houses are to be seen in the Beaufoy Collection.

St Laurent was the sign of an inn in Lawrence Lane, Cheap-
side, but from a border of blossoms or flowers round it, it was
commonly called Blossoms, or by corruption, Bosom's Inn—
such at least is the explanation of Stow:—

" Antiquities in this lane—[St Laurence Lane, Cheapside]—I find none
other thr.n that, among many fair houses, there is one large inn for the re-
ceipt of travellers called Blossom's Inn, but corruptly Bosom's Inn, and
hath to sign St Laurence the deacon in a border of blossoms or flowers."

Flowers are said to have sprung up at the martyrdom of this
saint, who was roasted alive on a gridiron. But in the " History
of Thomas of Beading," ch. ii., another version is given, which
seems, however, little else than a joke :—

" Our jolly clothiers kept up their courage and went to Bosom's Inn, so
called from a greasy old fellow who built it, who always went nudging with
his head in his bosom winter and summer, so that they called him the pic-
ture of old Winter." •

In 1522 the Emperor Charles Y. honoured Henry VIII. with
a visit; at first his intention was to come with a retinue of
2044 persons and 1127 horses, but subsequently he reduced
them to 2000 persons and 1000 horses. To lodge these visitors,
various " inns for horses" were "seen and viewed," amongst
which "St Laurance, otherwise called Bosoms Yn," is noted
down to have "xx beddes and a stable for lx horses."* It is
curious, in this list of inns, to observe the proportion of beds as

* Our Harry VIII. was fully as extravagant in his retinue. When he went over to
meet Francis I. at the Camp du Drap d'or, he required 2400 beds, and stabling for
.2000 horses.

compared with stabling room, showing how most of the fcllowera
of a nobleman on a journey had to shift for themselves and sleep
in the straw or elsewhere. On the occasion of this imperial visit,
the city authorities were evidently afraid of being drunk dry by
the many Flemings in the train of the Emperor. To avoid this
calamity, a return was made of all the wine to be found at the
eleven wine merchants, and the twenty-eight principal taverns
then in London, the sum total of which was 809 pipes.*

In the sixteenth century the house seems already to have been
famous as a carrier's inn, (which it continued for three centuries,)
as appears from the following allusion :—" Yet have I naturally
cherisht and liugt it in my bosome, even as a carrier at Bosome's
lime doth a cheese under his arms/' + A satirical tract about
Banks and his horse " Marocius Extaticus," (reprinted by the
Percy Society,) gives the names of its authors as "John Dando
the wiredrawer of Hadley, and Harrie Hunt, head ostler of
Besomes Inne." Another domestic of this establishment is handed
down to posterity in Ben Jonson's " Masque of Christmass," pre-
sented at Court in 1616, where the following lines occur :—

The Catherine Wheel was formerly a very common sign,
most likely adopted from its being the badge of the order of
the knights of Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai, created anno
1063, for the protection of pilgrims on their way to and from
the Holy Sepulchre. Hence it was a suggestive, if not eloquent
sign for an inn, as it intimated that the host was of the
brotherhood, although in a humble way, and would protect the
travellers from robbery in his inn,—in the shape of high charges
and exactions,—just as the knights of St Catherine protected
them 011 the high road from robbery by brigands. These knights
wore a white habit embroidered with a Catherine wheel, (i.e. a
wheel armed with spikes,) and traversed with a sword stained

J " Misrule in a velvet cap, a sprig, a short cloak, a great yellow ruff, like a reveller_;his torch bearer bearing a rope, a cheese, and a basket." The names given were the
real designations of the performers in private life. Kit, the cobbler of Philpot Lane ; Cis,
a cook s wife from Scalding Alley; Neil, a milliner from Threadneedle Street; and Tom,
our drawer from Blossom's Inn.

" And he presenteth Misrule,
Which you may kuow by the very show,
Albeit you never ask it;
For there you may see, what his ensignes bee,
The rope, the cheese, and the basket."

■with blocd.* There were also mysteries in which St Catherine
played a favourite part, one of which was acted by young ladies
on the entry of Queen Catherine of Arragon (queen to our Henry
VIII.) in London in 1501; in honour of this queen the sign may
occasionally have been put up. The Catherine wheel was also a
charge in the Turners' arms. Flechnoe tells us, in his " Enigma-
tical Characters," (1658,) that the Puritans changed it into the
Cat and Wheel, under which name it is still to be seen on a
public-house at Castle Green, Bristol. In the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries the Catherine Wheel w^ras a famous carrier's
inn in Southwark ; and at the present day there is still an old
public-house in Bishopsgate Street Without, inscribed, " Ye old
Catherine Wheel, 1594." t

Besides these, there were other signs expressing a religious
idea, such as the Heart in Bible, which occurs under one of the
Luttrell Ballads:—" The Citizens' joys for the Rebuilding of
London, printed by P. Lillicross, for Bicliard Head, at the Heart
in Bible, in Little Britain, where you may have Mr Matthews,
his approved and universal pills for all diseases, 1667." Another
bookseller on London Bridge, Eliz. Smith, 1691, had the Hand
and Bible. Biblical phrases also were employed, as for instance,
the Lion and Lamb, which occurs 011 several seventeenth cen-
tury trades tokens of Snowhill, Southwark, etc., and is still much
in vogue. It is an emblematical representation of the Millen-
nium, when " the lion shall lie down by the kid." In the last
century there was a Lion and Lamb on a signboard at Sheffield,
with the following poetical effusion ;—

" If the Lyon show'd kill the Lamb,
We '11 kill the Lyon—if we can;
But if the Lamb show'd kill the Lyon,
We '11 kill the Lamb to make a Pye on."
The antithesis to this sign, namely, the Wolf and Lamb, occurs
occasionally, as in Charles Street, Leicester, and in a few other
plices. In Grosvenor Street it was probably once represented by
a xion and a kid, but the public, not minding the text, called tha
sign the Lion and Goat, and that name it still bears. The Lion
and Adder, Nottingham, Newark, and various other places, 01
the Lion and Snake, as at Bailgate, Lincoln, come from Psalm

• St Catherine was beheaded after having been placed between wheels with spikes, from
which she was saved by an angel descended from heaven.

t Several of the old carriers and coaching inns still remain in Bishopsgate Street, undei
their old names, as the Blade Bull, the Green Dragon, the Four Swans, and (until a few
months ago) the Flowerpot, &c.

xci. 13, whore the godly are reminded:—"Thou shalt tread
upon the Lion and Adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt
thou trample under feet." These two signs apparently came in
use during the Commonwealth. They have a decided flavour of
the time when Scripture language formed the common speech of
every day life.

The Lamb and Flag is another sign common all over England,
representing originally the holy lamb with the nimbus and banner,
but now so little understood by the publicans, that on an ale-
house at Swindon, it is pictured with a spear, to which a red-
white-ancl-blue streamer is appended. It may also be of heraldic
origin, for it was the coat of arms of the Templars, and the crest
of the merchant tailors. The Lamb and Anchor, Milk Street,
Bristol, seems to be a mystical representation of hope in Christ;
both these last signs date from before the Reformation. From
that period also dates the sign of the Bleeding Heart, the em-
blematical representation of the five sorrowful mysteries of the
Rosary, viz., the heart of the Holy Virgin pierced with five swords.
There is still an ale-house of this name in Charles Street, Hatton
Garden, and Bleeding Heart Yard, adjoining the public-house, is
immortalised in "Little Dorrit." The Wounded Heart, one of the
signs in Norwich in 1750,* had the same meaning. The Heart
w^ras a constant emblem of the Holy Virgin in the middle ages;
thus, on the clog almanacs, all the feasts of St Mary were in-
dicated by a heart. It "was not an uncommon sign in former
times. The Heart and Ball appears on a trades token as the
sign of a house in Little Britain, the Ball being simply some silk
mercer's addition; and the Golden heart+wasa sign in Green-
wich in 1737, next cloor to which Dr Johnson used to live when
he was newly come to town, and wrote the Parliamentary articles
for the Gentleman's Magazine. At present there are three public-
houses with this sign in Bristol, and in other places it may be
met with.

Heaven was a house of entertainment near Westminster Hall;
the present committee rooms of the House of Commons are
erected on its site. Butler alludes to this house in " Hudibras,"
p. 3:-

1 It is said that this sign, put up in French somewhere aa the occur dore, was Eng
lislied into the "queer lour."

and with due respect for tlie place, lie put on liis best fur cap for
the occasion, " I sent a porter to bring my best fur cap, and so I
returned and went to Heaven ; where Luellin and I dined,"

Paradise was a messuage in the same neighbourhood, and Hell
and Purgatory subterranean passages ; but in the reign of James
I. Hell was the sign of a low public-house frequented by lawyers'
clerks. Heaven and Hell are mentioned, together with a
third house called Purgatory, in an old grant dated the lirst
year of Henry VII.* The Three Kings is a sign representing
the three Eastern magi or kings, who came to do homage to our
Saviour. We find it used as early as the sixteenth century by
Julyan Notary, in St Paul's Churchyard, one of the earliest Lon-
don printers. The Three Kings was formerly a constant mer-
cer's sign. Bagford gives the following reason for this :—

" Mersers in tliouse dayes war Genirall Marcliantes and traded in all sortes
of Rich Goodes, besides those of scelckes (silks) as they do nou at this
day : but they brought into England fine Leninn thered (linen thread)
gurdeles (girdles) finenly worked from Collin + (Cologne.) Collin, the city
which then at that time of day florished much and afforded rayre commo-
detes, aud these merchats that vsually traded to that citye, set vp ther
singes ouer ther dores of tlier Houses the three kinges of Collin, with the
Armes of that Citye, which was the Three Crouens of the former kings
in memorye of them, and by those singes the people knew in what wares
they deld in."t

There is and was until lately such a sign carved in stone in front
of a house in Bucklersbury, which street was once the head
quarters of the mercers and perfumers. The three kings stood in
a row, all in the same garb and position, with their sceptres
shouldered. The history of the Three Kings was a favourite
story in the middle ages. Wynkyn de Worde printed, anno 1516,
" The Lives of the Three Kinges of Collen." The same subject
had been printed in Paris in 1498 by Trcsyrel: " La Yie des Troys
Boys, Balchazar, Melchior, et Gaspard." They also appeared in
many of the ancient plays and mysteries. In one of the Chester
pageants, acted by the shearmen and tailors, they are called Sir
Jasper of Tars; Sir Melchior, king of Araby; Sir Balthazer, king
of Saba; they enjoy the same names and kingdoms in the " Come-
die de l'Adoration cles Trois Boys," by Marguerite de Yalois.

t They were called the three Icings of Cologne because they were buried in that city.
The Empress Helena brought their bones to Constantinople, from whence they were ro
moved to Milan, and thence in 1164 to Cologne, where they are still kept as sacred and
miracle-working relics.

Their offerings are recorded in the following charm against fall-
ing sickness :—

" Jaspar fert myrrham, thus Melchior, Balthazar aurum,
Ilœc tria qui secum portabit nomina regum
Solvitur a morbo, Christi pietate, caduco." *

" Très Reges Regi Regurn tria dona firebant
Myrrham Homini, uncto aurum, thura dedere Deo." +

Melchior was usually represented as a bearded old man, Jasper
as a beardless youth, and Balchazar as a Moor with a large
beard.

This sign was as common on the Continent as in England, and
at the present day it may often be met with. Eustache Des-
champs, in the sixteenth century, thus celebrated the good cheer
of one of the taverns in Paris :—

"Prince, par la Yierge Marie,
On est à la Cossonerie,
Aux Cannettes ou aux Trois Rois."

L'Adoration des Trois lîois was, in 1674, the sign of François
Muguet, one of the Parisian booksellers.

Not unlikely the sign of the Kings and Keys, a tavern in Fleet
Street, is an abbreviation of the Three Kings and Cross Keys. At
Weston-super-Mare, and at Chelmsforth, there is another sign which
owes its origin to the Three Kings, namely, the Three Queens.
When, in 1764, the Paving Act for St James' was put into execu-
tion, the sign of the Three Queens, in Clerkenwell Green, was re
moved at a cost of upwards of £200 ; it extended not less than seven
feet from the front of the house. Lloyd's Evening Post, January
12-14,1761, tells how two sharpers came to this ale-house and stole
the silver tankard in which their drink was served them. Each
tavern in those days possessed a number of silver tankards, in
which the well-dressed customers were served with sack and canary.
It may be imagined that the thieves were quietly on the look-out
for such a prize. The same paper gives an advertisement about
two silver pints stolen from the Jolly Butchers at Bath ; in fact,

* " Jasper brings myrrh, Melchior frankincense, Balthazar gold.
He who carries these three names of the kings about with him
Will, through Christ's favour, be delivered of the falling sickness."

In the trial of the smugglers for the murder of Chater and Galley, excisemen of Chi-
chester, in the last century, one of the prisoners was found with this charm in his pocket.
With this scrap of paper in his possession, he had considered himself quite safe from
detection.

similar advertisements were of almost daily occurrence. " Tlie
Praise of Yorkshire Ale," 1685, also mentions—

One other semi-religious legend has provided a subject for
many a signboard, namely, the Man in the Moon. Though
this cannot strictly be styled a religious legend, yet it may be
included in this class, as the idea is said to have originated from
the incident given in Numbers xv. 32, et seq., " And while the
children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that
gathered sticks upon the Sabbath-day," &c. Not content with
having him stoned for this desecration of the day, the legend
transferred him to the moon. It is, however, a Christian legend,
for the Jews had some Talmudical story about Jacob being in the
moon; in fact, almost every nation, whether ancient or modern,
sees somebody in it. The Man in the Moon occurs on a seven-
teenth century token of a tavern in Cheapside, represented by a
half-naked man within a crescent, holding on by the horns.
There is still a sign of this description in Little Vine Street,
Regent Street, and in various other places. Generally he is re-
presented with a bundle of sticks, a lantliorn (which, one would
think, he did not Avant in the moon,) and frequently a dog. Thus
Chaucer depicts him in " Cresseide," v. 260 :—
" Her gite was gray and full of spottes blacke,
And on her breast a chorl painted full even,
Bearing a bush of thorns on his backe,
Which for his theft might clime no ner y^e heven."

" Caliban. I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee; my mistres«
showed me thee, thy dog and bush."—Tempest, ii., sc. 2.

" Quince. One must come in with a bush of thorns and a lanthorn, and
say he comes to disfigure or to present the person of moonshine."—Mid-
summer Night's Dream, iii., sc. 1.

This bunch of thorns is alluded to by Dante, " Inferno," canto
xx. 124, where the Man in the Moon is spoken of as Cain—
" Ma viene omai: che gia tiene il confine
D¹ amendue gli emisperi e tocca l'onda
Sotto Sibilia Caino & le spine." *

1 " But come now, for already hovers Cain with his bundle of thoras
On the confines of the two hemispheres, and touches the,
Waves beneath Seville."

" Ma detemi, che sono i segni bui
Di questi corpo, che laggiuso in terra
Fan di Cain favoleggiare altrui?" *

And the annotators of Dante say that Cain was placed in the
moon with a bundle of thorns on his back, similar to those he
had placed on the altar when he offered to the Lord his unwel-
come sacrifice. This Man in the Moon, whether Cain, Jacob, or
the Sabbath-breaker, has been celebrated by innumerable songs.
Alex. JSTeckham (recently edited by Mr T. Wright) refers to him
from a very ancient ballad, and one of the oldest songs is in the
Harl. MSS., 2253, beginning :—

" Mon in the mone stond and streit,
On is bot-forke is burthen he bereth,
Hit is muche wonder that he na doun slyt
For doute lest he valle he shoddreth and skereth.
When the forst freseth muche chele he byd
The tliornes beth kene is hattren to-tereth
N'is no wytht in the world that wot when he syt
Ne, bote hit bee the hegge, whot wedes he wereth."
For all this, his life seern3 to be very merry, for one of the Rox-
burghe Ballads (i. f., 298) informs us that—

" Our Man in the Moon drinks Clarret,
With powderbeef, turnep and carret;
If he doth so, why should not you
Drink until the sky looks blue."

From whence they obtained the information it is difficult to
say, but it was a well-established fact with the old tobacconists
that he could enjoy his pipe. Thus he is represented on some of
the tobacconists' papers in the Banks Collection puffing like a
steam-engine, and underneath the words, " Who '11 smoake with
y" Man in y^e Moon?" If these frequent allusions in songs and
plays were not enough to remind the Londoners that there was
such a being, they could see him daily amongst the figures of old
St Paul's—

" The Great Dial is your last monument; where bestow some half of the
three score minutes to observe the sauciness of the Jacks -f- that are above
the Man in the Moon there; the strangeness of their motion will quit your
labour."—Decker's Gull's Hornbook.

On that body, which makes them down there on earth
Talk of Cain and the bundle of thorns!"

+ Paul's Jacks were the little automaton figures that struck the hours in old St Paul'»
Similar puppets, or figures, were also on other London churches.

Tools and utensils, as emblems of trade, were certainly placed
outside houses at an early period, to inform the illiterate public
the particular trade or occupation carried on within. Centuries
ago the practice, as a general rule, fell into disuse, although a
few trades still adhere to it with laudable perseverance : thus a
broom informs us where to find a sweep ; a gilt arm wielding a
hammer tells us where the gold-beater lives; and a last or gill
shoe where to order a pair of boots. Those houses of refreshment
and general resort, which sought the custom of particular trades
and professions, also very frequently adopted the tools and em-
blems of those trades as their distinguishing signs. At other
houses, again, signs were set up as tributes of respect to certain
dignities and functions. Amongst the latter, the King's Head and
Queen's Head stand foremost, and none were more prominent
types than Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth, even for more than
two centuries after their decease. Only fifty or sixty years ago,
there still remained a well-painted, half-length portrait of bluff
Harry, as a sign of the King's Head, before a public-house in
Southwark. His personal appearance, doubtless, more than his
character as a king, were at the bottom of this popular favour.
He looked the personification of jollity and good cheer, and when
the evil passions, expressed by his face, were lost under the
clumsy brush of the sign-painter, there remained nothing but a
merry, "beery-looking" Bacchus, eminently adapted for a public-
house sign.

A very respectable folio might be filled with anecdotes con-
nected with the various King's Head inns and taverns up and down
the country and in London—some connected with royalty, others
with remarkable persons. Thus, for instance, when the Princess
(afterwards Queen) Elizabeth came forth from her confinement in
the Tower, November 17, 1558, she went into the church of All
Hallows, Staining, the first church she found open, to return
thanks for her deliverance from prison. As soon as this pious
duty was performed, the princess and her attendants went to the
King's Head in Fencliurch Street to take some refreshment, and
there her Royal Highness dined on pork and peas. A monument

of this visit is still preserved at the above house in an engraving
of the princess, from a picture by Hans Holbein, hung up in the
coffee-room; and the dish from which she ate her dinner still
remains, it is said, affixed to the kitchen dresser there. There is
a tradition that the bells of All Hallows were rung on this occa-
sion with such energy, that the queen presented the ringers with
silken ropes.

" In a secluded part of the Oxfordshire hills, at a place called Collin3
End, situated between Hardwicke House and Goring Heath, is a neat little
rustic inn, having for its sign a well-executed portrait of Charles I. There
is a tradition that this unfortunate monarch, while residing as a prisoner
at Caversham, rode one day, attended by an escort, into this part of the
country, and hearing that there was a bowling-green at this inn, frequented
by the neighbouring gentry, struck down to the house, and endeavoured to
forget his sorrows for a while in a game at bowls. This circumstance i3
ulluded to in the following lines, written beneath the signboard :—
" Stop, traveller, stop, in yonder peaceful glade,
His favourite game the royal martyr play'd.
Here, stripp'd of honours, children, freedom, rank,
Drank from the bowl, and bowl'd for what he drank;
Sought in a cheerful glass his cares to drown,
And changed his guinea ere he lost his crown." ¹

The sign, which seems to be a copy from Vandyke, though much
faded from exposure to the weather, evidently displayed an
amount of artistic skill not usually met with on the signboard ;
but the only information the people of the house could give was,
that they believed it to have been painted in London. His son,
Charles II., is also connected in an anecdote with a King's Head
Tavern, in the Poultry, for it is reported that he stopped at this
inn on the day of his entry at the Restoration, at the request
of the landlady, who happened just then to be in labour, and
wished to salute his majesty. Mrs King, the lady so honoured,
was aunt to William Bowyer, " the learned printer of the
eighteenth century." In Ben Jonson's time there was a famous
King's Head Tavern in New Fish Street, " where roysters did
range." It is this tavern, probably, that is alluded to in the
ballad of "The Ranting Wh--'s Resolution :"—

" I love a young Heir
Whose fortune is fair,
And frollick in Fish Street dinners,

At the King's Head, the corner of Chancery Lane, Cowley the poet
was born in 1618 ; it was then a grocer's shop kept by his father.
Subsequently it became a famous tavern, of which tokens are
extant. It was at this house that Titus Oates's party met, and
trumped up their infamous story against the Roman Catholics,
trying to implicate the Duke of York in the murder of Sir Ed-
mundbury Godfrey. In the reign of William III., it was a
violent Whig club. The distinction adopted by the members was
a green ribbon worn in the hat. When these ribbons were shown,
it was a sign that mischief was on foot, and that there were secret
meetings to be held. North gives an amusing and lively descrip-
tion of this club :—

" The house was double balconied in front, as may be yet seen, for the
clubsters to issue forth, in fresco, with hats and no perruques, pipes in their
mouths, merry faces and diluted throat for vocal encouragement of the
canaglia below, at bonfires, on unusual and usual occasions."

Here the Pope-burning manifestations were got up, the Earl of
Shaftesbury being president. In opposition to this Green Ribbon
Club, the Tories wore in their hat a scarlet ribbon, with the
words, Rex et Haeredes. Ned Ward, with his usual humour,
describes a breakfast given in 1706 by the master of this house
to his customers, consisting of an ox of 415 lb., roasted whole,
and at the same time embraces the opportunity of praising tbe
landlord as " the honestest vintner in London, at whose house the
best wine in England is to be drunk." This was probably Ned's
way of settling an old score.

" Thence walked through the ducking-pond fields, but they are so altered
since my father used to carry us to Islington, to the old man's at the Kings-
head, to eat cakes and ale (his name was Pitts,) that I did not know which
was the ducking-pond, nor where I was."

It was a very different " ducking " in which the landlady of the
Queen's Head ale-house was concerned, as shown by the following
newspaper paragraph:—

" Last week, a woman that keeps the Queen's Head ale-house at Kingston,
in Surrey, was ordered by the Court to be ducked for Bcolding, and was

accordingly placed in the chair and ducked in the river Thames, under
Kingston Bridge, in the presence of 2000 or 3000 people."—London Even-
ing Post, Ap. 27, 1745.

" They fasten an arm-chair to the end of two strong beams, twelve or
fifteen feet long, and parallel to each other.. The chair hangs upon a sort
of axle, on which it plays freely, so as to remain in the horizontal position.
The scold being well fastened in her chair, the two beams are then placed as
near to the centre as possible, across a post on the water side, and being
lifted up behind, the chair of course drops into the cold element. The
ducking is repeated according to the degree of shrewdness possessed by the
patient, and generally has the effect of cooling her immoderate heat, at
least for a time."

At the King's Head, Strutton, near Ipswich, about ten years ago,
there was the following inscription :—-

" Good people, stop, and pray walk in,
Here's foreign brandy, rum, and gin,
And, what is more, good purl and ale,
Are both sold here by old Nat Dale."

Old Nat had lived for a period of eighty years under the shadow
of the King's Head.

Combinations with the King's Head are not very frequent. The
King's Head and Lamb, an ale-house in Upper Thames Street, is
evidently a quartering of two signs, The Two Kings and Still,
sign of Henry Francis in Newmarket, 1GG7,¹ representing a still
between two kings crowned, holding their sceptres, may have
originated from the distillers' arms, the two wild men, serving as
supporters, being refined into two kings, the garlands on their
heads into crowns, and their clubs into sceptres.

That Queen Elizabeth was for more than two centuries the
almost unvarying type of the Queen's Head need not be wondered
at when v^re consider her well-deserved popularity. A striking
instance of the veneration and esteem in which she was held,
even through all the tribulations and changes of the Common-
wealth, is exhibited in the fact of the bells ringing on her birth-
day, as late as the reign of Charles II. :—

" The Earl of Dorset coming to court, one Queen Elisabeth's birthday,
the king [Charles II.] asked him what the bells rung for? which having
answered, the king farther asked him, ' how it came to pass that her holiday
was still kept, whilst those of his father and grandfather were no more
thought of than William the Conqueror's V ' Because,' said the frank peer

to tls i (rank king, ' she being a woman, chose men for her counsellors ; and
men, when they reign, usually chuse women.' " *

During the queen's lifetime, however, the sign-painters had to
mind how they represented " Queen Bess," for Sir Walter Raleigh
says that portraits of the queen " made by unskilful and common
painters " were, by her own order, " knocked in pieces, and cast
into the fire."t A proclamation had been issued to that effect,
in the year 1563, saying that:—

" Forasmuch as tlirugh the natural desire that all sorts of subjects and
people, both noble and mean, have to procure the portrait and picture of
the Queen's Majestie, great nomber of Paynters, and some Printers and
Gravers have allredy, and doe daily, attempt to make in divers manners
portraictures of hir Majestie, in paynting, graving, and pryntyng, wherein
is evidently shewn, that hytlierto none hath sufficiently expressed the natu-
rall representation of hir Majesties person, favor, or grace, but for the most
part have also erred therein, as thereof daily complaints are made amongst
hir Majesties loving subjects, in so much, that for redress hereof hir
Majestie hath lately bene so instantly and so importunately sued by the
Lords of hir Consell, and others of hir nobility, in respect of the great dis-
order herein used, not only to be content that some special coning payntor
might be permitted by access to liir Majestie to take the naturall represen-
tation of hir Majestie, whereof she hath been allwise of hir own right dis-
position very unwillyng, but also to prohibit all manner of other personi
to draw, paynt, grave, or pourtrayit hir Majesties personage or visage for a
time, until by some perfect patron and example the same may be by others
followed.

" Therfor hir Majestie, being herein as it were overcome with the con-
tynuall requests of so many of hir Nobility and Lords, whom she can not
well deny, is pleased that for tliir contentations, some coning persons, mete
therefore, shall shortly make a pourtraict of hir person or visage, to be
participated to others, for satisfaction of hir loving subjects; and furder-
inore commandeth all manner of persons in the mean tyme to forbear from
payntyng, graving, printing, or making of any pourtraict of hir Majestie,
untill some special! person that shall be by hir allowed, shall have first
fynished a pourtraicture thereof, after which finished, hir Majestie will be
content that all other painters, printers, or gravers that shall be known
men of understanding, and so thereto licensed by the hed officers of the
plaices where they shall dwell, (as reason it is that every person should not
without consideration attempt the same,) shall and maye at their pleasures
follow the sayd patron or first portraicture. And for that hir Majestie
perceiveth that a grete nomber of hir loving subjects are much greved and
take grete offence with the errors and deformities allredy committed by
sondry persons in this behalf, she straiglitly chargeth all her officers and
ministers to see to the observation hereof, and, as soou as may be, to re-
form the errors allredy committed, and in the mean tyme to forbydd and

prohibit the shewing and publication of such as are apparently deformed,
until they may be reformed which are reformable."*

That there were signboards, however, representing her Ma-
jesty's "person, favour, and grace," during her lifetime, is evi-
dent from the fact that an ancestor of Pennant, the London topo-
grapher, made his fortune as a goldsmith at the sign of the
Queen's Head, in Smithfield, during the reign of good Queen
Bess.

The irascible Mr Boursault, whose bile was so often deranged
by signboard irregularities, took also sycophantic exception at
royal heads being represented in that way :

" Je souffre impatiemment que le portrait du Roy, celuy de la Reine, de
Monseigneur et des autres Princes et Princesses, servent d'enseignes de
boutiques ; eux qui ne devroient faire l'ornement que des plus célèbres
galeries et des plus illustres cabinets. Monsieur d'Argenson et Vous même,
Monsieur le Commissaire, n'auriez-vous pas juste raison de vous fâcher de
voir vôtre portrait servir d'enseigne à la Maison d'un cabaretier, ou à, la
boutique d'un Fripier; et pourquoi donc ne vous fachez-vous pas de ce que
celui du Roy y est?" +

Of celebrated Queen's Heads we must begin with the highly re-
spectable inn of that name, in which, before the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, lived the canonists and professors of spiritual and eccle-
siastical law. It was situated in Paternoster Bow, where its
name is still preserved in Queen's Head Alley. From this place
the lawyers removed to Doctors' Commons.

Nearly as ancient a building was the old Queen's Head, Lower
Street, Islington, at the corner of Queen's Head Lane, one of the
most perfect specimens of ancient domestic architecture in the
vicinity of London. It is said that it was built by Sir Walter
Baleigh, after he had obtained " lycense for keeping oi taverns
and retayling of wynes throughout Englande," and that it was
called by him the Queen's Head in compliment to his royal mis-
tress. Essex is also said to have resided there, and to have
been visited by the queen. The same tradition is current about
the Lord Treasurer Burleigh. In the reign of George II. it was

* Archasologia, ii., p. 169. In an article in "Notes and Queries," No. 150, a document
is quoted by which George Gower was appointed "the Queen's Sargeant Paynter," and
Nicolas Ililliard her miniature portrait painter. No portraits of the queen painted L<y
Gower appear, however, to be known.

t Lettre » M. Bizotin. "I cannot bear to see the portraits of the king, of the queen, of
the dauphin, and of the other princes and princesses used as signs for shops ; they
whose portraits ought to be reserved for the most celebrated galleries and the most
famous collections only. Would not SI. d'Argenson. and you as well, M. le Commis-
saire, have very serious reason to be annoyed if you were to see your portrait as a sign to
a public-house or to a rag-shop? Why, then, are you not annoyed in seeing the king's
puitrait in such places?" Mr Boursault's flattery is much more evident than his logic.

used a3 a playhouse, and bills are still extant of plays acted there
at that period.

It was a strong wood and plaster building, three lofty stories
high, projecting over each other, and forming bay windows sup-
ported by brackets and caryatides. Inside it was panelled with
wainscot, and had stuccoed ceilings, adorned with dolphins,
clierubims, and acorns, bordered by a wreath of flowers. The
porch was supported by caryatides of oak, crowned with scroll-
capitals.* This time-honoured structure was pulled down in
October 1829, and nothing of it remains in the new building
erected on its site but the name, the carved oak panels of the
parlour, and a bust of Queen Elizabeth at the top front. A.
carved mantelpiece, (formerly in the parlour of the old house,)
with the history of Dian and Actseon on it, (a favourite subject
with the virgin queen,) was sold for more than £60 at the sale
of the building materials, most of which were bought by anti-
quaries.

There used to be a large pewter tankard in this house, with an
inscription engraved on it, which is much too highly spiced to be
given here. It was signed John Cranch, and bore date 1796.

At the Queen's Head, Duke Court, Bow Street, the English
language was enriched with two new terms, though one of them
seems to have been still-born. This tavern was once kept by a
facetious individual of the name of Jupp. Two celebrated char-
acters, Annesley Shay and Bob Todrington—the latter a sport-
ing man—meeting late in the day at the above place, went to
the bar and asked for half a quartern each, with a little cold
water. In the course of the evening they drank twenty-four,
when Shay said to the other, "Now we'll go." " Oh no," replied
his companion, " we '11 have another, and then go." This did
not satisfy the Hibernian, and they continued drinking on till
three in the morning, when they both agreed to go; so that
under the idea of going they made a long stag, and this was the
origin of drinking goes; but another preferring to eke out the
measure his own way, used to call for a quartern at a time, and
these in the exercise of his humour he called stags. +

In the beginning of this century, when Marylebone consisted
of " green fields, babbling brooks," and pleasant suburban retreats,

t " Memoirs of J. Decastro, comedian." London, 1824. See under " Go," (as "a go cf
Kin," "ago of rum,") in the "Slang Dictionary," 3d edition : John Camden HoUva,
Piccadilly, London.

there was a small but picturesque house of public entertainment,
yclept the Queen's Head and Artichoke, situated " in a lane
nearly opposite Portland Road, and about 500 yards from the
road that leads from Paddington to Finsbury"—now Albany
Street. Its attractions chiefly consisted in a long skittle and
"bumble puppy" ground, shadowy bowers, and abundance of
cream, tea, cakes, and other creature comforts. The only memo-
rial now remaining of the original house is an engraving in the
Gentleman's Magazine, November 1819. The queen was Queen
Elizabeth, and the house was reported to have been built by one
of her gardeners, whence the strange combination on the sign.

Besides Crowns (see p. 101) other royal paraphernalia are
occasionally used as signboard decorations. The Sceptre is not
uncommon; the Sceptre and Heart was the sign of Samuel
Grover, chirurgical instrument maker, on London Bridge, in the
latter end of the seventeenth century. It is engraved on his shop-
bill, and represents a circle surrounded by fruit and foliage, hav-
ing two Cupids standing at the upper corner, and containing in
the centre two palm branches enclosing a sceptre surmounted by
a heart. Round the whole are suspended lancets, trepans, saws,
&c. In all probability it is simply a quartering of two signs.

The Royal Hand and Globe was the loyal sign of a stationer
at the corner of St Martin's Lane, in 1682.¹ It doubtless refers
to the royal hand holding the golden orb, surmounted by a cross.
It is still the sign of an ale-house near the Solio Theatre. The
same orb or globe seems to be alluded to in the sign of the
Sword and Ball, on Holborn Bridge, in the seventeenth century.
What stands in the way of this explanation, however, is that on
the token of this house the sword is represented piercing the
ball; but this may merely have been a fancy of the sign-painter,
who did not understand its meaning. As for the Sword and
Mace, the meaning is perfectly clear; it is the-sign of a public-
house in Coventry.

The Church is almost as abundantly represented as royalty-
Even long after the Beformation the Pope's Head was still very
common. Nash's " Anatomie of Absurdities " was printed by T.
Charlwood for Thomas Hacket, and was " to be sold at his shop
in Lumbard Street, vnder the signe of the Popes Heade, 1590."
Taylor, the Water poet, in his "Travels through London," 1636,

mentions four Pope's Head taverns ; but the most famous of all
was the Pope's Head tavern in Comhill.

" I have read* of a countryman that, having lost his h _iod in Westmin-
ster Hall, found the same in Cornhili hanged out to be sold, which he chal-
lenged, but was forced to buy, or go without it, for their stall they said
was their market. At that time also the wine drawers at the Pope's Head
tavern (standing without the door in the High Street,)+ took the same man
by the sleeve, and said, ' Sir, will you drink a pint of wine ?' Whereunto
he answered, ' A penny spend I may,' and so drank his pint, for bread no-
thing did he pay, for that was allowed free.J This Pope's Head tavern,
with other houses adjoining, strongly built of stone, hath of old time been
all in one, pertaining to some great estate, or rather to the king, as may be
supposed both by the largeness thereof, and by the arms, to wit, three
leopards passant gardant, which were the whole arms of England before
the reign of Edward III., that quartered them with the arms of France
three flower de lys. Some say this was King John's house, which might
be, for I find in a written copy of ' Matthew Paris's History ' that in the
year 1232, Henry III. sent Hubert de Burgh, earl of Kent, to Cornehill in

f This touting, or standing at the door inviting the passers by to enter, was at one time
a universal practice with all kind of shops, both at home and abroad. The regular phrase
used to be " What do ye lack ? What do ye lack ? " The French dits and fabliaux teem
with allusions to this custom. In the story of "Courtois d'Arras,"—a travesty of the
prodigal son, in a thirteenth century garb—Courtois finds the host standing at his door
shouting, " I5on vin de Soissons à 6 deniers le lot." And in a mediaeval mystery, en-
titled Li jus de S. Nicholas," the innkeeper roars out, " Céans il fait bon diner, céans
il y a pain chaud et harengs chauds et vin d'Auxerre à plein tonneau." In "Leo trois
Aveugles de Compiegne," mine host thus addresses the thirsty wanderers :—
" Ci a bon vin fres et nouvel,
Oa d'Ancoire, ça de Soissons
l'ain et char et vin et poissons,
Céens fet bon despendre argent,
Ôstel i a à toute gent,
. Céens fet moult bon heberger."
And in the "Débats et facétieuses rencontres de Gringalet et de Guillot Gorgen son
maistre," the servant who had taken advantage of the host's invitation, excuses himself,
saying, "Le tavernier a plus de tort que moy, car passant devant sa porte, et luy étant
assiz, (ainsi qu'ils sont ordinairement), il me cria me disant: Vous plaist-il de dejeuner
céans? Il y a de bon pain, de bon vin et de bonne viande." This touting at tavern
doors was still practised in the last century, as appears from the following passage in
Tom Brown :—" We were jogging forward into the city, when our Indian cast his eyes
upon one of his own complexion, at a certain coffee-house which has the Sun staring its
sign in the face, even at midnight, when the moon is queen regent of the planets, and,
being willing to be acquainted with his countryman, gravely inquired what province or
Kingdom of India he belonged to ; but. the sooty dog could do nothingbut grin, and show
his teeth, and cry, Coffee, sir, tea, will you please to walk in, sir ; a fresh pot, upon
my word."—Tom Brown, vol. iii., p. 17. Not only taverns but all sorts of shops kept
these barking advertisements at the door. The ballad of " London Lyckpenny" enume-
rates a quantity of them, "What do you lack?" was the stereotype phrase. The
"Buy, buy, what'll you buy?" of the butchers, is one of the last remains in London of
this custom. At Greenwich, the practice of touting at the doors of the small coffee-
houses is still kept up ; and throughout the United States and Canada the custom of
waiting at steamboat wharves and railway termini, to catch passengers, and worry them
with recommendations to this or that hotel, is unpleasantly prevalent. The touters there
are known as hotel runners.

X " Wine one pint for a pennie, and bread to drink it was given free in every tavern."
—Note by Stow. The imperfect tense shows that this excellent custom had already
fallen into disuse in Stow's time.

London, there to answer all matters objected against him : when he wisely
acquitted himself. The Pope's Head tavern hath a footway through fiom
Cornhill into Lumbard Street."—Stow's Survey, p. 75.

In this tavern, in the fourth of Edward IV. (1464,) a trial of
skill was held between Oliver Davy, goldsmith of London, and
White Johnson, "Alicante Strangeour," also of London, — the
London goldsmiths being divided into native and "foren" work-
men. These last, though they might be Englishmen, were so named
merely as a distinction with respect to the work they produced,
which consisted frequently in counterfeit articles and bad gold.
The trial consisted in making, in four pieces of steel the size of a
penny, a cat's face in relief, and another cat's face engraved, a
naked man in relief, and another engraved, which work was to
be performed in five weeks. Oliver Davy, the native goldsmith,
won the wager, as White Johnson, the foreign workman, after six
weeks could only produce the two "inward engraved" objects.
The forfeit was a crown, and a dinner to the wardens, the um-
pires, and all those concerned in the wager. The works were
kept in Goldsmith's Hall, " to y^at intent that they be redy iff any
suche controursy herafter falls, to be shewede that suche traverse
hathe be determyn'd aforetymes."* In Pepys's time this tavern,
like many others of that period and later, had a painted room.
" 18 January 1668.—To the Pope's Head, there to see the fine-
painted room which Bogerson told me of, of his doing, but I do
not like it at all, though it be good for such a publick room."
Here in 1718 Quin killed his brother actor Bowen. "On
Thursday s'ennight at night, Mr Bowen and Mr Quin, two
comedians, drinking at the Pope's Head tavern in Cornhill,
quarrelled, drew their swords, and fought, and the former was
run into the guts; he languished till Sunday last, and then died.
Bowen, before he expired, desired that Mr Quin might not be
prosecuted, because what had happened to him was his own seek-
ing." t The jury brought in a verdict of manslaughter, and Quin
for the offence was burned in the hand. J The quarrel was rather
a foolish one, arising out of a wager which of the two was the
lionester man, which had been decided in favour of Quin; inde
irce. This tavern seems to have continued in existence till the
latter part of the last century.

The emblem of another class of high dignitaries of the Roman
Catholic Church, the Cardinal's Hat or Cap, was at one time
common in England. Bagford says : " You have not meney of
them, they war .set up by sume that had ben saruants to Tho.
Wolsey."* But we find the sign long before Wolsey's time, for
in 1459, Simon Eyre

" Gave the Tavern called the Cardinal's Hat in Lumbard Street, with a
tenement annexed on the East part of the tavern, and a mansion behind
the East tenement, together with an alley from Lumbard Street to Corn-
hill, with the appurtenances, all which were by him new built, towards a
brotherhood of our Lady in St Mary Woolnots."—Stow, p. 77.

This tavern and another of the same name, also in Lombard
Street, were still extant in the seventeenth century. It was also
the sign of one of the Stairs on the Bankside, the name of which
is still preserved to that locality in Cardinal Cap's Alley.

" But at the naked stewes
I understands howe that
The sygne of the Cardinall's hat
That inne is now shit up."

These houses, by proclamation of 37, Henry VIII., were
" whited and painted with signes on the front for a token of the
said houses;" they were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of
Winchester, whence Pennant makes some sly remarks upon the
sign of the Cardinal's Cap :—

" I will not give into scandal so far as to suppose that this house was
peculiarly protected by any coeval member of the sacred college. Neither
would I by any means insinuate that the Bishops of Winchester and
Rochester, or the abbots of Waverley, or of St Augustine in Canterbury,
or of Battel, or of Hyde, or the Prior of Lewis, had there their tem-
porary residences for them or their trains, for the sake of these conveni-
ences, in that period of cruel and unnatural restriction," &c.+

The Bishop's Head was, in 1663, the sign of J. Thompson, a
bookseller and publisher in St Paul's Churchyard. At this
house, in 1708, was published Hatton's "New View of Londonf
it was then in the occupation of Bobert Knaplock.

More general, however, was the Mitre, which was the sign of
several famous taverns in London in the seventeenth century.
There was one in Great Wood Street, Cheapside, (called on the
trades token of the house the Mitre and Rose,) mentioned by

Pepys as " a house of the greatest note in London."¹ The land-
lord of this house, named Proctor, died at Islington of the
plague in 1605, in an insolvent state, though he had been "the
greatest vintner for some time in London for .great entertain-
ments." There was another Mitre near the west end of St Paul's,
the first music-house in London. The name of the master was
Robert Herbert alias Forges. Like many brother-publicans, he
was, besides being a lover of music, also a collector of natural
curiosities, as appears by his

" Catalogue of many natural rarities, with great industrie, cost, and thirty
years' travel into foreign countries, collected by Robert Herbert, alias
Forges, Gent., and sworn servant to his Majesty ; to be seen at the placo
called the Musick house at the Mitre, near the West End of S. Paul's
Church, 1664."

This collection, or at least a great part of it, was bought by Sir
Plans Sloane. It is conjectured that the Mitre was situated in
London House Yard, at the north-west end of St Paul's, on the
spot where, afterwards, stood the house known by the sign of the
Goose and Gridiron. Ned Wardt describes the appearance of
p another music-house of the same name in "Wapping, which he
calls "the Paradise of Wapping," though more probably it was
in Shadwell, where there is still a Music House Court, which
seems to point to some such origin. His description of this
prototype of the Oxford and Alhambra music-halls is not a little
amusing. The music, consisting of fiddles, hautboys, and a
humdrum organ, he compares to the grunting of a hog added as
a base to a concert of caterwauling cats in the height of their
ecstacy. The music-room was richly decorated with paintings,
(Hornfair was one of the pictures,) carvings, and gilding; the
seats were like pews in a church, and the orchestra railed in like a
chancel. The musicians occasionally went round to collect con-
tributions, as they still do in the Cafes Chantants of the Champs
Elysees, Paris. The other rooms in the house were " furnished for
the entertainment of the best of companies," all painted with
humorous subjects. The kitchen, used at that period in many
taverns as a sitting room by the customers, was railed in and
ornamented in the same gaudy style as the rest of the houses; a
quantity of canary birds were suspended on the walls. Under-
ground was a tippling sanctuary painted with drunken women
tormenting the devil, and other somewhat quaint subjects. The

wine of tlie establishment -was good. Here, then, we may
imagine our great-great-grandfathers listening to the woeful
fiddles scraping " Sillenger's Round," "John, come kiss me,"
" Old Simon the King," or other old tunes, until flesh and blood
could stand it no longer, and a dance would be indulged in to
the music of " Green Sleeves," " Yellow Stockings," or some
other equally comic dance and tune; after which everybody went
home, through the dirty dark streets, doubtless " highly pleased
with the entertainment."

Older than either of these was the Mitre in Cheap, which is
mentioned in the vestry books of St Michael's, Cheapside, before
the year 1475.¹ In "Your Five Gallants," a comedy by Middle-
ton, about 1G08, Goldstone prefers it to the Mermaid:—"The
Mitre in my mind for neat attendance, diligent boys and—push,
excels it [the Mermaid] far." But the most famous of the inns
with this name, was the Mitre in Mitre Court, Fleet Street, one
of Doctor Johnson's favourite haunts, " where he loved to sit up
late," t and where Goldsmith, and the other celebrities, and
minor stars that moved about the great doctor, used to meet
him. This house is named in the play of " Bam Alley, or Merry
Tricks," in 1611. It was one of those houses which, for more
than two centuries, was the constant resort of all the wits about
town ; even the name of Shakespeare throws its halo around
this place :—

" Mr Thorpe, the enterprising bookseller of Bedford Street," says Mr J. P.
Collier, "is in possession of a MS. full of songs and poems in the hand-
writing of a person of the name of Richard Jackson ; all prior to the year
1631, and including many unpublished poems by a variety of celebrated
poets. One of the most curious is a song of five-seven-lines stanzas thus
headed : ' Shakespeare's Rime which he made at the Mytre in Fleete Street.'
It begins—' From the rich Lavinian shore,' and some few of the lines
were published by Playford, and set as a catch. Another shorter piece is
called in the margin : ' Shakespeare's Rime :'—

' Give me a Cup of rich Canary Wine,
Which was the Mitre's (drink) and now is mine;
Of which had Horace and Anacreon tasted
Their lives as well as lines till now had lasted,'
I have little doubt that the lines are genuine, as well as many other
songs."

In this same tavern Boswell supped, for the first time, with his
idol, and the description of the biographer's delight 011 that grand

1 Wilkinson's " Londina Illustrate."
t Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol, i., p. 272.

occasion lias a festive air about it that cannot fail to make a
lively impression on his readers :—

"He agreed to meet me in the evening at the Mitre. I called on him,
and we went tliither at nine. We had a good supper, and port wine, of
which he then sometimes drank a bottle. The orthodox high church
sound of the Mitre,—the figure and manner of the celebrated Samuel John-
son—the extraordinary power and precision of his conversation and the
pride from finding myself admitted as his companion, produced a variety
of sensations and a pleasing elevation of mind beyond what I had ever
experienced."

There, also, that amusing scene with the young ladies from
Staffordshire took place, which would make an excellent com-
panion picture to Leslie's " Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman."

"Two young women from Staffordshire visited him when I was present
to consult him on the subject of Methodism, to which they were inclined.
Come (said he) you pretty fools, dine with Maxwell and me at the Mitre,
and we will talk over that subject, which they did; and after dinner,
he took one of them on his knees and fondled them for half an hour
together."

Hogarth, too, was an occasional visitor at this tavern. A card
is still extant, wherein he requested the company of Dr Arnold
King to dine with him at the Mitre. The written part is con-
tained within a circle, (representing a plate) to which a knife and
fork are the supporters. In the centre is drawn a pie with a
Mitre on the top of it, and the invitation—

ztfoojyart/i d com/i/tmenfo to is/6-t VScnp, an -/ c/eJt'yeo
tfonout c^ftitJ company to c/tnnef, on Sttufdc/a-y next,

In this tavern the Society of Antiquaries used to meet, before
apartments were obtained in Somerset House.

"The Society hitherto having no house of their own, meet every Thurs-
day evening, about seven o'clock, at the Mitre Tavern in Fleet Street,
where antiquities are produced and considered, draughts and impressions
thereof taken, dissertations read, and minutes of the several transactions
entered, aud the whole economy under such admirable regulations, that
probably in a short time they may apply for a royal power of incor-
poration." f

In the bar of the Mitre Tavern in St James' Market, which
was kept by her aunt, (Mrs Yoss, formerly the mistress of Sir God-
frey Kneller,) Captain Farquliar overheard Miss Nancy Oldfield
read the play of " The Scornful Lady," and was so struck with the

* Erskine used to send somewhat similar cards of invitation when on the Bench, by
drawing a turtle on a card, and sending it to a friend, with the day and hour.

proper emphasis and agreeable turn she gave to each character,
that he swore the girl was cut out for the stage. Captain (after-
wards Sir John) Vanbrugh, a friend of the family, recommended
her to Eich, and shortly after she made her debut at Covent
Garden, with an allowance of fifteen shillings a week.

Though a dozen other famous Mitre Taverns might be men-
tioned, these are sufficient to show how general a sign it was ;
the partiality of tavern-keepers for it is somewhat accounted for in
the following stanza of the " Quack Vintners," 1712 :—
" May Smith, whose prosperous mitre is his sign,
To shew the church no enemy to wine ;

Still draw such Christian liquor none may think,
Tho' e'er so pious, 'tis a sin to drink." ¹

The Mitre also is found in a few combinations, as the Mitre
and Dove, i. e., the Holy Ghost, in King Street, Westminster ;
the Mitre and Keys, in Leicester—evidently the Cross Keys,
which are a charge in the arms of several bishoprics ; and the
Mitre and Rose, which, from trades tokens, appears to have
been the sign of a tavern in the Strand, as well as in Wood Street,
Cheapside.

That the friars were also honoured on the signboard appears
from " Fryar Lane, on the south side of Thames Street, near
Dowgate. It was formerly called Greenwich Lane, but of later
years Fryar's Lane, from the sign of a Fryar sometime there." t
Probably it was a Black Friar, or Dominican Monk, for that
order, above all others, had the reputation of being great topers,
and therefore were not out of place on a signboard. There is a
prayer extant of the holy fathers, addressed to St Dominic :—
" Sanctus Dominicus sit nobis semper amicus
Qui canimus nostro jugiter pneconia rostro,
De cordis venis, siccatis ante lagenis;
Ergo tuas laudes si tu nos pangere gaudes,
Tempore paschali, fac ne potu puteali
Conveniat uti ; quod si fit, undique mutî
Semper erunt patres qui, non curant nisi fratres." J

1 «T'ne Quack Vintners, or a Satyr against Bad Wine," 1713 ; probably a pamphlet got
op by the London vintners against Brook and Hilliers, the famous wine merchants re
commended by the Spectator.
t Hatton's New View of London, 1708, p. 32.
j "Saint Dominic be always our friend,
Who sing thy praises daily in our pulpit,

And an old French couplet gives the following gradations of the
potatory capacities of the different orders, in which the Franciscans
only are said to beat the Dominicans :—
" Boire à la Capucine,
C'est boire pauvrement ;
Boire à la Célestine, .
C'est boire largement ;
Boire à la Jacobine,
C'est chopine à chopine ;
Mais boire en Cordelier,
C'est vider le cellier." *

Tokens are extant of a music-house, with the sign of the
Black-friar, dated 1671. In Paris also, the Bacchic propensities
of the Black-friars made a tavern-keeper of the seventeenth century
choose St Dominic as the patron saint of his tavern. His
principal customers, who formed a sort of club, were called
Dominicans ; a contemporary song thus gives the rule of this
order :—

" Nous sommes dix, tous grands buveurs ;
Bons ivrognes et grands fumeurs,
Qui ne cessant jamais de boire,
Et de remuer la mâchoire,
Méprisons d'amour les faveurs." +

Nuns also figured on the signboard as the Three Nuns, which
was constantly used by drapers ; not exactly, as Tom Brown says,
" very dismally painted to keep up young women's antipathy to
popery and " single blessedness, but because the holy sisterhoods
were generally very expert in making lace embroidery, and other
fancy work—as the handkerchiefs made by the nuns of Pau, and
sold by our drapers, fully prove even at the present day. In the
seventeenth century, the Three Nuns was the sign of a well-known
coaching and carriers' inn in Aldgate, which gave its name to
Three Nuns' Court close at hand ; near this inn was the " dread-
ful gulf, for such it was rather than a pit," in which, during the

* "To drink like a Capuchin,
Is to drink poorly ;
To drink like a Benedictine,
Is to drink deeply ;
To drink like a Dominican,
Is pot after pot ;
But to drink like a Franciscan,
Is to drink the cellar dry."
t "We are ten, all deep drinkers,
Jolly topers, and good smokers,
Who, never giving over drinking
And eating,

Hague of 1665, not less tlian 1114 bodies were buried in
a fortnight, from the 6th to the 20th of September.* Not
improbably this sign, after the Reformation, was occasionally
metamorphosed into the Three Widows : Peter Treveris, a
foreigner, erected a press and continued printing until 1552 at
the Three Widows in Southwark ; he printed several books for
William Pastel], John Beynor, R, Copeland, and others in the
city of London. It is still the sign of a cap and bonnet shop in
Dublin. The Matrons, also, may have originally represented
Nuns; this last hung, in the seventeenth century, at the door of
John Bannister, crutch and bandage maker, near the hospital,
(Christ's Hospital School,) Newgate Street. +

At the present day the Church is a very common ale-house
sign, either on account of the esteem in which good living has
been held by churchmen in all ages, " superbis pontificum potiore
coenis," or, from the proximity of a church to the ale-house in
question; thus, one inn in the town would be known as the
" Market House," whilst another might be known as the "Church
Inn." It has been said the name was given that topers might
equivocate and say that they " frequently go to church." Be
this as it may, there is generally an ale-house close to every
church, (in Knightsbridge the chapel of the Holy Trinity is
jammed in between two public-houses,) whereby a good oppor-
tunity is offered to wash a dry sermon down. In Bristol, at the
beginning of the present century, it was still worse—a Methodist
meeting-room was immediately over a public-house, which gave
rise to the following epigram :—

" There's a spirit above and a spirit below,
A spirit of joy and a spirit of woe—
The spirit above is the spirit divine;
But the spirit below is the spirit of wine."

Other signs connected with the church are the Chapel Bell,
at Suton, in Norfolk, and the Church Stile or Church Gates,
which is very common. The origin of this last comes from an
old custom of drinking ale on the parish account, on certain oc-
casions, at the church stile. Pepys mentions this when he was
at Walthamstow, April 14, 1661 :—"After dinner we all went to
the church stile, and there eat and drank." To this a correspon-
dent in the Gent. Mag. (Nov. 1S52, p. 442) makes the follow-
ng note :—" In an old book of accounts belonging to Warrington

parish, the following minute occurs :—" Nov. 5, 1688. Paid fo?
drink at the church Steele, 13s. ;" and in 1732, "It is ordered
that hereafter no money be spent on ye 5th of November or any
other State day on the parish account, either at the church stile
or any other place." Though certainly the parish now does not
pay for any ale drunk at the church stile, the sign is evidently
set up in remembrance of the good old time when such things
were.

Belonging to the church was also the sign of the Three
Brushes, or Holy Water Sprinklers, which was that of an old
house near the White Lion prison, Southwark, in whiph there
was a room with panelled wainscoting and ceiling ornamented
with the royal arms of Queen Elizabeth. Probably it had been
the court-room at the time the White Lion Inn was a prison.
Amongst the Beaufoy trades tokens there is one of " Rob. Thorn-
ton, haberdasher, next the Three Brushes in Southwark, 1667."

Innumerable signs were borrowed from the army and navy;
thus, at the present day, every uniform in the service is repre-
sented near barracks or in other haunts of soldiers. The Be-
cruiting Sergeant is generally the sign of the public-house,
where that worthy spreads his nets. Cross Guns, Cross
Lances, Cross Swords, and Cross Pistols, respectively, ara
meant to allure artillerymen, lancers, and various cavalry men.
But above all the Standard, the Banner, or the Waving Flag
—" the glorious rag that for a thousand years has stood the
battle and the breeze," is of common occurrence, not only in the
neighbourhood of military quarters, but everywhere in towns and
villages. At the Standard Tavern in the Strand, Edmund Curll
the bookseller used to meet the mysterious Bev. Mr Smith, who
told him Pope's correspondence.

"I am just going to the Lords to finish Pope," writes Curll to this per-
son. " I desire you to send me the sheets to perfect the first fifty books,
and likewise the remaining three hundred books, and pray be at the
Standard Tavern this evening and I will pay you £20 more."

The Kettledrum is a sign at St George-in-the-East; the
Drum and the Trumpet are both of frequent occurrence, and
the last is of old standing. One of the characters in " The Ball,"
a play by Shirley, 1633, thus commends the beer of the Trum-
pet :—

" Their strong beere is better than any I
Ever drunke at the Trumpet."—The Ball, Act v.

Possibly this was the Trumpet in Shire Lane, immortalised in
the Tatler, and one of the favourite haunts of merry g:»od-
natured Dick Steele. Bishop Hoadley was once present at one
of the meetings in this tavern, when Steele rather exposed him-
self in his efforts to please, a double duty devolving upon him,
as well to celebrate the " glorious memory " of King William III.,
it being the 4th of November—as to drink up to conversation
pitch his friend Addison, the phlegmatic constitution of whom
was hardly warmed for society by the time Steele was 110 longer
fit for it. One of the company, a red hot Whig, knelt down to
drink the health with all honours. This rather disconcerted the
bishop, which, Steele seeing, whispered to him—-" Do laugh, my
lord, pray laugh ; it is humanity to laugh." Shortly after Steele
was put into a chair and sent home. Next morning he was much
ashamed, and sent the Bishop this distich :—

"Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits,
All faults he pardons though he none commits."

Some trades tokens are extant of houses with the sign of the
Trumpet in King Street, Wapping, and in the Minories. At the
same period there was a sign of the Trumpeter in Trump Alley,
probably suggested by the name of the thoroughfare.

" Here is Saunder Sadeler of Froge Street Corner,
With Jelyan Joly at signe of the Bokeler!'

More general was the sign of the Sword and Buckler, which
was frequently set up by haberdashers for the following reason :—

" And whereas, until about the twelve or thirteenth yeere of Queene
Elisabeth, the auncient English fight of sword and buckler was only had
in use, the bucklers then being only a foot broad, with a pike of four or
five inches long; then they begänne to make them full half ell broad, with
sharpe pikes 10 or 12 inches long, wherewith they meant either to
breake the swordes of their enemies, if it hitte uppon the pike, or else
sodainely to runne within them and stabbe, and thrust their buckler
with the pike into the face, arme, and body of their adversary, but this
continued not long;* every haberdasher then sold bucklers.'"—Stow's
Chronicle.

The great prevalence of this sign originated in the so-called
sword and buckler play, once so common in England. Misson,

* A proclamation or Queen Elizabeth restricted the length of the sword, rapier, and
such like weapons to "one yard and half a quarter of the blade at the uttermost," and the
point of the buckler soi above two inches in length, under the penalty of a " fine at the
Queen's pleasure, and the weapon to be forfayted, and if any such persons shall offend a
second time, then the same to Y.e banished from the place and towne of his dwelling."

who visited this country in tlie beginning of the eighteenth cen-
tury, says :—

" Within these few years you should often see a sort of gladiators march-
ing through the streets, in their shirts to the waste, their sleeves tucked up,
sword in hand, and preceeded by a drum to gather spectators. They give
so much a head to see the fight, which was with cutting swords and a kind
of buckler for defence. The edge of the sword was a little blunted, and
the care of the prize fighters was not so much to avoid wounding one an-
other, as to avoid doing it dangerously ; nevertheless as they were obliged
to fight till some blood was shed, without which nobody would give a
farthing for the show, they were sometimes forced to play a little roughly.
The fights are become very rare within these eight or ten years."*

In the seventeenth century it was not a little rough play, which
is evident from those matches at which Pepys was present, and
which he describes at large. Jouvin, another Frenchman who
visited England in 1G72, gives a detailed account of these diver-
lisements, which, at that period, at all events, were anything but
play; and Maitland was right when he designated them as " a
barbarous performance, by those whom necessity (occasioned by a
scandalous laziness and indolence) induces to expose themselves
to be horribly mangled for a little money, while the bloodily-
minded spectators satiate themselves with human gore to the
great reproach of religion."

In the Spectator, No. 436, there is an amusing essay on those
" Hockley-in-the-Hole Gladiators," and in No. 449 a letter ap-
pears, in which the deceits of the champions are shown :—

" I overheard two masters of the science agreeing to quarrel on the next
opportunity. This was to happen in the company of a set of the fraternity
of the basket hilts who were to meet that evening. When this was settled,
one asked the other: 'Will you give cuts or receive?' The other an-
swered, ' Receive.' It was replied, 'Are you a passionate man?' 'No,
provided you cut no more, nor no deeper than we agree.' "

A few other instances of the Sword occur on signs, as the
Sword and Cross, a sort of emblem of the Church militant, or
perhaps an inversion of the Cross Swords : this was a sign
"next door to the Savoy Gate in 1711." The Swordblade, a
coffee-house in Birchen Lane in 1718, and the Sword and
Dagger, a combination of arms that evokes the phantom of many
a desperate duel amongst the ruffling gallants of the reign of
James I. This sign of ill omen was, in the seventeenth cen-
tury, in St Catherine Lane, Tower, as appears from the traded
tokens issued there.

bays Captain Face, in Ben Jonson's " Alchymist," and various
trades tokens testify the prevalence of the sign. Probably this arose
from its being a charge in the city arms, which was supposed to
represent the dagger Sir William Walworth used in slaying Wat
Tyler. This at least was asserted in the inscription below the
niche in which Sir William's statue was erected in Fishmonger's
Hall :—

" Brave Walworth knyght Lord Mayor yt slew
Rebellious Tyler in his alarmes—
The king therefore did give in lieu
The Dagger to the Cytyes armes."

Stow says that this is erroneous, as, when in the 4 Richard II.
a new seal was made for the city, " the armes of this city were
not altered, but remayne as afore ; to witte, argent, a playne cross
gules a sword of Saint Paul in the first quarter and no dagger
of William Walworth as is fabuled."¹ The Dagger and
Pie was in the seventeenth century the sign of a celebrated pie-
shop in Cheapside, the Pie being added to the original sign ;
but from the trades tokens of this house we see that this was
represented by a rebus of a dagger with a magpie on the point.
Dagger-pies are frequently mentioned in the plays of that period ;
for instance, in Decker's " Satyro-Mastrix :"—" I'll not take thy
word for a dagger-pieand in Prynne's " Histrio-Mastrix,"
" and please you, let them be dagger-pies." The London
apprentices appear to have been good customers to this house.
Whenever, for example, old Hobson, the merry haberdasher, went
abroad, " his prentices wold ether bee at the Taverne filling their
heds with wine or at the Dagger in Cheapside cramming their
bellies with minced pyes."t And in Heywood's comedy of
" If you Know not me you Know Nobody," the worthy citizen
bitterly inveighs against the temptations held out to apprentices
by the dainties of this house :—

"Ten pounds a morning ! Here is the fruit
Of Dagger-pies and Ale-house guzzling."—Act i. sc. i., 1606.

1 Stow's Chronicle, Thorn's edition, p. 83.
t Merry Jests of old Uobson the Londoner. 1011

sign in Pope's Head Alley, " over against tlie Boyal Exchange in
Cornhill," sold the " Grand Restorative," which cured consump-
tion, stone, dropsy, and all evils flesh is heir to. The sign occurs
among the Bagford bills; there is a similar one amongst the
Banks bills, the Pistol and C, the sign of John Crook, a razor-
maker at the Great Turnstile, Holborn, circa 1787 : the bill
represents a renaissance scutcheon with a pistol, above it a C,
and surgical instruments disseminated on the field.

Though we have the authority of Cicero that cedanl arma togoe,
yet booksellers, who flourish by the arts of peace, choose the Hel-
met for their sign. Humphrey Joy, a bookseller and printer in St
Paul's Churchyard in 1550, and another, celebrated in the reigns
of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Queen Mary, Rowland Hall by
name, had both a Helmet for their sign. This Hall changed his
sign more frequently than is generally the custom; thus, besides
the Helmet, he is known to have traded at the signs of the
Cradle, in Lombard Street; the Hale Eagle and Key, in
Gutter Lane; and the Three Arrows, in Golden Lane, near
Cripplegate. There is still a stone carving of the helmet fixed in
the front of a house in London "Wall, with the .date 1668 and the
initials II. M. ISTed'Ward mentions the Helmet in Bishopsgate ;
he says at the battles without bloodshed of the Trainbands in
Moorfields, the gallant warriors wish

" For beer from the Helmet in Bishopsgate.
And why from the Helmet ? Because that sign
Makes the liquor as welcome t' a soldier as wine."
Trades tokens are extant of the Blue Helmet in Tower Street
From the same source Ave learn that there was, in the seventeenth
century, a sign of the Plate, i.e., the Breastplate, in Upper Shad-
Avell; and a Handgun in Shachvell. This weapon was a sort of
musket of early times, fired in the hand without a rest; "gunners
with handguns or half-hakes" are named by Stow in his enumera-
tion of the troops marching in the city watch on St John's night.

A few other old weapons remain to be .mentioned, as the
Arrow, once a great favourite when this weapon made the
English name terrible whenever our troops took the field. In the
last century there was a beer-house at Knockholt, in Kent, the
sign an Arrow, with the following poetical effusion beneath :—
" Charles Collins liveth here,

Sells rum, brandy, gin, and beer ;
I make this board a little wider,
To let you know I sell good cyder."

The Cross-bullets, a name puzzling at first sight, was a sign
in Thames Street in the seventeenth century, representing two
bar-shot crossed, which the trades token elucidates by the equally
puzzling legend, "at the Crose bvlets this was an instrument
of destruction formerly used in naval engagements, and for that
reason set up in the neighbourhood of the shipping.

If we may believe a jocular article on a quack handbill in the
Spectator, No. 444, there was a Cannon-ball in Drury Lane;
for he mentions that—

" In Russell Court, over against the Canonball, at the Surgeons' Arms,
in Drury Lane, is lately come from his travels a surgeon who has prac-
tised surgery and physic both by sea and land these twenty-four years.
He (by the blessing) cures the Yellow Jaundice, Green sickness, Scurvey,
Dropsy, Surfeits, Long sea voyages, Campaigns, and women's mis-
carriages, lyings in, etc., as some people that has been lamed these thirty
years can testify; in short he cureth all diseases incident on man, women,
or children."

Undoubtedly this bill had been slightly touched up in passing
through the hands of the Spectator, who, like the mythological
king, " quodcunque tetigit inaurat," for it is rather " too good to
be true."

The Halbert and Crown was, in 1791, the sign of Paul
Savigne, a cutler in St Martin's Churchyard; whilst the Spear
in Hand is at the present day the sign of a public-house at
Norwich, being undoubtedly a popular version of some family
crest.

In Jews' Bow, or Boyal Hospital Row, Chelsea, there is a
sign which greatly mystifies the maimed old heroes of the Penin-
sula and Waterloo, and many others besides ; this is the Snow-
shoes, It is the sign of a house of old standing, and was set up
during the excitement of the American war of independence,
when snow-shoes formed part of the equipment of the troops sent
out to fight the battles of King George against " Mr Washington
and his rebels."

One of the low public-houses that stood on the outskirts of
London, towards Hyde Park Corner, at the end of the last cen-
tury, was called the Triumphal Car. There were a great many
other houses of the same description in that neighbourhood, viz.,
the Hercules Pillars, the Red Lion, the Swan, the Golden Lion,
the Horse-shoe, the Running Horse, the Barleymow, the White
Horse, and the Half-moon, which two last have given names to
two streets in Piccadilly. The sign of the Triumphal Car waa

in all probability bestowed upon the house in honour of tha
soldiers who used to visit it.

" These public-houses, about the middle of last century, were much
visited on Sundays, but those contiguous to Hyde Park were chiefly
resorted to by soldiers, particularly on review days, when there were long
wooden seats fixed in the street before the houses for the accommodation
of six or seven barbers, who were employed on field days in powdering
those youths who were not adroit enough to dress each other's hair. Yet
it was not unusual for twenty or thirty of the older soldiers to bestride a
form in the open air, where each combed, soaped, powdered, and tied
the hair of his comrade, and afterwards underwent the same operation
himself." *

The grenadiers of Frederick the Great managed those things
still better, for twenty or thirty of them used to sit in a circle,
each dressing, plaiting, and powdering the pigtail of the man
before him, so that all hands were employed at the same time,
and none was lost in waiting. There is still a Triumphant
Chariot public-house in Pembroke Mews, Chelsea, a house of
more than fifty years' standing.

The Bombay Grab in High Street, Bow, belongs to military
signs, as " Grab," or " Crab," is a slang expression for a foot
soldier; perhaps the landlord at one time may have been in the
Bombay army.

Objects relating to the navy, or rather to shipping, are still
more common in this seafaring nation of ours than the attri-
butes or emblems of any other trade or profession. Ned Ward
describes Deptford in 1703 as every house being distinguished
by either the sign of the Ship, the Anchor, the Three Mariners,
Boatswain and Call, or something relating to the sea.

" For as I suppose [says he] if they should hang up any other, the salt-
water novices would be as much puzzled to know what the figure repre-
sented as the Irishman was, when he called the Globe the Golden Cab-
bage, and the Unicorn the White Horse with a barber's pole in his
forehead." +

There is scarcely a town in the kingdom that has not a
Ship inn, tavern, or public-house. Tokens exist of " the Ship
without Templebar, 1649," probably the inn granted in 1571 to
Sir Christopher Hatton, along with some lands in Yorkshire and
Dorsetshire, and the wardship of a minor. £ William Faithorno

* J. T. Smith's Antiquarian Ramble in the Sheets of London, edited by Cluuloe
Mackay, 1846.

the engraver (ob. 1G91) seems to have occupied the same house
afterwards, for Walpole informs us that—

" Faithorue now set up in a new shop at the sign of the Ship, next to
the Drake, opposite to the Palsgrave Head, without Temple Bar, where he
not only followed his art, but sold Italian, Dutch, and English prints, and
worked for booksellers," *

This sign of the Ship, next to the Drake, seems to have
constituted a sort of a pun or a rebus 011 Admiral Drake, as
observed by Mr Akerman. Among the trades tokens there was
"Will Jonson at y° Drake, Bell Yard, Temple Bar, 1667."
The Drake stood next to the Ship. It was doubtless a reDus, and
alluded to the Admiral, who was very popular in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, the mint-mark of the martlet on her coins
being termed by the vulgar a Drake. The situation of this sign
near the Ship was appropriate enough. In the seventeenth
century there was a sign of the Ship at Leeuwarden, in Fries-
land, (Netherlands,) with the following inscription :—
" Die in de ly, my vaart voorby
Zal hebben een Ryxdaalder en't gelach vry." +
At the Ship tavern in the Old Bailey, kept by Mr Thomas
Amps, on Tuesday the 14th of February 1654, a plot against
Cromwell was discovered. Carlyle^ forcibly pictures the con-
spirators as eleven truculent, rather threadbare persons, sitting
over small drink there on that Tuesday night, considering how
the Protector might be assassinated. Poor broken Boyalist men,
payless old captains, and such like, with their steeple hats worn
very brown, and jackboots slit, projecting there what they could
not execute. The poor knaves were found guilty, but not worth
hanging, and got off with being sent to the Tower for a while to
ponder over their wickedness.

Names of famous men-of-war are often found on the sign-
board, in seaports; either in honour of some brilliant feat per-
formed by them, or simply in compliment to the crew, in the
hopes of obtaining their liberal patronage. Thus the Albion,
the Saucy Ajax, the Circe, and Arethusa, w^rith innumerable
others, may be met with in the vicinity of Plymouth, Ports-
mouth, and other seaports. The naming of signboards in this
way was an old custom; as two examples among the London
trades tokens very sufficiently prove. Thus, for instance, The

t " Whoever outsails me under the lee,
Shall have a dollar and drink scot-free."

Speaker's Frigate, the sign of a shop in Shadwell in the seven-
teenth century. The frigate had been named after Sir Richard
Stainer, speaker in the House of Commons in the time of the Com-
monwealth, who had clone good service under command of
Admiral Blake, in some of the naval engagements with the
Spaniards. In 1652, this ship was sent to " Argier in Turkey,"
(Algiers,) under command of Captain Thorowgood, with the sum
of £30,000 to redeem English captives from slavery. Upon
this occasion the Puritan newspapers made the following punning
prayer :—

" A prosperous gale attend his motion; and a Christian vote and bless-
ing be present, in all their debates and consultations, for doubtless, 'tis a
sacrifice pleasing both to God and man, and plainly denotes unto the people
of England, that our magistrates had rather bring home exiles, than make
more." *

After the Restoration the name of this ship was changed into the
Royal Charles, (which also occurs as a sign,) that ill-fated ship
taken by the Dutch in 1667, when, under Admiral de Ruyter,
they made their descent on Chatham and Sheerness, and burnt a
part of our fleet. The Royal Charles was one of the ships they
took away. Its stern is still kept as a trophy in Rotterdam.

Ships occur in various conditions, as the Full Ship, Hull;
Ship in Dock, Dartmouth; and the Ship on Launch, in every
ship-building locality. The Ship in Full Sail was the sign of
the first shop of Murray the publisher, in Fleet Street—pro-
bably in opposition to Longman, who had the Ship at Anchor,
The Ship in Distress is a touching appeal to the good-natured
wayfarer to assist in keeping the pump going. At Brighton, there
was such a sign in the last century, on which the poet had
assisted the painter to invoke the sympathy of the thirsty
public :—

The Ship is to be met with in innumerable combinations: the
Ship and Pilot Boat, Narrow Quay, Bristol; the Snip and
Anchor is not uncommon, and in one place, at Chipping Norton,
it is quaintly corrupted into the Sheep and Anchor ;+ the Ship
and Whale, in compliment to the Greenland Fishery, occurs at

f Unless it be another version of the Lamb and Anchor, see p. 300. Ship and Sheep,
however, were formerly used promiscuously. Thus there is a token of William Eye "at
the Sheep," in Rye, 1052, representing a ship, whilst Decker, in Iiistrio-mastrix, 160^
says, " and this sA/pskm cap shall be put off."

South Shields, and the Snip and Notchblock is a sailor's coffee-
house in the Katcliff Highway. All these explain themselves;
most of the other combinations seem to result from the quarter-
ing of two signs, as the Ship and Bell, Horn Dean, Hants; the
Ship and Fox, " next cloor but one to the Five Bells tavern,
near the Maypole in the Strand," in 1711; the Ship and Star
on a trades token of Cornhill, may be the north star by which
ancient mariners used to navigate; the Ship and Bainbow is
common to many places; the Ship and Shovel, Tooley Street;
said to be a deterioration of the Sir Cloudeslcy Shovel, but more
likely alluding to the shovels used in taking out ballast, coal, corn,
(when in bulk) and various other cargoes ; the Ship and Plough,
Hull; the Ship and Blue Coat Boy, Walworth Boad, although
susceptible of explanations, are doubtless only but quarterings.
The Ship and Castle, though of common occurrence, seemed
to puzzle the public already in the seventeenth century:—
" What resemblance the Ship and the Castle may bear
To ships floating on clouds, or to castles in air,
We know not; but this we are Bure of, 'tis plain
Their clarets are perfectly Leger-de-Main."

If not a combination of two signs, it may have some reference to
our national defences. It was a sign in Cornhill as early as
1716, when, on November 9, the newspapers conveycd the fol-
lowing information to the metropolis :—

" We are informed that this day a fowl was roasted in a wonderful sun-
kitchen on the top of the Ship and Castle tavern, Cornhill, in view of many
gentlemen. The artist performer, who is a gentleman newly come from
France, proposes to roast and boil meat, bake bread, prepare tea and coffee,
and all kitchenwork done without common fire ; some particular thing to
be seen every day that the sun shines out brightly. 'Twas observable that
when the fowl was dressed, it had the same taste and smell as if done by
a common fire. The machine is composed of about a hundred small look-
ing or convex-glasses."

The scheme, seemingly, did not succeed in dethroning "old king
coal," for if we had to depend on the sun for our cookery, it is
to be feared we would often have cold cheer.

Amongst all these ships, of course, Jack tar could not be forgot.
The Ship Friends occur in Sunderland; the Three Mariners
is an old sign, of which there are examples among the trades
tokens, and which is still to be seen on two or three public-
houses in London. There was formerly a tavern known by this
sign in VauxhalL

"On repairing it in 1752, in it was found a remarkably high-elbowed
chair covered with purple cloth, and ornamented with gilt nails. An old
fisherman told Mr Buckmaster that he had heard his grandfather say, that
King Charles II. disguised, used on his water tours with his ladies to fre-
quent the above tavern to play at chess, &c., and that the chair found, was
the same as the king sat in. The chair was repaired and kept as a curiosity
by the late John Dawson, Esq., but by neglect was, at the pulling down of
his old dwelling at Vauxhall in 1777, destroyed. Mr Buckmaster sat in
the chair many times, but his feet would not touch the ground. King
Charles was very tall. No tavern of this name is known to exist now in
Lambeth, but there is one of the sign of the Three Merry Boys,* pro
bably a corruption of the above name." f

In other places we meet with the Three Jolly Sailors ; at
Castleford there used to be one representing the jolly sailors
" with a sheet in the wind," and under it the following profes-
sional invitation :—•

In North Street, Hull, there is a sign of Jack on a Cruise,
not on board II.M. ship, but "out on" what the lands folk call
" a spree ; " the cruises, however, are generally confined to rather
low latitudes. The Boatswain appears to have been a public-
house in Wapping in the reign of Charles II., for Wycherly in
the " Plain Dealer," 1676, makes Jerry Blackaire say :—" I should
soon be picking up all our own mortgaged apostle spoons, bowls,
and beakers, out of most of the ale-houses betwixt Hercules
Pillars and the Boatswain in Wapping." The Boatswain's Call
is a public-house sign in Frederick Street, Portsea, whose invita-
tion the sailors, no doubt, accept with much more pleasure than
the boatswain's call of " all hands on deck" on a frosty winter
morning. It was the name of a patriotic sea song during one of
the wars with France. Bed, White, and Blue, and its syno-
nym e, the Three Admirals, both occur in more than one in-
stance in Liverpool,

The Anchor was, perhaps, set up rather as an emblem than as
referring to its use in shipping. It is frequently represented in
the catacombs, typifying the words of St Paul, who calls hope
" the anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast." St Ambrose
says, "it is this which keeps the Christian from being carried
away by the storm of life." Other early writers use it as a sym-
bol of true faith, and one of them has this beautiful idea:—

» Still in existence in Upper Fore Street, Lambeth,
t Thomas Allen's History of Lambeth, 1827, p. 307.

" As an anchor cast into the sand will keep the ship in safety, even so
hope, ever amidst poverty and tribulation, remains firm, and is sufficient
to sustair. the soul; though, in the eyes of the world, it may seem but a
weak and ."rail support." *

It was a favourite sign with the early printers, probably in imita-
tion of Aldus.t Thus Thomas Yautrollier, a scholar and printer
from Paris and Rouen, who came to England about the begin-
ning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and established his printing-office
in Blackfriars, had an anchor for his sign, with the motto, "Anchora
Spei." At West Bromwich there is an ale-house having the sign
fif the Anchor with the following inscription :—

" 0 sweet ale, how sweet art thou,
Thy chearing streams new life impart,
Esteemed by all extremely good,
To quench our thirst and do us good."
Sometimes a female figure in flowing garments is represented
holding the anchor, in which case it is called the Hope an]»
Anchor. The Blue Anchor was painted of that colour as a
" difference " from other anchors; it is a common sign ; it was the
trade emblem of Henry Herringman, of the " New Exchange," the
principal London bookseller and publisher in the reign of King
Charles II., the friend of Davenant, Dryden, and Cowley. The
Blue Anchor and Ball was the sign of a mercer's shop near
the Conduit in Cheapside in 1707, the ball being the usual addi-
tion to intimate the sale of silks. Other distinctions are the
Sheet Anchor, at Whitmore, in Staffordshire; the Foul Anchor,
a sign of two public-houses at Wisbeach, implying, no doubt, that
the lotus-eaters, who anchor in that harbour, get so entangled in the
luxurious weeds of pleasure, that it becomes impossible for them
to leave; the Raffled Anchor, Swan's Quay, North Shields; and
the Rope and Anchor, which is very common, the anchor being
generally represented with a piece of cable twined round the stem.

A few combinations also occur : the Anchor and Can, at
Ross, and at Putson, Hereford, which seems to allude to the
Anchor as a measure ; the Anchor and Shuttle, Luttendenfoot,
Warley, Manchester, the shuttle being added in compliment to
the weavers; the Anchor and Castle, a quartering of two signs
in Tooley Street, &c.

Sometimes instead of the ship, some peculiar vessel is chosen,
as, for instance, the Sloop, or the Leigh Hoy, a sort of smack,
which occurs amongst the trades tokens as a sign near St Cathe-

rine's Docks, and is still to be seen in Church Street, Mile
End; the Coble, a sort of fishing-boat, common in Northum-
berland ] the Tiltboat, Sommers Quay, Thames Street, in the
XVIIth. century, and still at Billingsgate. This last was an open
passenger boat for Greenwich, Woolwich, Gravesend, and other places
down the river. It took twelve hours to perform the voyage to
Gravesend, and much more if the wind was contrary, and the boat had
not arrived before the tide turned. The tiltboats were superseded
by steamers in 1815. The Dark House, Billingsgate, was their
starting-place, and passengers would probably patronise the tavern
with this name in the immediate neighbourhood, as they go now
for a glass of ale and a sandwich to the Bailway, or Steamboat
Inn, during the quarter of an hour preceding departure.

The Fishing Smack was a public-house formerly standing near
St Nicholas Church, Liverpool. The sign represented a man
standing in a cart loaded with fish, and holding in his right hand
what the artist intended to represent as a salmon. Underneath
were the following lines :—

" This salmon has got a tail,
It's very like a whale;
It's a fish that's very merry ;
They say it's catch'd at Derry;
It's a fish that's got a heart,
It's catch'd and put in Dugdale's cart."

This truly classic production of the Muse of the Mersey con-
tinued for several years to adorn the host's door, until a change
in the occupant of the house induced a corresponding change of
the sign, and the following lines took the place of the preced-
ing :—

" The cart and salmon has stray'd away,
And left the fishing-boat to stay,
When boisterous winds do drive you back,
Come in and drink at the Fishing-Smack." *

the Foundling Hospital, was the head-quarters of the rioters and
incendiaries, who, excited by the injudicious zeal of Lord George
Gordon, set London in a blaze during the " No Popery" riots in
1780.

Next Boat by Paul's, in Upper Thames Street, may be seen
on the trades token of an ale-house, evidently kept by a water-
man, who used to ply with his boat near St Paul's. The token
of this house represents a boat containing three men, over it the
legend, " Next Boat." " Next Oars " was the cry of the water-
men waiting for a fare. Tom Brown in his walk round London,
says, " I steered him down Blackfryars towards the Thames
side till coming near the stairs, up started such a noisy mul-
titude of grizly old Tritons, hollowing and hooting out Next
Oars and scullers, &c. And with that I bawled out as loud as a
speaking trumpet, ' Next Oars? and away ran Captain Caron,
and hollowed to his man Ben to bring the boat near," " Next
Boat," was also the sign of a public-house of note adjoining
Holland's Leaguer in Blackfriars, where Holland Street is now.

The Law is very badly represented—the Judge's Head seems
to be the only sign in honour of this branch of the Common-
wealth. It was the sign of Charles King, a bookseller in West-
minster Hall in 1718,* and may be readily accounted for in that
locality. It was also the first sign of Jacob Tonson, the well-
known bookseller and secretary of the Kit-Kat Club, when he lived
near Inner Temple gate, Fleet Street. In 1G97 when he removed
to Gray's Inn gate, he adopted the Shakespeare's Head, under
which he became famous. After 1712, he took a shop in the
Strand, opposite Catherine Street, but without altering his sign,
and there he died in March 1736 possessed of a splendid fortune.
This was that famous Tonson who published the works of the
most celebrated authors and poets of the day. Dryden was one
of them. Liberality in those days was a word not to be found
in the dictionary of a publisher, as Dryden often experienced ;
in one of his ill tempers, when Tonson had been putting on the
screw rather too much, the incensed poet began a satire upo*
him :—

" With leering look, bullfac'd, and freckled fair,
With two left legs, with Judas-colour'd hair,
And frowsy pore3 that taint the ambient air."

lislier, "with the gentle addition : " Tell the dog that he who wrote
this can write more," Tonson did not wish to see mere, however,
and Dryden obtained what he desired. About the year 1720, Jacob
Tonson left the business to his nephew, Jacob Tonson, jun., son of
his brother Richard, who, through the patronage of the Duke of
Newcastle, became stationer, bookbinder, and printer to the Public
Board, and this lucrative appointment was enjoyed by the Tonson
family, or their assignees, till the month of January 1800.

Lot Goodal, Beadle of St Martin-in-the-Fields, in 1680, had,
like other celebrities, taken his own goodly person for the sign
of his house in Bupert Street, as appears from his advertise-
ment, in which, like a true Dogberry, the public are informed
that he had taken a silver watch with a studded case "in custody."
The Bkown Bill was another constable's sign :—
" Which is the constable's house

This brown bill was a kind of battle-axe, or hatchet affixed to a
long staff, used by constables. The name was transferred from
the weapon to the men who carried it :—

They were also called Billmen:—
" To us billmen relate,
Why you stagger so late,
And how you caine drunk so soon."

Lawyers are only commemorated in the complimentary sign of
the Good Lawyer,* and in the Rolls, a tavern kept by Ralph
Massie, in Chancery Lane, in the reign of Charles II. In vari-
ous parts of the house, and particularly in the great room up
stairs, the coats of arms of the Carew family spoke of its former
possessors. Further back still, we have it as a timber tenement
belonging to the knights of St John of Jerusalem, by whom it
was sold to Cardinal Wolsey, who for a time inhabited it, before
he had reached the summit of his pride and fame. Behind this
building was the house and garden of Sir Walter Baleigh. But
all these remnants of bygone glory were swept away in 1760,
when the house was rebuilt, and the name changed into the

Grown ±1:d Rolls. The name of Rolls, it is needless to ob-
serve, was adopted from the neighbouring Rolls House, where
the rolls and records of Chancery have been kept since the reign
of Richard III.

The liberal arts are as badly represented on the signboard as the
Bar. The Poet's Head was a sign in St James's Street in the
seventeenth century; who the poet was it is impossible to say now;
perhaps it was Dryden, since the trades tokens represent a head
crowned with bays. The same sign had been used during the
Commonwealth by Taylor the Water poet, but in his case the
poet was Taylor himself, (see p. 48.) The Five Inkhorns, we
gather from the trades tokens, was the sign of Walter Haddon,
in Grub Street, a very appropriate trade emblem in that scrib-
bling locality. There was also a house with this sign in Petti-
coat Lane, opposite which Strype's mother lived; letters of his
are extant addressed :—

J/'St'eJeJ&t Atd Jttmowyec/^yMo/Ziei,
f/ityfi, wtc/oio-
(/we//tncf t'n petticoat J£ane ovel
a^aind^ t/tc ^ive iflnAAotnd, ttuJ/iout

Petticoat Lane in that time was the great manufacturing place
for inkhorns. The Hand and Pen was a scrivener's sign, which
was adopted by Peter Bales, Queen Elizabeth's celebrated pen-
man. Hollinshed says * that

" He writ within the Compasse of a Penie in Latine, the Lord's Prayer, the
Creed, the Ten Commandements, a praise to God, a Prayer for the Queene,
his posie, his name, the daie of the month the yeare of our Lord, and the
reigne of the Queene. And on the seuenteenth of August next following,
at Hampton Court, he presented the same to the Queenes maiestie in the
head of a ring of gold, couered with a christall, and presented therewith
an excellent spectacle, by him devised, for the easier reading thereof;
wherewith her maiestie read all that was written therein with great admira-
tion, and commended the same to the Lords of the Councill and the am-
bassadors, and did weare the same manie times vpon her finger."

Bale was employed by Sir Francis Walsingham, and afterwards
kept a writing school at the upper end of the Old Bailey. In
1595, when nearly fifty years old, he had a trial of skill with one
Daniel Johnson, by which he was the winner of a golden pen, of

a value of £20, which, in the pride of his victor}', he set up as
his sign. Upon this occasion, John Davis made the folio whig
epigram in his " Scourge of Folly :"—

Sets on his sign, to shew, 0 proud, poor soul,
Both where he wonnes, and how the same he won,
From writers fair, though he writ ever foul;
But by that Hand, that Pen so borne has been,
From Place to Place, that for the last half Yeare,
It scarce a sen'night at a place is seen.
That Hand so plies the Pen, though ne'er the neare,
For when Men seek it, elsewhere it is sent,
Or there shut up, as for the Plague or Rent,
Without which stay, it never still could stand,
Because the Pen is for a Running Hand." *
The sign of the Hand and Pen was also used by the Fleet
Street marriage-mongers, to denote " marriages performed with-
out imposition."

Music-shops always adhered to the primitive custom of using
the instruments they sold as their signs; for instance, the Harp
and Hautboy, the sign of John Walsh, "servant to his Majesty,"
in Catherine Street in the Strand, in 1700.+ Other music-shops
had the French Horn and Yiolin ; the Violin, Hautboy,
and German Flute ; the Hautboy and Two Flutes ; all
these instruments in the woodcut above the shopbill, w^rhich was
a copy of the sign, are placed perpendicularly beside each other,
without any attempt at grouping. The Hautboy was one of the
most constant music-shop signs ; it was formerly a favourite street
instrument, and might be heard at the Christmas " waits," and
on occasions of popular rejoicing. Waits even are said to have
derived their name from it, that, according to one authority,
being the old English name of the hautboy.^ This, however, we
believe to be a mistake. The Waits w^rere " watches "—guets, who
went round at certain hours of the night with music, to let it be
known they were on the look-out, and make people feel secure.

ISTovello, the well-known music publisher, still adheres to the
old tradition, and carries on business in the Poultry under the

* The whole history of this calligraphic contest, written by Bale himself, is preserved
amongst the Ilarl, MSS., No. 675.

f "Twelve Sonatas in two parts ; the first part solos for a violin, a bass violin, viol and
harpsichord; the second Preludes, Almands, Corants, Sarabands and Jigs, with the
Spanish Folly, Dedicated to the Electress of Brandenburgh by Arcliangelo Corelli;
being his fifth and last opera, etc. Frice 8 shillings, or each" part single 5 shillings."—
London Gazette, August 26-29, 1700. The use of the word Optra here is somewha'j
peculiar.

sign of the Golden Crotchet. Somewhat similar was the Sol
La, or the Merry Song (le chant Gaillard) of Guyot or Guy
Marchant, a bookseller and printer in Paris circa 1490. His colo-
phon here represents the two notes sol la, surmounting two con-
joined hands, in evident allusion to the words of the Pange Lin-
gua " Sola Fides." At the side are represented two merry
cobblers, a class of mechanics, who, from time immemorial,
have been noted above all others for merriment, and a habit of
singing whilst at their work. It is a curious fact, that on the
title-page of one of the books printed by Marchant, the "Epistola
de Insulis de novo repertis," his chant Gaillard is translated into
" Campo Gaillardo,'' which seems to lead to the inference that
this work had been printed by some one who had heard of Mar-
chant's sign, but had never seen it, and merely adopted his name
as being well known in the literary world,—a fraud frequently
complained of by the old printers.

The French Horn was once a very common sign, and is still of
frequent occurrence; thus, there is a French Horn and Rose
in Wood Street, Cheapside; a French Horn and Hale-moon
at Wandsworth; and a French Horn and Queen's Head in
Smitlifield. This last house was, for many years, kept by Peter
Crawley, a noted member of the P. R., and there John Leech the
artist, and a friend, used to study low life and boxiana under the
tutelage of Black Sam. Finally, in the seventeenth century, there
was a Horn and Three Tuns in Leadenhall Street. The
trades tokens represent it as a French horn; but a drinking horn
would certainly have been a more useful instrument in the com-
pany of three tuns. It was evidently a corruption of the Bottle-
makers' arms, which were argent on a chevron sable, three bugle-
horns of the first between three leather-bottles of the second.
These leather-bottles might easily be mistaken for tuns, and the
bugle-horn be modernised into a musical instrument.

This frequency of the Horn rather jars with the unpleasant
signification that instrument had in seventeenth century slang.
Among the Boxburghe Ballads (ii. 138) there is one entitled
" The Extravagant Youth, or an Emblem of Prodigality," with a
woodcut representing a youth jumping into the mouth of a large
horn. On one side stands the father, seemingly in distress; on
the other is a mad-house, with the sign of The Fool, two of the
inmates looking out from behind the bars. The extravagant
youth, after expatiating on his mad career, says :—

" But now all my glory is clearly decay'd,
And into the horn myself have betray'd.

All comforts now from us are flown,
My father in Bedlam makes his moan,
And I in the counter a prisoner thrown,
This Horn is a figure by which it is known."

The Bugle Horn is fully as common ; it occurs on a tradea
token of 1G67 as the sign of a house in Aldersgate Street, and is
still to be seen on many inns by the roadside, where the mail
coach, in the good old coaching time, used to announce its arrival
by a cheerful tune from the guard's horn. Sometimes the Horn
was used in a different sense. It was the sign and badge of the
cattle doctor and village gelder, and came to be exhibited as
such either from its use in drenching animals, or from the fact
of such an instrument being blown by the doctor, to give notice
to the villagers of his approach. At Messingham, Lincoln, the
Horn Inn, a century ago, was kept by such a personage. Further
on, at p. 369, this professional is mentioned in connexion with
Tom of Bedlam.

The Harp, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, was
the sign of a bird-fancier, " over against Somerset House in the
Strand;"* and is still used as the sign of many public-houses,
generally denoting an Irish origin. The Jew's Harp (an instru-
ment formerly called jeu trompe, Jew's trump, i.e., toy trumpet)
was in former times the sign of a house with bowery tea-gardens
and thickly-foliated " snuggeries," in what was once Marylebone
Park, near the top of Portland Place, but removed on the laying
out of Regent's Park. Mr Onslow the Speaker used to go there
in plain attire, and sitting in the chimney-corner, join in the
humours of the customers, until, being recognised by the land-
lord one day, as he was riding in his golden coach to the House
in state, he found, on going in the evening for his quiet pipe
and glass, that his incognito was betrayed. This broke the
charm, and like the fairies in the legend, he never more returned
after that day. At the end of the last century there was another
Jew's Harp Tavern [and Tea-gardens] in Islington. It consisted
of a large upper room, ascended by a staircase on the outside for
the accommodation of the company on ball nights, and in this
room large parties dined. Facing the south front of the premises
was a large semicircular enclosure, with boxes for tea and ale

drinkers, guarded by deal-board soldiers, between every box,
painted in proper colours. In the centre of this opening were
tables and seats placed for the smokers ; a trap-ball ground was
on the eastern side of the house, whilst the western side served
for a tennis court; there were also public and private skittle-
grounds. We find a clue to this rather odd sign in Ben
Jonson's play of the "Devil is an Ass," Act i., scene 1, from
which it appears that it was formerly a custom to keep a
fool in a tavern, who, for the edification of the customers,
used to play on a Jew's harp, sitting on a joint-stool.

One of the signs originally used exclusively by apothecaries
was the Mortar and Pestle, their well-known implements
for pounding drugs. Among the celebrities who sold medicines
under this emblem was the noted John Moore, " author of the
celebrated Worm Powder," to whom Pope addressed some stanzas
beginning:—

His shop was in St Lawrence Poultney Lane. Every week
the newspapers contained advertisements proving, by the most
wonderful cures, the efficacy of his powders.

In the sixteenth century a publican in Paris adopted the sign
of the Pestle, on account of his living in the Bue de la
Mortellerie, (Mortar Street.) His house was in high repute
amongst the gallants of the period, which procured him a visit
from Master Villon, who thus describes it:—
" S'en vint en une hotellerie,
Eue de la Mortellerie.
Ou pend 1'enseigne du Pestel,
A bon logis et bon hostel." *

The Apothecary leads us to the Barber, or rather Barber-
Surgeon, and the Barber's Pole, which dates from the time
when barbers practised phlebotomy: the patient undergoing this

This poet-swindler, Villon, used to go about with a few friends, who robbed and
cheated landlords, and obtained good dinners without paying for them, whence he
called them "Repues Franches." Too frequently he got off safe, but occasionally he
would get a caning in the bargain to assist his digestion. These predatory dinners ha
has related in an épopee which has come down to us.

operation had to grasp the pole in order to make the blood
flow more freely. This use of the pole is illustrated in more
than one illuminated MS. As the pole was of course liable
to be stained with blood, it was painted red; when not in
use, barbers were in the habit of suspending it outside the
door with the white linen swathing-bands twisted round it ;
this, in latter times, gave rise to the pole being painted red
and white, or black and white, or even with red, white, and blue
lines winding round it. It was stated by Lord Thurlow in
the House of Peers, July 17, 1797, when he opposed the Sur-
geon's Incorporation Bill, that, "by a statute still in force, the
barbers and surgeons were each to use a pole. The barbers
were to have theirs blue and white striped, with no other appen-
dage, but the surgeons [which were the same in other respects]
were to have a gallipot and a red flag in addition, to denote
the particular nature of their vocation."

Besides the well-known brass soap-basins appended to the
pole, the barbers in former times used to have other and more
repulsive signs of their profession :—

" His pole with pewter¹ basons hung,
Black, rotten teeth in order strung,
Rang'd cups that in the window stood,
Lined with red rags to look like blood,
Did well his threefold trade explain,
"VVlio shaved, drew teeth, and breathed a vein."

In Constantinople, where the barber still acts as surgeon and
dentist, the teeth drawn by him are worked in ornamental
patterns intermixed with blue beads, and hung as trophies in
the window. Some of our London dentists even yet follow this
disgusting custom, for in no less a thoroughfare than Sloane
Street there is a certain chemist-dentist who exhibits in his
window a whole bottleful of decayed teeth. Instead of cups
" lined with red rags to look like blood," the genuine article
was formerly exhibited in the windows ; but this was already
prohibited at an early period, since the " Liber Albus" enjoins
"that no barber be so bold or so daring as to put blood in
their vrindows openly or in view of folks; but let them have it

1 It is to be observed that these soap-basins are now always of brass, and also that
on the continent their place is taken l;y a shallow brass basin to contain hot water-
Don Quixote's helmet of Mambrino, held under the chin of the person to be shaved,
with a hollow space in the rim to fit the neck, and a cavity into which the soap is
deposited dur.^;ug the operation.

carried privily unto the Thames, under pain of paying two
shillings unto the use of the Sheriffs."

As " a little learning is dangerous," the barber of the olden
times generally contrived to make himself more or less ridicu-
lous. Steele says:—" The particularity of this man [Don
Saltero, see p. 95] put me into a deep thought whence it should
proceed that of all the lower orders barbers should go further
in hitting the ridiculous than any other set of men. Watermen
brawl, cobblers sing : but why must a barber be for ever a poli-
tician, a musician, an anatomist, a poet, and a physician 1" This
love of music was at all times an idiosyncrasy of the knights
of the brass basin. Morley, in his " Plain and Easie Introduc-
tion to Practicall Musicke," says :—" It should seem you came
lately from a barber's shop, where you heard Gregory Walker
or a Corranta plaide in the new proportions." Henry Bold, in
the beginning of the seventeenth century, speaks of ancient
tunes "still sung to Harbers' citterns, viz., the "Lady's Fall;"
"John come kiss me now ;'' "Green Sleeves and Pudding Pies ;"
" The Punk's Delight," &c. And Tom Brown, in his " Amuse-
ments for the Meridian of London," remarks :—

" In a Barber's shop I saw a Beau so overladen with wig that there was
no difference between his head and the wooden one that stood in the
window. The fop it seems was newly come to his Estate, though not to
the years of Discretion, and was singing the Song : ' Happy the child
whose father is gone to the Devil;' and the Barber was all the while
keeping time on his Cittern, for, you know, a Cittern and a Barber is as
natural as milk to a calf, or the bears to be attended by a Bagpiper."

The cittern is also mentioned by Ned Ward :—" I would sooner
hear an old barber sing ' Whittington's Bells' upon a cittern,"

But enough of their musical parts ; as for their learning no
examples are wanting: Partridge, the classical scholar, in Fielding's
"Tom Jones;" Vossius' barber, who used to comb his hair in
iambics;¹ and Smollett's Hugh Strap, are excellent specimens.
This last one was sketched from life; his real name was Hugh
Hughson; he died in the parish of St Martin s-in-the-Field, at
the advanced age of eighty-five, having kept a barber-shop in that
locality upwards of forty years. His shop was hung round with

1 Vossius, "DePoematum Cantu et viribus Rythmi," Oxford, 1673, p. 62. Isaac
Vossius was an eccentric Dutchman, who died a canon of Windsor in 16S9. In the
above treatise on rhythm he says :—" I remember that more than once I have fallen into
the hands of men of this sort who could imitate any measure of song in combing the
hair, so as sometimes to express very intelligibly iambics, trochees, dactyl», &c.,
from whence there arose to me no small delight"

Latin quotations, and he would frequently point out to his cus-
tomers the several scenes in " Roderick Random" pertaining to
himself, which had their foundation, not in the Doctor's inven-
tive fancy, but in truth and reality. The meeting at the barber-
shop in Newcastle, the subsequent mistake at the inn, their
arrival together in London, and the assistance they experienced
from Strap's friends, were all facts. He is said to have left
behind him an interleaved copy of " Roderick Random," showing
how far we are indebted to the creative fancy of Doctor Smollett,
and to what extent the incidents recorded were founded upon
fact.

Not many years ago there was a hairdresser in the Rue
Racine, who, probably on account of his proximity to the uni-
versities of the Collège de France and the Sorbonne, had this in-
scription on his window : " xsbu rûxiora xul wvdu," " I shear
quickly and am silent." This classical hairdresser was evidently
acquainted with the answers given by Anaxagoras to a barber
who asked him, " How do you wish to have your beard shaved ? '
and who received the laconic answer, " without talking." The
shutters and windows of our Parisian worthy were covered with
inscriptions in foreign languages, the number of which was only
surpassed by the Bible shop in Brompton, during the time of
the International Exhibition in 1862.

An eccentric barber opened a shop under the walls of the
King's Bench Prison ; the windows being broken when he en-
tered the house, he mended them with paper, on which appeared,
" Shave for a penny," with the usual invitation to customers ]
whilst on his door was scrawled the following rhymes :—

" Here lives Jemmie Wright,
Shaves almost as well as any man in England,
Almost—not quite."

Foote, who delighted in anything eccentric, saw this inscription,
and hoping to extract some wit from the author, whom he justly
concluded to be an odd character, he pulled off his hat, and
thrusting his head through a paper pane into the shop, called
out, " Is Jimmy Wright at home 1 " The barber immediately
forced his own head through another pane into the street, and
replied : " No, sir, he has just popt out."

Numerous more or less witty barbers' inscriptions are recorded ;
one of the best is that attributed to Dean Swift, penned by him
for a barber, who at the same time kept a public-house :—

" Rove not from pole to pole, but step in here,
Where nought excels the shaving but the beer,"

"Rove not from pole to pole, but here turn in,
Where nought excels the shaving but the gin."

" Rove not from pole to pole—the man lives here,
Whose razor 'a only equall'd by his beer ;
And where, in either sense, the Cockney-put,
May, if he pleases, get confounded cut."

The amalgamation of the two trades has led to some other
rhymes and jokes. A barber-publican in Dudley has the follow-
ing barbarous joke :—

The point of this joke lies in the punctuation, which the illiterate
shavers coming to the shop are sure to treat with supreme con-
tempt ; but a barber, in Êatcliffe Highway, circa 1825, had the
following bona fide invitation :—

" Hair cut with despatch,
Shave well in a minute,
And a glass in the bar—gain
With a thimbleful in it.*

barbers are much on a par with their English colleagues in bril-
liancy of wit and inventive power : " Ici on rajeunit," + used to
be a frequent inscription with them ; others have ;—

" A toutes les figures dédiant mes rasoirs,
Je nargue la critique des fidèles mirroirs."J

t "People made younger here," alluding to the youthful appearance of a men without
a beard.

" I devote my razors to all faces,
And can stand the test of the truest looking-glasses."

Tools belonging to various handicrafts are common public-
house signs at the present day. The Axe is a very old sign ; it
was a well-known carriers' inn in Aldermanbury in the seventeenth
century, and was one of the places visited in 1634 by that thirsty
tourist, Drunken Barnaby. From this inn, the first regular lina
of stage waggons from London to Liverpool was established to-
wards the middle of the seventeenth century. There were con-
stantly some of them on the road, for they left every Monday
and Thursday, and it took them ten days in summer, and as
many as twelve in winter to perform the journey.

In 1642 there appeared "A Petition from the Towne and
County of Leicester unto the King's most excellent Majestie,"
which was " printed for William Gay, and to be sold at his shop
in Hosier Lane, at the signe of the Axe, July 29, 1642." When
we consider that "the King's most excellent Majestie," was
Charles L, we may come to the conclusion that there is some-
thing in a sign, as well as in a name ; it was certainly an omin-
ous and bad sign for the king. The Cross Axes is a sign at
Preston, Bolton, &c. The axe is also found combined with vari-
ous other carpenter's tools, as the Axe and Saw, Carlton, New-
market ; Axe and Compasses in many places ; Axe and Clea-
ver, in Boston, Yorkshire. Another sign, complimentary to the
same class of workmen, was the Two Sawyers, which, at the
end of the last century, was to be seen near the garden wall of
the archiépiscopal palace at Lambeth ; not unlikely, this was the
same house, of which trades tokens are extant from the time of
Charles II., when it was kept by John Baines, and its locality is
described as the " New Plantation, Narrow Wall, Lambeth."

Signs referring to iron hi its various states are very common
on public-houses, as the smith is generally a good customer to
them. Iron seems to have a dipsetic effect even in the bowels of
the earth, if we may judge from the quantity of Miners' Arms in
Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and the black country, in which
latitudes teetotalism evidently has made but little progress ; the
Davy Lamp is another sign intended to court the custom of
miners, but being almost exclusively for workmen in coal pits, it
only occurs in Northumberland. The Forge, or the Three
Forges, is common in the Midland iron districts. The Cinder-
oven occurs in Norwich. The Anvil, the Anvil and Black*
smith, the Anvil and Hammer, the Smith and Smithy, die.,
are all common about Sheffield. So are Hammers, combined

with various instruments, as Pincers, Vice, Stithy, <fcc. The
Two Smiths was a sign in the Minories in 1655 ; the trades
tokens of the house represent two men working at the anvil.
Hobnails is a sign in Dudley, that town having been famous
for the manufacture of nails of every description, even as early
as the time of Henry VIII., for the nails used in building the
hall at Hampton Court came from there, and the original ac-
counts preserved in the Public Record Office state that there
was " Payde to Raynalde Warde, of Dudley, for 7350 of dubby 11
tenpenny nayles inglys at lis. the 1000."

The Bag op Nails was once a very common sign; there is
one still remaining in Arabella Bow, Pimlico. " About fifty
years ago, the original sign might have been seen at the front of
the house, which was a satyr of the woods, and a group of jolly
dogs, ycleped Bacchanals. But the satyr having been painted
with cloven feet, and painted black, it was by the common
people called the Devil, while the Bacchanalians were transmuted
by a comical process into a Bag of Nails."* This was, how-
ever, only an old slang name for the house, for, in the trial of
Catlin, Patterson, and others, for conspiracy, one of the wit-
nesses describing the place where the conspirators used to meet,
says : " He went into a public-house, the sign of the Devil and
Bag of Nails, for so that gentry called it amongst themselves,
(though it was the Blackmoor's Head and Woolpacic,) by
Buckingham Gate."+

A bona fide representation of a bag of nails was also used as a
sign, as may be seen on the trades token of Henry Hurdam in
Tuttle (Tothill) Street, Westminster, 1G63, where the bag of nails
is combined with a hammer crowned. And as it would be diffi-
cult to guess what the bag contained, and nobody cares to buy
" a pig in a poke," the nails were sometimes represented protrud-
ing through it, as on the token of Samuel Hincks of White-
chapel, 1669. A somewhat similar sign is expressed in Rouen,
Rue des Bons Enfans ; it is carved in stone, and represents a
bag with smith's tools protruding out of it.

Bakers and millers also are represented by a variety of signs.
Beginning at the Bushel, a sign on the Bankside in the seven-
teenth century, and the Shovel and Sieve, the sign of a brush
and turnery warehouse among the Bagford Bills, we next

accompany the corn to the mill, where we meet the Dusty
Miller, a favourite sign in some parts of Yorkshire and Lan-
cashire. A reminiscence of childhood may have suggested the
epithet in this sign, for there is the well known nursery rhyme,

The Windmill itself is a very old sign. It was a tavern in
Lothbury, Old Jewry, frequented by fast men in the reigns of
Elizabeth, James, and Charles I. Wellbred, in " Every Man in
his Humour," (a play by Ben Jonson,) dates his letter to Edward
Knowell from this house :—

" Why, Ned, I beseech thee, hast thou forsworn all thy friends in the
Old Jewry, or doest thou think us all Jews that inhabit there," &c.

" Hugh Clapton, Mercer, mayor, in 1492, dwelt in this house and kept
his Mayoralty there; it is now a tavern, and has to sign a Windmill. And
thus much for this house, sometime a Jew's synagogue [in 1262,] since a
house of friars, [fratres de penitentia Jesu orde Sacca, 1275,] then a noble-
man's house, [Robert Fitz Walter, 1305,] after that a merchant's house,
wherein Mayoralties have been kept, and now a wine taverne."—Stow.

The Peel, i. e., the wooden shovel with a long handle used by
bakers to place bread in the oven, was the sign of John Alder, in
Leadenhall Street, 1668. Next comes the basket or Panyer,
to bring bread round, which gave its name to " a passage out of
Paternoster Bow—called of such a sign Panyer Alley."¹ This is
the highest spot in the City of London, as we are informed from
an inscription under a stone figure of a boy sitting on a pannier,
eating a very questionable bunch of grapes :

The Pannier was not an uncommon trade emblem. The Baker a nd
Basket is the sign of a public-house in Leman Street, and another
in Worship Street. The claims to superior usefulness of the Baker
and Brewer are held forth triumphantly to the advantage of the
latter in some signs of this name. One, in Wash Lane, Birmingham,
gives a pictorial representation of it; the baker's hand is resting on
what is usually called the " Staff of Life,"—namely, a loaf of very

respectable dimensions; tlie brewer exhibits " with artful pride,"
a foaming tankard, when the following dialogue ensues :—

The Two Brewers, or the Two Jolly Brewers, used to be
very common, but is now gradually becoming obsolete. It
represented two brewers' men carrying a barrel of beer slung
between them on a pole; it was also frequently called the Two
Draymen. In the bar of the Queen's Head Tavern, Great
Queen Street, is preserved a carved wooden sign, which formerly
hung before this house, representing two men standing near a
large tun. The Dray and Horses, meaning of course the
brewer's dray, has now in some instances superseded the Two
Jolly Brewers. The Still, the chief implement in the manu-
facture of spirits, is very appropriate before the houses where
the produce of the still is sold : frequently it is combined with
other objects.

The Boy and Barrel, to be seen in Dagger Lane, London,
and in many country places, is all that remains of the little
Bacchus on a tun, formerly in almost every ale-house :—

" A little Punch-
Gut Bacchus dangling of a bunch,
Sits loftily enthron'd upon
What's called (in Miniature) a Tun."

The Boy and Cup at Norwich, in 1750, was a variation of
this sign. Other brewers and distillers' measures also are ex-
hibited, as the Barrel; the Porter Butt, (three in Bath;) the
Brandy Casks, (three in Bristol;) the Bum Puncheon, at Bos-
ton, Lincoln, and such like. Promises of fair dealing are held
out in the sign of the Full Measure, (four in Hull;) the
Golden Measure, Lowgate, Hull; and the Foaming Tankard;
or, an appeal is made to public joviality by such a sign as the
Parting Pot, at Stamford, Lincoln.

Shoemakers generally follow the advice of the proverb, ne sutor
ultra crepidam, and confine themselves to the sign of the Last,
which, for variety's sake, they paint red, blue, gold, &c. But
since " cobblers and tinkers are the best ale drinkers," many ale-
houses have adopted this sign also. A Crispin who keeps an

ale-house near Liscard, Chester, has shown himself " true to the
last," by putting under his sign of a Wooden Shoe or Last:—
" All day long I have sought good beer,
And, at the last, I have found it here."

The Shears was originally a tailor's sign, though like most
other trade emblems it had become common in the seventeenth
century.

This elegant little verse is quoted by Handle Holme, and seems
to have been thought such a good joke, that a canny Scotchman,
buried in Paisley Abbey, had a pictorial representation of it on
his headstone. Charles Mackie, who wrote the history of that
Abbey, says it is an obliterated cross; more probably, however,
it is a Jleur de luce: this would also agree with the Scottish
pronunciation of the name of the insect, which is exactly the
same as the last part of that heraldic charge.

The Hand and Shears, in Cloth Fair, Smithfield, played an
important part at the opening of Bartholomew Fair. It was
customary to make the proclamation for opening the fair late in
the afternoon of August 23d, but the show^rmen and traders
opened their booths early in the morning :—

" Lawful objections being made to this, a riotous assembly met the night
before the day of the Mayor's Proclamation at the public-house within
Cloth Fair, in which the Court of Piepoudre was held,* the Hand and
Shears—now transformed into a tall brick gin-palace—and at midnight
sallied forth, bearing along, in later years, the effigy of a w.mian to repre-
sent Lady Holland, (who must have been instigator, and it would seem, first
leader of the mob,) and the mob—knocking at doors, ringing bells, clamour-
ing and rioting, some five thousand strong, during three hours of the mid-
dle of the night—proclaimed for itself, in its own way, that Bartholomew
Fair was open. The first irregular proclamation was for many years made
by a company of tailors, who met the night before the legal proclamation
at the Hand and Shears, elected a chairman, and as the clock struck twelve
went out into Cloth Fair, each with a pair of shears in his hand. The chair-
man then proclaimed the Fair to the expectant mob, who all sped on their
errand of riot, to arouse with the news of it the sleepers in the neighbour-
hood of Smithfield." +

The Three Crowned Needles looks also like a tailor's sign,
and from the evidence of a trades token of 1669 we know that
it was the sign of a shop in Aldersgate. Hatton thinks that a
similar sign may have given its name to Threadneedle Street,

* The court before which persons aggrieved in the Pair might have a " speedy relief."
t II. Morley, Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair, p. 237. See also Hone's Every-day Book,
Sej t. 5, vol. i.

(Three Needle Street.) Three Crowned Needles was a charge in
the needie-makers' company's arms. It is a curious fact that all
the needles used in England up to the time of Queen Elizabeth
were of foreign make; those sold in Clieapside in the reign of
Queen Mary were made by a Spanish negro, who carried the
secret of their manufacture with him to the grave. In 1566 they
w^rere manufactured under the direction of a German, Elias
Grause, and after that time only it seems that we had learned
how to make them.

Among agricultural signs, the Plough leads the van, some-
times accompanied by the legend " Speed the Plough." Of two
inscriptions on the sign of the Plough that have come under our
observation, both contain sound advice. That of the Plough at
Filey might well be remembered by " afternoon" farmers : it
says:—

In the inventory of church goods made at Holbeach, in Lin-
coln, at the time of the Reformation :—

This probably refers to the signs or badges exhibited by the
religious guilds in the middle ages over the altars and as decora-
tions in their churches, which were in some measure of the nature
of other signs, in pointing out certain fraternities or trades, be-
sides possessing a secondary and religious meaning.

The Plough and Horses is a sign at Branston, Lincoln.
The Plough and Harrow is very common. Two doors west
from the Harrow Inn lived Isaac Walton, about 1624, carrying
on the business of " milliner and sempster," or what we should
now call a linen-draper. He afterwards resided at a house in
Chancery Lane, untd he left London, for fear of having his
morals corrupted—as he himself asserted. Goldsmith's tailor,
who lived at the sign of the Harrow, has gained immortality by
the bad taste of poor Goldy. On one occasion—

Reriously vain of it, for bis mind was wonderfully prone to such impres-
sions. ' Come, come,' said Garrick, ' talk no more of that, you are perhaps
the worst—eh, eh.' Goldsmith was eagerly attempting to interrupt him,
when Garrick went on, laughing ironically, ' Nay, you will always look
like a gentleman, but I am talking of being well or ill drest.' ' Well, let
me tell you,' said Goldsmith, ' when my tailor brought home my bloom-
coloured coat, he said, " Sir, I have a favour to beg of you. When any-
body asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention, John Filby,
at the Harrow in Water Lane."' Johnson. 'Why, sir, that was because
he knew the strange colour would attract crowds to gaze at it, and then
they might hear of him, and see how well he could make a coat even of so
absurd a colour.'" ¹

Near Bagshot there is a public-house called the Jolly Farmer,
a corruption of the Golden Farmer, a nickname obtained by one
of the former possessors on account of his wealth, and his custom
of paying his rent always in guineas, which—so says the legend
—he obtained as a footpad on Bagshot Heath. That some such
thing happened is evident from the Weekly Journal, March 29,
1718, where allusion is made to "Bagshot Heath, near the Gib-
bet where the Golden Farmer hanged in chains." The use of
this word J oily, on the signboard, formerly so common in our
" Merry England," is now gradually dying away. Whatever be
the opinion of our workmen upon the subject of national good
humour, they no longer desire to be advertised as Jolly; it is
vulgar, and they prefer Arms like their betters—hence those
heraldic anomalies of the Graziers' Arms, the Farmers' Arms,
the Chaff-Cutters' Arms, the Puddlers' Arms, the Paviors'
Arms, and so forth.

calling up pictures of rouged shepherdesses with jaunty straw
hats on the top of powdered hair a foot high, short quilted
petticoats and high-heeled boots, courted in madrigals by shep-
herds dressed in the height of the elegance of the New Exchange
gallants, with ribboned crooks and flowered-satin waistcoats. It
was the sign of a pleasure resort in the City Boad, Islington,
much frequented in the eighteenth century for amusement, and
by invalids for the pure, healthy, country air of Islington, which
was then a charming village, more rural in the midst of its mea-

dows and rivulets tlian Richmond is now. Cakes, cream, and fur-
mity were its great attractions :—

" To the Shepherd and Shepherdess then they go
To tea with their wives for a constant rule,
And next cross the road to the Fountain also.
And there they sit so pleasant and cool,
And see in and out
The folks walk about,
And gentlemen angling in Peerless Pool."¹

More business-like is the sign of the Shepherd and Dog ; he,
too, wears patches, but not on his face; so with the Shepherd and
Crook, and the Crook and Shears. All these may be found in
most villages, and refer to the inferior farm-labourer, to whom the
care of the flock is intrusted, and not the elegant Corydon or Alexis.

The merry, thirsty time of haymaking is commemorated in
the usual signs of a Load op Hay and the Cross Scythes.
There is a Load op Hay tavern on Haverstock Hill, a favourite
place for Sunday afternoon excursionists in the summer time.
Many years ago the eccentricity of Davies the landlord was one
of the attractions of the place. Lately the house has been re-built,
and it is now only a suburban gin-palace. The Mattock and
Spade, and the Spade and Becket, refer to field labour; the
first is very general, the second less so ; but an example occurs at
Chatteris, Cambridgeshire. The Peat Spade, Longstock, Hants,
tells its own tale. The Dairy Maid was in great favour with
the London cheesemongers of the seventeenth century. Aker-
man gives a trades token of such a sign in Catherine Street, in
1G53, which is an amusing specimen of the liberties the token
engravers took with the king's English, the country Phillis being
transformed into a " Deary Made." The Dutch in the seven-
teenth century used the sign for a rather heterogenous trade : it
seems that the process of sucking or inhaling the tobacco smoke
carried back their ideas to tender years of innocence and milk
diet, and so the Dairy Maid became the sign, par excellence, of
tobacco shops. Even at the present day that idea is not quite
forgotten; tobacco boxes or other smoking implements are
sometimes seen amongst that nation, with the words, " Troost
for Zuigelingen," " consolation for sucklings." The inscriptions
under these signs were occasionally very curious :—

* Formerly a dangerous pond in Old Street Road, in which a number of people were
drowned, whence it obtained its name of perilous Pond. In 1713 it was walled in by
one Kemp, who on that occasion altered its name into Peerless Pool, by a similar procts*
as the Poatus s, inhospitable, was called (V^ivos, hospitable, by the Greeks.

" Toebak that edel kruyt aoveel daarvan getuygen
A1 die lang zyn gespeent beginnez weer te zuygen." "

On the Goudsche Melkmeid in Amsterdam :—
" Goede Waar en goed bescheid
Krygt gy hier in de Goudsche Melkmeid
Puyk van Verinas en Virginia Tabac
Kunt gy hier rooken op uvv gemak." +
Another had :—

"Teckere Neusen, eele baasen,
Die by't klinken van de glaasen
Tot het smooken zyt bereyt;
Zoekje't beste van den acker
Puyk verynis ? komt dan wacker
By de walsse niellik-meid." J
Harvest-home, the pleasant time of congratulation and feast-
ing, must be an alluring sign for the villagers, calling up recol-
lections of all the festivities yearly celebrated on that grand
occasion, when—

" the harvest treasures all
Are gather'd in beyond the rage of storms,
Sure to the swain."—Thomson.
One of the misfortunes of the " nimium fortunati sua si bona
norint " is pictured in the Cart Overthrown, which is a pub-
lic-house sign at Lower Edmonton ; though how it came to be
such is difficult to guess. On Highgate Hill there is an old
roadside inn, the Fox and Crown, which displays on its front a
fine gilt coat of arms with the following inscription under
neath :—

6th July 1837.
This Coat of Akms is a Grant
from Queen Victoria, for Ser-
vices rendered to her majesty
when in Danger Travelling
down this Hill.

The carriage conveying Her Majesty was proceeding down the
hill without a skid on the wheel, when something started the
horses, and the occurrence above narrated took place. The late
landlord died in distressed circumstances, and he stoutly asserted
to the last, that although he made repeated applications to the
Government for recompense, he having imperilled his own life to
save that of Her Majesty, all he ever received for his pains was
permission to display the royal arms on his house front.

The Woodman is another very common sign, invariably repre-
senting the same woodman copied from Barker's picture, and evi-
dently suggested by Cowper's charming description of a winter's
morning in the " Task." The Drover's Call is still seen on many
roadsides, though the profession that gave rise to it is well-nigh
extinct; the herds of steaming, fierce-looking oxen, formerly
driven from all parts of the kingdom, along the main roads lead-
ing to London, there to be devoured, being now nearly all sent
here by rail. A yet older practice produced the sign of the
String of Horses, which may still be seen on many a highroad
in the North, and dates from times before mail coaches and stage
waggons existed, when all the goods-traffic inland had to be per-
formed by strings of packhorses, who carried large baskets,
hampers, and bales slung across their backs, and slowly, though
far from surely, wound their way over miles and miles of unin-
habited tracts, moors, and fens, which lay between the small
towns and straggling villages.

Many signs still recall those bygone days : the Old Coach and
Six may yet be seen in some places. There is one, for instance,
in Westminster, but it is no longer a "sign of the times," for alas!—

"No more the coaches shall I see
Come trundling from the yard,
Nor hear the horn blown cheerily
By brandy-bibbing guard."

The names of the coaches were often adopted by inns on the
road; for instance, the Mail, the Telegraph, the Defiance,
the Balloon, the Tally-Ho, the Bano-up, the Express, &c.,
&c.; but alas! the modern railroad has swept away the signs as
well as the coaches.

In London, there are not less than fifty-two public-houses known
as the Coach and Horses, exclusive of beer-houses, coffee-houses,
an d similar establishments. Stow says, in his " Summary of English
Chronicles," that in 1555, Walter Bipon made a coach for the

Earl of Rutland, " which, was the first that was ever used in Entr-
land.'' But in his larger Chronicle he says :—

" In the year 1564 Guilliam Boonen, a Dutchman, became the queen's
coachman, and was the first that brought the use of coaches into England.
After a while divers great ladies, with as great jalousy of the queen's dis-
pleasure, made them coaches, and rid up and down the country in them,
to the great admiration of all the beholders, but then by little they grew
usual among the nobility and others of sort, and within twenty years be-
came a great trade of coachmaking."

Taylor the Water poet, who, as a waterman of course, bore a
grudge to coaches, said, " It is a doubtful question whether the
devil brought tobacco into England in a coach, for both appeared
at the same time." How common they became in a short time
appears from all the satirists of that period ; not only the nobility,
but even the citizens could no longer do without them, after
Ihey were once introduced. Not forty years after their first
appearance Pierce Pennyless, speaking of merchants' wives, says :
" She will not go unto the field to coure on the green grasse, but
she must have a coach for her convoy." * No wonder, then, that,
according to the " Coach and Sedan," a pamphlet of 1636, thera
were then in London, the suburbs, and four miles' compass with-
out, coaches to the number of 6000 and odd. These were nearly
all private carriages, for the hackney coaches were only established
in 1625 by one Captain Bailey. Their first stand was at the
Maypole in the Strand. They numbered about twenty, and were
attached to the principal inns. In 1636, the number of hackney-
coaches was confined to 50 ; in 1652, to 200 ; in 1654, to 300 ;
in 1662, to 400 ; in 1694, to 700 ; in 1710, to 800; in 1771,
to 1000 ; in 1802, to 1100 ; but in 1833 all limitation of number
ceased. Besides cabs of various kinds, there are now above a
thousand omnibusses regularly employed in the Metropolis, and
the commissioners of stamps are authorised to license all such
carriages without limitation as to number; the proprietor paying
the duty of £5 for the licence, and 10s. per week during its con-
tinuance. What a difference just two centuries ago, when by
proclamation of the " Merry Monarch :"—

" The excessive number of hackney coaches [about 400] and coach horses
in Loudon, are found to be a common nuisance to the public damage of
our people, by reason of their rude and disorderly standing, and passing to
and fro, in and about our cities and suburbs; the streets and highways
being thereof pestered and much impassable, the pavement broken up, and
the common passages obstructed and made dangerous." Hence orders are

given, that " henceforth none shall stand in the street, but only within their
coach-houses, stables, and yards."

At the Coach and Horses, Bartholomew Close, some vestiges of
the ancient buildings of St Bartholomew's Hospital and Convent
still remain—viz., a clustered column in the beer cellar, Avails of
immense thickness, and an early English window in the taproom,
&c. This building occupies the site of the north cloister.* An-
other Coach and Horses, in Bay Street, Clerkenwell, is also built
on classic ground, for it occupies the site of the once famous
Hockley-in-the-Hole of bear-baiting memory. A comical ale-
house keeper in Oswestry has travestied the sign of the Coach
and Horses into the Coach and Dogs.

The Wheel, an object sometimes seen on signboards, may
have been derived from the Catherine Wheel, (the name of a
favourite old coaching inn in Bishopsgate Street,) or from the
wheel of fortune ; the Saddle and the Spur are both very general
on roadside inns, owing to the ancient mode of travelling 011
horseback; the Whip occurs in Briggate, Leeds.

In Norwich there was (and we believe is still) a curious com-
bination, the Whip and Egg, which existed in that locality as
early as the year 1750,+ and which is enumerated in London, under
the name of the Whip and Eggshell, amongst the taverns in
the black letter ballad of " London's Ordinarie, or Everie Man in
his Humour," whilst a still earlier mention occurs in Mother
Bunch's Merriment, (1 604,) when the transformation of pigs into
fowls, whereby one of the gulls was so " sweetly deceyved," is
laid at the Whip and Eggshell. It has been explained as a cor-
ruption of the Whip and Nag, but the combination of these two
would be so obvious that a corruption would scarcely be possible.
In " Great Britain's Wonder, or London's Admiration," a ballad
on the frost of 1685, when the Thames was frozen over, and a
fair held upon it, the following lines occur :—

" In this same street, before the Temple tnade,+
There seems to be a brisk and lively trade,
When ev'ry booth hath such a cunning sign
As seldom hath been seen in former time;

The Whip and Egg, therefore, figured 011 the ice, and may have
been brought together from the whipping of eggs, in making egg-

punch, egg-flip, and similar beverages, much drunk on the ice in
Holland ; and as there were always crowds of Dutchmen on the
ice, whenever the river was frozen over, they may have introduced
their favourite drink as well as their Dutch whirlings, whimsies,
and flying boats, and the sign have been invented in order to indi-
cate the sale of those liquors.

The Three Jolly Butchers used to be seen in the neighbour-
hood of markets and shambles, either in allusion to the three
merry north-country butchers, who killed nine highwaymen,
according to the ballad, or simply that favourite combination of
three which is of such frequent recurrence. The Cleaver seems
also to be in compliment to this profession, as well as the Mar-
rowbones and Cleaver. This last is a sign in Fetter Lane, origi-
nating from a custom, now rapidly dying away, of the butcher boys
serenading newly married couples with these professional instru-
ments. Formerly, the band would consist of four cleavers, each
of a different tone, or, if complete, of eight, and by beating their
marrowbones skilfully against these, they obtained a sort of
music somewhat after the fashion of indifferent bell-ringing.
When well performed, however, and heard from a proper distance,
it was not altogether unpleasant. A largesse of half-a-crown or
a crown was generally expected for this delicate attention. The
butchers of Clare market had the reputation of being the best
performers. The last public appearance of this popular music was
at the marriage of the Prince of Wales, when small bands of them
perambulated the town, playing " God Save the Queen." This
music was once so common that Tom Killigrew called it the
national instrument of England. In 1759 a burlesque Ode on
St Cecilia's day, written by Bonnell Thornton, was performed at
lianelagh. Amongst the instruments employed in this there
was a band of marrowbones and cleavers, whose endeavours were
admitted by the cognoscenti to have been " a complete success."

As the use of coaches gave rise to the sign of the Coach and
Horses, so the Sedan produced some signs, as the Sedan Chair,
Broad Quay, Bristol; North Searle, Newark ; the Two Chair-
men, &c., Warwick Street, Cockspur Street, and other parts of
London; and the Three Chairs in the seventeenth century, a
famous tavern in the Little Piazza, Covent Garden. The Sedan,
says Bandle Holme, "is a thing in which sick and crazy persons are
carried abroad, which is borne up by the staves by two lusty men."*

Tlie first sedan chair used in England was one that the Duke of
Buckingham had received as a gift from Charles I., when Prince
of Wales, 011 his return from that romantic " Jean-de-Paris " ex-
pedition to Spain.* The use of it got the Duke into trouble,
and he was accused of " degrading Englishmen into slaves and
beasts of burden." Lysons, in his "Magna Britannia," gives
another origin for them ; speaking of Duncombe at Battlesden, in
Bedfordshire, he says :—

" It was to one of this family, Sir Saunders Duncombe, a gentleman pen-
sioner to King James and Charles I., that we are indebted for the accom-
modation of the sedans or close chairs, the use of which was first introduced
by him in this country in the year 1634, when he procured a patent which
vested in him and his heirs the sole right of carrying persons up and down
in them for a certain time."

Sir Saunders hereupon got forty or fifty sedans made, and sent
them about town, but differences soon arose between the chair-
men and the coachmen. Pamphlets were written,+ ballads were
sung on the occasion, and the public sided with one or the other,
according to individual taste. A ballad in favour of the sedan
said:—

" I love sedans, cause they do plod
And amble everywhere,
Which prancers are with leather shod,

And neere disturb the care.
Heigh downe, dery, dery, downe,
With the hackney coaches downe,
Their jumpings make
The pavement shake,
Their noyse doth mad the towne." t

De Foe, in 1702, says, "We are carried to these places [coffee-
houses] in chairs, which are here very cheap—a guinea a week,
or a shilling per hour—and your chairmen serve you for porters
to run on errands, as your gondoliers do at Venice." The chair-
men of the aristocracy wore gaudy liveries and plumed hats, and
their chairs were richly gilt and painted, and provided with velvet
cushions. They used to be kept in the halls of their large
mansions. As for the chairmen, we may infer from Gay's
" Trivia " that they were an insolent set of fellows :—

* Dr Johnson's explanation that they received their name from the town of Sedan,
whence they were introduced into England, is evidently a mistake—for the French copied
them from us. See Tallemant des Reaux, " Contes et HistorietteB," vol. vii., p. 102.
t Coach and Sedan pleasantly disputing for Place and Precedence. 4to, 1030.
t Roxburghi; Ballads, vol. i., fol. 546, entitled "The Coaches Overthrow, or a joviail Ex-
altation of divers tradesmen and others for the suppression of troublesome Hackney
Coaches."

" Let not the chairman with assuming stride
Press near the wall and rudely thrust thy side,
The laws have set him bounds; his servile feet
Should ne'er encroach where posts defend the street.
Yet, who the footman's arrogance can quell,
Whose flambeau gilds the sashes of Pall Mall,
When in long rank a train of torches flame,
To light the midnight visits of the dame."

The trumpet-like instruments in which these torches were ex-
tinguished, when arrived at their place of destination, are still
seen attached to the area railingr of most of the houses in Gros-
venor and St James' Squares, and various other parts of the town
fashionably inhabited at that period.

Another creature of this class, now as completely extinct aa
the Plesiosaurus and the Megatherion, or any other monster of
the pre-Adamite world, was the Running Footman. We can-
not say that there is not a " sign" of him left, for there is one in
Charles Street, Berkeley Square, representing a man in gaudy
attire, running, with a long cane in his hand—under it, " I am
the only Running Footman." This was a class of servants
used by rich families in former days to run before the carriage,
to clear the way, bear torches at night, pay turnpikes, and serving
also in a great measure for pomp. Generally their livery was
very rich, being somewhat of the Jockey dress, with a silk sash
round the Avaist; sometimes, instead of breeches, they wore a
sort of silk petticoat AA^rith a deep gold fringe. They carried long
sticks Avitli silver heads, which have now descended to their suc-
cessors the footmen. The Duke of Queensberry was one of the
last noblemen who kept running footmen. A good story is told
of him in connexion Avith one of these servants. Whenever his
grace Avanted to engage one it Avas his custom to make him put
on his livery and run up and down Piccadilly, whilst he, from his
balcony, watched their paces ; and so it happened on a time, that
after one of those fellows had gone through all his evolutions and
presented himself under the balcony, the Duke said : " That will
do; you will suit me very well." " And so your livery does me,"
Avas the answer, and off the fellow went running like a deer and
Avas never heard of aftenvards. Another feat on record, some-
Avhat more to the credit of the fraternity, was that one of them
ran for a Avager to Windsor against the Duke of Marlborough in
a phaeton with four horses, and lost only by a short distance; but
it cost the poor fellow his life, for he died very soon after. Most

of these running footmen were Irish, hence Decker* says—" The
Devil's footeman was very nimble of his heeles, for no wild Irish-
man could outrunne him," and Brathwaite remarks :—

" For see those thin-breech'd Irish lackies run." 1'
St Patrick's day was generally given to them as a holiday, which
they invariably celebrated by purging themselves. In various
country places the sign of the Running Footman has been cor-
rupted into the Running Man.

" A trusty servant's portrait would you see,
This emblematic figure well survey;
The porker's snout not nice in diet shows,
The padlock shut, no secret he '11 disclose.
Patient the ass his master's rage will bear,
Swiftness in errand the stag's feet declare.
Loaden his left hand apt to labour saith,
The vest his neatness : open hand his faith.
Girt with his sword, his shield upon his arm,
Himself and master he '11 protect from harm."

The origin of this sign is a picture on the wall of one of the
rooms, near the kitchen of Winchester College, where it is accom-
panied by the above verses in English and Latin.

Further, there is the Stave-Porter, Dockkead, London; the
Ticket-Porter, near London Bridge; the Porter's Lodge, Lei-
cester; and the Porter and Gentleman in three different places
in London.

The Huntsman is common in the hunting districts. To the
hunt, also, we must refer such signs as—Hark to Bounty, Staid-
burn, Clitheroe; Hark up to Nudger, Dobcross, Manchester;
Hark the Lasher, near Castleton, Derby; Hark up to Glory,
Rochdale, and the Chase Inn in Leamington. In Cambridge
there are two signs of the Birdbolt, an implement formerly used
to shoot birds ; consequently it must be a sign of some antiquity.
En Nightingale Lane, East Smithfield, there is an Experienced
Fowler, who, no doubt, well knows the value of " a bird in the
hand," and at Oldham and Rochdale there is an equally satirical
sign, that of the Trap. The Angler is common enough in the
neighbourhood of trout streams and other fishing resorts fre-
quented by the disciples of Isaak Walton.

relating to them. The Tallow Chandler, very common among
the trades tokens, was always represented by a man dipping
candles. To that trade also seems to belong the Bowls and
Candle Poles, which occurs in the following rambling advertise-
ment :—■

A Promissory Note for one hundred and twenty Pounds, signed by John
Smallwood and indorsed by John Addams. Whoever will bring the same
note to the House known by the Bowls and Candlepoles in Duke Street,
in the Park, Soutkwark, shall receive five Guineas Reward; and if offered
to be paid away or any Writ to be taken out for payment of the said Note,
pray stop it and the party, and you shall have the same Reward.

*„* The House is in Tenements, and some part thereof being a Pawn-
broker's, was broke open and several things of value missing. Note, This
mischief arrises from a country Butcher, who did strike and kick an old
Gentleman at London Bridge, about three quarters of a year ago. And all
persons who did see the said Assault and will speak the truth, (for Christ's
sake,) are desired to send their Names and Place of Abode to the Bowls
and Candlepoles and the favour shall be thankfully acknowledged." *

The Scales is a common sign referring to various trades : one
of the engraved bill-heads in the Bagford Collection gives the
Hand and Scales—viz., a hand holding a pair of scales; this
antiquated mode of representing a hand issuing from the clouds
to perform some action, has given name to a great many signs
—all combinations of the hand with some other object. The
Spinning Wheel was formerly much more common than now;
there is still a public-house with this sign at Hamsterley near
Darlington. The Woolsack was originally a wool-merchant's
sign; it is often accompanied by the Black Boy. Machyn men-
tions this sign in 1555 : "The xx day of July was cared to the
Toure in the morning erlee iiij men; on was the goodman of
the Volsake witli-owt Algatt." It seems to have been one of the
leading taverns in Ben Jonson's time, who often alludes to it in
his plays ; like the Dagger, it was famous for its pies.

" And see how the factors and prentices play there
False with their masters, and geld many a full pack,
To spend it in pies at the Dagger and the Woolpack."

The Devil is an Ass, act i., sc. 1.
" Her Grace would have you eat no more Woolsack pies nor Dagger fur-
mety."— Alchymist, act v., sc. 2.

In the year 1082, the Woolsack Tavern in Newgate Market
attracted great attention, owing to a wonderful phenomenon

there exhibited, and set forth in the following handbill from the
Sloane Collection. No. 958 :—

"at the sign of the Woolpack in Newgate Street, is to be seen a strange
A and wonderful thing, which is, an elm-board, being touch'd with a
hot iron, doth express itself, as if it was a man dying, with grones and
trembling, to the great admiration of all the hearers. It has been pre-
sented before the King and his nobles, and hath given them great satis-
faction. Vivat Rex."

Such a curiosity could not fail to prove an object of immense
attraction with our wonder-loving ancestors, particularly after the
house had been visited by his Majesty, and thus acquired additional
respectability. Very soon, however, numerous London taverns
claimed public attention for similar wonders. It was as if the
wood used in their construction had been cut from the myrtle-
tree which conversed with iEneas near the river Hebrus, ("iEncid,"
lib. iii. 19,) or from the "fiera selvaggia" Dante saw in the second
circle of Hades, where he

The mantel-piece at the Bowman Tavern, Drury Lane, ex-
pressed its aversion of a red hot poker as unequivocally as the
elm-board at the Woolsack, and the dresser at the Queen's Arms
in St Martin's Lane was evidently a " chip of the same block."
Indeed, boards were cauterised and groaned all over London.

The Block was a hatter's sign, or as that trade was sometimes
called, Bever-cutter, the block being the mould 011 which the hat
is formed. Beatrix, in "Much Ado about Nothing," says : "He
wears his faith, but as the fashion of his hat it ever changes with
the next block." And Decker, in the " Gull's Hornbook :"
" John, in Paul's Churchyard, shall fit his head for an excellent
block." The word was also often used as a synonym for "hat."

The Postboy was the sign of a fishmonger's shop in Sherborne
Lane, where in 1759 Green-native Colchester oysters were sold
at 3s. 3d. a barrel, and exceeding fine " Pyfleet oysters" at 4s. 3d.
a barrel. The Up and Down Post used to be, in the good old
coaching times, a thriving inn on the now deserted highway be-
tween Birmingham and Coventry. The picture represented an
erect and a prostrate pillar, which after all was only a rebus or a
misunderstanding. In former times, before the mail-coaches were
instituted, the equestrian letter-carriers of the up and down mail

used to meet at this liouse, exchange their bags and each return
whence they came, thus effecting a considerable saving of time
and trouble. Even washerwomen have been exalted to the sign-
board, for in Norwich there was the sign of the Three Washer-
women in 1750. And one of the implements of their trade, the
Golden Maid, (better known as " the Dolly,") may still be seen
at a turner's shop in Dudley.

A few others remain, which cannot, strictly speaking, be called
professions, yet are they—or at least they were—means of making
a living, as the Three Morris-dancers, once a very common
sign, but now, like the custom that gave rise to it, almost ex-
tinct. There is one still left, however, at Scarisbrook, Lanca-
shire, and in a few villages a remnant of the dance is also kept
up on certain occasions. They were called Morris, or Moors,
from the Spanish Morisco. Black faces were required for the
dance :—

" Nam faciem plerumque inficiunt fuligine et peregrinum vestium cul-
tum assumunt, qui ludicris talibus indulgent ut Mauriesse videantur, aut
e longius rexnota patria credantur advolasse atque insolens recreationia
genus advenisse." *

There is a painted glass window at Betley, in Staffordshire, on
which the characters performing the dance in the early part of
the sixteenth century are represented; to these afterwards others
were added. The earliest performers appear to have been called
Bobin Hood and Little John, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, the May
queen, the fool, the piper, and the plain rank and file of dancers
variously dressed. To these afterwards were added a dragon, a
hobby-horse, and other quaint types. Among the characters re-
presented 011 the painted window are also a franklein, a churl, or
peasant, and a nobleman. The hobby-horseman occupies the middle
of the window, and is said to represent a Moorish king : he has
two swords thrust into his cheeks, which seem to represent a
feat of dexterity performed by Indian and Egyptian jugglers of
throwing a somersault with two swords balanced on each side of
the cheek. The horse (merely a frame covered with long trap-
pings, and only showing the neck and limbs of a horse, in which
the man capered about) held a ladle in his mouth for collecting
money.

* Junius' Etymologia : " For those that take part in these games, besmear their faces
with «soot and adopt outlandish garments, so that fney may look like Moors, or as if tney
had tome from distant countries, and thence had introduced this quaint amusement."

rested a great deal of the duties to amuse the public, particularly
when the hobby-horse was not present; hence Ben Jonson :—

" But Bee the Hobby-Horse is forgot,
Fool, it must be your lot
To supply your wont with faces
And some other buffoon graces.

On May-day, which in those merry days was the merriest of all
the year, they came out in full force, and, along with the milk-
maids dancing with piles of plate on their heads, contributed not
a little to give the streets and thoroughfares a merry aspect. The
May-dance of the sweeps is perhaps the " last stage of decom-
position" of this amusement of our forefathers; their sooty com-
plexions, their clowns, their Lord and Lady and Jack in the
Green, may be all that remain of the morris-dance, the fool, the
Lord and Lady, the hobby-horse, and the rest.

In treating of games, we may advert to a rendering of the
Flying Horse, overlooked on a former occasion. Besides its
mythological and heraldic origin, there was another reason which
sometimes prompted the choice of this sign. It was the name
of a popular amusement, which consisted in a swing, the seat
of which formed a wooden horse. This the flying equestrian
mounted, and as he was swinging to and fro he had to take with
a sword the ring off a quintain. If he succeeded, his adroitness
was no doubt rewarded either with a number of swings gratis,
or a quotum of beer. Such a Flying Horse served for a sign to
an ale-house of that denomination in Moorfields, in the time of
Queen Anne. Swings, round-abouts, and such-like amusements,
were in those days the usual appendages of suburban ale-houses,
and to a certain extent have even come down to our time.

Oil and colour-shops generally, and some public-houses—
mostly near theatres—adopt the sign of the Harlequin. One
of the most noted amongst the latter was kept in the beginning
of this century in Drury Lane, by the eccentric Bichardson, the
showman, or, rather, the " Prince of Showmen," as he called
himself. In this tavern he saved some money, which enabled
him to fit up a travelling theatre, by which he realised so much,
that when he died in 1836, he left £20,000. It used to be one
of his boasts that he had brought out Edmund Kean, and several
>cher eminent actors. He desired in his will to be buried at
Marlow, in Backs, (where he was born in the w^rorkhouse,) in the

same grave with the " Spotted Boy," a natural phenomenon
which had been one of his luckiest hits, and brought him a con-
siderable amount of money.

It is curious to observe how the same simple thing has made
mankind laugh for nearly thirty centuries, and that is a black
face. In our age a large proportion of the public seem to find
inexhaustible pleasure in pseudo-negroes, their songs and antics.
The Greeks on their stage had a young satyr, dressed in goat
or tiger-skin, with a short stick in his hand, a white hat on his
head, his hair cut short, and a brown maslc. This satyr per-
formed some antics, and was the prototype of the harlequin.
The Romans adopted a somewhat similar character under the
name of planipes, because he did not wear the tragic cothurna;
he also wore a variegated dress, for Apuleius, in his " Apology,"
speaks of the " mimus centunculus." From the Romans it de-
scended to the Italians, and as early as the sixteenth century we
find the whole troop complete, playing in Spain, namely, Harle-
quin, Pantaloon, Pagliacico, the Doctor, <fcc. At a masked bail
at the court of Charles IX., in 1572, the king represented Brig-
hella; the Cardinal of Lorraine, Pantaloon; Catherine de
Medici, Columbine; and the Duke of Anjou, (afterwards
Henry III.,) Harlequin. At that time, or shortly after, the
troop of the Golosi played the Italian pieces in Paris, in which
these characters were introduced.

For the sign of the Green Man there is a twofold explana-
tion. lo. That it represents the green, wild, or wood men of the
shows and pageants, such as described by Machyn in his Diary
on Lord Mayor's Day, October 29, 1553 :—" Then cam ij grett
wodyn with ij grett clubes all in grene and with skwybes
[squibs] bornyng .... with gret berds and ryd here and ij
targets a-pon their bake." This green in which they were
dressed consisted of green leaves. When Queen Elizabeth was
at Kenilworth Castle, in 1575, "on the x of Julee met her in
the Forest as she came from hunting one clad like a savage
man all in ivie,"* who made a very neat speech to the queen,
in which he was kindly assisted by the echo. Besides wielding
sticks with crackers in pageants, these green men sometimes
fought with each other, attacked castles and dragons, and were
altogether a very favourite popular character with the public.
One of their duties seems to have been to clear the way for

processions. In one of tlie Harleian MSS., entitled " Tlio
manor of the showe, that is, if God spare life and health, shall
be seen by all the behoulders upon St Georges Day next, being
the 23 of Aprill, 1610," Ave see amongst the requirements :—

" It. ij men in greene leaves set with work upon their other habet with
black lieare & black beards very owgly to behould, and garlands upon
their heads with great clubs in their hands with fireworks to scatter abroad
to maintaine way for the rest of the show."*

" They are called woudtnen, or wildmen, thou' at thes day we in ye
signe call them Green Men, couered with grene boues: and are used for
singes by stillers of strong watters and if I mistake not are y^e sopourters
of y^e king of Deanmarks armes at thes day ; and I am abpt to beleve that
y^e Daynes learned us hear in England the use of those tosticatein lickers
[intoxicating] as well as y^e breweing of Aele and a fit emblem for those
that use that intosticating licker which berefts them of their sennes." f

2°. The second version of tbis sign is, that it is intended for
a forester, and in that garb the Green Man is now invariably
represented; even as far back as the seventeenth century, it is
evident from the trades tokens that the Green Man was
generally a forester, and, in many cases, Robin Hood himself,
which may be inferred from the small figure frequently intro-
duced beside him, and meant for Little John. The ballads
always described Robin and his merry men as dressed in green,
" Lincoln green." When Robin meets the page who brings him
presents from Queen Katherine :—

" Robin took his mantle from his backe,
It was of the Lincoln greene
And sent that by this lovely page
For a present unto the queene. " J

And in the same ballad, when he is going to court, " he clothed
his men in Lincolne greene," &c. Drayton, in his " Polyolbion,"
says:—

!' An hundred valiant men had this brave Robin Hood
Still ready at his call, that bowmen were right good,
All clad in Lincoln green which caps of red and blue."
Sometimes it is called Kendal green :—

* Ilarl. MSS,, No. 2150, fol. 356.
t Ilarl. MSS., No. 5900. , J Eoxburghe Ballads, vol. i„ f. 376.

It was, in fact, the ordinary dress of foresters and woodmen,
and is so still in Germany.

" All in a woodman's jacket he was clad,
Of Lincoln Green, belayed with silver lace."

One of the most noted Green Man taverns was that on
Stroud Green, Islington, formerly the residence of Sir Th.
Stapleton, of Gray's Court, Bart., whose initials, with those of
his wife, and the date 1609, were to be seen on the facade. It
was one of the suburban retreats frequented by the fashion in
the days of Charles I., when it had been converted into a tavern.
A century ago the sign bore the following inscription :—

A. club used to meet annually at this place, styling themselves
the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Corporation of Stroud Green. *
At Dulwich, in the reign of George II., there was another Green
Man, a place of amusement for the Londoners during the sum-
mer season ; it is enumerated, with other similar resorts, in the
following stanza :—

" That Vauxhall and Ruckholt and Ranelagh too,
And Hoxton and Sadlers both Old and New,
My Lord Cobham's Head and the Dulwich Green Man
May make as much pastime as ever they can.f

The Merry Andrew was a card-maker's sign ; in the Banks
Collection there is a shopbill of the time of Queen Anne, of
Edward Hall, card-maker to her Majesty at the Merry Andrew,
in Piccadilly. The playing-cards at that time used to have cer-
tain heads on the wrapper, according to which they were de-
nominated. Merry Andrew was one of them. Other sorts had
the Great Mogul, Henry VII., Henry VIII., and the Duke of
Savoy, (Prince Eugene;) second-class cards had the Queen of
Hungary, the Spaniard, the beau, and the Merry Andrew. The

f Rucholt was a reputed mansion of Queen Elizabeth, at Leyton, in Essex. Being
opened to the public in 1742, it became a fashionable summer drive during a couple of
seasons: public breakfasts, weekly concerts, and occasional oratorios were numbered
amongst its attractions. The house was pulled down in 1745. Old and New Sadler's
Wells relates to the well-known place in Islington, at that period a music hcuse.
Lord Cobham's llead has been noticed on p. 07.

original Merry Andrew is said to have been a certain Doctor
Andrew Borde, born at Pevensey in the fifteenth century, and
educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, but who
obtained his doctor's degree at Montpellier. His writings
abound with witticisms, Avhicli are reported also to have per-
vaded his speech. He is said to have frequented fairs, markets,
and other " busy haunts of men," haranguing the people in
order to increase his practice in physic. He had many followers
and imitators, whence it came that those who affected the same
language and gestures were called Merry Andrews. Notwith-
standing all this mirth and animal spirits, he professed himself a
Carthusian, lived in celibacy, drank water three days in the week,
wore a hair shirt, and nightly hung his shroud at the foot of his
bed. He is said to have been physician to King Henry VIII.,
and member of the College of Physicians in London. He died
a prisoner in the Fleet in 1549. More celebrated than his works
on physic are his " Merry Tales of the Wise Men of Gotham,"
and the " Merry History of the Miller of Abingdon."

Lower down still in the sphere of callings and professions the
signs will take us. At Oswald Wistle, Accrington, we meet with
the Tinker's Budget. The budget is the tinker's bag of instru-
ments ; we see the word thus used in Bandle Holme:*—"A
Tinker with his budget on his back, having always in his mouth
this merry cry :—'Have you any work for a Tinker?'" And
Shakespeare, in the " Winter's Tale :—

This inn, then, is certainly very modest in its pretensions ; but
we shall descend lower still. Even " poor Tom's flock of wild
geese," otherwise Tom of Bedlam, we have now to introduce.
We find him at Balsall, Warwick, and no doubt it was formerly
not an uncommon sign, since he was such a favourite in ballads ;
the Merry Tom, at Kirkcumbeck, Cumberland, evidently refers
to the same individual. Notwithstanding all the fantastic ballads
that went under Tom's name, he was but a sorry rogue. Bandle
Holme t says :—

" The Sow gelder and Tom of Bedlam are both wandering knaves alike,
and such as are seldom or never out of their way, having their home in
any place. The first is described as carrying a long staff, with a head like

a spear or a half pike, and a horn hung by his side from a broad leather
belt or girdle cross his shoulders. Tom of Bedlam is in the same garb,
with a long staff, and a Cow or Ox Horn by his side, but his cloathing is
more fantastic or ridiculous, for being a mad man he is madly decked and
dressed all over with Rubins, Feathers, cuttings of cloth and what not;
to make him seem a madman or one distracted, when he is no other but a
dissembling knave."

" Abram-men, otherwise called Tom of Bedlams; they are very strangely
and antickly garbed, with several coloured ribands or tape in their hats, it
may be instead of a feather, a fox tail hanging down a long stick, with
ribands streaming and the like ; yet for all their seeming madness they
have wit enough to steal as they go." ¹

" Before the Civil "VVarre, I remember Tom o' Bedlams went about a
begging. They had been such as had been in Bedlam and there recovered
and come to some degree of soberness, and when they were licensed to goe
out they had on their left arme an armilla of tinne (printed) about three
inches breadth, which was sodered on."-)*

This permission, if ever it was granted, was retracted after the
Restoration, for in the year 1675 the London Gazette contained
in several numbers the following advertisement:—

W don and countries, pretending themselves to be Lunaticks under
cure in the Hospitall of Betlilem, commonly called Bedlam, with brass
plates upon their arms and inscriptions thereon, These are to give notice
that there is no such liberty given to any Patients kept in the Hospital
for their cure, neither is any such plate as a distinction or mark put upon
any Lunatick during their being there or when discharged thence. And
that the same is a false pretence to colour their wandering and begging
and deceive the people to the dishonour of the Government of that
Hospital."

Not only men but also women of a roving disposition, adopted
poor Tom's horn,' and went wandering, begging, and pilfering
under the name of Bess of Bedlam, which is still seen as a sign
in Oak Street, Norwich. Bess was an old companion of poor
Tom, for in the play of King Lear, Tom sings a snatch of a song
with the words, " Come over the bourn, Bessy, to me," and in the

1 Canting Academy, second edition, 1674, as quoted in Malcolm's "Manners and
Customs," vol. i., p. JS2.

jollities of Plough Monday the fool and Bessy are two of the
principal personages.*

A third class of beggars called Mumpers, is also found on the
signboard under the name of the Three Mumpers.

Thus, after having gone through all ranks of society, from the
palace to the cottage, and from the sceptre to Tom's staff -with a
fox-tail, we now come to the great leveller Death, who also was
represented on the signboard. There were the Three Death's-
heads in Wapping, of which house trades tokens are extant;
probably it was an apothecary's, though it was a ghastly sign for
his customers. Undertakers were also strictly professional in
their choice. In the eighteenth century there were the Four
Coffins over against Somerset House,+ and another in Fleet
Street, the sign of Stephen Boome,| whose son was the unfortu-
nate author whom Pope has " gibbeted" in the Dunciad, as
afflicted with a " funereal frown." Savage, one of Pope's literary
sicarii, calls Roome "a perfect town-author,"§ and has drawn his
portrait in " An Author to be let, by Iscariot Hackney :"—

" Had it not been more laudable for Mr Roome, the son of an under-
taker, to have borne a link and a mourning staff, in the long procession of
a funeral—or even been more decent in him to have sung psalms according
to education, in an Anabaptist meeting, than to have been altering the
Jovial Crew or Merry Beggars into a wicked imitation of the Beggars'
Opera ?"

Another undertaker, James Maddox, clerk and coffin-maker of
St Olave's, had for a sign the Sugar-loaf and three Coffins.
The addition of the sugar-loaf has, of course, nothing to do with
his profession, for when death calls, the sweets of life are past.
It was simply the sign of a former tenant, suspended in front or
fixed in the wall of the house. Although the undertakers of the
present day do not display signs as of old, they advertise their
calling quite as effectually. The men who in their handbills
solicit us to try their " economic funerals," or to test one of their
" three guinea respectable interments,—one trial only asked,'' are

* There is a very unfavourable parallel between the Ladies and Besses of Bedlam in the
Muse's Recreation, 1656, entitled:—"Upon the naked Bedlams and spotted Beasts we
see in Covent Garden," beginning:—

"When Besse 1 she ne're was half so va^:nly clad,
Besse ne're was half so nalced, half so mad ;
Again, this raves with lust, for love Besse ranted,
Then Besse's skin is tanned—this is painted."
f Advertisement in the original edition of the Spectator, No. clxxxvl.
t City Mercury, or Advertisements concerning Trade. November 4,1675.
§ London Gazitte, May 30—June 3, 1681, where he gives a most dismal catalogue of
what he could do.

commercial with the rest of the age, although we might wish that
they would force themselves a little less upon our attention. One
undertaker recently hit upon what he deemed a brilliant method
of advertising his cheap funerals. He selected some good names
from the " Court Guide," and sent out hundreds of telegrams an-
nouncing the low prices at which a "body" could be interred. Some
reached their destination just as the lady or gentleman " body"
was sitting down to dinner, others as the " parties " were dress-
ing, or in the act of leaving home; but although the scheme
failed, the name of the undertaker and his prices were firmly
fixed in people's memories, and he received, instead of orders,
numerous cautions not to telegraph in that way again.

An undertaker in Islington, some years ago, exhibited in his
window some pleasing artistic efforts of his children, which must
have greatly comforted the father. " Master A,, aged 12 years,"
had produced a grinning skeleton, garnished with worms and
cross-bones; and "Miss B., aged 10," had painted in colours a
section of a vault, with coffin heads, skulls, and sexton's tools,
neatly arranged right and left. The drawings were tramed and
glazed, and parental pride had placed them in the best spot in
the windows.

Instead of carved or painted signs hung above the doors, many
shop and tavern keepers preferred to designate their houses after
some external feature, such as the colour of the building—thus
we find the Red house, the White house, the Blue house, the
Dark house, &c. Others painted their door-posts a particular
colour, whence the origin of the well-known Blue Posts. In
still older times painted posts or poles in front of the houses seem
occasionally to have served as signs ; to some such distinction, at
least Caxton's Bed Poles, as mentioned in one of his advertise-
ments, seems to refer :—

" £f it phase ong man gptrituel or temporel to hoe our puts
of ttoo or tljre cotnemoratia'g of saUshuu use, emprgntefc after tlje
form of tljts prese't tore hfljtclje hen to el anti ttulg correct, late
ijgnt come ts ftSJcstmoncster into tlje almonestrge at tlje Beed
Pale, anti Ije sljal Ijabe tljem gooti anti rijepe:

Supplt'co gtet cetmla."
Even in the seventeenth century such a distinction was still occa-
sionally used, as the Green Pales in Peter Street, Westminster;*
—and Stukeleyt speaks of Mr Brown's garden at the Green
Poles, where an urn was dug up lined with lead and filled with
earth and bones. In Etheredge's play " She Would if she Could,"
the Black Posts in James Street are named, (Act i., sc. 1,1703;)
whilst the newspapers in the beginning of the eighteenth cen-
tury contain advertisements stating that the mineral water from
Hampstead Wells might be obtained, at the rate of 3d. a flask,
from the lessee of the wells, who lived at the Black Posts in
King Street, near Guildhall.

Garden-houses, or Summer-houses, attached to a building,
were also used to designate shops and residences, as appears from
a trades token "at the garden-house in Blackfriars," and also
from a newspaper advertisement of 1G79, where the garden-
house in King Street, St Giles, is mentioned. Frequent allu-
sions to these garden-houses are found in the old plays; they
appear to have been similar in all intents and purposes to the

* London Gazette., August 28 to Sept, 1, 167ft.
f "ltinerarium Ouriosum," 1776, p. 14.

petites maisons of the profligate French nobility in the times of
the Régence. Stubbe, in his " Anatomy of Abuses," severely at-
tacks them :—

" In the suburhes of the citie they have gardens either paled or walled
round about very high, with their harbers and bowers fit for the purpose;
and lest they might be espied in those open places, they have their banquet-
ing houses, with galleries, turrets, and what not, therein sumptuously
erected, wherein they may, and doubtless do, many of them, play the filthy
persons."

The young Rake in Shakespeare's spurious play of the " Lon-
don Prodigal," (1604,) says to the lady :—

" Now, God thank you, sweet lady, if you have any friend, or a garden-
house where you may employ a poor gentleman as your friend, I am yours
to command in all sweet service."

" And if need be I have a couch and banqueting-house in my orchard,
where many a man of honour has not scorned to spend an afternoon."

He also alludes to it in the " City Madam." A remnant of this
custom is still to be traced in a few country towns, (Sunderland
for instance,) where the middle classes have little gardens, in the
outskirts of the town, with bowers and wooden summer-houses
for tea-drinldngs. In Holland they still flourish ; the family
usually take tea in them, whilst paterfamilias placidly smokes
his pipe and listens to the croaking of the frogs and the lowing
of the cows in the flat meadows beyond.

The Well and Bucket is a sign in Shoreditch, not badly
chosen, as it intimates an inexhaustible supply ; it is of very old
standing in London, for it is mentioned in the " Paston Letters "
in the year 1472.*

" I pray God send you all your desires and me my mewed goss-hawk in
haste, or, rather than fail, a scar-hawk ; there is a grocer dwelling right over
against the Well with Two Buckets, a little from St Helen's Church, hath
ever hawks to sell."

The anxiety about the bird, expressed in this letter, is most
amusing :—" I ask no more good of you for all the services that
I shall do you, while the world standetli, but a goss-hawk," is
the commencement of the letter, which concludes :—

" Now, think on me, good lord, for if I have not an hawk I shall wax fat
for default of labour, and dead for default of company by my troth."

In old times the ale-house windows were generally open, so
that the company within might enjoy the fresh air, and see all

tliat wa3 going on in the street; but, as the scenes within were
not always fit to be seen by the " profanum vulgus " that passed
by, a trellis was put up in the open window. This trellis, or
lattice, was generally painted red, to the intent, it has been
jocularly suggested, that it might harmonise with the rich hue
of the customers' noses; which effect, at all events, was obtained
by the choice of this colour. Thus Pistol says :—

" He called me even now by word through a red lattice, and I could see
no part of his face from the window."

The same idea is expressed in the "Last Will and Testament of
Lawrence Lucifer," 1604 : —

" Watched sometimes ten hours together in an ale-house, ever and anon
peeping forth and sampling thy nose with the red lattice."

" A whole street is in some places but a continuous ale-house, not a shop
to be seen between red lattice and red lattice."—Decker's English Villanies
Seven Times Pressed to Death.

" Trusty Rachel was drinking burnt brandy with a couple of tinder-box
cryers at the next red lattice."+

The lattices continued in use until the beginning of the eighteenth
century, and after they disappeared from the windows were
adopted as signs, and as such they continue to the present day.
The Green Lattice occurs on a trades token of Cock Lane, and
still figures at the door of an ale-house in Billingsgate, whilst not
many years ago there was one, in Brownlow Street, Holborn,
which had been corrupted into the Green Lettuce.

When balconies were newly introduced, they were also used
in the place of signs. Lord Arundel was the inventor of them,
and Covent Garden the first place where they became general.
" Every house here has one of 'em," says Bichard Broome, in
1659. Trades tokens "of the Bellconey," in Bedford Street,
are still extant, and also tokens of "John Williams, the king's
chairman, at y^e lower end of St Martin's Lane, at Y^e Balconey.
1667." The first house that adopted a balcony was situated at
the corner of Chandos Street, " which country people were wont
much to gaze on soon, however, they became so common that
further distinctions had to be added, as the Iron Balcony,

(St James' Street, 1G99,) the Blue and Gilt Balcony, (Hatton
Street, 1G73.) Lamps have also, for two or three centuries, fre-
quently done duty as signs, and continue still to act as beacons
to those who want the assistance of the doctor, the chemist, or
the sweep. Ale and coffee-houses, too, are frequently decorated
with gorgeous lamps : this was already the custom in Tom
Brown's time :—

"Every coffee-house is illuminated both without and within doors;
without by a fine Glass Lanthorn, and within by a woman so light and
splendid you may see through her without the help of a Perspective." ¹

The Moorfield quacks had always lamps at their doors at night,
with round glasses, having the same colours as the balls in their
signs, and this custom has been handed down to our day by the
chemists, who still have circular, red, green, and yellow bull's-eye
glasses in their lamps.

In Paris, in the sixteenth century, the pastry-cooks used at
nights to place a kind of lamp in their windows, which acted as
magic lanterns. They were made of transparent paper, covered
with rudely-painted figures of men end animals. Begnier men-
tions them in his eleventh satire :—

" Ressemblait transparent une lanterne vive,
Dont quelques pâtissiers amusent les enfants,
Où des oysons bridez, guenuches, elefans,
Chiens, chats, lièvres, renards, et mainte estrange beste
Courent l'une après l'autre."-f-

A Dutch grocer, in the seventeenth century, put up the sign
of the Burning Lamp, and wrote under it the following dis-
tich :—

The Brass Knocker in the Great Gardens, Bristol, is another
sign taken from the exterior of the house ; also the Flower-pot,
which was very common in old London : one of the last remain-
ing stood at the corner of Bishopsgate and Leadenhall Streets.
It dated from an early period, and was, in the heyday of its
fame, a celebrated coaching inn. The introduction of railroads,
however, gave it a death-blow^r ; for some time it continued to

f "It represented a burning lamp, such as some pastry-cooks have to amuse the child-
ren, on which geese, monkeys, elephants, dogs, cats, hares, foxes, and many strange
ttuimals are to be seen running after each other."

t " My lamp is kept burning by the produce of the East
Oil, figs, and currants sold here."

languish as a starting-point for omnibuses, and was finally
demolished to make room for merchants' offices in 18G3. Trades
tokens of this inn are extant in the Beaufoy collection. Mr Burn,
the compiler of the catalogue of this collection, suggests that
the Flower-pot was originally the vase of lilies, always repre-
sented in the old pictures of the Salutation or Annunciation ;
according to his theory the Angel and the Virgin were omitted
at the Beformation, and nothing but the vase left. This, how-
ever, seems somewhat improbable. There is no apparent reason
why it should not have been a real flower-pot, or rather vase,
which our ancestors frequently had on the top of the pent-houses
above their shops. In order to distinguish them from ordinary
flower-pots, some painted theirs blue, thus the sign of the Blue
Flower-pot, as appears from the advertisement of Cornelius a
Tilborgh. who styles himself " sworn chirurgeon in ordinary to
King Charles II., to our late sovereign King William, as also
to her present majesty Queen Anne." This worthy lived in
Great Lincoln's Inn Fields, Holborn Bow, and besides the Blue
Flower-pot at his front door, his customers might recognise the
house, by " a light at night over the door," and a Blue Ball at
the back-door. The Two Blue Flower-pots used to be a sign
in Dean Street, Soho; and the Two Flower-pots and Sun
Dial in Parker's Lane, near Drury Lane, (London Gazette, Sept.
16-19, 1700.)

Innumerable objects from the interior of the house were like-
wise adopted as signs, such as furniture of all kinds, and domestic
utensils. The upholsterers, for instance, generally selected pieces
of furniture. At the end of the last century The Boyal Bed
was a great favourite, as may be seen from engravings on several
of the shop bills in the Banks collection; the bed in olden times
was a very important article in a household, and was always
particidarly named in the will. Upholsterers in those days were
also frequently called bed-joiners. Next w^re have the Board or
Table, still a great favourite in the north—in Durham alone at
least sixty public-houses with that sign could be named

The mention of the Table affords an opportunity for particu-
larising those good things which usually grace the festive board.
First of all there is the Salt Horn, (at Bradford and Leeds,)
which formerly at dinner marked the line of demarcation; for
whether a guest was to be placed above or below the salt was a
matter of etiquette strictly to be attended to. In Dudley we

find a very substantial and tempting Round of Beef, with the
following rhymes :—

Or your stomach out of order,
There's sure relief at the Round of Beef,
For both these two disorders."

The roast beef of old. England is further represented by The
Bibs of Beef, in Wensum Street, Norwich, The Flank of
Beef at Spalding, the much less tempting Cow Roast at
Hampstead, besides a couple of unpretending Beef-steaks in
Bath. Our bill of fare also contains plenty of mutton, sometimes
rehausse with a poetic sauce, as one that was at Hackney in the
last century, The Shoulder of Mutton and Cat, having the
following rhymes :—

The sign is still there, but the verses are gone. This suggested
to another innkeeper on the common at Horsham, the sign of the
Dog and Bacon. An epicurean publican at Yapton, Arundel,
has a more gastronomic combination, viz, :—the Shoulder of
Mutton and Cucumbers. It was at the Shoulder of Mutton
in Brecknock that Mrs Siddons, England's greatest tragic actress,
was born, July 14, 1755. "Fancy," writes an enthusiastic bio-
grapher, "the English Melpomene behind the bar of such a
place!" Legs of Mutton on the signboard do not appear to be so
common as Shoulders. But by far the finest of all the dishes re-
presented on the signboard was the Boar's Head, in Eastcheap, for
the character of the famous inn patronised by Jack Falstaff makes
the association of an excellent dish much more natural than any
heraldic origin. The first mention of this inn occurs in the testa-
ment of William Warden, in the reign of Bichard II., who gave
" all that tenement called the Boar's Head in Eastcheap," to a
college of priests, or chaplains, founded by Sir W. Walworth, the
Lord Mayor, in the adjoining church of St Michacl, Crooked
Lane. The presence of " Prince Hal" in this house was no
invention of Shakespeare; history records his pranks, hoAv one
night, with his two brothers, John and Thomas, he made such a
riot that they had to be taken before the magistrate. No wonder,
ihen, at the proud inscription on the sign, which still existed in
Maitland's time :—" This is the chief tavern in London.'"' At one

time the portal was decorated with carved oak figures of Fidstafl
and Prince Henry; and in 1834 the former was in the possession
of a brazier of Eastcheap, whose ancestors had lived in the shop
he then occupied since the great fire. The last great Shakes-
pearian dinner-party at the Boar's Head took place about 1784,
on which occasion Wilberforce and Pitt were present, and though
there were many professed wits, Pitt was the most amusing of
the company.

On the removal of a mound of rubbish at Whitechapel, brought
there after the great fire, a carved boxwood bas-relief boar's head
was found, set in a circular frame formed by two boars' tusks,
mounted and united with silver. An inscription to the following
effect was pricked in the back :—" Win. Brooke, Landlord of the
Bore's Hedde, Estchepe, 1566." This object, formerly in the
possession of Mr Stamford, the celebrated publisher, was sold at
Christie and Manson's, on January 27, 1855, and was bought by
Mr Halliwell.¹

The original inn having been destroyed by the fire, was rebuilt
and continued in existence until 1831, when it was finally demo-
lished to make way for the streets leading to new London Bridge.
Its site was between Small Alley and St Michael's Lane. The
ancient sign, carved in stone, with the initials I. T. and the date
1668, is now preserved in the City of London Library, Guild-
hall.

In the month of May 1718, one James Austin, "inventor of
the Persian ink powder," desiring to give his customers a sub-
stantial proof of his gratitude, invited them to the Boar's Head
to partake of an immense plum-pudding. This pudding weighed
1000 lbs.; a baked pudding of 1 foot square, and the best piece
of an ox roasted : the principal dish was put in the copper on
. Monday, May 12, at the Bed Lion Inn, by the Mint in South-
wark, and had to boil fourteen days. From there it was to be
brought to the Swan Tavern, in Fish Street Hill, accompanied
by a band of music playing—"What lumps of pudding my
mother gave me;" one of the instruments was a drum in pro-
portion to the pudding, being 18 feet 2 inches in length, and 4
feet diameter, which was drawn by " a device fixt on six asses."
Finally the monstrous pudding was to be divided in St George's
Fields, but apparently its smell was too much for the gluttony

1 There is a drawing of this very carious relic in a number of the Illustrated London
News, published shortly after the sale.

of the Londoners; the escort was routed, the pudding taken and
devoured, and the whole ceremony brought to an end, before Mr
Austin had a chance to regale his customers.

Puddings seem to have been the forte of this Austin. Twelve
or thirteen years before this last pudding, he had baked one for
a wager, ten feet deep in the Thames, near Rotherhithe, by
enclosing it in a great tin pan, and that in a sack of lime: it was
taken up after about two hours and a half, and eaten with great
relish, its only fault being that it was somewhat overdone, The
bet was for more than £100. Austin was also noted for his
fireworks.

The back windows of the Boar's Plead looked out upon the
bujial-ground of St Michael's Church,* and there rested all that
was mortal of one of the waiters of this tavern. His tomb, in
Purbeck stone, had the following epitaph :—•

" Here lieth the bob ye of Robert Preston, late Drawer at the Boar's
Head Tavern, Great Eastcheap, who departed this Life, March 16, Anno
Domini, 1730, aged 27 years."

" Bacchus, to give the topeing world surprize,
Produc'd one sober son, and here he lies.
Tho' nurs'd among full Hogsheads, he defy'd
The charm of wine and ev'ry vice beside.
0 Reader, if to Justice thou 'rt inclin'd,
Keep Honest Preston daily in thy Mind.
He drew good wine, took care to fill his pots,
Had sundry virtues that outweighed his fauts (sic)
You that on Bacchus have the like dependance,
Pray, copy Bob, in measure and attendance." f

Amongst other Boar's Head Inns, we may notice one in South-
wark, the property of Sir John Falstolf of Caistor Castle, Nor-
folk, who died in 1460, and whose name Shakespeare adopted
in the play. Then there was another one without Aldgate, as
appears from the following curious document :—•

" A letter to the Lord Mayor of London, to give order forthwith that
some of his officers do forthwith repaire to the Boreshed w^hout Aldgate,
where the Lordes are enformed a lewde Playe, called ' A Sacke full of
Hewse,' shall be plaied tln3 daye, the Playeres whereof he is willed to ap-
prehende aud to comitt to safe warde, untill he shall heare further from
hence, aud to take their Playsbook from them, and to send the same
hither.

At the beginning of this century there was a noted tavern in
Bond Street, called THE Brawn's Head, and the general opinion
was, that at one time it had a brawn or boar's head for its
sign; this, however, was a mistake; the house was named after
the head of a noted cook whose name was Theophilus Brawn,
formerly landlord of Bummer Tavern in Great Queen Street, and
the article (as the letters the were usually supposed to be) was
simply an abbreviation of the man's magnificent Christian name.

All these gastronomic signs, doubtless, originated in the old
custom of landlords selling eatables :—

" You brave-minded and most joviall Sardanapalitans," saitli Taylor the
"Water poet, addressing the country tavern-keepers, " liave power and prero-
gative (cum privilegio) to receive, lodge, feast, and feed, both man and
beast. You have the happinesse to Boyle, Roast, Broyle, and Bake, Fish,
Flesh, and Foide, whilst we in London have scarce the command of a Gull,
& widgeon, or a woodcock."

In a little volume of 1685, entitled "The Praise of Yorkshire
ale," we are told that Bacchus held a parliament in the Sun, be-
hind the Exchange in York, to consider the adulteration of wine,
the various drinking vessels, and other matters sold in ale-
houses, as:—

" Papers of sugar, with such like knacks,
Biskets, Luke olives, Anclioves, Caveare,
Neats' tongues, Westphalia Hambs, and
Such like cheat, Crabs, Lobsters, Collar Beef,
Cold puddings, oysters, and such like stuff."

Hence, then, the once common sign of the Three Neats' Tongues,
one of which still exists in Spitalfields; another one in the
eighteeenth century was very appropriately situated in Bull and
Mouth Street.¹ The Ham is the usual porkman's sign, though
at Walmyth, in Yorkshire, there is a public-house sign of the
Ham and Firkin. The Crab and Lobster Inn occurs at
Ventnor; the Lobster is a sign on trades tokens of a shop in
Bearbinder (now St Swithin's) Lane, and also near the Maypole
in the Strand; the Crawfish at Thursford Guist, in Norfolk,
and the Butt and Oyster at Chelmondiston, Ipswich. Those
eatables, all more or less salt, were sold as incitements to drink,
and went by the cant term of shoeing horns, gloves, or pullers-on.
They are often alluded to by ancient authors :—

" Then, sir, comes me up a service of shoeing-horns of all sorts, salt cakes,
red herrings, auchoves, and gammon of bacon, and abundance of such put*
Icrs-on."—Bishop Hall's Mundus alter et idem.

The Pie was a sign in very early times, and gave its name to
Pie Corner, " a place so called from such a sign, sometimes a fair
inn for receipt of travellers."—Stow, p. 139. One of the most
famous inns with that sign was the Pie in Aldgate.

De Foe,, in his " History of the Plague," tells of " a dreadful set
of fellows " who used to revel and roar nightly in that inn during
the time the plague was at its height, but within a fortnight
all of them were buried. The Cock and Pie was once common.
At an inn in Ipswich there used to be a rude representation of a
cock perched on a pie, which was discovered whilst the house
was undergoing some repairs. It was also, about the middle of
last century, the sign of a house famed for conviviality, which
stood on the site of the present Rathbone Place, Oxford Street,
and was the resort of the " fancy " of those days. A row of fine
elms connected this house with another, noted for the manu-
facture of Bath buus and Tunbridge water-cakes, the latter a
dainty now almost obsolete, but which then was so famous,
that it was one of the London cries, being sold by a man on
horseback. With regard to the origin of the sign Cock and
Pie, both the ancient Catholic oath, to swear by CocJc and Pie,
(by God and the Pie, or Roman Catholic service book,) and the
fable of the magpie (Old English pie, or pye) and the peacocks,
have each been duly considered by us; but the sign is prob-
ably only an abbreviation of the Peacock and Pie. In ancient
times the peacock was a favourite dish, and was introduced
on the table in a pie; the head, with gilt beak, being ele-
vated above the crust, and the beautiful feathers of the tail
expanded. As a dainty dish, then, it may have been put up, like
the other good things of this world, just mentioned, as a trap to
hungry or epicurean passers-by; at last the dish went out of
fashion, the name even became a mystery, and was rendered by
the sign-painters, according to their own understanding, by a
Cock and Magpie, which is still very common. There is a
public-house with such a sign in Drury Lane, which was already
in existence more than two centuries ago, when the rest of Drury
Lane was still occupied by farms and gardens, and the mansions

of the Drury family. Hither the youths and maidens of the
metropolis, who, on May-day, danced round the Maypole in the
Strand, were accustomed to resort for cakes and ale, and other
refreshments. This ale-house gave its name to the Code and
Pye Fields, between Drury Lane and St Giles' Hospital. At
Ghats worth, the original name was mutilated by a provincialism
hito the Cock and Pynot, (Derbyshire, for Magpie.) In this
ale-house, still existing, the Revolution of 1688 was plotted, be-
tween Thomas Osborne Earl of Danby, William Cavendish
Earl of Devonshire, and Mr John d'Arcy. They met by appoint-
ment on a heath adjoining the house, but a shower of rain com-
ing on, they adjourned to the inn. The room is still shown in
which the conspirators met. In Hone's " Table Book " there is
a woodcut of the inn, showing the wooden construction across
the road, by which the signs in villages were generally suspended.

Lastly, we may mention the Pickled Egg, in Clerkenwell. As
the origin of this sign, it is said that Charles II. here once par-
took of the dish, which so flattered the landlord, that he adopted
it as his sign, and so it has remained till this day. It has given
its name to a lane called Pickled Egg Walk, in which there was
a notorious coclcing-house, frequently mentioned in advertise-
ments circa 1775.

We may very appropriately terminate the gastronomic signs
with the Cheshire Cheese, which is still very common ; there
is a famous tavern of this name in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street,
and numerous public-houses in the country have adopted it as
their signs. And as we began with the Salt Ilom we will end
with the Mustard-pot, which was the sign of a mustard shop in
Holland, in the seventeenth century, with these rhymes :—
" Ik lever uyt
Een zeldzaam kruyt
Daar zyn der weinig in de stad
Of ik heb ze by de neus gehad." *
This reminds us of a rather indelicate sign of a mustard shop,
formerly in the Bue du Chatel, at Beauvais, but now in the
Musée d'Antiquités of that town, representing a fool stirring
mustard in a barrel with a large stick, whilst a tall grinning

* This loses much by translation :—
"I contain
A curious kind of condiment—
There are not many people in this town
Which I have not had by the nose."
This is a pun in Butch, on the sensation produced in the nose by mustard, the exprev'
sion meaning, at the same time, "to take in.^:'

Drinkables are not frequent as signs, if we except such as the
Rhenish Wine House, and the Canary House ; two taverns of
Old London, named after the wines they sold. Barley Broth,
Bee's-wing, and Yorkshire Stingo, are at present all three com-
mon : the first applies either to whisky or beer; the second is
the delicate crimson film left in bottles by old port wine, and
Yorkshire stingo is the well-known name of a kind of ale. From
a house with this name in the New Road, the first pair of Lon-
don omnibuses were started, July 4, 1829, running to the Bank
and back : they were constructed to carry twenty-two passengers,
all inside; the fare was one shilling, or sixpence for half the dis-
tance, together with the luxury of a newspaper. A Mr J. Shilli-
beer was the owner of these carriages, and the first conductors
were the two sons of a Biitish naval officer.

Drinking vessels are very appropriate ale-house signs. Amongst
the oldest certainly ranks the Black Jack, common even in the
present day, although the vessel that it represented is long sinca
fallen into disuse : it was a leather bottle, sometimes lined with
silver or other metal, and perhaps took its name from a part of
the soldiers' armour. Sometimes it was ornamented with little
silver bells " to ring peales of drunkeness," in which case it was
called a " gyngle boy." * This primitive bottle has been celebrated
in one of the Boxburghe Ballads, (vol. iii., fol. 433 :)—

" God above that made all things,
The heaven, and earth, and all therein,
The ships that on the sea do swim
For to keepe the enemies out that none come in,
And let them all do what they can,
It is for the use and pains of man ;
And I wish in heaven his soul may dwell,
Who first devized the leather bottle."

" Then when this bottle doth grow old,
And will 110 longer good liquor hold,
Out of its side you may take a clout,
Will mend your shoes when they are worn out,
Else take it and hang it upon a pin,
It will serve to put odd trifles in,
As hinges, awls, and candle ends,
For young beginners must have such things."

There is another ballad in the same collection, (vol. i., fol. 107,)
entitled " Time's Alteration, or the Old Man's Rehearsal,^v which
speaks of the black jack in the following terms :—

" Black jacks to euery man
Were filled witli wine and Beere,
No pewter Pot nor Canne
In those days did appeare :
• . . . ■ «
We took not such delight
In cups of silver fine ;
No pewter Pot nor Canne
In those days did appeare;

But we may glean more full and complete particulars from Hey-
wood's " Philocothonista or Drunkard Opened, Dissected and
Anatomized," 1635, where we get a detailed inventory of all the
various drinking vessels of the day :—

" Of drinking Cups divers and sundry sorts we have ; some of elme,
some of bos, some of maple, some of holly, etc. Mazers, broad mouthed
dishes, naggins, whiskins, piggius, creuzes, alebowles, wassel bowles, court
dishes, tankards, kannes, from a pottle to a pint, from a pint to a gill.
Other bottles we have of leather, but they are most used amongst the
shepheards and harvest people of the countrey : small jacks wee have in
many alehouses of the citie and suburbs lipt with silver : blackjacks and
bombards at the Court ; which' when the Frenchmen first saw, they
reported at their return into their countrey that the Englishmen used to
drinke out of their bootes. We have besides cups made of homes of
beastes, of cockerouts,* of goords, of eggs of estriclies ; others made of
the shells of divers fishes brought from the Indies and other places, and
shiniug like mother of pearle. Come to plate, every taverne can afford
you flat bowles, french bowles, prounet cups, beare bowles, beakers ; and
private householders in the citie, when they make a feaste to entertain
their friends, can furnish their cupboards with flaggons, tankards, beere
cups, wine bowles, some white, some percell guilt, some guilt all over,
some with covers, others without, of sundry shapes and qualities."

That they were of ancient use and high in price appears from an
entry in the expenses of John, King of France, when prisoner in
England after the battle of Poictiers, 1359-60 :—
" Pour deux bouteilles de cuir achetées a Londres pour Monseigneur
Philippe..........9s. 8d."

Though these vessels are now completely superseded by pewter
and glass, yet their memory still lives on the signboard, and

* Oocoa-nuts. The word is still pronounced in that manner by the lower 'slasses.

the Leather Bottle is anything but an uncommon ale-house
emblem at the present day. There is one still to be seen,
carved in wood, suspended in front of an old ale-house at the
corner of Charles Street, Hatton Garden. In Germany, also, the
leather bottle was once in use; drinking vessels of various ma-
terials, in the shape of a boot, are common in that country,
usually with this inscription :—

The Blaclc-jaclc Tavern, in Clare Market, still in existence, ac-
quired some celebrity from being the favourite haunt of Joe
Miller, the reputed author of the famous Jest Book. The house
was also for a long time known by the cant name of the Jump,
which it had received from the fact of Jack Sheppard one clay
escaping the clutches of Jonathan Wild's emissaries by jumping
from a window into the street, and so making his escape. From
the Leather Bottle to the Golden Bottle is not so great a step
as would appear at first sight, the golden bottle being simply the
leather bottle gilt, as may be seen above the door of Messrs
Hoare the bankers, in Fleet Street, a firm established for cen-
turies under the same sign, although not always occupying the
same premises. In the "Little London Directory for 1677" we
find :—" James Hore at the Golden Bottle in Cheapsi.de," one
Df the goldsmiths that kept "running cashes." In 1693 we find
Mr Richard Hoare, a goldsmith, " at the Golden Bottle" in
Cheapside, but in 1718 the house in Cheapside seems to have
had a second occupant:—

" T^OPT ^or taken from a Ladies' Bide on Tuesday, the 25^th of March,
\j coming from the Spanish ambassadour's at St James' Square, a gold
watch and chain, with a seal to it, a pendulum* on the outside ; Windmill
the maker. Whoever brings it to Mr Madding, Goldsmith at the Golden
Bottle, the upper end of Cheapside, or to Jonathan Wilde, over against the
Duke of Grafton's Head in the Old Bailey, shall have 8 Guineas and no
questions asked."—Daily Courant, April 5, 1718.

That the Golden Can was also an old sign may be concluded
from a mention in the nursery rhyme :—

" Little Brown Betty lived at the Golden Can,
Where she brewed good ale for gentlemen.
And gentlemen came every day,
Till little brown Betty she hopt away."

a very old custom, when ale-wives flourished, and Eleanor
Rumying and her gossips brewed their own ale. The Golden
Can is still to be seen on two public-houses in Norwich. The
Guilded Cup in Houndsditch is mentioned in a quaint little
pamphlet on the virtues of " Warme Beere," 1641.

The Flask was the sign of an old-established tavern in Ebury
Square, Pimlico. In the last century there were two famous
Flask taverns in Hampstead ; the one called the Lower Flask
was an inn at the foot of the hill, and is mentioned in the
following advertisement, printed on the cover of the original
edition of the Spectator, No. 428 :—

J. Lower Flask Tavern Walk, on Friday, the first of August, and holds
for four days."

The Upper Flask was a place of public entertainment near
the summit of Hampstead Hill, and is now a private residence.
Here Ilichardson sends his Clarissa :—" The Hampstead coach,
when the dear fugitive came to it, had but two passengers in it,
but she made the fellow go off directly, paying for the vacant
places. The two passengers directing the coachman to set them
down at the Upper Flask, she bid them set her down there
also." The well-known Kit-Kat Club used to meet at this
tavern in the summer months; and here, after it became a
private abode, George Steevens, the celebrated critic and anti-
quary, lived and died.

Besides these, more homely vessels occur as publicans' signs
at the present day, which it requires no stretch of imagination
to understand the meaning of, as the Pitcher and Glass, the
Brown Jug, the Jug and Glass, the Bottle and Glass, the
Foaming Quart, &c. At Newark the Bottle is accompanied
by the following inscription :—

" From this Bottle I am sure
You '11 get a glass both good and pure,
In opposition to a many,
I'm striving hard to get a penny."

" This should be looked upon by all good artists to be the most ignoble
and dishonourable bearing; but as the custom takes away the sense of dis-
like, so the frequent use takes away the dishonour, which is seen by those

multitudes that have it for their cognizance, in so much that it is painted
over their doors by the way_ide." ¹

The Pewter Pot, in Leadenliall Street, was a famous carriers'
and coaching inn in 1681. There are also the Six Cans, in
High Holborn, (a sign evidently suggested by the Three Tuns •,)
and, in the same locality, the Six Cans and Punchbowl.
This last object, the Punchfowl, was introduced on the sign-
board at the end of the seventeenth century, when punch became
the fashionable drink; in one instance, at Penalney Kea, near
Truro, we have the Punchbowl and Ladle, but most gener-
ally it is found in combination with other very heterogeneous
objects. The reason of this is that punch, like music, had a sort
of political prestige, and was the Whig drink, whilst the Tories
adhered to sack, claret, and canary, connected in their memory
with bygone things and times. Hence it followed that the
punchbowl was added as a kind of party-badge to many of the
Whig tavern signs, and hence such combinations as the following,
all of which still survive at the present day :—

The Fox and Punchbowl, Old Windsor, (perhaps meant for
the great statesman, who was not disinclined to the beverage.)

The Two Pots is the sign of a public-house at Boxworth, St
Ives, accompanied by the following verses, which are enough to
set the teeth of a Boeotian on edge: how then must they shock the
refined ears of the Cambridge dons 1—

" Rest, traveller, rest; lo, Cooper's hand
Obedient brings two pots at thy command;
Rest, traveller, rest; and banish thoughts of care,
Drink to thy friends and recommend them here."

1 What would old Randle Holme have said, had he seen the elegant (!) breast-
pins displayed in the shop-windows of one of the principal West End jewellers, forming
the tasteful device of a tobacco-pipe on a quart pot; another with a rebus for : " You
are an artfa Leart]ful card;" and a third with : "0 my eye 1" and similar dislingu'
ernaments.

Another Two Pots, at Leatherhead, can boast a most venerable
antiquity, for it is believed to be the very ale-house where the
notorious Eleanor Rumying tunned her " noppy ale/' and made

" thereof fast sale
To travellers, to tinkers,
To sweaters, to swinkers,
And all good ale-drinkers."

There was, at the end of the last century, a painted sign still
remaining, which, under a coating of summer's dust and winter's
sludge, faintly showed two pots of beer placed in the same
position as they are on the title-page of the original edition of
Skelton's poem.

The sign of the Two Pots again gave rise to that of the
Three Pots, at Horseway Bridge, Chatteris, in the same county,
and at Burbage, near Hinckley.

The Bummer, another drinking vessel, is also common : there
is one in Old Fish Street, and there are three Hummer public-
houses in Bristol alone. A tavern of that name was kept by
Samuel Prior, uncle of Matthew Prior the poet. Uncle Sam
took his nephew as an apprentice to learn the business, and
be his successor. Prior alludes to this uncle and his little pro-
fessional tricks in the following lines :—

" My uncle, rest his soul, when living,
Might have contrived me ways of thriving;
Taught me with cider to replenish
My vats or ebbing tide of Rhenish ;
So, when for Hock I drew pricked white Wine,
Swear't had the flavour and was right wine."

To his stay in this tavern also alludes the bitter Whig satire in
" State Poems," (ii., p. 355,) beginning—

" A vintner's boy the wretch was first preferr'd
To wait at vice's gates and pimp for bread ;
To hold the candle, and sometimes the door,
Let in the drunkard, and let out the w-."

In 1709 there was another Bummer tavern "over against Bow-
Lane, in Cheapside," where " the surprizing Mr Higgins, the
posture master, that lately performed at the Queen's Theatre
Boyal in the Haymarket," was to be seen every evening at six;
admission 18d. and Is.

This sign was also common in Holland two centuries ago ; at
that time there was one in Amsterdam with this inscription :—

" Als gy deea Roemer ziet, gy kunt ze pryzen of laken,
Maarkomt in, proeft zyn nat, dat zal u beeter smaaken." *

And another one at the Hague had this same idea, but added
a caution to it on a double-sided signboard :—

" Does Roemer die gy ziet en kan u niet vermaken,
Komt in en proeft het nat het zal u beter smaken
Maar siet eens wat hier ackter staat."

A near relative of the Rummer was the Bumper, a tavern
in St James' Street, Covent Garden, kept by Estcourt the
actor. His drawer was " his old servant Trusty Anthony, who
has so often adorned both the theatres in England and Ireland;
and as he is a person altogether unknown in the Wine Trade,
it cannot be doubted but that he will deliver the wine in the
same natural purity as he receives it from the said merchants,"
(Brooke & Hillier.)—Estcourt's advertisements on the last page
of the original Edition of the Spectator, cclx., 1711. To this
occupation of Estcourt, Parnell alludes in the beginning of hia
poems :—

" Gay Bacchus liking Estcourt's wine,
A noble meal bespoke us;
And for the guests that were to dine
Brought Comus, Love, and Jocus."

Finally, we may conclude this notice of drinking vessels on
the signboard with the Tankard, which is still of frequent
occurrence. There is a public-house at Ipswich with this sign,
which was formerly part of the house of Sir Anthony Wing
field, one of the legal executors of Henry VIII.

The hanap or tankard was generally of silver, and was for
merly one of the most valuable properties of an ale-house, for
in the Act 13 Echv. I., it says that " if a tavern-keeper keep his
house open after curfew he shall be put on his surety the first

But come in, and taste its liquor, you will like that better."
■f " This Rummer which you see here cannot give you much pleasure.
Come in, and taste its liquor, you will like that better,
But first, see what is written on the other side."
On the other side :—

"Pay before you go away,
Otherwise you will have to leave your hat or your cloak."

time by the hanap of the tavern, or by some other good pledge
therein found."* Silver tankards were more or less common in
all the London taverns. In some houses they were reserved for
the more distinguished visitors; in others, as at the Bull's Head
in Leadenhall Street, " every poor mechanic drank in plate."
They were of different sizes, and experienced topers well knew
for which name to call when ordering a tankard proportionate to
their thirst. From a curious old tippler's handbook, published
in the reign of Queen Anne or George the First, entitled, " A
Yade Mecum for Maltworms," we gather that the names of the
tankards at the Sweet Apple, in Sweet Apple Yard, were " the
Lamb," " the Lion," " the Peacock," (in honour of the brewer,)
" Sacheverell," (in memory of the notorious divine of St Andrew's,
Ilolborn,) and " Nan Elton." The same work also relates a curi-
ous instance of enthusiasm in a publican. His house, the Baven,
in Fetter Lane, was famous for

" Massy tankards form'd of silver plate,
Tliat walk throughout his noted house in state;
Ever since Eaglusfield in Anna's reign,
To compliment each fortunate campaign,
Made one be hammer'd out for every town was ta'en."

We may suppose each tankard named after a victory—the greatei
the victory, the greater the tankard; and can imagine the gra-
tifying display of loyalty in emptying those tankards to the per-
dition of " Popery and wooden shoes."

Besides the tankard for drinking beer or wine, there was also
the Water Tankard. In Ben Jonson's comedy of " Every
Man in his Humour," 1598, Cob, the water-carrier of the Old
Jewry, says:—" I dwell, sir, at the sign of the Water Tankard,
hard by the Green Lattice. I have paid scot and lot there many
time this eighteen years." These water-tankards were used for
carrying water from the conduits to the houses, and were there-
fore a professional sign of the water-carriers. The measures held
about three gallons, and were shaped like a truncated cone, with
an iron handle and hoops like a pail, and were closed with a cork,
bung, or stopple. In Wilkinson's " Londina lllustrata," there
is an engraving of Westcheap as it appeared in the year 1585,
copied from a drawing of the period, in which the Little Conduit
is seen with a quantity of water-tankards ranged round it.

on the signboard we must first of all notice that useful article
the Looking Glass, which was the favourite sign of the book-
sellers on London Bridge. Thus, one of John Bunyan's works,
" The Saints' Triumph, or the Glory of Saints with Jesus Christ
discovered in a Divine Ejaculation by J. B.," was printed by J.
Millet for J. Blare, at the Looking Glass on London Bridge, in
1688. The French booksellers also used it: for instance, Nicholas
Despreaux, or Dupre, a bookseller of the seventeenth century,
who lived near the church of St Etienne du Mont, at Paris.
Its origin was this :—Speculum, a looking-glass, was in the
middle ages a common name for a certain class of books. We
find, as early as 1332, a work entitled " Speculum Ilistoriale in
consuetudine Parisiensi;" then there is the "Grand Speculum
Historiale," the great historical work of Vincent of Beauvais,
one of the most celebrated books of the Middle Ages ; " Specu-
lum Humanse Salvationis" Speculum Humanse Vitae;" " Specu-
lum Yitse Christse," " a boke that is clepid the Myrrour of the
blessed lyffe of our Lorde J'hu cryste ;" the " Mirrour of Magis-
trates;'' "Le miroir de l'ame pecheresse," and innumerable other
Speculums. These Speculums were amongst the first books that
were printed; many of the early booksellers adopted the Bible
as their sign, whilst others chose the Speculum, which they trans-
lated and made more fit for the signboard under the name of the
Looking Glass.

A curious fact is connected with this so common title of the
Speculum for early religious books. "When the first pioneers
in the art of printing were pondering over their new inven-
tion, during the transition period from block-printing to printing
with detached letters, Guttenberg, in 1436, entered into an
agreement with John Biffe, Anthony Heilman, and Andrew
Dreizehn, in which speculation the three associates were to fur-
nish the necessary funds, whilst Guttenberg was to pay them
one half of any profits, the other half being for himself. After
a certain time the association broke up, differences arose about
the liquidation, and a lawsuit was the consequence. The docu-
ments of this lawsuit are still in existence; from them it appears
that they kept their invention a secret, and called themselves
" Spiegelmachers," (makers of looking-glasses,) which looking-
glasses, according to the evidence of witnesses, had found a
very ready sale amongst the pilgrims who at that period con-
gregated at Aix-la-Chapelle on the occasion of some relig'ous

festival. But as apparently no extra number of. mirrors were
sold on that occasion, and there does not appear to have been
any new invention in the art of making them, it is evident
that the looking-glasses sold were the Speculum books, which
undoubtedly would be readily purchased by the pilgrims to
the holy shrine. This opinion is still more corroborated by
the mention made in the evidence of a Press, which could
scarcely be used in the manufacture of looking-glasses. It is
therefore most probable that, as the art of printing was at this
period still in its infancy, and the printed works were sold rather
as an imitation or facsimile¹ of the written manuscripts, this art
was still kept a secret; by so doing, its early practitioners were
not only safe from competition, but also from the attacks and
opposition by which the new invention would have been assailed
by all those connected with the business of transcribing and
illuminating. +

Other pieces of furniture are the Cabinet, a common up-
holsterer's sign in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; the
Three Crickets, or little stools, which we gather from a trades
token of the seventeenth century, was in Crooked Lane; and
the Cradle, a peculiar sign, occurs in Taylor's "Carrier's Cos-
mography," 1637, where he gives a rather curious insight into
the postal arrangements of that time :—

" Those that will send any letter to Edinbourgh, that so they may be
conveyed to and fro to any parts of the kingdome of Scotland, the poste
doth lodge at the signe of the Icings armes or the Cradle at the upper end
of Cheapside, from whence every Monday any that have occasion
may send."

Generally, however, it did not designate so respectabl» a busi-
ness ; the " Compleat Vintner," 1720, explains the secret arcana
of that sign :—

" The pregnant Madam drawn aside,
By promise to be made a bride,
If near her time and in distress
For some obscure convenient place,
Let her but take the pains to waddle
About till she observes a Cradle

1 Even after the art got to be known, it continued to be still called writing. Thus,
Caspar Iledion fl'aral. ad Chron. Conradi) calls it "novo scribcndi genere reperto;"
and Fulgosus (Lib. viii., Diet, k Fact. Memor.) saya that Guttenberg could "uno die
imprimendo plura scribere quam uno anno calamis."

t See the whole of the documents of this law-suit in Count Leon de Laborde'c
Debuts de l'lmprimerie h Strasbourg.

With the foot hanging towards the door,
And there she may be made secure
From all the parish plagues and terrors,
That wait on poor weak woman's errors.
But if the head hang tow'rds the house,
As very often we see it does,
Avaunt, for she's a cautious bawd
Whose business only lies abroad."

The Trunk was the sign of Caleb Swinock, a bookseller in
St Paul's Churchyard in 1684, for which it is difficult to find
any rational explanation ; almost equally incomprehensible is the
sign of the Green Bellows, (le soufflet vert,) which was that of
Johan Stoll and Peter Cesaris, booksellers and printers in the
Bue St Jacques, Paris, in 1473.* This sign was also to be
seen in other towns of France, as in Abbeville, where a stone
bas-relief sign of the seventeenth century, with the inscription
" le vert soufflet," remains at the present day in the front of a
house in the Bue des Jacobins. It may have been adopted in
allusion to the occult sciences and alchemy, green being the
emblematical colour of Hope.

The Golden Candlestick was the sign of a Marriage Insu-
rance office in Newgate Street, in 1711, a time when there was
a mania for insurance offices of every description ; the Three
Candlesticks occurs on a trades token of the Old Bailey in
1649. A publican in Tamworth, Staffordshire, has taken the
Coffee-pot for a sign, probably on the strength of the deriva-
tion of " lucus a non lucendo," because he sells no coffee; the
Boyal Coffee-mill was the more appropriate sign of Paul
Greenwood, in Clothfair, for he was a seller of " Coffee-powder, "t
Then there is the Sugar-loaf, a common grocer's sign of former
times, the selection of which showed great disinterestedness on
their part, the article being that on which the least profit was
made. Campbell said, in 1757 :—

" There is indeed one article which they [the Grocers] must sell to
their loss, sugars. A custom has prevailed (but why ?) amongst the Gro-
cers, to sell sugar for the prime cost, and are out of pocket by the sale,

* This De Cesaris family seemed to have a predilection for puzzling signboards.
When Peter de Cesaris, a bookseller and printer in the Rue St Jacques, circa 1480, had
for a sign the Swan and Soldier, (le cygne et soldat,) in the absence of his coiopnon,
we can only suppose that it was a representation of the legend of the Knight of the
Swan, i.e., a knight in a boat drawn by a swan. The steel armour of the knight mighl
easily have bestowed upon him the title of "thesoldier."

with paper, packthread, and their labour in breaking and weighing it out.
The expense of some shops in London, for the article of paper and pack-
thread for sugars, amounts to £60 or £70 per annum ; but this they lay
upon the other articles. The customer had much better allow him a
profit upon his sugars, than pay extravagant prices for tea and other
comodities."

At present, we understand, loaf-sugar is not sold exactly at
cost price, but moist sugar is, whence many grocers refuse to sell
that article to strangers unless something else be bought at the
same time. At No. 44 Fenchurch Street, a very old established
grocery firm still carries on business under the sign of the Three
Sugar Loaves. The house presents much the same appearance it
had in the last century, with the gilt sugar-loaves above the
doorway, and is one of the few places of business in London
conducted in the ancient style. The small old-fashioned win-
dow panes, the complete absence of all show and decoration,
the cleanliness of the interior, and the quiet order of the assist-
ants in their long white aprons, betoken the respectable old tea-
warehouse, and impress the passer-by with a complete conviction
as to the genuineness of its articles. That the sugar-loaf was
not always exclusively a grocer's sign, nor the Three Balls a
pawnbroker's, appears from the following advertisement in the
Postman, February 3-6, 1711 :—

" mHOMAS SETH at the Sugarloaf in Fore Street, Pawnbroker, is going
J_ to leave his house, and to leave off the said business; all persons
concerned are desired to fetch away their Goods on or before the fourth
of March next, else they will be disposed off and sold."

" A TANNY MORE [tawny Moor] with short bushy hair, very well
shaped, in a grey livery lined with yellow, about 17 or 18 years
of age, with a silver collar about his neck with these directions :—' Captain
George'Hastings' Boy, Brigadier in the King's Horse guards.' Whosoever
brings him to the Sugarloaf in the Pall Mall shall have forty shillings
Reward."—London Gazette, March 23, 1685.

The Sugar-loaf is also a public-house sign, though not a very
appropriate one. The Blue Bowl, suggestive of punch-making,
occurs on three public-houses in Bristol; but much more signi-
ficant for a resort of thirsty souls is that of the Three Funnels,
(les Trois Entonnoirs,) which in the time of Louis XIV. was the
sign of a tavern in Paris, mostly patronised by the University
people. An equally expressive sign, the Sieve, was used by
John Johnson, in Aldermansbury, 1669, and "Richard Harris in
Trinity Minories."

We now arrive at kitchen utensils : foremost amongst these ranks
the Gridiron, which was very common in the sixteenth century,
and may perhaps have been a jocular rendering of the Portcullis.
The Frying Pan is still a constant ironmonger's sign-—thus in
Highcross Street, Leicester, there is a gigantic gilt specimen with
the inscription " the Family Fry Pan," There are trades tokens
of " John Vere, at y" Frying Pan in Islington, Mealman," which,
considered in connexion with pancakes, one can understand ; but
it certainly looks out of place at the door of Samuel Wadsell,
bookseller at the Golden Frying Pan, in Leadenhall Street,

1680. The Copper Pot (le Pot de Cuivre) at Dijon, in France,
was the sign of one of the oldest inns in that country. It was
opened in 1250 and continued till the middle of the seventeenth
century. The society of the Mère Folle held their meetings at
this house.

The Pewter Platter occurs both in France and in England ;
it was famous as a carriers' inn in St John Street, Clerkenwell, in

1681. At this inn Curll's translators, in pay, were lodged, and
had to sleep three in a bed, and there "he and they were for ever
at work to deceive the publick."* In mediaeval Paris it was a
common sign, and gave its name to several streets. Two of the
inns victimised by that incorrigible scamp Villon, bore this
sign :—

" Le cas advint au Plat d'etain
Emprès saint Pierre-des-Arsis."+—Repues Franches.

The Pump is a common ale-house sign, and occurs as such on
a token of Tooley Street, with the following lines :—
"The Pump runs cleer
Wh. Ale and Beer."

which, as Mr Burn (Beaufoy Tokens) observes, may be a travesty
of a verse in Histrio-Mastrix, 1610 :—

Another token belonging to Chick Lane, West Smithfield, repre-
sents a hand grasping the handle of a pump ; and a publican in
Old Swinford, who combines engineering with his trade, has a
similar sign with the words, "Hands to the Pump." In the

• Loyd's Evening Post, Jan 9-12, 1767.
f "It happened at the Pewter Platter,
Near Saint Pierre des Arsis."

reign of Charles I. there was a public-house, the Blue Pump, in
Blackfriars, near the famous Hollands Leaguer. It represented
a man, evidently a sailor, pumping with all his might, and the
legend ran :—" Poor Tom's last refuge."* With the pump we
may place the Bucket, which was the sign of a shop in Alders-
gate Street, of which there are trades tokens extant, and the Tub,
the name of a tavern in Jermyn Street, in the reign of Charles
II., as appears from a letter sent, (not written, for she could not
write,) by Nell Gwynn, from Windsor in 1684, to her milliner
and factotum, addressed " To Madam Jennings, over against the
Tub tavern in Jermyn Street, London." Another utensil, the
Dust-pan, is common with hardware shops. There is one in
Islington, at a shop next to the house in which Charles Lamb
lived; at night it is illuminated, and hence called the Illuminated
Dust-pan. Lastly, there is the Hour-glass, a colossal specimen
carved in wood, in Upper Thames Street, near All Hallows
Church, and the Golden Jar, which was the sign of a china
shop, as we see in the Country Journal, or Craftsman, for April
25, 1730, where Anne Cibber acquaints the public that she is
removed from Charles Street to the Golden Jar in Tavistock
Street, carrying on two trades which now are rarely associated in
London, viz., "All sorts of cliinaware, and the best teas, coffees,
chocolate," &c. Now-a-days the jars, painted red and green, are
the usual oilman's sign, representing those vessels in which oil
is kept in Eastern countries, and in which Ali Baba's forty thieves
came to such an untimely end. Formerly oil used to be imported
in this country in similar jars, hence their adoption as trade
emblems.

We may close this chapter, not inappropriately with the Key,
a sign once largely used, not only by locksmiths, as at present,
but by all manners of shops; thus there was a celebrated tavern,
at the corner of Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, circa 1690, and

* Whether it would be just to conclude from this that sailors in that time went by the
generic name of Tom instead of Jack, we leave to the reader to judge. That Tom was
in former times a more common name than now, (owing, it is said, to the respect at one
time paid to the great saint Thomas a-Becket,) appears from the many words to which
it is an affix, and from many imaginary names, as:—Tomtit, Tomcat, Tomfoolery, Tom-
boy, Tommyshop, Tommy, (slang for bread,) double Tom, (a sort of plough,) Tom the
Piper, (in the morris dance,) Tom Tiddler, Tom of Bedlam, Tom of Westminster, (a
bell,) Tom and Jerry, Tom Telltruth, Tom Hickathrift, Tom, (the knave of Trumps,)
Whipping Tom, an itinerant (logger of wandering maids, Tom Tapster, " Tib's rush lo«
Tom's forefingers," (all's well that ends well.)

" Then every wanton may dance at her will,
Both Tomlein with Tomlin and Jenkin with Gill."

many others that conld be mentioned. The Golden Key is
named in an old advertisement, speaking of some sports and
pastimes which many English gentlemen are now attempting to
revive :—

" T) ICHARD FENN"EY, Esquire of Alaxton in Leicestershire, about a
JTV forthnight since, lost a lanner from that place; she has neither Bells
nor Yarvels; she is a white Hawk, and her long feathers and sarcels are
both in the blood. If any one give tidings thereof to Mr Lambert at the
Got/den Key, in Fleet Street, they shall have 40 shillings for their pains."
—Mercurius PuUicus, August 30 to September 6, 1660.

The Lock and Key is a sign of a public-house in West Smith-
field, and was, during the Commonwealth, that of a house in the
parish of St Dunstan, belonging to Praise God Barebones, citizen
and leather-seller of London. There is a MS. in the British
Museum,¹ containing a petition of Barebones against Elisabeth
and James Spight, the latter an infant under age, offered to the
court of judicature for determination of differences touching
houses burned or demolished by the fire of 16G6. From that
paper it appears that Elisabeth Spight paid £40 a year for the
rent of the Lock and Key.

Op this class only a few signs are to be found; one of the most
common is the Hat, the usual hatter's sign, although it may also
be found before taverns and public-houses, in which case, how-
ever, it is probable that it was the previous sign of the house,
which the publican on entering left unaltered; or it may have
been used to suggest " a house of call" to the trade. The age of
each individual hat-sign may sometimes be gathered frcrn its
shape ; thus there is one in Whitechapel, made out of tin, repre-
senting the cocked hat worn at the end of the last century ; it is
evidently a relic of that time. The continental hatters using
this sign, occasionally indulged in a little humour. A hatter at
Ghent in the sixteenth century added to it this distich :—
" Onder den Hoedt
Scliuylt quaedt & goet."*

And a Dutch hatter made a still more unpleasant allusion to the
brains of his customers :—

" Ilier maakt men sterke koeden om de hersens in te eluyten
Opdat het los verstand daar niet mag vliegen buyten." +

Dr Franklin used to tell an amusing story of a journeyman
hatter, his companion when young, who on commencing business
for himself, was anxious to get a handsome signboard, with a
proper inscription. This he composed himself as follows :—

Above the inscription was the ordinary figure of a hat. But he
thought he would submit the composition to his friends for
amendment. The first he showed it to thought the word "hatter"
tautologous, because followed by the words " makes hats," which
showed he was a hatter ; it was struck out. The next observed
that the word " makes " might as well be omitted, because his

customers would not care wlio made the hats; if good, and to their
mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck that out
also. A third said he thought that the words " for ready money "
were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit
—every one who purchased expected to pay. These, too, were
parted with, and the inscription then stood, "John Thompson sells
Hats." "Sells Hats !" says his next friend ; "why, who expects
you to give them away 1 What, then, is the use of the word 1"
It w^ras struck out, and HATS was all that remained attached to
the name John Thompson. Even this inscription, brief as it was,
was reduced ultimately to " John Thompson," with the figure of
the hat above it.

The Hat and Fbathers was almost equally common in those
days, when no full-fledged gallant could be deemed complete
without his fluttering ribbons and plume. The puritanical Philip
Stubbe in his " Anatomie of Abuses," 1585, is very hard upon
this fashion :—

" Another sort, (as phantasticall as the rest,) are content with no kind of
hat, without a great bunch of feathers of divers and sondrie colours, peak-
ing on top of their heades, not unlike (I dare not saie) cockes combes, but
as Stei-nes of Pride and ensignes of vanitie and these fluttering sailes and
feathered flagges of defiaunce to virtue, (for so they are,) are so advanced
in Ailgnia [Anglia] that euery child has the in his Hatte or Cappe. Many
get good living by deying and selling of them, aud not a fewe proue them-
selues more than fooles in wearyng of them."

Decker calls the "swell" of his day "our feathered ostrich," and
in his comedy of the " Sun's Darling " he mentions " some alder-
man's son wondrous giddy and light-headed, one that blew his
patrimony away in feathers and tobacco." There is one sign of
the Hat and Feathers still in existence, a publican's, at Grant-
chester, in Cambridgeshire.

Another old hatter's sign is the Hat and Beaver, which at
present may be seen at the door of a publican's in Leicester.
Shopbills of this once common sign occur amongst the Banks
Collection, representing a beaver seated on the edge of a stream,
with a hat above him. The relation between the two is evident,
and about as gratifying to the beaver as it was to the widow of
the hanged man to hear the gallows named. The beaver hats
worn in England at the time of Edward III., and long after,
were made in Flanders and Picardy. From the Privy Purse
expenses of Henry VIII. we see that the king paid in 1532 :—

" Item, the sxiij day [of October] for a hath and plume for the King in
Boleyn, xv shillings."

" On 27 May mdlv. (ij of Queen Mary) Sir William Cecil
[afterwards Lord Burghley] being then at Callice [Calais] bought
[as appears from his MS. Diary] three hats for his children at
xxd each."

The Protestant refugees, however, from Flanders and France^
introduced the⁵" manufacture of these hats into England when they
settled in Norwich; by a statute 5 and 6 Edw. VI., the manufac-
ture of felt and thrummed hats was confined to Norwich and
the corporate and market towns in that county.* As for the
shapes of the hats worn at that period we must again refer to
Stubbe's satirical account:—

" Some tymes they use them sharpe on the crowne, pearking up like the
epeare or shaft of a steeple, standing a quarter of a yarde above the crowne
of their lieades, some more, some lesse, as pleases the fantasies of their in-
constant mindes; othersome be flat and broad in the crowne like the bat-
tlements of a house. Another sort have round crownes, sometymes with
one kinde of bande, sometymes with another, now blacke, now whyte, now
russet, now red, now green, now yellowe, now this, now that, never con-
tent, with one colour or fashion two daies to an ende,"f

Felt hats for a long time were exclusively worn by the aristo-
cracy. Stow tells us that " about the beginning of Henry VIII.
began the making of Spanish feltes in England, by Spaniardes
and Dutchmen, before which time, and long since the English
used to ride, and goe winter and sommer in knitcapps, cloth
hoods, and the best sort in silk throm'd Hatts." These caps were
enforced by a statute of 13th Queen Elizabeth, which gives, at
the same time, a curious picture of the fashions of that
period ;—

"If any person above sis yeares of age, (except maidens, ladies, gentle-
women, nobles, knights, gentlemen of twenty marks by year in lands, and
their heirs, and such as have borne office of worship,) have not worn upon
the Sundays and Holidays, (except it be in the time of his travell out of the
citie, towne, or hamlet, where he dwelleth,) uppon his head one cap of
wool knit, thicked, and dressed in England, and onely dressed and finished
by some of the trade of cappers, shall be fined 3s. 4d. for each day's trans-
gression."

These caps, termed statute caps, are frequently alluded to by the
dramatists and authors of that period. Rosalind, for instance, in
" Love's Labour Lost," taunts her lover with the words : " Well,
better wits have worn plain statute caps." The act was repealed

* J. S, Burn, History of Foreign Refugees, p. 257.
f Stubbe's Anatomic of Abuses, p. 21,

in the year 1597. Tlxe sign of the Cap and Stocking, still in
Leicester, commemorates the once-flourishing trade of that town
in those articles. The quantity of workmen who found occupa-
tions in the manufacture of the above-named "statute caps,"
(which came chiefly from Leicestershire and the surrounding dis-
tricts,) was one of the principal reasons why it was so often pro-
tected by parliamentary statutes. Fuller enumerates not less
than fifteen callings, "besides other exercises," all> employed in
the trade of capmaking, beginning with the woolcarder, and end-
ing with the band maker. The Hat and Star, which occurs on
the bill of Master Bates in St Paul's Churchyard, who sold all
sorts of fine "caines, whippes, spurres,"* <foc., if not a simple
quartering of two signs, possibly originated in the clasp orna-
ment of precious stones, formerly worn in the hat. The Leghorn
IIat, at the end of the last century, was generally a turner's sign,
because the members of that trade sold straw hats imported from
Leghorn. In St John Street, Clerkenwell, there was an old
established public-house, and place of resort, called the Three
IIats. It is mentioned by Bickerstaff in his comedy of " The
Hypocrite," where Mawworm thus alludes to it:—

" Till I went after him, [Dr Cantwell,] I was little better than the devil,
my conscience was tanned with sin, like a piece of neat's leather, and had
no more feeling than the sole of my shoe; always a roving after fantastical
delights ; I used to go every Sunday evening to the Three Hats at Isling-
ton ; it's a public-house . . . mayhap your Ladyship may know it. I was
a great lover of skittles, too, but now I cannot bear them."

At this house the earliest prototypes of Astley used to perform
in 1758. There was Thomas, an Irishman, surnamed Tartar; then
came Johnson, Sampson, Price, and Cunningham. The great Dr
Johnson went here to see his namesake.

" Such a man, sir, said he, should be encouraged; for his performance
show the extent of human powers in one instance, and thus tend to raise
our opinion of the faculties of man. He shows what may be obtained by
persevering application; so that every man may hope, by giving as much
application, although, perhaps, he may never ride three horses at a time,
or dance upon a wire, yet he may be equally expert in whatever profession
he has chosen to pursue."

Royalty also visited the place : " Yesterday his Boyal Highness
the Duke of York was at the Three Hats, Islington, to see the
extraordinary feats of horsemanship exhibited there. There were
near five hundred spectators." + Sampson's wife was the fust
female equestrian.

JLtJL feats which he exhibits, Mrs Sampson, to diversify the entertainment,
and prove that the fair sex are by no means inferior to the male, either ia
Courage or Agility, will, this and every Evening during the Summer, per-
form various exercises in the same art, in which she hopes to acquit herself
to the universal approbation of those Ladies and Gentlemen whose curiosity
may induce them to honour her attempt with their company." ¹

The Three Hats occurs amongst the trades tokens of the seven-
teenth century. There is one of the Three Hats and Nag's
Head in Southwark. In the seventeenth century the sign of the
Three Hats at Leeuwarden, in Friesland, was accompanied by the
following stanza:—

" Dit is in de drie Hoeden
Our't hoofd te behoeden,
Yoor wind en koud.
Tromp was stout,
Yoer der staten kroon,
Hier maakt men hoeden schoon." +

The Locks op Hair was the very appropriate sign of John
Allen, a hairdresser on London Bridge in the last century, who
sold " all sorts of hair, Curled or Uncurled; Bags, Boses, Cauls,
Bibbons, Weaving Silk, Sewing Cards, and Blocks. With all Goods
made use of by Peruke makers, at the lowest prices." J The
locks of hair were represented curled and tied. This sign appears
to have been not unusual with the hairdressers of a former age.
In 1649, there was one in St Dunstan's-in-the-East, who had the
Lock and Shears ; which are represented on his trades token
by a lock of hair between a pair of shears, intimating that the
"unlovely lovelocks" were curtailed by him. What he would
require the tokens for in his profession (they were used as farthings)
it is difficult to guess, as apparently no such small change was
needed. This sign was in accordance with the spirit of the
times; short hair was the unmistakable mark of the godly puritan,
just as the straggling love-lock hanging over the shoulder denoted

t " This is in the Three Hats,
Which are worn on the head,
To keep it from cold and wind.
Tromp was a brave man
Who supported the crown of the state«
Hats cleaned here

" Thy hair, whose length before the rigorous edge of any puritanical pair
of scissors should shorten the breadth of a finger, let the three-house wifely
spinsters of Destiny rather curtail the thread of thy life. Oh, no ! long
hair is the only net that women spread abroad to entrap man in, and why
should not men be as far above women in that comodity as they go far be-
yond them in others." *

The Periwig was another common hairdresser's sign. Even this
iiad to submit to the favourite blue colour, for amongst the Banks
bills there is one of John Thompson, in Brewer Street, Golden
Square, who lived at the Blue Peruke and Star. The star
evidently was the original sign, to which the wig had been added
on account of the profession of the occupant of the house.

The White Peruke, in Maiden Lane, was the sign of the
barber, at whose lodgings Voltaire lived when on a visit to Lon-
don ; some of his letters to Swift are dated from that place. A
white periwig was a highly fashionable object:—" Now, I think
he looks very humorous and agreeable ; I vow, in a white periwig
he might do mischief; could he but talk and take snuff, there's
never a fop in town wou'd go beyond him."—Cibber's Double
Gallant, 1707. So Sliadwell, in " The Humorist," 1671, describes
Brisk, one of the dramatis persona?, as " a fellow that never wore a
noble and polite garniture, or a white periwig." Well might the
barbers give the peruke the honour of this signboard, for the
profits on that article must have been enormous. In Charles II.'s
time, for instance, a fine peruke cost as much as £50; and hence
the great respect Gibber paid to the one he wore in the character
of Sir Fopling Flutter, which was brought on the stage in a sedan,
and put on before the public. As the glory of Miltiades pre-
vented Epaminondas from sleeping, so the beauty of this periwig
disturbed the slumbers of Mr (afterwards Colonel) Brett, who in
the end bought it from Cibber.t The thieves as w^rell as the
beaux knew the value of those wigs, and practised all manner of
tricks to obtain them. Sometimes a boy, carried in a basket on
the shoulders of a man, would snatch the " curly honour " off the
head of the unsuspecting beau; X at other times they would cut
holes in the leather backs of the coaches,§ whilst the highway-
men were sure to include the periwig with the rest of the booty
captured on the road. Though this article is now shorn of its

honours, there is still a publican at Great Redisham, Suffolk, who
carries on his trade under the sign of the Wig.

The French have a sign quite as absurd as our Blue Peruke
-—viz., The Golden Beard, (la barbe d'07%) which is carved in
stone in the Bue des Bourdonnais, Paris, and also in the Marché
aux Herbes, Amiens : both these signs date from the eighteenth
century, but their origin is much older, as appears from the fol-
lowing :—

" Tlie Duke of Lorraine, after the Battle of Nancy, wherein he killed
Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, went in procession to visit the body,
clothed in deep mourning, with a golden beard fixed on, that reached down
to his waist, (after the manner of the old heroes that were knighted for
their prowess, who, on a signal victory over an enemy, were honoured with
such a beard.)"—Richardsoniana, London, 1770, p. 47.

The Anodyne Necklace was as notorious in the eighteenth
century, as Holloway's Pills and Rowland's Macassar Oil are in
our day. Advertisements concerning it were continually appear-
ing in the papers :—

X tempers of the head ; price 5s. Recommended by Dr Chamberlain.
Sold up one pair of stairs at the sign of the Anodyne Necklace, without
Temple Bar ; at the Spanish Ladt at the Royal Exchange, next Thread-
needlo Street ; at the Indian Handkerchief, facing the New Stairs in
Wapping," &c.*

To attract attention, there was frequently some book of not very
delicate character, advertised as " given away gratis '' at this
house. But as this kind of literature was sure to find a great many
readers—more especially when the book could be had for no-
thing—a restriction was sometimes added that " this curious book
will not be given away to any boys or girls, or any paultry per-
son." Such a pamphlet, for instance, was :—

1 matter, with the pictures engraved of the pretended rabbit-breeder
herself, Mary Tofts, and of the rabbits, and of the persons who attended
her during her pretended deliveries, showing who were and who were not
deceived by her. "fis given gratis nowhere, but only up one pair of stairs
at the sign of the Anodyne Necklace, recommended by Dr Chamberlain,"
&c.—Daily Courant, Jan. 11, 17'26.

This alluded to one of the most impudent frauds ever com-
mitted. A certain profligate woman, Mary Tofts by name, a
native of Godalming, in Surrey, pretended to give birth to rab-
bits. The first delivery was a family of seventeen ; she actually

found people who believed her, and gave their attention to thia
phenomenon. Amongst them were Sir Richard Manningham,
Dr St André, surgeon and anatomist to his Majesty, Dr Mow-
bray, &c. By these gentlemen she was brought to Lacy's Bagnio,
and the case was watched with intense interest ; yet she suc-
ceeded in baffling and deluding their attention. At last the
fraud came out by one of her accomplices informing upon her.
Prints, books, and ballads were published upon the subject, Dr
St André coming in for an extra share of ridicule ; but whether
the woman was in any way punished, is not on record. The
last information respecting her was in the Weekly Miscellany,
April 19, 1740 :—"The celebrated rabbit-woman, of Godalmin',
in Surrey, was committed to Guilford gaol for receiving stolen
goods." She died in January 17G3.

The Pearl of Venice is named in an advertisement of a
watch lost, " made at Paris, not so broad as a shilling, in a case
of black leather with gold nails."* It was the sign of "Mr
Leroy, in St James' Street, Covent Garding," The pearls of
Venice were celebrated :—

—Ben Jonson, The Fox, a. i., s, i.
At the same time that city was celebrated for its mock jewellery
and glass imitations.

From the Bagford shopbills, it appears that the Blue Bod-
dice was, in Queen Anne's reign, a milliner's shop in the Long
Walk, near Ckristchurch Hospital. At the same period another
member of the same fraternity (there were men-milliners in those
days) had the Hood and Scarf, articles of female apparel ; this
shop was in Cornhill, " over against Wills' Coffee-house." + At
the present time there is in the North a public-house called the
Blue Stoops ; this also seems to refer to an ancient garment,
worn in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and named by
Ben Jonson—" Alchymist," a. iv., s. ii.—"Your Spanish stoop
is the best garment."

The Bonny Cravat, at Woodchurch, Tenterden, to judge
from the adjective, seems rather to have been suggested by the
old song of " Jenny, come tie my bonny cravat," than by the
introduction of the cravat as an article of dress. The fashion is

t London Gazette, March 12 to 16, 1673. This was not the famous Will's Coffee-house,
which was situated in Bow Street, Covent Garden.

said to have been brought over from Germany, in the seventeenth
century, by some of the young French nobility, who had served
the emperor in the wars against the Turlcs, and had copied this
garment from the Groats, whence the name.

The Doublet, formerly the Harrow and Doublet,* is still
the sign of an iron warehouse in Upper Thames Street; it bears
the date 1720, and the letters T. C., the initials of one of the
Crowley family, to whom this warehouse has belonged " time out
of mind." It is made of cast and painted iron, and is said to
represent the leather doublet in which the founder of the firm
came to London as a day-labourer. The doublet was a kind of
vestment which originated from the gambason or pourpoint worn
under the armour; sleeves were added when it was worn without
armour, and so it became a universal garment.

There are trades tokens extant of the Child-coat, in White-
cross Street, probably a shop where children's apparel was sold.
Handle Holme, in his heraldic Omnium Gatherum, b. iii., ch. i., p.
18, gives a representation of a child's coat, which is very similar
to the " Knickerbocker" suit of the present day, with a short kilt
added to it. He adds the following explanation :—" A boy's
coat is the last coat used for boys, after which they are put into
breeches. If it has hanging sleeves, they would term it a child's
coat." In the same manner as the child's coat, the Minister's
Gown figured at the door of the shop where this article was
sold There is a shopbill of such a one in Booksellers' Bow,
St Paul's Churchyard, among the Bagford bills.

The Tabard was the well-known inn in Southwark whence
Chaucer and the other pilgrims started on their way to Canter-
bury. Mr Edmund Oilier has recently contributed a very inter-
esting paper 011 this old inn to All the Year Round, and several
paragraphs have appeared in other journals upon the same sub-
ject. A very few words, therefore, will be sufficient for the pre-
sent purpose. Originally, it was the property of the Abbot of
Hyde, near Winchester, who had his town residence within the
inn-yard. The earliest record relating to this property is in 33d
Edw. I., (1304,)when the Abbot and convent of Hyde purchased
of William of Lategareshall two houses in Southwark, held by
the Archbishop of Canterbury at the annual rent of 5s. l|d.,
and suit to his court in Southwark, and Id. a year for a pur-
presture of one foot wide on the king's highway; £i per anuum

to John de Tymberhutts, and 3 s. to the Prior and convent of St
jlary Overie, in Southwark; value clear, 40s.

It is a fact on record that Henry Bayley, the hosteller of the
Tabard, was one of the burgesses who represented the borough
of Southwark in the Parliament held in Westminster in the 50th
Edw. III., (1376 ;) and he was again returned to the Parliament
held at Gloucester in the 2d Richard II., in 1378.* The tavern
itself is named, at the very period when Chaucer's poem is supposed
to have been written, in one of the rolls of Parliament, where, 5th
Richard II., (1381,) in a list of malefactors who had partici-
pated in the rebellion of Jack Cade, occurs the name of " Joli'es
Brewersman, manens apud le Tabbard, London." Stow thus
notices the old inn :—

" From thence to London, on the same side, he many fair inns for receipt
of travellers, by their signs—the Spurre, Christopher, Bull, Queen'.s
Head, Tabarde, George, Hart, King's Head, &c. Amongst the which the
most ancient is the Tabard; so called of the sign, which, as we now term it,
is a jacket or sleeveless coat, whole before, open on both sides, with a square
collar, winged at the shoulders, a stately garment of old time, commonly
worn of noblemen and others, both at home and abroad in the wars, but
then, (to wit, in the wars,) their arms embroidered or otherwise depict upon
them, that any man by his coat of arms might be known from others ; but
now these tabardes are only worn by the heralds, and be called their coate
of armes in service."—Stow, p. 154.

Formerly there stood in the road, in front of the Tabard, a
beam laid crosswise upon two uprights, upon which was the
following inscription :—" This is the Inne where Sir Jeffrey
Chaucer and the nine-and-twenty pilgrims lay in their journey to
Canterbury, anno 1583." Over this the sign was hung, but that
disappeared with the rest of them in 1766. The writing of this
inscription seemed ancient, yet Tyrwhitt is of opinion that it was
not older than the seventeenth century, since Speght, who de-
scribes the Tabard in his edition of Chaucer 1602, does not
mention it. Perhaps it was put up after the fire of 1676, when
the Tabard changed its name into the Talbot.

At the present day the inn is known by the name of the
Talbot; and although the building is by no means the same that
sheltered Chaucer and his merry pilgrims, yet it is full of tradi-
tionary lore concerning them. In the centre of the gallery there
was a picture, said to be by Blake, and well painted, representing
the Canterbury Pilgrimage, almost invisible from dirt, age, and
smoke. Behind this picture was a door opening into a lofty pas-

sage, with rooms on either side, one of which, on the right hand,
was still designated as the Pilgrims' Room. The house was re-
paired in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and from that period,
probably, dated the fireplace, carved oak panels, and other parts
spared by the fire of 1676, which were still to be seen in the be-
ginning of this century.

As leather breeches were much used for riding in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries, the occupations of breeches-maker
and glover were frequently combined; hence the sign of the
Breeches and Glove on old London Bridge, the shop of
"Walter Watkins, Breeches-maker, Leather-seller, and Glover."
But what made a Cornish publican of the present day, (at Camel-
ford,) choose the sign of the Cotton Breeches, is more than ave
can pretend to explain.

• Stockings or Legs are of constant occurrence in the seven-
teenth century trades tokens, as the signs of hosiers—frequently
real, not painted, stockings were suspended at the door.

" On hosier's poles depending stockings ty'd,
Flag with the Blacken'd gale from side to side."—Gay's Trivia.

Boots and shoes occur in greater variety and abundance than
any other article of dress. The Boot is a very common inn sign,
either owing to the thirsty reputation of cobblers, or from the pre-
mises where they are found having been at one time occupied by
shoemakers. The Boot and Slipper may be seen at Smethwick,
near Birmingham ; the Golden Slipper at Goodrange, in West
Biding; the Hand and Slippers was a sign in Long Lane,
Smithfield, in 1750. The Shoe and Slap occurs in the follow-
ing handbill :—

" A T MR CROOME'S, at the sign of the Shoe and Slap, near the Hospital
Gate, in West Smithfield, is to be seen
The Wonder op Nature,
A Girl above Sixteen Years of Age, born in Cheshire, and not above
Eighteen inches long, having shed her Teeth seven several Times, and not
a perfect Bone in any Part of her, only the Head, yet she hath all her
senses to Admiration, and Discourses, Reads very well, Sings, Whistles, and
all very pleasant to hear.

A slap was a kind of " ladies shoe, with a loose sole," * the origin,
probably, of the present word slipper. Another kind of shoe is
also mentioned in an advertisement—the Laced Shoe in Chan-
cery Lane.t " Laced shoes," says Randle Holme, " have the over

* Randle Holme, b. Iii.. ch. i., p. 14. f London Gazette, July 31 to Aug. t, 1679.

leathers and edges of the shoe laced in orderly courses with
narrow galloon lace of any colour this places the use of
laced boots much earlier than we would have been apt to imagine.
The Clog is often used as a shoemaker's sign in Lancashire and
the midland counties, and also in those parts of London where
that article is worn. The Five Clogs was, in 1718, the sign of
William Wright, a quack, who lived over against Prescott Street,
Goodman's Fields.* Perhaps he occupied apartments at a clog-
maker's. Even the primitive Wooden Shoe (sabot) of France
lias figured as a tavern sign in that country. In a farce of the
fourteenth century, entitled, " Pernet qui va au Yin," the husband
names the following taverns :—

" Il n'y a personne," says Furretière in his Roman Bourgeois, " qui ne se
figure qu'on parle d'une Pentasilée ou d'une Talestris ; cepandant cette
guerrière Cassandre n'était réellement qu'une grande hallebreda qui tenit
le cabaret du Sabot dans le faubourg Saint Marcel."+

The Patten, the quaint little contrivance in which our great-
grandmothers tripped through the winter's sludge, was the sign
of a toy-shop in the Haymarket, " over against Great Suffolk
Street, and by Pall Mall ; " $ at the present day it is still ex-
tant as a fishmonger's shop in Whitecross Street, near the prison.

The very common sign of' the Star and Garter refers to
the insignia of the Order of the Garter. Anciently it was
simply called the Garter, and thus it is designated by Shake-
speare in his " Merry Wives of Windsor." Charles I. added the
star to the insignia, and his example was followed on the sign-
board. At that time the Garter was treated with a great deal
more respect than at present, for Sandford, Lancaster Herald
in 1G86, complained that several coffee-houses had the sign of the

"Everybody that reads those lines," says Furretière in his Roman Bourgeois, "will
certainly imagine that he alludes to some Pentasilea or Talestris; yet this warlike
fnssandra was after ail neither more nor )ess than a tall manly looking wench who kepi
the Wooden Shoe (Sabot) public-house m the faubourg Saint Marcel."

Garter with coffee-pots, &c., painted inside, which he considered
downright desecration ; hence, order was given to those offenders,
" to amend the same, or else they should be pulled down/'

The Garter Inn at Windsor, where Falstaff lived in such grand
style, " as an emperor in his expense," was not a creation of
Shakespeare's fancy, but did really exist, and most probably on
the same site at present occupied by the Star and Garter.* The
first Star and Garter at Richmond was built in 173|, on what
was then a portion of the waste of Petersham Common; it was
rented at 40s. a year. A drawing by Hearne, of the compara-
tively insignificant tenement then raised, is still preserved at the
hotel.

It was also the sign of a famous ordinary in Pall Mall. Hero
the Duke of Ormond, in the reign of Queen Anne, gave a dinner
to a few friends, and was charged £21, 6s. 8d. for the two
courses, each of four dishes, without any wine or dessert, which,
considering the value of money in those days, was certainly a
considerable sum. In this house, in 1765, Lord Byron, the
poet's grandfather, killed Mr Chaworth in an irregular duel, the
result of a dispute whether Mr Chaworth, who preserved his
game, or Lord Byron, who did not, had more game on his estate.
About the same time there was another Star and Garter tavern
at the end of Burton Street, near the famous Five Fields in
Chelsea, " a place where robbers lie in wait,"+ the site now oc-
cupied by Eaton Square and Belgrave Square. At this tavern,
Johnson the equestrian rode in July 1762, for the gratification
of the Cherokee king, when on a visit in this country. The
newspapers of the day describe the feats he performed :—" He
rides three horses, and when in full speed, tosses his cap and
catches it several times ; he stands with both feet on the horse
whilst it goes three times round the green in full speed," and
similar " astounding" acts, wliich would now be thought very
little of.

The Glove is, in France, the common sign of the glove-makers;
generally it is a colossal representation of a glove in tin painted
red. This article of dress has had more honour conferred upon
it than any other; anciently it was given, by way of delivery or
investiture, in sales and conveyances of lands and goods ; it was
worn by magistrates on certain occasions, presented to them on
others ; it was the challenge and sacred pledge of a duel; the

rural bridegroom in tbe time of Queen Elizabeth wore gloves on
bis bat as a sign of good husbandry ; noblemen wore their ladies'
gloves in front of their hats ; in some parts of England it used
to be the custom to hang a pair of white gloves on the pew of
unmarried villagers, who had died in the flower of their youth ;
it is used in marriage by proxy, and is connected with innumer-
able other customs and ceremonies.

The Fan, the Crowned Fan, the Two Fans, &c., were the
ordinary signs of milliners who sold fans.

The Pincushion is the sign of a public-house at Wyberton,
Boston, but why chosen it is difficult to say; and the Purse occurs
amongst the trades tokens of W. Smithfield, with the date 1669.
This last object was also the sign of one of the taverns visited at
Barnet by Drunken Barnaby, where he had the misfortune with
the bears.

The Bing was the sign of one of the booksellers in Little
Britain, in the reign of Queen Anne; and the Golden Ring
was, in 1723, the sign of G. Coniers on Ludgate Hill, who pub-
lished a black letter edition of " The Merry Tales of the Mad Men
of Gotam." An old tradition that Guttenberg received the first
idea of printing from the seal of his ring impressed in wax, may
have led those booksellers to adopt that object for their sign.

" Respicit arclietypos auri vestigia lustrans,
Et secum tacitus talia verba refert:
Quam belle pandit certas bsec orbita voces,
Monstrat et exactis apta reperta libris."*

A red or a bipartite Umbrella or Parasol is the invariable
sign of the umbrella-maker. This now indispensable article was
brought into fashion by Hanway the philanthropist, towards the
end of the eighteenth century. Before his time, a cloak was the
only protection against a shower. Pepys writes in his Diary,
" This day in the afternoon, stepping with the Duke of York in-
to St James' Park, it rained, and I was forced to lend the duke
my cloak, which he wore through the park." On another
occasion Pepys was out with no less than four ladies, " and it
rained all the way, it troubled us ; but, however, my cloak kept
us all dry." Pepys sheltering the four ladies under his cloak
of charity would make a very pretty picture. In the reign
of Queen Anne, good housewives defied the winter's shower,

* "He looked intently at the seal, observing the impression left by the gold, and spoke
these words to himself, ' How beautifully and distinctly does this impression render the
words,' and he proved his useful discovery in exact books."

" underneath th¹ umbrella's oily shed/' * but Hanway was the
first who, braving laughter and sarcasm, accustomed the Lon-
doners to the sight of a man carrying that useful contrivance.
John Pugh, who wrote Hanway's life, says :—

" When it rained, a small parapluie defended his face and wig; thus he
was always prepared to enter into any company without impropriety or the
appearance of negligence. And he was the first man who ventured to walk
the streets of London with an umbrella over his head ; after carrying one
near thirty years he saw them come into general use."

There is a small umbrella shop in Old Street, Shoreditch,
called the Umbrella Hospital; two placards are in the window,
one setting forth the analogy between a human being and an
umbrella, the second giving a list of the prices charged for curing
the several ills an umbrella is heir to, thus :—

0 6
0 6
1 0
0 6
2 6
1 0
0 6

0 3
0 6
0 6

Restoring a spine,
Inserting a new spine, .
Resuscitating the muscularia, .
A new membranous attachment,
Restoring a shattered constitution.
Setting a dislocated neck,
Restoring a broken neck,
A new set of nerves,
A new rib,
A new muscle, .
A new motive power, .
A crenated attachment,
Restoring the muscular power,
Fixing on a new head, .
Supplying a new bead, .

Foremost in this division stands the Globe,—" the great Globe
itself," a trade emblem common to publicans, outfitters, and
others, who rely upon cosmopolitan customers. One of the
theatres, where Shakespeare used to perform, was called The
Globe, from its sign representing Atlas supporting the world.
It was accompanied by the motto, Totus Mundus agit His-
trionem; upon which Ben Jonson made the following epigram:—

" If but stage actors all the world displays,
Where shall we find spectators to their plays?"

To which Shakespeare is said to have returned this answer :—
" Little or much of what we see we do,
We are all actors and spectators too."

The house stood on the Bankside, Southwark, and was burnt
down in June 1613, having been set on fire during one of the
plays by a piece of wadding fired from a cannon falling on the
thatched roof. It was rebuilt, but finally taken down in 1644
to make room for dwelling-houses.

One of the most famous Globe taverns stood, till the begin-
ning of this century, in Fleet Street. It had been one of the
favourite haunts of Oliver Goldsmith, who, it appears, was never
tired of hearing a certain " tun of a man" sing " Nottingham
Ale." Goldsmith's face was so well known here that a wealthy
pork-butcher, another habitue of the house, used to drink to
him in the familiar words, " Come, Noll, old boy, here's my ser-
vice to you." Several actors, also, " used" the house,— amongst
others, the centenarian Macldin, Tom King, and Dunstall, Many
amusing anecdotes concerning the place have been preserved in
the " Fruits of Experience," a delightful book of city gossip,
written in his eightieth year by Joseph Brasbridge, a silversmith
in Fleet Street. Brasbridge was a constant visitor at this tavern.

At Aldborough, near Boroughbridge, there is a Globe public-
house, in which a tessellated pavement, part of a Boman villa,
may be seen. The publican informs passers-by of this by the
following inscription on his signboard :—

" This is the ancient manor-house, and in it you may see
The Romans work a great curiositee."

And the absence of the apostrophe certainly makes it so. Finally,
John Partridge, the almanac-making shoemaker, so amusingly
ridiculed in the Tatler, lived at the Globe in Salisbury Street.
From the pursuits of that great man, we may surmise his globe
to have been a celestial one.

Sometimes the Globe was gilt, " for a difference." Thus the
Golden Globe was the sign of William Herbert, printseller, and
editor of Joseph Ames's well-known work on " Typographical
Antiquities." This shop was under the Piazza on London Bridge,
where he continued till 1758, when the house was taken down.

Of all the signs which may be termed " Geographical," those
referring to our own island are, of course, the most common in
this country. Britannia is very general. Hone, in his " Every-
day Book," mentions a public-house in the country where London
porter was sold, and the figure of Britannia was represented in a
languishing, reclining posture, with the motto,

The first inhabitants are commemorated by the sign of the
An cient Briton ; but this is not one of the " Cserulei Britanni,"
though true blue for all that, but refers simply to a true patriot in
the best sense of the word. Thus Boswell uses the expression in
one of his letters to Dr Johnson :—

" I trust that you will be liberal enough to make allowance for my dif-
fering from you on two points, [the Middlesex election and the American
war,] -«hen my general principles of government are according to your own
heart, and when, at a crisis of doubtful event, I stand forth with honest
k.eal as an ancient and faithful Briton."

That this is the meaning attached to the word is evident from
other signs of the same family, as True Briton, Generous
Briton, &c., all common signatures to political letters in the
newspapers of the Junius period. The modern John Bull, and
the still later Old English Gentleman, descend from the same
stock, and are all equally common.

England, Scotland, and Ireland was, in 1673, the sign of
John Thornton, in the Minories, hydrographer to the Hon. East
India Company. As he also sold maps, he had probably a map
of the United Kingdom as his sign. Formerly signs representing
buildings or localities in London were common, though generally
they bore very little resemblance to the places intended. Among
the trades tokens we find the Exchange, a tavern in the Poultry
in 1651; the East India House, in Leadenhall Street, like

most of tliis description of signs, prompted by tlie vicinity of
the building represented; Charing Cross, the sign of a shop in
that locality where they sold canaries in 1699, and also a sign
at Norwich in 1750; The Old Prison, in Wliitechapel—this
Old Prison was intended for King's Cross; Camden House.
in Maiden Lane, 1668,—this must have been in honour of Bap-
tist Hicks, the opulent mercer, at the White Bear, in Cheapside,
who died as Viscount Camden in 1628. He built Hicks Hall on
Clerkenwell Green, and presented it to the county magistrates as
their session-house.

Further, there was the Temple, the sign of Mr Buck, book-
seller, near the Inner Temple Gate, in Fleet Street, in 1700; and
at the same period, Hyde Park, a shop or tavern in Gray's Inn
Lane. A public-house in Bridge Row, Chelsea, mentioned before
1750, and still in existence, bears the name of the Chelsea
Waterworks. The Waterworks, after which it .was named,
were constructed circa 1724; a canal was dug from the Thames,
near Ranelagh, to Pimlico, where an engine was placed for the
purpose of raising the water into pipes, which conveyed it to
Chelsea, Westminster, and various parts of western London. The
reservoirs in Hyde and Green Park were supplied by pipes from
the Chelsea Waterworks, which, in 1767, yielded daily 1740 tons.

The Lancashire Witch, a sign of an exhibition of shell-work
and petrifactions in Shoreditch, 1754, was doubtless named after
our old friend, Mother Shipton, born near the Petrifying Well at
Knaresborougli.

Even on the Continent we meet with a London sign,—viz., at
Verona, where, in 1825, the Tower of London was one of the
inns which recommended itself to English travellers in the fol-
lowing grand circular:—

" Circulatory.—Tlie old inn of London's Tower, placed among the more
agreeable situation of Verona's Course, belonging at Sir Theodosius Zi-
gnoni, restored by the decorum most indulgent to good things, of life's
eases, which nre favoured from every art at same inn, with all object
that is concern'd, conveniency of stage-coaches, proper horses, and good
foragers, and coach-house; do offers at innkeeper the constant hope to be
honoured from a great concourse, where politeness, good genius of meats
to delight of nations, round table, [table d'hote,] coffee-house, hackney-
coach, men servant of place, swiftness of service, aud moderacion of prices,
shall arrive to accomplish in him all satisfaction, and at Sir's who will do
the favour honouring him a very assur'd kindness."

York figures more frequently on the signboard than any other
place in England. From the trades tokens we see that the City

of York was a sign in Middle Bow, Holborn, in the seventeenth
century. The York Minster is one of the few cathedrals ever
seen represented out of its own city, probably for no other reason
than because it stands in the capital of the county from whence
the Yorkshire stingo comes. York, however, seems to have been
a right merry city, second only to the city of London, for one of
the oldest Boxburglie ballads, dated 1Ô84, says :—

" Yorke, Yorke, for my monie, of all the cities that ever I see,
For mery pastime and companie, except the cittie of London."

The Castle being such a general sign, many traders adopted
some particular castle. Dover Castle, or Walmer Castle, ia
amongst the most frequent. The first is mentioned in the fol-
lowing amusing advertisement :—

" For Female Satisfaction.
" T17HEREAS the htsteky of Freemasonry has been kept a profound

Y) secret for several Ages, till at length some Men assembled themselves
at the Dover Castle, in the parish of Lambeth, under pretence of knowing
the secret, and likewise in opposition to some gentlemen that are real
Freemasons, and hold a Lodge at the same house ; therefore, to prove that
they are no more than pretenders, and as the Ladies have sometimes been
desirous of gaining knowledge of the noble art, (sic,) several regular-made
Masons, (both ancient and modern,) members of constituted Lodges in this
metropolis, have thought proper to unite into a select Body at Beau Sil-
vester's, the sign of the Angel, Bull Stairs, Southwark, and stile themselves
Unions, think it highly expedient, and injustice to the fair sex, to initiate
them therein, provided they are women of undeniable character; for tho*
no Lodge as yet (except the Free Union Masons) have thought proper to
admit Women into the Fraternity, we, well knowing they have as much
Right to attain to the secrets as those Castle Humbugs, have thought
proper so to do, not doubting but they will prove an honour to the
Craft ; and as we have had the honour to inculcate several worthy Sisters
therein, those that are desirous, and think themselves capable of having
the secret conferred on them, by proper Application, will be admitted,
and the charges will not exceed the Expences of our Lodge."—Publick Ad-
vertiser, March 7, 1759.

The sign of the Angel at Beau Silvester's was certainly well
chosen by those gallant soi-disant Masons ; but would not the
Silent Woman have been still more appropriate 1 Be that as it
may, Lodges for ladies there were—witness the following adver-
tisement, a good specimen of " Stratford-le-Bow" French :—

" A YERTISSEMENT AUX DAMES, etc. Pour vincre que les Francs
XX Massons ne sont pas telles que le public les a représentées en parti-
culier la sexe Feminine, cet Loge juge a propos de recevoir dee Femmes
aussi bien que des Homme»,

" N. B.—Les Dames seront introduits dans la Loge avec la Cei emoniô
accoutumée ou le Serment ordinaire et le reel Secret leur seront adminis-
trées. On commencera a recevoir des Dames Jeudy 11 de Mars 1762, at
Mrs Maynard's, next door to the Lying-in Hospital, Brownlow Street, Long-
acre. La Porte sera ouverte a 6 Heures du Soir. Les Dames et Mes-
sieurs sont priées de ne pas venir après sept. Le prix est £1, ls."—(News-
paper, 1762.)

How the ladies were initiated—or, as the worthy secretary of
Beau Silvester's Lodge calls it, " inculcated,"—we are not in-
formed ; but certainly some modification must have been made
in the usual ceremony attending the initiation of novices.

Llangollen Castle is painted on a sign in Deansgate, Man-
chester : under it is the following rhyme :—

" Near the above place in a vault,
There is such liquor fixed,
You '11 say that water, hops, and malt,
Were never better mixed."

Many other castles occur, such as Jersey Castle, on the
token of Philip Crosse in Finch Lane, in the seventeenth century ;
Rochester Castle, Mitford Castle, Hereford Castle,
Warwick Castle, Edinburgh Castle, &c.

Towns are often adopted for signs as a point de ralliement for
the natives of such places, the birthplace of the landlord being
generally the town which has the honour of his selection. The
City of Norwich was the sign of a house in Bishopsgate Street
in the seventeenth century, either for the reason just alleged, or
because " the fall of Niniveh with Norwich built in an hour,"
was one of the penny sights at that period. Coventry Cross
was the sign of a mercer in New Bond Street at the end of the
last century, evidently chosen on account of the silk ribbons
manufactured in that town ; and the Ciiiltern Hundred, a
public-house at Boxley, near Maidstone, doubtless refers to the
well-known range of hills extending from Henley-on-Thames to
Tring in Herts. In old times these hills were covered with
forests, and infested by numerous bands of thieves. To protect
the people in the neighbourhood, an officer was appointed by the
Crown, called the steward of the Chiltern Hundreds, and although
the duties have long ceased the office still exists, and is made
use of to afford members of the House of Commons an oppor-
tunity of resigning their seats when they desire it. Being a
Government appointment, though without either duties or salary,
the acceptance of it disqualifies a member from retaining his seat.

Tlie Wiltshire Shepherd was a sign in St Martin's Lane in
the seventeenth century. The Wiltshire downs were famous
for their flocks of sheep. Aubrey, himself a Wiltsliireman, says
that the innocent lives of those shepherds " doe give us a re-
semblance of the golden age." He also states that tlieir sight
inspired Sir Philip Sidney in charming pastorals, which on those
very downs he sketched from nature, as some of his old rela-
tions well remembered. " 'Twas about these purlieus," says he,
" that the muses were wont to appeare to Sir Philip Sidney, and
where he wrote down their dictates in his table-book, though on
horseback." Many of the customs of these shepherds Aubrey
traces down from the Romans.* The Gentle Shepherd of
Salisbury Plain is the name given to Farmer Peek's house, on
the road from Cape Town to Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope.
On his signboard is the following mosaic inscription :—
" Multum in parvo, pro bono publico •
Entertainment for man or beast all of a row.
Lekker host as much as you please;
Excellent beds without any fleas.
Nos patriam fugimus—now we are here,
Vivamus, let us live by selling beer.
On donne h, boire et h. manger ici;
Come in and try it, whoever you be.

Near Basingstoke there is a public-house sign representing a
grenadier in full uniform, holding in his hand a foaming pot of
ale ; it is called the Whitley Grenadier, and bears the follow-
mg disinterested verses :—

" This is the Whitley Grenadier,
A noted house for famous beer.
My friend, if you should chance to call,
Beware and get not drunk withal;
Let moderation be your guide,
It answers well whene'er 'tis try'd.
Then use, but not abuse, strong beer,
And don't forget the Grenadier."

This sign seems to have been suggested by the tragical death
of a grenadier, which is thus recorded on a tombstone in the
churchyard of Winchester Cathedral:—

" Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadeer,
Who caught his death by drinking cold small beer.
Soldiers be warned by his untimely fall,
And when you 're hot, drink strong, or none at all."

To which a wag appended the following lines :—
" An honest soldier never is forgot,
Whether he die by musket or by pot."
The Flitch op Dunmow is a common sign in Essex, and is
sometimes seen in other counties. The custom of giving a flitch
of bacon, on the well-known conditions, is not peculiar to Dun-
mow. In the reign of Edward III., the Earl of Lancaster,
lord of the honour of Tutbury, granted a manor near Wichnor
village, Burton-upon-Trent, to Sir Philip de Sommerville, stipulat-
ing that he was to give a flitch of bacon on the same conditions
as at Dunmow.* At the abbey of St Milaine, near Bennes, in
Normandy, the same custom was observed, but the practice was
still less successful, for Dunmow at least has six times given the
side of bacon away, but—

" A l'abbaye de Saint Milaine près Rennes y a plus de six cents ans ont
un costé de lard encore tout frais et non corrompu ; et néanmoins ont
voué et ordonné aux premiers qui par an et jour ensemble mariez ont
vescu sans débat, grondement et sans s'en repentir." +

Our next sign is geographical only in its relationship. At Wans-
ford Bridge, which crosses the river Neil in Northampton, there
is the Haycock Inn, deriving its name from a curious incident :
the river overflowed its banks and carried away a haycock with a
man upon it. Taylor, the Water poet, says of the circumstance :—

" On a haycock sleeping soundly,
The river rose, and took me roundly
Down the current ; people cried,
As along the stream I hied.
' Where away?' quoth they, 'From Greenland ?'
' No; from Wansford Bridge, in England."'
The stone bridge, of thirteen arches, carries the Great North
Road across the river, so much traversed in the coaching times ;
and well known to many a traveller in those days was the Hay-
cock Inn, at one end of the bridge, which has on the signboard a
pictorial representation of the scene.

Scotland, which, besides Edinburgh ales and Highland whisky,
produces a great many publicans, is honoured in numberless signs.
Land o' Cakes, the name given by Burns to the country of the
" brighter Scotch," is a sign at Middle Hill Gate, near Stockport.
And here we may observe the popularity of Burns among the

* See Gent.'s Mac/., Jan. 1819, where the conditions are given in extenso.
t "At the abbey of Saint Milaine, near Rennes, there has been for more than 600 yeari
a flitch of bacon, still perfectly fresh and good ; yet it is promised and ordered to be given
to the first couple that has been married for a year and a day without quarrelling, scold-
ing, or regretting thai tney were married."—Cor'it tTEulrap.

publicans, for not only is tbe poet bimself, and several of Iris
amusing heroes, exalted in innumerable places among the " living
dead," but at Kirby Moor some of his verses are even introduced
on the sign :—

" When neebors anger at a plea.
An' just as wud as wud can be,
How easy can the barley bree

Cement the quarrel ?
It's aye the cheapest lawyer's fee,
To taste the barrel."
Very good advice indeed.

Since the Highlander's love for snuff and whisky was such,
that he wished to have " a Benlomond of snuff, and a Loch
Lomond of whisky," nobody could make a better public-house
sign than the Highland Laddie, nor a better snuff-shop sign
than the kilted Highlander who stands generally at the door of
these establishments. Two others of the lares and penates of
the tobacconist are the Sailor and the Moor or Oriental. The
first presiding over the snuff, the second over the chewing, the
third over the smoking " department,"—as the drapers term the
divisions of their shop. After the rebellion of 1745, when
everything was done by the Government to extinguish the na-
tionality of the Scotch, when Scotch ballads were forbidden, and
the names of some clans were deemed more odious than the word
ralca to the Jews, the kilt was forbidden by the legislature as an
abomination. On that occasion the following trifle appeared in
the newspapers :—

" We hear that the dapper wooden Highlanders, who guard so heroically
the doors of snuff-shops, intend to petition the Legislature, in order that
they may be excused from complying with the act of Parliament with re-
gard to their change of dress : alledging that they have ever been faithful
subjects to his Majesty, having constantly supplied his Guards with a pinch
out of their Mulls when they marched by them, and so far from engaging
in any Rebellion, that they have never entertained a rebellious thought;
whence they humbly hope that they shall not be put to the Expense cf
buying new cloatlis."

The ubiquity of the Scotch packman produced the sign of the
Scotchman's Pack, St Michael's Hill, Bristol, and in some other
places. From the following passage it appears that these Scot-
tish packmen, in the sixteenth century, penetrated even as far
as Poland :—Ane pedder is called ane merchod or cremar quha
beirs ane pack or creame* upon his bak, quha are called beirares

* Creame—Dutch, Ja-aam^-a temporary booth erected in fair-time to serve as a shop.
Even at the present day those men that go from village to village selling cheap jewel-

of the puddill be the Scottesmen in the realine of Polonia, quhaii
I saw an greate multitude in the town of Cracovia, anno Dom.
1569."*

Gretna Green used at one time to be a not very uncommon
sign on the Border; there is one at Ayeliffe, Darlington. The
origin of marriages at this place is not so generally known that it
would be superfluous to introduce it here. Marriages in Scotland
at all times having been considered legal if two parties accepted
each other for man and wife in the presence of witnesses, a dis-
sipated tobacconist, named Joseph Paisley, about a century ago,
conceived the idea of opening an establishment on the Border to
unite runaway couples in wedlock. For this purpose he selected
the common, or green, between Graitnoy and Springfield, in
Dumfries-shire, a place called Megshill, the first Scottish ground
on entering the country from Cumberland; there he commenced
business. In 1791 he settled in the then newly-built village of
Springfield, but the reputation of his impromptu marriage-temple
on Graitney Common, (or Gretna Green, as the English called it,)
had already so widely spread that the name of the place had
passed into a by-word for clandestine marriages. Paisley died
in 1814, but marriage-mongering had become a trade in Spring-
field, and several self-appointed parsons started up to fill the
office. Pennant says that in 1771 a young couple might be
united "from two guineas a job to a dram of whisky" by a
fisherman, a joiner, or a blacksmith; but the prices rose much
higher afterwards, varying from £40 to half-a-guinea, and this
last sum was only accepted from pedestrian couples. As a rule,
the fee was settled by the post-boys from Carlisle, each patronis-
ing certain houses, and the hymeneal priests, knowing the value
of their patronage, permitted them to go snacks in the proceeds.
It is estimated that about 300 couples a year used to get married
in this off-hand manner.

Of our colonies, Gibraltar and the Cape of Good Hope
seem to be almost the only ones considered worthy the honour
of the signboard. Gibraltar became popular as soon as the ac-
quisition had been esteemed at its proper value. As for the Cape
of Good Hope, the frequency of this sign all over England seems
to render it probable that it was not so much adopted in honour

lery and other articles, which they carry in a box or basket, are called mars-kraj»cr«^
apparently from marcher, to walk, and the above kraavi.

* Skene, Be Verborum Significatione at the End of his Lawes and Actes. Edinburgh,
1507.

of the colony as to express the landlord's hope of success, and
therefore as a sort of equivalent to the Hope and Anchor, or the
Hope.* The Jamaica tavern, too, may have been christened in
compliment to the birth-place of rum. There is a house with this
name in Bermondsey, which is one of the many houses stated in
our time to have been a residence of Oliver Cromwell. " The
building, of which only a moiety now remains, and that very
ruinous, the other having been removed years ago to make room
for modem erections, presents probably almost the same features
as when tenanted by the Protector. The carved quatrefoils and
flowers upon the staircase beams, the old-fashioned fastenings of
the doors — 'bolts, locks, and bars' — the huge single gable,
(which in a modern house would be double,) even the divided
section, like a monstrous amputated stump, imperfectly plastered
over, patched here and there with planks, slates, and tiles, to keep
the wind and weather out, though it be very poorly—all are in
keeping; and the glimmer of the gas, by which the old and
ruinous kitchen into which we strayed was dimly lighted, seemed
to ' pale its ineffectual fires' in striving to illumine the old
black settles, and still older wainscot," + After the Bestoration,
this house seems to have become a tavern, and here, according
to the homely, kind-hearted custom of the times, Pepys, on Sun-
day, April 14, 1667, took his wife and her maids to give them a
day's pleasure. " Over the water to the Jamaica house, where I
never was before, and then the girls did run wagers on the bowl-
ing green, and there with much pleasure spent little, and so
home." Subsequently, he frequently returned to this place,
which seems to have been the same he elsewhere calls The Half-
way House. Besides this, there is the Jamaica and Madeira
coffee-house, a well-known business club or tavern in St Michael's
Alley, Cornkill.

Only a few European nations and towns are represented.
Amongst the Bagford shopbiils there is one of a perfumer, named
Dighton, who, in the reign of Queen Anne, sold " true Hungary
Water, all sorts of snuff and perfumes," &c. His shop was next
door to the King's Head Tavern at Chancery Lane End, and had
the sign of the City of Sevilla ; the woodcut above his shop-
bill presents a distant family resemblance to that place, and with
a little goodwill one may recognise the Alcazar, the Giralda, San

* See in this same chapter, p. 417, for particulars of a signboard at trie Cape, ex-
hibited by Farmer Peek. t " Fly Leaves," 1854.

Clementi, and San Juan de la Palma; the view is taken from
the suburb of Triana, on the other side of the river. This
" famous Henry Dighton," as he styles himself in an advertise-
ment in 1718, "sworn perfumer in ordinary to II. M. King
George," had chosen the sign of the City of Sevilla from the
fact of his importing Spanish snuff, the fashionable mixture in
those days, which the gallants dislodged with such airy elegance
from among the lace frills of their shirts and neckties. His suc-
cessor, Henry Coulthurst, promised " to furnish greater variety
of the choicest and truest snuff than any perfumer in England,
viz., Havana, Port St Mary's, Barcelona, Port Mahon, Seville,
plain Spanish, and fine Lisbon." These Spanish snuffs had come
greatly into fashion at the capture of Puerta St Maria, near
Cadiz, when the fleet, under Sir George Booke, captured several
thousand barrels of snuff. But long before that time enormous
quantities of Spanish tobacco had been yearly imported into
England.

" There was wont to come out of Spain," said Sir Edwin Sandys, in 1620,
" a great mass of money to the value of £100,000 per annum for our cloths
and other merchandises; and now we have from thence for all our cloth and
merchandises nothing hut tobacco: nay, that will not pay for all the to-
bacco we have from thence, but they have more from us in money every
year, £20,000; so there goes out of this kingdom as good as £120,000 for
tobacco every year."*

The Three Spanish Gypsies, in the New Exchange, was the
shop of the future " Monkey Duchess," the nickname given by
her aristocratic friends to Anne Monk, Duchess of Albemarle.
" She was the daughter of John Charges, a farrier in the Savoy,
and horse-shoer to Colonel Monk. In 1632 she was married, in
the church of St Lawrence Poultney, to Thomas Radford, son of
Thomas Badford, late a farrier, servant to Prince Charles, and
resident in the Mews. She had a daughter who was born in
1634, and died in 1638. She lived with her husband at the
Three Spanish Gypsies, in the New Exchange, and sold wash-
balls, powder, gloves, and such things, and taught girls plain
work. About 1647, being a sempstress to Colonel Monk, she
used to carry him his linen. In 1648 her father and mother
died. The year after she fell out with her husband, and they
parted. But no certificate from any parish register appears re-
citing his burial. In 1652 she was married in the church of
St George, Southwark, to General Monk, and in the following

year was delivered of a son, Christopher, (afterwards the second
and last Duke of Albemarle,) who was suckled by Honour Mills,
who sold apples, herbs, and oysters."* What became of her first
husband, and when he died, is not known.

Venice was the sign of B. Martin, a bookseller in the Old
Bailey, circa 1640, adopted probably in honour of the Aldi, the
famous printers, who carried on business in this city. In the
reign of Charles II. there was a house of indifferent fame in
Moorfields, called the Bussia House, whether opened during the
time that the Bussian ambassadors visited the king, or how it
obtained its name, is not known. The house became notorious
in 1667 through the trial of Gabriel Holmes and a band of in-
cendiaries, among whom were two young boys, sons of James
Montague of Lackham, grandsons of the Earl of Manchester.
The boys turned king's evidence, and Holmes was hanged.
Russia House was one of the places where they planned tlieir
expeditions and spent their money : the object of their incendi-
arism, it came out at the trial, was simply that they might steal
the goods which would be flung into the streets by the terrified
inmates of the burning houses.

The Antwerp tavern was a famous house behind the Ex-
change, in the seventeenth century, of which tokens are extant,
representing a view of Antwerp from the river. The extensive
trade of Flanders, in the middle ages and long after, made
Antwerp a favourite subject for signboards, it being the best
harbour in Flanders. In Dieppe there is still a house on the
Quai Henri IV., bearing a stone bas-relief sign of Antwerp, (la
ville d'Anvers,) with the date 1697 ; but this house and sign are
named, as early as 1645, in a MS. list of rents of houses in
Dieppe, due to the Archbishop of Rouen.

Dutchmen, in some instances, have been appointed the tutelar
saints of public-houses, on account of their reputed love for drink ;
thus we have the Two Dutchmen at Marsden, near Hudders-
field, and the Jovial Dutchman at Crick, in Derbyshire, Now,
though the Dutchman's joviality is questionable, yet he certainly
has at all times been reputed a heavy drinker. Shakespeare
names, " your swag-bellied Hollander," along with the Dane and
German, as the only (though unsuccessful) rival of the English in
the art of hard drinking. Massinger, in his " Duke of Florence,"
lias £v similar remark ; and Sir Richard Baker, in his " Chronicles,,"

says that the English " in these Dutch wars learned to be drunk-
ards, and as we do not like to do things by halves in this country,
we soon surpassed our masters." Decker remarks that " Drunk-
enness, which was once the Dutchman's headake, is now become
the Englishman's." * Upsy Dutch and upsy freeze (for " op zyn
Dutch," and " op zyn Vriesch," a la Dutch and a la Yriesch) are
terms constantly used by Decker to denote a very drunken con-
dition. Yet there was a time, long before the " Dutch wars,"
when the English did not want any foreign masters to teach them
drinking; how could it have been otherwise with descendants of
the beer-drinking Saxons and Danes 1 Malmesbury complains
that in his time " the English fashion was to sit bibbing whole
hours after dinner, as the Normane guise was to walke and get
up and downe in the stretes with great waines of idle serving
men following them ;" + and Hollinshed, who wrote at the very
time of the Dutch wars, mentions among the improvements
which old men in his time observed, was that the farmers could
pay their rent without selling a cow or a horse, as they had been
wont to do in former times, " owing to too much attention to the
ale-house, and too little to work."

Notwithstanding this, the Jovial Dutchman is a very good sign
for licensed victuallers, since the general opinion is :—
" Death's not to be —, so Seneca doth think,
But Dutchmen say 'tis death to cease to drink." $

Besides drinking, the Dutchman has long had a reputation fot
smoking, whence the tobacconists of the last century used fre-
quently to have on their sign, a Scotchman, a Dutchman, and a
sailor, with the following rhyme :—

A tobacconist in Kingsland Boad had the same men, but a
different reading of the text:—

" This Indian weed is good indeed,
Puff on, keep up the joke,
'Tis the best, 'twill stand the test,
Either to chew or smoke." §

The introduction of coffee produced signs of various sultans,
but the Turk's Head may, perhaps, date from earlier times,

§ Banks collection of shopbills, where amateurs of tobacco curiosities may Snct 8
very rich collection of all sorts of tobacco-paper rhymes, signs, &c.

possessing an origin similar to the Saracen's Head. The Turks
throughout the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries,
were a common topic of conversation, arid the bugbear of the
European nations. This is well exemplified in the church-
wardens' accounts of St Helen's, Abingdon, where the following
entry occurs :—" Anno mdlxv—8 of Q, Eliz.—payde for two
bokes of common prayer agaynste invading of the Turke, 0. 6."
That year the Turks had made a descent upon the isle of Malta,
where they besieged the town and castle of St Michael; but upon
the approach of the fleet of the Order, they broke up the siege
and suffered a considerable loss in their flight. During the war
of Emperor Maximilian against the Turks in Hungary, similar
prayer-books were annually purchased for the parish. The first
prototypes of newspapers, also, were the printed despatches concern-
ing the battles and engagements of the emperor with the Turks,*
and even at the end of the seventeenth century no newspaper
was complete without its news from the Danube and " move-
ments of the Turks." One of the earliest patents granted for
pistols, contains a clause that square balls are not to be used,
" except against the Turks," The number of Turk's Heads in Lon-
don in the seventeenth century was considerable ; not less than
eight trades tokens of different houses with this sign are known
to exist.

In 1667, Robert Boulter, at the Turk's Head in Bishopsgate,
published the first edition of Milton's " Paradise Lost." It was
with difficulty that the author sold the copy for five pounds / he
was to receive £5 more after the sale of the 1300 copies which
comprised the first impression, and £5 more after the sale of each
new impression of 1300 copies each. "And what a poor con-
sideration was this," says one of his biographers, " for such an
inestimable performance," and how much more do others get by
the works of great authors than the authors themselves 1 And
yet we find that Hoyle, the author of the " Treatise on the
Game of Whist," after having disposed of the whole of the first
impression, sold the copyright to the bookseller for two hundred
guineas.

Dr Johnson used often to take supper at the Turk's Head in the
Strand : " I encourage this house, (said he;) for the mistress of it

* In the Typographical Antiquities of Great Britain, London 1810, vol. ill., p. Ha,
such a paper is given, entitled: "The triumphant victory of the Imperyall Mageste
arainst the Turkes the xxvi day of Septembre, the yere of our lord mcccccxxxii. in
gteuermanje by a Capytayne named Michael Meschsaer,"

is a good, civil woman, and has not much business."* At
another Turk's Head, Gerrard Street, Soho, Johnson formed, in
1703, that well-known club, which was long without a name, but
which after Garrick's funeral became distinguished by the name
of the Literary Club.

" Sir Joshua Reynolds had the merit of being the first proposer of it, to
which Johnson acceded, and the original members were Sir Joshua Rey-
nolds, Dr Johnson, Mr Edmund Burke, Dr Nugent, Mr Beauclerck, Mr
Langton, Dr Goldsmith, Mr Chamier, and Sir John Hawkins. They met
at the Turk's Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, one evening every week, at seven,
and generally continued their conversation till a pretty late hour. This
club has been gradually increased to its present [1791] number thirty-five.
After about ten years, instead of supping weekly, it was resolved to dine
together once a fortnight during the meeting of Parliament." +

After the death of the landlord of this house, the club removed
to the Prince in Sackville Street; and after two or three more
changes, it finally settled down at the Thatched House, St
James's. The original portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds, presented
to the club by the painter himself, is still preserved; one of its
peculiarities is, that the artist has represented himself wearing
spectacles. The club is still in existence, under the name of the
Dilettanti Club. " The Turk's Head in Gerrard Street, Soho," says
Moser in his Memorandum-book, "was, more than fifty years
since, removed from a tavern of the same sign, the corner of
Greek and Compton Streets. This place was a kind of head-
quarters for the Loyal Association during the rebellion of 1745." ^

About that time there was a waiter in this tavern, who, like
Tennyson's waiter at the Cock, Templebar, had obtained consider-
able celebrity. His name was Little Will. On an engraving
dated 1752, he is represented as a small man with a large head
and a periwig, dressed in a long apron, with a pair of snuffers
suspended from the waist. The Rev. Mr Huddersford, of Trinity
College, Oxford, in a letter to Granger, says,—

" Little Will, as I have heard, was a great favourite with the gentlemen
of the coffee-house; there is a print representing him in his constant atti-
tude, apparently insensible to anything around him, but swallowing every
article of politicks that dropped, which, I am told, he understands better
than any of his masters."

The Three Turks was a sign at Norwich in 1750,§ and even
now, though the crescent is decidedly in the "last quarter,"

t Moser's Memorandum-Book, M.S. dated 1799, as quoted in Notes and Queriet,
December 22, 1849.

there are still signs of Turks to be found, as tlie Turk and
Slave, Brick Lane, Spitalfields; the Great Turk (i. e., the
Sultan) at Wolverhampton—the last is of considerable antiquity,
for in 1600 it was the sign of John Barnes, a bookseller in Fleet
Street. One of the most opulent Turkish towns was commem-
orated by the Smyrna coffee-house, in Ball Mall, a fashionable
coffee-house in the reign of Queen Anne, when the wits and
beaux used to take their constitutional in St James' Park, and
then go to the Smyrna, where, sitting before the open windows,
they could see the ladies carried past in their sedans or coaches,
on their return from the Mall. This coffee-house seems to have
had a reputation for politics. In the Tatler, (No. 10,) a
" cluster of wise heads" is said to sit every evening from the
left side of the fire at the Smyrna to the door ; and in No. 78,
the public is informed that " the seat of learning is now removed
from the corner of the chimney on the left hand towards the
window, to the round table in the middle of the floor, over
against the fire ; a revolution much lamented by the porters and
chairmen, who were greatly edified through a pane of glass that
remained broken all the last summer." Prior, Swift, and Pope,
were constant visitors at this house.

There was a Grecian coffee-house in Devereux Court, Strand,
which for nearly two centuries was equally well frequented. It
derived its name probably from having been opened by a
Greek, the natives of that country having been among the first to
open coffee-houses in London. It was a very fashionable house
in the time of the Sjiectators and Tatlers: " My face is likewise
very well known at the Grecian," says Addison in Speetalor, No.
1. It seems generally to have been frequented by literati and
savants, some of them rather hot-headed :—

" I remember two gentlemen, who were constant companions, disputing
one evening at the Grecian coffee-house, concerning the accent of a Greek
word. This dispute was carried to such a length that the two friends
thought proper to determine it with their swords; for this purpose they
steptinto Devereux Court, where one of them (whose name, if I rememoer
right, was Fitzgerald) was run through the body, and died on the spot." ¹

In this coffee-house Mrs Mapp, the famous bone-setter, (see p.
113) performed her cures before Sir Hans Sloane :—

" On Saturday and yesterday, Mrs Mapp performed several operations at
the Grecian coffee-house, particularly one upon a niece of Sir Hana Sloane,

to Ins great satisfaction and lier credit. The patient had her shoulder-bone
out for about nine years."—Grub Street Journal, October 21, 1736.

The coffee-house was closed in 1843 ; a bust of Essex is in
front of- the house it formerly occupied with the inscription,
"This is Devereux Court, 1676."

Various reasons are given to account for the sign of the Sara-
cen's Head. " When our countrymen came home from fighting
with the Saracens, and were beaten by them, they pictured them
with huge, big, terrible faces, (as you still see the sign of the
Saracen's Head is,) when, in truth, they were like other men.
But this they did to save their own credit." * Or the sign may
have been adopted by those who had visited the Holy Land,
either as pilgrims or when fighting the Saracens. Others, again,
hold that it was first set up in compliment to the mother of
Thomas a Becket, who was the daughter of a Saracen : formerly
the sign was very general. During the time of the Common-
wealth, the Saracen's Head in Islington was a place of resort for
the Londoners. In the " Walks of Islington and Hogsden, with
the Humours of Wood Street Compter," a comedy by Thomas
Jordan, gentleman, 1648, the scene is laid at that tavern. It was
also the sign of the house occupied by Sir Christopher Wren in
Friday Street, which remained almost unchanged till it was taken
down in 1844. The Saracen's Head, Snow Hill, is one of the
last remaining, and, at the same time, one of the oldest, being
named in Dick Tarlton's Jests as "the Sarracen's Head without
Newgate;" and Stow says, " next to this church [St Sepulchre's
in the Bailey] is a fair and large inn for receipt of travellers, and
hath to sign the Sarrazen's Head." The courtyard has still many
of the characteristics of an old English inn, with galleries all
round leading to the bed-rooms, and a spacious gate, through
which the dusty mail-coaches used to rumble in, the tired pas-
sengers creeping forth, and thanking their stars in having escaped
the highwaymen, and the holes and sloughs of the road. How
many hearts, beating with hope on their first entry into London,
have passed under this gate, that now lie mouldering in the quiet
little churchyards of the metropolis: some finding a resting-place
in Westminster, whilst others ceased to beat at Tyburn. It was
at this inn that Nicholas Nickleby and his uncle waited upon
Squeers, the Yorkshire schoolmaster. Mr Dickens describes the
old tavern as it was in the last years of our mail-coaching, when it

was one of tlie most important places for arrivals and departures
in London :—

" Near to the jail, and by consequence near to Smitlifield also, and the
Compter and the bustle and noise of the city; and just on that particular
part of Snow Hill where omnibus horses going eastwards seriously think
of falling down on purpose, and where horses in hackney cabriolets going
westwards not unfrequently fall by accident, is the coach-yard of the Sara-
cen's Head Inn, its portals guarded by two Saracens' heads and shoulders,
which it was once the pride and glory of the choice spirits of this metro-
polis to pull down at night, but which have for some time remained in
undisturbed tranquillity, possibly because this species of humour is now
confined to Saint James's parish, where door-knockers are preferred as
being more portable, and bell-wireB esteemed as convenient toothpicks.
Whether this be the reason or not, there they are, frowning upon you from
each side of the gateway; and the inn itself, garnished with another Sara-
cen's Head, frowns upon you from the top of the yard; while from the
door of the hind boot of all the red coaches that are standing therein, there
glares a small Saracen's Head with a twin expression to the large Saracen's
Head below, so that the general appearance of the pile is of the Saracenic
order."

Blackamoors and other dark-skinned foreigners have always
possessed considerable attractions as signs for tobacconists, and
sometimes also for public-houses. Negroes, with feathered head-
dresses and kilts, smoking pipes, are to be seen outside tobacco-
shops on the Continent, as well as in England. Thus, in the
seventeenth century, there was one in Amsterdam with the fol-
lowing inscription :—

" Josua badt den Heere van kerten aan
Dat de zon en maan bleef etille staan.
Puik van Yerinis en goe Blaan
Haalt men hier in den Indiaan." *

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Virginian'
was the most common in England, owing to the first tobacco
having been imported from that country :—

" They returned nomewards, passing by Virginia, a colony which Sir
Walter Raleigh had there planted, from whence Drake brings home with
him Walter Lane, who was the first that brought tobacco into England,
which the Indians take against crudities of the stomach." *|*

Publicans have a strange fancy for Indian Kings, Queens,
and Chiefs, thus bearing out Trinculo's assertion of the nation
at large :—" When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame
beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.'" There is a

* "Joshua prayed to the Lord from the bottom of his heart,
That the sun and moon might stand still.
The best Varinas and good tobacco in the leaf
Are sold here at the Indian."
t Sir Richard Baker's Chronicles, anno 1588.

sculptured sign of an Indian Chief at Shoreditch, having all
the appearance of an old ship's figure-head; and, as a nomen ac
prceterea nihil, it figures in many places. In Dolphin Lane,
Boston, (Line.,) there used formerly to be a sign with some
fanciful, masked-ball dressed figures on it, which were meant to
represent the Three Kings of Cologne; but they conveyed so
little the idea of those holy personages, that the profanum vulgus
called them the Three Merry Devils. Eventually, by a meta-
morphosis more strange than any in Ovid, these three merry
devils were transformed into one very strangely dressed female
called the Indian Queen, The African Chief, in Sommers-
town, is evidently a variety of these Indian chiefs.

Another sign of venerable antiquity is the Black Boy. That
this is of old standing, appears from an entry in Macliyn's Diary:
"The xxx day of Desember 1562, was slayne in John Street,
Gylbard Goldsmith, clwellyng at the sene of the Blalce Boy, in
the Cheap, by ys wyff s sun."

This Black Boy seems to have been a tobacconist's sign from
the first; for in Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair" w^Te find :—
" I thought he would have run mad o' the Black Boy in Bucklers-
bury, that takes the scurvy roguy tobacco there."—Act i., Scene 1.

In the seventeenth century, it was the sign of a celebrated
ordinary in Southwark :—

" Jove, and all his hous'hold a'ter
Him, yesterday went crosse the water,
To tli' signe of the Black Boy in Southwarke,
To tli' ordinary, to find his mouth worke.
Here he intends to fuddle's nose
This fortnight yet, under the rose."

At the Black Boy in Newgate Street, the Calves' Head Club
was sometimes held. It was not restricted to any particular house,
but moved yearly from one place to another, as it was found
most convenient. An axe was hung up in the club-room crowned
with laurel: the bill of fare consisted of calves' heads, dressed in
various ways; a large pike, with a small one in his mouth, (an
emblem of tyranny;) a large cod's head; and a boar's head, to
indicate stupidity and bestiality.*

One of the early editions of Cocker's Arithmetic was published
at the Black Boy. Such was the fame of this work, that even as
the Pythagorians swore in verba magistris, and auro; f®5j settled

all questions, so our ancestors proved their points " according to
Cocker." The title of the work we must not abbreviate :—

" Cocker's Arithmetic : Being a plain and familiar method, suitable to
the meanest capacity, for the full understanding of that incomparable art,
as now taught by the ablest schoolmasters in city and country. Composed
by Thomas Cocker, late practioner in the art of writing, arithmetic, and
engraving. Being that so long since promised to the world. Perused and
published by John Hawkins, writing-master, near St George's Church, in
Southwark. By the author's correct copy, and commended to the world
by many eminent Mathematicians and writing-masters in and near London.
Licensed September 1677. London: printed by J. R. for T. P., and are to
be sold by John Back, at the Black Boy, on London Bridge, 1694. 12o."

The Black Girl is a variety of this sign at Clareborough,
Notts. So, too, appears to be the Arab Boy, an ale-house on
the road between Putney and East-Sheen. The Two Black Boys
occurs on one of the London trades tokens, where they are repre-
sented shaking hands. The Black Boy and Comb was, in 1730,
a shop on Ludgate Ilill, either a perfumer's or a mercer's, for
he advertises " right French Hungary water, at Is. 3d. a half
pint bottle; fine Florence oil, at 2s. per flask; right orange flower
water, at Is. 6d. per flask; Barbadoes citron water, at 14s. per
quart; and all sort of Bermudas, Leghorn, and fine silk hats for
ladies," &c.* The combination on the sign arose from the combs
dangling at the doors of the shops where they were sold.

The Black Boy and Camel (doubtless a black boy leading a
camel) was not many years ago the sign of a tavern in Leadenhall
Street, where it was already in existence in the year 1700.

X revived, will be kept the 29th instant, at the King's Head, in Stepney,
where Tickets may be had, and at Tho. Warham's, at the Black Boy and
Camel, Leaden Hall Street," &c.—London Gazette, August 15-19, 1700.

These parish feasts show most unmistakably the general con-
viviality of the time. Natives of the same county used also to
have their public feasts. Thus the London Gazette for May 30
to June 3, 1700, advertises "the annual feast for gentlemen of
the county of Huntingdon;" and the Gazette for October 21-24,
" the anniversary feast for the gentlemen, natives of the county
of Kent." It is easy to imagine the attraction of such festivals
in times when travelling was both very expensive and very
dangerous,—when the post was badly conducted and extravagant
in its charges; and, moreover, but few people could write. Such
meetings, then, were the only ties that connected the provincial

residing in London with the home of his childhood. At such
times friends brought up in the same town or village could meet
each other, talk over bygone times, call up the recollections of
early years, remember mutual friends, and drink a bumper to
those left behind. Sometimes these feasts took a religious turn,
when a native of the county or district preached in the neigh-
bouring church or chapel. Blessed occasions were these religious
yet merry feasts of the olden time. But the " march of intel-
lect"—that is to say, improved locomotion, the spread of reading,
writing, and high notions—have done away with these meetings
of warm hearts and jovial tempers as things low and vulgar.

Jerusalem was sure to figure early on signboards of those
inns at which pilgrims, on their way to the Holy Land, were
wont to put up ; and long after pilgrimages were discontinued it
was still retained as a sign. In 1657 we find it in Fleet Street.
What the sign was like it is impossible now to say, but on the
trades token of the house the Holy City is represented by one
single building. There is another token extant of a house, also
in Fleet Street, without date or name of the shop, on which
there is a view of a town, with the usual conventional represen-
tation of the temple of Solomon. It was equally common in
France. Begnard mentions one in Nogent :—
" Entrant dans la bonne ville
Cité Nogent
Jerusalem fut l'asile

On a house in the Bue Etoupée, at Rouen, there is a stone carved
sign of Jerusalem, represented as a fortified town, with a figure
arriving on each side, evidently meant for pilgrims. A similar
idea seems to be conveyed by the sign of Trip to Jerusalem,
a public-house in Nottingham, and the Pilgrim in Coventry.
There is still an Old Jerusalem tavern in Clerkenwell, so called
after the Knights of St John, of whose hospital this house was
the principal gateway.

Mount Pleasant is a name frequently bestowed upon public-
houses, not always with any allusion to such a locality, but simply
on account of its being an alluring name of the same maudlin class
as Cottage of Content, Bank of Friendship, &c. There is

■* " On entering the good town of Nogent by sunset, I put up at the Jerusalem, which
offers good accommodation for travellers, wine of Vaulx, aud that good."

said to be a mountain of that name in America, which, obtained
some celebrity from being the locality on which the sassafras
(Orchis mciscula) was gathered, the plant which produces the
saloop. This drink came in vogue at the beginning of the
eighteenth century. Reide's coffee-house in Fleet Street was the
first respectable house where it was sold. When it was opened
in 1719, the following lines, painted on a board, hung in front of
the house ; in latter times, until the closing of the establishment
in 1833, they were preserved in the coffee-room :—
" Come all degrees now passing by,
My charming liquor taste and try;
To Lockyer* come and drink your fill,
Mount Pleasant has 110 kind of ill.
The fumes of wines, punch, drams, or beer,
It will expel; your spirits cheer ;
From drowsiness your.spirits free;
Sweet as a rose your breath shall be.
Come taste and try, and speak your mind,
Such rare ingredients here are joined.
Mount Pleasant pleases all mankind."

Lockyer had begun life with half-a-crown, and by selling salop,
or saloop, at Fleet-ditch, amassed sufficient to open the above
place in Fleet Street, where he died worth £1000, in March 1739.t

Our old friend Pepys mentions going to China Hall, but
gives no further particulars. It is not unlikely that this was the
same place which, in the summer of 1777, was opened as a
theatre. Whatever its use in former times, it was at that period
the warehouse of a paper manufacturer. In those days the
West-end often visited the entertainments of the East, and
the new theatre was sufficiently patronised to enable the
proprietors to venture upon some embellishments. The prices
were—boxes, 3s. ; pit, 2s.; gallery, Is.; and the time of com-
mencing varied from half-past six to seven o'clock, according
to the season. " The Wonder," " Love in a Village," the " Co-
mical Courtship," and the " Lying Valet," were among the plays
performed. The famous Cooke was one of the actors in the
season of 1778. In that same year the building suffered the
usual fate of all theatres, and was utterly destroyed by fire.

One name we omitted to notice when speaking of signs de-
rived from European cities—Copenhagen House. Until very
recently, this stood isolated in the fields north of the metropolis,

near the old road to Highgato. It was said to have derived its
name from the fact of a Danish prince or ambassador having
resided in it during a great plague in London. Another tradition
is to the effect that, early in the seventeenth century, upon some
political occasion, great numbers of Danes left that kingdom, and
came to London; whereupon the house was opened by an emi-
grant from Copenhagen, as a place of resort for his countrymen
resident in the metropolis. This tradition probably refers to the
reign of James I., who was visited in London by his brother-in-
law, the King of Denmark, at which time it is very probable
that there was a considerable influx of persons from the Danish
capital. Goopen-Hagen is the name given to the place in the
map accompanying Camden's Britannia, 1695. For many years
previous to its demolition, the house had a great reputation
amongst Cockney excursionists, and its tea-gardens, skittle-ground,
Dutch pins, and particularly Fives Play, were great attractions.
For this last game especially the place was very famous. The
house possessed another attraction. From its windows a very
fine view of London, the Thames, and the Surrey hills beyond,
was obtainable. The New Cattle Market now occupies its site,
and a modern public-house only perpetuates the name.

Besides the above-mentioned geographical signs, we have
others of more modern introduction, such as the South Austra-
lian in Cadogan Street, Chelsea, and the North Pole in Oxford
Street, which last commemorates one of those equally brave and
unsuccessful expeditions that have taken place every now and
then since Admiral Frobisher first started 011 the discovery of
the Meta Incognita.

There exists a class of signs in some respects geographical, yet,
from their indefinite character, they are more adapted for insertion
in the following chapter than here. We allude to such tavern
decorations as that picture of the fiery sun going down behind a
hill, which is called The World's End, at St George's, near
Bristol; The First and Last Inn in England, a sign which
may be seen in many other localities besides at the Land's End,
in Cornwall; and No Place Inn, a public-house in the suburbs
of Plymouth, the sign representing an old woman standing at the
door, accosting her husband, just arrived—"Where have you
been V " No place." Many others of an equally indefinite char-
acter might be given here, but they would be found to be even
less topographical than those just named.

Animals performing human actions, or dressed in human gar-
ments, are great items in signboard humour. This is a kind of
comicality undoubtedly dating from the first development of
human wit. The " Batromyomachia" is one of the oldest per-
formances of the same description in literature, but the joke was
already too well understood at the period that piece was produced
to have been a first attempt. The Fable was the higher walk of
art in this branch, the simple Caricature the lower.

Numerous Egyptian, Greek, and Roman caricatures of animals
personating men have come down to us ; from them this conceit
was borrowed by the mediaeval limners. Their MSS. teem with
such subjects ; and so much was this kind of humour relished
at that period, that even in church decoration the caricatures of
animals Avere liberally mixed up Avith the sacred subjects of
biblical history. Not only the fable, conferring a moral lesson,
but even the plain and unpretending animal-caricature was ad-
mitted indiscriminately Avith representations of saints and miracles.
Thus the Avell-knoAAm sign of Pig and Whistle is seen in more
than one church. In the stall carving of Winchester Cathedral
a soav is represented sitting on her haunches, playing on a
Avhistle, the companion carving to which is a pig playing on a
a^riolin, in accompaniment to which another pig appears to be
singing. These musical pigs are also common in illustrated
MSS. In Harl. MS., 4379, a sow is represented dressed in
the full fashion of the fifteenth century, with horned head-dress
and stilted heels, playing on a harp.

In old towns, such as Chester, Macclesfield, Coventry, &c.,
the Pig and Whistle is still found 011 signboards. Very dif-
ferent and learned explanations have been given "for its origin,
some saying it Avas a corruption of the pig and wassail bowl, or
of the pix and housel; others that it is a facetious rendering of
the Bear and Ragged Staff. Yery lately the correspondents of
a learned periodical have busied themselves in claiming for it a
Danish-Saxon descent, as pige-washail, our Ladies' Salutation.
The Scotch also claim it as their own ; pig being a pot or pot-
sherd ; whistle, small change ; and " to go to pigs and whistlesa

free translation of "going to pot," which Mr Jamieson states
(quoting two examples) to have been at one time a colloquial
phrase. Non nostrum est tantas componere lites ; but the proverb
says, "a hog though in armour is still but a hog;" and there-
fore we are inclined to think that a pig with a whistle is still
but a pig, and not relating in any way to the Virgin ; and we
can see nothing in the Pig and Whistle but simply a freak of the
mcdiieval artist.

As little hidden meaning is there in the Cat and Fiddle, still
a great favourite in Hampshire, the only connexion between the
animal and the instrument being that the strings are made from
the cat's entrails, and that a small fiddle is called a hit, and
a small cat a kitten. Besides, they have been united from time
immemorial in the nursery rhyme —

Amongst other explanations offered is, the one that it may have
originated with the sign of a certain Caton fidèle, a staunch Pro-
testant in the reign of Queen Mary, and only have been changed
into the cat and fiddle by corruption ; but, if so, it must have
lost its original appellation very soon, for as early as 1-589 we
find " Henry Carr, signe of the Catte and Fidle in the Old
Chaunge." Formerly, there was a Cat and Fiddle at Norwich, the
cat being represented playing upon a fiddle, and a number of
mice dancing round her. The bagpipes being the national instru-
ment of the Irish, the sign is there frequently changed into the
Cat and Bagpipes. This was also, some twenty or thirty years
ago, a public- and chop-house, of considerable notoriety, at the
corner of Downing Street, Westminster, where the clerks of the
Foreign Office used to lunch ; at the present day, it is the sign
of a public-house near Moate, King's Co., Ireland. The Ape
and Bagpipes occurs on trades tokens as the sign of John
Tayler, in St Ann's Lane. This, too, was a joke not confined to
our country, for in the marginal illustrations to the title-page of
"P. Dioscorida) Pliarmacorum Simplicum," &c., printed at
Strasburg by John Scliot in 1529, an ape is represented playing
on the bagpipes, and a camel dancing to the tune, with these
words, nuprfkov àXXârrrev. The French were equally fond of this
kind of caricature. The Spinning Sow (la Truie qui file) is
common even at the present day, and has given its name to more
than one street in Paris and other cities. It is said to have

originated from a legend :—A certain Christian queen, Pedauca,
whose honour was in clanger, imitated the chaste heroines of
mythology ; but, instead of praying to be metamorphosed into a
tree or a bird, she merely asked to have one of her feet changed
into a goose's foot, which was enough to frighten her ardent lover
away.* Another young lady, under similar circumstances, pre-
ferred going the whole hog,—to use a colloquialism,—and was
changed into a sow, merely praying to be permitted to keep her
spindle, as a token of her former condition : hence the sign. It
is also—(and hence, probably, the legend of the metamorphosis,
to remove the prejudices of the godly)—represented in relief
carving on the exterior of the cathedral of Chartres. In the
Fishmarket of the same town there is a stone carved sign of a
Donkey playing on a Hurdy-gurdy, (L'Ane qui veille.) Both
this sign and another, representing a Cat playing at Racket, (La
Chatte qui pelote,) have transmitted their names to streets
in Paris. The French seem to have delighted above all things
in such comicalities. Besides those named above, they had the
Fishing Cat, (La Chatte qui peche,) the Dancing Goat, (La
Cuevre qui dance.) both of which Walpole mentions. We have
one modern sign in London of this class—namely, the Whistling
Oyster, the name of an oyster-shop in Drury Lane.

The Jackanapes on Horseback was, unfortunately for the
monkeys, a painful truth. A jackanapes or monkey on horseback
was generally the winding-up of a bear or bull baiting at Paris
Garden. Hollinshed, in his Chronicles, anno 15G2, relates how,
at the reception of the Danish ambassadors at Greenwich—

" For the diversion of the populace, there was a horse with an ape on
his back which highly pleased them, so that they expressed their inward
conceived joy and delight with shrill shouts and variety of gestures."
The " inward conceived joy," we may safely conclude, was not
expressed by either the monkey or the horse, particularly when
we remember that in those days dogs were often let in the ring
to frighten both the horse and its animal Mazeppa. The preval-
ence of this sport is to be inferred from an admonition to Parlia-
ment by Tho. Cartwright, published in 1572, in order to show
the impropriety of an established form of prayer for the church
services, in which he remarks that the clergyman

* The "goose's foot" she obtained was most probably that at the corner of her eye—
i.e., she became an old woman—for the French call patie d'oie-goose's foot—that first
attack of time upon beauty which we term the crow's foot.

serve, or else there are some games to be playde in the afternoon, as lying
for the whetstone,* heathenish dauncing for the ring, a beare or a bull to
be baited, or else a jackanapes to ride on horsebacke, or an interlude to
be playde in the church. We speak not of [bell-] ringing after matins is
done."

Not much more than ten years ago, the good people of Paris
were, every Thursday afternoon, in the summer, entertained in
the Hippodrome, with "jackanapes on horseback," dressed up
like Arabs, and followed by miniature chasseurs d'Afrique, to the
great gratification of our martial neighbours. This sign is named
in an advertisement, of the year 1700, for a mare stolen by a
"lusty black man w^rith a brown coat,"+ notice of the mare to be
given " to Mr John Wright, at the Jackanapes on Horseback,"
in Cheapside. The grinning, or, as it was written, " Grenning
Iackanapes," is a sign mentioned by Eliot in his " Fruits for
the French," or " Parlement of Pratlers," 1593, " ouer against the
Ynicorne in the Iewrie." The Hog in Armour, in Hanging
Sword Court, Fleet Street, is mentioned in an advertisement,^: in
1678, as the place where there was to be sold "seacole sutt for
the great improvement of all sorts of lands, as well as gardens
and hop grounds." It is named amongst the absurd London signs
in the Spectator 28, April 2, 1711, and is still occasionally seen,
as in James' Street, Dublin. Though the sign does not exist any
longer in London, yet the name is not lost among the loAver orders,
it being a favourite epithet applied to rifle volunteers by coster-
mongers, street fishmongers, and such like. A jocular name
for this sign is the ¹¹ pig in misery." There is also a Goat in
Armour on the Narrow Quay, Bristol, and a Goat in Boots on
the Fulham Road, Little Chelsea. In 1663 this house w^ras called

* A whetstone was anciently the name given in derision to a liar. The reason of it
is explained in the following rhymes under an old engraving in the Bridgewater collec-
tion, representing a man with a whetstone in his hand ;—

" The whettstone is a man that all men know,
Yet many on him doe much cost bestowe :
Ilee's us'd almost in every shoppe, but why 1
An edge must needs be set on every lye."
How old is this connexion between lies and whetstones may be seen from Stow :—"Of
the like counterfeit physition have I noted (in the Summarie of my Chronicles, anno
1382,) to be set on horsebacke, his face to the horsetaile, the same taile in his hand as a
bridle, a collar of jordans about his necke, a whetstone on his breast, and so led through
the citie of London with ringing of basons, and banished."—Stow's Chronicle, Howe's edi-
tion, 1614, p. 604. It is a curious coincidence that in France and Germany a knife—the
Rodomont knife—was handed over to outrageous liars. A vestige of this custom was
still preserved at the university of Bonn at the end of the last century, where, when on«
of the company at the students' mess drew the long bow a little too strongly, it was cus-
tomary for all who sat at the table, without making any remarks, to lay their dinner
knives on the top of their glasses, all pointing towards the offender,
t London Gazette, Dec. 23-26, 1700. J Ibid., Jan. 10-14, 167S.

the Goat, and enjoyed the right of commonage for two cows and
one heifer upon Chelsea Heath.

" How the goat became equipped in boots, and the designation of the
house changed, have been the subject of various conjectures, the most pro-
bable of which is, that it originated in a corruption of the latter part of the
Dutch legend—

' Mercurius is der Ooden JJoode,'
(Mercury is the messenger of the gods,)—
which being divided between each side of the sign, bearing the figure of
a Mercury—a sign commonly used in the early part of the last century [?]
to denote that post-horses were to be obtained—¹ der Goden Boode' became
freely translated into English, ' the Goat in Boots.' To Le Blond * is at-
tributed the execution of this sign and its motto ; but whoever the original
artist may have been, or the intermediate re-touchers or re-painters of the
god, certain it is that the pencil of Morland, in accordance with the desire
of the landlord, either transformed the Petasus of Mercury into the horned
head of a goat, his talaria into spurs upon boots of huge dimension, and
his caduceus into a cutlass, or thus decorated the original sign, thereby
liquidating a score which he had run up here, without any other means of
payment than what his pencil afforded. The sign, however, has been
painted over, with additional embellishments from gold leaf, so that not
the least trace of Morland's work remains, except, perhaps, the outline." f

With all deference to the opinion of Mr Croker, we cannot
help thinking of this, as of many other signboard explanations,
" Se non e vero e ben trovato1°. the house was called the
Goat in 1663 ; 2°. there is no proof that it ever was called
the Mercury, (nor was that sign ever so common as Mr Crokef
asserts.) From the following quotation it will appear that as
early as 1738 some Goats in Boots had already appeared, not
the result of any mythological metamorphosis. The Craftsman
for June 17, 1738, in ridiculing some lenient measures taken by
Government, blames the signs for putting a martial spirit in the
nation, and proposes that " no lion should be drawn rampant,
but couchant; and none of his teeth ought to be seen without
this inscription, ' Though he shows his teeth he wont bite.' All
bucks, bulls, rams, stags, unicorns, and all other warlike animab
ought to be drawn without horns. Let no general be drawn in
armour, and instead of truncheons let them have muster-rolls in
their hands. In like manner, 1 would have all admirals painted
in a frock and jockey cap, like landed gentlemen. The common
sign of the two Fighting Cocks might be better changed to a

* James Christopher ie Blond, a Fleming by birth, obiit 1740, made preparations to
copy the Hampton Court tapestry cartoon*, For this purpose he built a house in Mul-
berry Gardens, Chelsea, but the project failed.

Cock and Hen, and tliat of the Valiant Trooper to a Hog in
Armour, or a Goat in Jackboots, as some Hampshire and
Welsh publicans have done already for the honour of their re-
spective countries." The sign, then, seems to be a sort of cari-
cature of a Welshman, the Goat having always been considered
the emblem of that nation, and the jackboots an indispensable
article of Taffy's costume. Thus, Captain Grose, in his " Essay
on Caricatures," * mentions a Welshman with his goat, leek, hay-
boots, and long pedigree, as a standard joke. Not improbably
the switch canied by the goat on this sign was originally a leek.
Of the same origin is the well-known Welsh Trooper, repre-
senting a man with a leek in his hat riding on a goat. This
sign may still be seen in London. In the Boxburghe ballads
the Welshman with his jackboots and leek occurs in an old
woodcut; in other places he is drawn riding a goat, and similarly
dressed.

Puss in Boots occurs at Windley, Duffield, near Derby. The
Goat in Boots may have suggested the idea of making a sign of
this nursery-tale hero. The Dutch shoemakers, in pursuance of
the proverb, seem to have taken a particular delight in these
booted animals. Various creatures in boots occur amongst the
Dutch signboard inscriptions of the seventeenth century. On&
was the Ox in Boots, (in den gelaarsden os,) with this inscrip-
tion :—

"'t Leer geeft den Sckoenmaker de os daar ky sehoenen van maakt om te
verslyten;

Ik keb den os weer met leer tot dank gelaerst en gespoord doen eonter-
fyten." +

Another innkeeper put up the Cow in Boots, (de gelaersden
leoe,) and wrote beneath :—

A third, in Amsterdam, had the Cock in .Boots, (de gelaa?
de Ilaan,) with the following extraordinary rhymes :—
" Dit is de gelaars de haan
Christus is naar't kruys gegaan,
Met een doornenkroon op't koofd.
Hy slackt Thomas die't niet gelooft."§

t "The ox gives the shoemaker leather of which he makes boots to be worn. As a
grateful return I have ordered the ox to be portrayed here in boots and spurs."
I " Look here, this cow wears boots ;
Were it a bull it would be less odd."

? " This is the Cock in Boots. Christ has been crucified, with a crown of thorns on
His head. He that does not believe it is as bad as Thomas."

The Jackass in Boots (de gelaarsde ezel) was the sign of a
publican, with tbis inscription :—

" In den gelaars den ezel zeer kloek,
Verkoopt men toebak, brandewyn, en knapkoek."*
Tlie Dog also appears dressed, as the Dog in Doublet, a sign
which may be seen at Pyebridge, Derby, at Northbank, Cambridge,
and a few other out-of-the-way places. Dr Johnson did this
sign the honour of applying it as a metaphor. Speaking of an
old idea newly expressed, he said : " It is an old coat with a
new facing." Then (laughing heartily) " it is the old dog in a
new doublet!" t

The Dog occurs in various other humorous combinations.
Ned Ward mentions a famous inn, in Petty Cury, Cambridge—

"the sign of the Devil's Lafdog, kept by an old grizly curmudgeon,
corniferously wedded to a plump, young, gay, brisk, black, beautiful, good
landlady, who I afterwards heard had so great a kindness for the Univer-
sity, that she had rather see two or three gowns' men come into her house,
than a c-crew of aldermen in all their pontificalibusses." J

The Dog's Head in the Pot is mentioned on the Pardoner's
Boll in " Cocke Lorell's Bote : "—

" Also Annys Angry with the croked buttocke
That dwelled at ye sygne of ye Dogges hede in ye Pot,
By her crafte a brechemaker."

It seems originally to have been a mock sign to indicate a dirty,
slovenly housewife. A woodcut above the second part of the
Boxburghe ballad of " The Coaches' Overthrow" represents
various dirty practices. Prom the upper windows of one of the
houses a woman is emptying the unsavoury contents of a do-
mestic vase almost on the heads of the people underneath, and
the sign of that house is the Dog's head in the Pot, representing
a clog licking out a pot. A coarse woodcut sheet of the com-
mencement of the last century — evidently copied from a
much older original—to judge by the costumes, represents two
ancient beldames with high-crowned hats, starched ruffs and
collars, and high-heeled boots, in a very disorderly room or
kitchen ; one of the women wipes a plate with the bushy tail of
a large dog, whose head is completely buried in a capacious pot,
which he is licking clean ; under it:—

There is tobacco, brandy, and gingerbread for s?.ic." .
t Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. iii., p. 261. 1819.
J A Trip to Stirbitch Fair, 1703.

It is (methinks) a cleanly care,
My dishclout in this sort to spare,
"Whilst Dog, you see, doth lick the pot,
His taile for dishclout I have got," &c.

One of the Roxburghe Ballads, vol. i., fol. 385, entitled, " Sei-
dome Cleanely," has the same idea :—

" If otherwise she had
But a dishcloute faile,
She would set them to the dog to licke,
Arid wipe them with liys tayle."

In Holland there is a proverb still in use, to the effect that
when a person is late for dinner he is said to " find the dog in
the pot," (hy vindt den hondin depot,) meaning that he has arrived
late,—that the empty pot has been given to the dog to lick out,
previously to being washed, a custom still daily practised by the
peasantry of that country. This sign is sometimes also called
the Dog and Chock, as in the Blackfriars' Road; at Michel-
mouth, Bomsey, Hants, and elsewhere. In the western counties
the word "crock" is indiscriminately applied to iron or earthen
pots. From the latter application comes the term " crockery
ware."

The Dancing Dogs was a sign at Battlebridge in 1668, as
appears from the trades tokens. This kind of canine entertain-
ment was one of the attractions of Bartholomew Fair, where Ben
Jonson mentions." dogs that dance the Morris."

The Laughing Dog (le cliien qui rit) was formerly a sign in
Bouen, and gave its name to a street, now called Du Guay
Troin, from the name of a celebrated admiral. This was one of
those quaint signs of which we have some specimens in this
country, as the Two Sneezing Cats, which is said to be some-
where in London; the Flying Monkey, Lambeth ; the Mon-
key Island, at Bray, near Maidenhead ; the Gaping Goose, at
Leeds, Oldham, and various parts of Yorkshire; and the Lov-
ing Lamb, two in Dudley, In Paris there was the old sign of
the Green Monkey, (le singe vert,) and some fifteen years ago
Lille could boast of the Hunchbacked Cats (les chats bossus)
in the Rue Sec-Arembault.

Equally absurd is the Cow and Snuffers, at Llandaff, Gla-
morgan. In a play of George Colman, entitled the " Review, or
the Wags of Windsor," the following lines occur :—
" Judy's a darling; my kisses she suffers;
She's an heiress, that 'a clear,

The same song also occurs in the " Irishman in London, or the
Happy African.'' At Llandaff the sign is represented by a cow
standing near a ditch full of reeds and grasses, with a pair of
snuffers, placed as if they had fallen from the cow's mouth. The
oddity of the combination in all probability pleased a publican
who had heard the song, and adopted it forthwith as his sign,
leaving the arrangement of the objects to the taste of the sign-
painter.

The Colt and Cradle might have been seen in St Martin's
Lane in 1667. It is still a common sign for houses of evil re-
pute in Holland, as may be seen from two examples in the Zand-
straat, Rotterdam, where the cradle is carved above the door,
with the colt in it lying on his back : the inscription is, " Het
paard in de Wieg," (the horse in the cradle.) And since, ac-
cording to Stow, in ancient times " English people disdayned to
be bawdes, froes of Flaunders were women for that purpose," it
is more than probable that these " froes" introduced this sign
from their own country. In the Dutch language paar means "a
couple," and is constantly used for a mar and woman, either
united by the bands of lawful marriage or otherwise. The ori-
ginal form of the sign, then, we suppose was " the couple in the
cradle," (het paar in de wieg.) But the Dutch have an inve-
terate habit of adding diminutives, so that with this appendix it
became paarlje—from paar/je to paarc/je, a small horse, the tran-
sition was easy enough; and, covered with that transparent
veil, the indelicate sign has come down to the present day.
This seems so much the more probable to be the meaning, since
the Cradle in London also was a " bad sign," (see p. 394.)

The Goose and Gridiron occurs at Woodhall, Lincolnshire,
and in a few other localities : it is said to owe its origin to the
following circumstances :—The Mitre (see p. 319) was a cele-
brated music-house in London House Yard, at the N.-W. end of
St Paul's. When it ceased to be a music-house, the succeeding
landlord, to ridicule its former destiny, chose for his sign a goose
stroking the bars of' a gridiron with his foot, in ridicule of the
Swan and Harp, a common sign for the early music-houses. Such
an origin does the Tatler give; but it may also be a vernacular
reading of the coat of arms of the Company of Musicians, sus-
pended probably at the door of the Mitre when it was a music-

house. These arms are, a swan with his wings expanded, within
a double tressure, counter, flory, argent. This double tressure
might have suggested a gridiron to unsophisticated passers-by.
Paddy's Goose is, at the present day, a nickname for a public-
house in Shadwell called the White Swan ; but why it was thus
travestied non liquet. This tavern acquired some notoriety during
the Crimean campaign. When the Government wanted sailors to
man the fleet, the landlord of the house used to go among the
shipping in the river and enlist numbers of men. His system of
recruiting was to go in one of the small steamers, with flags and
colours flying and a band playing, the heart-stirring or heart-
rending notes of which used to awaken the martial ardour of the
merchant sailors, and make them enlist in the Royal Navy. This
sign also triumphantly proclaims the presence of British gin and
Irish whisky in a low public-house near the harbour of La Yalette
at Malta.

Not a few signs represent proverbs or proverbial expressions.
The Bird in Hand, for instance, with occasionally the Book in
Hand,—the former denoting the landlord's full appreciation of
the truth of the proverb, " One bird in the hand is worth two in
the bush." It is frequently accompanied by the following truthful
rather than grammatical distich :—

This sign occurs among the trades tokens, being literally ren-
dered by a hand holding a bird. Innumerable are the jokes
resorted to by landlords to intimate that hard truth that no
credit is given. ¹ Frequently the pill is gilt in the most agree-
able manner: a deceptive hope of " better luck to-morrow" is
frequently held out, as

1 Sometimes it is conveyed in an ingenious manner by a watch face without pointers
accompanied by the significant words, No Tick.
t "To-day for money, to-morrow for nought."

The inventive genius of tlie French, with its usual fondness
for romance, has constructed a little dramatic incident to express
the i.dea :—

" Crédit est mort ; les mauvais payeurs l'ont tué." +
Which phrase was seen by Coryatt, nearly two centuries ago, on
one of the inns where he put up at in France : a similar idea is
expressed at Smethwick in the following inscription :—

" Sacred to the memory of Poor Trust, who fought hard at the battle of
Deception, but fell under General Bad Pay."

A print hung up in a public-house in Nottingham, depicting a
black tombstone (or signboard,—it is difficult to say which)
spotted with briny white tears, gives the inscription with still
greater force :—

" This monument is erected to the memory of Mr Trust, who was some
time since most shamefully and cruelly murdered by a villain called Credit,
who is prowling about, both in town and country, seeking whom he may
devour."

" This is a good world to live in,
To lend, or to spend, or to give in ;
But to beg or to borrow, or to get a man's own,
It is such a world as never was known."

" The rule of this house, and it can't be unjust,
Is to pay on delivery, and not to give trust ;
I've trusted many to my sorrow,
Pay to-day, I '11 trust to-morrow."

" All you that bring tobacco here
Must pay for pipes as well as beer ;
And you that stand before the fire,
I pray sit down by good desire,
That other folks as well as you
May see the fire, and feel it too.

1 " When this cock shall crow,
Credit will be given."
t "Credit is dead : he has been killed by bad payerB.

Since man to man is so unjust,
I cannot tell what man to trust.
My liquor's good, 'tis no man's sorrow,
Pay to day, I '11 trust to-morrow."

At an ale-liouse in Eanston, Norfolk, the usual information is
conveyed in the following manner, (to be read upwards, begin-
ning from the bottom of the last column) :—

At other places it comes in a still more " questionable shape,"
reminding us of the curious literary conceits of the old monkish
rhymesters. In the following, the letters must be connected into
words, thus —The brewer, »fee.

i D wha. ts; Ha:
LLiD , 0? Fo Km. Or .e.
The little wayside inn, between Pateley Bridge and Bipon, has
the following plaintive appeal to a stiffnecked race :—
" The malster doth crave

His money to have,
The exciseman says have I must.
By that you can see
How the case stands with me;
So I pray you don't ask me for trust."

A small beer-house at Werrington, in Devonshire, yclept the
Lengdon Inn, has :—

" Gentlemen, walk in, and sit at your ease,
Pay what you call for, and call what you please;
As trusting of late has been to my sorrow,
Pay me to-day, and I'll trust ee to-morrow."

The Maypole, near Ilainault Forest, has :—
" My liquor's good,
My measures iust;
Excuse me, sirs!
I cannot trust."

The Green Man, on Finchley Common, under a trophy com-
posed of two pipes crossed and a pot of beer, presents us with
the following :—

" Call. Softly,
Drink . Moderate
Pay . Honourably,
Be Good . Company
Part . FRIENDLY
Go . HOME • quietly.
Let those lines be no MANS Sorrow
Pay to DAY and ill TRUST to Morrowr

" Within this hive we 're all alive
With whisky sweet as honey;
If you are dry, step in and try,
But don't forget the money."

So old is the necessity of informing the public that they must
pay for what they obtain, that even in the ruined city of Pompeii
a similar caution is found. Above the door of a house, once in-
habited by a surgeon, occurs the following laconic intimation :—
" Eme et iiabebis." And so widely spread is the evil, that even
in Chinese towns the shopkeepers have found it necessary to in-
form the public on their signs—

"Former customers have inspired us with caution; no credit given here."
One publican, at Littletown, in Durham, seems to have taken a
somewhat opposite view, putting up, for a sign, the Bird in the
Bush, but it may be doubted if his experience has confirmed
him in a preference of the bird in the bush to the bird in the
hand.

Another proverb illustrated is the Cow and Hare, at Staf-
ford, Bottisham, (near Newmarket,) and other places, evidently
suggested by the adage, " A cow may catch a hare." This sign
is mentioned, about 1708, in a rather curious memorandum from
the pen of Partridge, the almanac-maker, at the commencement
of a book of " the Cselestial Motions and Aspects for the years
of our Lord 1708 to 1720."* The MS. note is as follows :—" At
the Cowe and Hare by Whitechappel Church, a rare rogue lives

there, a pickpocket." Of the same class as the Cow and Hare is
Who'd ha' thought it 1 which sometimes is seen on an ale-honse
sign, as, for instance, at North End, Fulham. A wag suggested
this as the motto to the coat-of-arms of a certain baronet-brewer :

The sign of the Jolly Brewer—Who'd ha' thought it ?
occurs in the Jersey Road, Hounslow. Originally, it seems to
have implied that, after a hard struggle in some other walk of
life, the landlord had succeeded in opening the long-wished-for
ale-house. So in Holland : many country retreats of retired
tradespeople bear such names as " JVooit gedacht," (never ex-
pected,) &c.

Why not, the name of a public-house at Essington, in Staf-
fordshire, seems to imply quite' the reverse, and to have been
adopted as the motto of a more sanguine landlord; unless it may
be considered as a ready answer to the often-repeated question,
before " popping in round the corner," " Shall we have a drop V

The Lame Dog is very common; but is particularly appro-
priate at Brierley Hill, near Dudley, the establishment being kept
by a collier, rendered lame in a pit accident. Under a pictorial
representation of a lame dog trying to get over a stile, the fol-
lowing appeal is made to the thirsty and benevolent public :—

Sometimes, as at Bulmer, Essex, we see a somewhat similar idea
expressed by a man struggling through a globe—head and arms
protruding on one side, his legs on the other—with the inscrip-
tion, " Help me through this World." The same allegory
might have been seen on a beer-house in Holland in the seven-
teenth century, but the inscription was different—" Bus na ben
in door de ivereld," (" Thus far I have got through the world.")
This sign is also called the Strug gler, or the Struggling Man,
and at Hampton, where the house is kept by a widow, the
Widow's Struggle. In Salop Street, Dudley, the struggle is
represented by a man, with a dog beside him, walking against a
strong head wind. The Live and let Live has a somewhat
similar meaning ; it occurs at North End, Fulham, and in many
other places. To this class, also, the following seems to refer:—
" A witty, though unfortunate, fellow having tryed all trades,
but thriving by none, took the pot for his last refuge, and set up

an ale-house, with the sign of the Shirt, inscribed under it,
' This is my last shift.' Much company was brought him thereby,
and much profit."¹ Nathaniel Oldham, the friend of Sir Hans
Sloane, Doctor Mead, and the leading virtuosi of that time, him-
self a collector, as well as a sporting man, at last got so reduced
in circumstances that he had to dispose of his curiosities and
superfluities. He opened his house, therefore, as a curiosity
shop, and wrote over the door, Oldham's last Shift. Unfortu-
nately, it was his " last shift," for scarcely had he opened his
shop when one of his innumerable creditors had him arrested and
sent to King's Bench Prison, where he died. J. T. Smith, in his
" Cries of London," tells a similar device of a sailor, maimed at
the battle of Trafalgar, who used to go about town with a wheel-
barrow of ginger nuts, which he called " Jack's last shift."

The uncertainty of success in trade is expressed by the sign
of the Two Chances ; and Hit or Miss, the good and the bad
chance which innkeepers, as well as all other mortals, have to
run in this transitory world. This sign occurs at Hannington,
Northampton, and at Clun, in Salop. At Openshaw, near Man-
chester, a similar idea is expressed by a sign representing two
men running a race, which seems to promise a dead heat, with
the inscription, Luck's all.

Others have a sort of satirical humour in them, such as the
well-known Four Alls, representing a king who says, " I rule
all;" a priest who says, " I pray for alla soldier who says,
" I fight for all;" and John Bull, or a farmer, who says, " I pay
for all." Sometimes a fifth is added in the shape of a lawyer,
who says, " I plead for all." It is an old and still common sign,
and may even be seen swinging under the blue sky in the sunny
streets of La Valette, Malta. In Holland, in the seventeenth
century, it was used, but the king was left out, and a lawyer
added ; each person said exactly the same as on our signboards,
but the farmer answered :—

The author of " Tavern Anecdotes " observes that he used to
notice in Rosemary Street, the sign of the Four Alls, but passing

1 Cambridge Jests ; or, Witty Alarums for Melancholy Spirits. Printed at the Look-
Ing-Glass, on London Bridge, for Thomas Morris.

that way some time after, he found it altered into the Four Awls;
the sign painter who renewed the picture had probably found
himself not equal to a representation of the four human figures.
In Ireland, a similar corruption may be observed, the four shoe-
maker's awls taking the place of the four representatives of society.
Although having no connexion with the Four Alls, it may be men-
tioned that three and four awls constitute the charges in the shoe-
makers' arms of some of the continental trade societies or guilds.

This enumeration of the various performances coupled with
the word all has been used in numerous different epigrams : an
address to James I. in the Ashmolean MSS., No. 1730, has ;—
" The Lords craved all,
The Queene graunted all,
The Ladies of honour ruled all,
The Lord-Keeper seal'd all,
The Intelligencer marred all,
The Parliament pass'd all,
He that is gone oppos'd himself to all,
The Bishops soothed all,
The Judges pardon'd all,
The Lords buy, Rome spoil'd all,
Now, Good King, mend all,
Or else the Devil will have all."
This again seems to have been imitated from a similar de-
scription of the State of Spain in Greene's " Spanish Masquerade,"
1589 ;—

" The Cardinalls solicit all,
The King grauntes all,
The Nobles confirm all,
The Pope determines all,
The Cleargie disposeth all,
The Duke of Medina hopes for all,
Alonso receives all,
The Indians minister all,
The Soldiers eat all,
The People paie all,
The Monks and friars consume all,
And the Devil at length will carry ,tway all,"
The Naked Boy was a satirical sign reflecting upon the con-
stant changes of the fashions of our ancestors. William Her-
bert has this observation in his manuscript memoranda, " I
remember very well when I was a lad seeing on Windmill Hill,
Moorfields, a taylor's sign, a naked boy with this couplet:—
" So fickle is our English nation,
I wou'd be clotted if I knew the fashion." *
* Annotations to Ames't Typographical Antiquitiei.

Hie same idea is expressed in the " Introduction to Know-
ledge," by Andrew Borde, (the original " Merry Andrew,")
Doctor, of Physick, 1542, where a naked man is introduced un-
decided as to the style of dress he should adopt on account of
the continual change in the fashions

" Now am I a frysker, all men doth on me looke,
What should I do but set cocke on the hoope,
What do I care yf all the worlde me fayle,
I will get a garment shall reche to my tayle."
Coryatt also reflects upon this ever-varying change in his
" Crudities :"—" For whereas they [the gentlemen of Venice]
have but one colour, we use many more than are in the rainbow ;
all the most light garing and unseemly colours that are in the
world. Also for fashion we are much inferior to them : for we
weare more phantastical fashions than any nation vilder the
Sunne doth, the French onely excepted; which hath given
occasion to the Venetians and other Italians to brand the Eng-
lishmen with a notable mark of levity by painting him stark
naked with a pair of shears in his hand, making his fashion of
attire according to the vain conception of his brain sick head, not
to comeliness and decorum.'⁵

So ancient is this complaint as to the versatility of our fashions
that we verily believe even our tattooed forefathers must have
been constantly altering the hue of their blue stencilling, and
bedaubing themselves with new patterns. John Harding, in his
" Chronicles," of the reign of Bichard II., describing the various
materials and cuts of the " unpayed cloublettes and gownes,"
even long before his time, says, ch. 193 :—

" Broudur and furres and goldsmith werke ay newe,
In many a wyse eelie day they did renewe."
Douglas, the monk of Glastonbury, wrote not less angrily in
the days of Edward III:

" Englyshmen hawnted so moehe unto the folye of strawngers that fro
that tyme every yere thei chaungedde them in diverse schappes and disgis-
ingges of clothengge now long, now large, now wide, now streite, and every
day clothingges newe destitute and deserte from alle honeste of holde array
and gode usage." *

Indeed so angry does the good monk become about these ex-
travagant fashions, that he says,—" If I sethe shalle say, they
weren more like to turmentours and Diviles in their clothing and
also in schoyng and other aray that they semed no menne."
Not only did we invent, but we borrowed absurd foreign

fashions. Samuel Rowland, in " The Letting of Humours Blood
in the Head Yaine," 1611, says :—

" Behold a most accomplish'd cavaleere,
That the world's ape of fashions doth appeare;
Walking the streete his humours to disclose,
In the French dowblet and the German hose,
The muffes, cloake, Spanish hat, Tolledo blade,
Italian ruffe, a shoe right Flemish made,
Like the Lord of Misrule, where he comes he'll revel."

" The Spaniard loves his ancient slop,
The Lombard his Venetian ;
And some like breechless women go,
The lluss, Turk, Jew, and Grecian;
The thrifty Frenchman wears small waist,
The Dutchman his belly boasteth,
The Englishman is for them all,
And for each fashion coasteth."

Shakespeare seems to allude to the sign of the Naked Boy in
his " Comedy of Errors," act iv., scene 3, where Dromio says,
" What, have you got the picture of old Adam new apparell'd."
At Skipton-in-Craven, there is still a stone bas-relief of the Naked
Boy, fixed in the front of a house, with the date 1633.

The Good Woman, or the Silent Women, and at Pershore,
in Worcestershire, the Quiet Woman, represent a headless
woman carrying her head in her hand. Brady, in his " Clavis
Calendaria," vol. ii, p. 203, says, " The martyrs who had been
decapitated were, therefore, usually represented with headless
trunks, and the head on some adjoining table, or more commonly
in their hands ; and it was easy for ignorance and credulity not
only to mistake that type, but to be led into belief that those
holy persons had actually carried their heads about for the bene-
fit of believers. The sign, yet preserved, particularly by the oil-
sliops, of the Good Woman, although originally meant as expres-
sive of some female saint, holy or good woman, who had met
death by the privation of her head, has been converted into a
ioke against the females whose alleged loquacity is considered to
be satirised by this representation, which, to conform to such
meaning, they now more commonly call the Silent Woman. The
fact, however, of it being particularly an oilman's sign, makes it
possible that it may have some reference to the heedless \Jiead
anciently was pronounced heed] or foolish virgins of the parable,

who had no oil in their lamps when the bridegroom came.
Where is your head ? is still a question addressed to forgetful
people.

There is a very curious example of this sign at Widford, near
Chelmsford, representing on one side a half-length portrait of
Henry VIII., on the reverse, a woman without a head, dressed
in the costume of the latter half of the last century, with the in-
scription Forte Bonne. The addition of the portrait of Henry
VIII. has led to the popular belief that the headless woman is
meant for Anna Boleyn, though probably it is simply a com-
bination of the King's Head and Good Woman.

This sign is equally common on the Continent; the book of
Dutch signboard inscriptions of the seventeenth century, from
which we have constantly quoted, gives several verses which
figured under various signs of the Good Woman. Amongst
them the following are worth noticing :—

" Hier is de goede vrouw te vinden,
Na't leven zeer net afgebeeld,
Daar niet als't hoofd maar aan en scbeeld,
Dewyl dat draait met duizend winden;
Indien er't hoofd was aangebleven
Sy was nooit goed haar gansche leven."*

" De vrouw die is een mannen-piaag,
A1 zyn snot-leepels daarna graag;
Dies als dat vuur is uitgedoofd
Dan wenschen zy, haar zonder hoofd." t

In Italy, also, it is known, and serves as a sign to many an
inn. Readers who may have visited Turin will remember the
kind reception of "la buona Moglie" in that town. In Paris it
gives its name to a street, Rue de la Femme sans Tele. The pic-
ture in France is generally accompanied by the legend, " Tout en
est bon," the absence of the head probably implying "fors la
tete," except the head; ergo, everything is good in woman ex-
cept her head—her ever-changing whims and fancies. At the
present day there is, in the Rue St Marguerite, a pork butcher

* " Here you may find a good woman,
Faithfully portrayed from the life.
Nothing is wanting but her head,
Because that turns about with every wind.
If the head had been left her,
She would never have been good in all her life."
j " Women are a plague to man,

And though young ' spoons' are fond of them,
As soon as their fire is quenched,
They Wish her head was off."

who has made the following use of this sign : Under the usual
representation of the Good Woman he has written in golden
letters, " Tout en est bon, depuis les" (a representation of four
pigs' feet) "jusqu'à la," (a representation of an enormous boar's
head.) This ungallant association of ideas of a woman and a
pig is, we are sorry to say, not without an example in our nation,
though fortunately our rudeness was two hundred years ago, and
we have grown more refined since :—

" One Ambrose Westrop, vicar of the Parish church Much to Sham (?)
in the county of Essex, taught in a Sermon That a Woman is worse than a
sow in two respects ; First : because a sowskin is good to make a cart
saddle and her bristles good for a sowter. Secondly : because a sow will
run away if a man cry but hoy, but a woman will not turn her head,
though beaten down with a leaver, and that all the difference between a
woman and a sow is in the nape of the neck, where a woman can bend
upwards, but a sow cannot, etc. The said Westrop is a great malignant
and very envious and full of venome against the Parliament. But his
benefit is sequestered, as well he deserves, from his filthiness and unfit-
nesse to the place."—Remarkable Passages and Occurrences of Parliament,
<&c. December 8 to 15, 1644.

Lawyers, priests, and women have, at all times and in all
countries, received a liberal share of abuse and slander ; no
wonder, then, that the Lawyer kept the Good Woman in coun-
tenance. In a sign derived from the Good Woman the man of
law is " damned to fame" as the Honest Lawyer, the sign re-
presenting him with his head in his hand, as the only condition
in which by any possibility he could be honest. Another sign
abusive of the softer sex is the Man loaded with Mischief,
the sign of an ale-house in Oxford Street. The original, said to
be painted by Hogarth, is fastened to the front of the house, and
has the honour of being specified in the lease of the premises
as one of the fixtures. An engraving of it is exhibited in the
window. It represents a man carrying a woman, a magpie,
and a monkey, the woman with a glass of gin in her hand. In
the background, on the left-hand side, is a public-house with a
pair of horns as a " finial" on the gable end ; this house is called
" Cuckhold's Fortune a woman is passing in at the door, and a
sow is asleep in a pot-house, with a label above, " She is as
drunk as a sow," whilst two cats are making love on the roof.
On the right-hand side is the shop of S. Gripe, Pawnbroker,
which a carpenter enters to pledge his tools. The engraving is
signed : " Drawn by Experience ; engraved by Sorrow'." Under
it is the following rhyme :—

Nobody was the singular sign of John Trundell, a ballad-
printer in Barbican in the seventeenth century. In one of Ben
Jonson's plays Nobody is introduced, " attyred in a payre of
Breeches, which were made to come up to his neck, with his
armes out at his pockets and cap drowning his face." This
comedy was "printed for John Trundle and are to be sold at his
shop in Barbican at the sygne of No-Body." A unique ballad,
preserved in the Miller Collection at Biitwell House, entitled
" The Well-spoken No-Body," is accompanied by a woodcut re-
presenting a ragged barefooted fool on pattens, with a torn
money-bag under his arm, walking through a chaos of broken
pots, pans, bellows, candlesticks, tongs, tools, windows, &c.
Above him is a scroll in black-letter :—

" Many speke of Robin Hoode that never shott in his bowe,
So many have layed faultes to me, which I did never knowe;
But nowe, beholde, here I am,
Whom all the worlde doeth diffame ;
Long have they also scorned me,
And locked my mouthe for speking free.
As many a Godly man they have so served
Which unto them God's truth hath shewed;
Of such they have burned and hanged some.
That unto their ydolatrye wold not come :
The Ladye Truthe they have locked in cage,
Saying of her Nobodye had knowledge.
For as much nowe as they name Nobodye
I thinke verilye they speke of me:
Whereffore to answer© I nowe beginne—

The locke of my mouthe is opened with ginne,
Wrought by no man, but by God's grace,
Unto whom be prayse in every place," &c.

In J. O. Halliwell's "Shakespeare," vol. i., p. 450, from
whence we borrow the above, the subject is still further illus-
trated by the following quotation :—

" Nobody keeps such a rule in every bodies house that from the mis*
tresse to the basest maide, there is not a shrewde turne done without him :
for if the husband finde his study opened and enquire who did it ? he shall
finde Nobody : if the goodwife see her utensils disordered and demand
who displast them, the issue of every servant's reply will bee, Nobody : if
the servants discover the beds towsed and the chambers durtied it will bee,
Nobody ; when every child is examined ; nay, if the children fall and
break their noses, or scratch one another's faces, and either mother or
nursse seeme angry and aske, who hurt them, they will quickly answer
Nobody toucht them ; and their desire of excuse hath brought lying to a
custom."—Rich Cabinet furnished with Variety of Excellent Description,
1616.

At present there is an inn in Plymouth called No Place inn ;
and formerly there was at Norwich a public-house called No-
where—a name which would, to the truant husband returning
home in the small hours of night, suggest a ready answer to the
warm reception of his partner for better and for worse, who, for
the last few hours, has been

" Gath'ring her brows, like gath'ring storm—
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm."

Another ancient sign, to which constant allusions are made in the
old writers, is the Three Loggerheads, which, old as it is, and
stale as the joke may be, has not yet lost its charms for the in-
habitants of many of our villages and quiet inland towns. It
represents two silly-looking faces, with the inscription—■

" We three
Loggerheads be,"
—the unsuspecting spectator being, of course, the third. Douce,
in his " Illustrations to Shakespeare," suggests that the original
picture should have represented three fools. Thus, in Shirley's
" Bird in Cage," Morello, who counterfeits a fool, says, " We be
three of old, without exception to your lordship, only with this
difference, I am the wisest fool." In Day's " Comedy of Law
Tricks," 1G08, Julia says, "Appoint the place prest," to which
the answer is, "At the three fools." Sometimes, as Mr Henley
has stated, it was two asses. Thus, in Beaumont and Fletcher's
"Queen of Corinth," ac. iii., sc. 1 :—

Nean. Nay, then we must have the picture and the word Nos sumus."
In tliis form it is still seen on valentines and humorous cartes de
visite. Shakespeare, too, alludes to this sign in " Twelfth Night,"
ac. ii., sc. 2:—"How now, my hearts 1 did you never see the
picture of We Three h" Decker, ridiculing the manners and cus-
toms of his day, speaks of the fast men sitting on the stage at
theatrical representations—" but assure yourself, by continual
residence, you are the first and principal man in election, to begin
the number of We three."* In a pamphlet, entitled, "Heads of
all Fashions; being a plain Disection or Definition of Divers and
Sundry Sorts of Heads," London, 1642, the Loggerheads are
thus mentioned :—

" A Logerliead alone cannot well be,
At scriveners' windows many time hang three.
A country lobcocke, as I once did Leare,
Upon a penman put a grievous-jeaie.
If I had been in place, as this man was,
I should have called this country coxcomb asse."

This alludes to one of the jokes in Mother Bunch's Merri-
ments," 1604, where a country fellow asks a poor scrivener, sit-
ting in his shop, " I pray you, master, what might you sell in
your shop, that you have so many ding-dongs hang at yourdore?"
"Why, my friend," quoth the obligation-maker, "I sell nothing
but loggerheads." " By my fay, master," quoth the countryman,
" you have a fair market with them, for you have left but one in
your shop, that I see ;" and so, laughing, went his way, leaving
much good sport to them that heard him. This old anecdote
may have given rise to scriveners using the Loggerheads as their
sign, which otherwise seems a not very pleasant reflection on
their customers. We can scarcely think that any symbolism was
intended, and that the Loggerheads were emblematical of the
secretary's silence and discretion. In the seventeenth century
the sign might have been seen in London. There was one in
Tooley Street in 1665, having on its trades token the inscription,
"We are 3 ;" another variety had "We three Logerheads"
underneath the usual heads. In the ballad of the " Arraigning
and Indicting of Sir John Barleycorn, Knt., printed for Timothy
Tosspot," the trial takes place at the Three Loggerheads, by the
Justices Oliver and Old Nick. The witnesses are cited at the

sign of the Three Merry Companions in Bedlam—viz., Poor
Bobin, Merry Tom, and Jack Lackwit.

The Labour in Vain occurs among the trades tokens, and
such a sign gave its name to Old Fish Street, which Hatton, in
his "New View of London," 1708, p. 405, calls "Old Fish
Street, or Labour in Yain Hill." The sign represented two
women scrubbing a negro; hence it was called by the lower
classes, the Devil in a Tub. " To wash an iEthiop," is a pro-
verbial expression, often met with in ancient dramatists, for
labour in vain.* The Case is Altered, generally alludes to
some alteration in the affairs of the landlord, either " for better
or for worse." A public-house near Banbury was so called on
account of being built on the site of a mere hovel. Another
house of the same name was, in 1805, erected on the road be-
tween Wooclbridge and Ipswich, to meet the demand of the
thirsty sons of Mars then quartered in those two towns. Its
sign in those days was the Duke of York, or some such name.
But when, after the downfall of the " Corsican Tyrant," and the
subsequent declaration of peace, the barracks were pulled down,
the soldiers disbanded, and the benches of the ale-house remained
empty, the old sign was removed, and in its place put up the sad
truth—"The Case is Altered." In another instance, the sign
was adopted at Oxford as a quiet hint by a sharp business man,
who succeeded as landlord to an easy-going Boniface, undei
whose sway the customers had been allowed to run up debts;
but the case was altered under the new regulations. A corre-
spondent of Notes and Queries (Nov. 21, 1857) gives the fol-
lowing example :—" I saw this sign once pictorially represented
in the West of England thus :—A person, with a large wig and
gown, and seated at a table; another, dressed like a farmer,
stood talking to him. In the distance, seen through the open
door, w^ras a bull. The story, of course, is that related of Plow-
den, the celebrated lawyer,t and which is now in most books of
fables. The farmer told Plowden that bis (the farmer's) bull had
gored and killed the latter's cow. 'Well,' said the lawyer,
' the case is clear, you must pay me her value.⁵ ' Oh ! but,' said
the farmer, ' 1 have made a mistake. It is your bull which has
killed my cow." ' Ah! the case is altered,' quoth Plowden.
The expression had passed into a proverb in Old Fuller's time,'*

* Massinger's Parliament of Love, ac. li., sc. '2; Roman Actor, ac. iti., sc. 2, &c.
t Edmund Plowden, obiit 1584, was buried and has a monument ia sne Temula Church.

This sign also occurs in some London localities, as at Upper
Kensal Green, and elsewhere.

The Grinding Young is a very curious sign at Harold's
Cross, Dublin. The subject is taken from the old ballad of the
" Miller's Maid Grinding Old Men Young," commencing—

It is also a favourite subject on old chap-prints, which represent
a kind of hand-mill, into the funnel-shaped top of which various
decrepit-looking old men creep by a ladder, most of them glass
in hand, greatly elated at the prospect of a renewal of youth.
Meanwhile, a young maid is turning the handle of the mill, from
the bottom of which the patients come out, quite young and new
—if pot better—men. Pretty girls stand at the side, ready to
receive the rejuvenated creatures and walk off with them, their
arms affectionately twined round their necks, and evidently pre-
paring to play the old game over again, for " the cordial drop of
life is love alone"—the whole affair a very decided improvement
upon the usual way of entering the stage of this world.

A somewhat similar sign, though not quite so anacreontic, is
of frequent occurrence in France, namely The Fountain 01
Juvenca,—la Fontaine de Jouvence. A stone bas-relief of this
subject, a carving .of the sixteenth century, still remains in the
Rue du Four, in Paris. The story was borrowed by the French
romancers from the Eastern tales.

The sign of the last house in a row on the outskirts of a town,
used frequently to be the World's End. This was represented
in various punning ways; sometimes by a globe in clouds, as on
the trades token of Margaret Tuttlesham, of Golden Lane, Barbi-
can, in 1666. Others rendered it by a fractured globe in a dark
background, with fire and smoke bursting through the rents,
and thus it was represented at the World's End in the King's
Boad, Chelsea, in 1825. At Ecton, Northampton, it is typified,
with a truly classical notion of physicaLgeography, by a horseman
whose steed is rearing over an abyss on the edge of a world
terminated perpendicularly. A fourth, and more homely, way of
representing it was a man and a woman walking together on the
margin of a landscape, with this distich:

not enjoying the very best of reputations. Those, at least, of
the World's End at Chelsea and at Knightsbridge were rather
exceptionable. Both these houses were much patronised by the
gallants of the reign of Charles II. when breaking the seventh
commandment; hence the altercation between two sisters in
Congreve's play of "Love for Love :"

" Mrs Foresight. Poor innocent; you don't know that there is a place
called the World's End. I '11 swear you can keep your countenance—
surely you'll make an admirable player.

" Mrs Frail. I '11 swear you have a great deal of impudence, and in my
mind too much for the stage.

" Mrs Foresight. Very well, that will appear who has most. You never
were at the World's End? eh."

Pepys also honoured a World's End, the " drinking-liouse by
the Park," with an occasional visit. On Sunday, the 9th of
May 1669, for instance, he went to church at St Margaret's,
Westminster, and that duty performed, walked " towards the
park, but too soon to go in, so went on to Knightsbridge, and
there eat and drank at the World's End, where we had good
things, and then back to the park, and there till night, being
fine weather and much company, and so home." The "good
things" evidently proved a strong attraction, for three weeks
after he went again, "and there was merry, and so home late."
In 1708 Tom Brown thus alluded to its equivocal reputation.
"The lady must take a tour as far as Knightsbridge or Kensing-
ton, stop, maybe, at the World's End or the Swan; offer my
spark a small treat," &c.* Under the name of le Bout du
Monde, the same sign was common in France, where in ancient
Paris it gave a name to the street now called Kue du Cadran.
With that inveterate weakness for punning inherent to sign-
painters—those of the French nation in particular—it was
sometimes represented by a lie-goat (boitc) and a world.

The World turned Upside down is still common, being
generally represented by a man walking at the south pole ; in that
guise it was to be seen some twenty-five years ago on the Green-
wich Boad. But the meaning of the sign is a state of things
the opposite of what is natural and usual,—a conceit in which the
artists of former ages took great delight, and which they repre-

seiited by animals chasing men, horses riding in carriages, and
similar pleasantries. This also was a Dutch sign under the
name of De Verkeerde Wereld, (the world reversed.) It was
used by a publican in the seventeenth century in Holland, with
this inscription :

Voor de deur hangt hy verkeerd
'K Heb wyn en bier, en't geen gy meer begeert." *
Of the Moonrakers we only know one instance, that in
Great Suffolk Street, Borough, where it has been for at least
half a century. The original of this may have been one of the
stories of the Wise Men of Gotham. A party of them going out
one bright night, saw the reflection of the moon in the water ;
and, after due deliberation, decided that it was a green cheese,
and so raked for it. Another version is, that some Gotliamites,
passing in the night over a bridge, saw from the parapet the
moon's reflection in the river below, and took it.for a green
cheese. They held a consultation as to the best means of secur-
ing it, when it was resolved that one should hold fast to the
parapet whilst the others hung from him, hand-in-hand, so as to
form a chain to the water below, the last man to seize the prize.
When they were all in this position, the uppermost, feeling the
load heavy, and his hold giving way, called out, "Halloo! you
below, hold tight while I take off my hand to spit on it!" The
wise men below replied, "All right!" upon which he let go his hold,
and they all dropped down into the water, and were drowned.

A Moonraker is also the nickname for a native of Wilt-
shire, and a very silly story is told there as its origin.
Some Wiltshire smugglers, on one of their nightly expeditions,
being surprised by excisemen, were compelled to hide a barrel
of brandy in a pond, which one of the gang at the first
opportunity privately fished out for his own personal benefit.
A few nights after, when the Argus eyes of the Excise were
soundly closed, the rest of the band availed themselves of a clear
moonlight to return to the spot in order to "call the spirits
from the vasty deep," and began raking the water to their
hearts' content, for, taking the reflection of the moon to be the top
of the barrel, they could not be convinced that the " spirit was
departed/' till morning came and showed them that their barrel

was all " moonsliine." Anotlier version substitutes thieves and
a cheese for the smugglers and the brandy barrel.

The Cradle and the Coffin, or First and Last, was for-
merly a sign in Norwich, and one can still be seen on the South
Quay, Yarmouth. This combination may have its moral; not
so the equally serious Mortal Man, in the little village of
Troutbeck, near Ambleside, for there the denomination is simply
borrowed from the beginning of the inscription which has no-
thing of the memento mori about it:—

This imaginary dialogue is supposed to be held by the two
figures on the signboard, the one a poor miserable-looking object,
the other, who indulged in Burkett's ale, the chubby picture of
health, with a nose like that of Bardolph, " clothed in purple."
This sign was the work of Ibbetson; the picture is now gone,
but the verses remain.*

At Hedenham, on the road between Norwich and Bungay,
there is a sign called Tumble-down Dick, representing on one
side Diogenes, on the other, a drunken man, with the following
distich :

" Now Diogenes is dead and laid in his tomb,
Tumble-down Dick is come in his room."

At Alton, in Hants, a drunken man is represented upsetting a
table covered with cups and glasses. The verses underneath this
picture are the same as at Hedenham, except that it is "Bar-
naby " who is said to be defunct, and not Diogenes. At Wood-
ton in Norfolk, another sign with this name represents a jolly
old farmer in a red coat, with bottle and glass in his hand, falling
off his chair in a state of Bacchi plenus. The earliest mention
we find of the sign is in the Original Weekly Journal for April
26—May 3, 1718, where a murder is reported to have been
committed at the Tumbling-down Dick in Brentford. " Tumble-
down Dick, in the borough of Southwark," says the Adventurer,
No. 9, 1752, "is a fine moral on the instabdity of greatness,
and the consequences of ambition." As such it was set up in
derision of Bichard Cromwell, the allusion to his fall from power,
or " tumble down," being very common in the satires published

after the Restoration, and amongst others, Hudibras; thus, part
iii., canto ii., 231 :—

" Next him his son and heir apparent
Succeeded, though a lame viceregent,
Who first laid by the Parliament,
The only crutch on which he leant;
And then sunk underneath the state
That rode him above horseman's weight."

The same idea, and almost the identical words, occur again
in his " Remains," in the tale of the Cobbler and the Yicar of
Bray:—

" What's worse, old Noll is marching off,
And Dick, his heir apparent,
Succeeds him in the Government,

But sinks beneath the state,
That will not fail to ride the fool
'Bove common horseman's weight."

We meet it also in the ballad, " Old England is now a brave
Barbary," i.e. horse, from a " Collection of Loyal Songs," re-
printed in 1731, vol. ii., p. 231,—

And made her show tricks, and curvate, and rebound;
She quickly perceiv'd he rode widdle-waddle,
And like his coach-horses* threw his highness to ground.

" Then Diclc, being lame, rode holding the pummel,
Not having the wit to get hold of the rein;
But the jade did so snort at the sight of a Cromwell,
That poor Dick and his kindred turn'd footmen again."

Dick's bacchic propensities are also sung in many an old song.
Two of the Luttrell Ballads, vol. ii., pp. 11 and 36, allude to
his weakness in this respect:—

" Then thirdly Oliver he took place,
And set up young Dick the fool of his race;
Dick loved a cup of nectar."

Perhaps to the same origin may be referred the sign of Sol-
dier Dick, which occurs near Disley, Stockport; and Happy
Dick, at Abingdon. Tumbling-down Dick was also the name
of a dance in the last century, which gives additional strength to

* In allusion to Cromwell's accident in Hyde Park, October 1654, when his coach-
horses ran away, and his highness, who was driving, fell Iroin the box between the
traces, and was dragged along for a considerable distance.

the supposition that Dick Cromwell was intended, since other-
wise an ordinary signboard would scarcely have come to such
honour.

The Jolly Toper is a common public-house sign, probably
put up as a good example to the customers ; in London, there is
a Tippling Philosopher, " the right man in the right place,"
for he " hangs out" in Liquor Pond Street, opposite Reid's great
brewery. Here we have Vembarras du clioix ; which philosopher
was intended by the sign, for they all, more or less, " pleaded
guilty to the soft impeachment." Theophrastus, in his " Treaty
on Drunkenness," tells us that the seven sages of Greece often
met together to indulge in a cheerful glass. Plato not only ex-
cuses a drop too much occasionally, but even orders it. Hera-
clitus, the weeping philosopher, never laughed but when he was
" half seas over." Xenocrates gained a golden crown, awarded
by Dionysius the tyrant to the deepest drinker. Seneca states that
Solon and Arcesilaus are believed to have " indulged in wine,"
and Cornelius Gallus says that Socrates " carried off the palm
from his contemporaries by his drinking capacities." Cato, we
know from various sources, liked his glass ; Horace tells us—
" Narratur et prisci Catonis
Ssepe mero caluisse virtus;" *
and Seneca gays of him : " Cato vinum laxabat animum curis
publicis fatigatuin j"t elsewhere he remarks : " Catoni ebrietas ob-
jecta est, at facilius efficiet quisquis qui objecerit honestum quam
turpe Catoni."^ Seneca was certainly a biassed judge, for he
says : " Habebitur aliquando ebrietas honor et plurimum meri
cepisse virtus erit." § Other tippling philosophers are enumerated
in the following quaint Latin verses, the author of which is not
known:—•

Tergeret ut fletus contrarius alter amaros,
Sugebat lacrymas saepe, lagena, tuas.

Dicitur ardentem cum sese misit in iEthnam,
Empedocles modico non caluisse mero.

* " It is said that the virtue of Cato the elder was frequently warmed by wine."

t " Cato refreshed hie mind with wine when it was wearied with the cares of tha
commonwealth."

X "Cato has been blamed for drunkenness, but it is easier to find reason to praise,
. than to blame Cato."

§ "Drunkenness will be sometimes considered as honourable, and to drink a great
quantiLy of pure wine as a virtue."

Teque ferunt yeteres guttas, Epicure, Lycei
Vel minimas atomis antetulisse tuis.

Talia ne dubifcer potare exempla secutus,
Qui sapit ille bibit, qui bibifc ergo sapit." *

In Holland they have a curious practice, which the Spectator
thus describes :—

"The Dutch who are more famous for their industry than for their wit
and humour, hang up in several of their streets what they call the sign of
the Gaper ; that is, the head of an idiot dressed in a cap and bells and
gaping in a most immoderate manner; this is a standing jest in Amster-
dam."

But the statement is slightly—probably wilfully—incorrect.
Carved wooden busts of Gapers are still used at the present day
in Holland, but are, and have always been, chemists', or rather,
druggists' signs, to intimate that narcotics are sold within, as
gaping or yawning is a precursor of sleep. The costume of
these busts is generally somewhat Oriental, as Eastern nations
were supposed to be not only expert in herbs and medicines,
but also, because opium came from Eastern climes.

A very curious and rare sign is to be seen in the little village
of Nidd, near Knaresborough; this is the Ass in the Band-Box.
We find it mentioned in 1712 in Partridge's MS. book of
" Celestial Motions." + In the month of October of that year he
entered the following memorandum :—" At the end of this
month" the villains made the Band-box plot, to blow up Eobin
and his family with a couple of inkhorns, and that rogue Swift
was at the opening of the band-box and the discovery of the plot.

figured also as one of the signs in Bonnel Thornton's signboard
exhibition of 1762.§ It seems to have originated from an ex-
tremely indelicate Joke called " selling bargains," with which the

* "When the wine sparkled on the lips of Democritus, it was then that he could not
restrain himself from laughter. Another [lleraclius] on the contrary, often drank tliy
tears, 0 bottle, in order to dry his own tears. Diogenes lived in a barrel so that he
might always smell the odour of divine wine. It is said that Empedocles, when he
jumped down burning Etna, had first warmed himself with no small quantity of wine.
They also say that thou, O Epicurus, didst prefer even the smallest drops of old wine
to thine atoms. In imitation of these examples, I do not hesitate in drinking, for he who
tastes drinks, consequently he that drinks is wise." It is almost impossible to trans-
late this last line, on account of the pun contained in the verb sapere, which at the
same time means " to taste" and "to be wise." The second line is evidently imperfect.

t This alludes to the well-known plot of a bandbox sent to the Lord Treasurer, con-
taining a very poor infernal machine, made of inkhorns. The affair, however, has
never been satisfactorily cleared up. Swift is called a rogue by the indignant Part-
ridge, because he had made a droll ballad and epitaph upon the "Supposed death o(
Partridge, the Alm.u..ic-maker," which Swift had predicted and Partridge publicly denied.

maids of honour amused themselves in Swift's time, (see his
" Polite Conversation ;") unless it be a vernacular reading of
some crest, such as an antelope or a unicorn issuing out of a
mural crown.

In the borough of Southwark is a sign on which is inscribed
"The Old Pick-my-toe," which, in the absence of any better
origin, we may suppose to be a vulgar representation of the
Roman slave who, being sent on some message of importance,
would not stop to pick a thorn out of his foot, until he had
completed his mission. Probably this was the same sign as that
represented on the trades token of Samuel Bovery in George
Lane, a naked figure picking one of its feet; but the name of the
house is not given on the token. Jacic of Both Sides, at Read-
ing, is so named because the house stands at a point where two
roads meet in the form of a Y, and the house being wedge-
shaped, has an entry at each side. Such a house in London is
often called by the vulgar a " Flat-iron."

The Old Smugs is a sign on the trades token of Joseph Hall,
at Newington Butts, 1067, representing a smith and an anvil;
but whether John Hall himself was " old Smvgs,'' or whether he
kept a tavern frequented by blacksmiths, history does not inform
us. This last is also the name of one of the characters in the
"Merry Devil at Edmonton." The Battered Naggin (sic
for Noggin) is an Irish sign, it being in that country a figurative
expression for a man who has got more than is good for him,
—" he has got a lick of a battered naggin." The Noggin, with-
out the adjective, occurs at a few places in Lancashire and
Yorkshire. The Tumbling Sailors, representing three seamen
" half-seas-over," and reeling arm-in-arm down a street, may be
seen near Broseley ; at Dudley, and in other places. The Crip-
ple's Inn at Stockingford, Warwick, is doubtless nothing more
than a very "lame" attempt at comicality. The Hat in Hand,
in Portsea, promises a polite host; but what can be expected of
Old Careless, the ominous name of a public-house at Staple-
ford, Notts, of Spite Hall at Brandon, Durham, or of Old No,
which occurs in Silver Street, Sheffield? Slow and Easy is
the unpromising name of an ale-house at Lostock, Chester; let
us hope that it may be meant for a version of the Italian pro-
verb, " chi va piano va sano," meaning that the landlord will be
content with small and fair profits, and acquire fortune by slow
and easy steps.

Punning on names, or a figurative rendering of names, was pro-
bably at first adopted not so much with any intent at joking, as
means to assist the memory, giving the name a visible token,
which would take the place of writing at a time when but few
persons could either read or write. At the revival of learning,
and the spread of what we may term the refinement of society,
punning was one of the few accomplishments at which the fine
ladies and gentlemen aimed. From the twelfth to the sixteenth
century, it w^ras at its greatest height. The conversation of the witty
gallants and ladies, and even of the clowns and other inferior
characters, in the comedies of Shakespeare and his contemporaries,
which we may be sure was painted from the life, is full of puns
and plays upon w^Tords. The unavoidable result of such an ex-
cess was a surfeit, and the consequent dégout, which lasted for
more than a century.* Like other diseases, it broke out again
subsequently with redoubled virulence, and made great havoc in
the reign of Queen Anne. " Several worthy gentlemen and
critics," says the Tatler for June 23, 1709, "have applied to me
to give my censure of an enormity, which has been revived after
being long suppressed, and is called Punning. I have several
arguments ready to prove that he cannot be a man of honour
who is guilty of this abuse of human society."

" As for rebuses or name devices, tbei ware brought into use heare in
England after King Edward ye 3 had conquered France, and this was
taken up by most people heare in this nation, espesially by them which
had none armes; and if their names ended in (on, as Haton; Boulton;
Luton ; Grafton ; Middellton ; Seton; Norton ; they must presently have
for their signes or devises a hat and a tun; a boult and a tun ; a lute and
a tun, and so on, which signifies nothing to ye name, for all names end-
ing in Ton signifieth a toune from whence they tooke their name. It
would make one very merry to loke ouer ye learned Camden in his ^£Re-
maines,' and to consider ye titles of our ould books printed by Haryson,
Kingston, Islip, Woodeooke, Payer, Bushell," &e.—Had. MSS., 5910, p. ii.

Camden, in his " Remains," mentions these punning signs,
and gives a like statement with Bagford, that they were intro-
duced from France, where they are still much in fashion.

* In the oW sermons and religious treatises ol the seventeenth century, however, we
occasionally find punning resorted to by the preachers of the time.

" These," says Camden, " were so well liked by our English
there and, sent hither ouer the streight of Calice with full sayle,
were so entertained here although they were most ridiculous, by
all degrees of the learned and unlearned, that he was nobody
that could not hammer out of his name an invention by this wit-
craft, and picture it accordingly : whereupon who did not busy
his brain to hammer his device out of this forge." After many
examples too long to quote, he concludes with the following :—
"Mbrton, Archbishop of Canterbury, a man of great wisedome, and
oorne to the universall good of this realme, was content to use mor upon
a ton, and sometimes a mulberry-tree, called Morns in Latine, out of a
ton. So Luton, Thornton, Ashton, did note their names with a Lute, a
Thorn, and an Ash upon a Ton. So an hare on a bottle for Ilarebottle, a
Maggot-pie upon a Goat for Pigot. Med written on a Calf for Medcalfe ;
Chester, a chest with a starre over it; Allet, a Lot; Lionel Duclcet, a Lion
with L on his head, where it should have beene in his tayle ; if the lion
had been eating a ducke it had been a rare device,—worth a Duckat or a
duck-egge. And if you require more, I refer you to the wittie inventions
of some Londoners; but that for Garret Dewes is most memorable : two
in a garret casting dews at dice.* This for rebus may suffice, and yet if
there were more, I think some lips would like such kind of Lettice." t

How punning signboards were concocted we may gather from
a scene in Ben Jonson's "Alchymist," act ii., scene 1, where a
rebus sign is to be found for Abel D rugger, who for that purpose
goes to a kind of fortune-teller, styling himself an alchymist,
and who provides our shopkeeper in the following manner:—
" He shall have a bell, that's Abel,
And by it standing one whose name is Dee
In a rug gown, there's D and rug, that's drug,
And right anenst him a dog snarling er,
There's Drugger, Abel Drugger. That's his sign,
And here's no mystery and hieroglyphic."

This wonderful sign the Alchymist terms a " mystic character,"
the " radii" of which are to produce no end of good results to
Abel's trade.

The Cockneys ("gentle dulness dearly loves a joke") have at
all times been celebrated for this kind of pleasantry. The men-
tion of a few of their signs will be sufficient to show the extent of
their wit and originality in this direction. The well-known bird-

* lie was a printer who kept his shop at the sign of the Swan in St Paul's Church-
yard in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This Garatt D'Ewes was grandfather of the cele-
brated antiquary, Sir Symond D'Ewes ; he amassed a handsome fortune, which enabled
him to purchase the manor of Gains near Upminster, Essex, and thus laid the foun-
dation of the future greatness of his family. D'Ewes was of Dutch origin, being a native
of the province of G-eldorland, Some of the letters of this early printer are preserved
in the Harl. BIS., No. 3S1.

bolt through a tun, or Bolt in Tun, for Bolton, the device of
one of the priors of St Bartholomew, is still in existence in Fleet
Street.

" It may seem doubtful," says Camden, " whether Bolton, prior of St
Bartholomew, in Smithfield, was wiser when he invented for his name a
bird-bolt through his Tun, or when he built him a house upon Harrow
Hill, for fear of an inundation after a great conjunction of planets in the
watery triplicity."

From an entry in the Patent Boll of 21 Henry VI., (1443,) this
house in Fleet Street appears to have been an inn at that period,
In a licence of alienation to the Friars Carmelites of London, of
certain premises in the parish of St Dunstan, Fleet Street,
" Hospitium vocatum le Boltenton " is mentioned as a boundary.
On some of the seventeenth century trades tokens, we meet with a
tun pierced by three arrows j this variation of the Bolt in Tun was
called the Tun and Arrows, (or Aarrows, as the Cockney tokens
have it.) There was one in Bishopsgate Street Within, and
another in Bishopsgate Street Without, in the reign of Charles II.

A Hand and Cock was the punning sign of John Hancock,
in Whitefriars. George Cox, in the Minories, tallow-chandler by
trade, had Two Cocks for his sign. Thomas Cockayne, a dis-
tiller in Southwark, had the same sign, as a feeble pun on part
of bis name; whilst Christopher Bostock, not seeing any possi-
bility " to hammer" a rebus out of his own patronym, fortu-
nately for him lived at Cock's Key, and so could make up for
this misfortune by punning on the name of that place, whence
his sign triumphantly exhibited the Cock and Key. John
Drinkwater, a publisher, intimated his name by a Fountain ;
and William Woodcock, a bookseller in St Paul's Church-
yard in the seventeenth century, happily rendered his by a cock
standing on a bundle of wood. William Hill, another book-
seller in St Paul's Churchyard in 1598, lived at the sign of
the Hill. John Buckland, who followed the same profession
in Paternoster Bow, in 1750, was modestly content with half a
pun, and adopted the sign of the Buck, while, in the same
manner, another of his colleagues, Samuel Mansliip, who in 1720
lived " against the Boyal Exchange, Cornhill," was satisfied with
|he Ship. The Sun and Bed Cross, in Jewin Street, was the
sign of John Cross, who, taking a house with the sign of the
Sun, added to it a Cross. In the same manner Pelham More, in
Moorsgate, had the Sun and Moor's Head. John Cherry, of

Maidenhead, adopted a Cherry-tree as his sign, showing in
this as much wit as the ancestor of the Crequi family in France,
who chose a Grequier (old French for cherry-tree) as his coat of
arms. Hugh Conny, of Caxton and Elsworth, Cambridge, had
in 1666 Three Conies, or rabbits, for a sign. Richard Lion, in
the Strand, had the Lion. Bartholomew Fish, at Queenhithe,
in 1667, Three Fishes. William Home, in Oak Lane, 1671, the
Horns. Thomas Fox, in Newgate Market, a Fox. William
Geese, King Street, Westminster, Three Geese. Ellinor Gandor,
Upper Shadwell, 1667, a Gander ; whilst H. Goes, a native of
Antwerp, printer at York in 1506, next at Beverley, and finally,
in London, had for his sign a Goose with an H above it.
Joseph Parsons, " at the sign of Parson's Green," Market
Place, St James, seems to have had a view of Parson's Green,
Fulham, for his sign ; though why he did not simply take a
parson is, we fear, a secret he has carried with him to the grave.
John Hive, St Mary's Hill, 1667, had the sign of the Beehive.
Grace Pestell, in Fig-tree Yard, Ratcliffe, the Pestle and Mor-
tar. John Atwood, in Rose Lane, the Man in the Wood.
Andrew Hind, over against the Mews, Charing Cross, a Hind.
Taylor, the Water poet, mentions a similar sign at Preston :—

" There at the Hinde, kinde Master Hinde, mine host,
Kept a good table, bak'd, and boyld, and rost." *

Jane Keye, Bloomsbury Market, 1653, a Key. The Lion and
Key was, in 1651, a sign in Thames Street, punning perhaps on
the neighbouring Lion's Quay; it is still the sign of a public-
house in Hull, whilst the Red Lion and Key still occurs in
Mill Lane, Tooley Street. A grocer, named Laurence Green,
proved that to the "fortern ac tenacem propositi virum " nothing
is impossible, and found means to pun upon his untractable
name by painting his doorposts green, and called his shop the
Green Posts. We meet with him in a newspaper advertise-
ment, which, as it gives the price of various articles at that date,
is not uninteresting. Green sold—

" Chocolate, made of the best nuts, at 3s. a pound; the best, with sugar,
at 2s. a pound ; a good sort of all nut, at 2c, 6d.; with sugar, Is. 8d. To
the buyers of three pounds, a quarter gratis. The best coffee, at 5s. 4d. a
pound; to the buyer of throe pounds, ]s. allowed. Bohee tea, at 16*
20, 24s., the very finest, al 28s. a pound. Fine green tea, at 14s., good,
at 10s. a pound. "Fine Spanish enuff, at 4s. a pound." &c.+

The Harp was the sign of Richard Harper, West Smithfield;
it occurs on a trades token. The house seems afterwards to have
assumed the sign of the Bible and Harp. What occupation
Richard Harper followed does not appear from his token, but in
1641 a Bichard Harper at the sign of the Bible and Harp, pub-
lished a tract called

Varieties of Fancies where you may find,
A fayre of Wares and all to please your mind."

In 1670 the house was occupied by a certain J. Clarke, and at
a subsequent period by J. Bisset; both these men published
numerous ballads.

The Hat and Tun is a pun on the name of Hatton, and is
still preserved on a public-house sign in Hatton Wall. A man
named Nobis, at the beginning of the present century opened
an inn on the road to Pappenburgh, which he called Nobis Inn,
and made free with grammar in order to find a punning motto,
viz.: "Si Deus pro nobis quis contra Nobis." Bells have
been used by innumerable persons of the name of Bell. The
Salmon was the sign of Mrs Salmon, the Madame Tussaud of
the eighteenth century; her gallery was first in St Martin's-le-
Grand, near Aldersgate, whence she removed to Fleet Street,
opposite what is now Anderton's Hotel, then called the Horns
Tavern. The Brace Tavern, in Queen's Bench prison, was so
called on account of its being kept by two brothers of the name
of Partridge. The Golden Heart was the sign of Thomas
Hart, a . tailor in Monmouth Street, St Giles. (Ilarl. MSS.,
Bagford Bills, 5931.) Bat Pidgeon, the hairdresser immortal-
ised in the Spectator, lived at the Three Pigeons, " the corner
house of St Clement's churchyard, next to the Strand," says
Pennant, where he "cut my boyish locks in the year 1740."

The Black Swan in Bartholomew Lane, nicknamed Cobweb
Hall, was kept by Owen Swan, parish clerk (hence the Black
Swan?) of St Michael's, CornhilL It was a tavern of great
resort for the musical wits in the seventeenth century. Failing
in this business, Owen set up as a tobacconist in St Michael's
Alley; on the papers in winch he wrapped tobacco for his cus-
tomers, were the following rhymes:—

" The dying Swan in sad and mourning strains
Of his near end and hapless fate complains,

" The aged Swan opprest with time and cares,
With Indian sweets his funeral prepares.
Light up the pile ! thus he '11 ascend the skies
And Phoenix-like from his own ashes rise."

There is a well-known anecdote of a man named Farr, who
opened a tobacco shop 011 Fish Street Hill, and soon obtained a
good custom from the pun over his door, " The best tobacco by
Farr," rather than from the quality of his tobacco. Opposite
him there was another tobacconist.who lost his customers through
his pun, but he regained them in the same way as he' lost them,
for he fought Farr with his own weapons, and wrote up "Far
better tobacco than the best tobacco by Farr" This joke was
thought so good that all his customers returned. Tobacco-papers
of the original " finest tobacco by Farr" are preserved among
the Banks hand-bills in the British Museum, as a proof of the
truth of this history.

A Ling, or codfish, strange to say, entwined with honey-
suckles, was the sign of Nicholas Ling, at the north-west door
of St Paul's, where, in 1595, he published "Pierce Pennylesse
his Supplicacion to the Divell." An Oak was the sign of
Nicholas Okes, a bookseller dwelling at Gray's Inn, publisher of
some of Taylor the "Water Poet's works. His colophon repre-
sents Jupiter seated on an eagle between two oak trees. A
French publisher, Nicholas Cheneau, in the Bue St Jacques,
Paris, in 1580, had also an oak for his sign, (chene, an oak.)

John Day, another publisher of the time of Queen Elizabeth,
had a sort of pun, or charade, on his name in the sign of the
Resurrection, his device representing a man waking a sleeper,
with tlie words, "Arise, for it is day." The Castle and Falcon
was another of his signs. Bichard Grafton, the first printer of
the Common Prayer, who also printed the proclamation of Lady
Jane Grey as Queen of England, for which he fell under the
displeasure of Queen Mary, had a tun with a grafted fruit-tree
growing through it. Stow made a pun upon this sign, saying
that one of Grafton's works was " a noise of empty tonnes and
unfruitful grafftes," to which Grafton retaliated by calling Stow's
Chronicle " a collection of lyes foolishly stowed together." Hugh
Singleton had a Golden Tun; Harrison, 1560, a hare shelter-

ing under a corn-sheaf tied with a ribbon, and with the letters ri
and a sun shining above ; but the most absurd rebus of all was
that of one Newberry, who, according to Camden, had a Yew
Tree with several berries upon it, and in the midst a great
golden N upon one of the branches, which by the help of a
little false spelling made N-yew-berry.

A few punning signs still remain. At Oswaldstwistle, near
Accrington, a man named Bellthorn has the Bell in this
Tiiorn ; at Warbleton, in Sussex, an old public-house has the
sign of a war-bill in a tun, which sign of the Axe and Tun is
further intended as an intimation to "axe for beer"! Another
innkeeper named Abraham Lowe, who lives half way up Bich-
mond Hill, near Douglas in the Isle of Man, has the following
innocent attempt at punning on his name :—

" I'm Abraham Lowe, and half way up the Hill,
If I were higher up, what's funnier still,
I should be loive. Come in and take your fill,
Of porter, ale, wine, spirits, what you will,
Step in, my friend, I pray, no further go;
My prices, like myself, are always low."

Besides rebuses, and puns on names, the French have another
class of punning signs, for which we have only very few equiva-
lents, namely, rebus signboards. One of the most common is
the Bœuf à la Mode, which some twenty or thirty years ago
was thus Englished in golden letters on a low boarding-house at
Brussels :—

"The Board House of the Fashionable Beef"
It is the usual sign for eating-houses, being the standard dish of
the French bourgeoisie. The picture represents an ox dressed up
in the height female elegance, with bonnet, shawl, &c. A good
repartee is told, originating in this method of representing the
sign : a citizen's wife, of aldermanic proportions, was coming out
of a magasin de nouveautés in Paris, just as two " social evils "
were going in; ^uDis-donc, Pelagie," said one of the girls to her
companion, " look at that Bœuf-à-la-Mode who is going out."
" Yes," replied the indignant matron, who had overheard the
remark, " and now game is coming in !"

Other French punning signs, such as St Jean Baptiste, Au
Juste Prix, Le Bout du Monde, Le Signe de la Croix, and
many more, have been noticed in former chapters, and need not,
therefore, be again mentioned here.

Signs which could not well be classed under any of the former
divisions will find their place in this chapter, and hence a motley
gathering may be expected. As in all inquiries it is proper to
begin with the a. b. c., we shall do so here. The a. b. c. was
the sign of Richard Fawkes, a bookseller, as the imprint of his
works says:—

" In the suburbss of the famous Cytye of Lodon, withoute Templebarre
dvvellynge in Durresme rentes [part of Durham House, where now the
Adelphi stands] or else in Powles churche-yerde at the sygne of the a. b. c.
The year of our Lorde mcccccxxx."

This, we must admit, was a very reasonable sign for a " man
of letters." Continental booksellers also employed it; amongst
others, Jacob Pietersz Paetsy, of Amsterdam, in 1597; in the
Hague such a sign gave its name to a street. About 1825 there
was a public-house in Clare Market called the a. b. o., where the
alphabet from A to Z was painted over the door. Even at the
present day many public-houses are called the Letters; thus
there are two in Shrewsbury, two in Carlisle, one in Oldham,
and others in various places. Grand A is a public-house near
East Dereham, Norfolk. Little A was the sign of a tobacconist
in Leadenhall Street, circa 1780; his tobacco-papers, preserved
among the Banks bills, were adorned with a portrait of " Sir
Jeffrey Dunstan, or Old Wigs," one of the mayors of Garrat,
styled " Old Wigs " from his practice of buying those articles, by
which he made an honourable living before ambition flamed his
soul and he entered upon a political career. Grand B may be
seen at Long Framlington, Morpeth; Q Inn at Staleybridge ;
and Q in the Corner in Sheffield. Rhyming alphabets and
nursery rhymes present us with the first and last, but the second
w^re confess is somewhat mysterious : the Crowned Q, (au Q
Courronne,) which was an old sign in the Rue de la Ferroniere,
Paris, is easy enough to understand, and one of those broad
Rabelaisian strokes of humour which the public de'ighted in a
century or two ago ; indeed the sign continued in its old quarters
until 1828. The Y was formerly a mercer's sign in France, and
may have originated from the custom of tying ribbons up in
festoons, when they would assume somewhat the shape of that

letter. It was also the sign of Nicholas Duchemin, a bookseller
in Paris, 1541-1576. He, however, took a Pythagorean view of
this letter, and considered it, as the freemasons do, an emblem
of the double path of life, the broad way leading to destruction,
the narrow way unto life; hence the top of the
left hand branch terminated in flames, the right
hand in a crown. The idea was evidently bor-
rowed from Matt. vii. 13, unless it be from Per-
sius, who says—

" Et tibi quae Samios deduxifc litera raraos,
Surgentem dexfcro monstravit limite callem."

Z was formerly a grocer's sign in this country, and was said to
stand for Zinzibar, (ginger,) but this Z after all was perhaps only
a corruption of the figure 4 which, we are informed, is or was a
constant grocer's sign in some parts of Scotland, as for instance
in Stirling, implying that their provisions came from the four
quarters of the world. Number IV is still the sign of an
ale-house at 74 Hope Street, Salford, Manchester. Number
Three is to be seen at Great Layton, near Blackpool. In 1633
it was the sign of a bookseller, Jean Brunet, in the Bue Neuve
S. Louis, Paris. He says on the imprints of his books, au Trois,
de chiffres, in contradistinction to the Eoman numerals, which at
that time were not named chiffres but nombres; chiffres applied
only to the Arab numerals. The latter were introduced by Pope
Silvester II. (999—1003) who, having studied at Seville, ac-
quired them from the Moors.

The Bell is one of the commonest signs in England, and was
used as early as the fourteenth century, for Chaucer says that the
" gentil hostelrie that heighte the Tabard," was " faste by the
Belle." Most probably bells were set up as signs on account of
our national fondness for bell-ringing, which procured for our
island the name of the " ringing island," and made Handel
say, that the bell was our national musical instrument; and long
may it be so ! We confess to have derived infinitely more
pleasurable feelings from hearing the melodious bells on a sum-
mer afternoon ringing through the clear air and sending their
sweet sounds over corn-field and meadow, over brook and stream,
than from any cavatina or cantata, sung by the dearest paid
Italians in crowded operas, and at over-heated concerts. Paul
Hentzer, a German traveller, who visited this country in the

reign of Queen Elizabeth, says, " the English are vastly fond of
noises that fill the air, such as firing of cannon, beating of drums,
and ringing of bells ; so that it is common for a number of them
to go up into some belfry, and ring bells for hours together for
the sake of exercise." Aubrey makes a similar remark ; and, for
further reference, we may go to Sir Symonds D'Ewes, who writes
in his " Memoirs," that, in 1618, he was ringing the large bell ot
St John's College, Cambridge, for exercise, when the great comet
was in the heavens; the consequence was, that he got entangled
in the ropes, and nearly fractured his skull, whereupon he wisely
resolved not to ring so long as the mischievous comet was to be
seen. Generally, for a merry peal, the different toned octave
bells are rung in succession ; then changes are introduced, which,
by continually altering, the succession of the bells produces a
most pleasing effect. A peal of bells usually consists of eight,
hence the frequency of the Eight Bells ; besides these, there
are the Four Bells, the Five Bells, the Six Bells, the Ten
Bells ; the Eight Bingers, (Norwich and elsewhere,) the Old
Bing o' Bells, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, &c. Three
Swans and Peal, Walsall, Staffordshire ; the Nelson and
Peal, also in Warwickshire, and many others mentioned in a
previous chapter. In some old belfries, the rules and fines of the
ringers are painted in rhymes on the walls ] as for instance, in
St John's Church, Chester, (dated 1687,) in All Saints' Church,
Hastings, (dated 1756,) &c. One of the oldest Bell taverns in
Middlesex stood in King Street, Westminster \ it is named in
the expenses of Sir John Howard, (Jockey of Norfolk,) in 1466.
Pepys dined at this house, July 1, 1660, invited by purser Wash-
ington ; but came away greatly disgusted, for, says he, " the
rogue had no more manners than to invite me, and let me pay
my club." In November of the same year, he was there again,
" to see the 7 flanders mares that my Lord has bought
lately." In Queen Anne's reign, the October club, consisting of
about one hundred and fifty county members of Parliament, all
unmitigated Tories, used to meet at this tavern. The Bell, in
Warwick Lane, Newgate Street, is another example of the old
London coaching inns, still in its original condition, the galleries
being propped up to prevent their falling down: everything
about the place has a seventeenth century look,—the country
carts, the chickens here in the very heart of the city, the inw
kitchen with its old black clock, its settles and white benches,

the very smell of the cookery going on seems more homely and
old English than the hot greasy vapours emanating from the
areas of modern taverns. Coming into this yard from the
adjacent crowded streets, is like entering a latter-day Pompeii.
It was at this inn that Archbishop Leighton, the honest, steady
advocate of peace and forbearance, died in 1684.

" He often used to say that if he were to choose a place to die in, it
should be an Inn; it looks like a pilgrim's going home, to whom this
world was all as an Inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion in
it. He added, that the officious tenderness and care of friends was an en-
tanglement to a dying man; and that the unconcerned attendance of those
that could be procured in such a place would give less disturbance. And
he obtained what he desired." *

At the Bell, in the Poultry, lived, in the reign of King Wil-
liam and Queen Anne, Nathaniel Crouch, the famous bookseller,
who was the first to condense great and learned works into a
small and popular form. He generally wrote under the name of
" John Burton." His " Historical Rarities in London and West-
minster," was one of the books Dr Johnson, in his old age,
desired to read again in remembrance of the pleasure derived
from their teaching in the days of his youth.

At Finedon, three miles from Wellingborough, there is an old
inn, called the Bell, having for a sign the portrait of a female
with the following lines beneath :—

The Bell Inn, kept by John Good, at Oxford, has :—
"My name, likewise my ale, is good,
Walk in and taste my own home brew'd;
For all that know John Good can tell,
₄ That, like my sign, it bears the Bell."

There was a Golden Bell, in St Bride's Lane, Fleet Street,
in the reign of Queen Anne, next door to which lived Lydia Bur-
craft, a female hairdresser, who, as appears from her bill,f sold
an infallible pomatum to make the hair grow long and curly.
The Black Bell is mentioned by Stowe, p. 81 :—

"Above this lane's [Crooked Lane] end upon Fish Hill Street, is one
great house, for the most part built of stone, which pertained some time
to Edward the Black Prince, son to Edward III., who was in his lifetime
lodged there. It is now altered to a common hostelry, having the Black
Bell for a sign."

* Burnet's Own Times, vol. ii.. p. 420, ed. 1823.
t Uarl. MSS., 6931. Batford Bills.

Tlie Bell occurs in innumerable combinations, most of which
seem to have no particular meaning, but simply to arise from
the old custom of quartering signs. Among them, we may men-
tion the Bell and Anchor, Hammersmith, which was much
visited by the fashion in the beginning of the reign of George III.
Bepresentations of the place and its visitors may be seen in
several of the caricatures of that period, published by Bowles
and Carver, of St Paul's Churchyard. It is still in existence,
but its days of glory are past, for, instead of youth and beauty,
and " names known to chivalry," its customers now mostly con-
sist of the Irish labourers who live in the lanes and back slums
of North End. Further, we meet with the 'Bell and Lion,
Crew, Cheshire; the Bell and Bullock, Netherem, Penrith,
probably united 011 account of the alliteration ; the Bell and
Cuckoo, Erdington, near Birmingham; and the Bell and
Candlestick, also in Birmingham.

The Bell and Crown is very common, and withal is a
reasonable combination, for the bell has, from time immemorial,
been rung to express the loyalty of the nation on royal entries,
whether into the world or into a town, on occasion of royal mar-
riages or deaths, at times of great victories and declarations of
peace, and other loyal celebrations. Hence many bells are in-
scribed with the words, " Fear God, honour the King¹," which, in
the beginning of the eighteenth century, seems also to have been
a common inscription on the sign of the Bell.¹ This sentiment
was thus versified by a sign-painter, who evidently had more
loyalty than poetical genius :—

Few signs have so often been wrongly explained as the Bell
Savage, on Ludgate Hill. Stow, generally so accurate, says it
received its name from one Isabella Savage, who had given the
house to the company of cutlers. Where he gathered that in-
formation we do not know, but he was " burning," as the children
say, and w^Tas certainly much nearer the truth than the Spectator,
who states that it was called after a French play of " la Belle
Sauvage." The "Antiquarian Repertory," following Stow, asserts

that the inn was once the property of the Lady Arabella Savage,
familiarly called " Bell Savage," which name was represented in
a rebus by a wild man and a bell, and so it was always drawn
on the panels of the coaches that used to run to and from it,
until the railways changed our style of travelling. The true
origin of the name is manifest from a document in the Clause
Bod, 31 Henry VI*

"D. Script, irrot. Frenssh.
Omnib; Xpi fidelib; ad quos p'sens Scriptum p'ven. Jok'nes Frenssh, filiua
primogenitus Joh'is Frenssh, Gentilman, quondam civis et aurifabri Lon-
don* salutem in Domino. Sciatis me dedisse, concessisse, et hoc p'senti
scripto meo confirmasse, Johanne Frenssh, vidue, matri tnee, totum ten sive
hospicium, cum suis p'ten', vocat' Savagesynne, alias vocat' le Belle on the
Hope, in parocliia S'ce Brigide in ■ Fletestreet, London', li'end et tenend,
totum p.'dcm ten' sive hospicium, cum suis p't' in p'fat' Johanne ad
t' minii vite sue, absq' impeticoe vasti. In cugis rei testimoniu, &c." +

In the sixteenth century, the Belle Savage appears to have
been a place of amusement. " Those who go to Paris garden,
the Bel Savage, or theatre, to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or
fence play, must not account of any pleasant spectacle unless
they first pay one penny at the gate, another at the entry of the
scaffold, and a third for quiet standing."J One of the attrac-
tions about that period was Banks's wonderful horse, Marocco,
which here performed his tricks before a lialf-admiring, half-awe-
stricken audience, many of whom doubtless considered the
animal a witch, if not a devil. "To mine host of the Bel
Sauage and all his honest guests," was dedicated the satirical
tract of " Marocco Extaticus," in which this horse is introduced. §
During the civil wars we find this inn mentioned as apparently a
Boyalist house: " Upon search at Bell Savage (by order of Par-
liament) great quantities of plate were found, intended for York,
but stayed by order." || A very odd accident happened in this
inn during the terrific storm of November 26, 1703. A Mr

(■ "To all true Christian people to whom this present writing shall come: John
Frenssh, eldest son of John Frenssh, gentleman, late citizen and goldsmith of London,
sends greeting in our Lord. Know ye that I have given, granted, and by this my pre-
sent writing confirmed to Joan Frenssh. widow, my mother, all that tenement or inn,
with its appurtenances, called Savage's Inn, otherwise called the Bell on the Hoop, in
the parish of St Bride, in Fleet Street, London, to have and to hold the aforesaid
tenement or inn, with its appurtenances, to the said Joan, for the term of her life, with-
out impeachment of waste. In witness whereof," &c. (here follow the names of six wit
nesses.) Bated at London the 5th day of February, in the thirty-first year of the reign
of King Henry VI. after the conquest,

II Speciall Passages from Westminster, London, York, &c., Jur» 26—July 5, lftlX

Hempson, we are told, was blown in his sleep out of an upper
room window, and knew nothing of the storm nor of his aerial
voyage, till awaking, he found himself lying in his bed on Ludgate
hill. No doubt the good wine of mine host must have had some-
thing to do with this miraculous flight.* Having been for cen-
turies a coaching inn, its name spread to the provinces, and some
inn-keepers copied its sign, whence we meet with La Belle Sau-
vage, Macclesfield, and in one or two other places.

Balls were extremely common in former times, frequently in
combination with other objects; this arose from the custom of
the silk mercers in hanging out a Golden Ball. Con stantine
the Great adopted a golden globe (termed Ilesa) as the emblem
of his imperial dignity, on which, after he embraced Christianity,
he placed a cross, and with this addition it continues as one of the
insignia of royalty at the present day. The early silk-mercers
adopted this golden globe, or ball, as their sign, because in the
middle ages, all silk was brought from the East, and more par-
ticularly from Byzantium and the imperial manufactories there,
whence it was called serica Constantinopolitana, pannus iviperi-
alis, Basilica, de Basilicio, fay/nov, &c. The Golden Ball con-
tinued as a silk-mercer's sign until the end of the last century,
when it gradually fell to the Berlin wool shops, and with them
it continues at the present day.

Balls of various colours were invariably the signs of quacks
and fortune-tellers in the eighteenth century; the Bagford Bills
are full of Bed, Blue, Black, White, and Green Balls, all signs
of those gentry who profess to cure all the evils flesh is heir to.
How they came to choose this sign is hard to say. for we can
scarcely imagine that they were intended to represent magnified
pills. Moorfieldst was the head-quarters of this trade :—
" If in Moorfields a Lady stroles
Among the Globes and Golden Balls,

* Pamphlet in the Harleian Miscellany. Index, vol. x. This dreadful storm is said
to have caused more damage than the fire of 1C66. Bishop Kedder and his wife were
killed in it by the fall of a house in which they were sleeping. Admiral Beaumont was
shipwrecked and lost with nearly the whole of his ship's company. The Eddystone
lighthouse was blown down and swallowed by the sea, with its architect, Mr Henry Win-
stanley. A sermon is still yearly preached at Little Wild Street Baptist Chapel, Lin-
coln's Inn Fields, in memory of this fearful storm, a Mr John Taylor, bookseller of
Paternoster Row, having left £40 to it as a thank-offering for his miraculous preserva-
tion at the time of the occurrence.

f After having been for a long time one of the most secure strongholds of the devil,
a godly garrison was sent into Moorfields at the end of the last century. The Gazetteer,
10th September 1790, has the following paragraph So numerous are become the
Gospel shops in the vicinity of Monrfields. that like Monmouth Street, the proprietors
employ -'pluckers in" on Sundays to inveigle customers. The cant phrase at the door
is, " Good sound doctrine here in perfection."

Where ere they hang she may be certain
Of knowing what shall be her fortune.
Her husband too, I dare to say,
But that she better knows than they."

The Golden Ball was the sign of J. Osborne, bookseller in
Paternoster Bow, circa 1740, who printed one of the earliest
"London Directories;" also of Doctor Forman in Lambeth
Marsh, who was deeply implicated in the murder of Sir Thomas
Overbury in 1G13. The Two Golden Balls at the upper end
of Bow Street, Covent Garden, was a place famous for concerts,
balls, and other amusements, in the end of the seventeenth and
the beginning of the eighteenth century. Prince Eugene once
attended a concert 'at this house. The Two White Balls, in
Marylebone Street, was the sign of a school in 1712, where Latin,
French, mathematics, &c., were taught; in the same house there
also lived a clergyman who taught "to write well in three
days."¹

The balls of the silk mercers and the quacks, suspended from
an iron above the dooi, were generally added (in name at least)
to the painted sign, when the house possessed one; as, for
instance, the Ball and Cap, Hatton Garden, 1668; the Ball
and Baven, Spitalfields, in the seventeenth century, (both on
trades tokens;) the Bed Ball and Acoen, Queen Street,
Cheapside, "a [quack] gentlewoman, daughter of an eminent
physician in 1722 ;"+ the Plough and Ball, at Nuneaton; the
Salmon and Ball, several in London; the Bible and Ball, a
bookseller's in Ave Maria Lane, 1761; the Heart and Ball,
a silk-mercer's in Little Britain, 1710; the Green Man and
Ball, on a trades token of Charter House Lane, where the man
is represented throwing a ball; and thus innumerable other
combinations with the Ball might be mentioned.

The Three Blue Balls, generally a pawnbroker's sign, was
also in old times used for taverns and other houses, while pawn-
brokers used at pleasure such signs as the Blackamoor's Head,
the Black Dog and Still, &c.J On 26th March 1668, Pepys
tells us that, coming from the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
he and his party went to the Blue Balls tavern in the same

"And after much difficulty in getting of musick, we to dancing and then
to a supper of French dishes, which yet did not please me, and then to
dance and sing, and mighty merry we were till about eleven or twelve at
night, with mighty great content in all my company, and I did, as I love
to do, enjoy myself. My wife extraordinary fine to-day, in her flower
tabby suit, bought a year and more ago, before my mother's death put
her into mourning, and so not worn till this day, and everybody in love
with it, and, indeed, she is very fine and handsome in it. I having paid
the reckoning, which came to almost £i, we parted."

The Ring and Ball, Fenchurch Street, 1700, seems suggested
by the game of pall mall, recently revived under the name of
croquet, in which a ball was struck by a mallet through an iron
ring. This sign is mentioned in an advertisement of some valu-
able trinkets which had been lost:—

"A gold watch in a plain case, made by Thompson, with the hours of
the day only; a gold chain, pear fashion, two lengths, with a gold watch-
hook of Filegrin Indian work, and hung on it a diamond locket, large
diamonds with hair in the middle and death at length on a tombstone;
another diamond locket, less diamonds, with a cypher in hair; a red cor-
nelian set in gold engraved with a head; a plain locket with A. K. in
golden letters; a civet-box with a white stone, and engraved on it out-
wards a small head and a camel [cameo?] Whosoever stops them if
offered to be pawned or valued, and gives notice to Mr Hankey at the
Ring and Ball in Fenchurch Street, shall have 5 guineas for the whole,
or proportionable for any part." * A small inducement to honesty!

The Bat and Ball is a common sign for public-houses fre-
quented by cricketers; also the Cricketers' Arms, the Five
Cricketers, and many others. The Wrestlers obtain their
name from a sport formerly in great favour in this country, and
still cultivated in some parts. At Yarmouth an inn of that
name is more celebrated for the jeu cYesprit of the immortal
Nelson than anything else. When the fleet was riding in the Yar-
mouth roads, the landlord, desirous of the patronage of the blue-
jackets, requested permission to call his house the Nelson Arms.
His lordship gave him full power to do so, but at the same time
reminded him that his arms were only in the singular number.

" Odium quod certaminibus ortum ultra metum durat,"
says Yelleius Paterculus, and the truth of the assertion is ex-
emplified in the old national antipathy betwixt this country and
our neighbours across the channel, whence the Antigallican
(th; name assumed by a London association in the middle of
the last century) could not fail to be a favourite sign. At pre-
sent this feeling exists to only a very small extent in the minds
of our lower orders; but formerly a Frenchman could not pass
through the streets of London with impunity. Stephen Perlin,
a French ecclesiastic, who wrote in 1558 a description of Eng-
land, Scotland, and Ireland, says:—

" The people of this country have a mortal hatred for the French aa
their ancient enemies, and in common call us France chcnesve [French
knave], France dogue, which is to say, French rascals and French dogs.
They also call us or son."

Grosley* devotes a whole chapter to this subject, and tells us
that the French were ridiculed on the stage, and insulted and
ill-treated in the streets. Even at the present day, when the
penny romances are in want of a melodramatic villain, a French-
man is sure to have the honour of personating him.

At the beginning of this century there was a tavern of this
name in Shire Lane, Temple Bar, kept by Harry Lee, of sport-
ing notoriety, and father of Alexander Lee, the first and " origi-
nal tiger" in which capacity he was produced by the notorious
Lord Barrymore. This tavern was much frequented by his lord-
ship and other gentlemen fond of low life, pugilism, and so-called
sport. The nicknames of the brothers Barrymore will give a toler-
ably good idea of their amiable qualities; the eldest was called
Hellgate; the second Gripplegate, (he was lame,) and the third
Newgate, so styled, because, though an honourable and a reverend,
he had been in almost every goal in England except Newgate.
This interesting family circle was completed by a sister, called
Billingsgate, on account of the forcible and flowery language she
made use of. The Antigallican is still in vogue, as there are three
public-houses with that sign in London, besides some in the
country, and an Antigallican Arms at New Charlton, Kent.

On the 29th of September 1783, the first balloon—or air-
balloon as it was then called—was let off at Versailles, in the

* Tour to London, vol. i., p. 84. " A perfectly fair judge, and writing in the true spirit
of a philosopher," says his translator. Grosley remarks that the foreigners would
be in the wrong to complain of the rude insults of tb» lower classes, since even " the
better sort of Londoners" liberally show their hatred to the French whenever they can
find an opportunity.

presence of Louis XVI. and tlie Royal Family. A slieep was the
first aeronaut, and with this freight, in a cage, the balloon rose to a
height of about 200 yards, floated over a part of Paris, and came
down in the Carrefour Marechal. The novelty was at once taken
hold of by caricaturists, ballad-mongers, writers of comic articles,
and also by the sign-painters. One of the first balloon-signs in
London was that of the Balloon Fruit-shop, in Oxford Street,
near Soho Square.* As those primitive balloons were, in the opi-
nion of the vulgar, filled with smoke, the tobacconists considered
them as within their province, and thus it became a favourite devico
with this class of shops. Several of their tobacco papers are pre-
served in the Banks collection. One has the following legend :—•
" The best Virginia under the Balloon." Another, " Smoke the
best balloon." A third, " The best air-balloon tobacco," &c.
Some of these balloon-cuts will be found in our illustrations. One
of them represents a balloon ascending, and two smokers stand-
ing beneath; one says, "I wish them a good voyage;" the
other, " Smoak the balloon." As a sign, the Balloon, or Air-
balloon, is still not uncommon, and may be seen at Kingston,
Hants, Birdlip, Gloucester, &c.

The Black Doll, hung at the doors of rag and marine store-
dealers, probably originated in these shops buying old clothes and
finery, which was sold to the buccaneers and coasting-traders, who
exchanged them with the natives of Africa and America, for gold,
ivory, furs, <fcc.; just as we see at the present day, Mr Abraham,
or Mr Isaacs, constantly advertising in the Times for our " Left-
off clothes for Australia and the Colonies." The popular legend,
however, has spread a halo of romance around the black doll.
Once upon a time, an ancient dame came to a rag-shop in Norton
Folgate, with a bundle of old clothes, which she desired to sell,
but having no time to spare, she left them with the man to
examine, promising to call for the money next day. The rag-
merchant opened the bundle and found amongst the clothes a
pair of diamond ear-rings, and a black doll. Anxious to restore
the diamonds, (as may be imagined,) he expected the old woman
to call day after day, but in vain ; at last, thinking that she
might have forgotten the house, he hung up the black doll at the
door, but the old woman never came, and the doll hung until it
rotted away, when it was replaced by a new one. The novelty of
the object attracted many customers to the house, other ragmen

imitated it, and so it finally became a sign, one which is now fast
dying away, and being supplanted by coarse coloured prints, with
absurd rhymes.

At the castles of the nobility the weary traveller formerly found
food, shelter, and good " herborow ;" the lower hall was always
open to the adventurer, the tramp, the minstrel, and the pilgrim;
the upper hall to the nobleman, the squire, the wealthy abbot,
and the fair ladies. It was natural, then, that the Castle should at
an early period have been adopted as a sign of " good entertain-
ment for man and beast." Such a sign became historical in the
Wars of the Boses; for the Duke of Somerset, who had been
warned to " shun castles," was killed by Richard Plantagenet, at
an ale-house, the sign of the Castle.

" For underneath an ale-house' paltry sign,
The Castle in Saint-Albans, Somerset
Hath made the Wizard famous in his death."

According to Hatton,* in 1708, the Castle Tavern in Fleet
Street had the largest sign in London ; next to it came the
White Hart Inn, on the east side of the Borough, in Southwark.

In the reign of George I., the Castle, near Covent Garden, was
a famous eating-house, kept by John Pierce, the Soyer of his
day. Here the gallant feat was performed of a young blood
taking one of the shoes from the foot of a noted toast, filling it
with wine, and drinking her health, after which it was consigned
to the cook, who prepared from it an excellent ragout, which
was eaten with great relish by the lady's admirers.

The Castle and Falcon (probably a combination of two signs,
as there is a Falcon Court close by,) is the sign of an inn in
Aldersgate, which house, or one on its site, in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, was occupied by John Day, the most considerable
printer and publisher of his time. In after years the house be-
came a famous coaching inn, and its reputation spread to all parts
of England, whence we meet, at present, with Castles and Falcons
in various towns, as at Birmingham, Chester, &c. Although we
incline to the opinion that the sign arose from a combination,
still it is worthy of remark, that the crest of Queen Catherine
Parr was a crowned falcon, perched on a castle, and of course
represented as large as the castle.

the Castle and Banner at Hunny Hill, Carisbrooke, originating
in the banner floating from the castle turret, when the Lord of
the Manor was residing there. Castles in the Air is to be
seen at Lower Quay, Fareham; the origin seems to be an allu-
sion to the ordinary sign swinging in mid-air— a piece of humour
on the part of the landlord. The Castle and Wheelbarrow,
at Bouse Lench, was, doubtless, another innkeeper's notion of
suggestive humour—but he was a dull wit.

Perhaps the most patriarchal of all signs is the Chequers,
which may be seen even 011 houses in exhumed Pompeii. On
that of Hercules, for instance, at the corner of the Strada Ful-
lonica, they are painted lozenge-wise, red, white, and yellow, and
on various other houses in that ancient city, similar decorations
may still be observed. Originally it is said to have indicated
that draughts and backgammon were played within. Brand, in
his " Popular Antiquities," ignorant of any existence of the sign
in so remote a period as that mentioned, says that it represented
the coat of arms of the Earls of Warenne and Surrey, who bore
checqui or and azure, and in the reign of Edward IV., possessed the
privilege of licensing ale-houses. A more plausible explanation,
and one which is not set aside by the existence of the sign in
Pompeii, is that given by Dr Lardner :—

" During the middle ages, it was usual for merchants, accountants, and
judges, who arranged matters of revenue, to appear on a covered banc, so
called from an old Saxon word, meaning a seat, (hence our Bank.) Before
them was placed a flat surface, divided by parallel white lines, iuto per-
pendicular columns ; these again divided transversely by lines crossing the
former, so as to separate each column into squares. This table was called
an Exchequer, from its resemblance to a chess-board, and the calculations
were made by counters placed on its several divisions, (something after the
manner of the Roman abacus.) A money-changer's office was generally
indicated by a sign of the chequered board suspended. This sign after-
wards came to indicate an inn or house of entertainment, probably from
the circumstance of the innkeeper also following the trade of money-changer
—a coincidence still very common in seaport towns."*

Chaucer's Merry Pilgrims put up in Canterbury, at the sign of
the " Checker of the Hope," (i.e. the Chequers on the Hoop.)

" They took their in and loggit them at mydmorowe, I trowe,
Atte ckeker of the Hope that many a man doth knowe."

This inn (says Mr Wright, in his edition of the above work)
is still pointed out in Canterbury, at the corner of High

Street and Mercery Lane, and is often mentioned in the Cor-
poration Reports, under the title of the Chequer. It is situated
in the immediate vicinity of the Cathedral, and was therefore
appropriate for the reception of the pilgrims.

When the inn had another sign besides the Chequers, these
last were invariably painted on the door-post; an example of this
may still be seen at the Swiss Cottage, Chelsea. In or near
Calcots Alley, Lambeth, was formerly situated an inn or house of
entertainment called the Chequers. In the year 1454 a licence
was granted to its landlord, John Calcot, to have an oratory in
the house and a chaplain for the use of his family and guests, as
long as his house should continue orderly and respectable, and
adapted to the celebration of divine service.¹ The Black
Chequers in Cowgate, Norwich, is so called on account of the
chequers being black and white, whilst others are red and Avhite,
blue and white, or in such other contrast as may be fancied by
the publican.

The Crooked Billet is a sign, for which we have not been ablo
to discover any likely origin; it may have been originally a rag-
ged staff, or a pastoral staff, or a baton cornu—the ancient nam«
for a battle-axe.+ It is also the name for a part of the tankard.
Frequently the sign is represented by an untrimmed stick sus-
pended above the door, as at Wold Newton, near Bridlington,
where it is accompanied by the following poetical effusion on
one side of the signboard :—

" When this comical stick grew in the wood,
Our ale was fresh and very good;
Step in and taste, 0 do make haste,
For if you don't 'twill surely waste."

" When you have viewed the other side,
Come read this too before you ride,
And now to end we '11 let it pass;
Step in, kind friends, and take a glass."

Though a very rustic sign, it was also used in towns; thus it
occurs among the trades tokens of Montague Close, and was the
sign of Andrew Sowle, a bookseller in Holloway Lane, Shore-
ditch, in 1683.

The Golden Head appears to liave been a favourite with
artists, probably a classic or modern bust gilded. It was the
sign of Hogarth's master and of himself.

" Hogarth made one essay in sculpture. He wanted a sign to distin-
guish his house in Leicester Fields; and thinking none more proper than
the Golden Head, he out of a mass of cork made up several thicknesses
compacted together, carved a bust of Van Dyke, which he gilt and placed
over his door. It is long since decayed, and was succeeded by a head in
plaister, which has also perished, and is succeeded by a head of Sir Isaac
Newton."—Nichols's Anccdotes of Hogarth.

At this sign in 1735 Hogarth published the " Harlot's Progress,"
and several other engravings. Sir Robert Strange the engraver
(1721-92) lived at the Golden Head, Henrietta Street, Covent
Garden; and in 1762 the portrait of Cunneshote, one of the
Cherokee chiefs, then on a visit to this country, was for sale at
the Golden Head in Queen Square, Ormond Street; it was en-
graved after a painting by Francis Parsons. In 1700 it was the
sign of a Monsieur Desert, "almost over against the King's
Bagnio in Long Acre, who sold guitars from 30 gs. to 30 sh.
a piece."* Thomas Carte the historian (1686 to 1754) lived at
Mr Ker¹ s at the Golden Head, Newport Street, Long Acre.
This sign also occurs in a most amusing advertisement:—
"An Exceeding Small Lap Spaniel.

ANY one that has (to dispose of) such a one, either dog or bitch, and
of any colour or colours, that is very, very small, with a very short
round snub nose, and good ears, if they will bring it to Mrs Smith, at a
coachmaker's over against the Golden Head in Great Queen Street, near
Lincoln's Inn Fields, they shall (if approved of) have a very good pur-
chaser. And to prevent any further trouble, if it is not exceeding small,
and has anything of a longish peaked nose, it will not at all do. And
nevertheless after this advertisement is published no more, if any person
should have a little creature that answers the character of the advertise-
ment, if they will please but to remember the direction and bring it to
Mrs Smith; the person is not so provided but that such a one will still at
any time be hereafter purchased."—Daily Advertiser, Nov. 1744.

The Two Heads was the sign of a dentist in Coventry Street
in 1760. One head probably represented the mouth as possess-
ing a fine set of teeth; the other doubtless showed how unfortu-
nate is their absence. The advertisements of this man are gems
in their way:—

" Ye Beauties, Beaux, ye Pleaders at the Bar,
Wives, Husbands, lovers, every one beside,
Wh'd have their heads deficient rectify'd,
The Dentist famed who by just application

Taylor tlie Water poet (1632) mentions two taverns with the
sign of the Mouth, the one without Bishopsgate, the other within
Aldersgate. Trades tokens of the first house are extant, repre-
senting a human head with a huge mouth wide open. An
inventory is still extant of the stock in trade of this house in
the year 1612,* which is not uninteresting. From it we gather
that the wines drunk at that period in taverns were white wine,
Vin de Grave, (a small white Burgundy wine,) Orleans wine,
Malaga, sherry, sack, Malmsey, (Malvasia, a wine from the coast
of Morea, sweet and white,) Alicante, (also sweet,) claret, Ac.
Beer seems to have been but little asked for by those that fre-
quented this house; for whilst some of the wines were kept in
such large quantities as seven hogsheads, there were only two
dozen and eight bottles of ale. The names of the rooms in
the house were "the Pomegranate," "the Portcullis," "Three
Tuns," " Cross Keys," " Vine," " Kings Head," " Crown," " Dol-
phin," ancl "Bell," all of them favourite tavern signs, and (as
remarked on page 280) the usual names for tavern rooms.
Among the utensils may be remarked fifteen silver bowls.

■ Printed in Nichols's Illustrations of Manners and Expenses in Ancient Times,
1797.

The Hand was the sign of a victualler near tlie Marshalsea in
Southwark, in 1680. Hands occur in many combinations, owing
to the custom of draughtsmen and sign-painters representing a
hand issuing from the clouds to perform some action or hold
some object; thus a hand holding a coffee-pot was a very general
coffee-house sign. The " Hand" seems to have been a bad or
evil sign :—•

" I '11 go back to the country of the coffee-houses, [Fleet Street,] where
being arrived I'm in a wood, there are so many of them I know not which
to enter; stay, let me see, where the sign is painted with a woman's hand
in it, 'tis a bawdy house, where a man's it has another qualification ; but
where it has a star in the sign 'tis calculated for every lewd purpose."'"

Though this is a sweeping denunciation, yet we find the Hand
and Star occurring as the sign of a very respectable bookseller,
Richard Tothill in Fleet Street, within Temple Bar, who in 1553
printed the "Dialogue of Comfort," by Sir Thomas More. Not
unlikely Tothill had adopted this sign from the watermarks in
paper, for one of the most ancient of them is a hand, either in
the position of giving benediction, or in that position called the
upright hand, with a star above it. Messrs Butterwortli, the
law-publishers, who now occupy Tothill's premises, possess all
the leases and documents from the time of that old printer down
to the present day.

Quacks, also, were very fond of a hand in their sign, point-
ing tc an eye or an ear, to intimate that the great doctor
cured the blind or the deaf. Thus, in the Harleian collection
(5931) there is a handbill of S. Ketelby, sworn physician, who
lived at the Hand and Ear, in Exeter Street near the Strand,
and who professed to cure deafness, lameness, &c.

" He is capable now, not only of curing those incurable by others, but
even those he could not cure himself six months ago! Note ; He resolves
all persons deaf from external causes, whether curable or not, in two
minutes, in the dark as well as at noonday, which no other pretender can
do," See.

The Hand and Face was the sign of another quack, who
lived in Water Lane, Blackfriars, near Apothecaries' Hall, hi
1735.+

A few combinations of the hand refer to games, as the Hand
and Ball, Barking, (trades token,) 16-50, which seems to be de-
rived from some of the innumerable games at ball in which our

» Tom Brown's Amusements for Hie Meridian of London, p. 71.
f Country Journal or Craftsman, Feb. 1, 1734-5.

ancestors delighted, such as handball, tennis, balloon or windball,
stoolball, hurling, football, stowball, pallmall, clubball, trapball,
northen-spell, cricket, bowling, &c. The Hand and Tennis,
Whitcombe Street, Haymarket, is so called from the adjoining
Tennis Court, erected in 1G78. The Old Hand and Tankard
is a public-house sign at Wheatly, near Halifax. The Hand
and Tench seems to point to a connexion with the followers
of Isaac Walton; it was a mug-house in Seven Dials in 1717.
The mugs in those days used to be suspended above the door, or
on the sign-iron, not only in this, but in all the mug-houses, for
the mug might be considered as much a badge of King George's
friends, as the white cockade was the badge of the Jacobites.

The Hand and Heart was, in 1711, the very appropriate
sign of a marriage insurance office in East Harding Street, Shoe
Lane.* Two right hands holding a heart was a very old symbol
of concord. Aubrey gives quotations from Tacitus, by which he
derives it from the Romans, and adds :—

" I have seen some rings made for sweethearts with a heart enamelled
held between two hands. See an Epigrame of G. Buchanan, on two rings
that were made by Q. Elisabeth's appointment, which, being laid one upon
the other, shewed the like figure. The heart was two diamonds, w^chjoyned, made the Heart. Q. Elisabeth kept one moietie, and sent y^e other
as a token of her constant friendship to Mary Q. of Scotts; but she cutt off
her head for all that." +

The Heart in Hand is still a common ale-house sign. A
similar meaning is conveyed by the equally common Hand in
Hand or Cross Hands ; at Turnditch, Derby, this sign is called
the Cross o' the Hands, and a corruption of this again is the
Cross in Hand, at Waldron, Sussex. The Hand in Hand was
also one of the usual signs of the marriage-mongers in Fleet Street.
Pennant says :—-

" In walking along the streets in my youth, on the side next this
prison, (the Fleet,) I have often been tempted by the question, ' Sir, will
you be pleased to walk in and be married.' Along this most lawless space
was most frequently hung up the sign of a male and female hand con-
joined, with 'Marriages performed within' written beneath. A dirty
fellow invited you in; the parson was seen walking before his shop, a
squalid, profligate figure, clad in a tattered plaid nightgown, with a fiery
face, and ready to couple you for a dram of gin or a roll of tobacco."

it is called cl la bonne Foi. In 1624 it was the sign of Pierre
Billaine, bookseller and printer in the Rue St Jacques, Paris.

The Leg used formerly to be at the door of every hosier. It
■was also the sign of a tavern in King Street, Westminster, fre-
quented by Pepys. Trades tokens are extant of the Leg and
Stab, kept by Richard Finch, in Aldersgate, in the seventeenth
century. It may have represented a leg with the garter round
it, and the star of that order; but more probably it was a com-
bination of two signs.

The Old Man, Market Place, Westminster, was probably in-
tended for Old Parr, w^rho was celebrated in ballads as " The
Olde, Olde, Yery Olde Marine.'' The token represents a bearded
bust in profile, with a bare head. In the reign of James I. it
was the name of a tavern in the Strand, otherwise called the
Hercules Tavern, and in the eighteenth century there were two
coffee-houses, the one called the Old Man's, the other the
Young Man's Coffee-house.

The Fountain was a favourite sign with the Londoners before
the Reformation, perhaps on account of its connexion with the
martyrdom of St Paul, whose head, says the legend, on being
struck off, rebounded three times, when a fountain gushed up at
each spot where the sacred head had touched the ground. Hence
there is a church near Rome, in the midst of the desolate Cam-
pagna, called San Paolo delle Tre Fontane, where altars are
raised over each of those three fountains. There is also a foun-
tain connected with the martyrdom of St Alban, the English proto-
martyr, and Saints' Wells may be met with all over aiw kingdom.

During the Plague of 1665, the following advertisement used
to figure constantly in the papers :—

" II /TONSIEUR Augier's famous Remedies for stopping and preventing the
ill plague having not only been recommended by several certificates from
Lyons, Paris, Thoulouse, &c., but likewise experimented here by the
special directions of the Lords of his Majesty's most honourable Privy
Council, and proved by Witnesses upon oath, and several Tryals, to be of
singular virtue and effect, are to be had at Mr Drinkwater's, at the Foun-
tain, in Fleet Street, &c." *

The Fountain Tavern in the Strand was famous as the meet-
ing-place of the ultra-loyal party in 1685, who here talked over
public affairs before the meeting of Parliament. Roger Lestrange,

who had been recently knighted by the king, took a leading
part in these consultations. But " the fate of things lies always
in the dark; " in the reign of George II. this same house became
a great resort for the Whigs, who sometimes used to meet here as
many as two hundred at a time, making speeches and passing
resolutions.

For this reason it was proposed that Master Jeplison the
landlord should write under his sign :—

" From this fam'd Fountain Freedom flow'd,
For Britain's and the People's good."

In this tavern, Law, subsequently famous as the Mississippi
schemer, quarrelled with the magnificent and mysterious Beau
Wilson ; they left the house, adjourned to Bloomsbury Square,
and fought a duel, in wdiich the Beau was killed. The Kit Cat
Club, in winter, used to meet at this house. This club was first
established in an obscure house in Shire Lane; it consisted of
thirty-nine distinguished noblemen or gentlemen, zealously at-
tached to the Protestant succession of the house of Hanover.
Among the members were the Dukes of Biclimond, Devonshire,
Marlborough, Somerset, Grafton, Newcastle, and Dorset, the
Earls of Sunderland and Manchester, some lords, and Steele,
Addison, Congreve, Garth, Vanbrugh, Manwaring, Stepney, WaJ-
pole, and Pulteney; Lord Mohun (implicated in the murder of
Mountford the actor, and killed in a duel by the Duke of Hamil-
ton) was also a member.

"The day Lord Mohun and the Earl of Berwick were entered of it,
Jacob [Tonson, the secretary] said he saw they were just going to be
ruined. When Lord Mohun broke down the gilded emblem on the top of
his chair, Jacob complained to his friends, and said a man who would do
that would cut a man's throat." *

Tonson, for fulfilling the duties of this honorary office, was
presented with the portraits of all the members. After Jacob's
death, his brother Bichard removed the pictures to his residence
a,t Water Oakley, near Windsor. A list of them is to be found
in Bray's "History of Surrey," vol. iii., p. 318. Forty-three of
them have been engraved by Faber in mezzotint. The name of
the club is said to have been derived from the first landlord, who
was called Christopher Cat; he excelled in the making of

mutton-pies, which were named after him Kit Cat, and were the
standard dish of the club.

" Here did tli' assembly's title first arise,
And Kit Cat's wits sprung first from Kit Cat'« nies."

Next door to the Fountain Tavern lived Charles Lillie, the
celebrated snuff-seller of the Spectators and Tatlers, but " he was
burnt out when he began to have-a reputation in his way."—
(Tatler, xcii.)

" A Pkesent for Teeming Women, or Scripture Directions for Women
with childe; how to prepare for the hour of Travel. Written first for the
private use of a Gentlewoman of quality in the West, and now published
for the common good by John Oliver, less than the least of saints. Sold
by Mary llothwell, at the Fountain and Bear, in Cheapside, 1663."

The Sun and the Moon have been considered as signs of
Pagan origin, typifying Apollo and Diana. Whether or 110 this
conjecture be true, would be difficult to prove, but certain it is
that they rank among the oldest and most common signs, not
v>nly in England but 011 the Continent. Early in the sixteenth
century the French poet Desire Arthus wrote in his ^u Loyault3
Consciencieuse dcs Taverniers : "—

" Sur les chemins des grands villes et champs,
Ne trouverez de douze maisons l'une,
Qui n'ait enseigne d'un soleil, d'une lune.
Tous vendant vin, cliascun & son quartier."*

Like the Star, (see p. 501,) the Sun did not enjoy a good repu-
tation. Henry Peacham thus cautions young men from the
country :—

" Let a monyed man or gentleman especially beware in the city, ab is/it
calidis et callidis solis filiabus as Lipsius: these overhot and crafty daughters
of the Sunne, your silken and gold laced harlots, everywhere (especially
in the suburbs) to be found,"f

The reason of this sign having been especially adopted by that
description of houses, we are unable to state, unless it be the one
Tom D'Urfey gives in " Collin's Walk through London," where,
speaking of a frail and fair one, he says :—

* " On the roads near large towns and in the country, you will not find one house in
twelve but it does exhibit the sign of the Sun or the Moon, They all sell wine, each
of them to his own neighbourhood."

But as the sun shines alike over good and evil, so respectable
as well as disreputable persons have used him for a sign ; thus
Wynkyn de Worde, in Fleet Street, and Anthony Kytson, another
early printer, and the publisher of some works of Master John
Skelton, poet laureate, carried on business under this device.
Taylor the Water poet mentions three Sun taverns : being com-
pelled one day on his " pennylesse pilgrimage," to dine à la belle
étoile, he says :—" I made virtue of necessity, and went to
breakefast in the Sunne : I have fared better at three Sunnes many
a time before now : in Aldersgate Street, Criplegate, and New
Fish Street ; but here is the oddss : at those Sunnes they will
come vpon a man with a tauerne bill as sharp cutting as a taylor's
bill of items : a watchman's bill or a watch hooke falls not lialfe
so heauy vpon a man."* The Sun on Fish Street Hill is also
named by Pepys :—

" Dec. 22, 1660.—Went to the Sun Tavern on Fish Street Hill, to a
dinner of Captain Teddimans, where was my Lord Inchequin, (who seems
to be a very fine person,) Sir W. Penn, Captain Cuttance, and Mr Laurence,
(a fine gentleman now going to Algiers,) and other good company, where
we had a very good dinner, good music, and a great deal of wine, I very
merry—went to bed, my head aching all night."

But the finest of all the Sun Taverns did not exist in Taylor's
time ; it was built after the fire of 1666, behind the Exchange.

" Behind ? I'll ne'er believe it ; you may as soon
Persuade me that the sun stands behind noon."

These are the opening lines of a ballad of 1672, entitled "The
Glory of the Sun Tavern, behind the Exchange."+ From this
ballad it is evident that the tavern was splendidly furnished, and
offered comforts not generally to be met Avith at that time.

" There every chamber has. an aquaeduct,
As if the sun had fire for water truckt,
Water as't were exhal'd up to heavens sprouds,
To cool your cups and glasses in the clouds."

Pepys was a frequent visitor at this house, and, in fact, all the
pleasure-seekers of that mad reign patronised it ; the profligate
Duke of Buckingham, in particular, was a constant customer.
Simon Wadloe, the landlord, had made his fortune at the Devil
in St Dunstan's, whereupon he went to live in the country, and
spent his money in a couple of years. He then " choused " Nick
Colbourn out of the Sun, and Nick, who had amassed a handsome

competence in the house, was easily persuaded to retire, and left it
" to live like a prince in the country,'' says Pepys. During the
reign of Charles II., the house appears to have had an excellent
custom, and was from morning till night full of the best com-
pany. The Sun Tavern, in Clare Street, was one of the haunts
of the witty Joe Miller, and is often given as the locality of his
jokes :—

" Joe Miller, sitting one day in the window of the Sun Tavern, Clare
Street, a fish woman and her maid passing by, the woman cried . ' Buy my
goals, buy my maids!' ' Ah ! you wicked old creature,' cry'd honest Joe,
' what, are you not content to sell your own soul, but you must sell your
maid's too V "

A stereotype joke of the publican connected with the Sun is
the motto, "the best liquor [generally beer] under the Sun,"
which, of course, must be believed, for Solem quis dicere falsum
audeat, 1 Sometimes the sign is called the Sun in Splendour,
as at Nottingliill, the " splendour" having reference simply to
the golden beams or rays usually drawn by the painter. There is
still a carved stone sign of the Sun, now gilt, dating from the
seventeenth century, walled in the front of a house in the Poultry.

The Golden Sun was the sign of Ulrich Gering, in the Rue
St Jacques, Paris, printer of the first Bible in France, in 1475.
At the end of the volume the Bible thus addresses the
reader :—

" Jam tribus undecimus lustris Francos Ludovicus
Rexerat; Ulricus, Martinus, item que Michael
Orti Teutonia, hanc mihi composuere figuram
Parisii arte sua; me correctam vigilanter
Yenalem in vico Jacobi Sol Aureus offert."*

Their successor, Berthold Bumbold, on removing the business
to another house in the same street, opposite the Rue Fromentel,
kept the same sign, and there it continued as late as 1689,
having constantly been in the hands of booksellers. Not impro-
bably the first printers, both in England and abroad, adopted the
sign of the Sun, as an emblem of the new era opened to the
world by the invention of printing, which, when they reflected on
their discovery, they saw would, at no distant period, spread an

* " Already had Louis XI. reigned fifteen years over the French when Ulrich and
Martin [Crantz] and Michel [Friburger,] all natives of Germany, produced me in this
shape at Paris by their art; carefully corrected, I am now offered for sale in the Rue St
Jacques, at the Golden Sun."

intellectual light over the world, as brilliant and as vivifying as
that of the radiant sun.*

The sign of the Sun occurs in endless combinations, often
capricious, without any other reason than a whim, and an alliter-
ation, as the Sun and Sawyers ; the Sun and Sword ; the
Sun and Sportsman ; or quartered with other signs, as the
Sun and Anchor ; Dial ; Falcon ; Last ; Horseshoe, &c.
All these, and innumerable others of the same sort, occur among
the London public-house signs of the present day. The Sun and
Hare is a stone carved sign, walled up in the facade of a house
in the High Street, Southwark. Were it not for the initials
II.N. A., it might be taken for a rebus on the name Harrison; as
it is, it may be a jocular corruption of the Sun and Hart, the
badge of Richard II. (See p. 109.)

The Rising Sun is nearly as common as the sun in his meridian;
perhaps on account of the favourable omen it presents for a man
commencing business. In 1726 it was the sign of a noted tavern
in Islington, where some merry doings went on occasionally :—
" Tuesday next, being Shrove Tuesday, will be a fine hog barbygu'd
U whole at the house of Peter Brett, at the Rising Sun, in Islington
Road, with other diversions. It is the house where the ox was roasted
whole at Christmas last."—Mist's Journal, February 9, 1726.

To barbecue a hog, was a West Indian term for roasting a
whole pig, stuffed with spice, and basted with Madeira wine.

The Rising Sun and Seven Stars was the very appropriate
sign, at which was printed a work on " Astrological Optics ;" but
better still, it was printed for R. Moon, whose shop was "in
Paul's Churchyarde, in the New Building, between the two North
Doors, 1655." An old jest-book says that an Irishman, seeing
the sign of the Rising Sun was kept by A (nthony) Moon, accused
the said Moon of having made a bull, for saying that the Sun
was kept by the Moon.

One of the learned questions propounded by Hudibras to that
cunning man, Sidrophel, the Rosicrucian, was :—
" Tell me but what's the natural cause
Why on a sign no painter draws

* This idea is in a measure set forth in some lines on the titlepage of "Gasparini
Pergamensis Epistolarium opus per Joannem Lapidarium Sorhonensis Schoto Priorem
multis vigiliis ex corrupto integrum affectum ingeniosa arte impressoria in luca
redactum," 1470, beginning:—

Leicester, for instance, there are two signs of the Full Moon,
and it occurs in many other places. The Crescent, or Half-Moon,
was the emblem of the temporal power, as the Sun was the dis-
tinction of the spiritual.

Ben Jonson once desiring a glass of sack, went to the Half-
Moon Tavern, in Aldersgate Street, but found it closed, so he
adjourned to the Sun Tavern, in Long Lane, and wrote this
epigram :—

" Since the Half Moon is so unkind,
To make me go about,
The Sun my money now shall have,
And the Moon shall go without."

The Half-Moon, Upper Holloway, was famous in the last cen-
tury for excellent cheesecakes, which were hawked about the
streets of London, by a man on horseback, and formed one of the
London cries. This circumstance is noticed in a poem in the
Gentleman's Magazine for 1743, entitled " A Journey to Notting-
ham." In April 1747, the following advertisement appeared in
the same magazine :—

HALF-MOON Tavern, Cheapside, April 13. His Royal Highness the
Duke of Cumberland having restored peace to Britain, by the ever
memorable Battle of Culloden, fought on the 16th of April 1745, the choice
spirits have agreed to celebrate that day annually by A Grand Jubilee in
the Moon, of which the Stars are hereby acquainted and summoned to
shine with their brightest Lustre by 6 o'clock on Thursday next in the
Evening."

The Crescent and Anchor is a sign at Norton-in-Hales,
near Market Drayton ; the Half-Moon and Seven Stars at
Aston Clinton, near Tring; and the Sun, Moon, and Seven Stars
at Bliswortli, in Northampton. These Seven Stars have always
been great favourites; they seem to be the same pleiad which
is used as a Masonic emblem—a circle of six stars, with one in
the centre; but to tell to ears profane, what this emblem means,
would be disclosing the sacred arcana. The Seven Stars was
the sign of Bichard Moone, before he was so ambitious as to place
the whole firmament on his sign : in 1653 he printed—

" The first addresses to his Excellence the Lord General, &e., by John
Spittlehouse, a late Member of the Army, and a servant to the Saints of
the Most High God, &c. London, printed by J, C., for himself and
Richard Moon, at the Seven Stars, in Paul's Churchyard, near the great
North Door. 1653."

As a change upon the Seven Stars, a publican at Counter-
6lip, Bristol, has put up the Fourteen Stars.

"VVe have seen (p. 492) that the sign of the Star was " calcu-
lated for every lewd purposea great change certainly from
mediaeval times, when a star was the emblem of the Holy Virgin,
who was thus styled Maris Stella (star of the sea)—the signi-
fication of the name Miriam in Hebrew—or Stella Jacobi, (star
of Jacob,) Stella Matutina, (morning star,) Stella non erratica,
(fixed star, unerring star,) &c.; a star being always painted either
on her right shoulder, or on her veil, as may be readily observed
in the works of the early Italian masters in our National Gallery.
A star of sixteen rays is the crest of the Innholders' Company.
Oliver Cromwell used to meet some of his party at the Star in
Coleman Street, as was deposed by one of the witnesses in the
trial of Hugh Peters :—

" Gunter. My Lord, I was servant at the Star in Coleman Street, with
one Hildesley. That house was a house where Oliver Cromwell and several
of that party did use to meet in consultation."

John Bunyan died in 1682 at the Star, on Snowliill, in the
house of his friend, Mr Strudwick, a grocer.

The Pole Star is now a not uncommon sign. To make this
device more intelligible, tavern-keepers ought to attach to it the
motto it bore in the middle ages, when it was a symbol of the
Church : "qui me non aspicit err at." (He who does not look
at me goes astray.) The Star and Crown was the sign of
a haberdasher in Princes Street, Coventry Street, 1785, who,
among other things, sold " dress and undress hoops."

The signs of the zodiac appear occasionally to have been
adopted by conjurors and astrologers. Ned Ward describes them
as figuring, in his time, 011 the door of " a star-peeper," in Prescot
Street.*

The Two Twins, or Naked Boys, was the sign of a quack in
Moorfields, " near the steps going out of the Lower Field into
the Middle Field. There is a door above the steps, and another
below the steps, with the Twins, and the name Langham on both
doors ;—keep the bill to prevent mistaking the house or being
sent to a wrong place."+ To such lengthy explanations our ances-
tors were compelled to resort in the absence of numbers on their
houses. Either this quack had adopted the Two Twins on ac-
count of his obstetrical pretensions, or he was an astrologer a?
well as a quack, for Moorfields was the head-quarters of

* London Spy, part xiii., p, 319,1700.
f Hail ibill in liurleiau Collection, p. 0904.

In tlie last case lie might have chosen it as being the ascendant
of the city of London, which ¹¹ stands in a benign and temperate
climate, in the latitude of 52" and longitude of 19° 15',—having
(as artists reckon) the celestial twins, the house of Mercury, patron
of merchandise and ingenious arts, for her ascendant."*

The Rainbow, in Fleet Street, opposite Chancery Lane, is the
oldest coffee-house in London :—

" I find it recorded that one James Farr, a barber, who kept the coffee-
house, which is now the Rainbow, by the Inner Temple gate, (one of the
first in England,) was, in the year 1657, presented by the inquest of St
Dunstan's in the West, for making and selling a sort of liquor called Coffee,
as a great nuisance and prejudice to the neighboorhood, &c., and who would
have thought London would ever have had near three thousand such
nuisances, and that coffee would have been (as now) so much drank by the
best of quality and physicians."+

The presentation here alluded to is still preserved among the
records of St Sepulchre's Church. It says :—

" We present James Farr, Barber, for making and selling a drink called
coffee, whereby, in making the same, he annoyeth his neighboors by evill
smells, and for keeping of fire the most part night and day, whereby his
chimney and chamber has been set on fire, to the great danger and affreight-
ment of his neighboors."

This danger of fire was so much the greater, as a bookseller,
Samuel Speedal, had his shop in the same house. In 1682, the
Phoenix Fire Office, one of the first in this country, was estab-
lished at this place.

The Thunder Storm is the sign of a public-house at Framwell-
gate Moor, Durham; and the Hailstone, at Knowle, Stafford-
shire ; both these houses may have taken their names from a
severe storm, which visited the neighbourhood at or about the
time of their opening, just as the IIaylift, at Wansforth,
Northampton, is said to owe its origin to the fact of a man float-
ing a long way down the river on a haycock, during an inunda-
tion, and landing near that place.

As for the Wild Sea, the sign of John Horton, over against
Parson's Brewhouse, Croydon, | in 1718, no more plausible ex-
planation occurs to us than that John Horton might have been a
sailor in his younger days.

the hole made in the wall of the debtors' or other prison, through
which the poor prisoners received the money, broken meat, or
other donations of the charitably inclined. The old sign of the
Hole-in-the-Wall (see our illustrations) shows such an opening
in a square piece of brickwork. Generally, it is believed to refer
to some snug corner, perhaps near the town walls; but at the old
public-house in Chancery Lane the legend is as we have given ic.
Hard by, in Cursitor Street, prisoners for debt found a temporary
lodging up to a very recent date. Trades tokens are extant of
this house, which, about 1820, was kept by Jack Randall, alias
Nonpareil, a famous member of the P.R.; on one occasion some
verses were made containing the following lines :—

" Then blame me not, swells, kids, or lads of the fancy,
For opening a lush crib in Clmnccry Lane,
An appropriate spot 'tis, you doubtless all can see,
Since heads 1 've oft placed there, and let out again."

The poet, Thomas Moore, in the fast days when George IV.
was king, and when pugilism and gin drinking were fashionable
accomplishments, used to visit Mr Randall's parlour. It was here
that he picked up his materials for those rhyming satires on the
politics and general topics of his time :—"Tom Crib's Memorials
to Congress, by one of the Fancy ;" " Randall's Diary of Pro-
ceedings at the House of Call for Genius;" "A Few Selections
from Jack Randall's Scrap Book, with Poems on the late Fight for
the Championship."

At the Hole-in-the-Wall in Chandos Street, Claude Duval the
highwayman was taken prisoner ; whilst the Hole-in-the-Wall in
Baldwin's Gardens was the citadel in which Tom Brown used to
intrench himself from duns and bailiffs, with Henry Purcell the
musician, as his companion in revelry and merriment. Tom
Browns introductory verses, prefixed to Playford's " Musical
Companion," 1698, are dated " from Mr Stewart's at the Hole-in-
the-Wall, in Baldwin's Gardens." Another Hole-in-the-Wall still
exists in Kirby Street, Hatton Garden. It is a curious fact that
the refreshment-room, or liquor-bar, attached to the House of
Representatives at Washington, is known to most thirsty American
politicians as The Hole-in-the- Wall.

Anciently, instead of being a painted board, the object of the
sign was carved and hung within a hoop, hence (as we had occa-
sion to remark on a former page) nearly all the ancient signs are
called the "-on the hoop." In the Clause Roll, 43 Edward

Ill, we find the George on the Hoop ; 2G Henry VI., the
Hart on the IIoop; 30 Henry VI., the Swan, the Cock, and
the Hen on the Hoop. Besides these we find mentioned the
Crown on the Hoop, the Bunch op Grapes on the Hoop, the
Mitre on the IIoop, the Angel on the Hoop, the Falcon on
the Hoop, &c. In 1795, two of these signs were still extant, for
a periodical of the time says :—"A sign of this nature is still
preserved in Newport Street, and is a carved representation of a
Bunch of Grapes within a Hoop. The Cock on the Hoop may
be seen also in Holborn, painted on a board, to which, perhaps, it
was transferred on the removal of the sign-posts."* These hoops
seem to have originated in the highly ornamented bush or crown,
which latterly was made of hoops, covered with evergreens. In
France, the Hoop (le Cerceau) was used as a sign. Jacques
Androuet, a celebrated architect, and author of a work" entitled
" Les plus excellents Batiments de France," lived at the sign
of the Hoop, whence he adopted the surnames of Jacques
Androuet du Cerceau. In 1570 he published a book on metal-
work, containing several designs for ornamental iron frames and
posts to suspend signboards from. That names in this country
also were occasionally derived from signboards, has been stated in
our introduction. Of this practice, Sir Peter Lely, the portrait
painter, was an illustrious example. He belonged to a Dutch
family named Van der Yaas. His grandfather was a perfumer,
and lived at the sign of the Lily, (perhaps a vase of lilies, with
a pun on his name.) When his son entered the English army
he discarded his Dutch name, and from the paternal sign, adopted
the more euphonious one of Lilly or Lely; and this name he and
his children afterwards, retained. The famous Bothschild family
is another case in point. From the Bed Shield (the roth schild)
above the door of an honest old Hebrew, in the Juden-gasse, (or
Jews' Alley,) at Frankfort, has been derived the name of the
richest family in the world.

The Hoop and Bunch of Grapes was the sign of a public-
house, in St Albans Street, (now part of Waterloo Place,) kept at
the beginning of the present century, by the famous Matthew
Skeggs, who obtained his renown from playing, in the character of
Signor Bumbasto, a concerto on a broomstick, at the Haymarket
Theatre, adjoining. His portrait was painted by King, a friend
of Hogarth, engraved by Houston, and published by Skeggs liiin-

self. The Hoop and Griffin was a coffee-house in Leadenhall
Street, circa 1700 f and the Hoop and Toy is a public-house
in Thurloe Place, Brompton. Here tlie original meaning of the
hoop seems entirely lost, as its combination with the toy seems to
allude to the hoop trundled by children.

The Toy at Hampton used to be a favourite resort with the
Londoners till 1857, when it was pulled down to make room for
private houses. Trades'tokens of this house of the seventeenth
century are extant. " In the survey of 1653 (in the Augment-
ation office) mention is made of a piece of pasture ground near
the river, called the Toying place, the site, probably, of a well-
known inn near the bridge now called the Toy."+

Cardmakers usually took a card for their sign, as the Queen
of Hearts and King's Arms, which was the sign of a card-
maker in Jerniyn Street in 1803. $ One of the Bagford Bills
has: "At the Old Knave of Clubs at the Bridgefoot, in South-
wark, livetli Edward Butling, who maketh and selleth all sorts of
hangings for rooms," &c. § Possibly he sold also playing-cards.
These knaves, however, seem at one time to have been a badge,
for at the creation of seventeen knights of the Bath by Bichard
III., the Duke of Buckingham was "richely appareled, and his
horse trapped in blue velvet embroudered with the knaves of
cartes burnyng of golde, which trapper was borne by foteman
from the gronnde."|| The Queen of Trumps is a public-house
sign at West Walton, near Wisbeach.

The Heart and Trumpet is a somewhat curious sign at
Pentre-wern near Oswestry, perhaps a corruption of Hearts and
Trumps. Other games have produced the sign of the Golden
Quoit, in Whitehaven, and the Corner Pin, which is so com-
mon that it figures in a Seven Dials ballad, a parody on the
Low-back Car:—

" "When first I saw Miss Bailey,
'Twas on a Saturday,
At the Corner Pin she was drinking gin,
And smoking a yard of clay," &c.

strike, and that from their fall with the rest depends whether
the throw counts double or not.

Formerly the merriest day of the year in " Merry England "
was certainly the first of May, but of its many festivities scarcely
a trace is left except the clance of the sweeps and the sign of the
Maypole. Stubbe, with puritanical horror, thus describes the
Maypole :—

" They have twenty or fourtie yoke of oxen, every one having a sweet
nosegay of flowers tyed on the tippe of his homes, and these oxen draw
home this Maie pole (this stinckyng Idoll rather) which is couered all oner
with flowers and hearbes bounde rounde aboute with stringes, from the
toppe to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours with
two or three hundred men, women, and children following it with great
devotion. And thus being reared up with handkerchiefs and flagges
streaming ou the toppe they strawe the ground aboute, binde greeu
boughes aboute it, sett up sommer houses, Bowers, and Arbours hard by
it. And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute
it, as the Heathen people did at the dedication of their Idolles, whereof
this is a perfect pattern, or rather the thing itself."*

The same author also reports that it was customary for lads and
lasses to go the night before May-day to the hills and woodlands
to gather branches and flowers to deck the houses with on that
day, and that they used to "spende all the night in pastymes"
to the great detriment of female virtue; Featherstone, another
sulky puritan, scandalised the fair sex by the assertion that
" of tenne maydens which went to fetch May, nine of them
came home with childe."t The consequence of all this grum-
bling was that the Maypole was abolished in the godly times of
the Commonwealth, and as a matter of course, revived at the
Restoration—but its prestige was gone. At present it is only
commemorated by hundreds of signboards. There is one on the
outskirts of Hainault Forest, immortalised in " Barnaby Rudge,"
which has all the regulations of the house laid down in rhyme;
part of these have been quoted on p. 449. There is on the
stable door:—

" Whosoever smokes tobacco here
Shall forfeit sixpence to spend in beer.
Your pipes lay by, when you come here,
Or fire to me may prove severe."

An old, and not uncommon sign, is the Wheel of Fortune,
which may be seen at Alpington, Norwich, and in other places.
This wheel is sometimes represented with four kings, one on

* Stubbe's Anatomy of Abuses, London, 1585. p 94.
t Featlierstone's Dialogue against Light and Lascivious Dancing.

eacli quadrant. In the middle ages it was a very common sym-
bol, as well in England as on the continent, being frequently
painted in churches; there is one still to be seen among the
half obliterated frescoes of Catfield church in Norfolk. Other
instances occur in the church of St Etienne, at Beauvais; in St
Martin, at Basle; in San Zeno, at Verona; and in the beautiful
pavement of the Duomo, at Sienna. Not only in those countries,
but all over Europe, this device occurs as a sign. Peacham thus
accounts for the wheel being chosen as the emblem of Fortune:—
" For like ourselves, the spoke that was on high
Is to the bottom in a moment cast,
As fast the lowest risetli by and by,
All human things thus find a change at last."

The Monster, at one period an inn of some resort in Willow
Walk, Chelsea, now a starting-point for the Pimlico omnibuses,
is perhaps a corruption of the Monastery. Ilobert de Heyle in
1368 leased the whole of the manor of Chelsea to the abbot and
convent of Westminster for the term of his own life, for which
they were to allow him a certain house within the convent for
his residence, to pay him the sum of =£20 per annum, to provide
him every day two white loaves, two flagons of convent ale, and
once a year a robe of esquire's silk. At this period, or shortly
after, the sign of the [Monastery may have been set up, to be
handed down from generation to generation, until the meaning
and proper pronunciation were forgotten, and it became " the
Monster." In still older times, viz., during the Norman rule,
Chelsea appears to have been one of the manors of Westminster,
so that the connexion between the village of Chelsea and the
monastery of Westminster had been of very old standing. This
tavern, we believe, is the only one with such a sign. Ned Ward
mentions a Green Monster tavern in Prescott Street, but that
may have been one of Ned's jokes on the very common Green
Dragon. The tavern in question was a very unlucky house, and
not less than three or four landlords had failed in it, which was
not to be wondered at, for the street appears at that time to
have been one of the soberest in London. According to Ned,
one "would walk by forty or fifty houses and not an ale-
house."*

the singular name of the house where tickets might be obtained
for a lottery of plate in 1718.* The name in reality refers to
the "Melon Gardens," which fruit was pronounced after the
signboard orthography in the seventeenth and eighteenth centu-
ries.

Pepys, on the 3d of August 1G60, informs us that he dined at
an ordinary called the Quaker, a somewhat unusual godfather
for a sinful tavern. This house was situated in the Great Sanc-
tuary, Westminster, and was only pulled down in the beginning
of the present century to make way for a market-place, which in
its turn has made room for a new sessions-house. Tull, the last-
landlord, opened a new public-house in Thieving Lane, and
adorned the doorway of this house with twisted pillars decorated
with vine-leaves, brought from the old Quaker tavern. J. T.
Smith presents us with a view of this house in the additional
plates to his "Antiquities of Westminster."

The Pilgrim has been mentioned incidentally (on p. 434) as a
sign at Coventry. There is another public-house of this name
in Kew Lane. In 1833 a figure of a pilgrim was placed upon
the roof of this house, which by concealed machinery moved to
and fro like the Wandering Jew, doomed to wander up and
clown until the end of the world ; it was, however, of contemp-
tible workmanship, and very soon got out of order.

The Gipsy's Tent occurs at Hagley, Stourbridge; the Gipsy
Queen at Highbury and other places; and the Queen of the
Gipsies was the sign of the so-called gipsy house near Nor-
wood. The queen alluded to was Margaret Finch, who died at
the great age of 109 years; Norwood was her residence during
the last years of her life, and there she told fortunes to the credu-
lous. She was buried October 24, 1760, in a deep square box,
as from her constant habit of sitting w⁷ith her chin resting on
her knees, her muscles had become so contracted that she could
not at last alter her position. This woman, when a girl of seven-
teen, may have been one of the dusky gang pretty Mrs Pepys
and her companions went to consult, August 11, 1668, which
her lord duly chronicled in the evening : " This afternoon my
wife and Mercer and Deb went with Pelling to see the gypsies at
Lambeth, and have their fortunes told, but what they did I did
not enquire." A granddaughter of Margaret Finch, also a so-
styled queen, was living in an adjoining cottage in the year 1800.

The True Lover's Knot is a sign at Uxbriclge, the only ex-
ample of it we have met with. In the North of England and in
Scotland it is still the custom Avith betrothed lovers of the lower
class to present each other with a curious kind of knot called " a
true lover's knot." Brand says the word is not derived from true
love, but from trulofa, Danish for fidem do. It was formerly a
common present between lovers of all stations of life in England.

The Folly is not unusual; it is generally applied to a very
ambitious, extravagantly furnished, or highly ornamented house;
in such a sense it was already used in Queen Elizabeth's
reign:—

One of the most notorious " Follies" was an edince of timber
divided into sundry rooms, with a platform and balustrade on
the top, which in the reign of Charles II. floated in the Thames
above London Bridge. At first it was very well frequented, and
the beauty and fashion of the period (Pepys amongst them,
April 13, 1668,) used to go there on summer evenings, partake
of refreshments on the platform, and enjoy the breeze on the
river (then guiltless of the modern sewers and filth.) On one
occasion Queen Mary honoured it with a visit, accompanied by
some of her courtiers. Gradually, however, it took to evil
courses; loose and disorderly females were admitted, and un-
restrained drinking and dancing soon gave it an unenviable
notoriety. In this condition it was visited by Tom Brown, who
describes it with his usual coarse vigour: "This whimsical piece
of Architecture was designed as a musical Summer-house for the
entertainment of quality where they might meet and ogle one
another ; but the Ladies of the Town finding it as convenient a
rendez-vous, overstock'd the place with such an inundation of
harlotry, that dashed the female quality out of countenance, and
made them seek some more retired conveniency." He next
describes the company in very glowing colours, but found it
such a confused scene of folly, madness, and debauchery, that he
—no very bashful person—was compelled to return to his boat
" without drinking/" * At length the place became so scandalous
that it had to be closed ; it went to decay, and at last was sold
for firewood.

printsellers, and colourmcn, was eitlier in compliment to the
scholars of King Edward VI.'s foundation, Christ's Hospital,—
commonly called " the Blue Coat School," from the blue tunic
of the lads, or was named after the Bridewell Boys, i.e., found-
lings and deserted children, who wore a blue coat and trousers,
with a white hat. Until the end of the last century they used
to attend at all the fires with the Bridewell engine, but on the
whole they were an unruly mischievous set. There was a Blue
Coat coffee-house in Sweeting's Alley, near the Exchange, in
1711.* At present it is generally called the Blue Boy, as at
Old Swinford, Stourbridge; Minchinhampton, Gloucester, and in a
few other places. In Islington there is still such a sign, and in
Aldersgate Street, if we remember rightly, there is an ironmonger
with such a decoration.

A very strange sign occurs amongst the Banks Bill?. On a
shop-bill dated 1698, is the following inscription: "At the signe
of the Tare lives one Mr Grenier who makes all sorts of good
rasors, lancets, sisers, very well, and all other sorts of instru-
ments for chirugeons." The engraving represents two angels hold-
ing a tear by a string, surrounded by a quantity of surgical instru-
ments, after the true meat-axe type, and vicious-looking enough
to " draw tears of molten brass from the eyes of Pluto himself."

The Weary Traveller occurs at Sutton Boad, Kiddermin-
ster; the Traveller's Best in a great many places, sometimes
accompanied by the phrase Best and be Thankful, which last
advice serves as a sign to two public-houses at Whitehaven.
Finally the Finish was the sign of a notorious night-house in
Covent Garden, kept at the beginning of the present century by
a Mrs Butler. Here, according to " Tom Crib's Memorial to
Congress," the gentlemen of the road used to divide their spoil
in the gray dawn of the morning, when it was time for the night-
birds to fly to their roost. Crib (in reality Thomas Moore the
poet, see p. 503) says that the congress is:—

" Some place that's like the Finish, lads,
Where all your high pedestrian pads
That have been tip and out all night,

Running their rigs amongst the rattlers,+
At morning meet, and, honour bright,
Agree to share the blunt and tatlers."

nicknamed the Finish from its being tlie place where the fast men
of the day generally " finished off." NedShuter was at one time
a drawer in this house, but, inspired by the neighbourhood of the
theatres, he left the pots and bottles and took to the stage. Down
to a recent date it was a gloomy disreputable coffee-house, kept
by one Smith, and here, in interdicted hours, beer and spirits
could be obtained when all the public-houses were closed. It
was pulled down very recently. These last four signs have in a
measure been the expression of the authors' minds: who, w^Teary of
their long task, and fearful of having fatigued their readers, will
now betake themselves to rest, and be thankf ul if they have given
a few hours' entertainment upon the subject of signboards. They
now take their leave in the words of an old ballad : —

" Then faire fall all good tokens,
And well fare a good heart,
For by all signs and tokens
'Tie time for to depart."

On the evening of Tuesday, 23d of March 1762, the ladies and
gentlemen of London were informed at their tea-tables, by means
of the St James's Chronicle, of the following fact :—

" Strand. The Society of Manufactures, Art, and Commerce, are pre-
paring for the annual Exhibition of Polite Arts, hoping by Degrees to
render this Nation as eminent in Taste as War; and that, by bestowing
Prsemiums, and encouraging a generous Emulation, among the Artists, the
Productions of Painting, Sculpture, &c., may no longer be considered as
Exotics, but naturally flourish in the Soil of Great Britain."

" Grand Exhibition. The Society of Sign-painters are also preparing a
most magnificent Collection of Portraits, Landscapes, Fancy Pieces, Flower
Pieces, History Pieces, Night Pieces, Sea Pieces, Sculpture Pieces, &c., &c.,
designed by the ablest Masters, and executed by the best Hands in these
kingdoms. The Virtuosi will have a new Opportunity of displaying their
Taste on this Occasion, by discovering the different Stile of the several
Masters employed, and pointing out by what Hand each Piece is drawn.
A remarkable Cognoscente who has attended at the Society's great Room,
with his Glass, for several Mornings, has already piqued himself on dis-
covering the famous Painter of the Rising Sun, a modern Claude Lorraine,
in an elegant Night-piece of the Man-in-the-Moon. He is also convinced
that no other than the famous Artists who drew the Red Lion at Brentford,
can be equal to the bold figures in the London 'Prentice, and that the
exquisite Colouring in the Piece called Pyramusand Thisbe must be by the
same hand as the Jlole-in-the-Wall,"

Shortly after this advertisement, the Exhibition was opened.
It was held in Bonnell Thornton's chambers in Bow Street: the
hours were from nine till four, admission one shilling. The tickets
had a catalogue prefixed to them. The names of the signboard-
painters given in this catalogue were those of the journeymen
printers in Mr Baldwin's office, where it was printed. Ilagarty
alone was a transparent variation on the name of Hogarth, who
had largely contributed to the fun and humour of the Exhibition.

The opening of the saloons was the signal for a perfect storm
among the newspapers. The artists and their friends were terribly
ruffled, and persisted in seeing in it a persiflage of their exhibi-
tion just then opened in the Strand. To this animosity, however,

we owe all tlie particulars of the signs exhibited. Catalogues,
criticisms, and reviews of the Exhibition were daily brought before
the public, giving full details. The most important of them we
present to our readers :—

A CATALOGUE of the Original Paintings, Rusts, Carved Figures, <(<:.,
&c., <tc., Now exhibiting by the Society of Sign-Painters, at the Large
Rooms, the Upper End of Bow Street, Covent Garden, nearly opposite the
Play-House Passage.

In the Large Passage Room.
[iV. B.—-That the Merit of the Modern Masters may he fairly examined
into, it has been thought proper to place some admired Works of the most
eminent Old Masters in this Room, and along the Passage thro' the Yard.]
No.

called an English artist; not being sufficiently encouraged in his
own Country, he left Holland with William the Third, and was the
first artist who settled in Harp Alley.*]

in his Herald's Coat. By Van der Trout. [As this Artist was ori-
ginally Colour Grinder to Hans Holbein, it is conjectured there are
some of the great Master's Touches in this Piece.]

[The Society of Sign-Painters take this Opportunity of refuting a most
malicious Suggestion, that their Exhibition is designed as a Ridicule on the
Exhibitions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c., and of the
Artists. They intend theirs as only an Appendix, or (in the Stile of Painters)
a Companion to the others, There is nothing in their Collection, which
will be understood by any Candid Person as a Reflection on any Body, or
any Body of Men. They are not in the least prompted by any mean
Jealousy to depreciate the Merits of their Brother Artists. Animated by
the same Public Spirit, their sole View is to convince Foreigners as well as
their own blinded Countrymen, that however inferior this Nation may be
unjustly deemed in other Branches of the Polite Arts, the Palm for Sign-
Painting must be universally ceded to Us, the Dutch themselves not ex-
cepted.]

[N.B.—It is done from Invention, not being able to find one to sit
for it.]
i. A Star. By * *

is an elegant Invention of Ben Jonsoti, who in The New Inn or Light
Heart, makes the Landlord say (speaking of his Sign :)—
An Heart weighed with a Feather, and outweighed too :
A Brain-child of my own and I am proud ow'i.]

The Curiosity. Its Companion. [These two by an unknown Hand,
the Exhibitors being favoured with them from an unknown Quar-
ter.] *** Ladies and Gentlemen are requested not to finger them,
as Blue Curtains are hung on purpose to preserve them,

New Design. 1. St George for England. 2. St Andrew for Scot-
land. . 3. St Denis for France. 4. St Anthony for Italy. 5. St
James for Spain, 6. St David for Wales. 7. St Patrick for Ire-
land. This by Bransley.

Deadly Never-Green § that bears Fruit all the Year round. The
Fruit at full length. By Hagarty.

1 Fanny I'arsr ns was the girl who played such an active part in the Cock Lane ghost
performances, Jan. and Feb. 1762.

t A famous discussion club held at the Robin Hood Tavern, Essex Street, Strand,
t Evidently an allusion to Edmund Curll, the notorious bookseller, who stood in the
Pillory at Clieapside.
J The gallows at Tyburn,

2 | A corruption of Hook-Norton, the name of a small village in Oxfordshire, where the
hogs formerly played upon the church organ. So, at least, the story runs.

"St Squintum" was probably intended for John Whitfield, the famous preacher,
whose personal appearance was the subject of numerous lampoons and caricatures at
this time.

*** Several Tobacco Rolls, Sugar Loaves, Hats, Wigs, Stock-
ings, Glove's, &c., &c., &c., hung round the Room. By the
above-mentioned Artists.

The next nnmber of the St James s Chronicle contained an
article on the Exhibition from another journal, written with
great animosity :—

" As your paper is always ready to expose any Abuses on the Publick,
I beg you will give place to the following Observations

" I acknowledge myself to have been one of the Curious who went yes-
terday morning to see the Grand Exhibition, as it is called, of the Sign-
Painters, from which I did not indeed expect any great Entertainment;
however, I did not imagine any Set of Gentlemen would have been con-
cerned in a senseless Attempt at Satire, and along with it the most
impudent and pickpocket Abuse that I ever knew offered to the Publick.

" The Exhibition is really of Signs, and those, in general, worse exe-
cuted than any that are to be seen in the meanest streets. The Busts,
carved Figures, &c., are of corresponding Excellence, all of them being the
very worst of Signpost Work, and such as seem collected fot- an Insult on
the Human understanding.

" But that your Readers may All save their Time, Money, and Credit,
by not falling into this Hum-trap, I shall give them an Account of some of
the choicest Articles of this Collection as a sample that must damp their
Curiosity for seeing the Whole."

9. The Irish Arms, A great clumsy pair of Legs.
10. The Gentleman of Wales. A Taffey with a great Leek in his Hat.

23. A Freemason's Lodge. Anew Member blinded and befouling himself.
27. The Spirit of Contradiction. Two Brewers bearing a cask. The

Men going different ways.
30. The Dancing Bears. Bears in Men's cloaths, learning to dance, a
great one amongst them, with a gold Chain round his Neck; the
Dancing Master a Monkey, holding a Kitten on his Breast with one
hand, and pincing its tail with the other.
81. Band box. An Ass standing in a great Band-box.¹
32. A Man Struggling through the World. The Sign of a Pasteboard
Terrestrial Globe, with a Man creeping through it, his Head being
out at one End, and his Heels at the other.

But the Cream of the whole Jest is (49 and 50) two Boards behind two
Curtains, (one on each side of the Chimney,) which, when the Cur-
tains are lifted up, show the written Laughs of ha ha ha and
he he he.

53 and 54 are two old Signs of a Saracen's Head and a Queen Anne's,
with their Tongues lolling out at one another, designed to represent
the Czar and the Queen of Hungary. Over them is a great wooden
Bill, with this inscription, The present State of Europe.

Deadly Never Green that bears Fruit all the year round. This is
Tyburn, with three felons hanging on it.

hands of a barber surgeon, who shaves and lets blood at the same
time, by cutting at every stroke of his razor.

1 This seemed to be a sort of slang phrase equivalent to the present—"It's all my
eye ;" it occurs in "Tom Brown," vol. ii., p. 13, 1708. See also p. 467 of this work.

* + 35. From another source we learn that this was very different:—" No. 35. A Man
in his Element, a sign for an Eating-house,"—a cook roasted on a spit at a kitchen fire, •
and basted by the devil.
J In allusion to Peeping Tom, the shoemaker of Coventry.

" Such is the Entertainment that these wits have been able to prepare for
the curious, with all the assistance of the Virtuosi which they have been
long advertising to procure. If there is any Satyre in this Design, it must
be in humming their Customers. Wit or taste there is certainly none;
but there is a Magnitude of Imposition that is surely deserving of Punish-
ment.

It is well known that the Society for the Encouragement of Arts,
Manufactures, and Commerce, are at a great Expense for making their
elegant Exhibition, and give their Tickets all away. The Artists, indeed,
sell Catalogues there to those who cliuse to buy them, and dispose of the
Money that is got by them to Charities.

The Body of Artists made their Catalogues Tickets to serve last year
for the whole Time of Exhibition in Spring Gardens, and sold them but
a shilling a-piece, the Profits of which were likewise distributed in
Charities.

The Society, as they call themselves, of Signpainters, or rather of Bites
who borrow that Name, have the Assurance to fix a Ticket to each Cata-
logue, which they sell for their own Profit at a shilling ; and, by obliging
the Ticket to be torn off at the Second Door, make the Purchase of a New
Catalogue absolutely necessary for a Second Admission. It is true most
Gentlemen do refuse to let their Catalogues be torn; and many of those
who had submitted to the tearing of them, insisted upon their being ex-
changed for whole ones, resolving, like Men of Spirit, not to be bubbled
every Way.

In fine, this Mock Exhibition is a most impudent and scandalous Abuse
and Bubble. An Insult on Understanding, and a most pickpocket Impos-
ture. The best entertainment it can afford is that of standing in the street,
and observing with how much shame in their Faces People come out of the
House. Pity it will be, if all who are employed in the carrying on this
Cheat, are not seized and sent to serve the King, And those who are
Sharers in the Booty deserve likewise to be severely chastised.

" The Signpainters return their Thanks to the author of the above most ex-
cellent Letter, which is seemingly abusive of their Design, but is in Fact a most
admirable Irony.

The Ledger of this Morning, after having pillaged the Catalogue of
Signpainting, is candid enough to abuse it. But it is plain tha t the author
has not seen the Exhibition, or could not find out the Humour of it."

From the GAZETTEER.— (St James' Chronicle, Ap. 24-27, 1762.)—
" The Society of Signpainters, in their Catalogue, tell us they take the
opportunity of refuting what they are pleased to call a malicious Suggestion
•—viz., ' Their Exhibition being designed as a Ridicule 011 the Exhibition
of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, etc., and the Artists,' and

that they intend theirs only as an Appendix or (in the Style of Painters)
' Companion' to the others. What is that but ridiculing, or an attempt
towards it ? They say ' there is nothing in their Collection which will be
understood by any candid person as a Reflection on any Body or any Body
of Men.' They might have spared this Assertion, for no Person, endued
with the least Share of common Sense, can imagine so impotent and futile
an Attempt a Satire or Ridicule on any Thing except the few Spectators
who go there; which 'would have been better understood had it opened
on the First of April.

" They also say, ' They are not in the least prompted by any mean
jealousy to depreciate the Merits of their Brother Artists.' Which is owing
to their Inability, not want of Assurance; for an Attempt in them to de-
preciate the Merit of the Professors of Painting and Sculpture, whom they
are impudently pleased to call their Brother Artists, would be (to borrow
a Simile from one of their own Productions) like Dogs barking at the
Moon,

" Their sole View, etc., etc. — 'Their sole View' (without any Breach of
Charity) we may infer is that of filling their own Pockets by duping the
Publick; for no private Men would by an Advertisement invite People
to their House, and place a Porter at the Door to take a Shilling of
them, with a Pretence of being animated by a public Spirit, for any other
Motive.

" The Society of Sign-painters are obliged to the GAZETTEER for the
above Remarks."

Articles and letters abusive of the Exhibition appeared in
most of the newspapers, and not a day passed but it was at-
tacked in no very measured terms. The committee, however,
generally reprinted the articles in their own organ, thanking the
critics for so successfully advertising their efforts, after which no
more was heard from them. The following review, having very
similar annotations upon the signs to those in the letter signed
" A Despiser of all Trickery," may have come from one of their
own pens. It appeared in a monthly sheet, entitled, " The Lon-
don Registerfor April: *—

" Humour is confessedly one of the chief characteristics of the English
nation. There is no Country that delights in it so much, exerts it on such
various occasions, or shows it in so many Shapes. In conversation, in
Books, on the Stage, we meet with it every Day; and it has sometimes
been introduced, not without success, even into the Pulpit. To an Artist
of our own Country, and of our own Times, we owe the Practice of enrich-
ing Pictures with Humour, Character, Pleasantry, and Satire. Such an
Artist could not fail of Applause in such a Nation as ours, and his Fame
is equal to his Merit.

The original Paintings, etc., the Catalogue of which now lies before us,
are the Project of a well-known Gentleman, in whose house they are ex-

* Under the title of—" Particular Account of the Grand Exhibition in Bow Street,
with Remarks and Illustrations of it."

liibited; a Gentleman wlio has, in several instances, displayed a most un-
common Vein of Humour. His Burlesque Ode 011 St Cecilia's Day,* his
Labours in the Drury Lane Journal, and other papers, all possess that
singular Turn of Imagination so peculiar to himself. This Gentleman is
perhaps the only Person in England (if we except the Artist above men-
tioned) who could have projected, or have carried tolerably into Execution,
this scheme of a Grand Exhibition. There is a whimsical drollery in all his
Plans, and a Comical Originality in his Manner, that never fail to distin-
guish and to recommend all his Undertakings. To exercise his Wit and
Humour in an innocent Laugh, and to raise that innocent Laugh in others,
seems to have been his chief Aim in the present Spectacle. The Ridicule
or Exhibition, if it must be accounted so, is pleasant without Malevolence;
and the general Strokes on the common Topics of Satire are given with the

On entering the Grand Room, .... you find yourself in a large and
commodious Apartment, hung round with green Bays, on which this
curious collection of Wooden Originals is fixt flat, (like the Signs at present
in Paris,) and from whence hang Keys, Bells, Swords, Poles, Sugar-Loaves,
Tobacco-Rolls, Candles, and other ornamental Furniture, carved in Wood,
that commonly dangle from the Penthouses of the different Shops in out-
streets. On the Chimney-Board (to imitate the Stile of the Catalogue) is
a large, blazing Fire, painted in Water-colours; and within a kind of Cupola,
or rather Dome, which lets the Light into the Room, is written in Golden
Capitals, upon a blue Ground, a Motto from Horace, disposed in the Form
following:—

From this short Description of the Grand-Room, (when we consider the
singular Nature of the Paintings themselves, and the Peculiarity of the
other Decorations,) it may be easily imagined that no Connoisseur, who
has made the Tour of Europe, ever entered a Picture-Gallery that struck
his Eye more forcibly at first Sight, or provoked his Attention with more
extraordinary Appearance.

We will now, if the Reader pleases, conduct him round the Room, and
take a more accurate Survey of the curious Originals before us. To which
End we shall proceed to transcribe the ingenious Society's Catalogue, add-
ing (as we proposed before) such Notes and Illustrations as may seem
necessary for his Instruction or Entertainment.

* Bonnell Thornton composed an ode on St Cecilia's Day, which was set to music by
Dr Burney, and performed by the aid of those national instruments, the marrow bones
and cleavers. The affair came off at Banelagh, and gave general satisfaction. In a
former chapter we have given full particulars of this event. Thornton was born in Lon-
don 17'24, educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. In connection
with Geo. Colman the elder he started the Connoisseur, the St James¹ Chronicle, and
other periodicals, lie died May 9, 1768, ana was buried in Westminster Abbey.

8. The Vicar of Bray: The Portrait of a Beneficed Clergyman, at Full
Length, [The vicar of Bray is an Ass in a Feather-topped Grizzle, Band,
and Pudding Sleeves.—This is a much droller Conceit, and has more Effect
when executed, than the old Design of The Ass loaded with Preferment.]

9. The Irish Arms. By Patrick O'Blaney. [IV.B. Captain Terence
0' Cutter stood for them. [A Pair of extremely thick Legs in white Stock-
ings and black Garters.]

12. The Scotch Fiddle. By M'Pharson, done from Himself. [The Figure
of a Highlander sitting under a Tree, and enjoying that greatest of Plea-
sure of scratching where it itches.]

16. A Man. [Nine Taylors at Work; in Allusion to the old Saying of
nine Taylors make a Man.]

19. Nobody, alias Somebody. A Character. [The Figure of an Officer,
all Head, Arms, Legs and Thighs.—This Piece has a very odd Effect, being
so drolly executed that you don't miss the Body.]

20. Somebody, alias Nobody. A Caricature. Its Companion. Both these
by Hagarty. [A rosy figure with a little Head and a huge Body, whose
Belly swags over, almost quite down to his Shoe-Buckles. By the Staff in
his Hand it appears to be intended to represent a Constable.—It might also
have been mistaken for an eminent Justice of Peace.]

22, The Strugglers. A Conversation. By Bransley. [Represents a Man
and Wife fighting for the Breeches.]

23. A Free-Mason's Lodge, or the Impenetrable Secret. By a Sworn
Brother. [The supposed Ceremony and probable Consequences of what is
called making a Mason, representing the Master of the Lodge with a red
hot Salamander in his Hand, and the new Brother blindfold, and in a
comical Situation of Fear and Good-Luck.]

25. A Man running away with the Monument. By Whitaker. [This
Picture of a London Night, iike the Farmer Returned, represents

Lame, feeble, half blind.——
Two of these Cripples are pursuing the Thief, one crying out, Stop Thief !
and the other, I can't catch him.]

27. The Spirit of Contradiction. Ditto. By Hagarty. [Two Brewers
with a Barrel of Beer, pulling different Ways.]

28. The Logger Heads. Ditto. By Ditto. [Underwritten, the old Joke
of We are Three. Shakespeare plainly alludes to this sign in his Twelfth
Night, where the Fool comes between Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew
Aguecheek, and, taking each by the Hand, says, " How now, my Hearts,
did you never see the Picture of We Threel"

30. The Dancing Bears. By Hagarty. [Most drolly conceived and comi-
cally executed.—Represents Four Bears on their hind Legs, drest in
different Characters, one with a gold Chain round his Neck, giving Right
Paw and Left, gravely practising Country-Dances, under the Tuition of a
Monkey, drest like a Dancing-Master, and fiddling on a KiT-ten,—The
Seriousness and Solemnity of each of these Figures is incomparable. Un-
derneath is written, " Grown Gentlemen taught to Dance."

31. Band Box. By Sympson. [Hieroglyphically expressed .... an
Ass standing in a Bandbox.]

33. St John's Head in a Charger. [The dead Saint's Eyes, like those in
most Portraits, seem to be looking at you.]

35. A Man in his Element. A Sign for an Eaiing-IIouse. [A. Cook
roasted upon a Spit at the Ivitcken-Fire and basted by the Devil,]

36. A Man out of his Element. [A Sailor fallen off kis Horse, with bis
Skull lighting against the ten mile Stone from Portsmouth.]

38. A Bird in the Hand, a Landscape. By Allison. [A common sign
in various Parts of England, whicb has usually this Inscription,

A Bird in Hand is better far
Than two that in the Bushes are.
But these Lines are much improved in the Inscription that is under this
Sign in the Exhibition:

39. Absalon Hanging, a Peruke Maker's Sign. By Sclater. [Underneath
is written—

40. Welcome Cuckholds to Horn-Fair. By Hagarty. [Whimsically ima-
gined, and drolly executed—Being a Picture of Horn-Fair containing
various Figures of Cuckholds iu different Characters; some with large
staring Bulls', Goats'-IIorns, &c., others with their Horns just budding.
The center Figure is that of a fine Gentleman (copied from the fine Gen-
tleman in Lethe) with Rams'-Horns. On a Bank, fast asleep, sits a Citizen-
like Figure, with large branching antlers, and on the other side of the
Picture, is a jemmy Figure in Boots, who has no Horns upon his Head,
but carries them in his Pocket, out of which the tops appear tipt with
Gold. This last Gentleman's Horse (to make the Picture complete) is also
represented as a Cuckliold, having a Horn in his Forehead like an Uni-
corn's.]

50 [On aparallcl Line with the foregoing on the other Side of the Chim-
ney] The Cariosity, its Companion. [These two by an unknown Hand, the
Exhibitors being favoured with them from an unknown Quarter.] *** Ladies
and Gentlemen are requested not to finger them, as blue Curtains are hung
over in purpose to preserve them. [Behind the blue Curtains on one
of these Boards is written Ila 1 Ila! Ha 1 and on the other He / He! lie!
At the first opening of the Exhibition the Ladies had infinite Curiosity to
know what was behind the Curtain, but were afraid to gratify it. This
covered Laugh is no bad satire on the indecent Pictures in some Collec-
tions, hung up in the same Manner with Curtains over them.]

52. [Over the Chimney] The Renowned Seven Champions of Christendom,
from an entire New Design. [A Capital Piece. The Seven Champions are
represented in the following Manner. 1. St George is an English Sailor
mounted on a Lion, with a Spit (by Way of Lance) bearing a Sirloin of
Beef in one Hand, and a full Pot of Porter marked only Three Pence a
Quakt in the other. By the Lion's Foot are two Scrolls, like Ballads, the
one inscribed 0 the Roast Beef of Old England : the other, Hearts of Oak
are our Men. 2. St Andrew is a Highlander mounted on a Scotch
Galloway, with a Broad Sword, bearing an Oat Cake at the End of it in
one Hand, and a Flask of Whisky in the other. 3. St Dennis is a French-
man, mounted on a Deer, a timorous swift-footed Animal with a small
Sword in one Hand on which a Frog appears to be spitted, and a Dish oi

Soupe Maigre in the other. 4. St Anthony is the Pope, mounted on a
Bull, with a Crosier and a Vessel of Holy Water dangling from it, in one
Hand, and a Cod-Fish inscribed Food for Lent in the other. From his
Right Foot hangs a Scroll inscribed Kiss my Toe, and on the Ground seve-
ral Rolls of Paper, on which are written, Pardons, Indulgences, &c. &c.
5. St James is a Spaniard mounted on a Mule with an Ingot of Gold in
one Hand and a Padlock in the other, 6. St David is Taffy mounted on a
Goat brandishing a Leek in one Hand, and bearing a Cheese, by Way of
Target, in the other. 7. St Patrick is an Irish Soldier, mounted on a
large Stone-Horse, at whose Feet is a kind of Bill with this Inscription—
To cover this Season Black and All Black. He has a Sword, bearing a
Potatoe on the End of it in one Hand, and a three-square Bottle, inscribed
Green Usquebaugh in the other.]

54. Ditto of the Empress Queen of Hungary, its Antagonist. [These are
two old signs of the Saracen's Head and Queen Anne. Under the first is
written The Zarr, and under the other the Empres Quean. They are
lolling their tongues out at each other, and over their heads runs a wooden
label, inscribed, The present State of Europe.]

hands, one bearing a hammer, the other a curry-comb, in allusion to
knocking and scratching.]

58. All the World and his Wife. By Blackman. [The figure of a
foolish-looking fellow, with the globe round his body, (like Orbis in the
Rehearsal,) and his wife cudgelling him.]

61. The Robin Hood Society, a Conversation ; or Lectures on Elocution.
Its Companion. These two by Barnsley. [These two Strokes at a famous
Lecturer on Elocution,* and The Reverend Projector of a Rhetorical Aca-
demy, are admirably conceived and executed: and (the latter more especially)
almost worthy the Hand of Hogarth. They are full of a Variety of droll
Figures, and seem indeed to be the Work of a great Master, struggling to
suppress his Superiority of Genius, and endeavouring to paint down to the
common Stile and Manner of the School of Sign-painting ]

64. View of the Road to Paddington, with a Presentation of the Deadly-
Never-Green, that bears Fruit all the year round. The Fruit at full
Length. By Hagarty. [Tyburn with three Felons on the Gallows. This
Piece is remarkable for the Execution.]

65. The Salutation, or French and English Manners. By Blackman.
[An English Jack Tar, kicking, and taking a tawdry Mounseer, cringing
and bowing, by the Nose.]

66. Good Company. A Conversation. Intended as a Sign for a Tobacco-
nist. By Bransley. [The Conceit and Execution are admirable. It
represents a Common-Couucil-Man, and two Friends, drunk, over a Bottle
and a Pipe. The Common-Council-Man is fallen back on his Chair as
asleep. One of the Friends, an officer, is lighting a Pipe at his red Nose,
while the other, a Doctor, is using his Thumb for a Tobacco Stopper.]

68. Hogs-Norton. A Sign for a Musick-Shop. By Bransley. [Repre-
sents (in allusion to the old saying concerning Hog's Norton) an Hog drest
in a Laced Suit, and an enormous Tye Wig, playing upon the Organ,]
* Orator Ilenley is doubtless intended.

71. Shave for a Penny, Let Blood for Nothing. [A Man under the
Hands of a Sarber-Surgeon, wlio shaves and lets Blood at the same Time,
by cutting at every Stroke of his Razor.]

72. Teeth Drawn with a Touch. A Caricature. Its Companion. [A
Man in much the same circumstances, mutatis mutandis, under the Hands
of a Tooth-Drawer.]

" Such," says tlie London Register, " are the Original Paintings
in the Society's Collection." It may be remarked that there is
some humour in placing many of the signs, which of themselves
would not be very striking : for instance, The Three Apothe-
caries' Gallipots, with The Three Coffins as its companion ;
King Charles in the Oak, and by its side The Owl in the
Ivy Bush. Some of the signs are very indelicate, but this
objection does not appear amongst the many charges brought
against Mr Thornton and his friends. The opinion of society
upon this point was very different in the last century from what
it is now.

Besides the official catalogue there also appears to have been
a comic or satirical guide, for the newspapers of the day adver-
tise—

HA! HA! HA! Or the Laugher's Companion to the GRAND EXHI-
BITION of the SIGN PAINTERS. Also He! He! He! Or the
Artist's Guide to the Society's Exhibition.

We shall close this subject with a paper in favour of the
much abused exhibition, a weak, but well meant, effusion in
doggerel rhyme :—

As the Sign Painters in this Catalogue have directed any Essays on their
Exhibition to be sent to you, I have troubled you with the enclosed Trifle,
by inserting which in your Chronicle, you will oblige

1 The celebrated preacher, George Whitfield, who was chaplain to Selina, Countess 0/
Huntingdon.

Addressed to the Gentlemen of the Society of Sign Painters,
Though Malice darts around malignant Rays
And pow'rful Envy all its Spleen displays :
Go on, great Chiefs, pursue your noble Play,
And nobly end, what nobly you began.
Spite of Detraction shall your Mirth rise
With odorif'rous Flavour to the Skies,
And Masmore's, Lester's, Ward's, and Fishbourne's Name,
With thine, Van Dyke, shall live to endless Fame;
For your Collection Wit and Skill combine,
And Humour flows in ev'ry well chose Sign ;
To you the Palm, th' admiring World must give,
To you the Honour ev'ry Artist leave.
Regard not they the little-minded's Rage,
Nor dread the snarling Critic's angry Page;
For conscious Worth shall be your safest Guard,
And Immortality your sure Reward,

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MORE	BEER	SCORE	CLERK
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DO	TRUST	TAY	SENT
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