^heIGooi>£WgmM THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL From the collection of Alfred Garvin Engstran and Mary Claire Randolph Ehgs trail M ' . • ■ ■ Ei Wm A Man Loaded with Mischief, or Matrimony. THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. BY JACOB LARWOOD, AND JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN. WITH ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS IN FACSIMILE BY J. LARWOOD. " Oypida dmn peragras peragraiida poemata spectes." DRUNKEN BARNABY'S TRAVELS. CO s\ Oocfe and Bottle. SIXTH EDITION. LONDON: JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, PICCADILLY. [All rights reserved.] -r^ . ».. THE LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROUNA AT CHAm MIL v * ,nv/U!W Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/historyofsignboaOOIarw_0 To Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., F.S.A., the Accomplished Interpreter of English Popular Antiquities^ this SEtttU Ualume is ffiefitcatsfc by THE AUTHORS. (■ PKEFACE. The field of history is a wide one, and when the beaten tracks have been 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, nothing 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 houses 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 ci our ancestors, or as advertisements of established reputation and business 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-signs could be shown. Something like a classification of our subject was found absolutely neces* vi PREFACE. 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 Warres of the Citie" a lengthy document prepared for a journal in the reign of William of Orange by one " E. I.," and giving the 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 Recommended 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 Vanity, 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 PREFACE. vil 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 Cheyne 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 public 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 had 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. Via PREFACE. 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 event3 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 as 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. London, June 1865. CONTENTS. PA6B CHAPTER I. GENERAL SURVEY OF SIGNBOARD HISTORY, . * • « 1 CHAPTER II. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE SIGNS, . . . .45 CHAPTER III. HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC SIGNS, . . . . .101 CHAPTER IV. SIGNS OF ANIMALS AND MONSTERS, . . . . .150 CHAPTER V. BIRDS AND FOWLS, ....... 199 CHAPTER VI. FISHES AND INSECTS, ...... 225 CHAPTER VII. FLOWERS, TREES, HERBS, ETC., e 233 CHAPTER VIII. BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS SIGNS, ..... 253 CHAPTER IX. SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC., . . . . . .279 x CONTENTS. PAOB CHAPTER X. DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS, .... 305 CHAPTER XL THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE, . . . . „ 373 CHAPTER XII. DRESS ; PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL, . . . . .ZOO CHAPTER XIII. GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY, . . . . .414 CHAPTER XIV. HUMOROUS AND COMIC, . . . . . .437 CHAPTER XV. PUNS AND REBUSES, . . . . . . . 469 CHAPTER XVI. MISCELLANEOUS SIGNS, . . . . -. . 476 APPENDIX. BONNELL Thornton's signboard exhibition, . . .512 INDEX OF ALL THE SIGNS MENTIONED IN THE WORE, „ - 527 PLATE I. BAKER. (Pompeii, a.o. 70.) -? inn DAIRY. (Pompeii, a.d. 70.) SHOE MAKER. (Herculaneum.) WINE MERCHANT. (7'ompeii, a.d. 70.) TWO JOLLY BREWERS. (Banks's Bills, 1770. CHAPTER I. GENERAL SURVEY OF SIGNBOARD HISTORY. 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 : wtf^sg ini rcov Kanrfkiwv yoatpo- ftwot, fAi/tgoi fj,h sigi, (pahovrai d's sysovrsg ^'harri xal (3a^7J.f And Athenseus : h ^orsooTg Qrixri dtda6?taX/Yiv.% But what their signs were, and whether carved, painted, or the natural object, is en- tirely unknown. With the Eomans 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, Rosellini Monumenti dell' Egitto e della Nubia. t Aristotle, Problematum x. 14: "As with the things drawn above the shops, which, though they are small, appear to have breadth and depth." X " He hung the well-known sign in the front of his house." A 2 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. and our proverb, "Good Wine needs no Bush." An ansa, or handle of a pitcher, was the sign of their post-houses, (stathmoi or allagce,) and hence these establishments were afterwards denomi- nated ansce* 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.)" + Ph^idrus, lib. iv. fab. vi. These Eoman 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 puguent, feriant vitentque moventes Arma viri." J Cicero also is supposed by some scholars to allude to a sign when he says : — "Jam ostendamcujus modi sis : quum ille ' ostende quseso' demonstravi digito pictum Galium in Mariano scuto Cimbrico, sub No vis, distortum ejecta lingua, 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. Hinc enim Crassi oratoris lepos, [here follows the anecdote of the Cock of Marius the Cimberian] ... 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." || 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 But we can judge even better from an inspection of the Eoman * Hearne, Antiq. Disc, i.. 39. t "When the mice were conquered by the army of the weasels, (a story which we see painted on the taverns.)" % 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." \ De Oratore, lib. ii. ch. 71 : " Now I shall shew you how you are, to which he answered, ' Do, please.' Then I pointed with my finger towards the Cock painted on the signboard of Marius the Cimberian, on the New Forum, 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." ^J "There were, namely, taverns round about the Forum, and that picture [the Cock] had been put up as a sign." ANCIENT SIGNS AT POMPEII. 3 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 Pompeii an am a ieadam qui hoc l^seeit, i.e., Habeat Venerem Pompeianam iratam, &c. 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 on 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 ; Veneria, a tire-woman, has a mirror and a comb : — then there are others who have wool-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 on the name, so common on 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 4 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. tree ; Leo, a lion ; Doleus, father and son, two casks ; Herbacia, two baskets of herbs ; and Porcula, a pig. Now 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^ 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 not only found among Roman and other old-world remains, but during the Middle Ages -we 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, Hie domus incenditur, 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. f In Csedmon'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. (See upon this subject under "Religious Signs.") { The palace of St Laurence Poulteney, the town residence of Charles Brandon, SYMBOLS OF TRADES. 5 u Good entertainment for all that passes, — Horses, mares, men, and asses;" 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 and 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 quce sunt tamquam ea quce 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. fi A house in the town of Lewes was formerly known as The 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, Curiosities of Her- aldry. 6 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Imve a stake, bearing either his sign, or leaves, ex- tending or lying over the King's highway, of greater length than seven feet at most, and that this ordinance should begin to take effect at the Feast of Saint Michael, then next ensuing, alwaj^s 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 em ere libros formatos in omcina mea ex- cussoria, inspice signum quod in liminari pagina est, ita numquam falleris. Nam quidam malevoli Impressores libris suis inemendatis et maculosis apponunt nomen meum ut fiant vendibiliores."f' Jodocus Baclius of Paris, gives a similar caution :— " 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. f "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." X " We beg the reader to notice the sign, for there are men who have adopted the same title, and the name of Badius, and so filch our labour." ORNAMENTAL IRONWORK. J " Extremum est ut admoneamus studiosissimum quemque, Florentines quosdam impressores, cum viderint se diligentiam nostram in castigando et imprimendo non posse assequi, ad artes conf ugisse solitas ; hoc est Gram- maticis Institutionibus Aldi in sua officina formatis, notani Delphini Anchorje Involuti nostram apposuisse ; sed ita egerunt ut quivis mediocriter versatus in libris impressionis nostrse animadvertit illos impudenter fecisse. Nam rostrum Delphini jn partem sinistram vergit, 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 chapel- 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 Eenaissance 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 priDters, 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 books 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 turned to fjae right."— Preface to Aldus's Livy, 1518 8 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. period, still bear witness. In provincial towns and villages, where 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, w T ere 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, which 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, &c. 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. Sauval, (" Antiquites 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'oeuvres, and as careful in design as a carved cathe- dral stall. Several of them are still remaining in Eouen 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 : — THE WATER-POETS CATALOGUE OF TAVERNS. 9 M 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. In the next reign we find the following enumerated by Taylor the water-poet, in one of his facetious pamphlets : — 5 Angels, 4 Anchors, 6 Bells, 5 Bullsheads, 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, 6 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, &c. 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 taverns* and alehouses in ten shires and counties about London, all similar to those we 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 Ragged 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 ; * Hie number of taverns in tiiese ten shires was '680, or thereabouts-" IO THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. And Boreshead near London Stone, The Swan at Dowgate, a tavern well knowne ; The Mitre in Cheap, and the Bullhead, And many like places that make noses red ; The Boreshead in Old Fish Street, Three Cranes in the Vintree, And now, of late, Saint Martin's in the Sentree ; The Windmill in Lothbury, the Ship at the Exchange, King's Head in New Fish Street, where Roysters do range ; The Mermaid in Cornhill, Bed Lion in the Strand, Three Tuns in Newgate Market, in Old Fish Street the Swan." Drunken Barnaby, (1634,) in his travels, called at several of the London taverns, which he has recorded in his vinous nights : — - " Country left I in a fury, To the Axe in Alder m anbury First arrived, that place slighted, I at the Bose in Holborn lighted. From the Bose in Flaggons sail I To the Griffin i' th' Old Bailey, "Where no sooner do I waken, Than to Three Cranes I am taken, "Where I lodge and am no starter. 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 bo have a sign; for we find that in the 16 Bichard 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 of Parliament, vol. v. fol. 426 a.t 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 Mayor, 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 alle} r s 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 Dean and Chapter of Westminster." — Lyson's Env. oj 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." SIGNBOARD REGULATIONS IN FRANCE. I I shops, arts, or occupations, without impediment, molestation, or interrup- tion of his heirs or successors." In France, the innkeepers were nnder 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 " affeetes 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, 11 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 bouchons. . . . Kul 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 thy sign." Massinger, A Neiv Way to Pay Old Debts, iv. 2. 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 Phoenix 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 shall be allowed to open a tarern in the said city and its suburbs without having a sl^u jud a bush." 12 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. into the Cat and Wheel ; such 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, were often used in the old days of political plots and violent lampoons. Instance the following : — " Vox Borealis, or a Northerne 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 Half quarter 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 Eota upon Mr Milton's book, entitled 4 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." " An Address from the Ladies of the Provinces of Munster and Lein- ster to their Graces the Duke and Duchess of D 1, Lord G , and Caiaphas the High Priest, with sixty original toasts, drank by the Ladies at their 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 Tadys Press, etc. 1754." " An Address from the Influential Electors of the County and City of Gal way, with a Collection of 60 Original Patriot Toasts and 48 Munster Toasts, with Intelligence from the Kingdom of Eutopia. Printed at the sign of the Pirate's Sivord in the Captain's Scabbard. London, 1754." " The C t's Apology to the Freeholders of this Kingdom for their conduct, containing some Pieces of Humour, to which is added a Bill of C 1 Morality. London : Printed at the sign of Petty Ireland, d — d of a Tyrant in Purple, a Monster in Black, etc." In the newspapers of the eighteenth century, we find that signs were 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 New- gate Street, by the opposition party, to which the Original SIGNS HUNG IN MOURNING. 13 Weekly 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 : — " HOTELS POUR LES MINISTRES DES COURS ETRANGERES AU FUTUR CONGRESS. De l'Empereur, A la Bonne Volontd ; rue d'Impuissance. De Russie, Au Chimere ; rue des Caprices. De France, Au Coq deplume ; rue de Canada. D'Autriche, A la Mauvaise Alliance, rue des Invalides. DAngleterre, A la Fortune, Place des Victoires, rue des Subsides. De Prusse, Aux Quatre vents, rue des Renards, pres la Place des Guineas. De Suede, Au Passage des Courtisans, rue des Visionaires. De Pologne, Au Sacrifice d' Abraham, rue des Innocents, pres la Place des Devots. Des Princes de l'Empire, Au Roitelet, pres de l'Hopital des Incurables, rue des Charlatans. De Wirtemberg, Au Don Quichotte, rue des Fantomes pres de la Montagne en Couche. D'Hollande, A la Baleine, sur le Marche aux Fromages, pres du Grand Observatoire." 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 " Hoxburghe Ballads," (vol. i. 212,) entitled :— ".London's ordinarie, or every man in his humour. t UROUGH the Royal Exchange as I walked, Where Gallants in sattin doe shine, 14 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. At midst of the day, they parted away, To seaverall places to dine. The Gentrie went to the King's Head, The Nobles unto the Crowne : The Knights went to the Golden Fleece, And the Ploughmen to the Clowne. The Cleargie will dine at the Miter, The Vintners at the Three Tunnes, The Usurers to the Devill will goe, And the Fryers to the Nunnes. The Ladyes will dine at the Feathers, The Globe no Captaine will scorne, The Huntsmen will goe to the Grayhound below, And some Townes-men to the Home. The Plummers will dine at the Fountaine, The Cookes at the Holly Lambe, The Drunkerds by noone, to the Man in the Mount t And the Cuckholdes to the Ramme. The Roarers will dine at the Lyon, The Watermen at the Old Sivan ; And Bawdes will to the Negro goe, And Whores to the Naked Man. The Keepers will to the White Hart, The Marchants unto the Shippe, The Beggars they must take their way To the Egge-shell and the Whippe, The Farryers will to the Horse, The Blackesmith unto the Locke, 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 Taylors will dine at the Sheer es, The Shooemakers will to the Boote, The Welshmen they will take their way, And dine at the signe of the Gote. The Hosiers will dine at the Legge, The Drapers at the signe of the Brush, The Fletchers to Robin Hood will goe, And the Spendthrift to Beggers Bush. The Pewterers to the Quarte Pot, The Coopers will dine at the Hoope, The Coolers to the Last will goe, And the Bargemen to the Sloope. "A Cheat loaf was a household loaf, wheaten seconds bread."— Nares's Glossary. THE BALLAD OF THE LONDON ORDINARIE. I 5 The Carpenters will to the Axe, The Colliers will dine at the Sacke, Your Fruterer he to the Cherry-Tree, Good fellowes no liquor will lacke. The Goldsmith will to the Three Cups, For money they hold it as drosse ; Your Puritan to the Peivter Canne, And your Papists to the Crosse. The Weavers will dine at the Shuttle, The Glovers will unto the Glove, The Maydens all to the Mayden Head, And true Louers unto the Doue. The Sadlers will dine at the Saddle, The Painters will to the Greene Dragon, The Dutchmen will go to the Froe* Where each man will drinke his Flagon. The Chandlers will dine at the Shales, The Salters at the signe of the Bagge ; The Porters take pain at the Labour in Vaine, And the Horse-Courser to the White Nagge. Thus every Man in his humour, That comes from the North or the South, But he that has no money in his purse, May dine at the signe of the Mouth. The Swaggerers will dine at the Fencers, But those that have lost their wits : With Bedlam Tom let that be their home, And the Drumme the Drummers best fits. The Cheter will dine at the Checker, The Picke-pockets in a blind alehouse, Tel on and tride then up Holborne they ride, And they there end at the Gallowes." Thomas Hey wood introduced a similar song in Ms " Kape of Lucrece." This, the first of the kind we have met w T ith, 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 date to the seventeenth century. " mHE Gintry to the Kings Head, JL The Nobles to the Crown, The Knights unto + he Golden Fleece, And to the Plougn the Clowne. The Churchmen to the Mitre, The Shepheard to the Star, The Gardener hies him to the Rose, To the Drum the Man of War. * Froe— i.e.. Vrouw. woman. 1 6 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. The Huntsmen to the White Hart, To the Ship the Merchants goe, But you that doe the Muses love, The sign called River Po. The Banquerout to the World's End, The Fool to the Fortune hie, Unto the Mouth the Oyster-wife, The Fiddler to the Pie. The Punk unto the Cockatrice, * The Drunkard to the Vine, The Begger to the Bush, there meet, And with Duke Humphrey dine." + 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 sigfts 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. | i.e. Walk about in St Paul's during the dinner hour. PLATE II. \ BUSH. (MS. of the 14th century.) BUSH. (P.ayeux tapestry, llth cent.) CROSS. (Luttrell Psalter, 14th centtiry.) ALE-POLE. (Picture of Wouwverman, 17th cent.) BLACK JACK AND PEWTER PLATTER. (Print by Sohavelin, 1480.) NAG S HEAD. (Cheapside, 1640.) BUSH. i MS. of the 15th cent. PARISIAN SIGNBOARD ENORMITIES. I J comrae des tonneaux, des plumes qui allaient au troisieme etage." * 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." Gat's Trivia, canto i. 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 — Jldneur — 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 Iiarley, " Would try to read the lines Writ underneath the country signs." 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,t 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 large as a hogshead, and feathers reaching up to the third story." t " Koddige en ernstige opschriften op Luiffels, wagens, glazen, uithangborden en andere tafereelen door Jeroen Jeroense. Amsterdam, 1682." X "Het gestoffeerde Winkelen en Luifelen Banquet. H. van den Berg. Amster- dam, 1693." B l8 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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, — "Jacob was David's neef maar 't waren geen Zwagers. Hier slypt men allerhande Barbiers gereedschappen, ook voor vischwyven en slagers."* Or another example : — il Men vischte Moses uit de Biezen, Hier trekt men tanden en Kiezen."t 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,X (the meagre Notes and Queries of those days,) in the hope of eliciting an ex- planation of their quaint combination : — " I 'm 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 : § — " 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, * " Jacob was David's nephew, but not his brother-in-law. All sorts of barbers' tools ground here, also fishwives' and butchers' knives." f " Moses was pick'd up among the rushes. Teeth and grinders drawn here." X The British Apollo, 1710, vol. iii. p. 34. 2 Amusements for the Meridian of London, 1708, p. 72. THE OLD COMBINATIONS OF SIGNS. 19 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 be 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 20 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. to mention flying-pigs 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 ralionis. " 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 % 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 marriage, gives a place to his 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 Fig; 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 such 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. " When the name gives an occasion for an ingenious signpost, 1 HE » SPECTA TOR " ON SIGXS. 2 I 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,* 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. " "\TTHERE AS Anthony Wilton, who lived at the Green Cross publick- VV 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 * Bell and the Dragon, still to be met on the signboard. f Addison is wrong in this derivation, (see under Miscellaneous Signs ; at the end.) 22 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Green Cross and Kross Keyes on the same hill," &c. — Weekly Journal, November 22,1718. " rriHOMAS BLACKALL and Francis Ives, Mercers, are removed from JL the Seven Stars on Ludgate Hill to the Black Lion and Seven Stars over the way." — Daily Courant, November 17, 1718. " "DETER DUNCOMBE 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. " ~R ICHARD MEARES, Musical Instrument maker, is removed from AA) 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 Godmanchester 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 Blackmookshead and Woolpack, in Pimlico, was called the Devil and Bag of 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 Fig and Tinderbox ; the Bear and Bagged Staff, the Angel and Flute ; the Eagle and Child, the Bird and Bantling ; the Hog in Armour, the Fig 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 THE "ADVENTURER" ON SIGNS. 23 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 plair 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 : — ' Sus horridus, atraque Tigris, Squamosusque Draco, et fulva cervice Lesena. Virgil. ' With foamy tusks to seem a bristly boar, Or imitate the lion's angry roar ; Or kiss a dragon, or a tiger stare.' — Deyden. 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 Bose 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 \ " Some regard should likewise be paid by tradesmen to their situation ; or, in other words, to the propriety of the place ; and 24 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 ? " 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 on 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 ? 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 efiigy 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 Tip 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 Pater* noiter Row does not inform us. THE -ADVENTURER" ON SIGNS. 2$ 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, Nee Jubse tellus generat, leonum Arida Nutrix.' — Horace. ' 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 Be- formation. St George, as the tutelary saint of this nation, may escape the censure of superstition ; but St Dunstan, with his tongs 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, 6 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.' M * 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 • yet it would appear that the exhibitors of signboards wished to make up in extravagance what they had lost in use. "Be it known, however, * For the Three Balls of the Pawnbrokers, see under Miscellaneous Signs ; for tho Barber's Pole, under Trades' Signs. 26 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 seldom 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 THE " TA TLER " OiV SIGNS. 2 7 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 painted] 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, '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 head 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 not 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 was appointed ; but, like most commissions and committees, they talked a great deal and had some dinners ; in the meantime the * Probably John James Heidegger, director of the Opera, a very ugly man. 23 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. public interest and excitement abated, and matters remained as they were. In the year 1762 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-painteks 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 this work. ACTS OF PARLIAMENT TO REMOVE SIGNS. 29 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, Shoreditch, 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." f 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. Now numbers appeared everywhere. As early as 1512 an * 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 may be observed even at the present day. t Laws, Customs, Usages, and Regulations of the City and Port of London. By Alex- ander Pulling. London, 1854. Under the 72d section of the 57 Geo. III. ch. 29, post. 315, Mr Ballantine, some years ago, decided against a pawnbroker's sign being considered a nuisance, notwith- standing it projected over the footway, unless it obstructed the circulation of light and • air, or was inconvenient or incommodious. 30 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. attempt had been made in Paris at numbering sixty-eight 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. w r as 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 : — " rriO 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, &c. — Advertisement in the original edition of the Specta- tor, No. 207. "AT her house, the Red Ball and Acorn, over against the Globs XJL 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 w T e 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 HOUSES DISTINGUISHED BY COLOUR. 3 I 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, the 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 1 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. 1 A similar accident befell the shop of one E in Cheapside, 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 in bis 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 cen- tury, and stijiped with the sign of the shop and the name of its owner. 32 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. before their 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." w * 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 ? 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 with 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 : — " THE MAIL-COACH GUARD. 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 ; And. when at the Angel I 'd tippled enough, I went to the Devil for more. Then I 'd always a sweetheart so snug at the Car ; At the Rose I 'd a lily so white ; Few planets coftd equal sweet Nan at the Star, No eyes ever twinkled so bright. 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'da sweet little girl in the Moon. To sweethearts and ale I at length bid adieu, Of wedlock to set up the sign : 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, Yet while the King's Arms I 'm permitted to bear, Like a Lion I '11 fight for the Crown. 11 * Memorials of Nature and Art collected on a Journey in Great Britain during th€ Years 1802 and 1803. By C. A. Q. Goede. London, 1808." Vol. i. p. 68. PLATE III. MERMAID. (Cheapside, 1640.) ALE-GARLAND. (Wouwvermaii, 17th cent.) r r ■ Crispicintts CRISPIN AND CHISPIAN. (Roxburghe Ballads, 17th century.) TRUSTY SERVANT. (Circa 17oo.l HOG IX ARMOUR. L VE -SIGNS A T OXFORD, 3 3 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 Inn-ventions I try, with new art to adore, But my fate is, alas, to be voted a Boar ; 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 u Lords," it says : — u 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 is The Lamb, likewise The Fleece, And the fruit 's bad throughout the whole piece ; There is The White Hart, also The Cross Keys, And many they 've sent far over the seas. There is The Bull, and likewise his Head, His Horns are so strong, they will gore you quite des^ : 34 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Tliere 's The Have and Hounds that never did run, And many 's been hung for the deeds they 've done. There are Tivo Fighting CocJcs 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 Woolpach, 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 days 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 ISTova 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 v of the present hour MODERN CORRUPTIONS OF THE ANTIQUE. 35 Good wine and beer were formerly to be had at tbe Boars 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 Arms, (Clapham Eoad ;) Dun- stall's Arms, (City Eoad ;) Diggers Arms, (Pet worth, 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 Arms, (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, 50 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Fields ;" but 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 be 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 IV. 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 out open-air walhalla, the Turkish sultans seem to have stood H 1ST0R1 C AND COM MEM OR A Tl VE. 5 I foremost. Mokat (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: — "Mokat . y e . Great . Men . Did . Mee . Call Where . Ere . I . Came . I . Conquer'd . All." On the reverse : " Coffee, tobacco, sherbett, tea, and chocolat retard 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 Xjl. 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., Moeat the Great," &c. — Mercurius Publicus, March 12-19, 1662. The Geeat 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 on]y 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. Hanway, 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 * Newcastle Journal, June 28. 1746. 52 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 days' wonder. Visits of European monarchs were also commemorated by complimentary signs. One of the oldest was the King of Den- make:, 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 our 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* 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, and made him wish to be inside. The visit of another crowned votary of Bacchus is commemorated by the sign of the Czar's Head, Great Tower Street: — "Peter the Great and 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." f * Nugae Antiquse, vol. i. p. 348. f Barrow's Lite of Peter the Great. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORA Tl VK 5 3 The sign is now removed, but the public-Louse still bears the same name. Peince 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 17 50,* 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 Road, the other in St Leonard's Eoad. 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 Su )iday 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."t 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. * Gent. Mag., March 1842. \ Veacham's Compleat Gentleman, p. 79. 54 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 of 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. t " 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 the Palsgrave Head." In a similar way, a bookseller lived at the sign of the Rainbow, at the same time as one Farr, who opened this place as a coffee-house. Another bookseller, James Roberts, who printed most of the satires, epigrams, and other wasp-stings again«t Pope, 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." * Macaulay's Biographical Essays. Frederick the Great. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 55 tlie 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 which 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 * Goldsmith's Essay on the Versatility of Popular Favour. 56 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 aware 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 " 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 less 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 : — " To the Printer of the General A clvertiser : — " 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 : — 1 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 : — To Rubicon and North, old England owes The loss of country where tobacco grows. " I suppose no dealer will chuse to adopt so unfortunate a subject for HISTORIC AND COMMEMORA TI VE. 5 7 their insignia; but perhaps, when you have a spare corner in your General Advertiser, it may not be inadmissible, which will oblige. — Yours, &c. A Smoaker. "Feb. 1, 1783. General Advertiser, March 13, 1784." 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 Boad, 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 Bodney seems to have obtained a larger share of popularity than even Nelson himself. In Boston there is the Bodney and Hood • and in Creggin, Montgomery- shire, the Bodney 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 ; But when the day is very cold, Then taste a mug a twelvemonth old." On the reverse : — " Eest 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." 58 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Heathfield, 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 General Tarleton, (or, as he is called on a sign in Clarence Street, Newcastle, Colonel. Tarlton,) General Wolfe, General Moore, and Sir Ealph 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 eighteenth century, at the Fleece in Cornhill, 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 HISTORIC AND COMMEMORA TI VK 5 9 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 Dukes Head in Upper Street, corner 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., &c.J 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 more particulars about Topham, see p. 88. t Trades tokens in the Beaufoy Collection. X 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 iighta in that locality. 60 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 everythhig 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 Bankside, 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 Eobin Hood in Butcher Row, near Temple Bar. The society attained a position of so much importance, that a history of its proceedings was pub- * Richarclsoniana, p. 140. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORA TI VE. 6 I iished 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 servant 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 had to preside one evening a month. That the Earl of Essex, who had taken up arms against his 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 facade 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 Log don, 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 was a baker by trade. 62 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Gate, a corruption of the Boulogne Gates, which 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 Holborn, 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 opticians 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 Peospects or 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. + 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 Bue 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 1718, adver- tising his "chrystall dressing-glasses for ladies, which shew the face as nature hath made it, which other looking-glasses do not." t Banks's Collection. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 63 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 Boyal 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 and 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 * Banks's Collection. 64 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. in effigy" at Castlegate, Berwick, in Nottingham, and in a few other places. 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 Viscount Valentia, 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 Hohenheim, 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, (oh. 1617,) physician to James I., and, accord- ing to Fuller, " the iEsculapius 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, * The Aagler. Hawkins's edition. 1784. PLATE V. SPINNING SOW. (France, 1520.) TWO STORKS. (Antwerp, 1639.) THE COMPLETE ANGLER. (Banks's Bills, 1780.) f^f. HELP ME THROUGH THIS WORLD. (Banks's Bills, 1812.) CROOKED BILLET. (Harleian Collection, 1710.) HISTORIC AND COMMEMORA TI VE. 6 5 great experience and wonderful success in those arts." He pro- mised to perform the usual tours deforce. " foretell what s'ever was 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." Butler's Iludihras. 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 Bobert 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 Bev. Mr G s, of which the following are the first and the last stanzas : — " Where Tully's bust and honour'd name Point out the venal page, There Dodsley consecrates to fame The classics of his age. Persist to grace this humble post, 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. Hoeace'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 Eichmond, opposite Exeter Change in the Strand, in the middle of the last century. Of Seneca's ' Head two instances occur, J. Eound in Exchange Alley in 1711, and * Bagford Bills, Bib. Harl. 5964. 66 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Varenne, near Somerset House, in the Strand, at the same period. 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 Boyal Exchange. Ten years later it occurs in the following advertisement : — " "\TTHEREAS Thomas "Williams, of the society of real and well-mean- Y V ing Chy mists 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, Wigan, Lancashire ; and another at Weston-on-the 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, Co vent Garden, the Beefsteak Society (different from the Beefsteak Club,) used to meet before it was removed to the Lycenm 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 chair of 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. f The Newes, 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 York Buildings. % 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 Tomkius, 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 Richarason, 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. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 6 J 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 Bomer, 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 Eoad, 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 Bow, painted by an eminent artist, but does not say who the painter was. Edmund Curll, the notorious bookseller in Bose 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.' " B. Griffiths, a bookseller in St Paul's Churchyard since 1750, had the Dunctad for his sign. He was agent for a very primitive social-evil move- ment ; advertisements emanating from this a sett of gentlemen sympathising with the misfortunes of young girls " occur in the papers of June and July 1752. One of the regulations was, " §3r None need to apply but such as are Fifteen years of age, and not above Twenty-five : older are thought past being re- 68 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. claim' d, unless good Becommendations are given. Drinkers of spirits and swearers have a bad chance." The Man of Boss is at the present day a signboard at Wye Terrace, Ross, Herefordshire ; the house in which John Kyrle, the Man of Eoss, 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, 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 Bowe, 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 Waliis, 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 Eiding ; and Don John at Maltby, Eotheram, in the same county ; but perhaps these are merely the names of race horses. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 69 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 Rede 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. — M assinger'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.t In the beginning of this century there was a notorious place of amuse- ment in St George's Fields, Westminster Road, called the Apollo Gardens — a Vauxhall or a Banelagh 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. — Ed. t An "Apollo in his glory" is a charge in the apothecaries' arms. X Aubrey, Remains of Grentilisme and Judaism. Lansdowne MSS. 231, p. 106. JO THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Lane, Hull, and Neptune of course is of frequent occurrence in a country that holds the " Imperium pelagi ssevumque tridentem." 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 komt alhier. Je krygt een gestopte pyp toe en op kermis een glas dik bier." * 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 nit zyn zak Zyn pypye en zyn doos en rookte doen tabak." j* 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, J and Comus is frequently the tutelary god of our provincial public-houses. Castor and Pollux, represented in the dress of Boman 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. f Vulcan, that lame blacksmith, when he got tired over his work, sat down a while to rest his limbs. The gocls saw it ; he took his cutty pipe and his tobacco box out of his pocket and smoked a pipe of tobacco. t Gmt. Mag., March 1842. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORA TI YE. J I World's End. In 1667 it was the sign of Richard Tenck 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.' 7 The Marquis of Granby often visited the former house, and here Fielding, in " Tom Jones," makes Squire Western put up : — " The Squire sat down 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 : — "Coining 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 safe." 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 * The History of Tom Jones, book xvi. ch. ii. t Lond. Gaz. t June 18-22, 1674. 7 2 THE HISTOR Y OF SIGNBOA RD8. Joseph Moxon on the West side of Fleet ditch, at the sign of the 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 : — " A RARE Consort of four Trumpets Marine, never heard of before in .XjL 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." t Pepys does not give this house a better character : — " 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 Eue 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 : — u If with water you fill np your glasses, You' 11 never write anything wise ; For wine is the horse of Parnassus, Which hurries a bard to the skies." "John Gay, at the Flying Horse, between St Dunstan's Church * 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 so 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 Worli of Words," 1696, describes it as "an instrument with a bellows, re- sembling a lute, having a long neck with a string, which being struck with a hairbcw sounds like a trumpet." t Aubrey, Miscellanies upon various subjects. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORA TI VE. J 3 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 Plying Horse, a facetious innkeeper at Eogate 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 u 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 Wapping 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 74 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Boxburgh 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." II udders ford Wiccamical Chaplet. 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 go became Earl of Warwick, HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 75 of Mansfield.* Similar stories are told of many different kings : 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 V. of Scotland, (the guidman of Ballageich ;) of Henry IV. of France and the pig-merchant ; of Charles V. 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 Eobin Hood and Little John, his faithful accolyte. Eobin 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 taum, 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 : — " Come in and drink with Jemmie Webster." At Bradford, in Yorkshire, the following variation occurs : — " 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." At Overseal, in Leicestershire : — " Robin Hood is dead and gone, Pray call and drink with Little John." Finally, at Turnham Green : — " Try Charrington's ale, you will find it good. Step in and drink with Robin Hood. If Robin Hood," &c. 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 Eobin Hood's Garland has given another signboard hero, namely, the Pindar of Wakefield, t George a Green. * In Ritson's Ancient Songs and Ballads. 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. 76 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. ** 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.' " Drunken Barnaby mentions the sign in Wakefield in 1634: :— " 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 satv 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 garden-wall of Bagnigge House said : — S. T. This is Bagnigge House, neahe THE PlN.DAE, A Wakefeilde. 1680. 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 * Daily Courant, Feb. 19, 1711. f 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. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. JJ predicted the 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 : — u 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 daemon 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 Eosomon 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 Ton l'a era," 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 : — " Vitse venerabilis olim Vir fuit et vates, venturi prgescius sevi, Merlinus, 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 anil Wonderful 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 of Charles II., as appears from many allusions. t Once there ^vas a man who led 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, became a companion of the saints. 73 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 James 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, fiom 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 bis sole expense, who distin- guished themselves greatly in that fight. He is buried in New- bury, 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- acre, 1657, and on the sign of Varney, a seal-engraver in New Court, Old Bailey, 1783, whose shopbillj 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- * Henry Peacham's Compleat Gentleman. + John Collet's Historical Anecdotes, Add. MSS. 3890, p. 11& % In the Banks Collection. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 79 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 Highgate Koad there is a skeleton of a cat in a public-house window, which by the people who visit there is rirmly believed to be the earthly remains of Whittington'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 up 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 Vallee de Misere at Paris. John-o'-Geoat's House is also used for a sign ; there was one some years ago in Windmill Street, Hay market ; and at present there is a John- o'-Geoat'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. Daeby 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 Baeleycoen 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 Appeentice, of which there are still numerous examples. Plow they were represented appears from the Spectator, No. 428, vis., " with a lion's heart in each hand." The ballad informs us 80 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. that the apprentice came off with flying colours, after endless adventures, one of which was that like Richard Cceur-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,* 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, dwellyngo 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. * 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 Loudon, 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 imagin- 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," HISTORIC AND COMMEMORA TI VE. 8 1 Doctor Syntax hangs at the door of many public-houses, as at Preston, Oldham, Newcastle, Gateshead, &c. ; the Lady of thk 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 Lass o ? Gowrie, Sunderland and Durham; Atjld Lang Syne, Preston Street, Liverpool; Tulloch- GrORUM and Loch-na-Gar, both in Manchester ; Rob Roy, Tithe- burn Street, Liverpool; Flowers of the 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 Ths 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-house 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 Boson.* This name also appears to be borrowed from the well-known song, * Old Rosin the Beau," beginning thus : — " I have travell'd this wide world over, And now to another I'll go, * 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 their 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 locomotive-engine, japanned red, and wheeled about the streets by an old woman. The name on a brass plate is screwed to the can, similar to the names of locomotive-engines. 82 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. I know that good quarters are waiting To welcome old Rosin the Beau (ter.) When I am dead and laid out on the counter, A voice you will hear from below, Singing out brandy and water To drink to old Rosin the Beau (ter.) You must get some dozen good fellows, And stand them all round in a row, And drink out of half-gallon bottles, To the name of old Rosin the Beau," &c. 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. The equally common Hearty Good Fellow is adopted from a Seven Dials ballad : — " I am a hearty good fellow, I live at my ease, I work when I am willing, I play when I please. With my bottle and my glass, Many hours I pass, Sometimes with a friend, And sometimes with a lass," &c. 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 : Bembrandt'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 Hogaeth'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. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORA TI VE. 8 3 The fiddlers and ballad singers of the " tap " room, however, gave way to the newer 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, Gornal 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 Purc ell'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 his 11 Satyres," (b. vi., s. 1)— " 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 Kow, called the Castle, much frequented by the booksellers and printers of St Paul's Churchyard. Afterwards, he kept the Tabor, in Grace- church Street. He was one of Queen Elizabeth's twelve player, in receipt of wages, and was at that time living as one of the 84 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. grooms of the chamber at Barn Elms, but lost Ids situation by reason of some scurrilous reflections on Leicester and Baleigh. 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 wth 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." Spillek'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 Spiller's Head. At Spiller'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 ! For prayers from you who never pray'd before, * Introduction to Tarlton's Jests, by J. 0. Halliwell. f Han. MSS. 3885. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 85 Perhaps poor Jhmnie 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. " Spiller'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." * Eoxellana 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 Eoxellana,) 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 personce in Ben Jon- son's comedy of the Alchymist, and from the character given * Gray's Letter to Chute. Mitford, ii. 1S3. 86 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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, Wrapp'd up in greasy leather or p clouts, 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 : — " At D rugger's Head, without a puff, You '11 ever find the best of snuff, 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 's 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 his * Banks's Collection. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE, &J portrait by Holbein, viz., wearing a long gown, with hat on his head, and blowing a horn. Under an engraving of this picture are the following lines : — u 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 that a king bestowed them upon mee. 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 iokes 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 :— " HlC VICTOR C^lSTUS, ARTEMQUE REPONO." Numerous public-houses already retail their good things under * This is engraved in Caulfield's Portraits of Remarkable and Eccentric Characters, as well as the wooden figure in the Tower, t MSS. Reg., 2 A. xvi. 88 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Homers 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 with 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 * ^ah-holt, Remarkable and Eccentric Characters, p. 56. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 89 them his 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 2], 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 Eutlandshire, 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, he 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 " Jefferei'dos." 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 Dwarfs 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 * Fuller's Worthies, voce Monmouthshire. 90 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, 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 pablic-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 Eichard 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 : — u Who but has seen, (if he can see at all,) 'Tvvixt Aldgate's well-known pump and Leadenhall, A curious hardware shop, in generall full Of wares from Birmingham and Pontipool ? Begrimed with dirfc, behold its ample front, "With thirty years' collected filth upon 't ; In f estoon'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 HISTORIC AND COMMEMORA TI VE. 9 1 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 Varna 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 youhave another brewing called HufPs ale, at which, because no man must have but a pot at a sitting, and so be gone, the restraint makes them more eager to come in, so that bv this policie one may huffe it four or five times a dav." 92 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Thomas 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., Eichard 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 Eobert 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 Eochester. 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." Ihere 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 wrote 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 Bosee ; according to his handbill, " the first who made and publicly sold coffee- drink in England." His establishment was "in St Michael's Alley, in Cornhill, 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, HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 93 prescribes how 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, &c. 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 Lebeck 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 ? All that the season can afford, Fresh, fat, and fine, upon my word A Guinea ordinary, sir." This Guinea ordinary was : — " every way compleat, Adorn'd and beautif ally dress' d. But what it was could not be guess'd." * Journey through England, vol. i. p. 175. 94 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. The waiter, however, gives the menu, which contains — Bird'3 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,t celebrated for wine ; of him Amhurst sang : — " Now sumptuously at Caveac's dine, And drink the very best of wine." 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. Yice-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 Rare !") 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 Luces, behind the Chapter House in St Paul's Churchyard, 1730. t Oddly enough, both Cave and Ponto are terms of some games at cards. X There is a copy in the British Museum. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 95 scourged, with a motto ; " * "a very curious young mermaid- fish f " 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 f " Queen Elizabeth's chambermaid's hat," &c. f A most amusing paper in the Toiler, 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 Kodnam on the Irish main, I stroll'd with maggots in my pate, Where much improved they still remain. Through various employs I 've past, Toothdrawer, trimmer, and at last, I'm now a gimcrack whim-collector. Monsters of all sorts here are seen, Strange things in nature as they grew so ; Some relicks of the Sheba queen, And fragments of the famed Bob Cruso ; Knicknacks to dangle round the wall, Some in glass cases, some on shelf ; But what 's the rarest sight of all, Your humble servant shows himself. On this my chiefest hope depends. Now if you will the cause espouse, * This motto was : " Misura della Colonna di Christo n'o," i.e., Measure of the column of our Saviour. t A brother Boniface, Adams, "at the Royal Swan in Kingsland Road, leading fiom Shoreditch Church," (1756) had also a Tcnackatory, 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, &c, and 500 other curiosities. 96 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. In journals pray direct your friends To my Museum-Coffeehouse ; 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, Arid 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. u Chelsea Knachatory. 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, Lacly Humphrey, Sir Thomas Littleton, Sir John Molesworth, the Hon. Capt. William Montague, Sir Yelverton Peyton, George Selwyn, the Hon. Mr Verney, 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 publicans fancy. From the way in which Brathwaite mentions this sign in his a 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 : — " Old Mother Eedcap, according to her tale, 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. PLATE VI. THREE SQUIRRELS. (Eleet Street, circa 1668.) HAND AND STAR. (1550.) CHESHIRE CHEESE. (Modern sign, Aldermanbury, City.) KING S PORTER AND DWARF. (Newgate Street, circa 1668.) ROYAL OAK. (Roxburghe Ballads, 1660.) HISTORIC AND COMMEMORA TI VE. 9 7 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, Bagford 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 : — t " 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 Barton's, at the sign of Sir John Oldcastle, npon 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. Nathaniel Axtell, Esq. ) «, , „ Edward Bromwick, Gent. ) Opposite this house stood the Loed 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 this 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 * Harl. MSS. 5900. t Bagford Bills. Harl. MSS. 5962. 98 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Oldcastle, 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 Bishopsgate Street Without, is all that remains of the splendid mansion of the rich merchant of that name, who had here a beautiful park, we]l 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 fagade. In iC 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 sl 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' dub held here, the origin of which dated as far back as 1660, at which time they used to hold their meetings at the Three HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 99 Crowns in the Poultry. Saunders Welch was one of the justices of the peace for Westminster, and kept a regular office for the police of that district, in which he succeeded Fielding. He died Oct. 31, 1784, and lies buried in 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 Reunion 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 j 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. * London, Past and Present, p. 43. 100 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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, ologia," vol. xiii. One of the first snuffboxes was the so-called rape, 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 Sancho Panza did such execution, would scarcely rank as a lunch beside the Homeric dinners of our farmers. In our times we have seen Soyer roast a whole ox for the Agricultural Society at Exeter ; the details of this culinary feat are somewhat interest- ing : it was called a "baron with saddle back of beef d la magna cJiarta, 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 5 hours the beef was dressed for 5 shillings." — Hints for the Table * Various examples of it occur in the Banks Bills. I06 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. was also adopted as an alehouse sign : we find it as such in 1718:— 11 C\^ Easter Monday, at the Crown and Last at Primlico (sic) in Chel- VJ 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. N.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 ;t 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 walked 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 Bobert Wal- pole. This club went by the name of the Rump-steak Club. Faulkner J 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 * Original Weekly Journal, March 29 to April 3, 1718. t Banks Bills. + Historical and Topographical Account of the Parish of Fulham, 1813, p. 271. HERALDIC AND EMBLEM A TIC I O 7 resorted to this 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 Queens 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 a/t 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 Eawlinson 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 were his standing counsel in theatrical affairs." t 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 Aems and Corncuttee, % in King Street, West- minster ; the sign of Thomas Smith, who, according to his hand- * Boswell's Johnson, vol. iv. p. 60. f Hawkins's Life of Dr Johnson, p. 433. % This corncutter was probably the antique statue of the boy picking a thorn out of his foot, and was usual with pedicures. See under the sign "Old pick my toe." 108 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 famoustest 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, — ' Here lives Peter de la Boch 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 : — Richaed II., Two Angels, (blowing trumpets.) Henry IV., Swan and Antelope. Heney V., Lion and Antelope. Henry VI. , Two Antelopes. Edward IV., Lion and Bull. Edwaed V., Lion and Hind. Richaed III., Two Boars. Heney VII, Dragon and Greyhound. Heney VIII. , Lion and Dragon. Edwaed VI., Lion and Dragon. Maey, Eagle and Lion. Elizabeth, Lion and Dragon. James I., Lion and Unicorn, which have continued ever since. Of early royal badges an interesting list occurs in Harl. MS., 304, £12:— " 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 fether gold, the pen gold, and a faucon in hia proper coulor and the Sonne Rising. " The prince of Wales the ostrich fether pen and all arg. * Diary of the Rev. John Ward, M. A., 1648-1679. London, 1839. HERALDIC A ND EMBLEM A TIC 1 09 " Queen Philipe, wyff of Edward the iij d . gave the whyte hynd. " Edmond, Duk of York, sonne of Edward the iij, gave the Faucon arg. and the Fetterlock or. " Kichard 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 iiij gave the Swan ar. and the antelope. " 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. " Henry the vi gave the same that his father gave. " Edward the iiij gave the Whyte Lyon and the Whyte Rose and the Blak Bull uncrowned. " Richard the iij gave the Whyte Eoar and the Whyte Rose, the clayes gold. " Henry the seventh gave the hawthorn tree vert and the Porte Cullys and the Red Rose and the Whyte Crowned. " The Ostrych fether silver, the pen gobone sylver and azur, is the Duk of Somerset's bage. " The Shypmast with the tope and sayle down is the bage of . . . " The Cresset and burnyng fyer is the bage of the Admyralyte. " The Egle Russet with a maydenshead, abowt her neke a Crowne gold, is the bage of the mannor of Conysborow. a The Duk of York's bage is the Faucon and the Fetterlock. " The Whyte Rose by the Castell of Clyfford. " The Black Dragon by the Erldom of Ulster. " The Black Bull horned and clayed gold by the honor of Clare. u The Whyte Hynd by the fay re mayden of Kent. " The Whyte Lyon by the Erldom of Marche. * The ostrych fether silver and pen gold ys the kinges. :< The ostrych fether pen and all sylver ys the Prynces. u The ostrych fether sylver, pen ermyn is the Duke of Lancasters. " The ostrych fether sylver and pen gobone is the Duke of Somersets." 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. I lO THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Cadwaller, 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 phoenix 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 have 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 schollars hawing stoln his ducks, hee had them to the Vice chancelor, and one of the scholars got behind the Vice chancelor, 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 * Diary of Rev. John Ward, M.A., 1648-1679, p. 122. HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC. I 1 1 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 fiant de sapphiris vel rle aliis lapidibus eidein convenientibus." f 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, " Begius 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 Street, 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 * Memoirs of Charles Macklin, Esq. By J. F. Kirkman. Vol. ii. p. 419. 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 of sapphire, or of some other stone suitable for that purpose." X Peter Langtoffe's Chronicle of Robert of Brunne, p. 217. I " The king's place was between the Dragon and the standard." I T 2 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 whyte hertys, 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, knyghtes, 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 t reports that Diomedes consecrated a white hart to Diana, which, a thou- sand years after, was killed by Agathocles, king of Sicily. Pliny J 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 Caesar 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 Kothwell 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 Hoi stein, and to have attached the usual golden collar round its neck. More than three centuries after, in 1 1 72, 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 ? Will you needs be hanged with your pardons about your necks 1 Hath my sword therefore broken through London gates, that ye should * Cax ton's Chronicle at the end of Polychronicon, lib. ult. chap. vi. t Hist., lib. ix. cap. vi. i Nat. Hist., lib. viii. cap. ii. HERALDIC AND EMBLEM A TIC. 1 1 3 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 Hart 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."t 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 * Chronicle of the Grey Fryars, Camden Society, p. 19. t Grub Street Journal, Sept. 2, 1736. 1 14 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. appears that she made some successful cures before Sir Hans 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 Deny 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, 166j — " 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 passed under it when a boy, in going from Norwich to Ipswich." HERALDIC AND EMBLEM A TIC. 1 1 5 We obtain full details of this wonderful erection from an engrav- ing made in 1740, entitled : — u The North East side of y e sign of y e White Heart at Schoale Inn in Norfolk, built in the year 1655 by James Peck, a merchant of Norwich, which cost £3.057. Humb 1 ^ Dedicated to James Betts, Gent., by his most ob* serv*, 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, — " Implentue, veteris Bacchi pin- guisque feuin^. 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 vesteum.' : ] 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, " Tempiis Ed ax eerum."] 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, 1 1 6 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. (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 Richard, Duke of 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 Richard the Third's time, that king's cognizance being a boar passant argent, whence the rhyme which cost William Collingborne his life : — u The Cat, the Eat, and Lovell our Dogge, Rulen all England vnder an ffogge." f The fondness of Richard 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 wdio carried his master's mangled body from Bos- worth battle-field to Leicester. After Richard'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 Richard, 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 Richard 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 MS. 82. Bodleian Library, Oxford. Archceologia xvii. 1814. t The Cat, William Catesby ; the Rat, Sir Richard Ratcliffe ; t LoveJl our dog, Lord Lovel. HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC. 1 1 7 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 fall of most delectable harmony newly strung and set in Tune by Thos. Basille y e Lord Cobham. Imprinted at London in Buttolp lane at y e sign ofy e White Boar by John Mayler for John Gough, 1542." f The Fihebeacon, a sign at Fulston, Lincolnshire, was a badge of Edward IV., and also of the Admiralty. The Hawthokn, 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 pow T ers, 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 Haythorne, otherwise whitethorne, 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 w r as a famous Cannon Coffee- house at the corner of Trafalgar Square, at the end of Whitcombe 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 Twisden's Commonplace Books, 1653, as quoted in extenso in Notes and Queries, 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 Harl. MS. 5910 ; of this printer Bagford says : "I do not find he prented many books, or at lest few of them have come to my hand." X Reginald Scot, The Discovery of Witchcraft, b. xii. ch. xviii. p. 268, 1584 1 1 8 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 benign us /' whilst Cecily JNTevil, Duchess of York, mother of Edward IV. 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 Eichard his hangings for a hall, embroidered with mermen, and a border of red and black empaled, embroidered with sivans 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. " T"N 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 Kenry 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 felis 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 * Archaeologia. vol. xxix. 1840. HERALDIC AND EMBLEM A TIC I J 9 some badge, either that of Edward III. or from the White LiojST 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 Pauleys 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 in 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 Eoad, and Midland Eoad, Derby ; in the Lilly Eoad, Luton, Herts, &c. The Bed Lion is by far the most common ; doubtless it originated with the badge of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, married to Constance, daughter of I 20 THE HISTOR 7 OF SIGNBOARDS. Don Pedro the Cruel, king of Leon and Castille. The duke bore the lion rampant gules of Leon as his cognizance, to represent his 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 Ked Lion Inn at Sittingbourne is a very ancient estab- lishment. A new landlord, who entered circa 1820, issued the following advertisement : — " ~\T7~^* WHITAKER having taken the above house, most respectfully 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 as 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 Eed lyon Inne, Holborn.)"* Another celebrated tavern was the Old Eed Lion, St John's Eoad, 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 " Eights of Man," lived, here ; 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 IILf We find an example of it in the following advertisement : — % " A T the Union Society at the Black Lion against Short's Garden in JLJL Drury Lane, a Linen Draper's, on Thursday the 21st past, was * Aubrey, iii. 438. t Owen Grlenclower also bore a lion rampant sable, "the black lion of P^wyss;" 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 11P0. The black lion consequently might sometimes be set up by Welshmen. t Daily Courant, January 1, 17U. HERALDIC AND EMBLEM A TIC. I 2 I 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." — Anstls 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 Eose 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 122 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. of the 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 Ardern, 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 talem pennam albam portabat Edwardns primogenitna filius Edwardi regis super crestam suam, et Mam pennam conquisivit de rege Boemise, quern interfecit apud Cresse in Francia, et sic assumpsit sibi illam pennam quge 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 BeifTenberg, thus describes his heraldic crest : — " Twee ghiervogelen daer aen geleyt Die al vol bespringelt zyn Met Linden bladeren gult fyn, Deze is, as in merken kan Van Bohemen Koninck Jan." + 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 K. 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. . HERALDIC AND EMBLEM A TIC. I 2 3 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 Philippa 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 : — " rtlHE Late Countess of Kent's powder has been lately experimented 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. D-e 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 Truslers " 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 Blue 124 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Poyal Highness in the robes of the order. Among the badges and arms of countries and towns, th6 national emblem the Pose is most frequent, and has been so for centuries. Bishop Earle observes, " If the vintner s Rose 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 Pichard 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 Poses 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 ?bbey 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 Ped Poses 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 Pother 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 Ped Pose of Lancaster is still in full bloom on a publican's signboard. HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC. 125 Skelton's " Armony of Byrdes" was " imprynted at Londo' by John Wyght dwellig in Poule's Church yarde at the sygne of the Eose." 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 Eose, 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 Kose Tavern in Eussell 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 Eose 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 Eose 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 "Eake Eeformed," 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 Eose 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 " Eake'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.* Two other Eoses, not without thorns, are mentioned by Tom Brown :— " Between two Eoses down I fell, As 'twixt two stools a platter ; One held me up exceeding well, Th' other did no such matter. The Eose by Temple Bar gave wine Exchanged for chalk, and tilled me, But being for the ready coin, The Eose in Wood Street killed me." The " Eose 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 * See the engraving in Pennant's History of London, vol. i. p. 100. I 26 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. room in tliis tavern in his letters of January 26 and March 1, 1776. The Eose 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 Eose inns and taverns might be mentioned, but we will conclude with noting the Eose 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 dhie at the Eose, 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 the greater beauty. A portrait of Gay still remains at the inn."* The house at present is changed into a mercer's shop. Sometimes the Eose is combined with other objects, as the Eose and Ball, which originated in the Eose 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 Eose and Key was a sign in Cheapside in 1682.t 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 Ceown is another not uncommon national badge, adopted mostly by publicans of North British origin. The Ceown and Hakp is less frequent ; there is one at Bishop's Cleeve, Cheltenham. Of the Ceown and Leek we * Lyson's Berkshire, vol. i. p. 442. t London Gazette, Sept. 18-21> 1682. HERALDIC AND EMBLEM A TIC. 127 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 : — " rilHIS IS to give notice That ten Shillings over and above the Market JL price will be given for the Ticket in the £1,500,000 Lottery, No. 132, by JSTath. 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 : — ' fTlHESE AEE to give notice, that Edward Barlet, Oxford Carrier, hath JL 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. His 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 * London Gazette, March 12, 1672-3. I 28 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 PLATE VII. HEDGEHOG. (Bynneman's sign, 1560.) BLUE BOAR. (Banks's Collection, 1765.) THE VALIANT LONDON APPRENTICE. (From an old chapbook, 17th cent.) * THE SUN. (Sign of Wynkyn de Worde, 1497.) THREE PHEASANTS AND SCEPTRE. (Banks's Eills, 1795.) HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC. I 29 mon also in London at that 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,t 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 repaitre de chimeres," saith he, "et s'imaginer que ses souverains sont Rois de France, mais que des Frangais soyent assez ignorants, ou assez mauvais sujets, pour mettre les armes dc France ecar- teles dans celles d'Angleterre, c'est ce que des sujets aussi zelea que Mon- sieur d'Argenson et les autres officiers preposez pour la police tie doivent nullement souffrir." t He next, in a threatening manner, reminds the poor shopkeeper how, according to " Candem [sic] Historien Angloys," Queen Mary Stuart was 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 ? 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, 1863. t A very amusing French author of the time of Louis XIV., celebrated for his witty letters. % "Let England amuse herself with idle fancies, and imagine that her kings are kings of France ; 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 such zealous subjects as M. d'Argenson, and the other police magistrates, ought by no means to permit." I 130 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. House Yard, St Paul's Churchyard. On this man the following catch appeared in the Pleasant Musicall Companion, 1726 : — " 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, You 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 Kow, 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 w T hich they distil there, and this, with the vulgar in that country, has gradually become corrupted from Juniper to Jenever, the latter term being still further corrupted here to Geneva, and Gin. HERALDIC AND EMBLEM A TIC. 1 3 1 The Cross Keys are the arms of the Papal See, the emblem of St Peter and his successors : — " Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain ; The golden opes, the iron shuts amaine." Milton. This sign was frequently adopted by innkeepers and other tenants of religious houses, even after the Beformation ; for the Cross Keys figure in the arms of the Bishops of York, Cashel, Exeter, G-loster, and Peterborough. At the Cross Keys in Gracechurch 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 1681* 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." The QuacJc Vintners. A Satire, 1712. Besides, it is famous as the sign of Bernard Lintot, 1736, the 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 t of private families. The causes which dictated the * Thos. Delaune's Present State of London, 1681. 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 of servants. A ballad in the Roxburgh collection thus alludes to this custom : * — " The nobles of our Land were much delighted then, To have at their command a Crue of lustie Men, Which by their Coats were knowne, of Tawnie, Red, or Blue ; With crests on their sleeves showne when this old cap was new." * " Time's alteration ; or, The old man's rehearsall what brave days he knew A great while agone, when his old cap was new." Rox. Ball., i. fol. 407. 1 3 2 THE HISTOR Y OF SIGNED A EDS. choice of such subjects were various. One of the earliest was this : — " 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!' * This, again, led to the custom of prefixing to inns the arms of men of note who had sojourned in the house, as may be seen in Machyn's Diary : — " The xxv day of January [1560] toke ys gorney into Franse, inbassadur to the Frenche kyng, the yerle of Bedford and he had iij dozen of logyng sketchy ons" (lodging escutcheons). Thus, on the road from London to Westchester the coats of arms of several of the lord-lieutenants of Ireland might formerly have been observed, either as signs to inns or else framed and hung in the best rooms. That this was a general custom with ambassadors appears from Sir Dudley Pigge's " Compleat Ambssador," 1654; who, alluding in his preface to the reserve of English ambassadors, observes : — " We have hardly any notion of them but their arms, which are hung up in inns where they passed/' Montaigne also mentions this practice as usual in France : — " A Plombieres il me commanda a la faveur de son hostesse, selon Vhumeur de la nation, de laisser un escusson de ses armes en bois, quun peintre dudict lieu fist pour un escu ; et le fist l'hostesse curieusement attacher a la muraille pas dehor 'S. r t But the feudal relations between the higher and lower classes contributed above all to the adoption of this description of signs. A vassal, for instance, would set up the arms or crest of his Stow gives us a good picture of a great nobleman's retinue in the good old time, before "Vie nobility took to hotel-keeping : — " The late Earl of Oxford, father to him that now /iveth, 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 Plombieres he ordered me to leave with his hostess, according to the fashion of the country, an escutcheon of his arms in wood, which a painter of that town made for a crown • and the hostess had it carefully hung upon the wall outside the house." HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC. *33 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,* 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 signes 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 destinc- sion or Mark of one Mannes house from anouther, and [not] only by printers but all outlier 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 : — The Antelop was ye bag of Kg. Henery ye 8, as wel as ye porculouses § and ye Rose and Crown. Ancor, 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. Bour : White, ye Lord Winsor ; Blew with a Mullit, ye Earle of Oxford. Bucket and Chane, ye Lord Wills. Bare and Ragged Staffe, ye Earle of Lester. Bare, Black, ye Earle of Warwicke. Bare, White, ye Earle of Kent. Bears Head Muscled, ye Lord Morley. Roe Buck, ye Lord Montacute. Bulls head erased : White, ye Ld. Wharton ; Red, ye Lord Ogle. Crescent or halfe Moune, ye Earle of Northumberland and ye Tern poralati. Condy, black, ye Ld. Bray. Cat, ye Lord Euers; Cat of Mount and Leper,|| Mar. of Worster and ye Ld. Buckhurst. Crosses and Mitters, and Cross Keyes, Archbishop and Bishopes, Abbots. Cardinales Capes or hat, you have not meney of them, the war set up by sume that had ben seruants to Tho. Wollsey. Dragon: Black, Wilsher^j and Clifford; Red, Cumberland; Greene, ye Earle of Pembrocke. * Ilarl. MSS., 5910, vol ii. p. 167. f Badge. % Liveries. I Portcullises. || Leopard. «j Wiltshire. 134 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Eagle, ye Earle of Cambridge; Eagel and Childe, ye Earle of Derby; Black, ye Lord Norris. Eagle, sprede, ye Emperour. 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. Phenix, ye Lord Hertford, and ye sign that Mansell [set up,] Copper, etc.* Ffox, Red, Gloster and ye Bishop of Winchester. Fealcolne, ye Marquess of Winchester ; armed and collered, ye Ld. St John and Ld. Zouch. Gripes Ffoot, ye Ld. Stanley. Gotte, ye Earle of Bedford. Grayhond, ye Ld. Clenton, Druery, and ye Lord Bich.+ Gripfen, ye Ld. Wintworth. Harpe, for Irland. Hedge-Hog, Sr. Henery Sidney ; Will. Seeres was his printer. Hind, Sr. Christopher Haton ; Hen. Beneyman his printer. Lock, ye House of Suffolcke. Such a sign without Temple Bar. Lion, Bleu, Denmarke. Lion, Red, Bampant, Scotland. Lion, White, Pasant, ye Earl of March. Lion, White, Kampant, Norfolk and all ye Hawardes. Maiden Head, ye Duck of Buckingatn. Portcullis, ye Earle of Somerset, Wayles, and ye Lord of Worster. The Pye, ye Ld. Keuiers. % 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, Blacke, ye King of Scots. Swane, ye Ducke of Buckingham, Gloster, Hartford, Hunsdon, Staf- ford. Sune, ye Spirituallaty, ye Lord Willoby and York. Staffe : White Ragged, Warwick ; Black, Kent. Starre, ye Earle of Sussen and ye Lord Ffitzwalter. Sarason Head, ye Ld. Audley and ye Ld. Cobham. Talbot, ye Earl of Shrewsbury and ye Lord Mountagew. Tiger's Head, Sr. Ffrancis Walsiugam. 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 luses, ye King of France. Fooles Head, ye Earle of Bath. Grayhond, ye Ld. Clinton ; white, ye f ameley of ye Druries. * A transcript adds to these the names of Archbishop Parker and Jugge. t This statement is modified lower down, X Rivera. HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC, 135 Grayhondes Head, ye Lord Eich. Hart, While, Kg. Richard ye 2 and Sir Walter Rowley.* Horse, White, ye Earle of Arondele. Hornes, 2 of seluerrf ye Ld. Cheney. Milsale or Windmil, ye Lord Willobe. Rose in te Sunbeams, ye Ld. Wardon of ye 8 ports. Spearhead, Pembroke. Vnicorne, White, ye Ld. Windsor. 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 » Raleigh. f Silver. I36 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 masters 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 Aems, Griffin's Arms, Chaffcutter's Arms, Union Arms,* 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 this 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."t The shield was in the shape of a spade, which was used "When Adam delved and Eve span," 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 : — * 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 a better "fist" at smashing than at "wooing the Muses :" — " The champion I see is again on the list, His standard — the Union Arms. His customers still he will serve with his fist, But without creating alarms. Instead of a floorer, he tips them a glass, Divested of joking or fib ; Then, ' lads of the fancy,' don't Tom's house pass-* But take a hand at the game of CribW t Sylvanus Morgan's Sphere of Gentry. London, 1661. HERALDIC AND EMBLEM A TIC I 3 7 u 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." Henry VI, Part II. a. v. s. 1. 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 Hear wants a tail and cannot be a Lion."f The Bear and Bagged 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 Bobsart, who in this very house fell a victim to that stony-hearted adventurer, Bobert 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 Bagged Staff, we may inform the reader, is jocularly spoken of as the Angel and Flute. The Bagged Staff figures also in single blessedness. A car- * There is a sign of the Green Lion in Short Street, Cambridge, the only one I hare ever seen, t Fuller, in voce Warwickshire. 138 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. riers' inn in West Smithfield 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, u 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 * Delaune's Present State of London. 1682. HERALDIC AND EMBLEM A TIC. 1 39 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 1584. 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 Foot, 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 each 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 Castille, 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." Milton's father, a scrivener by trade, lived in Bread Street, * Printed in the Journal of Erit. Archaeolog. Assoc, vol. vii. p. 71. t Taylor's Pennyl^sse Pilgrimage, 1630. 140 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Cheapside, at the sign of the Spread. Eagle, which was I113 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. The Strand her Spreading Eagle justly boasts. 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."t The Grasshoppers on the London signboards w T ere all de- scendants of Sir Thomas Gresham's sign and crest, which is still commemorated by the w r eather-vane on the Eoyal Exchange, of which he was the first founder. The original sign appears to have been preserved up to a very recent date. u 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." J The ancients used the grasshopper as a fascinum, (fascination, enchantment ;) for this purpose Pisistratus erected one as a Kara^rjv?) before the Acropolis at Athens ; hence grasshoppers, in * Catherine Street, in the Strand, was a disreputable thoroughfare in the last century. Gay alludes to it in his " Trivia : " — " Oh, 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 amove, 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. f Art of Living in London. Printed for William Griffin, at the Garrickshead, in Catherine Street, in the Strand, 1768. X Pennant's Account of London, 1813, p. 618. HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC. 141 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 Pilchard 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 Helmsley estate in Yorkshire from George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. The land is now occupied by the Earl of Fevers- ham, (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 Bose : — "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 erne Bichardus 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 Churchy ard," lo41. He was probably a successor of Bichard 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 ; so, 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 booK 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 manner aro sometimes called incundbles. I42 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. of ware, and set up the signe of the Maydenhead ; 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, 'I 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 has 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 maydenhead, 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 Misson's remark, that there were no inscriptions on the London signs to tell what they represented, otherwise the maid could not have been passed off as a widow 1 Guillim's Display of Heraldry, folio, p, 197. HERALDIC AND EMBLEM A TIG. 1 4 3 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 : — THE ENGLISH MERCUME, published by authoritie, for the preven- 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 : — u 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 Robert Barker, the last of the family, died a prisoner for debt in the Kings 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 ISTortwich 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 Richard, first and second Earls of Chester, which was a wolf's 144 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. head erased ; tlie neck 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 "wolfs head," we have a parallel in- stance in one of the gates of Chester, which, from this crest, was called Wolf sgate instead of Wolf shead 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 Paeta 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.* Though it may be an odd one, you cannot but say It must needs be a sign of good liquor." Answer : " 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 ":- — " May he who has little to spend, spend nothing in drink ; May he who has more than enough, keep it for better uses." * The Vicar of Bray, the hero of Butler's comic poem, appears to have been a certain Simon Aleyn, ob. 1588; he was by turns, and as the times suited, Roman Catholic and Protestant, in the times of Henry VIII., Eiward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth. HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC. 145 May .lie who goes in to rest never remain to riot, And lie who fears God elsewhere never forget him here." 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 Katisbonne,] says Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in one of her 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 ? 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 phoenix, 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 u Eight 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. Th£ 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 fid* advertisements like any other newspaper. K I46 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Griffin Tavern, on the 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 has 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 Norden, (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 Lton 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 : — " Keep within compass, And then you 11 be sure, * In 1847, Mr Crofton Croker read a paper at a meeting of the Brit, Arch. Assoc. «it Warwick, "On the probability of the Golden Lion Inn at Fulham having been frequented by Shakespeare about the year 1595 and 1596," in which the possible genealogy of this pipe is given. HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC. H7 To avoid many troubles That others endure." 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 on the 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 w T as anciently called the Lubber's Read. Thus in the second part of Henry IV., ii. 1, the hostess says that Falstaff " 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." I48 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. The Green Man and Still is a common sign. There is one in "White Cross Street, representing a forester drinldng 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."* There seems to have been a kind of fatality attached to this sign, for the London Gazette for September 15-18, 1679, relates a murder committed at the Three Tuns, in Chandos Street, and in this same house, Sally Pridden, alias Sally Salisbury, in a fit of jealousy stabbed the Honourable John Finch in 1723. Sally was one of the handsomest " social evils " of that day, and had been nicknamed Salisbury, on account of her likeness to the countess of that name. For her attempt on the life of Finch she was committed to Newgate, where she died the year after, " leaving behind her the character of the most notorious woman that ever infested the hundreds of old Drury." f Her portrait has been painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller. Sometimes the sign of the One Tun may also be seen. It occurs in the following newspaper item : — a 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, s,nd nextdajr they were committed to Newgate." — Weekly Journal, Decem- ber 6, 1718. That these fellows meant mischief is evident from a subsequent * Pepys here makes a mistake, for he tells us afterwards, July 4, when he went to the Session House to hear the trial, that Basil was the murdered man. f 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- duced kere. HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC. I49 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 Teree Cups was a famous carriers' inn in Aldersgate in the seventeenth century. The Bam 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 on the pulling down of that house the society was dissolved. CHAPTER 17. SIGNS OF ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. 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 Honse 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 natures, 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 : " The lion roars, but do not fear, Cakes and beer sold here." 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 ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. I 5 [ Cock and Lion, a very common sign, their meeting, if we may believe ancient naturalists, is anything but agreeable to the lion. " The lyon dreadeth the white cocke, because he breedeth a preciou3 stone called allectricium, like to the stone that hight 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 silis e vetriculo galli castrati trahitur post quartu anu. Ultima eius quatitas e ad magnitudine fabe — que gladiato7\ hns in ore penanct. fvictus ac sine siti." f The Lion and Ball owes its origin to another mediaeval notion : " 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 she thinketh she seeth one of her young ones, and so they escape the swiftness of her pursuit." $ 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 w r as 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." * J. Bossewell, Workes of Armourie, London, 1597, p. 97. 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. Gladi&iors take it in their mouths in order to be invincible, and not to suffer from thirst." — Tractatus de Animalibus et Lapidibus, 4to, circa 1465-75. X Guillim's Display of Heraldry. The same is also related in the latin Bestiarium, Harl. MSS. 4751 ; and by Albertus Magnus, Camerarius, &c. 1 5 2 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. When Anson was in general disfavour about the Minorca affair, the following biting reply to this inscription went the round of the newspapers : — " The Traveller s reply to the Centurion's Lion, " 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!), 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, — Beware, of. y e .Beare, 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. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. I 5 3 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, on 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 South wark 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 146|, it was repeatedly visited by Jocky of Norfolk, the then Sir John Howard, 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 in 1691. " 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. I 54 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, 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." Last Search after Claret in Southivarlc, 1691, 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, and 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, was 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 fJarl 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. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. 1 55 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 BartholomewVday 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 Bear. 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 Bummer, 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 snow 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 * Timbs's Flyleaves. 156 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. battlements; and, in the description of the animal, it is said, " In eorum dorsis, P[er] si et Indi ligneis turribus collocati tarn- 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 the 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 Komans,* 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 Boman, 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 Tindee-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 dragsn by his weight. The Elephant and Feiak, 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 preGxed to Leland's Collectanea, p. lxiii., 1770. See also Sir John Oldeastle. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. I 5 7 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 : " He is a priest who lives within, Gives advice gratis, and administers gin." In the seventeenth century, the Beindeeb, 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 Eained 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 1682, when there was " Eight 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 Beindeer at Bishop Stortford, the Vice-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, u 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 were used to typify certain chemical actions. In 158 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 liochst Artzney im Drachen ist." »f 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 etrursum coagulatus." J To which 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 fur ihm mag gnesn Der Basilisc mag ihm nit gleich wesn. Wer diesen Wurmb wol weiss zu todtn Der kompt auss alien seinen Nothen. Sein Farber in seinem Todt sich vermehrn ; Auss seiner Gifffc Artzney thut werden. Sein Gifffc 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 Teutscher Tractat von Philosophischen Steine, welchen fur Jahren ein adelicher Teutscher Philosophus, Lampert Spring geheissen mit schone Figuren beschrieben hat. Frankfort am Main, 1625." 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 fire 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." ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. I 59 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 he is the mightiest 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." * This incombustibility made it a very proper sign for alchemists End apothecaries, and with the last it still continues as such, at least on the Continent. Why the early Venetian printers adopted it as a sign is less evident. In France it was certainly a favourite sign with this class of workmen ; but this was from the fact of its having been the badge of Francis I., a liberal patron of the arts and sciences. 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. Beligious 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 Bow 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 praesenti veneno sudare et ideo ferri ad mensas nobilium, et fieri inde manubria cultellorum quae infixa mensis prodant * Bossewell, Workes of Armourie, p. 61. t Allusions to the unicorn occur frequently in the Old Testament, and commentators inform us that these references were tyj ical of the coming Saviour. l6o THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Kacci, 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," f we find the duty paid upon " cornu unicorni y e ounce 20s." An Italian author who visited England in the reign of Henry VII., J 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 £10,000." || Peacham places " that home of Windsor (of an unicorne very likely) " IT 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 : — u Mr Hartman had a piece of unicorn's horn, which one Mr Godeski gave him ; hee had itt att some f oraine prince's court. I had the piece in my hand. Hee desired Dr 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. f Bib. Ilarl. 5953, vol. i., p. 403. % Relation of the Island of England, published by the Camden Societj. g See Bib. Ilarl. 5953, vol. i., p. 407. J Hentzner's Travels, p. 54. Y Henry Peacham's Compleat Gentleman. ** Fuller's Worthies, voce Middlesex. PLATE VIII. TWO SPIES. (Banks's Collection, 1730.) THREE NEATS TONGUES (Harleian Collection, 1708.) MAN IN THE MOON. (Banks's Collection, 1760.) BULL AlsD MOUTH. (St Martin's-le-Grand, 1835.) BULL AND MOUTH. (Angel St., St Martin's-le-Grand. circa 1S00.) AN IMA LS AND MONSTERS. 1 6 1 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 Unicokn" and Dial was the sign of a watchmaker near the Strand Bridget Another fabulous animal that formerly (though rarely) occurred on signboards was the Cockatkice, 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 hole 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 MS. Bestiarium, Bib. Eoy. 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 in 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 the purpose of discovering poisons." — Calmefs 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 goblet." — Thunberg's Journey to Caffraria. t Daily Courant, February 2, 1711. L 1 62 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, 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 hysena 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 gj kunt aanschouwen, Maar komt hier binnen, hier zyn parf uimen 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 Powle3 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 Eat 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,)—" Heclymeth upon a vine or an apple-tree and biteth off their braunches and twigges, and when they [the apples] be 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. X Harl. MSS. 353, fol. 145. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. \6$ token of Blackman Street ; the 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 "Walbrook in 1682.t 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." £ 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 * London Gazette, No. 368. t London Gazette, Sept. 18-21, 1682. I am confident the newspapers made a misprint, and that the man's name was Haase, Dutch or German, for the Hare he represented on his sign. | Hone's Every-Day Book, Oct. 17, fol. 1. 1 64 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, 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, O God! "J 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 habet parem," the application of which is best known to mine host himself. The Baldfaced 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.R, Recollections of the Last Half Century. See also under Stunning Joe Banks in the Slang Dictionary, recently issued Toy the publisher of this work. t Gentleman? 's Magazine, March 1842. % See under Religious Signs, ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. 1 6 5 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 Bheasant, 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 Thoen at Traffick Street, Derby, seems to be a union of two signs, for the Thoen appears in the same street on 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 Bising Deer (Brampton-en-le-Morthen, Yorkshire) and the Bising 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 Banged Deer was the sign of the King's gunsmith in the Minories, 1673.* At that period this street was full of smiths : " 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 Beindeer, 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 Boebuck is equally common with the Stag ; the Golden Buck, near St Dunstan, was the shop of B. 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 Baven 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 Thkee •* London Gazette, Oct. 2-6, 1673. 1 66 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, Savans and Peal at Walsall ; the Nelson and Peal, and many others. Among the taverns with the sign of the Eoebuck 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 Lorelfs Bote :" — " Here is Mary one Marchauntes at Allgate Her Husbode dwells at ye siggne of ye CoJceldes Pate" The Horns was a tavern of note in Fleet Street in the reign of Queen Elizabeth : "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 horsebake, and so thrugh Flet Strett, and at the Hornes they dronke, and at the Gray- honde, and so thrugh Chepesyde, and so over the bryge, and so rod all nyght toward Dover." — Machyris Diary. Sometimes the Horns are specified as the Haet's Hoens 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 Pinkethman 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! 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 * Childe Harold, canto I. lxx. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. \6j 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 Highgate 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 so 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. The Red Lion and Sun, The Coopers' Arms, do. The Wrestlers, do. bullocks' -horns. The Fox and Hounds, The Lord Nelson, do. The Bell, stags'-horns. rams'-horns. The Duke of Wellington, The Coach and Horses, The Flask, do. stags'-horns. rams'-horns. The Rose and Crown, The Crowne, do. The Castle, do.- stags'-horns. The Duke's Head, do. Hone supposes the custom to have originated in a sort of graziers' club.* Highgate being the place nearest London where * Hone's Every Day Book, Jan. 17, vol. ii. 1 68 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. cattle rested on their way from the north, certain graziers were accustomed to put up at the Gatehouse for the night. 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 did 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 Hoddesdon, &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 Rue Bourg Chavin, in Lyons, there is now a pair of horns with the inscription " Sunt similia Tins ; " 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 het 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 : — il 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 of the Fox at Folkesworth, near Stilton, Hunts : — " I . HAM . A . CUNEN . FOX YOU . SEE . THEE . HIS . NO . HARM . ATCHED . To . Me . it . is . Mr . 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 * " I wear horns, which everybody sees, But many a one wears horns ana does not know it." ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. 1 69 gested by an incident in the old tale of " Beynard 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. Beynard' s predatory habits are further illustrated by the Fox and Lamb, in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle, in Allendale, &c, 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 Beynard'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 Boyal Humane Society, who had a receiving-house here. Among the many unhappy young and fair ones who were carried through that " Lasciate-ogni-speranza" 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 I 70 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 shop* 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 Ceo wn, 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 (?) 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 Euelle, in 1540 ; but what prompted him to choose this sign is now rather difficult to guess. DOMESTIC ANIMALS. Notwithstanding the ballad of the " Vicar and Moses," which pays, 11 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 Blue Horse is met * Bagford Bills. Bib. Harl. 5962. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. 171 with. Frequently the sign of the Horse is accompanied by the following hippophile advice : — " Up hill hurry me not ; Down hill trot me not ; On level ground spare me not ; And in the stable I 'm not forgot." 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 what we now call roan. The Bay Hoese is a great favourite in York- shire ; in 1861 there were, in the West Riding 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 " Dapple 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 Yilliers, Duke of Buckingham, spent the last years of his life, and died. "The Duke of Queensbury being present at his death, knowing tbe * Postman, February 1-3, 1711. 172 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Duke to be a dissenter, and thinking lie must be a Catholic, offered to send 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 ! ' " All of a piece ! So ended " That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim." * 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 Aems ; 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 Hoese Cellak, 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- End." — 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- * Richarclsoniaiia, p. 168. t Timbs, Curiosities of London, p. 402. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. W3 gravings were 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 Running Hoese 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 Hoo, 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. ' Baces 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 Hoese and Groom, and the Hoese and Jockey, are the most prevalent. Racing, from time immemorial, has been a favourite English sport. Fitzstephen meutions 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." In the reign of Queen Elizabeth races were much in vogue, * As quoted by Strutt in "U-liggam," &e. I 74 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. and betting carried to great excess. The famous George Eail 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 Hoese is an old and still frequent sign; it occurs on trades tokens ; as John Harcourt at the Bell and Black House 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 * 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 Hors 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- * PriDted in Leland'3 Collectanea, pp. 270, 272. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. I 75 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 on 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 of the bell. Names of celebrated race horses are found on signboards as well as human celebrities. Such are Bay Childees at Dronfield, Derby ; Flying Childees at Melton Mowbray ; Wild Dayeell, Oldham ; Filho da Puta, Nottingham ; and Filho tavern, Man- chester. Blink Bonny is common in Northumberland ; Flying Dutchman occurs in various places ; and the Aeabian Hoese at Aberford, in Yorkshire, may perhaps represent the great Arabian Godolphin, the sire of all our famous racers. The Hoese and Tigee, at Kotherham, 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 Hoese, 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 Hoese and Doesitee, which is simply an old rendering of the more common Pack Hoese, formerly the usual sign of a posting inn. No doubt the Feighted Hoese, which occurs in many places, belongs to this class of horses, — the expression " fright " being a corruption of freight. Some publicans who, with their trade combine the calling of farrier, set up the sign of the Hoese and Faeeiee, — in Ireland ren- dered as the Bleeding Hoese. A Dutch farrier in the village of Schagen, in the seventeenth century, put up the sign of the White Hoese, and wrote under it the following very philosophi- cal verse : — " In't witte Pa&rd worden de paarden haar voeten me tyzer beslagen * A MS. of the sixteenth century, Bib. Harl. 2150, fol. 356, gives full particulars of llAsfete and procession. 1 j6 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Dat men de menschen dat mee kon doen zy hoefden dan geen schoenen te dragen."* The 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 Hoese 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.J A curious anecdote is told concerning the sign of a Gelding. * "At the White Horse, horses are shod with iron, Pity the same cannot be done to men, for then they would need no shoes." f 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 summer fishery. X Pennant's Account of London, p. 423. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. I J J 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 Make 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 : — u 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. Deny down," &c. 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 Drury 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 * Gentleman's Magazine, March 1842; and London Gazette, Dec. SO, -1718. M I 78 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Peckhani 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 : — u Under the Porch of Staninfield Church in Suffolk, I saw a tile with a * Lloyd's Evening Post, Jan. 16-19, 1761. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. I 79 horseshoe upon it placed there for this purpose, though one would imagine that the holy water would have been sufficient." Concerning the same superstition Brand observes : — " 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." f 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 Eoad, 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 * Brand's Popular Superstitions. f Robert Herrick, Hesperides, p. 234. l8o THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 swords 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 wait 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 : — " /^N Friday the 16th of this instant, at two in the afternoon, will be \J 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 be 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 compieat 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 shoot with him for it, being left out by mistake in our last." f The Hoop and Horseshoe on Towerhill, was formerly called the Horseshoe. This, like every old tavern, has its murder to record : — a The last week one Colonel John Scott took an occasion to kill one * Aubrey, Anecdotes and Traditions, p. 3. f Postman, June 1703. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. 1 8 1 John Buttler, a hackney coachman, at the Horse Shoe Tavern on Tower Hill, without any other provocation 'tis said, but 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 faced, wears a peruke sometimes and has a very h look. All good people would do well if they can to apprehend him that he may be brought to justice." * The Hoeseshoe 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 Publick. 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. Her hours are from 7 in the Morning till 12, and from 1 till 8 at Night. "+ 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. Hey wood, 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 of the world in 7 days, sevenfold vengeance on who- * Intelligencer, May 30, 1681. i Bagford Bills. Bib. Harl. 5964. 1 82 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. soever 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. "Face. What say you to his Constellation, Doctor, the Balance ? Sub. No, that is stale and common : A Townsman born in Taurus gives the Bull Or the BulVs 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, Langworthgate, 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 ol" 7 leagues, 7 liberal arts, and innumerable other instances. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. 1 83 Bull's Inn in Bishopsgate 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." t At the Bull public-house on Towerhill, Thomas Otway, the play writer, died of want at the age of 33, on the 14th 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." Nares, 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 Aguecheek to write : " as many lies as will lie 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 : " The Bull is tame so fear him not, All the while you pay your shot. * Collier's Annals, vol. iii. p. 271, and Halliwell's Introduction to Tarlton's Jests, p. 16. t Spectator, No. 509. t "He went about almost naked in the rage of hunger," says Dr Johnson, "and finding apentleman in a neighbouring coffeehouse asked him for a shilling; and Otway going away bought a roll and was choked with the first mouthful." 184 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. "When money's gone, and credit's bad, It's that which makes the Bull run mad." 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. He 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. i Well,' says he, ' I must make shift ; this is a dreadful time, but it is but for one night.' 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 ; c alas,' said she, ' I never thought more of him ; he bade me carry him some warm ale, but I * Lewis's Islington, p. 160. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. 1 85 forgot/ Upon which, not the maid, but some other person was sent up to see 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 Bed 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 : — That the Globe Wherein (quoth he) reigns a whole world of vice, Had been consumed, the Phenix burnt to ashes, The Fortune whipp'd for a blind — Blackfriars, 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." X • 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 * The History of the Plague, by Defoe. f There is still a Bull's Head 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 concerta for a period of 36 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. X Randolph's Muses' 1 coking-Glass. 1 86 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. the second attired or, &c. ; 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 Eatcliffe 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 xij day of June (1560) dyd ryd in a care * abowt London ij men and 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-hed 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." As a variation, on the Bull's Head there is the Cow's Face : — " r^\ EORGE TURlSriDGE, aged about 16, a short thickset Lad with a \J 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 : — "fTlHIS 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 Tumbrill ; thus Edward I. in 1240 enacted a law by which millers stealing corn were to be chastised by the Tumbrill. — See Fabian's Chronicles, 2 Edw. I. ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. 1 8 7 Inspector I employ about Wonders, inquire at the Golden Lyon, opposite the Halfmoon Tavern, Drury Lane, into Ihe merit of this silent sage/' * Among the combinations in which the Bull is met with on signboards, the Bull and Dog- is one of the most commor, 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 BuTCHEK,t the bull is placed in still worse company ; 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, — " Zyt verblyt Soo lang gy er zyt."i The Bull and Magpie, which occurs at Boston, has been explained as meaning the Pie, nivu%i 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 manoeuvre 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 * For the chequered life of this strange individual, see Caulfield's Memoirs of Ke- markable Persons, vol. ii. From the Original Weekly Journal, Sept. 13, 1718, wa 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 corrupted form of Bull and Butcher, will be found in the first division of this work. Vide Historical Signs. X " Be happy while you live." 1 88 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. bull was tied when being baited, in allusion to the stout stick for* merly 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 on account of the singular custom of Bull Running, 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 Bull" 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 Handle 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 Poult on 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 ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. 189 safe 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 ? t 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 intralles 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 Milk," &c, &c. % The Red Cow, in Bow Street, was the sign of a noted tavern, (afterwards called the Red Rose,) which stood at the corner of Rose Alley. It was when going home from this tavern that Dryden was cudgelled by bravoes, hired by Lord Rochester, 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 Dry den's old age, Pope, then a boy, came here to look at the great man whose fame in after years he was to * M. Misson's Memoirs and Observations on his Travels in England, 1719. f Tom Brown's Amusements for the Meridian of London, 1700. X From a MS., entitled "Medycine Boke" of one Samson Jones, doctor of Bettws, Monmouthshire, 1650-90 ; a note on the flyleaf says, " I had this book from Mr Owen of Bettws, Monmouth. He assured me he knew for a fact it was the receipt bo ke of . Samson 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 earth must very quickly have hidden his blunders. 19O THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. equal if not to eclipse. This tavern was the famous mart for libels and lampoons ; one Julyan, a drunken dissipated u secretary to the Muses/' as he calls himself, was the chief manufacturer. Near Marlborough, Wilts, there is an alehouse having the sign of the Bed Cow, with the following rhyme : — - " The Red Cow Gives good Milk now." That under a Brown Cow at Oldham is still more sublime : — " This Cow gives such Liquor, 'Twould puzzle a Viccar (sic.) " 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 on 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 1668 there were two Bam's Head inns in Fenchurch Street ; one of them was a carriers' inn for the Essex people. The Bam's Skin, which occurs at Spalding in Lincolnshire, is another name for the Fleece. The Black Tup figures on a sign near Bochdale, 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 :" — 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. * " The Country Carbonadoed," by D. Lupton, 1632. Voce " Alehouse." f " The tavern opened With signboard and bush ; The landlady's hair neatly dressed, Tied up in a knot." FLOWERS, TREES, HERBS, ETC. 235 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 Eose, 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 3E,|if«(!C, in its heart, and round it the words SIS, ROSA, FLOS FLORUM, MORBIS MEDECINA MEORUM.* And in Caxton's Psalter, above a woodcut representing an angel holding a shield with a rose on it, occur the words : — " Per te rosa toluntur vitia, Per te datur mestis leticia." f 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 • Be thou, rose, queen of flowers, the cure of my diseases. t Through thee, rose, sins are taken away, Through thee, gladness is given to the sorrowing. t Blount's "Fragmenta Antiquitatis, or Ancient Tenures,- p. 243. 236 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. meant, the 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 Eose ; in Macclesfield, and at Preston, for instance, there is the Moss Eose; on Silkstone Common, in Yorkshire, the Bunch of Eoses ; on the London Eoad, Preston, the Rosebud, &c. The Three Eoses 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 Ludgate Street in 1673. At the Eose Gar- land, Eobert Coplande, the bookseller and printer, published in 1534 Dame Juliana Berner's "Boke of Hawkyng, Huntyng, and Fyshyng." This shop was in " the Flete Strete. ; ' Eose garlands or chaplets were not only worn in the middle ages as head-dresses, but also awarded as archery prizes. " On enery syde a Rose garlonde They shott under the lyne, Whoso faileth of the Hose garlonde, sayth Robyn, His tackyll he shall tyne. " Merry Gestes of Robin Hoode. Copland's Eose 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 Eose, is sometimes used as a sign, or written under the pictorial representation of the rose ; it occurs on a trade's token of Cambridge,* 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 Harpocrates ; 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 putanrine clausa, Sic os vincla ferat, validis arcietur habenis, Indicatque suis prolixa silentia labris."f At Lullingstone Castle, in Kent, the residence of Sir Percival Dyke, Bart., there is, says a correspondent of Notes and Queries, * See Boynes' Tokens issued in the seventeenth century in England, Wales, and Ireland. t Like the rose in spring, hidden in its bud, so must the mouth be closed and restrained with strong reins, enforcing silence to the loquacious nps. FLOWERS, TREES, HERBS, ETC. 237 a representation of a rose nearly two feet in diameter, surrounded with the following inscription : — " Kentish true blue Take this as a token, That what is said here Under the Rose is spoken." 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 : — " Al wat hier onder de Roos geschied, Laat dat aldaar en meld het met." * There is one sign of the Eose, the origin of which it is difficult to ascertain, this is the Rose 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 set with quickset hedges, full grown, and kept in excellent order, and in- dented like town walls." f 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, * All that is done here, under the Rose, Leave it here and do not divulge it. t Memoirs by Samuel Sainthill, 1659, Gent. Mag., lxxxiii. p. 524. 238 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, The like was never erst seen heere, Such as this flower the Marygolde.' , 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,* when it was also the sign of "Mr Cox, milliner, over against St Clement's Church in the Strand." t 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 L, 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 up of the Exchequer in the reign of Charles II., was at one time a part- ner in this house. It was here that Dry den deposited the £50 offered for the discovery of the bullies of the " Eose-alley cudgel ambuscade." § The old sign of the house is still preserve^HBy 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. The Blue Bell is very com- mon, but, inter doclores 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 : — * London Gazette, Nov. 6, 1673. + Ibid., Oct. 20, 1673. % See the " Little London Directory, 1677," recently reprinted. § Domestic Intelligencer, Sept. 9, 1679. FLOWERS. TREES, HERBS, ETC. 239 " For you, there's Rosemary and Rue, these keep Seeming and savour all the winter long, Grace and remembrance be to you both." Winter s Tale, ac. iv., s. 4. Hence Kosemary and gloves were of old presented to those who followed the funeral of a friend. Fruit trees are much more common, particularly the Apple- teee 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 Coldbath 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 tern., 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 used 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.* 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 Red-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.t 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 gilt 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 * Banks's Bills in the British Museum. f Hertford Journal, January 7, 1775. 24O THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Kotherhithe, 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 side 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 also the sign of a tavern at the south side of St Paul's Churchyard, over against the JSTew 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 ye 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 * Sfcow's Survey, p. 340. t ##% Courant, July 1, 1718. FLOWERS, TREES, HERBS, ETC. 24 1 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 Oeange-tree and Two Jars was the sign of a shop of the latter description in the Haymarket 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 * Banks's Bills. f Harl. MSS., 279, p. 47, a cookery book of that period. 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 :— ffirst for bread, xijd. ; ale, iijs. iiijd. ; and wine, xvjd. Item to viijd. vjd. vd. ijd. xiiijd. xd. loyne of moton; maribones and beef; powdered beef; ij capons; ij geese; v conyes; iiijd. xviijd. vd. xijd. vjd. xd. j leg moton ; vj places ; vj pegions ; ij doz. larkes ; salt and sause ; butter and eggs, &c, &c, &c. 242 THE HIS TOE Y OF SIGN BO A EDS. as hors d'oeuvres, for Handle Holme, in his instructions how to ar- range a dinner, (in that omnium gatherum, " Academy of Armory,' 7 ) 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 shott and threw eges and orengs on a-gaynst a-nodur."* In an "Account of several Gardens near London," in 1691, t 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 Lemon 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 * Machyn's Diary. f Archseologia, vol. xii. FLOWERS, TREES, HERBS, ETC. 243 beautiful letters which Estienne proudly mentions on his title- pages : " Ex officina Eoberti 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 shine ; To crown the bush, a little Punch- Gut Bacchus dangling of a bunch, Sits loftily enthron'd upon What 's called (in miniature) a Tun." Compleat Vintner: London, 1720, p. 86. 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 ag from Pliny and other authors. We had a vineyard in East Smithfield, am other in Hatton Garden, (which at this time is called Vine Street,) and a third in St Giles-in-the-Fields. f 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 Eomans." 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 Robert of Gloucester, in summing up the various commodities of the English counties, says : — " And London ships most, and wine at Winchester." The Isle of Ely was called Isle des Vignes, and the tithe on the vines yielded as much as three or four tuns of wine to the bishop. Even in Richard 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. lxxv. ; there is also a paper on Vines in England in Archseologia, i. p. 321 ; and Roach Smith's Collectanea Antiqua, vol. vi., p. 78, et 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 very site assigned to this vineyard in Domesday Book, a.d. 1070. 244 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. the twelfth century, as good a wine as many of the provinces of France ; this county, in fact, produced the best wine : — " There is no province in England hath so many or such good vineyards as this county, [Gloucester J either for fertility or sweetness of the grape ; the wine whereof carrieth no unpleasant tartness, being not much inferior to French in sweetness." * 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. — I went to see Mr Koger'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 to 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 Barleycoen, the Barley Mow, the Bar- ley Stack, the Malt and Hops, and the Hopbine, 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. ei 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 * Hollinshed's Description of Britain, p. 3. t Faulkner, Antiquities of Kensington. % CJ-rosley, vol. i., p. 83. § He lived then in Exeter Street, at a stay-maker's. Boswell's Johnson : London, 1819, p. 67. FLOWERS, TREES, HERBS, ETC. 245 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 was 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 Teee 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 : — " Verno tempore ficus arbor speciosis floribus aut fructuum prsecocium abundantia minim e sese ostentat, nullamque inanem hominibus de se spem injicit : in autumno autem fructus suaviss. ac quidem in illis reconditos quasi flores quosdam proferre solet."* The Almond Teee was the sign of John Webster in St Paul's Churchyard, in 1663 ; and the Peach Teee 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 Geeen Teee, 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." — Joachimus Camerarius, " Symbolorum Centuries Quatuor," 1697, Centur. i., p. 18. 246 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 : — " I am an oak and not a yew, So drink a cup with good John Pugh." 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, with 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 on 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 Fir 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. v He had chosen this sign because he sold, amongst other herbs, "buckthorn and elder-berries, besides leeches and vipers" What the use of the first was is well known; FLOWERS, TREES, HERBS, ETC. 247 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 : — 11 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 hereoffare 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." As an attribute of forsaken love it is of constant occurrence in old plays : — " Sylli. If you forsake me, Send me word, that I may provide a willow garland To wear when I drown myself." Massinger's Maid of Honour, a. iv. s. 5, 1631. And in the same play Sylli, who thinks himself the preferred lover, says to his rival : — " You may cry willow, willow !" — Ibid., a. v. s. 1. Shakespeare uses the same emblem frequently, particularly in Desdemona'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 should 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 tks 248 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. midst thereof ;" or else from a coincidence between the weeping willow and falling tears. Another reason has been assigned : the Agnus cashes 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 his love must wear a willow garland." — Swans Speculum Mundi, ch. vi. sec. 4. 1635. The frequency of the sign of the Yew Tkee is not to be attri- buted to its association with the churchyard, but to its being the wood 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 Teee is one of the oldest symbols known : it was used as such by the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Eomans, 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- alium Palmse attribuunt, ista non postrema est, quod hsec arbor non facile crescat, nisi radiis solaribus opt. foveatur nee non humore aliquo conveni- ente irrigetur."* 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 JamesV ; t Deep play was the order of the day * " 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 cannot well thrive unless it be properly basked by the beams of the sun, and watered by some neighbouring stream." — J. Camerarius, " Centuria," i., 1697. f Defoe's Journey through England, p. 168. FLOWERS, TREES, HERBS, ETC. 249 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, tho 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?' ' I 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. Eoger 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, where gaming is added to all the rest, and the summons of wh seldom 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." f Chocolate was known in Germany as early as 1624, when Joan Franz. Rauch 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 : — " TN BISHOPSGATE STREET, in Queen's Head Alley, at a French- i 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." t It is amusing to observe the fluctuating reputation of chocolate on its first introduction. M me . de Sevigne, 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- pa] ace 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 Tott en- 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. " The * Horace Walpole' s Letters to Mr Mann, February 6, 1780. I As quoted in Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, ii. p. 326. t Publick Advertiser, Tuesday, June 16-22, 1657. 250 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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. Am ong the London trades tokens there is on e 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."* 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 the 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 Haetichoake, 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.' " f * Hatton's New View of London, 1708, p. 36. t Bagford Bills. FLOWERS, TREES, HERBS, ETC. 25 I Probably the novelty of the plant bad 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 cen moet pryzen. Dit 's in de drie Radyzen." % 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 Wheatsheaf is an extremely common inn, public-house, and baker's sign ; it is a charge in the arms of these three corpora - * Evelyn's Miscellaneous Writings, p. 735. f Gent. Mag., March 1842. X " Christ is represented here After his death and resurrection, As a great gardener Whom every body must praise. This is at the Three Radishes." I » Adam and Eve lived in Paradise, They rarely ate stock fish, but a great deal of hotchpotch, lettuce, and radishes. All sorts of vegetables sold here for 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." 252 THE HISTOR Y OF SIONBOA EDS. 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 Oatsheaf 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 Tobacco 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 Bevels," a play by Ben Jonson ; one of the interlocutors says, — " I have my three sorts of tobacco in my pocket" CHAPTER VIII. BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS SIGN'S. 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 Eeformation 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 booksellers 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. "* 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, 1632." 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 — M Insteade of blew, which steadfaste is and dene, She weraed colours of many a diverse grene." * New Essays and Characters, by John Stephens the younger, of Lincoln's Inn, Genu London, 1631, p. 221. 254 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. It also signified piety and sincerity. Randle Holme* says — " This colour, blew, doth, represent the sky on a clear, sun-shining 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 inkbottles to the favourite three Bibles, as we see from an advertisement, giving the price of playing cards in 1711 : — " QJOLD 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." f 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 Eivington 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 Row 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 * Randle Holme, " Academy of Armour and Blazon," p. 52. 1 Postman, Feb. 1-3, 1711. BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS. 255 them down. A Bible, Sceptke, and Crown, carved in wood, may still be seen on 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 Piiblick Advertiser, March 1, 1759 — " rP.O BE HAD at the Bible and Lamb, near Temple Bar, on the Strand X Side, the Skin for Pains in the Limbs, Price 2s." 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. Rowland 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 ; whilst 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 Yirgiliana3. 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, t * "Notandum quoq. eius (pavonis) carnem quod D. Augustinus quoq., lib. xxi. de civitate Dei, cap. iii., et Isidorus, lib. xii., affirmant non putrescere." — Camerarius, Cen* tur., iii. 20, 1697. How to make this agree with Skelton's idea it is not very easy to explain — " Then sayd the Pecocke, All ye well wot, I sing not musycal, For my breast is decay'd." — Skelton's Armony ofBir fs. f See Fosbrooke's Encyclopedia of Antiquities, vol. ii., p. 673. 256 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Kuth i. 16: ** A ND RUTH said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from fol« Xl_ 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 to tell me if or not ? " If the question be answered in the 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 "Vicar of Wakefield;" also of C, Bates, near Pie Corner ; and of Bichard Reynolds, 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- HOLE IN THE WALL. (" Guide for Malt- Worms." Circa 1720. ) BABLEY MOW. (Hogarth's print of Beer St.) DOG AND DUCK. (In the brick wall of Bethlehem HospitaL ) FLYING HORSE. ("Guide for Malt-Worms." Circa 1720.) BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS. 257 though at the first glance this sign seems taken from the doubtful books of the Old Testament, still there is nothing in the Apocr} 7 - 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 Kino Astyages Akms, 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 persona? 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.f 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, ]\_ 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 Road, 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 thi* particular subject. R 258 THE HISTOR Y OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 ground, May 16, 1783. Hogarth has represented the Adam and Eve in the March of the Guards to Finchley. 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 Manhoocf 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. by Thomas Smallwood, A.M., Gymnasiast of St. Giles, and Thomas Dimmock, A.M., Athleta of Southwarh, (Both fellows of the Athletic 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 on 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, Royal 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 like a sar- castic reflection on the mixed crowd that resort to the house, — not BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS. 259 to escape the " 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 is 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 — "IT Crawley's Booth, over against the Crown Tavern in Smithfield, x\_ 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 was the mystery performed at Whitsuntide by the company of dyers in London, and from this their sign of the Dove and Rainbow 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 Rainbow, 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 Rainbow, 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" Abraham) is still remaining in the front of a house in * Diary of John Evelyn, Feb. 3, 1684. f Bagford Collection, Bib. Hart, 593L 260 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. the Eue des Pretres, Lille, France. A Dutch wood-merchant, in the seventeenth century, also put up this sign, and illustrated its amplication by the following rhyme : — " 'T Hout is gehakt, opdat men 't zoti branden, Daarom is dit in Abram's Offerhande. " * 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 E.T thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and XX drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle ? Jesus an- swered and said unto her, "VYhosoever 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." % 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 hier waar haalt krygt vry gist, een Paaschbrood, En op Korstyd een Deuvekater." § In London, however, the use of this sign may at first have been suggested by the statues of Moses and Aaron that used to stand above the balcony of the Old Guildhall. Connected with the history of Moses, we find several other signs, one in particular, * " The wood is cut in order to be burned. Therefore is this Abraham's sacrifice." i 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. § " Moses was found in the water. Whosoever purchases his bread here shall have yeast for nought, Besides a currant-loaf at Easter, and a spice-cake at Christmas time." BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS. 26 1 mentioned by Ned Ward as the Old Phakaoh 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 Louse 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 beer, 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 Paul'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 Eichardson 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. 1 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 personce 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, &c. In Great Windmill Street, Leicester Square, it has been corrupted into the Three Spies. * ■ A Step to Stirbitch Fair," 1703. f Handle Holme, B. ii., ch. xviii. X Weekly Journal, August 4, 1722. 262 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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, &c. It was also used on the Continent. In Paris there is, or was, not many years ago, a delta Eobbia ware medallion sign in the Hue 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 kracht de leeuw belemmen kon, De Philistynen sloeg, de vossen overwon. Wiert hy 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 w T it, with the real or assumed name of Golias, who wrote the u Apocalypsis Golise," and other burlesque verses. He was the leader of a jovial sect called Goliardois, of which Chaucer's Miller was one. " He was a j angler and a goliardeis." Such a person might, therefore, have been a very appropriate tutelary deity for an alehouse, t Goliah' 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." This alludes to the Good Woman, described elsewhere in this work. 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 hee wedded a Philistyne's daughter, who at length forsooke him ; also how hee slew a lyon and 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. i BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS. 263 Harp in Limehouse ; whilst in Paris, the Rue 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 : " Absalom, hadst thou worn a perriwig, thou hadst not been hanged." 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 ! 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." * 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." f 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 Antiquse/' 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 * " 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, — •• ijike a hart the hunt escaped, wishes for the limpid water brooks, So there is here tobacco, beer, and brandy for sale to strengthen the stomach." 264 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 cite, On of the noblest in Christiante, 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, heu ! 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 " Great sale and utterance of wine, Besides beere and ale, and ipocras fine." * For the true origin of this sign, see under Miscellaneous Signs. BIBLICAL AND RELIGI0V8. 265 During the civil war there was a Salutation Tavern in Holborn, in which the following ludicrous incident happened, — if we may believe the Koyalist 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 aske her forgiveness; and down on their mary bones, and pledge a health to the king, and confusion to their masters, and so honourablie dismissed them. Oh ! for twenty thousand such gallant spirits ; when you see that one woman can beat two or three."* 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 1 9, 173f, issued by the two stewards, Edward Cave (of the Gentle- man's Magazine,) and William Bowyer, the antiquary and printer : — " Saturday, January 17, 173|-. "Sir, 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 !) ** A Royalist paper, entitled, "The Man in the Moon discovering a wo Id of irickednees under the Sun," July 4, 1649. 266 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 ! And every one part happy, as a lord ! That when at home by such sweet verses nVd, 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 they 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 1769, 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 BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS. 267 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 : — u HHO BE SOLD, a Black Girl, the property of J. B , eleven years of age, 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. " — Publich 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 * Cromwell's History of Clerkenwell, p. 32. 268 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 — " Millee 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 Royal 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. The only Comedian now that dare, Vie with the world and challenge the Fair." In France, also, the sign of the Angel is and was at all times, very common. The Hotel de FAnge, Eue 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 BIBLICAL AND BELIGIOUS. 269 seventeenth century, thus celebrates a tavern with this sign in Paris, frequented by the wits of the period : — " Je n'ay pas vu vostre theatre Qu'aussitot je ressors de la, Pour un Ange que j'idolatre, 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 V Ange 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 Egypt 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, mentioDS 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 the number three ; they say one produced two, two produced three, and three produced all things. 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 Mahacleva ; 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 Hindoos 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. 270 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Crown 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 Angelick nectar, that deserves applause, Such that may make the city love the Throne, And, like his Angel, still support the Croivn." 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 way 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 : St Mary, Islington. Sir, 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, 1680. BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS. 27 I in ye Upper Street, about y e hour 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. Walter Sebbon, John Booth. N\B. The Dinner will be on the table Bourchier Burr ell, peremptorily at Two. James Sebbon. Pray pay the Bearer Five Shillings. Stewards. 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 Ang-el and Stilliaeds. 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 : — "YXTILLIAM DEVAL, at the Angel & Stilliards, in St Ann's Lane, near V 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." f — Domestic Intelligencer, January 2d, 1679. A few years later we find the Angel and Still noticed, as in the following advertisement : — " A WELL-SET Negro, commonly called Sugar, aged about twenty /Y years, teeth broke before, and several scars in both his cheeks and forehead, having absented from his Master, whosoever secures him and * Cunningham's Handbook to London, p. 470. f Soap, wax, tallow, and similar articles were part of the merchandise in which the Hanse merchants dealt. 272 THE HISTOR Y OF SIGNBOARDS. gives notice to Benjamin Maynard, at the Angel and Still, at Deptford, shall have a Guinea Reward and reasonable charges." — Weekly 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,* 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 on 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 Viegin 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 Reaux 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 Peccatokum," 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."f 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* * Kingdom's Intelligencer, April 6-13, 1663. f Stow's Survey of London. BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS. 273 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 BadclifT and Forster 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 Registers." 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. L, Oct. 1848 ; also a detailed account Qf this venerable relic in Coiyatt's Crudities vol. i., p. 17, s 274 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 of Jerusalem, a sign at the present clay 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 ; Hanc 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."t 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 day, 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 herten Zoo geneest Medicyn, pyn, En ontlast van Smarten." % 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 Bue * Name of one of the arches of old London Bridge. | " In theytown 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." X lt Like wine, fine, Driveth away care ; So medicine cureth pain, And delivers us from suffering." BIBLICAL AND EELIGIOUS. 275 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 seventeenth 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 1640, 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 relics 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 Christi Day, in the afternoone, was publickly shewed, as some told me ; but it was not my chance to see it. Trudy, 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 Vicenza 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 Yicenza, 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 Vicenza 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 * Coryatt's Crudities, vol. i., p. 41. 276 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. words, and restored those to their 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 — " 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 ivindowsP 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 black crosses, embroidered with gold, &c. 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 Ckoss 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 down 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 Restoration, 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. BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS. 2JJ 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 nob 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 : — "to the landlord. There hang three crosses at thy door, Hang up thy wife and she '11 make four." 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 Ghost. 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 u 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 writer 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-dliote 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 ages. -278 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. that country, and were tolerably acquainted with Yalladolid, 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- scmane, 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 !" 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 Hamp- 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 go'st 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. CHAPTER IX. SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC. A t tlie 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, Talleniant des Beaux, in his " Contes et Historiettes," tells us how an innkeeper of the Rue Montmartre, in Paris, put up for his sign the God's head, (la Tete Lieu,) 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 Mon detour, there is actually a cafe known as the Nom de Jesus. Boursault, a clever writer of the time of Louis XI V., 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 Huchette, 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 Trinite, (the Trinity,) V Image 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 Honore 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 on cafes 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, &c.. &c. 2 SO TEE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. A curious French sign is mentioned by Coryatt, which he saw at Amiens. "I lay at the signe of the Ave 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, T?s pXo^svJag /xri evrikavCdiveafe, that is, Forget not your good enter- tainment 3 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 Desire, a French poet of the fifteenth century : — " En leur logis plein de vers et de teignes, Oil est log6 le grand diable d'enfer, Mettent de Dieu et de saints les enseignes, Leurs ditz logis oil n'y a que desroys, Pendre font tous sur le pave du roy De grands tableaux e-t enseignes dorees, Pour des montres qu'ils ont fort bien de quoy, Et qu'il y a de tres grasses porees. L'un pour enseigne aura la Trinite, L'autre Saint Jehan, et l'autre Saint Savin, I/autre Saint Maure, l'autre VHumanite De Jesus Christ notre Sauveur divin, De Dieu, des saintz, sont leurs crieurs de vin,f Tant aux citez que villes et villages, Des susditz sainctz les devotes images, En prophanant leur preciosite."."]: * Coryatt's Crudities, London, 1776, p. 15, reprinted from the edition of 1611. t 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 the Romans.) Thus in the "Crieries de Paris," (Barbazan, Fabliaux et Contes, vol. ii., p. 277,)- 11 D'autres cris on fait plusieurs, Qui long seraient a reciter. L'on crie vin nouveau et vieux, Duquel l'on donne a, tater." These touters had their statutes and privileges granted to them by Philip Auguste in ] 258, some of which are very curious. % 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 " Loyaulte Consciencieuse des Tavernieres :" — " Semblablement toutes leurs chambres painctes, Ou il n'y a qu'ordure et ivrognise, Portent les noms de benoistz sainctz et sainctes Contre i'honneur de Dieu et son Eglise. L'une s'apelle, a leur mode et devize, Le Par ad is et l'autre Sainct Clement. Et quant quelqu'un rabaste fermement, L'hostesse crie Andre, Gruillot, 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 SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC. 28 I 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, Tor 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 her^, And hold their manhoods cheap, while any speaks That fought with us upon St Crispin's day." Henry the Fifth, iv. 3. From Shakespeare we turn to the homely ihymes 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 pantoffel."* 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 His 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, ia 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." 2 52 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. " Hier in Krispyn kan mm de minscli int beeste villen Elk schoenen na zyn voet voor gilt terstond bestillen, Doch menig beest alheir steekt in een menschevel, Draagt zeep zyn broeder's huid en 't staat dat beest nog wel."* The St Hugh's Bones was another sign of the gentle craft ; it seems to be extinct now, but a trades token shows that, in 1657, it was the sign of a house in Stanhope Street, Claremarket. From a little chapbook, entitled, — " 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, 1725," 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 Yenice,J 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 : — tl 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 Heel block, ah ! the very same ; A Handleather and a Thumbleather likewise, To put on Shooe-thread we must devise ; * " Here at the Crispin any man may for his money 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." t So were Crispin and Crispian, and hence the trade is called the "Gentle Craft." X The gayest city in Europe three centuries ago. SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC. 2 S3 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. ' 11 Now you good Yeomen of the Gentle Craft," the story goes on, "tell me (quoth 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 harbourless ye lodged me." This benevolent attention to travellers procured him the epithet of " the good herbergeor," and in France u bon herhetr His legend in a MS., Bodleian, 1596, fol. 4, alludes to this : — 284 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. " Therfore yet to this day, thei that over lond wende, They biddeth Seint Julian, anon, that gode herborw he hem sende, And Seint Julianes Pater Noster ofte seggeth also For his faders soule and his moderes that he hem bring therto." And in " Le dit des Heureux,'' an old French fabliau : — " Tu as dit la patenotre Saint Julian a cest matin, Soit en Roumans, soit en Latin, Or tu seras bien ostile." * In mediaeval French, IS hotel Saint J alien was synonymous with good cheer. 11 Sommes tuit vostre. Par Saint Pierre le bon Apostre, L'ostel aurez Saint Julien," f says Mabile to her feigned uncle, in the fabliau of " Boivin de Pro- vins •" and a similar idea appears in " Cocke Lorell's bote," where the crew, after the entertainment with the " relygyous women r from the Stews' Bank, at Colman's Hatch, " Elessyd theyr shyppe when they had done And dranke about a Saint July an' 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 Rose, (1514,) printer in the Rue 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 : — " Flor. Sovent dient par le bon vin Qu'ils ont l'ostel Saint Martin." J And in the story of " L'Anneau," by Jean cle Boves, (which is the same as Chaucer's " Miller's Tale,") it is said of the two students at the end : — " Cest ainsi qu'ils eurent a ses depens l'ostel Saint * "You have said St Julian'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 )" % " Often good wine makes them say, That they have the inn of St Martin." SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC. 285 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 size 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 j Beddington, Surrey ; Croydon ; Hengrave ; West Wick- ham, &c, &c, &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 nam que die nullo languore tenetur."f 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 non morieris. millesimo ccccxx. tercio." % 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 his 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." X " The day that you see St Christopher's face, That day shall you not die an evil death. 1123." 286 THE HIS TOE Y OF SIGNBOARDS. " 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 Virgin 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 Virgin, 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 with 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* 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 of 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 # Aubrey, Remains of Judaism and Gentilism. Lansdowne MSS., No. 231. SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC. 2% J of the landlord, who 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 Velleius Paterculus said about Pompey : " Quot partes terrarum sunt, tot fecit monumenta victorise 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 was, 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 j " 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, South wark, 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 : u Ad honorem omnipotentis Dei, Sanctse Marias Virginis gloriosse, 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 255 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 the great fire of Southwark in 1670, and completely burned down in 1676. 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 December 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, Richard 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 : — A YOUNG LADY STRAYED.— A young Lady, just come out of 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 riding 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 Geoege 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 PLATE XII. GRINDING OLD INTO YOUNG. (From an old woodcut, circa 1720.) (From an old print by Kay. The figures represent Dr Hunter, a famous Scotch clergyman ; Erskine the lawyer; a farmer ; His Sacred Majesty George III. ; and the gentleman. whose name should never be mentioned to ears polite.) SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC. 289 troopers, intercepted a letter of King Charles to his queen. Cromwell, the story goes on to say, rinding 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 no 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 iseems to be the possibility of a vulture having been exhibited at this house. Vultures were still considered great curiosities as late 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 Archangall, having the finest talons of any bird that seeks her prey ; the forepart of his head is covered w ith 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." [t 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," [Cornhill]+ 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 [. were discovered on pulling down the old house. A coat of arms 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. t Strype, B. ii., p. 162. T 29O THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. demolition of the 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 lurd to roam in Summer Hours, Your Thoughts incline tow'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 chearfull 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 was 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 Machyn, in his Diary, in 1562. " The 25 may was a yonge man did hang ymseylff at tho * Tottenham High Cross. SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC. 29 1 Polles Head, the inn in Carterlane." Trades tokens of this house are pxtant 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 adastra." 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, was godfather to the D evil, — 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 1676. 292 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 : " The D (sic) and Dunstan" probably fearing, with a classic dread, the ill omen of that awful name. 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:— " Bloodhound. As you come by Temple Bar make a step to the Devil. Tim. To the Devil, father? Sim. My master means the sign of the Devil, and he cannot hurt you, fool ; there's a saint holds him by the nose. Tim. Sniggers, what does the devil and a saint both on a sign ? 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 u 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. He 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. 5. Let no scent offensive the chamber infest. 10. Let our wines without mixture or scum be all fine, Or call up the master and break his dull noddle. SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC. 293 16. With mirth, wit, and dancing, and singing conclude, To regale every sense with delight in excess. 21. For generous lovers let a corner be found, Where they in soft sighs may their passions relieve." 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.' 7 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, al/ 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 — " Hang up all the poor hop drinkers, Cries old Sim, the king of skulkers." Camden, in his " Remains," records the following epitaph on this worthy : — " Apollo et cohors Musarum, Bacchus vini et uvarum, Ceres pro pane et cervisia, Adeste omnes cum tristitia. Diique, Deseque, lamentate cuncti, Simonis Vadloe 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." | Skinker, an old English word, synonymous to tapster, drawer. " Bacchus the win him skinketh all about."— Chaucer, Mar chant's Tale, 9696, X " 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, He lived well under an evil sign, If he goes to heaven, miracle ! thanks to the Devil.** 294 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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, but 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. JSTed 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 Liable) was also a celebrated tavern in Paris, near the Palais de Justice. It is thus named in the " Ode a tous les Cabarets :" — u Lieux sacrec oil Ton est soumis Aux saints oracles de Themis, Encor que vous ayez la gloire, De voir tout le monde a genoux, Sans le Diable et la Tete-Noire,f Je n'approcherais 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 Eoad, Islington. It is said to have been the retreat of Claude Duval (uncle 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 1611, 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 * Ned Ward's " London Spy," 1703. t La Tete Noire, (the Moor's head,) another famous tavern in that locality. X "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." SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC. 295 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 PublicTc 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 Holloway-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. "May 25, 1767." At Royston, Herts, there is a public-house known as the Devil's Head. There is no signboard, but a carved representa- tion of his satanic majesty's head projects from the building, the name being underneath. St Pateick 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. " St Patrick was a gentleman, And came of dacent people," 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. 296 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. In such cases as the Bishop of Narbonne said about St Denis, (who walked from Montmartre to St Denis with his head under his arm,) " il riy a que le premier pas qui coute" * In many instances, no doubt, before the Eeformation, 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 on 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 "VVhyt 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 filde besyde Charynge Crosse, in the bysshop of Norwytche 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. Robert 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 Cuthbert, at Monk's house, near Sunderland. This saint was the first bishop of Northumberland. " But fain St Hilda's nuns would learn, If on a rock by Lindisfarne, * St Justin, another martyr, after his head was struck off, picked it up, and, 1 olding it in his hand, conversed with the bystanders. f Cunningham's London. SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC. 297 St Cuthbert sits and toils to frame The seaborn weeds which bear his name," 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 no other reason but because he lived in " St Albans Street, near St James's Market f 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 than that, among many fair houses, there is one large inn for the re- ceipt of travellers called Blossoms Inn, but corruptly Bosoms 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 V. 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 tor 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 cl'or, he required 2400 beds, and stabling fox 2000 horses. 298 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. compared with stabling room, showing how most of the followers of a nobleman on a journey had to shift for themselves aid 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 w T as 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 hugt it in my bosome, even as a carrier at Bosome's Inne doth a cheese under his arms/'t 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. 3 '' 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 : — (t But now comes Tom of Bosom's Inn, And he presenteth Misrule." J 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 w T ay 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 on the high road from robbery by brigands. These knights wore a white habit embroidered with a Catherine wheel, (i.e. a w r heel armed with spikes,) and traversed with a sword stained * " Rutland Papers," reprinted for Camden Society, f Epistle Dedicatory to " Have at you to Saffron Walden," 1596. X " 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; Nell, a milliner from Threadneedle Street ; and Tom, our drawer from Blossom's Inn. " And he presenteth Misrule, Which you may know 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." SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC, 299 with blood.* 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 was 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 Heabt in Bible, which occurs under one of the Luttrell Ballads : — " The Citizens' joys for the Bebuilding of London, printed by P. Lillicross, for Richard Head, at the Heaet 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 on several seventeenth cen- tury trades tokens of Snowhill, Southwark, &c, 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'll 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 places. In Grosvenor Street it was probably once represented by a lion and a kid, but the public, not minding the text, called the sign the Lion and Goat, and that name it still bears. The Lion and Adder, Nottingham, Newark, and various other places, or 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. f Several of the old carriers and coaching inns still remain in Bishopsgate Street, undei their old names, as the Black Bull, the Green Dragon, the Four Swans, and (until a few months ago) the Flowerpot, &c. 300 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. xci. 13, where 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-and-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 Eeformation. From that period also dates the sign of the Bleeding Heart, the em- blematical representation of the five sorrowful mysteries of the Kosary, 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 was 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 t was a sign in Green- wich in 1737, next door 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:- " False Heaven at the end of the Hall." Pepys records his dining at this house in the winter of 1660, * Gentleman's Magazine, March 1842. f It is said that this sign, put up in French somewhere as the cceur dore, was Eng lished into the "queer ioor." SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC. 3OI and with due respect for the place, he put on his 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 first 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 thouse dayes war Genirall Marchantes and traded in all sortes of Kich 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, and these merchats that vsually traded to that citye, set vp ther singes ouer ther dores of ther 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." J 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 Tresyrel : " La Vie des Troys Roys, 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 1' Adoration des Trois Roys," by Marguerite de Yalois. * Note in Griff ord's Ben Jonson, vol. iv., p. 174. t They were called the three kings of Cologne because they were buried in that city. The Empress Helena brought their bones to Constantinople, from whence they were r'o moved to Milan, and thence in 1164 to Cologne, where they are still kept as sacred and miracle-working relics. % Harl. MSS. 5910, vol. i., fol. 193. 302 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, Their offerings are recorded in the following charm against fall- ing sickness :— ■ il Jaspar fert myrrham, thus Melchior, Balthazar aurum, Hoec tria qui secum portabit nomina regum Solvitur a morbo, Christi pietate, caduco." * Another Latin distich has — " Tres Reges Regi Regum 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 Vierge Marie, On est a la Cossonerie, Aux Cannettes ou aux Trois Rois" L' Adoration des Trois Rois was, in 1674, the sign of Franc, ois 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 G-alley, 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. f " Three kings brought three gifts to the King of Kings. They gave myrrh t? Mm as man. gold as king, and frankincense as God " SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC. 303 similar advertisements were of almost daily occurrence. " The Praise of Yorkshire Ale," 1685, also mentions — a Selling of Ale, in Muggs, Silver TanJcards, Black Pots, and Little Juggs." 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 lanthorn (which, one would think, he did not want 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." Shakespeare also alludes to him : — il Steph. I was the Man in the Moon when time was. " Caliban. I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee ; my mistress showed me thee, thy dog and bush." — Tempest, ii., sc. 2. Also — " Quince. One must come in with a bush of thorns and a lanthorn, aud say he comes to disfigure or to present the person of moonshine." — Mid- summer NigM 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 D' amendue gli emisperi e tocca Fonda Sotto Sibilia Caino e le spine." * * "But come now, for already hovers Cain with his bundle of thorns On the confines of the two hemispheres, and touches the 4 Waves beneath Seville." 304 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. And again in " Paradiso," canto ii. 49, speaking of the moon, he asks — " 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 be 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 thornes 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 seems to be very merry, for one of the Eox burghe Ballads (i. £, 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 e 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. * a But tell me, what are the dark spots 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. CHAPTER X DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 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 gilt 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 Fenchurch Street to take some refreshment, and there her Royal Highness dined on pork and peas. A monument U 306 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Ail Hallows were rung on this occa- sion with such energy, that the queen presented the ringers with silken ropes. A more painful association is connected with another King's Head :— " In a secluded part of the Oxfordshire hills, at a place called Collins 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 w alluded 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." * 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 Banting Wh 's Resolution :"— " I love a young Heir Whose fortune is fair, And f rollick in Fish Street dinners, * Notes and Queries, DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 307 Who boldly does call, And in private paies all, These boyes are the noble beginners." * At tlie 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 the 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. Another King's Head is mentioned by Pepys, 26th March 166|:- " 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 scolding, and was * Roxburghe Ballads, iii., fol. 252, 308 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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. Full particulars of such an operation are given by Misson : — " 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, 1667,* 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 we 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. : — u 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 * Akerman's Trades Tokens. DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 309 to th3 frank 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 : — u Forasmuch as thrugh 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 hytherto none hath sufficiently expressed the natu- ral! 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 hir 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 persont 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. r 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 thir 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- more 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 speciall 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 straightly chargeth all her officers and ministers to see to the observation hereof, and, as soon as may be, to re- form the errors allredy committed, and in the mean tyme to forbydd and * "Richardsoniana," London, 1776, p. 159. t Preface to his " Histcrj of the World." 3 1 THE IIISTOB Y OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Heine, de Monseigneur et des autres Princes et Princesses, servent d'enseignes de boutiques ; eux qui ne devroient faire l'ornement que des plus celebres galeries et des plus illustres cabinets. Monsieur d'Argenson et Vous meme, Monsieur le Commissaire, n'auriez-vous pas juste raison de vous facher de voir votre portrait servir d'enseigne a la Maison d'un cabaretier, ou a la boutique d'un Fripier; et pourquoi done ne vous fachez-vous pas de ce que celui du Roy y est?"i* 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 * Archseologia, 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 Hilliard her miniature portrait painter. No portraits of the queen painted by Gower appear, however, to be known. f 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 M. d'Argenson, and you as well, M. le Commis- Baire, have very serious reason to be annoyed if you were to see your portrait as a sign tci a public-house or to a rag-shop? Why, then, are you not annoyed in seeing the king'a portrait in such places?" Mr Boursault's flattery is much more evident than his logic. DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 31 1 used as a playhouse, and bills are still extant of plays acted there ftt 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, cherubims, 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 '11 go." " Oh no," replied his companion, "we'll 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 stay, 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 stays, t In the beginning of this century, when Marylebone consisted of " green fields, babbling brooks," and pleasant suburban retreats, * There is a print of it in Gentleman's Magazine, June 1794. t " Memoirs of J. Decastro, comedian," London, 1824. See under " Go," (as "a pro of gin," "ago of rum,") in the "Slang Dictionary," 3d edition: John Camden Hettviv Piccadilly, London. 3 1 2 THE HISTOR Y OF SIGNBOARDS. there was a small but picturesque house of public entertainment, yclept the Queen's Head and Artichoke, situated '•' in a lane nearly opposite Portland Boad, 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. Bound the whole are suspended lancets, trepans, saws, &c. In all probability it is simply a quartering of two signs. The Boyal Hand and Globe was the loyal sign of a stationer at the corner of St Martin's Lane, in 1682.* 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 Soho 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," 163G, * London Gazette, Nov. 30 to Dec. 4, 1C82. DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 313 mentions four Pope's Head taverns ; but the most famous of all was the Pope's Head tavern in Cornhill. " I have read* of a countryman that, having lost his hi>od in Westmin- ster Hall, found the same in Cornhill 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 * In Lydgate's ballad of " London Lyckpenny," temp. Henry VI. f This touting, or standing at the door inviting the passers by to jenter, 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, "Bon vin de Soissons a 6 deniers le lot." And in a mediasval mystery, en- titled "Li jus de S. Nicholas," the innkeeper roars out, " Ceans il fait bon diner, ceans il y a pain chaud et harengs chauds et vin d'Auxerre a, plein tonneau." In "Lea trois Aveugles de Compiegne," mine host thus addresses the thirsty wanderers : — " Ci a bon vin fres et nouvel, Ca d'Ancoire, 9a de Soissons Pain et char et vin et poissons, Ceens fet bon despendre argent, Ostel i a a toute gent, Ceens fet moult bon heberger." And in the "Debats etfacetieuses 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 etant assiz, (ainsi qu'ils sont ordinairement), il me cria me disant: Vous plaist-il de dejeuner ceans ? II 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 '11 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. % " 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 hud already fallen into disuse in Stow's time. 3 1 4 THE HISTOR Y OF SIGNBOARDS. 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. Ill this tavern, in the fourth of Edward IY. (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 Eogerson 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 w T as 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 honester 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. * Will Herbert, "History of the Twelve Great Living Companies," vol. ii. p. 127. i Weekly Journal, April 2C, 1718. t Ibid., July 12, 1718. DIGNITIES, TRADES. AND PROFESSIONS. 3 I 5 The emblem of another class of high dignitaries of the Eoman 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- hil], 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 Cardinally hat That inne is now shit up." Skelton's Whye come ye not to Courte. 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.f 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 London;" it was then in the occupation of Kobert 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 A3?d Bose,) mentioned by * Hail. MSS. 5910, part ii. * " Account of London," j>. 60, 1313. 316 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Pepys as "a house of the greatest note in London."* The land- lord of this house, named Proctor, died at Islington of the plague in 1665, 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 place 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 Hans 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 Gkidiron. Ned Wardt describes the appearance of another music-house of the same name in Wapping, which he calls " the Paradise of Wapping," though more probably it was in Shadwell, w T here 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 w T as richly decorated w r ith 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 * Pcpys's Memoirs, Sept. 18, 1060. t "London Spy," 1706. DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 3 I 7 wine of the 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.* In "Your Five Gallants," a comedy by Middle- ton, about 1608, 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 " Earn 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 : — tt M r 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 111 this same tavern Boswell supped, for the first time, with his idol, and the description of the biographer's delight on that grand * Wilkinson's "Londina Illustrata." f Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. i., p. 272. 3i» THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. occasion has a festive air about it that cannot fail to make a lively impression on his readers : — "He agreed to meet me in the evoning at the Mitre. I called on him, and we went thither 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." u 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 — ^no^ t/wcaafja d comJiu'menfo /o *sw>l /&mg, an TI y 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 drestS i 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.' " * 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 Jolly, 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 Chafe-Cutters' Arms, the Puddlers' Arms, the Paviors' Arms, and so forth. The Shepherd and Shepherdess is one of those signs re- minding us of — " The tea-cup days of hoop and hood And when the patch was worn." 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- * Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. ii., p. 63. PLATE XIV. 1^1 ^O GREEN MAN. (Banks's Collection, 1760.) BRAZEN SERPENT. (Reynold Wolfe, circa 1550.) SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. (Banks's Collection, 1780.) ASS PLAYING ON THE HARP. (Chartres Cathedral, circa 1420.) DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 353 clows and rivulets than Richmond is now. Cakes, cream, and fur- mity were its great attractions : — u 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."* 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 Cory don or Alexis. The merry, thirsty time of haymaking is commemorated in the usual signs of a Load of Hay and the Cross Scythes. There is a Load of Hay tavern on Haverstock Hill, a favourite place for Sunday afternoon excursionists in the summer time. Many years ago the eccentricity of Da vies 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 w r as 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 1653, 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 process as the Pontus a^evos, inhospitable, was called ev^eivos, hospitable, by the Greeks. 354 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. " Toebak that edel kruyt soveel daarvan getuygen Al die lang zyn gespeent beginnez weer te zuygen."* On the Goudsche Melkmeid in Amsterdam : — u Goede Waar en goed bescheid Krygt gy hier in de Goudsche Melkmeid Puyk van Verinas en Virginia Tabac Kunt gy bier rooken op uw gemak." f Another had : — "Teckere Keusen, eele baasen, Die by 7 t klinken van de glaasen Tot het smooken zyt bereyt ; Zoekje't beste van den acker Puyk verynis ? komt dan wacker By de walsse mellik-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 Arms is a Grant from: Queen Victoria, for Ser- vices RENDERED TO HER MAJESTY when in Danger Travelling down this Hill. * "Tobacco is a noble weed, as many can testify. Numbers of people who were long since weaned begin to suck again," f " Here at the Milkmaid of Gouda You will receive good articles and civil treatment. Here you may smoke at your ease Tip-top Varinas and Virginia tobacco." X " Dainty noses, noble masters, Who, by the jingling of the glasses, Are prepared for a 'smoke.;' If you look for the finest growth, The best Varinas ? Come then at once To the Walloon Milkmaid," &c. DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 355 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 Deo ver'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 Bang-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, and similar establishments. Stow says, in his " Summary of English Chronicles," that in 1555, Walter Ripon made a coach for the 356 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Earl of Rutland, " which was the first that was ever used in Ens:- land/' But in his larger Chronicle he says : — " In tiie 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 they were once introduced. Not forty years after their first appearance Pierce Pennyless, speaking of merchants' wives, says : u 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, there 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 London, 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 * Pierce Pennyless, Supplication to the Devil, 1593. DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 357 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, walls 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 Hocldey-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 on 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,t 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 Mothex* 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 made, X 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 Flying P pot is one of the same, The Whip and Eggshell, and the Broom by name." The Whip and Egg, therefore, figured on the ice, and may have boen brought together from the whipping of eggs, in making egg- * These remains are engraved in Archer's Vestiges of Old London. t Gentleman's Magazine, March 1842. t A row of booths on the ice opposite the Temple. 358 THE HISTOR Y OF SIGNBOARDS. 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, wheia 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 Kanelagh. 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 w r hich sick and crazy persons are carried abroad, which is borne up by the staves by two lusty men,'' * * Handle Holme, book iii., ch. viii., p 345. DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 359 The first sedan chair used in England was one that the Duke of Buckingham had received as a gift from Charles L, when Prince of Wales, on 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 u 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,t 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." X 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 Historiettes," vol. vii., p. 102. t Coach and Sedan pleasantly disputing for Place and Precedence. 4to, 1636. j Roxburgh'; Ballads, vol. i.,fol. 546, entitled "The Coaches Overthrow, or a joviall Ex- altation of divers tradesmen and others for the suppression of troublesome Hackney Coaches." 360 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. u 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 rauk 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 as 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 u 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 waist ; sometimes, instead of breeches, they wore a sort of silk petticoat with a deep gold fringe. They carried long sticks with 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 with one of these servants. Whenever his grace wanted to engage one it was his custom to make him put on his livery and run up and down Piccadilly, whilst he, from his foalcony, 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," was the answer, and off the fellow went running like a deer and was never heard of afterwards. Another feat on record, some- what more to the credit of the fraternity, was that one of them ran for a wager 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 DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 36 1 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."f 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. Another u domestic ;; sign is the Trusty Servant at Minstead, Hants : — " 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, Dockhead, 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 Eochdale 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. Many professions are only represented by one or two objects * Decker's English Villanies, 1632. f Brathwaite's Strapado for the Diuell, 1615. Notes in Percy Society editioD. 362 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 : — OTOLEST, Lost, or Mislaid, 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, Southwark, 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 with-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 Woolsack" 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 1682, the Woolsack Tavern in Newgate Market attracted great attention, owing to a wonderful phenomenon * Newspaper cutting of the year 1762, probably from the London Register. DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 363 there exhibited, and set forth in the following handbill from the Sloane Collection. No. 958 : — "IT the sign of the Woolpack in Newgate Street, is to be seen a strange J\_ 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 hsjs 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, ("iEneid," lib. iii. 19,) or from the "fiera selvaggia" Dante saw in the second circle of Hades, where he et sentia da ogni parte tragger guai E non vedea persona che '1 facesse."* Inferno, canto xiii. 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 on 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 * " — heard groans from every side, but saw nobody who uttered them." 364 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, used to meet at this house, 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 turners 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 : — ■ " ISTam faciem plerumque innciunt fuligine et peregrinum vestiura cul- tum assumunt, qui ludicris talibus indulgent ut Mauri esse videantur, aut e longius reinota patria credantur advolasse atque insolens recreationis 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 on the painted window are also a franklein, a churl, or peasant, and a nobleman. The hobby-horsem an 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. The fool was one of the features of the pageant, and on hirn * Junius' Etymologia : "For those that take part in these games, besmear their faces with soot and adopt outlandish garments, so that they may look like Moors, or as if they liad come from distant countries, and thence had introduced this quaint amusement." DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 365 rested a great deal of the duties to amuse the public, particularly when the hobby-horse was not present ; hence Ben Jonson : — 11 But see the Hobby-Horse is forgot, Fool, it must be your lot To supply your wont with faces And some other buffoon graces. You know how. 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-Piouses — 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 Richardson, 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 other eminent actors. He desired in his will to be buried at Marlow, in Bucks, (where he was born in the workhouse,) in the 366 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 mask. 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, &c. At a masked ball 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 Gelosi 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 * Nicholl's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. L, p. 494. DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 367 processions. In one of the Harleian MSS., entitled " The maner 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," we see amongst the requirements : — " It. ij men in greene leaves set with work upon their other habet with black heare & 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." * This interpretation is also given as the origin of the Green Man by Bagford : — 11 They are called woudmen, 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 ye 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 ye breweing of Aele and a fit emblem for those that use that intosticating licker which berefts them of their sennes." f The Wild Man, therefore, on a sign at Quarry Hill, Lady- bridge, Leeds, is the same as the Green Man. 2°. The second version of this 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, Eobin Hood himself, which may be inferred from the small figure frequently intro- duced beside him, and meant for Little John. The ballads always described Eobin and his merry men as dressed in green, " Lincoln green." When Eobin 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. " $ 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 Eobin 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 : — " All the woods Are full of outlaws, that in Kendal green * Harl. MSS., No. 2150, fol. 356. t Harl. MSS., No. 5900. , % Boxburghe Ballads, vol. i.. f. 375. 368 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Follow the outlawed Earl of Huntingdon." Richard, Earl of Huntingdon, 1601, (i.e., Robin Hood.) 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." Spenser's Faery Queene. 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 bad been converted into a tavern. A century ago the sign bore the following inscription : — " Ye are wellcome all To Stapleton Hall." 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 Derry Down," &c. Musich in Good Time, a new Ballad, 1745. The Merey Akdkew 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 VIIL, and the Duke of Savoy, (Prince Eugene ; ) second-class cards had the Queen of Hungary, the Spaniard, the beau, and the Merry Andrew. The * Lewis's History of Islington, p. 281. t 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 house. Lord Cobham's Head has been noticed on p. 97. DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 369 original Merry Andrew is said to have been a certain Doctoi 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, which 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 Bud&et. The budget is the tinker's bag of instru- ments ; we see the word thus used in Eandle 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 : — " If tinkers may have leave to live And bear the sowskin budget. 1 ' 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 Toni's name, he was but a sorry rogue. Eandle Holme t says : — " The Sow geider 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 * Book iiL, ch. Hi., p. Wk t Book iH -> ch. in., p. 181. 2 A 370 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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.'* "The Canting Academy," 1674, gives them a similar attire and character : — " 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." * Aubrey says : — " Before the Civil Warre, 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 armilia of tinne (printed) about three inches breadth, which was sodered on. " f 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 : — "TTTHEREAS several Vagrant Persons do wander about the city of Lon- W don and countries, pretending themselves to be Lunaticks under cure in the Hospitall of Bethlem, 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 * Canting Academy, second edition, 1674, as quoted in Malcolm's " Manners and Customs," vol. i., p. 822. t Lansdowne MS., No. 231. " Remains of Judaisme and Geulilisme." DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. 37 1 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,t and another in Fleet Street, the sign of Stephen Eoome,J 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 Oiave'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 ! she ne're was half so vainly clad, Besse ne're was half so naked, half so mad ; Again, this raves with lust, for love Besse ranted, Then Besse's skin is tanned — this is painted." t Advertisement in the original edition of the Spectator, No. clxxxvi. X City Mercury, or Advertisements concerning Trade. November 4, 1675. § London Gazrttte, May 30— June 3, 1681, where he gives a most dismal catalogue of what he could do. 372 THE IIISTOR T OF SIGN BOA BDS. 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. CHAPTER XL THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE. 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 : — " 3K it please ong man spmtuel or tempotel to 6ge our pges of ttoo or t\)xz romemoractVg of salisburt use, emptgnteb after tfje form of tfjfe present letre mijtcfje hen frrel antf trulg correct, late rjgm come to TOestmonester into fyz almonestrge at t!je Reed Pale, anti J)e sJjal ijatie tfjem gooli anti cfjepe : Sttpplfco stet ceimla." 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 1679, 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, 1670. f " Itinerarium Curiosum," 1776, p. 14. 374 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. peiites maisons of tlie profligate French, nobility in the times of the Regence. Stubbe, in his " Anatomy of Abuses/' severely at- tacks them : — " In the suburbes 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 Kake 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 Corisca in Massinger's " Bondsman/' (Act i., sc. 3) : — " 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-drinkings. 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 j 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 standeth, 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 * Letter of John Paston to Sir John Paston, Sept. 21, 1472. THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE. f 375 that was 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." So common was this fixture, that no ale-house was without it : — " 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. At last it became synonymous with ale-house : — " As well known by my wit as an ale-house by a red lattice." * " Trusty Eachel was drinking burnt brandy with a couple of tinder-box cryers at the next red lattice." f 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, w T hich 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, * Marston's Antonio and Mellida, 1633. f Tom Crown's Works, vol. iii., p. 243. 376 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. (St James' Street, 1699,) the Blue and Gilt Balcony, (Hatton Street, 1673.) 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."* 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 and animals. Begnier men- tions them in his eleventh satire : — " Ressemblait transparent une lanterne vive, Dont quelques patissiers amusent les enfants, Oil des oysons bridez, guenuches, elefans, Chiens, chats, lievres, renards, et mainte estrange beste Courent Tune apres 1' 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 : — " Myn lampje brant uyt den Orienten, Ik verkoop oly, vygen en krenten." J 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; for some time it continued to * Tom Brown's Amusements for the Meridian of London, 1706. t " 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 stracge animals 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." THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE. 377 languish as a starting-point for omnibuses, and was finally demolished to make room for merchants' offices in 1863. 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 Reformation, 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. Tn 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 particularly named in the will. Upholsterers in those days were also frequently called bed-joiners. Next we 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 378 THE HISTOB Y OF SI ON BO A RDS. find a very substantial and tempting Bound of Beef, with the following rhymes : — " If you are hungry or a-dry, 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 Ribs 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 ]ast century, The Shoulder of Mutton and Gat, having the following rhymes : — . " Pray Puss, don't tear, For the Mutton is so dear ; Pray Puss, don't claw, For the Mutton yet is raw." 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 Kichard 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 Michael, Crooked Lane. The presence of " Prince Hal " in this house was no invention of Shakespeare ; history records his pranks, how 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, then, at the proud inscription on the sign, which still existed in Maitland's time : — " This is the chief tavern in London? At one THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE. 379 time the portal was decorated with carved oak figures of Falstafl 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 : — " Wm. 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.* 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 Red 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 * There is a drawing of this very curious relic in a number of the Illustrated London News, published shortly after the saie. 380 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, 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 Eotherhithe, 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 Head looked out upon the burial-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 bodte 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. O 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 : — "At St James's the v daye of September, an. 1557. " 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 enf ormed a lewde Playe, called ' A Sacke full of Newse,' shall be plaied this daye, the Playeres whereof he is willed to ap- prehende and to comitt to safe warde, untill he shall heare further from hence, and to take their Playsbook from them, and to send the same hither. *' At West r the vj daye of Sep. 1557." % * Also demolished to make room for the streets leading to London Bridge, f Lansdowne MSS. No. 889, art. 73. t Harleian MSS No. 256. THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE. 38 1 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," saith Taylor the Water poet, addressing the country tavern-keepers, "have power and prero- gative (cum privilegio) to receive, lodge, feast, and feed, both man and beast. You have the happinesse to Boyle, Koast, Broyle, and Bake, Fish, Flesh, and Foule, whilst we in London have scarce the command of a Gull, a 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, Anchoves, 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.* 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 Yentnor ; 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, anchoves, and gammon of bacon, and abundance of such pulk lers-on." — Bishop Hall's Mundus alter et idem. * Bagford Bills, Harieiae. MSS. 382 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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. " One ask'd a friend where Captain Shark did lye, Why, sir, quoth he, at Aldgate at the Pye. Away, quoth th' other, he lies not there, I know 't. No, sayes the other, then he lies in 's throat." Wits Recreation, p. 185, vol. ii. 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 Eathbone 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 buns 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 Cock and Pie, (by God and the Pie, or Eoman 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 THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE. 383 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 Cock and Pye Fields, between Drury Lane and St Giles' Hospital. At Chatsworth, the original name was mutilated by a provincialism into the Cock and Pynot, (Derbyshire, for Magpie.) In this ale-house, still existing, the Eevolution 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 cocking-house, frequently mentioned in advertise- ments circa 1775. We may very appropriately terminate the gastronomic signs with the Cheshiee 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 Horn we will end with the Mustaed-pot, which was the sign of a mustard shop in Holland, in the seventeenth century, with these rhymes : — " Ik lever uyfc Een zeldzaam kruyt Daar zyn der weinig in de stad Of ik neb ze by de neus gehad." * This reminds us of a rather indelicate sign of a mustard shop, formerly in the Rue du Chatel, at Beauvais, but now in the Musee d'Antiquites 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 Dutch, on the sensation produced in the nose by mustard, the expres- sion meaning, at the same time, "to take" in. ;> 384 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. monkey stands just opposite, assisting him in a way we need not describe. 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 British 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 since 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 Eoxburghe 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." Its various good qualities are next explained, and finally : — " Then when this bottle doth grow old, And will no 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." - Decker's English Villanies Seven Times Pressed to Death. PLATE XV. BELL AND HORNS. RASP AND CROWN. (Formerly in Brompton Road, circa 1830.) (1780.) HAND AND GLOVE. (Harleian Collection, 1708.1 GREEN MAN AND STILL. (Harleian Collection, 1630.) THE PUMP. (Harleian Collection, 1710.) CROWN AND PATTEN. (Banks's Collection, 1790.) THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE. 385 There is another ballad in the same collection, (vol. i., fol. 107,) entitled " Time's Alteration, or the Old Man's Rehearsal," which speaks of the black jack in the following terms : — " Black jacks to euery man Were filled with, 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; None under the degree of a knight In Plate drunk Beere or Wine." 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 box, some of maple, some of holly, etc. Mazers, broad mouthed dishes, naggins, whiskins, piggins, 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 cockernuts,* of goords, of eggs of estriches ; others made of the shells of divers fishes brought from the Indies and other places, and shining 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 achetees a Londres pour Monseigneur Philippe 9s. Sd." Though these vessels are now completely superseded by pewter and glass, yet their memory still lives on the signboard, and * Cocoa-nuts. The word is still pronounced in that manner "by the lower classes. 2B 386 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 : — " Wer sein Stiefel nit drinken kan, Der ist fuhrwahr kein Teutscher Man." The Black-jack 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 day 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 Cheapside," one of 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\ROPT or taken from a Ladies' side on Tuesday, the 25 th of March, JL/ 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 DuJce 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." Where the fact of little brown Betty brewing good ale points to * A face or dial-plat', sometimes also called pendulum dial. THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE. 387 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 Flash taverns in Hampstead ; the one called the Lower Flash 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 : — " fTlHIS is to give notice that Hampstead Fair is to be kept upon the J. Lower Flash 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 Richardson 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 Flash, 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 publican s' 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 ." The Pewter Pot, an old sign, is thus alluded to by Eandle Holme.* " 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 * Book Hi., p. 294, 388 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. multitudes that have it for their cognizance, in so much that it is painted over their doors by the wayside." * The Pewter -Pot, in Leadenhall 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 Punchbowl, 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 Crown and Punchbowl, Somersham, St Ives. The Magpie and Punchbowl, Bishopsgate Within. The Eose and Punchbowl, Kedman's Eow, Stepney, and elsewhere. The Ship and Punchbowl, Wapping. The Eed Lion and Punchbowl, St John's Street, Clerkenwell. The Union Flag and Punchbowl, High Street, Wapping. The Dog and Punchbowl, Lymm, Warrington, Cheshire. The Halfmoon and Punchbowl, Buckle Street, Whitechapel. The Parrot and Punchbowl, Aldringham, Suffolk. 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 J — " Best, 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/' * 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 heart]ful card;" and a third with : "0 my eye! "and similar distingue ornaments. THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE. 389 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 Eumying 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 summers 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 Rummer, another drinking vessel, is also common : there is one in Old Fish Street, and there are three Bummer 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 : — u 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 Hummer tavern "over against Bow Lane, in Cheapside," where "the surprizing Mr Higgins, the posture master, that lately performed at the Queens Theatre Koyal in the Hay market," 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 :— 390 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 64 Als gy dees Eoemer ziet, gy kunt ze pryzen of laken, Maarkornt 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 : — " Dees Eoemer die gy ziet en kan u niet vermaken, Komt in en proeft het nat het zal u beter smaken Maar siet eens wat hier achter staat." On the other side : — " Betaal eerst, eer je henen gaat Of anders hoed of mantel laat.f A near relative of the Bummer was the Btjmpee, 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 his 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." This same Estcourt was sometime provedore of the Beefsteak Club. 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 Edw. I., it says that " if a tavern-keeper keep his house open after curfew he shall be put on his surety the first * "When you see this Rummer you may praise or blame it, But come in, and taste its liquor, you will like that better." f " This Rummer which you see here cannot give you much pleasures 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." THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE. 391 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, Holborn,) and " Nan Elton." The same work also relates a curi- ous instance of enthusiasm in a publican. His house, the Raven, in Fetter Lane, was famous for " Massy tankards f orm'd of silver plate, That walk throughout his noted house in state ; Ever since Eaglesfield 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 greater 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 Illustrata," 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. Amongst the other articles of furniture which are represented * Liber Albus, Book iii., Part ii. 392 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, 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 Historiale in consuetudine Parisiensi '" then there is the " Grand Speculum Historiale," the great historical work of Yincent of Beauvais, one of the most celebrated books of the Middle Ages ; " Specu- lum Humanse Salvationis ;' 5 " Speculum Humanae Vitas ;" " Specu- lum Vitae Christ ae," " a boke that is clepid the Myrrour of the blessed lyffe of our Lorde J'hu cryste ; w 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 BifTe, 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 " Spiegelrnachers" (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 religious THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE. 393 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 facsimile* 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, t 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 Ckadle at the upper end of Cheapside, from whence 6very Monday any that have occasion may send." Generally, however, it did not designate so respectable a busi- ness ; the " Compleat Vintner," 1720, explains the secret arcana of that sign : — u 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 * Even after the art got to be known, it continued to be still called writing. Thus, Gaspar Hedion (Paral. ad Chron. Conradi) calls it "novo scribendi genere reperto;* and Fulgosus (Lib. viii., Diet. & Fact. Memor.) says that Guttenberg could " uno die imprimendo plura scribere quam uno anno calamis." f See the whole of the documents of this law-suit in Count Leon de Laborde's Debuts de l'lmprimerie a Strasbourg. 394 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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." From the last interpretation of this sign to the Colt in the Cradle (see under Humorous Signs) is but a step. 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 Geeen Bellows, (le sovfflet vert,) which was that of Johan Stoll and Peter Cesaris, booksellers and printers in the Rue 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 Eue 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 Royal 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 colopnon, 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 nught easily have bestowed upon him the title of " the soldier." t London Gazette, Nov. 10-13, 1679 THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE 395 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 Theee 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 Theee 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 X 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." Here is another curious advertisement : — " A TANNY MORE [tawny Moor] with short bushy hair, very well j[X. 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 Theee Funnels, (les Trois Entonnoirs,) which in the time of Louis XIY. 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 "Bishard Harris in Trinity Minories." 396 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. "We now arrive at kitchen utensils : foremost amongst these ranks the Gkidikon, which was very common in the sixteenth century, and may perhaps have been a jocular rendering of the Portcullis. The Fe-YING 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 e 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 Coppee 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 Mere Folle held their meetings at this house. The Pewter Plattee occurs both in France and in England ; it was famous as a carriers' inn in St John Street, Clerkenwell, in 1681. At this inn CurlFs 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 Empres saint Pierre-des- Arsis." f — Repues Franches. Probably it was a very early sign for eating-houses. 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 Barn (Beaufoy Tokens) observes, may be a travesty of a verse in Histrio-Mastrix, 1610 : — " Yet a verse may run cleare, That is tapt out of Beere." 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 a*, the Pewter Platter, Near Saint Pierre des Arsi3." THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE. 397 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 u 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 Houe-glass, a colossal specimen carved in wood, in Upper Thames Street, near All Hallows Church, and the Golden Jae, 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 chinaware, and the best teas, coffees, chocolate," &c. JSTow-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, bat 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 flogger of wandering maids, Tom Tapster, " Tib's rush for Tom's forefingers," (all's well that ends well.) " Then every wanton may dance at her will, Both Tomkin with Tomlin and Jenkin with Gill." Tussei^s Plowman's Fasting Day 398 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. many others that could 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 FENNEY, Esquire of Alaxton in Leicestershire, about a XV f orthnight 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 Golden Key, in Fleet Street, they shall have 40 shillings for their pains." — Mercurius Publicus, 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,* 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 1666. From that paper it appears that Elisabeth Spight paid £40 a year for the rent of the Lock and Key. * Additional MSS. f 5070. CHAPTER XII. DRESS; PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL. Of 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 frcm 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 Schuylt quaedt & goet."* And a Dutch hatter made a still more unpleasant allusion to the brains of his customers :— " Hier maakt men sterke hoeden om de hersens in te sluyten Opdat het los verstand daar niet mag vliegen buyten." f 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 : — JOHN THOMPSON, HATTER, Makes and Sells Hats for Ready Money. 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 * "The hat Covers evil and good." f " Strong hats made here to enclose the hea<3, In order that the soft (loose) brains may be kept together." 400 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. customers would not care who 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 % What, then, is the use of the word?" It was 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 Feathers 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 Sternes 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, and 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 : — DRESS— PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL. 40 1 u Item, the xxiij 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 the 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 Stubbed satirical account : — " Some tymes they use them sharpe on the crowne, pearking up like the speare or shaft of a steeple, standing a quarter of a yarde above the crowne of their heades, 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." + 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 wmich 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 six 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 ihe 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. 2C 402 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. in the year 1597. The 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 bandmaker. The Hat and Stak, which occurs on the bill of Master Bates in St Paul's Churchyard, who sold all sorts of fine "caines, whippes, spurres,"* &c, 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 Hat, 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 Hats. 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. u 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 Royal 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." t Sampson's wife was the first female equestrian. * Bastard Bills. t British Chronicle, July 17, 1760. DRESS— PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL. 403 Horsemanship At Mr Dinghy's, the Three Hats, Islington. U TVf -^ SAMPSON begs leave to inform the public, that besides the usual JjA 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 in 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 her3elf to the universal approbation of those Ladies and Gentlemen whose curiosity may induce them to honour her attempt with their company." * The Three Hats occurs amongst the trades tokens of the seven- teenth century. There is one of the Theee 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, Voor wind en koud. Tromp was stout, Voer der staten kroon, Hier maakt men hoeden schoon." f 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, Eoses, Cauls, Ribbons, Weaving Silk, Sewing Cards, and Blocks. With all Goods made use of by Peruke makers, at the lowest prices." % 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, lust as the straggling love-lock hanging over the shoulder denoted * PuUick A dvertiser, July 1767. f " 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 states Hats cleaned here '' % Shopbill, quoted in Thomson's Chronicles of London Bridge, vol. ii., p. 277. 404 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. the cavalier. For this reason, Decker advises the young cavalier Gull:— _ " 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 had 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." — Gibbers Double Gallant, 1707. So Shadwell, 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 Cibber 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 well 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 ; % 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 * "Decker's Gull's Hornbook. f Cibber's Apology, p. 303. t Gay's Trivia, book iii. % Weekly Journal, March 30, 1717. DRESS— PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL. 405 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'or,) which is carved in stone in the Bue des Bourdonnais, Paris, and also in the Marche aux Herbes, Amiens : both these signs date from the eighteenth century, but their origin is much older, as appears from the fol- lowing : — " The 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 heard 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, 1776, 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 : — " rpHE Anodyne Necklace for children's teeth, women in labour, and dis« 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 Lady at the Royal Exchange, next Thread- needle Street ; at the Indian Handkerchief, facing the New Stairs iij Wapping," &c* To attract attention, there was frequently some book of not very delicate character, advertised as " given away gratis v 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 : — " mHE RABBIT- AFFAIR made clear in a full account of the whole X 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. 'Tis 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, 1726. 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 * Weekly Journal, Jan. 4, 1718. 406 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. found people who believed her, and gave their attention to this phenomenon. Amongst them were Sir Richard Manningham, Dr St Andre, 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 Andre 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 1763. 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 : — " Is your pearl orient, sir ? Corv. Venice was never owner of the Wee." — 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 Christchurch Hospital. At the same period another member of the same fraternity (there were men-milliners in those days) had the Hood and Scakf, articles of female apparel ; this shop was in Cornhill, " over against Wills' Coffee-house." f 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 * Mercurius Publicus, Jan. 8 to 15, 1662. 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. DRESS— PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL. 40 / 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 Turks, 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' Eow, 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 on 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 ; £& per annum * Banks Bills. 408 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. to John de Tymberhutts, and 3s. to the Prior and convent of St Mary 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 Eichard 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 Eichard II., (1381,) in a list of malefactors who had partici- pated in the rebellion of Jack Cade, occurs the name of " Joh'es Brewersman, manens apud le Tabbard, London." Stow thus notices the old inn : — " From thence to London, on the same side, be 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- * G. A. Corner, on the Inns of Southwark. DRESS— PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL. 409 ea^e, 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 we 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 slacken'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 : — "ATMR CROOME'S, at the sign of the Shoe and Slap, near the Hospital ^X. Gate, in West Smithfield, is to be seen The Wonder of 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. " Sept. 4, 1667. ' God save the King.' " 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 Eandle Holme, " have the over * Handle Holme, b. iii., ch. i., p. 14 ] London Gazette, July 31 to Au^. 4, 1679. 4IO THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 has figured as a tavern sign in that country. In a farce of the fourteenth century, entitled, " Pernet qui va au Vin," the husband names the following taverns : — " Au Sabot ou a la Lanterne J'ai mis en oubli la taverne." Eonsard addressed some of his verses to the hostess of this tavern, which was situated in the Faubourg St Marcel : — " Je ne suis point, ma guerriere Cassandre, Ni Mirmidon, ni Dolope soudard." u Tl n'y a personne," says Furretiere in his Roman Bourgeois, "qui ne se figure qu'on parle d'une Pentasilee ou d'une Talestris ; cepandant cette guerriere Cassandre n'etait reellement qu'une grand e hallebreda qui tenit le cabaret du Sabot dans le faubourg Saint Marcel."f This sign has given its name to a street in Paris. 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 ; " J 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 1686, complained that several coffee-houses had the sign of the * Weekly Journal, Jan. 4, 1718. | " I am, my warlike Cassandra, Neither a Myrmidon nor a Dolopian warrior." "Everybody that reads those lines," says Furretiere in his Roman Bourgeois, "will certainly imagine that he alludes to some Pentasilea or Talestris; yet this warlike Cassandra was after all neither more nor less than a tall manly looking wench who kept the Wooden Shoe (Sabot) public-house in the Faubourg Saint Marcel." X Bagford Bills. DRESS— PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL. 41 1 Garter with, coffee-pots, 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 Pall 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 Spectators and Tatler s: " My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian/' says Addison in Speetator, 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 stept into Devereux Court, where one of them (whose name, if I remember right, was Fitzgerald) was run through the body, and died on the spot." * 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-hoise, particularly one upon a niece of Sir Hans Sloane, * Dr King's Anecdotes, p, 117. 430 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. to his great satisfaction and her credit. The patient had her shouldor-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 ]ast 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 Mckleby 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 * Seidell's TaWe-Talk. GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY. 43 1 was one of the most important places for arrivals and departures in London : — " Near to the jail, and by consequence near to Smithfield 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-wires 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 herten aan Dat de zon en maan bleef stille staan. Puik van Verinis en gee Blaan Haalt men hier in den Indiaan." * In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Vieginian w r as 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. " f 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." f Sir Richard Baker's Chronicles, anno 1588, 432 THE HIS TOE Y OF SIGN BO A EDS. sculptured sign of an Indian Chief at Shoreditch, having all the appearance of an old ship's figure-head ; and, as a nomen ac pr aster ea 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 Machyn's Diary : "The xxx day of Desember 1562, was slayne in John Street, Gyibard Goldsmith, dwellyng at the sene of the Blake Boy, in the Cheap, by ys wyfT's sun." This Black Boy seems to have been a tobacconist's sign from the first ; for in Ben Jonson's " Bartholomew Fair " we 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 th' signe of the Black Boy in Southwarke, To th' ordinary, to find his mouth worke. Here he intends to fuddle 's nose This fortnight yet, under the rose." Homer a la Mode, 1665. 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 avrog spy settled * See Secret History of the Calves' Head Club. London, 1705. GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY. 433 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 Aeab 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 Hill, 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," (fee* 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. " fTlHE Annual feast for the Parish of St Dunstan, in Stepney, being 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 25-19, 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 * Country Journal, or Craftsman, Saturday, April 25, 1730. 2 E 434 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Cite* Nogent Jerusalem fut l'asile Soleil eouchant, Bon sejour pour le pelerin, Yin du Vaulx, et le bon vin." * On a house in the Bue Etoupe"e, at Bouen, 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 Tkip 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, and that good." GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY. 435 said to be a mountain of that name in America, which obtained some celebrity from being the locality on which the sassafras {Orchis mascula) 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 no 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 XI 000, in March 173 9. 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, * The landlord t Read's Weekly Journal, March 31, 1739. 436 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. near the old road to Highgate. 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. Coopen-Eagen 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 on 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. CHAPTEE XIV. HUMOROUS AND COMIC. 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 Eoman 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 were liberally mixed up with 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 with representations of saints and miracles. Thus the well-known sign of Pig and Whistle is seen in more than one church. In the stall carving of Winchester Cathedral a sow is represented sitting on her haunches, playing on a whistle, the companion carving to which is a pig playing on a violin, 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 on signboards. Very dif- ferent and learned explanations have been given for its origin, some saying it was 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 Eagged Staff. Very 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 whistles/ 1 a 438 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. free translation of " going to pot" which Mr Jamieson states (quoting two examples) to have been at one time a colloquial phrase. JVon 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 mediseval 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 kit, and a small cat a kitten. Besides, they have been united from time immemorial in the nursery rhyme — " Heigh diddle diddle, The cat and the fiddle." Amongst other explanations offered is, the one that it may have originated with the sign of a certain Gaton fidele, 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 1589 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. Dioscoridae Pharmacorum Simplicum," &c, printed at Strasburg by John Schot in 1529, an ape is represented playing on the bagpipes, and a camel dancing to the tune, with these words, xd/xTiXov aWannv. 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 HUMOROUS AND COMIC, 439 originated from a legend : — A certain Christian queen, Pedauca, whose honour was in danger, 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 Chevee 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 1562, 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 " Posteth it over as fast as he can galope, for eyther he has two places to * 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 patte d'oie— goose's foot— that first attack of time upon beauty which we term the crow's foot. 440 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 with a brown coat,"t 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 Xackanapes," is a sign mentioned by Eliot in his " Fruits for the French," or " Parlement of Pratlers," 1593, " ouer against the Vnicorne 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 lower 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 "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 was 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 : Hee's us'd almost in every shoppe, but why? 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' 8 Chronicle, Howe's edi- tion, 1614, p. 604. It is a curious coincidence that in France and G ermany 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 ona 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 dinnef knives on the top of their glasses, all pointing towards the offender, t London Gazette, Dec. 23-26, 1700. X Ibid., Jan. 10-14, 1678. HUMOROUS AND COMIC. 44 1 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 Goden Boode,' (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 — ' 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 trovato" 1°. 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 Croker 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 animals 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 le Llond, a Flemuig by birth, obiit 1740, made preparations to eopy the Hampton Court tapestry cartoons, For this purpose he built a house in Mul- berry Gardens, Chelsea, but the project failed. t A Walk from London to Fulham. By the late T. C. Croker. 1860. 442 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Cock and Hen, and that of the Yaliant 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 carried 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 Roxburghe 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. One was the Ox in Boots, (in den gelaarsden os,) with this inscrip- tion : — " 't Leer geeft den Schoenmaker de os daar hy schoenen van maakt om te versly ten ; Ik heb den os weer met leer tot dank gelaerst en gespoord doen conter- fyten." + Another innkeeper put up the Cow in Boots, (de gelaersden Jcoe,) and wrote beneath : — " Ziet drees koe heeft laarzen aan Was't noch een Bui dan kon het gaan." J A third, in Amsterdam, had the Cock in Boots, (de gelaa? ; de Haan,) with the following extraordinary rhymes : — " Dit is de gelaars de haan Christus is naar 't kruys gegaan, Met een doornenkroon op 't hoofd. Hy slacht Thomas die 't niet geloof t." § * Antiquarian Repertory, vol. i. t "The ox gives the shoemaker leather of which he makes boots to be worn. As & grateful return I have ordered the ox to be portrayed here in boots and spurs." \ " Look here, this cow wears boots ; Were it a bull it would be less odd." g " 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." HUMOROUS AND COMIC. 443 The Jackass in Boots (de gelaarsde ezeT) was the sign of a publican, with this inscription : — " In den gelaars den ezel zeer kloek, Verkoopt men toebak, brandewyn, en knapkoek."* The 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 Lapdog, 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 Roll 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 Eoxburghe ballad of "The Coaches' Overthrow" represents various dirty practices. From 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 dog 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 : — " All sluts behold, take view of me, Your own good housewifry to see. * " At the brave Jackass in Boots, There is tobacco, brandy, and gingerbread for sale." , t Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. iii., p. 261. 1819. % A Trip to Stirbitch Fair, 1703. 444 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 Boxburghe Ballads, vol. i., foL 385, entitled, " Sel- dome Cleanely," has the same idea : — a If otherwise she had But a dishcloute f aile, She would set them to the dog to licke, And wipe them with hys 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," (liy 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 Cbock, as in the Blackfriars' Boad ; 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 chien 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 Faris 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 Bue Sec-Arembault. Equally absurd is the Cow and Snuffeks, at Llandaff, Gla- morgan. In a play of George Colman, entitled the " Beview, or the Wags of Windsor," the following lines occur : — " Judy *s a darling ; my kisses she suffers ; She 's an heiress, that 's clear, HUMOROUS AND COMIC. 445 For her father sells beer, He keeps the sign of the Cow and the Snuffers" 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 Maunders 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 man 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 paartje — from paartje to paarvho stood in the Pillory at Cheapside. g The gallows at Tyburn. 11 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, ■vrhose personal appearance was the subject of numerous lampoons and caricatures at this time. BONNELL THORNTON'S SIGNBOARD EXHIBITION. 5 I 7 11. Underneath, an Escutcheon, shewing his Pedigree, as warranted by the Herald's office. These by Fishboume. 12. Bust of a celebrated Beauty. By Edley. 13. Head of the Thoughtless Philosopher. By Masmore. 14. Take Time by the Forelock. By Clark. 15. A Dumb Bell. By the same. 16. The British Lion, and 17. Unicorn. [The Lion in excellent Condition.] By Jones. 18. A French Fleur-de-Iys [tarnished.] By Garth y. 19. Two Bronzes. By Millvnch. 20. A Gold Fish, considerably larger than the Life. By Cook. 21. A Mitre, and 22. Crown. By Hughes. 23. A Dolphin, painted with the true Verd Antique. By Quarterman. *»* Several Tobacco Rolls, Sugar Loaves, Hats, Wigs, Stock- ings, Gloves, &c, &c, &c, hung round the Room. By the above-mentioned Artists. 24. [On the Left Hand of the Door, going out] A Stand of Cheeses, with a Bladder of Lard on the Top. 25. A Westphalian Ham. These two by Bricken. —St James's Chronicle, Ap. 20-22. 1762. The next number 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 for 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." GRAND ROOM, 1. Mr Hogarth, or a wretched Figure done for him drawing his five orders of Periwigs. 2. A Crooked Billet, hung under it, on which is written, The Exact Line of Beauty. 3. The Good Woman. The old stale Device of a Woman without a Head, badlv executed. 5x3 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 5. The Light Heart. A Feather weighing down a Heart in a pair of Scales. 9. The Irish Arms, A great clumsy pair of Legs. 10. The Gentleman of Wales. A Taffey with a great Leek in his Hat. 19. Nobody. A man all Legs. 20. Somebody. A man all Belly, with a Constable's Staff. 23. A Freemason's Lodge. A new 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. 31. Bandbox. An Ass standing in a great Band-box.* 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. 35. A Man in his Element. A man gluttonizing.f 36. A Man out of his Element. A Sailor fallen off his Horse. 44. Foote in the Character of Mrs Cole. The wit lies in the writing under it, which is, Young Ladies educated here. 45. Peeping Tom.:}: A Shoemaker trying on a Shoe on a Woman. 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. 64. A view of the Road to Paddington, with a Representation of the Deadly Never Green that bears Fruit all the year round. This is Tyburn, with three felons hanging on it. 65. The Salutation, or French and English Manners, which shows a Frenchman cringingly bowing, and an Englishman taking him by the Nose. 66. Good Company. Three Men drunk, and burning one another's Faces with their Pipes. 69. St Dunstan and the Devil. The Saint taking the Devil by the Nose with a Pair of Tongs. 70. Its Companion. Doctor Squintum doing the same. 71. Shave for a Penny, Let Blood for Nothing. A man under the hands of a barber surgeon, who shaves and lets blood at the same time, by cutting at every stroke of his razor. * 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. t 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. % In allusion to Peeping Tom, the shoemaker of Coventry. BONNELL THORNTON'S SIGNBOARD EXHIBITION 5 1 9 73. A Man loaded with Mischief. A Fellow with a Woman, a Monkey, and a Magpie on his Back. 74. Entertainment for Man and Horse. A Woman and a Hay Mow. 75. First and Last. A Cradle and a Coffin. 76. The Constitution. Alderman Pitt's Entire. A tall Grenadier and a short Sailor. " 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 chuse 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. I am, Sir, yours, &c, A DESPISER OF ALL TRICKERY." " 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 that the author has not seen the Exhibition, or could not find out the Humour of it." From the GAZETTEER.— (£* 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 on the Exhibition of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, etc., and the Artists,' and 520 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 l 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. — c 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. "Bow Street, Covent Garden, April 27. " 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 Begister" for 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." BONNELL THORNTON'S SIGNBOARD EXHIBITION. 5 2 I hibited ; a Gentleman who has, in several instances, displayed a most un- common Vein of Humour. His Burlesque Ode on 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 most apparent Good-humour 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 our 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 : — SPECTATUM 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 Ranelagh, and gave general satisfaction. In a former chapter we have given full particulars of this event. Thornton was born in Lon- don 1724, educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. In connection with Geo. Colman the elder he started the Connoisseur, the St James 1 Chronicle, and other periodicals. He died May 9, 17G8> and was buried in Westminster Abbev. 52 2 THE HISTOR Y OF SIGNBOARDS. 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. [N.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 lohere it itches.'] 16. A Man. [Nine Taylors at Work; in Allusion to the old Saying of nine Taylors malce 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-Masons Lodge, or the Impenetrable Secret. By a Sworn Brother. [The supposed Ceremony and probable Consequences of what is called mating 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 aivay with the Monument. By Whitaker. [This Picture of a London Night, like the Farmer Returned, represents the Watchmen in Town, 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 Three? " 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.] BONNELL THORNTON'S SIGNBOARD EXHIBITION. 523 35. A Man in his Element. A Sign for an Eating -House. [A Cook roasted upon a Spit at the Kitchen-Fire and basted by the Devil.] 36. A Man out of his Element. [A Sailor fallen off his Horse, with his 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, which 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 : A Bird in Hand far better 'tis Than two that in the Bushes is.] 39. Absalon Hanging, a Peruke Maker's Sign. By Sclater. [Underneath is written — If Absalon had not worn his own Hair Absalon had not been hanging there.] 40. Welcome CucJcholds to Horn-Fair. By Hagarty. [Whimsically ima- gined, and drolly executed — Being a Picture of Horn-Fair containing various Figures of Cuckholds in different Characters; some with large staring Bulls', Goats'-Horns, &c, others w 7 ith their Horns just budding. The center Figure is that of a fine Gentleman (copied from the fine Geiv 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 Cuckhold, having a Horn in his Forehead like an Uni- corn's.] 49. An Ha! Ha! 50 [On a parallel Line icith the foregoing on the other Side of the Chim- ney'] The Curiosity, 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 Ha ! Ha! Ha ! and on the other He ! He! He! 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 Renoioned 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 Quaet in the other. By the Lion's Foot are two Scrolls, like Ballads, the one inscribed 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 of 524 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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, Indulgencies, &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.] 53. An original Portrait of the present Emperor of Russia, 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.'] 56. The Ghost of Cock Lane. By Miss Fanny . [The figure of two 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.] 60.-4 Prospective View of Billingsgate, or Lectures on Elocution. 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-Council-Man, and two Friends, drunk, over a Bottle and a Pipe. The CommomCouncil-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 Henley is doubtless intended. BONNELL THORNTON'S SIGNBOARD EXHIBITION. 525 69. St Dunstan and the Devil. [The Saint Taking the Devil by the Nose.] 70. St Squintum and the Devil, its Companion. By . [Dr "VV d doing the same. The Portrait is not unlike the Doctor.*] 71. Shave for a Penny, Let Blood for Nothing. [A Man tinder the Hands of a Barber-Surgeon, who 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 the London Register, u 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 — This Day was published, Price Gd., 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. Printed for "VV. Nicholl, at the Papermill, in St Paul's Churchyard. We shall close this subject with a paper in favour of the much abused exhibition, a weak, but well meant, effusion in doggerel rhyme : — To the Printer o/the ST JAMES'S CHRONICLE. SIR, 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 Your humble Servant And constant Reader A Friend to the Sign Painters. * The celebrated preacher, George Whitfield, who was chaplain to Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. 526 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Addressed to the Gentlemen of the Society o/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 odorifrous Flavour to the Skies, And Masmore's, Lester's, Ward's, and Fishoourni '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. April 27-29, 1762. E. N, INDEX. A. B. C, 476. Abel Drugger, 85. Abercrombie, Sir Ralph, 58. Abraham Offering his Son, 259. Absalom, 263. Acorn, 246. Adam's Arms, 136. Adam and Eve, 257, 258. Addison's Head, 68. African Chief, 432. Air-Balloon, 486. Airesdale Heifer, 190. Albemarle, Duke of, 59. Albion, 329. Ale-stakes, 6. Ale-pole, 233. Alfred's Head, 45. Almond Tree, 245. Anchor, 332. Anchor and Castle, 333. Anchor and Can, 333. Anchor and Shuttle, 333. Ancient Briton, 415. Andrew Marvel, 63. Angel, 266, 267, 268. Angel and Bible, 270. Angel and Crown, 270. Angel and doves, 271. Angel and Still, 271. Angel and Stilliards, 271. Angel and Sun, 272. Angel and Woolpack, 272. Angel on the Hoop, 504. Angler, 361. Annunciation, 279. Anodyne Necklace, 405. Antelope, 110. Antigallican, 485. Antigallican Arms, 136, 485. Antwerp, 425. Anvil, 346. Anvil and Blacksmith,346. Anvil and Hammer, 346. Ape, 161. Ape and Bagpipes, 438. Apollo, 69. Apple-tree, 239. Apple-tree and Mitre, 239. Arabian Horse, 175. Archimedes, 62. Arethusa, 329. Arrow, 326. Artichoke, 250. Ash-tree, 246. Ass in the Bandbox, 467. Atlas, 71. Auld Lang Syne, 81. Australian, 436. Ave Maria, 280. Axe, 346. Axe and Cleaver, 346. Axe and Compasses, 346. Axe and Saw, 346. Axe and Tun, 475. Babes in the Wood, 76. Bacchus, 69. Bag o' Nails, 347. Baker and Basket, 348. Baker and Brewer, 348. Balaam's Ass, 261. Balcony, 375. Bald Face, 165. Bald Hind, 164. Bald-faced Stag, 164. Ball, 482. Ball and Cap, 483. Ball and Raven, 483. Balloon, 355, 486. Barrel, 349. Bang Up, 355. Bank of Friendship, 434. Banner, 322. Baptist Head, 273. Barber's Pole, 341. Barber's signs, 344, 345. Barley Broth, 384. Barleycorn, Sir John, 79. Barley Mow, 244, 327. Barley-Stack, 244. Bat and Ball, 484. Battered Naggin, 468. Battle of the Nile, 61. Battle of Pyramids, 61. Battle of Waterloo, 61. Bay Childers, 175. Bay Horse, 171. Beadle, 336. Beagle, 194. Bear, 152, 153, 154. Bear and Bacchus, 155. Bear and Harrow, 155. Bear and Ragged Staff, 136. Bear and Rummer, 155. Bear's Paw, 144. Bear's Head, 155. Bedford Head, 99. Beech-tree, 246. Beef Steaks, 378. Beehive, 231, 472. Bee's Wing, 384. Bel and Dragon, 256. Bell, 473, 477, 478, 479. Bell and Anchor, 480. Bell and Black Horse, 174. Bell and Bullock, 480. Bell and Candlestick, 480. Bell and Crown, 480. Bell and Cuckoo, 480. Bell and Horse, 174. Bell and Lion, 480. Bell and Mackerel, 230. Bell and Talbot, 165. Bell in the Thorn, 475. Bell Savage, 480, 481. Benbow, Admiral, 57. Bess of Bedlam, 370. Bible, 253. Bible and Ball, 256, 483. Bible and Crown, 103. Bible, Crown, and Constitu- tion, 254. Bible and Dial, 256. Bible and Dove, 255. 523 INDEX, Bible and Harp, 473. Bible and Key, 285. Bible and Lamb, 255. Bible and Peacock, 255. Bible and Sun, 256. Bible and Three Crowns, 127. Bible, Sceptre, and Crown, 255. Birch-tree, 246. Bird and Bantling, 138. Birdbolt, 361. Bird in the Bush, 449. Bird in Hand, 416, 447, 448, 449. Bishop Blaize, 283. Bishop Blaize and Two Saw- yers, 252. Bishop of Canterbury, 64. Bishop's Head, 315. Blackamoor's Head, 485. Black Ball and Lillyhead, 64. Black Bell, 479. Blackbird, 202. Black Boy, 432. Black Boy and Camel. 433. Black Boy and Cat, 105. Black Boy and Comb, 433. Black Bull and Looking- Grlass, 187. Black Cock, 209. Black CrovY, 203. Black Dog, 193. Black Dog and Still, 483. Black Doll, 486. Black Girl, 433. Black Friar, 319. Black Goat, 192. Black Greyhound, 195. Black Jack, 384, 385, 386. Black Lion, 120. Blackmoor's Head and Wool- pack, 347. Black Posts, 373. Black Prince, 46. Black Ram, 190. Black Spread Eagle, 139. Black Swan, 215, 216, 473. Blaize, Bishop, 283. Bleeding Heart, 300. Bleeding Horse, 175. Bleeding Wolf, 143. Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, 73. Blink Bonny, 175. Block, 363. Blossom's Inn, 297. Blue Anchor, 333. Blue Anchor and Ball, 333. Blue and Gilt Balcony, 376. Blue Balls, 483. Blue Bible, 253. Blue Boar, 116, 288. Blue Bowl, 395. Blue Boy, 510. Blue Bull, 195. Blue-coat Boy, 509. Blue Cock, 209. Blue Cow, 195. Blue Dog, 194. 195. Blue Flower Pot, 377. Blue Fox, 195. Blue Garland, 236. Blue Greyhound, 195. Blue Helmet, 326. Blue Horse, 170. Blue Lion, 146. Blue Man, 195. Blue Peruke and Star, 404. Blue Pig, 116, 195. Blue Posts, 373. Blue Pump, 397. Blue Ram, 195. Blue Stoops, 406. Board, 377. Boar's Head, 378, 379, 380. Boat, 334. Boatswain, 332. Boatswain's Call, 332. Bceuf a, la Mode, 475. Bolt in Tun, 471. Bombay Grab, 328. Bonny Cravat, 406. Book in Hand, 446. Booksellers' Signs, 6, 7. Boot, 409. Boot and Slipper, 409. Bosom's Inn, 297, 298. Bottle, 387. Bottle and Glass, 387. Bowman, 363. Bowls and Candle-poles, 362. Boy and Barrel, 349. Boy and Cap, 349. Brace, 473. Brandy Cask, 349. Brass Knocker, 376. Brawn's Head, 381. Brazen Serpent, 7, 261. Breeches and Glove, 409. Britannia, 415. British Oak, 246. Brood Hen, 178. Broughton, 87. Brown Bear, 152. Brown Bill, 336. Brown Cow, 190. Brown Jug, 387. Brown Lion, 150. Brunswick, The, 50. Buchanan Head, 63. Buck, 471. Buck and Bell, 165. Bucket, 397. Buck in the Park, 127. Buckthorn Tree, 246. Buffalo Head, 186. Bugle, 188. Bugle Horn, 340. Bull, 182, 183. Bull and Bedpost, 187. Bull and Bell, 165. Bull and Bitch, 187. Bull and Butcher, 187. Bull and Chain, 182. Bull and Dog, 187. Bull and Gate, 62. Bull and Garter, 252. Bull's Head, 185. Bull Inn, 92. Bull and Magpie, 187. Bull and Mouth, 61. Bull and Oak, 188. Bull and Stirrup, 116. Bull and Swan, 188. Bull and Three Calves, 177. Bullen Butchered, 47. Bull in the Oak, 188. Bull in the Pound, 188. Bull's Neck, 186. Bumper, 390. Bunch of Carrots, 243. Bunch of Grapes, 243. Bunch of Roses, 236. Burdett, Sir Francis, 63. Burnt Tree, 246. Bush, 3, 4, note, 233, 234. Bushel, 347. Butler's Head, 63. Butt and Oyster, 381. Cabbage, 251. Cabbage Hall, 251. Cabinet, 393. Cspsar's Head, 45. Camden Arms, 68. Camden Head, 68. Camden House, 416. Camel, 162. Camel's Head, 162. Canary House, 384. Cannon Ball, 327. Canute Castle, 45. Cap and Stocking, 402. Cape of Good Hope, 422. Cardinal's Hat or Cap, 315. Case is Altered, 460. Castle, 130, 417, 487. Castle and Banner, 488. Castle and Falcon, 487. Castle and Wheelbarrow s 488. Castles in the Air, 488. Castor and Pollux, 70. Cat, 197. Cat and Bagpipes, 438. Cat and Cage, 198. Cat and Fiddle, 438. Cat and Kittens, 177. Cat and Lion, 198. Cat and Parrot, 198. Cat and Wheel, 299. Caterpillar Hall, 251. Catherine Wheel, 298, 357. Cat in the Basket, 198. Centurion's Lion, 151. Chaffcutter's Arms, 352. Chained Bull, 182. Chaise and Pair, 176. INDEX. 529 Chapel Bell, 321. Charing Cross, 416. Charles the First's Head, 48. Charles the Second's Head, 49. Charter about signs granted by Charles I., 10. Chase, 361. Chelsea Waterworks, 416. Chequers, 488. Cherry Garden, 240. Cherry Tree, 240, 472. Cheshire Cheese, 883. Chestnut, 246. Child-Coat, 407. Chiltern Hundred, 418. China Hall, 435. Church, 321. Church Gates, 321. Church Stile, 321. Cinder Oven, 346. Circe, 329. Civet, 162. Cleaver, 358. Clog, 410. Clown, 85. Coach and Horses, 355, 356. Coach and Dogs, 357. Coble, 334. Cock, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209. Cock and Anchor, 212. Cock and Bear, 212. Cock and Bell, 211. Cock and Blackbird, 202. Cock and Bottle, 207, 211. Cock and Breeches, 212. Cock and Bull, 212. Cock and Crown, 212. Cock and Dolphin, 212. Cock and House, 212. Cock and Key, 471. Cock and Lion, 151. Cock and Magpie, 382. Cock and Pie, 382. Cock and Pynot, 383. Cock and Trumpet, 211. Cock and Swan, 212. Cockatrice, 161. Cock in Boots, 442. Cocoa Tree, 248. Cock on the Hoop, 504. Cock's Head, 209. Coffee-house, 249. Coffee-pot, 394. Colt and Cradle, 445. Complete Angler, 80. Comus, 70. Copper Pot, 396. Corner Pin, 505. Cottage of Content, 434. Cotton Breeches, 409. Cotton-tree, 248. Coventry Cross, 418. Cow and Calf, 177. Cow and Hare, 449. Cow and Snuffers, 444. Cow and Two Calves, 177. Cow in Boots, 442. Cow Roast, 378. Cow's Pace, 186. Crab and Lobster, 381. Crab-tree, 247. Cradle, 130, 393. Cradle and Coffin, 464. Craven Arms, 59. Craven Head, 59. Craven Heifer, 190. Craven Ox, 188. Craven Ox Head, 188. Crawfish, 381. Crescent and Anchor, 500. Cricketers, 39. Cricketers' Arms, 484. Cripples' Inn, 468. Crispin and Crispian, 281. Crocodile, 162. Cromwell, 46. Cromwell, Oliver, 121. Crook and Shears, 353. Crooked Billet, 489. Cross, 275, 276. Cross Axes, 346. Cross Bullets, 327. Cross Foxes, 142. Cross Guns, 322. Cross Hands, 493. Cross in Hand, 493. Cross Keys, 131, Cross Keys and Bible, 131. Cross Lances, 322. Cross o' the Hands, 493. Cross Pistols, 322. Cross Scythes, 353. Cross Swords, 322. Crow in the Oak, 203. Crown, 101, 239, 258. Crown and Anchor, 103. Crown and Can, 106. Crown and Column, 103. Crown and Cushion, 102. Crown and Dove, 105. Crown and Fan, 105. Crown and Glove, 102. Crown and Halbert, 106 Crown and Harp, 126. Crown and Leek, 126. Crown and Last, 105. Crown and Mitre, 103. Crown and Punchbowl, 388. Crown and Rasp, 105. Crown and Rolls, 337. Crown and Sceptre, 103. Crown and Tower, 103. Crown and Trumpet, 106. Crown and Woolpack, 103. Crown and Woodpecker, 103. Crowned Q. 476. Crowned Fan, 412. Crown of Thorns, 275. Crown on the Hoop, 504. Crow's Nest, 178. Cumberland, Duke of, 54. Czar's Head, 52.- Dagger, 325. Dairymaid, 353. Daisy, 238. Dancing Dogs, 444. Dancing Goat, 439. Dandie Dinmont, 81. Dapple Grey, 171. Darby and Joan, 79. David and Harp, 263. Davy Lamp, 346. Defiance, 855. Denmark House, 436, 437. Devil, 291, 294, 295. Devil and Bag of Nails, 347. Devil and St Dunstan, 291, 292, 293. Devil in a Tub. 460. Devil's Head, 295. Dick Tarleton, 83. Digby, Captain, 99. Dirty Dick, 90. Dr Johnson's Head, 68. Doctor Syntax, 81. Dog, 192. Dog and Bacon, 378. Dog and Badger, 197. Dog and Bear, 196. Dog and Crock, 444. Dog and Duck, 196, 197. Dog and Gun, 197. Dog and Hedgehog, 162. Dog and Partridge, 197. Dog and Pheasant, 197. Dog and Punchbowl, 588. Dog in Doublet, 443. Dog's Head in the Pot, 443, 444. Dolphin, 227, 228. Dolphin & Anchor, 228, 229. Dolphin and Bell, 165. Dolphin and Comb, 229. Dolphin and Crown, 129. Don Cossack, 99. Don John, 68. Don Juan, 68. Don Saltero, 93, 94. Donkey Playing on Hurdj Gurdy, 439. Doublet, 407. Dove, 219. Dove and Rainbow, 259. Dovecote, 219. Dover Castle, 417. Dragon, 111, 158. Drake, 218. Drake, Admiral, 56. Dray and Horses, 349. Drovers' Arms, 136. Drover's Call, 355. Druid and Oak, 100. Druid's Head, 99. Drum and Trumpet, 322. Dryden's Head. 67. 2 L 53o INDEX. Duck and Mallard, 218. Duke's Head, 59. Dunciad, 67. Dun Cow, 74. Durham Heifer, 190. Durham Ox, 188. Dust Pan, 397. Dusty Miller, 348. Dwarf, 89. Eagle, 199. Eagle and Ball, 199. Eagle and Child, 138. Eagle and Serpent, 198. Eagle's Foot, 139. Early Christian signs, 3, 4. East India House, 415. Edinburgh Castle, 418. Eight Bells, 478. Eight Ringers, 478. Elephant and Castle, 155, 156. Elephant and Fish, 156. Elephant and Friar, 156. Elisha's Raven, 264. Elliott, General, 58. Elm, 246. Elysium, 73. England, Scotland, and Ire- land, 415. English Arms, 129. Essex Arms, 60. Essex, Earl of, 60. Essex Head, 60. Essex Serpent, 80. Exchange, 415. Exmouth, Lord, 57. Experienced Fowler, 361. Express, 355. Ewe and Lamb, 177. Falcon, 219. Falcon on the Hoop, 220, 504. Falcon and Horseshoe, 115. Falstaff, Sir John, 67, 86. Fan, 412. Farmer's Arms, 136, 352. Father Redcap, 96. Feathers, 122. Ferguson, James, 63. Fiddler's Arms, 83. Fifteen Balls, 127. Fighting Cocks, 210, 252. Fig-tree, 245. Filho, 175. Filho da Puta, 175. Finish, 511. Fire-beacon, 117. First and Last, 436, 464. Fir-tree, 246. Fish, 230. Fish and Anchor, 22S. Fish and Bell, 165, 230. Fish and Dolphin, 230. Fish and Eels, 231. Fish and Kettle, 231. Fish and Quart, 231. Fishbone, 231. Fishing Cat, 439. Fishing Smack, 334. Five Bells, 331, 478. Five Clogs, 410. Five Cricketers, 484. Five Inkhorns, 337. Flaming Sword, 253. Flank of Beef, 378. Flask, 387. Fleece, 58. Flitch of Dunmow, 420. Flower de Luce, 128. Flower Pot, 376. Flowers of the Forest, 81. Flying Bull, 73. Flying Childers, 175. Flying Dutchman, 175. Flying Fox, 170. Flying Horse, 72, 3G5. Flying Monkey, 444. Foaming Quart, 387. Foaming Tankard, 349. Folly, 509. Fool, 339. Forest Blue Bell, 238. Fortune, 73. Foul Anchor, 333. Fountain, 471, 494, 495. Fountain and Bear, 496. Fountain of Juvenca, 461. {Four) 4. 477. Four Alls/451, 452. Four Bells, 478. Four Coffins, 371. Fourteen Stars, 500. Fox, 168, 472. Fox and Bull, 169. Fox and Cap, 170. Fox and Crane, 169. Fox and Crown, 170, 354. Fox and Duck, 169. Fox and Goose, 168. Fox and Grapes, 169. Fox and Hen, 169. Fox and Hounds, 169. Fox and Knot, 170. Fox and Lamb, 169. Fox and Owl, 169. Fox and Punchbowl, 388. Fox's Tail, 170. French Arms, 128. French Horn, 339. French Horn and Half Moon, 339. French Horn and Queen's Head, 339. French Horn and Rose, 339. French Horn and Violin, 338. French signs, 8, 11, 16. 17, 28, 35, 36, 37, 41, 279, 280 Frighted Horse, 175. Froghall, 232. Frying Pan, 396. Full Measure, 319. Full Moon, 500. Full Ship, 330. Galloping Horse, 173. Gander, 472. Gaper, 467. Gaping Goose, 444. Garden House, 373. Garrick's Head, 85. Garter, 410, 411. Gelding, 176. General's Arms, 136. Geneva Arms, 130. Generous Briton, 415. Gentle Shepherd of Sal is- bury Plain, 419. George, 287, 2S8. George and Blue Boar, 288. George and Dragon, 40. George and Thirteen Can- tons, 289. George and Vulture, 289. George on the Hoop, 504. Gibraltar, 61, 422. Gipsy Queen, 508. Gipsy Tent, 508. Globe, 414. Globe and Compasses, 147. Glorious Apollo, 69. Glove, 411. Goat, 192. ' Goat and Kid, 177. " Goat in Armour, 440. Goat in Boots, 440, 441. Godfrey, Sir Edmund, 64. God's Head, 279. Golden Angel, 269. Golden Ball, 482. Golden Beard, 405. Golden Bell, 479. Golden Bottle, 386.^ Golden Buck, 165. Golden Candlestick, 394. Golden Can, 386. Golden Cross, 276. Golden Crotchet, 339. Golden Cup, 149. Golden Eagle, 198. Golden Farmer, 352. Golden Field Gate, 62. Golden Fleece, 72. Golden Frog, 232. Golden Fryingpan, 396. Golden Globe, 415. Golden Griffin, 145. Golden Head, 490. Golden Heart, 300, 473. Golden Jar, 397. Golden Key, 398. Golden Key and Bible, 255. Golden Lion, 146, 201, 327. Golden Maid, 364. Golden Measure, 349. Golden Quoit, 505. INDEX. 531 Golden Ring, 412. Golden Slipper, 409. Golden Sun, 498. Golden Tiger, 152. Golden Tun, 474. Goliah, or Golias, 262. Goliah Head, 262. Good Samaritan, 274. Good Woman, 454, 455. Goose and Gridiron, 239, 445. Goose and Gridiron, 316. Gospel Oak, 278. Grafton's Head, Duke of. 386. Granby, Marquis of, 55, 58. Grand A., 476. Grand B., 476. Grasshopper, 140. Grave Maurice, 53. Gray Ass, 221. Grazier's Arms, 352. Great Mogol, 51. Great Turk, 429. Grecian, 429. Greek Signs, 1. Green Bellows, 394. Green Dragon, 111. Green Lattice, 375. Green Lettuce, 375. Green Man, 366, 367, 368, 449. Green Man and Ball, 483. Green Man and Still, 148. Green Monkey, 444. Green Monster, 507. Green Pales, 373. Green Parrot, 222. Green Posts, 472. Green Seedling, 246. Green Tree, 245. Gresham, Thomas, 63. Gretna Green, 422. Grey Goat, 192. Greyhound, 194. Grey Mare, 177. Grey Ox, 188. Gridiron, 396. Griffin, 145. Griffin's Arms, 136. Grinding Young, 461. Grinning Jackanapes, 440. Grouse and Moorcock, 223. Grouse and Trout, 223. Guardian Angel, 269. Guilded Cup, 387. Gun, or Cannon, 117. Guy of Warwick, 74. Halbert and Crown, 327. Half Eagle and Key, 130. Half- Moon, 327, 500. Half-Moon and Punchbowl, 388. Half-Moon and Seven Stars, 500. Hailstone, 502. Ham, 381. Ham and Firkin, 381. Hammer, 347. Hammer and Crown, 119. Hand, 492. Hand and Apple, 239. Hand and Ball, 492. Hand and Bible, 299. Hand and Cork, 471. Hand and Ear, 492. Hand and Face, 492. Hand and Flower, 235. Hand and Heart, 493. Hand and Hollybush, 250. Hand and Pen, 337. Hand and Scales, 362. Hand and Shears, 350. Hand and Slipper, 409. Hand and Tench, 493. Hand and Tennis, 493. Handel's Head, 83. Handgun. 326. Hand in Hand, 493. Hare, 163. Hare and Cats, 164. Hare and Hounds, 163, 164. Hare and Squirrel, 163. Hark the Lasher, 361. Hark to Bounty, 361. Hark up to Glory, 361. Hark up to Nudger, 361. Harlequin, 365. Harmer, Captain, 99. Harp, 340, 473. Harp and Hautboy, 338. Harrow, 351. Harrow and Doublet, 407. Hart on the Hoop, 504. Harvest Home, 354. Hat, 399. Hat and Beaver, 191, 400. Hat and Feathers, 400. Hat and Star, 402, 492. Hat and Tun, 473. Hautboy and Two Flutes, 338. Have at It, 209, 210. Hawk and Buck, 115. Hawk and Buckle, 115. Hawthorn, 117. Haycock, 420. Haylift, 502. Heart and Ball, 300, 483. Heart and Trumpet, 505. Heart in Bible, 299. Heart in Hand, 493. Hearts of Oak, 246. Hearty Good Fellow, 82. Heathfield, Lord, 58. Heaven, 300. Hedgehog, 162. Hell, 301. Helmet, 326. Help me thro' thisWorld,450. Hen and Chickens, 178. Hen on the Hoop, 504. Hercules, 70. Hercules' Pillars, 70. Hereford Castle, 418. Hero of Switzerland, 100. Highland Laddie, 421. Hill, 471. Hind, 472. Hippopotamus, 162. Hit or Miss, 451. Hob in the Well, 79. Hobnails, 347. Hobson's Inn, 92. Hog in Armour, 440. Hog in the Pound, 192. Hole in the Wall, 502, 503. Hogarth's Head, 82. Holland Arms, 172. Hollybush, 250. Homer's Head, 65. Honest Lawyer, 456. Hood and Scarf, 406. Hoop, 504. Hoop and Bunch of Grapes, 252, 504. Hoop and Griffin, 505. Hoop and Horseshoe, 180. Hoop and Toy, 505. Hop and Barleycorn, 244. Hopbine, 244. Hope and Anchor, 73, 333. Hop-pole, 244. Horace's Head, 65. Horn, 340. Horn and Three Tuns, 339. Horns, 166, 167, 168, 473. Horns and Horseshoe, 180. Horse, 170, 171. Horse and Chaise, 176. Horse and Dorsiter, 175. Horse and Farrier, 175. Horse and Gate, 176. Horse and Groom, 173. Horse's Head, 176. Horse and Horseshoe, 180. Horse and Jockey, 173. Horse and Stag, 176. Horse and Tiger, 175. Horse and Trumpet, 176. Horseshoe, 178, 179, 180, 322 Horseshoe and Crown, 181. Hour-glass, 397. Hunchbacked Cats, 444. Huntsman, 361. Hyde Park, 416. Ibex, 162. Illuminated Dust Pan, 397. Indian Chief, 431, 432. Indian Handkerchief, 405. Indian King, 51, 431. Indian Queen, 431, 432. In Yino Veritas, 144. Iron Balcony, 375. Iron Pear-tree, 239. Ironwork, Signs suspended from ornamental, 7, 8. Ivy Bush, 233. Ivy Green, 233. 532 INDEX. Jackanapes on Horseback, 439. Jackass in Boots, 443. Jack of Both Sides, 468. Jack of Newbury, 78. Jack on a Cruise, 332. Jacob's Well, 26^, 274. Jamaica, 423. Jamaica and Madeira, 423. Jane Shore, 76. Jenny Lind, 83. Jersey Castle, 418. Jerusalem, 434. Jew's Harp, 340. Jim Crow, 81. Joey Grimaldi, 85. John Bull, 415. John of Gaunt, 46. John of Jerusalem, 274. John o' Groat's, 79. Jolly Brewer, 450. Jolly Butchers, 302. Jolly Crispin, 281. Jolly Farmer, 352. Jolly Toper, 466. Jonson's Head, 66. Jovial Dutchman, 425, 426. Jubilee, 100. Judge's Head, 335. Jug and Glass, 387. Junction Arms, 136. Juno, 69. Kangaroo, 162. Kettledrum, 322. Key, 397, 472. King and Miller, 74. King Astyages' Arms, 257. King Charles in the Oak, 49. King Crispin. 2S1. King David, 262. King Edgar, 46. King John, 46. King of Denmark, 52. King of Prussia, 54. King's Arms, 106. King's Head, 305, 306, 307. Kings and Keys, 302. King's Head and Good Wo- man, 455. King's Porter and Dwarf 89. Kite's Nest, 178. Knowles, Sheridan, 69. Kouli Khan, 51. La Belle Sauvage, 482. Labour in Vain, 460. Laced Shoe, 409. Lads of the Village, 105- Ladv of the Lake, 81. Lamb, 191. Lamb and Anchor, 300. Lamb and Breeches, 191. Lamb and Crown, 191. Lamb and Flag, 300, Lamb and Hare, 191. Lamb and Inkbottle, 229. Lamb and Lark, 191. Lamb and Still, 191. Lambert, Daniel, 88. Lame Dog, 450. Lamp, 376. Land 6' Cakes, 420. Lass o' Gowrie, 81. Last, 349. Lattice, 374, 375. Laughing Dog, 444. Leather Bottle, 3S6. Lebeck's Head, 93. Lebeck and Chafi'cutter, 93. Leg, 409, 494. Leg and Star, 494. Leigh Hoy, 333. Leopard, 152. Leopard and Tiger, 152. Letters, 476. Lilies of the Valley, 238. Linskill, Colonel, 99. Lion, 472. Lion and Adder, 299. Lion and Ball, 151. Lion and Castle, 128. Lion and Dolphin, 150. Lion and Goat, 299. Lion and Horseshoe, 180. Lion and Lamb, 299. Lion and Pheasant, 150. Lion and Snake, 299. Lion and Swan, 150. Lion and Tun, 150. Lion in the Wood, 149. Little A, 476. Little Devil, 294. Little Pig, 192. Live Vulture, 224. Live and Let Live, 450. Llangollen Castle, 418. Load of Hay, 353. Load of Mischief, 457. Lobster, 381. Loch-na-Gar, 81. Lock and Key, 898. Lock and Shears, 403. Locke's Head, 63. Locks of Hair, 403. Looking-Glass, 392, 393. London Apprentice, 79. London Signs, temp. James L, 8, 9. London Signs, temp. Charles I., 9, 10. London Signs after the Fire, 16. London Signs in 1803, 31, 32 London Signs in 1865, 42, 43, 44. London Signs, Roxburghe Ballad upon the, 13. London Signs taken down, 28, 29. Lord Anglesey, 64 Lord Bacon's Head, G3. Lord Byron, 68. Lord Cobham's Head, 97. Lord Craven, 59. Loving Lamb, 444. Lubber's Head, 147. Luck's All, 451. Lucrece, 80. Mad Cat, 196 Mad Dog, 196. Maggoty Pie, 221. Magna Charta, 46. Magpie, 40, 220. Magpie and Crown, 220, 221, Magpie and Horseshoe, 180. Magpie and Pewter Platter, 221. Magpie and Punchbowl, 388. Magpie and Stump, 221. Maid and the Magpie, 83. Maidenhead, 141. Maid's Head, 142. Mail, 355. Malt and Hops, 244. Manage Horse, 175. Man in the Wood, 472. Man Loaded with Mischief, 456. Man of Ross, 68. Man in the Moon, 303, 304. Mare and Foal, 177. Marlborough's Head, Duke of, 59. Marquis of Granby, 55, 58. Marrowbones and Cleaver, 358. Martin's Nest, 178. Martyr's Head, 48. Marygold, 237. Matrons, 321. Mattock and Spade, 353. Maypole, 506. Mazeppa, 68. Medieval Signs, 4, 5. Melancthon's Head, 97. Mercury, 70. Mercury and Fan, 70. Merlin's Cave, 77. Merry Andrew, 368. Merry Harriers, 194. Mermaid, 225, 226, 227. Merry Mouth, 491. Merry Song, 339. Merry Tom, 369. Middleton, Sir Hugh, 63. Million Gardens, 507. Millstone, 348. Milton's Head, 67. Minerva, 69. Miraculous Draught ot Fishes, 275. Mitre, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319. Mitre and Dove, 319. Mitre and Keys, 319. INDEX. 533 Mitre and Rose, 315, 319. Mitre on the Hoop, 504. Mischief, 457. Mitford Castle, 418. Minister's Gown, 407. Mock-Signs, 12. Monck's Head, 59. Monster, 507. Moon, 499. Moonrakers, 105, 463. Moore, General, 58. Mortal Man, 40, 464. Mortar and Pestle, 341. Moses and Aaron, 260. Moss-rose, 236 Mother Huff, 97. Mother Redcap, 96. Mother Shipton, 76. Mount Pleasant, 434. Mourning Crown, 48, 49. Mourning Mitre, 49. Mouth, 491. Mouth of the Nile, 61. Mulberry Tree, 240, 241. Mustard Pot, 383. Myrtle Tree, 238. Mystic Number Three, 261), note. Nag's Head, 176. Naked Boy, 452, 453. Naked Roy and Woolpack, 272. Name of Jesus, 279. Napier, Sir Charles, 57. Nell Gwynne, 97. Nelson and Peal, 166, 478. Neptune, 70. Newton, Sir Isaac, 62. Next Boat by Paul's, 335. Nine Elms, 246. Noah's Ark, 258. Nobis Inn, 473. Noblemen's Badges, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136. Nobody, 457, 458. Noggin, 468. No Place, 436. 458. North Pole, 436. Norwich, City of, 418. Nowhere, 458. Number IV., 477. Numbers versus Signs, 29, 30. Number Three, 477. Oak, 246, 474. Oak and Black Dog, 203. Oak and Toy, 246. Oakley Arms, 144. Oatsheaf, 252. Old Barge, 334. Old Careless, 468. Oldcastle, Sir John, 97. Old Coach and Six, 355. Old English Gentleman, 81, 415. Old Hand and Tankard, 493. Old Hobson, 92. Old House at Home, 82. Old Knave of Clubs, 505. Old Man, 494. Old Parr's Head, 91. Old Pharaoh, 261. Old Pick my Toe, 468. Old Prison, 416. Old Ring o' Bells, 478. Old Roson, 81. Old Smuggs, 468. Old Will Somers, 86, 87. Olive-tree, 242. One and All, 128. One Tun, 148. Orange-tree and Two Jars, 241, 242. Ormond's Head, 59. Orpheus, 72. Ostrich, 223. Our Lady, 272. Our Lady of Pity, 272. Owl, 223. Owl's Nest, 169, 223. Ox and Compasses, 188. Oxford Arms, 127. Ox in Boots, 442. Oxnoble, 251. Pack Horse, 175. Paganini, 83. Pageant, 50. Palatine Head, 54. Palm-tree, 248. Panting Hart, 263. Panyer, 348. Paracelsus, 64. Paradise, 301. Parrot, 222. Parrot and Cage, 222. Parrot and Punchbowl, 388. Parson's Green, 472. Parting Pot, 349. Parta Tueri, 144. Pasqua Rosee, 92. Patten, 410. Paltzgrave, 54.' Paul's Head, 290. Paul Pry, 86. Paviors' Arms, 352. Peach-tree, 245. Peacock, 222. Peacock and Feathers, 223. Pearl of Venice, 406. Pear-tree, 239. Pease and Beans, 251. Peat Spade, 353. Peel, 348. Pelican, 200. Periwig, 404. Pestle, 341. Pestle and Mortar, 472. Peter's linger, 291. Pewter Platter, 396. Pewter Pot, 387. Philpott, Toby, 81. Phoenix, 199. Pickled Egg, 383. Pickwick, 81. Pie, 382. Pied Bull, 184. Pied Calf, 190. Pied Dog, 194. Pig and Tinder-box, 156. Pig and Whistle, 437. Pigeon, 218. Pigeon Bow, 219. Pilgrim, 508. Pindar of Wakefield, 75. Pindar, Sir Paul. 98. Pine Apple, 244. Pistol and C, 326. Pitcher and Glass, 387. Plate, 326. Plough, 351. Plough and Ball, 483. Plough and Harrow, 351. Plough and Horses, 351. Poet's Head, 48, 337.. Pointer, 194. Pole Star, 501. Political Sign Pasquinade, 13. Pontack's Head, 93. Pope's Head, (the Poet,} 67. Pope's Head, 312, 313, 314. Popinjay, 222. Portcullis, 121. Porter Butt, 349. Porter and Gentleman, 361. Porter's Lodge, 351. Portobello, 39, 57. Postboy, 363. Prince, 428. Prince Eugene, 53. Prince Rupert, 54. Prince of Wales' Arms, 122. Prince of Wales' Feathers, 122. Puddlers' Arms, 352. Pump, 396. Punchbowl, 388. Punchbowl and Ladle, 388. Purcell's Head, 83. Purgatory, 301. Purple Lion, 146. Puss in Boots, 442. Q Inn, 476. Q in the Corner, 476. Quaker, 508. Queen Anne, 47. Queen Catherine, 47. Queen Charlotte, 40. Queen Eleanor, 47. Queen Elizabeth, 47. Queen Mary, 50. Queen of Bohemia, 47. 534 INDEX. Queen of Hearts and King's Armfl, 505. Queen of Hungary, 55. Queen of Saba, 263. Queen of Trumps, 505. Queen of the Gipsies, 508. Queen's Arms, 107. Queen's Arms and Corn- cutter, 107. Queen's Elm, 246 Queens Head, 130. 307, 338, 309, 310, 311, 349, 510. Queen's Head and Artichoke, 312. Queen Victoria, 50. Quiet Woman, 454. Racoon, 162. Raffled Anchor, 333. Railway, 334. Rainbow, 502. Raleigh, Sir Walter, 56. Ram, 190. Raven and Bell, 165. Ram and Teazel, 149. Ram's Head, 190. Ram's Skin, 190. ' Ranged Deer, 165. Rat and Ferret, 162. Raven, 201. Recruiting Sergeant, 322. Red Ball and Acorn, 483. Red Bear, 152. Red Bull, 185. Red Cat, 197. Red Cow, 188, 189. Red Dragon, 111. Red Horse, 171. Red Lion, 119, 327. Red Lion and Key, 472. Red Lion and Punchbowl, 388. Red M and Dagger, 325. Red Poles, 373. Red Rover, 81. Red Shield, 504. Red Streak Tree, 239. Red, White, and Blue, 332. Reindeer, 157. Rembrandt's Head, 82. Resurrection, 277, 474. Rest and be Thankful, 510. Rhenish Wine House, 384. Ribs of Beef, 378. Ring, 412. Ring and Ball, 484. Rising Buck, 165. Rising Deer, 165. Rising Sun, 118, 499. Rising Sun and Seven Stars, 499. Robin Adair, 81. Robin Hood and Little John, 75. Robinson Crusoe, 81. Rob Roy, 81. Rochester Castle, 418. Rodney, Admiral, 57. Rodney and Hood, 57. Rodney Pillar, 57. Roebuck, 165, 166. Rolls, 336. Roman Signs, 1, 2, 3. Rope and Anchor, 333. Rose, 124, 125, 126, 235. Rose and Ball, 126. Rose and Crown, 121. Rose and Key, 126. Rose and Punchbowl, 388. Rosebud, 236. Rose Garland, 236. Rosemary Branch, 238. Rose of Normandy, 237. Ross on Clinker, Captain, 99. Round of Beef, 378. Round Table, 79. Roxellana, 85. Royal Badges, 108, 109, 110. Royal Bed, 377. Royal Champion, 102. Royal Charles, 330. Royal Coffee-mill, 394. Royal Hand and Globe, 312. Royal Oak, 40, 49. Royal Standard, 105. Rummer, 389, 390. Rummer and Grapes, 239. Rum Puncheon, 349. Running Footman. 360. Running Horse, 173, 327. Running Man, 361. Russia House, 425. Saddle, 357. St Alban, 297. St Augustine, 297. St Clement, 297. St Christopher, 285. St Crispin. 281. St Cuthbert, 296. St Dominic, 320. St Edmund's Head, 296. St George and the Dragon, 287. St John the Evangelist, 296. St Hugh's Bones, 282, 283. St Julian, 283. St Luke, 286. St Martin, 284. St Mychel, 296. St Patrick, 295. St Peter and St Paul, 291. St Thomas, 296. Salamander, 158. Salmon, 473. Salmon and Ball, 231, 483. Salmon and Compasses, 231. Salt-Horn, 377. Salutation, 264, 265. Salutation and Cat, 265, 266 Samaritan Woman, 274. Samson, 70, 262. Samson and the Lion, 262 Saracen's Head, 430/431. Saucy Ajax, 329. Saul, 290. Sawyers, 40. Scales, 362. Sceptre, 312. Sceptre and Heart, 312. Scotchman's Pack, 421. Sedan Chair, 358, 359. Seneca's Head, 65. Setter Dog, 194. Seven Sisters, 246. Seven Stars, 500. Sevilla, City of, 423. Shakespeare's Head, 66, 335. Shamrock, 127. Shears, 350. Sheep and Anchor, 330. Shepherd and Crook, 353. Shepherd and Dog, 353. Shepherd and Shepherdess, 352. Sheridan Knowles, 69. Sheet Anchor. 333. Ship, 328, 329^ 471. Ship and Anchor, 330. Ship and Bell, 331. Ship and Elue Coat Boy, 331. Ship and Castle, 331. Ship and Fox, 331. Ship and Notchblock, 331. Ship and Pilot-boat, 330. Ship and Plough, 331. Ship and Punchbowl, 388 Ship and Rainbow, 331. Ship and Shovel, 331. Ship and Star, 331. Ship and Whale, 330. Ship at Anchor, 330. Ship Friends, 331. Ship in Full Sail, 330. Ship in Distress, 330. Ship in Dock, 330. Ship on Launch, 330. Shirt, 451. Shoe and Slap, 409. Shoulder of Mutton and Cat, 378. Shoulder of Mutton and Cu- cumbers, 378. Shovel and Sieve, 347. Sieve, 395. Silver Lion, 119. Simon the Tanner, 286. Signboard Ballads, Modern, 32, 33. Signboard, Heraldic, Enor- mities, 35. Signboard Poetry, 17, 18. Sign-Painters, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41. Signs, bad spelling on, 27. Signs temp. George II., 22, 23, 24, 25. INDEX. 535 Signs temp. Queen Anne, 18, 19, 20, 21. Signs during the Common- wealth, 11. Signs, exhibition of, 28. Signs, extravagance in, 26. Signs, family names derived from, 42. Signs, jocular alteration of the names of, 22. Signs, London localities named after, 41. Signs of the zodiac, 501. Signs of the stews, 8. Signs, quarterings of, 21, 22. Silent Woman, 454. Sir Charles Napier, 57. SirEdmundbury Godfrey, 64. Sir Frances Burdett, 63. Sir Hugh Middleton, 63. Sir Isaac Newton, 62. Sir John Falstaff, 67, 86., Sir John Barleycorn, 79. Sir John Oldcastle, 97. Sir Paul Pindar, 98. Sir Ralph Abercrombie, 58. Sir Roger de Coverley, 80. Sir Walter Raleigh, 56. Six Bells, 478. Six Cans, 388. Six Cans and Punchbowl, 388. Sloop, 333. Slow and Easy, 468. Smith and Smithy, 346. Smyrna, 429. Snowdrop, 238. Snow-shoes, 327. Soldier and Citizen, 2G4. Sol's Arms, 149. South Sea Arms, 149. Sow and Pigs, 177. Spade and JBecket, 353. Spanish Galleon, 100. Spanish Lady, 405. Spanish Patriot, 100. Sparrow's Nest, 177. Speaker's Frigate, 330. Spiller's Head, 84. Spinning Sow, 438. Spinning Wheel, 362. Spite Hall, 468. Spread Eagle, 139. Spur, 357. Squirrel, 163. Staffordshire Knot, 123. Stag, 164. Stag and Castle, 165. Stag and Oak, 165. Stag and Pheasant, 165. Stag and Thorn, 165. Standard, 322. Star, 501. Stai and Crown, 501. Stai and Garter, 410. Stav* Porter, 361. Still. 3 19. Stock Dove, 219. Stocking, 409. Stork, 203. String of Horses, 355. Struggler, 450. Struggling Man, 450. Sugarloaf, 394. Sugarloaf and Three Coffins, 371. Sultan Morat, 51. Sultan Soliman, 51. Sun, 272, 381, 496, 497, 498. Sun and Anchor, 499. Sun and Dial, 499. Sun and Falcon, 499. Sun and Horseshoe, 180, 499. Sun and Last, 499. Sun and Moor's Head, 471. Sun and Red Cross, 471. Sun and Sawyers, 499. Sun and Sportsman, 499. Sun and Whalebone, 231. Sun in Splendour, 498. Sun, Moon, and Seven Stars, 500. Swan, 212, 213, 214, 215, 327, 379. Swan and Bottle, 217. Swan and Falcon, 118. Swan and Harp, 445. Swan and Helmet, 218. * ' Swan and Hoop, 217. Swan and Maidenhead, 118. Swan and Rummer, 217. Swan and Rushes, 218. Swan and Salmon, 217. Swan and Soldier, 394, note. Swan and Sugarloaf, 217. Swan and White Hart, 118. Swan on the Hoop, 504. Swan with Two Necks, 216, 217. Sweet Apple, 391. Swiss Cottage, 489. Sword and Ball, 312. Sword and Buckler, 323, 324. Sword and Cross, 324. Sword and Dagger, 324. Sword and Mace, 312. Sword Blade, 324. Sycamore, 246. Syntax, Doctor, 81. Tabard, 407. Tabor, 83. Talbot, 195, 408. Tallow-chandler, 362. Tally-Ho, 355. Tarn o' Shanter, 81. Tankard, 390. Tarlton, General, 58. Telegraph, 355. Temple, 416. Ten Bells, 478. Thirteen Cantons, 289. Thistle and Crown, 123. Thomas Gresham, 63. Thorn, 165. Three Admirals, 332. Three Angels, 269. Three Arrows, 130. Three Bad Ones, 457. Three Balls, 128, 395. Three Blackbirds, 203. Three Bibles, 254. Three Bibles and Three Ink bottles, 254. Three Blue Balls, 483. Three Brushes, 322. Three Candlesticks, 394. Three Chairs, 358. Three Cocks, 209. Three Coffins and Sugarloaf. 218. Three Colts, 178. Three Compasses, 146. Three Conies, 162, 472. Three Cranes, 204. Three Crickets, 393. Three Crosses, 277. Three Crowned Needles, 350. Three Crowns, 99, 102. Three Crowns and Sugarloat 218. Three Crows, 203. Three Cups, 149. Three Death' s-Heads, 371. Three Elms, 246. Three Fishes, 230, 472. Three Flower de Luces, 129. Three Forges, 346. Three Frogs, 129. Three Funnels, 395. Three Geese, 472. Three Goats' Heads, 147. Three Hats, 402. Three Hats and Nag's Head. 403. Three Herrings, 230. Three Horseshoes, 180. Three Johns, 63. Three Jolly Butchers, 358. Three Jolly Sailors, 332. Three Kings, 301, 302, 432. Three Legs, 127. Three Legs and Bible, 127. Three Leopard's Heads, Three Loggerheads, 39, 4o8, 459. Three Mariners, 331. Three Merry Devils, 432. Three Morris-dancers, 364, 365. Three Mumpers, 371. Three Neats' Tongues, 381. Three Nuns, 320. Three Old Castles, 487. Three Pheasants and Scep- tre, 150. Three Pigeons, 218, 219, 47a Three Pots, 389. Triree Radishes. 251. 536 INDEX. Three Ravens, 202. Three Roses, 236. Three Spanish Ladies, 424. Three Spies, 261. Three Squirrels, 163. Three Stags, 119. Three Sugarloaves, 395. Three Swans & Peal, 166, 478. Three Tuns, 58, 148. Three Turks, 428. Three Washerwomen, 364. Three Widows, 321. Throstle's Nest, 177. Thunderstorm, 502. Ticket Porter, 361. Tiger, 152. Tiger's Head, 134. Tiltboat, 334. Tinker's Budget, 369. Tippling Philosopher, 466. Tobacco Plant, 252. TobaccoRoll & Sugarloaf,218. Tobacco Rolls, 252. Toby Philpott, 81. Tom of Bedlam, 369, 370. Tom Sayers, 88. Topham, 88. Tower of London, 416. Toy, 505. Trafalgar, 61. Trap, 361. Traveller's Rest, 510. Trinity, 277. Triumph, 50. Triumphal Car, 327. True Briton, 415. True Lover's Knot, 509. Trumpeter, 323. Trunk, 394. Tub, 397. Tulip, 238. Tulloch Gorum, 81. Tully's Head, 65. Tumble Down Dick. 464, 465. Tumbling Sailors, 468. Tun, 474. Tun and Arrows, 471. Turk's Head, 426, 427, 428. Turk and Slave, 429. Two Black Boys, 433. Two Blue Flowerpots, 377. Two Brewers, 349. Two Chances, 451. Two Chairmen, 358. Two Cocks, 471. Two Crowns & Cushions, 102. Two Draymen, 349. Two Dutchmen, 425. Two Fans, 412. Two Flowerpots and Sun- dial, 377. Two Golden Balls, 483. Two Heads, 490. Two Jolly Brewers, 349. Two Pots, 389. Two Sawyers, 346. Two Smiths, 347. Two Sneezing Cats, 444. Two Spies, 261. Two Storks, 204. Two Twins, 501. Two White Balls, 483. Umbrella, 412. Umbrella Hospital, 413. Uncle Tom, 81. Under the Rose, 236, 237 Union, 100. Unicorn, 159, 160. Unicorn and Bible, 159. Union Arms, 136. Union Flag and Punchbowl, 388. Up and Down Post, 363. Valentine and Orson, 76. Van Dyke's Head, 82. Venice, 425. Vernon, Admiral, 57. Vine, 243, 244. Violin, Hautboy, and Ger- man Flute, 338. Virgil's Head, 65. Virgin, 272. Virginian, 431. Vulcan, 70. Wallace's Arms, 45. Walmer Castle, 417. Walnut-tree, 240. Water Tankard, 391. Waving Flag, 322. Weary Traveller, 510. Welch Head, 98. Well and Bucket, 374. Well with Two Buckets, 374. Wentworth Arms, 144. Wheatsheaf, 251. Wheatsheaf and Sugarloaf, 218. Wheel, 357. Wheel of Fortune, 506. Whip, 357. Whip and Egg, 357. White Bait, 231. White Bear, 93, 154, 155, 296 416. White Boar, 116. White Dragon, 111. White Greyhound, 194. White Hart, 112, 487. White Hart and Fountain, 263. White Horse, 171, 172, 296, 327. White Lion, 119. White Peruke, 404. Whitley Grenadier, 419. Whittington and his Cat, 78. Who'd ha' Thought it? 450. Widow's Struggle, 450. Wild Bull, 182. Wild Dayrell. 175. Wild Man, 367. Wild Sea, 502. Wilkes' Head, 63. William and Mary, 50. Willow Tree, 247. Wiltshire Shepherd, 419. Windmill, 348. Wolf and Lamb, 299. Wolfe, General, 58. Wolsey, Cardinal, 63. Woodbine, 238. Wooden Shoe, 410. Woodman, 355. Woolsack, 362. World's End, 436, 461, 462. World Turned Upside Down, 462. Wounded Heart, 300. Wrestlers, 484. Y, 476. Yellow Lion. 150. Yew Tree, 248, 475. Yorick's Head, 68. York, city of, 416, 417. York Minster, 417. Yorkshire Grey, 58, 171. Yorkshire Stingo, 384. Young Devil, 294. Young Man, 494. Z, 477. 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The volume is admirably adapted for a table-book, and the pictures will doubtless again meet with that popularity which was extended towards them when the artist projected with Mr. Dickens the famous 44 Pickwick Papers." The Famous "DOCTOR SYNTAX'S" Three Tours. One of the most Amusing and Laughable Books ever published. With the whole of Rowlandson's very droll full-page illustrations, in colours, after the original drawings. Comprising the well-known Tours : — 1. In Search of the Picturesque. 2. In Search of Consolation. 3. In Search of a Wife. The three series complete and unabridged from the original editions in one handsome volume, with a Life of this industrious Author — the English Le Sage — now first written by John Camden Hotten. * # * It is not a little surprising that the most voluminous and popular English writer since the days of Defoe should never before have received the small honour of a biography. This Edition contains the whole of the original, hitherto sold for £1 us. 6d., but which is now published at 7s. 6d. only. A VERY USEFUL BOOK. In folio, half morocco, cloth sides, 7s. 6d. Literary Scraps, Cuttings from Newspapers, Ex- tracts, Miscellanea, &c. A FOLIO SCRAP-BOOK OF 340 COLUMNS, formed for the reception of Cuttings, &c, with guards. $3f Authors and literary men have thanked the publisher for this useful book. *** A most useful volume, and one of the cheapest ever sold. The book is sure to be appreciated, and to become popular. Hone's Scrap Book. A Supplementary Volume to the " Every-Day Book," the " Year-Book," and the " Table-Book." From the MSS. of the late William Hone, with upwards of One Hundred and Fifty engravings of curious or eccentric objects. Thick 8vo, uniform with " Year-Book," pp. 800. [In preparation. John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W, VERY IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS, Mary Hollis ; a Romance of the days of Charles II. and William Prince of Orange, from the Dutch of H. J. Schimmel, "the Sir Walter Scott of Holland." 3 vols, crown 8vo, £1 us. 6d. *** Thi3 novel relates to one of the most interesting periods of our history. It has created the greatest excitement on the Continent, where it quickly passed through several editions. It is now translated from the Dutch with the assistance of the author. UNIFORM WITH DOCTOR SYNTAX. Wonderful Characters. Memoirs and Anecdotes of Remarkable and Eccentric Persons of Every Age and Nation. From the text of Henry Wilson and James Caulfield. 8vo. Sixty-one pull-page Engravings of Extraordinary Persons. 7s. 6d. ^ iff f\ - *#* One of the cheapest and most amusing books ever published. There are so many curious matters discussed in this volume, that any person who takes it up will not readily lay it down. The introduction is almost entirely devoted to a consideration of Pig-Faced Ladies, and the various stories concerning them. Artemus Ward in London. Including his well-known Letters to "Punch." Square i6mo, is. 6d. ; cloth, 2s. *** An entirely new volume of Wit and Fun by the famous humorist, and one which is sure to become popular. NEW BOOK ON THE LONDON PARKS. Taking the Air ; or, the Story of our London Parks. By Jacob Larwood. With numerous illustrations. Vol. I., Hyde Park ; Vol. II., St. James's Park, The Green Park, and Mary Bone Gardens. Price 18s. the two volumes. *** This is a new and most interesting work, giving a complete History of these favourite out-of- door resorts, from the earliest period to the present time. The fashions, the promenades, the rides, the reviews, and other displays in the parks from the merry days of Charles II. down to the present airings in Kotten-row and drives " around the ring," are all fully given, together with the exploits of bold highwaymen and the duels of rival lovers, and other appellants to the Code of Honour. John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Pi^adilhj, W. VERY IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS. The Champion Pig of England. A Capital Story for Schoolboys. Cloth gilt. With spirited Illustrations by Concanen coloured and plain, 3s. 6d. " He was a pig — take him for all in all, We ne'er shall look upon bis like again." UNIFORM WITH MR. RUSKIN'S EDITION OF "GERMAN POPULAR STORIES." Prince Ubbely Bubble's New Story Book. THE DRAGON ALL COVERED WITH SPIKES. THE LONG-TAILED NAG. THE THREE ONE-LEGGED MEN. THE OLD FLY AND THE YOUNG FLY. TOM AND THE OGRE. And many other tales. By J. Templeton Lucas With numerous Illustrations by Matt Morgan, Barnes, Gordon Thompson, Brunton, and other artists. In small 4to, green and gold, 43. 6d. Gilt leaves, 5s. 6d. *** This is an entirely new story-book, and one that is likely to become very popular. Acrostics in Prose and Verse. Edited by A. B. H. i2mo, gilt cloth, gilt edges, 3s. SECOND SERIES, izmo, gilt cloth, gilt edges, 3s. THIRD SERIES, izmo, gilt cloth, gilt edges, 3s. FOURTH SERIES. With 8 Pictorial Acrostics, izmo, gilt cloth, 3s. -FIFTH SERIES. Easy Double. Historical. Scriptural Acrostics. i2mo, gilt cloth, gilt edges, 3s. The most popular Acrostics published. *** Each series sold separately. These are the best volumes of Acrostics ever issued. They comprise Single, Double, Treble, and every variety of acrostic, and the set would amuse the younger members of a family for an entire winter. The whole complete in a case, " The Acrostic Box" price 15s. John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W. VERY IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS. MOST AMUSING NEW BOOK. Caricature History of the Georges (House of Hanover). Very entertaining book of 640 pages, with 400 Pictures, Caricatures, Squibs, Broadsides, Window Pictures. By T. Wright, F.S.A. 7s. 6d. *#* Companion Volume to "History of Signboard3. ,, Reviewed in almost every English journal with highest approbation. " A set of caricatures such as we have in Mr. Wright's volume brings tie surface of the age before us with a vividness that no prose writer, even of the highest power, could emulate. Macaulay's most brilliant sentence is weak by the side of the little woodcut from Gillray wich gives us Burke and Fox." — Saturday Review. u A more amusing work of its kind never issued from the press." — Art Journal. " This is one of the most agreeable and interesting books of the season." — Public Opinion. " It seems superfluous to say that this is an entertaining book. It is indeed one of the most entertaining books we have read for a long time. It is history teaching by caricature. There is hardly an event of note, hardly a personage of mark, hardly asocial whimsey worth a moment's notice, which is not satirised and illustrated in thes^ pages. We have here the caricaturists from Hogarth to Gillray, and from Gillray to CruikshankV' — Morning Star. " It is emphatically one of the liveliest of books, as also one of the most interesting. It has the twofold merit of being at once amusing and edifying. The 600 odd pages which make up the goodly volume are doubly enhanced by some 400 illustrations, of which a dozen are full-page engravings." — Morning Post. "Mr. Thomas Wright is so ripe a scholar, and is so rich in historical reminiscences, that he cannot fail to make an interesting book on any subject he undertakes to illustrate. He has achieved a success on the present occasion."— Press. Notice.— Large-paper Edition. 4to, only 100 printed, on extra fine paper, wide margins for the lovers of choice books, with extra Portraits, half -morocco (a capital book to illustrate), 30s. Romance of the Rod : an Anecdotal History of the Birch in Ancient and Modern Times. With some quaint illustrations. Crown 8vo, handsomely printed. [In preparation. John Camden Rotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W. VERY IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS. NEW BOOK BY THE "ENGLISH GUSTAYE DORE."— COMPANION TO THE "HATCHET THROWERS." Legends of Savage Life. By James Greenwood, the famous Author of " A Night in a Workhouse." With 36 inimitably droll illustrations, drawn and coloured by Ernest Griset, the " English Gustave Dors'." 4to, coloured, 7s. 6d. ; plain, 5s. *#* Headers who found amusement in the " Hatchet-Throwers" will not regret any acquaintance they may form with this comical work. The pictures are among the most surprising which have come from this artist's pencil. " A. Munchausen sort of book. The drawings by M. Griset are very powerful and eccentric."— Saturday Review. School Life at Winchester College,- or, the Remi- niscences of a Winchester Junior. By the Author of " The Log of the Water Lily," and " The Water Lily on the Danube." Second edition, revised, coloured plates, 7s. 6d. [In preparation. *♦* This book does for Winchester what " Tom Brown's School Days" did for Rugby. Log of the " Water Lily" (Thames Gig), during Two Cruises in the Summers of 1851-52, on the Rhine, Neckar, Main, Moselle, Danube, and other Streams of Germany. By R. B. Mans- field, B.A., of University College, Oxford, and illustrated by Alfred Thompson, B.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge. [In preparation. *** This was the earliest boat excursion of tlje kind ever made on the Continental rivers. Very recently the subject has been revived again in the exploits of Mr. MacGregor in his " Rob Roy Canoe." The volume will be found most interesting to those who propose taking a similar trip, whether on the Continent or elsewhere. The Hatchet-Throwers. With Thirty-six Illustra- tions, coloured after the Inimitably Grotesque Drawings of Ernest Griset. The English Gustave Dore. 4to, cloth gilt, 7s. 6d. ; plates, uncoloured, 5s. *** Comprises the astonishing adventures of Three Ancient Mariners, the Brothers Brass of Bristol, Mr. Corker, and Mungo Midge. Melchior Gorles. By Henry Aitchenhie. 3 vols. 8vo, £1 us. 6d. *** The New Novel, illustrative of "Mesmeric Influence," or whatever else we may choose to term that strange power which some persons exercise over others. John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W, VERT IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS. THE NEW "PUNIANA SERIES" OF CHOICE ILLUSTRATED WORKS OF HUMOUR. Elegantly printed on toned paper, full gilt, gilt edges, for the Drawing Room, price 6s. each : — 1. Carols of Cockayne. By Henry S. Leigh. Vers de Societe, and charming Verses descriptive of London life. With numerous exquisite little designs by Alfred Concanen and the late John Leech. Small 4to, elegant, uniform with " Puniana," 6s. 2. The "Bab Ballads." New Illustrated Book of Humour ; or, a Great Deal of Rhyme with very little Reason. By W. S. Gilbert. With a most laughable illustration on NEARLY EVERY PAGE, DRAWN BY THE AUTHOR. On toned paper, gilt edges, price 6s. " An awfully Jolly Book for Parties." 3. Puniana. Best Book of Kiddles and Funs ever formed. Thoughts Wise— and Otherwise. With nearly ioo exquisitely fanciful drawings. Contains nearly 3,000 of the best Riddles and 10,000 most outrageous Puns, and is one of the most popular books ever issued. New edition, uniform with the " Bab Ballads," price 6s. Wliy did Du Chaillu get so angry when he was chaffed about the Gorilla ? Why ? we ask. Why is a chrysalis Mice a hot roll ? You will doubtless remark, " Be- cause it's the grub that makes the butterfly /" But see " Puniana' 1 Why is a wide-awake hat so called ? Because it never had a nap, and never wants one. The Saturday Review says of this most amusing work — " Enormous burlesque — unapproachable and pre-eminent. We venture to think that this very queer volume will be a favourite. It deserve? ^ be so : and we should suggest that, to a dull person desirous to get credit with the young holiday people, it would be good policy to invest fh the book, and dole it out by instalments.' John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W, VERY IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS. AARON PENLEY'S Sketching in Water Colours, for 2is. By Aaron Penley, Author of "The English School of Painting in Water-Colours," &c. Illustrated with Twenty-one Beautiful Chromo-Lithographs, produced with the utmost care to resemble original Water-Colour Drawings. Small folio, the text tastefully printed, in handsome binding, gilt edges, suitable for the drawing-room table, price 21s. *** It has long been felt that the magnificent work of the great English master of painting in water-colours, published at £4= 4s., was too dear for general circulation. The above embodies all the instructions of the distinguished author, with twenty-one beautiful specimens of water-colour painting. A Clever and Brilliant Book (Companion to the " Bon Gaultier Ballads") PUCK ON PEGASUS. ByH.CHOLMONDELEi Pennell. % g£g~ This most amusing work has already passed through five editions, receiving everywhere the highest praise as il a clever and brillicmt book." TO NO OTHER WORK OF THE PRESENT DAY HAVE SO MANY DISTINGUISHED ARTISTS CONTRIBUTED ILLUS- TRATIONS. To the designs of GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, JOHN LEECH, JULIAN PORTCH, "PHIZ," and other artists, SIR NOEL PATON, MILLAIS, JOHN TENNIEL, RICHARD DOYLE, and M. ELLEN EDWARDS have now contributed several exquisite pictures, thus making the new edition — which is twice the size op the old one, and contains irresistibly funny pieces— THE BEST BOOK FOR THE DRAWING-ROOM TABLE NOW PUBLISHED. In 4to, printed vnthin an india-paper tone, and elegantly bound, gilt, gilt edges, price 10s. 6d. only. John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W, VERY IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS. POPULAR EDITION OF MR. DISRAELI'S SPEECHES. Disraeli's (The Right Hon. B.) Speeches on the Con- stitutional Policy of the Last 30 Years. Royal i6mo, is. 4d. ; in cloth, is. iod. *** Selected and edited, with the approval of the late First Minister of the Crown, by J. F. Bulley, Esq. The text is mainly founded on a careful comparison of the Times newspaper and Hansard's Debates, as corrected by Mr. Disraeli, and of which the pubUsher has obtained special licence to avail himself. Artemus Ward's Lecture at the Egyptian Hall, with the Panorama, 6s. Edited by T. W. Robertson (Author of "Caste," "Ours," "Society," &c), and E. P. Hingston. Small 4to, exqui- sitely printed green and gold, with numerous tinted illustrations, price 6s. " Mr. Hotten has conceived the happy idea of printing Artemus Ward's ' Lecture' in such a way as to afford the reader an accurate notion of the emphasis, by-play, &c, with which it was delivered. We have no hesita- tion in saying that Mr. Hotten has almost restored the great humorist to the flesh." — Daily Telegraph. " The tomahawk fell from our hands as we roared with laughter — the pipe of peace slipped from between our lips as our eyes filled with tears ! Laughter for Artemus's wit — tears for his untimely death! This book is a record of both. Those who never saw Artemus in the flesh, let them read of him in the spirit"— Tomahawk. "It actually reproduces Ward's Lecture, which was brimful of first-class wit and humour."— —Daily News. M It keeps you in fits of laughter." — Leader. "One of the choice and curious volumes for the issue of which Mr. Hotten has become famous."— City Press. 11 The Lecture is not alone droll ; it is full of information."— Examiner. " It adds one to the books of genuine fun we have got"— Sunday Times. Bedding's (Cyrus) Personal Reminiscences of Emi- nent Men. Thick cr. 8vo, three vols., 5s. complete. *** Full of amusing stories of eminent Literary and other Celebrities of the present century. The work is a fund of anecdote. Apply to Mr. Hotten direct for this work. John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W. VERY IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS. NEW SERIES OF ILLUSTRATED HUMOROUS NOVELS. I. The Story of a Honeymoon. By Chas. H. Ross and Ambrose Clarke. With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt, 6s. *** An inimitable story of the adventures and troubles of a newly-married couple. Not unlike Mr. Burnand's " Happy Thoughts." 2. Cent, per Cent. A Story written upon a Bill Stamp. By Blanchard Jerrold. With numerous coloured Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. MR. MOSS, IN THE DISCOUNTING LINE. *** A capital novel, "intended not only for City readers, but for all interested in money matters." — Athenaeum. The Genial Showman ; or, Adventures with Artemus Ward, and the Story of his Life. 2 vols., crown 8vo, illustrated by Brunton, 2 is. *** This is a most interesting work. It gives Sketches of Show-Life in the Far West, on the raciflc Coast, among the Mines of California, in Salt Lake City, and across the Rocky Mountains ; including chapters descriptive of Artemus Ward's visit to England. John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W, VERY IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS. Midsummer Eve, a Fairy Tale of Love- By Mrs. S. C. Hall. New Edition, ios. 6d. Elegantly bound, gilt edges, pro- fusely illustrated by Sir Noel Paton, Maclise, Kenny Meadows, Hine, and other eminent artists. THE STANDAKD EDITION. Robinson Crusoe, Profusely Illustrated by Ernest Griset. Edited, with a New Account of the Origin of Robinson Crusoe, by William Lee, Esq. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. *** This edition deserves special attention, from the fact that it is the only correct one that has been printed since the time of Defoe. By the kindness of Mr. Lee a copy of the rare and valuable original, in 3 vols., was deposited with the printers during the progress of the work, and all those alterations and blunders which have been discovered in every recent edition are in this case avoided. There is no living artist better adapted to the task of illustrating Crusoe than Ernest Griset. Pables of JEsop. With Illustrations by Henry L. Stephens. 4to, with 56 full-page inimitable designs by this Artist. Cloth and gold, gilt edges, 35s. *** In artistic circles the very highest praise has been accorded to the above designs. The Rosicrucians ; their Kites and Mysteries. With Chapters on the Ancient Eire- and Serpent- Worshippers, and Explana- tions of the Mystic Symbols represented in the Monuments and Talismans of the Primeval Philosophers. By Hargrave Jennings. Crown 8vo, 316 wood engravings, ios. 6d. John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W. ADVEBTISEMENT* Hotten's "Golden Library" OF THE BEST AUTHORS. * # * A charming collection of Standard and Favourite Works ; elegantly printed in Handy Volumes, uniform with the Tauchnitz Series, and published at exceedingly low prices, CARLYLE on the choice of books, is. In cloth, is. 6d. Should be read, and re-read by every young man in the three kingdoms. HOLMES PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE, is. In cloth, is. 6d. A companion volume to " The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table/* LEIGH HUNT tale for a chimney corner, AND OTHER ESS A VS. is. 4d. Cloth, is. iod. A volume of delightful papers, humorous and pathetic. GOLDWIN SMITH — our relations with Ame- rica. 6d. In cloth, is. An able and eloquent little book. HOOD WHIMS AND ODDITIES. 40 Illus- trations, is. In cloth, is. 6d. "The best of all books of humour."— Professor Wilson. LELAND HANS BREITM ANNS BALLADS, COMPLETE, is. In cloth, is. 6d. Inimitable humour. HAWTHORNE NOTE BOOKS. Edited by Conway. is. In cloth, is. 6d. " Live ever, sweet, sweet book." — Longfellow. BRIGHT SPEECHES ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS, is. 4d. In cloth, is. iod. Delivered during the last 20 years. GLADSTONE speeches on questions of THE DAY. is. 4d. In cloth, is. lod.^ Delivered during the last 20 years. BYRON TRUE STORY OF LORD AND LADY B YRON. is. In cloth, is. 6d. By personal friends, and literary cotemporaries. LONDON : JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 74 & 75, PICCADILLY, AND ALL BOOKSELLERS AND RAILWAY STATIONS. VERY IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS. UNIFORM WITH MR. RUSKIN'S EDITION OF " GERMAN POPULAR STORIES." New Book of Delightful Tales.—" Family Fairy Tales ;" or, Glimpses of Elfland at Heatherston Hall." Edited by Cholmon- deley Pennell, Author of " Puck on Pegasus/' &c, adorned with beautiful pictures of " My Lord Lion," " King Uggermugger," and other great folks. Handsomely printed on toned paper, in cloth, green and gold, price 3s. 6d. plain, 4s. 6d. coloured. *** This charming volume has oeen universally praised by the critical press. Popular Romances of the West of England ; or, the Drolls of Old Cornwall. Collected and edited by Robert Hunt, F.E.S. This day, in 2 vols. 8vo, very handsomely printed, price 16s. $3T* Only a few copies of this very interesting work now remain, and COPIES WILL SOON BECOME SCARCE. *** Many of the stories are remarkable for their wild poetic beauty; others surprise us by their quaintness; whilst others, again, show forth a tragic force which can only be associated with those rude ages which existed long before the period of authentic history. Mr. George Cruikshank has supplied two wonderful pictures to the work. One is a portrait of Giant Bolster, a personage twelve miles high. Gustave Dore's Favourite Pencil Sketches. — His- torical Cartoons; or, Rough Pencillings of the World's History from the First to the Nineteenth Century. By Gustave Dore. With admirable letterpress descriptions by Thomas Wright, F.S. A. Oblong 4to, handsome table book, 7s. 6d. *** A new book of daring and inimitable designs, which will .excite considerable attention, and 'oubtless command a wide circulation. Captain Castagnette. His Surprising, almost Incre- dible Adventures. 4-to, with Gustave Dore's Illustrations, is. 9d. (sells at 5s.) Direct application must be ,nade to Mr. Hottenfor this booh. Cent, per Cent. A Story written upon a Bill Stamp. By Blanchard Jerrold. With numerous coloured illustrations in the style of the late Mr. Leech's charming designs. [Immediately. , recent notorious John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W, VERY IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS. Sets of "Punch," 1841—1860. Mr. Hotten has purchased from the Messrs. Virtue and Co. their entire remainder of this important set of books, which contains, among its 12,000 Illus- trations and Contributions from the most noted Wits of the time, the "whole or Leech's Sketches, 4 vols. ; Leech's Pencillings, 2 vols. ; Tenniel's Cartoons; Doyle's Mr. Pips hys Diary; Manners and Customs of the English ; Brown, Jones, and Eobinson ; Punch's Almanacks, 1 vol.; Thackeray's Miscellanies, 4 vols.; The Caudle Lectures; Story of a Feather; &c, &c. 39 half-yearly vols, bound in 20 vols., cloth gilt, gilt edges, published at £16 10s., to be obtained of Mr. Hotten for £6 10s. only. The Standard Work on Diamonds and Precious Stones; their History, Value, and Properties, with Simple Tests for Ascer- taining their Reality. By Harry Emanuel, P.R.G-.S. With nume- rous Illustrations, tinted and plain. New Edition, Prices brought down to Present Time, full gilt, 12s. 6d. 44 Will be acceptable to many readers." — Times. "An invaluable work for buyers and sellers." — Spectator. See the Times' Review of three columns. * # * This new edition is greatly superior to the previous one. It gives the latest market value for Diamonds and Precious Stones of every size. The Young Botanist: A Popular Guide to Elementary Botany. By T. S. Ralph, of the Linnaean Society. In 1 vol., with 300 Drawings from Nature, 2s. 6d. plain, 4s. 6d. coloured by hand. *** An excellent book for the young beginner. The objects selected as illustrations are either easy of access as specimens of wild plants, or are common in gardens. Gunter's Modern Confectioner. The Best Book on Confectionery and Desserts. An Entirely New Edition of this Standard Work on the Preparation of Confectionery and the Arrange- ment of Desserts. Adapted for private families or large establish- ments. By William Jeanes, Chief Confectioner at Messrs. Gunter's (Confectioners to Her Majesty), Berkeley-square. With Plates, post 8vo, cloth, 6s. 6d. ** All housekeepers should have it" — Daily Telegraph. * # # This work has won for itself the reputation of being the Standard English Booh on the preparation of all kinds of Confectionery, and on the arrangement of Desserts. John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W. VERY IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS. Price to Subscribers, 27s., afterwards to be raised to 36s. Life and Newly-Discovered Writings of Daniel Defoe. Comprising Several Hundred Important Essays, Pamphlets, and other Writings, now first brought to light, after many years' diligent search. By William Lee, Esq. With Facsimiles and Illustrations. *^ # For many years it has been well known in literary circles that the gentleman to whom the public is indebted for this valuable addition to the knowledge of Defoe's Life and Works has been an indefatigable collector of everything relating to the subject, and that such collection had reference to a more full and correct Memoir than had yet been given to the world. In 3 vols., uniform with " Macaulay'3 History of England." Vol. I.— A NEW MEMOIR OF DEFOE. Vols. II. and III.— HITHERTO UNKNOWN WRITINGS. # # # This will be a most valuable contribution to English History and English Literature. The Best Handbook of Heraldry. Profusely Illus- trated with Plates and Woodcuts. By John E. Cussans. In crown 8vo, pp. 360, in emblazoned gold cover, with copious Index, 7s. 6d. * # * This volume, "beautifully printed on toned paper, contains not only the ordinary matter to be found in the best books on the science of Armory, but several other subjects hitherto unnoticed. Amongst these may be mentioned: — 1. Directions for Tracing Pedigrees. 2. De- ciphering Ancient MSS., illustrated by Alphabets and Facsimiles. 3. The Appointment oe Liveries. 4. Continental and American Heraldry, &c. Michael Faraday. Philosopher and Christian. By The Eev. Samuel Martin, of Westminster. Toned paper, Portrait, 6cL *»* An admirable resume— designed for popular reading— of this great man's life. JoJm Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W t VERY IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS. Popular Shilling Books of Humour. Artemus Ward : His Book. Artemus Ward Among the Mormons. Biglow Papers. Orpheus C. Kerr Papers. Josh Billings. Hood's Verb Vereker. Holmes' Wit and Humour. Never Caught. Chips prom a Eough Log. Mr. Sprouts: His Opinions. Yankee Drolleries. Edited by George Augustus Sala, Containing Artemus Ward; Biglow Papers ; Orpheus C. Kerr ; Major Jack Downing; and Nasby Papers. One of the cheapest books ever published. New Edition, on toned paper, cloth extra, 700 pages, 3s. 6d. Orpheus C. Kerr Papers. The Original American Edition, Three Series, complete. 3 vols. 8vo, cloth; sells at £1 2s. 6d., now specially offered at 15s. *** A moat mirth-provoking work. It was first introduced into this country by the English officers who were quartered during the late war on the Canadian frontier. They found it one of the drollest pieces of composition they had ever met with, and so brought copies over for the delectation of their friends. A Keepsake for Smokers. — " The Smoker's Text- Book." By J. Hamer, F.E.S.L. This day, exquisitely printed from " silver-faced" type, cloth, very neat, gilt edges, 2s. 6d., post free. THE TRUE CONSOLER. TTB who doth not smoke hath either known no great griefs, or refuaeth himself the softest consolation, next to that which comes from heaven "What, softer than woman?" whispers the young Young reader, 1 well a e old atfd ugly, woman snubs and •colds us On the whole, then, woman in this scale, the weed in that, Jupiter, hang out thy halance, and weigh them both ; and if thou give the preference to woman; all I can say is, the next time Juno ruffle* thee — O Jupiter 1 try the weed. BULWER'S " What wiU he do with HV "A pipe 19 a great comforter, a pleasant soother. The man who smokes thinks like a sage, and acts like a Samaritan." — Bulwer. " A tiny volume, dedicated to the votaries of the weed ; beautifully printed on toned paper in, we believe, the smallest type ever made (cast especially for show at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park), but very clear notwithstanding its minuteness. . . . The pages sing in various styles the praises of tobacco. Amongst the writers laid under contribution are Bulwer, Kingsley, Charles Lamb, Thackeray, Isaac Browne, Cowper, and Byron." — The Field. Laughing Philosopher (The), consisting of several Thousand of the best Jokes, Witticisms, Puns, Epigrams, Humorous Stories, and Witty Compositions in the English Language ; intended as "Fun for the Million." Square i2mo, nearly 800 pages, frontis- J piece, half morocco neat, 5s. 6d. JoJm Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W. H_ . 1911 1111 is fmtEt I Ml HI i'Ww Hi luiHiflSHHi