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The History of Signboards, from the Earliest times to the Present Day

by Jacob Larwood · English · Gutenberg #45249 · 1,404,877 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The History of Signboards, from the Earliest times to the Present Day

Author: Jacob Larwood
        John Camden Hotten


        
Release date: March 28, 2014 [eBook #45249]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY ***

Transcriber’s Notes:

Texts printed in italics and bold in the original work have been
transcribed between _underscores_ and =equal signs= respectively. Small
capitals are presented here as ALL CAPITALS. Subscripts and superscripts
have been transcribed as _{...} and ^{...}.

More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this text.




[Illustration: Drawn by Experience

Engraved by Sorrow

A MAN LOADED with MISCHIEF, or MATRIMONY.

_A Monkey, a Magpie, and Wife; Is the true Emblem of Strife._]




  THE
  HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS
  From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

  BY JACOB LARWOOD AND
  JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN


  “He would name you all the signs as he went along”
  BEN JONSON’S BARTHOLOMEW FAIR

  “Oppida dum peragras peragranda poemata spectes”
  DRUNKEN BARNABY’S TRAVELS


  [Illustration: Cock and Bottle]


  TWELFTH IMPRESSION

  WITH ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. LARWOOD


  LONDON
  CHATTO & WINDUS
  1908


  _To
  Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., F.S.A.,
  the Accomplished Interpreter of English Popular Antiquities,
  this_
  Little Volume is Dedicated
  _by
  THE AUTHORS_.




PREFACE.


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
magazine, 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 beginning 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 of 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 suggesting 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
necessary 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 conjecture 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 solution 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,) entitled “_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 Meditation, 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 having 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 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 during 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,
during 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 feeling. 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 deliberations 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 entertainment 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 thoroughfares--this was looked upon
with so much veneration that it was allowed to remain until 1863, when
for no apparent reason it was sentenced 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 prebends, minor
canons, and clergy of the cathedral--prayed the local “commissioners”
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
_fac-simile_ of the time-honoured original is in course of preparation.

Concerning the internal arrangement of the following work, a few
explanations 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
necessary to state, were the brass farthings issued by shop or tavern
keepers, and generally adorned with a representation of the sign of the
house. Nearly all the tokens alluded to belong to the latter part of the
seventeenth century, mostly to the reign of Charles II.

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

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

The rude unattractive woodcuts inserted in the work are in most
instances _fac-similes_, 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
numerous 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
explanation, 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 contributions.

  LONDON, _June 1866_.




CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE

  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.,                                       233

  CHAPTER VIII.
  BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS SIGNS,                                      253

  CHAPTER IX.
  SAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC.,                                             279

  CHAPTER X.
  DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS,                                305

  CHAPTER XI.
  THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE,                                           375

  CHAPTER XII.
  DRESS; PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL,                                       399

  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 WORK,                      527

[Illustration: PLATE I.

BAKER.

(Pompeii, A.D. 70.)

DAIRY.

(Pompeii, A.D. 70.)

SHOEMAKER.

(Herculaneum.)

WINE MERCHANT.

(Pompeii, 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. Jewellers,
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_ characteristic of the Mussulman.
The purchaser knows the row to go to; sees at a glance what each shop
contains; and, if he be an _habitué_, 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 inscriptions denoting the trade, with
the emblem which indicated it;[1] 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 indefinite.
Aristophanes, Lucian, and other writers, make frequent allusions, which
seem to prove that signboards were in use with the Greeks. Thus
Aristotle says: ὡσπερ επι των καπηλιων γραφομενοι, μικροι μεν εισι,
φαινονται δε εχοντες πλατη και βαθη.[2] And Athenæus: εν προτεροις θηκη
διδασκαλιην.[3] But what their signs were, and whether carved, painted,
or the natural object, is entirely unknown.

With the Romans only we begin to have distinct data. In the Eternal
City, some streets, as in our mediæval 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 Esquiliæ. 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, and our proverb, “Good Wine needs no
Bush.” An _ansa_, or handle of a pitcher, was the sign of their
post-houses, (_stathmoi_ or _allagæ_,) and hence these establishments
were afterwards denominated _ansæ_.[4] That they also had painted signs,
or exterior decorations which served their purpose, is clearly evident
from various authors:--

  “Quum victi Mures Mustelarum exercitu
  (Historia quorum in tabernis pingitur.)”[5]

  PHÆDRUS, lib. iv. fab. vi.

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

                        “Contento poplite miror
  Proelia, rubrico picta aut carbone; velut si
  Re vera pugnent, feriant vitentque moventes
  Arma viri.”[6]

Cicero also is supposed by some scholars to allude to a sign when he
says:--

  “Jam ostendamcujus modi sis: quum ille ‘ostende quæso’ demonstravi
  digito pictum Gallum in Mariano scuto Cimbrico, sub Novis, distortum
  ejectâ linguâ, buccis fluentibus, risus est commotus.”[7]

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 illa pastoris senis cum baculo, de qua
  Teutonorum legatus respondit, interrogatus quanti eum æstimaret, sibi
  donari nolle talem vivum verumque.”[8]

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.”[9]

But we can judge even better from an inspection of the Roman 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 receiving 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 amphora; 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 following imprecation:--ABIAT VENEREM POMPEIIANAMA
IRADAM QUI HOC LÆSERIT, _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, HIC 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 various
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’ implements; 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 Dracontius bore a dragon;
Onager, a wild ass; Umbricius, a shady tree; Leo, a lion; Doleus,
father and son, two casks; Herbacia, two baskets of herbs; and Porcula,
a pig. 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 signboard 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;[10]
and certain devices would doubtless be adopted to attract the attention
of the different classes of wayfarers, as the Cross for the Christian
customer,[11] 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 patronage 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 hostelries 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_.[12] Such coats
of arms gradually became a very popular intimation that there was--

  “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 increased, 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. Portraits 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 quæ sunt
tamquam ea quæ 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, 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 ordinary.” 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 summons of all the taverners of the said city,
  it was enjoined upon them, under pain of paying forty pence[13] unto
  the Chamber of the Guildhall, on every occasion upon which they should
  transgress such ordinance, that no one of them in future should have a
  stake, bearing either his sign, or leaves, extending 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, always thereafter to be valid and of full
  effect.”

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

  “Emptor, attende quando vis emere libros formatos in officina mea
  excussoria, 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.”[14]

Jodocus Badius of Paris, gives a similar caution:--

  “Oratum facimus lectorem ut signum inspiciat, nam sunt qui titulum
  nomenque Badianum mentiantur et laborem suffurentur.”[15]

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

  “Extremum est ut admoneamus studiosissimum quemque, Florentinos
  quosdam impressores, cum viderint se diligentiam nostram in castigando
  et imprimendo non posse assequi, ad artes confugisse solitas; hoc est
  Grammaticis Institutionibus Aldi in sua officina formatis, notam
  Delphini Anchoræ Involuti nostram apposuisse; sed ita egerunt ut
  quivis mediocriter versatus in libris impressionis nostræ animadvertit
  illos impudenter fecisse. Nam rostrum Delphini in partem sinistram
  vergit, cum tamen nostrum in dexteram totum demittatur.”[16]

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,” etc.--DIBDIN’S _Typ. Ant._, vol. iv. p.
6.

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

The signs then were suspended from an iron bar, fixed either in the wall
of the house, or in a post or obelisk standing in front of it; in both
cases the ironwork was shaped and ornamented with that taste so
conspicuous in the metal-work of the Renaissance period, of which many
churches, and other buildings of that 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_ description 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, were
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 signboards, and may be daily
witnessed in our streets, where the ironmonger’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 Bankside, 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, (“Antiquités de la Ville
de Paris,”) had anciently banners hanging above their doors, or from
their windows, with the sign of the shop painted on them; whilst in the
sixteenth century carved wooden signs were very common. These, however,
were not suspended, but formed part of the wooden construction of the
house; some of them were really _chefs-d’œuvres_, and as careful in
design as a carved cathedral stall. Several of them are still remaining
in Rouen and other old towns; many also have been removed and placed in
various local museums of antiquities. The most general rule, however, on
the Continent, as in England, was to have the painted signboard
suspended across the streets.

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

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

Having walked from Whitechapel “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 Red 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[17] and alehouses in ten shires and counties about
London, all similar to those we have just enumerated; 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;
  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, Red 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 flights:--

  “Country left I in a fury,
  To the Axe in Aldermanbury
  First arrived, that place slighted,
  I at the Rose in Holborn lighted.
  From the Rose in Flaggons sail I
  To the Griffin i’ th’ Old Bailey,
  Where no sooner do I waken,
  Than to Three Cranes I am taken,
  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 to have a
sign; for we find that in the 16 Richard II., (1393,) Florence North, a
brewer of Chelsea, was “presented” “for not putting up the usual
sign.”[18] 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.[19] 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 alleys of the said city and suburbs of the same, signs, and posts
  of signs, affixed to their houses and shops, for the better finding
  out such citizens’ dwellings, shops, arts, or occupations, without
  impediment, molestation, or interruption of his heirs or successors.”

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

  “Art. XXIII.--Taverniers metront enseignes et bouchons. . . . Nul ne
  pourra tenir taverne en cette dite ville et faubourgs, sans mettre
  enseigne et bouchon.”[20]

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 New Way to Pay Old Debts_, iv. 2.

At the time of the great Civil War, house-signs played no inconsiderable
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 Cheapside, 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 backbone, boldly shewed
his opinion of that act, by taking as a sign for his alehouse in Phœnix
Alley, Long Acre, the Mourning Crown; but he was soon compelled to take
it down. Richard Flecknoe, in his “Ænigmatical 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 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
  Marprelate, in Thwack Coat Lane, at the sign of the _Crab-Tree
  Cudgell_, without any privilege of the Catercaps. 1641.”

  “ARTICLES OF HIGH TREASON made and enacted by the late Halfquarter
  usurping Convention, and now presented to the publick view for a
  general satisfaction of all true Englishmen. Imprinted for Erasmus
  Thorogood, and to be sold at the signe of the _Roasted Rump_. 1659.”

  “A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS of the Newest Fashion, to be sold by auction at
  the Whigs’ Coffeehouse, at the sign of the _Jackanapes_ in Prating
  Alley, near the Deanery of Saint Paul’s.”

  “THE CENSURE OF THE ROTA upon Mr Milton’s book, entitled ‘The Ready
  and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth,’ &c. Printed at London
  by Paul Giddy, Printer to the Rota, at the sign of the _Windmill_, in
  Turn-again Lane. 1660.”

  “AN ADDRESS from the Ladies of the Provinces of Munster and Leinster
  to their Graces the Duke and Duchess of D----t, 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
  lapdogs. Dublin: Printed at the sign of _Sir Tady’s Press_, etc.
  1754.”

  “AN ADDRESS from the Influential Electors of the County and City of
  Galway, with a Collection of 60 Original Patriot Toasts and 48 Munster
  Toasts, with Intelligence from the Kingdom of Eutopia. Printed at the
  sign of the _Pirate’s Sword in the Captain’s Scabbard_. London, 1754.”

  “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----t Morality. London: Printed at the sign of _Betty 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 Newgate Street, by the opposition
party, to which the _Original Weekly Journal_, the week after,
retaliates by a description and explanation of an indelicate sign said
to be in King Street, Westminster. In 1763, the following pasquinade
went the round of the newspapers, said to have been sent over from
Holland:--

  “HÔTELS POUR LES MINISTRES DES COURS ETRANGÈRES AU FUTUR CONGRESS.

  De l’Empereur,
  À la Bonne Volonté; rue d’Impuissance.
  De Russie,
  Au Chimère; rue des Caprices.
  De France,
  Au Coq déplumé; rue de Canada.
  D’Autriche,
  À la Mauvaise Alliance, rue des Invalides.
  D’Angleterre,
  À la Fortune, Place des Victoires, rue des Subsides.
  De Prusse,
  Aux Quatre vents, rue des Renards, près la Place des Guinées.
  De Suede,
  Au Passage des Courtisans, rue des Visionaires.
  De Pologne,
  Au Sacrifice d’Abraham, rue des Innocents, près la Place des Devôts.
  Des Princes de l’Empire,
  Au Roitelêt, près de l’Hôpital des Incurables, rue des Charlatans.
  De Wirtemberg,
  Au Don Quichotte, rue des Fantômes près de la Montagne en Couche.
  D’Hollande,
  À la Baleine, sur le Marché aux Fromages, près 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 mourning, 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
considering,--we find a goodly collection of them in one of the
“Roxburghe Ballads,” (vol. i. 212,) entitled:--

  “LONDON’S ORDINARIE, OR EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR

  THROUGH the Royal Exchange as I walked,
    Where Gallants in sattin doe shine,
  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 _Horne_.

  The Plummers will dine at the _Fountaine_,
    The Cookes at the _Holly Lambe_,
  The Drunkerds by noone, to the _Man in the Moone_,
    And the Cuckholdes to the _Ramme_.

  The Roarers will dine at the _Lyon_,
    The Watermen at the _Old Swan_;
  And Bawdes will to the _Negro_ goe,
    And Whores to the _Naked Man_.

  The 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_,[21]
  The Turners unto the _Ladle_ will goe,
    Where they may merrylie quaffe.

  The Taylors will dine at the _Sheeres_,
    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 _Begger’s Bush_.

  The Pewterers to the _Quarte Pot_,
    The Coopers will dine at the _Hoope_,
  The Coblers to the _Last_ will goe,
    And the Bargemen to the _Sloope_.

  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 _Pewter 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_,[22]
    Where each man will drinke his Flagon.

  The Chandlers will dine at the _Skales_,
    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 Heywood introduced a similar song in his “Rape of Lucrece.” This,
the first of the kind we have met with, is in all probability the
original, unless the ballad be a reprint from an older one; but the term
Puritan used in it, seems to fix its date to the seventeenth century.

  “THE Gintry to the _Kings Head_,
    The Nobles to the _Crown_,
  The Knights unto the _Golden Fleece_,
    And to the _Plough_ 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.

  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_ his,
  Unto the _Mouth_ the Oyster-wife,
    The Fiddler to the _Pie_.

  The Punk unto the _Cockatrice_,[23]
    The Drunkard to the _Vine_,
  The Begger to the _Bush_, there meet,
    And with Duke Humphrey dine.”[24]

After the great fire of 1666, many of the houses that were rebuilt,
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 windows. Many of these
signs are still to be seen, and will be noticed in their respective
places. But in those streets not visited by the fire, things continued
on the old footing, each shopkeeper 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
gallant 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 overhead 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 comme des tonneaux, des
plumes qui allaient au troisième étage.”[25] 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 prevented the lights of the lamps from spreading
properly at night.”

[Illustration: PLATE II.

BUSH.

(MS. of the 14th century.)

BUSH.

(Bayeux tapestry, 11th cent.)

CROSS.

(Luttrell Psalter, 11th century.)

ALE-POLE.

(Picture of Wouwverman, 17th cent.)

BLACK JACK AND PEWTER PLATTER.

(Print by Schavelin, 1480.)

NAG’S HEAD.

(Cheapside. 1640.)

BUSH.

(MS. of the 15th cent.)]

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.”

  GAY’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 coach. Gay, in his
didactic--_flâneur_--poem, points out another benefit to be derived from
the signboards:--

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

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

  “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,[26]
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,[27] which he entitled a “Banquet,”
giving verses adapted for all manner of shops and 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 purpose 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.”[28]

Or another example:--

  “Men vischte Moses uit de Biezen,
  Hier trekt men tanden en Kiezen.”[29]

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_,[30] (the meagre _Notes and Queries_ of those
days,) in the hope of eliciting an explanation 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:[31]--“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, 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 inscription 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 weathercock; 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 themselves out to the eye
and endeavouring to become visible. Our streets are filled with _blue
boars_, _black swans_, and _red lions_, not 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
rationis_.

“My first task, therefore, should be like that of Hercules, to clear the
city from monsters. In the second place, I should forbid that creatures
of jarring and incongruous natures should be joined together in the same
sign; such as the _Bell and the Neat’s Tongue_, the _Dog and the
Gridiron_. The _Fox and the Goose_ may be supposed to have met, but what
has the _Fox and the Seven Stars_ to do together? And when did the _Lamb
and Dolphin_ ever meet except upon a signpost? As for the _Cat 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 committed 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
determining 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 _Roasted Pig_; and yet, for want of this regulation, I
have seen a _Goat_ set up before the door of a perfumer, and the _French
King’s Head_ at a sword-cutler’s.

“An ingenious foreigner observes that several of those gentlemen 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, I would
likewise advise the owner to take that opportunity of letting 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 conjunction with the
Dragon,[32] 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_.[33] 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
Punchbowl_ 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 _agrémens_ upon
his sign, that he was a Frenchman.”

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

  “WHEREAS Anthony Wilton, who lived at the GREEN CROSS publick-house
  against the new Turnpike on New Cross Hill, has been removed for two
  years past to the new boarded house now the sign of the GREEN CROSS
  AND KROSS KEYES on the same hill,” &c.--_Weekly Journal_, November 22,
  1718.

  “THOMAS BLACKALL and Francis Ives, Mercers, are removed from the SEVEN
  STARS on Ludgate Hill to the BLACK LION AND SEVEN STARS over the
  way.”--_Daily Courant_, November 17, 1718.

  “PETER DUNCOMBE and Saunders Dancer, who lived at the NAKED BOY in
  Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, removed to the NAKED BOY AND
  MITRE, near Sommerset House, Strand,” &c.--_Postboy_, January 2-4,
  1711.

  “RICHARD MEARES, Musical Instrument maker, is removed from 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 introduction 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
Canning, metamorphosed on an alehouse-sign into the George and Cannon;
so the GOLDEN FARMER became the Jolly Farmer; whilst the Four Alls, in
Whitechapel, were altered into the Four Awls. Along with this practice,
there is a tendency to translate a sign into a sort of jocular slang
phrase; thus, in the seventeenth century, the BLACKMOORSHEAD AND
WOOLPACK, in Pimlico, was called the DEVIL AND BAG 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
vulgarly rendered as the _Pig and Tinderbox_; the Bear and Ragged Staff,
the _Angel and Flute_; the Eagle and Child, the _Bird and Bantling_; the
Hog in Armour, the Pig in Misery; the Pig in the Pound, the _Gentleman
in Trouble_, &c.

Some further information, in illustration of the different signboards,
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 disposed of, or the
business carried on within. Hence the Hand and Shears is justly
appropriated to tailors, and the Hand and Pen to writing-masters;
though the very reverend and right worthy order of my neighbours, the
Fleet-parsons, have assumed it to themselves as a mark of ‘marriages
performed without imposition.’ 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?

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

            ‘Sus horridus, atraque Tigris,
  Squamosusque Draco, et fulva cervice Leæna.

  VIRGIL.

  ‘With foamy tusks to seem a bristly boar,
  Or imitate the lion’s angry roar;
  Or kiss a dragon, or a tiger stare.’--DRYDEN.

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

“Some regard should likewise be paid by tradesmen to their situation;
or, in other words, to the propriety of the place; and in this, too,
the publicans are notoriously faulty. The King’s Arms, and the Star and
Garter, are aptly enough placed at the court end of the town, and in the
neighbourhood of the royal palace; Shakespeare’s Head takes his station
by one playhouse, and Ben Jonson’s by the other; Hell is a public-house
adjoining to Westminster Hall, as the Devil Tavern is to the lawyers’
quarter 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 superior
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., immortalised on the rubric posts[34] of
booksellers, while their heads denominate 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 effigy should accompany
his Intire Butt Beer, and that the comely face of that public-spirited
patriot who first reduced the price of punch and raised its reputation
_Pro Bono Publico_, should be set up wherever three penn’orth of warm
rum is to be sold.

“I have been used to consider several signs, for the frequency of which
it is difficult to give any other reason, as so many hieroglyphics 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 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 headless female figure called the Good Woman.

  ‘Quale portentum neque militaris
  Daunia in latis alit esculetis,
  Nec Jubæ 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 evident marks
of the religion prevalent amongst us before the Reformation. 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 particular
business, and yet have not the least connexion with it, I cannot as yet
find any relation between blue balls and pawnbrokers. Nor could I
conceive the intent of that long pole putting out at the entrance of a
barber’s shop, till a friend of mine, a learned etymologist and
glossariographer, assured me that the use of this pole took its rise
from the corruption of an old English word. ‘It is probable,’ says he,
‘that our primitive tonsors used to stick up a wooden block or head, or
poll, as it was called, before their shop windows, to denote their
occupation; and afterwards, through a confounding of different things
with a like pronunciation, they put up the parti-coloured staff of
enormous length, which is now called a pole, and appropriated to
barbers.’”[35]

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, 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 birthday.” 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 Molière’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 particularly in
  villages, the signs of inns are suspended in the middle of a great
  wooden portal, which may be looked upon as a kind of triumphal arch to
  the honour of Bacchus.”

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

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

But gaudy and richly ornamented as they were, it would seem that, after
all, the pictures were bad, and that the absence of inscriptions was not
to be lamented, for those that existed only “made fritters of English.”
The _Tatler_, No. 18, amused his readers at the expense of their
spelling:--“There is an offence I have a thousand times lamented, but
fear I shall never see remedied, which is that, in a nation where
learning is so frequent as in Great Britain, there should be so many
gross errors as there are, in the very direction of things wherein
accuracy is necessary for the conduct of life. This is notoriously
observed by all men of letters when they first come to town, (at which
time they are usually curious that way,) in the inscriptions on
signposts. I have cause to know this matter as well as anybody, for I
have, when I went to Merchant Taylor’s School, suffered stripes for
spelling after the signs I observed in my way; though at the same time,
I must confess, staring at those inscriptions first gave me an idea and
curiosity for medals, in which I have since arrived at some knowledge.
Many a man has lost his way and his dinner, by this general want of
skill in orthography; for, considering that the paintings are usually so
very bad that you cannot know the animal under whose sign you are to
live that day, how must the stranger be misled, if it is wrong spelled
as well as ill 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
Westminster 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[36] 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 public interest and excitement abated, and
matters remained as they were.

In the year 1762 considerable attention was directed to signboards 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 published catalogue, he described it as the
“EXHIBITION OF THE SOCIETY OF SIGN-PAINTERS of all the curious signs to
be met with in town or country, together with such original designs as
might be transmitted to them, as specimens of the native genius of the
nation.” Hogarth, who understood a joke as well as any man in England,
entered into the spirit of the humour, was on the _hanging committee_,
and added a few touches to heighten the absurdity. The whole affair
proved a great success.[37]

This comical exhibition was the greatest glory to which signboards were
permitted to attain, as not more than four years after they had a fall
from which they never recovered. Education 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 thoroughfares consequently became useless; the information they
conveyed 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 procuring an act with ample powers to improve the
pavement, &c., of the streets; and this act also sealed the doom of the
signboards, 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 making 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.[38] 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.”[39]

With the signboards, of course, went the signposts. The removing 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, particularly the old people, grumbled about the
innovations.

Now _numbers_ appeared everywhere. As early as 1512 an attempt had been
made in Paris at numbering sixty-eight new houses, built in that year on
the Pont Nôtre-Dame, which were all distinguished by 1, 2, 3, 4, &c.;
yet more than two centuries elapsed before the numerical arrangement was
generally adopted. In 1787 the custom in France had become almost
universal, but was not enforced by police regulations until 1805. In
London it appears to have been attempted in the beginning of the
eighteenth century; for in Hatton’s “New View of London,” 1708, we see
that “in Prescott Street, Goodman’s Fields, instead of signs the houses
are distinguished by numbers, as the staircases 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:--

  “TO BE LETT, Newbury House, in St James’s Park, next door but one to
  Lady Oxford’s, having two balls at the gate, and iron rails before the
  door,” &c., &c.--Advertisement in the original edition of the
  _Spectator_, No. 207.

  “AT HER HOUSE, the RED BALL AND ACORN, over against the GLOBE Tavern,
  in Queen Street, Cheapside, near the _Three Crowns_, liveth a
  Gentlewoman,” &c.

At night the difficulty of finding a house was greatly increased, for
the light of the lamps was so faint that the signs, generally hung
rather high, could scarcely be discerned. Other means, therefore, were
resorted to, as we see from the advertisement of “Doctor James Tilbrogh,
a German Doctor,” who resides “over against the New Exchange in Bedford
Street, at the sign of the Peacock, where you shall see at night two
candles burning within one of the chambers before the balcony, and a
lanthorn with a candle in it upon the balcony.” And in that strain all
directions were given: _over against_, or _next door to_, were among the
consecrated formulæ. Hence many dispensed with a picture of their own,
and clung, like parasites, to the sign opposite or next door,
particularly if it was a shop of some note. Others resorted to painting
their houses, doors, balconies, or doorposts, in some striking colour;
hence those Red, Blue, or White Houses still so common; hence also the
Blue Posts and the Green Posts. So we find a Dark House in Chequer
Alley, Moorfields, a Green Door in Craven Building, and a Blue Balcony
in Little Queen Street, all of which figure on the seventeenth century
trades tokens.[40] 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 continued 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 purpose.
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 reputation, the younger brethren
of the trade copy its device. A grocer in the city, who had a large
_Beehive_ for his sign hanging out before his shop, had allured a great
many customers. No sooner were the people seen swarming about this hive
than the old signs suddenly disappeared, and Beehives, elegantly gilt,
were substituted in their places. Hence the grocer was obliged to insert
an advertisement in the newspapers, importing ‘that he was the sole
proprietor of the original and celebrated _Beehive_.’ 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 propagated its species through every part of the
city, Mr E---- has in his advertisements repeatedly requested the public
to observe that ‘the genuine Grasshopper is only to be found before his
warehouse.’ He has, however, been so successful as to persuade several
young beginners to enter into engagements with him, on conditions very
advantageous to himself, by which they have obtained a licence for
hanging out the sign of a Grasshopper before their shops, expressly
adding this clause in large capitals, that ‘they are genuine descendants
of the renowned and matchless Grasshopper of Mr E---- in
Cheapside.’”[41]

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 præterea nihil_.

[Illustration: PLATE III.

MERMAID. (Cheapside, 1640.)

ALE-GARLAND. (Wouwverman, 17th cent.)

CRISPIN AND CRISPIAN. (Roxburghe Ballads. 17th century.)

TRUSTY SERVANT. (Circa 1700.)

HOG IN ARMOUR.]

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 could 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’d a 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’ll fight for the _Crown_.”

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 _Shoulder 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 themselves “Lords,” it says:--

  “If these be the Lords, there are many kinds,
  For over their doors you will see many signs;
  There is _The King_, and likewise _The Crown_,
  And beggars are made in every town.

  There is _The Queen_, and likewise her _Head_,
  And many I fear to the gallows are led;
  There is _The Angel_, and also _The Deer_,
  Destroying health in every sphere.

  There 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 dead;
  There’s _The Hare and Hounds_ that never did run,
  And many’s been hung for the deeds they’ve done.

  There are _Two Fighting Cocks_ that never did crow,
  Where men often meet to break God’s holy vow;
  There is _The New Inn_, and the _Rodney_ they say,
  Which send men to jail their debts for to pay.

  _The Hope_ and _The Anchor_, _The Turk_ and his _Head_,
  Hundreds they’ve caused for to wander for bread;
  There is _The White Horse_, also _The Woolpack_,
  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 forefathers 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
misapplications of the old pictorial signboards find a parallel in the
modern rendering of our ancient proverbs and sayings. When the primary
use and purpose of an article have fallen out of fashion, or become
obsolete, there is no knowing how absurdly it may not be treated by
succeeding generations. We were once taken many miles over fields and
through lanes to see the great stone coffins of some ancient Romans, but
the farmer, a sulky man, thought we were impertinent in wishing to see
his pig-troughs. In Haarlem, we were once shewn the huge cannon-ball
which killed Heemskerk, the discoverer of Nova Zembla. When not required
for exhibition, however, the good man in charge found it of great use in
grinding his mustard-seed. Amongst the middle classes of to-day, no
institution of ancient times has been more corrupted and misapplied than
heraldry. The modern “Forrester,” or member of the “Ancient Order of
Druids,” is scarcely a greater burlesque upon the original than the beer
retailers’ “Arms” of the present hour.

Good wine and beer were formerly to be had at the Boar’s Head, or the
Three Tuns; but those emblems will not do now, it must be the “Arms” of
somebody or something; whence we find such anomalies as the _Angel
Arms_, (Clapham Road;) _Dunstan’s Arms_, (City Road;) _Digger’s Arms_,
(Petworth, Surrey;) _Farmer’s Arms_ and _Gardener’s Arms_, (Lancashire;)
_Grand Junction 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_, _Enterprise_, _Paragon_,
_Criterion_.

Notwithstanding these innovations, the majority of the old objects still
survive, in name at least, on the signboards of alehouses 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:[42]--“But it is the signs that so amuse and absolutely
arrest a stranger. This is a practice that has grown into a mania at
Paris, and is even a subject for the ridicule of the stage, since many a
shopkeeper considers his sign as a primary matter, and spends a little
capital in this one outfit. Many of them exhibit figures as large as
life, painted in no humble or shabby style; while history, sacred and
classical, religion, the stage, &c., furnish subjects. You may see the
_Horatii_ and _Curiatii_--a scene from the ‘Fourberies de Scapin’ of
Molière--a group of French soldiers, with the inscription, _A la Valeur
des Soldats Français_, or a group of children inscribed _à la réunion
des Bons Enfants_,[43]--or _à la Baigneuse_, depicting a beautiful nymph
just issuing from the bath; or _à la Somnambule_, a pretty girl walking
in her sleep and nightdress, and followed by her gallant.[44]

“In ludicrous things, a barber will write under his sign:--

  ‘La Nature donne barbe et cheveux,
  Et moi, je les coupe tous les deux.’[45]

  ‘A toutes les figures dédiant mes rasoirs,
  Je nargue la censure des fidèles miroirs.’[46]

“Also a frequent inscription with a barber is, ‘Ici on rajeunit.’ A
breeches-maker writes up, _M----, Culottier de Mme. la Duchesse de
Devonshire_. A _perruquier_ exhibits a sign, very well painted, of an
old fop trying on a new wig, entitled, _Au ci-devant jeune homme_. A
butcher displays a bouquet of faded flowers, with this inscription, _Au
tendre Souvenir_. An eating-house exhibits a punning sign, with an ox
dressed up with bonnet, lace veil, shawl, &c., which naturally implies,
_Bœuf à-la-mode_. A pastry-cook has a very pretty little girl climbing
up to reach some cakes in a cupboard, and this sign he calls, _A la
petite Gourmande_. A stocking-maker has painted for him a lovely
creature, trying on a new stocking, at the same time exhibiting more
charms than the occasion requires to the young fellow who is on his
knees at her feet, with the very significant motto, _A la belle
occasion_.”[47]

Though it is forty years since these remarks were written, they still,
_mutatis mutandis_, apply to the present day. Even the greatest and most
fashionable shops on the Boulevards have their names or painted signs;
the subjects are mostly taken from the principal topic of conversation
at the time the establishment opened, whether politics, literature, the
drama, or fine arts: thus we have _à la Présidence_; _au Prophète_; _au
Palais d’Industrie_; _aux Enfants d’Edouard_, (the Princes in the
Tower;) _au Colosse de Rhodes_; _à la Tour de Malakoff_; _à la Tour de
Nesles_, (tragedy;) _au Sonneur de St Paul_, (tragedy;) _à la Dame
Blanche_; _à la Bataille de Solferino_; _au Trois Mousquetaires_; _au
Lingot d’Or_, (a great lottery swindle in 1852;) _à la Reine Blanche_,
&c.[48] Some of these signs are remarkably well painted, in a vigorous,
bold style, with great bravura of brush; for instance, _les Noces de
Vulcain_, on the Quai aux Fleurs, is painted in a style which would do
no discredit to the artist of _les Romains de la Décadence_. _Roger
Bontemps_ is still frequent on the French signboard, where he is
represented as a jolly rubicund toper, crowned with vine-leaves and
seated astride a tun, with a brimming tumbler in his hand; this is a
favourite sign with publicans. At the tobacconist’s door we may see a
sign representing an elderly Paul Pry-looking gentleman enjoying a pinch
of snuff. The _Bureaux des Remplacements Militaires_ particularly excel
in a gaudy display of military subjects, where the various passages of a
soldier’s life are represented with all the romance of the warriors of
the comic opera. Here can be seen the gallant troopers now courting
Jeanette or Fanchon; now charging Russians, Cabyles, or Austrians,
according to the date of the picture. Elsewhere a lancer on a fantastic
wild horse; a guide, walking with a pretty _vivandière_, or an old
grenadier with the Legion of Honour upon his breast;--“all the glorious
pomp and circumstance of war” portrayed to entice the French clodhopper
to sell himself “to death or to glory.” More pacific pictures may be
observed at the door of the midwife; there we see a sedate-looking
matron in ecstasy over the interesting young stranger she has just
ushered forth into the world, whilst paterfamilias stands with a
triumphant look in the background. Then there is the Herculean
coalheaver at the door of the _auvergnat_, who sells coals and firewood;
and landscapes with cattle at the dairyshops. But amongst the best
painted are those at the doors of the _marchands de vins et de
comestibles_, where we see frequently bunches of fruit, game, flowers,
glasses, hams, fowls, fish, all cleverly grouped together, and painted
in a dashing style. There is one, for instance, in the Rue Bellechasse,
and another in the Rue St Lazare, that are well worth inspection. These
paintings are generally on the door-posts and window-frames; they are
painted on thin white canvas, fixed with varnish at the back of a thick
piece of plateglass, and so let into the woodwork.

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

  “The other day, going down Ludgate Street, several people were gaping
  at a very splendid sign of Queen Elizabeth, which by far exceeded all
  the other signs in the street, the painter having shewn a masterly
  judgment and the carver and gilder much pomp and splendour. It looked
  rather like a capital picture in a gallery than a sign in the street.”

Unfortunately the name of the artist who painted this has not come down
to us.

Those who produced the best signs, however, were not exactly the Harp
Alley sign-painters, but the coach-painters, who often united these two
branches of art. In the last century, both the coaches and sedans of the
wealthy classes were walking picture galleries, the panels being painted
with all sorts of subjects.[49] And when the men that painted these
turned their hands to sign-painting, they were sure to produce something
good. Such was Clarkson, to whom J. T. Smith ascribed the beautiful sign
of Shakespeare that formerly hung in Little Russell Street, Drury Lane,
for which he was paid £500.--John Baker, (_ob._ 1771,) who studied under
the same master as Catton, and was made a member of the Royal Academy at
its foundation.--Charles Catton (_ob._ 1798) painted several very good
signs, particularly a Lion for his friend Wright, a famous coachmaker,
at that time living in Long Acre. This picture, though it had weathered
many a storm, was still to be seen in J. T. Smith’s time, at a
coachmaker’s on the west side of Well Street, Oxford Street. A Turk’s
head, painted by him, was long admired as the sign of a mercer in York
Street, Covent Garden.--John Baptist Cipriani, (_ob._ 1785,) a
Florentine carriage-painter, living in London, also a Royal
Academician.--Samuel Wale, R.A. (_ob._ 1786) painted a celebrated
Falstaff and various other signs; the principal one was a whole length
of Shakespeare, about five feet high, which was executed for and
displayed at the door of a public-house at the north-west corner of
Little Russell Street, Drury Lane. It was enclosed in a most sumptuous
carved gilt frame, and was suspended by rich ironwork. But this splendid
object of attraction did not hang long before it was taken down, in
consequence of the Act of Parliament for removing the signs and other
obstructions in the streets of London. Such was the change in the public
appreciation consequent on the new regulations in signs, that this
representation of our great dramatic poet was sold for a trifle to Mason
the broker in Lower Grosvenor Street, where it stood at his door for
several years, until it was totally destroyed by the weather and other
accidents.[50]

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

Peter Monamy (_ob._ 1749) was apprenticed to a sign and house-painter on
London Bridge. It was this artist who decorated the carriage of Admiral
Byng with ships and naval trophies, and painted a portrait of Admiral
Vernon’s ship for a famous public-house of the day, well known by the
sign of the _Portobello_, a few doors north of the church in St Martin’s
Lane.[51]

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

Richard Wilson, R.A., (_ob._ 1782,) painted the Three Loggerheads for an
alehouse in North Wales, which gave its name to the village of
Loggerheads, near the town of Mould. The painting was still exhibited as
a signboard in 1824, though little of Wilson’s work remained, as it had
been repeatedly touched up.

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

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

  “Thou mortal man that liv’st by bread,
  What made thy face to look so red?

  Thou silly fop, that looks so pale,
  ’Tis red with Tommy Burkett’s ale.”[52]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Besides these, there are, and have been at various times, excellent
signboards in Paris, the artists of which are not known. Thus there was,
in the beginning of the eighteenth century, a sign at the foot of the
Pont Neuf, called _le Petit Dunkerque_, which was greatly admired; and
in the reign of Louis XV. an armourer on the Pont Saint Michel had a
sign, which was so fine a work of art that it was bought as a cabinet
picture by a wealthy citizen. In the beginning of this century there was
a much admired sign on the shutters of a glass and china shop in the Rue
Royale St Honoré, which unfortunately was destroyed during some repairs
that took place upon the building passing into other hands. In 1808, the
sign of _la Fille mal gardée_, (a vaudeville,) at a mercer’s, attracted
great attention. About this period the Rue Vivienne was very rich in
good signboards; there were _la Toison de Cachemire_; _les Trois
Sultanes_; _le Couronnement de la Rosière_, and _la Joconde_, all very
good works of art. There was a gay _Comte Ory_ on the Boulevard des
Italiens, and _la Blanche Marguerite_, most comely to look upon, in the
Rue Montmartre. All these are now gone, but many good specimens of
French signboard painting may yet be met with.

Before closing this general survey of signboard history, we must direct
attention to the number of streets named after signs, both in England
and abroad. A walk down Fleet Street will give, in a small compass, as
many illustrations as are to be met with in any other thoroughfare in
town, for there nearly all the courts are named after signs that were
either hung within them, or at their entrance. Not only streets, but
families also have to thank signs for their names.

  “Many names that seem unfitting for men, as of brutish beasts, etc.,
  come from the very signes of the houses where they inhabited; for I
  have heard of them which sayd they spake of knowledge, that some in
  late time dwelling at the signe of the Dolphin, Bull, White Horse,
  Racket, Peacocke, etc., were commonly called Thomas at the Dolphin,
  Will at the Bull, George at the White Horse, Robin at the Racket,
  which names, as many other of like sort, with omitting _at the_,
  became afterwards hereditary to their children.”--CAMDEN’S _Remaines_,
  p. 102.

As examples of such names we have, “Arrow, Axe, Barrell, Bullhead, Bell,
Block, Board, Banner, Bowles, Baskett, Cann, Coulter, Chisell, Clogg,
Crosskeys, Crosier, Funnell, Forge, Firebrand, Grapes, Griffin, Horns,
Hammer, Hamper, Hodd, Harrow, Image, (the sign originally in honour of
some saint perhaps,) Jugg, Kettle, Knife, Lance, Mallet, Maul, Mattock,
Needle, Pail, Pott, Potts, Plowe, Plane, Pipes, Pottle, Patten, Posnet,
(a purse or money-bag,) Pitcher, Rule, Rainbow, Sack, Saw, Shovel,
Shears, Scales, Silverspoon, Swords, Tankard, Tabor, (a drum,) Trowel,
Tubb and Wedge, and a good many others.”[53]

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

12 Adam and Eves, 13 Albions, 5 Alfred’s Heads, 13 Anchor and Hopes, 18
Angels, 8 Angels and Crowns, 3 Antigallicans, 5 Artichokes, 13 Barley
Mows, 9 Beehives, 31 Bells, 7 Ben Jonsons, 5 Birds in Hand, 5 Black
Boys, 16 Black Bulls, 5 Black Dogs, 29 Black Horses, 10 Black Lions, 6
Black Swans, 19 Blue Anchors, 5 Blue Coat Boys, 6 Blue Lasts, 14 Blue
Peters, 27 Bricklayers’ Arms, 5 Bridge Houses, 22 Britannias, 15 Brown
Bears, 8 Builders’ Arms, 17 Bulls, (some combined with Bells, Butchers,
&c.,) 22 Bull’s Heads, 4 Camden Heads, 6 Capes of Good Hope, 14
Carpenters’ Arms, 19 Castles, 6 Catherine Wheels, 7 Champions, 5
Chequers, 5 Cherry-trees, 8 Cheshire Cheeses, 11 City Arms, 18 Cities of
London, and other cities, (as Canton, Paris, Quebec, &c.,) 52 Coach and
Horses, 12 Cocks, 16 Cocks in combination with Bottles, Hoops, Lions,
Magpies, &c., 6 Constitutions, 17 Coopers’ Arms, 7 Crooked Billets, 5
Cross Keys, 61 Crowns, 18 Crown and Anchors, 5 Crown and Cushions, 11
Crown and Sceptres, 17 Crowns, combined with other objects, as Anvils,
Barley Mows, Thistles, Dolphins, &c., (in all, 112 Crowns; certainly we
are a loyal nation!) 12 Devonshire Arms, 2 Devonshire Castles, 10
Dolphins, 6 Dover Castles, 34 Dukes of Wellington, 32 Dukes of York, 6
Dukes of Sussex, 16 Dukes of Clarence, 7 Dukes of Cambridge, 26 other
Dukes, (including Albemarle, Argyle, Bedford, Bridgewater, Gloucester,
&c.,) 7 various Duchesses, (as Kent, York, Oldenburgh, &c.,) 14 Duke’s
Heads, 18 Earls, (Aberdeen, Cathcart, Chatham, Durham, Essex, &c.,) 6
Edinburgh Castles, 5 Elephants and Castles, 9 Falcons, 21 Feathers, 4
Fishmongers’ Arms, 4 Five Bells, 5 Fleeces, 6 Flying Horses, 5 Fortunes
of War, 24 Fountains, 8 Foxes, 12 Foxes, combined with Grapes, Hounds,
Geese, &c., 8 Freemasons’ Arms, 8 various Generals, (Elliott, Hill,
Abercrombie, Picton, Wolfe, &c.,) 52 Georges, 14 George and Dragons, 19
George the Fourths, 31 Globes, 6 Gloster Arms, 7 Goats, 5 Golden
Anchors, 5 Golden Fleeces, 15 Golden Lions, 6 Goldsmith’s Arms, 56
Grapes, 15 Green Dragons, 4 Green Gates, 24 Green Men, 9 Greyhounds, 7
Griffins, 5 Grosvenor Arms, 8 Guns, 4 Guy of Warwicks, 6 Half-moons, 4
Hercules, 2 Hercules Pillars, 5 Holes in the Wall, 5 Hoop and Grapes, 4
Hop-poles, 12 Hopes, 11 Horns, 21 Horses and Grooms, 7 Horseshoes, 5
Horseshoe and Magpies, 6 Jacob’s Wells, 5 John Bulls, 16 various “Jolly”
people, as Jolly Anglers, Caulkers, Gardeners, &c., 12 Kings of Prussia,
10 Kings and Queens, 89 King’s Arms, 63 King’s Heads, (loyalty again!) 8
Lambs, 3 Lambs and Flags, 4 Lion and Lambs, 55 different Lords, amongst
which, 23 Lord Nelsons, 4 Magpie and Stumps, 3 Mail-coaches, 3 Men in
the Moon, 2 Marlborough Arms, 6 Marlborough Heads, 18 Marquis of
Granbys, 6 Marquis of Cornwallises, 14 various Marquises, 9 Masons’
Arms, 17 Mitres, 4 Mulberry-trees, 15 Nag’s Heads, 3 Nell Gwynns, 7
Noah’s Arks, 7 Norfolk Arms, 4 North Poles, 9 Northumberland Arms, 3 Old
Parr’s Heads, 6 Olive Branches, 6 Oxford Arms, 10 Peacocks, (1 Peahen,)
5 Perseverances, 5 Pewter Platters, 10 Phœnixes, 3 Pied Bulls, 5 Pine
Apples, 9 Pitt’s Heads, 15 Ploughs, 6 Portland Arms, 5 Portman Arms, 19
Prince Alberts, 5 Prince Alfreds, 3 Prince Arthurs, 15 other Princes,
(mostly of the Royal Family,) 43 Princes of Wales, 12 Prince Regents, 6
Princess Royals, 3 Princess Victorias, and a few of the younger
Princesses, 2 Punchbowls, 3 Queens, 3 Queen and Prince Alberts, 17
Queen Victorias, 23 Queen’s Arms, 49 Queen’s Heads, 8 Railway Taverns, 8
Red Cows, 4 Red Crosses, 73 Red Lions, 26 Rising Suns, 9 Robin Hoods, 5
Rodney Heads, 10 Roebucks, 14 Roses, 48 Rose and Crowns, 4 Royal
Alberts, 28 various Royal personages and objects, as Champions,
Cricketers, Crowns, Dukes, Forts, &c., 8 Royal Georges, 26 Royal Oaks,
13 Royal Standards, 7 Running Horses, 23 Saints, (3 Saint Andrews, 4 St
Georges, 3 St Jameses, 3 St Johns, 2 St Luke’s Heads, 2 St Martins, 2 St
Pauls, &c.,) 5 Salisbury Arms, 2 Salmons, 4 Salutations, 6 Scotch
Stores, 4 Seven Stars, 8 Shakespeare Heads, 2 Shepherds and Flocks, 2
Shepherds and Shepherdesses, 53 Ships, (23 in combination, on launch,
aground, &c.,) 3 Ship and Stars, 2 Ships and Whales, 19 Sirs, (including
4 Falstaffs, Sir John Barleycorn, Middleton, Newton, Wren, Abercrombie,
Pindar, Peel, Raleigh, Walworth, &c.,) 5 Skinners’ Arms, 4 Southampton
Arms, 4 Sportsmen, 3 Spotted Dogs, 14 Spread Eagles, 3 Stags, 3
Staghounds, 11 Stars, 17 Star and Garters, 8 Sugar-loaves, 19 Suns, 19
Swans, 9 Talbots, 4 Telegraphs, 3 Thatched Houses, 5 Thistles and
Crowns, 21 Three Compasses, 8 Three Crowns, 3 Three Cranes, 3 Three
Cups, 3 Three Kings, 19 Three Tuns, 8 Tigers, (1 Tiger Cat,) 10 Turk’s
Heads, 28 Two Brewers, 5 Two Chairmen, 4 Unicorns, 10 Unions, 2 Union
Flags, 11 Victories, 5 Vines, 3 Waggon and Horses, 10 Watermen’s Arms, 9
Weavers’ Arms, 3 Westminster Arms, 20 Wheat Sheaves, 15 White Bears, 63
White Harts, 44 White Horses, 25 White Lions, 35 White Swans, 3
Whittington and Cats, (1 Whittington and Stone,) 16 William the Fourths,
11 Windmills, 12 Windsor Castles, 4 Woodmen, 8 Woolpacks, 10 York Arms
and York Minster, 12 Yorkshire Greys.

[1] Sir Gardiner Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii. p. 158. Also,
Rosellini Monumenti dell’Egitto e della Nubia.

[2] Aristotle, Problematum x. 14: “As with the things drawn above the
shops, which, though they are small, appear to have breadth and depth.”

[3] “He hung the well-known sign in the front of his house.”

[4] Hearne, Antiq. Disc., i. 39.

[5] “When the mice were conquered by the army of the weasels, (a story
which we see painted on the taverns.)”

[6] 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.”

[7] 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.”

[8] 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.”

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

[10] 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, _Hic 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.

[11] In Cædmon’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.”)

[12] The palace of St Laurence Poulteney, the town residence of Charles
Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and also of the Dukes of Buckingham, was
called the Rose, from that badge being hung up in front of the house:--

  “The Duke being at the Rose, within the parish
  Of St Laurence Poultney.”--_Henry VIII._, a. i. s. 2.

“A house in the town of Lewes was formerly known as 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 Heraldry_.

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

[14] “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.”

[15] “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.”

[16] “Lastly, I must draw the attention of the student to the fact that
some Florentine printers, seeing that they could not equal our diligence
in correcting and printing, have resorted to their usual artifices. To
Aldus’s Institutiones Grammaticæ, 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 the right.”--_Preface
to Aldus’s Livy_, 1518.

[17] The number of taverns in these ten shires was “686, or
thereabouts.”

[18] “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. of London_, vol. iii. p. 74.

[19] “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.”

[20] “Art. XXIII.--Tavernkeepers must put up signboards and a bush.
. . . Nobody shall be allowed to open a tavern in the said city and its
suburbs without having a sign and a bush.”

[21] A Cheat loaf was a household loaf, “wheaten seconds
bread.”--NARES’S _Glossary_.

[22] Froe--_i.e._ _Vrouw_, woman.

[23] This was in those days a slang term for a mistress.

[24] _i.e._ Walk about in St Paul’s during the dinner hour.

[25] “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.”

[26] “Koddige en ernstige opschriften op Luiffels, wagens, glazen,
uithangborden en andere tafereelen door Jeroen Jeroense. Amsterdam,
1682.”

[27] “Het gestoffeerde Winkelen en Luifelen Banquet. H. van den Berg.
Amsterdam, 1693.”

[28]

  “Jacob was David’s nephew, but not his brother-in-law.
  All sorts of barbers’ tools ground here, also fishwives’ and butchers’
  knives.”

[29]

  “Moses was pick’d up among the rushes.
  Teeth and grinders drawn here.”

[30] The _British Apollo_, 1710, vol. iii. p. 34.

[31] Amusements for the Meridian of London, 1708, p. 72.

[32] Bell and the Dragon, still to be met on the signboard.

[33] Addison is wrong in this derivation, (_see_ under Miscellaneous
Signs, at the end.)

[34] 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 Paternoster Row does
not inform us.

[35] For the _Three Balls_ of the Pawnbrokers, _see_ under Miscellaneous
Signs; for the Barber’s Pole, under Trades’ Signs.

[36] Probably John James Heidegger, director of the Opera, a very ugly
man.

[37] For a full account of the “Exhibition,” _see_ in the Supplement at
the end of this work.

[38] 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.

[39] Laws, Customs, Usages, and Regulations of the City and Port of
London. By Alexander 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, notwithstanding it projected over the footway,
unless it obstructed the circulation of light and air, or was
inconvenient or incommodious.

[40] Trades tokens were brass farthings issued by shopkeepers in the
seventeenth century, and stamped with the sign of the shop and the name
of its owner.

[41] Memorials of Nature and Art collected on a Journey in Great Britain
during the Years 1802 and 1803. By C. A. G. Gœde. London, 1808. Vol. i.
p. 68.

[42] Mementos, Historical and Classical, of a Tour through part of
France, Switzerland, and Italy, in the Years 1821 and 1822. London,
1824.

[43] _Un bon enfant_ is in French “a jolly good fellow,” as well as a
“good child.”

[44] Taken from the Opera “La Somnambula.”

[45]

  “Nature provides man with hair and beard,
  But I cut them both.”

[46]

  “I devote my razors to all faces,
  And defy the criticism of faithful mirrors.”

[47] A sort of pun, “_la belle occasion_” implying the same idea that
our shopkeepers express by their “Now is your time,” and similar puffs.

[48] Similar instances may also be occasionally met with in London; for
instance, the _Corsican Brothers_, (Coffee-house, Fulham Road.)

[49] Two or three good examples are to be seen in the South Kensington
Museum.

[50] Edwards’s Anecdotes of Painters, 1808, p. 117.

[51] J. T. Smith’s Nollekens and his Times, vol. i. p. 25.

[52] Tommy Burkett was the name of mine host. The painting is now gone,
but the verses remain.

[53] M. A. Lower’s Essay on Family Nomenclature, vol. i. p. 201.




CHAPTER II.

HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE SIGNS.


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

  “Vernon, the Butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
    Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
  Evil and good have had their tithe of talk,
    And fill’d their signpost then, like Wellesley now.”

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

Many signboards have an historic connexion of some sort with the place
where they are exhibited. Thus the ALFRED’S HEAD, at Wantage, in
Berkshire, was in all probability chosen as a sign because Wantage was
the birthplace of King Alfred. So the CANUTE CASTLE, at Southampton,
owes its existence to a local tradition; whilst admiration for the great
Scotch patriot made an innkeeper in Stowell Street, Newcastle, adopt SIR
WILLIAM WALLACE’S ARMS. The CÆSAR’S HEAD was, in 1761, to be seen near
the New Church in the Strand,[54] and, in the beginning of this century,
was the sign of a tavern in Soho, which afterwards removed to Great
Palace Yard, Westminster. Even at the present day, his head may be seen
outside certain village alehouses; but this we may attribute to that
provincial popularity which the Roman hero shares with Oliver Cromwell;
for as the Protector gets the blame of having made nearly all the ruins
which are to be found in the three kingdoms, so Cæsar is generally named
by country people as the builder of every old wall or earthwork the
origin of which is unknown.

Notwithstanding the popular censure, CROMWELL is still honoured with
signboards in places where his memory has lingered, as at Kate’s Hill,
near Dudley.

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

  “I was yesterday out of town, and the very signs, as I passed through
  the villages, made me make very quaint reflections on the mortality of
  fame and popularity. I observed how the Duke’s Head had succeeded
  almost universally to Admiral Vernon’s, as his had left but few traces
  of the Duke of Ormond’s. I pondered these things in my breast, and
  said to myself, ’Surely all glory is but as a sign!’”[55]

Some favourites of the signboard have, however, been more fortunate than
others. HENRY VIII., for instance, may still be seen in many places;
indeed, for more than two centuries after his death, almost every KING’S
HEAD invariably gave a portrait of Bluff Harry.

Older kings occasionally occur, but their memories seem to have been
revived rather than handed down by successive innkeepers. If we are to
believe an old Chester legend, however, THE KING EDGAR INN, in Bridge
Street of that city, has existed by the same name since the time of the
Saxon king. The sign represents King Edgar rowed down the river Dee by
the eight tributary kings. The present house has the appearance of being
built anterior to the reign of Elizabeth, and the sign looks almost as
old, but it would be unwise to give the place or the sign a much higher
antiquity. KING JOHN is the sign under whose auspices Jem Mace, the
pugilist, keeps a public-house in Holywell Lane, Shoreditch. The same
king also figures in Albemarle Street and in Bermondsey; whilst the
great event of his reign, MAGNA CHARTA, is a sign at New Holland, Hull.
JOHN OF GAUNT may be seen in many places; and we may surmise that his
upholders are stanch Protestants, who value his character as a reformer
and supporter of Wicliffe. The BLACK PRINCE may not unlikely have come
down to us in an uninterrupted line of signboards; so little was his
identity sometimes understood, that there is a shop-bill in the “Banks
Collection”[56] on which this hero is represented as a negro!

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

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

As for QUEEN ELIZABETH, she was the constant type of the Queen’s Head,
as her father was of the King’s Head; and, like him, she may still be
seen in many places. It is somewhat more difficult to ascertain who is
meant by the QUEEN CATHERINE in Brook Street, Ratcliffe Highway; whether
it be Queen Catherine of Aragon, or Queen Catherine of Braganza. QUEEN
ANNE, in South Street, Walworth, has evidently come down to us as the
token of that house since the day of its opening, just as the QUEEN OF
BOHEMIA, who, until about fifty years ago, continued as a sign in Drury
Lane.[57] This was Elizabeth, daughter of James I., married to Frederic
V., Elector-Palatine, who, after her husband’s death, lived at Craven
House, Drury Lane, and died there, February 13, 1661, having been
privately married, it is thought, to Lord Craven, who was foremost in
fighting the battles of her husband.

Of KING’S HEADS, Henry VIII. is the oldest on authentic record. But
this does not prove that he was the first; for, as there lived great men
before Agamemnon, so most kings during their reign will, in all
probability, have had their signs. Among Henry’s successors, we find the
head of Edward VI. on a trades token; whilst CHARLES THE FIRST’S HEAD
was the portrait hanging from the house of that scoundrel Jonathan Wild,
in the Old Bailey. Even at the present day there is a sign of CHARLES
THE FIRST at Goring Heath, Reading. The MARTYR’S HEAD in Smithfield,
1710, seems also to have been a portrait of Charles I.; so, at least,
the following allusion gives us to understand:--

  “May Hyde, near Smithfield, at the Martyr’s Head,
  Who charms the nicest judge with noble red,
  Thrive on by drawing wines, which none can blame,
  But those who in his sign behold their shame;”[58]

which seems to be an allusion to Puritanical water-drinkers. To this
unfortunate king belongs also the sign of the MOURNING BUSH, set up by
Taylor the water-poet over his tavern in Phœnix Alley, Long Acre, to
express his grief at the beheading of Charles I.; but he was soon
compelled to take it down, when he put up the POET’S HEAD, his own
portrait, with this inscription:--

  “There is many a head hangs for a sign;
  Then, gentle reader, why not mine?”

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

  “My signe was once a _Crowne_, but now it is
  Changed by a sudden metamorphosis.
  The crowne was taken downe, and in the stead
  Is placed John Taylor’s, or the _Poet’s Head_.
  A painter did my picture gratis make,
  And (for a signe) I hang’d it for his sake.
  Now, if my picture’s drawing can prevayle,
  ’Twill draw my friends to me, and I’ll draw ale.
  Two strings are better to a bow than one;
  And poeting does me small good alone.
  So ale alone yields but small good to me,
  Except it have some spice of poesie.
  The fruits of ale are unto drunkards such,
  To make ‘em sweare and lye that drinke too much.
  But my ale, being drunk with moderation,
  Will quench thirst, and make merry recreation.
  My book and signe were publish’d for two ends,
  T’ invite my honest, civill, sober friends.
  From such as are not such, I kindly pray,
  Till I send for ‘em, let ‘em keep away.
  From _Phœnix Alley_, the _Globe Taverne_ neare,
  The _middle of Long Acre_, I _dwell_ there.

  “JOHN TAYLOR, _Poeta Aquaticus_.”

[Illustration: PLATE IV.

EAGLE AND CHILD.

(Banks’s Bills, circa 1750.)

ROBIN HOOD AND LITTLE JOHN.

(Roxburghe Ballads, 1600.)

GRIFFIN AND CHAIR.

(Banks’s Bills, 1790.)

BOLT-IN-TUN.

(Fleet Street).

BOAR’S HEAD.

(Eastcheap.)

BULL’S HEAD.

(Longhborough, Linc., 1806.)]

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

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

CHARLES THE SECOND’S HEAD swung at the door of a “music-house” for
seafaring men and others, in Stepney, at the end of the seventeenth
century. In a great room of this house there was an organ and a band of
fiddles and hautboys, to the music whereof it was no unusual thing for
parties, and sometimes single persons,--and those not of very inferior
sort,--to dance. At the present day, that king’s memory is still kept
alive on a signboard in Herbert Street, Hoxton, under the name of the
MERRY MONARCH.

To his miraculous escape at Boscobel we owe the ROYAL OAK, which,
notwithstanding a lapse of two centuries and a change of dynasty, still
continues a very favourite sign. In London alone it occurs on twenty-six
public-houses, exclusive of beerhouses, coffee-houses, &c. Sometimes it
is called KING CHARLES IN THE OAK, as at Willen Hall, Warwickshire. The
Royal Oak, soon after the Restoration, became a favourite with the shops
of London; tokens of some half a dozen houses bearing that sign are
extant. What is rather curious is that, not many years since, one of the
descendants of trusty Dick Pendrell kept an inn at Lewes, in Sussex,
called the Royal Oak.

There is a trades token of “William Hagley, at the RESTORATION, 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 evidently 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 Causeway, Cambridge. The accession of the
house of Brunswick produced 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 our open-air
walhalla, the Turkish sultans seem to have stood foremost. MORAT
(Amurat) and SOLIMAN were constant coffee-house signs in the seventeenth
century. Trades tokens are extant, in the Beaufoy and other collections,
of a coffee-house in Exchange Alley, the sign of Morat, with this
distich:--

  “MORAT . Y^{E} . GREAT . MEN . DID . MEE . CALL
  WHERE . ERE . I . CAME . I . CONQUER’D . ALL.”

On the reverse: “_Coffee, tobacco, sherbett, tea, and chocolat retal’d
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
  Coffee-powder, from 4s. to 6s. _per pound_, as in goodness: that
  pounded in a mortar at 3s. _per pound_; also that termed the right
  Turkie Berry, well garbled, at 3s. _per pound_--the ungarbled for
  less; that termed the East India Berry at 20d. _per pound_, with
  directions gratis how to make and use the same. Likewise, there you
  may have Tobacco, Verinas and Virginia, Chocolatta--the ordinary
  pound-boxes at 2s. _per pound_; also Sherbets (made in Turkie) of
  Lemons, Roses, and Violets perfumed; and Tea according to its
  goodness, from 6s. to 60s. _per pound_. For all of which, if any
  Gentleman shall write or send, they shall be sure of the best as they
  shall order; and to avoid deceit, warranted under the House
  Seal--viz., MORAT THE GREAT,” &c.--_Mercurius Publicus_, March 12-19,
  1662.

The GREAT MOGOL also had his share of signboards, of which a few still
survive; one, for instance, in New Bartholomew Street, Birmingham. KOULI
KHAN we find only in one instance, (though there were probably many
more,) namely, on the sign of a tavern by the Quayside, Newcastle, in
1746.[59] 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 popularity in
this country was the permission he granted to the English 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 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 DENMARK, 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.[60] 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 profligates 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
  continued 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.”[61]

The sign is now removed, but the public-house still bears the same name.
PRINCE EUGENE also was at one time a popular tavern portrait in England,
more particularly after his visit to this country in January 1712. It is
named as one of the signs in Norwich in 1750,[62] 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
Road. Who this Grave Maurice was is not quite clear. GRAVE (_Ger._ Graf,
_Dutch_ Graaf, _i.e._ COUNT,) Maurice of Nassau, afterwards Maurice,
Prince of Orange, was, on account of his successful opposition to the
Spanish domination in the Netherlands, very popular in this country. In
Baker’s Chronicles, anno 1612, we read that:--“Upon St Thomas-day, the
Paltzgrave and _Grave Maurice_ were elected Knights of the Garter; and
the 27th of December, the Paltzgrave was betrothed to the Lady
Elizabeth. On Sunday the 7th of February, the Paltzgrave in person was
installed a Knight of the Garter at Windsor, and at the same time was
_Grave Maurice_ installed by his deputy, Count Lodewick 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 brothers 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 counterfeit 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.”[63]
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 popularity by his adherence to the
Protestant religion during the Thirty Years’ War.

The PALTSGRAVE became a popular sign at the marriage of Frederick
Casimir V., Elector and Count Palatine of the Rhine, King of Bohemia,
with Elizabeth, daughter of James I. Trades tokens are extant of a
famous tavern, the sign of the PALSGRAVE’S HEAD, without Temple Bar,[64]
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 behaved so gallantly in many of the fights during the Civil War, was
no doubt a favourite sign after the Restoration. We have an instance 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 Rosbach,
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 portfolios 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.[65]”

These words of Macaulay remind us of a passage in the _Mirror_, No. 82,
Saturday, February 19, 1780, bearing on the same subject. 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 King of Prussia, obliterated the
glories of the Duke of Cumberland 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 military 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 behaved 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 subject 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 of
  the French King, upon the commencement of the last war, pulled down
  his old sign, and put up that of the QUEEN OF 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.”[66]

Of all great men, “bene meriti de patria,” military men appear at all
times to have captivated the popular favour much more than those men who
promoted the welfare of the country in the Cabinet, or who made
themselves famous by the arts of peace, and the more quiet productions
of their genius. We find hundreds of admirals and generals on the
signboard, but we are not aware that there is one Watt, or one Sir
Walter Scott; yet, what glory and pleasure has the nation not derived
from their genius! Booksellers 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 debate. 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 invention, 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 ADMIRAL 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, advantage was taken of a
tobacconist’s sign for the following sharp hit at Lord North:--

  “To the Printer of the _General Advertiser_:--

  “SIR,--Being a smoaker, I take particular notice of the devices used
  by different dealers in tobacco, by way of ornament to the papers in
  which that valuable plant is enclosed for sale; and that used by the
  worthy Alderman in Ludgate Street, has often given me much pleasure,
  it having the head of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the following motto
  round it:--

  ‘Great Britain to great Raleigh owes
  This plant and country where it grows.’

  “To which I offer the following lines by way of contrast; the truth
  thereof no one can doubt:--

  ‘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
  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 Road, where, some years ago, the portrait
of the admiral used to court the custom of the passing traveller, by a
poetical appeal to both man and beast:--

  “Stop, brave boys, and quench your thirst;
  If you won’t drink, your horses murst.”

But, above all, ADMIRAL RODNEY seems to have obtained a larger share of
popularity than even NELSON himself. In Boston there is the RODNEY AND
HOOD; and in Creggin, Montgomeryshire, the RODNEY PILLAR Inn, with the
following Anacreontic effusion on a double-sided signboard:--

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

On the reverse:--

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

The last addition to this portrait gallery, before SIR CHARLES NAPIER,
was the head of the gallant besieger of Algiers, LORD EXMOUTH. In 1825,
there was one at Barnstaple, in Devon, with the following address to the
wayfarer:--

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

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

Though the fame of generals seems to be more short-lived than that of
admirals, yet a few ancient heroes still remain. Amongst these, GENERAL
ELLIOTT, or LORD 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 RALPH ABERCROMBIE. At a tavern of
this last denomination in Lombard Street, some thirty-five or forty
years ago, the “House of Lords’ Club” used to meet, not composed, as
might be expected from the name, of members of the peerage, but simply
of the good citizens of the neighbourhood, each dubbed with a title. The
president was styled Lord Chancellor; he wore a legal wig and robes, and
a mace was laid on the table before him. The title bestowed upon the
members depended on the fee--one shilling constituted a Baron, two
shillings a Viscount, three shillings an Earl, four shillings a Marquis,
and five shillings a Duke; beyond that rank their ambition did not
reach. This club originated early in the eighteenth century, at the
FLEECE in Cornhill, but removed to the THREE TUNS in Southwark, that the
members might be more retired from the bows and compliments of the
London apprentices, who used to salute the noble lords by their titles
as they passed to and fro in the streets about their business. One of
their last houses was the YORKSHIRE GREY, near Roll’s Buildings. At
present they are, we believe, extinct. In Newcastle, also, there was a
House of Lords, of which Bewick the wood-engraver was a member. They
used to hold their meetings in the Groat Market of that town.

The DUKE’S HEAD, and the OLD DUKE, are signs that, for the last two or
three centuries, have always been applied to some ducal hero or other,
for the time being basking himself in the noontide sun of fame. One of
the first to whom it was applied, was Monck, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE after the
Restoration; then came ORMOND, MARLBOROUGH, CUMBERLAND, YORK, and, at
present, WELLINGTON and the DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. The DUKE’S HEAD in Upper
Street, 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.[67]

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,”[68] 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, Tetbury,
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.[69]

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

  “Lord Craven, in the time of King Charles II., was a constant man at a
  fire; for which purpose he always had a horse ready saddled in his
  stables, and rewarded the first that gave him notice of such an
  accident. It was a good-natured fancy, and he did a good deal of
  service; but in that reign everything was turned to a joke. The king
  being told of a terrible fire that was broke out, asked if Lord Craven
  was there yet. ‘Oh!’ says somebody by, ‘an’t please your majesty, he
  was there before it began, waiting for it, he has had two horses burnt
  under him already.’[70] 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 members, but
afterwards, the numbers increasing, they removed to the above tavern,
and its name was altered into the “Essex Head Society.” In 1747 it
removed to the Robin Hood in Butcher Row, near Temple Bar. The society
attained a position of so much importance, that a history of its
proceedings was published in 1764, giving an account of the subjects
debated, and reports 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.[71]

In 1784, the year of his death, Dr Johnson instituted at this house a
club of twenty-four members, in order to insure himself 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, exceeding 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 capture 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 façade 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 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
optician’s sign. He had been adopted by that class of workmen on account
of the burning lenses with which he set the Roman fleet on fire at
Syracuse. Various implements of their trade were added as distinctions
by the several shops who sold spectacles under his auspices, such as
GOLDEN PROSPECTS OF 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.[72]
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 customers. SIR ISAAC NEWTON was another
telescope-maker’s sign in Ludgate Street _circa_ 1795.[73] At the
present day he occurs on a few public-houses; but it is somewhat more
gratifying for our national pride to see a coffee-house in the Rue
Arcade, Paris, 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.[74] 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 Thomson, 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 London, Windsor,
and the neighbourhood of Hampton Court. ANDREW MARVEL is still
commemorated on a sign in Whitefriargate, Hull, of which town he was a
native. THOMAS GRESHAM, the founder of the Royal Exchange, was a
favourite in London after the opening of the first Exchange in 1566; and
SIR HUGH MIDDLETON, the projector of the New River, is duly honoured
with two or three signs in Islington.

There exists a curious alehouse picture, called the THREE JOHNS, in
Little Park Street, Westminster, and in White Lion Street, Pentonville.
The same sign, many years ago, might have been seen in Bennett Street,
near Queen Square, in the former locality. It represented an oblong
table, with John Wilkes in the middle, the Rev. John Horne 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 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
contributed most to his popularity was that he, with the Lord Cavendish,
Mr Howard, Dr Tillotson, Dr Burnet, and a few others, appeared to
vindicate Lord Russell 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, Philippus
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. Information about the horse with “the sowre head”
would also be received at a house in Lambeth, with no less a dignitary
for its sign than the BISHOP OF CANTERBURY, his grace having been thus
honoured from a neighbourly feeling.

Doctor Butler, (_ob._ 1617,) physician to James I., and, according to
Fuller, “the Æsculapius 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.”[75]
One of the last remaining Butler’s Heads was in a court leading from
Basinghall into Coleman Street.

[Illustration: PLATE V.

SPINNING SOW.

(France, 1520.)

TWO STORKS.

(Antwerp, 1639.)

THE COMPLETE ANGLER.

(Banks’s Bills, 1780.)

HELP ME THROUGH THIS WORLD.

(Banks’s Bills, 1812.)

CROOKED BILLET.

(Harleian Collection, 1710.)]

That singularly successful quack, Lilly, though he ought not to be
placed in such good company as the king’s physician, was also a constant
sign, in the last century, at the door of sham doctors and astrologers.
Not unfrequently they combined the BALLS (a favourite sign of the
quacks) with Lilly’s head, as the BLACK BALL AND LILLYHEAD, the sign of
Thomas Saffold, “an approved and licensed physician and student in
astrology: he hath practised astronomy for twenty-four years, and hath
had the Bishop of London’s licence to practise physick ever since the
4th day of September 1674, and hath, he thanks God for it, great
experience and wonderful success in those arts.” He promised to perform
the usual _tours de force_.

      ----“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 Hudibras._

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.”[76]

Classic authors also have come in for their share of signboard
popularity in this country, which, at the time they flourished, was
about as little civilized as the Sandwich Islands in the days of Captain
Cook. These signs were set up by booksellers; thus HOMER’S HEAD was, in
1735, the sign of Lawton Gilliver, against St Dunstan’s Church,
publisher of some of Pope’s works, and in 1761, of J. Walker at Charing
Cross. Cicero, under the name of TULLY’S HEAD, hung at the door of
Robert Dodsley, a famous bookseller in Pall Mall. In a newspaper of
1756, appeared some verses “on Tully’s head in Pall Mall, by the Rev. 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. HORACE’S HEAD graced the shop of J. White in Fleet Street,
publisher of several of Joseph Strutt’s antiquarian works; and VIRGIL’S
HEAD of Abraham van den Hoeck and George Richmond, opposite Exeter
Change in the Strand, in the middle of the last century. Of SENECA’S
HEAD two instances occur, J. Round in Exchange Alley in 1711, and ----
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.[77] In that same year it was the sign of
Robert Pollard, bookseller, behind the Royal Exchange. Ten years later
it occurs in the following advertisement:--

  “WHEREAS Thomas Williams, of the society of real and well-meaning
  Chymists hath prepaired certain Medicynes for the cure and prevention
  of the Plague, at cheap rates, without Benefit to himself, and for the
  publick good, In pursuance of directions from authority, be it known
  that these said Medicynes are to be had at Mr Thomas Fidges, in
  Fountain Court, Shoe Lane, near Fleet Street, and are also left by him
  to be disposed of at the GREEN BALL, within Ludgate, the Ben Jonson’s
  Head, near Yorkhouse,” &c.[78]

There is still a Ben Jonson’s Head tavern with a painted portrait 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, Covent
Garden, the Beefsteak Society (different from the Beefsteak Club,) used
to meet before it was removed to the Lyceum Theatre. George Lambert,
scene-painter to Covent Garden Theatre, was its originator. This tavern
was at one time famous for its beautifully painted sign. The well-known
Lion’s Head, first set up by Addison at Button’s, was for a time placed
at this house.[79] 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 then kept by a lady under the
protection of Dutch Sam the pugilist. After this it was for one year in
the hands of the well-known Mr Mark Lemon, present editor of _Punch_,
then just newly married to Miss Romer, a singer of some renown, who
assisted him in the management of this establishment. The house was
chiefly visited by actors from Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and the
Olympic, whilst a club of literati used to meet on the first floor.

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

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

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

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

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

The head of ROWE, the first emendator, corrector, and illustrator 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. Camden 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,
afterwards of his son Thomas, booksellers in Fleet Street from 1740 till
the beginning of this century. DR JOHNSON’S HEAD, exhibiting a portrait
of the great lexicographer, is a modern sign in Bolton Court, Fleet
Street, opposite to where the great man lived, and which was in his time
occupied by an upholsterer. It is sometimes asserted to be the house in
which the Doctor resided, but this statement is wrong, for the house in
which he had apartments was burned down in 1819. Finally, a portrait of
Sterne, under the name of the YORICK’S HEAD, was the sign of John
Wallis, a bookseller in Ludgate Street in 1795.

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

The latest of all literary celebrities who attained sufficient
popularity to entitle him to a signboard was SHERIDAN KNOWLES, who was
chosen as the sign of a tavern in Bridge Street, Covent Garden, facing
the principal entrance to Drury Lane Theatre, (now a nameless
eating-house.) There the Club of Owls used to meet. Sheridan Knowles was
one of the patrons, and Augustine Wade, an author and composer of some
fame, was chairman of the club in those days. Pierce Egan and Leman Rede
were amongst its members; so that it may be conjectured that the nights
were not passed in moping.[80]

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 sixteenth century notions, Bacchus included beer in his dominions.
Hence he is styled “Bacchus, the God of brew’d wine and sugar, grand
patron of robpots, upsey freesy tipplers, and supernaculum takers, this
Bacchus, who is head warden of Vintner’s Hall, _ale connor_, mayor of
all victualling houses,” &c.--MASSINGER’S _Virgin Martyr_, a. ii. s. l.
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.[81] In the beginning of this century there was a
notorious place of amusement in St George’s Fields, Westminster Road,
called the Apollo Gardens--a Vauxhall or a Ranelagh of a very low
description. It was tastefully fitted up, but being small and having few
attractions 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 because she was the
goddess of wisdom, but as “y^{e} patroness of scholars, shoemakers,
diers,” &c.[82] JUNO has a temple in Church Lane, Hull, and NEPTUNE of
course is of frequent occurrence in a country that holds the

  “Imperium pelagi sævumque 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.”[83]

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 moei van smeden
  Ging hy wat zitten neer en ruste zyne leden
  De Goden zagen ’t aan, hy haalde uit zyn zak
  Zyn pypye en zyn doos en rookte doen tabak.”[84]

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,[85] and COMUS is
frequently the tutelary god of our provincial public-houses. CASTOR AND
POLLUX, represented in the dress of Roman soldiers of the empire
standing near a cask of tallow, was the sign of T. & J. Bolt,
tallow-chandlers, at the corner of Berner Street, Oxford Street, at the
end of the last century, for the obvious reason that, like the Messrs
Bolt, they were two brothers that spread light over the world. Our
admiration 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 WORLD’S END. In 1667 it was the sign of
Richard Penck 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 BOATSWAIN in Wapping.”
The Marquis of Granby often visited the former house, and here Fielding,
in “Tom Jones,” makes Squire Western put up:--“The Squire sat down to
regale himself over a bottle of wine with his parson and the landlord of
the Hercules 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.”[86] In Pepys’ time there was a Hercules
Pillars tavern in Fleet Street. Here the merry clerk of the Admiralty
supped with his wife and some friends on Feb. 6, 1667-8; his return home
gives a good idea of London after the fire:--

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

ATLAS carrying the World was the very appropriate sign of the map and
chart makers. In 1674 there was one in Cornhill,[87] and under a print
of Blanket fair (the fair held on the Thames when frozen over) occurs
the following imprint:--“A map of the river Thames merrily called
Blanket-fair, as it was frozen in the memorable year 1683-4, describing
the Booths, Footpaths, Coaches, Sledges, Bull-baitings, and other
remarks. Sold by Joseph Moxon on the West side of Fleet ditch, at the
sign of 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
  England.[88] 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
  sixpence.”--_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.”[89] 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 Rue St Jacques, Paris; his colophon represented Jason taking the
golden fleece off a tree, with the motto--“TEGIT ET QUOS TANGIT
INAURAT.”

Another sign, of which the application is not very obvious, is Pegasus
or the FLYING HORSE, unless it refers to this rhyme:--

  “If with water you fill up your glasses,
    You’ll 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 and
Chancery Lane, 1680,” is an imprint under many ballads. John Gay
undoubtedly had adopted this sign as a compliment to the Templars, in
whose vicinity he lived, and whose arms are a Pegasus on a field _arg_.
As for the poor balladmongers, whose works Gay printed, they certainly
put Pegasus too much to the plough, to imagine that he alluded to theirs
as a Flying Horse. Instead of the Flying Horse, a facetious innkeeper at
Rogate Petersfield, has put up a parody in the shape of the FLYING BULL.

The HOPE and the HOPE AND ANCHOR are constant signs 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 management 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 graphically entered into the
diary, are “unfit for publication.”

The FORTUNE was adopted from considerations somewhat similar to those
that prompted the choice of the Hope. It occurs as the sign of a tavern
in 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 decorated the signpost for
ages. The ballad was written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but the
legend refers to Henry de Montfort, son of the Earl of Leicester, who
was supposed to have fallen at the battle of Evesham in the reign of
Henry III. Not only was the Beggar adopted as a sign by publicans, but
he also figured on the staff of the parish beadle; and so convinced were
the Bethnal Green folks of the truth of the story, that the house called
Kirby Castle was generally pointed out as the Blind Beggar’s palace, and
two turrets at the extremity of the court wall as the place where he
deposited his gains.

Still more general all over England is GUY OF WARWICK, who occurs
amongst the signs on trades tokens of the seventeenth century: that of
Peel Beckford, in Field Lane, represents him as an armed man holding a
boar’s head erect on a spear. The wondrous strange feats of this knight
form the subject of many a ballad. In the Roxburgh Collection there is
one headed, “The valiant deads of chivalry atchieved by that noble
knight, Sir Guy of Warwick, who, for the love of fair Phillis, became a
hermit, and dyed in a cave of a craggy rock a mile distant from Warwick.
In Normandy stoutly won by fight the Emperor’s daughter of Almayne from
many a valiant, worthy knight.”[90] 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.”

  _Huddersford Wiccamical Chaplet._

A public-house at Swainsthorpe, near Norwich, has the following
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’ll 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 of Mansfield.[91]
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 VII

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