QJnrnell lnt»et0itg ffiibrarg FROM THE BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Of this Large Paper Edition only lOO copies have been printed^ containing, besides the whole of'the.text and pictures :giv^rr' .:in , the smaU paper edition, ^smENiT:^.i;woi additional llLm&STlim'iONS if anient Sign- '_boarxIsy with other reminiscences of Old London. Cornell University Library GT3910 .S32 1867 + History of signboards : from the earlies 3 1924 029 896 564 olin Overs Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029896564 'y-^-' A Man Loaded w.th Mischief, or Matrimony. ,.■'■'( THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS, From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. BY JACOB LARWOOD, A' l fo-^^ ^ AND JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN. WITH ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRA TIONS IN FACSIMILE BY J. LARWOOD, " He would name you all the uigna aa be went along." BES lOSaOS'B BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. " Oppida ctum peragras peragrauda poeniata spectes." BRUNKEN BARNABV'S TRAVEM Cock and Bottle. LONDON: JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, PICCADILLY. 1867. [All riglits reserved.] To Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., F.S.A., the Accomplished Interpreter of English Popular Antiquities this l,ittlE Uolume ts BeitcatfU by THE A UTHORS. PREFACE. The field of history is a wide one, and when the beaten tracks have been well traversed, there wiU 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 pubhshed in this country. The extraordinary number of examples and the numerous absurd combinations afforded such a mass of entangled material as doubtless deterred writers from proceeding beyond an occasional article in a maga- zine, or a chapter in a book, — when only the more famous signs would be cited as instances of popular humour or local renown. How best to classify and treat the thousands of single and double signs was the chief difficulty in compiling the present work. That it will in every respect satisfy the reader is more than is expected — indeed much more than could be hoped for under the best of circumstances. In these modern days, the signboard is a very unimportant object : it was not always so. At a time when but few persons could read and write, house-signs were indispensable in city life. As education spread they were less needed ; and when in the last century, the system of numbering houses was introduced, and every thoroughfare had its name painted at the begin- ning and end, they were no longer a positive necessity — their original value was gone, and they lingered on, not by reason of their usefulness, but as instances of the decorative humour 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 suggest- ing its erection, or at least a few houses by way of commencement. The huge " London Directory " contains the names of hundreds of streets in the metropolis which derived their titles from taverns or public-houses in the immediate neighbourhood. As material for the etymology of the names of persons and places, the various old signs may be stucUed with advantage. In many other ways the historic importance of house-signs could be shown. Something like a classification of our subject was found absolutely neces- vi P REIT ACM. sary at the outset, although from the indefinite nature of many signs the divisions " Historic," " Heraldic," " Animal," &c. — ^under which the various examples have been arranged — must be-regarded as purely arbitrary, for in many instances it would be impossible to say whether such and such a sign should be included under the one head or imder the other. The explanations offered as to origin and meaning are based rather upon con- jecture and speculation than upon fact — as only in very rare instances reliable data could be produced to bear them out. Compound signs but increase the difBculty of explanation : if the road was uncertain before, almost all traces of a pathway are destroyed here. When, therefore, a solu- tion is offered, it must be considered only as a suggestion of the posdble meaning. As a rule, and unless the symbols be very obvious, the reader would do well to consider the majority of compound signs as quarteiings 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 leaat 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 aa " A proposal to the Hoiise of Commons for raising above half a million of money per annum, vAth a great ease to the subject, by a tax upon sighs, London, 1695," a very curious tract ; a political jevrd'esprit from the Harleian MSS., (5953,) en- titled " The Civill Warres of the Citie," a lengthy document prepared for a journal in the reign of William of Orange by one " E. I.," and giving the names and whereabouts of the principal London signs at that time. Acts of Parliament for the removal or limitation of signs ; and various religious pamphlets upon the subject, such as "Helps for Spiritual Medi- tation, earnestly Recommended to the Perusal of all those who desire to have their Hearts much with God," a chap-book of the time of Wesley and Whitfield, in which the existing " Signs of London are Spiritualized, with an Intent, that when a person walks along the Street, instead of hav- ing their Mind fiU'd with Vanity, and their Thoughts amus'd with the trifiing 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 wiU 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 ouraelves as again inhabited by the busy tenants of former years ; in meeting the great names of history in the hours of relaxation, in calling up the scenes which must have been often witnessed in the haunt of the pleasure-seeker, the tavern with its noisy company, the coffee-house with its politicians and PREFACE. vn Bmiirt beaux ; and, on the other hand, the quiet, unpretending shop of the ancient bookseller filled with the monuments of departed minds. Such scraps of history may help to picture this old London as it appeared dur- ing the last three centuries. For the contemplative mind there is some charm even in getting at the names and occupations of the former inmates of the houses now only remembered by their signs ; in tracing, by means of these house decorations, their modes of thought or their ideas of humour, and in rescuing from oblivion a few little anecdotes and minor facts of history connected with the house before which those signs swung in the air. It is a pity that such a task as the following was not undertaken many years ago ; it would have been much better accomplished theu than now. London is so rapidly changing its aspect, that ten years hence many of the particulars here gathered could no longer be collected. Already, dur- ing the printing of this work, three old houses famous for their signs have been doomed to destruction — the Mitre in Fleet Street, the Tabard in Southwark, (where Chaucer's pilgrims lay,) and Don Saltero's house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. The best existing specimens of old signboards may be seen in our cathedral towns. Antiquaries cling to these places, and the inhabitants themselves are generally animated by a strong conservative feel- ing. In London an entire street might be removed with far less of public discussion than would attend the taking down of an old decayed sign in one of these provincial cities. Does the reader remember an article in Punch, about two years ago, entitled " Asses in Canterbury !" It was in ridicule of the Canterbury Commissioners of Pavement, who had held grave delibera- tions on the well-known sign of Sir John Falstaff, hanging from the front of the hotel of that name, — a house which has been open for public enter- tainment these three hundred years. The knight with sword and buckler (from " Henry the Fourth,") was suspended from some ornamental iron- work, far above the pavement, in the open thoroughfare leading to the famous Westgate, and formed one of the most noticeable objects in this part of Canterbury. In 1787, when the general order was issued for the removal of all the signs in the city — many of them obstructed the thor- oughfares — this was looked upon with so much veneration that it was allowed to remain until 1863, when for no apparent reason it was sen- tenced to destruction. However, it was only with the greatest difficulty that men could be found to pull it down, and then several cans of beer had first to be distributed amongst them as an incentive to action — in so great veneration was the old sign held even by the lower orders of the place. Eight pounds were paid for this destruction, which, for fear of a riot, was effected at three in the morning, "amid the groans and hisses of the assembled multitude," says a local paper. Previous to the demolition the greatest excitement had existed in the place ; the newspapers were filled with articles; a petition with 400 signatures — including an M.P., the pre* bends, minor canons, and clergy of the cathedral — sprayed the local "com- missioners " that the sign might be spared ; and the whole community was in an uproar. No sooner was the old portrait of Sir John removed than another was put up ; but this representing the knight as seated, and with a can of ale by his side, however much it may suit the modern publican's notion of mihtary ardour, does not please the owner of the property, and a facsimile of the time-honoured original is in course of preparation. via PBEFACE. Concerning the internal arrangement of the following work, a few ex- planations seem necessary. Where a street is mentioned without the town being specified, it in all cases refers to a London thoroughfare. The trades tokens so frequently referred to, it will be scarcely neces sary to state, were the brass farthings issued by shop or tavern keepers, and generally adorned with a representation of the sign of the house. Nearly all the tokens alluded to belong to the latter part of the seventeenth century, mostly to the reign of Charles II. As the work has been two years in the press, the passing events mentioned in the earlier sheets refer to the year 1864 In a few instances it was found impossible to ascertain whether certain signs spoken of as existing really do exist, or whether those mentioned as things of the past are in reality so. The wide distances at which they are situated prevented personal examination in every case, and local his- tories fail to give such small particulars. The rude unattractive woodcuts inserted in the work are in most instances facsimiles, which have been chosen aa genuine examples of the style in which the various old signs were represented. The blame of the coarse and primitive execution, therefore, rests entirely with the ancient artist, whether sign painter or engraver. Translations of the various quotations from foreign languages have been added for the following reasons : — It was necessary to translate the nume- rous quotations from the Dutch signboards ; Latin was Englished for the benefit of the ladies, and Italian and French extracts were Anglicised to correspond with rest. Errors, both of fact and opinion, may doubtless be discovered in the book. If, however, the compilers have erred in a statement or an explana- tion, they do not wish to remain in the dark, and any light thrown upon a doubtful passage will be acknowledged by them with thanks. Numerous local signs — ^famous in their own neighbourhood — will have been omitted, (generally, however, for the reasons mentioned on a preceding page,) whilst many curious anecdotes and particulars concerning their history may be within the knowledge of provincial readers. For any information of this kind the compilers will be much obliged ; and should their work ever pass to a second edition, they hope to avail themselves of such friendly contri- butions. LoKDON, June 1863. CONTENTS. PAOE CHAPTER I. OBNEEAL SCKVKT OF SIGNBOAltl) HISTORY, .... 1 CHAPTER II. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE SIGNS, .... 45 CHAPTER III. HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC SIGNS, ..... 101 CHAPTER IV. SIGNS OP ANIMALS AND MONSTERS, . . . . ,150 CHAPTER V, BIRDS AND EOWLS, .... CHAPTER VI. FISHES AND INSECTS, 199 225 CHAPTER VII. FLOWERS, TREES, HERBS, ETC., ..... 233 CHAPTER VIII. BIBLICAL AND RELIGIOUS SIGNS, ..... 253 CHAPTER IX. BAINTS, MARTYRS, ETC., ...... 279 CON TEN' TS. CHAPTER X, DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS, CHAPTER XI. THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE, CHAPTER Xri. DRESS ; PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL, CHAPTER XIII. GEOORAPHT AND TOPOGRAPHY, HUMOROUS AND COMIC, PUNS AND REBUSES, . mSOELLANEOUS SIGNS, CHAPTER XIV. CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER XVT. APPENDIX. BONNELL Thornton's signboard exhibition, 305 373 399 414 437 469 476 51 : INDEX OE ALL THE SIGNS MENTIONED IN THE ■WORK, PIATE I. BAKES. (Pompeii, 4.D. 70.) BAIKT. (Pompeii, A.D. 70.) WINE MERCHANT. (Pompeii, A.D. 70.) SHOEMAKEK. (llerculaneum.) TWO JOILT BREWERS. (BankB's BillB, 1770.) CHAPTER I. GENEEAL SURVEY OF SIGNBOARD HISTORY. In the cities of the East all trades are confined to certain streets, or to certain rows in the various bazars and wekalehs. Jewel- lers, silk-embroiderers, pipe-dealers,, traders in drugs, — each of these classes has its own quarter, wJiere, in little open shops, the merchants sit enthroned upon a kind of low counter, enjoying their pipes and their cofi^ee with the otium cum dignitate char- acteristic of the Mussulman. The purchaser knows the row to go to ; sees at a glance what each shop contains ; and, if he be an habitue, will know the face of each particular shopkeeper, so that, under these circumstances, signboards would be of no use. With the ancient Egyptians it was much the same. As a rule, no picture or description affixed to the shop announced the trade of the owner ; the goods exposed for sale were thought sufficient to attract attention. Occasionally, however, there were inscrip- tions denoting the trade, with the emblem which indicated it ;* whence we may assume that this ancient nation was the first to appreciate the benefit that might be derived from signboards. What we know of the Greek signs is very meagre and indefi- nite. Aristophanes, Lucian, and other writers, make frequent allusions, which seem to prove that signboards were in use with the Greeks. Thus Aristotle says : uain^ svi rut xairrtXim yoaipo- /iiioi, '/JjIx^oi iJ,h ilai, (pahowai & e^ome 'jrAarrj xal I3a6ri.f And Athenseus : h v^ori^oTi 6fi%ri S/6a(rxaX/))v.J But what their signs were, and whether carved, painted, or the natural object, is en- tirely unknown. With the Romans only we begin to have distinct data. In the Eternal City, some streets, as in our mediaeval towns, derived their names from signs. Such, for instance, was the vicus Ursi Pileati, (the street of " The Bear with the Hat on,") in the Esquilise. The nature of their signs, also, is well known. The Bush, their tavern-sign, gave rise to the proverb, "Vino vendibUi suspensa hedera non opus est ;" and hence we derive our sign of the Bush, * Sir Gardiner Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol iii. p. 158. Also, Rosellinl Monumenti dell' Egitto e della Nubia. t Ai'istotle, Problematum x. 14 : "As with the things drawn above the shops, which, though they are small, appear to have breadth and depth." ; "He hung the well-known sign in the front of his house." A 2 THE HISTORY OF SWNBOAEDS. and our proverb, "Good Wine needs no Busk" An ansa, or handle of a pitcher, was the sign of their post-houses, (stathmoi or allagce,) and hence these establishments were afterwards denomi- nated anscB* That they also had painted signs, or exterior deco- rations which served their purpose, is clearly evident from various authors : — " Quum vioti Mures Mustelarum exercitu (Historia quorum in tabemis pmgitur.)"+ PHiBDEOS, lib. iv. fab. vL These Eoman street pictures were occasionally no mean works of art, as we may learn from a passage in Horace : — " Contento poplite miror Proelia, rubrico picta aut carbone ; velut si Ee vera pugnent, feriant vitentque moventes Arma viri." + Cicero also is supposed by some scholars to allude to a sign when he says : — " Jam ostendamcujus modi sia : quum ille ' ostende quseao ' demonstravi digito pictum Galium in Mariano scute Cimbrico, sub Novis, distortum ejects, linguS,, buoois fluentibus, risus est commotus." § Pliny, after saying that Lucius Mummius was the first in Borne who affixed a picture to the outside of a house, continues : — " Deinde video et in foro positaa vulgo. Hine enim Crassi oratoris lepos, [here fallows the anecdote of the Cock of Mariua the Cimberiau] ... In lore fuit et ilia pastoris senis cum baeulo, de qua Teutonorum legatua re- spondit, interrogatus quanti eum eestimaret, sibi donari nolle talem vivutu verumque." || Fabius also, according to some, relates the story of the cock, and his explanation is cited : — " Tabema autem erant circa Forum, ac scutum illud signi gratia positum."ir But we can judge even better from an inspection of the Roman * Hearne, Antiq. Disc, i. 39. t "When the mice were conquered by the army of the weasels, (a story wliich we sea painted on the taverns.)" t liib. ii. sat. vii. : "I admire the position of the men that are fighting, painted in red or in blacic, as if they were really alive ; striking and avoiding each other's weapons^ as if they were actually moving." i 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 Foi-um, distorted, with his tongue out and hanging cheeks. Everybody began to laugh." II 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." II " There were, namely, taverns round about the Forum, and that picture [the Cock] had been put up as a sign." ANCIENT SIGNS AT POMPEII. 3 signs themselves, as they Lave come down to us amongst the ruins of Hercnlaneum and PompeiL A few were painted ; but, as a rule, they appear to have been made of stone, or terra-cotta relievo, and let into the pUasters at the side of the open shop- fronts. Thus there have been found a goat, the sign of a dairy ; a rnvZe driving a mill, the sign of a baker, (plate 1.) At the door of a schoolmaster was the not very tempting sign of a boy re- ceiving a good birching. Very similar to our Two Jolly Brewers, carrying a tun slung on a long pole, a Pompeian public- house keeper had two slaves represented above Ms door, carrying an am- phora ; and another wine-merchant had a painting of Bacchus pressing a bunch of grapes. At a perfumer's shop, in the street of Mercury, were represented various items of that profession — viz., four men carrying a box with vases of perfume, men occupied in laying out and perfuming a corpse, &c. There was also a sign similar to the one mentioned by Horace, the Two Gladiators, under which, in the usual Pompeian cacography, was the follow- ing imprecation : — Abiat Veneebm Pompeiianama ieadam qui HOC L.a;sEEiT, i.e., Hdbeat Venerem Pompdanam 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, Hjc habitat felicitas ; whilst in Herculaneum there was a very cleverly painted Amorino, or Cupid, carrying a pair of ladies' shoes, one on his head and the other in his hand. It is also probable that, at a later period at all events, the va- rious artificers of Eome had their tools as the sign of their house, to indicate their profession. We find that they sculptured them on their tombs in the catacombs, and may safely conclude that they would do the same on their houses in the land of the living. Thus on the tomb of Diogenes, the grave-digger, there is a pick- axe and a lamp ; Bauto and Maxima have the tools of carpenters, a saw, an adze, and a chisel ; Veneria, a tire-woman, has a mirror and a comb : — ^then there are others who have wool-combers' im- plements ; a physician, who has a cupping-glass ; a poulterer, a case of poultry ; a surveyor, a measuring rule ; a baker, a bushel, a miUstone, and ears of corn ; in fact, almost every trade had its symbolic implements. Even that cockney custom of punning on the name, so common on signboards, finds its precedent in those mansions of the dead. Owing to this fancy, the grave of Dracon- tius bore a dragon ; Onager, a wild ass ; Umbricius, a shady 4 THE HISTORY OF SiaNBOARDS. 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 Uved. We may thus conclude that our forefathers adopted the sign- board from the Komans ; and though at first there were certainly not so many shops as to require a picture for distinction, — as the open shop-front did not necessitate any emblem to indicate the trade carried on within, — yet the inns by the road-side, and in the towns, would undoubtedly have them. There was the Roman bush of evergreens to indicate the sale of wine ;* and certain de- vices would doubtless be adopted to attract the attention of the difiFerent classes of wayfarers, as the Cross for the Christian cus- tomer,t and the Sun or the Moon for the pagan. Then we find various emblems, or standards, to court respectively the custoiD of the Saxon, the Dane, or the Briton. He that desired the pa- tronage of soldiers might put up some weapon ,■ or, if he sought his customers among the more quiet artificers, there were the various implements of trade with which he could appeal to the different mechanics that frequented his neighbourhood. Along with these very simple signs, at a later period, coats of arms, crests, and badges, would gradually make their appeajance at the doors of shops and inns. The reasons which dic^ted the choice of such subjects were various. One of the principal was this. In the Middle Ages, the houses of the nobility, both in town and country, when the family was absent, were used as hos- telries for travellers. The family arms always hung in front of the house, and the most conspicuous object in those arms gave a name to the establishment amongst travellers, who, unacquainted vTith the mysteries of heraldry, called a lion gules or azure by tlie vernacular name of the Red or Blue Lion.X Such coats of arms gradually became a very popular intimation that there was — * The Bush cerbliQly 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 partwhere a house is set on fire, with the inscription, Hie domut fruxnOitur, next to which appears a large building, from which projects something very like a pole and a bush, both at the front and the back of the building. t In Cajdmon's Metrical Paraphrase of Scripture History, (circa A.n. 1000,) in the drawings relatmg to the history of Abraham, there are distinctly represented certain crucifoi-m ornaments painted on the walls, which might serve the puipose of signs. (See npon this subject under "Rbligiois SlONs.") t The palace of St Laurence Poulteney, the town residence of Charles Brandon. SYMBOLS OF TRADES. 5 " Good entertainment for all that paases, — Horses, mares, men, and asses;" and innkeepers began to adopt them, hanging out red lious and green dragons as the best way to acquaint the public that they offered food and shelter. Still, as long as civilisation was only at a low ebb, the so-called open-houses few, and competition trifling, signs were of but little use. A few objects, typical of the trade carried on, would suffice ; a knife for the cutler, a stocking for the hosier, a hand for the glover, a pair of scissors for the tailor, a bunch of grapes for the vintner, fully answered public requirements. But as luxury in- creased, and the number of houses or shops dealing in the same article multiplied, something more was wanted. Particular trades continued to be confined to particular streets ; the desideratum then was, to give to each shop a name or token by which it might be mentioned in conversation, so that it could be recommended , and customers sent to it. Beading 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 kingdbm was ransacked, from the mighty elephant to the humble bee, from^he eagle to the sparrow ; the vegetable kingdom, from the palm-tree"-^ and cedar to the marigold and daisy ; everything on the earth, and in the firmament above it, was put under contribution. Por- traits of the great men of all ages, and views of towns, both painted with a great deal more of fancy than of truth ; articles of dress, implements of trades, domestic utensils, things visible and invisible, ea quae sunt tamquam ea guoe non sunt, everything was attempted in order to attract attention and to obtain publicity. Finally, as all signs in a town were painted by the same small number of individuals, whose talents and imagination were limited, Duke of Suffolk, and also of the Dukes of Buckingham, was called the Rose, from that badge being hung up in front of the house ; — " The DuJie being at the Rose, within the parish Of St Laurence Poultney." — Henry VIII. ^ a. L s. 2. " A house in the town of Lewes was foi-merly known as The Three Pei.ioans, the fact of those birds constituting tire arms of Pelham having been lost sight of. Another is still called The Oats," which is nothing more than *'the arms of the Dorset family, whose supporters are two leopards argent, spotted sable." — Lower, Curiosities of Her- 6 THE HISTOR Y OF SIGNBOARDS. it followed tliat the same subjects were naturally often repeated, introducing only a change in the colour for a difference. Since aU 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-staie of any tavern is longer or extends further than ordi- nary." And in book iii. part ui. p. 389, is said : — " Also, it was ordained that, whereas the ale-stakes projecting in front of taverns in Chepe, and elsewhere in the said city, extend too far over the King's highways, to the impeding of riders and others, and, by reason of their excessive weight, to the great deterioration of the houses in which they are fixed ; — to the end that opportune remedy might be made thereof, it was by the Mayor and Aldermen granted and ordained, and, upon sum- mons, of all the taverners of the said city, it was enjoined upon them, under pain of paying forty pence* unto the Chamber of the GuUdhaU, on every occasion upon which they should transgress such ordinance, that no one of them in future should have a stake, bearing either his sign, or leaves, ex- tending or lying over the King's highway, of greater length than 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 iaspeetion 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 formates in officina mea ex- oussoria, inspice signum quod in liminari pagina est, ita numquam fallens. Nam quidam malevoli Impressores libris suis inemendatis et maculosis apponunt nomeu meum ut fiant vendibiliores."f Jodocus Badius of Paris, gives a similar caution : — " Oratum facimus leotorem ut signum inspiciat, nam sunt qui titulum nomenque Badianum mentiantur et laborem suffurentur.":|: Aldus, the great Venetian printer, exposes a similar fraud, and points out how the pirate had copied the sign also in his colo- phon ; but, by inadvertency, making a slight alteration : — » Bather a heavy fine, as the best ale at that time was not to be sold for more than fchree-halfpence a gallon, t " Purchaser, be aware when yon wish to buy books issued from my printing-office Look at my sign, which is repiesented on the title-page, and you can never be mistaken For some evil-disposed printers have afSxed my name to their uncorrected and faulty works, in order to secure a better sale for them." t " We beg the reader to notice the sign, f»r there arc men who have adopted the same title, and the name of Badius, and so fllch our laboui' " ORNAMENTAL IRONWORK. J " Extremum est ut admoneamus Btudiasissimum quemque, Florentinoa quosdam impressorea, cum videriut se diligentiam nostram in caatigando et imprimendo non posse assequi, ad artes conf ugisse solitas ; hoc est Oram- maticis Institutionibus Aldi in sua officina formatis, notam Delphini Auohorae Involuti nostram appoeuisse ; sed ita egerunt ut quivis niediocriter versatus in libria impressionis nostras animadvertit iUos impudenter fecisse. Nana rostrum Delphini in partem slnistram vergit, cum tamen nostrum in dexteram totum demittatur." * No wonder, then, that a sign was considered an heirloom, and descended from father to son, like the coat of arms of the nobility, wMch 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, Eobert Wolfe, the chapel- house, [their printing-office,] the Brazen Serpent, and all the prints, letters, furniture," &c. — Dibdin's Typ. Ant., vol. iv. p. 6. As we observed above, directly signboards were generally adopted, quaintness became one of the desiderata, and costliness another. This last could be obtained by the quaUty 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 EafaeUe himself. The other reason was the instability of such a work, exposed to sun, wind, rain, froi?'' ^ :_2 'SL e nightly attacks of revellers and roisters. Greater care, therefore, was bestowed upon the ornamentation of the ironwork by which it was suspended ; and this was perfectly in keeping with the taste of the times, when even the simplest lock or hinges could not be launched into the world without its scrolls and strapwork. The signs then were suspended from an iron bar, fixed either in the wall of the house, or in a post or obelisk standing in front of it ; in both cases the ironwork was shaped and ornamented with that taste so conspicuous in the metal-work of the Renaissance period, of which many churches, and other buildings of that * "Lastly, I must draw the attention of the student to the fact that some Florentine printers, seeing that they could not equal cur diligence in correcting and printing, have resorted to their usual artifices. To Aldus's Institutiones Grammaticge, printed in their ofSces, they have affixed our well-known sign of the Dolphin wound round the Anchor, But they hare 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 oui-s is well known to be turned to tlie right." — Pr^axe to Aldus^s Livy, 1518. 8 THE HISTORY OF SIONBOJRDS. 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, ^ding, and colouring could bestow upon it, (see descrip- tion of White-Hart Inn at Scole.) Some of the designs of this class of ironwork have come down to us in the works of the old masters, and are indeed exquisite. Painted signs then, suspended in the way we have just pointed out, 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 sign- boards, and may be daily vsdtnessed in our streets, where the iron- monger's frying-pan, or dust-pan, the hardware-dealer's teapot, the grocer's tea^canister, the shoemaker's last or clog, with the Golden Boot, and many similar objects, bear witness to this old custom. Lastly, there was in London another class of houses that had a peculiar way of placing their signs — ^viz., the Stews upon the Bank- side, which were, by a proclamation of 37 Hen. VIII., " whited and painted with signs on the front, for a token of the said houses." Stow enumerates some of these symbols, such as the Cross- Keys, the Gun, the Castle, the Crane, the Cardinal's Hat, the Bell, the Swan, &c. Still greater variety in the construction of the signs existed in France; for besides the painted signs in the iron frames, the shopkeepers in Paris, according to H. Sauval, (" Antiquitfe 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'ceuvres, and as careful in design as a carved cathe- dral staU. Several of them axe stUl remaining in Eouen and other old towns ; many also have been removed and placed in various local museums of antiquities. The most general rule, however, on the Continent, as in England, was to have the painted signboard suspended across the streets. An observer of James I.'s time has jotted down the names of all the inns, taverns, and side streets in the line of road be- tween Charing Cross and the old Tower of London, which docu- ment lies now embalmed amongst the HarL MS., 6850, foL 81. In imagination we can walk with him through the metropolis : — TUJi WATER-POET'S CATALOGUE OF TAVERNS. 9 " On the way from Whitehall to Charing Cross, we pass : the White Hart, the Bed Lion, the Mairmade, iij. Tuns, Salutation, the Graihound, the BeU, the Golden Lyon. In sight of Charing Crosse : the Garter, the Crown, the Bear and Bagged Staffs, the Angel, the King Harry Head. Then from Charing Cross towards ye oittie : another White Hart, the Eagle and Child, the Helmet, the Swan, the BeU, 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-luoe, the Bed Lyon, the Horns, the White Hors, the Prince's Arms, Bell Sayadge'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 Wlitechapel " 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 Ked 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 wiU be observed that their signs were very similar to those seen at the present day — a remark applicable to the taverns not only of England, but of Europe generally, at this period. In another work Taylor gives us the signs of the taverns * and alehouses in ten shires and counties about London, aU similar to those we have just enumer- ated ; but amongst the number, it may be noted, there is not one combination of two objects, except the Eagle and Child, and the Bear and Bagged Staff. In a black-letter tract entitled " Newes from Bartholomew Fayre," the following are named : — " There has been great sale and utterance of Wine, Besides Beer, Ale, and Hippocrass fine. In every Country, Eegion, and Nation, Chiefly at Billingsgate, at the Salutation ; • The number of taverns in these ten sHires was -686, or thereabout?*-" B lO THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. And Boreshead near London Stone, The Swan at Bowgate, 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 Eoysters do range ; The Mermaid in Comhill, Ked Lion in the Strand, Three Tuns in Newgate Market, in Old Fish Street the Swan." Dranken Bamaby, (1634,) in Ms 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 Holbom lighted. From the Rose in Flaggons sail I To the Griffin i' th' Old BaQey, Where no sooner do I waken, Than to Three Cranes I am ^ken. 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."* 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, aUoquin omittat cervisiam." — RoUs of Parliament, voL v. fol. 426 a.t But with the other trades it was always optional. Hence Charles I., on his accession to the throne, gave the inhabitants of London a charter by which, amongst other favours, he granted them the right to hang out signboards : — " And further, we do give and grant to the said Mayor, and Commonalty, and Citizens of the said city, and their successors, that it may and shall be lawful to the Citizens of the same city and any of them, for the time being, to expose and hang in and over the streets, and ways, and alleys of the said city and suburbs of the same, signs, and posts of signs, affixed to their houses and shops, for the better finding out such citizens' dwellings, • " The original court voll of this presentation is still to be founil amongst the records of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster."— Lysos's Bm>. o} London, vol. iii. p. 74, t "Wliosoever shall brew ale in the town of Cambridge, with intention of selling it, must hang out a sign, otherwise he shall forfeit his ale." SIGNBOARD REGULATIONS IN FRANCE. 1 1 shops, arts, or occupations, without impediment, molestation, or interrup- tion of his heirs or successors." In France, the innkeepers were under tlie same regulations as in England ; for ttere also, by the edict of Moulins, in 1567, all innkeepers were ordered to acquaint the magistrates with their name and address, and their " afifectes et enseignes ; " and Henri III., by an edict of March 1577, ordered that aU 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. XSIII. — Taverniers metront enseignes et bouohons. . . . Nul ne pourra tenir taveme en cette dite ville et faubourgs, sans mettre enseigne et bouchon," * Hence, the taking away of a publican's licence was accompanied by the taking away of his sign : — " For this gross fault I here do damn thy licence, Forbidding thee ever to tap or draw ; For instantly I will in mine own person. Command the constables to pull down thy sign.'' Massiwgsek, a New Way to Pay Old Debts, iv. 2. At the time of the great Civil War, house-signs played no in- considerable part in the changes and convulsions of the state, and took a prominent place in the politics of the day. We may cite an earlier example, where a sign was made a matter of high treason — ^namely, in the case of that unfortunate fellow in Cheap- side, who, in the reign of Edward IV., kept the sign of the Crown, and lost his head for saying he would " make his son heir to the Crown." But more general examples are to be met with in the history of the Commonwealth troubles. At the death of Charles I, John Taylor the water-poet, a Royalist to the back- bone, boldly shewed his opinion of that act, by taking as a sign for his alehouse in Phoenix Alley, Long Acre, the Mourning Crown ; but he was soon compelled to take it down. Richard Flecknoe, in his ".Enigmatical Characters," (1665,) tells us how many of the severe Puritans were shocked at anything smeUing of Popery : — " As for the signs, they have pretty weU begun their reformation already, changing the sign of the Salutation of Our Lady into the Souldier and Citizen, and the Catherine Wheel * " Art. XXIII. — Tavemkeepers must put up signboards and a bush. . . . Nobody shall be allowed to open a tarem in the Said city and its suburbs without haring a sigu lujd a bush." 12 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. into the Cat and "Wheel ; such ridiculous work they make of this reformation, and so jealous they are against all mirth and joUity, 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 BOBEALIS, or a Northeme Discoverie, by Way of Dialogue, between Jamie and WiUie. Amidst the Babylonians — printed by Margery Marpre- late, in Thwack Coat Lane, at the sign of the CraJ>-Tree Cvdgell, without any privilege of the Cateroaps. 1641." " Abiioles 07 HiQH Treason made and enacted by the late Half quarter usurping Convention, and now presented to the publick view for a general satisfaction of all true Englishmen. Imprinted for Erasmus Thorogood, and to be sold at the signe of the Roasted Rvmp. 1659." " A Catalogue oe Books of the Newest Fashion, to be sold by auction at the Whigs' Coffeehouse, at the sign of the Jachama/pa in Prating Alley, near the Deanery of Saint Paul's." "The Censure ot the Eota upon Mr Milton's book, entitled 'The Beady and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth,' &c. Printed at London by Paul Giddy, Printer to the Rota, at the sign of the Windndll, in Turn-again Lane. 1660." " An Addbess from the Ladies of the Provinces of Munster and Lein- ster 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 Ywat Rex. 1754." " Chivalry no Trifle, or the Knight and his Lady : a Tale. To which is added the Hue and Cry after Touzer and Spitfire, the Lady's two lap- dogs. Dublin : Printed at the sign of Sir Tadqfa 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 Scaibard. London, 1754." " The C t's Apology to the Freeholders of this Kingdom for their conduct, containing some Pieces of Humour, to which is added a Bill of C 1 Morality. London : Printed at the sign of 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 New- gate Street, by the opposition party, to which the Original SIGNS HUNG IN MOURNING. 13 Weekly Journal, tte week after, retaliates by a description and explanation of an indelicate sign said to be in King Street, West- minster. In 1763, tbe following pasquinade went the round of the newspapers, said to have been sent over from Holland : — " HOTELS POUB LES MINISTKES DES COURS ETKA.NGEEES AC FUTUB CONGRESS. De I'Empereur, A la Bonne Volenti ; rue d'lmpuissance. De Bussie, Au Chimfere ; rue des Caprices. De France, Au Coq deplume ; rue de Canada. ^ D'Autriohe, A la Mauvaiee Alliance, rue des Invalides. D'Angleterre, A la Fortune, Place des Viotoires, rue des Subsides. De Prusse, Anx Quatre vents, rue des Renarda, prea la Place des Guindes. De Suede, Au Passage des Courtisans, rue des Visionaires. De Pologne, Au Sacrifice d' Abraham, rue des Innocents, pres la Place des DevSts. Des Princes de I'Empire, Au Roitel6t, pres de I'HSpital des Incurables, rue des Charlatans. De Wirtemberg, Au Don Quichotte, rue des Fantomes prSs de la Montague en Couohe. D'HoUande, A la Baleine, sur le March^ aux Fromages, pres du Grand Observatoire." On the morning of September 28, 1736, all the tavern-signs in London were in deep mourning; and no wonder, their dearly beloved patron and friend Gin was defunct, — killed by the new Act against spirituous liquors ! But they soon dropped their mourn- ing, for Grin 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 Kestoration, — to return to the subject we were originally con- sidering, — ^we find a goodly collection of them in one of the "Koxburghe Ballads," (vol. i. 212,) entitled :— " .LONDON'S OKDINAKIE, OB EVERT MAN IN HIS HUMOUR. THROUGH the Royal Exchange as I walked. Where Gallants in sattin doe shine. 14 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOABDS. 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 Oromne : The Knights went to the Golden Fleece, And the Ploughmen to the Clovme. The Cleargie will dine at the Miter, The Vintners at the Three Tunnel, The Usurers to the Demll will goe. And the Fryers to the Nunnei. The Ladyes will dine at the Feathers, The Gloie no Captaine will scome, The Huntsmen will goe to the Orayhound below. And some Townes-men to the Home. The Plummera will dine at the Fountaine, The Cookes at the Holly Lemibe, The Drunkerds by noone, to the Mam, in the Moont, And the Cuckholdes to the Sam/me. The Roarers will dine at the I/yom, The Watermen at the Old Swan ; And Bawdes wiU to the Negro goe, And Whores to the Naked Man. The Keepers will to the White Ha/rt, The Marchants unto the Shippe, The Beggars they must take their way To the Eggeihell and the Whippe. The Farryers will to the Horse, The Bhi^kesmith unto the Locke, The Butchers unto the BvU wiU goe. And the Carmen to Bridewell Cloche. The Fishmongers unto the Dolphin, The Barbers to the Cheat Loafe,* The Turners unto the Ladle will goe. Where they may merrylie quafie. The Taylors will dine at the Sheeres, The Shooemakers will to the Boote, The Welshmen they will taie 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 Beggar'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. **A Cheat loaf wus a household loaf, wheaten seconds bread."— Narkb's CToMory THE BALLAD OF THE LONDON ORDINARIE. 1 5 The Carpenters will to the Axe, The Colliers will dine at the Sacke, Tour Fruterer he to the Cherry-Tree, Good fellowes no liquor wUl laoke. The Goldsmith wiU to the Three Cups, For money they hold it as drosse ; Tour Puritan to the Pewter Canne, And your Papists to the Crosse. The Weavers will dine at the Shutile, The Glovers will unto the Glove, The Maydens all to the Mayden Head, And true Louers unto the Done. The Sadlers will dine at the Saddle, The Painters will to the Greene Dragon, The Dutchmen will go to the Froe,* Where each man will drinke his Flagon. The Chandlers will dine at the Shales, The Salters at the signe of the Bagge ; The Porters take pain at the Ldbamr in Taint, 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 Holbome they ride. And they there end at the GaUowes." Thomas Heywood introduced a similar song in his " Bape of Lucrece." This, the first of the kind we have met with, is in all probability the original, unless the baUad be a reprint from an older one ; but the term Puritan used in it, seems to fix its date to the seventeenth century. " rpHE Gintry to the Kin^^e Head, JL The Nobles to the Crown, The Knights unto -^he Golden Fleece, And to the Plougn, the Clowne. The Churchmen to the Mitre, The Shepheard to the Star, The Gardener hies him to the Fose, To the Drum the Man of War. * Froe — i.e., Vrouw, woman. i6 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. The Huntsmen to the White Ha/i% To the Ship the Merchants goe. But you that doe the Muses love, The sign called Eiwer Po. The Banquerout to the WorlWi End, The Fool to the Forinmt hie, Unto the Mouth the Oyster-wife, The Fiddler to the Pie. The Punk unto the Cockatrice* The Drunkard to the Yvne, The Begger to the Bmh, there meet. And with Duke Humphrey dine." + After the great fire of 1666, many of the houses that were re- built, instead of the former wooden signboards projecting in the streets, adopted signs carved in stone, and generally painted or gilt, let into the front of the house, beneath the first floor win- dows. Many of these sigas are still to be seen, and will be noticed in their respective places. But in those streets not visited by the fire, things continued on the old footing, each shop- keeper being fired with a noble ambition to project his sign a few Laches farther than his neighbour. The consequence was that, what with the narrow streets, the penthouses, and the signboards, the air and light of the heavens were well-nigh intercepted from the luckless wayfarers through the streets of London. We can picture to ourselves the unfortunate plumed, feathered, silken gal- lant of the period walking, in his low shoes and silk stockings, through the Ul-paved dirty streets, on a stormy November day, when the honours were equally divided between fog, sleet, snow, and rain, (and no umbrellas, be it remembered,) with flower-pots blown from the penthouses, spouts sending down shower-baths from almost every house, and the streaming signs swinging over- head on their rusty, creaking hinges. Certainly the evil was great, and demanded that redress which Charles 11. 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 sufiering from the same enormities ; everything was of Brobdignagian proportions. " tTai vu," says an essayist of the middle of the seventeenth century, " suspendu aux boutiques des volants de six pieds de hauteur, des perles grosses * Thia was in those days ft slang term for a mistress. t i.e. Walk about in St Paul's during the dinner hour. BUSH. (MS. of the lith century.) PLATE II. BUSH. {Bayeux tapestry, 11th cent,} CROSS. (Luttrell Psalter, 14th century.) ALE-POLE. (Picture of Wouwverman, 17th cent.) BLACK JACK AHD PEWTEK PLATTEE. (Print by Schavelin, 1480.) NAG S HEAD. (Cheapside, 1610.) BUSH. (MS. of the 15th cent) I'ARISIAN SIGNBOARD ENORMITIEf!. I 7 comme des tonneaux, des plumes qui allaient au troisilme Stage." * There, also, tte scalpel of the law was at last applied to the evil ; for, in 1669, a royal order was issued to prohibit these monstrous signs, and the practice of advancing them too far into the streets, " which made the thoroughfares close in the daytime, and pre- vented the lights of the lamps from spreading properly at night." StOl, with all their faults, the signs had some advantages for the wayfarer ; even their dissonant creaking, according to the old weather proverb, was not without its use : — " But when the swinging signs your ears offend With creaking noise, then rainy floods impend." Gat's Trima, canto i. This indeed, from the various allusions made to it in the literature of the last century, was regarded as a very general hint to the lounger, either to hurry home, or hail a sedan-chair or a coach. Gay, in his didactic^^dneMr — ^poem, points out another benefit to be derived from the signboards : — " If drawn by Eus'ness to a street unknown, Let the sworn Porter point thee through the town ; ' Be sure ohserve 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,t to which we shall often refer. Nay, so much attention was devoted to this branch of literature in that country, that a certain H. van den Berg, in 1693, wrote a little volume,J which he entitled a "Banquet," giving verses adapted for all manner of shops and signboards ; * " I have seen, hanging from the shopa, shuttlecocks six feet high, pearls as large as a hogshead, and feathers reaching up to the third story." t "Hoddige en ernstige opschriften op Luiffels, wagens, glazen, uitliangborden en andere tafereelen door Jeroen Jeroense. Amsterdam, 1682." { '*Het gestoffeerde Winkelen en Luifelen Banquet. H. van den Batg, Amster- dam, 1693." 1 8 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. so that a shopkeeper at a loss for an inscription had only to open the book and make his selection ; for there were rhymes in it both serious and jocular, suitable to everybody's taste. The majority of the Dutch signboard inscriptions of that day seem to have been eminently characteristic of the spirit of the nation. No such inscriptions could be brought before "a discerning public," without the patronage of some holy man mentioned in the Scriptures, whose name was to stand there for no other pur- pose than to give the Dutch poet an opportunity of making a jingling rhyme ; thus, for instance, — " Jacob was David's neef maar 't waren geen Zwagers. pier slypt men allerhande Barbiers gereedschappen, ook voor vischwyven en slagers."* Or another example : — " Men visehte Moses uit de Biezen, Hier trekt men tanden en Kiezen."t In the beginning of the eighteenth century, we find the following signs named, which puzzled a person of an inquisitive turn of mind, who wrote to the British Apollo, % (the meagre Notes and Queries of those days,) in the hope of eliciting an ex- planation of their quaint combination : — " I 'm amazed at the Signs As I pass through the Town, To see the odd mixture : A Magpie and Crown, The Whale and the Crow, The Bazor 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." AU these signs are also named by Tom Brown : § — " The first amusements we encountered were the variety and contradictory language of the signs, enough, to persuade a man there were no rules of concord among the citizens. Here we saw Joseph's Dream, the Bull and Mouth, the Wiale and Crow, the Shovel and Boot, the Leg and Star, the Bible and Swan, the Frying-pan and Drum, * "Jacob was David's nephew, but not his brother-in-law. All sorts of barbers' tools ground here, also fishwives* and butchers' knives." t " Moses was pick'd up among the rushes. Teeth and grinders drawn hei-e." ; The British Ayollo, 1710, vol, iii. p. 34. { Amusements for the Meridian of London, 1708, p. 72, ThJl OLD COMBINATIONS OF SIGNS. 19 the Lute and Tun, the Hog in Armour, and a thousand others that the wise men that put them there can give no reason for." From this enumeration, we see that a century had worked great changes in the signs. Those of the beginning of the seventeenth century were all simple, and had no combiQations. But now we meet very heterogeneous objects joined together. Various reasons can be found to account for this. First, it must be borne in mind that most of the London signs had no inscrip- tion to teU the public " this is a lion," or, " this is a bear ;" hence the vulgar could easily make mistakes, and call an object by a wrong name, which might give rise to an absurd combination, as in the case of the Leg and Star; which, perhaps, was nothing else but the two insignia of the order of the Garter ; the garter being represented in its natural place, on the leg, and the star of the order beside it. Secondly, the name might be corrupted through faulty pronunciation ; and when the sign was to be repainted, or imitated in another street, those objects would be represented by which it was best known. Thus the Shovel and Boot might have been a corruption of the Shovel and Boat, since the Shovel and Ship is still a very common sign in places where grain is carried by canal boats ; whilst the Bull and Mouth is said to be a corruption of the Boulogne Mouth — the Mouth of Boulogne Harbour. Finally, whimsical shopkeepers would frequently aim at the most odd combination they could imagine, for no other reason but to attract attention. Taking these premises into consideration, some of the signs which so puzzled Tom Brown might be easily accounted for ; the Axe and Bottle, in this way, might have been a corruption of the Battle-axe. The Bible and Swan, a sign in honour of Luther, who is generally represented by the symbol of a swan, a figure of which many Lutheran Churches have on their steeple instead of a weather- cock ; whilst the Lute and Tun was clearly a pun on the name of Luton, similar to the Bolt and Tun of Prior Bolton, who adopted this device as his rebus. Other causes of combinations, and many very amusing and instructive remarks about signs, are given in the following from the Spectcaor, No. 28, April 2, 1710:— " There is nothing like sound literature and good sense to be met with in those objects, that are everywhere thrusting them- selves out to the eye and endeavouring to become visible. Our streets are filled with blue hoars, black swans, and red lions, not 20 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. to mention flying-pigs and hogs in armour, with many creatures more extraordinary than any in the deserts of Africa. Strange that one, who has all the birds and beasts in nature to choose out of, should hve at the sign of an ens rationis. " My first task, therefore, should be Uke that of Hercules, to clear the city from monsters. In the second place, I should forbid that creatures of jarring and incongruous natures shoidd be joined together in the same sign ; such as the Bell and the Neat's Tongue, the Bog 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 aflfect it. I must, however, observe to you upon this subject, that it is usual for a young tradesman, at his first setting up, to add to his own sign that of the master whom he served, as the husband, after marriage, gives a place to his mistress's arms in his own coat. This I take to have given rise to many of those absurdities which are com- mitted over our heads ; and, as I am informed, first occasioned the Three Nuns and a Hare, which we see so frequently joined together. I would therefore establish certain rules for the deter- mining how far one tradesman may give the sign of another, and in what case he may be allowed to quarter it with his own. " In the third place, I would enjoin every shop to make use of a sign which bears some affinity to the wares in which it deals. What can be more inconsistent than to see a bawd at the sign of the Angel, or a tailor at the lAon ? 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 gentle- men who value themselves upon their families, and overlook such as are bred to trades, bear the tools of their forefathers in their coats of arms. I wUl 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. THE " SPECTATOR" ON SIGNS. 21 I would likewise advise the owner to take that opportunity of let- ting the world know who he is. It would have been ridiculous for the ingenious Mrs Salmon to have lived at the sign of the trout, for which reason she has erected before her house the figure of the fish that is her namesake. Mr Bell has likewise distinguished himself by a device of the same nature. And here, sir, I must beg leave to observe to you, that this particular figure of a Bell has given occasion to several pieces of wit in this head. A man of your reading must know that Abel Drugger gained great applause by it in the time of Ben Jonson. Our Apocryphal heathen god is also represented by this figure, which, in conjunc- tion with the Dragon,* makes a very handsome picture in several of our streets. As for the Bell Savage, which is the sign of a savage man standing by a bell, I was formerly very much puzzled upon the conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the reading of an old romance translated out of the French, which gives an account of a very beautiful woman, who was found in a wilderness, and is called la Belle Sauvage, and is everywhere translated by our countrymen the Bell Savage.'^ This piece of philology will, I hope, convince you that I have made signposts my study, and consequently qualified myself for the employment which I solicit at your hands. But before I conclude my letter, I must communicate to you another remark which I have made upon the subject with which I am now entertaining you — namely, that I can give a shrewd guess at the humour of the inhabitant by the sign that hangs before his door. A surly, choleric fellow generally makes choice of a Bear, as men of milder dispositions frequently Hve at the Lamb. Seeing a Punch- bowl painted upon a sign near Charing Cross, and very curiously garnished, with a couple of angels hovering over it and squeezing a lemon into it, I had the curiosity to ask after the master of the house, and found upon inquiry, as I had guessed by the little agremens upon his sign, that he was a Frenchman." Another reason for " quartering " signs was on removing from one shop to another, when it was customary to add the sign of the old shop to that of the new one. WHEREAS Anthony Wilton, who lived at the Green Cross publiok- house against the new Turnpike on New Crosa Hill, has been removed tor two years past to the new boarded house now the sign of the * Bell and the Dragon, still to be met on the signboard. t Addison is wrong in this derivation, (see under Miscellaneous Signs, at the end.) 2 2 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Green Cross and Kkoss Ketes on the same hill," &c. — Weekly Journal, November 22,1718. " r I IHOMAS BLACKALL and Francis Ives, Mercers, are removed fi-om JL the Seven Stars on Ludgate Hill to the Black Lion and Seven Stars over the way." — Daily Courant, November 17, 1718. " T)ETER DUNCOMBE and Saunders Dancer, who lived at the Naked JL Boy in Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, removed to the Naked BoT AND Mitre, near Sommerset House, Strand," &c. — Postboy, January 2-4, 1711. " "p ICHAED MEARES, Musical Instrument maker, is removed from X\i 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 bUls.] To increase this complexity stUl more, came the comiption of names arising from pronunciation ; thus Mr Bum, in his intro- duction to the " Beaiifoy 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 stiU more obliterated into the Pig and Checkers. The sign of the Island Queen I have frequently heard, either in jest or in ignorance, called the Iceland Queen. The editor of the recently-published " Slang Dictionary " remarks that he has seen the name of the once popular premier, George Can- ning, metamorphosed on an alehouse-sign into the Gteorge and Cannon ; so the Golden Farmee became the JoUy 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 Blackmooeshead and Woolpack, in Pimlico, was called the Devil and Bag of Nails by those that frequented that tavern, and by the last part of that name the house is still called at the present day. Thus the Elephant and Castle is vul- garly rendered as the Pig and Tinderbox ; the Bear and Bagged Staff, the Angel and Flute; the Eagle and Child, the Bird and Bantling ; the Hog in Armour, the Pig in Mise)-y ; the Pig in the Pound, the Gentleman in Trovhle, &c. Some further information, in illustration of the different sign- boards, is to be obtained from the Adventurer, No. 9, (1752:) — " It cannot be doubted but that signs were intended originally to express the several occupations of their owners, and to bear some affinity in their external designations with the wares to be dis- posed of, or the business carried on v^ithin. Hence the Hand and Shears is justly appropriated to tailors, and the Hand and THE "ADVENTURER" ON SIGNS. 23 Pen to writing-masters ; though the very reverend and right worthy order of my neighbours, the Meet-parsons, have assumed it to themselves as a mark of ' marriages performed without im- position.' The Woolpack plainly points out to us a wooUen 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 pubKcans, whose extravagance in this affair calls aloud for reprehension and restraint. Their modest ancestors were contented with a plaip Bough stuck up before their doors, -whence arose the wise proverb, ' Good Wine needs no Bush ; ' but how have they since deviated from their ancient simplicity ! They have ransacked earth, air, and seas, called down sun, moon, and stars to their assistance, and exhibited all the monsters that ever teemed from fantastic imagination. Their Hogs in Armour, their Blue Boars, Black Bears, Green Dragons, and Golden Lions, have already been suf- ficiently exposed by your brother essay-writers : — ' Sub horridua, atraque Tigris, Squamosusque Draco, et fuLva cerrice Lesena.' ViBon. ' With foamy tusks to seem a bristly boar, Or imitate the lion's angry roar ; Or kiss a dragon, or a tiger stare.' — Detdbn. It is no wonder that these gentlemen who indulged themselves in such unwarrantable liberties, should have so little regard to the choice of signs adapted to their mystery. There can be no ob- jection made to the Bunch of Grapes, the 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 woxild expect anything but water to be sold at the Fountain? The Turkshead may fairly intimate that a seraglio is kept within ; the Hose may be strained to some propriety of meaning, as the business transacted there may be said to be done ' under the rose ; ' but why must the Angel, the Lamb, and the Mitre be the designations of the seats of drunkenness or prostitution ? " Some regard should likewise be paid by tradesmen to their situation ; or, in other words, to the propriety of the place ; and 24 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. in this, too, the publicans are notoriously faulty. The King's Arms, and the Star and Garter, are aptly enough jJaced at the court end of the town, and in the neighbourhood of the royal palace ; Shakespeare's Head takes his station by one playhouse, and Ben Jonson's by the other ; Hell is a public-house adjoining to Westminster Hall, as the Devil Tavern is to the lawyers' quar- ter in the Temple : but what has the Crown to do by the 'Change, or the Gun, the Ship, or the Anchor anywhere but at Tower Hill, at Wapping, or Deptford ? " It was certainly from a noble spirit of doing honour to a supe- rior desert, that our forefathers used to hang out the heads of those who were particularly eminent in their professions. Hence we see Galen and Paracelsus exalted before the shops of chemists ; and the great names of Tully, Dryden, and Pope, &c., immortal- ised on the rubric posts* of booksellers, while their heads denom- inate the learned repositors of their works. But I know not whence it happens that publicans have claimed a right to the physiognomies of kings and heroes, as I cannot find out, by the most painful researches, that there is any alliance between them. Lebec, as he was an excellent cook, is the fit representative of luxury; and Broughton, that renowned athletic champion, has an indisputable right to put up his own head if he pleases ; but what reason can there be why the glorious Duke William should draw porter, or the brave Admiral Vernon retail flip 1 Why must Queen Anne keep a ginshop, and King Charles inform us of a skittle-ground? Propriety of character, I think, require that these illustrious personages should be deposed from their lofty stations, and I would recommend hereafter that the alderman's effigy should accompany his Intire Butt Beer, and that the comely face of that public-spirited patriot who first reduced the price of punch and raised its reputation Pro Bono Publico, should be set up wherever three penn'orth of warm rum is to be sold. " I have been used to consider several signs, for the &«quency of which it is difficult to give any other reason, as so many hiero- glyphics with a hidden meaning, satirising the foUies of the people, or conveying instruction to the passer-by. I am afiraid that the stale jest on our citizens gave rise to so many Horns in public streets ; and the number of Castles floating with the wind * From Martial and other Latin poets, we learn that it was usual for the bibliopoles of those days to advertise new works by affixing copies of the title-pa^es to a post outside their shops ; but whether this method obtained in the last century, the histoiy of Patei^ noster ^w does not inform us. THE '' ADVENTURER" ON SIGNS. 25 was probably designed as a ridicule on those erected by soaring projectors. Tumbledown Dick, in the borough, of Southwark, is a fine moral on the instability of greatness, and the consequences of ambition ; but there is a most ill-natured sarcasm against the fair sex exhibited on a sign in Broad Street, St Giles's, of a head- less female figure caUed the Good Woman. ' Qimle portentum neque militaris Daunia in latie alit esculetis. Nee Jubse tellus generat, leonum Arida Nutrix.' — Hob^cb. ' No beast of such portentous size In warlike Daunia's forest lies, Nor such the tawny lion reigns Fierce on his native Afrio's plains.' — Francis. " A discerning eye may also discover in many of our signs evi- dent marks of the religion prevalent amongst us before the Ee- formation. St George, as the tutelary saint of this nation, may escape the censure of superstition; but St Dunstan, with his tongs ready to take hold of Satan's nose, and the legions of Angels, Nuns, Crosses, and Holy Lambs, certainly had their origin in the days of Popery. " Among the many signs which are appropriated to some parti- cular business, and yet have not the least connexion with it, J cannot as yet find any relation between blue balls and pawnbrokers. Nor could I conceive the intent of that long pole putting out at the entrance of a barber's shop, till a friend of mine, a learned etymologist and glossariographer, assured me that the use of this pole took its rise from the corruption of an old English word. ' It is probable,' says he, ' that our primitive tonsors used to stick up a wooden block or head, or poll, as it was called, before their shop windows, to denote their occupation ; and afterwards, through a confounding of different things with a like pronuncia- tion, they put up the parti-coloured staff of enormous length, which is now called a pole, and appropriated to barbers.' "* The remarks of the Adventurer have brought us down to the middle of the eighteenth century, when the necessity for signs was not so great as formerly. Education was spreading fast, and reading had become a very general acquirement ; 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, * Pov the Three Bails of the Pawnbrokers, see under Mwcellaneous Signs ; for the Barber's Pole, under Trades' Signs, 26 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. to posterity," says a writer in the GentlemarHs Magazine, " that long after signs became unnecessary, it was not unusual for an opulent shopkeeper to lay out as much upon a sign, and the curious ironwork with which it was fixed in the house, so as to project nearly in the middle of the street, as would furnish a less considerable dealer with a stock in trade. I have been credibly informed that there were many signs and sign irons upon Ludgate Hill which cost several hundred pounds, and that as much was laid out by a mercer on the sign of the Queen's Head, as would have gone a good way towards decorating the original for a birth- day." Misson, a French traveller who visited England in 1719, thus speaks about the signs : — " By a decree of the police, the signs of Paris must be small, and not too far advanced from the houses. At London, they are commonly very large, and jut out so far, that in some narrow streets they touch one another ; nay, and run across almost quite to the other side. They are generally adorned with carving and gilding ; and there are several that, with the branches of iron which support them, cost above a hundred guineas. They seldom write upon the signs the name of the thing represented in it, so that there is no need of MoliSre's inspector. But this does not at aU please the German and other travelling strangers ; because, for want of the things being so named, they have not an opportunity of learning their names in England, as they stroll along the streets. Out of London, and par- ticularly in villages, the signs of inns are suspended in the middle of a great wooden portal, which may be looked upon as a kind of trium|)hal 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," &e. 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 ofence I have a thousand times lamented, but fear I shall never see remedied, which is that, in a nation where learning is so frequent as in Great Britain, there should be so many gross errors as there THE " TATLER" ON SIGNS. 2"] arCj iu the very direction of things wherein accuracy is necessary for the conduct of life. This is notoriously observed by aU 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, sufi'ered 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 Ul painted? I have a cousin now in town, who has answered under bachelor at Queen's College, whose name is Humphrey Mopstaff, (he is akin to us by his mother;) this young man, going to see a relation in Barbican, wandered a whole day by the mistake of one letter; for it was written, 'This is the Beer,' instead of ' This is the Bear.' He was set right at last by inquiring for the house of a fellow who could not read, and knew the place mechanically, only by having been often drunk there. ... I propose that every tradesman in the city of London and West- minster shall give me a sixpence a quarter for keeping their signs in repair as to the grammatical part ; and I wiU. take into my house a Swiss count * of my acquaintance, who can remember all their names without book, for despatch' sake, setting up the head of the said foreigner for my sign, the features being strong and fit to hang high." Had the signs murdered only the king's English, it might have been forgiven ; but even the lives of his majesty's subjects were not secure from them ; for, leaving alone the complaints raised about their preventing the circulation of fresh air, a more serious charge was brought against them in 1718, when a sign in Bride's Lane, Fleet Street, by its weight dragged down the front of the house, and in its fall killed two young ladies, the king's jeweller, and a cobbler. A commission of inquiry into the nuisance was appointed ; but, like most commissions and committees, they talked a great deal and had some dinners ; in the meantime the * Probably John James Heidegger, director of the Opera, a very ugly man 28 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. public interest and excitement abated, and matters remained as they were. In the year 1762 considerable attention was directed to sign- boards by Bonnell Thornton, a clever wag, who, to burlesque the exhibitions of the Society of Artists, got up an Exhibition of Signboards. In a preliminary advertisement, and in his pub- lished catalogue, he described it as the "Exhibition of the Society of Sign-paintees of aU the curious signs to be met with in town or country, together with such original designs as might be transmitted to them, as specimens of the native genius of the nation." Hogarth, who understood a joke as well as any man in England, entered into the spirit of the humour, was on the hanging committee, and added a few touches to heighten the absurdity. The whole affair proved a great success.* This comical exhibition was the greatest glory to which sign- boards were permitted to attain, as not more than four years after they had a fall from which they never recovered. Educa- tion had now so generally spread, that the majority of the people could read sufficiently weU to decipher a name and a number. The continual exhibition of pictures in the streets and thorough- fares consequently became useless; the information they con- veyed could be imparted in a more convenient and simple manner, whilst their evils could be avoided. The strong feeling of corporations, too, had set in steadily against signboards, and henceforth they were doomed. Paris, this time, set the example : by an act of September 17, 1761, M. de Sartines, Lieutenant de Police, ordered that, in a month's time from the publication of the act, all signboards in Paris and its suburbs were to be fixed against the walls of the houses, and not to project more than four inches, including the border, frame, or other ornaments ; — also, all the signposts and sign irons were to be removed from the streets and thoroughfares, and the passage cleared. London soon followed : in the Daily News, November 1762, we find : — " The signs in Duke's Court, St Martin's Lane, were all taken down and affixed to the front of the houses." Thus Westminster had the honour to begin the innovation, by pro- curing an act with ample powers to improve the pavement, &c., of the streets ; and this act also sealed the doom of the sign- • For a fuU account of the ' ' Exhibition," see in the Supplement at the end of this ACTS OF PAHLJAMENT TO REMOVE SIGNS. 29 boards, ■which, as in Paris, were ordered to be affixed to the houses. This was enforced by a statute of 2 Geo. III. c. 21, enlarged at various times. Other parishes were longer in mak- ing up their mind ; but the great disparity in the appearance of the streets westward from Temple Bar, and those eastward, at last made the Corporation of London follow the example, and adopt similar improvements. Suitable powers to carry out the scheme were soon obtained. In the 6 Geo. III. the Court of Common CouncU appointed commissions, and in a few months aU the parishes began to clear away : St Botolph in 1767 ; St Leonard, Shoreditch, in 1768 ; St Martin's-le-Grand in 1769 ; and Marylebone in 1770.* By these acts — " The commissioners are empowered to take down and remove all signs or other emblems used to denote the trade, occupation, or calling of any person or persons, signposts, signirons, balconies, penthouses, showboards, spouts, and gutters, projecting into any of the said streets, &c., and all other encroachments, projections, and annoyances whatsoever, within the said cities and liberties, and cause the same, or such parts thereof as they think fit, to be affixed or placed on the fronts of the houses, shops, warehouses, or buildings to which they belong, and return to the owner so much as shall not be put up again or otherwise made use of in such alterations ; and any person having, placing, erecting, or building any sign, signpost, or other post, signirons, balcony, penthouse, obstruction, or annoyance, is subject to a penalty of £5, and twenty shillings a day for continuing the same." t With the signboards, of course, went the signposts. The re- moving of the posts, and paving of the streets with Scotch granite, gave rise to the following epigram : — " The Scottish new pavement well deserves our praise ; To the Scotch we 're obliged, too, for mending our ways ; But this we can never forgive, for they say As that they have taken our posts all away." After the signs and posts had been removed, we can imagine how bleak and empty the streets at first appeared ; how silent in the night-time ; what a difficulty there must have been in finding out the houses and shops ; and how everybody, particu- larly the old people, grumbled about the innovations. Now numhers appeared everywhere. As early as 1512 an * The last streets that kept them swinging were Wood Street and Whitecross Street, where they rema'ned till 1773 ; whilst in Holywell Street, Strand, not more than twenty years ago, some were still dangling above the shop dO' rs. In the suburbs many may be observed even at the present day. t Laws, Customs, Usages, ami Begulati.ns of the City and Port of London. By Alex- ander Pulling. Lon Ion, 1854. Under the 72d section of the 67 Geo. III. ch. 29, post. 316, Mr Ballantine, some years .igo, decided against a pawnbroker's sign being ■ onsidered a nuisance, notwith- standing it projected over the footway, unless it obstructed the circulation of light and air, or was inconvenient or incommodious. 30 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. attempt had been made in Paris at numbering sixty-eight new houses, built in that year on the Pont !N'6tre-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 abnost universal, but was not enforced by police regulations until 1805. In London it appears to have been attempted in the beginning of the eighteenth century ; for in Hatton's " New View of London," 1708, we see that "in Prescott Street, Goodman's Fields, instead of signs the houses are distinguished by numbers, as the stair- cases in the Inns of Court and Chancery." In all probability reading was not sufficiently widespread at that time to bring this novelty into general practice. Yet how much more simple is the method of numbering, for giving a clear and unmistakable direction, may be seen from the means resorted to to indicate a house under the signboard system ; as for instance : — " r 110 BE LETT, Newbury House, in St James's Park, next door but one to J- Lady Oxford's, having two balls at the gate, and iron rails before the door," &c., &c. — Advertisement in the original edition of the Specta- tor, No. 207. "AT HER HOUSE, the Red Ball and Acorn, over against the Globs XjL Tavern, in Queen Street, Cheapaide, 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 lanthom with a candle in it upon the balcony." And in that strain ail directions were given : over against, or next door to, were among the consecrated formulae. Hence many dispensed with a picture of their own, and clung, hke parasites, to the sign opposite or next door, particularly if it was a shop of some nota 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 figiu-e on the seventeenth century trades HOUSES DISTINGUISHED BY COLOUR. 3 1 tokens.* Those who did much trade by night, as coffee-houses, quacks, &c., adopted lamps with coloured glasses, by which they distinguished their houses. This custom has come down to us, and is stiU adhered to by doctors, chemists, public-houses, and occasionally by sweeps. Yet, though the numbers were now an established fact, the shopkeepers still clung to the old traditions, and for years con- tinued to display their signs, grand, gorgeous, and gigantic as ever, though affixed to the houses. As late as 1803, a traveller thus writes about London : — " As it is one of the principal secrets of the trade to attract the attention of that tide of people which is constantly ebbing and flowing in the streets, it may easily be conceived that great pains are taken to give a striking form to the signs and devices hanging out before their shops. The whole front of a house is frequently employed for this pur- pose. Thus, in the vicinity of Ludgate Hill, the house of S , who has amassed a fortune of £40,000 by selling razors, is daubed with large capitals three feet high, acquainting the public that ' the most excellent and superb patent razors are sold here.' As soon, therefore, as a shop has acquired some degree of repu- tation, the younger brethren of the trade copy its device. A grocer in the city, who had a large Beehive for his sign hanging out before his shop, had allured a great many customers. No sooner were the people seen swarming about this hive than the old signs suddenly disappeared, and Beehives, elegantly gUt, 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 Grasshoppei; and as this insect had quickly pro- pagated 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 * Trades tokens were brass farthings issued by shopkeepers in the sevi nteenth cen- tury, and stamped with the sign of the shop and the name of its owner. 32 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. before their shops, expressly adding this clause in large capitals, that ' they are genuine descendants of the renowned and match- less Grasshopper of Mr E in Cheapside.'"* 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 aJl those " genuine Grasshoppers" was the genuine one t So, gradually, the signs began to dwindle away, first in the principal streets, then in the smaller thoroughfares and the suburbs ; finally, in the provincial towns also. The publicans only retained them, and even they in the end were satisfied with the name without the sign, vox et prceterea nihil. In the seventeenth century signs had been sung in sprightly ballads, and often given the groundwork for a biting satire. They continued to inspire the popular Muse until the end, but her latter productions were more like a waU 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 MiJL-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 DemiX ioT more. Then I 'd always a sweetheart ao 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 Bein/r ; In the Snin courted morning and noon ; And when night put an end to my happiness there, I'd a sweet little girl in the Moom. To sweethearts and ale I at length bid adieu, 0£ wedlock to set up the sign : Hand4n-hcmd the Good Woman I look for in you. And the Horns I hope ne'er will be mine. Once guard to the mail, I 'm now guard to the fair ; But though my commission 's laid down, Yet while the King's Arms I 'm permitted to bear, Like a Lion I '11 fight for the Crown." * Afemorials of Nature and Ait collected on a Journey in Great Britain during the Years 1802 and 1803. By 0. A. G. Geede. Loudon, 1808. Vol. i, p. 68. PLATE III. MERMAID. (Clieapside, 1640.) ALB-GABLAHD. (Wouwverman, 17th cent.) ris/n-cinics CRISPIN AHl) CRISPLiS. (Roxburghe Ballatls, 17th century.) TRUSTY SERVANT. (Circa 1700.) HOG IN ARSIOl'R. L0VE-8I6N8 AT OXFORD. 33 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 : — " BIONS OF LOVE AT OXFOBD. By an Inn-consolahle Lover. Slie 's as light as The Oreyhonmd, as fair as The Angel, Her looks than The Mitre more sanctified are ; But she flies like The BoeTmch, and leaves me to range ill, Still looking to her as my true polar Stwr. New /jm-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 Cros^d, and now Jookey'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 Twrlc, and rejected my present ; So I moped to The Barley Mow, grieved in my mind. That The Ark from the Mood 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 wMte like a Shmdder of Mutton, Not the red of The Ox was so bright when first put on ; Like The Holly-iush prickles she scratches my liver, While I moan and die like a Swam, by the river." But tame as this last performance is, it is " merry as a brass band" when compared with a ballad sung in the streets some twenty years later, entitled, " Laughable and Interesting Picture of Drunkenness." Speaking of the publicans, who call them- selves " Lords," it says : — " If these be the Lords, there are many kinds, For over their doors you will see many signs ; There is The King, and likewise The Crown, And beggars are made in every town. There is The Queen, and likewise her Head, And many I fear to the gaUows 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 ; V. 34 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDa. There 'b The Hare a/nd 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 Twrh and his Head, Hundreds they 've caused for to wander for bread ; There is The White Horse, also The Woolpaek, 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 Qeorge and the Dragon, and Nelson the brave. Many lives they 've shorten'd and brought to the grave. The Fox and the Goose, and The Guns put across. But all the craft is to get hold of the brass ; The Bird in the Cage, and the sign of The Thrush, But one in the hand is worth two in the bush." There is an unpleasant musty air about this ballad, a taint of Seven Dials, an odour of the ragged dresscoat, and the broken, ill- used hat. The gay days of signboard poetry, -when sparks in feathers and ruffles sang their praises, are no more. Our fore- fatbers 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 PankUbanon. The corruptions and mis- applications of the old pictorial signboards find a parallel in the modem 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 Bomans, 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 misappKed than heraldry. The modem " 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 MOD ESN CORRUPTIONS OF THE ANTIQUE. 35 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 ;) Dun- stan's Arms, (City Road ;) Digger's Arms, (Pet worth, Surrey ;) Farmer's Arms and Gardener's Arms, (Lancashire ;) Grand, Junc- tion Arm^, (Praed Street, London;) Griffin! s Arms, (Warrington ;) Mount Pleasant Arms, Paragon Arms, (Kingston, Surrey;) St PauFs Arms, (Nevfca.st\e j) Portcullis ArTns, (Ludlow i) Puddler's Arms, (Wellington, Shropshire ;) Railway Arms, (Ludlow ;) Sol's Arms, (Hampstead Row ;) the Vulcan Arm,s, (Sheffield ;) General! s Arms, (Little Baddon, Essez ;) the Waterloo Arms, (High Street, Marylebone,) &c. Besides these, a quantity of newfangled, high- sounding, but unmeaning names seem to be the order of the day with gin-palaces and refreshment-houses, as, Perseverance, Enter- prise. Paragon, Gtiterion. Notwithstanding these innovations, the majority of the old objects stiU survive, in name at least, on the signboards of ale- houses and taverns. Their use may stiU. be regarded as a rule with publicans and innkeepers, although they have become the exception in other trades. Occasionally, also, we may still come upon a painted signboard, but these are daily becoming scarcer. Not so in France ; there the good old tradition of the painted signboard is yet kept up. We get a good glimpse of this subject in the following : * — " But it is the signs that so amuse and abso- lutely arrest a stranger. This is a practice that has grown into a mania at Paris, and is even a subject for the ridicule of the stage, since many a shopkeeper considers Ms 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 Moliere — a group of French soldiers, with the inscription, A la Valeur des Soldats Frangais, or a group of children inscribed & la reunion des Bons Enfants,\ — or A la Baigneuse, depicting a beautiful nymph just issuing from the bath ; ox cbla Somnambule, a pretty girl walking in her sleep and nightdress, and followed by her gallant. J * Mementos, Historical and Classical, of a Tour through part of France, Switzerland, nnd Italy, in the Years 1821 and 1822. London, 182i. t Un boti enfant is in 'Erench "a jolly gooifellow," as well as a "good child,' t Taken from the Opera "La Somnambula." 36 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. " In ludicrous thinga, a barber will write under Ms sigii : — • La Nature donne barte et cheveux, Et moi, je les coupe toua les deux.' * ' A toutes les figures d^diant mes rasoirs, Je nargue la censure des fidfeles miroirs.'t " Also a frequent inscription with a barber is, ' Ici on rajeunit.' A breeches-maker writes up, M , Culottier de Mme. la Duehesae de Devonshire. A perribquier exhibits a sign, very well painted, of an old fop trying on a new wig, entitled, Au ci-devant jeune homme. A butcher displays a bouquet of faded flowers, with this inscription, Au tendre Souvenir. An eating-house ex- hibits a punning sign, with an ox dressed up with bonnet, lace veil, shawl, &c., which naturally implies, Boeuf &-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 feUow who is on his knees at her feet, with the very significant motto, A la belle occasion." J 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 a la Prisidence ; au Frophete; au Palais dl In- dustrie ; aux Enfants d'Edovofrd, (the Princes in the Tower ;) au Golosse de Rhodes ; h la Tour de Malalcoff; d, la Tour de Nesles, (tragedy ;) au Sonneur de St Paul, (tragedy ;) & la Dame Blanche ; h la Bataille de Solferino ; au Trois Afous- quetaires; au Lingot d'Or, (a great lottery swindle in 1852 j) d la Seine Blanche, &c.§ Some of these signs are remarkably well painted, in a vigorous, bold style, with great bravura of brush ; for instance, les Noces de Vulcain, on the Quad aux Fleurs, is painted.in a style which would do no discredit to the artist of les Bomains de la Decadence. Roger Boniemps is still frequent * ♦' Natm-e provides man with hair and beard, But I cut them both." f " 1 devote my razors to all faces, And defy the criticism of faithful mirrors." J A sort of pun, *'la bdle occasion" Implying the same idea that our shopkeepers ex- press by their " Now is your time," and.similar pulTs. 8 Similar instances may also be occasionally met with in London ; for instance, the Cvrsican Brothtrg, (Coffee-house, Fulham Road.) MAROHANDS DE VINS. 37 oil the French signboard, where he is represented as a jolly rubicund toper, cro'wned 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 par- ticularly excel in a gaudy display of military subjects, where the various passages of a soldier's life are represented with all the romance of the warriors of the comic opera. Here can be seen the gallant troopers now courting Jeanette or Fanohon ; now charging Russians, Cabyles, or Austrians, according to the date of the picture. Elsewhere a lancer on a fantastic vrild horse ; a guide, walking with a pretty vivandiere, or an old grenadier with the Legion of Honour upon his breast ; — " all the glorious pomp and circumstance of war" portrayed to entice the French clodhopper to sell himself " to death or to glory." More pacific pictures may be observed at the door of the midwife ; there we see a sedate-looking matron in ecstasy over the interesting young stranger she has just ushered forth into the world, whilst pater- familias stands with a triumphant look in the background. Then there is the Herculean coalheaver at the door of the auvergnat, who sells coals and firewood ; and landscapes with cattle at the dairyshops. But amongst the best painted are those at the doors of the marchands de vins ei de eomestiUes, where we see fre- quently bunches of fruit, game, flowers, glasses, hams, fowls, fish, all cleverly grouped together, and painted in a dashing style. There is one, for instance, in the Rue Bellechasse, and another in the Rue St Lazare, that are well worth inspection. These paint- ings are generally on the door-posts and window-frames; they are painted on thin white canvas, fixed with varnish at the back of a thick piece of plateglass, and so let into the woodwork. And now a few words concerning the painters of signs. Their head-quarters were in Harp Alley, Shoe Lane, where, until lately, gilt grapes, sugar-loaves, lasts, teapots, &c., (fee, 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 38 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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.* 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 iu Little EusseU Street, Drury Lane, for which he was paid £500. — John Baker, (06. 1771,) who studied under the same master as Catton, and was made a member of the Eoyal Academy at its foundation. — Charles Catton {oh. 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 stiU 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, {ph. 1785,) a Morentine carriage-painter, living in London, also a Royal Academician. — Samuel Wale, RA. {oh. 1786) painted a celebrated Falstafif 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 pubKc-house at the north-west corner of Little Russell Street, Drury Lane. It was enclosed in a most sumptuous carved gUt frame, and was suspended by rich ironwork. But this splendid object of attrac- tion did not hang long before it was taken down, in consequence of the Act of Parliament for removing the signs and other obstruc- tions in the streets of London. Such was the change in the public appreciation consequent on the new regulations in signs, that this representation of our great dramatic poet was sold for a trifle to Mason the broker in Lower Grosvenor Street, where it stood at his door for several years, until it was totally destroyed by the weather and other accidents, t * Two or three good examples are to be seen in the South Kensington Museum t Edwards's Anecdotes of Painters, 1S08, p. 11". HOGARTirS MAN LOADED WITH MISCHIEF. 39 The universal use of signboards famished no little employment for the inferior rank of painters, and sometimes even to the supe- rior professors. Among the most celebrated practitioners in this branch was a person of the name of Lamb, who possessed con- siderable ability. His pencil was bold and masterly, and well adapted to the subjects on which it was generally employed. There was also Gwjrnne, 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 Ealph 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 {oh. 1749) was apprenticed to a sign and house- painter on London Bridge. It was this artist who decorated the carriage of Admiral Byng with ships and naval trophies, and painted a portrait of Admiral Vernon's ship for a famous public- house of the day, well known by the sign of the Portobello, a few doors north of the church in St Martin's Lane.* Besides these, we have the " great professors," as Edwards caUs 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. Eichard Wilson, E.A., {6b. 1782,) painted the Three Logger- heads for an alehouse in North Wales, which gave its name to the village of Loggerheads, near the town of Mould. The paint- ing was stiU 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 Eoad is attributed to him, but has since been painted often over ; he also painted a White Lion for an inn at Padding- ton, where he used to carouse with his boon companions, Ibbetson and Eathbone ; 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 pu1; it up before his booth at Stainea and Egham races, cricket matches, and similar occasions. * J. T. Smith's Nollekens and his Times, vol. i. p. 26 40 THM HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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 liVst by bread, What made thy face to look so red? Thou silly fop, that looks so pale, 'Tis red with Tommy Burkett's ale." * David Cox painted a Eoyal Oak for the alehouse at Bettws-y- Coed, Denbighshire ; fortunately this has been taken down, and is now preserved behind glass inside the inn. The elder Crome produced a sign of the Sawyers at St Martins, Norwich ; it was afterwards taken down by the owner, framed, and hung up as a picture. At New Inn Lane, Epsom, Harlow painted a front and a back view of Queen Charlotte, to settle a bill he had run up ; he imi- tated Sir Thomas Lawrence's style, and signed it "T. L.," Greek Street, Soho. When Lawrence heard thia, 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 Eoss 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 hy 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 E.A. and an E.S., each painting one side of it ; on the front was represented a wearied pilgrun, 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 j * Tommy Burkett was the name of mine host The painting is now gone, but the perses remain. HOLBEIN, OOBBJUOGIO, WATTMAU. 41 in the museum at Basle, in Switzerland, there are two pictures of a school, painted by Holbein when fourteen years old, for a sign of the schoolmaster of the town. The Mule and Muleteer in the Sutherland collection, is said to have been painted by Correggio as a sign for an inn ; a similar legend is told about the Young Bull of Paul Potter, in the museum of the Hague, in Holland, which is reported to have been painted for a butcher's signboard. The Chaste Susannah (la chaste Susanne) was for- merly a fine stone bas-relief in the Eue aux FSves, 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 miUiner on the Pont N6tre-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 stUl 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 3 work of GuSricault. Besides these, there are, and have been at various times, excel- lent signboards in Paris, the artists of which are not known. Thus there was, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, a sign at the foot of the Pont Neuf, called le Petit Dunherque, 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 Eue Eoyale St Honor6, 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 gardke, (a vaudeville,) at a mercei's, attracted great attention. About this period the Eue Vivienne was very rich in good signboards ; there were la Toison de Cachemire ; les Trois SuUanes ; le Couronnement de la Bosiere, and la Joconde, all very good works of art. There was a gay Comte Ory on the Boulevard des Italiens, and la Blanche Margmnte, most comely to look upon, in the Eue Mont- martre. 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 42 THE HISTORY OF SIONBOABDS. 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 hare heard of them which sayd they spake of knowledge, that some in late time dwelling at the eigne of the Dolphin, BuU, White Horse, Backet, Pea- cocke, etc., were commonly called Thomas at the Dolphin, WiU at the Bull, George at the White Horse, Robin at the Backet, which names, as many other of like sort, with omitting at the, became afterwards hereditary to their children." — Camden's Semaines, p. 102. As examples of such names we have, " Arrow, Axe, Barrell, Bullhead, Bell, Block, Board, Banner, Bowles, Baskett, Cann, Coulter, Chisell, Clogg, Crosslceys, Crosier, Funnell, Forge, Fire- brand, Grapes, Griffin, Horns, Hammer, Hamper, Hodd, Harrow, Image, (the sign originally in honour of some saint perhaps,) Jugg, Kettle, Knife, Lance, Mallet, Maul, Mattock, Needle, Pail, Pott, Potts, Plowe, Plane, Pipes, Pottle, Patten, Posnet, (a purse or money-bag,) Pitcher, Eule, Eainbow, Sack, Saw, Shovel, Shears, Scales, SUverspoon, Swords, Tankard, Tabor, (a drum,) Trowel, Tubb and Wedge, and a good many others." * And now, having taken a passing glance at signboard history, from the earKest times down to the present day, we may not im- properly conclude this chapter with an enumeration of the inn, tavern, and public-house signs which occur most frequently in London, in this present year of grace, 1864 : — 12 Adam and Eves, 13 Albions, 5 Alfred's Heads, 13 Anchor and Hopes, 18 Angels, 8 Angels and Crowns, 3 Antigallicans, 5 Artichokes, 13 Barley Mows, 9 Beehives, 31 Bells, 7 Ben Jonsons, 6 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 * M. A. Lower's Essay on Family Nomenclature, Tol i. p. 201. LONDON SIGNS IN 1864. 43 Coopers' Arms, 7 Crooked Billets, 5 Cross Keys, 61 Crowns, 18 Crown and Anchors, 5 Grown and Cushions, 11 Crown and Sceptres, 17 Crowns, combined with other objects, as Anvils, Barley Mows, Thistles, Dolphins, &c., (in all, 112 Crowns; certamly we are a loyal nation !) 12 Devonshire Arms, 2 Devon- shire Castles, 10 Dolphins, 6 Dover Castles, 34 Dukes of Wellington, 32 Dukes of York, 6 Dukes of Sussex, 16 Dukes of Clarence, 7 Dukes of Cambridge, 26 other Dukes, (including Albemarle, Argyle, Bedford, Bridgewater, Gloucester, &c.,) 7 various Duchesses, (as Kent, York, Oldenburgh, &c.,) 14 Duke's Heads, 18 Earls, (Aberdeen, Cathcart, Chatham, Durham, Essex, &o.,) 6 Edinburgh Castles, 5 Elephants and Castles, 9 Falcons, 21 Feathers, 4 Fishmongers' Arms, 4 Five BeUs, 5 FJeeces, 6 Flying Horses, 5 Fortunes of War, 24 Fountains, 8 Foxes, 12 Foxes, combined with Grapes, Hounds, Gfeese, &c., 8 Freemasons' Arms, 8 various Generals, (EUiott, HUl, Aberorombie, 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, 66 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, 6 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 Marq^uis of Granbys, 6 Mapj[uis of ComwalUses, 14 various Marquises, 9 Masons' Arms, 17 Mitres, 4 Mulberry-trees, 16 Nag's Heads, 3 Nell Gwynns, 7 Noah's Arks, 7 Norfolk Arms, 4 North Poles, 9 Northumberland Arms, 3 Old Parr's Heads, 6 Olive Branches, 6 Oxford Arms, 10 Pea- cocks, (1 Peahen,) 5 Perseverances, 5 Pewter Platters, 10 Phoe- nixesj 3 Pied Bulls, 5 Pine Apples, 9 Pitt's Heads, 15 Ploughs, 6 Portland Arms, 5 Portman Arms, 19 Prince Alberts, 6 Princa Alfreds, 3 Prince Arthurs, 15 other Princes, (mostly of the Eoyal Family,) 43 Princes of Wales, 12 Prince Eegents, 6 Princess Eoyals, 3 Princess Victorias, and a few of the younger Princesses, 44 TBE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. 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, dently the same house which Pepys calls the Triumph. It seems to have been a fashionable place, for he went there, on the 25th May 1662, to see the Portuguese ladies of Queen Catherine. "They are not handsome," says he, "and "their fardingales a strange dress. Many ladies and persons of quality come to see them. I find nothing in them that is pleasing ; and I see they have learned to kiss and look freely up and down already, and, I believe, will soon forget the recluse practice of their own country. They complain much for lack of good water to drink." The Triumph is stiU 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-biUs in the Banks Collection ; whilst William and Maey are stUl to be seen in Maiden Cause- way, Cambridge. The accession of the house of Brunswick pro- duced the Brunswick, still very common, particularly in the West Eiding 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, m 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 Lave figured in 9ur open-air walhalla, the Turkish sultans seem to have stood HISTORIC Al^D COMMMMORATIVE. 51 foremost. Moeat (Amurat) and Soliman were constant coffee- house signs in the seventeenth century. Trades tokens are extant, in the Beaufoy and other collections, of a cofifee-house in Exchange Alley, the sign of Morat, with this distich: — "MoRAT . Y" . Great . Men . Did . Mee . Call Where . Ere . I . Came . I . Conquee'd . All." On the reverse : " Coffee, tobacco, sherhett, tea, and chocolat retaVd in Exchange Alley." The same house figures in advertisements of the time, giving the prices of those various articles : — " AT IHE Coffee-house in Exchange Alley is sold by Retail the right Xl. 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 — yiz,, Moeat the Gkeat," &o. — Mercurms PvbUcvs, March 12-19, 1662. The Great Mogol also had his share of signboards, of which a few still survive ; one, for instance, in New Bartholomew Street, Birmingham. Kouli Khan we find only in one instance, (though there were probably many more,) namely, on the sign of a tavern by the Quayside, Newcastle, in 1746.* This house had formerly been called the Crown, but changed its sign in honour of Thomas Nadir Shah, or Kouh. Khan, who, from having been chief of a band of robbers, at last sat himself on the throne of Persia. He was killed in 1747. One of the reasons of his popu- larity in this country was the permission he granted to the Eng- lish nation to trade with Persia, the most chimerical ideas being entertained of the advantages to be derived from that commerce. Hanway, the philanthropist, was for some time concerned in it, but died before he could carry out the scheme ; ultimately, the death of Nadir Shah himself put an end to it. The Indian King, which we meet with so frequently, is an extremely vague personage, which various Indian potentates might take for themselves as the cap fitted. It was generally set up when some king from the far East visited the metropolis, and for a short time created a sensation. Thus, in 1710, there were four Indian kings from " states between New England, New York * Newcastle Journal', June 28, 174&. 52 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. and Canada," who had audiences with Queen Anne, and seems to have been a good deal talked about. {See Spectator, No. 50.) Again, in 1763, London was honoured with the visit of a Cherokee king, and thus many before and after him have created their nine days' wonder. Visits of European monarchs were also commemorated by complimentary signs. One of the oldest was the King of Den- MABK, 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 royaUy, 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 aU 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 roU about in intoxication," &c.* So late as thirty years ago, not less than three of these signs were left, the most notorious being in the Old Bailey. It used to be open all night for the sale of creature comforts to the drunkard, the thief, the nightwalker, and profli- gates of every description. Slang was the language of the place, and doubtless the refreshments were mostly paid for with stolen money. On execution nights, the landlord used to reap a golden harvest; then there were such scenes of drunkenness as must have done the old king on the signboard good to siu^ey, and made him wish to be inside. The visit of another crowned votary of JBacchus is commemorated by the sign of the CziE's Head, Great Tower Street : — " Peter the Great and his companions, having finished their day's work, used to resort to a public-house in Great Tower Street, close to Tower Hill, to smoke their pipes and drink beer and brandy. The landlord had the Czar of Muscovy's Head painted, and put it up for his sign, which con- tinued tin the year 1808, when a person of the name of Waxel took a fancy to the old sign, and offered the then occupier of the house to paint him a new one for it. A copy was accordingly made of the original, which maintains its station to the present day as the Czar of Muscovy." f » Nuga Anttquso, vol. i, p. 848. f BaiTow'a Life of Peter the Great HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 53 Tie sign is now removed, but the public-house still bears the same name. Pbince Eugene also was at one time a popular tavern portrait in England, more particularly after his visit to this country in January 1712. It is named as one of the signs in Norwich in 1750,* but is now, we believe, completely extinct in England ; in Paris there is still one surviving on the Boulevard St Martin. The Gkave MAtTKiOB is of very old standing in London, being named by Taylor the water-poet as an inn at Knightsbridge in 1636; at present there are two left, one in Whitechapel Eoad, the other in St Leonard's Eoad. Who this Grave Maurice was is not quite clear. Grave {Ger. Graf, Butch 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 1613, we read that : — "Upon St Thomas-day, the Paltzgrave and Grave Maurice were elected Knights of the Garter ; and the 27 th 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, Kiag of France and Navarre. The Palzgrave was Grave Maurice's nephew, the Palatine Count Frederick, by whose marriage with King James's daughter were bom the bro- thers Eupert and Maurice, (the latter in 1620,) who distinguished themselves in England during the civil wars. It was this Prince Maurice's great uncle, the Grave Maurice of Nassau, whose coun- terfeit presentment stiU gives a name to two of our taverns. Another Maurice, about this period, was very popular in England — ^viz., Maurice Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who " carried away the palm of excellency in whatever is to be wished in a brave prince."t Peacham, enumerating this prince's qualifications, says that he was a good musician, spoke ten or twelve languages, was a universal scholar, could dispute, " even in boots and spurs," for an hour with the best professors on any subject, and was the best bone-setter in the country. He gained, too, much of his popu- larity by his adherence to the Protestant religion during the Thirty Years' War. • Gent. Mag., March 1842. t Peacham's Compleat Gentleman, p. 79. 54 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. The Paitsgeave became a popular sign at the marriage of Frederick Oasimir V., Elector and Count Palatine of the Ehine, King of Bohemia, with Elizabeth, daughter of James I. Trades tokens are extant of a famous tavern, the sign of the Palsgeave's Head, without Temple Bar,* which gave its name to Paltsgrave Court, whilst the Palatine Head was an inn near the French 'Change, Soho. Peince Eupeet, the Palsgrave's son, who be- haved so gallantly in many of the fights during the Civil War, was no doubt a favourite sign after the Eestoration. We have an in- stance of one on the trades token of Jacob Eobins, in the Strand. One of the last foreign princes to whom the signboard honour was accorded, was the King of Peussia. This stiU occurs in many places. After the battle of Eosbach, Frederick the Great, our ally, became the popular hero in England. Ballads were made, in which he was caUed " Frederick of Prussia, or the Hero." " Portraits of the hero of Eosbach, with his cocked hat and long pigtail, were in every house. An attentive observer wiU at this day find in the parlours of old-fashioned inns, and in the port- folios of printseUers, twenty portraits of Frederick for one of George II. The sign-painters were everywhere employed in touching up Admieal Vernoit into the King of PEtrssiA.t " These words of Macaulay remind us of a passage in the Mirror, No. 82, Saturday, February 19, 1780, bearing on the same sub- ject. In 1739, after the capture of PortobeUo, 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 CuUoden was total annihilation for him. . . . The Dtjke of Cumbeeland 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 Eoyal Highness from his place ; but the doubtful battle of HameUan, followed by the unfortunate convention of Stade, and the rising fame of * The taverns of the seventeenth century appear in many instances to have been up- stairs, above shops. In 1679, there was a " Mr Crutch, goldsmith^ near Temple Bar, at the Palsgrave Mead." In a similar way, a bookseller lived at the sign, of the HainboWj at thft same time as one Parr, who opened this place as a cofifee-house. Another bookseller, James Roberts, who printed most of the satires, epigrams, and other wasp-stings against Pope, lived at the Oxford Arms, a caiTiei-s' inn in Warwick Lane. Finally, Isaac Wal- ton sold his " Complete Angler" "at his shoppin Fleet Street, under the Kini/s Head Tavern." t Macaulay's Biographical Essays, Frederick the Great. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 55 the King of Prussia, obliterated the glories of the Duke of Cum- beriaud as effectually as his Koyal Highness and the battle of Culloden had effaced the figure, the memory, and the renown of Admiral Vernon. The duke was so completely displaced by his Prussian majesty, that we have some doubts whether he met with fair play. One circumstance, indeed, was much against him ; his figure being marked by a hat with the Kevenhuller cock, a mili- tary uniform, and a very fierce look, a slight touch of the painter converted him into the King of Prussia. But what crowned the success of his Prussian majesty, was the title bestowed upon him by the brothers of the brush, ' The Glorious Protestant Hero,' words which added splendour to every signpost, and which no British hero could read without peculiar sensation of veneration and of thirst. " For two years, ' the glorious Protestant hero ' was unrivalled ; but the French being defeated at Minden, upon the 1st of August 1759, by the army under Prince Frederick of Brunswick, the King of Prussia began to give place a little to two popular favourites, who started at the same time ; I mean Prince Ferdinand, and the Marquis or Geanby. Prince Ferdinand was supported altogether by his good conduct at Minden, and by his high reputation over Europe as a general. The Marquis of Granhy behaved with spirit and personal courage everywhere ; but his success on the signposts of England was very much owing to a comparison generally made between him and another British general of higher rank, but who was supposed not to have be^ haved so well. Perhaps, too, he was a good deal indebted to another circumstance — to wit, the baldness of his head." That crowned heads, as well as other human beings, were sub- ject to the law of change on the signboard, is amusingly illustrated in an anecdote told by Goldsmith : — " An alehouse keeper near Islington, who had long lived at the sign of the French King, upon the commencement of the last war, pulled down his old sign, and put up that of th? Quebh or HnuoAET. 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 prohahly he changed in turn for the next great man that shall be set up for vulgar admiration."* Of all great men, "bene meriti de patria," mihtaiy men appear at all times to have captivated the popular favour much more than those men who promoted the welfare of the country in * goldsmith's Essaj on the Versatility of Popular Favour. 56 THE HISTORY OF SIONBOARDS. the Cabinet, or who made themselves famous by the arts of peace, and the more quiet productions of their genius. We find hundreds of admirals and generals on the signboard, but we are not aware that there is one Watt, or one Sir Walter Scott ; yet, what glory and pleasure has the nation not derived from their genius ! Book- sellers formerly honoured the heads and names of great authors with a signboard ; but that custom fell into disuse when signs became unnecessary. At present, the publicans only have signs, and they and their customers can much better appreciate " the glorious pomp and pageantry of war," than a parliamentary de- bate. A victory, with so many of the enemy kiUed and wounded, and so many colours and stands of arms captured, awakens much more thrilling emotions in their breasts than the most useful in- vention, or the most glorious work of art. The sea being our proper element, admirals have always had the lion's share of the popular admiration, and their fame appears more firmly rooted than that of generals. Signs of Admirai Drake, Sie Fkancis Drake, or the Drake Aems, 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 Waiter Ealeigh 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 ViiTti on several of the shop-bills in the Banks Collection. Signs being frequently used in the last century for political pasquinades, ad- vantage was taken of a tobacconist's sign for the following sharp hit at Lord North : — " To the Printer of the General Advertiser : — " Sie, — 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 Baleigh, 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 Eubicon and North, old England owes The loss of country where tobacco grows. " I suppose no dealer will ohuse to adopt so unfortunate a subject for HISTORia AND COMMEMORATIVE. 57 their insignia; but perhaps, when you have a spare corner in your General Advertiser, it may not be inadmissible, which will oblige. — Tours, Ac, A Smoaker. " Feb. 1, 1783. General Advertiser, March 13, 1784." Brave old Admieal Benbow, who held up the honour of the British flag in the reign of William III., is still far from uncommon. Admieal Duncan, Howe, and Jeevis stiU preside over the sale of many a hogshead of beer or spirits ; whUst Admieal Vernon seems to have secured himself an everlasting place on the front of the alehouse, by reason of his dashing capture of Poetobbllo ; the name of that town, or sometimes the Poetobello Aems, being also frequently adopted, instead of the admiral's name. Admieal Keppel is another great favourite. There is a public-house with that sign, on the Fulham Road, where, some years ago, the por- trait of the admiral used to court the custom of the passing traveller, by a poetical appeal to both man and beast : — " Stop, brave boys, and quench your thirst ; If you won't drink, your horses murst." But, above all, Admieal Rodney seems to have obtained a larger share of popularity than even Nelson himself. In Boston there is the Rodney and Hood ; and in Creggin, Montgomery- shire, the Rodney Pillae 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 com. Nor grudge honest labour its pipe and its horn." The last addition to this portrait gallery, before Sie Chables Napiee, was the head of the gallant besieger of Algiers, Loed 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 hie horse." H 58 THE HISTORY OF 8IQNB0ASDS. 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 stiE remain. Amongst these, Genekal Elliott, or Loed 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 Makquis of Geanby. 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 Taeleton, (or, as he is called on a sign in Clarence Street, Newcastle, Colonei, Taelton,) Geneeal Wolfe, Geneeal Mooee, and Sie Kalph Abeeceombie. 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 shiULngs 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 Comhill, but removed to the Theee Tuns in Southwark, that the members might be more re- tired from the bows and compliments of the London apprentices, who used to salute the noble lords by their titles as they passed to and fro in the streets about their business. One of their last houses was the Yoekshiee Geey, near Eoll's Buildings. At present they are, we believe, extinct. In Newcastle, also, there w»s HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 59 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 Dtjke, 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 Albemakle after the Restoration ; then came Oemond, Maelbokough, Cumberland, York, and, at present, Wellington and the Duke op Cambridge. The Duke's Head in Upper Street, corner of Gad's Eow, Islington, was the sign of a pubUc-honse kept by Thomas Topham, the strong man, who, in 1741, in honour of Admiral Vernon's birthday, lifted three hogsheads of water, weighing 1859 lb., in Coldbath Fields.* The Duke of Albemarle figured on numberless signboards after the Restoration ; but at the same period, there existed still older signs, on which his grace was simply called Monck ; as for instance, that hung out by " WUl. Kidd, suttler to the Guard at St James's," t which was the Monck's Head. Kidd had probably followed the army in many a campaign in former years, and was much more accustomed to the name of General Monck than that of his Grace the Duke of Albemarle. Of the Duke of Ormond there is still one instance remaiaing in Longstreet, Tet- bury, Gloucester, under the name of the Ormond's Head. A very few Dukes of Marlborough are also left. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Duke op 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 Egjrptian Halls. Among the Bagford Bills, and in the newspapers of the time, it is constantly mentioned as the place where something wonderful or amusing was to be seen — panoramas, dioramas, moving pictures, marionnettes, curious pieces of mechanism, &c., &c.J The Lord Craven was once a very popular sign in London. It occurs amongst the trades tokens of Bishopsgate Street Without, and even at present there is a Craven Head and two Craven * For more particulars about Topham, sefi p. 88. + Trades tokens in tlie Beaufoy Collection. ; For several centuries. Fleet Street was the head-quarters for shows and exhibitions out of foir-time. Ben jonson speaks of " the City of Nineveh at Fleetbridge." This was in the reign of James I. Mra Salmon's waxworks were among the last remaining lights in that locality. 6o THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Arms in London. These signs were in honour of William Craven, eldest son of Sir WUliam 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 IL, who at the Eestoration created Mm Viscount Craven of Uffington, &e. He is said to have been privately married to Elizabeth, daughter of James L,the Queen of Bohemia. He died, AprE 19, 1697. Though his public and military career had certainly been brilliant, yet he owed his popularity probably more to lus 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, Camaby Market, (now Marshall Street, Golden Square.) His assistance during the frequent London fires, also tended to make him a favourite with the Londoners. " Lord Craven, in the time of King Charles II., was a constant man at a fire ; for which purpose he always had a horse ready saddled in his stables, and rewarded the first that gave him notice of such an accident. It was a good-natured fancy, and he did a good deal of service ; but in that reign everything was turned to a joke. The king being told of a terrible fire that was broke out, asked if Lord Craven was there yet. ' Oh !' says some- body by, ' an't please your majesty, he was there before it began, waiting for it, he has had two horses burnt under him already.'* On such occasions he usually rode a white horse, well known to the London mob, which was said to smeU the fires from afar off." The Eael of Essex, Elizabeth's quondam favourite, might have been met with on many signs long after the Eestoration. There are trades tokens of a shop or tavern with such a sign on the Baukside, Southwark, and tokens are extant of two other shops that had the Essex Arms. In the last century there was an Essex Head in Essex Street ; in this tavern the Eobin 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 Eiver for supplying London with water. Its first meetings were held at the houses of mem- bers, but afterwards, the numbers increasing, they removed to the above tavern, and its name was altered into the " Essex Head Society." In 1747 it removed to the Eobin Hood in Butcher Eow, near Temple Bar. The society attained a position of so much importance, that a history of its proceedings was pub- ," RichardsoDiana, p. 140. HISTORIC AND COMMEMOBATIVM. 6l lished in 1764, giving an account of the subjects debated, and re ports of some of tte speeches. Seven minutes only were allowed to each speaiker, at the expiration of which the Baker, or president, summed up. Many a young politician here winged his first flight.* In 1784, the year of his death, Dr Johnson instituted at this house a club of twenty-four members, in order to insure him- self society for at least three days in the week. He composed the regulations himself, and wrote above them the following motto from Milton : — " To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench In mirth which after no repenting draws." The house at that time was kept by Samuel Greaves, an old servant of Mrs Thrale. Each night of non-attendance was visited on the members by a fine of threepence. Members were to spend at least sixpence, besides a penny for the waiter. Each member had to preside one evening a month. That the Earl of Essex, who had taken up arms against his queen, should have continued more than a century after his death, is easily accounted for by the immense popularity he enjoyed, ex- ceeding that of any of his cotemporaries. More difficult to explain is the presence on English signboards of the Dutch Admiral van Teomp ; 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, Poetobello, the Battle OF THE Nile, the Mouth op the Nile, Trapalgae, the Battle OF Waterloo, the Battle op the Pyramids, are all more or less common. The Bull and Mouth is said to have a similar origin, being a corruption of Boulogne Mouth, the entry to Boulogne Harbour, which grew into a popular sign after the cap- ture of that place by Henry VIII. The first house with this sign is said to have been an inn in Aldgate. In less than a century the name was already corrupted into the " Bull and Mouth," and the sign represented by a black buU and a large mouth. Thus it appears on the trades tokens, and also in a sculpture in the fagade of the Queen's Hotel, St Martin's-le-Grand, formerly the Bull and Mouth Inn. Of the same time also dates the Bull and * Grosley, in hia Tour to London, 1772, vo! i. p. 150, mentions this society, whicli at that period was held at the Robin Hood, and says it was a semi-public club, into which all sorts of peopl« were admitted, and all sorts of topics, religious as wpU as politi- cal, were discussed. He makes an odd mistake, however, when he says that the president ,fas a baker by trade. 62 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Gate, a corruption of the Boulogne Gates, whicli Henry VIIL 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 Holbom, where Fielding makes his hero Tom Jones put up on his arrival in London. It is stiQ 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. b. 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 Eoman fleet on fire at Syracuse. Various implements of their trade were added as distinctions by the several shops who sold spectacles under his auspices, such as Golden Peospects or Perspectives, {i.e., spectacles or any other glass that assisted the sight,) Globes, King's Abms, &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.* Ajechimedes and Three Paie of Golden Spectacles was the sign of another optician in Ludgate Street, 1697, who evidently had adopted Marshall's sign with the addition of one pair of spectacles, in the hope of filching some of his cus- tomers. Sir Isaac Newton was another telescope-maker's sign in Ludgate Street circa 1795. t At the present day he occurs on a few public-houses ; but it is somewhat more gratifying for our national pride to see a coflFee-house in the Kue Arcade, Paris, * This John Marshall afterwards, when he was appointed the king's optician, changed his sign into the Abohimedbs ahd Eii^g's Aaus, under which we find him, in 1718, adver- tising his "chrystall dressing-glasses for ladies, which shew the &08 as nature hath made it, which other looking-glasses do not." t Banks's Collection. mSTOSW AND COMMEMORATIVE. 63 named after Mm. Loed Bacon's Head was the sign of W. Bickerton, a bookseller, witliout Temple Bar, in 1735 ; Locke's Head, of T. Peele, between tlie Temple Gates, 1718 ; James Ferguson figured at the door of an optical instrument maker in New Bond Street in 1780.* No doubt this optician was a Scotchman, who had given preference to a national celebrity. Just 80, Andrew MiUer, the great publisher and friend of Thom- son, Hume, Fielding, &c., took the Buchanan Head for the sign of his shop in the Strand, opposite St Catherine Street, the house where the famous Jacob Tonson had Uved, in whose time it was the Shakespeare's Head. But Miller preferred his countryman, and put up the less known head of George Buchanan, (1525-1582.) Buchanan was author of a version of the Psalms, and at various times of his life tutor to Queen Mary Stuart, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Principal of St Leonard's, preceptor to James I., director of the Chancery, Privy Seal, &c. Cardinal Wolsey occurs in many places, particularly in Lon- don, Windsor, and the neighbourhood of Hampton Court. An- drew Marvel is still commemorated on a sign in Whitefriargate, HuU, of which town he was a native. Thomas Geesham, the founder of the Eoyal Exchange, was a favourite in London after the opening of the first Exchange in 1666 ; and Sir Hugh MroDLETON, the projector of the New Kiver, is duly honoured with two or three signs in Islington. There exists a curious alehouse picture, called the Three Johns, in Little Park Street, Westminster, and in White Lion Street, Pentonville. The same sign, many years ago, might have been seen in Bennett Street, near Queen Square, in the former locality. It represented an oblong table, with John Wilkes in the middle, the Rev. John Home Tooke at one end, and Sir John Glynn (sergeant-at-law) at the other. There is a mezzotinto print of this picture (or the sign may be from the print) drawn and engraved by Richard Houston, 1769. John Wilkes, on whom the popular gratitude for writing the Earl of Bute out of power conferred many a signboard, still survives in a few spots. In a small Staffordshire town called Leek-with-Lowe, there is a stanch re-pubKcan, 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 stiU be seen " hung • Banks's Collection. 64 THE HISTORY OF SWNBOARDS. in effigy" at Castlegate, Berwick, in Nottingham, and in a few other places. In 1683, we find Sie Edmundbuey 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 1 679, adopted by an inn in Drury Lane. This, we suppose, was Arthur, second Viscount Valentia, son of Sir Thomas Annesley, (Lord Mountmorris,) and elevated to the British peerage by the title of Earl of Anglesey in 1661 ; he died in 1686. One of the acts which probably con- tributed most to his popularity was that he, with the Lord Caven- dish, Mr Howard, Dr TiUotson, 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, Philip- pus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombastus von Hohenheim, used formerly to be a constant apothecaries' symboL From an advertisement in the London Gazette, July 23-26, 1680, about a stolen horse "vrith a sowre head," we gather that there was at that time a sign of Paeacelsus in Old Fish Street. Informa- tion about the horse with " the sowre head " would also be re- ceived at a house in Lambeth, with no less a dignitary for its sign than the Bishop or Canteebuet, his grace having been thus honoured from a neighbourly feeling. Doctor Butler, (oh. 1617,) physician to James I., and, accord- ing to Fuller, " the .iEsculapius of that age," invented a kind of medicated ale, called Dr Butler's ale, "which, if not now, (1784,) was, a few years ago, sold at certain houses that had the Butler's Head for a sign."* One of the last remaining Butler's Heads was in a court leading from Basinghall into Coleman Street. That singularly successful quack, LUly, though he ought not to be placed in such good company as the kin^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 LUly's head, as the Black Ball and Lillyhbad, the sign of Thomas Saffold, " an approved and licensed physician and student in astrology : he hath practised astronomy for twenty-four years, and hath had the Bishop of London's licence to practise physick ever since the 4th day of September 1674, and hath, he thanks God for it, * The Angler. Hawkins's edition. 1784. PLATE V. SPINNING sow. (France, 1520.) TWO STOKKS. (Antwerp, 1639.) THE COMPLETE ^KGLliK. (Banks's Bills, 1780.) HELP ME THROnGH THIS WOKLB. (Banks's Bills, 1812.) CROOKED BILLET. (Harleian Culleetion, 1710.) HISTOSIO AND COMMEMORATIVE. 65 great experience and wonderful success in those arts." He pro» mised to perform tte usual tours deforce. " foretell what s'ever wan By consequence to come to pass ; .A^ 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." Sutler's ffudihra!. This address was " at the Black BaU and Lilly Head, next door to the Feather shops that are within Blackfriars gateway, which is over against Ludgate Church, just by Ludgate in London." * Classic authors also have come in for their share of signboard popularity in this country, which, at the time they flourished, was about as little civilized as the Sandwich Islands in the days of Captain Cook. These signs were set up by booksellers ; thus Homee's Head was, in 1735, the sign of Lawton GUliver, against St Dunstan's Church, publisher of some of Pope's works, and in 1761, of J. Walker at Charing Cross. Cicero, imder the name of Tully's Head, hung at the door of Eobert Dodsley, a famous bookseller in PaU Mall. In a newspaper of 1756, ap- peared some verses " on Tully's head in Pall Mali, by the Eev. 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, ■ TUl future bookseUers 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 Viegil's Head of Abraham van den Hoeck and George Kichmond, opposite Exeter Change in the Strand, in the middle of the last century. Of Seneca's Head two instances occur, J. Round in Exchange AUey in 1711, and * Ba^ford Bills, Bib. Harl. 6964. 66 THE HISTORY OP SIGN BOARDS. Varenne, near Somerset House, in the Strand, at the same psriod. A few of our own poets are also common tavern pictures. As early as 1655 we find a (Ben) Jonson's Head tavern in the Strand, where Ben Jonson's chair was kept as a relic* In that same year it was the sign of Robert Pollard, bookseller, behind the Royal Exchange. Ten years later it occurs in the following advertisement ; — " t STHEREAS Thomas Williams, of the society of real and well-mean- T V ing Chy mists hath prepaired certain Medioynes 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 Medioynes 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.t There is still a Ben Jonson's Head tavern with a painted por- trait of the poet in Shoe Lane, Fleet Street ; a Ben Jonson's Inn at Pemberton, Wigan, Lancashire ; and another at Weston-on-the Green, Bicester. Shakespeare's Head is to be seen in almost every town where there is a theatre. At a tavern with that sign in Great Russell Street, 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. Tins tavern was at one time famous for its beautifully painted sign. The weU-known Lion's Head, first set up by Addison at Button's, was for a time placed at this house. J There was another Shakespeare Head in Wych Street, Drury Lane, a small public-house at the beginning of this century, the last haunt of the Club of Owls, so called on account of the late hours kept by its members. The house was * " On the chair of Ben Johnson, now remaining at Robert Wilson's, at the sign of the Johnson's Head, in the Strand." — Wit and Drollery^ 1655, p. 79. t The Newes, August 24, 1655. This may have been the above-mentioned tavern, as Tork House was situated in the Strand on the site of the present York Buildings. X Addison's Lion's Head, the box for the deposition of the correspondence of the Guardian, was originally placed at Button's, over against Tom's in Great Russell Street. "After having become a receptacle of papers and a spy for the Guardian, it was moved to the Shakespeare's Head Tavern, under the Piazza in Covent Garden, kept by a person named Tomkins, and in 1751 was for a short time placed in the Bed- ford Coffeehouse, immediately adjoining the Shakespeare Tavern, and there employed as a medium of literaiy communication by Dr John Hill, author of the ' Inspector.' In 1769, Tomkins was succeeded by Jiis waiter, named Campbell as proprietor of the tavern and Lion's Head, and by him the latter was retained till 1804, when it was par- chased by the late Charles Richal'dson, after whose death in 1S27 it devolved to his son, atad has since become the property of hig Grace the Duke of Bedford." — Till, in hia Preface to Descriptive Catalogue of English Medals. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 67 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 Komer, 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 comer of the Middle Temple gate. Fleet Street ; at present there are two Milton's Head public-houses in Notting- ham Dryden's Head was to be seen in 1761, at the door of H. Payne and Crossley, booksellers in Paternoster Eow. At Kate's Cabin, on the Great Northern Koad, between Chesterton and Alwalton, there is a sign of Dryden's head, painted by Sir William Beechey, when engaged as a house-painter on the decora- tion of Alwalton Hall. Dryden was often in that neighbourhood when on a visit to his kinsman, John Dryden of Chesterton. Pope's Head was in favour with the booksellers of the last century ; thus the Gentleman's Magazine, Sept. 1770, mentions a head of Alexander Pope in Paternoster Eow, painted by an eminent artist, but does not say who the painter was. Edmund Curll, the notorious bookseller in Eose 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 Curlt's piratical publication of Pope's literary correspondence, Curll, in May 22, 1735, addressed a letter of thanks to the House of Lorda, ending thus, — " I have engraved a new plate of Mr Popes 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.' " E. Griffiths, a bookseller in St Paul's Churchyard since 1750, had the Dunciad for his sign. He was agent for a very primitive social-evil move- ment ; advertisements emanating from this " sett of gentlemen sympathising with the misfortunes of young girls " occur in the papers of June and July 1752. One of the regulations was, " ^fS' None need to apply but such as are Fifteen years of age, anid not above Twenty-five ; older are thought past being re- 68 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. claim'd, unless good Recommendations are given. Drinkers of spirits and swearers have a bad chance." The Man of Eoss 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 EosB, 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 Rowb, the first emendator, corrector, and illus- trator of Shakespeare, was in 1735 the sign of a bookseller in Essex Street, Strand. The Camden Head and Camden Abms occur in four instances as the sign of London pubUcans. Cam- den TovTn, however, may perhaps take the credit of this last sign. Addison's Head was for above sixty years the sign of the then well-known firm of Corbett & Co. — ^first of C. Corbett, after- wards of his son Thomas, booksellers in Meet Street from 1740 tin the beginning of this century. De Johnson's Head, ex- hibiting a portrait of the great lexicographer, is a modem 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 Yoeick's Head, was the sign of John Wailis, a bookseller in Ludgate Street in 1795. Of modem poets Lord Byeon 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. inSTOBIG AND COMMEMORATIVE. 69 The latest of all literary celebrities who attained sufficient popularity to entitle him to a signboard was Sheridan Knowlbs, 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 dub in those days. Pierce Egan and Leman Kede were amongst its members ; so that it may be conjectured that the nights were not passed in moping.* Mythological divinities and heroes, also, have been very fairly represented on our signboards. At this head, of course, Bacchus (frequently with the epithet of Jolly) well deserves to be placed. In the time when the Bush was the usual alehouse sign, or rather when it had swollen to a crown of evergreens, a chubby little Bacchus astride on a tun was generally a pendant to the crown. In Holland and Germany we have seen a Beer king, (a modem invention, certainly,) named Oambrinus, taking the place of Bacchus at the beer-house door ; but, according to the six- teenth century notions, Bacchus included beer in his dominions. Hence he is styled " Bacchus, the God of brew'd wine and sugar, grand patron of robpots, upsey freesy tipplers, and supernaculum takers, this Bacchus, who is head warden of Vintner's HaU, ale connor, mayor of all victualling houses," &c. — M assinger's Virgin Martyr, a. ii. s. 1. Next to Bacchus, Apollo is most frequent, but whether as god of the sun or leader of the Muses it is difficult to say. Sometimes he is called Gloeious Apollo, which, in heraldic language, means that he has a halo round his head.t In the beginning of this century there was a notorious place of amuse- ment in St George's Fields, Westminster Koad, called the Apollo Gardens — a Vauxhall or a Eanelagh of a very low description. It was tastefiiUy fitted up, but being small and having few attrac- tions beyond its really good orchestra, it became the resort of the vulgar and the depraved, and was finally closed and built over. Minerva also is not uncommon — probably not so much be- cause she was the goddess of wisdom, but as " ye patroness of scholars, shoemakers, diers," &c. J Juno has a temple ia Church * Our slang friends the burlesque writers and parodists, would probably say somethmg about mopping, — Ed. t An " Apolto in his glory " is a charge in the apothecarips' arms, t \ubrey, Remains of Crentilisme and Judaism. Lansdowne MSS. 231, d. 106. 70 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Lane, Hull, and Neptune of course is of frequent occurrence in a country that holds the " Imperium pelagi ssevumque tridentem." The smith heing generally a thirsty soul, his patron Vulcan constitutes an appropriate alehouse sign, and in that capacity he frequently figures, particularly in the Black country. Amongst the quaint Dutch signboard inscriptions there is one which, in the seventeenth century, was written under a sign of Vulcan lighting his pipe : — " In Vulcanus. Hy steekt zyn pyp op aan't vyer Die goed tabak wil hebben die komt alhier. Je krygt een gestopte pyp toe en op kermis een glas dik bier." * Vulcan, as the god of fire, without which there is no smoke, was a common tobacconist's sign in Holland two hundred years agu. One of these dealers had the following rhymes afSxed to his Vulcan sign : — " Yulcan die lamme smid als hy was moci van smeden Ging hy wat zitten neer en ruste zyne leden De Goden zagen 't aan^ hy haalde nit zyn zak Zyn pypye en zyn doos en rookte doen tabak." + Meecuey, the god of commerce, was of frequent occurrence, as might be expected. Amongst the Eanks collection of shop- bills there is one of a fanshop in Wardour Street with the sign of the Meecuey and Fan. Both Cupid and Flora were signs at Norwich in 1750,| and CoMUS is frequently the tutelary god of our provincial public-houses. Castoe and Pollux, represented in the dress of Eoman soldiers of the empire standing near a cask of tallow, was the sign of T. & J. Bolt, taUow-chandlers, at the corner of Berner Street, Oxford Street, at the end of the last century, for the obvious reason that, like the Messrs Bolt, they were two brothers that spread light over the world. Our ad- miration for athletic strength and sports suggested the sign of Hekcules, as well as his biblical parallel Samson. As for the Heecules Pillaes, this was the classic name for. the Straits of Gibraltar, which by the ancients was considered the end of the world ; in the same classic sense it was adopted on outskirts of towns, where it is more common now to see the * At the Vulcan. He lights his pipe at the Are ;— whosoever wants t(> boy good tobacco let him come here ; — ^you will get a pipe filled into the bargain, asd a j^lass of strong beer in fair time. t Vulcan, that lame blacksmith, when he got tired over his work, sal do^m a while to rest his limbs. The gods saw it ; he took his cutty pipe and his tobacco box out of bis pocket and smoked a pipe of tobacco, t Omt. Mag., March 1812. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 71 World's End. In 1667 it -was the sign of Kichard Penck in Pall Mail, 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 pUlars, or puUing the pillars down — a strange cross between the biblical and the pagan Hercules. The Pillars of Hercules in Piccadilly is mentioned by Wycherley in the " Plain Dealer," 1676 : — " I should soon be picking up all our own mortgaged apostle spoons, bowls, and beakers out of most of the alehouses betwixt the Hercules Pillars and the Boat- swain in Wapping." The Marquis of Granby often visited the former house, and here Fielding, in " Tom Jones," makes Squire Western put up : — " The Squire sat down to regale himself over a bottle of wine with his parson and the landlord of the Her- cules Pillars, who, as the Squire said, would make an excellent third man, and would inform them of the news of the town ; for, to be sure, says he, he knows a great deal, since the horses of many of. the quality stand at his house."* In Pepys' time there was a Hercules PiQars 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 ahout 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 Comhill,t and under a print of Blanket fair (the fair held on the Thames when frozen over) occurs the following imprint : — " A map of the river Thames merrily called Blanket-fair, as it was frozen in the memorable year 1683-4, describing the Booths, Footpaths, Coaches, Sledges, Bull-baitings, and other remarks. Sold by * The History of Tom Jones, book xvi ch. ii. t Land. Guz., June 18-22, 1671. 72 THE HISTORY OF SIONBOA RDfl. Joseph Moxon on the West side of Fleet ditch, at the sign of the Atlas." Equally appropriate was Oephbus as the sign of the music shop of L. Peppard, next door to BickerstaflFe'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 withiu — ^in being fleeced. In the seventeenth century there was a Fleece Tavern in St James's : — " A BABE Consort of four Trumpets Marine, never heard of before in J\. England.* K any person desire to come and hear it, they may repair to the Fleece Tavern near St James's about 2 o'clock in the afternoon every day in the week except Sundays. Every consort shall continue one hour and so to begin again. The best places are 1 shilling, the others six- pence." — London Gazette, Feb. 1-4, 1674. This is amongst the earliest concerts on record in London. Another example of this sign worth mentioning was the Fleece Tavern, (in York Street,) Covent Garden, which, says Aubrey, " was very unfortunate for homicides ; there have been several killed — three in my time. It is now (1692) a private house. CUfton, the master, hanged himself, having perjured himself." + 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 kUled." On the Continent, also, this symbol was used; for instance, in 1687, by Jean Camusat, a printer in the Rue St Jacques, Paris ; his colo- phon represented Jason taking the golden fleece off a tree, with the motto — " Tegit et quos tangit inaurat." Another sign, of which the application is not very obvious, is Pegasus or the Flying Hoese, unless it refers to this rhyme : — " If with water you fill up your glasses. You' U never write anything wise ; For wine is the horse of Parnassus, Which hurries a bard to the skies.'' "John Gay, at the Flying Horse, between St Dunstan's Church * This •was not true, for Pepys went (24tli Oct. 1667) to hear the same instrument played by a Mr Prin, a Frenchman, " which he do beyond belief, and the truth is, it do 80 far outdo a trumpet as nothing more, and he do play anything very true. The instru- ment is open at th e end I discovered, but he would not let me look into it." Philips, in his "New World of Words," 1696, describes it as "an instrument with a bellows, re- sembling a lute, having a long neck with a string, which being struck with a hairbow sounds like a trumpet." f Aubrey, Miscellanies upon various subjects. niSTOEIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 73 and Chancery Lane, 1680," is an imprint under many ballads. John Gay undoubtedly had adopted this sign as a compKment to the Templars, in whose vicinity he lived, and vphose 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 Eogate Petersfield, has put up a parody in the shape of the Flying Bull The Hope and the Hope and Anchoe are constant signb with shop and tavern keepers. Pepys spent his Sunday, the 23d September 1660, at the Hope Tavern, in a not very godly manner ; and his account shews the curious business manage- ment of the taverns in the time : — " To the Hope and sent for Mr Chaplin, who with Nicholas Osborne and one Daniel come to us, and we drank of two or three quarts of wine, which was very good ; the drawing of our wine causing a great quarrel in the house between the two drawers which should draw us the beet, which caused a great deal of noise and falling out, till the master parted them, and came up to us and did give us a long account of the liberty he gives his servants, all alike, to draw what wine they will to please his customers ; and we eat above two hundred walnuts." In consequence of these excesses Master Pepys was very ill next day, but the particulars of the illness, though very graphi- cally entered into the diary, are " unfit for publication.'' The FoETUNB 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 veU 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 m 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 Beggae of Bethnal Geebn — still a public-house in the Whitechapel Road — has deco- rated the signpost for ages. The ballad was written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth ; but the legend refers to Henry de Montfort, son of the Earl of Leicester, who was supposed to have fallen at the battle of Evesham in the reign of Henry III. Not only was 74 THE HISTORY OF SIONBOAEDS. 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 Gut of Warwick, who occurs amongst the signs on trades tokens of the seventeenth cen- tury : that of Peel Beckford, in Field Lane, represents him as an armed man holding a boar's head erect on a spear. The wondrous strange feats of this knight form the subject of many a ballad. In the Koxburgh Collection there is one headed, " The valiant deads of chivaby atchieved by that noble knight. Sir Guy of Warwick, who, for the love of fair PhiUis, became a hermit, and dyed in a cave of a craggy rock a mUe distant from Warwick. In Normandy stoutly won by fight the Emperor's daughter of Almayne from many a valiant, worthy knight."* His most popular feat is the slaying of the Dun Cow on Dunsmore Heath, which act of valour is commemorated on many signs, " By gallant Guy of Warwick slain Was Colbrand, that gigantick Dane. Nor could this desp'rate champion daunt A dun cow bigger than elephaunt. But he, to prove his courage sterling, His wlunyard 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 follow- ing inscription on his sign of the Dun Cow : — " Walk in, gentlemen, I trust you'll find The Dun Cow's milk is to your mind." Another on the road between Durham and York : — " Oh, come you from the east. Oh, come you from the west. If ye will taste the Dun Cow's mUk, Te'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 • See in Bib. Top. Brit., vol, iv., a Critical Memoir on the Story of Guy of Warwick, by the Rev. Samuel Pegga. who supposes that Guy lived in Saxon times, and was the son of Simon, Baron of Wallingford. He mai-ried relicia, (PhiUis,) the daughter and heiress of Rohand, Earl of Warwick, who fioui'ished in the reign of Edward the Elder, and eo became Earl of Warwick, HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 75 of Mansfield.* Similar stories are told of many different kings : of King John and the Miller of Charlton, (from whom Cuckold's Point got its name ;) of King Edward and the tanner of Drayton Basset ; of Henry VIII. ; of James V. of Scotland, (the guidman of Ballageich ;) of Henry IV. of France and the pig-merchant ; of Charles V. of Spain and the cobbler of Brussels ; of Joseph II. ; of Frederick the Great ; and even of Haroun-al-Easchid, who used to go about incognito under the name of II Bondocani. The most frequent of aU ballad signs is unquestionably Robin Hood and Little John, his faithful accolyte. Robin Hood has for centuries enjoyed a popularity amongst the English people shared by no other hero. He was a crack shot, and of a manly, merry temper, qualities which made the mob overlook his confused notions about mewm and tuum, and other peccadilloes. His sign ia frequently accompanied by the following inscription : — " You gentlemen, and yeomen good. Come in and drink with Robin Hood. If Robin Hood be not at home. Come in and drink with Little John.'' Which last line a country publican, not very well versed in baUad lore, thus corrected : — " Come in and drink with Jemmie Webster." At Bradford, in Yorkshire, the following variation occurs : — " Call here, my boy, if you are dry. The fault's in you, and not in I. If Robin Hood from home is gone, Step in and drink with Little John." At Overseal, in Leicestershire : — " Robin Hood is dead and gone, Pray call and drink with Little John." Finally, at Turnham Green : — " Try Charrington's ale, you will find it good. Step in and drink with Robin Hood. If Robin Hood," &o. And to shew the perfect application of the rhyme, mine host informs the public that he is " Little John from the old Pack HoESB," (a public-house opposite.) One of the ballads in Robin Hood's Garland has given another signboard hero, namely, the Pindar of Wakefield, t George a Green. * In Ritson's Ancient Songs and Ballads. t The " pindar " was the man who took care of stray cattle, which he kept in the pinfold, or pound, until it was claimed and the expenses paid. 76 THE HIHTOEY OF SIGNBOARDS. " In Wakefielde there lives a joUy Pindar, In Wakefielde all on the greene. ' There is neither knight nor squire,' said the Pindar, ' Nor baron so bold, nor baron so bold, Dares make a trespass to the town of Wakefielde, But his pledge goes to the Pinfold.' " Drunken Bamaby mentions the sign in Wakefield in 1634 : — ■ " Straight at Wakefielde I was seen, a', Where I sought for George-a-Green, a'. But could find not such a creature. Yet on sign I saw his feature. Whose strength of ale had so much stirr'd me. That I grew stouter far than Jordie." There was formerly a public-house near St Chad's Well, Clerkenwell, bearing this sign, which at one period, to judge from the following inscription, would seem to have been more famous than the celebrated Bagnigge Wells hard by. A stone in the garden-wall of Bagnigge House said : — S. T. This is Bagnigge House, iteaeb THE PiNDAB A Wakispeildk 1680. Among the more uncommon ballad signs, we find the Babes in the Wood at Hanging Heaton, Dewsbury, West Eiding. Jane Shore was commemorated in Shoreditch in the seventeenth century, as we see from trades tokens. Valentine and Okson we find mentioned as early as 1711,* as the sign of a cofiee-house in LongLane, Bermondsey ; and there they remain tiU. the present day. Other chapbook celebrities are Mother Shipton, Kentish Town, and Low Bridge, Knaresboro' ; which latter village disputes with Shipton, near Londesborough, the honour of giving birth to this remarkable character in the month of July 1488. The fact is duly commemorated under her signboard in the former place : — " Near to this petrifying wall -f- I first drew breath, as records tell." Her life and prophecies have at all times been a favourite theme in popular literature. If we may believe her biographers, she • Datty rowrant, Feb. ]9, 1711. t The '* Dropping Well," one of the most noted petrifying springs in England, and so named on account of its percolating through the rock that hangs over it. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. J-J predicted the fall of Cardinal Wolsey, the dissolution of the monasteries, the establishment of the Protestant religion under Edward "VI., the cruelty of Queen Mary, the glorious reign of Queen Elizabeth, the defeat of the Armada, the Plague and Great Fire, and many things not yet come to pass. Like the Delphic oracles, her predictions were given in metre, and veiled in mystery. The plague and lire, for instance, are thus foretold : — " Triumphamt death rides London thro'. And men on tops of houses go." She is represented as of a most unprepossessing appearance ; although we certainly might have expected better from the daughter of a necromancer, or "the phantasm of ApoUo, or some aerial daemon who seduced her mother ;" — " her body was long, and very big-boned ; she had great goggling eyes, very sharp and fiery ; a nose of unproportionable length, having in it many crooks and turnings, adorned with great pimples, and which, like vapours of brimstone, gave such a lustre in the night, that the nurse needed no other light to dress her by in her childhood."* Another necromancer. Merlin, shares renown with Mother Shipton, both in chapbooks and on signboards. Merlin's Cave is the sign of a public-house in Great Audley Street, and in Upper Eosomon Street, ClerkenweU, in which places he doubtless still plays his old pranks, of changing men into beasts. In- numerable romances and histories of Merlin were printed in the middle ages. He appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth as early as the twelfth century, and Alain de I'lsle gave an ample explanation of his prophecies in seven books, printed in 1608. "This Merlin," says M. de la Monnoye, "tout magicien et fils du diable que Ton I'a era," has by the good CarmeUte, Baptiste Mantuanus, been metamorphosed into a saint. At the end of his " Tolentinum," a poem in three books, in honour of St Nicholas, (anno 1509,) he thus speaks of Merlin : — " Vitse venerabilis oKm Vir fuit et vates, venturi prsesoius aevi, Merlinua, laris infando de semine cretus. Hio satus infami ooitu pietate refulsit Eximia superum factus post funera consors." * This information we gather from a chapbook entitled " The Strange an I Wonderful History and Prophecies of Mother Shipton, by Ferraby, printer on the Marliet Place, Hull. It is evidently a reprint of a chapbook of the time of Charles II., as appears from many allusions. t Once there was a man who le.i a holy life, and was a prophet, who could see what would come to pass ; his name was Merlin, and he was the offspring of an evil and fiendish spirit. But though born from such a father, he shone forth in virtue, and after his death, became a companion of the saints. 78 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. His prophecies were also translated into Italian, and printed at Venice in 1516. llie annotators say it was reported that Merlin, by Ms enchantments, transported from Ireland those huge stones found in Salisbury plain. His cave was ia ClerkenweU, on the site where the alehouse now stands, and was in the reign of James I., one of the London sights strangers went to see.* We have a well-known chapbook hero in Jack of Newbuky, who had already attained to the signboard honours in the seventeenth century, when we find him on the token of John Wheeler, in Soper Lane (now Queen Street, Cheapside,) whilst at present, he may be seen in a full-length portrait in ChisweU Street, Finsbury Square. This Jack of Newbury, alias Winchcombe, alias Smallwoode, " was the most considerable clothier England ever had. He kept an hundred looms in his house, each managed by a man and a boy. He feasted King Henry VIII. and his first Queen Catherine at his own house in Newbury, now divided into sixteen clothiers' houses. He built the Church of Newbury, from the pulpit westward to the town."t At the battle oi Flodden in 1513, he joined the Earl of Surrey with a corps of one hundred men, well equipped at his sole expense, who distin- guished themselves greatly in that fight. He is buried in New- bury, where his brass effigy is stUl to be seen, purporting that he died February 15, 1519. An inn bearing his sign in NeWbury, is said to be built on the site of the house where he entertained King Harry. Thomas Deloney, the ballad-writer, wrote a tale about him, entitled, " The pleasant history of John Winchcomb, in his younger years called Jack of Newberry, the famous and worthy clothier of England, declaring his life and love, together with his charitable deeds and great hospitalitie. Entered in the Stationers' Book, May 7, 1596." Whittington and his Cat is stUl very common, not only in London but in the country also. Sometimes the cat is repre- sented without her master, as on the token of a shop in Long- acre, 1657, and on the sign of Vamey, a seal-engraver in •New Court, Old Bailey, 1783, whose shopbUlJ represents a large cat carved in wood holding an eye-glass by a chain. The story of Whittington is stUl a favourite chapbook tale, and has its parallel in the fairy tales of various other countries. Strapa- rola, in his " Piacevole Notte," is, we believe, the first who men- * Henry Peacham'3 Compleat Gentleman. t .John Collet's Historical Anecdotes, Add, MSS 3S90, p. Hi t In the Banks Collection. HISTOBIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 79 tions it. The earliest English narrative occurs in Johnson's " Crown Garland of Golden Eoses," 1612, but there is an allu- sion to " Whittington and his Puss" in the play of " Eastward Hoe !" 1603. For more than a century it was one of the stock pieces of Punch and his dramatic troop. Sept. 21, 1688, Pepys went to see it : " To Southwark Fair, very dirty, and there saw the puppet-show of Whittington, which is pretty to see ; and how that idle thing do work upon people that see it, and even myself too." Foote, in his comedy of the " Nabob," makes Sir Matthew Mite account for the legend by explaining the cat as the name of some quick-sailing vessels by which Whittington imported coals, which should have been the source of the Lord Mayor's wealth. In the Highgate Koad there is a skeleton of a cat in a public-house window, which by the people who visit there is firmly beheved to be the earthly remains of Whittington's identi- cal cat. The house is not far distant from the spot where the future Lord Mayor of London stopped to listen to the city beEa inviting him to return. It is now marked by a stone, with the event duly inscribed thereon. King Arthur's Eounb Table is to be seen on various public- houses. There is one in St Martin's Court, Leicester Square, where the American champion, Heenan, put up when he came to contest the belt with the valiant Tom Sayers. The same sign is also often to be met with on the Continent. In the seven- teenth century there was a famous tavern called la Table Roland in the VaU6e de MisSre at Paris. John-o'-Geoat's House is also used for a sign ; there was one some years ago in Windmill Street, Haymarket ; and at present there is a John- o'-Geoat's in Gray Street, Blackfriars Eoad. Both these and the Eound Table contain, we conceive, some intimation of that even-handed justice observed at the houses, where aU comers are treated alike, and one man is as good as another. Daeby and John, a corruption of Darby and Joan, and bor- rowed from an old nursery fable, is a sign at Crowle, in Lin- colnshire ; and Hob in the Well, with a similar origin, at Little Port Street, Lynn ; whilst SiE John Baeleycoen is the hero of a ballad allegorical of the art of brewing, &c. A favourite ballad of our ancestors originated the sign of the London Appeentice, of which there are still numerous examples. How they were represented appears from the Spectator, No. 428, viz., " with a lion's heart in each hand." The ballad informs u6 80 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. that the apprentice came off with flying colours, after endle&s adventures, one of which was that like Richard Coeur-de-Iion — he "robbed the lion of his heart." The ballad is entitled " The Honour of an Apprentice of London, wherein he declared his matchless manhood and brave adventures done by him in Turkey, and by what means he married the king's daughter of that same country." The Essex Serpent is a sign in King Street, Covent Garden, and in Charles Street, Westminster, perhaps in allusion to a fabu- lous monster recorded in a catalogue of wonders and awful prog- nostications contained in a broadside of 1704,* from which we learn that, " Before Henry the Second died, a dragon of marvel- lous bigness was discovered at St Osyph, in Essex." Had we any evidence that it is an old sign, we might almost be inclined to con- sider it as dating from the civil war, and hung up with reference to Essex, the Parliamentary general; for though we have searched the chroniclers fondest of relating wonders and monstrous appari- tions, we have not succeeded in finding any authority for the St Osyph Dragon, other than the above-mentioned broadside. literature of a somewhat higher class than street baUads, has likewise contributed material to the signboards. One of the oldest instances is the Luceecb, the chaste felo-de-se of Roman history, who, in the sixteenth century, was much in fashion among the poets, and was even sung by Shakespeare. We find that " Thomas Berthelet, prynter unto the kynges mooste noble grace, dweUyngo at the sygne of the Lucreoe, in Fletestrete, in the year of our Lordo 1536." In 1557, it was the sign of Leonard AxteU, in St Paul's Churchyard ; and in the reign of Charles L, of Thomas Purfoot, in New Rents, Newgate Market, both booksellers and printers. The Complete Angler was the usual sign of fish-tackle sellers in the last century, and the essays of the Spectator made the charac- ter of SiK Roger de Coverlby very popxilar with tobacconists. * This broadside is reprinted in Notes and Queries for January 15, 1859. Sussex had its snake as late as 1614. There is a pamphlet m the Harl. Collection, entitled, *' True and Wonderful — a discourse relating a strange and monstrous serpent, (or dragon,) lately discovered, and yet living, to the great annoyance and divers slaughter both of men and cattell, by his strong and violent Poyson, in Sussex, two miles from Horsam, in a woode called St Leonard's Forrest, and thirtie miles from London, this present month of August 1614." That this Sussex snake caused a great sensation, appears from the fact that seventeen years after, it is alluded to in " Whimsies: or, A New Cast of Cha- racters," 1631 ; " Nor comes his [the ballad-monger's] invention far short of his imagin- ation. For want of truer relations for a neede, he can find you out a Sussex draeon, some sea or inland monster, drawn out by some Shoe Lane man, [t. e., a sign-painter ; they all lived in Harp Alley, Shoe Lane,] in Gorgon-like features, to enforce more horror in the beholder." PLATE VI. THREE SQUIRRELS. (Fleet Street, circa 1668.) HAND AND STAR. (1550.) CHESHIRE CHEESE. (Modem sign, Aldennanbury, City.) P A. ER. ms Port And ■iUWAR.P KING S PORTER AND DWARF. (2srewgatc Street, circa 1666.) ROIAL OAK. [Roxbui^he Ballads, ] HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 8 1 Doctor Syntax tangs at the door of many public-houses, as at Preston, Oldham, Newcastle, Gateshead, &c. ; the Lady of thb Lake at Lowestoft ; Dandie Dinmont at West Linton, Carlisle ; Pickwick in Newcastle ; the Red Eovee, Barton Street, Glou- cester ; * Tam o' Shantee, Laurence Street, York, and various other towns ; Eobin Adaie, Benwell, Newcastle. Popular songs also belong to this class, as the Lass o' Goweie, Sunderland and Durham; Atod Lang Syne, Preston Street, Liverpool; Tulloch- GoEUM and Looh-na-Gak, both in Manchester ; Eob Eoy, Tithe- bum Street, Liverpool ; Plowees of the Forest, Blackfriars Eoad. On the whole, however, this class of names is much more prevalent in the northerly than in the southerly districts of Eng- land. Li the south, if we except Thjs Old English Gentleman, who occurs everywhere, the great Jm Grow is almost the only instance of the hero of a song promoted to the signboard. Robin- son Ceusoe is common to all the seaports of the kingdom, whilst Uncle Tom, or Uncle Tom's Cabin, is to be found everywhere, not only in England, but also on the Continent. Any little un- derground place of refreshment or beer-house difficult of access, is considered as fittingly named by Mrs Beecher Stowe's novel. A very appropriate, and not uncommon public-house sign is the Toby Philpott. That he well deserves this honour, appears from the following obituary notice, (in the Gent. Mag., Dec. 1810:)— " At the Ewes farm-house, Yorkshire, aged 76, Mr Paul Parnell, farmer, grazier, and maltster, who, during his lifetime, drank out of one silver pint cup upwards of £2000 sterling worth of Yorkshire Stingo, being remark- ably attached. to Stingo tipple of the home-brewed best quality. The cal- culation is taken at 2d. per cupful. He was the bon-vivant whom O'Keefe celebrated in more than one of his Bacchanalian songs under the appella- tion of Toby Philpott." Between St Albans and Harpenden, there was, some years ago, and perhaps there is stUl, a public-house called the Old Eoson. This name also appears to be borrowed from the well-known song, •' Old Rosin the Beau," beginning thus : — " I have travell'd this wide world over, And now to another I'll go, * The title of Cooper's novel seems to have takea hold of the popular fancy to an as- tonishing degree : not onlj are there several public-houses who have adopted it as their sign, but also race-horses, ships, and locomotive engines have been named after it. There is even a baked potato-can in the streets of London, decorated with that name ; it is built in the shape of a locomotive-engine, japanned red, and wheeled about the streets by an old woman. The name on a brass plate is screwed to the can, similar to the names of locomotive-engines. L 82 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. I know that good quarters are waiting To welcome old Rosin the Beau (ter.) ' When I am dead and laid out on the counter, A voice you wUl hear from below, Singing out brandy and water To drink to old Rosin the Beau (ter.) You must get some dozen good fellows. And stand them all round in a row. And drink out of half-gallon bottles. To the name of old Rosin the Beau," &o. These stanzas, and one or two more to the same import, were quite sufficient to make the old Beau a fit subject for the sign- board, irrespective of his other amiable qualities held forth in the song. The very common Old House at Home, too, is borrowed from a once-popular ballad, the verse of which is too weK known to need quotation here. The equally common Heaety Good Fellow is adopted from a Seven Dials ballad : — " I am a hearty good fellow, I live at my ease, I work when I am willing, I play when I please. With my bottle and my glass. Many hours I pass, Sometimes with a friend. And sometimes with a lass," &c. Of signboards portraying artists, but few instances occur ; and when they do, they are almost exclusively the property of print- sellers. We have only met with three : Kembrandt's Head, the sign of J. Jackson, printseUer, at the corner of Chancery Lane, Fleet Street, 1759 ; and of Nathaniel Smith, the father (?) of J. T. Smith, in Great May's Buildings, St Martin's Lane. Another member of that family, J. Smith, who kept a printshop in Cheap- side, where several of Hogarth's engravings were published, assumed the Hogarth's Head for his sign. The third is the Van Dyke's Head, the sign of C. Philips, engraver and print- publisher in Portugal Street, in 1761. Hogarth also had a head of Van Dyke as his trade symbol, made from small pieces of cork, but being gilt, he called it the Golden Head, (see under Miscel- laneous Signs.) In old times, more than at present, music was deemed a neces- sary adjunct to tavern hospitality and public-house enterfciinment. HISTORIC A ND COMMEMORA TI VE. 8 3 The fiddlers and ballad singers of the " tap " room, however, gave way to the newer brass band at the doors, and this, in its turn, is now gradually fading before the "music hall" and so-called " concert " arrangement. Singing, it may be remarked, is one of the first follies iuto which a man falls after a too free indulgence in the cup. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that musical signboards should have swung from time to time over the ale- house door. Paganini, who contributed so much to the popu- larity of that well-known part of the " Carnival de Venise " — still the shibboleth of aU fiddlers — is of very common occurrence. The love for music is also eloquently expressed by the sign of the Fiddler's Arms, G-omal Wood, Staffordshire. Jbnny Lind seems to be the only musician of modem times who has found her way to the signboard. In the last century, Handel's Head was common ; but at the present moment, no instance of its use remains. The Maid and the Magpie, a very common tavern title, is believed to be the only sign borrowed from an opera. In Queen Anne's time, there was a Puecell's Head in Wych Street, Drury Lane, the sign of a music-house. It represented that musician in a brown, full-bottomed wig, and green nightgown, and was very well painted. Purcell, who died in 1682, greatly improved English melody; he composed sonatas, anthems, and the music to various plays. His " Te Deum " and " Jubilate " are still admired. Actors, and favourite characters from plays, have frequently been adopted as signs. The oldest instance we find is Taeleton, or Dick Tarleton, who, in the sixteenth century, seems to have been common enough to make Bishop Hall allude to him in hia " Satyres," (b. vi., s. 1)— " honour far beyond a brazen shrine. To sit with Tarlton on an ale-post's sign.'' Tarleton is seen on the trades token of a house in Wheeler Street, Southwark ; and it is only within a very few years that this sign has been consigned to oblivion. Eichard, or " Dick " Tarleton was a celebrated low-comedy actor, born at Condover in Shrop- shire, and brought to town in the household of the Earl of Lei- cester. He first kept an ordinary in Paternoster Kow, called the Castle, much frequented by the booksellers and printers of St Paul's Churchyard. Afterwards, he kept the Tabor, in Grace- church Street. He was one of Queen Elizabeth's twelve player, in receipt of wages, and was at that time living as one of the 84 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. grooms of the cliamber at Barn Elms, but lost his situation by reason of some scurrilous reflections on Leicester and Kaleigh. He probably also performed at the Curtain in Shoreditch, in which parish he was buried, September 3, 1588. " The great popularity which Tarlton possessed may be readily seen from the numerous allusions to him in almost all the writers of the time, and few actors have been honoured with so many practical tokens of esteem. His portrait graced the ale-house, game-cocks were named after him, and a century after his death, his effigy adorned the Jakes." * The portrait of this famous wit is prefixed to the edition of his jests, printed in 1611, where he is represented in the costume of a clown playing on the tabor and pipe. Another portrait of him occurs as an accompaniment to the letter T, in a collection of ornamental letters,t with the following rhymes : — " Thia picture here set down within his letter T, Aright doth shew the forme and shape of Tharleton unto thee. When he in pleasaunt wise the counterfeit expreste. Of clowne with cote of russet hew, and startups wUi the reste ; Who merry many made when he appear'd in sight. The grave, the wise, as well as rude, att him did take delight. The partie now is gone, and closlie clad in claye ; Of all the jesters in the lande, he bare the praise awaie. Now hath he plaied his parte, and sure he is of this. If he in Christe did die to live with Him in lasting bliss." Spillek's Head was the sign of an inn in Clare Market, where one of the most famous tavern clubs was held. This meeting of artists, wits, humorists, and actors originated with the per- formances at Lincoln's Inn, about the year 1697. They counted many men of note amongst their members. CoUey Cibber was one of the founders, and their best president, not even excepting Tom d'Urfey. James Spiller, it should be stated, was a celebrated actor circa 1700. His greatest character was " Mat o' the Mint," in the Beggar's Opera. He was an immense favourite with the butchers of Clare Market, one of whom was so charmed with his performances, that he took down his sign of the Bull and BuTCHBE, and put up Spiller's Head. At SpUler's death, (Feb. 7, 1729,) the following elegiac verse was made by one of the butchers in that locality : — " Down with your marrow-bones and cleavers all. And on your marrow-bones ye butchers fall ! Eor prayers from you who never pra/d before, * Introduction to Tarlton's Jests, by 1. 0. HalliwelL t Han. MSS. 38M. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 85 Perhaps poor Jimmie may to life restore. ' What have we done ?' the wretched bailiffs cry, ' That th' only man by whom we lived should die !' Enraged they gnaw their wax and tear their writs, While butchers' wives fall in hysteric fits ; For, sure as they're alive, poor SpiUer's dead. But, thanks to jach Legar I we 've got his head. He was an inoffensive, merry fellow, When sober, hipp'd, blythe as a bird when mellow." A ticket for one of his benefit representations, engraved by Hogarth, is still a morceau recherche amongst print collectors, as much as £12 having been paid for one. " SpiUer's Life and Jests" is the title of a little book published at that time. Garrick's Head was set up as a sign in his lifetime, and in 1768 it hung at the door of W. GriflSths, a bookseller of Cathe- rine Street, Strand. It is still common in the neighbourhood of theatres. There is one in Leman Street, Whitechapel, not far from the place of his first successes, where, in 1742, he played at the theatre in Goodman's Fields, and " the town ran horn-mad after him," so that there were " a dozen dukes of a night at Goodman's Fields sometimes." * EoxELLANA was, in the seventeenth century, the sign of Thomas Lacy, of Cateaton Street, (now Gresham Street,) City. It was the name of the principal female character in " The Siege of Khodes," and was originally the favourite part of the hand- some Elizabeth Davenport, whose sham marriage to the Earl of Oxford, (who deceived her by disguising a trumpeter of his troop as a priest,) is told in De Grammont's Memoirs. After she had found out the Earl's deception, she continued under his protec- tion, and is occasionally mentioned, (always under the name of RozeUana,) with a few words of encomium on her good looks by that entertaining gossip, Pepys. Formerly there was a sign of Joey Grimaldi at a public-house nearly opposite Sadler's Wells Theatre ; not only had it the name, but addidit vultum verbis, in the shape of a clown with a goose under his arm, and a string of sausages issuing from his pocket. Joey's name being less familiar to the public of the present day, the house is now called the Clown. This, we think, is the List instance of an actor being elevated to signboard honours. Abel Dktjgger is one of the dramatis personce in Ben Jon- son's comedy of the Alchymist, and from the character given * Gray's Letter to Chute. Mitford, iL 138. 86 THE HISTORY OF SWNBOARDS. him by his friend Captain Face, we get some curious information concerning the mysteries of the tobacco trade of that day : — " This is my friend Abel, an honest fellow, He lets me hare good tobacco, and he does not Sophisticate it with sack lees or oil. Nor washes it with muscadel and grains, Nor buries it in gravel underground, Wrapp'd up in greasy leather or p clouts. But keeps it in fine lily pots, that open'd Smell like conserve of roses, or French beans. He has \aa maple block; his silver tongs, Winchester pipes, and fire of juniper. A neat, spruce, honest fellow, and no goldsmith." This worthy was, in the end of the last century, the sign of Peter Cockbum, a tobacconist in Fenchurch Street, formerly shopman at the Sir Eogee db Ooveelbt, as he informs the public on his tobacco paper.* According to the custom of the times, and one which has yet lingered in old-fashioned neighbour- hoods, this wrapper is adorned with some curious rhymes : — " At Druggee's Head, without a puflf, You '11 ever find the best of snuff. Believe me, I 'm not joking ; Tobacco, too, of every kind. The very best you 'U always find, For chewing or for smoaking. Tho' Abel, when the Humour 's in, At Drury Lane to make you grin. May sometimes take his station ; At number Hundred-Forty- Six, In Fenchurch Street he now does fix His present Habitation. His best respects he therefore sends. And thus acquaints his generous Friends, From Limehouse up to Holborn, That his rare snuffs are sold by none. Except in Fenchurch Street alone. And there by Peter Cockbum." Falstaff, whom we have already mentioned when speaking of Shakespeare, and Patji Pey, are both very common. The last is even of more frequent occurrence than " honest Jack" himself. Lower down in the scale of celebrities and public characters, we find the court-jester of Henry VIII., Old Will Someks, the sign of a public-house in Crispin Street, Spittalfields, at the pre- sent day. He also occurs on a token issued from Old Fish Street, in which he is represented very much the same as in his * Banks's Collpction. HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE. 87 portrait by Holbein, viz., Tifearing a long gown, with hat on his head, and blowing a horn. Under an engraving of this picture are the following lines : — " What though thou think'st me clad in strange attire, Knowe I am euted to my own deseire ; And yet the characters described upon mee May shew thee that a king bestowed them upon mee. This horn I have betokens Sommers' game, Which sportive tyme wUl bid thee reade my name, All with my nature well agreeing too, As both the name, and tyme, and hal3it doe." Formerly there used to be in the town a wooden figure of Win -with rams' horns and a pair of large spectacles ; and the story was told that he never would believe that his wife had pre- sented him with the " buU's feather" until he had seen it through his spectacles. Two portraits of Sommers are preserved at Hampton Court, one in a picture after Holbein, representing Henry VII. with his queen, Elizabeth, and Henry VIII. with his queen, Jane Sey- mour. Win is on one side, his wife on the other. The other portrait is by Holbein, three-quarter life size, where he is repre- sented looking through a closed window.* Ho also figures in Henry VIII.'s Uluminated Psalter, + in which King Henry's features are given to David, and those of WiU Sommers to the fool who accompanies him. Sommers was born at Eston Neston, Northamptonshire, where his father was a shepherd. His popularity arose from his frankness, which is thus eulogised by Ascham in his " Toxo- phUus :" — " They be not much unlike in this to WyU Sommers, the kingis foole, which smiteth him that standeth alwayes before his face, be he never so worshipful a man, and never greatlye lokes for him which lurkes behinde another man's backe that hurte him indeede." We next come to Beoughton, the champion pugilist of Eng- land in the reign of George II. He kept a public-house in the Haymarket, opposite the present theatre ; his sign was a por- trait of himself, without a wig, in the costume of a bruiser. Underneath was the following line, from .^neid, v 484 : — " HlO VIOTOB cj;sTns, artemqub eepono." Numerous public-houses already retail their good things under * This is engraved in Caulfield's Portraits of Remarkable and Eccentric Characters, as well as the wooden figure in the Tower, t MSS. Reg., 2 A. xvi. 88 THM HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. the auspices of the great Tom Sayees. One in PLmlico, Brighton, deserves especial mention, as it is reported to be the identical house in which the mighty champion made his entry on the stage of this world, for the noble purpose of dealing and receiving the blows of fistic fortune. But, as in the case of Homer's birthplace, the honour is contested ; almost every house in Pimlico lays claim to his nativity, and unless the great man writes his life and settles this mooted point, it is likely to give serious trouble to future historiographers. Another athlete, Topham, "the strong man," had also his quantum of signboards. " The public interest which his extra- ordinary exhibitions of strength had always excited did not die with him. His feats were delineated on many signs which were remaining up to 1800. One in particular, over a pubUo-house near the Maypole, in East Smithfield, represented his first great feat of puUing against two dray horses." * Thomas Topham was born in London in 1710. His strength almost makes the feats of Homer's heroes credible, for, besides pulling against two dray horses, in which he would have been successful if he had been properly placed, he lifted three hogs- heads of water, weighing 1836 lbs, broke a rope two inches in circumference, lifted a stone roller, weighing 800 lbs., by a chain with Ms hands only, lifted with his teeth a table six feet long, with half a hundredweight fastened to the end of it, and held it a considerable time in a horizontal position, struck an iron poker, a yard long and three inches thick, against his bare left arm until it was bent into a right angle, placed a poker of the same dimensions against the back of his neck, and bent it until the ends met, and performed innumerable other remarkable feats. In Daniel Lambert, whose portly figure acts as sign to a coffee-house on Ludgate HiU, and to a public-house in the High Street, St Martins, Stannford, Lincolnshire, we behold another wonder of the age. This man weighed no less than 52 stone 11 lb. (14 lbs. to the stone.) He was in his 40th year when he died, and the circumstances of his burial give a good idea of his enormous proportions. His coflSn, in which there was great difficulty of placing him, was 6 ft. 4 in. long, 4 ft. 4 in. wide, and 2 ft. 4 in. deep. The immense size of his legs made it almost a square case. It consisted of 112 superficial feet of ebn, and was built upon two axletrees and four clogwheels, and upon * Vnirholt, Remarkable aod Eccentric Characters, p 56. HISTORIC AND OOMMEMOBATIVE. 89 then. Lis remains were rolled into the grave, a regular descent having been made by cutting the earth away for some distance slopingly down to the bottom. The window and part of the wall had to be taken down to allow his exit from the house in which he died. His demise took place on June 21, 1809. Over the entrance to Bullhead Court, Newgate Street, there is a stone bas-relief, according to Horace Walpole once the sign of a house caUed The King's Porter and the Dwarf, with the date 1660. The two persons represented are William Evans and Jeffrey Hudson. Evans is mentioned by FuUer.* Jeffrey Hudson, the dwarf, had a very chequered life. He was born in 1609 at Okeham in Rutlandshire, from a stalwart father, keeper of baiting-buUs to the Duke of Buckingham. Having been intro- duced at court by the Duchess, he entered the Queen's service. On one occasion, at an entertainment given by Charles I. to his queen, he was served up in a cold pie ; at another time at a court ball, he was drawn out of the pocket of Will Evans, the huge door porter, or keeper, at the palace. In 1630 he was sent to France to bring over a midwife for the queen, but on his return was taken prisoner by Flemish pirates, who robbed him of £2500 worth of presents received in France. Sir John Davenant wrote a comic poem on this occasion entitled " Jeffereidos." During the civil wars Jeffrey was a captain of horse in the royal army ; he followed the queen to France, and there had a duel with a Mr Crofts (brother of Lord Crofts) whom he shot, for which mis- demeanour he was expelled the court. Taken prisoner by pirates a second time, he was sold as a slave in Barbary. When he ob- tained his liberty he returned to London, but got into prison for participation in the Titus Oates plot, and died shortly after his release in 1682. Walter Scott has introduced him in his " Peveril of the Peak." Jeffrey is not the only dwarf who has figured on a signboard, for in the last century there was a Dwarf Tavern in Chelsea Fields, kept by John Coan, a Norfolk dwarf. It seems to have been a place of some attraction, since it was honoured by the repeated visits of an Indian king. " On Friday last the Cherokee king and his two chiefs, were so greatly pleased with the curiosities of the Dwarfs Tavern in Chelsea Fields, that they were there again on Sunday at seven in the evening to drink tea, and wiU. be there again in a few days." — Daily Advertiaer, July 12, 1762. Two * Puller's Worthies, voce Monmouthshire. M go THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. years after we find the following advertisement: — "Yesterday died at the Dwarf Tavern in Chelsea Fields, Mr John Coan, the unparalleled Norfolk Dwarf." — Daily Advertiser, March 17, 1764. The name of Diety Dice, which graces a public-house in Bishopsgate Without, was transferred to those spirit stores from the once famous Diety Waeehousb formerly in Leadenhall Street, a hardware shop kept in the end of the last century by Eichard Bentley, aliots Dirty Dick, in which premises, until about fifteen or twenty years ago, the signboard of the original shop was still to be seen in the window. Bentley was an eccentric character, the son of an opulent merchant, who kept his carriage and lived in great style. In his early life he was one of the beaux in Paris, was presented at the court of Louis XVI., and enjoyed the re- putation of being the handsomest and best dressed Englishman at that time in the capital of France. On his return to London he became a new, though not a better, man. Brooms, mops, and brushes were rigorously proscribed from his shop ; all order was abolished, jewellery and hardware were carelessly thrown together, covered by the same shroud of undisturbed dust. So they re- mained for more than forty years, when he relinquished business in 1804. The outside of his house was as dirty as the inside, to the great annoyance of his neighbours, who repeatedly offered Bentley to have it cleaned, painted, and repaired at their expense; but he would not hear of this, for his dirt had' given him cele- brity, and his house was known in the Levant, and the East and West Indies, by no other denomination than the " Dirty Ware- house in Leadenhall Street." The appearance of his premises is thus described by a contemporary : — " Who tut has seen, (if he can see at all,) 'Twixt Aldgate's well-known pump and Leadenhall, A curious hardware Bhop, in generall full Of wares from Birmingham and Pontipool ? Begrimed with dirt, behold its ample front, With thirty years' coUeoted filth upou't ; In festoon'd cobwebs pendant o'er the door, While boxes, bales, and trunks are strew'd around the floor. • ••*••• Behold how whistling winds and driving raia Gain free admission at each broken pane. Safe when the dingy tenant keeps them out, With urn or tray, knife-case or dirty clout I HISTORIC AND COMMBMOBATIVE. 9 1 i' Here snuffers, waiters, patent screws for corks, There castors, cardracks, cheesetrays, knives and forks ; There empty cases piled in heaps on high, There packthread, papers, rope, in wild disorder lie." &c. &c. &c. The present Dirty Dick is a small pubHc-house, or rather a tap of a wholesale ■wine and spirit business in Bishopsgate Street Without. It has all the appearance of one of those establish- ments that started up in the wake of the army at Varna and Balaclava, or at newly-discovered gold-diggings. A warehouse or bam without floorboards ; a low ceiling, with cobweb festoons dangling from the black rafters ; a pewter bar battered and dirty, floating with beer ; numberless gas-pipes, tied anyhow along the struts and posts, to conduct the spirits from the barrels to the taps ; sample phials and labelled bottles of wine and spirits on shelves, — everything covered with virgin dust and cobweb, — in- deed, a place that would set the whole Dutch nation frantic. Yet, though it has been observed that cleanliness of the body is conducive to cleanliness of the soul, and vice versa, the regu- lations of this dirty establishment, (hung up in a conspicuous place,) are more moral than those of the cleaner gin-palaces, —as, for instance: — "No man can be served twice."* "No person to be served if in the least intoxicated." " No improper language permitted." " No smoMng permitted ;" whilst the last request, for fear of this charming place tempting customers to lounge about, says, " Our shop being small, difficulty occasionally arises in supplying the customers, who wiU greatly oblige by bear- ing in mind the good old maxim : — ' When you are in a place of business, Transact your business And go about your business.' " By a trades token we see that Old Pakr's Head was already in the seventeenth century the sign of a house in Chancery Lane. Circa 1825, a publican in Aldersgate put up the old patriarch, with the following medical advice : — " Your head cool. Tour feet warm, But a glass of good gin Would do you no harm." * This is an old "dodge," mentioned long ago by Decker in his "Seven Deadly Sins, seven times pressed to Death," &c. : — *' Then you have another brewing called Huff's ale, at which, because no man must have hut a pot at a iittmOt and so be gone, the restraint makes them more eager to come in, so that by this policie one may huffe it four or five times a dav." 92 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. Thomas Parr was born in 1483, and dying November 15, 1636, at tte age of 152, had lived in the reigns of ten several princes, — viz., Edward IV., Edward V., Eichard III, Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I. He was not the only one of the family who attained to a great age, for the London Evening Post, August 24, 1757, has the following note : — " Last week died at Kanne, in Shrop- shire, Eobert Parr, aged 124. He was great-grandson of old Thomas Parr, who died in the reign of King Charles I., and lies buried in Westminster Abbey. What is very remarkable is, that the father of Eobert was 109; the grandfather 113; and the great-grandfather, the said Thomas, is weU known to have died at the age of 152." Signs of old Parr are still remaining at Gravesend and at Eochester. Thomas Hobson, (Hobson's Choice,) the benevolent old carrier, is the sign of two public-houses in Cambridge, — the one called Old HoSsoN, the other Hobson's House. His own inn in London was the Bull Inn in Bishopsgate Street, where he was repre- sented in fresco, having a £100 bag under his arm, with the words, " The fruitful mother of an hundred more." Here is an engraving of him by John Payne, his contemporary, which also represents him holding a bag of money. Under it are these lines : — " Laugh not to see so plaine a man va. print ; The shadow 's homely, yet there 's something in 't. Witness the Bagg he wears, (though seeming poore,) The fertile Mother of a thousand more. He was a thriving man, through lawful gain. And wealthy grew by warrantable faime. Men laugh at them that spend, not them that gather, Like thriving sonnes of such a thrifty father." The print also informs us that he died at the age of eighty-six, in the year 1630. Milton, who wrote two epitaphs upon him, says, that " he sibkened in the time of his vacancy, being forbid to go to London by reason of the plague." Among this class of minor celebrities we may also place those who put up their own head for signs. Taylor, the water poet, (see Mourning Crown, pp. 49,) was one of the first. Next to him followed Pasqua Eosee ; according to his handbiU, " the first who made and publicly sold coflfee-drink in England." His establishment was " in St Michael's Alley, in CornhiU, at the sign of his own head." This handbill largely enters into the vir- tues of the " coffep-drink," gives the natural history of the plant. HISTORIC AND COMMEMOEATIVX. 93 prescribes how to make the drink, and advises that " it is to be dnlnk, fasting an hour before, and not eating an hour after, and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured ; the which will never fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise any blisters by reason of that heat." The next enters upon a glowing description of all the evils cured by that drink, as fumes, headaches, defluxions of rhumes, dropsy, gout, scurvy, king's-evil, spleen, hypochondriac, winds, stone, &c. This coffee-house was opened in 1652. Lebbck's Head was another instance of the owner setting up his own head as a sign ; and though his name has not filled the trumpet of fame, yet had he many times bravely stood the fire, and filled the mouths of his contemporaries, for he kept an ordi- nary (about 1690) at the north-west corner of HaH-moon Passage, (since called Bradford Street.) The sign seems to have found imitators at the time, and is even yet kept up by tradition. There is Lebeck's Head in Shadwell, High Street ; a Lebeck's Inn and Lebeck's Tavern in Bristol ; and a Lebeck and Chaff- cutter at a village in Gloucestershire. A stiU more famous house was the Pontack's Head, formerly called the White Beae, in Christ Church Passage, (leading from Newgate Street to Christ Church.) This tavern having been de- stroyed by fire, Pontack, the son of a president of the parliament of Bordeaux, opened a new establishment on its site, and assum- ing his father's portrait as its sign, called it the Pontack's Head. It was the first fashionable eating-house in London, was opened soon after the Restoration, and continued in favour until about the year 1780, when it was puUed down to make room for the building of the vestry haU of Christ Church. De Foe describes it as " a con- stant ordinary for all comers at very reasonable prices, where you may bespeak a dinner from four or five shillings a head to a guinea, or what sum you please." * In the beginning of the eighteenth century the dinners had become proverbially extravagant : — " Now at Pontack's we '11 take a bit, Shall quicken Nature's appetite. Here, shew a room ! wliat have you got ? The waiter (cries) What have we not ? All that the season can afford, Fresh, fat, and fine, upon my word A Guinea ordinary, sir.'' This Guinea ordinary was : — " every way compleaii, Adom'd and beautifully dress'd. But what it was could not be guess'd." * Journey through England, vol. i. p. 176. 94 THE HISTORY OF SIONBOARDS. The waiter, however, gives the menu, which contains — Bird's nest soup from China ; a ragout of fatted snails ; bantam pig, but one day old, stufifed with hard row and ambergris ; French peas stewed in gravy, with cheese and garlick ; an incomparable tart of frogs and forced meat ; cod, with shrimp sauce ; chickens en surprise, (they had not been two hours from the shell,) and similar dainties.* Pontack contributed much towards bringing the French wines in fashion, being proprietor of some of the Bordeaux vineyards which bore his name. About the same time another tavern flourished, with its mas- ter's head for sign ; this was Cavbac's,+ celebrated for wine ; of him Amhurst sang : — " Now sumptuously at Caveac's dine. And drink the very best of wine." Though it cannot be said that Don Saiteeo put up his por- trait for a sign, yet his coffee-house was named after him, and is stUl extant under the same denomination in Cheyne Walk, Chel- sea. This house was opened in 1695 by a certain Salter, who had been servant to Sir Hans Sloane, and had accompanied him on his travels. Chelsea at that time was a village, full of the suburban residences of the aristocracy, and the pleasant situation of Salter's house soon made it the resort of merry companions, on their way to or from friends' villas, or Vauxhall, Jenny Whin's, and other places of pubhc resort in the neighbourhood. Vice-Admiral Mundy, on his return from the coast of Spain, amused with the pedantic dignity of Salter, christened hiTn Don Saltero, and under that name the house has continued till this day. From his connexion with the great Sir Hans Sloane, and the tradition of a descent from the Tradescants, Salter was of course in duty bound to have a museum of curiosities, which, by gifts from Sir Hans and certain aristocratic customers in the army and navy, soon became sufficiently interesting to constitute one of the London sights. It existed more than a century, and was at last sold by auction in the summer of 1798. From his catalogue % (headed with the words, " O Eaee !") we gather that the curiosities fully deserved that name, for amongst them we find : " a piece of St Catherine's skin ;" " a painted ribbon from Jerusalem, with which our Saviour was tied to the pillar when * Metamorphosis of the Town ; or, a View of the Present Tashions. London : Printed for J. Wilford at the Threb Plowbr de Luobs, behind the Chapter House in St Paul's Churchyard, 1730. t Oddly enough, both Cave and Ponto are terms of some games at cards. t There is a copy in the British Museum. BISTOBIC AND COMMF.MOEATIVE. 95 scourged, witli a motto;"* "a very curious young mermaid- fish ;" " manna from Canaan, it drops from the clouds twice a year, in May and June, one day in each month ;" "a piece of nun's skin ;" " a necklace made of Job's tears ;" " the skeleton (sic) of a man's finger ;" " petrified rain ;" " a petrified lamb, or a stone of that animal ;" " a starved cat in the act of catching two mice, found between the walls of Westminster Abbey when re- pairing ;" " Queen Elizabeth's chambermaid's hat," &c. t A most amusing paper in the TaMer, No. 34, gives a full- length portrait of Salter, who appears to have been an " original" Music was his besetting sin, and with very little excuse for it. In that paper the museum, too, is taken to task. Eichard Crom- well used to be a visitor to this house, where Pennant's father, when a child, saw him, " a very neat old man, with a placid countenance." Franklin also, when a printer's apprentice, " one day made a party to go by water to Chelsea in order to see the college, and Don Saltero's curiosities." There is a rather amusing advertisement of the Don's in the Weekly Journal for June 23, 1723 : — " Sib,— Fifty years since to Chelsea great, From Kodnam on the Irish main, I stroU'd with maggots in my pate. Where much improved they still remain. Through yarious employs I 've past, Toothdrawer, trimmer, and at last, I'm now a gimcrack whim-collector. Monsters of all sorts here are seen. Strange things in nature as they grew so ; Some relicks of the Sheba queen, And fragments of the famed Bob Cruso ; Knic^acks to dangle round the wall. Some in glass cases, some on shelf ; But what 's the rarest sight of all, Tour humble servant shows himself. On this my chiefest hope depends. Now if you win the cause espouse, * Thismofto was : " Misura della Colonna di Christo n'o," i-c, Measure of the colaiaa of our Saviour. f A brother £oniface, Adams, *' at the Eotal Swait in Kingsland Road, leading from Shoreditch Church," (1756) liad also a hnackatory, which, from his catalogue, looks veiy like a parody on the Don's. He exhibited, for instance, " Adam's eldest daughter's hat;" " the heart of famous Bess Adams, that was hanged with Lawyer Carr, January 18, 1736.37 i" " the Vicar of Bray's clogs ;" "anengine to shell green peas with;" "teeth that grew in a fish's belly;" "Black Jack's ribs;" "the very comb that Adam combed his son Isaac's and Jacob's head with;" "rope that cured Captain Lowry of the head, ach, earach, toothach, and bellyach;" "Adam's key to the fore and back door of the garden of Eden," &c., &c., and 500 other curiosities. 96 THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS. In journals pray direct your frienda To my Museum-Coffeehouse ; And in requital for the timely fayour I '11 gratis bleed, draw teeth, and be your shaver. Nay, that your pate may with my noddle tally, And you shine bright as I do — marry shall ye. Freely consult my revelation MoUy ; Nor shall one jealous thought create a huff, For she has taught me manners long enough. " Chelsea Knadkatory. Don Salteeo." At the end of his catalogue a list of the donors is added, most of whom, doubtless, also frequented his house. Amongst them the following names appear : — the Duke of Buccleuch, the Earl of Sutherland, Sir John Balchen, Sir Eob. Cotton, Bart., Sir John Cope, Bart., Sir Thomas de Veil, Sir Francis Drake, Lady- Humphrey, Sir Thomas Littleton, Sir John Molesworth, the Hon. Capt. WiUiam Montague, Sir Yelverton Peyton, George Selwyn, the Hon. Mr Vemey, Sir Francis Windham, &c., besides numbers of naval and military officers. The Mother Eedcap is a sign that occurs in various places, as in Upper HoUoway, in the High Street, Camden Town, in Blackburn, Lancashire, in Edmund's Lowland, Lincolnshire,