Dotheboys.
P.S.--It would not be any ill-service to our language to pull up the
stockings of the tight-laced occasionally, though I have here rushed in to
the rescue.
_Belle Sauvage_ (Vol. viii., pp. 388. 523.).--Mr. Burn, in his _Catalogue
of the Beaufoy Cabinet of Tokens_ presented to the Corporation of London,
just published, after giving the various derivations proposed, says that a
deed, enrolled on the Claus Roll of 1453, puts the matter beyond doubt:
"By that deed, dated at London, February 5, 31 Hen. VI., John Frensh,
eldest son of John Frensh, late citizen and goldsmith of London,
confirmed to Joan Frensh, widow, his mother--'Totum ten' sive hospicium
cum suis pertin' vocat' Savagesynne, alias vocat' le Belle on the
Hope;' all that tenement or inn with its appurtenances, called Savage's
Inn, otherwise called the Bell on the Hoop, in the parish of St.
Bridget in Fleet Street, London, to have and to hold the same for term
of her life, without impeachment of waste. The lease to Isabella Savage
must therefore have been anterior in date; and the sign in the olden
day was the Bell. 'On the Hoop' implied the ivy-bush, fashioned, as was
the custom, as a garland."--P. 137.