HISTORIC AND COMMEMORATIVE SIGNS.
The Greeks honoured their great men and successful commanders by
erecting statues to them; the Romans rewarded their popular favourites
with triumphal entries and ovations; modern nations make the portraits
of their celebrities serve as signs for public-houses.
“Vernon, the Butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good have had their tithe of talk,
And fill’d their signpost then, like Wellesley now.”
As Byron hints, popular admiration is generally very short-lived; and
when a fresh hero is gazetted, the next new alehouse will most probably
adopt him for a sign in preference to the last great man. Thus it is
that even the Duke of Wellington is now neglected, and in his place we
see General Havelock, Sir Colin Campbell, Lord Palmerston, and Mr
Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not omitting the fair
Princess of Denmark. We will not now dwell upon these modern
celebrities, but rather direct our attention to those illustrious dead
upon whom the signboard honours were bestowed in bygone ages.
Many signboards have an historic connexion of some sort with the place
where they are exhibited. Thus the ALFRED’S HEAD, at Wantage, in
Berkshire, was in all probability chosen as a sign because Wantage was
the birthplace of King Alfred. So the CANUTE CASTLE, at Southampton,
owes its existence to a local tradition; whilst admiration for the great
Scotch patriot made an innkeeper in Stowell Street, Newcastle, adopt SIR
WILLIAM WALLACE’S ARMS. The CÆSAR’S HEAD was, in 1761, to be seen near
the New Church in the Strand,[54] and, in the beginning of this century,
was the sign of a tavern in Soho, which afterwards removed to Great
Palace Yard, Westminster. Even at the present day, his head may be seen
outside certain village alehouses; but this we may attribute to that
provincial popularity which the Roman hero shares with Oliver Cromwell;
for as the Protector gets the blame of having made nearly all the ruins
which are to be found in the three kingdoms, so Cæsar is generally named
by country people as the builder of every old wall or earthwork the
origin of which is unknown.
Notwithstanding the popular censure, CROMWELL is still honoured with
signboards in places where his memory has lingered, as at Kate’s Hill,
near Dudley.
In most cases, however, signboard popularity is rather short-lived;
“_dulcique animos novitate tenebo_” seems to be essentially the motto of
those that choose popular characters for their sign. Had this modern
tribute of admiration been in use at the time of the Preacher, it might
have afforded him one more illustration of the vanity of vanities to be
found in all sublunary things. Horace Walpole noticed this fickleness of
signboard fame in one of his letters:--
“I was yesterday out of town, and the very signs, as I passed through
the villages, made me make very quaint reflections on the mortality of
fame and popularity. I observed how the Duke’s Head had succeeded
almost universally to Admiral Vernon’s, as his had left but few traces
of the Duke of Ormond’s. I pondered these things in my breast, and
said to myself, ’Surely all glory is but as a sign!’”[55]
Some favourites of the signboard have, however, been more fortunate than
others. HENRY VIII., for instance, may still be seen in many places;
indeed, for more than two centuries after his death, almost every KING’S
HEAD invariably gave a portrait of Bluff Harry.
Older kings occasionally occur, but their memories seem to have been
revived rather than handed down by successive innkeepers. If we are to
believe an old Chester legend, however, THE KING EDGAR INN, in Bridge
Street of that city, has existed by the same name since the time of the
Saxon king. The sign represents King Edgar rowed down the river Dee by
the eight tributary kings. The present house has the appearance of being
built anterior to the reign of Elizabeth, and the sign looks almost as
old, but it would be unwise to give the place or the sign a much higher
antiquity. KING JOHN is the sign under whose auspices Jem Mace, the
pugilist, keeps a public-house in Holywell Lane, Shoreditch. The same
king also figures in Albemarle Street and in Bermondsey; whilst the
great event of his reign, MAGNA CHARTA, is a sign at New Holland, Hull.
JOHN OF GAUNT may be seen in many places; and we may surmise that his
upholders are stanch Protestants, who value his character as a reformer
and supporter of Wicliffe. The BLACK PRINCE may not unlikely have come
down to us in an uninterrupted line of signboards; so little was his
identity sometimes understood, that there is a shop-bill in the “Banks
Collection”[56] on which this hero is represented as a negro!
There is a QUEEN ELEANOR in London Fields, Hackney, probably the
beautiful and affectionate queen of Edward I., buried in Westminster
Abbey, 1290, in honour of whom Charing Cross, Cheapcross, and seven
other crosses, were erected on the places where her body rested on its
way to the great Abbey. What prompted the choice of this sign it is hard
to say.
At Hever, in Kent, a rude portrait of Henry VIII. may be seen. Near this
village the Bolleyn or Bullen family formerly held large possessions;
and old people in the district yet shew the spot where, as the story
goes, King Henry often used to meet Sir Thomas Bolleyn’s daughter Anne.
Be this as it may, years after the unhappy death of Anne, the village
alehouse had for its sign, BULLEN BUTCHERED; but the place falling into
new hands, the name of the house was altered to the BULL AND BUTCHER,
which sign existed to a recent date, and would probably have swung at
this moment, but for a desire of the resident clergyman to see something
different. He suggested the KING’S HEAD; and the village painter was
forthwith commissioned to make the alteration. The latter accepted the
task, drew the bluff features of the monarch, and represented it as
other King’s Heads, but in his hands placed a large axe, which signboard
exists to this day.
As for QUEEN ELIZABETH, she was the constant type of the Queen’s Head,
as her father was of the King’s Head; and, like him, she may still be
seen in many places. It is somewhat more difficult to ascertain who is
meant by the QUEEN CATHERINE in Brook Street, Ratcliffe Highway; whether
it be Queen Catherine of Aragon, or Queen Catherine of Braganza. QUEEN
ANNE, in South Street, Walworth, has evidently come down to us as the
token of that house since the day of its opening, just as the QUEEN OF
BOHEMIA, who, until about fifty years ago, continued as a sign in Drury
Lane.[57] This was Elizabeth, daughter of James I., married to Frederic
V., Elector-Palatine, who, after her husband’s death, lived at Craven
House, Drury Lane, and died there, February 13, 1661, having been
privately married, it is thought, to Lord Craven, who was foremost in
fighting the battles of her husband.
Of KING’S HEADS, Henry VIII. is the oldest on authentic record. But
this does not prove that he was the first; for, as there lived great men
before Agamemnon, so most kings during their reign will, in all
probability, have had their signs. Among Henry’s successors, we find the
head of Edward VI. on a trades token; whilst CHARLES THE FIRST’S HEAD
was the portrait hanging from the house of that scoundrel Jonathan Wild,
in the Old Bailey. Even at the present day there is a sign of CHARLES
THE FIRST at Goring Heath, Reading. The MARTYR’S HEAD in Smithfield,
1710, seems also to have been a portrait of Charles I.; so, at least,
the following allusion gives us to understand:--
“May Hyde, near Smithfield, at the Martyr’s Head,
Who charms the nicest judge with noble red,
Thrive on by drawing wines, which none can blame,
But those who in his sign behold their shame;”[58]
which seems to be an allusion to Puritanical water-drinkers. To this
unfortunate king belongs also the sign of the MOURNING BUSH, set up by
Taylor the water-poet over his tavern in Phœnix Alley, Long Acre, to
express his grief at the beheading of Charles I.; but he was soon
compelled to take it down, when he put up the POET’S HEAD, his own
portrait, with this inscription:--
“There is many a head hangs for a sign;
Then, gentle reader, why not mine?”
This “Poeta Aquaticus,” as he sometimes called himself, was a boatman on
the Thames, and alehouse-keeper by profession, besides being the author
of fourscore books of very original poetry. At the same time that he put
up his new sign of the Poet’s Head, he issued a rhyming pamphlet, in
which occur the following lines:--
“My signe was once a _Crowne_, but now it is
Changed by a sudden metamorphosis.
The crowne was taken downe, and in the stead
Is placed John Taylor’s, or the _Poet’s Head_.
A painter did my picture gratis make,
And (for a signe) I hang’d it for his sake.
Now, if my picture’s drawing can prevayle,
’Twill draw my friends to me, and I’ll draw ale.
Two strings are better to a bow than one;
And poeting does me small good alone.
So ale alone yields but small good to me,
Except it have some spice of poesie.
The fruits of ale are unto drunkards such,
To make ‘em sweare and lye that drinke too much.
But my ale, being drunk with moderation,
Will quench thirst, and make merry recreation.
My book and signe were publish’d for two ends,
T’ invite my honest, civill, sober friends.
From such as are not such, I kindly pray,
Till I send for ‘em, let ‘em keep away.
From _Phœnix Alley_, the _Globe Taverne_ neare,
The _middle of Long Acre_, I _dwell_ there.
“JOHN TAYLOR, _Poeta Aquaticus_.”
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
EAGLE AND CHILD.
(Banks’s Bills, circa 1750.)
ROBIN HOOD AND LITTLE JOHN.
(Roxburghe Ballads, 1600.)
GRIFFIN AND CHAIR.
(Banks’s Bills, 1790.)
BOLT-IN-TUN.
(Fleet Street).
BOAR’S HEAD.
(Eastcheap.)
BULL’S HEAD.
(Longhborough, Linc., 1806.)]
The MOURNING CROWN was afterwards revived, and in the last century it
was the sign of a tavern in Aldersgate, where, on Saturdays, when
Parliament was not sitting, the Duke of Devonshire, the Earls of Oxford,
Sunderland, Pembroke, and Winchelsea, Mr Bagford the antiquary, and
Britton the musical small-coalman, used to refresh themselves, after
having passed the forepart of the day in hunting for antiquities and
curiosities in Little Britain and its neighbourhood.
Not only was the Crown put in mourning at the death of Charles I., but
also the MITRE. Hearne has an anecdote which he transcribed from Dr
Richard Rawlinson:--“Of Daniel Rawlinson, who kept the Mitre Tavern in
Fenchurch Street, and of whose being sequestered in the Rump time, I
have heard much. The Whigs tell this, that upon the king’s murder he
hung his sign in mourning. He certainly judged right; the honour of the
mitre was much eclipsed through the loss of so good a parent of the
Church of England. Those rogues say, this endeared him so much to the
Churchmen that he soon throve amain, and got a good estate.”
CHARLES THE SECOND’S HEAD swung at the door of a “music-house” for
seafaring men and others, in Stepney, at the end of the seventeenth
century. In a great room of this house there was an organ and a band of
fiddles and hautboys, to the music whereof it was no unusual thing for
parties, and sometimes single persons,--and those not of very inferior
sort,--to dance. At the present day, that king’s memory is still kept
alive on a signboard in Herbert Street, Hoxton, under the name of the
MERRY MONARCH.
To his miraculous escape at Boscobel we owe the ROYAL OAK, which,
notwithstanding a lapse of two centuries and a change of dynasty, still
continues a very favourite sign. In London alone it occurs on twenty-six
public-houses, exclusive of beerhouses, coffee-houses, &c. Sometimes it
is called KING CHARLES IN THE OAK, as at Willen Hall, Warwickshire. The
Royal Oak, soon after the Restoration, became a favourite with the shops
of London; tokens of some half a dozen houses bearing that sign are
extant. What is rather curious is that, not many years since, one of the
descendants of trusty Dick Pendrell kept an inn at Lewes, in Sussex,
called the Royal Oak.
There is a trades token of “William Hagley, at the RESTORATION, in St
George’s Fields;” but how this event was represented does not appear. At
Charing Cross it was commemorated by the sign of the PAGEANT Tavern,
which represented the triumphal arch erected at that place on occasion
of the entry of Charles II., and which remained standing for a year
after. This was evidently the same house which Pepys calls the TRIUMPH.
It seems to have been a fashionable place, for he went there, on the
25th May 1662, to see the Portuguese ladies of Queen Catherine. “They
are not handsome,” says he, “and their fardingales a strange dress. Many
ladies and persons of quality come to see them. I find nothing in them
that is pleasing; and I see they have learned to kiss and look freely up
and down already, and, I believe, will soon forget the recluse practice
of their own country. They complain much for lack of good water to
drink.” The Triumph is still the sign of a public-house in Skinner
Street, Somers Town.
QUEEN MARY was in her day a very popular sign, as may be gathered from
many of the shop-bills in the Banks Collection; whilst WILLIAM AND MARY
are still to be seen in Maiden Causeway, Cambridge. The accession of the
house of Brunswick produced the BRUNSWICK, still very common,
particularly in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Then come the Georges, of
whom GEORGE III. and GEORGE IV. still survive in nearly as many
instances as their successor, WILLIAM IV.; with them a few of the royal
Dukes of CLARENCE, SUFFOLK, and, above all, “the Butcher CUMBERLAND;”
until at length we come to PRINCESS VICTORIA, and, finally, the QUEEN
VICTORIA, the BRITISH QUEEN, ISLAND QUEEN, &c. Under one of her signs at
Coopersale, in Essex, is the following inscription:--
“The Queen some day
May pass this way,
And see our Tom and Jerry.
Perhaps she’ll stop,
And stand a drop,
To make her subjects merry.”
Among the foreign kings and potentates who have figured in our open-air
walhalla, the Turkish sultans seem to have stood foremost. MORAT
(Amurat) and SOLIMAN were constant coffee-house signs in the seventeenth
century. Trades tokens are extant, in the Beaufoy and other collections,
of a coffee-house in Exchange Alley, the sign of Morat, with this
distich:--
“MORAT . Y^{E} . GREAT . MEN . DID . MEE . CALL
WHERE . ERE . I . CAME . I . CONQUER’D . ALL.”
On the reverse: “_Coffee, tobacco, sherbett, tea, and chocolat retal’d
in Exchange Alley._” The same house figures in advertisements of the
time, giving the prices of those various articles:--
“AT THE COFFEE-HOUSE in Exchange Alley is sold by Retail the right
Coffee-powder, from 4s. to 6s. _per pound_, as in goodness: that
pounded in a mortar at 3s. _per pound_; also that termed the right
Turkie Berry, well garbled, at 3s. _per pound_--the ungarbled for
less; that termed the East India Berry at 20d. _per pound_, with
directions gratis how to make and use the same. Likewise, there you
may have Tobacco, Verinas and Virginia, Chocolatta--the ordinary
pound-boxes at 2s. _per pound_; also Sherbets (made in Turkie) of
Lemons, Roses, and Violets perfumed; and Tea according to its
goodness, from 6s. to 60s. _per pound_. For all of which, if any
Gentleman shall write or send, they shall be sure of the best as they
shall order; and to avoid deceit, warranted under the House
Seal--viz., MORAT THE GREAT,” &c.--_Mercurius Publicus_, March 12-19,
1662.
The GREAT MOGOL also had his share of signboards, of which a few still
survive; one, for instance, in New Bartholomew Street, Birmingham. KOULI
KHAN we find only in one instance, (though there were probably many
more,) namely, on the sign of a tavern by the Quayside, Newcastle, in
1746.[59] This house had formerly been called the Crown, but changed its
sign in honour of Thomas Nadir Shah, or Kouli Khan, who, from having
been chief of a band of robbers, at last sat himself on the throne of
Persia. He was killed in 1747. One of the reasons of his popularity in
this country was the permission he granted to the English nation to
trade with Persia, the most chimerical ideas being entertained of the
advantages to be derived from that commerce. Hanway, the philanthropist,
was for some time concerned in it, but died before he could carry out
the scheme; ultimately, the death of Nadir Shah himself put an end to
it.
The INDIAN KING, which we meet with so frequently, is an extremely vague
personage, which various Indian potentates might take for themselves as
the cap fitted. It was generally set up when some king from the far East
visited the metropolis, and for a short time created a sensation. Thus,
in 1710, there were four Indian kings from “states between New England,
New York and Canada,” who had audiences with Queen Anne, and seems to
have been a good deal talked about. (_See Spectator_, No. 50.)
Again, in 1762, London was honoured with the visit of a Cherokee king,
and thus many before and after him have created their nine days’ wonder.
Visits of European monarchs were also commemorated by complimentary
signs. One of the oldest was the KING OF DENMARK, and few kings better
than he deserved the exalted place at the alehouse door; yet, such is
the ingratitude of the world, that he seems now completely forgotten.
The sign originated in the reign of James I., who married a daughter of
Christian IV., King of Denmark. In July 1606, the royal father-in-law
came over on a visit, when the two kings began “bousing” and carousing
right royally, the court, of course, duly following the example. “I came
here a day or two before the Danish king came,” says Sir John
Harrington, “and from that day he did come till this hour, I have been
well-nigh overwhelmed with carousal and sport of all kinds. I think the
Dane has strangely wrought on our English nobles; for those whom I could
never get to taste good liquor, now follow the fashion and wallow in
beastly delights. The ladies abandon their society, and are seen to roll
about in intoxication,” &c.[60] So late as thirty years ago, not less
than three of these signs were left, the most notorious being in the Old
Bailey. It used to be open all night for the sale of creature comforts
to the drunkard, the thief, the nightwalker, and profligates of every
description. Slang was the language of the place, and doubtless the
refreshments were mostly paid for with stolen money. On execution
nights, the landlord used to reap a golden harvest; then there were such
scenes of drunkenness as must have done the old king on the signboard
good to survey, and made him wish to be inside. The visit of another
crowned votary of Bacchus is commemorated by the sign of the CZAR’S
HEAD, Great Tower Street:--
“Peter the Great and his companions, having finished their day’s work,
used to resort to a public-house in Great Tower Street, close to Tower
Hill, to smoke their pipes and drink beer and brandy. The landlord had
the Czar of Muscovy’s Head painted, and put it up for his sign, which
continued till the year 1808, when a person of the name of Waxel took
a fancy to the old sign, and offered the then occupier of the house to
paint him a new one for it. A copy was accordingly made of the
original, which maintains its station to the present day as the Czar
of Muscovy.”[61]
The sign is now removed, but the public-house still bears the same name.
PRINCE EUGENE also was at one time a popular tavern portrait in England,
more particularly after his visit to this country in January 1712. It is
named as one of the signs in Norwich in 1750,[62] but is now, we
believe, completely extinct in England; in Paris there is still one
surviving on the Boulevard St Martin.
The GRAVE MAURICE is of very old standing in London, being named by
Taylor the water-poet as an inn at Knightsbridge in 1636; at present
there are two left, one in Whitechapel Road, the other in St Leonard’s
Road. Who this Grave Maurice was is not quite clear. GRAVE (_Ger._ Graf,
_Dutch_ Graaf, _i.e._ COUNT,) Maurice of Nassau, afterwards Maurice,
Prince of Orange, was, on account of his successful opposition to the
Spanish domination in the Netherlands, very popular in this country. In
Baker’s Chronicles, anno 1612, we read that:--“Upon St Thomas-day, the
Paltzgrave and _Grave Maurice_ were elected Knights of the Garter; and
the 27th of December, the Paltzgrave was betrothed to the Lady
Elizabeth. On Sunday the 7th of February, the Paltzgrave in person was
installed a Knight of the Garter at Windsor, and at the same time was
_Grave Maurice_ installed by his deputy, Count Lodewick of Nassau.” The
Garter conferred on the Grave Maurice was that which had been previously
worn by _Henri Quatre_, King of France and Navarre. The Palzgrave was
Grave Maurice’s nephew, the Palatine Count Frederick, by whose marriage
with King James’s daughter were born the brothers Rupert and Maurice,
(the latter in 1620,) who distinguished themselves in England during the
civil wars. It was this Prince Maurice’s great uncle, the Grave Maurice
of Nassau, whose counterfeit presentment still gives a name to two of
our taverns. Another Maurice, about this period, was very popular in
England--viz., Maurice Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who “carried away the
palm of excellency in whatever is to be wished in a brave prince.”[63]
Peacham, enumerating this prince’s qualifications, says that he was a
good musician, spoke ten or twelve languages, was a universal scholar,
could dispute, “even in boots and spurs,” for an hour with the best
professors on any subject, and was the best bone-setter in the country.
He gained, too, much of his popularity by his adherence to the
Protestant religion during the Thirty Years’ War.
The PALTSGRAVE became a popular sign at the marriage of Frederick
Casimir V., Elector and Count Palatine of the Rhine, King of Bohemia,
with Elizabeth, daughter of James I. Trades tokens are extant of a
famous tavern, the sign of the PALSGRAVE’S HEAD, without Temple Bar,[64]
which gave its name to Paltsgrave Court, whilst the PALATINE HEAD was an
inn near the French ‘Change, Soho. PRINCE RUPERT, the Palsgrave’s son,
who behaved so gallantly in many of the fights during the Civil War, was
no doubt a favourite sign after the Restoration. We have an instance of
one on the trades token of Jacob Robins, in the Strand.
One of the last foreign princes to whom the signboard honour was
accorded, was the KING OF PRUSSIA. This still occurs in many places.
After the battle of Rosbach, Frederick the Great, our ally, became the
popular hero in England. Ballads were made, in which he was called
“Frederick of Prussia, or the Hero.” “Portraits of the hero of Rosbach,
with his cocked hat and long pigtail, were in every house. An attentive
observer will at this day find in the parlours of old-fashioned inns,
and in the portfolios of printsellers, twenty portraits of Frederick for
one of George II. The sign-painters were everywhere employed in touching
up ADMIRAL VERNON into the KING OF PRUSSIA.[65]”
These words of Macaulay remind us of a passage in the _Mirror_, No. 82,
Saturday, February 19, 1780, bearing on the same subject. In 1739, after
the capture of Portobello, Admiral Vernon’s “portrait dangled from every
signpost, and he may be figuratively said to have sold the ale, beer,
porter, and purl of England for six years. Towards the close of that
period, the admiral’s favour began to fade apace with the colours of his
uniform, and the battle of Culloden was total annihilation for him.
. . . The DUKE OF CUMBERLAND kept possession of the signboard a long
time. In the beginning of the last war, our admirals in the
Mediterranean, and our generals in North America, did nothing that could
tend in the least degree to move his Royal Highness from his place; but
the doubtful battle of Hamellan, followed by the unfortunate convention
of Stade, and the rising fame of the King of Prussia, obliterated the
glories of the Duke of Cumberland as effectually as his Royal Highness
and the battle of Culloden had effaced the figure, the memory, and the
renown of Admiral Vernon. The duke was so completely displaced by his
Prussian majesty, that we have some doubts whether he met with fair
play. One circumstance, indeed, was much against him; his figure being
marked by a hat with the Kevenhuller cock, a military uniform, and a
very fierce look, a slight touch of the painter converted him into the
King of Prussia. But what crowned the success of his Prussian majesty,
was the title bestowed upon him by the brothers of the brush, ‘The
Glorious Protestant Hero,’ words which added splendour to every
signpost, and which no British hero could read without peculiar
sensation of veneration and of thirst.
“For two years, ‘the glorious Protestant hero’ was unrivalled; but the
French being defeated at Minden, upon the 1st of August 1759, by the
army under Prince Frederick of Brunswick, the King of Prussia began to
give place a little to two popular favourites, who started at the same
time; I mean PRINCE FERDINAND, and the MARQUIS OF GRANBY. Prince
Ferdinand was supported altogether by his good conduct at Minden, and by
his high reputation over Europe as a general. The _Marquis of Granby_
behaved with spirit and personal courage everywhere; but his success on
the signposts of England was very much owing to a comparison generally
made between him and another British general of higher rank, but who was
supposed not to have behaved so well. Perhaps, too, he was a good deal
indebted to another circumstance--to wit, the baldness of his head.”
That crowned heads, as well as other human beings, were subject to the
law of change on the signboard, is amusingly illustrated in an anecdote
told by Goldsmith:--
“An alehouse keeper near Islington, who had long lived at the sign of
the French King, upon the commencement of the last war, pulled down
his old sign, and put up that of the QUEEN OF HUNGARY. Under the
influence of her red nose and golden sceptre, he continued to sell
ale, till she was no longer the favourite of his customers; he changed
her therefore, some time ago, for the King of Prussia who may probably
be changed in turn for the next great man that shall be set up for
vulgar admiration.”[66]
Of all great men, “bene meriti de patria,” military men appear at all
times to have captivated the popular favour much more than those men who
promoted the welfare of the country in the Cabinet, or who made
themselves famous by the arts of peace, and the more quiet productions
of their genius. We find hundreds of admirals and generals on the
signboard, but we are not aware that there is one Watt, or one Sir
Walter Scott; yet, what glory and pleasure has the nation not derived
from their genius! Booksellers formerly honoured the heads and names of
great authors with a signboard; but that custom fell into disuse when
signs became unnecessary. At present, the publicans only have signs, and
they and their customers can much better appreciate “the glorious pomp
and pageantry of war,” than a parliamentary debate. A victory, with so
many of the enemy killed and wounded, and so many colours and stands of
arms captured, awakens much more thrilling emotions in their breasts
than the most useful invention, or the most glorious work of art.
The sea being our proper element, admirals have always had the lion’s
share of the popular admiration, and their fame appears more firmly
rooted than that of generals. Signs of ADMIRAL DRAKE, SIR FRANCIS DRAKE,
or the DRAKE ARMS, so common at the water-side in our seaports, shew
that the nation has not yet forgotten the bold navigator of good _Queen
Bess_. SIR WALTER RALEIGH has not been quite so fortunate; for though he
also came in for a great share of signboard honour, yet it was less
owing to his qualities as a commander, than to his reputation of having
introduced tobacco into England, whence he became a favourite
tobacconist’s sign; and in that quality, we find him on several of the
shop-bills in the Banks Collection. Signs being frequently used in the
last century for political pasquinades, advantage was taken of a
tobacconist’s sign for the following sharp hit at Lord North:--
“To the Printer of the _General Advertiser_:--
“SIR,--Being a smoaker, I take particular notice of the devices used
by different dealers in tobacco, by way of ornament to the papers in
which that valuable plant is enclosed for sale; and that used by the
worthy Alderman in Ludgate Street, has often given me much pleasure,
it having the head of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the following motto
round it:--
‘Great Britain to great Raleigh owes
This plant and country where it grows.’
“To which I offer the following lines by way of contrast; the truth
thereof no one can doubt:--
‘To Rubicon and North, old England owes
The loss of country where tobacco grows.’
“I suppose no dealer will chuse to adopt so unfortunate a subject for
their insignia; but perhaps, when you have a spare corner in your
_General Advertiser_, it may not be inadmissible, which will
oblige.--Yours, &c.,
“A SMOAKER.
“Feb. 1, 1783.
_General Advertiser_, March 13, 1784.”
Brave old ADMIRAL BENBOW, who held up the honour of the British flag in
the reign of William III., is still far from uncommon. ADMIRAL DUNCAN,
HOWE, and JERVIS still preside over the sale of many a hogshead of beer
or spirits; whilst ADMIRAL VERNON seems to have secured himself an
everlasting place on the front of the alehouse, by reason of his dashing
capture of PORTOBELLO; the name of that town, or sometimes the
PORTOBELLO ARMS, being also frequently adopted, instead of the admiral’s
name. ADMIRAL KEPPEL is another great favourite. There is a public-house
with that sign, on the Fulham Road, where, some years ago, the portrait
of the admiral used to court the custom of the passing traveller, by a
poetical appeal to both man and beast:--
“Stop, brave boys, and quench your thirst;
If you won’t drink, your horses murst.”
But, above all, ADMIRAL RODNEY seems to have obtained a larger share of
popularity than even NELSON himself. In Boston there is the RODNEY AND
HOOD; and in Creggin, Montgomeryshire, the RODNEY PILLAR Inn, with the
following Anacreontic effusion on a double-sided signboard:--
“Under these trees, in sunny weather,
Just try a cup of ale, however;
And if in tempest or in storm,
A couple then to make you warm;
But when the day is very cold,
Then taste a mug a twelvemonth old.”
On the reverse:--
“Rest and regal yourself, ’tis pleasant;
Enough is all the present need,
That’s the due of the hardy peasant
Who toils all sorts of men to feed.
Then muzzle not the ox when he treads out the corn,
Nor grudge honest labour its pipe and its horn.”
The last addition to this portrait gallery, before SIR CHARLES NAPIER,
was the head of the gallant besieger of Algiers, LORD EXMOUTH. In 1825,
there was one at Barnstaple, in Devon, with the following address to the
wayfarer:--
“All you that pace round field or moor,
Pray do not pass John Armstrong’s door;
There’s what will cheer man in his course,
And entertainment for his horse.”
Finally, there is still one sign left in honour of that deserving but
unfortunate commander, CAPTAIN COOK, murdered by the natives of Owhyhee
in 1779. His name is preserved as the sign of an alehouse in Mariner
Street, London.
Though the fame of generals seems to be more short-lived than that of
admirals, yet a few ancient heroes still remain. Amongst these, GENERAL
ELLIOTT, or LORD HEATHFIELD, the defender of Gibraltar, seems to be one
of the greatest favourites; perhaps his popularity in London was not a
little increased by the present which he made to Astley, of his charger
named Gibraltar; who, performing every evening in the ring, and shining
forth in the circus bills, would certainly act as an excellent puff for
the general’s glory. This hero’s popularity is only surpassed by that of
the MARQUIS OF GRANBY. Though nearly a century has elapsed since the
death of the latter, (Oct. 19, 1770,) his portrait is still one of the
most common signs. In London alone, he presides over eighteen
public-houses, besides numerous beerhouses. The first one is said to
have been hung out at Hounslow, by one Sumpter, a discharged trooper of
the regiment of Horse Guards, which the Marquis of Granby had commanded
as colonel.
Among the generals of a later period, are GENERAL TARLETON, (or, as he
is called on a sign in Clarence Street, Newcastle, COLONEL TARLTON,)
GENERAL WOLFE, GENERAL MOORE, and SIR RALPH ABERCROMBIE. At a tavern of
this last denomination in Lombard Street, some thirty-five or forty
years ago, the “House of Lords’ Club” used to meet, not composed, as
might be expected from the name, of members of the peerage, but simply
of the good citizens of the neighbourhood, each dubbed with a title. The
president was styled Lord Chancellor; he wore a legal wig and robes, and
a mace was laid on the table before him. The title bestowed upon the
members depended on the fee--one shilling constituted a Baron, two
shillings a Viscount, three shillings an Earl, four shillings a Marquis,
and five shillings a Duke; beyond that rank their ambition did not
reach. This club originated early in the eighteenth century, at the
FLEECE in Cornhill, but removed to the THREE TUNS in Southwark, that the
members might be more retired from the bows and compliments of the
London apprentices, who used to salute the noble lords by their titles
as they passed to and fro in the streets about their business. One of
their last houses was the YORKSHIRE GREY, near Roll’s Buildings. At
present they are, we believe, extinct. In Newcastle, also, there was a
House of Lords, of which Bewick the wood-engraver was a member. They
used to hold their meetings in the Groat Market of that town.
The DUKE’S HEAD, and the OLD DUKE, are signs that, for the last two or
three centuries, have always been applied to some ducal hero or other,
for the time being basking himself in the noontide sun of fame. One of
the first to whom it was applied, was Monck, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE after the
Restoration; then came ORMOND, MARLBOROUGH, CUMBERLAND, YORK, and, at
present, WELLINGTON and the DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. The DUKE’S HEAD in Upper
Street, corner of Gad’s Row, Islington, was the sign of a public-house
kept by Thomas Topham, the strong man, who, in 1741, in honour of
Admiral Vernon’s birthday, lifted three hogsheads of water, weighing
1859 lb., in Coldbath Fields.[67]
The DUKE OF ALBEMARLE figured on numberless signboards after the
Restoration; but at the same period, there existed still older signs, on
which his grace was simply called Monck; as for instance, that hung out
by “Will. Kidd, suttler to the Guard at St James’s,”[68] which was the
MONCK’S HEAD. Kidd had probably followed the army in many a campaign in
former years, and was much more accustomed to the name of General Monck
than that of his Grace the Duke of Albemarle. Of the Duke of Ormond
there is still one instance remaining in Longstreet, Tetbury,
Gloucester, under the name of the ORMOND’S HEAD. A very few Dukes of
Marlborough are also left. In the beginning of the eighteenth century,
the DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH’S HEAD in Fleet Street, was a tavern used for
purposes very similar to those which we are accustomed now-a-days to
behold at the St James’ and the Egyptian Halls. Among the Bagford Bills,
and in the newspapers of the time, it is constantly mentioned as the
place where something wonderful or amusing was to be seen--panoramas,
dioramas, moving pictures, marionnettes, curious pieces of mechanism,
&c., &c.[69]
The LORD CRAVEN was once a very popular sign in London. It occurs
amongst the trades tokens of Bishopsgate Street Without, and even at
present there is a CRAVEN HEAD and two CRAVEN ARMS in London. These
signs were in honour of William Craven, eldest son of Sir William
Craven, knt., (Sheriff of London _temp._ Queen Elizabeth.) This nobleman
passed the greater part of his life abroad, serving the Protestant cause
in Holland and in Germany. During the Civil War, he at various times
gave pecuniary assistance to King Charles II., who at the Restoration
created him Viscount Craven of Uffington, &c. He is said to have been
privately married to Elizabeth, daughter of James I., the Queen of
Bohemia. He died, April 19, 1697. Though his public and military career
had certainly been brilliant, yet he owed his popularity probably more
to his civic virtues, shewn during the plague period, when he and
General Monck were almost the only men of rank that remained in town to
keep order. He even erected a pesthouse at his own expense in Pesthouse
Field, Carnaby Market, (now Marshall Street, Golden Square.) His
assistance during the frequent London fires, also tended to make him a
favourite with the Londoners.
“Lord Craven, in the time of King Charles II., was a constant man at a
fire; for which purpose he always had a horse ready saddled in his
stables, and rewarded the first that gave him notice of such an
accident. It was a good-natured fancy, and he did a good deal of
service; but in that reign everything was turned to a joke. The king
being told of a terrible fire that was broke out, asked if Lord Craven
was there yet. ‘Oh!’ says somebody by, ‘an’t please your majesty, he
was there before it began, waiting for it, he has had two horses burnt
under him already.’[70] On such occasions he usually rode a white
horse, well known to the London mob, which was said to smell the fires
from afar off.”
The EARL OF ESSEX, Elizabeth’s _quondam_ favourite, might have been met
with on many signs long after the Restoration. There are trades tokens
of a shop or tavern with such a sign on the Bankside, Southwark, and
tokens are extant of two other shops that had the ESSEX ARMS. In the
last century there was an ESSEX HEAD in Essex Street; in this tavern the
Robin Hood Society, “a club of free and candid inquiry,” used to meet.
It was originally established in 1613, at the house of Sir Hugh
Middleton, the projector of the New River for supplying London with
water. Its first meetings were held at the houses of members, but
afterwards, the numbers increasing, they removed to the above tavern,
and its name was altered into the “Essex Head Society.” In 1747 it
removed to the Robin Hood in Butcher Row, near Temple Bar. The society
attained a position of so much importance, that a history of its
proceedings was published in 1764, giving an account of the subjects
debated, and reports of some of the speeches. Seven minutes only were
allowed to each speaker, at the expiration of which the _Baker_, or
president, summed up. Many a young politician here winged his first
flight.[71]
In 1784, the year of his death, Dr Johnson instituted at this house a
club of twenty-four members, in order to insure himself society for at
least three days in the week. He composed the regulations himself, and
wrote above them the following motto from Milton:--
“To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench
In mirth which after no repenting draws.”
The house at that time was kept by Samuel Greaves, an old servant of Mrs
Thrale. Each night of non-attendance was visited on the members by a
fine of threepence. Members were to spend at least sixpence, besides a
penny for the waiter. Each member had to preside one evening a month.
That the Earl of Essex, who had taken up arms against his queen, should
have continued more than a century after his death, is easily accounted
for by the immense popularity he enjoyed, exceeding that of any of his
cotemporaries. More difficult to explain is the presence on English
signboards of the Dutch ADMIRAL VAN TROMP; yet we find him in Church
Street, Shoreditch, and in St Helen’s, Lancashire. His countryman,
Mynheer van Donck, would certainly make a much more appropriate
public-house sign.
Names of battles and glorious _faits d’ armes_ have also been much used
as signs,--thus, GIBRALTAR, PORTOBELLO, the BATTLE OF THE NILE, the
MOUTH OF THE NILE, TRAFALGAR, the BATTLE OF WATERLOO, the BATTLE OF THE
PYRAMIDS, are all more or less common. The BULL AND MOUTH is said to
have a similar origin, being a corruption of Boulogne Mouth, the entry
to Boulogne Harbour, which grew into a popular sign after the capture of
that place by Henry VIII. The first house with this sign is said to have
been an inn in Aldgate. In less than a century the name was already
corrupted into the “Bull and Mouth,” and the sign represented by a black
bull and a large mouth. Thus it appears on the trades tokens, and also
in a sculpture in the façade of the Queen’s Hotel, St Martin’s-le-Grand,
formerly the Bull and Mouth Inn. Of the same time also dates the BULL
AND GATE, a corruption of the Boulogne Gates, which Henry VIII. ordered
to be taken away, and transported to Hardes, in Kent, where they still
(?) remain. The Bull and Gate was a noted inn in the seventeenth century
in Holborn, where Fielding makes his hero Tom Jones put up on his
arrival in London. It is still in existence under the same name, though
much reduced in size. There is another in New Chapel Place, Kentish
Town; and a few imitations of it were carried to distant provincial
towns by the coaches of old times.
Another sign of the same period, although not commemorative of a battle,
was the GOLDEN FIELD GATE, mentioned by Taylor the water-poet, in 1632,
as the sign of an inn at the upper end of Holborn. It was put up in
honour of the Champ du Drap d’Or, where Henry VIII. and Francis I.,
“Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,
Met in the vale of Arde.”--_Henry VIII._, a. i. s. 1.
The signs of great men who have distinguished themselves in the civil
walks of life are much more scarce. Archimedes we meet with as an
optician’s sign. He had been adopted by that class of workmen on account
of the burning lenses with which he set the Roman fleet on fire at
Syracuse. Various implements of their trade were added as distinctions
by the several shops who sold spectacles under his auspices, such as
GOLDEN PROSPECTS OF PERSPECTIVES, (_i.e._, spectacles or any other glass
that assisted the sight,) GLOBES, KING’S ARMS, &c. Among the Bagford
Bills there is one of John Marshall, optician on Ludgate Hill, “at the
sign of the OLD ARCHIMEDES AND TWO GOLDEN SPECTACLES,” which represents
Archimedes taking astronomical observations, a huge pair of spectacles
being suspended on one side of the sign, and on the other a lantern.[72]
ARCHIMEDES AND THREE PAIR OF GOLDEN SPECTACLES was the sign of another
optician in Ludgate Street, 1697, who evidently had adopted Marshall’s
sign with the addition of one pair of spectacles, in the hope of
filching some of his customers. SIR ISAAC NEWTON was another
telescope-maker’s sign in Ludgate Street _circa_ 1795.[73] At the
present day he occurs on a few public-houses; but it is somewhat more
gratifying for our national pride to see a coffee-house in the Rue
Arcade, Paris, named after him. LORD BACON’S HEAD was the sign of W.
Bickerton, a bookseller, without Temple Bar, in 1735; LOCKE’S HEAD, of
T. Peele, between the Temple Gates, 1718; JAMES FERGUSON figured at the
door of an optical instrument maker in New Bond Street in 1780.[74] No
doubt this optician was a Scotchman, who had given preference to a
national celebrity. Just so, Andrew Miller, the great publisher and
friend of Thomson, Hume, Fielding, &c., took the BUCHANAN HEAD for the
sign of his shop in the Strand, opposite St Catherine Street, the house
where the famous Jacob Tonson had lived, in whose time it was the
SHAKESPEARE’S HEAD. But Miller preferred his countryman, and put up the
less known head of George Buchanan, (1525-1582.) Buchanan was author of
a version of the Psalms, and at various times of his life tutor to Queen
Mary Stuart, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland, Principal of St Leonard’s, preceptor to James I., director of
the Chancery, Privy Seal, &c.
CARDINAL WOLSEY occurs in many places, particularly in London, Windsor,
and the neighbourhood of Hampton Court. ANDREW MARVEL is still
commemorated on a sign in Whitefriargate, Hull, of which town he was a
native. THOMAS GRESHAM, the founder of the Royal Exchange, was a
favourite in London after the opening of the first Exchange in 1566; and
SIR HUGH MIDDLETON, the projector of the New River, is duly honoured
with two or three signs in Islington.
There exists a curious alehouse picture, called the THREE JOHNS, in
Little Park Street, Westminster, and in White Lion Street, Pentonville.
The same sign, many years ago, might have been seen in Bennett Street,
near Queen Square, in the former locality. It represented an oblong
table, with John Wilkes in the middle, the Rev. John Horne Tooke at one
end, and Sir John Glynn (sergeant-at-law) at the other. There is a
mezzotinto print of this picture (or the sign may be from the print)
drawn and engraved by Richard Houston, 1769. John Wilkes, on whom the
popular gratitude for writing the Earl of Bute out of power conferred
many a signboard, still survives in a few spots. In a small
Staffordshire town called Leek-with-Lowe, there is a stanch re-publican,
who to this day keeps the WILKES’-HEAD as his sign, whilst another one
occurs in Bridges Street, St Ives. SIR FRANCIS BURDETT is also far from
forgotten, and may still be seen “hung in effigy” at Castlegate,
Berwick, in Nottingham, and in a few other places.
In 1683, we find SIR EDMUNDBURY GODFREY on the picture-board of Langley
Curtis, a bookseller near Fleetbridge. Being the martyr of a party, he
undoubtedly for a while must have been a popular sign. LORD ANGLESEY
was, in 1679, adopted by an inn in Drury Lane. This, we suppose, was
Arthur, second Viscount Valentia, son of Sir Thomas Annesley, (Lord
Mountmorris,) and elevated to the British peerage by the title of Earl
of Anglesey in 1661; he died in 1686. One of the acts which probably
contributed most to his popularity was that he, with the Lord Cavendish,
Mr Howard, Dr Tillotson, Dr Burnet, and a few others, appeared to
vindicate Lord Russell in the face of the court, and gave testimony to
the good life and conversation of the prisoner.
The bulky figure of Paracelsus, or, as he called himself, Philippus
Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus _Bombastus_ von Hohenheim, used
formerly to be a constant apothecaries’ symbol. From an advertisement in
the _London Gazette_, July 22-26, 1680, about a stolen horse “with a
sowre head,” we gather that there was at that time a sign of PARACELSUS
in Old Fish Street. Information about the horse with “the sowre head”
would also be received at a house in Lambeth, with no less a dignitary
for its sign than the BISHOP OF CANTERBURY, his grace having been thus
honoured from a neighbourly feeling.
Doctor Butler, (_ob._ 1617,) physician to James I., and, according to
Fuller, “the Æsculapius of that age,” invented a kind of medicated ale,
called Dr Butler’s ale, “which, if not now, (1784,) was, a few years
ago, sold at certain houses that had the BUTLER’S HEAD for a sign.”[75]
One of the last remaining Butler’s Heads was in a court leading from
Basinghall into Coleman Street.
[Illustration: PLATE V.
SPINNING SOW.
(France, 1520.)
TWO STORKS.
(Antwerp, 1639.)
THE COMPLETE ANGLER.
(Banks’s Bills, 1780.)
HELP ME THROUGH THIS WORLD.
(Banks’s Bills, 1812.)
CROOKED BILLET.
(Harleian Collection, 1710.)]
That singularly successful quack, Lilly, though he ought not to be
placed in such good company as the king’s physician, was also a constant
sign, in the last century, at the door of sham doctors and astrologers.
Not unfrequently they combined the BALLS (a favourite sign of the
quacks) with Lilly’s head, as the BLACK BALL AND LILLYHEAD, the sign of
Thomas Saffold, “an approved and licensed physician and student in
astrology: he hath practised astronomy for twenty-four years, and hath
had the Bishop of London’s licence to practise physick ever since the
4th day of September 1674, and hath, he thanks God for it, great
experience and wonderful success in those arts.” He promised to perform
the usual _tours de force_.
----“foretell what s’ever was
By consequence to come to pass;
As death of great men, alterations,
Diseases, battles, inundations,
Or search’d a planet’s house to know
Who broke and robb’d a house below.
Examined Venus and the Moon
To find who stole a silver spoon.”
_Butler’s Hudibras._
This address was “at the Black Ball and Lilly Head, next door to the
Feather shops that are within Blackfriars gateway, which is over against
Ludgate Church, just by Ludgate in London.”[76]
Classic authors also have come in for their share of signboard
popularity in this country, which, at the time they flourished, was
about as little civilized as the Sandwich Islands in the days of Captain
Cook. These signs were set up by booksellers; thus HOMER’S HEAD was, in
1735, the sign of Lawton Gilliver, against St Dunstan’s Church,
publisher of some of Pope’s works, and in 1761, of J. Walker at Charing
Cross. Cicero, under the name of TULLY’S HEAD, hung at the door of
Robert Dodsley, a famous bookseller in Pall Mall. In a newspaper of
1756, appeared some verses “on Tully’s head in Pall Mall, by the Rev. Mr
G----s, of which the following are the first and the last stanzas:--
“Where Tully’s bust and honour’d name
Point out the venal page,
There Dodsley consecrates to fame
The classics of his age.
* * * * *
Persist to grace this humble post,
Be Tully’s head the sign,
Till future booksellers shall boast
To sell their tomes at thine.”
About the same time, the favourite Tully’s Head was also the sign of T.
Becket, and P. A. de Hondt, booksellers in the Strand, near Surrey
Street. HORACE’S HEAD graced the shop of J. White in Fleet Street,
publisher of several of Joseph Strutt’s antiquarian works; and VIRGIL’S
HEAD of Abraham van den Hoeck and George Richmond, opposite Exeter
Change in the Strand, in the middle of the last century. Of SENECA’S
HEAD two instances occur, J. Round in Exchange Alley in 1711, and ----
Varenne, near Somerset House, in the Strand, at the same period.
A few of our own poets are also common tavern pictures. As early as 1655
we find a (Ben) JONSON’S HEAD tavern in the Strand, where Ben Jonson’s
chair was kept as a relic.[77] In that same year it was the sign of
Robert Pollard, bookseller, behind the Royal Exchange. Ten years later
it occurs in the following advertisement:--
“WHEREAS Thomas Williams, of the society of real and well-meaning
Chymists hath prepaired certain Medicynes for the cure and prevention
of the Plague, at cheap rates, without Benefit to himself, and for the
publick good, In pursuance of directions from authority, be it known
that these said Medicynes are to be had at Mr Thomas Fidges, in
Fountain Court, Shoe Lane, near Fleet Street, and are also left by him
to be disposed of at the GREEN BALL, within Ludgate, the Ben Jonson’s
Head, near Yorkhouse,” &c.[78]
There is still a Ben Jonson’s Head tavern with a painted portrait of the
poet in Shoe Lane, Fleet Street; a Ben Jonson’s Inn at Pemberton, Wigan,
Lancashire; and another at Weston-on-the Green, Bicester.
SHAKESPEARE’S HEAD is to be seen in almost every town where there is a
theatre. At a tavern with that sign in Great Russell Street, Covent
Garden, the Beefsteak Society (different from the Beefsteak Club,) used
to meet before it was removed to the Lyceum Theatre. George Lambert,
scene-painter to Covent Garden Theatre, was its originator. This tavern
was at one time famous for its beautifully painted sign. The well-known
Lion’s Head, first set up by Addison at Button’s, was for a time placed
at this house.[79] There was another Shakespeare Head in Wych Street,
Drury Lane, a small public-house at the beginning of this century, the
last haunt of the Club of Owls, so called on account of the late hours
kept by its members. The house was then kept by a lady under the
protection of Dutch Sam the pugilist. After this it was for one year in
the hands of the well-known Mr Mark Lemon, present editor of _Punch_,
then just newly married to Miss Romer, a singer of some renown, who
assisted him in the management of this establishment. The house was
chiefly visited by actors from Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and the
Olympic, whilst a club of literati used to meet on the first floor.
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, who so dearly loved his sack, could not fail to
become popular with the publicans, and may be seen on almost as many
signboards as his parent Shakespeare.
MILTON’S HEAD was, in 1759, the sign of George Hawkins, a bookseller at
the corner of the Middle Temple gate, Fleet Street; at present there are
two Milton’s Head public-houses in Nottingham. DRYDEN’S HEAD was to be
seen in 1761, at the door of H. Payne and Crossley, booksellers in
Paternoster Row. At Kate’s Cabin, on the Great Northern Road, between
Chesterton and Alwalton, there is a sign of Dryden’s head, painted by
Sir William Beechey, when engaged as a house-painter on the decoration
of Alwalton Hall. Dryden was often in that neighbourhood when on a visit
to his kinsman, John Dryden of Chesterton.
POPE’S HEAD was in favour with the booksellers of the last century; thus
the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, Sept. 1770, mentions a head of Alexander
Pope in Paternoster Row, painted by an eminent artist, but does not say
who the painter was. Edmund Curll, the notorious bookseller in Rose
Street, Covent Garden, had Pope’s head for his sign, not out of
affection certainly, but out of hatred to the poet. After the quarrel
which arose out of Curll’s piratical publication of Pope’s literary
correspondence, Curll, in May 22, 1735, addressed a letter of thanks to
the House of Lords, ending thus,--“I have engraved a new plate of Mr
Pope’s head from Mr Jervas’s painting, and likewise intend to hang him
up in effigy for a sign to all spectators of his falsehood and my own
veracity, which I will always maintain under the Scotch motto, ‘Nemo me
impune lacessit.’” R. Griffiths, a bookseller in St Paul’s Churchyard
since 1750, had the DUNCIAD for his sign. He was agent for a very
primitive social-evil movement; advertisements emanating from this “sett
of gentlemen sympathising with the misfortunes of young girls” occur in
the papers of June and July 1752. One of the regulations was, “☞ None
need to apply but such as are Fifteen years of age, and not above
Twenty-five: older are thought past being reclaim’d, unless good
Recommendations are given. Drinkers of spirits and swearers have a bad
chance.”
The MAN OF ROSS is at the present day a signboard at Wye Terrace, Ross,
Herefordshire; the house in which John Kyrle, the Man of Ross, dwelt,
was, after his death, converted into an inn. Twenty or thirty years ago
the following poetical effusion was to be read stuck up in that inn:--
“Here dwelt the Man of Ross, O traveller here,
Departed merit claims the rev’rent tear.
Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health,
With generous joy he view’d his modest wealth.
If ’neath this roof thy wine-cheer’d moments pass,
Fill to the good man’s name one grateful glass.
To higher zest shall memory wake thy soul,
And virtue mingle in th’ ennobled bowl,
Here cheat thy cares, in generous visions melt,
And dream of goodness thou hast never felt.”
The head of ROWE, the first emendator, corrector, and illustrator of
Shakespeare, was in 1735 the sign of a bookseller in Essex Street,
Strand. The CAMDEN HEAD and CAMDEN ARMS occur in four instances as the
sign of London publicans. Camden Town, however, may perhaps take the
credit of this last sign. ADDISON’S HEAD was for above sixty years the
sign of the then well-known firm of Corbett & Co.--first of C. Corbett,
afterwards of his son Thomas, booksellers in Fleet Street from 1740 till
the beginning of this century. DR JOHNSON’S HEAD, exhibiting a portrait
of the great lexicographer, is a modern sign in Bolton Court, Fleet
Street, opposite to where the great man lived, and which was in his time
occupied by an upholsterer. It is sometimes asserted to be the house in
which the Doctor resided, but this statement is wrong, for the house in
which he had apartments was burned down in 1819. Finally, a portrait of
Sterne, under the name of the YORICK’S HEAD, was the sign of John
Wallis, a bookseller in Ludgate Street in 1795.
Of modern poets LORD BYRON is the only one who has been exalted to the
signboard. In the neighbourhood of Nottingham his portrait occurs in
several instances; his MAZEPPA also is a great favourite, but it must be
confessed its popularity has been greatly assisted by the circus, by
sensational engravings, and, above all, by that love for horse flesh
innate to the British character. DON JUAN also occurs on a publican’s
signboard at Cawood, Selby, West Riding; and DON JOHN at Maltby,
Rotheram, in the same county; but perhaps these are merely the names of
race horses.
The latest of all literary celebrities who attained sufficient
popularity to entitle him to a signboard was SHERIDAN KNOWLES, who was
chosen as the sign of a tavern in Bridge Street, Covent Garden, facing
the principal entrance to Drury Lane Theatre, (now a nameless
eating-house.) There the Club of Owls used to meet. Sheridan Knowles was
one of the patrons, and Augustine Wade, an author and composer of some
fame, was chairman of the club in those days. Pierce Egan and Leman Rede
were amongst its members; so that it may be conjectured that the nights
were not passed in moping.[80]
Mythological divinities and heroes, also, have been very fairly
represented on our signboards. At this head, of course, BACCHUS
(frequently with the epithet of JOLLY) well deserves to be placed. In
the time when the BUSH was the usual alehouse sign, or rather when it
had swollen to a crown of evergreens, a chubby little Bacchus astride on
a tun was generally a pendant to the crown. In Holland and Germany we
have seen a Beer king, (a modern invention, certainly,) named Cambrinus,
taking the place of Bacchus at the beer-house door; but, according to
the sixteenth century notions, Bacchus included beer in his dominions.
Hence he is styled “Bacchus, the God of brew’d wine and sugar, grand
patron of robpots, upsey freesy tipplers, and supernaculum takers, this
Bacchus, who is head warden of Vintner’s Hall, _ale connor_, mayor of
all victualling houses,” &c.--MASSINGER’S _Virgin Martyr_, a. ii. s. l.
Next to Bacchus, APOLLO is most frequent, but whether as god of the sun
or leader of the Muses it is difficult to say. Sometimes he is called
GLORIOUS APOLLO, which, in heraldic language, means that he has a halo
round his head.[81] In the beginning of this century there was a
notorious place of amusement in St George’s Fields, Westminster Road,
called the Apollo Gardens--a Vauxhall or a Ranelagh of a very low
description. It was tastefully fitted up, but being small and having few
attractions beyond its really good orchestra, it became the resort of
the vulgar and the depraved, and was finally closed and built over.
MINERVA also is not uncommon--probably not so much because she was the
goddess of wisdom, but as “y^{e} patroness of scholars, shoemakers,
diers,” &c.[82] JUNO has a temple in Church Lane, Hull, and NEPTUNE of
course is of frequent occurrence in a country that holds the
“Imperium pelagi sævumque tridentem.”
The smith “being generally a thirsty soul, his patron VULCAN constitutes
an appropriate alehouse sign, and in that capacity he frequently
figures, particularly in the Black country. Amongst the quaint Dutch
signboard inscriptions there is one which, in the seventeenth century,
was written under a sign of Vulcan lighting his pipe:--
“_In Vulcanus._ Hy steekt zyn pyp op aan ’t vyer
Die goed tabak wil hebben die komt alhier.
Je krygt een gestopte pyp toe en op kermis een glas dik bier.”[83]
Vulcan, as the god of fire, without which there is no smoke, was a
common tobacconist’s sign in Holland two hundred years ago. One of these
dealers had the following rhymes affixed to his Vulcan sign:--
“Vulcan die lamme smid als hy was moei van smeden
Ging hy wat zitten neer en ruste zyne leden
De Goden zagen ’t aan, hy haalde uit zyn zak
Zyn pypye en zyn doos en rookte doen tabak.”[84]
MERCURY, the god of commerce, was of frequent occurrence, as might be
expected. Amongst the Banks collection of shop-bills there is one of a
fanshop in Wardour Street with the sign of the MERCURY AND FAN. Both
CUPID and FLORA were signs at Norwich in 1750,[85] and COMUS is
frequently the tutelary god of our provincial public-houses. CASTOR AND
POLLUX, represented in the dress of Roman soldiers of the empire
standing near a cask of tallow, was the sign of T. & J. Bolt,
tallow-chandlers, at the corner of Berner Street, Oxford Street, at the
end of the last century, for the obvious reason that, like the Messrs
Bolt, they were two brothers that spread light over the world. Our
admiration for athletic strength and sports suggested the sign of
HERCULES, as well as his biblical parallel SAMSON.
As for the HERCULES PILLARS, this was the classic name for the Straits
of Gibraltar, which by the ancients was considered the end of the world;
in the same classic sense it was adopted on outskirts of towns, where it
is more common now to see the WORLD’S END. In 1667 it was the sign of
Richard Penck in Pall Mall, and also of a public-house in Piccadilly, on
the site of the present Hamilton Place, both which spots were at that
period the end of the inhabited world of London. The sign generally
represented the demi-god standing between the pillars, or pulling the
pillars down--a strange cross between the biblical and the pagan
Hercules.
The Pillars of Hercules in Piccadilly is mentioned by Wycherley in the
“Plain Dealer,” 1676:--“I should soon be picking up all our own
mortgaged apostle spoons, bowls, and beakers out of most of the
alehouses betwixt the Hercules Pillars and the BOATSWAIN in Wapping.”
The Marquis of Granby often visited the former house, and here Fielding,
in “Tom Jones,” makes Squire Western put up:--“The Squire sat down to
regale himself over a bottle of wine with his parson and the landlord of
the Hercules Pillars, who, as the Squire said, would make an excellent
third man, and would inform them of the news of the town; for, to be
sure, says he, he knows a great deal, since the horses of many of the
quality stand at his house.”[86] In Pepys’ time there was a Hercules
Pillars tavern in Fleet Street. Here the merry clerk of the Admiralty
supped with his wife and some friends on Feb. 6, 1667-8; his return home
gives a good idea of London after the fire:--
“Coming from the Duke of York’s playhouse I got a coach, and a humour
took us and I carried them to the Hercules Pillars, and there did give
them a kind of supper of about 7s. and very merry, and home round the
town, not through the ruins. And it was pretty how the coachman by
mistake drives us into the ruins from London Wall unto Coleman Street,
and would persuade me that I lived there. And the truth is, I did
think that he and the linkman had contrived some roguery, but it
proved only a mistake of the coachman; but it was a cunning place to
have done us a mischief in, as any I know, to drive us out of the road
into the ruins, and there stop, while nobody could be called to help
us. But we came home safe.”
ATLAS carrying the World was the very appropriate sign of the map and
chart makers. In 1674 there was one in Cornhill,[87] and under a print
of Blanket fair (the fair held on the Thames when frozen over) occurs
the following imprint:--“A map of the river Thames merrily called
Blanket-fair, as it was frozen in the memorable year 1683-4, describing
the Booths, Footpaths, Coaches, Sledges, Bull-baitings, and other
remarks. Sold by Joseph Moxon on the West side of Fleet ditch, at the
sign of the ATLAS.” Equally appropriate was ORPHEUS as the sign of the
music shop of L. Peppard, next door to Bickerstaffe’s coffee-house,
Russell Street, Covent Garden, 1711. No fault either can be found with
the GOLDEN FLEECE as the sign of a woollen draper--Jason’s golden fleece
being an allegory of the wool trade, but at the door of an inn or
public-house it looks very like a warning of the fate the traveller may
expect within--in being fleeced. In the seventeenth century there was a
FLEECE Tavern in St James’s:--
“A RARE Consort of four Trumpets Marine, never heard of before in
England.[88] If any person desire to come and hear it, they may repair
to the Fleece Tavern near St James’s about 2 o’clock in the afternoon
every day in the week except Sundays. Every consort shall continue one
hour and so to begin again. The best places are 1 shilling, the others
sixpence.”--_London Gazette_, Feb. 1-4, 1674.
This is amongst the earliest concerts on record in London. Another
example of this sign worth mentioning was the Fleece Tavern, (in York
Street,) Covent Garden, which, says Aubrey, “was very unfortunate for
homicides; there have been several killed--three in my time. It is now
(1692) a private house. Clifton, the master, hanged himself, having
perjured himself.”[89] Pepys does not give this house a better
character:--“Decemb. 1, 1660. Mr Flower did tell me how a Scotch knight
was killed basely the other day at the Fleece in Covent Garden, where
there had been a great many formerly killed.” On the Continent, also,
this symbol was used; for instance, in 1687, by Jean Camusat, a printer
in the Rue St Jacques, Paris; his colophon represented Jason taking the
golden fleece off a tree, with the motto--“TEGIT ET QUOS TANGIT
INAURAT.”
Another sign, of which the application is not very obvious, is Pegasus
or the FLYING HORSE, unless it refers to this rhyme:--
“If with water you fill up your glasses,
You’ll never write anything wise;
For wine is the horse of Parnassus,
Which hurries a bard to the skies.”
“John Gay, at the Flying Horse, between St Dunstan’s Church and
Chancery Lane, 1680,” is an imprint under many ballads. John Gay
undoubtedly had adopted this sign as a compliment to the Templars, in
whose vicinity he lived, and whose arms are a Pegasus on a field _arg_.
As for the poor balladmongers, whose works Gay printed, they certainly
put Pegasus too much to the plough, to imagine that he alluded to theirs
as a Flying Horse. Instead of the Flying Horse, a facetious innkeeper at
Rogate Petersfield, has put up a parody in the shape of the FLYING BULL.
The HOPE and the HOPE AND ANCHOR are constant signs with shop and tavern
keepers. Pepys spent his Sunday, the 23d September 1660, at the Hope
Tavern, in a not very godly manner; and his account shews the curious
business management of the taverns in the time:--
“To the Hope and sent for Mr Chaplin, who with Nicholas Osborne and
one Daniel come to us, and we drank of two or three quarts of wine,
which was very good; the drawing of our wine causing a great quarrel
in the house between the two drawers which should draw us the best,
which caused a great deal of noise and falling out, till the master
parted them, and came up to us and did give us a long account of the
liberty he gives his servants, all alike, to draw what wine they will
to please his customers; and we eat above two hundred walnuts.”
In consequence of these excesses Master Pepys was very ill next day, but
the particulars of the illness, though very graphically entered into the
diary, are “unfit for publication.”
The FORTUNE was adopted from considerations somewhat similar to those
that prompted the choice of the Hope. It occurs as the sign of a tavern
in Wapping in 1667. The trades tokens of this house represent the
goddess by a naked figure standing on a globe, and holding a veil
distended by the wind,--a delicate hint to the customers, for it is a
well-known fact that a man who has “a sheet in the wind” is as happy as
a king. Doubtless the name of the ELYSIUM, a public-house in Drury Lane
about thirty years ago, had also been adopted as suggestive of the
happiness in store for the customers who honoured the place by their
company.
Ballads, novels, chapbooks, and songs, have also given their contingent.
Thus, for instance, the BLIND BEGGAR OF BETHNAL GREEN--still a
public-house in the Whitechapel Road--has decorated the signpost for
ages. The ballad was written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but the
legend refers to Henry de Montfort, son of the Earl of Leicester, who
was supposed to have fallen at the battle of Evesham in the reign of
Henry III. Not only was the Beggar adopted as a sign by publicans, but
he also figured on the staff of the parish beadle; and so convinced were
the Bethnal Green folks of the truth of the story, that the house called
Kirby Castle was generally pointed out as the Blind Beggar’s palace, and
two turrets at the extremity of the court wall as the place where he
deposited his gains.
Still more general all over England is GUY OF WARWICK, who occurs
amongst the signs on trades tokens of the seventeenth century: that of
Peel Beckford, in Field Lane, represents him as an armed man holding a
boar’s head erect on a spear. The wondrous strange feats of this knight
form the subject of many a ballad. In the Roxburgh Collection there is
one headed, “The valiant deads of chivalry atchieved by that noble
knight, Sir Guy of Warwick, who, for the love of fair Phillis, became a
hermit, and dyed in a cave of a craggy rock a mile distant from Warwick.
In Normandy stoutly won by fight the Emperor’s daughter of Almayne from
many a valiant, worthy knight.”[90] His most popular feat is the slaying
of the DUN COW on Dunsmore Heath, which act of valour is commemorated on
many signs.
“By gallant Guy of Warwick slain
Was Colbrand, that gigantick Dane.
Nor could this desp’rate champion daunt
A dun cow bigger than elephaunt.
But he, to prove his courage sterling,
His whinyard in her blood embrued;
He cut from her enormous side a sirloin,
And in his porridge-pot her brisket stew’d,
Then butcher’d a wild boar, and eat him barbicu’d.”
_Huddersford Wiccamical Chaplet._
A public-house at Swainsthorpe, near Norwich, has the following
inscription on his sign of the Dun Cow:--
“Walk in, gentlemen, I trust you’ll find
The Dun Cow’s milk is to your mind.”
Another on the road between Durham and York:--
“Oh, come you from the east,
Oh, come you from the west,
If ye will taste the Dun Cow’s milk,
Ye’ll say it is the best.”
The KING AND MILLER is another ballad-sign seen in many places. It
alludes to the adventure of Henry II. with the Miller of Mansfield.[91]
Similar stories are told of many different kings: of King John and the
Miller of Charlton, (from whom Cuckold’s Point got its name;) of King
Edward and the tanner of Drayton Basset; of Henry 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-Raschid, who
used to go about _incognito_ under the name of Il Bondocani.
The most frequent of all ballad signs is unquestionably ROBIN HOOD AND
LITTLE JOHN, his faithful accolyte. Robin Hood has for centuries enjoyed
a popularity amongst the English people shared by no other hero. He was
a crack shot, and of a manly, merry temper, qualities which made the mob
overlook his confused notions about _meum_ and _tuum_, and other
peccadilloes. His sign is frequently accompanied by the following
inscription:--
“You gentlemen, and yeomen good,
Come in and drink with Robin Hood.
If Robin Hood be not at home,
Come in and drink with Little John.”
Which last line a country publican, not very well versed in ballad lore,
thus corrected:--
“Come in and drink with Jemmie Webster.”
At Bradford, in Yorkshire, the following variation occurs:--