SIGNS OF ANIMALS AND MONSTERS.
It is in many cases impossible to draw a line of demarcation between
signs borrowed from the animal kingdom and those taken from heraldry: we
cannot now determine, for instance, whether by the White Horse is meant
simply an _equus caballus_, or the White Horse of the Saxons, and that
of the House of Hanover; nor, whether the White Greyhound represented
originally the supporter of the arms of Henry VII., or simply the
greyhound that courses “poor puss” on our meadows in the hunting-season.
For this reason this chapter has been placed as a sequel to the heraldic
signs.
As a rule, fantastically coloured animals are unquestionably of heraldic
origin: their number is limited to the Lion, the Boar, the Hart, the
Dog, the Cat, the Bear, and in a few instances the Bull; all other
animals were generally represented in what was meant for their natural
colours. The heraldic lions have already been treated of in the last
chapter; but sometimes we meet with the lion as a _fera naturæ_,
recognisable by such names as the BROWN LION, the YELLOW LION, or simply
the Lion. There is a public-house in Philadelphia with the sign of the
Lion, having underneath the following lines:
“The lion roars, but do not fear,
Cakes and beer sold here.”
Which inscription is certainly as unnecessary as that over the
nonformidable-looking lions under the celebrated fountain in the Spanish
Alhambra, “O thou who beholdest these lions crouching, fear not, life is
wanting to enable them to exhibit their fury.”
Lions occur in numerous combinations with other animals and objects,
which in many cases seem simply the union of two signs, as the LION AND
DOLPHIN, Market Place, Leicester; the LION AND TUN, at Congleton: the
LION AND SWAN in the same locality may owe its joint title to the name
of the street in which the public-house is situated, viz., Swanbank. The
combination of the LION AND PHEASANT, Wylecop, Shrewsbury, seems rather
mysterious, unless the Pheasant has been substituted for the Cock, just
as in the THREE PHEASANTS AND SCEPTRE, they were substituted for the
THREE PIGEONS AND SCEPTRE. As for the COCK AND LION, a very common
sign, their meeting, if we may believe ancient naturalists, is anything
but agreeable to the lion.
“The lyon dreadeth the white cocke, because he breedeth a precious
stone called allectricium, like to the stone that hight Calcedonius.
And for that the Cocke beareth such a stone, the Lyon specially
abhorreth him.”[196]
Some more information about this stone may be gathered from a mediæval
treatise on natural history:
“Allectorius est lapis obscuro cristallo sĩlis e vẽtriculo galli
castrati trahitur post quartũ añũ. Ultima eius quãtitas ẽ ad
magnitudinẽ fabe--quẽ gladiator. hñs in ore penanct̃. ĩvictus ac sine
siti.”[197]
The LION AND BALL owes its origin to another mediæval notion:
“Some report that those who rob the tiger of her young use a policy to
detaine their damme from following them, by casting sundry
looking-glasses in the way, whereat she useth to long to gaze, whether
it be to beholde her owne beauty or because when she seeth her shape
in the glasse she thinketh she seeth one of her young ones, and so
they escape the swiftness of her pursuit.”[198]
The looking-glass thrown to the tiger was spherical, so that she could
see her own image reduced as it rolled under her paw, and would
therefore be more likely to mistake it for her cub. Lions and tigers
being almost synonymous in mediæval zoology, the spherical glass was
generally represented with both. In sculpture it could only be
represented by a ball, which afterwards became a terrestrial globe, and
the lion resting his paw upon it, passed into an emblem of royalty.
In the last century an innkeeper at Goodwood put up as his sign the
CENTURION’S LION, the figure-head of the frigate _Centurion_, in which
Admiral Anson made a voyage round the world. Under it was the following
inscription:--
“Stay, Traveller, a while and view
One that has travelled more than you,
Quite round the Globe in each Degree,
Anson and I have plow’d the Sea;
Torrid and Frigid Zones have pass’d,
And safe ashore arriv’d at last.
In Ease and Dignity appear
He--in the House of Lords, I--here.”
When Anson was in general disfavour about the Minorca affair, the
following biting reply to this inscription went the round of the
newspapers:--
“_The Traveller’s reply to the Centurion’s Lion._
“O King of Beasts, what pity ’twas to sever
A pair whose Union had been just for ever!
So diff’rently advanced! ’twas surely wrong,
When you’d been fellow-travellers so long.
Had you continued with him, had he born
To see the English Lion dragg’d and torn?
Brittannia made at every vein to bleed,
A ravenous Crew of worthless Men to feed?
No; Anson once had sought the Land’s Relief;
Now--Ease and Dignity have banish’d Grief.
Go, rouse him then, to save a sinking nation,
Or call him up, the partner of your station.
We often see two Monsters for a sign,
Inviting to good Brandy, Ale, or Wine.”
The TIGER is of rare occurrence on signboards; there is a GOLDEN TIGER
in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle, and a bird-fancier on Tower Dock, not far
from the then famous menagerie which attracted crowds to the Tower,
chose the LEOPARD AND TIGER for his sign. In 1665 there was a LEOPARD
Tavern in Chancery Lane; the same animal is still occasionally seen on
public-house signs. Generally speaking, the carnivorous animals are not
great favourites, and those named above are almost the only examples
that occur. As for the popularity of the BEAR, it is entirely to be
attributed to the old vulgar pleasure of seeing him ill-treated, a relic
of the once common amusements of bear-baiting and whipping. The colours
in which he is represented are the BLACK BEAR, the BROWN BEAR, the WHITE
BEAR, and in a very few instances (as at Leeds) the RED BEAR.
Besides bear-whipping and bear-baiting, another barbarous fancy led
sometimes to the choice of this animal for a sign,--viz., the lamentable
pun which the publican made upon the article he sold, and the name of
the animal. Will. Rose of Coleraine, in Ireland, for instance, issued
trades tokens with a bear passant, on the reverse EXCHANGE.FOR.A.CAN
(_i.e._, of Bear!), and as if the pun was not ridiculous enough, there
was a rose as a rebus for his name. Thomas Dawson of Leeds perpetrated a
similar pun on his token, dated 1670; it says,--BEWARE.OF.Y^{E}.BEARE,
evidently alluding to the strength of his beer.[199]
Bears used often to be represented with chains round their neck, (as on
the stone sign in Addle Street, with the date 1610.) This led to the
following amusing rejoinder:--It happened that a pedestrian artist had
run up a bill at a road-side inn which he was unable to pay, whereupon
the landlord, in order to settle the account, commissioned him to paint
a bear for his sign. The painter, wanting to make a little besides,
suggested that, if the bear was painted with a chain round his neck,
which he strongly advised him to have, it would cost him half-a-guinea
more, on account of the gold, &c. But the host was not agreeable to this
extra expense; accordingly, the sign was painted, (but in distemper,)
and the painter went his way. Not many days after it began to rain, and
the bear was completely washed from the board. The first time the
landlord met the painter, he accused him in great dudgeon of having
imposed upon him, for that, in less than a month, the bear had gone from
his signboard. “Now, look here,” replied the painter; “did not I advise
you to have a chain put about the bear’s neck? but you would not hear of
it; had that been done he could not have run away, and would still be at
your door.”
Among the most famous Bear inns and taverns were,--the Bear “at
Bridgefoot,” _i.e._, at the foot of London Bridge, on the Southwark
side, for many centuries one of the most popular London taverns; as
early as the reign of Richard III. we find it the resort of the
aristocratic pleasure-seeker. Thus, in March 1463/4, it was repeatedly
visited by Jocky of Norfolk, the then Sir John Howard, who went there to
drink wine and shoot at the target, at which he lost 20 pence.[200] It
is also frequently named by the writers of the seventeenth century.[201]
Pepys mentions it April 3, 1667. “I hear how the king is not so well
pleased of this marriage between the Duke of Richmond and Mrs Stuart, as
is talked; and that he by a wile did fetch her to the Bear at the
Bridgefoot, where a coach was ready, and they are stole away into Kent
without the king’s leave.” The wine of this establishment did not meet
with the approbation of the fastidious searchers after claret in 1691.
“Through stinks of all sorts, both the simple and compound,
Which through narrow alleys, our senses do confound,
We came to the Bear, which we now understood
Was the first house in Southwark built after the flood;
And has such a succession of vintners known,
Not more names were e’er in Welsh pedigrees shown;
But claret with them was so much out of fashion,
That it has not been known there a whole generation.”
_Last Search after Claret in Southwark_, 1691.
This old tavern was pulled down in 1761, at the removal of the houses
from London Bridge. “Thursday last the workmen employed in pulling down
the Bear Tavern, at the foot of London Bridge, found several pieces of
gold and silver coin of Queen Elizabeth, and other money, to a
considerable value.”--_Public Advertiser_, Dec. 26, 1761. Coins, no
doubt, dropped between the boards by the revellers of bygone
generations.
There was another famous Bear Tavern at the foot of Strandbridge; the
vicinity of the “Bear” and “Paris Gardens” had evidently suggested the
choice of those signs. At the Bear Tavern in the Strand, the earliest
meetings of the Society of Antiquaries took place, when there were as
yet only three members, Mr Talman, Mr Bagford, and Mr Wanley. Their
first meeting was on Friday, Nov. 5, 1707; subsequently they met at the
Young Devil Tavern in Fleet Street, and then at the Fountain, opposite
Chancery Lane. Mr Talman was the first president; Mr Wanley was a savant
of considerable acquirements. It was he who purchased Bagford’s MS.
collection for the Harleian Library.
The WHITE BEAR at Soper’s Lane End, (now Queen Street,) Cheapside, was
the shop in which Baptist Hicks, as a silk mercer, by selling silks,
velvets, lace, and plumes to the courtiers of James I., amassed that
fortune which led to the Peerage, and the title of Viscount Campden.
There was another White Bear Tavern in Thames Street, of which the sign
is still extant, a stone bas-relief with the date 1670, and the initials
M. E. In 1252, Henry III. received a white bear as a present from the
king of Norway; and in King Edward VI.’s time, May 29, 1549, the French
ambassadors, after they had supped with the Duke of Somerset, went to
the Thames and saw the bear hunted in the river.[202] Such an occurrence
might easily lead to the adoption of this animal as a sign in that
locality. The following little fact connected with another White Bear
Inn forcibly calls up the _dark_ ages before gas was invented. In 1656,
John Wardall gave by will to the Grocers’ Company a tenement called “The
White Bear in Walbrook,” upon condition that they should yearly pay to
the church-wardens of St Botolph’s, Billingsgate, £4 to provide a
lanthorn with a candle, so that passengers might go with more security
to and from the waterside during the night. This lamp was to be fixed at
the north-east corner of the parish church of St Botolph, from St
Bartholomew’s-day to Lady-day; out of this sum £1 was to be paid to the
sexton for taking care of the lanthorn. The annuity is now applied to a
lamp lighted with gas in the place prescribed by the will.[203]
The White Bear Inn, at the east end of Piccadilly, was for more than a
century one of the busiest coaching houses. In this house died Luke
Sullivan, engraver of some of Hogarth’s works; also Chatelain, another
engraver, the last in such penurious circumstances, that he was buried
at the expense of some friends in the poor ground of St James’s
workhouse. It was in this inn that West passed the first night in London
on his arrival from America. The sign of the White Bear is still common;
at Springbank, Hull, there is one called, with zoological precision, the
POLAR BEAR. This may, however, refer to the constellation.
The BEAR’S HEAD occurs in Congleton, Cheshire; probably it is a family
crest, the same as the BEAR’S PAW,--both of which, it is believed, occur
only in that county and in Lancashire. The Bear is also met in frequent
combinations; one of the most common is the BEAR AND BACCHUS, which
looks like a hieroglyphic rendering of the words Beer and Wine, having
the additional attraction of alliteration. Since mythology does not
mention a Beer-God, the animal was probably chosen as a rebus for the
drink. In the BEAR AND RUMMER, Mortimer Street, the rummer implies the
sale of liquors, in the same manner as the Punchbowl is often used. The
BEAR AND HARROW seems to be a union of two signs. In the seventeenth
century it formed the house-decoration of an ordinary at the entrance of
Butcher Row, (now Picket Street, Strand.) One night in 1692, Nat Lee,
the mad poet, in going home drunk from this house, fell down in the snow
and was stifled.
The Elephant, in the middle ages, was nearly always represented with the
castle on his back. For instance, in the Latin MS., Bestiarium Harl.,
4751, a tower is strapped to him, in which are seen five knights in
chain-armour, with swords, battle-axes, and cross-bows, their emblazoned
shields hanging round the battlements; and, in the description of the
animal, it is said, “In eorum dorsis, P[er] si et Indi ligneis turribus
collocati tamquam de muro jaculis dimicant.” The rook, in Chinese
chess-boards, still represents an elephant thus armed.
Cutlers in the last century frequently used the ELEPHANT AND CASTLE as
their sign, on account of it being the crest of the Cutlers’ Company,
who had adopted it in reference to the ivory used in the trade. Hence
the stone bas-relief in Belle Sauvage Yard, which was the sign of some
now forgotten shopkeeper, who had chosen it out of regard to his
landlords. The houses in the yard are the property of the Cutlers’
Company. The ELEPHANT AND CASTLE public-house, Newington Butts, was
formerly a famous coaching inn, but, by the introduction of railways, it
has dwindled down to a starting-point for omnibuses. The occasion of
this sign being put up was the following:--Some time about 1714, a Mr
Conyers, an apothecary in Fleet Street, and a great collector of
antiquities, was digging in a gravel-pit in a field near the Fleet, not
far from Battle Bridge, when he discovered the skeleton of an elephant.
A spear with a flint head, fixed to a shaft of goodly length, was found
near it, whence it was conjectured to have been killed by the British in
a fight with the Romans,[204] though now, since the late discoveries
concerning the flint implements, very different conclusions would be
drawn from this fact. But be this as it may, that elephant, whether
post-tertiary or Roman, gave its name to the public-house soon after
erected in that locality; and, regardless of the venerable antiquity of
this origin, it is often now-a-days jocularly degraded into the PIG AND
TINDER-BOX.
What is meant by the whimsical combination of the ELEPHANT AND FISH, at
Sandhill, Newcastle, is hard to say, unless we assume the fish
originally to have been a dragon. Between elephants and dragons there
was supposed to be a deadly strife, and their battles are recorded by
Strabo, Pliny, Ælianus, and their mediæval followers. The fight always
ended in the death of both, the dragon strangling the elephant in the
windings of his tail, when the elephant, falling down dead, crushed the
dragon by his weight.
The ELEPHANT AND FRIAR, in Bristol, may possibly have originated from
the representation of an elephant accompanied by a man in Eastern
costume, whose flowing garment might be mistaken for the gown of a
friar. That sign would have admirably suited the fancy of the landlord
of the Elephant and Castle, formerly in Leeds; his name happening to be
Priest, he had the following inscription above his door:
“He is a priest who lives within,
Gives advice gratis, and administers gin.”
In the seventeenth century, the REINDEER began to make its appearance on
the signboard, where it has kept its place to the present day. At first
it was called _Rained Deer_, as we see from the newspapers of that
period:--“Mr John Chapman, York carrier in Hull, at the sign of the
Rained Deer.” This led to the answer of a sailor who had made a voyage
to Lapland, and on his return, being asked if he had seen any rained
deer? “No,” answered Jack, “I have seen it rain cats, dogs, and
pitchforks, but I never saw it rain deer.” The first instance we find of
this animal on the signboards of London, is in 1682, when there was
“Right Irish Usquebaugh to be sold at the Reindeer in Tuttle Street,
Westminster, in greater or smaller quantities, by one from
Ireland.”--_London Gazette_, Nov. 23-27, 1682.
Pepys mentions it as early as October 7, 1667, at Bishop Stortford, as
the sign of a tavern kept by a Mrs Elizabeth Aynsworth. Of this woman a
good story is told:--Mrs A. had been a noted procuress at Cambridge, for
which reason she was expelled the town by the University authorities.
Subsequently keeping the Reindeer at Bishop Stortford, the
Vice-chancellor and some of the heads of colleges, on their way to
London, had occasion to sleep at her house, little thinking under whose
roof they were. She received them nobly, served the supper up in plate,
and brought forth the best wine; but, when the hour of reckoning came,
would receive no money, “for,” said she, “I am too much indebted to the
Vice-chancellor for expelling me from Cambridge, which has been the
means of making my fortune.” For all this, however, she does not seem to
have mended her evil courses, for, shortly after, she was implicated in
the murder of a Captain Wood in Essex, for which one man was executed,
whilst Mrs Aynsworth was only acquitted by some flaw in the evidence.
DRAGONS, when apothecaries’ signs, were not derived from heraldry, but
were used to typify certain chemical actions. In an old German work on
Alchemy,[205] one of the plates represents a dragon eating his own tail;
underneath are the words,--
“Das ist gros Wunder und seltsam List,
Die höchst Artzney im Drachen ist.”[206]
In mediæval alchemy, the dragon seems to have been the emblem of
Mercury, which appears from these words on the same print: “Mercurius
recte et chymice præcipitatus vel sublimatus in sua propria aqua
resolutus et rursum coagulatus.”[207] To which are added the following
rhymes:--
“Ein Drach im Walde wohnend ist,
An Gifft demselben nichts gebrisst;
Wenn er die Sonne sieht und das Fewr
So speusst er Gifft fleugt ungehewr,
Kein Lebend Thier für ihm mag gnesn
Der Basilisc mag ihm nit gleich wesn.
Wer diesen Wurmb wol weiss zu tödtn
Der kömpt auss allen seinen Nöthen.
Sein Farber in seinem Todt sich vermehrn;
Auss seiner Gifft Artzney thut werden.
Sein Gifft verzehrt er gar und gans
Und frisst sein eign vergiften Schwantz.
Da mus er in sich selbst volbringen
Der edelst Balsam auss ihm thut tringen,
Solch grosse Tugend wird man schawen
Welches alle Weysn sich hoch erfrawen.”[208]
Hence the dragon became one of the “properties” of the chemist and
apothecary, was painted on his drug-pots, hung up as his sign, and some
dusty, stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling in the laboratory had
to do service for the monster, and inspire the vulgar with a profound
awe for the mighty man who had conquered the vicious reptile.
The SALAMANDER was another animal of the same class, and also
represented certain chemical actions, owing to its fabled powers of
resisting the fire. The notions of early naturalists concerning this
creature were very extraordinary. A Bestiarium in the Royal Library of
Brussels, No. 10074, says that it lives on pure fire, and produces a
substance which is neither silk nor linen, nor yet wool, of which
garments are made that can only be cleaned by fire; and that if the
animal itself falls into a burning fire, it would at once extinguish the
flames. Bossewell, besides incombustibility, attributes to the
salamander some other qualities fully as extravagant.
“Among all venomenous beastes he is the mightiest of poyson and
venyme. For if he creepe upon a tree, he infecteth all the apples or
other fruit that groweth thereon with his poyson, and killeth them
which eate thereof. Which apples, also, if they happen to falle into
any pitte of water, the strength of the poyson killeth them that
drinke thereof.”[209]
This incombustibility made it a very proper sign for alchemists and
apothecaries, and with the last it still continues as such, at least on
the Continent. Why the early Venetian printers adopted it as a sign is
less evident. In France it was certainly a favourite sign with this
class of workmen; but this was from the fact of its having been the
badge of Francis I., a liberal patron of the arts and sciences.
The qualities attributed to the UNICORN caused this animal to be used as
a sign both by chemists and goldsmiths. It was believed that the only
way to capture it was to leave a handsome young virgin in one of the
places where it resorted. As soon as the animal had perceived her, he
would come and lie quietly down beside her, resting his head in her lap,
and fall asleep, in which state he might be surprised by the hunters who
watched for him. This laying his head in the lap of a virgin made the
first Christians choose the unicorn as the type of Christ born from the
Virgin Mary.[210] The horn, as an antidote to all poison, was also
believed to be emblematic of the conquering or destruction of sin by the
Messiah. Religious emblems being in great favour with the early
printers, some of them for this reason adopted the unicorn as their
sign; thus John Harrison lived at the UNICORN AND BIBLE in Paternoster
Row 1603. Again, the reputed power of the horn caused the animal to be
taken as a supporter for the apothecaries’ arms, and as a constant
signboard by chemists. Albertus Magnus says:--“Cornu cerastis sunt qui
dicunt præsenti veneno sudare et ideo ferri ad mensas nobilium, et fieri
inde manubria cultellorum quæ infixa mensis prodant presens venenum.
Sed hoc non satis probatum est.”[211] Whatever it was that passed for
unicorn’s horn, (probably the horn of the narwal,) it was sold at an
immense price. “The unicorn whose horn is worth a city,” says Decker in
his Gull’s Hornbook; and Andrea Racci, a Florentine physician, relates
that it had been sold by the apothecaries at £24 per ounce, when the
current value of the same quantity of gold was only £2, 3s. 6d. In a MS.
table of customs entitled, “The Book of Rates in y^{e} first yeare of
Queen Mary 1531,”[212] we find the duty paid upon “cornu unicorn y^{e}
ounce 20s.” An Italian author who visited England in the reign of Henry
VII.,[213] speaking of the immense wealth of the religious houses in
this country says:--“And I have been informed that, amongst other
things, many of these monasteries possess unicorns’ horns of an
extraordinary size.” Hence such a horn was fit to be placed among the
royal jewels, and there it appears at the head of an inventory taken in
the first year of Queen Elizabeth, and preserved in Pepys’s
library.[214] “Imprimis, a piece of unicorn’s horn,” which, as the most
valuable object, is named first.
This was no doubt the piece seen by the German traveller Hentzner, at
Windsor: “We were shown here, among other things, the horn of a unicorn
of above eight spans and a half in length, valued at above
£10,000.”[215] Peacham places “that horne of Windsor (of an unicorne
very likely)”[216] amongst the sights worth seeing. Fuller also speaks
of a unicorn’s horn--“in my memory shewn to people in the
Tower”[217]--and enters on a long dissertation about its virtues; but it
seems to have been lost, or at least, no longer exhibited in his time.
The belief in the efficacy and value of this horn continued to the close
of the seventeenth century; for the Rev. John Ward in his diary, p. 172,
says:--
“Mr Hartman had a piece of unicorn’s horn, which one Mr Godeski gave
him; hee had itt att some foraine prince’s court. I had the piece in
my hand. Hee desired Dr Willis to make use of itt in curing his ague;
but the Dr refusd because hee had never seen itt used. Mr Hartman told
me the forementioned gentleman has as much of itt as would make a cup,
and he intended to make one of itt. It approved ittself as a true one,
as he said by this: if one drew a circle with itt about a spider, she
would not move out off itt.”[218]
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.
TWO SPIES.
(Banks’s Collection, 1730.)
THREE NEATS’ TONGUES.
(Harleian Collection, 1708.)
MAN IN THE MOON.
(Banks’s Collection, 1760.)
BULL AND MOUTH.
(St Martin’s-le-Grand, 1835.)
BULL AND MOUTH.
(Angel St., St Martin’s-le-Grand, circa 1800.)]
The great value set upon unicorns’ horn caused the goldsmiths to adopt
this animal as their sign. There is one recorded in Machyn’s Diary: the
first of May 1561, “at afternone dyd Mastyr Godderyke’s sune the
goldsmyth go hup into hys father’s gyldyng house, toke a bowe-strynge,
and hanged ymseylff at the syne of the Unycorne in Chepesyd.” In 1711
the UNICORN AND DIAL was the sign of a watchmaker near the Strand
Bridge.[219]
Another fabulous animal that formerly (though rarely) occurred on
signboards was the COCKATRICE, which was the sign of a place of
amusement in Highbury _circa_ 1611. The “Bestiaria,” or ancient natural
histories, give most extraordinary particulars about the birth of this
creature:--
“When the cock is past seven years old an egg grows in his belly, and
when he feels this egg, he wonders very much, and sustains the
greatest anxiety any animal can suffer. He seeks, privately, a warm
place on a dunghill or in a stable, and scratches with his feet, until
he has formed a hole to lay his egg in. And when the cock has dug his
hole he goes ten times a day to it, for all day he thinks that he is
going to be delivered. And the nature of the toad is such that it
smells the venom which the cock carries in his belly, consequently it
watches him, so that the cock cannot go to the hole without being seen
by it. And as soon as the cock leaves the place where he has to lay
his egg, the toad is immediately there to see if the egg has been
laid; for his nature is such, that he hatches the egg if he can obtain
it. And when he has hatched it, until it is time to open, it produces
an animal that has the head, and neck, and breast of a cock, and from
thence downwards, the body of a serpent.”--_Translation from the MS.
Bestiarium_, Bib. Roy. Brussels, No. 10074.
That cocks, sometimes in the middle ages, forgot themselves so far as to
lay eggs, appears from a lawsuit which poor chanticleer had at Basle in
1474, when he was convicted, condemned, and, with his egg, burned at the
stake for a sorcerer, with as much pomp and ceremony as if he had been a
Protestant or other heretic.
The APE was, in bygone times, the sign of an inn in Philip Lane, near
London wall; all that now remains of this ancient hostelry is a stone
carving of a monkey squatted on its haunches, and eating an apple; under
it the date 1670, and the initial B. The courtyard, where the lumbering
coaches used to arrive and depart, is now an open space, round which
houses are built. The RACOON is a painted sign at Dalston, but a hyæna
seems to have sat for the portrait; the HIPPOPOTAMUS occurs in
New-England Street, Brighton; the IBEX at Chadelworth, Wantage; the
CROCODILE in Higham Street, Norwich; the CAMEL may be met with in a few
instances, and at Weston Peverell, Plymouth, there is the sign of the
CAMEL’S HEAD. Finally, there is the KANGAROO, of which, occasionally, an
example may be seen, set up probably by some landlord who had tried his
luck in Australia. The CIVET is common all over Europe as a perfumer’s
sign, as it was said to produce musk. A Dutch perfumer in the
seventeenth century wrote under his sign:--
“Dit ’s in de Civet kat, gelyk gy kunt aanschouwen,
Maar komt hier binnen, hier zyn parfuimen voor mannen en
vrouwen.”[220]
The HEDGEHOG was never very common. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth it
was the sign of William Seeres, bookseller, in St Paul’s Churchyard, who
put it up, according to Bagford, on account of its being the badge of
his former master Sir Henry Sydney.[221] Apparently this same house was
concerned in the following strange affair:--
“By a lettere dated London, 11 May 1555, it appears that in Powles
Churchyearde at the sign of the Hedgehog, the goodwife of the house
was brought to bed of a manchild, being of the age of 6 dayes and
dienge the 7^{th} daye followinge; and half an hour before it departed
spake these words followinge: (rise and pray) and so continued half an
houre in thes words and then cryinge departed the worlde. Hereupon the
Bishope of London examined the goodman of the house and other credible
persones who affirmed it to be true and will dye uppon the same.”[222]
The Hedgehog is now very scarce on signboards; at Dadlington, near
Market Bosworth, there is a DOG AND HEDGEHOG, doubtless borrowed from
the well-known engraving of “A Rough Customer.”
Signs relating to sport or the chase are comparatively common; thus we
have the RAT AND FERRET at Wilson, near Ashby de la Zouch; the THREE
CONIES, or rabbits, figure on an old trades token of Blackman Street;
the HARE, on the token of John Perris in the Strand, 1666; and Nicholas
_Warren_, in Aldersgate.[223] Warren evidently made a cockney mistake,
thinking that hares, instead of rabbits, lived in _warrens_. Another
Hare was the sign of Philip Hause in Walbrook in 1682.[224] The HARE AND
SQUIRREL occur together on a sign at Nuneaton; what the combination
means it is difficult to surmise.
“Cages with climbing SQUIRRELS and bells to them were formerly the
indispensable appendages of the outside of a Tinman’s shop, and were,
in fact, the only live sign. One, we believe, still (1826) hangs out
on Holborn; but they are fast vanishing with the good old modes of our
ancestors.”[225]
The THREE SQUIRRELS was the sign of an inn at Lambeth, mentioned by
Taylor the Water poet in 1636; and from a trades token it appears that
in the seventeenth century there was a similar sign in Fleet Street.
Probably it was the same house which, in 1673/4, was occupied by Gosling
the banker, “over against St Dunstan’s Church,” where the triad of
squirrels may still be seen in the iron-work of the windows. Gosling’s
was one of the leading banking establishments in the reign of Charles
II. Among the curiosities of this old firm is a bill for £640, 8s., paid
out of the secret service money for gold lace and silver lace, bought by
the Duchess of Cleveland for the wedding clothes of the Lady Sussex and
Litchfield.
The HARE AND HOUNDS are very common; some fifty years ago it was the
sign of a notorious establishment in St Giles’s, one of those places
associated with “the good old customs of our ancestors.” As the few
houses of this character that remain are difficult of access, a
description of this place may not be uninteresting.
“The Hare and Hounds was to be reached by those going from the west
end towards the city, by going up a turning on the left hand, nearly
opposite St Giles’s churchyard. The entrance to this turning or lane
was obstructed or defended by posts with cross bars, which being
passed, the lane itself was entered. It extended some twenty or thirty
yards towards the north, through two rows of the most filthy,
dilapidated, and execrable buildings that could be imagined; and at
the top or end of it stood the citadel, of which ’Stunning Joe’ was
the corpulent castellan;--I need not say that it required some
determination and some address to gain this strange place of
rendezvous. Those who had the honour of an introduction to the great
man were considered safe, wherever his authority extended, and in
this locality it was certainly very extensive. He occasionally
condescended to act as a pilot through the navigation of the alley to
persons of aristocratic or wealthy pretensions, whom curiosity, or
some other motive best known to themselves, led to his abode. Those
who were not under his safe conduct frequently found it very unsafe to
wander in the intricacies of this region. In the _salon_ of this
temple of low debauchery were assembled groups of all ‘unutterable
things,’ all that class distinguished in those days, and, I believe,
in these, by the generic term ‘cadgers.’
Hail cadgers, who in rags array’d,
Disport and play fantastic pranks;
Each Wednesday night in full parade,
Within the domicile of Bank’s.
A ‘lady’ presided over the revels, collected largess in a platter,
and, at intervals, amused the company with specimens of her vocal
talent. Dancing was ‘kept up till a late hour,’ with more vigour than
elegance, and many terpsichorean passages, which partook rather of the
animation of the ‘Nautch’ than the dignity of the minuet, increased
the interest of the performance. It may be supposed that those who
assembled were not the sort of people who would have patronised Father
Matthew had he visited St Giles’s in those times. There was indeed an
almost incessant complaint of drought, which seemed to be increased by
the very remedies applied for its cure; and had it not been for the
despotic authority with which the dispenser of the good things of the
establishment exercised his rule, his liberality in the dispensation
would certainly have led to very vigorous developments of the
reprobation of man and of woman also. In the lower tier, or cellars,
or crypt of the edifice, beds or berths were provided for the company,
who, packed in bins after the ‘fitful fever’ of the evening, slept
well.”[226]
In 1750 there was a sign of the HARE AND CATS at Norwich,[227] which was
clearly a travesty of the Hare and Hounds.
The STAG may in early times have been put up as a religious type. As
such it is of constant occurrence in the catacombs and in early
Christian sculptures, in allusion to Psalm xlii., “Like as the hart
desireth the water brook, so longeth my soul after thee, O God!”[228]
The Stag is still a very common sign. A publican on the Fulham Road has
put up the sign of the Stag, and added to this on the tympanum: “Rex in
regno suo non habet parem,” the application of which is best known to
mine host himself.
The BALDFACED STAG is seen in many places: baldfaced is a term applied
to horses who have a white strip down the forehead to the nose. At
Chigwell in Essex there is a BALD HIND, and in the High Street,
Reading, a BALD FACE, both evidently derived from the last-named stag.
Various combinations also occur, as the STAG AND CASTLE, at Thornton,
near Hinckly; the STAG AND PHEASANT, rather common; both these,
doubtless, allude to the game seen in parks, or in the neighbourhood of
noblemen’s seats; the STAG AND OAK, the Cape, Warwickshire, points
towards a similar origin, but the STAG AND THORN at Traffick Street,
Derby, seems to be a union of two signs, for the THORN appears in the
same street on another public-house. There is, however, a sort of tree
called the Buck-Thorn, which possibly may have been corrupted into the
Buck and Thorn, and hence the Stag and Thorn. The RISING DEER
(Brampton-en-le-Morthen, Yorkshire) and the RISING BUCK (Sheinton,
Shropshire) have a decided deer-stalking smack about them, affording us
a glimpse of the cautious stag rising from the heather, pricking his
ears and sniffing the wind.
The RANGED DEER was the sign of the King’s gunsmith in the Minories,
1673.[229] At that period this street was full of smiths:
“The Mulcibers who in the Minories sweat
And massive bars on stubborn anvils beat,
Deform’d themselves, yet forge those stays of steel
Which arm Aurelia with a shape to kill.”--_Congreve._
This ranged deer was simply intended for the Reindeer, which animal had
then just newly come under the notice of the public; their knowledge of
it was still confused, and its name was spelled in various ways, such
as: _rain-deer_, _rained-deer_, _range-deer_, and _ranged-deer_.
THE ROEBUCK is equally common with the Stag; the GOLDEN BUCK, near St
Dunstan, was the shop of P. Overton, publisher of “The Cries of the City
of London, consisting of 74 copper-prints, each figure drawn after the
life, by the famous Mr Laron.” The BUCK AND BELL is a sign at Long
Itchington: the bell was frequently added to the signs of public-houses
in honour of the bell-ringers, who were in the habit of refreshing
themselves there. Hence we have the BULL AND BELL, Briggate, Leeds; the
RAVEN AND BELL, at Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton, and Newport; the BELL AND
TALBOT, at Bridgenorth; the DOLPHIN AND BELL on the token of John
Warner, Aldersgate, 1668; the FISH AND BELL, (evidently the same sign,)
Charles Street, Soho; the THREE SWANS AND PEAL at Walsall; the NELSON
AND PEAL, and many others.
Among the taverns with the sign of the ROEBUCK that have become famous,
the house in Cheapside may be mentioned as a notorious place during the
Whig riots in 1715.
Not only the Deer tribe themselves, but their HORNS also make a
considerable figure on the signboard. It is probably to the sign of the
Horns that allusion is made in the roll of the Pardoner, “Cocke Lorells
Bote:”--
“Here is Maryone Marchauntes at Allgate
Her Husbõde dwells at ye siggne of _ye Cokeldes Pate_.”
The HORNS was a tavern of note in Fleet Street in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth:
“The xvj day of September (1557), cam owt of Spayn to the Quens Cowrt
in post Monser Regamus, gorgysly apparelled, with divers Spaneardes,
and with grett cheynes, and their hats sett with stones and perlles,
and sopyd [supped], and by vij of the cloke were again on horsẽbake,
and so thrugh Flet Strett, and at the HORNES they dronke, and at the
GRAYHONDE, and so thrugh Chepesyde, and so over the bryge, and so rod
all nyght toward Dover.”--_Machyn’s Diary._
Sometimes the Horns are specified as the HART’S HORNS Inn, Smithfield,
near Pie Corner, one of the houses in the yard of which Joe Miller used
to play during Bartholomew Fair time, when he was associated with
Pinkethman at the head of a troop of actors. The _London Daily Post_ for
August 24, &c., 1721, contains several advertisements of his troop, and
the parts played by himself.
What most contributed to the popularity of this sign in the environs of
London was the custom alluded to by Byron:
“And many to the steep of Highgate hie,
Ask ye, Bœotian shades! the reason why,
’Tis to the worship of the solemn horn,
Grasp’d in the holy hand of mystery,
In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn,
And consecrate the oath with draught and dance till morn.”[230]
Highgate was the headquarters for this swearing on the horn. Hone gives
the oath in the following form:--
“An old and respectable inhabitant of the village says, that 60 years
ago, upwards of 80 stages stopped every day at the Red Lion, and that
out of every 5 passengers 3 were sworn. The oath was delivered
standing, and ran thus: ‘_Take notice_ what I now say unto you, for
_that_ is the first word of your oath--mind _that_! You must
acknowledge me to be your adopted father, I must acknowledge you to be
my adopted son (or daughter). If you do not call me father, you
forfeit a bottle of wine. If I do not call you son, I forfeit the
same. And now, my good son, if you are travelling through this village
of Highgate, and you have no money in your pocket, go call for a
bottle of wine at any house you think proper to go into, and book it
to your father’s score. If you have any friends with you you may treat
them as well, but if you have money of your own you must pay for it
yourself. For you must not say you have no money when you have,
neither must you convey the money out of your own pockets into your
friends’ pockets, for I shall search you as well as them; and if it is
found that you or they have money, you forfeit a bottle of wine for
trying to cozen and cheat your poor old ancient father. You must not
eat brown bread while you can get white, except you like the brown the
best; you must not drink small beer while you can get strong, except
you like the small the best. You must not kiss the maid while you can
kiss the mistress, except you like the maid the best, but sooner than
lose a good chance you may kiss them both. And now, my good son, for a
word or two of advice: keep from all houses of ill repute, and every
place of public resort for bad company. Beware of false friends, for
they will turn to be your foes, and inveigle you into houses where you
may lose your money and get no redress. Keep from thieves of every
denomination. And now, my good son, I wish you a safe journey through
Highgate and this life. I charge you, my good son, that if you know
any in this company who have not taken the oath you must cause them to
take it, or make each of them forfeit a bottle of wine, for if you
fail to do so you will forfeit a bottle of wine yourself. So now my
good son, God bless you. Kiss the horns or a pretty girl, if you see
one here which you like best, and so be free of Highgate.’”
After that, the new-made member became fully acquainted with the
privileges of a freeman, which consisted in:
“If at any time you are going through Highgate, and want to rest
yourself, and you see a pig lying in the ditch, you have liberty to
kick her out and take her place; but if you see three lying together,
you must only kick out the middle one and lie between the other two.”
These last liberties, however, are a later addition to the oath
introduced by a blacksmith, who kept the COACH AND HORSES. Nearly every
inn in Highgate used to keep a pair of horns for this custom. In Hone’s
time the principal inn, the Gatehouse, had stag-horns:--
The Mitre, stags’-horns.
The Green Dragon, do.
The Red Lion and Sun, bullocks’-horns.
The Bell, stags’-horns.
The Coach and Horses, rams’-horns.
The Castle, do.
The Red-Lion, rams’-horns.
The Coopers’ Arms, do.
The Fox and Hounds, rams’-horns.
The Flask, do.
The Rose and Crown, stags’-horns.
The Angel, rams’-horns.
The Bull, stags’-horns.
The Wrestlers, do.
The Lord Nelson, do.
The Duke of Wellington, stags’-horns.
The Crowne, do.
The Duke’s Head, do.
Hone supposes the custom to have originated in a sort of graziers’
club.[231] Highgate being the place nearest London where cattle rested
on their way from the north, certain graziers were accustomed to put up
at the Gatehouse for the night. But as they could not wholly exclude
strangers who, like themselves, were travelling on business, they
brought an ox to the door, and those who did not choose to kiss its
horns, after going through the ceremony described, were not deemed fit
members of their society. Similar customs prevailed in other places, as
at Ware, at the Griffin in Hoddesdon, &c.
On the Continent the sign of the Horns was formerly equally common,
often accompanied with some sly allusion to what Othello calls “the
forked plague.” Thus in the Rue Bourg Chavin, in Lyons, there is now a
pair of horns with the inscription “SUNT SIMILIA TUIS;” and a Dutch
shopkeeper of the seventeenth century wrote under his sign of the
Horns--
“Ik draag Hoornen dat ider ziet,
Maar menig draagt Hoornen en weet het niet.”[232]
The Fox, as might be expected, is to be seen in a great many places;
there is one at Frandley, Cheshire, with the following rhymes:--
“Behold the Fox, near Frandley stocks,
Pray catch him when you can,
For they sell here, good ale and beer,
To any honest man.”
A still more absurd inscription accompanies the sign of the Fox at
Folkesworth, near Stilton, Hunts:--
“I . HAM . A . CUNEN . FOX
YOU . SEE . THER . HIS .
NO . HARM . ATCHED .
TO . ME . IT . IS . MY . MRS
WISH . TO . PLACE . ME
HERE . TO . LET . YOU . NO .
HE . SELLS . GOOD . BEERE .”
Formerly there used to be a sign of the THREE FOXES in Clement’s Lane,
Lombard Street, carved in stone, representing three foxes sitting in a
row. But a few years ago the house came into the possession of a legal
firm, who, no doubt afraid of the jokes to which the sign might lead,
thought it advisable to do away with the carving by covering it over
with plaster.
One of the most favourite combinations is the FOX AND GOOSE, represented
by a fox currant, with the neck of the goose in his mouth and the body
cast over his back. It seems suggested by an incident in the old tale
of “Reynard the Fox,” and was a subject which mediæval artists were
never tired of representing; it occurs in stall carvings, as in
Gloucester Cathedral; in the border of the Bayeux tapestry, and in
endless MS. illuminations. It is, or was, a coat of arms borne by the
families of Foxwist and Foxfeld. Derived from this sign are the FOX AND
DUCK, (two in Sheffield,) and the FOX AND HEN, of which there is an
example at Long Itchington. Reynard’s predatory habits are further
illustrated by the FOX AND LAMB, in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle, in
Allendale, &c., and the FOX AND GRAPES, borrowed from the fable. From
the same well-known source also arose the sign of the FOX AND CRANE. But
we see the punishment of all Reynard’s misdemeanours in the FOX AND
HOUNDS, a sign of old standing, as there is one in Putney on a house
which professes to have been “established above three hundred years.”
The FOX AND OWL at Nottingham, seems to owe its origin to a curious _qui
pro quo_ in language. A bunch of ivy, or ivy tod, was generally
considered the favourite haunt of an _owl_; but a _tod_ also signifies a
fox; and so the owl’s nest, owls-tod, may have led to the owl and tod,
the fox and owl. The OWL’S NEST is still a sign at St Helen’s,
Lancashire. _See under_ Bird Signs.
In the sign of the FOX AND BULL, at Knightsbridge, the bull has been
added of late years. About fifty years ago a magistrate used to sit once
a week at this public-house to settle the small disputes of the
neighbouring inhabitants. At that period Knightsbridge was still in such
a benighted condition that neither a butcher’s nor draper’s shop was to
be found between Hyde Park Corner and Sloane Street; and the whole
locality could only boast of one stationer where note-paper and
newspapers could be obtained. The voyage to London in those days was
performed in a sort of lumbering stagecoach, over an ill-paved and
dimly-lighted road. To this Fox Inn, by a very old wooden gate at the
back, the bodies of the drowned in the Serpentine used to be conveyed,
to the care of the Royal Humane Society, who had a receiving-house here.
Among the many unhappy young and fair ones who were carried through that
“_Lasciate-ogni-speranza_” gate, was Harriet Westbrook, the first wife
of Shelley the poet, who had drowned herself in the Serpentine upon
hearing that her husband had run off to Italy with Mary, the daughter of
William Godwin, bookseller and philosopher of Snow Hill. The ancient
inn remained much in its Elizabethan condition till the year 1799, when
certain alterations cleared away the old-fashioned fire-places,
chimney-pieces, and dog-irons, by which had sat the weather-beaten
soldiers of Cromwell, the highwaymen lying in ambush for the mail
coaches, and the fair London ladies out on a sly trip.
Some other combinations are not so easily explained, such as the FOX AND
CAP, Long Lane, Smithfield: but when we see the bill of this shop[233]
the mystery is explained; it was the sign of Tho. Tronsdale, a capmaker,
and represented a fox running, with a cap painted above him, to intimate
the man’s business. The FOX AND CROWN, Nottingham and Newark, is
evidently a combination of two signs. The FOX AND KNOT, Snow Hill, seems
to be of old standing, as it has given its name to a court close by. Its
origin, doubtless, is exactly similar to that of the Fox and Cap; the
knot or top-knot being a head-dress worn by ladies in the last century.
The FLYING FOX at Colchester, may either allude to some kind of bat or
flying squirrel (?) thus denominated, or is a landlord’s _caprice_.
It is certainly somewhat strange that in this sporting country the sign
of the Brush or the Fox’s Tail should be so rare; in fact, no instance
of its use is now to be found, although, beside the interest attached to
it in the hunting field, it had the honour of being one of the badges of
the Lancaster family. What is still more surprising is, that the FOX’S
TAIL should have been the sign of a Parisian bookseller, Jean Ruelle, in
1540; but what prompted him to choose this sign is now rather difficult
to guess.
DOMESTIC ANIMALS.
Notwithstanding the ballad of the “Vicar and Moses,” which says,
“_At the sign of the Horse_ old Spintext of course
Each night took his pipe and his pot,”
the horse rarely or never occurs without a distinctive adjective to
determine its colour, action, or other attribute. All natural colours of
the horse, and some others, are found on the signboard--black, white,
bay, sorrel, (rare,) pied, spotted, red, sometimes golden, and in one
instance, at Grantham, a BLUE Horse is met with. Frequently the sign of
the Horse is accompanied by the following hippophile advice:--
“Up hill hurry me not;
Down hill trot me not;
On level ground spare me not;
And in the stable I’m not forgot.”
Many years ago, at Greenwich, there was a public-house with the sign of
a Horse. Behind the house was a large grass field, to which referred the
following notice, painted under the sign:--“Good Grass for Horses. LONG
TAILS three shillings and sixpence per week.” An inquisitive person
passing that way, and not understanding the meaning of the notice, went
in and questioned the landlord, who informed him that a difference was
made for the bob-tailed horses; “for,” said he, “long-tailed horses can
whisk off the flies, and eat at their leisure; but bob-tails have to
shake their heads and run about from morning till night, and so do eat
much less.”
The RED HORSE is now almost extinct; it occurs as the sign of a house in
Bond Street, in an advertisement about a spaniel lost by the Duke of
Grafton.[234] By the term _red_ was not meant vermilion; at that time it
was the accepted word for what we now call _roan_. The BAY HORSE is a
great favourite in Yorkshire; in 1861 there were, in the West Riding
alone, not less than seventy-seven inns, taverns, and public-houses,
with such a sign, besides innumerable ale-houses. One would expect the
YORKSHIRE GREY more indigenous to that county. The DAPPLE GREY is
apparently a tribute of gratitude of the publicans to the “Dapple Grey”
of the nursery rhyme--
“I had a little bonny nag,
His name was _Dapple Grey_,
And he would bring me to an ale-house
A mile out of the way.”
Dappled grey, too, was the fashionable colour of horses in the last
century; thus Pope’s mercenary Duchess--
“The gods, to curse Pamela with her prayers,
Gave her gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares.”
Of the WHITE HORSE innumerable instances occur, and many are
connected with names known in history. At the White Horse, near
Burleigh-on-the-Hill, the noted Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, spent the
last years of his life, and died.
“The Duke of Queensbury being present at his death, knowing the Duke
to be a dissenter, and thinking he must be a Catholic, offered to send
for a Catholic priest, to which the Duke answered, ‘No,’ said he,
‘those rascals eat God; but if you know of any set of fellows that eat
the devil, I should be obliged to you if you would send for one of
them!’”
All of a piece! So ended
“That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim.”[235]
At the White Horse in Kensington, Addison wrote several of his
_Spectators_. His favourite dinner, when he stayed at this house, was
fillet of veal and a bottle of claret. The old inn remained in its
original state till about forty years ago, when it was pulled down, and
the name changed to the HOLLAND ARMS; but the sign is still preserved in
the parlour of the new establishment.
Edinburgh also has its famous White Horse; in a close in the Canongate,
an inn dating from the time of Queen Mary Stuart, and which Scott has
introduced in one of his novels, may still be seen. It was well-known to
runaway couples, and hundreds have been made happy or unhappy for life
“at a moment’s notice,” in its large room, in which, as well as in the
White Hart in the Grassmarket, these _impromptu_ marriages were as
regularly performed as at Gretna Green. The WHITE HORSE CELLAR,
Piccadilly, now a tame omnibus office, was for more than a century one
of the bustling coaching inns for the West. “Some persons think the
sublimest object in nature is a ship launched on the bosom of the ocean;
but give me, for my private satisfaction, the mail coaches that pour
down Piccadilly of an evening, tear up the pavement, and devour the way
before them to the Land’s-End.”--_Hazlitt._ This place calls up pleasant
fancies of travelling by the mail, through merry roads, with blooming
hawthorn and chestnut trees, larks singing aloft, the village bells, and
the blacksmith’s hammer tinkling in the distance; but another White
Horse Inn shows the dark side of the picture--the unsafety of the roads,
for the White Horse, corner of Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, was
long a detached public-house, where travellers customarily stopped for
refreshment, and to examine their firearms before crossing the fields to
Lisson Green.[236] The last White Horse we shall mention was in Pope’s
Head Alley, the sign of John Sudbury and George Humble, the first men
that opened a printshop in London, in the beginning of the seventeenth
century. Peacham, in his “Compleat Gentleman,” says that Goltzius’
engravings were commonly to be had in Pope’s Head Alley. There also, in
1611, the first edition of Speed’s “Great Britain” was published.
At a certain place in Warwickshire a fellow started a public-house near
four others, with signs respectively of the Bear, the Angel, the Ship,
and the Three Cups. Yet quite undaunted at his neighbours, he put up the
White Horse as his sign, and under it wrote the following spirited and
prophetic rhymes:--
“My _White Horse_ shall bite the _Bear_,
And make the _Angel_ fly;
Shall turn the _Ship_ her bottom up,
And drink the _Three Cups_ dry.”
And so it did; the lines pleased the people, the other houses soon lost
their custom, and tradition says that the fellow made a considerable
fortune.
The RUNNING HORSE or the GALLOPING HORSE--perhaps originally the horse
of Hanover--is also very common. In the _London Gazette_, Feb. 12-15,
1699, a horse race is advertised at Lilly Hoo, in Hertford; the
advertisement concludes: “and on the same day a smock worth £3 will be
run for, besides other encouragements for those that come in 2d. or 3d.
Any woman may run gratis, that enters her name at the Running Horse,
where articles may be seen,” &c. Races by women were not uncommon in
those days, and instances may yet occasionally be heard of, particularly
in the east end of London, where every great match generally concludes
with a race among the free and easy ladies of the neighbourhood.
The combinations in which we meet with the Horse are all very plain, and
require no explanation. The HORSE AND GROOM, and the HORSE AND JOCKEY,
are the most prevalent. Racing, from time immemorial, has been a
favourite English sport. Fitzstephen mentions the races in the days of
Henry II., and in the ballad of Syr Bevys of Hampton,[237] full details
are given.
“In somer at Whitsontide,
Whan knighten most on horseback ride,
A course let they make or a daye
Steedes and Palfraye for to assaye;
Which horse that best may ren,
Three miles the cours was then,
Who that might ride them shoulde
Have forty pounds of redy golde.”
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth races were much in vogue, and betting
carried to great excess. The famous George Earl of Cumberland is
recorded to have wasted more money than any of his ancestors, chiefly by
racing and tilting. In 1599, private matches by gentlemen who rode their
own horses were of frequent occurrence. In the reign of James I. public
races were celebrated at various places, under much the same regulations
as now. The most celebrated were called Bellcourses. In the latter part
of the reign of Charles I. there were races in Hyde Park as well as at
Newmarket. Charles II. was very fond of this diversion, and appointed
meetings at Datchet Mead when he resided at Windsor. Gradually, however,
Newmarket became the principal place. The king, a constant attendant,
established a house for his own accommodation, and entered horses in his
royal name. Instead of bells, he gave a silver bowl or a cup, value 100
guineas, on which the exploit and pedigree of the winning horse were
generally engraved. William III. and Queen Anne both added to the plate.
George I., towards the end of his reign, discontinued the plate and gave
100 guineas instead; George II. made several racing regulations, about
the age of horses, the weight of jockeys, &c. Already, in 1768, the
horses had obtained great swiftness; for Misson, in his “Travels,”
mentions one that ran 20 miles in 55 minutes upon uneven ground, which
for those times was certainly a remarkable feat.
The BELL AND HORSE is an old and still frequent sign; it occurs on
trades tokens; as John Harcourt at the BELL AND BLACK HORSE in Finsbury,
1668, and on various others; whilst at the present day it may be seen at
many a roadside alehouse. Bells were a favourite addition to the
trappings of horses in the middle ages. Chaucer’s abbot is described:--
“When he rode men his bridle hear,
Gingling in a whistling wind as clere,
And eke as loud as doth a chapel bell.”
In a MS. in the Cottonian Library[238] relating the journey of Margaret
of England to Scotland, there to be married to King James, we find
constant mention of these bells. The horse of Sir William Ikarguil,
companion of Sir William Conyars, sheriff of Yorkshire, is described as
“his Hors Harnays full of campanes [bells] of silver and gylt.” Whilst
the master of the horse of the Duke of Northumberland was “monted apon a
gentyll horse, and campanes of silver and gylt.” And a company of
knights is introduced, “some of their hors harnes was full of campanes,
sum of gold and sylver, and others of gold.” This led to the custom of
giving a golden bell as the reward of a race. In Chester, such a bell
was run for yearly on St George’s day; it was “dedicated to the kinge,
being double gilt with the Kynges Armes upon it,” and was carried in the
procession by a man on horseback “upon a septer in pompe, and before him
a noise of trumpets in pompe.”[239] This custom of racing for a bell led
to the adoption of the still common phrase, _bearing off the_ BELL.
Names of celebrated race horses are found on signboards as well as human
celebrities. Such are BAY CHILDERS at Dronfield, Derby; FLYING CHILDERS
at Melton Mowbray; WILD DAYRELL, Oldham; FILHO DA PUTA, Nottingham; and
FILHO tavern, Manchester. BLINK BONNY is common in Northumberland;
FLYING DUTCHMAN occurs in various places; and the ARABIAN HORSE at
Aberford, in Yorkshire, may perhaps represent the great Arabian
Godolphin, the sire of all our famous racers.
The HORSE AND TIGER, at Rotherham, is said to refer to the accident in a
travelling menagerie which took place many years ago, when the tiger
broke loose and sprang upon the leaders of a passing mail coach,
although visitors from London generally suppose the “tiger” to mean the
spruce groom, or horse attendant, coming from the country to London in
such numbers. Even that poor hack, the MANAGE HORSE, is not forgotten,
as he may be seen going through his paces before a public-house in
Cottles Lane, Bath. In one of the turnings in Cannon Street, City, there
is an old sign of the HORSE AND DORSITER, which is simply an old
rendering of the more common PACK HORSE, formerly the usual sign of a
posting inn. No doubt the FRIGHTED HORSE, which occurs in many places,
belongs to this class of horses,--the expression “fright” being a
corruption of _freight_. Some publicans who, with their trade combine
the calling of farrier, set up the sign of the HORSE AND FARRIER,--in
Ireland rendered as the BLEEDING HORSE. A Dutch farrier in the village
of Schagen, in the seventeenth century, put up the sign of the WHITE
HORSE, and wrote under it the following very philosophical verse:--
“In ’t witte Paard worden de paarden haar voeten met yzer beslagen
Dat men de menschen dat mee kon doen zy hoefden dan geen schoenen te
dragen.”[240]
The HORSE AND STAG, (Finningley, Nottinghamshire,) and the HORSE AND
GATE, are both hunting signs; yet the last may have been suggested by
the Bull and Gate. The HORSE AND TRUMPET is a very common sign,
illustrating the war horse; the HORSE AND CHAISE (or shaze, as it is
spelled) in the Broad _Centry_, (sanctuary,) Westminster, is named in an
advertisement in the _Postboy_, Jan. 23-25, 1711; whilst the CHAISE AND
PAIR is still to be seen at Northill, Colchester.
The NAG’S HEAD--which only in one instance is varied by the HORSE’S
HEAD, namely, at Brampton in Cumberland--is a sign that has become
famous in history; it is represented on the print of the entry of Queen
Marie de’ Medici on her visit to her daughter Henriette Marie, Queen of
Charles I., being the sign of a notorious tavern opposite the Cheapside
Cross. It is suspended from a long square beam, at the end of which a
large crown of evergreens is seen. As none of the other houses are
decked with greens, this apparently represents the Bush.[241] This
tavern was the fictitious scene of the consecration of the Protestant
bishops at the accession of Queen Elizabeth in 1559. It was pretended by
the adversaries of the Protestant faith, that a certain number of
ecclesiastics, in a hurry to take possession of the vacant sees,
assembled here; where they were to undergo the ceremony from Antony
Kitchen, _alias_ Dunstane, Bishop of Llandaff, a sort of occasional
Nonconformist, who had taken the oath of supremacy to Elizabeth; Bonner,
Bishop of London, (then confined in the Tower,) hearing of it, sent his
chaplain to Kitchen, threatening him with excommunication in case he
proceeded. On this the prelate refused to perform the ceremony;
whereupon, according to Catholics, Parker and the other candidates,
rather than defer possession of their dioceses, determined to consecrate
one another, which they did, without any sort of scruple. Scorey began
with Parker, who instantly rose Archbishop of Canterbury. The refutation
of this tale may be read in Strype’s life of Archbishop Parker.[242]
A curious anecdote is told concerning the sign of a GELDING. Golden
Square, it appears, was originally called Gelding Square, from the sign
of a neighbouring inn; but the inhabitants, indignant at the vulgarity
of the name, changed it to its present title.
Some publicans appear to be of opinion that the GREY MARE is the best
horse for their signboards; in Lancashire, especially, this sign
abounds. Others put up the MARE AND FOAL; but they are evidently not
very well acquainted with the old ballad of the “Mare and Foal that went
to church,” for there the Mare says:--
“Oh! to pray for those publicans I am very loath,
They fill their pots full of nothing but froth,
Some fill them half full, and others the whole;
May the devil go with them!--Amen, says the foal.
Derry down,” &c.
Besides the Mare and Foal, there is the COW AND CALF, which is very
common. A still more happy mother, the COW AND TWO CALVES, was, in 1762,
a sign near Chelsea Pond; whilst a touching picture of paternal bliss
might have been seen on a sign in Islington in the last century, viz.,
the BULL AND THREE CALVES; that animal, doubtless, was placed there in
the company of his offspring, to illustrate the homely old proverb, “He
that bulls the cow must keep the calf.” The GOAT AND KID was a sign at
Norwich in 1711;[243] the SOW AND PIGS is common; and the EWE AND LAMB
occurs on a trades token of Hatton Garden in 1668, and may still be seen
in many places. A practical traveller in the coaching days, staying at
the Ewe and Lamb in Worcester, wrote on a pane of glass in that inn the
following very true remark:--
“If the people suck your ale no more
Than the poor Lamb, th’ Ewe at the door,
You in some other place may dwell,
Or hang yourself for all you’ll sell.”
The CAT AND KITTENS was, about 1823, a sign near Eastcheap; it may have
come from the publican’s slang expression, _cat and kittens_, as applied
to the large and small pewter pots. In the police courts it is not
uncommon to hear that such and such low persons have been “had up” for
“cat and kitten sneaking,” _i.e._, stealing quart and pint pots.