there was the SPARROW’S NEST in Drury Lane, of which trades tokens are
extant; the THROSTLE NEST, (a not inappropriate name for a free-and-easy
singing club!) is the sign of a public-house at Buglawton, near
Congleton; the MARTIN’S NEST, at Thornhill Bridge, Normanton; the KITE’S
NEST, (an unpromising name for an inn, if there be anything in a name,)
at Stretton, in Herefordshire; and finally, the BROOD HEN, or HEN AND
CHICKENS, which latter is more common than any of the former. Not
improbably it originated with the sign of the Pelican’s Nest, to which
several of the above-named nests may be referred. Under the name of the
“Brood Hen,” it occurs on a trades token of Battle Bridge, Southwark; as
the “Hen and Chickens,” it was also known in the seventeenth century,
for there are tokens of John Sell “at y^{e} Hen and Chickens on
Hammond’s Key;” it is likewise mentioned in the following daily
occurrence of the good old times:--
“Wednesday night last, Captain Lambert was stopt by three footpads
near the Hen and Chickens, between Peckham and Camberwell, and robbed
of a sum of money and his gold watch.”[244]
The prevalence of this sign may be accounted for by the kindred love for
the _barleycorn_ in the human and gallinaceous tribes. It was also used
as a sign by Paulus Sessius, a bookseller of Prague, in 1606, who
printed some of Kepler’s astronomical works; above his colophon,
representing the hen and her offspring, is the motto: “GRANA DAT A FIMO
SCRUTANS,” the application of which is not very obvious.
Speaking of birds’ nests figuring as signs, we may mention that, at the
beginning of the present century, the small shops under the tree at the
corner of Milk Street, City, used to describe themselves as “under the
Crow’s Nest, Cheapside.” An old-fashioned snuff shop, still in
existence, issued its tobacco papers in this way, and the small bookshop
there at present advertises itself as “under the tree,” although it was
only very recently that the crow ceased to visit and repair his nest
here.
The THREE COLTS, in Bride Lane, 1652, is represented on a trades token
by three colts running; such a sign gave its name to a street in
Limehouse. The HORSESHOE is a favourite in combination with other
subjects. Aubrey, in his “Miscellanies,” p. 148, says:--
“It is a very common thing to nail horseshoes on the thresholds of
doors, which is to hinder the power of witches that enter into the
house. Most houses of the West End of London have the horseshoe on the
threshold; it should be a horseshoe that one finds.”
Elsewhere he says:--
“Under the Porch of Staninfield Church in Suffolk, I saw a tile with
a horseshoe upon it placed there for this purpose, though one would
imagine that the holy water would have been sufficient.”
Concerning the same superstition Brand observes:--
“I am told there are many other similar instances. In Monmouth Street
(probably the part alluded to by Aubrey) many horseshoes nailed to the
threshold are still to be seen. In 1813 not less than 17 remained,
nailed against the steps of doors. The bawds of Amsterdam believed in
1687, that a horseshoe which had either been found or stolen placed on
the hearth would bring good luck to their houses.”[245]
The charm of the horseshoe lies in its being forked and presenting two
points; thus Herrick says:--
“Hang up _hooks_ and _sheers_, to scare
Hence the hag that rides the mare;
Till they be all over wet
With the mire and the sweat,
This observ’d the manes shall be
Of your horses all knot-free.”[246]
Any forked object, therefore, has the power to drive witches away. Hence
the children in Italy and Spain are generally seen with a piece of
forked coral (coral is particularly efficacious) hung round their necks,
whilst even the mules and other cattle are armed with a small crescent
formed by two boars’ tusks, or else a forked piece of wood, to avert the
spells of what Macbeth calls “the juggling fiends.” Even the two
forefingers held out apart are thought sufficient to avert the evil eye,
or prevent the machinations of the lord and master of the nether world.
Great power also lies in the pentagram and Solomon’s seal, which, being
composed of two triangles, present not less than six forked ends. Both
these figures are much used by the Moors, with the same object in view
as the horseshoe by western nations. In this country, at the present
day, scarcely a stable can be seen where there is not a horseshoe nailed
on the door or lintel; there is one very conspicuous at the gate of
Meux’s brewery at the corner of Tottenham Court Road, and conspicuous on
the horse trappings of this establishment the shoe in polished brass may
be seen; in fact, it has become the trade-mark of the firm, the same as
the red triangle which distinguishes the pale ale of the Burton brewers.
The iron heels of workmen’s boots are also frequently seen fixed against
the doorpost, or behind the door, of houses of the lower classes.
The HORSESHOE, by itself, is comparatively a rare sign. There is a
Horseshoe Tavern, mentioned by Aubrey in connexion with one of those
reckless deeds of bloodshed so common in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries:--
“Captain Carlo Fantom, a Croatian, spake 13 languages, was a captain
under the Erle of Essex. He had a world of cuts about his body with
swords and was very quarrelsome and a great ravisher. He met coming
late at night out of the Horseshoe Tavern in Drury Lane with a
lieutenant of Colonel Rossiter, who had great jingling spurs on. Said
he, the noise of your spurrs doe offend me, you must come over the
kennel and give me satisfaction. They drew and passed at each other,
and the lieutenant was runne through and died in an hour or two, and
it was not known who killed him.”[247]
This tavern was still in existence in 1692, as appears from the
deposition of one of the witnesses in the murder of Mountfort the actor
by Captain Hill, who, with his accomplice, Lord Mohun, whilst they were
laying in wait for Mrs Bracegirdle, drank a bottle of canary which had
been bought at the Horseshoe Tavern.
The THREE HORSESHOES are not uncommon; and the single shoe may be met
with in many combinations, arising from the old belief in its lucky
influences: thus the HORSE AND HORSESHOE was the sign of William Warden,
at Dover, in the seventeenth century, as appears from his token. The SUN
AND HORSESHOE is still a public-house sign in Great Tichfield Street,
and the MAGPIE AND HORSESHOE may be seen carved in wood in Fetterlane;
the magpie is perched within the horseshoe, a bunch of grapes being
suspended from it. The HORNS AND HORSESHOE is represented on the token
of William Grainge in Gutterlane, 1666,--a horseshoe within a pair of
antlers. The LION AND HORSESHOE appears in the following advertisement
of a shooting match:--
“ON FRIDAY the 16th of this instant, at two in the afternoon, will be
a plate to be (_sic_) shot for, at twenty-five guineas value, in the
Artillerie Ground near Moorfields. No gun to exceed four feet and a
half in the barrel, the distance to be 200 yards, and but one shot a
piece, the nearest the centre to win. No person that shoots to be less
than one guinea, but as many more as he pleases to compleat the sum.
The money to be put in the hands of Mr Jones, at the Lion and
Horseshoe Tavern, or Mr Turog, gunsmith in the Minories. Note, that if
any gentleman has a mind to shoot for the whole, there is a person
will shoot with him for it, being left out by mistake in our
last.”[248]
The HOOP AND HORSESHOE on Towerhill, was formerly called the Horseshoe.
This, like every old tavern, has its murder to record:--
“The last week one Colonel John Scott took an occasion to kill one
John Buttler, a hackney coachman, at the Horse Shoe Tavern on Tower
Hill, without any other provocation ’tis said, but refusing to carry
him and another gentleman pertaining to the law, from thence to Temple
Bar for 1s. 6d. Amongst the many pranks that he hath played in other
countries ’tis believed this is one of the very worst. He is a very
great vindicator of the Salamanca Doctor. He is a lusty, tall man,
squint eyed, thin faced, wears a peruke sometimes and has a very h----
look. All good people would do well if they can to apprehend him that
he may be brought to justice.”[249]
The HORSESHOE AND CROWN is named in the following handbill, which is too
characteristic to curtail:--
“DAUGHTER OF A SEVENTH DAUGHTER.
REMOVED TO THE SIGN OF THE HORSESHOE AND CROWN IN CASTLE STREET,
NEAR THE 7 DIALS IN ST GILES.
_Liveth a Gentlewoman, the Daughter of a Seventh Daughter, who far
exceeds all her sex, her business being very great amongst the
quality, has now thought fit to make herself known to the benefit of
the Publick._
She resolves these questions following:--As to Life whether happy or
unhappy? the best time of it past or to come? Servants or lodgers if
honest or not? To marry the person desir’d or who they shall marry and
when? A Friend if real or not? a Woman with child or not, or ever
likely to have any! A friend absent dead or alive, if alive when
return? Journey by Land or voyages by Sea, the Success thereof.
Lawsuits, which shall gain the better? She also Interprets Dreams.
These and all other lawful questions which for brevity sake are
omitted, she fully resolves.
Her hours are from 7 in the Morning till 12, and from 1 till 8 at
Night.”[250]
These quack “gentlewomen” were as much the order of that day as the
broken-down clergymen who advertise medicines for nervous and rheumatic
complaints are in our own time. Heywood, in his play of “the Wise Woman
of Hogsden,” enumerates the following occupations as their
perquisites:--
“Let me see how many trades have I to live by: First, I am a wise
woman and a fortuneteller, and under that I deale in physick and
fore-speaking, in palmestry and things lost. Next I undertake to cure
madd folks; Then I keepe gentlewomen lodgers, to furnish such chambers
as I let out by the night; Then I am provided for bringing young
wenches to bed; and for a need you see I can play the matchmaker.”
Generally they proclaimed themselves the seventh daughter of a seventh
daughter, a relationship that is still thought to be accompanied by
powers not vouchsafed to ordinary mortals. This belief in the virtue of
the number 7 doubtless originated from the Old Testament, where that
number seems in greater favour than all others. The books of Moses are
full of references to it; the creation of the world in 7 days, sevenfold
vengeance on whosoever slayeth Cain; Noah had to take 7 males and
females of every clean beast, 7 males and females of every fowl of the
air, for in 7 days it would begin to rain; the ark rested in the 7th
month, &c., &c. From this the middle ages borrowed their predilection
for this number, and its cabalistic power.[251]
Horned cattle are just as common as horses on the signboards; the BULL,
in particular, is a favourite with the nation, whether as a namesake--so
much so, indeed, as to have given it a popular name abroad--or as the
source of the favourite roast-beef, or from the ancient sport of
bull-baiting, it is difficult to say. From Ben Jonson we gather that
there was another reason which sometimes dictated the choice of this
animal on the signboard. In the “Alchymist” he introduces a shopkeeper,
who wishes the learned Doctor to provide him with a sign.
“_Face._ What say you to his Constellation, Doctor, the Balance?
_Sub._ _No, that is stale and common:
A Townsman born in Taurus gives the Bull
Or the Bull’s head: in Aries, the Ram,
A poor device._”--ALCHYMIST, a. ii. s. i.
Newton dates a letter from “the Bull,” at Shoreditch, September 1693; it
is addressed to Locke, and a curious letter it is, containing an apology
for having wished Locke dead.
The Bull is generally represented in his natural colour, _black_,
_white_, _grey_, _pied_, “_spangled_” (in Yorkshire,) and only rarely
_red_ and _blue_; yet these two last colours may simply imply the
natural red, brown, and other common hues, for newspapers of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often contain advertisements about
_blue_ dogs; and whatever shade that was intended for, it may certainly
with as much justice be applied to a bull as to a dog. The CHAINED BULL
at North Allerton, Leeds, and the BULL AND CHAIN, Langworthgate,
Lincoln, doubtless refer to the old cruel pastime of bull-baitings.
Occasionally we meet also with a WILD BULL, as at Gisburn, near Skipton.
Leigh Hunt observes:--“London has a modern look to the inhabitants; but
persons who come from the country find as odd and remote-looking things
in it as the Londoners do in York and Chester; and among these are a
variety of old inns with corridors running round the yard. They are well
worth a glance from anybody who has a respect for old times.” Such a one
is the Bull’s Inn in Bishopsgate Street, where formerly plays were
acted by Burbadge, Shakespeare’s fellow-comedian, and Tarlton in good
Queen Bess’s time amused our forefathers on summers’ afternoons with his
quaint jokes and comic parts.[252] This inn is also celebrated as the
London house of the famous Hobson, (Hobson’s choice,) the rich Cambridge
carrier. Here a painted figure of him was to be seen in the eighteenth
century, with a hundred pound bag under his arm, on which was the
following inscription:--“The fruitful Mother of a Hundred More.”[253] At
the Bull public-house on Towerhill, Thomas Otway, the play writer, died
of want at the age of 33, on the 14th of April 1685, having retired to
this house to escape his creditors.[254]
The BULL, at Ware, obtained a celebrity by its enormous bed. Taylor, the
Water poet, in 1636 remarked, “Ware is a great thorowfare, and hath many
fair innes, with very large bedding, and one high and mighty Bed called
the _Great Bed of Ware_: a man may seeke all England over and not find a
married couple that can fill it.” Nares, in his “Glossary,” quotes
Chauncey’s, Hertfordshire; for a story of twelve married couple who,
laid together in the bed, each pair being so placed at the top and
bottom of the bed, that the head of one pair was at the feet of another.
Shakespeare alludes to it in “Twelfth Night,” where Sir Toby Belch in
his drunken humour advises Aguecheek to write: “as many lies as will lie
in this sheet of paper, though the sheet were big enough for the _Bed of
Ware_ in England,” (a. iii. s. 2.) Where the “high and mighty Bed” was
located, seems a mooted point; some say at the Bull, others at the
Crown, and Clutterbuck places it at the Saracen’s Head, where there is
or was a bed of some twelve feet square, in an Elizabethan style of
carved oak, but with the date 1463 painted on the back. Tradition says
that it was the bed of Warwick the king-maker, and was bought at a sale
of furniture at Ware Park. Recently it has been sold, and Charles
Dickens is now said to be its possessor.
The Bull Inn at Buckland, near Dover, deserves to be mentioned for its
comical caution to the customers:
“The Bull is tame so fear him not,
All the while you pay your shot.
When money’s gone, and credit’s bad,
It’s that which makes the Bull run mad.”
The famous OLD PIED BULL INN, Islington, was pulled down _circa_ 1827,
the house having existed from the time of Queen Elizabeth. The parlour
retained its original character to the last. There was a chimney-piece
containing Hope, Faith, and Charity, with a border of cherubims, fruit
and foliage, whilst the ceiling in stucco represented the five senses.
Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have been an inhabitant of this house.
“This conjecture is somewhat strengthened by the nature of the border
[in a stained glass window,] which was composed of seahorses,
mermaids, parrots, &c., forming a most appropriate allusion to the
character of Raleigh, as a great navigator, and discoverer of unknown
countries; and the bunch of green leaves [two seahorses supporting a
bunch of green leaves,] has been generally asserted to represent the
tobacco plant, of which he is said to have been the first importer
into this country.”[255]
At what time the house was converted into an inn does not appear. The
sign of the Pied Bull in stone relief, on the front towards the south,
bore the date 1730, which was probably the year this addition was made
to the building. That it was an inn in 1665, appears from the following
episode of the Plague-time:
“I remember one citizen, who, having thus broken out of his house in
Aldersgate Street, or there about, went along the road to Islington.
He attempted to have gone in at the Angel Inn, and after that at the
White Horse, two inns known still by the same signs, but was refused;
after which he came to the _Pied Bull_, an inn also still continuing
the same sign. He asked them for lodging for one night only,
pretending to be going into Lincolnshire, and assuring them of his
being very sound, and free from the infection, which also at that time
had not reached much that way. They told him they had no lodging, that
they could spare but one bed up in the garret, and that they could
spare that bed but for one night, some drovers being expected the next
day with cattle; so if he would accept of that lodging, he might have
it, which he did; so a servant was sent up with a candle with him, to
show him the room. He was very well dressed, and looked like a person
not used to lie in a garret; and when he came to the room he fetched a
deep sigh, and said to the servant, ‘I have seldom lain in such a
lodging as this;’ however, the servant assured him again that they had
no better. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘I must make shift; this is a dreadful
time, but it is but for one night.’ So he sat down upon the bed-side,
and bade the maid, I think it was, fetch him up a pint of warm ale.
Accordingly the servant went for the ale; but some hurry in the house,
which perhaps employed her otherwise, put it out of her head, and she
went up no more to him. The next morning, seeing no appearance of the
gentleman, somebody in the house asked the servant that had showed him
up stairs, what was become of him. She started; ‘alas,’ said she, ‘I
never thought more of him; he bade me carry him some warm ale, but I
forgot.’ Upon which, not the maid, but some other person was sent up
to see after him, who coming into the room found him stark dead, and
almost cold, stretched out across the bed. His clothes were pulled
off, his jaw fallen, his eyes open in a most frightful posture, the
rug of the bed being grasped hard in one of his hands; so that it was
plain he died soon after the maid left him; and that it is probable,
had she gone up with the ale, she had found him dead in a few minutes
after he sat down upon the bed. The alarm was great in the house, as
any one may suppose, they having been free from the distemper till
that disaster; which bringing the infection to the house, spread it
immediately to other houses round about it. I do not remember how many
died in the house itself, but I think the maid-servant who went up
first with him, fell presently ill by the fright, and several others;
for whereas there died but two in Islington of the plague the week
before, there died seventeen the week after, whereof fourteen were of
the plague. This was in the week from the 11th of July to the
18th.”[256]
The RED BULL was the sign of another of the inn-playhouses in
Shakespeare’s time; but, like the Fortune, mostly frequented by the
meaner sorts of people. It was situated in Woodbridge Street,[257]
Clerkenwell, (its site is still called Red Bull Yard,) and is supposed
to have been erected in the early part of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. At
all events, it was one of the seventeen playhouses that arose in London
between that period and the reign of Charles I. Edward Alleyn the actor,
founder of Dulwich College, says in a memorandum, Oct. 3, 1617, “went to
the Red Bull and received for the ‘Younger Brother’ [a play], but
£3-6-4.” Killigrew’s troop of the king’s players performed in it until
the theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-fields opened. The place was then abandoned
to exhibitions of gladiators and feats of strength. The names of the
principal theatres at the time of the Commonwealth occur in the
following puritanical curse:--
“---- That the _Globe_
Wherein (quoth he) reigns a whole world of vice,
Had been consumed, the _Phenix_ burnt to ashes,
The _Fortune_ whipp’d for a blind--_Blackfriars_,
He wonders how it ’scaped demolishing
I’ the time of Reformation; lastly he wished
The _Bull_ might cross the Thames to the _Bear-gardens_,
And there be soundly baited.”[258]
The BULL’S HEAD is often seen instead of the Bull; its origin may be
from the butchers’ arms, which are azure two axes salterwise, arg.
between two roses _arg._ as many _bulls’ heads_ couped of the second
attired _or_, &c.; in Holland a carved bull’s head is always a
leather-seller’s sign. At the BULL’S HEAD, in Claremarket, the artists’
club used to meet, of which Hogarth was a member, and Dr Ratcliffe a
constant visitor. The Bull’s Head was already used in signs three
hundred years ago, as we may see from an entry in Machyn’s Diary, which
does not say much for the morality of the period:--
“The xij day of June (1560) dyd ryd in a care[259] abowt London ij men
and iij women; one man, for he was the bowd and to brynge women unto
strangers; and on women was the wyff of the _Bell_ in Gracyous Strett;
and a-nodur the wyff of the _Bull-hed_ besyd London Stone, and boyth
were bawdes and hores and the thodur man and the woman were brodur and
syster and wher taken nakyd together.”
As a variation, on the Bull’s Head there is the COW’S FACE:--
“GEORGE TURNIDGE, aged about 16, a short thickset Lad with a little
dark brown Hair, a scar in his left cheek under his eye, wears a
canvass jacket lined with red and canvass Breeches, with a red cap,
run away from his Master the 7th instant. Whoever secures him and
gives Notice to Mr Henry Davis, Waxchandler at the Cow’s Face in Miles
Lane in Canon Street, shall have a Guinea Reward, and reasonable
charges.”--_London Gazette_, Jan. 13-17, 1697.
The BULL’S NECK is a sign at Penny Hill, Holbeach, and the BUFFALO HEAD
is common in many places. The latter was the sign of one of the
coffee-houses near the Exchange, during the South Sea bubble, and was
hung up over the head quarters of a company for a grand dispensary,
capital £3,000,000. The rage for joint-stock companies had come to such
a pitch at that period, that an advertisement appeared stating:--
“THIS DAY the 8th instant at Sam’s Coffeehouse behind the Royal
Exchange, at three in the afternoon, a book will be opened, for
entering into a joint copartnership for carrying on a _thing_ that
will turn to the advantage of those concerned.”
Not less than £28,000,000 were asked for at that period to enter upon
various speculations. At the Buffalo Head Tavern, Charing Cross, Duncan
Campbell, the deaf and dumb fortune-teller, used at one time to deliver
his oracles. He is immortalised in the _Spectator_, No. 474, where, in
answer to the letter of a lady inquiring about Duncan’s address, a note
is entered, “That the Inspector I employ about Wonders, inquire at the
Golden Lyon, opposite the Halfmoon Tavern, Drury Lane, into the merit of
this silent sage.”[260]
Among the combinations in which the Bull is met with on signboards, the
BULL AND DOG is one of the most common, derived, like the Bull and
Chain, from the favourite sport of bull-baiting, which amusement is
described at full length and in brilliant colours by Misson, in his
“Travels.” A comical variation of this is the BULL AND BITCH at Husborn
Crawley, Woburn. In the sign of the BULL AND BUTCHER,[261] the bull is
placed in still worse company; this was very forcibly expressed on the
sign of a butcher in Amsterdam, who was represented with a glass of wine
in his hand, standing between two calves, and pledging them with the
cruel words,--
“Zyt verblyt
Soo lang gy er zyt.”[262]
The BULL AND MAGPIE, which occurs at Boston, has been explained as
meaning the Pie, πιναξ, and the Bull of the Romish Church; but this
looks very like a cock-and-bull story. As “some help to thicken other
proofs that also demonstrate thinly,” as Iago has it, it may be asked
whether this might not have arisen out of the sign of the “Pied Bull,”
thus leading to the “Pie and Bull,” or the “Bull and Magpie;” the
transition seems simple and easy enough; but should this not be
considered satisfactory, since we have the “Cock and Bull,” and the
“Cock and Pie,” we may by a sort of rule of three manœuvre obtain the
Bull and Pie or Magpie. _See under_ Bird Signs.
The BLACK BULL AND LOOKING-GLASS is named in an advertisement in the
original edition of the _Spectator_, No. lxviii., as a house in
Cornhill. It was evidently a combination of two signs.
Still more puzzling is the BULL AND BEDPOST; but as the actual use of
this sign as a house decoration remains to be corroborated, we may
dismiss it with the remark, that the Bedpost, in all probability, was a
jocular name for the stake to which the bull was tied when being
baited, in allusion to the stout stick formerly used in bed-making to
smooth the clothes in their place. The BULL AND SWAN, High Street,
Stamford, may be heraldic, both these animals being badges of the York
family; but the Swan in all probability was the first sign, the Bull
being added on account of the singular custom of Bull Running, which
yearly took place, both at Tamworth and Stamford, on St John’s eve. THE
BULL IN THE POUND, is the Bull punished for trespass, and put in the
pound or pinfold; whilst the BULL AND OAK at Wicker, Sheffield, (at
Market Bosworth there is a house with the sign of the BULL IN THE OAK,)
_may_ have originated from the sign of “the Bull” being suspended from
an oak tree, or referring to an oak tree standing near the house. Bulls
are often tied to trees or posts in pastures, and this also may have
given rise to the sign.
Visitors to the Isle of Wight will have noticed the word BUGLE
frequently inscribed under the picture of a Bull on the inn signboards
there. Bugle is a provincial name in those parts for a wild bull. It is
an old English word, and is used by Sir John Mandeville; “homes of grete
oxen, or of _bugles_, or of kygn.” It was still current in the
seventeenth century, for Randle Holme, 1688, classes the “Bugle, or
Bubalus,” amongst “the savage beasts of the greater sort.” The horns of
this animal, used as a musical instrument, gave a name to the Buglehorn.
It may be remarked that the term _bugle_ doubtless came, in old times,
with other Gallicisms common to Sussex and Hampshire, from across the
Channel, where the word _bugle_ is still preserved in the verb
_beugler_, the common French word for the lowing of cattle.
The OX is rather uncommon; the DURHAM OX and the CRAVEN OX, two famous
breeds, are sometimes met with; then there is a CRAVEN OX HEAD, in
George Street, York, and a GREY OX at Brighouse, in the West Riding. The
OX AND COMPASSES at Poulton Swindon, in Cumberland, is evidently a
jocular imitation of the London sign of the Goat and Compasses.
The COW is more common; its favourite colours being RED, BROWN, WHITE,
SPOTTED, SPANGLED, &c. The Red Cow occurs as a sign near Holborn
Conduit, on the seventeenth century trades tokens. It also gave a name
to the alehouse in Anchor and Hope Lane, Wapping, in which Lord
Chancellor Jeffries was taken prisoner, disguised as a sailor, and
trying to escape to the Continent after the abdication of James II.
Thinking himself safe in this neighbourhood, he was looking out of the
window to while the time away, when he was recognised by a clerk who
bore him a grudge, and at once betrayed him. An heraldic origin is not
necessary for this colour of the cow.
“Cows (I mean that whole species of horned beasts) are more commonly
black than _Red_ in England. ’Tis for this reason that they have a
greater value for Red Cow’s Milk than for Black Cow’s Milk. Whereas in
France we esteem the Black Cow’s Milk, because _Red_ Cows are more
common with us.”[263]
Speaking of the Green Walk, St James’s Park, Tom Brown says: “There were
a cluster of senators talking of state affairs, and the price of corn
and cattle, and were disturbed with the noisy Milk folk crying: A can of
Milk, Ladies; a can of _Red_ Cow’s Milk, sirs?”[264] The preference for
the _Red_ Cow’s milk may, however, have a more remote origin, namely,
from the ordinance of the law contained in Numbers xix. 2, where a _red_
heifer is enjoined to be sacrificed as a purification for sin. Hence,
_Red_ Cow’s milk is particularly recommended in old prescriptions and
panacea, as, for instance, in the following receipt of “a Cock water for
a Consumption and Cough of the Lunges:”--
“Take a running cock and pull him alive, then kill him and cutt him in
pieces and take out his intrailes and wipe him cleane, breake the
bones, then put him into an ordinary still with a pottle of sack and a
pottle of _Red Cow’s Milk_,” &c., &c.[265]
The Red Cow, in Bow Street, was the sign of a noted tavern, (afterwards
called the Red Rose,) which stood at the corner of Rose Alley. It was
when going home from this tavern that Dryden was cudgelled by bravoes,
hired by Lord Rochester, for some remarks in Lord Mulgrave’s Essay on
Satire, in the composition of which Dryden had assisted his lordship.
The king offered £50, and a free pardon, but “Black Will with a cudgel,”
to whom Lord Rochester had intrusted the task of thrashing the laureate,
showed that there was such a thing as honour amongst rogues, and did not
betray him for the king’s £50. In all probability, however, he received
a larger sum from his lordship. In Dryden’s old age, Pope, then a boy,
came here to look at the great man whose fame in after years he was to
equal if not to eclipse. This tavern was the famous mart for libels and
lampoons; one Julyan, a drunken dissipated “secretary to the Muses,” as
he calls himself, was the chief manufacturer.
Near Marlborough, Wilts, there is an alehouse having the sign of the RED
COW, with the following rhyme:--
“The Red Cow
Gives good Milk now.”
That under a BROWN COW at Oldham is still more sublime:--
“This Cow gives such Liquor,
’Twould puzzle a Viccar (_sic_.)”
The Heifer is to be met with sometimes in Yorkshire, but always with
some local adjective, as the CRAVEN HEIFER; the AIRESDALE HEIFER, the
DURHAM HEIFER, &c. The PIED CALF at Spalding seems to present a solitary
instance of a calf on the signboard. Neither are sheep very common; the
RAM was a noted carrier’s inn in the seventeenth century, in West
Smithfield, and, indeed, continued as such until the recent destruction
of this old cattle market. The crest of the cloth-workers was a mount
vert, thereon a ram statant; so that this sign in that locality was very
well chosen, being in honour of the cattle-dealers on ordinary
occasions, and serving for the cloth-workers in the time of Bartholomew
fair, for whose benefit the fair was founded. In 1668 there were two
RAM’S HEAD inns in Fenchurch Street; one of them was a carriers’ inn for
the Essex people. The RAM’S SKIN, which occurs at Spalding in
Lincolnshire, is another name for the Fleece. The BLACK TUP figures on a
sign near Rochdale, perhaps in allusion to the black ram frail matrons
used to bestride in the old custom of _Free Bench_, thus related in
Jacob’s “Law Dictionary:”--
“In the manors of East and West-Enbourne in the Co. of Berks, and the
manor of Torre in Devonshire, and other parts of the West of England,
there is a custom, that when a Copyhold Tenant dies his widow shall
have ‘Free Bench’ in all his customary lands ‘dum sola et casta
fuerit,’ but if she commits incontinency she forfeits her estate. Yet
nevertheless on her coming into the court of the manor, riding
backwards on a _black ram_ with his tail in her hand and saying the
words following, the steward is bound by the custom to readmit her to
her free bench; The words are these:--
Here I am
Riding upon a Black Ram
Like a w----e as I am;
And for my crincum crancum
I have lost my bincum bancum;
And for my T----’s game
Have done this worldly shame.
Therefore pray, Mr Steward, let me have my land again.
This is a kind of penance among jocular tenures to purge the offence.”
Though the ram is rarely, and the sheep never seen on the signboard, the
LAMB is not uncommon. In 1586, it was the sign of Abraham Veale,
(agreeably to the punning practices of the time, one would have expected
the _Calf_ from him,) a bookseller in St Paul’s Churchyard, and in 1728
of Thomas Cox, also a bookseller, under the Royal Exchange in Cornhill.
Doubtless, these signs had originally represented the Lamb with the flag
of the Apocalypse. The sign was used by other trades: in 1673, it was
the distinctive ornament of a confectioner at the lower end of
Gracechurch Street;[266] and an instance of an alehouse is found in the
following advertisement, which at the same time affords us a peep at the
homely proceedings of the Admiralty in those days:--
“THIS is to give notice to the Officers and Company of His Majesty’s
Frigate Boreas, who were on Board her at the taking the Ship Vrow
Jacoba and Briggantyne Leon, that they will be paid their respective
Shares of said Prizes, on Wednesday the Eight of April next, at the
sign of _the Lamb_, in Abchurch Lane. Paying will begin at Eight
o’clock of the forenoon of the said Day.”[267]
Think of that, ye clerks in Her Majesty’s offices, eight o’clock in the
forenoon!
A few combinations also occur, as the LAMB AND BREECHES, the sign of
Churches & Christie, leather-sellers and breeches-makers, on London
Bridge, in the last century; this was a sign like that of the HAT AND
BEAVER, in which the living animal, and the article manufactured from
its skin, were juxtaposed. The LAMB AND CROWN was a sort of colonial or
emigration office in Threadneedle Street, near the Southsea House in
1759.[268] At the present day there is a LAMB AND LARK at Keynsham,
Bath, and in Printing House Lane, Blackfriars. It is a typical
representation of the proverb, “Go to bed with the _Lamb_ and rise with
the _Lark_.”
The LAMB AND HARE figure together in Portsmouth Place, Lower Kennington
Lane. The LAMB AND STILL is a combination intimating the sale of
distilled waters. It was the sign of a house in Compton Street, in 1711,
which had the honour to lodge Mr Fert, a dancing-master, and author of
a work called “A Discourse or Explanation of the _ground_ of
Dancing.”[269]
If we except the heraldic Blue Boar, and the Sow and Pigs, we shall find
no other pigs on the signboard but the PIG AND WHISTLE,[270] the LITTLE
PIG at Amblecote, Stourbridge, and the HOG IN THE POUND in Oxford
Street, jocularly called the _gentleman in trouble_. This latter was
formerly a starting-point for coaches, and became notorious through the
crime committed by its landlady, Catherine Hayes. Having formed an
illicit connexion, she was induced by her paramour to murder her
husband, after which she cut off his head, put it in a bag, and threw it
in the Thames. It floated ashore, and was put on a pole in St Margaret’s
Churchyard, Westminster, in order that it might be recognised; and by
this primitive means the murderess was detected. The man was hanged, and
Catherine burnt alive at Tyburn in 1726.
The GOAT is not very common; there was a Goat Inn at Hammersmith, taken
down in 1826, and rebuilt under the name of Suspension Bridge Inn; up to
that time, the sign, and the woodwork from which it was suspended, used
to extend across the street. The GOAT IN BOOTS, on the Fulham Road,[271]
was in old times called simply “the Goat.” Besides these, there is a
BLACK GOAT in Lincoln, and a GREY GOAT in Penrith and Carlisle, and a
few others without addition of colour.
A walk through town on a fine Sunday morning will at once convince
anybody of the good understanding that exists between the Englishmen and
the canine species, “l’ami de l’homme” as Buffon calls the dog. From
every lane and alley in the lower parts of the town sally forth men and
youths in clean moleskins and corduroys, each invariably accompanied by
some yelping cur, the least of whose faults is to be ugly. It is no
wonder, then, that the DOG should be of frequent occurrence on the
signboard. Pepys mentions a tavern of that name in Westminster, where,
about the time of the Restoration, he used occasionally to show his
merry face. In 1768, the author of the “Art of Living in London,”
recommended the Dog in Holywell Street for a quiet good dinner:--
“Where disencumbered of all form or show,
We to a moment might or sit or go;
Eat what the palate recommends us hot,
Yet not considered as a useless guest.”
[Illustration: PLATE IX.
GOOSE AND GRIDIRON.
(St Paul’s Churchyard, circa 1800.)
ANGEL AND GLOVE.
(Harleian Collection, 1710.)
THREE KINGS.
(Banks’s Collection, 1720.)
MARYGOLD.
(Child’s Bank, Fleet Street, circa 1670.)
GUY OF WARWICK.
(Roxburghe Ballads, circa 1650.)]
For some unknown reason, the BLACK DOG seems the greatest favourite;
perhaps the English terrier is meant by it, a dog who “once had its
day,” as the Scotch terrier appears to have it now. In the seventeenth
century, there was a Black Dog Tavern near Newgate; a house of old
standing, of which trades tokens are yet extant.
Mr Akerman, in his work on “Trades Tokens issued between 1648-1672,”
makes a mistake in surmising that Luke Hutton’s “Black Dog of Newgate”
had anything to do with this tavern. That poem is simply against
“coney-catchers,” _i.e._, roguish detectives or informers of the
Jonathan Wild stamp, and even worse. Such a one is impersonificated
under the name of the Black Dog of Newgate, because the coney-catchers
used to hunt people down threatening them with Newgate. This Black Dog
may have derived its name from the canine spectre that still frightens
the ignorant and fearful in our rural districts, just as the terrible
Dun Cow, and the Lambton Worm were the terror of the people in old
times. Near Lyme Regis, Dorset, there is an alehouse which has this
black fiend in all his ancient ugliness painted over the door. Its
adoption there arose from a legend that the spectral black dog used to
haunt at nights the kitchen fire of a neighbouring farm-house, formerly
a Royalist mansion, destroyed by Cromwell’s troops. The dog would sit
opposite the farmer; but one night, a little extra liquor gave the man
additional courage, and he struck at the dog, intending to rid himself
of the horrid thing. Away, however, flew the dog and the farmer after
him, from one room to another, until it sprang through the roof, and was
seen no more that night. In mending the hole, a lot of money fell down,
which, of course, was connected in some way or other with the dog’s
strange visit. Near the house is a lane still called Dog Lane, which is
now the favourite walk of the black dog, and to this _genius loci_ the
sign is dedicated.
There was another notorious Black Dog next door to the Devil Tavern, the
shop of Abel Roper, who printed and distributed the majority of the
pamphlets and ballads that paved the way for the Revolution of 1688. He
was the original printer of the famous ballad of “Lillibulero.” Whatever
pleased the public, whether good or bad, he was always ready to provide
and send into the world; he was also the editor of the newspaper called
the _Postman_. In the beginning of the reign of Charles II. he lived “at
the Sun, over against St Dunstan’s Church, in Fleet Street.”[272]
Tokens are extant of the PIED DOG in Seething Lane, 1667, a sign still
frequently to be seen at the present day.
We very rarely meet with the BLUE DOG; but there is an example in
Grantham, and the sign occurs in a few other places.
Sometimes a peculiar breed is chosen, as the SETTER DOG at Redford,
Notts; the POINTER at Peckfield, Milford Junction; the BEAGLE at Shute,
Axminster, and the MERRY HARRIERS, common in hunting counties. Equally
common is the GREYHOUND, particularly in the North country, where
coursing has long been a favourite sport. In the seventeenth century, it
was the sign of a fashionable tavern in London, for in a sprightly
ballad in the Roxburgh collection,[273] a young gallant is introduced
who is going to forsake his evil courses and turn over a new leaf. He
gives a last farewell to all his _doxies_:
“Farewell unto black patches,
And farewell powder’d locks;”
and remembers all those delightfully wicked places he used to haunt
formerly, and amongst them:
“Farewell unto the GREYHOUND,
And farewell to the Bell,
And farewell to my landlady,
Whom I do love so well.”
This was probably the same Greyhound mentioned by Machyn, which seems to
have been situated in Fleet Street, where the gaudily dressed Spanish
ambassador took his stirrup-cup before leaving London. The same author
mentions the sign elsewhere, apparently in Westminster; and the little
picture of manners which accompanies it is rather curious:--
“The viij day of January (1557) dyd ryd in a care in Westmynster the
wyff of the Grayhound, and the Abbot’s servand was wypyd [whipped]
becawse that he toke her owt of the car, at the care h--e, [the back
of the cart.]”
--another example that the course of true love never does run smooth,
even though it runs upon wheels.
The WHITE GREYHOUND was the sign of John Harrison, in St Paul’s
Churchyard, a bookseller who published some of Shakespeare’s early
works, as “The Rape of Lucrece,” “Venus and Adonis,” &c. White
greyhounds, or rather silver greyhounds, were, until eighty years ago,
the badges worn on the arm by king’s messengers.
The sign of the BLACK GREYHOUND is also of frequent occurrence, and at
Grantham there is a BLUE GREYHOUND. Indeed, although Lincoln was
formerly famous for green, it seems also to have taken a great fancy to
blue, for there we find the BLUE BULL and the BLUE COW, the BLUE DOG,
the BLUE FOX, (all in Colsterworth,) besides the BLUE PIG, the BLUE RAM,
in Grantham, which town can also boast of the unique sign of the BLUE
MAN.
The TALBOT--old and now almost obsolete term for a large kind of hunting
dog--has acquired a literary celebrity from having been substituted for
the old sign of the Tabard Inn in Southwark, whence the pilgrims started
on their merry journey to Canterbury. In 1606, we find the Talbot the
sign of Thomas Man, bookseller in Paternoster Row, which, however, at
that time, was not such a book market as now, being occupied by “eminent
mercers, silkmen, and lacemen; and their shops were so resorted unto by
the nobility and gentry in their coaches, that ofttimes the street was
so stopped up, that there was no passage for foot passengers.”[274] So
it continued until the fire; and it was only in the middle of the last
century that the booksellers began to make their appearance in it.
A Talbot Inn in the Strand is mentioned in the following very quaint
advertisement:--
“TO BE SOLD, a fine Grey Mare, full fifteen hands high, gone after the
hounds many times, rising six years and no more; moves as well as most
creatures upon earth, as good a road mare as any in 10 counties and 10
to that; trots at a confounded pace; is from the country, and her
owner will sell her for nine guineas; if some folks had her she would
fetch near three times the money. I have no acquaintance, and money I
want, and a service in a shop to carry parcels or to be in a
gentleman’s service. My father gave me the mare to get rid of me, and
to try my fortune in London, and I am just come from Shropshire, and I
can be recommended, as I suppose nobody takes servants without, and
have a voucher for my mare. Enquire for me at the Talbot Inn near the
New Church at the Strand.
“A. R.”[275]
At the foot of Burdley’s Hill, Gloucester, there is a Talbot Inn, which
has a sign painted with two inscriptions; at the side where the road is
level, it says:--
“Before you do this hill go up,
Stop and drink a cheerful cup.”
On the side of the hill it says:
“You’re down the hill, all danger’s past,
Stop and drink a cheerful glass.”
A publican at Odell has chosen the MAD DOG for a sign, evidently his
_beau ideal_ of a “jolly fellow,” one having a great horror for water;
another at Pidley, Hunts, not to be behindhand with the Mad Dog, has put
up the MAD CAT. We have as odd and apparently as unmeaning a sign in
Tabernacle Walk, namely, the BARKING DOGS.
All the combinations of the sign of the Dog point towards sports, as the
DOG AND BEAR, which was very common in the seventeenth century, when
bear-baiting was in fashion, and kings and queens countenanced it by
their presence. The DOG AND DUCK refers to another barbarous pastime,
when ducks were hunted in a pond by spaniels. The pleasure consisted in
seeing the duck make her escape from the dog’s mouth by diving. It was
much practised in the neighbourhood of London till the beginning of this
century, when it went out of fashion, as most of the ponds were
gradually built over. One of the most notorious DOG AND DUCK Taverns
stood in St George’s Fields, where Bethlem Hospital now stands; it had a
long room with tables and benches, and an organ[276] at the upper end.
In its last days it was frequented only by thieves, prostitutes, and
other low characters. After a long and wicked existence it was at length
put down by the magistrates. In the seventeenth century it was famous
for springs, but already in Garrick’s time its reputation was very
equivocal:
“St George’s Fields, with taste and fashion struck,
Display Arcadia at the _Dog and Duck_,
And Drury Misses, here in tawdry pride,
Are there “Pastoras” by the fountain side;
To frowsy bowers they reel through midnight damps,
With Fauns half drunk and Dryads breaking lamps.”[277]
In an unpublished paper from the MS. collection of William Hone, we have
a mention of it:--
“It was a very small public-house till Hedger’s mother took it, who
had been a barmaid to a tavern-keeper in London, who left this house
to her at his death. Her son Hedger then was a postboy to a yard I
believe at Epsom, and came to be master there. After making a good
deal of money he left the house to his nephew, one Miles, (though it
still went in Hedger’s name,) who was to allow him £1000 per annum out
of the profits, and it was he that allowed the house to acquire so
bad a character that the licence was taken away. I have this from one
William Nelson who was servant to old Mrs Hedger, and remembers the
house before he had it. He is now [1826] in the employ of the Lamb
Street Water Works Company, and has been for thirty years. In
particular, there never was any duck hunting since he knew the
Gardens. Therefore, if ever, it must have been in a very early time
indeed. Hedger, I am told, was the first person who sold the mineral
water, (whence the St George’s Spa.) In 1787, when Hedger applied for
a renewal of his licence, the magistrates of Surrey refused, and the
Lord Mayor came into Southwark and held a court and granted the
licence, in despite of the magistrates, which occasioned a great
disturbance and litigation in the law courts.”
The old stone sign is still preserved, embedded in the brick wall of the
garden of Bethlehem Hospital, visible from the road, and representing a
dog squatted on his haunches, with a duck in his mouth, and the date
1617.
Another famous Dog and Duck inn formerly stood on the site of Hertford
Street, in the now aristocratic precincts of May Fair. It was an
old-fashioned wooden public-house, extensively patronised by the
butchers and other rough characters during May Fair time. The pond in
which the cruel sport took place was situated behind the house, and for
the benefit of the spectators was boarded round to the height of the
knee, to preserve the over-excited spectators from involuntary
immersions. The pond was surrounded by a gravel walk shaded with willow
trees.
THE DOG AND BADGER, Kingswood, Gloucester, refers to the now obsolete
sport of badger-baiting. More genial sports, however, are called to mind
by the DOG AND GUN, DOG AND PARTRIDGE, DOG AND PHEASANT, all of which
are very common.
“As I was going through a street of London, where I never had been till
then, I felt a general clamp and faintness all over me, which I could
not tell how to account for, till I chanced to cast my eyes upwards and
found that I was passing under a signpost on which the picture of a
_cat_ was hung.” This little incident of the cat-hater, told in No. 538
of the _Spectator_, is a proof of the presence of cats on the signboard,
where, indeed, they are still to be met with, but very rarely. There is
a sign of the CAT at Egremont, in Cumberland, a BLACK CAT at St
Leonard’s Gate, Lancaster, and a RED CAT at Birkenhead. There is also a
sign of the Red Cat in the Hague, Holland, and “thereby hangs a tale.”
It was put up by a certain Bertrand, a Frenchman, who had left his
native country, having been mixed up in some conspiracy against Mazarin.
Arrived at the Hague, he opened a cutler’s shop, and put up a double
sign, representing on the one side a red cat, on the other a portrait of
his Eminence Cardinal Mazarin in his red gown, and with his bristling
moustache; underneath he wrote “_aux deux méchantes bêtes_” (the two
obnoxious animals.) Holland, however, was at peace with France at that
time, and so the Burgomaster, afraid of offending the French ambassador,
requested Bertrand to alter his sign. Mazarin’s face was then painted
out and another red cat put in its place. Gradually as the first sign
was forgotten, the name became unmeaning, and was finally altered into
the Red Cat, and in this shape it has come down to the present day,
still the sign of a cutler, and a descendant of Bertrand.[278]
The CAT AND LION, which we meet with sometimes, as at Stockport, was
probably at one time the Tiger and Lion. It is occasionally accompanied
by the following elegant distich:--
“The lion is strong, the cat is vicious,
My ale is strong, and so is my liquors.”
The CAT AND PARROT was, in 1612, the sign of Thomas Pauer, a bookseller,
dwelling near the Royal Exchange. At Santry, near Dublin, and in some
other places, we meet with the CAT AND CAGE, which is represented by a
cat trying to pull a bird out of a cage; but its origin may be found in
the CAT IN THE BASKET, a favourite sign of the booths on the Thames when
that river was frozen over in 1739/40. The sign was a living one, a
basket hanging outside the booth, with a cat in it. It was revived when
the river was again frozen in 1789, and seems to have had many
imitators, for on a print[279] representing a view of the river at
Rotherithe during the frost, there is a booth with a merry company
within, whose sign, inscribed the _Original_ CAT IN THE CAGE, represents
poor Tabby in a basket. This sign of the Cat in the Basket, or in the
Cage, doubtless originated from the cruel game, once practised by our
ancestors, of shooting at a cat in a basket. Brand, in his “Popular
Superstitions,” gives a quotation, from which it appears that a similar
cruel sport was still practised at Kelso in 1789; but instead of
shooting at the cat, it was placed in a barrel, the bottom of which had
to be beaten out. The same game is still practised in Holland, and
generally, if not always, on the ice.
[196] J. Bossewell, Workes of Armourie, London, 1597, p. 97.
[197] “Allectorius is a stone similar to a dark crystal, which is taken
from the stomach of a capon when it is four years old. Its utmost size
is that of a bean. Gladiators take it in their mouths in order to be
invincible, and not to suffer from thirst.”--_Tractatus de Animalibus et
Lapidibus_, 4to, _circa_ 1465-75.
[198] Guillim’s Display of Heraldry. The same is also related in the
Latin Bestiarium. Harl. MSS. 4751; and by Albertus Magnus, Camerarius,
&c.
[199] “Boyne’s and Akerman’s Trades Tokens of the 17th Century,” in
England, Ireland, and Wales.
[200] Steward’s Accounts of Sir John Howard.
[201] See Cunningham’s London Past and Present, p. 41.
[202] Burnet’s History of the Reformation, Lib. ii., vol. ii., p. 14. It
is possible also that the White Bear was set up in compliment to Anne,
daughter of the Earl of Warwick, queen to Richard III., who, as a
difference from her father’s bear and ragged staff, had adopted the
White Bear as a badge.
[203] Timbs’s Flyleaves.
[204] Bagford, who was present at the excavations, relates this story in
a letter prefixed to Leland’s Collectanea, p. lxiii., 1770. See also Sir
John Oldcastle.
[205] “Lambspring, das ist ein herzlichen Teutscher Tractat von
Philosophischen Steine, welchen für Jahren ein adelicher Teutscher
Philosophus, Lampert Spring geheissen mit schöne Figuren beschrieben
hat. _Frankfort am Main_, 1625.”
[206] “This is a great wonder, and very strange: the dragon contains the
greatest medicament.”
[207] “Mercury rightly precipitated or sublimated in its own water
dissolved and again coagulated.”
[208] “There is a dragon lives in the forest who has no want of poison:
when he sees the sun or fire he spits venom, which flies about
fearfully. No living animal can be cured of it; even the basilisk does
not equal him. He who can properly kill this serpent has overcome all
his danger. His colours increase in death; physic is produced from his
poison, which he entirely consumes, and eats his own venomous tail. This
must be accomplished by him in order to produce the noblest balm. Such
great virtue as will point out herein that all the learned shall
rejoice.”
[209] Bossewell, Workes of Armourie, p. 61.
[210] Allusions to the unicorn occur frequently in the Old Testament,
and commentators inform us that these references were typical of the
coming Saviour.
[211] “It is reported that the unicorn’s horn sweats when it comes in
the presence of poison, and that for this reason it is laid on the
tables of the great, and made into knife-handles, which, when placed on
the tables, show the presence of poison. But this is not sufficiently
proved.”--Albertus Magnus, De Animalibus, lib. xxv.
[212] Bib. Harl. 5953, vol. i., p. 403.
[213] Relation of the Island of England, published by the Camden
Society.
[214] See Bib. Harl. 5953, vol. i., p. 407.
[215] Hentzner’s Travels, p. 54.
[216] Henry Peacham’s Compleat Gentleman.
[217] Fuller’s Worthies, _voce_ Middlesex.
[218] “It is rather peculiar that the same superstitious notions should
be found in India in connexion with the horn of the rhinoceros, whom
some consider as the fabled unicorn divested of his romantic garb. His
horn, too, was thought useful in diseases, and for the purpose of
discovering poisons.”--_Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible._ “The fine
shavings were supposed to cure convulsions and spasms in children.
Goblets made of these would discover a poisonous draught that was poured
into them, by making the liquor ferment till it ran quite out of the
goblet.”--_Thunberg’s Journey to Caffraria._
[219] _Daily Courant_, February 2, 1711.
[220] “This is the Civet, as you may see; but enter. Perfumes sold here
for men and women.”
[221] The reason why the hedgehog was generally represented with apples
stuck on his quills, appears from the following words in Bossewell, (p.
61,)--“He clymeth upon a vine or an apple-tree and biteth off their
braunches and twigges, and when they [the apples] be fallen downe, he
waloweth on them, and so they sticke on his prickes, and he beareth them
unto a hollow tree or some other hole.” The early naturalists also said
that if, when he was so loaded, one of the apples happened to drop off,
he would throw all the others down in anger and return to the tree for a
new load.
[222] Harl. MSS. 353, fol. 145.
[223] _London Gazette_, No. 368.
[224] _London Gazette_, Sept. 18-21, 1682. I am confident the newspapers
made a misprint, and that the man’s name was Haase, Dutch or German, for
the Hare he represented on his sign.
[225] Hone’s Every-Day Book, Oct. 17, fol. 1.
[226] Rev. J. Richardson, LL.B., Recollections of the Last Half Century.
See also under STUNNING JOE BANKS in the Slang Dictionary, recently
issued by the publisher of this work.
[227] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, March 1842.
[228] _See_ under RELIGIOUS SIGNS.
[229] _London Gazette_, Oct. 2-6, 1673.
[230] Childe Harold, canto I. lxx.
[231] Hone’s Every Day Book, Jan. 17, vol. ii.
[232]
“I wear horns, which everybody sees,
But many a one wears horns and does not know it.”
[233] Bagford Bills. Bib. Harl. 5962.
[234] _Postman_, February 1-3, 1711.
[235] Richardsoniana, p. 168.
[236] Timbs, Curiosities of London, p. 402.
[237] As quoted by Strutt in “Gliggam,” &c.
[238] Printed in Leland’s Collectanea, pp. 270, 272.
[239] A MS. of the sixteenth century, Bib. Harl. 2150, fol. 356, gives
full particulars of this _fête_ and procession.
[240]
“At the White Horse, horses are shod with iron,
Pity the same cannot be done to men, for then they would need no
shoes.”
[241] Crowns exactly similar to this, made of box, tinsel, and coloured
paper, are yearly hung out by the fishmongers in Holland on the first
arrival of the salt herring after the summer fishery.
[242] Pennant’s Account of London, p. 423.
[243] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, March 1842; and _London Gazette_, Dec. 30,
1718.
[244] Lloyd’s _Evening Post_, Jan. 16-19, 1761.
[245] Brand’s Popular Superstitions.
[246] Robert Herrick, Hesperides, p. 234.
[247] Aubrey, Anecdotes and Traditions, p. 3.
[248] _Postman_, June 1703.
[249] _Intelligencer_, May 30, 1681.
[250] Bagford Bills. Bib. Harl. 5964.
[251] Hence we have 7 ages, 7 churches, 7 champions, 7 penitential
psalms, 7 sleepers of Ephesus, 7 years’ apprenticeship, 7 cardinal
virtues and deadly sins, 7 make a gallows-ful, boots of 7 leagues, 7
liberal arts, and innumerable other instances.
[252] Collier’s Annals, vol. iii. p. 271, and Halliwell’s Introduction
to Tarlton’s Jests, p. 16.
[253] _Spectator_, No. 509.
[254] “He went about almost naked in the rage of hunger,” says Dr
Johnson, “and finding a gentleman in a neighbouring coffeehouse asked
him for a shilling; and Otway going away bought a roll and was choked
with the first mouthful.”
[255] Lewis’s Islington, p. 160.
[256] The History of the Plague, by Defoe.
[257] There is still a BULL’S HEAD public-house in this street, built on
the site of the house of Thomas Britton, the Musical Small-Coal Man,
where he gave his celebrated concerts for a period of 36 years, powdered
duchesses and fastidious ladies of the Court tripping through his coal
repository, and climbing up a ladder to assist at these famous meetings.
[258] Randolph’s Muses’ Looking-Glass.
[259] This riding in a cart was a very ancient punishment, probably
introduced by the Normans; in the romance of Lancelot du Lac the cart is
mentioned with the following remarks:--“At that time a cart was
considered so vile that nobody ever went into it, but those who had lost
all honour and good name; and when a person was to be degraded, he was
made to ride in a cart, for a cart served at that time for the same
purpose as the pillory now-a-days, and each town had only one of them.”
In the old English laws it was called the _Tumbrill_; thus Edward I. in
1240 enacted a law by which millers stealing corn were to be chastised
by the Tumbrill.--See _Fabian’s Chronicles_, 2 Edw. I.
[260] For the chequered life of this strange individual, see Caulfield’s
Memoirs of Remarkable Persons, vol. ii. From the _Original Weekly
Journal_, Sept. 13, 1718, we gather the information that, “Last week
_Dr_ Campbell, the famous dumb fortune-teller, was married to a
gentlewoman of considerable fortune in Shadwell.”
[261] A curious story of _Bulleyn Butchered_, the sign said to have been
put up in commemoration of Henry VIII.’s unfortunate queen, and its
corrupted form of _Bull and Butcher_ will be found in the first division
of this work. _Vide_ HISTORICAL SIGNS.
[262] “Be happy while you live.”
[263] M. Misson’s Memoirs and Observations on his Travels in England,
1719.
[264] Tom Brown’s Amusements for the Meridian of London, 1700.
[265] From a MS., entitled “Medycine Boke” of one Samson Jones, doctor
of Bettws, Monmouthshire, 1650-90; a note on the flyleaf says, “I had
this book from Mr Owen of Bettws, Monmouth. He assured me he knew for a
fact it was the receipt booke of Samson Jones, a good doctor of that
parish, a hundred and fifty years agone.” It contains some extraordinary
prescriptions. Surely if Master Samson Jones made use of them, the earth
must very quickly have hidden his blunders.
[266] _London Gazette_, Nov. 10-13, 1673.
[267] _Idem_, March 24-28, 1761.
[268] _Public Advertiser_, March 4, 1759.
[269] _Postman_, Feb. 13, 1711.
[270] See under HUMOROUS SIGNS, further on.
[271] See under HUMOROUS SIGNS, further on.
[272] _Kingdom’s Intelligencer_, March 30 to April 6, 1683.
[273] The Merry Man’s Resolution, or his last farewell to his former
acquaintance. Rox Ball. iii. f. 242.
[274] Strype, B. iii. p. 195.
[275] _Public Advertiser_, March 1759.
[276] Organs were first introduced in taverns during the Commonwealth.
When the liturgy and the use of organs in Divine service were abolished,
these instruments being removed from churches, were set up in inns and
taverns. Hence a pamphlet of 1659 has these words:--“They have
translated the organs out of their churches and set them up in taverns,
chaunting their dithyrambics and bestial Bacchanalias to the tune of
those instruments which were wonted to assist them in the celebration of
God’s praises.”
[277] Garrick’s Prologue to the Maid of the Oaks, 1774.
[278] La Haye, par de Fonseca. 1853.
[279] Crowle Pennant, vol. viii.