THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE.
Instead of carved or painted signs hung above the doors, many shop and
tavern keepers preferred to designate their houses after some external
feature, such as the colour of the building--thus we find the Red house,
the White house, the Blue house, the Dark house, &c. Others painted
their door-posts a particular colour, whence the origin of the
well-known BLUE POSTS. In still older times painted posts or poles in
front of the houses seem occasionally to have served as signs; to some
such distinction, at least Caxton’s RED POLES, as mentioned in one of
his advertisements, seems to refer:--
“If it please ony man spirituel or temporel to bye our pyes of two or
thre comemoracio’s of salisburi use, emprynted after the form of this
prese’t letre whiche ben wel and truly correct, late hym come
Westmonester into the almonestrye at the REED PALE, and he shal have
them good and chepe:
Supplico stet cedula.”
Even in the seventeenth century such a distinction was still
occasionally used, as the GREEN PALES in Peter Street,
Westminster;[543]--and Stukeley[544] speaks of Mr Brown’s garden at the
GREEN POLES, where an urn was dug up lined with lead and filled with
earth and bones. In Etheredge’s play “She Would if she Could,” the BLACK
POSTS in James Street are named, (Act i., sc. 1, 1703;) whilst the
newspapers in the beginning of the eighteenth century contain
advertisements stating that the mineral water from Hampstead Wells might
be obtained, at the rate of 3d. a flask, from the lessee of the wells,
who lived at the BLACK POSTS in King Street, near Guildhall.
GARDEN-HOUSES, or Summer-houses, attached to a building, were also used
to designate shops and residences, as appears from a trades token “at
the garden-house in Blackfriars,” and also from a newspaper
advertisement of 1679, where the garden-house in King Street, St Giles,
is mentioned. Frequent allusions to these garden-houses are found in the
old plays; they appear to have been similar in all intents and purposes
to the _petites maisons_ of the profligate French nobility in the times
of the Régence. Stubbe, in his “Anatomy of Abuses,” severely attacks
them:--
“In the suburbes of the citie they have gardens either paled or walled
round about very high, with their harbers and bowers fit for the
purpose; and lest they might be espied in those open places, they have
their banqueting houses, with galleries, turrets, and what not,
therein sumptuously erected, wherein they may, and doubtless do, many
of them, play the filthy persons.”
The young Rake in Shakespeare’s spurious play of the “London Prodigal,”
(1604,) says to the lady:--
“Now, God thank you, sweet lady, if you have any friend, or a
garden-house where you may employ a poor gentleman as your friend, I
am yours to command in all sweet service.”
And Corisca in Massinger’s “Bondsman,” (Act i., sc. 3):--
“And if need be I have a couch and banqueting-house in my orchard,
where many a man of honour has not scorned to spend an afternoon.”
He also alludes to it in the “City Madam.” A remnant of this custom is
still to be traced in a few country towns, (Sunderland for instance,)
where the middle classes have little gardens, in the outskirts of the
town, with bowers and wooden summer-houses for tea-drinkings. In Holland
they still flourish; the family usually take tea in them, whilst
paterfamilias placidly smokes his pipe and listens to the croaking of
the frogs and the lowing of the cows in the flat meadows beyond.
The WELL AND BUCKET is a sign in Shoreditch, not badly chosen, as it
intimates an inexhaustible supply; it is of very old standing in London,
for it is mentioned in the “Paston Letters” in the year 1472.[545]
“I pray God send you all your desires and me my mewed goss-hawk in
haste, or, rather than fail, a scar-hawk; there is a grocer dwelling
right over against the WELL WITH TWO BUCKETS, a little from St Helen’s
Church, hath ever hawks to sell.”
The anxiety about the bird, expressed in this letter, is most
amusing:--“I ask no more good of you for all the services that I shall
do you, while the world standeth, but a goss-hawk,” is the commencement
of the letter, which concludes:--
“Now, think on me, good lord, for if I have not an hawk I shall wax
fat for default of labour, and dead for default of company by my
troth.”
In old times the ale-house windows were generally open, so that the
company within might enjoy the fresh air, and see all that was going on
in the street; but, as the scenes within were not always fit to be seen
by the “profanum vulgus” that passed by, a trellis was put up in the
open window. This trellis, or lattice, was generally painted red, to the
intent, it has been jocularly suggested, that it might harmonise with
the rich hue of the customers’ noses; which effect, at all events, was
obtained by the choice of this colour. Thus Pistol says:--
“He called me even now by word through a red lattice, and I could see
no part of his face from the window.”
The same idea is expressed in the “Last Will and Testament of Lawrence
Lucifer,” 1604:--
“Watched sometimes ten hours together in an ale-house, ever and anon
peeping forth and sampling thy nose with the red lattice.”
So common was this fixture, that no ale-house was without it:--
“A whole street is in some places but a continuous ale-house, not a
shop to be seen between red lattice and red lattice.”--_Decker’s
English Villanies Seven Times Pressed to Death._
At last it became synonymous with ale-house:--
“As well known by my wit as an ale-house by a _red lattice_.”[546]
“Trusty Rachel was drinking burnt brandy with a couple of tinder-box
cryers at the next _red lattice_.”[547]
The lattices continued in use until the beginning of the eighteenth
century, and after they disappeared from the windows were adopted as
signs, and as such they continue to the present day. The GREEN LATTICE
occurs on a trades token of Cock Lane, and still figures at the door of
an ale-house in Billingsgate, whilst not many years ago there was one,
in Brownlow Street, Holborn, which had been corrupted into the GREEN
LETTUCE.
When balconies were newly introduced, they were also used in the place
of signs. Lord Arundel was the inventor of them, and Covent Garden the
first place where they became general. “Every house here has one of
’em,” says Richard Broome, in 1659. Trades tokens “of THE BELLCONEY,” in
Bedford Street, are still extant, and also tokens of “John Williams, the
king’s chairman, at y^{e} lower end of St Martin’s Lane, AT Y^{E}
BALCONEY. 1667.” The first house that adopted a balcony was situated at
the corner of Chandos Street, “which country people were wont much to
gaze on;” soon, however, they became so common that further distinctions
had to be added, as the IRON BALCONY, (St James’ Street, 1699,) the
BLUE AND GILT BALCONY, (Hatton Street, 1673.) Lamps have also, for two
or three centuries, frequently done duty as signs, and continue still to
act as beacons to those who want the assistance of the doctor, the
chemist, or the sweep. Ale and coffee-houses, too, are frequently
decorated with gorgeous lamps: this was already the custom in Tom
Brown’s time:--
“Every coffee-house is illuminated both without and within doors;
without by a _fine Glass Lanthorn_, and within by a woman so light and
splendid you may see through her without the help of a
Perspective.”[548]
The Moorfield quacks had always lamps at their doors at night, with
round glasses, having the same colours as the balls in their signs, and
this custom has been handed down to our day by the chemists, who still
have circular, red, green, and yellow bull’s-eye glasses in their lamps.
In Paris, in the sixteenth century, the pastry-cooks used at nights to
place a kind of lamp in their windows, which acted as magic lanterns.
They were made of transparent paper, covered with rudely-painted figures
of men and animals. Regnier mentions them in his eleventh satire:--
“Ressemblait transparent une lanterne vive,
Dont quelques patissiers amusent les enfants,
Où des oysons bridez, guenuches, elefans,
Chiens, chats, lièvres, renards, et mainte estrange beste
Courent l’une après l’autre.”[549]
A Dutch grocer, in the seventeenth century, put up the sign of the
BURNING LAMP, and wrote under it the following distich:--
“Myn lampje brant uyt den Orienten,
Ik verkoop oly, vygen en krenten.”[550]
The BRASS KNOCKER in the Great Gardens, Bristol, is another sign taken
from the exterior of the house; also the FLOWER-POT, which was very
common in old London: one of the last remaining stood at the corner of
Bishopsgate and Leadenhall Streets. It dated from an early period, and
was, in the heyday of its fame, a celebrated coaching inn. The
introduction of railroads, however, gave it a death-blow; for some time
it continued to languish as a starting-point for omnibuses, and was
finally demolished to make room for merchants’ offices in 1863. Trades
tokens of this inn are extant in the Beaufoy collection. Mr Burn, the
compiler of the catalogue of this collection, suggests that the
Flower-pot was originally the vase of lilies, always represented in the
old pictures of the Salutation or Annunciation; according to his theory
the Angel and the Virgin were omitted at the Reformation, and nothing
but the vase left. This, however, seems somewhat improbable. There is no
apparent reason why it should not have been a real flower-pot, or rather
vase, which our ancestors frequently had on the top of the pent-houses
above their shops. In order to distinguish them from ordinary
flower-pots, some painted theirs blue, thus the sign of the BLUE
FLOWER-POT, as appears from the advertisement of Cornelius a Tilborgh,
who styles himself “sworn chirurgeon in ordinary to King Charles II., to
our late sovereign King William, as also to her present majesty Queen
Anne.” This worthy lived in Great Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Holborn Row, and
besides the Blue Flower-pot at his front door, his customers might
recognise the house, by “a light at night over the door,” and a Blue
Ball at the back-door. The TWO BLUE FLOWER-POTS used to be a sign in
Dean Street, Soho; and the TWO FLOWER-POTS AND SUN DIAL in Parker’s
Lane, near Drury Lane, (_London Gazette_, Sept. 16-19, 1700.)
Innumerable objects from the interior of the house were likewise adopted
as signs, such as furniture of all kinds, and domestic utensils. The
upholsterers, for instance, generally selected pieces of furniture. At
the end of the last century THE ROYAL BED was a great favourite, as may
be seen from engravings on several of the shop bills in the Banks
collection; the bed in olden times was a very important article in a
household, and was always particularly named in the will. Upholsterers
in those days were also frequently called bed-joiners. Next we have the
BOARD or Table, still a great favourite in the north--in Durham alone at
least sixty public-houses with that sign could be named.
The mention of the Table affords an opportunity for particularising
those good things which usually grace the festive board. First of all
there is the SALT HORN, (at Bradford and Leeds,) which formerly at
dinner marked the line of demarcation; for whether a guest was to be
placed above or below the salt was a matter of etiquette strictly to be
attended to. In Dudley we find a very substantial and tempting ROUND OF
BEEF, with the following rhymes:--
“If you are hungry or a-dry,
Or your stomach out of order,
There’s sure relief at the Round of Beef,
For both these two disorders.”
The roast beef of old England is further represented by THE RIBS OF
BEEF, in Wensum Street, Norwich. THE FLANK OF BEEF at Spalding, the much
less tempting COW ROAST at Hampstead, besides a couple of unpretending
BEEF-STEAKS in Bath. Our bill of fare also contains plenty of mutton,
sometimes _rehaussé_ with a poetic sauce, as one that was at Hackney in
the last century, THE SHOULDER OF MUTTON AND CAT, having the following
rhymes:--
“Pray Puss, don’t tear,
For the Mutton is so dear;
Pray Puss, don’t claw,
For the Mutton yet is raw.”
The sign is still there, but the verses are gone. This suggested to
another innkeeper on the common at Horsham, the sign of the DOG AND
BACON. An epicurean publican at Yapton, Arundel, has a more gastronomic
combination, viz.:--the SHOULDER OF MUTTON AND CUCUMBERS. It was at the
SHOULDER OF MUTTON in Brecknock that Mrs Siddons, England’s greatest
tragic actress, was born, July 14, 1755. “Fancy,” writes an enthusiastic
biographer, “the English Melpomene behind the bar of such a place!” Legs
of Mutton on the signboard do not appear to be so common as Shoulders.
But by far the finest of all the dishes represented on the signboard was
the BOAR’S HEAD, in Eastcheap, for the character of the famous inn
patronised by Jack Falstaff makes the association of an excellent dish
much more natural than any heraldic origin. The first mention of this
inn occurs in the testament of William Warden, in the reign of Richard
II., who gave “all that tenement called the Boar’s Head in Eastcheap,”
to a college of priests, or chaplains, founded by Sir W. Walworth, the
Lord Mayor, in the adjoining church of St Michael, Crooked Lane. The
presence of “Prince Hal” in this house was no invention of Shakespeare;
history records his pranks, how one night, with his two brothers, John
and Thomas, he made such a riot that they had to be taken before the
magistrate. No wonder, then, at the proud inscription on the sign, which
still existed in Maitland’s time:--“_This is the chief tavern in
London_.” At one time the portal was decorated with carved oak figures
of Falstaff and Prince Henry; and in 1834 the former was in the
possession of a brazier of Eastcheap, whose ancestors had lived in the
shop he then occupied since the great fire. The last great Shakespearian
dinner-party at the Boar’s Head took place about 1784, on which occasion
Wilberforce and Pitt were present, and though there were many professed
wits, Pitt was the most amusing of the company.
On the removal of a mound of rubbish at Whitechapel, brought there after
the great fire, a carved boxwood bas-relief boar’s head was found, set
in a circular frame formed by two boars’ tusks, mounted and united with
silver. An inscription to the following effect was pricked in the
back:--“Wm. Brooke, Landlord of the Bore’s Hedde, Estchepe, 1566.” This
object, formerly in the possession of Mr Stamford, the celebrated
publisher, was sold at Christie and Manson’s, on January 27, 1855, and
was bought by Mr Halliwell.[551]
The original inn having been destroyed by the fire, was rebuilt and
continued in existence until 1831, when it was finally demolished to
make way for the streets leading to new London Bridge. Its site was
between Small Alley and St Michael’s Lane. The ancient sign, carved in
stone, with the initials I. T. and the date 1668, is now preserved in
the City of London Library, Guildhall.
In the month of May 1718, one James Austin, “inventor of the Persian ink
powder,” desiring to give his customers a substantial proof of his
gratitude, invited them to the Boar’s Head to partake of an immense
plum-pudding. This pudding weighed 1000 lbs.; a baked pudding of 1 foot
square, and the best piece of an ox roasted: the principal dish was put
in the copper on Monday, May 12, at the RED LION Inn, by the Mint in
Southwark, and had to boil fourteen days. From there it was to be
brought to the SWAN TAVERN, in Fish Street Hill, accompanied by a band
of music playing--“What lumps of pudding my mother gave me;” one of the
instruments was a drum in proportion to the pudding, being 18 feet 2
inches in length, and 4 feet diameter, which was drawn by “a device fixt
on six asses.” Finally the monstrous pudding was to be divided in St
George’s Fields, but apparently its smell was too much for the gluttony
of the Londoners; the escort was routed, the pudding taken and devoured,
and the whole ceremony brought to an end, before Mr Austin had a chance
to regale his customers.
Puddings seem to have been the _forte_ of this Austin. Twelve or
thirteen years before this last pudding, he had baked one for a wager,
ten feet deep in the Thames, near Rotherhithe, by enclosing it in a
great tin pan, and that in a sack of lime: it was taken up after about
two hours and a half, and eaten with great relish, its only fault being
that it was somewhat overdone. The bet was for more than £100. Austin
was also noted for his fireworks.
The back windows of the Boar’s Head looked out upon the burial-ground of
St Michael’s Church,[552] and there rested all that was mortal of one of
the waiters of this tavern. His tomb, in Purbeck stone, had the
following epitaph:--
“HERE LIETH THE BODYE of Robert Preston, late Drawer at the Boar’s
Head Tavern, Great Eastcheap, who departed this Life, March 16, Anno
Domini, 1730, aged 27 years.”
“Bacchus, to give the topeing world surprize,
Produc’d one sober son, and here he lies.
Tho’ nurs’d among full Hogsheads, he defy’d
The charm of wine and ev’ry vice beside.
O Reader, if to Justice thou ’rt inclin’d,
Keep Honest Preston daily in thy Mind.
He drew good wine, took care to fill his pots,
Had sundry virtues that outweighed his fauts (sic)
You that on Bacchus have the like dependance,
Pray, copy Bob, in measure and attendance.”[553]
Amongst other Boar’s Head Inns, we may notice one in Southwark, the
property of Sir John Falstolf of Caistor Castle, Norfolk, who died in
1460, and whose name Shakespeare adopted in the play. Then there was
another one without Aldgate, as appears from the following curious
document:--
“At St James’s the v daye of September, an. 1557.
“A letter to the Lord Mayor of London, to give order forthwith that
some of his officers do forthwith repaire to the Boreshed w^{hout}
Aldgate, where the Lordes are enformed a lewde Playe, called ‘A Sacke
full of Newse,’ shall be plaied this daye, the Playeres whereof he is
willed to apprehende and to comitt to safe warde, untill he shall
heare further from hence, and to take their Playsbook from them, and
to send the same hither.
“At West^{r} the vj daye of Sep. 1557.”[554]
At the beginning of this century there was a noted tavern in Bond
Street, called THE BRAWN’S HEAD, and the general opinion was, that at
one time it had a brawn or boar’s head for its sign; this, however, was
a mistake; the house was named after the head of a noted cook whose name
was Theophilus Brawn, formerly landlord of Rummer Tavern in Great Queen
Street, and the article (as the letters THE were usually supposed to be)
was simply an abbreviation of the man’s magnificent Christian name.
All these gastronomic signs, doubtless, originated in the old custom of
landlords selling eatables:--
“You brave-minded and most joviall Sardanapalitans,” saith Taylor the
Water poet, addressing the country tavern-keepers, “have power and
prerogative (_cum privilegio_) to receive, lodge, feast, and feed,
both man and beast. You have the happinesse to Boyle, Roast, Broyle,
and Bake, Fish, Flesh, and Foule, whilst we in London have scarce the
command of a _Gull_, a _widgeon_, or a _woodcock_.”
In a little volume of 1685, entitled “The Praise of Yorkshire ale,” we
are told that Bacchus held a parliament in the SUN, behind the Exchange
in York, to consider the adulteration of wine, the various drinking
vessels, and other matters sold in alehouses, as:--
“Papers of sugar, with such like knacks,
Biskets, Luke olives, Anchoves, Caveare,
Neats’ tongues, Westphalia Hambs, and
Such like cheat, Crabs, Lobsters, Collar Beef,
Cold puddings, oysters, and such like stuff.”
Hence, then, the once common sign of the THREE NEATS’ TONGUES, one of
which still exists in Spitalfields; another one in the eighteenth
century was very appropriately situated in Bull and Mouth Street.[555]
The HAM is the usual porkman’s sign, though at Walmyth, in Yorkshire,
there is a public-house sign of the HAM AND FIRKIN. THE CRAB AND LOBSTER
Inn occurs at Ventnor; the LOBSTER is a sign on trades tokens of a shop
in Bearbinder (now St Swithin’s) Lane, and also near the Maypole in the
Strand; the CRAWFISH at Thursford Guist, in Norfolk, and the BUTT AND
OYSTER at Chelmondiston, Ipswich. Those eatables, all more or less salt,
were sold as incitements to drink, and went by the cant term of shoeing
horns, gloves, or pullers-on. They are often alluded to by ancient
authors:--
“Then, sir, comes me up a service of _shoeing-horns_ of all sorts,
salt cakes, red herrings, anchoves, and gammon of bacon, and abundance
of such _pullers-on_.”--Bishop Hall’s _Mundus alter et idem_.
The PIE was a sign in very early times, and gave its name to Pie Corner,
“a place so called from such a sign, sometimes a fair inn for receipt of
travellers.”--_Stow_, p. 139. One of the most famous inns with that sign
was the PIE in Aldgate.
“One ask’d a friend where Captain Shark did lye,
Why, sir, quoth he, at Aldgate at the Pye.
Away, quoth th’ other, he lies not there, I know’t.
No, sayes the other, then he lies in ’s throat.”
_Wits’ Recreation_, p. 185, vol. ii.
De Foe, in his “History of the Plague,” tells of “a dreadful set of
fellows” who used to revel and roar nightly in that inn during the time
the plague was at its height, but within a fortnight all of them were
buried. The COCK AND PIE was once common. At an inn in Ipswich there
used to be a rude representation of a cock perched on a pie, which was
discovered whilst the house was undergoing some repairs. It was also,
about the middle of last century, the sign of a house famed for
conviviality, which stood on the site of the present Rathbone Place,
Oxford Street, and was the resort of the “fancy” of those days. A row of
fine elms connected this house with another, noted for the manufacture
of Bath buns and Tunbridge water-cakes, the latter a dainty now almost
obsolete, but which then was so famous, that it was one of the London
cries, being sold by a man on horseback. With regard to the origin of
the sign COCK AND PIE, both the ancient Catholic oath, to swear by _Cock
and Pie_, (by God and the Pie, or Roman Catholic service book,) and the
fable of the magpie (Old English _pie_, or _pye_) and the peacocks, have
each been duly considered by us; but the sign is probably only an
abbreviation of the _Peacock and Pie_. In ancient times the peacock was
a favourite dish, and was introduced on the table in a pie; the head,
with gilt beak, being elevated above the crust, and the beautiful
feathers of the tail expanded. As a dainty dish, then, it may have been
put up, like the other good things of this world, just mentioned, as a
trap to hungry or epicurean passers-by; at last the dish went out of
fashion, the name even became a mystery, and was rendered by the
sign-painters, according to their own understanding, by a COCK AND
MAGPIE, which is still very common. There is a public-house with such a
sign in Drury Lane, which was already in existence more than two
centuries ago, when the rest of Drury Lane was still occupied by farms
and gardens, and the mansions of the Drury family. Hither the youths
and maidens of the metropolis, who, on May-day, danced round the Maypole
in the Strand, were accustomed to resort for cakes and ale, and other
refreshments. This ale-house gave its name to the _Cock and Pye_ Fields,
between Drury Lane and St Giles’ Hospital. At Chatsworth, the original
name was mutilated by a provincialism into the COCK AND PYNOT,
(Derbyshire, for Magpie.) In this ale-house, still existing, the
Revolution of 1688 was plotted, between Thomas Osborne Earl of Danby,
William Cavendish Earl of Devonshire, and Mr John d’Arcy. They met by
appointment on a heath adjoining the house, but a shower of rain coming
on, they adjourned to the inn. The room is still shown in which the
conspirators met. In Hone’s “Table Book” there is a woodcut of the inn,
showing the wooden construction across the road, by which the signs in
villages were generally suspended.
Lastly, we may mention the PICKLED EGG, in Clerkenwell. As the origin of
this sign, it is said that Charles II. here once partook of the dish,
which so flattered the landlord, that he adopted it as his sign, and so
it has remained till this day. It has given its name to a lane called
Pickled Egg Walk, in which there was a notorious cocking-house,
frequently mentioned in advertisements _circa_ 1775.
We may very appropriately terminate the gastronomic signs with the
CHESHIRE CHEESE, which is still very common; there is a famous tavern of
this name in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, and numerous public-houses
in the country have adopted it as their signs. And as we began with the
_Salt Horn_ we will end with the MUSTARD-POT, which was the sign of a
mustard shop in Holland, in the seventeenth century, with these
rhymes:--
“Ik lever uyt
Een zeldzaam kruyt
Daar zyn der weinig in de stad
Of ik heb ze by de neus gehad.”[556]
This reminds us of a rather indelicate sign of a mustard shop, formerly
in the Rue du Chatel, at Beauvais, but now in the Musée d’Antiquités of
that town, representing a fool stirring mustard in a barrel with a large
stick, whilst a tall grinning monkey stands just opposite, assisting
him in a way we need not describe.
Drinkables are not frequent as signs, if we except such as the RHENISH
WINE HOUSE, and the CANARY HOUSE; two taverns of Old London, named after
the wines they sold. BARLEY BROTH, BEE’S-WING, and YORKSHIRE STINGO, are
at present all three common: the first applies either to whisky or beer;
the second is the delicate crimson film left in bottles by old port
wine, and Yorkshire stingo is the well-known name of a kind of ale. From
a house with this name in the New Road, the first pair of London
omnibuses were started, July 4, 1829, running to the Bank and back: they
were constructed to carry twenty-two passengers, all inside; the fare
was one shilling, or sixpence for half the distance, together with the
luxury of a newspaper. A Mr J. Shillibeer was the owner of these
carriages, and the first conductors were the two sons of a British naval
officer.
Drinking vessels are very appropriate ale-house signs. Amongst the
oldest certainly ranks the BLACK JACK, common even in the present day,
although the vessel that it represented is long since fallen into
disuse: it was a leather bottle, sometimes lined with silver or other
metal, and perhaps took its name from a part of the soldiers’ armour.
Sometimes it was ornamented with little silver bells “to ring peales of
drunkeness,” in which case it was called a “gyngle boy.”[557] This
primitive bottle has been celebrated in one of the Roxburghe Ballads,
(vol. iii., fol. 433:)--
“God above that made all things,
The heaven, and earth, and all therein,
The ships that on the sea do swim
For to keepe the enemies out that none come in,
And let them all do what they can,
It is for the use and pains of man;
And I wish in heaven his soul may dwell,
Who first devized the leather bottle.”
Its various good qualities are next explained, and finally:--
“Then when this bottle doth grow old,
And will no longer good liquor hold,
Out of its side you may take a clout,
Will mend your shoes when they are worn out,
Else take it and hang it upon a pin,
It will serve to put odd trifles in,
As hinges, awls, and candle ends,
For young beginners must have such things.”
[Illustration: PLATE XV.
BELL AND HORNS.
(Formerly in Brompton Road, circa 1830.)
RASP AND CROWN.
(1780.)
HAND AND GLOVE.
(Harleian Collection, 1708.)
GREEN MAN AND STILL.
(Harleian Collection, 1630.)
THE PUMP.
(Harleian Collection, 1710.)
CROWN AND PATTEN.
(Banks’s Collection, 1790.)]
There is another ballad in the same collection, (vol i., fol. 107,)
entitled “Time’s Alteration, or the Old Man’s Rehearsal,” which speaks
of the black jack in the following terms:--
“Black jacks to euery man
Were filled with wine and Beere,
No pewter Pot nor Canne
In those days did appeare:
* * * * *
We took not such delight
In cups of silver fine;
No pewter Pot nor Canne
In those days did appeare:
* * * * *
None under the degree of a knight
In Plate drunk Beere or Wine.”
But we may glean more full and complete particulars from Heywood’s
“Philocothonista or Drunkard Opened, Dissected and Anatomized,” 1635,
where we get a detailed inventory of all the various drinking vessels of
the day:--
“Of drinking Cups divers and sundry sorts we have; some of elme, some
of box, some of maple, some of holly, etc. Mazers, broad mouthed
dishes, naggins, whiskins, piggins, creuzes, alebowles, wassel bowles,
court dishes, tankards, kannes, from a pottle to a pint, from a pint
to a gill. Other bottles we have of leather, but they are most used
amongst the shepheards and harvest people of the countrey: small jacks
wee have in many alehouses of the citie and suburbs lipt with silver:
blackjacks and bombards at the Court; which when the Frenchmen first
saw, they reported at their return into their countrey that the
Englishmen used to drinke out of their bootes. We have besides cups
made of hornes of beastes, of cockernuts,[558] of goords, of eggs of
estriches; others made of the shells of divers fishes brought from the
Indies and other places, and shining like mother of pearle. Come to
plate, every taverne can afford you flat bowles, french bowles,
prounet cups, beare bowles, beakers; and private householders in the
citie, when they make a feaste to entertain their friends, can furnish
their cupboards with flaggons, tankards, beere cups, wine bowles, some
white, some percell guilt, some guilt all over, some with covers,
others without, of sundry shapes and qualities.”
That they were of ancient use and high in price appears from an entry in
the expenses of John, King of France, when prisoner in England after the
battle of Poictiers, 1359-60:--
“Pour deux bouteilles de cuir achetées a Londres pour Monseigneur
Philippe . . . . . . . . . . . . 9s. 8d.”
Though these vessels are now completely superseded by pewter and glass,
yet their memory still lives on the signboard, and the LEATHER BOTTLE
is anything but an uncommon ale-house emblem at the present day. There
is one still to be seen, carved in wood, suspended in front of an old
ale-house at the corner of Charles Street, Hatton Garden. In Germany,
also, the leather bottle was once in use; drinking vessels of various
materials, in the shape of a boot, are common in that country, usually
with this inscription:--
“Wer sein Stiefel nit drinken kan,
Der ist führwahr kein Teutscher Man.”
The _Black-jack_ Tavern, in Clare Market, still in existence, acquired
some celebrity from being the favourite haunt of Joe Miller, the reputed
author of the famous Jest Book. The house was also for a long time known
by the cant name of the Jump, which it had received from the fact of
Jack Sheppard one day escaping the clutches of Jonathan Wild’s
emissaries by jumping from a window into the street, and so making his
escape. From the Leather Bottle to the GOLDEN BOTTLE is not so great a
step as would appear at first sight, the golden bottle being simply the
leather bottle gilt, as may be seen above the door of Messrs Hoare the
bankers, in Fleet Street, a firm established for centuries under the
same sign, although not always occupying the same premises. In the
“Little London Directory for 1677” we find:--“James Hore at the Golden
Bottle in Cheapside,” one of the goldsmiths that kept “running cashes.”
In 1693 we find Mr Richard Hoare, a goldsmith, “at the Golden Bottle” in
Cheapside, but in 1718 the house in Cheapside seems to have had a second
occupant:--
“DROPT or taken from a Ladies’ side on Tuesday, the 25^{th} of March,
coming from the Spanish ambassadour’s at St James’ Square, a gold
watch and chain, with a seal to it, a pendulum[559] on the outside;
Windmill the maker. Whoever brings it to Mr Madding, Goldsmith at _the
Golden Bottle_, the upper end of Cheapside, or to Jonathan Wilde, over
against the _Duke of Grafton’s Head_ in the Old Bailey, shall have 8
Guineas and no questions asked.”--_Daily Courant_, April 5, 1718.
That the GOLDEN CAN was also an old sign may be concluded from a mention
in the nursery rhyme:--
“Little Brown Betty lived at the _Golden Can_,
Where she brewed good ale for gentlemen.
And gentlemen came every day,
Till little brown Betty she hopt away.”
Where the fact of little brown Betty brewing good ale points to a very
old custom, when ale-wives flourished, and Eleanor Rumying and her
gossips brewed their own ale. The GOLDEN CAN is still to be seen on two
public-houses in Norwich. The GUILDED CUP in Houndsditch is mentioned in
a quaint little pamphlet on the virtues of “Warme Beere,” 1641.
THE FLASK was the sign of an old-established tavern in Ebury Square,
Pimlico. In the last century there were two famous _Flask_ taverns in
Hampstead; the one called the _Lower Flask_ was an inn at the foot of
the hill, and is mentioned in the following advertisement, printed on
the cover of the original edition of the _Spectator_, No. 428:--
“This is to give notice that Hampstead Fair is to be kept upon the
_Lower Flask_ Tavern Walk, on Friday, the first of August, and holds
for four days.”
The UPPER FLASK was a place of public entertainment near the summit of
Hampstead Hill, and is now a private residence. Here Richardson sends
his Clarissa:--“The Hampstead coach, when the dear fugitive came to it,
had but two passengers in it, but she made the fellow go off directly,
paying for the vacant places. The two passengers directing the coachman
to set them down at the _Upper Flask_, she bid them set her down there
also.” The well-known Kit-Kat Club used to meet at this tavern in the
summer months; and here, after it became a private abode, George
Steevens, the celebrated critic and antiquary, lived and died.
Besides these, more homely vessels occur as publicans’ signs at the
present day, which it requires no stretch of imagination to understand
the meaning of, as the PITCHER AND GLASS, the BROWN JUG, the JUG AND
GLASS, the BOTTLE AND GLASS, the FOAMING QUART, &c. At Newark the BOTTLE
is accompanied by the following inscription:--
“From this Bottle I am sure
You’ll get a glass both good and pure,
In opposition to a many,
I’m striving hard to get a penny.”
The PEWTER POT, an old sign, is thus alluded to by Randle Holme.[560]
“This should be looked upon by all good artists to be the most ignoble
and dishonourable bearing; but as the custom takes away the sense of
dislike, so the frequent use takes away the dishonour, which is seen
by those multitudes that have it for their cognizance, in so much
that it is painted over their doors by the wayside.”[561]
The _Pewter Pot_, in Leadenhall Street, was a famous carriers’ and
coaching inn in 1681. There are also the SIX CANS, in High Holborn, (a
sign evidently suggested by the THREE TUNS;) and, in the same locality,
the SIX CANS AND PUNCHBOWL. This last object, the PUNCHBOWL, was
introduced on the signboard at the end of the seventeenth century, when
punch became the fashionable drink; in one instance, at Penalney Kea,
near Truro, we have the PUNCHBOWL AND LADLE, but most generally it is
found in combination with other very heterogeneous objects. The reason
of this is that punch, like music, had a sort of political prestige, and
was the Whig drink, whilst the Tories adhered to sack, claret, and
canary, connected in their memory with bygone things and times. Hence it
followed that the punchbowl was added as a kind of party-badge to many
of the Whig tavern signs, and hence such combinations as the following,
all of which still survive at the present day:--
The CROWN AND PUNCHBOWL, Somersham, St Ives.
The MAGPIE AND PUNCHBOWL, Bishopsgate Within.
The ROSE AND PUNCHBOWL, Redman’s Row, Stepney, and elsewhere.
The SHIP AND PUNCHBOWL, Wapping.
The RED LION AND PUNCHBOWL, St John’s Street, Clerkenwell.
The UNION FLAG AND PUNCHBOWL, High Street, Wapping.
The DOG AND PUNCHBOWL, Lymm, Warrington, Cheshire.
The HALFMOON AND PUNCHBOWL, Buckle Street, Whitechapel.
The PARROT AND PUNCHBOWL, Aldringham, Suffolk.
The FOX AND PUNCHBOWL, Old Windsor, (perhaps meant for the great
statesman, who was not disinclined to the beverage.)
The TWO POTS is the sign of a public-house at Boxworth, St Ives,
accompanied by the following verses, which are enough to set the teeth
of a Bœotian on edge: how then must they shock the refined ears of the
Cambridge dons?--
“Rest, traveller, rest; lo, Cooper’s hand
Obedient brings two pots at thy command;
Rest, traveller, rest; and banish thoughts of care,
Drink to thy friends and recommend them here.”
Another Two Pots, at Leatherhead, can boast a most venerable antiquity,
for it is believed to be the very ale-house where the notorious Eleanor
Rumying tunned her “noppy ale,” and made
“thereof fast sale
To travellers, to tinkers,
To sweaters, to swinkers,
And all good ale-drinkers.”
There was, at the end of the last century, a painted sign still
remaining, which, under a coating of summer’s dust and winter’s sludge,
faintly showed two pots of beer placed in the same position as they are
on the title-page of the original edition of Skelton’s poem.
The sign of the Two Pots again gave rise to that of the THREE POTS, at
Horseway Bridge, Chatteris, in the same county, and at Burbage, near
Hinckley.
The RUMMER, another drinking vessel, is also common: there is one in Old
Fish Street, and there are three _Rummer_ public-houses in Bristol
alone. A tavern of that name was kept by Samuel Prior, uncle of Matthew
Prior the poet. Uncle Sam took his nephew as an apprentice to learn the
business, and be his successor. Prior alludes to this uncle and his
little professional tricks in the following lines:--
“My uncle, rest his soul, when living,
Might have contrived me ways of thriving;
Taught me with cider to replenish
My vats or ebbing tide of Rhenish;
So, when for Hock I drew pricked white Wine,
Swear ’t had the flavour and was right wine.”
To his stay in this tavern also alludes the bitter Whig satire in “State
Poems,” (ii., p. 355,) beginning--
“A vintner’s boy the wretch was first preferr’d
To wait at vice’s gates and pimp for bread;
To hold the candle, and sometimes the door,
Let in the drunkard, and let out the w----.”
In 1709 there was another Rummer tavern “over against Bow Lane, in
Cheapside,” where “the surprizing Mr Higgins, the posture master, that
lately performed at the Queen’s Theatre Royal in the Haymarket,” was to
be seen every evening at six; admission 18d. and 1s.
This sign was also common in Holland two centuries ago; at that time
there was one in Amsterdam with this inscription:--
“Als gy dees Roemer ziet, gy kunt ze pryzen of laken,
Maar komt in, proeft zyn nat, dat zal u beeter smaaken.”[562]
And another one at the Hague had this same idea, but added a caution to
it on a double-sided signboard:--
“Dees Roemer die gy ziet en kan u niet vermaken,
Komt in en proeft het nat het zal u beter smaken
Maar siet eens wat hier achter staat.”
On the other side:--
“Betaal eerst, eer je henen gaat
Of anders hoed of mantel laat.”[563]
A near relative of the Rummer was the BUMPER, a tavern in St James’
Street, Covent Garden, kept by Estcourt the actor. His drawer was “his
old servant Trusty Anthony, who has so often adorned both the theatres
in England and Ireland; and as he is a person altogether unknown in the
Wine Trade, it cannot be doubted but that he will deliver the wine in
the same natural purity as he receives it from the said merchants,”
(Brooke & Hillier.)--Estcourt’s advertisements on the last page of the
original Edition of the _Spectator_, cclx., 1711. To this occupation of
Estcourt, Parnell alludes in the beginning of his poems:--
“Gay Bacchus liking Estcourt’s wine,
A noble meal bespoke us;
And for the guests that were to dine
Brought Comus, Love, and Jocus.”
This same Estcourt was sometime provedore of the Beefsteak Club.
Finally, we may conclude this notice of drinking vessels on the
signboard with the TANKARD, which is still of frequent occurrence. There
is a public-house at Ipswich with this sign, which was formerly part of
the house of Sir Anthony Wingfield, one of the legal executors of Henry
VIII.
The hanap or tankard was generally of silver, and was formerly one of
the most valuable properties of an ale-house, for in the Act 13 Edw. I.,
it says that “if a tavern-keeper keep his house open after curfew he
shall be put on his surety the first time by the _hanap_ of the tavern,
or by some other good pledge therein found.”[564] Silver tankards were
more or less common in all the London taverns. In some houses they were
reserved for the more distinguished visitors; in others, as at the
Bull’s Head in Leadenhall Street, “every poor mechanic drank in plate.”
They were of different sizes, and experienced topers well knew for which
name to call when ordering a tankard proportionate to their thirst. From
a curious old tippler’s handbook, published in the reign of Queen Anne
or George the First, entitled, “A Vade Mecum for Maltworms,” we gather
that the names of the tankards at the SWEET APPLE, in Sweet Apple Yard,
were “the Lamb,” “the Lion,” “the Peacock,” (in honour of the brewer,)
“Sacheverell,” (in memory of the notorious divine of St Andrew’s,
Holborn,) and “Nan Elton.” The same work also relates a curious instance
of enthusiasm in a publican. His house, the Raven, in Fetter Lane, was
famous for
“Massy tankards form’d of silver plate,
That walk throughout his noted house in state;
Ever since Eaglesfield in Anna’s reign,
To compliment each fortunate campaign,
Made one be hammer’d out for every town was ta’en.”
We may suppose each tankard named after a victory--the greater the
victory, the greater the tankard; and can imagine the gratifying display
of loyalty in emptying those tankards to the perdition of “Popery and
wooden shoes.”
Besides the tankard for drinking beer or wine, there was also the WATER
TANKARD. In Ben Jonson’s comedy of “Every Man in his Humour,” 1598, Cob,
the water-carrier of the Old Jewry, says:--“I dwell, sir, at the sign of
the WATER TANKARD, hard by the _Green Lattice_. I have paid scot and lot
there many time this eighteen years.” These water-tankards were used for
carrying water from the conduits to the houses, and were therefore a
professional sign of the water-carriers. The measures held about three
gallons, and were shaped like a truncated cone, with an iron handle and
hoops like a pail, and were closed with a cork, bung, or stopple. In
Wilkinson’s “Londina Illustrata,” there is an engraving of Westcheap as
it appeared in the year 1585, copied from a drawing of the period, in
which the Little Conduit is seen with a quantity of water-tankards
ranged round it.
Amongst the other articles of furniture which are represented on the
signboard we must first of all notice that useful article the LOOKING
GLASS, which was the favourite sign of the booksellers on London Bridge.
Thus, one of John Bunyan’s works, “The Saints’ Triumph, or the Glory of
Saints with Jesus Christ discovered in a Divine Ejaculation by J. B.,”
was printed by J. Millet for J. Blare, at the Looking Glass on London
Bridge, in 1688. The French booksellers also used it: for instance,
Nicholas Despréaux, or Dupré, a bookseller of the seventeenth century,
who lived near the church of St Etienne du Mont, at Paris. Its origin
was this:--Speculum, a looking-glass, was in the middle ages a common
name for a certain class of books. We find, as early as 1332, a work
entitled “Speculum Historiale in consuetudine Parisiensi;” then there is
the “Grand Speculum Historiale,” the great historical work of Vincent of
Beauvais, one of the most celebrated books of the Middle Ages; “Speculum
Humanæ Salvationis;” “Speculum Humanæ Vitæ;” “Speculum Vitæ Christæ,” “a
boke that is clepid the Myrrour of the blessed lyffe of our Lorde J’hu
cryste;” the “Mirrour of Magistrates;” “Le miroir de l’ame pécheresse,”
and innumerable other Speculums. These Speculums were amongst the first
books that were printed; many of the early booksellers adopted the
_Bible_ as their sign, whilst others chose the Speculum, which they
translated and made more fit for the signboard under the name of the
LOOKING GLASS.
A curious fact is connected with this so common title of the Speculum
for early religious books. When the first pioneers in the art of
printing were pondering over their new invention, during the transition
period from block-printing to printing with detached letters,
Guttenberg, in 1436, entered into an agreement with John Riffe, Anthony
Heilman, and Andrew Dreizehn, in which speculation the three associates
were to furnish the necessary funds, whilst Guttenberg was to pay them
one half of any profits, the other half being for himself. After a
certain time the association broke up, differences arose about the
liquidation, and a lawsuit was the consequence. The documents of this
lawsuit are still in existence; from them it appears that they kept
their invention a secret, and called themselves “_Spiegelmachers_,”
(makers of looking-glasses,) which looking-glasses, according to the
evidence of witnesses, had found a very ready sale amongst the pilgrims
who at that period congregated at Aix-la-Chapelle on the occasion of
some religious festival. But as apparently no extra number of mirrors
were sold on that occasion, and there does not appear to have been any
new invention in the art of making them, it is evident that the
looking-glasses sold were the _Speculum_ books, which undoubtedly would
be readily purchased by the pilgrims to the holy shrine. This opinion is
still more corroborated by the mention made in the evidence of a
_Press_, which could scarcely be used in the manufacture of
looking-glasses. It is therefore most probable that, as the art of
printing was at this period still in its infancy, and the printed works
were sold rather as an imitation or facsimile[565] of the written
manuscripts, this art was still kept a secret; by so doing, its early
practitioners were not only safe from competition, but also from the
attacks and opposition by which the new invention would have been
assailed by all those connected with the business of transcribing and
illuminating.[566]
Other pieces of furniture are the CABINET, a common upholsterer’s sign
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the THREE CRICKETS, or
little stools, which we gather from a trades token of the seventeenth
century, was in Crooked Lane; and the CRADLE, a peculiar sign, occurs in
Taylor’s “Carrier’s Cosmography,” 1637, where he gives a rather curious
insight into the postal arrangements of that time:--
“Those that will send any letter to Edinbourgh, that so they may be
conveyed to and fro to any parts of the kingdome of Scotland, the
poste doth lodge at the signe of the _kings armes_ or the CRADLE at
the upper end of Cheapside, from whence every Monday any that have
occasion may send.”
Generally, however, it did not designate so respectable a business; the
“Compleat Vintner,” 1720, explains the secret arcana of that sign:--
“The pregnant Madam drawn aside,
By promise to be made a bride,
If near her time and in distress
For some obscure convenient place,
Let her but take the pains to waddle
About till she observes a _Cradle_
With the foot hanging towards the door,
And there she may be made secure
From all the parish plagues and terrors,
That wait on poor weak woman’s errors.
But if the head hang tow’rds the house,
As very often we see it does,
Avaunt, for she’s a cautious bawd
Whose business only lies abroad.”
From the last interpretation of this sign to the Colt in the Cradle (see
under Humorous Signs) is but a step.
The TRUNK was the sign of Caleb Swinock, a bookseller in St Paul’s
Churchyard in 1684, for which it is difficult to find any rational
explanation; almost equally incomprehensible is the sign of the GREEN
BELLOWS, (_le soufflet vert_,) which was that of Johan Stoll and Peter
Cesaris, booksellers and printers in the Rue St Jacques, Paris, in
1473.[567] This sign was also to be seen in other towns of France, as in
Abbeville, where a stone bas-relief sign of the seventeenth century,
with the inscription “_le vert soufflet_,” remains at the present day in
the front of a house in the Rue des Jacobins. It may have been adopted
in allusion to the occult sciences and alchemy, green being the
emblematical colour of Hope.
The GOLDEN CANDLESTICK was the sign of a Marriage Insurance office in
Newgate Street, in 1711, a time when there was a mania for insurance
offices of every description; the THREE CANDLESTICKS occurs on a trades
token of the Old Bailey in 1649. A publican in Tamworth, Staffordshire,
has taken the COFFEE-POT for a sign, probably on the strength of the
derivation of “lucus a non lucendo,” because he sells no coffee; the
ROYAL COFFEE-MILL was the more appropriate sign of Paul Greenwood, in
Clothfair, for he was a seller of “Coffee-powder.”[568] Then there is
the SUGAR-LOAF, a common grocer’s sign of former times, the selection of
which showed great disinterestedness on their part, the article being
that on which the least profit was made. Campbell said, in 1757:--
“There is indeed one article which they [the Grocers] must sell to
their loss, sugars. A custom has prevailed (but why?) amongst the
Grocers, to sell sugar for the prime cost, and are out of pocket by
the sale, with paper, packthread, and their labour in breaking and
weighing it out. The expense of some shops in London, for the article
of paper and packthread for sugars, amounts to £60 or £70 per annum;
but this they lay upon the other articles. The customer had much
better allow him a profit upon his sugars, than pay extravagant prices
for tea and other comodities.”
At present, we understand, loaf-sugar is not sold exactly at cost price,
but moist sugar is, whence many grocers refuse to sell that article to
strangers unless something else be bought at the same time. At No. 44
Fenchurch Street, a very old established grocery firm still carries on
business under the sign of the THREE SUGAR LOAVES. The house presents
much the same appearance it had in the last century, with the gilt
sugar-loaves above the doorway, and is one of the few places of business
in London conducted in the ancient style. The small old-fashioned window
panes, the complete absence of all show and decoration, the cleanliness
of the interior, and the quiet order of the assistants in their long
white aprons, betoken the respectable old tea-warehouse, and impress the
passer-by with a complete conviction as to the genuineness of its
articles. That the sugar-loaf was not always exclusively a grocer’s
sign, nor the THREE BALLS a pawnbroker’s, appears from the following
advertisement in the _Postman_, February 3-6, 1711:--
“THOMAS SETH at the Sugarloaf in Fore Street, Pawnbroker, is going to
leave his house, and to leave off the said business: all persons
concerned are desired to fetch away their Goods on or before the
fourth of March next, else they will be disposed off and sold.”
Here is another curious advertisement:--
“A TANNY MORE [tawny Moor] with short bushy hair, very well shaped, in
a grey livery lined with yellow, about 17 or 18 years of age, _with a
silver collar about his neck_ with these directions:--‘Captain George
Hastings’ Boy, Brigadier in the King’s Horse guards.’ Whosoever brings
him to the Sugarloaf in the Pall Mall shall have forty shillings
Reward.”--_London Gazette_, March 23, 1685.
The Sugar-loaf is also a public-house sign, though not a very
appropriate one. The BLUE BOWL, suggestive of punch-making, occurs on
three public-houses in Bristol; but much more significant for a resort
of thirsty souls is that of the THREE FUNNELS, (_les Trois Entonnoirs_,)
which in the time of Louis XIV. was the sign of a tavern in Paris,
mostly patronised by the University people. An equally expressive sign,
the SIEVE, was used by John Johnson, in Aldermansbury, 1669, and
“Richard Harris in Trinity Minories.”
We now arrive at kitchen utensils: foremost amongst these ranks the
GRIDIRON, which was very common in the sixteenth century, and may
perhaps have been a jocular rendering of the _Portcullis_. The FRYING
PAN is still a constant ironmonger’s sign--thus in Highcross Street,
Leicester, there is a gigantic gilt specimen with the inscription “the
Family Fry Pan.” There are trades tokens of “John Vere, at y^{e} _Frying
Pan_ in Islington, Mealman,” which, considered in connexion with
pancakes, one can understand; but it certainly looks out of place at the
door of Samuel Wadsell, bookseller at the GOLDEN FRYING PAN, in
Leadenhall Street, 1680. The COPPER POT (le Pot de Cuivre) at Dijon, in
France, was the sign of one of the oldest inns in that country. It was
opened in 1250 and continued till the middle of the seventeenth century.
The society of the _Mère Folle_ held their meetings at this house.
The PEWTER PLATTER occurs both in France and in England; it was famous
as a carriers’ inn in St John Street, Clerkenwell, in 1681. At this inn
Curll’s translators, in pay, were lodged, and had to sleep three in a
bed, and there “he and they were for ever at work to deceive the
publick.”[569] In mediæval Paris it was a common sign, and gave its name
to several streets. Two of the inns victimised by that incorrigible
scamp Villon, bore this sign:--
“Le cas advint au Plat d’etain
Emprès saint Pierre-des-Arsis.”[570]--_Repues Franches._
Probably it was a very early sign for eating-houses.
The PUMP is a common ale-house sign, and occurs as such on a token of
Tooley Street, with the following lines:--
“The Pump runs cleer
Wh. Ale and Beer.”
which, as Mr Burn (Beaufoy Tokens) observes, may be a travesty of a
verse in Histrio-Mastrix, 1610:--
“Yet a verse may run cleare,
That is tapt out of Beere.”
Another token belonging to Chick Lane, West Smithfield, represents a
hand grasping the handle of a pump; and a publican in Old Swinford, who
combines engineering with his trade, has a similar sign with the words,
“Hands to the Pump.” In the reign of Charles I. there was a
public-house, the BLUE PUMP, in Blackfriars, near the famous Hollands
Leaguer. It represented a man, evidently a sailor, pumping with all his
might, and the legend ran:--“Poor Tom’s last refuge.”[571] With the pump
we may place the BUCKET, which was the sign of a shop in Aldersgate
Street, of which there are trades tokens extant, and the TUB, the name
of a tavern in Jermyn Street, in the reign of Charles II., as appears
from a letter sent, (not written, for she could not write,) by Nell
Gwynn, from Windsor in 1684, to her milliner and factotum, addressed “To
Madam Jennings, over against the Tub tavern in Jermyn Street, London.”
Another utensil, the DUST-PAN, is common with hardware shops. There is
one in Islington, at a shop next to the house in which Charles Lamb
lived; at night it is illuminated, and hence called the ILLUMINATED
DUST-PAN. Lastly, there is the HOUR-GLASS, a colossal specimen carved in
wood, in Upper Thames Street, near All Hallows Church, and the GOLDEN
JAR, which was the sign of a china shop, as we see in the _Country
Journal_, or _Craftsman_, for April 25, 1730, where Anne Cibber
acquaints the public that she is removed from Charles Street to the
_Golden Jar_ in Tavistock Street, carrying on two trades which now are
rarely associated in London, viz., “All sorts of chinaware, and the best
teas, coffees, chocolate,” &c. Now-a-days the _jars_, painted red and
green, are the usual oilman’s sign, representing those vessels in which
oil is kept in Eastern countries, and in which Ali Baba’s forty thieves
came to such an untimely end. Formerly oil used to be imported in this
country in similar jars, hence their adoption as trade emblems.
We may close this chapter, not inappropriately with the KEY, a sign once
largely used, not only by locksmiths, as at present, but by all manners
of shops; thus there was a celebrated tavern, at the corner of Henrietta
Street, Covent Garden, _circa_ 1690, and many others that could be
mentioned. The GOLDEN KEY is named in an old advertisement, speaking of
some sports and pastimes which many English gentlemen are now attempting
to revive:--
“RICHARD FENNEY, Esquire of Alaxton in Leicestershire, about a
forthnight since, lost a lanner from that place; she has neither Bells
nor Varvels; she is a white Hawk, and her long feathers and sarcels
are both in the blood. If any one give tidings thereof to Mr Lambert
at the GOLDEN KEY, in Fleet Street, they shall have 40 shillings for
their pains.”--_Mercurius Publicus_, August 30 to September 6, 1660.
The LOCK AND KEY is a sign of a public-house in West Smithfield, and
was, during the Commonwealth, that of a house in the parish of St
Dunstan, belonging to Praise God Barebones, citizen and leather-seller
of London. There is a MS. in the British Museum,[572] containing a
petition of Barebones against Elisabeth and James Spight, the latter an
infant under age, offered to the court of judicature for determination
of differences touching houses burned or demolished by the fire of 1666.
From that paper it appears that Elisabeth Spight paid £40 a year for the
rent of the Lock and Key.
[543] _London Gazette_, August 28 to Sept. 1, 1679.
[544] “Itinerarium Curiosum,” 1776, p. 14.
[545] Letter of John Paston to Sir John Paston, Sept. 21, 1472.
[546] Marston’s Antonio and Mellida, 1633.
[547] Tom Brown’s Works, vol. iii, p. 243.
[548] Tom Brown’s Amusements for the Meridian of London, 1706.
[549] “It represented a burning lamp, such as some pastry-cooks have to
amuse the children, on which geese, monkeys, elephants, dogs, cats,
hares, foxes, and many strange animals are to be seen running after each
other.”
[550]
“My lamp is kept burning by the produce of the East.
Oil, figs, and currants sold here.”
[551] There is a drawing of this very curious relic in a number of the
_Illustrated London News_, published shortly after the sale.
[552] Also demolished to make room for the streets leading to London
Bridge.
[553] Lansdowne MSS. No. 889, art. 73.
[554] Harleian MSS No. 256.
[555] Bagford Bills, Harleian MSS.
[556] This loses much by translation:--
“I contain
A curious kind of condiment--
There are not many people in this town
Which I have not _had by the nose_.”
This is a pun in Dutch, on the sensation produced in the nose by
mustard, the expression meaning, at the same time, “to take in.”
[557] Decker’s English Villanies Seven Times Pressed to Death.
[558] Cocoa-nuts. The word is still pronounced in that manner by the
lower classes.
[559] A face or dial-plate, sometimes also called pendulum dial.
[560] Book iii., p. 294.
[561] What would old Randle Holme have said, had he seen the elegant (!)
breast-pins displayed in the shop-windows of one of the principal West
End jewellers, forming the tasteful device of a tobacco-pipe on a quart
pot; another with a rebus for: “You are an art[a heart]ful card;” and a
third with: “O my eye!” and similar _distingué_ ornaments.
[562]
“When you see this Rummer you may praise or blame it,
But come in, and taste its liquor, you will like that better.”
[563]
“This Rummer which you see here cannot give you much pleasure.
Come in, and taste its liquor, you will like that better,
But first, see what is written on the other side.”
On the other side:--
“Pay before you go away,
Otherwise you will have to leave your hat or your cloak.”
[564] Liber Albus, Book iii., Part ii.
[565] Even after the art got to be known, it continued to be still
called _writing_. Thus, Gaspar Hedion (Paral. ad Chron. Conradi) calls
it “novo _scribendi_ genere reperto,” and Fulgosus (Lib. viii., Dict. &
Fact. Memor.) says that Guttenberg could “uno die imprimendo plura
_scribere_ quam uno anno calamis.”
[566] See the whole of the documents of this law-suit in Count Leon de
Laborde’s Débuts de l’Imprimerie à Strasbourg.
[567] This De Cesaris family seemed to have a predilection for puzzling
signboards. When Peter de Cesaris, a bookseller and printer in the Rue
St Jacques, circa 1480, had for a sign the SWAN AND SOLDIER, (_le cygne
et soldat_,) in the absence of his colophon, we can only suppose that it
was a representation of the legend of the Knight of the Swan, _i.e._, a
knight in a boat drawn by a swan. The steel armour of the knight might
easily have bestowed upon him the title of “the soldier.”
[568] _London Gazette_, Nov. 10-13, 1679.
[569] _Loyd’s Evening Post_, Jan 9-12, 1767.
[570]
“It happened at the Pewter Platter,
Near Saint Pierre des Arsis.”
[571] Whether it would be just to conclude from this that sailors in
that time went by the generic name of Tom instead of Jack, we leave to
the reader to judge. That Tom was in former times a more common name
than now, (owing, it is said, to the respect at one time paid to the
great saint Thomas a-Becket,) appears from the many words to which it is
an affix, and from many imaginary names, as:--Tomtit, Tomcat,
Tomfoolery, Tomboy, Tommyshop, Tommy, (slang for bread,) double Tom, (a
sort of plough,) Tom the Piper, (in the morris dance,) Tom Tiddler, Tom
of Bedlam, Tom of Westminster, (a bell,) Tom and Jerry, Tom Telltruth,
Tom Hickathrift, Tom, (the knave of Trumps,) Whipping Tom, an itinerant
flogger of wandering maids, Tom Tapster, “Tib’s rush for Tom’s
forefingers,” (all’s well that ends well.)
“Then every wanton may dance at her will,
Both _Tomkin_ with _Tomlin_ and Jenkin with Gill.”
_Tusser’s Plowman’s Fasting Day_
[572] Additional MSS., 5079.