DRESS; PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL.
Of this class only a few signs are to be found; one of the most common
is the HAT, the usual hatter’s sign, although it may also be found
before taverns and public-houses, in which case, however, it is probable
that it was the previous sign of the house, which the publican on
entering left unaltered; or it may have been used to suggest “a house of
call” to the trade. The age of each individual hat-sign may sometimes be
gathered from its shape; thus there is one in Whitechapel, made out of
tin, representing the cocked hat worn at the end of the last century; it
is evidently a relic of that time. The continental hatters using this
sign, occasionally indulged in a little humour. A hatter at Ghent in the
sixteenth century added to it this distich:--
“Onder den Hoedt
Schuylt quaedt & goet.”[573]
And a Dutch hatter made a still more unpleasant allusion to the brains
of his customers:--
“Hier maakt men sterke hoeden om de hersens in te sluyten
Opdat het los verstand daar niet mag vliegen buyten.”[574]
Dr Franklin used to tell an amusing story of a journeyman hatter, his
companion when young, who on commencing business for himself, was
anxious to get a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. This he
composed himself as follows:--
+------------------------+
| JOHN THOMPSON, HATTER, |
| MAKES AND SELLS HATS |
| FOR READY MONEY |
+------------------------+
Above the inscription was the ordinary figure of a hat. But he thought
he would submit the composition to his friends for amendment. The first
he showed it to thought the word “hatter” tautologous, because followed
by the words “makes hats,” which showed he was a hatter; it was struck
out. The next observed that the word “makes” might as well be omitted,
because his customers would not care who made the hats; if good, and to
their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck that out also.
A third said he thought that the words “for ready money” were useless,
as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit--every one who
purchased expected to pay. These, too, were parted with, and the
inscription then stood, “John Thompson sells Hats.” “_Sells_ Hats!” says
his next friend; “why, who expects you to give them away? What, then, is
the use of the word?” It was struck out, and HATS was all that remained
attached to the name John Thompson. Even this inscription, brief as it
was, was reduced ultimately to “John Thompson,” with the figure of the
hat above it.
The HAT AND FEATHERS was almost equally common in those days, when no
full-fledged gallant could be deemed complete without his fluttering
ribbons and plume. The puritanical Philip Stubbe in his “Anatomie of
Abuses,” 1585, is very hard upon this fashion:--
“Another sort, (as phantasticall as the rest,) are content with no
kind of hat, without a great bunch of feathers of divers and sondrie
colours, peaking on top of their heades, not unlike (I dare not saie)
cockes combes, but as Sternes of Pride and ensignes of vanitie and
these fluttering sailes and feathered flagges of defiaunce to virtue,
(for so they are,) are so advanced in Ailgnia [Anglia] that euery
child has thē in his Hatte or Cappe. Many get good living by deying
and selling of them, and not a fewe proue themselues more than fooles
in wearyng of them.”
Decker calls the “swell” of his day “our feathered ostrich,” and in his
comedy of the “Sun’s Darling” he mentions “some alderman’s son wondrous
giddy and light-headed, one that blew his patrimony away in _feathers_
and tobacco.” There is one sign of the HAT AND FEATHERS still in
existence, a publican’s, at Grantchester, in Cambridgeshire.
Another old hatter’s sign is the HAT AND BEAVER, which at present may be
seen at the door of a publican’s in Leicester. Shopbills of this once
common sign occur amongst the Banks Collection, representing a beaver
seated on the edge of a stream, with a hat above him. The relation
between the two is evident, and about as gratifying to the beaver as it
was to the widow of the hanged man to hear the gallows named. The beaver
hats worn in England at the time of Edward III., and long after, were
made in Flanders and Picardy. From the Privy Purse expenses of Henry
VIII. we see that the king paid in 1532:--
“Item, the xxiij day [of October] for a hath and plume for the King in
Boleyn, xv shillings.”
“On 27 May MDLV. (ij of Queen Mary) Sir William Cecil [afterwards Lord
Burghley] being then at Callice [Calais] bought [as appears from his MS.
Diary] three hats for his children at xxd each.”
The Protestant refugees, however, from Flanders and France, introduced
the manufacture of these hats into England when they settled in Norwich;
by a statute 5 and 6 Edw. VI., the manufacture of felt and thrummed hats
was confined to Norwich and the corporate and market towns in that
county.[575] As for the shapes of the hats worn at that period we must
again refer to Stubbe’s satirical account:--
“Some tymes they use them sharpe on the crowne, pearking up like the
speare or shaft of a steeple, standing a quarter of a yarde above the
crowne of their heades, some more, some lesse, as pleases the
fantasies of their inconstant mindes; othersome be flat and broad in
the crowne like the battlements of a house. Another sort have round
crownes, sometymes with one kinde of bande, sometymes with another,
now blacke, now whyte, now russet, now red, now green, now yellowe,
now this, now that, never content, with one colour or fashion two
daies to an ende.”[576]
Felt hats for a long time were exclusively worn by the aristocracy. Stow
tells us that “about the beginning of Henry VIII. began the making of
Spanish feltes in England, by Spaniardes and Dutchmen, before which
time, and long since the English used to ride, and goe winter and sommer
in knitcapps, cloth hoods, and the best sort in silk throm’d Hatts.”
These caps were enforced by a statute of 13th Queen Elizabeth, which
gives, at the same time, a curious picture of the fashions of that
period:--
“If any person above six yeares of age, (except _maidens_, _ladies_,
_gentlewomen_, nobles, knights, gentlemen of twenty marks by year in
lands, and their heirs, and such as have borne office of worship,)
have not worn upon the Sundays and Holidays, (except it be in the time
of his travell out of the citie, towne, or hamlet, where he dwelleth,)
uppon his head one cap of wool knit, thicked, and dressed in England,
and onely dressed and finished by some of the trade of cappers, shall
be fined 3s. 4d. for each day’s transgression.”
These caps, termed statute caps, are frequently alluded to by the
dramatists and authors of that period. Rosalind, for instance, in
“Love’s Labour Lost,” taunts her lover with the words: “Well, better
wits have worn plain statute caps.” The act was repealed in the year
1597. The sign of the CAP AND STOCKING, still in Leicester, commemorates
the once-flourishing trade of that town in those articles. The quantity
of workmen who found occupations in the manufacture of the above-named
“statute caps,” (which came chiefly from Leicestershire and the
surrounding districts,) was one of the principal reasons why it was so
often protected by parliamentary statutes. Fuller enumerates not less
than fifteen callings, “besides other exercises,” all employed in the
trade of capmaking, beginning with the woolcarder, and ending with the
bandmaker. The HAT AND STAR, which occurs on the bill of Master Bates in
St Paul’s Churchyard, who sold all sorts of fine “caines, whippes,
spurres,”[577] &c., if not a simple quartering of two signs, possibly
originated in the clasp ornament of precious stones, formerly worn in
the hat. The LEGHORN HAT, at the end of the last century, was generally
a turner’s sign, because the members of that trade sold straw hats
imported from Leghorn. In St John Street, Clerkenwell, there was an old
established public-house, and place of resort, called the THREE HATS. It
is mentioned by Bickerstaff in his comedy of “The Hypocrite,” where
Mawworm thus alludes to it:--
“Till I went after him, [Dr Cantwell,] I was little better than the
devil, my conscience was tanned with sin, like a piece of neat’s
leather, and had no more feeling than the sole of my shoe; always a
roving after fantastical delights; I used to go every Sunday evening
to the Three Hats at Islington; it’s a public-house . . . mayhap your
Ladyship may know it. I was a great lover of skittles, too, but now I
cannot bear them.”
At this house the earliest prototypes of Astley used to perform in 1758.
There was Thomas, an Irishman, surnamed Tartar; then came Johnson,
Sampson, Price, and Cunningham. The great Dr Johnson went here to see
his namesake.
“Such a man, sir, said he, should be encouraged; for his performance
show the extent of human powers in one instance, and thus tend to
raise our opinion of the faculties of man. He shows what may be
obtained by persevering application; so that every man may hope, by
giving as much application, although, perhaps, he may never ride three
horses at a time, or dance upon a wire, yet he may be equally expert
in whatever profession he has chosen to pursue.”
Royalty also visited the place: “Yesterday his Royal Highness the Duke
of York was at the Three Hats, Islington, to see the extraordinary feats
of horsemanship exhibited there. There were near five hundred
spectators.”[578] Sampson’s wife was the first female equestrian.
HORSEMANSHIP
_At Mr Dingley’s, the Three Hats, Islington._
“MR SAMPSON begs leave to inform the public, that besides the usual
feats which he exhibits, Mrs Sampson, to diversify the entertainment,
and prove that the fair sex are by no means inferior to the male,
either in Courage or Agility, will, this and every Evening during the
Summer, perform various exercises in the same art, in which she hopes
to acquit herself to the universal approbation of those Ladies and
Gentlemen whose curiosity may induce them to honour her attempt with
their company.”[579]
The Three Hats occurs amongst the trades tokens of the seventeenth
century. There is one of the THREE HATS AND NAG’S HEAD in Southwark. In
the seventeenth century the sign of the Three Hats at Leeuwarden, in
Friesland, was accompanied by the following stanza:--
“Dit is in de drie Hoeden
Om ’t hoofd te behoeden,
Voor wind en koud.
Tromp was stout,
Voor der staten kroon,
Hier maakt men hoeden schoon.”[580]
The LOCKS OF HAIR was the very appropriate sign of John Allen, a
hairdresser on London Bridge in the last century, who sold “all sorts of
hair, Curled or Uncurled; Bags, Roses, Cauls, Ribbons, Weaving Silk,
Sewing Cards, and Blocks. With all Goods made use of by Peruke makers,
at the lowest prices.”[581] The locks of hair were represented curled
and tied. This sign appears to have been not unusual with the
hairdressers of a former age. In 1649, there was one in St
Dunstan’s-in-the-East, who had the LOCK AND SHEARS; which are
represented on his trades token by a lock of hair between a pair of
shears, intimating that the “unlovely lovelocks” were curtailed by him.
What he would require the tokens for in his profession (they were used
as farthings) it is difficult to guess, as apparently no such small
change was needed. This sign was in accordance with the spirit of the
times; short hair was the unmistakable mark of the godly puritan, just
as the straggling love-lock hanging over the shoulder denoted the
cavalier. For this reason, Decker advises the young cavalier Gull:--
“Thy hair, whose length before the rigorous edge of any puritanical
pair of scissors should shorten the breadth of a finger, let the three
house-wifely spinsters of Destiny rather curtail the thread of thy
life. Oh, no! long hair is the only net that women spread abroad to
entrap man in, and why should not men be as far above women in that
comodity as they go far beyond them in others.”[582]
The PERIWIG was another common hairdresser’s sign. Even this had to
submit to the favourite blue colour, for amongst the Banks bills there
is one of John Thompson, in Brewer Street, Golden Square, who lived at
the BLUE PERUKE AND STAR. The star evidently was the original sign, to
which the wig had been added on account of the profession of the
occupant of the house.
The WHITE PERUKE, in Maiden Lane, was the sign of the barber, at whose
lodgings Voltaire lived when on a visit to London; some of his letters
to Swift are dated from that place. A white periwig was a highly
fashionable object:--“Now, I think he looks very humorous and agreeable;
I vow, in a _white periwig_ he might do mischief; could he but talk and
take snuff, there’s never a fop in town wou’d go beyond him.”--_Cibber’s
Double Gallant_, 1707. So Shadwell, in “The Humorist,” 1671, describes
Brisk, one of the _dramatis personæ_, as “a fellow that never wore a
noble and polite garniture, or a _white periwig_.” Well might the
barbers give the peruke the honour of this signboard, for the profits on
that article must have been enormous. In Charles II.’s time, for
instance, a fine peruke cost as much as £50; and hence the great respect
Cibber paid to the one he wore in the character of Sir Fopling Flutter,
which was brought on the stage in a sedan, and put on before the public.
As the glory of Miltiades prevented Epaminondas from sleeping, so the
beauty of this periwig disturbed the slumbers of Mr (afterwards Colonel)
Brett, who in the end bought it from Cibber.[583] The thieves as well as
the beaux knew the value of those wigs, and practised all manner of
tricks to obtain them. Sometimes a boy, carried in a basket on the
shoulders of a man, would snatch the “curly honour” off the head of the
unsuspecting beau;[584] at other times they would cut holes in the
leather backs of the coaches,[585] whilst the highwaymen were sure to
include the periwig with the rest of the booty captured on the road.
Though this article is now shorn of its honours, there is still a
publican at Great Redisham, Suffolk, who carries on his trade under the
sign of the WIG.
The French have a sign quite as absurd as our BLUE PERUKE--viz., The
GOLDEN BEARD, (_la barbe d’or_,) which is carved in stone in the Rue des
Bourdonnais, Paris, and also in the Marché aux Herbes, Amiens: both
these signs date from the eighteenth century, but their origin is much
older, as appears from the following:--
“The Duke of Lorraine, after the Battle of Nancy, wherein he killed
Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, went in procession to visit the
body, clothed in deep mourning, with a _golden beard_ fixed on, that
reached down to his waist, (after the manner of the old heroes that
were knighted for their prowess, who, on a signal victory over an
enemy, were honoured with such a beard.)”--_Richardsoniana_, London,
1776, p. 47.
The ANODYNE NECKLACE was as notorious in the eighteenth century, as
Holloway’s Pills and Rowland’s Macassar Oil are in our day.
Advertisements concerning it were continually appearing in the papers:--
“THE Anodyne Necklace for children’s teeth, women in labour, and
distempers of the head; price 5s. Recommended by Dr Chamberlain. Sold
up one pair of stairs at the sign of the Anodyne Necklace, without
Temple Bar; at the SPANISH LADY at the Royal Exchange, next
Threadneedle Street; at the INDIAN HANDKERCHIEF, facing the New Stairs
in Wapping,” &c.[586]
To attract attention, there was frequently some book of not very
delicate character, advertised as “given away gratis” at this house. But
as this kind of literature was sure to find a great many readers--more
especially when the book could be had for nothing--a restriction was
sometimes added that “this curious book will not be given away to any
boys or girls, or any paultry person.” Such a pamphlet, for instance,
was:--
“THE RABBIT-AFFAIR made clear in a full account of the whole matter,
with the pictures engraved of the pretended rabbit-breeder herself,
Mary Tofts, and of the rabbits, and of the persons who attended her
during her pretended deliveries, showing who were and who were not
deceived by her. ’Tis given gratis nowhere, but only up one pair of
stairs at the sign of the Anodyne Necklace, recommended by Dr
Chamberlain,” &c.--_Daily Courant_, Jan. 11, 1726.
This alluded to one of the most impudent frauds ever committed. A
certain profligate woman, Mary Tofts by name, a native of Godalming, in
Surrey, pretended to give birth to rabbits. The first delivery was a
family of seventeen; she actually found people who believed her, and
gave their attention to this phenomenon. Amongst them were Sir Richard
Manningham, Dr St André, surgeon and anatomist to his Majesty, Dr
Mowbray, &c. By these gentlemen she was brought to Lacy’s Bagnio, and
the case was watched with intense interest; yet she succeeded in
baffling and deluding their attention. At last the fraud came out by one
of her accomplices informing upon her. Prints, books, and ballads were
published upon the subject, Dr St André coming in for an extra share of
ridicule; but whether the woman was in any way punished, is not on
record. The last information respecting her was in the _Weekly
Miscellany_, April 19, 1740:--“The celebrated rabbit-woman, of
Godalmin’, in Surrey, was committed to Guilford gaol for receiving
stolen goods.” She died in January 1763.
The PEARL OF VENICE is named in an advertisement of a watch lost, “made
at Paris, not so broad as a shilling, in a case of black leather with
gold nails.”[587] It was the sign of “Mr Leroy, in St James’ Street,
Covent Garding.” The pearls of Venice were celebrated:--
“Is your pearl orient, sir?
_Corv._ _Venice was never owner of the like._”
--BEN JONSON, _The Fox_, a. i., s. i.
At the same time that city was celebrated for its mock jewellery and
glass imitations.
From the Bagford shopbills, it appears that the BLUE BODDICE was, in
Queen Anne’s reign, a milliner’s shop in the Long Walk, near
Christchurch Hospital. At the same period another member of the same
_fraternity_ (there were men-milliners in those days) had the HOOD AND
SCARF, articles of female apparel; this shop was in Cornhill, “over
against Wills’ Coffee-house.”[588] At the present time there is in the
North a public-house called the BLUE STOOPS; this also seems to refer to
an ancient garment, worn in the beginning of the seventeenth century,
and named by Ben Jonson--“Alchymist,” a. iv., s. ii.--“Your Spanish
stoop is the best garment.”
The BONNY CRAVAT, at Woodchurch, Tenterden, to judge from the adjective,
seems rather to have been suggested by the old song of “Jenny, come tie
my bonny cravat,” than by the introduction of the cravat as an article
of dress. The fashion is said to have been brought over from Germany,
in the seventeenth century, by some of the young French nobility, who
had served the emperor in the wars against the Turks, and had copied
this garment from the _Croats_, whence the name.
The DOUBLET, formerly the HARROW AND DOUBLET,[589] is still the sign of
an iron warehouse in Upper Thames Street; it bears the date 1720, and
the letters T. C., the initials of one of the Crowley family, to whom
this warehouse has belonged “time out of mind.” It is made of cast and
painted iron, and is said to represent the leather doublet in which the
founder of the firm came to London as a day-labourer. The doublet was a
kind of vestment which originated from the gambason or pourpoint worn
under the armour; sleeves were added when it was worn without armour,
and so it became a universal garment.
There are trades tokens extant of the CHILD-COAT, in Whitecross Street,
probably a shop where children’s apparel was sold. Randle Holme, in his
heraldic _Omnium Gatherum_, b. iii., ch. i, p. 18, gives a
representation of a child’s coat, which is very similar to the
“Knickerbocker” suit of the present day, with a short kilt added to it.
He adds the following explanation:--“A boy’s coat is the last coat used
for boys, after which they are put into breeches. If it has hanging
sleeves, they would term it a child’s coat.” In the same manner as the
child’s coat, the MINISTER’S GOWN figured at the door of the shop where
this article was sold. There is a shopbill of such a one in Booksellers’
Row, St Paul’s Churchyard, among the Bagford bills.
The TABARD was the well-known inn in Southwark whence Chaucer and the
other pilgrims started on their way to Canterbury. Mr Edmund Ollier has
recently contributed a very interesting paper on this old inn to _All
the Year Round_, and several paragraphs have appeared in other journals
upon the same subject. A very few words, therefore, will be sufficient
for the present purpose. Originally, it was the property of the Abbot of
Hyde, near Winchester, who had his town residence within the inn-yard.
The earliest record relating to this property is in 33d Edw. I., (1304,)
when the Abbot and convent of Hyde purchased of William of Lategareshall
two houses in Southwark, held by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the
annual rent of 5s. 1½d., and suit to his court in Southwark, and 1d. a
year for a purpresture of one foot wide on the king’s highway; £4 per
annum to John de Tymberhutts, and 3s. to the Prior and convent of St
Mary Overie, in Southwark; value clear, 40s.
It is a fact on record that Henry Bayley, the hosteller of the Tabard,
was one of the burgesses who represented the borough of Southwark in the
Parliament held in Westminster in the 50th Edw. III., (1376;) and he was
again returned to the Parliament held at Gloucester in the 2d Richard
II., in 1378.[590] The tavern itself is named, at the very period when
Chaucer’s poem is supposed to have been written, in one of the rolls of
Parliament, where, 5th Richard II., (1381,) in a list of malefactors who
had participated in the rebellion of Jack Cade, occurs the name of
“Joh’es Brewersman, manens apud le Tabbard, London.” Stow thus notices
the old inn:--
“From thence to London, on the same side, be many fair inns for
receipt of travellers, by their signs--the SPURRE, CHRISTOPHER, BULL,
QUEEN’S HEAD, TABARDE, GEORGE, HART, KING’S HEAD, &c. Amongst the
which the most ancient is the Tabard; so called of the sign, which, as
we now term it, is a jacket or sleeveless coat, whole before, open on
both sides, with a square collar, winged at the shoulders, a stately
garment of old time, commonly worn of noblemen and others, both at
home and abroad in the wars, but then, (to wit, in the wars,) their
arms embroidered or otherwise depict upon them, that any man by his
coat of arms might be known from others; but now these tabardes are
only worn by the heralds, and be called their coate of armes in
service.”--_Stow_, p. 154.
Formerly there stood in the road, in front of the Tabard, a beam laid
crosswise upon two uprights, upon which was the following
inscription:--“This is the Inne where Sir Jeffrey Chaucer and the
nine-and-twenty pilgrims lay in their journey to Canterbury, anno 1583.”
Over this the sign was hung, but that disappeared with the rest of them
in 1766. The writing of this inscription seemed ancient, yet Tyrwhitt is
of opinion that it was not older than the seventeenth century, since
Speght, who describes the Tabard in his edition of Chaucer 1602, does
not mention it. Perhaps it was put up after the fire of 1676, when the
Tabard changed its name into the TALBOT.
At the present day the inn is known by the name of the Talbot; and
although the building is by no means the same that sheltered Chaucer and
his merry pilgrims, yet it is full of traditionary lore concerning them.
In the centre of the gallery there was a picture, said to be by Blake,
and well painted, representing the Canterbury Pilgrimage, almost
invisible from dirt, age, and smoke. Behind this picture was a door
opening into a lofty passage, with rooms on either side, one of which,
on the right hand, was still designated as the Pilgrims’ Room. The house
was repaired in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and from that period,
probably, dated the fireplace, carved oak panels, and other parts spared
by the fire of 1676, which were still to be seen in the beginning of
this century.
As leather breeches were much used for riding in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, the occupations of breeches-maker and glover were
frequently combined; hence the sign of the BREECHES AND GLOVE on old
London Bridge, the shop of “Walter Watkins, Breeches-maker,
Leather-seller, and Glover.” But what made a Cornish publican of the
present day, (at Camelford,) choose the sign of the COTTON BREECHES, is
more than we can pretend to explain.
STOCKINGS or LEGS are of constant occurrence in the seventeenth century
trades tokens, as the signs of hosiers--frequently real, not painted,
stockings were suspended at the door.
“On hosier’s poles depending stockings ty’d,
Flag with the slacken’d gale from side to side.”--GAY’S _Trivia_.
Boots and shoes occur in greater variety and abundance than any other
article of dress. The BOOT is a very common inn sign, either owing to
the thirsty reputation of cobblers, or from the premises where they are
found having been at one time occupied by shoemakers. The BOOT AND
SLIPPER may be seen at Smethwick, near Birmingham; the GOLDEN SLIPPER at
Goodrange, in West Riding; the HAND AND SLIPPERS was a sign in Long
Lane, Smithfield, in 1750. THE SHOE AND SLAP occurs in the following
handbill:--
“AT MR CROOME’S, at the sign of the Shoe and Slap, near the Hospital
Gate, in West Smithfield, is to be seen
THE WONDER OF NATURE,
A GIRL above Sixteen Years of Age, born in Cheshire, and not above
Eighteen inches long, having shed her Teeth seven several Times, and
not a perfect Bone in any Part of her, only the Head, yet she hath all
her senses to Admiration, and Discourses, Reads very well, Sings,
Whistles, and all very pleasant to hear.
“_Sept._ 4, 1667.
‘God save the King.’”
A slap was a kind of “ladies shoe, with a loose sole,”[591] the origin,
probably, of the present word _slipper_. Another kind of shoe is also
mentioned in an advertisement--the LACED SHOE in Chancery Lane.[592]
“Laced shoes,” says Randle Holme, “have the over leathers and edges of
the shoe laced in orderly courses with narrow galloon lace of any
colour;” this places the use of laced boots much earlier than we would
have been apt to imagine. The CLOG is often used as a shoemaker’s sign
in Lancashire and the midland counties, and also in those parts of
London where that article is worn. The FIVE CLOGS was, in 1718, the sign
of William Wright, a quack, who lived over against Prescott Street,
Goodman’s Fields.[593] Perhaps he occupied apartments at a clog-maker’s.
Even the primitive WOODEN SHOE (_sabot_) of France has figured as a
tavern sign in that country. In a farce of the fourteenth century,
entitled, “Pernet qui va au Vin,” the husband names the following
taverns:--
“Au _Sabot_ ou à la _Lanterne_
J’ai mis en oubli la taverne.”
Ronsard addressed some of his verses to the hostess of this tavern,
which was situated in the Faubourg St Marcel:--
“Je ne suis point, ma guerrière Cassandre,
Ni Mirmidon, ni Dolope soudard.”
“Il n’y a personne,” says Furretière in his _Roman Bourgeois_, “qui ne
se figure qu’on parle d’une Pentasilée ou d’une Talestris; cepandant
cette guerrière Cassandre n’était reellement qu’une grande hallebreda
qui tenit le cabaret du Sabot dans le faubourg Saint Marcel.”[594]
This sign has given its name to a street in Paris.
The PATTEN, the quaint little contrivance in which our
great-grandmothers tripped through the winter’s sludge, was the sign of
a toy-shop in the Haymarket, “over against Great Suffolk Street, and by
Pall Mall;”[595] at the present day it is still extant as a fishmonger’s
shop in Whitecross Street, near the prison.
The very common sign of the STAR AND GARTER refers to the insignia of
the Order of the Garter. Anciently it was simply called the GARTER, and
thus it is designated by Shakespeare in his “Merry Wives of Windsor.”
Charles I. added the star to the insignia, and his example was followed
on the signboard. At that time the Garter was treated with a great deal
more respect than at present, for Sandford, Lancaster Herald in 1686,
complained that several coffee-houses had the sign of the Garter with
coffee-pots, &c., painted inside, which he considered downright
desecration; hence, order was given to those offenders, “to amend the
same, or else they should be pulled down.”
The Garter Inn at Windsor, where Falstaff lived in such grand style, “as
an emperor in his expense,” was not a creation of Shakespeare’s fancy,
but did really exist, and most probably on the same site at present
occupied by the Star and Garter.[596] The first Star and Garter at
Richmond was built in 1738/9, on what was then a portion of the waste of
Petersham Common; it was rented at 40s. a year. A drawing by Hearne, of
the comparatively insignificant tenement then raised, is still preserved
at the hotel.
It was also the sign of a famous ordinary in Pall Mall. Here the Duke of
Ormond, in the reign of Queen Anne, gave a dinner to a few friends, and
was charged £21, 6s. 8d. for the two courses, each of four dishes,
without any wine or dessert, which, considering the value of money in
those days, was certainly a considerable sum. In this house, in 1765,
Lord Byron, the poet’s grandfather, killed Mr Chaworth in an irregular
duel, the result of a dispute whether Mr Chaworth, who preserved his
game, or Lord Byron, who did not, had more game on his estate. About the
same time there was another Star and Garter tavern at the end of Burton
Street, near the famous Five Fields in Chelsea, “a place where robbers
lie in wait,”[597] the site now occupied by Eaton Square and Belgrave
Square. At this tavern, Johnson the equestrian rode in July 1762, for
the gratification of the Cherokee king, when on a visit in this country.
The newspapers of the day describe the feats he performed:--“He rides
three horses, and when in full speed, tosses his cap and catches it
several times; he stands with both feet on the horse whilst it goes
three times round the green in full speed,” and similar “astounding”
acts, which would now be thought very little of.
The GLOVE is, in France, the common sign of the glove-makers; generally
it is a colossal representation of a glove in tin painted red. This
article of dress has had more honour conferred upon it than any other;
anciently it was given, by way of delivery or investiture, in sales and
conveyances of lands and goods; it was worn by magistrates on certain
occasions, presented to them on others; it was the challenge and sacred
pledge of a duel; the rural bridegroom in the time of Queen Elizabeth
wore gloves on his hat as a sign of good husbandry; noblemen wore their
ladies’ gloves in front of their hats; in some parts of England it used
to be the custom to hang a pair of white gloves on the pew of unmarried
villagers, who had died in the flower of their youth; it is used in
marriage by proxy, and is connected with innumerable other customs and
ceremonies.
The FAN, the CROWNED FAN, the TWO FANS, &c., were the ordinary signs of
milliners who sold fans.
The PINCUSHION is the sign of a public-house at Wyberton, Boston, but
why chosen it is difficult to say; and the PURSE occurs amongst the
trades tokens of W. Smithfield, with the date 1669. This last object was
also the sign of one of the taverns visited at Barnet by Drunken
Barnaby, where he had the misfortune with the bears.
The RING was the sign of one of the booksellers in Little Britain, in
the reign of Queen Anne; and the GOLDEN RING was, in 1723, the sign of
G. Coniers on Ludgate Hill, who published a black letter edition of “The
Merry Tales of the Mad Men of Gotam.” An old tradition that Guttenberg
received the first idea of printing from the seal of his ring impressed
in wax, may have led those booksellers to adopt that object for their
sign.
“Respicit archetypos auri vestigia lustrans,
Et secum tacitus talia verba refert:
Quam belle pandit certas hæc orbita voces,
Monstrat et exactis apta reperta libris.”[598]
A red or a bipartite UMBRELLA or PARASOL is the invariable sign of the
umbrella-maker. This now indispensable article was brought into fashion
by Hanway the philanthropist, towards the end of the eighteenth century.
Before his time, a cloak was the only protection against a shower. Pepys
writes in his Diary, “This day in the afternoon, stepping with the Duke
of York into St James’ Park, it rained, and I was forced to lend the
duke my cloak, which he wore through the park.” On another occasion
Pepys was out with no less than four ladies, “and it rained all the way,
it troubled us; but, however, my cloak kept us all dry.” Pepys
sheltering the four ladies under his cloak of charity would make a very
pretty picture. In the reign of Queen Anne, good housewives defied the
winter’s shower, “underneath th’ umbrella’s oily shed,”[599] but Hanway
was the first who, braving laughter and sarcasm, accustomed the
Londoners to the sight of a man carrying that useful contrivance. John
Pugh, who wrote Hanway’s life, says:--
“When it rained, a small _parapluie_ defended his face and wig; thus
he was always prepared to enter into any company without impropriety
or the appearance of negligence. And he was the first man who ventured
to walk the streets of London with an umbrella over his head; after
carrying one near thirty years he saw them come into general use.”
There is a small umbrella shop in Old Street, Shoreditch, called the
_Umbrella Hospital_; two placards are in the window, one setting forth
the analogy between a human being and an umbrella, the second giving a
list of the prices charged for curing the several ills an umbrella is
heir to, thus:--
_s._ _d._
RESTORING A BROKEN rib, 0 6
RESTORING a spine, 0 6
INSERTING a new spine, 1 0
RESUSCITATING the muscularia, 0 6
A NEW membranous attachment, 2 6
RESTORING a shattered constitution, 1 0
SETTING a dislocated neck, 0 6
RESTORING a broken neck, 0 9
A NEW set of nerves, 1 0
A NEW rib, 0 6
A NEW muscle, 0 3
A NEW motive power, 0 6
A CRENATED attachment, 0 6
RESTORING the muscular power, 1 6
FIXING on a new head, 0 3
SUPPLYING a new head, 1 0
[573]
“The hat
Covers evil and good.”
[574]
“Strong hats made here to enclose the head,
In order that the soft (loose) brains may be kept together.”
[575] J. S. Burn, History of Foreign Refugees, p. 257.
[576] Stubbe’s Anatomie of Abuses, p. 21.
[577] Bagford Bills.
[578] _British Chronicle_, July 17, 1766.
[579] _Publick Advertiser_, July 1767.
[580]
“This is in the Three Hats,
Which are worn on the head,
To keep it from cold and wind.
Tromp was a brave man
Who supported the crown of the states
Hats cleaned here.”
[581] Shopbill, quoted in Thomson’s Chronicles of London Bridge, vol.
ii., p. 277.
[582] Decker’s Gull’s Hornbook.
[583] Cibber’s Apology, p. 303.
[584] Gay’s Trivia, book iii.
[585] _Weekly Journal_, March 30, 1717.
[586] _Weekly Journal_. Jan. 4, 1718.
[587] _Mercurius Publicus_, Jan. 8 to 15, 1662.
[588] _London Gazette_, March 12 to 16, 1673. This was not the famous
Will’s Coffee-house, which was situated in Bow Street, Covent Garden.
[589] Banks Bills.
[590] G. A. Corner, on the Inns of Southwark.
[591] Randle Holme, b. iii., ch. i., p. 14.
[592] _London Gazette_, July 31 to Aug. 4, 1679.
[593] _Weekly Journal_, Jan. 4, 1718.
[594]
“I am, my warlike Cassandra,
Neither a Myrmidon nor a Dolopian warrior.”
“Everybody that reads those lines,” says Furretière in his _Roman
Bourgeois_, “will certainly imagine that he alludes to some Pentasilea
or Talestris; yet this warlike Cassandra was after all neither more nor
less than a tall manly looking wench who kept the Wooden Shoe (_Sabot_)
public-house in the Faubourg Saint Marcel.”
[595] Bagford Bills.
[596] See J. O. Halliwell’s folio Shakespeare, vol. ii., p. 468.
[597] The _Tatler_.
[598] “He looked intently at the seal, observing the impression left by
the gold, and spoke these words to himself, ‘How beautifully and
distinctly does this impression render the words,’ and he proved his
useful discovery in exact books.”
[599] Gay’s Trivia, book i., p. 221.