GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY.
Foremost in this division stands the GLOBE,--“the great Globe itself,” a
trade emblem common to publicans, outfitters, and others, who rely upon
cosmopolitan customers. One of the theatres, where Shakespeare used to
perform, was called The Globe, from its sign representing Atlas
supporting the world. It was accompanied by the motto, TOTUS MUNDUS AGIT
HISTRIONEM; upon which Ben Jonson made the following epigram:--
“If but _stage actors_ all the world displays,
Where shall we find spectators to their plays?”
To which Shakespeare is said to have returned this answer:--
“Little or much of what we see we do,
We are all actors and spectators too.”
The house stood on the Bankside, Southwark, and was burnt down in June
1613, having been set on fire during one of the plays by a piece of
wadding fired from a cannon falling on the thatched roof. It was
rebuilt, but finally taken down in 1644 to make room for
dwelling-houses.
One of the most famous Globe taverns stood, till the beginning of this
century, in Fleet Street. It had been one of the favourite haunts of
Oliver Goldsmith, who, it appears, was never tired of hearing a certain
“tun of a man” sing “Nottingham Ale.” Goldsmith’s face was so well known
here that a wealthy pork-butcher, another _habitué_ of the house, used
to drink to him in the familiar words, “Come, Noll, old boy, here’s my
service to you.” Several actors, also, “used” the house,--amongst
others, the centenarian Macklin, Tom King, and Dunstall. Many amusing
anecdotes concerning the place have been preserved in the “Fruits of
Experience,” a delightful book of city gossip, written in his eightieth
year by Joseph Brasbridge, a silversmith in Fleet Street. Brasbridge was
a constant visitor at this tavern.
At Aldborough, near Boroughbridge, there is a Globe public-house, in
which a tessellated pavement, part of a Roman villa, may be seen. The
publican informs passers-by of this by the following inscription on his
signboard:--
“This is the ancient manor-house, and in it you may see
The Romans work a great curiositee.”
And the absence of the apostrophe certainly makes it so. Finally, John
Partridge, the almanac-making shoemaker, so amusingly ridiculed in the
_Tatler_, lived at the Globe in Salisbury Street. From the pursuits of
that great man, we may surmise his globe to have been a celestial one.
Sometimes the Globe was gilt, “for a difference.” Thus the GOLDEN GLOBE
was the sign of William Herbert, printseller, and editor of Joseph
Ames’s well-known work on “Typographical Antiquities.” This shop was
under the Piazza on London Bridge, where he continued till 1758, when
the house was taken down.
Of all the signs which may be termed “Geographical,” those referring to
our own island are, of course, the most common in this country.
BRITANNIA is very general. Hone, in his “Every-day Book,” mentions a
public-house in the country where London porter was sold, and the figure
of Britannia was represented in a languishing, reclining posture, with
the motto,
“PRAY, SUP-PORTER.”
The first inhabitants are commemorated by the sign of the ANCIENT
BRITON; but this is not one of the “Cærulei Britanni,” though _true
blue_ for all that, but refers simply to a true patriot in the best
sense of the word. Thus Boswell uses the expression in one of his
letters to Dr Johnson:--
“I trust that you will be liberal enough to make allowance for my
differing from you on two points, [the Middlesex election and the
American war,] when my general principles of government are according
to your own heart, and when, at a crisis of doubtful event, I stand
forth with honest zeal as an _ancient_ and _faithful Briton_.”
That this is the meaning attached to the word is evident from other
signs of the same family, as TRUE BRITON, GENEROUS BRITON, &c., all
common signatures to political letters in the newspapers of the Junius
period. The modern JOHN BULL, and the still later OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN,
descend from the same stock, and are all equally common.
ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND was, in 1673, the sign of John Thornton,
in the Minories, hydrographer to the Hon. East India Company. As he also
sold maps, he had probably a map of the United Kingdom as his sign.
Formerly signs representing buildings or localities in London were
common, though generally they bore very little resemblance to the places
intended. Among the trades tokens we find the EXCHANGE, a tavern in the
Poultry in 1651; the EAST INDIA HOUSE, in Leadenhall Street, like most
of this description of signs, prompted by the vicinity of the building
represented; CHARING CROSS, the sign of a shop in that locality where
they sold canaries in 1699, and also a sign at Norwich in 1750; THE OLD
PRISON, in Whitechapel--this Old Prison was intended for King’s Cross;
CAMDEN HOUSE, in Maiden Lane, 1668,--this must have been in honour of
Baptist Hicks, the opulent mercer, at the White Bear, in Cheapside, who
died as Viscount Camden in 1628. He built Hicks Hall on Clerkenwell
Green, and presented it to the county magistrates as their
session-house.
Further, there was the TEMPLE, the sign of Mr Buck, bookseller, near the
Inner Temple Gate, in Fleet Street, in 1700; and at the same period,
HYDE PARK, a shop or tavern in Gray’s Inn Lane. A public-house in Bridge
Row, Chelsea, mentioned before 1750, and still in existence, bears the
name of the CHELSEA WATERWORKS. The Waterworks, after which it was
named, were constructed _circa_ 1724; a canal was dug from the Thames,
near Ranelagh, to Pimlico, where an engine was placed for the purpose of
raising the water into pipes, which conveyed it to Chelsea, Westminster,
and various parts of western London. The reservoirs in Hyde and Green
Park were supplied by pipes from the Chelsea Waterworks, which, in 1767,
yielded daily 1740 tons.
The LANCASHIRE WITCH, a sign of an exhibition of shell-work and
petrifactions in Shoreditch, 1754, was doubtless named after our old
friend, Mother Shipton, born near the Petrifying Well at Knaresborough.
Even on the Continent we meet with a London sign,--viz., at Verona,
where, in 1825, the TOWER OF LONDON was one of the inns which
recommended itself to English travellers in the following grand
circular:--
“_Circulatory._--The old inn of London’s Tower, placed among the more
agreeable situation of Verona’s Course, belonging at Sir Theodosius
Ziguoni, restored by the decorum most indulgent to good things, of
life’s eases, which are favoured from every art at same inn, with all
object that is concern’d, conveniency of stage-coaches, proper horses,
and good foragers, and coach-house; do offers at innkeeper the
constant hope to be honoured from a great concourse, where politeness,
good genius of meats to delight of nations, round table, [table
d’hôte,] coffee-house, hackney-coach, men servant of place, swiftness
of service, and moderacion of prices, shall arrive to accomplish in
him all satisfaction, and at Sir’s who will do the favour honouring
him a very assur’d kindness.”
[Illustration: PLATE XVI.
VER GALANT.
(Rue Henri, Lyons, 1759.)
GOAT IN BOOTS.
(Fulham Road; said to be by Morland.)
A LATTICE.
(Roxburghe Ballads, circa 1650.)
THREE PIGEONS.
(Banks’s collection.)
UNICORN.
(A Bookseller’s at Cologne, 1630.)]
York figures more frequently on the signboard than any other place in
England. From the trades tokens we see that the CITY OF YORK was a sign
in Middle Row, Holborn, in the seventeenth century. The YORK MINSTER is
one of the few cathedrals ever seen represented out of its own city,
probably for no other reason than because it stands in the capital of
the county from whence the Yorkshire stingo comes. York, however, seems
to have been a right merry city, second only to the city of London, for
one of the oldest Roxburghe ballads, dated 1584, says:--
“Yorke, Yorke, for my monie, of all the cities that ever I see,
For mery pastime and companie, except the cittie of London.”
The CASTLE being such a general sign, many traders adopted some
particular castle. DOVER CASTLE, or WALMER CASTLE, is amongst the most
frequent. The first is mentioned in the following amusing
advertisement:--
“FOR FEMALE SATISFACTION.
“WHEREAS THE MYSTERY of Freemasonry has been kept a profound secret
for several Ages, till at length some Men assembled themselves at the
_Dover Castle_, in the parish of Lambeth, under pretence of knowing
the secret, and likewise in opposition to some gentlemen that are real
Freemasons, and hold a Lodge at the same house; therefore, to prove
that they are no more than pretenders, and as the Ladies have
sometimes been desirous of gaining knowledge of the noble _art_,
(sic,) several regular-made Masons, (both ancient and modern,) members
of constituted Lodges in this metropolis, have thought proper to unite
into a select Body at Beau Silvester’s, the sign of the _Angel_, Bull
Stairs, Southwark, and stile themselves UNIONS, think it highly
expedient, and in justice to the fair sex, to initiate them therein,
provided they are women of undeniable character; for tho’ no Lodge as
yet (except the Free Union Masons) have thought proper to admit Women
into the Fraternity, we, well knowing they have as much Right to
attain to the secrets as those Castle Humbugs, have thought proper so
to do, not doubting but they will prove an honour to the Craft; and as
we have had the honour to inculcate several worthy Sisters therein,
those that are desirous, and think themselves capable of having the
secret conferred on them, by proper Application, will be admitted, and
the charges will not exceed the Expences of our Lodge.”--_Publick
Advertiser_, March 7, 1759.
The sign of _the Angel_ at Beau Silvester’s was certainly well chosen by
those gallant _soi-disant_ Masons; but would not the SILENT WOMAN have
been still more appropriate? Be that as it may, Lodges for ladies there
were--witness the following advertisement, a good specimen of
“Stratford-le-Bow” French:--
“C. LOGE C.
“AVERTISSEMENT AUX DAMES, etc. Pour vincre que les Francs Massons ne
sont pas telles que le public les a representées en particulier la
sexe Feminine, cet Loge juge a propos de recevoir des Femmes aussi
bien que des Hommes.
“_N.B._--Les Dames seront introduits dans la Loge avec la Ceremonie
accoutumée ou le Serment ordinaire et le reel Secret leur seront
administrées. On commencera a recevoir des Dames Jeudy 11 de Mars
1762, at Mrs Maynard’s, next door to the Lying-in Hospital, Brownlow
Street, Longacre. La Porte sera ouverte a 6 Heures du Soir. Les Dames
et Messieurs sont priées de ne pas venir après sept. Le prix est £1,
1s.”--(_Newspaper_, 1762.)
How the ladies were initiated--or, as the worthy secretary of Beau
Silvester’s Lodge calls it, “inculcated,”--we are not informed; but
certainly some modification must have been made in the usual ceremony
attending the initiation of novices.
LLANGOLLEN CASTLE is painted on a sign in Deansgate, Manchester: under
it is the following rhyme:--
“Near the above place in a vault,
There is such liquor fixed,
You’ll say that water, hops, and malt,
Were never better mixed.”
Many other castles occur, such as JERSEY CASTLE, on the token of Philip
Crosse in Finch Lane, in the seventeenth century; ROCHESTER CASTLE,
MITFORD CASTLE, HEREFORD CASTLE, WARWICK CASTLE, EDINBURGH CASTLE, &c.
Towns are often adopted for signs as a _point de ralliement_ for the
natives of such places, the birthplace of the landlord being generally
the town which has the honour of his selection. The CITY OF NORWICH was
the sign of a house in Bishopsgate Street in the seventeenth century,
either for the reason just alleged, or because “_the fall of Niniveh
with Norwich built in an hour_,” was one of the penny sights at that
period. COVENTRY CROSS was the sign of a mercer in New Bond Street at
the end of the last century, evidently chosen on account of the silk
ribbons manufactured in that town; and the CHILTERN HUNDRED, a
public-house at Boxley, near Maidstone, doubtless refers to the
well-known range of hills extending from Henley-on-Thames to Tring in
Herts. In old times these hills were covered with forests, and infested
by numerous bands of thieves. To protect the people in the
neighbourhood, an officer was appointed by the Crown, called the steward
of the Chiltern Hundreds, and although the duties have long ceased the
office still exists, and is made use of to afford members of the House
of Commons an opportunity of resigning their seats when they desire it.
Being a Government appointment, though without either duties or salary,
the acceptance of it disqualifies a member from retaining his seat.
The WILTSHIRE SHEPHERD was a sign in St Martin’s Lane in the seventeenth
century. The Wiltshire downs were famous for their flocks of sheep.
Aubrey, himself a Wiltshireman, says that the innocent lives of those
shepherds “doe give us a resemblance of the golden age.” He also states
that their sight inspired Sir Philip Sidney in charming pastorals, which
on those very downs he sketched from nature, as some of his old
relations well remembered. “’Twas about these purlieus,” says he, “that
the muses were wont to appeare to Sir Philip Sidney, and where he wrote
down their dictates in his table-book, though on horseback.” Many of the
customs of these shepherds Aubrey traces down from the Romans.[600] The
GENTLE SHEPHERD OF SALISBURY PLAIN is the name given to Farmer Peek’s
house, on the road from Cape Town to Simon’s Bay, Cape of Good Hope. On
his signboard is the following mosaic inscription:--
“Multum in parvo, pro bono publico
Entertainment for man or beast all of a row.
Lekker host as much as you please;
Excellent beds without any fleas.
Nos patriam fugimus--now we are here,
Vivamus, let us live by selling beer.
On donne à boire et à manger ici;
Come in and try it, whoever you be.
The Gentle Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.”
Near Basingstoke there is a public-house sign representing a grenadier
in full uniform, holding in his hand a foaming pot of ale; it is called
the WHITLEY GRENADIER, and bears the following disinterested verses:--
“This is the Whitley Grenadier,
A noted house for famous beer.
My friend, if you should chance to call,
Beware and get not drunk withal;
Let moderation be your guide,
It answers well whene’er ’tis try’d.
Then use, but not abuse, _strong beer_,
And don’t forget the Grenadier.”
This sign seems to have been suggested by the tragical death of a
grenadier, which is thus recorded on a tombstone in the churchyard of
Winchester Cathedral:--
“Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadeer,
Who caught his death by drinking cold _small beer_.
Soldiers be warned by his untimely fall,
And when you’re hot, drink _strong_, or none at all.”
To which a wag appended the following lines:--
“An honest soldier never is forgot,
Whether he die by musket or by pot.”
The FLITCH OF DUNMOW is a common sign in Essex, and is sometimes seen in
other counties. The custom of giving a flitch of bacon, on the
well-known conditions, is not peculiar to Dunmow. In the reign of Edward
III., the Earl of Lancaster, lord of the honour of Tutbury, granted a
manor near Wichnor village, Burton-upon-Trent, to Sir Philip de
Sommerville, stipulating that he was to give a flitch of bacon on the
same conditions as at Dunmow.[601] At the abbey of St Milaine, near
Rennes, in Normandy, the same custom was observed, but the practice was
still less successful, for Dunmow at least has six times given the side
of bacon away, but--
“A l’abbaye de Saint Milaine près Rennes y a plus de six cents ans ont
un costé de lard encore tout frais et non corrompu; et néanmoins ont
voué et ordonné aux premiers qui par an et jour ensemble mariez ont
vescu sans debat, grondement et sans s’en repentir.”[602]
Our next sign is geographical only in its relationship. At Wansford
Bridge, which crosses the river Nen in Northampton, there is the HAYCOCK
Inn, deriving its name from a curious incident: the river overflowed its
banks and carried away a haycock with a man upon it. Taylor, the Water
poet, says of the circumstance:--
“On a haycock sleeping soundly,
The river rose, and took me roundly
Down the current; people cried,
As along the stream I hied.
‘Where away?’ quoth they, ‘From Greenland?’
‘No; from Wansford Bridge, in England.’”
The stone bridge, of thirteen arches, carries the Great North Road
across the river, so much traversed in the coaching times; and well
known to many a traveller in those days was the Haycock Inn, at one end
of the bridge, which has on the signboard a pictorial representation of
the scene.
Scotland, which, besides Edinburgh ales and Highland whisky, produces a
great many publicans, is honoured in numberless signs. LAND O’ CAKES,
the name given by Burns to the country of the “brighter Scotch,” is a
sign at Middle Hill Gate, near Stockport. And here we may observe the
popularity of Burns among the publicans, for not only is the poet
himself, and several of his amusing heroes, exalted in innumerable
places among the “living dead,” but at Kirby Moor some of his verses are
even introduced on the sign:--
“When neebors anger at a plea,
An’ just as wud as wud can be,
How easy can the barley bree
Cement the quarrel?
It’s aye the cheapest lawyer’s fee,
To taste the barrel.”
Very good advice indeed.
Since the Highlander’s love for snuff and whisky was such, that he
wished to have “a Benlomond of snuff, and a Loch Lomond of whisky,”
nobody could make a better public-house sign than the HIGHLAND LADDIE,
nor a better snuff-shop sign than the kilted Highlander who stands
generally at the door of these establishments. Two others of the lares
and penates of the tobacconist are the Sailor and the Moor or Oriental.
The first presiding over the snuff, the second over the chewing, the
third over the smoking “department,”--as the drapers term the divisions
of their shop. After the rebellion of 1745, when everything was done by
the Government to extinguish the nationality of the Scotch, when Scotch
ballads were forbidden, and the names of some clans were deemed more
odious than the word _raka_ to the Jews, the kilt was forbidden by the
legislature as an abomination. On that occasion the following trifle
appeared in the newspapers:--
“We hear that the dapper wooden Highlanders, who guard so heroically
the doors of snuff-shops, intend to petition the Legislature, in order
that they may be excused from complying with the act of Parliament
with regard to their change of dress: alledging that they have ever
been faithful subjects to his Majesty, having constantly supplied his
Guards with a pinch out of their Mulls when they marched by them, and
so far from engaging in any Rebellion, that they have never
entertained a rebellious thought; whence they humbly hope that they
shall not be put to the Expense of buying new cloaths.”
The ubiquity of the Scotch packman produced the sign of the SCOTCHMAN’S
PACK, St Michael’s Hill, Bristol, and in some other places. From the
following passage it appears that these Scottish packmen, in the
sixteenth century, penetrated even as far as Poland:--“Ane pedder is
called are merchõd or cremar quha beirs are pack or creame[603] upon his
bak, quha are called beirares of the puddill be the Scottesmen in the
realme of Polonia, quhair I saw an greate multitude in the town of
Cracovia, anno Dom. 1569.”[604]
GRETNA GREEN used at one time to be a not very uncommon sign on the
Border; there is one at Ayeliffe, Darlington. The origin of marriages at
this place is not so generally known that it would be superfluous to
introduce it here. Marriages in Scotland at all times having been
considered legal if two parties accepted each other for man and wife in
the presence of witnesses, a dissipated tobacconist, named Joseph
Paisley, about a century ago, conceived the idea of opening an
establishment on the Border to unite runaway couples in wedlock. For
this purpose he selected the common, or green, between Graitney and
Springfield, in Dumfries-shire, a place called Megshill, the first
Scottish ground on entering the country from Cumberland; there he
commenced business. In 1791 he settled in the then newly-built village
of Springfield, but the reputation of his impromptu marriage-temple on
Graitney Common, (or Gretna Green, as the English called it,) had
already so widely spread that the name of the place had passed into a
by-word for clandestine marriages. Paisley died in 1814, but
marriage-mongering had become a trade in Springfield, and several
self-appointed parsons started up to fill the office. Pennant says that
in 1771 a young couple might be united “from two guineas a job to a dram
of whisky” by a fisherman, a joiner, or a blacksmith; but the prices
rose much higher afterwards, varying from £40 to half-a-guinea, and this
last sum was only accepted from pedestrian couples. As a rule, the fee
was settled by the post-boys from Carlisle, each patronising certain
houses, and the hymeneal priests, knowing the value of their patronage,
permitted them to go snacks in the proceeds. It is estimated that about
300 couples a year used to get married in this off-hand manner.
Of our colonies, GIBRALTAR and the CAPE OF GOOD HOPE seem to be almost
the only ones considered worthy the honour of the signboard. Gibraltar
became popular as soon as the acquisition had been esteemed at its
proper value. As for the Cape of Good Hope, the frequency of this sign
all over England seems to render it probable that it was not so much
adopted in honour of the colony as to express the landlord’s _hope_ of
success, and therefore as a sort of equivalent to the Hope and Anchor,
or the Hope.[605] The JAMAICA tavern, too, may have been christened in
compliment to the birth-place of rum. There is a house with this name in
Bermondsey, which is one of the many houses stated in our time to have
been a residence of Oliver Cromwell. “The building, of which only a
moiety now remains, and that very ruinous, the other having been removed
years ago to make room for modern erections, presents probably almost
the same features as when tenanted by the Protector. The carved
quatrefoils and flowers upon the staircase beams, the old-fashioned
fastenings of the doors--‘bolts, locks, and bars’--the huge single
gable, (which in a modern house would be double,) even the divided
section, like a monstrous amputated stump, imperfectly plastered over,
patched here and there with planks, slates, and tiles, to keep the wind
and weather out, though it be very poorly--all are in keeping; and the
glimmer of the gas, by which the old and ruinous kitchen into which we
strayed was dimly lighted, seemed to ‘pale its ineffectual fires’ in
striving to illumine the old black settles, and still older
wainscot.”[606] After the Restoration, this house seems to have become a
tavern, and here, according to the homely, kind-hearted custom of the
times, Pepys, on Sunday, April 14, 1667, took his wife and her maids to
give them a day’s pleasure. “Over the water to the Jamaica house, where
I never was before, and then the girls did run wagers on the bowling
green, and there with much pleasure spent little, and so home.”
Subsequently, he frequently returned to this place, which seems to have
been the same he elsewhere calls The Halfway House. Besides this, there
is the JAMAICA AND MADEIRA coffee-house, a well-known business club or
tavern in St Michael’s Alley, Cornhill.
Only a few European nations and towns are represented. Amongst the
Bagford shopbills there is one of a perfumer, named Dighton, who, in the
reign of Queen Anne, sold “true Hungary Water, _all sorts of snuff_ and
perfumes,” &c. His shop was next door to the King’s Head Tavern at
Chancery Lane End, and had the sign of the CITY OF SEVILLA; the woodcut
above his shop-bill presents a distant family resemblance to that place,
and with a little goodwill one may recognise the Alcazar, the Giralda,
San Clementi, and San Juan de la Palma; the view is taken from the
suburb of Triana, on the other side of the river. This “famous Henry
Dighton,” as he styles himself in an advertisement in 1718, “sworn
perfumer in ordinary to H. M. King George,” had chosen the sign of the
City of Sevilla from the fact of his importing Spanish snuff, the
fashionable mixture in those days, which the gallants dislodged with
such airy elegance from among the lace frills of their shirts and
neckties. His successor, Henry Coulthurst, promised “to furnish greater
variety of the choicest and truest snuff than any perfumer in England,
viz., Havana, Port St Mary’s, Barcelona, Port Mahon, Seville, plain
Spanish, and fine Lisbon.” These Spanish snuffs had come greatly into
fashion at the capture of Puerta St Maria, near Cadiz, when the fleet,
under Sir George Rooke, captured several thousand barrels of snuff. But
long before that time enormous quantities of Spanish tobacco had been
yearly imported into England.
“There was wont to come out of Spain,” said Sir Edwin Sandys, in 1620,
“a great mass of money to the value of £100,000 per annum for our
cloths and other merchandises; and now we have from thence for all our
cloth and merchandises nothing but tobacco: nay, that will not pay for
all the tobacco we have from thence, but they have more from us in
money every year, £20,000; so there goes out of this kingdom as good
as £120,000 for tobacco every year.”[607]
The THREE SPANISH GYPSIES, in the New Exchange, was the shop of the
future “Monkey Duchess,” the nickname given by her aristocratic friends
to Anne Monk, Duchess of Albemarle. “She was the daughter of John
Clarges, a farrier in the Savoy, and horse-shoer to Colonel Monk. In
1632 she was married, in the church of St Lawrence Poultney, to Thomas
Radford, son of Thomas Radford, late a farrier, servant to Prince
Charles, and resident in the Mews. She had a daughter who was born in
1634, and died in 1638. She lived with her husband at the Three Spanish
Gypsies, in the New Exchange, and sold wash-balls, powder, gloves, and
such things, and taught girls plain work. About 1647, being a sempstress
to Colonel Monk, she used to carry him his linen. In 1648 her father and
mother died. The year after she fell out with her husband, and they
parted. But no certificate from any parish register appears reciting his
burial. In 1652 she was married in the church of St George, Southwark,
to General Monk, and in the following year was delivered of a son,
Christopher, (afterwards the second and last Duke of Albemarle,) who was
suckled by Honour Mills, who sold apples, herbs, and oysters.”[608] What
became of her first husband, and when he died, is not known.
VENICE was the sign of B. Martin, a bookseller in the Old Bailey,
_circa_ 1640, adopted probably in honour of the Aldi, the famous
printers, who carried on business in this city. In the reign of Charles
II. there was a house of indifferent fame in Moorfields, called the
RUSSIA HOUSE, whether opened during the time that the Russian
ambassadors visited the king, or how it obtained its name, is not known.
The house became notorious in 1667 through the trial of Gabriel Holmes
and a band of incendiaries, among whom were two young boys, sons of
James Montague of Lackham, grandsons of the Earl of Manchester. The boys
turned king’s evidence, and Holmes was hanged. Russia House was one of
the places where they planned their expeditions and spent their money:
the object of their incendiarism, it came out at the trial, was simply
that they might steal the goods which would be flung into the streets by
the terrified inmates of the burning houses.
The ANTWERP tavern was a famous house behind the Exchange, in the
seventeenth century, of which tokens are extant, representing a view of
Antwerp from the river. The extensive trade of Flanders, in the middle
ages and long after, made Antwerp a favourite subject for signboards, it
being the best harbour in Flanders. In Dieppe there is still a house on
the Quai Henri IV., bearing a stone bas-relief sign of Antwerp, (_la
ville d’Anvers_,) with the date 1697; but this house and sign are named,
as early as 1645, in a MS. list of rents of houses in Dieppe, due to the
Archbishop of Rouen.
Dutchmen, in some instances, have been appointed the tutelar saints of
public-houses, on account of their reputed love for drink; thus we have
the TWO DUTCHMEN at Marsden, near Huddersfield, and the JOVIAL DUTCHMAN
at Crick, in Derbyshire. Now, though the Dutchman’s joviality is
questionable, yet he certainly has at all times been reputed a heavy
drinker. Shakespeare names, “your swag-bellied Hollander,” along with
the Dane and German, as the only (though unsuccessful) rival of the
English in the art of hard drinking. Massinger, in his “Duke of
Florence,” has a similar remark; and Sir Richard Baker, in his
“Chronicles,” says that the English “in these Dutch wars learned to be
drunkards, and as we do not like to do things by halves in this country,
we soon surpassed our masters.” Decker remarks that “Drunkenness, which
was once the Dutchman’s headake, is now become the Englishman’s.”[609]
_Upsy Dutch_ and _upsy freeze_ (for “_op zyn Dutch_,” and “_op zyn
Vriesch_,” à la Dutch and à la Vriesch) are terms constantly used by
Decker to denote a _very_ drunken condition. Yet there was a time, long
before the “Dutch wars,” when the English did not want any foreign
masters to teach them drinking; how could it have been otherwise with
descendants of the beer-drinking Saxons and Danes? Malmesbury complains
that in his time “the English fashion was to sit bibbing whole hours
after dinner, as the Normane guise was to walke and get up and downe in
the stretes with great waines of idle serving men following them;”[610]
and Hollinshed, who wrote at the very time of the Dutch wars, mentions
among the improvements which old men in his time observed, was that the
farmers could pay their rent without selling a cow or a horse, as they
had been wont to do in former times, “owing to _too much attention to
the ale-house_, and too little to work.”
Notwithstanding this, the Jovial Dutchman is a very good sign for
licensed victuallers, since the general opinion is:--
“Death’s not to be--, so Seneca doth think,
But Dutchmen say ’tis death to cease to drink.”[611]
Besides drinking, the Dutchman has long had a reputation for smoking,
whence the tobacconists of the last century used frequently to have on
their sign, a Scotchman, a Dutchman, and a sailor, with the following
rhyme:--
“We three are engaged in one cause,
I snuffs, I smokes, and I chaws.”
A tobacconist in Kingsland Road had the same men, but a different
reading of the text:--
“This Indian weed is good indeed,
Puff on, keep up the joke,
’Tis the best, ’twill stand the test,
Either to chew or smoke.”[612]
The introduction of coffee produced signs of various sultans, but the
TURK’S HEAD may, perhaps, date from earlier times, possessing an origin
similar to the Saracen’s Head. The Turks throughout the fifteenth,
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, were a common topic of
conversation, and the bugbear of the European nations. This is well
exemplified in the church-wardens’ accounts of St Helen’s, Abingdon,
where the following entry occurs:--“Anno MDLXV--8 of Q. Eliz.--payde for
two bokes of common prayer agaynste invading of the Turke, 0. 6.” That
year the Turks had made a descent upon the isle of Malta, where they
besieged the town and castle of St Michael; but upon the approach of the
fleet of the Order, they broke up the siege and suffered a considerable
loss in their flight. During the war of Emperor Maximilian against the
Turks in Hungary, similar prayer-books were annually purchased for the
parish. The first prototypes of newspapers, also, were the printed
despatches concerning the battles and engagements of the emperor with
the Turks,[613] and even at the end of the seventeenth century no
newspaper was complete without its news from the Danube and “movements
of the Turks.” One of the earliest patents granted for pistols, contains
a clause that square balls are not to be used, “except against the
Turks.” The number of Turk’s Heads in London in the seventeenth century
was considerable; not less than eight trades tokens of different houses
with this sign are known to exist.
In 1667, Robert Boulter, at the Turk’s Head in Bishopsgate, published
the first edition of Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” It was with difficulty
that the author sold the copy for _five pounds_! he was to receive £5
more after the sale of the 1300 copies which comprised the first
impression, and £5 more after the sale of each new impression of 1300
copies each. “And what a poor consideration was this,” says one of his
biographers, “for such an inestimable performance,” and how much more do
others get by the works of great authors than the authors themselves!
And yet we find that Hoyle, the author of the “Treatise on the Game of
Whist,” after having disposed of the whole of the first impression, sold
the copyright to the bookseller for two hundred guineas.
Dr Johnson used often to take supper at the Turk’s Head in the Strand:
“I encourage this house, (said he;) for the mistress of it is a good,
civil woman, and has not much business.”[614] At another Turk’s Head,
Gerrard Street, Soho, Johnson formed, in 1763, that well-known club,
which was long without a name, but which after Garrick’s funeral became
distinguished by the name of the _Literary Club_.
“Sir Joshua Reynolds had the merit of being the first proposer of it,
to which Johnson acceded, and the original members were Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Dr Johnson, Mr Edmund Burke, Dr Nugent, Mr Beauclerck, Mr
Langton, Dr Goldsmith, Mr Chamier, and Sir John Hawkins. They met at
the Turk’s Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, one evening every week, at
seven, and generally continued their conversation till a pretty late
hour. This club has been gradually increased to its present [1791]
number thirty-five. After about ten years, instead of supping weekly,
it was resolved to dine together once a fortnight during the meeting
of Parliament.”[615]
After the death of the landlord of this house, the club removed to the
PRINCE in Sackville Street; and after two or three more changes, it
finally settled down at the THATCHED HOUSE, St James’s. The original
portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds, presented to the club by the painter
himself, is still preserved; one of its peculiarities is, that the
artist has represented himself wearing spectacles. The club is still in
existence, under the name of the Dilettanti Club. “The Turk’s Head in
Gerrard Street, Soho,” says Moser in his Memorandum-book, “was, more
than fifty years since, removed from a tavern of the same sign, the
corner of Greek and Compton Streets. This place was a kind of
head-quarters for the Loyal Association during the rebellion of
1745.”[616]
About that time there was a waiter in this tavern, who, like Tennyson’s
waiter at the Cock, Templebar, had obtained considerable celebrity. His
name was _Little Will_. On an engraving dated 1752, he is represented as
a small man with a large head and a periwig, dressed in a long apron,
with a pair of snuffers suspended from the waist. The Rev. Mr
Huddersford, of Trinity College, Oxford, in a letter to Granger, says,--
“Little Will, as I have heard, was a great favourite with the
gentlemen of the coffee-house; there is a print representing him in
his constant attitude, apparently insensible to anything around him,
but swallowing every article of politicks that dropped, which, I am
told, he understands better than any of his masters.”
The THREE TURKS was a sign at Norwich in 1750,[617] and even now, though
the crescent is decidedly in the “last quarter,” there are still signs
of Turks to be found, as the TURK AND SLAVE, Brick Lane, Spitalfields;
the GREAT TURK (_i.e._, the Sultan) at Wolverhampton--the last is of
considerable antiquity, for in 1600 it was the sign of John Barnes, a
bookseller in Fleet Street. One of the most opulent Turkish towns was
commemorated by the SMYRNA coffee-house, in Pall Mall, a fashionable
coffee-house in the reign of Queen Anne, when the wits and beaux used to
take their constitutional in St James’ Park, and then go to the Smyrna,
where, sitting before the open windows, they could see the ladies
carried past in their sedans or coaches, on their return from the Mall.
This coffee-house seems to have had a reputation for politics. In the
_Tatler_, (No. 10,) a “cluster of wise heads” is said to sit every
evening from the left side of the fire at the Smyrna to the door; and in
No. 78, the public is informed that “the seat of learning is now removed
from the corner of the chimney on the left hand towards the window, to
the round table in the middle of the floor, over against the fire; a
revolution much lamented by the porters and chairmen, who were greatly
edified through a pane of glass that remained broken all the last
summer.” Prior, Swift, and Pope, were constant visitors at this house.
There was a GRECIAN coffee-house in Devereux Court, Strand, which for
nearly two centuries was equally well frequented. It derived its name
probably from having been opened by a Greek, the natives of that country
having been among the first to open coffee-houses in London. It was a
very fashionable house in the time of the _Spectators_ and _Tatlers_:
“My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian,” says Addison in
_Spectator_, No. 1. It seems generally to have been frequented by
literati and savants, some of them rather hot-headed:--
“I remember two gentlemen, who were constant companions, disputing one
evening at the Grecian coffee-house, concerning the accent of a Greek
word. This dispute was carried to such a length that the two friends
thought proper to determine it with their swords; for this purpose
they stept into Devereux Court, where one of them (whose name, if I
remember right, was Fitzgerald) was run through the body, and died on
the spot.”[618]
In this coffee-house Mrs Mapp, the famous bone-setter, (see p. 113)
performed her cures before Sir Hans Sloane:--
“On Saturday and yesterday, Mrs Mapp performed several operations at
the Grecian coffee-house, particularly one upon a niece of Sir Hans
Sloane, to his great satisfaction and her credit. The patient had her
shoulder-bone out for about nine years.”--_Grub Street Journal_,
October 21, 1736.
The coffee-house was closed in 1843; a bust of Essex is in front of the
house it formerly occupied with the inscription, “This is Devereux
Court, 1676.”
Various reasons are given to account for the sign of the SARACEN’S HEAD.
“When our countrymen came home from fighting with the Saracens, and were
beaten by them, they pictured them with huge, big, terrible faces, (as
you still see the sign of the Saracen’s Head is,) when, in truth, they
were like other men. But this they did to save their own credit.”[619]
Or the sign may have been adopted by those who had visited the Holy
Land, either as pilgrims or when fighting the Saracens. Others, again,
hold that it was first set up in compliment to the mother of Thomas à
Becket, who was the daughter of a Saracen: formerly the sign was very
general. During the time of the Commonwealth, the Saracen’s Head in
Islington was a place of resort for the Londoners. In the “Walks of
Islington and Hogsden, with the Humours of Wood Street Compter,” a
comedy by Thomas Jordan, gentleman, 1648, the scene is laid at that
tavern. It was also the sign of the house occupied by Sir Christopher
Wren in Friday Street, which remained almost unchanged till it was taken
down in 1844. The Saracen’s Head, Snow Hill, is one of the last
remaining, and, at the same time, one of the oldest, being named in Dick
Tarlton’s Jests as “the Sarracen’s Head without Newgate;” and Stow says,
“next to this church [St Sepulchre’s in the Bailey] is a fair and large
inn for receipt of travellers, and hath to sign the Sarrazen’s Head.”
The courtyard has still many of the characteristics of an old English
inn, with galleries all round leading to the bed-rooms, and a spacious
gate, through which the dusty mail-coaches used to rumble in, the tired
passengers creeping forth, and thanking their stars in having escaped
the highwaymen, and the holes and sloughs of the road. How many hearts,
beating with hope on their first entry into London, have passed under
this gate, that now lie mouldering in the quiet little churchyards of
the metropolis: some finding a resting-place in Westminster, whilst
others ceased to beat at Tyburn. It was at this inn that Nicholas
Nickleby and his uncle waited upon Squeers, the Yorkshire schoolmaster.
Mr Dickens describes the old tavern as it was in the last years of our
mail-coaching, when it was one of the most important places for
arrivals and departures in London:--
“Near to the jail, and by consequence near to Smithfield also, and the
Compter and the bustle and noise of the city; and just on that
particular part of Snow Hill where omnibus horses going eastwards
seriously think of falling down on purpose, and where horses in
hackney cabriolets going westwards not unfrequently fall by accident,
is the coach-yard of the Saracen’s Head Inn, its portals guarded by
two Saracens’ heads and shoulders, which it was once the pride and
glory of the choice spirits of this metropolis to pull down at night,
but which have for some time remained in undisturbed tranquillity,
possibly because this species of humour is now confined to Saint
James’s parish, where door-knockers are preferred as being more
portable, and bell-wires esteemed as convenient toothpicks. Whether
this be the reason or not, there they are, frowning upon you from each
side of the gateway; and the inn itself, garnished with another
Saracen’s Head, frowns upon you from the top of the yard; while from
the door of the hind boot of all the red coaches that are standing
therein, there glares a small Saracen’s Head with a twin expression to
the large Saracen’s Head below, so that the general appearance of the
pile is of the Saracenic order.”
Blackamoors and other dark-skinned foreigners have always possessed
considerable attractions as signs for tobacconists, and sometimes also
for public-houses. Negroes, with feathered headdresses and kilts,
smoking pipes, are to be seen outside tobacco-shops on the Continent, as
well as in England. Thus, in the seventeenth century, there was one in
Amsterdam with the following inscription:--
“Josua badt den Heere van herten aan
Dat de zon en maan bleef stille staan.
Puik van Verinis en gœ Blaan
Haalt men hier in den Indiaan.”[620]
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the VIRGINIAN was the most
common in England, owing to the first tobacco having been imported from
that country:--
“They returned homewards, passing by Virginia, a colony which Sir
Walter Raleigh had there planted, from whence Drake brings home with
him Walter Lane, who was the first that brought tobacco into England,
which the Indians take against crudities of the stomach.”[621]
Publicans have a strange fancy for INDIAN KINGS, QUEENS, and CHIEFS,
thus bearing out Trinculo’s assertion of the nation at large:--“When
they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out
ten to see _a dead Indian_.” There is a sculptured sign of an INDIAN
CHIEF at Shoreditch, having all the appearance of an old ship’s
figure-head; and, as a _nomen ac præterea nihil_, it figures in many
places. In Dolphin Lane, Boston, (Linc.,) there used formerly to be a
sign with some fanciful, masked-ball dressed figures on it, which were
meant to represent the THREE KINGS of Cologne; but they conveyed so
little the idea of those holy personages, that the _profanum vulgus_
called them the THREE MERRY DEVILS. Eventually, by a metamorphosis more
strange than any in Ovid, these three merry devils were transformed into
one very strangely dressed female called the INDIAN QUEEN. The AFRICAN
CHIEF, in Sommerstown, is evidently a variety of these Indian chiefs.
Another sign of venerable antiquity is the BLACK BOY. That this is of
old standing, appears from an entry in Machyn’s Diary: “The XXX day of
Desember 1562, was slayne in John Street, Gylbard Goldsmith, dwellyng at
the sene of the _Blake Boy_, in the Cheap, by ys wyff’s sun.”
This Black Boy seems to have been a tobacconist’s sign from the first;
for in Ben Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair” we find:--“I thought he would
have run mad o’ the Black Boy in Bucklersbury, that takes the scurvy
roguy tobacco there.”--_Act_ i., _Scene_ 1.
In the seventeenth century, it was the sign of a celebrated ordinary in
Southwark:--
“Jove, and all his hous’hold a’ter
Him, yesterday went crosse the water,
To th’ signe of the Black Boy in Southwarke,
To th’ ordinary, to find his mouth worke.
Here he intends to fuddle’s nose
This fortnight yet, under the rose.”
_Homer à la Mode_, 1665.
At the Black Boy in Newgate Street, the Calves’ Head Club was sometimes
held. It was not restricted to any particular house, but moved yearly
from one place to another, as it was found most convenient. An axe was
hung up in the club-room crowned with laurel: the bill of fare consisted
of calves’ heads, dressed in various ways; a large pike, with a small
one in his mouth, (an emblem of tyranny;) a large cod’s head; and a
boar’s head, to indicate stupidity and bestiality.[622]
One of the early editions of Cocker’s Arithmetic was published at the
Black Boy. Such was the fame of this work, that even as the Pythagorians
swore _in verba magistris_, and αυτος ἑφη settled all questions, so our
ancestors proved their points “according to Cocker.” The title of the
work we must not abbreviate:--
“COCKER’S ARITHMETIC: Being a plain and familiar method, suitable to
the meanest capacity, for the full understanding of that incomparable
art, as now taught by the ablest schoolmasters in city and country.
Composed by Thomas Cocker, late practioner in the art of writing,
arithmetic, and engraving. Being that so long since promised to the
world. Perused and published by John Hawkins, writing-master, near St
George’s Church, in Southwark. By the author’s correct copy, and
commended to the world by many eminent Mathematicians and
writing-masters in and near London. Licensed September 1677. London:
printed by J. R. for T. P., and are to be sold by John Back, at the
Black Boy, on London Bridge. 1694. 12o.”
The BLACK GIRL is a variety of this sign at Clareborough, Notts. So,
too, appears to be the ARAB BOY, an ale-house on the road between Putney
and East-Sheen. The TWO BLACK BOYS occurs on one of the London trades
tokens, where they are represented shaking hands. The BLACK BOY AND COMB
was, in 1730, a shop on Ludgate Hill, either a perfumer’s or a mercer’s,
for he advertises “right French Hungary water, at 1s. 3d. a half pint
bottle; fine Florence oil, at 2s. per flask; right orange flower water,
at 1s. 6d. per flask; Barbadoes citron water, at 14s. per quart; and all
sort of Bermudas, Leghorn, and fine silk hats for ladies,” &c.[623] The
combination on the sign arose from the combs dangling at the doors of
the shops where they were sold.
The BLACK BOY AND CAMEL (doubtless a black boy leading a camel) was not
many years ago the sign of a tavern in Leadenhall Street, where it was
already in existence in the year 1700.
“The Annual feast for the Parish of St Dunstan, in Stepney, being
revived, will be kept the 29th instant, at the King’s Head, in
Stepney, where Tickets may be had, and at Tho. Warham’s, at the _Black
Boy and Camel_, Leaden Hall Street,” &c.--_London Gazette_, August
15-19, 1700.
These parish feasts show most unmistakably the general conviviality of
the time. Natives of the same county used also to have their public
feasts. Thus the _London Gazette_ for May 30 to June 3, 1700, advertises
“the annual feast for gentlemen of the county of Huntingdon;” and the
_Gazette_ for October 21-24, “the anniversary feast for the gentlemen,
natives of the county of Kent.” It is easy to imagine the attraction of
such festivals in times when travelling was both very expensive and very
dangerous,--when the post was badly conducted and extravagant in its
charges; and, moreover, but few people could write. Such meetings, then,
were the only ties that connected the provincial residing in London
with the home of his childhood. At such times friends brought up in the
same town or village could meet each other, talk over bygone times, call
up the recollections of early years, remember mutual friends, and drink
a bumper to those left behind. Sometimes these feasts took a religious
turn, when a native of the county or district preached in the
neighbouring church or chapel. Blessed occasions were these religious
yet merry feasts of the olden time. But the “march of intellect”--that
is to say, improved locomotion, the spread of reading, writing, and high
notions--have done away with these meetings of warm hearts and jovial
tempers as things low and vulgar.
JERUSALEM was sure to figure early on signboards of those inns at which
pilgrims, on their way to the Holy Land, were wont to put up; and long
after pilgrimages were discontinued it was still retained as a sign. In
1657 we find it in Fleet Street. What the sign was like it is impossible
now to say, but on the trades token of the house the Holy City is
represented by one single building. There is another token extant of a
house, also in Fleet Street, without date or name of the shop, on which
there is a view of a town, with the usual conventional representation of
the temple of Solomon. It was equally common in France. Regnard mentions
one in Nogent:--
“Entrant dans la bonne ville
Cité Nogent
Jerusalem fut l’asile
Soleil couchant,
Bon sejour pour le pelerin,
Vin du Vaulx, et le bon vin.”[624]
On a house in the Rue Etoupée, at Rouen, there is a stone carved sign of
Jerusalem, represented as a fortified town, with a figure arriving on
each side, evidently meant for pilgrims. A similar idea seems to be
conveyed by the sign of TRIP TO JERUSALEM, a public-house in Nottingham,
and the PILGRIM in Coventry. There is still an Old Jerusalem tavern in
Clerkenwell, so called after the Knights of St John, of whose hospital
this house was the principal gateway.
MOUNT PLEASANT is a name frequently bestowed upon public-houses, not
always with any allusion to such a locality, but simply on account of
its being an alluring name of the same maudlin class as COTTAGE OF
CONTENT, BANK OF FRIENDSHIP, &c. There is said to be a mountain of that
name in America, which obtained some celebrity from being the locality
on which the sassafras (_Orchis mascula_) was gathered, the plant which
produces the saloop. This drink came in vogue at the beginning of the
eighteenth century. Reide’s coffee-house in Fleet Street was the first
respectable house where it was sold. When it was opened in 1719, the
following lines, painted on a board, hung in front of the house; in
latter times, until the closing of the establishment in 1833, they were
preserved in the coffee-room:--
“Come all degrees now passing by,
My charming liquor taste and try;
To Lockyer[625] come and drink your fill,
Mount Pleasant has no kind of ill.
The fumes of wines, punch, drams, or beer,
It will expel; your spirits cheer;
From drowsiness your spirits free;
Sweet as a rose your breath shall be.
Come taste and try, and speak your mind,
Such rare ingredients here are joined.
Mount Pleasant pleases all mankind.”
Lockyer had begun life with half-a-crown, and by selling salop, or
saloop, at Fleet-ditch, amassed sufficient to open the above place in
Fleet Street, where he died worth £1000, in March 1739.[626]
Our old friend Pepys mentions going to CHINA HALL, but gives no further
particulars. It is not unlikely that this was the same place which, in
the summer of 1777, was opened as a theatre. Whatever its use in former
times, it was at that period the warehouse of a paper manufacturer. In
those days the West-end often visited the entertainments of the East,
and the new theatre was sufficiently patronised to enable the
proprietors to venture upon some embellishments. The prices were--boxes,
3s.; pit, 2s.; gallery, 1s.; and the time of commencing varied from
half-past six to seven o’clock, according to the season. “The Wonder,”
“Love in a Village,” the “Comical Courtship,” and the “Lying Valet,”
were among the plays performed. The famous Cooke was one of the actors
in the season of 1778. In that same year the building suffered the usual
fate of all theatres, and was utterly destroyed by fire.
One name we omitted to notice when speaking of signs derived from
European cities--COPENHAGEN HOUSE. Until very recently, this stood
isolated in the fields north of the metropolis, near the old road to
Highgate. It was said to have derived its name from the fact of a Danish
prince or ambassador having resided in it during a great plague in
London. Another tradition is to the effect that, early in the
seventeenth century, upon some political occasion, great numbers of
Danes left that kingdom, and came to London; whereupon the house was
opened by an emigrant from Copenhagen, as a place of resort for his
countrymen resident in the metropolis. This tradition probably refers to
the reign of James I., who was visited in London by his brother-in-law,
the King of Denmark, at which time it is very probable that there was a
considerable influx of persons from the Danish capital. _Coopen-Hagen_
is the name given to the place in the map accompanying Camden’s
Britannia, 1695. For many years previous to its demolition, the house
had a great reputation amongst Cockney excursionists, and its
tea-gardens, skittle-ground, Dutch pins, and particularly Fives Play,
were great attractions. For this last game especially the place was very
famous. The house possessed another attraction. From its windows a very
fine view of London, the Thames, and the Surrey hills beyond, was
obtainable. The New Cattle Market now occupies its site, and a modern
public-house only perpetuates the name.
Besides the above-mentioned geographical signs, we have others of more
modern introduction, such as the SOUTH AUSTRALIAN in Cadogan Street,
Chelsea, and the NORTH POLE in Oxford Street, which last commemorates
one of those equally brave and unsuccessful expeditions that have taken
place every now and then since Admiral Frobisher first started on the
discovery of the Meta Incognita.
There exists a class of signs in some respects geographical, yet, from
their indefinite character, they are more adapted for insertion in the
following chapter than here. We allude to such tavern decorations as
that picture of the fiery sun going down behind a hill, which is called
THE WORLD’S END, at St George’s, near Bristol; THE FIRST AND LAST INN IN
ENGLAND, a sign which may be seen in many other localities besides at
the Land’s End, in Cornwall; and NO PLACE INN, a public-house in the
suburbs of Plymouth, the sign representing an old woman standing at the
door, accosting her husband, just arrived--“Where have you been?” “No
place.” Many others of an equally indefinite character might be given
here, but they would be found to be even less topographical than those
just named.
[600] Aubrey, Remains of Judaisme and Gentilisme. MS. Lansdowne
Collection.
[601] See _Gent.’s Mag._, Jan. 1819, where the conditions are given _in
extenso_.
[602] “At the abbey of Saint Milaine, near Rennes, there has been for
more than 600 years a flitch of bacon, still perfectly fresh and good;
yet it is promised and ordered to be given to the first couple that has
been married for a year and a day without quarrelling, scolding, or
regretting that they were married.”--_Contes d’Eutrap._
[603] Creame--Dutch, _kraam_--a temporary booth erected in fair-time to
serve as a shop. Even at the present day those men that go from village
to village selling cheap jewellery and other articles, which they carry
in a box or basket, are called mars-_kramers_--apparently from
_marcher_, to walk, and the above _kraam_.
[604] Skene, De Verborum Significatione at the End of his Lawes and
Actes. _Edinburgh_, 1597.
[605] See in this same chapter, p. 417, for particulars of a signboard
at the Cape, exhibited by Farmer Peek.
[606] “Fly Leaves,” 1854.
[607] Parliamentary History, vol. i., p. 1195.
[608] See _Gent’s Mag._, Jan. 1792, p. 19.
[609] Tho. Decker’s A Knight’s Conjuring.
[610] Quoted in Lambarde’s Perambulation of Kent, p. 356.
[611] Witt’s Recreation, 1640.
[612] Banks collection of shopbills, where amateurs of tobacco
curiosities may find a very rich collection of all sorts of
tobacco-paper rhymes, signs, &c.
[613] In the Typographical Antiquities of Great Britain, London 1816,
vol. iii., p. 116, such a paper is given, entitled: “The triumphant
victory of the Imperyall Mageste against the Turkes the xxvi day of
Septembre, the yere of our lord mcccccxxxii. in Steuermarke by a
Capytayne named Michael Meschsaer.”
[614] Boswell’s Johnson, vol. i., p. 304.
[615] Ibid., vol. i., p. 327.
[616] Moser’s Memorandum-Book, M.S. dated 1799, as quoted in _Notes and
Queries_, December 22, 1849.
[617] _Gent.’s Mag._, March 1842.
[618] Dr King’s Anecdotes, p. 117.
[619] Selden’s Table-Talk.
[620]
“Joshua prayed to the Lord from the bottom of his heart,
That the sun and moon might stand still.
The best Varinas and good tobacco in the leaf
Are sold here at the Indian.”
[621] Sir Richard Baker’s Chronicles, anno 1588.
[622] See Secret History of the Calves’ Head Club. London, 1705.
[623] _Country Journal, or Craftsman_, Saturday, April 25, 1730.
[624] “On entering the good town of Nogent by sunset, I put up at the
Jerusalem, which offers good accommodation for travellers, wine of
Vaulx, and that good.”
[625] The landlord.
[626] Read’s _Weekly Journal_, March 31, 1739.