HUMOROUS AND COMIC.
Animals performing human actions, or dressed in human garments, are
great items in signboard humour. This is a kind of comicality
undoubtedly dating from the first development of human wit. The
“Batromyomachia” is one of the oldest performances of the same
description in literature, but the joke was already too well understood
at the period that piece was produced to have been a first attempt. The
Fable was the higher walk of art in this branch, the simple Caricature
the lower.
Numerous Egyptian, Greek, and Roman caricatures of animals personating
men have come down to us; from them this conceit was borrowed by the
mediæval limners. Their MSS. teem with such subjects; and so much was
this kind of humour relished at that period, that even in church
decoration the caricatures of animals were liberally mixed up with the
sacred subjects of biblical history. Not only the fable, conferring a
moral lesson, but even the plain and unpretending animal-caricature was
admitted indiscriminately with representations of saints and miracles.
Thus the well-known sign of PIG AND WHISTLE is seen in more than one
church. In the stall carving of Winchester Cathedral a sow is
represented sitting on her haunches, playing on a whistle, the companion
carving to which is a pig playing on a violin, in accompaniment to which
another pig appears to be singing. These musical pigs are also common in
illustrated MSS. In Harl. MS., 4379, a sow is represented dressed in the
full fashion of the fifteenth century, with horned head-dress and
stilted heels, playing on a harp.
In old towns, such as Chester, Macclesfield, Coventry, &c., the Pig and
Whistle is still found on signboards. Very different and learned
explanations have been given for its origin, some saying it was a
corruption of the _pig and wassail bowl_, or of the _pix and housel_;
others that it is a facetious rendering of the Bear and Ragged Staff.
Very lately the correspondents of a learned periodical have busied
themselves in claiming for it a Danish-Saxon descent, as _pige-washail_,
our Ladies’ Salutation. The Scotch also claim it as their own; _pig_
being a pot or pot-sherd; _whistle_, small change; and “to go to _pigs
and whistles_,” a free translation of “going to _pot_,” which Mr
Jamieson states (quoting two examples) to have been at one time a
colloquial phrase. _Non nostrum est tantas componere lites_; but the
proverb says, “a hog though in armour is still but a hog;” and therefore
we are inclined to think that a pig with a whistle is still but a pig,
and not relating in any way to the Virgin; and we can see nothing in the
Pig and Whistle but simply a freak of the mediæval artist.
As little hidden meaning is there in the CAT AND FIDDLE, still a great
favourite in Hampshire, the only connexion between the animal and the
instrument being that the strings are made from the cat’s entrails, and
that a small fiddle is called a _kit_, and a small cat a _kitten_.
Besides, they have been united from time immemorial in the nursery
rhyme--
“Heigh diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle.”
Amongst other explanations offered is, the one that it may have
originated with the sign of a certain _Caton fidèle_, a staunch
Protestant in the reign of Queen Mary, and only have been changed into
the cat and fiddle by corruption; but, if so, it must have lost its
original appellation very soon, for as early as 1589 we find “Henry
Carr, signe of the Catte and Fidle in the Old Chaunge.” Formerly, there
was a Cat and Fiddle at Norwich, the cat being represented playing upon
a fiddle, and a number of mice dancing round her. The bagpipes being the
national instrument of the Irish, the sign is there frequently changed
into the CAT AND BAGPIPES. This was also, some twenty or thirty years
ago, a public- and chop-house, of considerable notoriety, at the corner
of Downing Street, Westminster, where the clerks of the Foreign Office
used to lunch; at the present day, it is the sign of a public-house near
Moate, King’s Co., Ireland. The APE AND BAGPIPES occurs on trades tokens
as the sign of John Tayler, in St Ann’s Lane. This, too, was a joke not
confined to our country, for in the marginal illustrations to the
title-page of “P. Dioscoridæ Pharmacorum Simplicum,” &c., printed at
Strasburg by John Schot in 1529, an ape is represented playing on the
bagpipes, and a camel dancing to the tune, with these words, χαμηλον
αλλαπτεν. The French were equally fond of this kind of caricature. The
SPINNING SOW (_la Truie qui file_) is common even at the present day,
and has given its name to more than one street in Paris and other
cities. It is said to have originated from a legend:--A certain
Christian queen, Pedauca, whose honour was in danger, imitated the
chaste heroines of mythology; but, instead of praying to be
metamorphosed into a tree or a bird, she merely asked to have one of her
feet changed into a goose’s foot, which was enough to frighten her
ardent lover away.[627] Another young lady, under similar circumstances,
preferred going the whole hog,--to use a colloquialism,--and was changed
into a sow, merely praying to be permitted to keep her spindle, as a
token of her former condition: hence the sign. It is also--(and hence,
probably, the legend of the metamorphosis, to remove the prejudices of
the godly)--represented in relief carving on the exterior of the
cathedral of Chartres. In the Fishmarket of the same town there is a
stone carved sign of a _Donkey playing on a Hurdy-gurdy_, (L’ANE QUI
VEILLE.) Both this sign and another, representing a _Cat playing at
Racket_, (LA CHATTE QUI PELOTE,) have transmitted their names to streets
in Paris. The French seem to have delighted above all things in such
comicalities. Besides those named above, they had _the Fishing Cat_, (LA
CHATTE QUI PÊCHE,) the _Dancing Goat_, (LA CHÈVRE QUI DANCE,) both of
which Walpole mentions. We have one modern sign in London of this
class--namely, the WHISTLING OYSTER, the name of an oyster-shop in Drury
Lane.
The JACKANAPES ON HORSEBACK was, unfortunately for the monkeys, a
painful truth. A jackanapes or monkey on horseback was generally the
winding-up of a bear or bull baiting at Paris Garden. Hollinshed, in his
Chronicles, anno 1562, relates how, at the reception of the Danish
ambassadors at Greenwich--
“For the diversion of the populace, there was a horse with an ape on
his back which highly pleased them, so that they expressed their
inward conceived joy and delight with shrill shouts and variety of
gestures.”
The “inward conceived joy,” we may safely conclude, was not expressed by
either the monkey or the horse, particularly when we remember that in
those days dogs were often let in the ring to frighten both the horse
and its animal Mazeppa. The prevalence of this sport is to be inferred
from an admonition to Parliament by Tho. Cartwright, published in 1572,
in order to show the impropriety of an established form of prayer for
the church services, in which he remarks that the clergyman
“Posteth it over as fast as he can galope, for eyther he has two
places to serve, or else there are some games to be playde in the
afternoon, as lying for the whetstone,[628] heathenish dauncing for
the ring, a beare or a bull to be baited, or else a _jackanapes to
ride on horsebacke_, or an interlude to be playde in the church. We
speak not of [bell-] ringing after matins is done.”
Not much more than ten years ago, the good people of Paris were, every
Thursday afternoon, in the summer, entertained in the Hippodrome, with
“jackanapes on horseback,” dressed up like Arabs, and followed by
miniature _chasseurs d’Afrique_, to the great gratification of our
martial neighbours. This sign is named in an advertisement, of the year
1700, for a mare stolen by a “lusty black man with a brown coat,”[629]
notice of the mare to be given “to Mr John Wright, at the _Jackanapes_
on Horseback,” in Cheapside. The grinning, or, as it was written,
“GRENNING IACKANAPES,” is a sign mentioned by Eliot in his “Fruits for
the French,” or “Parlement of Pratlers,” 1593, “ouer against the
Vnicorne in the Iewrie.” The HOG IN ARMOUR, in Hanging Sword Court,
Fleet Street, is mentioned in an advertisement,[630] in 1678, as the
place where there was to be sold “seacole sutt for the great improvement
of all sorts of lands, as well as gardens and hop grounds.” It is named
amongst the absurd London signs in the _Spectator_ 28, April 2, 1711,
and is still occasionally seen, as in James’ Street, Dublin. Though the
sign does not exist any longer in London, yet the name is not lost among
the lower orders, it being a favourite epithet applied to rifle
volunteers by costermongers, street fishmongers, and such like. A
jocular name for this sign is the “_pig in misery_.” There is also a
GOAT IN ARMOUR on the Narrow Quay, Bristol, and a GOAT IN BOOTS on the
Fulham Road, Little Chelsea. In 1663 this house was called the GOAT,
and enjoyed the right of commonage for two cows and one heifer upon
Chelsea Heath.
“How the goat became equipped in boots, and the designation of the
house changed, have been the subject of various conjectures, the most
probable of which is, that it originated in a corruption of the latter
part of the Dutch legend--
‘Mercurius is _der Goden Boode_,’
(Mercury is the messenger of the gods,)--
which being divided between each side of the sign, bearing the figure
of a Mercury--a sign commonly used in the early part of the last
century [?] to denote that post-horses were to be obtained--‘der Goden
Boode’ became freely translated into English, ‘the Goat in Boots.’ To
Le Blond[631] is attributed the execution of this sign and its motto;
but whoever the original artist may have been, or the intermediate
re-touchers or re-painters of the god, certain it is that the pencil
of Morland, in accordance with the desire of the landlord, either
transformed the Petasus of Mercury into the horned head of a goat, his
talaria into spurs upon boots of huge dimension, and his caduceus into
a cutlass, or thus decorated the original sign, thereby liquidating a
score which he had run up here, without any other means of payment
than what his pencil afforded. The sign, however, has been painted
over, with additional embellishments from gold leaf, so that not the
least trace of Morland’s work remains, except, perhaps, the
outline.”[632]
With all deference to the opinion of Mr Croker, we cannot help thinking
of this, as of many other signboard explanations, “_Se non è vero è ben
trovato_.” 1^{o}. the house was called the Goat in 1663; 2^{o}. there is
no proof that it ever was called the Mercury, (nor was that sign ever so
common as Mr Croker asserts.) From the following quotation it will
appear that as early as 1738 some Goats in Boots had already appeared,
not the result of any mythological metamorphosis. The _Craftsman_ for
June 17, 1738, in ridiculing some lenient measures taken by Government,
blames the signs for putting a martial spirit in the nation, and
proposes that “no lion should be drawn rampant, but couchant; and none
of his teeth ought to be seen without this inscription, ‘Though he shows
his teeth he wont bite.’ All bucks, bulls, rams, stags, unicorns, and
all other warlike animals ought to be drawn without horns. Let no
general be drawn in armour, and instead of truncheons let them have
muster-rolls in their hands. In like manner, I would have all admirals
painted in a frock and jockey cap, like landed gentlemen. The common
sign of the two Fighting Cocks might be better changed to a Cock and
Hen, and that of the Valiant Trooper to a _Hog in Armour_, or a GOAT IN
JACKBOOTS, _as some Hampshire and Welsh publicans have done already_ for
the honour of their respective countries.” The sign, then, seems to be a
sort of caricature of a Welshman, the Goat having always been considered
the emblem of that nation, and the jackboots an indispensable article of
Taffy’s costume. Thus, Captain Grose, in his “Essay on
Caricatures,”[633] mentions a Welshman with his _goat_, leek,
_hay-boots_, and long pedigree, as a standard joke. Not improbably the
switch carried by the goat on this sign was originally a leek. Of the
same origin is the well-known WELSH TROOPER, representing a man with a
leek in his hat riding on a goat. This sign may still be seen in London.
In the Roxburghe ballads the Welshman with his jackboots and leek occurs
in an old woodcut; in other places he is drawn riding a goat, and
similarly dressed.
PUSS IN BOOTS occurs at Windley, Duffield, near Derby. The Goat in Boots
may have suggested the idea of making a sign of this nursery-tale hero.
The Dutch shoemakers, in pursuance of the proverb, seem to have taken a
particular delight in these booted animals. Various creatures in boots
occur amongst the Dutch signboard inscriptions of the seventeenth
century. One was the OX IN BOOTS, (_in den gelaarsden os_,) with this
inscription:--
“’t Leer geeft den Schoenmaker de os daar hy schoenen van maakt om te
verslyten;
Ik heb den os weer met leer tot dank gelaerst en gespoord doen
conterfyten.”[634]
Another innkeeper put up the COW IN BOOTS, (_de gelaersden koe_,) and
wrote beneath:--
“Ziet dees koe heeft laarzen aan
Was ’t noch een Bul dan kon het gaan.”[635]
A third, in Amsterdam, had the COCK IN BOOTS, (_de gelaarsde Haan_,)
with the following extraordinary rhymes:--
“Dit is de gelaarsde haan
Christus is naar ’t kruys gegaan,
Met een doornenkroon op ’t hoofd.
Hy slacht Thomas die ’t niet gelooft.”[636]
The JACKASS IN BOOTS (_de gelaarsde ezel_) was the sign of a publican,
with this inscription:--
“In den gelaarsden ezel zeer kloek,
Verkoopt men toebak, brandewyn, en knapkoek.”[637]
The Dog also appears dressed, as the DOG IN DOUBLET, a sign which may be
seen at Pyebridge, Derby, at Northbank, Cambridge, and a few other
out-of-the-way places. Dr Johnson did this sign the honour of applying
it as a metaphor. Speaking of an old idea newly expressed, he said: “It
is an old coat with a new facing.” Then (laughing heartily) “it is the
old dog in a new doublet!”[638]
The Dog occurs in various other humorous combinations. Ned Ward mentions
a famous inn, in Petty Cury, Cambridge--
“the sign of the DEVIL’S LAPDOG, kept by an old grizly curmudgeon,
corniferously wedded to a plump, young, gay, brisk, black, beautiful,
good landlady, who I afterwards heard had so great a kindness for the
University, that she had rather see two or three gowns’ men come into
her house, than a c---- crew of aldermen in all their
pontificalibusses.”[639]
The DOG’S HEAD IN THE POT is mentioned on the Pardoner’s Roll in “Cocke
Lorell’s Bote:”--
“Also Annys Angry with the croked buttocke
That dwelled at y^{e} sygne of ye Dogges hede in ye Pot,
By her crafte a brechemaker.”
It seems originally to have been a mock sign to indicate a dirty,
slovenly housewife. A woodcut above the second part of the Roxburghe
ballad of “The Coaches’ Overthrow” represents various dirty practices.
From the upper windows of one of the houses a woman is emptying the
unsavoury contents of a domestic vase almost on the heads of the people
underneath, and the sign of that house is the Dog’s head in the Pot,
representing a dog licking out a pot. A coarse woodcut sheet of the
commencement of the last century--evidently copied from a much older
original--to judge by the costumes, represents two ancient beldames with
high-crowned hats, starched ruffs and collars, and high-heeled boots, in
a very disorderly room or kitchen; one of the women wipes a plate with
the bushy tail of a large dog, whose head is completely buried in a
capacious pot, which he is licking clean; under it:--
“All sluts behold, take view of me,
Your own good housewifry to see.
It is (methinks) a cleanly care,
My dishclout in this sort to spare,
Whilst Dog, you see, doth lick the pot,
His taile for dishclout I have got,” &c.
One of the Roxburghe Ballads, vol. i., fol. 385, entitled, “Seldome
Cleanely,” has the same idea:--
“If otherwise she had
But a dishcloute faile,
She would set them to the dog to licke,
And wipe them with hys tayle.”
In Holland there is a proverb still in use, to the effect that when a
person is late for dinner he is said to “find the dog in the pot,” (_hy
vindt den hond in de pot_,) meaning that he has arrived late,--that the
empty pot has been given to the dog to lick out, previously to being
washed, a custom still daily practised by the peasantry of that country.
This sign is sometimes also called the DOG AND CROCK, as in the
Blackfriars’ Road; at Michelmouth, Romsey, Hants, and elsewhere. In the
western counties the word “crock” is indiscriminately applied to iron or
earthen pots. From the latter application comes the term “_crockery_
ware.”
The DANCING DOGS was a sign at Battlebridge in 1668, as appears from the
trades tokens. This kind of canine entertainment was one of the
attractions of Bartholomew Fair, where Ben Jonson mentions “dogs that
dance the Morris.”
The LAUGHING DOG (_le chien qui rit_) was formerly a sign in Rouen, and
gave its name to a street, now called Du Guay Troin, from the name of a
celebrated admiral. This was one of those quaint signs of which we have
some specimens in this country, as the TWO SNEEZING CATS, which is said
to be somewhere in London; the FLYING MONKEY, Lambeth; the MONKEY
ISLAND, at Bray, near Maidenhead; the GAPING GOOSE, at Leeds, Oldham,
and various parts of Yorkshire; and the LOVING LAMB, two in Dudley. In
Paris there was the old sign of the GREEN MONKEY, (_le singe vert_,) and
some fifteen years ago Lille could boast of the HUNCHBACKED CATS (_les
chats bossus_) in the Rue Sec-Arembault.
Equally absurd is the COW AND SNUFFERS, at Llandaff, Glamorgan. In a
play of George Colman, entitled the “Review, or the Wags of Windsor,”
the following lines occur:--
“Judy’s a darling; my kisses she suffers;
She’s an heiress, that’s clear,
For her father sells beer,
He keeps the sign of the _Cow and the Snuffers_.”
The same song also occurs in the “Irishman in London, or the Happy
African.” At Llandaff the sign is represented by a cow standing near a
ditch full of reeds and grasses, with a pair of snuffers, placed as if
they had fallen from the cow’s mouth. The oddity of the combination in
all probability pleased a publican who had heard the song, and adopted
it forthwith as his sign, leaving the arrangement of the objects to the
taste of the sign-painter.
The COLT AND CRADLE might have been seen in St Martin’s Lane in 1667. It
is still a common sign for houses of evil repute in Holland, as may be
seen from two examples in the Zandstraat, Rotterdam, where the cradle is
carved above the door, with the colt in it lying on his back: the
inscription is, “Het paard in de Wieg,” (the horse in the cradle.) And
since, according to Stow, in ancient times “English people disdayned to
be bawdes, froes of Flaunders were women for that purpose,” it is more
than probable that these “froes” introduced this sign from their own
country. In the Dutch language _paar_ means “a couple,” and is
constantly used for a man and woman, either united by the bands of
lawful marriage or otherwise. The original form of the sign, then, we
suppose was “the couple in the cradle,” (_het paar in de wieg_.) But the
Dutch have an inveterate habit of adding diminutives, so that with this
appendix it became _paartje_--from paar_t_je to paar_d_je, a small
horse, the transition was easy enough; and, covered with that
transparent veil, the indelicate sign has come down to the present day.
This seems so much the more probable to be the meaning, since the
_Cradle_ in London also was a “bad sign,” (see p. 394.)
The GOOSE AND GRIDIRON occurs at Woodhall, Lincolnshire, and in a few
other localities: it is said to owe its origin to the following
circumstances:--The Mitre (see p. 319) was a celebrated music-house in
London House Yard, at the N.-W. end of St Paul’s. When it ceased to be a
music-house, the succeeding landlord, to ridicule its former destiny,
chose for his sign a goose stroking the bars of a gridiron with his
foot, in ridicule of the SWAN AND HARP, a common sign for the early
music-houses. Such an origin does the _Tatler_ give; but it may also be
a vernacular reading of the coat of arms of the Company of Musicians,
suspended probably at the door of the Mitre when it was a music-house.
These arms are, a swan with his wings expanded, within a double
tressure, counter, flory, argent. This double tressure might have
suggested a gridiron to unsophisticated passers-by. PADDY’S GOOSE is, at
the present day, a nickname for a public-house in Shadwell called the
White Swan; but why it was thus travestied _non liquet_. This tavern
acquired some notoriety during the Crimean campaign. When the Government
wanted sailors to man the fleet, the landlord of the house used to go
among the shipping in the river and enlist numbers of men. His system of
recruiting was to go in one of the small steamers, with flags and
colours flying and a band playing, the heart-stirring or heart-rending
notes of which used to awaken the martial ardour of the merchant
sailors, and make them enlist in the Royal Navy. This sign also
triumphantly proclaims the presence of British gin and Irish whisky in a
low public-house near the harbour of La Valette at Malta.
Not a few signs represent proverbs or proverbial expressions. The BIRD
IN HAND, for instance, with occasionally the BOOK IN HAND,--the former
denoting the landlord’s full appreciation of the truth of the proverb,
“One bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” It is frequently
accompanied by the following truthful rather than grammatical distich:--
“A bird in hand far better ’tis
Than two that in the bushes is.”
This sign occurs among the trades tokens, being literally rendered by a
hand holding a bird. Innumerable are the jokes resorted to by landlords
to intimate that hard truth that no credit is given.[640] Frequently the
pill is gilt in the most agreeable manner: a deceptive hope of “better
luck to-morrow” is frequently held out, as
“Drink here, and drown all sorrow;
Pay to-day, I’ll trust to-morrow.”
Or:--
“Pay to-day and trust to-morrow,
And so endeth all our sorrow.”
The same in Holland:--
“Vandaag voor geld, morgen voor niet.”[641]
In Italy a cock is sometimes painted, with the following inscription:--
“Quando questo gallo cantarà
Allora credenza si farà.”[642]
The inventive genius of the French, with its usual fondness for romance,
has constructed a little dramatic incident to express the idea:--
“Crédit est mort; les mauvais payeurs l’ont tué.”[643]
Which phrase was seen by Coryatt, nearly two centuries ago, on one of
the inns where he put up at in France: a similar idea is expressed at
Smethwick in the following inscription:--
“Sacred to the memory of Poor Trust, who fought hard at the battle of
Deception, but fell under General Bad Pay.”
A print hung up in a public-house in Nottingham, depicting a black
tombstone (or signboard,--it is difficult to say which) spotted with
briny white tears, gives the inscription with still greater force:--
“This monument is erected to the memory of Mr Trust, who was some time
since most shamefully and cruelly murdered by a villain called Credit,
who is prowling about, both in town and country, seeking whom he may
devour.”
Others have the picture of a dead dog, and under him:--
“Died last night, Poor Trust! Who killed him? Bad Pay.”
A very general inscription is:--
“This is a good world to live in,
To lend, or to spend, or to give in;
But to beg or to borrow, or to get a man’s own,
It is such a world as never was known.”
Or:--
“The rule of this house, and it can’t be unjust,
Is to pay on delivery, and not to give trust;
I’ve trusted many to my sorrow,
Pay to-day, I’ll trust to-morrow.”
Stuck up in many tap-rooms may be seen the following:--
“All you that bring tobacco here
Must pay for pipes as well as beer;
And you that stand before the fire,
I pray sit down by good desire,
That other folks as well as you
May see the fire, and feel it too.
Since man to man is so unjust,
I cannot tell what man to trust.
My liquor’s good, ’tis no man’s sorrow,
Pay to-day, I’ll trust to-morrow.”
At an ale-house in Ranston, Norfolk, the usual information is conveyed
in the following manner, (to be read upwards, beginning from the bottom
of the last column):--
MORE BEER SCORE CLERK
FOR MY MY THEIR
DO TRUST PAY SENT
I I MUST HAVE
SHALL IF I BREWERS
WHAT AND AND MY
At other places it comes in a still more “questionable shape,” reminding
us of the curious literary conceits of the old monkish rhymesters. In
the following, the letters must be connected into words, thus--_The
brewer_, &c.
Th. ebr: Ewe ! Rh. eH. Ass?
en . THI.S. cLEr
k a N d ! IM. ustp, A. YM. Ys
cO. r. ef, O
r IFIT r US. ? tandam, No tpA.
i D wha. ts; Ha:
LL i D , O? Fo Rm. Or .e.
The little wayside inn, between Pateley Bridge and Ripon, has the
following plaintive appeal to a stiffnecked race:--
“The malster doth crave
His money to have,
The exciseman says have I must.
By that you can see
How the case stands with me;
So I pray you don’t ask me for trust.”
A small beer-house at Werrington, in Devonshire, yclept the Lengdon Inn,
has:--
“Gentlemen, walk in, and sit at your ease,
Pay what you call for, and call what you please;
As trusting of late has been to my sorrow,
Pay me to-day, and I’ll trust ee to-morrow.”
The Maypole, near Hainault Forest, has:--
“My liquor’s good,
My measures just;
Excuse me, sirs!
I cannot trust.”
At Preston, in Lancashire:--
“Greadley Bob, he does live here,
And sells a pot of good strong beer;
His liquor’s good, his measure just,
But Bob’s so poor he cannot trust.”
[Illustration: PLATE XVII.
HAT AND BEAVER.
(Banks’s Collection, 1750.)
SWAN WITH TWO NECKS.
(Banks’s Collection, 1785.)
HARROW AND DOUBLET.
(Banks’s Collection, 1700.)
MAN IN THE MOON.
(Vine Street, Regent Street; modern.)
THE APE.
(Stone carving, Philip Lane, Barbican, 1670.)]
The Green Man, on Finchley Common, under a trophy composed of two pipes
crossed and a pot of beer, presents us with the following:--
“Call. Softly,
Drink. Moderate
Pay. _Honourably_,
Be Good. _Company_
Part. _FRIENDLY_
Go. =HOME=. quietly.
_Let those lines be no MANS Sorrow_
_Pay to_ =DAY= _and i’ll_ =TRUST= _to Morrow_.”
At Middleton, Co. Cork, the verses usually accompanying the sign of the
Bee-hive are slightly altered to meet the emergency of the case, _surgit
amari aliquid_:--
“Within this hive we’re all alive
With whisky sweet as honey;
If you are dry, step in and try,
But don’t forget the money.”
So old is the necessity of informing the public that they must pay for
what they obtain, that even in the ruined city of Pompeii a similar
caution is found. Above the door of a house, once inhabited by a
surgeon, occurs the following laconic intimation:--“EME ET HABEBIS.” And
so widely spread is the evil, that even in Chinese towns the shopkeepers
have found it necessary to inform the public on their signs--
“Former customers have inspired us with caution; no credit given
here.”
One publican, at Littletown, in Durham, seems to have taken a somewhat
opposite view, putting up, for a sign, the BIRD IN THE BUSH, but it may
be doubted if his experience has confirmed him in a preference of the
bird in the bush to the bird in the hand.
Another proverb illustrated is the COW AND HARE, at Stafford, Bottisham,
(near Newmarket,) and other places, evidently suggested by the adage, “A
cow may catch a hare.” This sign is mentioned, about 1708, in a rather
curious memorandum from the pen of Partridge, the almanac-maker, at the
commencement of a book of “the Cælestial Motions and Aspects for the
years of our Lord 1708 to 1720.”[644] The MS. note is as follows:--“At
the Cowe and Hare by Whitechappel Church, a rare rogue lives there, a
pickpocket.” Of the same class as the Cow and Hare is WHO’D HA’ THOUGHT
IT? which sometimes is seen on an ale-house sign, as, for instance, at
North End, Fulham. A wag suggested this as the motto to the coat-of-arms
of a certain baronet-brewer:
“Who’d ha’ thought it?
Hops had bought it.”
The sign of the JOLLY BREWER--WHO’D HA’ THOUGHT IT? occurs in the Jersey
Road, Hounslow. Originally, it seems to have implied that, after a hard
struggle in some other walk of life, the landlord had succeeded in
opening the long-wished-for ale-house. So in Holland: many country
retreats of retired tradespeople bear such names as “_Nooit gedacht_,”
(never expected,) &c.
WHY NOT, the name of a public-house at Essington, in Staffordshire,
seems to imply quite the reverse, and to have been adopted as the motto
of a more sanguine landlord; unless it may be considered as a ready
answer to the often-repeated question, before “popping in round the
corner,” “Shall we have a drop?”
The LAME DOG is very common; but is particularly appropriate at Brierley
Hill, near Dudley, the establishment being kept by a collier, rendered
lame in a pit accident. Under a pictorial representation of a lame dog
trying to get over a stile, the following appeal is made to the thirsty
and benevolent public:--
“Stop, my friends, and stay awhile
To help the Lame Dog over the stile.”
Sometimes, as at Bulmer, Essex, we see a somewhat similar idea expressed
by a man struggling through a globe--head and arms protruding on one
side, his legs on the other--with the inscription, “HELP ME THROUGH THIS
WORLD.” The same allegory might have been seen on a beer-house in
Holland in the seventeenth century, but the inscription was
different--“_Dus na ben ik door de wereld_,” (“Thus far I have got
through the world.”) This sign is also called the STRUGGLER, or the
STRUGGLING MAN, and at Hampton, where the house is kept by a widow, the
WIDOW’S STRUGGLE. In Salop Street, Dudley, the struggle is represented
by a man, with a dog beside him, walking against a strong head wind. The
LIVE AND LET LIVE has a somewhat similar meaning; it occurs at North
End, Fulham, and in many other places. To this class, also, the
following seems to refer:--“A witty, though unfortunate, fellow having
tryed all trades, but thriving by none, took the pot for his last
refuge, and set up an ale-house, with the sign of the SHIRT, inscribed
under it, ‘This is my last shift.’ Much company was brought him thereby,
and much profit.”[645] Nathaniel Oldham, the friend of Sir Hans Sloane,
Doctor Mead, and the leading _virtuosi_ of that time, himself a
collector, as well as a sporting man, at last got so reduced in
circumstances that he had to dispose of his curiosities and
superfluities. He opened his house, therefore, as a curiosity shop, and
wrote over the door, _Oldham’s last Shift_. Unfortunately, it _was_ his
“last shift,” for scarcely had he opened his shop when one of his
innumerable creditors had him arrested and sent to King’s Bench Prison,
where he died. J. T. Smith, in his “Cries of London,” tells a similar
device of a sailor, maimed at the battle of Trafalgar, who used to go
about town with a wheelbarrow of ginger nuts, which he called “Jack’s
last shift.”
The uncertainty of success in trade is expressed by the sign of the TWO
CHANCES; and HIT OR MISS, the good and the bad chance which innkeepers,
as well as all other mortals, have to run in this transitory world. This
sign occurs at Hannington, Northampton, and at Clun, in Salop. At
Openshaw, near Manchester, a similar idea is expressed by a sign
representing two men running a race, which seems to promise a dead heat,
with the inscription, LUCK’S ALL.
Others have a sort of satirical humour in them, such as the well-known
FOUR ALLS, representing a king who says, “I rule all;” a priest who
says, “I pray for all;” a soldier who says, “I fight for all;” and John
Bull, or a farmer, who says, “I pay for all.” Sometimes a fifth is added
in the shape of a lawyer, who says, “I plead for all.” It is an old and
still common sign, and may even be seen swinging under the blue sky in
the sunny streets of La Valette, Malta. In Holland, in the seventeenth
century, it was used, but the king was left out, and a lawyer added;
each person said exactly the same as on our signboards, but the farmer
answered:--
“Of gy vecht, of gy bidt, of gy pleyt,
Ik ben de boer die de eyeren leyt.”[646]
The author of “Tavern Anecdotes” observes that he used to notice in
Rosemary Street, the sign of the Four Alls, but passing that way some
time after, he found it altered into the _Four Awls_; the sign painter
who renewed the picture had probably found himself not equal to a
representation of the four human figures. In Ireland, a similar
corruption may be observed, the four shoemaker’s awls taking the place
of the four representatives of society. Although having no connexion
with the Four Alls, it may be mentioned that three and four awls
constitute the charges in the shoemakers’ arms of some of the
continental trade societies or guilds.
This enumeration of the various performances coupled with the word _all_
has been used in numerous different epigrams: an address to James I. in
the Ashmolean MSS., No. 1730, has:--
“THE LORDS craved all,
THE QUEENE graunted all,
THE LADIES of honour ruled all,
THE LORD-KEEPER seal’d all,
THE INTELLIGENCER marred all,
THE PARLIAMENT pass’d all,
HE THAT IS GONE oppos’d himself to all,
THE BISHOPS soothed all,
THE JUDGES pardon’d all,
THE LORDS buy, ROME spoil’d all,
Now, GOOD KING, mend all,
Or else THE DEVIL will have all.”
This again seems to have been imitated from a similar description of the
State of Spain in Greene’s “Spanish Masquerade,” 1589:--
“THE CARDINALLS solicit all,
THE KING grauntes all,
THE NOBLES confirm all,
THE POPE determines all,
THE CLEARGIE disposeth all,
THE DUKE of Medina hopes for all,
ALONSO receives all,
THE INDIANS minister all,
THE SOLDIERS eat all,
THE PEOPLE paie all,
THE MONKS and friars consume all,
And THE DEVIL at length will carry away all.”
The NAKED BOY was a satirical sign reflecting upon the constant changes
of the fashions of our ancestors. William Herbert has this observation
in his manuscript memoranda, “I remember very well when I was a lad
seeing on Windmill Hill, Moorfields, a taylor’s sign, a _naked boy_ with
this couplet:--
“So fickle is our English nation,
I wou’d be clothed if I knew the fashion.”[647]
The same idea is expressed in the “Introduction to Knowledge,” by Andrew
Borde, (the original “Merry Andrew,”) Doctor of Physick, 1542, where a
_naked man_ is introduced undecided as to the style of dress he should
adopt on account of the continual change in the fashions:--
“Now am I a frysker, all men doth on me looke,
What should I do but set cocke on the hoope,
What do I care yf all the worlde me fayle,
I will get a garment shall reche to my tayle.”
Coryatt also reflects upon this ever-varying change in his
“Crudities:”--“For whereas they [the gentlemen of Venice] have but one
colour, we use many more than are in the rainbow; all the most light
garish and unseemly colours that are in the world. Also for fashion we
are much inferior to them: for we weare more phantastical fashions than
any nation vnder the Sunne doth, the French onely excepted; which hath
given occasion to the Venetians and other Italians to brand the
Englishmen with a notable mark of levity by painting him stark naked
with a pair of shears in his hand, making his fashion of attire
according to the vain conception of his brain sick head, not to
comeliness and decorum.”
So ancient is this complaint as to the versatility of our fashions that
we verily believe even our tattooed forefathers must have been
constantly altering the hue of their blue stencilling, and bedaubing
themselves with new patterns. John Harding, in his “Chronicles,” of the
reign of Richard II., describing the various materials and cuts of the
“unpayed doublettes and gownes,” even long before his time, says, ch.
193:--
“Broudur and furres and goldsmith werke ay newe,
In many a wyse eche day they did renewe.”
Douglas, the monk of Glastonbury, wrote not less angrily in the days of
Edward III:
“Englyshmen hawnted so moche unto the folye of strawngers that fro
that tyme every yere thei chaungedde them in diverse schappes and
disgisingges of clothengge now long, now large, now wide, now streite,
and every day clothingges newe destitute and deserte from alle honeste
of holde array and gode usage.”[648]
Indeed so angry does the good monk become about these extravagant
fashions, that he says,--“If I sethe shalle say, they weren more like to
turmentours and Diviles in their clothing and also in schoyng and other
aray that they semed no menne.”
Not only did we invent, but we borrowed absurd foreign fashions. Samuel
Rowland, in “The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head Vaine,” 1611,
says:--
“Behold a most accomplish’d cavaleere,
That the world’s ape of fashions doth appeare;
Walking the streete his humours to disclose,
In the French dowblet and the German hose,
The muffes, cloake, Spanish hat, Tolledo blade,
Italian ruffe, a shoe right Flemish made,
Like the Lord of Misrule, where he comes he’ll revel.”
And Heywood, in the “Rape of Lucrece,” 1638, epigr. xxvi., has:--
“The Spaniard loves his ancient slop,
The Lombard his Venetian;
And some like breechless women go,
The Russ, Turk, Jew, and Grecian;
The thrifty Frenchman wears small waist,
The Dutchman his belly boasteth,
The Englishman is for them all,
And for each fashion coasteth.”
Shakespeare seems to allude to the sign of the Naked Boy in his “Comedy
of Errors,” act iv., scene 3, where Dromio says, “What, have you got the
picture of old Adam new apparell’d.” At Skipton-in-Craven, there is
still a stone bas-relief of the Naked Boy, fixed in the front of a
house, with the date 1633.
The GOOD WOMAN, or the SILENT WOMEN, and at Pershore, in Worcestershire,
the QUIET WOMAN, represent a headless woman carrying her head in her
hand. Brady, in his “Clavis Calendaria,” vol. ii., p. 203, says, “The
martyrs who had been decapitated were, therefore, usually represented
with headless trunks, and the head on some adjoining table, or more
commonly in their hands; and it was easy for ignorance and credulity not
only to mistake that type, but to be led into belief that those holy
persons had actually carried their heads about for the benefit of
believers.” The sign, yet preserved, particularly by the oilshops, of
the Good Woman, although originally meant as expressive of some female
saint, holy or good woman, who had met death by the privation of her
head, has been converted into a joke against the females whose alleged
loquacity is considered to be satirised by this representation, which,
to conform to such meaning, they now more commonly call the Silent
Woman. The fact, however, of it being particularly an oilman’s sign,
makes it possible that it may have some reference to the heedless
[_head_ anciently was pronounced _heed_] or foolish virgins of the
parable, who had no oil in their lamps when the bridegroom came. Where
is your head? is still a question addressed to forgetful people.
There is a very curious example of this sign at Widford, near
Chelmsford, representing on one side a half-length portrait of Henry
VIII., on the reverse, a woman without a head, dressed in the costume of
the latter half of the last century, with the inscription _Forte Bonne_.
The addition of the portrait of Henry VIII. has led to the popular
belief that the headless woman is meant for Anna Boleyn, though probably
it is simply a combination of the KING’S HEAD AND GOOD WOMAN.
This sign is equally common on the Continent; the book of Dutch
signboard inscriptions of the seventeenth century, from which we have
constantly quoted, gives several verses which figured under various
signs of the Good Woman. Amongst them the following are worth
noticing:--
“Hier is de goede vrouw te vinden,
Na ’t leven zeer net afgebeeld,
Daar niet als ’t hoofd maar aan en scheeld,
Dewyl dat draait met duizend winden;
Indien er ’t hoofd was aangebleven
Sy was nooit goed haar gansche leven.”[649]
Another had:--
“De vrouw die is een mannen-plaag,
Al zyn snot-leepels daarna graag;
Dies als dat vuur is uitgedoofd
Dan wenschen zy, haar zonder hoofd.”[650]
In Italy, also, it is known, and serves as a sign to many an inn.
Readers who may have visited Turin will remember the kind reception of
“la buona Moglie” in that town. In Paris it gives its name to a street,
_Rue de la Femme sans Tête_. The picture in France is generally
accompanied by the legend, “_Tout en est bon_,” the absence of the head
probably implying “_fors la tête_,” except the head; _ergo_, everything
is good in woman except her head--her ever-changing whims and fancies.
At the present day there is, in the Rue St Marguerite, a pork butcher
who has made the following use of this sign: Under the usual
representation of the Good Woman he has written in golden letters, “Tout
en est bon, depuis les” (a representation of four pigs’ feet) “jusqu’à
la,” (a representation of an enormous boar’s head.) This ungallant
association of ideas of a woman and a pig is, we are sorry to say, not
without an example in our nation, though fortunately our rudeness was
two hundred years ago, and we have grown more refined since:--
“One Ambrose Westrop, vicar of the Parish church Much to Sham (?) in
the county of Essex, taught in a Sermon That a Woman is worse than a
sow in two respects; First: because a sowskin is good to make a cart
saddle and her bristles good for a sowter. Secondly: because a sow
will run away if a man cry but _hoy_, but a woman will not turn her
head, though beaten down with a leaver, and that all the difference
between a woman and a sow is in the nape of the neck, where a woman
can bend upwards, but a sow cannot, etc. The said Westrop is a great
malignant and very envious and full of venome against the Parliament.
But his benefit is sequestered, as well he deserves, from his
filthiness and unfitnesse to the place.”--_Remarkable Passages and
Occurrences of Parliament_, &c. December 8 to 15, 1644.
Lawyers, priests, and women have, at all times and in all countries,
received a liberal share of abuse and slander; no wonder, then, that the
Lawyer kept the Good Woman in countenance. In a sign derived from the
Good Woman the man of law is “damned to fame” as the HONEST LAWYER, the
sign representing him with his head in his hand, as the only condition
in which by any possibility he could be honest. Another sign abusive of
the softer sex is the MAN LOADED WITH MISCHIEF, the sign of an ale-house
in Oxford Street. The original, said to be painted by Hogarth, is
fastened to the front of the house, and has the honour of being
specified in the lease of the premises as one of the fixtures. An
engraving of it is exhibited in the window. It represents a man carrying
a woman, a magpie, and a monkey, the woman with a glass of gin in her
hand. In the background, on the left-hand side, is a public-house with a
pair of horns as a “finial” on the gable end; this house is called
“_Cuckhold’s Fortune_;” a woman is passing in at the door, and a sow is
asleep in a pot-house, with a label above, “She is as drunk as a sow,”
whilst two cats are making love on the roof. On the right-hand side is
the shop of _S. Gripe, Pawnbroker_, which a carpenter enters to pledge
his tools. The engraving is signed: “Drawn by Experience; engraved by
Sorrow.” Under it is the following rhyme:--
“A monkey, a magpie, and a wife,
Is the true emblem of strife.”
This sign has been imitated in other places, sometimes called the
MISCHIEF, as at Blewbury, Wallingford, or the LOAD OF MISCHIEF, as at
Norwich. About twenty years ago there was one to be seen in the
neighbourhood of Cambridge, with this expressive addition, that the man
was tied to the woman by a chain and padlock. A similarly malicious
reflection on the “softer sex” is seen in many parts of France, as in
Paris, Troyes, and various other towns. It is called “_Le trio de
Malice_,” (the three bad ones,) the trio being composed of a cat, a
woman, and a monkey.
NOBODY was the singular sign of John Trundell, a ballad-printer in
Barbican in the seventeenth century. In one of Ben Jonson’s plays Nobody
is introduced, “attyred in a payre of Breeches, which were made to come
up to his neck, with his armes out at his pockets and cap drowning his
face.” This comedy was “printed for John Trundle and are to be sold at
his shop in Barbican at the sygne of No-Body.” A unique ballad,
preserved in the Miller Collection at Britwell House, entitled “The
Well-spoken No-Body,” is accompanied by a woodcut representing a ragged
barefooted fool on pattens, with a torn money-bag under his arm, walking
through a chaos of broken pots, pans, bellows, candlesticks, tongs,
tools, windows, &c. Above him is a scroll in black-letter:--
“Nobody . is . my . Name . that . Beyreth . Every . Bodyes .
Blame.”
The ballad commences as follows:--
“Many speke of Robin Hoode that never shott in his bowe,
So many have layed faultes to me, which I did never knowe;
But nowe, beholde, here I am,
Whom all the worlde doeth diffame;
Long have they also scorned me,
And locked my mouthe for speking free.
As many a Godly man they have so served
Which unto them God’s truth hath shewed;
Of such they have burned and hanged some,
That unto their ydolatrye wold not come:
The Ladye Truthe they have locked in cage,
Saying of her Nobodye had knowledge.
For as much nowe as they name Nobodye
I thinke verilye they speke of me:
Whereffore to answere I nowe beginne--
The locke of my mouthe is opened with ginne,
Wrought by no man, but by God’s grace,
Unto whom be prayse in every place,” &c.
In J. O. Halliwell’s “Shakespeare,” vol. i., p. 450, from whence we
borrow the above, the subject is still further illustrated by the
following quotation:--
“Nobody keeps such a rule in every bodies house that from the
mistresse to the basest maide, there is not a shrewde turne done
without him: for if the husband finde his study opened and enquire who
did it? he shall finde Nobody: if the goodwife see her utensils
disordered and demand who displast them, the issue of every servant’s
reply will bee, Nobody: if the servants discover the beds towsed and
the chambers durtied it will bee, Nobody; when every child is
examined; nay, if the children fall and break their noses, or scratch
one another’s faces, and either mother or nursse seeme angry and aske,
who hurt them, they will quickly answer Nobody toucht them; and their
desire of excuse hath brought lying to a custom.”--_Rich Cabinet
furnished with Variety of Excellent Description_, 1616.
At present there is an inn in Plymouth called NO PLACE inn; and formerly
there was at Norwich a public-house called NOWHERE--a name which would,
to the truant husband returning home in the small hours of night,
suggest a ready answer to the warm reception of his partner for better
and for worse, who, for the last few hours, has been
“Gath’ring her brows, like gath’ring storm--
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.”
Another ancient sign, to which constant allusions are made in the old
writers, is the THREE LOGGERHEADS, which, old as it is, and stale as the
joke may be, has not yet lost its charms for the inhabitants of many of
our villages and quiet inland towns. It represents two silly-looking
faces, with the inscription--
“WE THREE
LOGGERHEADS BE,”
--the unsuspecting spectator being, of course, the third. Douce, in his
“Illustrations to Shakespeare,” suggests that the original picture
should have represented three fools. Thus, in Shirley’s “Bird in Cage,”
Morello, who counterfeits a fool, says, “_We be three of old_, without
exception to your lordship, only with this difference, I am the wisest
fool.” In Day’s “Comedy of Law Tricks,” 1608, Julia says, “Appoint the
place prest,” to which the answer is, “_At the three fools._” Sometimes,
as Mr Henley has stated, it was two asses. Thus, in Beaumont and
Fletcher’s “Queen of Corinth.” ac. iii., sc. 1:--
“_Nean._ He is another ass, he says; I believe him.
_Uncle._ We be three, heroical prince.
_Nean._ Nay, then we must have the picture and the word _Nos sumus_.”
In this form it is still seen on valentines and humorous _cartes de
visite_. Shakespeare, too, alludes to this sign in “Twelfth Night,” ac.
ii., sc. 2:--“How now, my hearts? did you never see the picture of We
Three?” Decker, ridiculing the manners and customs of his day, speaks of
the fast men sitting on the stage at theatrical representations--“but
assure yourself, by continual residence, you are the first and principal
man in election, to begin the number of _We three_.”[651] In a pamphlet,
entitled, “Heads of all Fashions; being a plain Disection or Definition
of Divers and Sundry Sorts of Heads,” London, 1642, the Loggerheads are
thus mentioned:--
“A Logerhead alone cannot well be,
_At scriveners’ windows many time hang three_.
A country lobcocke, as I once did heare,
Upon a penman put a grievous jeare.
If I had been in place, as this man was,
I should have called this country coxcomb asse.”
This alludes to one of the jokes in “Mother Bunch’s Merriments,” 1604,
where a country fellow asks a poor scrivener, sitting in his shop, “I
pray you, master, what might you sell in your shop, that you have so
many ding-dongs hang at your dore?” “Why, my friend,” quoth the
obligation-maker, “I sell nothing but loggerheads.” “By my fay, master,”
quoth the countryman, “you have a fair market with them, for you have
left but one in your shop, that I see;” and so, laughing, went his way,
leaving much good sport to them that heard him. This old anecdote may
have given rise to scriveners using the Loggerheads as their sign, which
otherwise seems a not very pleasant reflection on their customers. We
can scarcely think that any symbolism was intended, and that the
Loggerheads were emblematical of the secretary’s silence and discretion.
In the seventeenth century the sign might have been seen in London.
There was one in Tooley Street in 1665, having on its trades token the
inscription, “We are 3;” another variety had “We three Logerheads”
underneath the usual heads. In the ballad of the “Arraigning and
Indicting of Sir John Barleycorn, Knt., printed for Timothy Tosspot,”
the trial takes place at the Three Loggerheads, by the Justices Oliver
and Old Nick. The witnesses are cited at the sign of the _Three Merry
Companions in Bedlam_--viz., Poor Robin, Merry Tom, and Jack Lackwit.
The LABOUR IN VAIN occurs among the trades tokens, and such a sign gave
its name to Old Fish Street, which Hatton, in his “New View of London,”
1708, p. 405, calls “Old Fish Street, or Labour in Vain Hill.” The sign
represented two women scrubbing a negro; hence it was called by the
lower classes, the DEVIL IN A TUB. “To wash an Æthiop,” is a proverbial
expression, often met with in ancient dramatists, for labour in
vain.[652] THE CASE IS ALTERED, generally alludes to some alteration in
the affairs of the landlord, either “for better or for worse.” A
public-house near Banbury was so called on account of being built on the
site of a mere hovel. Another house of the same name was, in 1805,
erected on the road between Woodbridge and Ipswich, to meet the demand
of the thirsty sons of Mars then quartered in those two towns. Its sign
in those days was the Duke of York, or some such name. But when, after
the downfall of the “Corsican Tyrant,” and the subsequent declaration of
peace, the barracks were pulled down, the soldiers disbanded, and the
benches of the ale-house remained empty, the old sign was removed, and
in its place put up the sad truth--“The Case is Altered.” In another
instance, the sign was adopted at Oxford as a quiet hint by a sharp
business man, who succeeded as landlord to an easy-going Boniface, under
whose sway the customers had been allowed to run up debts; but the case
was altered under the new regulations. A correspondent of _Notes and
Queries_ (Nov. 21, 1857) gives the following example:--“I saw this sign
once pictorially represented in the West of England thus:--A person,
with a large wig and gown, and seated at a table; another, dressed like
a farmer, stood talking to him. In the distance, seen through the open
door, was a bull. The story, of course, is that related of Plowden, the
celebrated lawyer,[653] and which is now in most books of fables. The
farmer told Plowden that his (the farmer’s) bull had gored and killed
the latter’s cow. ‘Well,’ said the lawyer, ‘the case is clear, you must
pay me her value.’ ‘Oh! but,’ said the farmer, ‘I have made a mistake.
It is _your_ bull which has killed my cow.’ ‘Ah! the case is altered,’
quoth Plowden. The expression had passed into a proverb in Old Fuller’s
time.” This sign also occurs in some London localities, as at Upper
Kensal Green, and elsewhere.
The GRINDING YOUNG is a very curious sign at Harold’s Cross, Dublin. The
subject is taken from the old ballad of the “Miller’s Maid Grinding Old
Men Young,” commencing--
“Come, old, decrepit, lame, or blind,
Into my mill to take a grind.”
It is also a favourite subject on old chap-prints, which represent a
kind of hand-mill, into the funnel-shaped top of which various
decrepit-looking old men creep by a ladder, most of them glass in hand,
greatly elated at the prospect of a renewal of youth. Meanwhile, a young
maid is turning the handle of the mill, from the bottom of which the
patients come out, quite young and new--if not better--men. Pretty girls
stand at the side, ready to receive the rejuvenated creatures and walk
off with them, their arms affectionately twined round their necks, and
evidently preparing to play the old game over again, for “the cordial
drop of life is love alone”--the whole affair a very decided improvement
upon the usual way of entering the stage of this world.
A somewhat similar sign, though not quite so anacreontic, is of frequent
occurrence in France, namely The FOUNTAIN OF JUVENCA,--_la Fontaine de
Jouvence_. A stone bas-relief of this subject, a carving of the
sixteenth century, still remains in the Rue du Four, in Paris. The story
was borrowed by the French romancers from the Eastern tales.
The sign of the last house in a row on the outskirts of a town, used
frequently to be the WORLD’S END. This was represented in various
punning ways; sometimes by a globe in clouds, as on the trades token of
Margaret Tuttlesham, of Golden Lane, Barbican, in 1666. Others rendered
it by a fractured globe in a dark background, with fire and smoke
bursting through the rents, and thus it was represented at the World’s
End in the King’s Road, Chelsea, in 1825. At Ecton, Northampton, it is
typified, with a truly classical notion of physical geography, by a
horseman whose steed is rearing over an abyss on the edge of a world
terminated perpendicularly. A fourth, and more homely, way of
representing it was a man and a woman walking together on the margin of
a landscape, with this distich:
“I’ll go with my friend
To the world’s end.”
The out-of-the-way sites of such houses was the cause of their not
enjoying the very best of reputations. Those, at least, of the World’s
End at Chelsea and at Knightsbridge were rather exceptionable. Both
these houses were much patronised by the gallants of the reign of
Charles II. when breaking the seventh commandment; hence the altercation
between two sisters in Congreve’s play of “Love for Love:”
“_Mrs Foresight._ I suppose you would not go alone to the World’s End?
“_Mrs Frail._ The World’s End! What, do you mean to banter me?
“_Mrs Foresight._ Poor innocent; you don’t know that there is a place
called the World’s End. I’ll swear you can keep your
countenance--surely you’ll make an admirable player.
“_Mrs Frail._ I’ll swear you have a great deal of impudence, and in my
mind too much for the stage.
“_Mrs Foresight._ Very well, that will appear who has most. You never
were at the World’s End? eh.”
Pepys also honoured a World’s End, the “drinking-house by the Park,”
with an occasional visit. On Sunday, the 9th of May 1669, for instance,
he went to church at St Margaret’s, Westminster, and that duty
performed, walked “towards the park, but too soon to go in, so went on
to Knightsbridge, and there eat and drank at the World’s End, _where we
had good things_, and then back to the park, and there till night, being
fine weather and much company, and so home.” The “good things” evidently
proved a strong attraction, for three weeks after he went again, “and
there was merry, and so home late.” In 1708 Tom Brown thus alluded to
its equivocal reputation. “The lady must take a tour as far as
Knightsbridge or Kensington, stop, maybe, at the World’s End or the
Swan; offer my spark a small treat,” &c.[654] Under the name of _le Bout
du Monde_, the same sign was common in France, where in ancient Paris it
gave a name to the street now called Rue du Cadran. With that inveterate
weakness for punning inherent to sign-painters--those of the French
nation in particular--it was sometimes represented by a he-goat (_bouc_)
and a world.
THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN is still common, being generally
represented by a man walking at the south pole; in that guise it was to
be seen some twenty-five years ago on the Greenwich Road. But the
meaning of the sign is a state of things the opposite of what is natural
and usual,--a conceit in which the artists of former ages took great
delight, and which they represented by animals chasing men, horses
riding in carriages, and similar pleasantries. This also was a Dutch
sign under the name of DE VERKEERDE WERELD, (_the world reversed_.) It
was used by a publican in the seventeenth century in Holland, with this
inscription:
“De wereld staat niet regt,
Voor de deur hangt hy verkeerd
‘K Heb wyn en bier, en ’t geen gy meer begeert.”[655]
Of the MOONRAKERS we only know one instance, that in Great Suffolk
Street, Borough, where it has been for at least half a century. The
original of this may have been one of the stories of the Wise Men of
Gotham. A party of them going out one bright night, saw the reflection
of the moon in the water; and, after due deliberation, decided that it
was a green cheese, and so raked for it. Another version is, that some
Gothamites, passing in the night over a bridge, saw from the parapet the
moon’s reflection in the river below, and took it for a green cheese.
They held a consultation as to the best means of securing it, when it
was resolved that one should hold fast to the parapet whilst the others
hung from him, hand-in-hand, so as to form a chain to the water below,
the last man to seize the prize. When they were all in this position,
the uppermost, feeling the load heavy, and his hold giving way, called
out, “Halloo! you below, hold tight while I take off my hand to spit on
it!” The wise men below replied, “All right!” upon which he let go his
hold, and they all dropped down into the water, and were drowned.
A Moonraker is also the nickname for a native of Wiltshire, and a very
silly story is told there as its origin. Some Wiltshire smugglers, on
one of their nightly expeditions, being surprised by excisemen, were
compelled to hide a barrel of brandy in a pond, which one of the gang at
the first opportunity privately fished out for his own personal benefit.
A few nights after, when the Argus eyes of the Excise were soundly
closed, the rest of the band availed themselves of a clear moonlight to
return to the spot in order to “call the spirits from the vasty deep,”
and began raking the water to their hearts’ content, for, taking the
reflection of the moon to be the top of the barrel, they could not be
convinced that the “spirit was departed,” till morning came and showed
them that their barrel was all “moonshine.” Another version substitutes
thieves and a cheese for the smugglers and the brandy barrel.
The CRADLE AND THE COFFIN, or FIRST AND LAST, was formerly a sign in
Norwich, and one can still be seen on the South Quay, Yarmouth. This
combination may have its moral; not so the equally serious MORTAL MAN,
in the little village of Troutbeck, near Ambleside, for there the
denomination is simply borrowed from the beginning of the inscription
which has nothing of the _memento mori_ about it:--
“Thou mortal man that liv’st by bread,
What is it makes thy nose so red?”
“Thou silly elf with nose so pale,
It is with drinking Burkett’s ale.”
This imaginary dialogue is supposed to be held by the two figures on the
signboard, the one a poor miserable-looking object, the other, who
indulged in Burkett’s ale, the chubby picture of health, with a nose
like that of Bardolph, “clothed in purple.” This sign was the work of
Ibbetson; the picture is now gone, but the verses remain.[656]
At Hedenham, on the road between Norwich and Bungay, there is a sign
called TUMBLE-DOWN DICK, representing on one side Diogenes, on the
other, a drunken man, with the following distich:
“Now Diogenes is dead and laid in his tomb,
Tumble-down Dick is come in his room.”
At Alton, in Hants, a drunken man is represented upsetting a table
covered with cups and glasses. The verses underneath this picture are
the same as at Hedenham, except that it is “Barnaby” who is said to be
defunct, and not Diogenes. At Woodton in Norfolk, another sign with this
name represents a jolly old farmer in a red coat, with bottle and glass
in his hand, falling off his chair in a state of _Bacchi plenus_. The
earliest mention we find of the sign is in the _Original Weekly Journal_
for April 26--May 3, 1718, where a murder is reported to have been
committed at the Tumbling-down Dick in Brentford. “Tumble-down Dick, in
the borough of Southwark,” says the _Adventurer_, No. 9, 1752, “is a
fine moral on the instability of greatness, and the consequences of
ambition.” As such it was set up in derision of Richard Cromwell, the
allusion to his fall from power, or “tumble down,” being very common in
the satires published after the Restoration, and amongst others,
Hudibras; thus, part iii., canto ii., 231:--
“Next him his son and heir apparent
Succeeded, though a lame viceregent,
Who first laid by the Parliament,
The only crutch on which he leant;
And then sunk underneath the state
That rode him above horseman’s weight.”
The same idea, and almost the identical words, occur again in his
“Remains,” in the tale of the Cobbler and the Vicar of Bray:--
“What’s worse, old Noll is marching off,
And Dick, his heir apparent,
Succeeds him in the Government,
A very lame Vice-regent;
He’ll reign but little time, poor tool,
But sinks beneath the state,
That will not fail to ride the fool
‘Bove common horseman’s weight.”
We meet it also in the ballad, “Old England is now a brave Barbary,”
_i.e._ horse, from a “Collection of Loyal Songs,” reprinted in 1731,
vol. ii., p. 231,--
“But _Nol_, a rank rider, gets first in the saddle,
And made her show tricks, and curvate, and rebound;
She quickly perceiv’d he rode widdle-waddle,
And like his coach-horses[657] threw his highness to ground.
“Then _Dick_, being lame, rode holding the pummel,
Not having the wit to get hold of the rein;
But the jade did so snort at the sight of a Cromwell,
That poor _Dick_ and his kindred turn’d footmen again.”
Dick’s bacchic propensities are also sung in many an old song. Two of
the Luttrell Ballads, vol. ii., pp. 11 and 36, allude to his weakness in
this respect:--
“Then thirdly Oliver he took place,
And set up young Dick the fool of his race;
_Dick loved a cup of nectar_.”
In another:--
“Drunken Dick was a lame Protector.”
Perhaps to the same origin may be referred the sign of SOLDIER DICK,
which occurs near Disley, Stockport; and HAPPY DICK, at Abingdon.
Tumbling-down Dick was also the name of a dance in the last century,
which gives additional strength to the supposition that Dick Cromwell
was intended, since otherwise an ordinary signboard would scarcely have
come to such honour.
The JOLLY TOPER is a common public-house sign, probably put up as a good
example to the customers; in London, there is a TIPPLING PHILOSOPHER,
“the right man in the right place,” for he “hangs out” in _Liquor Pond_
Street, opposite Reid’s great brewery. Here we have _l’embarras du
choix_; which philosopher was intended by the sign, for they all, more
or less, “pleaded guilty to the soft impeachment.” Theophrastus, in his
“Treaty on Drunkenness,” tells us that the seven sages of Greece often
met together to indulge in a cheerful glass. Plato not only excuses a
drop too much occasionally, but even orders it. Heraclitus, the weeping
philosopher, never laughed but when he was “half seas over.” Xenocrates
gained a golden crown, awarded by Dionysius the tyrant to the deepest
drinker. Seneca states that Solon and Arcesilaus are believed to have
“indulged in wine,” and Cornelius Gallus says that Socrates “carried off
the palm from his contemporaries by his drinking capacities.” Cato, we
know from various sources, liked his glass; Horace tells us--
“Narratur et prisci Catonis
Sæpe mero caluisse virtus;”[658]
and Seneca says of him: “Cato vinum laxabat animum curis publicis
fatigatum;”[659] elsewhere he remarks: “Catoni ebrietas objecta est, at
facilius efficiet quisquis qui objecerit honestum quam turpe
Catoni.”[660] Seneca was certainly a biassed judge, for he says:
“Habebitur aliquando ebrietas honor et plurimum meri cepisse virtus
erit.”[661] Other tippling philosophers are enumerated in the following
quaint Latin verses, the author of which is not known:--
“Tunc vix Democritus poterat compescere risum,
Riderent cum sibi vina labris.
Tergeret ut fletus contrarius alter amaros,
Sugebat lacrymas saepe, lagena, tuas.
Divinum ut Bacchi semper spiraret odorem,
Diogenes medii vixit in orbe cadi.
Dicitur ardentem cum sese misit in Æthnam,
Empedocles modico non caluisse mero.
Teque ferunt veteres guttas, Epicure, Lyæi
Vel minimas atomis antetulisse tuis.
Talia ne dubiter potare exempla secutus,
Qui sapit ille bibit, qui bibit ergo sapit.”[662]
In Holland they have a curious practice, which the _Spectator_ thus
describes:--
“The Dutch who are more famous for their industry than for their wit
and humour, hang up in several of their streets what they call the
sign of the GAPER; that is, the head of an idiot dressed in a cap and
bells and gaping in a most immoderate manner; this is a standing jest
in Amsterdam.”
But the statement is slightly--probably wilfully--incorrect. Carved
wooden busts of Gapers are still used at the present day in Holland, but
are, and have always been, chemists’, or rather, druggists’ signs, to
intimate that narcotics are sold within, as gaping or yawning is a
precursor of sleep. The costume of these busts is generally somewhat
Oriental, as Eastern nations were supposed to be not only expert in
herbs and medicines, but also, because opium came from Eastern climes.
A very curious and rare sign is to be seen in the little village of
Nidd, near Knaresborough; this is the ASS IN THE BAND-BOX. We find it
mentioned in 1712 in Partridge’s MS. book of “Celestial Motions.”[663]
In the month of October of that year he entered the following
memorandum:--“At the end of this month the villains made the Band-box
plot, to blow up Robin and his family with a couple of inkhorns, and
that rogue Swift was at the opening of the band-box and the discovery of
the plot. The truth of it all was: ‘---- in a Band-box.’”[664] It
figured also as one of the signs in Bonnel Thornton’s signboard
exhibition of 1762.[665] It seems to have originated from an extremely
indelicate joke called “selling bargains,” with which the maids of
honour amused themselves in Swift’s time, (see his “Polite
Conversation;”) unless it be a vernacular reading of some crest, such as
an antelope or a unicorn issuing out of a mural crown.
In the borough of Southwark is a sign on which is inscribed “The OLD
PICK-MY-TOE,” which, in the absence of any better origin, we may suppose
to be a vulgar representation of the Roman slave who, being sent on some
message of importance, would not stop to pick a thorn out of his foot,
until he had completed his mission. Probably this was the same sign as
that represented on the trades token of Samuel Bovery in George Lane, a
naked figure picking one of its feet; but the name of the house is not
given on the token. JACK OF BOTH SIDES, at Reading, is so named because
the house stands at a point where two roads meet in the form of a Y, and
the house being wedge-shaped, has an entry at each side. Such a house in
London is often called by the vulgar a “Flat-iron.”
The OLD SMUGS is a sign on the trades token of Joseph Hall, at Newington
Butts, 1667, representing a smith and an anvil; but whether John Hall
himself was “old Smvgs,” or whether he kept a tavern frequented by
blacksmiths, history does not inform us. This last is also the name of
one of the characters in the “Merry Devil at Edmonton.” The BATTERED
NAGGIN (_sic_ for Noggin) is an Irish sign, it being in that country a
figurative expression for a man who has got more than is good for
him,--“he has got a lick of a battered naggin.” The NOGGIN, without the
adjective, occurs at a few places in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The
TUMBLING SAILORS, representing three seamen “half-seas-over,” and
reeling arm-in-arm down a street, may be seen near Broseley, at Dudley,
and in other places. The CRIPPLE’S INN at Stockingford, Warwick, is
doubtless nothing more than a very “lame” attempt at comicality. The HAT
IN HAND, in Portsea, promises a polite host; but what can be expected of
OLD CARELESS, the ominous name of a public-house at Stapleford, Notts,
of SPITE HALL at Brandon, Durham, or of OLD NO, which occurs in Silver
Street, Sheffield? SLOW AND EASY is the unpromising name of an ale-house
at Lostock, Chester; let us hope that it may be meant for a version of
the Italian proverb, “_chi va piano va sano_,” meaning that the landlord
will be content with small and fair profits, and acquire fortune by slow
and easy steps.
[627] The “goose’s foot” she obtained was most probably that at the
corner of her eye--_i.e._, she became an old woman--for the French call
_patte d’oie_--goose’s foot--that first attack of time upon beauty which
we term the crow’s foot.
[628] A whetstone was anciently the name given in derision to a liar.
The reason of it is explained in the following rhymes under an old
engraving in the Bridgewater collection, representing a man with a
whetstone in his hand:--
“The whettstone is a man that all men know,
Yet many on him doe much cost bestowe:
Hee’s us’d almost in every shoppe, but why?
An edge must needs be set on every lye.”
How old is this connexion between lies and whetstones may be seen from
Stow:--“Of the like counterfeit physition have I noted (in the Summarie
of my Chronicles, anno 1382,) to be set on horsebacke, his face to the
horsetaile, the same taile in his hand as a bridle, a collar of jordans
about his necke, _a whetstone on his breast_, and so led through the
citie of London with ringing of basons, and banished.”--_Stow’s
Chronicle_, Howe’s edition, 1614, p. 604. It is a curious coincidence
that in France and Germany a knife--the Rodomont knife--was handed over
to outrageous liars. A vestige of this custom was still preserved at the
university of Bonn at the end of the last century, where, when one of
the company at the students’ mess drew the long bow a little too
strongly, it was customary for all who sat at the table, without making
any remarks, to lay their dinner knives on the top of their glasses, all
pointing towards the offender.
[629] _London Gazette_, Dec. 23-26, 1700.
[630] _Ibid._, Jan. 10-14, 1678.
[631] James Christopher le Blond, a Fleming by birth, obiit 1740, made
preparations to copy the Hampton Court tapestry cartoons. For this
purpose he built a house in Mulberry Gardens, Chelsea, but the project
failed.
[632] A Walk from London to Fulham. By the late T. C. Croker. 1860.
[633] Antiquarian Repertory, vol. i.
[634] “The ox gives the shoemaker leather of which he makes boots to be
worn. As a grateful return I have ordered the ox to be portrayed here in
boots and spurs.”
[635]
“Look here, this cow wears boots;
Were it a bull it would be less odd.”
[636] “This is the Cock in Boots. Christ has been crucified, with a
crown of thorns on His head. He that does not believe it is as bad as
Thomas.”
[637]
“At the brave Jackass in Boots,
There is tobacco, brandy, and gingerbread for sale.”
[638] Boswell’s Life of Johnson, vol. iii., p. 261. 1819.
[639] A Trip to Stirbitch Fair, 1703.
[640] Sometimes it is conveyed in an ingenious manner by a watch face
without pointers accompanied by the significant words, NO TICK.
[641] “To-day for money, to-morrow for nought.”
[642]
“When this cock shall crow,
Credit will be given.”
[643] “Credit is dead: he has been killed by bad payers.”
[644] Harl. MSS., No. 6200.
[645] Cambridge Jests; or, Witty Alarums for Melancholy Spirits. Printed
at the Looking-Glass, on London Bridge, for Thomas Morris.
[646]
“You may fight, you may pray, you may plead,
But I am the farmer who lays the eggs,”--_i.e._, finds the money.
[647] Annotations to Ames’s Typographical Antiquities.
[648] MS. Harleian. 4690, 19 Edw. III.
[649]
“Here you may find a good woman,
Faithfully portrayed from the life.
Nothing is wanting but her head,
Because that turns about with every wind.
If the head had been left her,
She would never have been good in all her life.”
[650]
“Women are a plague to man,
And though young ’spoons’ are fond of them.
As soon as their fire is quenched,
They wish her head was off.”
[651] Gull’s Hornbook.
[652] Massinger’s Parliament of Love, ac. ii., sc. 2; Roman Actor, ac.
iii., sc. 2, &c.
[653] Edmund Plowden, obiit 1584, was buried and has a monument in the
Temple Church.
[654] Walk round London and Suburbs, 1708, p. 46.
[655]
“The world does not go right,
Before my door it hangs upside down.
I sell wine and beer, and all that you may desire.”
[656] A somewhat different version of these rhymes is given on page 40.
[657] In allusion to Cromwell’s accident in Hyde Park, October 1654,
when his coach-horses ran away, and his highness, who was driving, fell
from the box between the traces, and was dragged along for a
considerable distance.
[658] “It is said that the virtue of Cato the elder was frequently
warmed by wine.”
[659] “Cato refreshed his mind with wine when it was wearied with the
cares of the commonwealth.”
[660] “Cato has been blamed for drunkenness, but it is easier to find
reason to praise, than to blame Cato.”
[661] “Drunkenness will be sometimes considered as honourable, and to
drink a great quantity of pure wine as a virtue.”
[662] “When the wine sparkled on the lips of Democritus, it was then
that he could not restrain himself from laughter. Another [Heraclius] on
the contrary, often drank thy tears, O bottle, in order to dry his own
tears. Diogenes lived in a barrel so that he might always smell the
odour of divine wine. It is said that Empedocles, when he jumped down
burning Etna, had first warmed himself with no small quantity of wine.
They also say that thou, O Epicurus, didst prefer even the smallest
drops of old wine to thine atoms. In imitation of these examples, I do
not hesitate in drinking, for he who tastes drinks, consequently he that
drinks is wise.” It is almost impossible to translate this last line, on
account of the pun contained in the verb _sapere_, which at the same
time means “to taste” and “to be wise.” The second line is evidently
imperfect.
[663] Harl. MSS., 6200, p. 68.
[664] This alludes to the well-known plot of a bandbox sent to the Lord
Treasurer, containing a very poor infernal machine, made of inkhorns.
The affair, however, has never been satisfactorily cleared up. Swift is
called a rogue by the indignant Partridge, because he had made a droll
ballad and epitaph upon the “Supposed death of Partridge, the
Almanac-maker,” which Swift had predicted and Partridge publicly denied.
[665] See Appendix.