MISCELLANEOUS SIGNS.
Signs which could not well be classed under any of the former divisions
will find their place in this chapter, and hence a motley gathering may
be expected. As in all inquiries it is proper to begin with the
a. b. c., we shall do so here. The A. B. C. was the sign of Richard
Fawkes, a bookseller, as the imprint of his works says:--
“In the suburbss of the famous Cytye of Lōdon, withoute Templebarre
dwellynge in Durresme rentes [part of Durham House, where now the
Adelphi stands] or else in Powles churche-yerde at the sygne of the
A. B. C. The year of our Lorde MCCCCCXXX.”
This, we must admit, was a very reasonable sign for a “man of letters.”
Continental booksellers also employed it; amongst others, Jacob Pietersz
Paetsy, of Amsterdam, in 1597; in the Hague such a sign gave its name to
a street. About 1825 there was a public-house in Clare Market called the
A. B. C., where the alphabet from A to Z was painted over the door. Even
at the present day many public-houses are called the LETTERS; thus there
are two in Shrewsbury, two in Carlisle, one in Oldham, and others in
various places. GRAND A is a public-house near East Dereham, Norfolk.
LITTLE A was the sign of a tobacconist in Leadenhall Street, _circa_
1780; his tobacco-papers, preserved among the Banks bills, were adorned
with a portrait of “Sir Jeffrey Dunstan, or Old Wigs,” one of the mayors
of Garrat, styled “Old Wigs” from his practice of buying those articles,
by which he made an honourable living before ambition flamed his soul
and he entered upon a political career. GRAND B may be seen at Long
Framlington, Morpeth; Q INN at Staleybridge; and Q IN THE CORNER in
Sheffield. Rhyming alphabets and nursery rhymes present us with the
first and last, but the second we confess is somewhat mysterious: the
_Crowned Q_, (au Q COURRONNE,) which was an old sign in the Rue de la
Ferronière, Paris, is easy enough to understand, and one of those broad
Rabelaisian strokes of humour which the public delighted in a century or
two ago; indeed the sign continued in its old quarters until 1828. The Y
was formerly a mercer’s sign in France, and may have originated from the
custom of tying ribbons up in festoons, when they would assume somewhat
the shape of that letter. It was also the sign of Nicholas Duchemin, a
bookseller in Paris, 1541-1576. He, however, took a Pythagorean view of
this letter, and considered it, as the freemasons do, an emblem of the
double path of life, the broad way leading to destruction, the narrow
way unto life; hence the top of the left hand branch terminated in
flames, the right hand in a crown. The idea was evidently borrowed from
Matt. vii. 13, unless it be from Persius, who says--
“Et tibi quæ Samios deduxit litera ramos,
Surgentem dextro monstravit limite callem.”
[Illustration]
Z was formerly a grocer’s sign in this country, and was said to stand
for Zinzibar, (ginger,) but this Z after all was perhaps only a
corruption of the figure 4 which, we are informed, is or was a constant
grocer’s sign in some parts of Scotland, as for instance in Stirling,
implying that their provisions came from the four quarters of the world.
NUMBER IV is still the sign of an ale-house at 74 Hope Street, Salford,
Manchester. NUMBER THREE is to be seen at Great Layton, near Blackpool.
In 1633 it was the sign of a bookseller, Jean Brunet, in the Rue Neuve
S. Louis, Paris. He says on the imprints of his books, _au Trois de
chiffres_, in contradistinction to the Roman numerals, which at that
time were not named _chiffres_ but _nombres_; chiffres applied only to
the Arab numerals. The latter were introduced by Pope Silvester II.
(999-1003) who, having studied at Seville, acquired them from the Moors.
The BELL is one of the commonest signs in England, and was used as early
as the fourteenth century, for Chaucer says that the “gentil hostelrie
that heighte the Tabard,” was “faste by the Belle.” Most probably bells
were set up as signs on account of our national fondness for
bell-ringing, which procured for our island the name of the “ringing
island,” and made Handel say, that the bell was our national musical
instrument; and long may it be so! We confess to have derived infinitely
more pleasurable feelings from hearing the melodious bells on a summer
afternoon ringing through the clear air and sending their sweet sounds
over corn-field and meadow, over brook and stream, than from any
cavatina or cantata, sung by the dearest paid Italians in crowded
operas, and at over-heated concerts. Paul Hentzner, a German traveller,
who visited this country in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, says, “the
English are vastly fond of noises that fill the air, such as firing of
cannon, beating of drums, and _ringing of bells_; so that it is common
for a number of them to go up into some belfry, and ring bells for hours
together for the sake of exercise.” Aubrey makes a similar remark; and,
for further reference, we may go to Sir Symonds D’Ewes, who writes in
his “Memoirs,” that, in 1618, he was ringing the large bell of St John’s
College, Cambridge, for exercise, when the great comet was in the
heavens; the consequence was, that he got entangled in the ropes, and
nearly fractured his skull, whereupon he wisely resolved not to ring so
long as the mischievous comet was to be seen. Generally, for a merry
peal, the different toned octave bells are rung in succession; then
changes are introduced, which, by continually altering, the succession
of the bells produces a most pleasing effect. A peal of bells usually
consists of eight, hence the frequency of the EIGHT BELLS; besides
these, there are the FOUR BELLS, the FIVE BELLS, the SIX BELLS, the TEN
BELLS; the EIGHT RINGERS, (Norwich and elsewhere,) the OLD RING O’
BELLS, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, &c. THREE SWANS AND PEAL, Walsall,
Staffordshire; the NELSON AND PEAL, also in Warwickshire, and many
others mentioned in a previous chapter. In some old belfries, the rules
and fines of the ringers are painted in rhymes on the walls; as for
instance, in St John’s Church, Chester, (dated 1687,) in All Saints’
Church, Hastings, (dated 1756,) &c. One of the oldest BELL taverns in
Middlesex stood in King Street, Westminster; it is named in the expenses
of Sir John Howard, (Jockey of Norfolk,) in 1466. Pepys dined at this
house, July 1, 1660, invited by purser Washington; but came away greatly
disgusted, for, says he, “the rogue had no more manners than to invite
me, and let me pay my club.” In November of the same year, he was there
again, “to see the 7 flanders mares that my Lord has bought lately.” In
Queen Anne’s reign, the October club, consisting of about one hundred
and fifty county members of Parliament, all unmitigated Tories, used to
meet at this tavern. The BELL, in Warwick Lane, Newgate Street, is
another example of the old London coaching inns, still in its original
condition, the galleries being propped up to prevent their falling down:
everything about the place has a seventeenth century look,--the country
carts, the chickens here in the very heart of the city, the inn kitchen
with its old black clock, its settles and white benches, the very smell
of the cookery going on seems more homely and old English than the hot
greasy vapours emanating from the areas of modern taverns. Coming into
this yard from the adjacent crowded streets, is like entering a
latter-day Pompeii. It was at this inn that Archbishop Leighton, the
honest, steady advocate of peace and forbearance, died in 1684.
“He often used to say that if he were to choose a place to die in, it
should be an Inn; it looks like a pilgrim’s going home, to whom this
world was all as an Inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion
in it. He added, that the officious tenderness and care of friends was
an entanglement to a dying man; and that the unconcerned attendance of
those that could be procured in such a place would give less
disturbance. And he obtained what he desired.”[671]
At the BELL, in the Poultry, lived, in the reign of King William and
Queen Anne, Nathaniel Crouch, the famous bookseller, who was the first
to condense great and learned works into a small and popular form. He
generally wrote under the name of “John Burton.” His “Historical
Rarities in London and Westminster,” was one of the books Dr Johnson, in
his old age, desired to read again in remembrance of the pleasure
derived from their teaching in the days of his youth.
At Finedon, three miles from Wellingborough, there is an old inn, called
the BELL, having for a sign the portrait of a female with the following
lines beneath:--
“Queen Edith, lady once of Finedon,
Where at the Bell good fare is dined on.”
The BELL INN, kept by John Good, at Oxford, has:--
“My name, likewise my ale, is good,
Walk in and taste my own home brew’d;
For all that know John Good can tell,
That, like my sign, it bears the Bell.”
There was a GOLDEN BELL, in St Bride’s Lane, Fleet Street, in the reign
of Queen Anne, next door to which lived Lydia Burcraft, a female
hairdresser, who, as appears from her bill,[672] sold an infallible
pomatum to make the hair grow long and curly. The BLACK BELL is
mentioned by Stowe, p. 81:--
“Above this lane’s [Crooked Lane] end upon Fish Hill Street, is one
great house, for the most part built of stone, which pertained some
time to Edward the Black Prince, son to Edward III., who was in his
lifetime lodged there. It is now altered to a common hostelry, having
the Black Bell for a sign.”
The Monument now stands on the site of this house.
The Bell occurs in innumerable combinations, most of which seem to have
no particular meaning, but simply to arise from the old custom of
quartering signs. Among them, we may mention the BELL AND ANCHOR,
Hammersmith, which was much visited by the fashion in the beginning of
the reign of George III. Representations of the place and its visitors
may be seen in several of the caricatures of that period, published by
Bowles and Carver, of St Paul’s Churchyard. It is still in existence,
but its days of glory are past, for, instead of youth and beauty, and
“names known to chivalry,” its customers now mostly consist of the Irish
labourers who live in the lanes and back slums of North End. Further, we
meet with the BELL AND LION, Crew, Cheshire; the BELL AND BULLOCK,
Netherem, Penrith, probably united on account of the alliteration; the
BELL AND CUCKOO, Erdington, near Birmingham; and the BELL AND
CANDLESTICK, also in Birmingham.
The BELL AND CROWN is very common, and withal is a reasonable
combination, for the bell has, from time immemorial, been rung to
express the loyalty of the nation on royal entries, whether into the
world or into a town, on occasion of royal marriages or deaths, at times
of great victories and declarations of peace, and other loyal
celebrations. Hence many bells are inscribed with the words, “=Fear God,
honour the King=,” which, in the beginning of the eighteenth century,
seems also to have been a common inscription on the sign of the
Bell.[673] This sentiment was thus versified by a sign-painter, who
evidently had more loyalty than poetical genius:--
“Let the King
Live Long,
Dong Ding,
Ding Dong.”
[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.
THREE ANGELS.
(Banks’s Bills, 1770.)
NAKED MAN.
(From a print, 1542.)
FIRE BALLOON.
(Banks’s Collection, 1780.)
THREE MORRIS DANCERS.
(Formerly in Old Change, Cheapside, circa 1668.)]
Few signs have so often been wrongly explained as the BELL SAVAGE, on
Ludgate Hill. Stow, generally so accurate, says it received its name
from one Isabella Savage, who had given the house to the company of
cutlers. Where he gathered that information we do not know, but he was
“burning,” as the children say, and was certainly much nearer the truth
than the _Spectator_, who states that it was called after a French play
of “la Belle Sauvage.” The “Antiquarian Repertory,” following Stow,
asserts that the inn was once the property of the Lady Arabella Savage,
familiarly called “Bell Savage,” which name was represented in a rebus
by a wild man and a bell, and so it was always drawn on the panels of
the coaches that used to run to and from it, until the railways changed
our style of travelling. The true origin of the name is manifest from a
document in the Clause Roll, 31 Henry VI.[674]
“D. Script, irrot. Frenssh.
Omnib; Xpi fidelib; ad quos p’sens Scriptum p’ven. Joh’nes Frenssh,
filius primogenitus Joh’is Frenssh, Gentilman, quondam civis et
aurifabri London’ salutem in Domino. Sciatis me dedisse, concessisse,
et hoc p’senti scripto meo confirmasse, Johanne Frenssh, vidue, matri
mee, totum teñ sive hospicium, cum suis p’ten’, vocat’ Savagesynne,
alias vocat’ le Belle on the Hope, in parochia S’ce Brigide in
Fletestreet, London’, h’end et tenend, totum p.’dc̃m ten’ sive
hospicium, cum suis p’t’ in p’fat’ Johanne ad t’minū vite sue, absq’
impeticõe vasti. In cugis rei testimoniū, &c.”[675]
In the sixteenth century, the Belle Savage appears to have been a place
of amusement. “Those who go to Paris garden, the _Bel Savage_, or
theatre, to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence play, must not
account of any pleasant spectacle unless they first pay one penny at the
gate, another at the entry of the scaffold, and a third for quiet
standing.”[676] One of the attractions about that period was Banks’s
wonderful horse, Marocco, which here performed his tricks before a
half-admiring, half-awe-stricken audience, many of whom doubtless
considered the animal a witch, if not a devil. “To mine host of the Bel
Sauage and all his honest guests,” was dedicated the satirical tract of
“Marocco Extaticus,” in which this horse is introduced.[677] During the
civil wars we find this inn mentioned as apparently a Royalist house:
“Upon search at Bell Savage (by order of Parliament) great quantities of
plate were found, intended for York, but stayed by order.”[678] A very
odd accident happened in this inn during the terrific storm of November
26, 1703. A Mr Hempson, we are told, was blown in his sleep out of an
upper room window, and knew nothing of the storm nor of his aerial
voyage, till awaking, he found himself lying in his bed on Ludgate hill.
No doubt the good wine of mine host must have had something to do with
this miraculous flight.[679] Having been for centuries a coaching inn,
its name spread to the provinces, and some inn-keepers copied its sign,
whence we meet with LA BELLE SAUVAGE, Macclesfield, and in one or two
other places.
Balls were extremely common in former times, frequently in combination
with other objects; this arose from the custom of the silk mercers in
hanging out a GOLDEN BALL. Constantine the Great adopted a golden globe
(termed _Hesa_) as the emblem of his imperial dignity, on which, after
he embraced Christianity, he placed a cross, and with this addition it
continues as one of the insignia of royalty at the present day. The
early silk-mercers adopted this golden globe, or ball, as their sign,
because in the middle ages, all silk was brought from the East, and more
particularly from Byzantium and the imperial manufactories there, whence
it was called _serica Constantinopolitana_, _pannus imperialis_,
_Basilica_, de _Basilicio_, ρηγικον, &c. The Golden Ball continued as a
silk-mercer’s sign until the end of the last century, when it gradually
fell to the Berlin wool shops, and with them it continues at the present
day.
Balls of various colours were invariably the signs of quacks and
fortune-tellers in the eighteenth century; the Bagford Bills are full of
Red, Blue, Black, White, and Green Balls, all signs of those gentry who
profess to cure all the evils flesh is heir to. How they came to choose
this sign is hard to say, for we can scarcely imagine that they were
intended to represent magnified pills. Moorfields[680] was the
head-quarters of this trade:--
“If in Moorfields a Lady stroles
Among the _Globes_ and _Golden Balls_,
Where ere they hang she may be certain
Of knowing what shall be her fortune.
Her husband too, I dare to say,
But that she better knows than they.”
_Compleat Vintner_, London, 1720, p. 38.
The Golden Ball was the sign of J. Osborne, bookseller in Paternoster
Row, _circa_ 1740, who printed one of the earliest “London Directories;”
also of Doctor Forman in Lambeth Marsh, who was deeply implicated in the
murder of Sir Thomas Overbury in 1613. The TWO GOLDEN BALLS at the upper
end of Bow Street, Covent Garden, was a place famous for concerts,
balls, and other amusements, in the end of the seventeenth and the
beginning of the eighteenth century. Prince Eugene once attended a
concert at this house. The TWO WHITE BALLS, in Marylebone Street, was
the sign of a school in 1712, where Latin, French, mathematics, &c.,
were taught; in the same house there also lived a clergyman who taught
“to write well in _three_ days.”[681]
The balls of the silk mercers and the quacks, suspended from an iron
above the door, were generally added (in name at least) to the painted
sign, when the house possessed one; as, for instance, the BALL AND CAP,
Hatton Garden, 1668; the BALL AND RAVEN, Spitalfields, in the
seventeenth century, (both on trades tokens;) the RED BALL AND ACORN,
Queen Street, Cheapside, “a [quack] gentlewoman, daughter of an eminent
physician in 1722;”[682] the PLOUGH AND BALL, at Nuneaton; the SALMON
AND BALL, several in London; the BIBLE AND BALL, a bookseller’s in Ave
Maria Lane, 1761; the HEART AND BALL, a silk-mercer’s in Little Britain,
1710; the GREEN MAN AND BALL, on a trades token of Charter House Lane,
where the man is represented throwing a ball; and thus innumerable other
combinations with the Ball might be mentioned.
The THREE BLUE BALLS, generally a pawnbroker’s sign, was also in old
times used for taverns and other houses, while pawnbrokers used at
pleasure such signs as the BLACKAMOOR’S HEAD, the BLACK DOG AND STILL,
&c.[683] On 26th March 1668, Pepys tells us that, coming from the
theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, he and his party went to the BLUE BALLS
tavern in the same locality, where they met some of their friends,
including Mrs Knipp;
“And after much difficulty in getting of musick, we to dancing and
then to a supper of French dishes, which yet did not please me, and
then to dance and sing, and mighty merry we were till about eleven or
twelve at night, with mighty great content in all my company, and I
did, _as I love to do_, enjoy myself. My wife extraordinary fine
to-day, in her flower tabby suit, bought a year and more ago, before
my mother’s death put her into mourning, and so not worn till this
day, and everybody in love with it, and, indeed, she is very fine and
handsome in it. I having paid the reckoning, which came to almost £4,
we parted.”
What a delightful flow of animal spirits that old Secretary of the
Admiralty enjoyed! Alas, for the awful dignity of his modern successors!
There is still a public-house sign of the Blue Balls, at Newport, I.W.
The RING AND BALL, Fenchurch Street, 1700, seems suggested by the game
of pall mall, recently revived under the name of croquet, in which a
ball was struck by a mallet through an iron ring. This sign is mentioned
in an advertisement of some valuable trinkets which had been lost:--
“A gold watch in a plain case, made by Thompson, with the hours of the
day only; a gold chain, pear fashion, two lengths, with a gold
watch-hook of Filegrin Indian work, and hung on it a diamond locket,
large diamonds with hair in the middle and death at length on a
tombstone; another diamond locket, less diamonds, with a cypher in
hair; a red cornelian set in gold engraved with a head; a plain locket
with A. K. in golden letters; a civet-box with a white stone, and
engraved on it outwards a small head and a camel [cameo?] Whosoever
stops them if offered to be pawned or valued, and gives notice to Mr
Hankey at the _Ring and Ball_ in Fenchurch Street, shall have 5
guineas for the whole, or proportionable for any part.”[684] A small
inducement to honesty!
The BAT AND BALL is a common sign for public-houses frequented by
cricketers; also the CRICKETERS’ ARMS, the FIVE CRICKETERS, and many
others. The WRESTLERS obtain their name from a sport formerly in great
favour in this country, and still cultivated in some parts. At Yarmouth
an inn of that name is more celebrated for the _jeu d’esprit_ of the
immortal Nelson than anything else. When the fleet was riding in the
Yarmouth roads, the landlord, desirous of the patronage of the
blue-jackets, requested permission to call his house the Nelson Arms.
His lordship gave him full power to do so, but at the same time reminded
him that his _arms_ were only in the singular number.
“Odium quod certaminibus ortum ultra metum durat,”
says Velleius Paterculus, and the truth of the assertion is exemplified
in the old national antipathy betwixt this country and our neighbours
across the channel, whence the ANTIGALLICAN (the name assumed by a
London association in the middle of the last century) could not fail to
be a favourite sign. At present this feeling exists to only a very small
extent in the minds of our lower orders; but formerly a Frenchman could
not pass through the streets of London with impunity. Stephen Perlin, a
French ecclesiastic, who wrote in 1558 a description of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, says:--
“The people of this country have a mortal hatred for the French as
their ancient enemies, and in common call us _France chenesve_ [French
knave], France dogue, which is to say, French rascals and French dogs.
They also call us _or son_.”
Grosley[685] devotes a whole chapter to this subject, and tells us that
the French were ridiculed on the stage, and insulted and ill-treated in
the streets. Even at the present day, when the penny romances are in
want of a melodramatic villain, a Frenchman is sure to have the honour
of personating him.
At the beginning of this century there was a tavern of this name in
Shire Lane, Temple Bar, kept by Harry Lee, of sporting notoriety, and
father of Alexander Lee, the first and “original _tiger_,” in which
capacity he was produced by the notorious Lord Barrymore. This tavern
was much frequented by his lordship and other gentlemen fond of low
life, pugilism, and so-called sport. The nicknames of the brothers
Barrymore will give a tolerably good idea of their amiable qualities;
the eldest was called _Hellgate_; the second _Cripplegate_, (he was
lame,) and the third _Newgate_, so styled, because, though an honourable
and a reverend, he had been in almost every gaol in England except
Newgate. This interesting family circle was completed by a sister,
called _Billingsgate_, on account of the forcible and flowery language
she made use of. The Antigallican is still in vogue, as there are three
public-houses with that sign in London, besides some in the country, and
an ANTIGALLICAN ARMS at New Charlton, Kent.
On the 29th of September 1783, the first balloon--or air-balloon as it
was then called--was let off at Versailles, in the presence of Louis
XVI. and the Royal Family. A sheep was the first aeronaut, and with this
freight, in a cage, the balloon rose to a height of about 200 yards,
floated over a part of Paris, and came down in the Carrefour Maréchal.
The novelty was at once taken hold of by caricaturists, ballad-mongers,
writers of comic articles, and also by the sign-painters. One of the
first balloon-signs in London was that of the BALLOON FRUIT-SHOP, in
Oxford Street, near Soho Square.[686] As those primitive balloons were,
in the opinion of the vulgar, filled with _smoke_, the tobacconists
considered them as within their province, and thus it became a favourite
device with this class of shops. Several of their tobacco papers are
preserved in the Banks collection. One has the following legend:--“The
best Virginia under the Balloon.” Another, “Smoke the best balloon.” A
third, “The best air-balloon tobacco,” &c. Some of these balloon-cuts
will be found in our illustrations. One of them represents a balloon
ascending, and two smokers standing beneath; one says, “I wish them a
good voyage;” the other, “Smoak the balloon.” As a sign, the BALLOON, or
AIR-BALLOON, is still not uncommon, and may be seen at Kingston, Hants,
Birdlip, Gloucester, &c.
The BLACK DOLL, hung at the doors of rag and marine store-dealers,
probably originated in these shops buying old clothes and finery, which
was sold to the buccaneers and coasting-traders, who exchanged them with
the natives of Africa and America, for gold, ivory, furs, &c.; just as
we see at the present day, Mr Abraham, or Mr Isaacs, constantly
advertising in the _Times_ for our “Left-off clothes for Australia and
the Colonies.” The popular legend, however, has spread a halo of romance
around the black doll. Once upon a time, an ancient dame came to a
rag-shop in Norton Folgate, with a bundle of old clothes, which she
desired to sell, but having no time to spare, she left them with the man
to examine, promising to call for the money next day. The rag-merchant
opened the bundle and found amongst the clothes a pair of diamond
ear-rings, and a black doll. Anxious to restore the diamonds, (as may be
imagined,) he expected the old woman to call day after day, but in vain;
at last, thinking that she might have forgotten the house, he hung up
the black doll at the door, but the old woman never came, and the doll
hung until it rotted away, when it was replaced by a new one. The
novelty of the object attracted many customers to the house, other
ragmen imitated it, and so it finally became a sign, one which is now
fast dying away, and being supplanted by coarse coloured prints, with
absurd rhymes.
At the castles of the nobility the weary traveller formerly found food,
shelter, and good “herborow;” the lower hall was always open to the
adventurer, the tramp, the minstrel, and the pilgrim; the upper hall to
the nobleman, the squire, the wealthy abbot, and the fair ladies. It was
natural, then, that the CASTLE should at an early period have been
adopted as a sign of “good entertainment for man and beast.” Such a sign
became historical in the Wars of the Roses; for the Duke of Somerset,
who had been warned to “shun castles,” was killed by Richard
Plantagenet, at an ale-house, the sign of the Castle.
“For underneath an ale-house’ paltry sign,
The Castle in Saint-Albans, Somerset
Hath made the Wizard famous in his death.”
2 _Henry VI._, ac. v., sc. 2.
According to Hatton,[687] in 1708, the Castle Tavern in Fleet Street had
the largest sign in London; next to it came the WHITE HART Inn, on the
east side of the Borough, in Southwark.
In the reign of George I., the Castle, near Covent Garden, was a famous
eating-house, kept by John Pierce, the Soyer of his day. Here the
gallant feat was performed of a young blood taking one of the shoes from
the foot of a noted toast, filling it with wine, and drinking her
health, after which it was consigned to the cook, who prepared from it
an excellent _ragout_, which was eaten with great relish by the lady’s
admirers.
The CASTLE AND FALCON (probably a combination of two signs, as there is
a Falcon Court close by,) is the sign of an inn in Aldersgate, which
house, or one on its site, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was occupied
by John Day, the most considerable printer and publisher of his time. In
after years the house became a famous coaching inn, and its reputation
spread to all parts of England, whence we meet, at present, with Castles
and Falcons in various towns, as at Birmingham, Chester, &c. Although we
incline to the opinion that the sign arose from a combination, still it
is worthy of remark, that the crest of Queen Catherine Parr was a
crowned falcon, perched on a castle, and of course represented as large
as the castle.
The THREE OLD CASTLES occurs at Mandeville, near Somerton; the CASTLE
AND BANNER at Hunny Hill, Carisbrooke, originating in the banner
floating from the castle turret, when the Lord of the Manor was residing
there. CASTLES IN THE AIR is to be seen at Lower Quay, Fareham; the
origin seems to be an allusion to the ordinary sign swinging in
mid-air--a piece of humour on the part of the landlord. The CASTLE AND
WHEELBARROW, at Rouse Lench, was, doubtless, another innkeeper’s notion
of suggestive humour--but he was a dull wit.
Perhaps the most patriarchal of all signs is the CHEQUERS, which may be
seen even on houses in exhumed Pompeii. On that of Hercules, for
instance, at the corner of the Strada Fullonica, they are painted
lozenge-wise, red, white, and yellow, and on various other houses in
that ancient city, similar decorations may still be observed. Originally
it is said to have indicated that draughts and backgammon were played
within. Brand, in his “Popular Antiquities,” ignorant of any existence
of the sign in so remote a period as that mentioned, says that it
represented the coat of arms of the Earls of Warenne and Surrey, who
bore checqui or and azure, and in the reign of Edward IV., possessed the
privilege of licensing ale-houses. A more plausible explanation, and one
which is not set aside by the existence of the sign in Pompeii, is that
given by Dr Lardner:--
“During the middle ages, it was usual for merchants, accountants, and
judges, who arranged matters of revenue, to appear on a covered banc,
so called from an old Saxon word, meaning a seat, (hence our Bank.)
Before them was placed a flat surface, divided by parallel white
lines, into perpendicular columns; these again divided transversely by
lines crossing the former, so as to separate each column into squares.
This table was called an Exchequer, from its resemblance to a
chess-board, and the calculations were made by counters placed on its
several divisions, (something after the manner of the Roman abacus.) A
money-changer’s office was generally indicated by a sign of the
chequered board suspended. This sign afterwards came to indicate an
inn or house of entertainment, probably from the circumstance of the
innkeeper also following the trade of money-changer--a coincidence
still very common in seaport towns.”[688]
Chaucer’s Merry Pilgrims put up in Canterbury, at the sign of the
“Checker of the Hope,” (_i.e._ the Chequers on the Hoop.)
“They took their in and loggit them at mydmorowe, I trowe,
Atte _cheker of the Hope_ that many a man doth knowe.”
_Ludgate’s Continuation of the Canterbury Tales._
This inn (says Mr Wright, in his edition of the above work) is still
pointed out in Canterbury, at the corner of High Street and Mercery
Lane, and is often mentioned in the Corporation Reports, under the title
of the _Chequer_. It is situated in the immediate vicinity of the
Cathedral, and was therefore appropriate for the reception of the
pilgrims.
When the inn had another sign besides the Chequers, these last were
invariably painted on the door-post; an example of this may still be
seen at the SWISS COTTAGE, Chelsea. In or near Calcots Alley, Lambeth,
was formerly situated an inn or house of entertainment called the
Chequers. In the year 1454 a licence was granted to its landlord, John
Calcot, to have an oratory in the house and a chaplain for the use of
his family and guests, as long as his house should continue orderly and
respectable, and adapted to the celebration of divine service.[689] The
BLACK CHEQUERS in Cowgate, Norwich, is so called on account of the
chequers being black and white, whilst others are red and white, blue
and white, or in such other contrast as may be fancied by the publican.
The CROOKED BILLET is a sign, for which we have not been able to
discover any likely origin; it may have been originally a ragged staff,
or a pastoral staff, or a _baton cornu_--the ancient name for a
battle-axe.[690] It is also the name for a part of the tankard.
Frequently the sign is represented by an untrimmed stick suspended above
the door, as at Wold Newton, near Bridlington, where it is accompanied
by the following poetical effusion on one side of the signboard:--
“When this comical stick grew in the wood,
Our ale was fresh and very good;
Step in and taste, O do make haste,
For if you don’t ’twill surely waste.”
On the other side:--
“When you have viewed the other side,
Come read this too before you ride,
And now to end we’ll let it pass;
Step in, kind friends, and take a glass.”
Though a very rustic sign, it was also used in towns; thus it occurs
among the trades tokens of Montague Close, and was the sign of Andrew
Sowle, a bookseller in Holloway Lane, Shoreditch, in 1683.
The GOLDEN HEAD appears to have been a favourite with artists, probably
a classic or modern bust gilded. It was the sign of Hogarth’s master and
of himself.
“Hogarth made one essay in sculpture. He wanted a sign to distinguish
his house in Leicester Fields; and thinking none more proper than the
Golden Head, he out of a mass of cork made up several thicknesses
compacted together, carved a bust of Van Dyke, which he gilt and
placed over his door. It is long since decayed, and was succeeded by a
head in plaister, which has also perished, and is succeeded by a head
of Sir Isaac Newton.”--_Nichols’s Anecdotes of Hogarth._
At this sign in 1735 Hogarth published the “Harlot’s Progress,” and
several other engravings. Sir Robert Strange the engraver (1721-92)
lived at the Golden Head, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden; and in 1762
the portrait of Cunneshote, one of the Cherokee chiefs, then on a visit
to this country, was for sale at the Golden Head in Queen Square, Ormond
Street; it was engraved after a painting by Francis Parsons. In 1700 it
was the sign of a Monsieur Desert, “almost over against the King’s
Bagnio in Long Acre, who sold guitars from 30 gs. to 30 sh. a
piece.”[691] Thomas Carte the historian (1686 to 1754) lived at Mr Ker’s
at the Golden Head, Newport Street, Long Acre. This sign also occurs in
a most amusing advertisement:--
“_An Exceeding Small Lap Spaniel._
ANY ONE THAT has (to dispose of) such a one, either dog or bitch, and
of any colour or colours, that is very, very small, with a very short
round snub nose, and good ears, if they will bring it to Mrs Smith, at
a coachmaker’s over against the _Golden Head_ in Great Queen Street,
near Lincoln’s Inn Fields, they shall (if approved of) have a very
good purchaser. And to prevent any further trouble, if it is not
exceeding small, and has anything of a longish peaked nose, it will
not at all do. And nevertheless after this advertisement is published
no more, if any person should have a little creature that answers the
character of the advertisement, if they will please but to remember
the direction and bring it to Mrs Smith; the person is not _so_
provided but that such a one will still at any time be hereafter
purchased.”--_Daily Advertiser_, Nov. 1744.
The TWO HEADS was the sign of a dentist in Coventry Street in 1760. One
head probably represented the mouth as possessing a fine set of teeth;
the other doubtless showed how unfortunate is their absence. The
advertisements of this man are gems in their way:--
“Ye Beauties, Beaux, ye Pleaders at the Bar,
Wives, Husbands, lovers, every one beside,
Wh’d have their heads deficient rectify’d,
The Dentist famed who by just application
Excels each other operator in the Nation,
In Coventry’s known street, near Leicester Fields,
At the _Two Heads_ full satisfaction yields.
Teeth artificial he fixes so secure,
That as our own they usefully endure;
Not merely outside show and ornament
But ev’ry property of Teeth intent;
To eat, as well as speak, and form support
The falling cheeks and stumps from further hurt.
Nor is he daunted when the whole is gone,
But by an art-peculiar to him known,
He’ll so supply you’ll think you’ve got your own.
He scales, he cleans, he draws; in Pain gives Ease,
Nor in each operation doth fail to please.
Doth the foul scurvy fierce your Gums assault?
In this he also rectifies the Fault
By a fam’d Tincture. And his Powder nam’d
A Dentifrice is also justly fam’d.
Us’d as directed ’tis excellent to serve
Both teeth and gums, cleanse, strengthen, and preserve;
Foul mouth and stinking breath can ne’er be loved.
But by his aid those evils are removed.”
_London Evening Post_, July 1760.
Taylor the Water poet (1632) mentions two taverns with the sign of the
MOUTH, the one without Bishopsgate, the other within Aldersgate. Trades
tokens of the first house are extant, representing a human head with a
huge mouth wide open. An inventory is still extant of the stock in trade
of this house in the year 1612,[692] which is not uninteresting. From it
we gather that the wines drunk at that period in taverns were white
wine, Vin de Grave, (a small white Burgundy wine,) Orleans wine, Malaga,
sherry, sack, Malmsey, (Malvasia, a wine from the coast of Morea, sweet
and white,) Alicante, (also sweet,) claret, &c. Beer seems to have been
but little asked for by those that frequented this house; for whilst
some of the wines were kept in such large quantities as seven hogsheads,
there were only two dozen and eight bottles of ale. The names of the
rooms in the house were “the Pomegranate,” “the Portcullis,” “Three
Tuns,” “Cross Keys,” “Vine,” “King’s Head,” “Crown,” “Dolphin,” and
“Bell,” all of them favourite tavern signs, and (as remarked on page
280) the usual names for tavern rooms. Among the utensils may be
remarked fifteen silver bowls.
The MERRY MOUTH is still a sign at Fifield, Chipping Norton.
The HAND was the sign of a victualler near the Marshalsea in Southwark,
in 1680. Hands occur in many combinations, owing to the custom of
draughtsmen and sign-painters representing a hand issuing from the
clouds to perform some action or hold some object; thus a hand holding a
coffee-pot was a very general coffee-house sign. The “Hand” seems to
have been a bad or evil sign:--
“I’ll go back to the country of the coffee-houses, [Fleet Street,]
where being arrived I’m in a wood, there are so many of them I know
not which to enter; stay, let me see, where the sign is painted with a
_woman’s hand_ in it, ’tis a bawdy house, where a _man’s_ it has
another qualification; but where it has a star in the sign ’tis
calculated for every lewd purpose.”[693]
Though this is a sweeping denunciation, yet we find the HAND AND STAR
occurring as the sign of a very respectable bookseller, Richard Tothill
in Fleet Street, within Temple Bar, who in 1553 printed the “Dialogue of
Comfort,” by Sir Thomas More. Not unlikely Tothill had adopted this sign
from the watermarks in paper, for one of the most ancient of them is a
hand, either in the position of giving benediction, or in that position
called the upright hand, with a star above it. Messrs Butterworth, the
law-publishers, who now occupy Tothill’s premises, possess all the
leases and documents from the time of that old printer down to the
present day.
Quacks, also, were very fond of a hand in their sign, pointing to an eye
or an ear, to intimate that the great doctor cured the blind or the
deaf. Thus, in the Harleian collection (5931) there is a handbill of S.
Ketelby, sworn physician, who lived at the HAND AND EAR, in Exeter
Street near the Strand, and who professed to cure deafness, lameness,
&c.
“He is capable now, not only of curing those incurable by others, but
even those he could not cure himself six months ago! Note: He resolves
all persons deaf from external causes, whether curable or not, in two
minutes, in the dark as well as at noonday, which no _other_ pretender
can do,” &c.
The HAND AND FACE was the sign of another quack, who lived in Water
Lane, Blackfriars, near Apothecaries’ Hall, in 1735.[694]
A few combinations of the hand refer to games, as the HAND AND BALL,
Barking, (trades token,) 1650, which seems to be derived from some of
the innumerable games at ball in which our ancestors delighted, such as
handball, tennis, balloon or windball, stoolball, hurling, football,
stowball, pallmall, clubball, trapball, northen-spell, cricket, bowling,
&c. The HAND AND TENNIS, Whitcombe Street, Haymarket, is so called from
the adjoining Tennis Court, erected in 1678. The OLD HAND AND TANKARD is
a public-house sign at Wheatly, near Halifax. The HAND AND TENCH seems
to point to a connexion with the followers of Isaac Walton; it was a
mug-house in Seven Dials in 1717. The mugs in those days used to be
suspended above the door, or on the sign-iron, not only in this, but in
all the mug-houses, for the mug might be considered as much a badge of
King George’s friends, as the white cockade was the badge of the
Jacobites.
The HAND AND HEART was, in 1711, the very appropriate sign of a marriage
insurance office in East Harding Street, Shoe Lane.[695] Two right hands
holding a heart was a very old symbol of concord. Aubrey gives
quotations from Tacitus, by which he derives it from the Romans, and
adds:--
“I have seen some rings made for sweethearts with a heart enamelled
held between two hands. See an Epigrame of G. Buchanan, on two rings
that were made by Q. Elisabeth’s appointment, which, being laid one
upon the other, shewed the like figure. The heart was two diamonds,
w^{ch} joyned, made the Heart. Q. Elisabeth kept one moietie, and sent
y^{e} other as a token of her constant friendship to Mary Q. of
Scotts; but she cutt off her head for all that.”[696]
The HEART IN HAND is still a common ale-house sign. A similar meaning is
conveyed by the equally common HAND IN HAND or CROSS HANDS; at
Turnditch, Derby, this sign is called the CROSS O’ THE HANDS, and a
corruption of this again is the CROSS IN HAND, at Waldron, Sussex. The
Hand in Hand was also one of the usual signs of the marriage-mongers in
Fleet Street. Pennant says:--
“In walking along the streets in my youth, on the side next this
prison, (the Fleet,) I have often been tempted by the question, ’Sir,
will you be pleased to walk in and be married.’ Along this most
lawless space was most frequently hung up the sign of a male and
female hand conjoined, with ‘Marriages performed within’ written
beneath. A dirty fellow invited you in; the parson was seen walking
before his shop, a squalid, profligate figure, clad in a tattered
plaid nightgown, with a fiery face, and ready to couple you for a dram
of gin or a roll of tobacco.”
The two hands conjoined is also common in France--where it is called _à
la bonne Foi_. In 1624 it was the sign of Pierre Billaine, bookseller
and printer in the Rue St Jacques, Paris.
The LEG used formerly to be at the door of every hosier. It was also the
sign of a tavern in King Street, Westminster, frequented by Pepys.
Trades tokens are extant of the LEG AND STAR, kept by Richard Finch, in
Aldersgate, in the seventeenth century. It may have represented a leg
with the garter round it, and the star of that order; but more probably
it was a combination of two signs.
The OLD MAN, Market Place, Westminster, was probably intended for Old
Parr, who was celebrated in ballads as “The Olde, Olde, Very Olde
Manne.” The token represents a bearded bust in profile, with a bare
head. In the reign of James I. it was the name of a tavern in the
Strand, otherwise called the Hercules Tavern, and in the eighteenth
century there were two coffee-houses, the one called the OLD MAN’S, the
other the YOUNG MAN’S Coffee-house.
The FOUNTAIN was a favourite sign with the Londoners before the
Reformation, perhaps on account of its connexion with the martyrdom of
St Paul, whose head, says the legend, on being struck off, rebounded
three times, when a fountain gushed up at each spot where the sacred
head had touched the ground. Hence there is a church near Rome, in the
midst of the desolate Campagna, called San Paolo delle Tre Fontane,
where altars are raised over each of those three fountains. There is
also a fountain connected with the martyrdom of St Alban, the English
protomartyr, and Saints’ Wells may be met with all over the kingdom.
During the Plague of 1665, the following advertisement used to figure
constantly in the papers:--
“MONSIEUR AUGIER’S famous Remedies for stopping and preventing the
plague having not only been recommended by several certificates from
Lyons, Paris, Thoulouse, &c., but likewise experimented here by the
special directions of the Lords of his Majesty’s most honourable Privy
Council, and proved by Witnesses upon oath, and several Tryals, to be
of singular virtue and effect, are to be had at Mr Drinkwater’s, at
the Fountain, in Fleet Street, &c.”[697]
Mr Drinkwater had evidently intended a pun by selecting a fountain as
his sign.
The Fountain Tavern in the Strand was famous as the meeting-place of the
ultra-loyal party in 1685, who here talked over public affairs before
the meeting of Parliament. Roger Lestrange, who had been recently
knighted by the king, took a leading part in these consultations. But
“the fate of things lies always in the dark;” in the reign of George II.
this same house became a great resort for the Whigs, who sometimes used
to meet here as many as two hundred at a time, making speeches and
passing resolutions.
For this reason it was proposed that Master Jephson the landlord should
write under his sign:--
“Hoc Fonte derivata libertas
In Patriam, Populumq: fluxit.”
“From this fam’d Fountain Freedom flow’d,
For Britain’s and the People’s good.”
In this tavern, Law, subsequently famous as the Mississippi schemer,
quarrelled with the magnificent and mysterious Beau Wilson; they left
the house, adjourned to Bloomsbury Square, and fought a duel, in which
the Beau was killed. The Kit Cat Club, in winter, used to meet at this
house. This club was first established in an obscure house in Shire
Lane; it consisted of thirty-nine distinguished noblemen or gentlemen,
zealously attached to the Protestant succession of the house of Hanover.
Among the members were the Dukes of Richmond, Devonshire, Marlborough,
Somerset, Grafton, Newcastle, and Dorset, the Earls of Sunderland and
Manchester, some lords, and Steele, Addison, Congreve, Garth, Vanbrugh,
Manwaring, Stepney, Walpole, and Pulteney; Lord Mohun (implicated in the
murder of Mountford the actor, and killed in a duel by the Duke of
Hamilton) was also a member.
“The day Lord Mohun and the Earl of Berwick were entered of it, Jacob
[Tonson, the secretary] said he saw they were just going to be ruined.
When Lord Mohun broke down the gilded emblem on the top of his chair,
Jacob complained to his friends, and said a man who would do that
would cut a man’s throat.”[698]
Tonson, for fulfilling the duties of this honorary office, was presented
with the portraits of all the members. After Jacob’s death, his brother
Richard removed the pictures to his residence at Water Oakley, near
Windsor. A list of them is to be found in Bray’s “History of Surrey,”
vol. iii., p. 318. Forty-three of them have been engraved by Faber in
mezzotint. The name of the club is said to have been derived from the
first landlord, who was called Christopher Cat; he excelled in the
making of mutton-pies, which were named after him Kit Cat, and were the
standard dish of the club.
“Here did th’ assembly’s title first arise,
And Kit Cat’s wits sprung first from Kit Cat’s pies.”
Next door to the Fountain Tavern lived Charles Lillie, the celebrated
snuff-seller of the _Spectators_ and _Tatlers_, but “he was burnt out
when he began to have a reputation in his way.”--(_Tatler_, xcii.)
The FOUNTAIN AND BEAR is a sign named in the following quaint imprint:--
“A Present for Teeming Women, or Scripture Directions for Women with
childe; how to prepare for the hour of Travel. Written first for the
private use of a Gentlewoman of quality in the West, and now published
for the common good by John Oliver, _less than the least of saints_.
Sold by Mary Rothwell, at the Fountain and Bear, in Cheapside, 1663.”
The SUN and the MOON have been considered as signs of Pagan origin,
typifying Apollo and Diana. Whether or no this conjecture be true, would
be difficult to prove, but certain it is that they rank among the oldest
and most common signs, not only in England but on the Continent. Early
in the sixteenth century the French poet Desiré Arthus wrote in his
“Loyaulté Consciencieuse des Taverniers:”--
“Sur les chemins des grands villes et champs,
Ne trouverez de douze maisons l’une,
Qui n’ait enseigne d’un soleil, d’une lune.
Tous vendant vin, chascun à son quartier.”[699]
Like the Star, (see p. 501,) the Sun did not enjoy a good reputation.
Henry Peacham thus cautions young men from the country:--
“Let a monyed man or gentleman especially beware in the city, _ab
istis calidis et callidis solis filiabus_ as Lipsius: these overhot
and crafty daughters of the _Sunne_, your silken and gold laced
harlots, everywhere (especially in the suburbs) to be found.”[700]
The reason of this sign having been especially adopted by that
description of houses, we are unable to state, unless it be the one Tom
D’Urfey gives in “Collin’s Walk through London,” where, speaking of a
frail and fair one, he says:--
“And _like the Sun_, was understood
To all mankind a common good.”
But as the sun shines alike over good and evil, so respectable as well
as disreputable persons have used him for a sign; thus Wynkyn de Worde,
in Fleet Street, and Anthony Kytson, another early printer, and the
publisher of some works of Master John Skelton, poet laureate, carried
on business under this device. Taylor the Water poet mentions three Sun
taverns: being compelled one day on his “pennylesse pilgrimage,” to dine
_à la belle étoile_, he says:--“I made virtue of necessity, and went to
breakefast in the Sunne: I have fared better at three Sunnes many a time
before now: in Aldersgate Street, Criplegate, and New Fish Street; but
here is the oddss: at those Sunnes they will come vpon a man with a
tauerne bill as sharp cutting as a taylor’s bill of items: a watchman’s
bill or a watch hooke falls not halfe so heauy vpon a man.”[701] The Sun
on Fish Street Hill is also named by Pepys:--
“Dec. 22, 1660.--Went to the Sun Tavern on Fish Street Hill, to a
dinner of Captain Teddimans, where was my Lord Inchequin, (who seems
to be a very fine person,) Sir W. Penn, Captain Cuttance, and Mr
Laurence, (a fine gentleman now going to Algiers,) and other good
company, where we had a very good dinner, good music, and a great deal
of wine. I very merry--went to bed, my head aching all night.”
But the finest of all the Sun Taverns did not exist in Taylor’s time; it
was built after the fire of 1666, behind the Exchange.
“Behind? I’ll ne’er believe it; you may as soon
Persuade me that the sun stands behind noon.”
These are the opening lines of a ballad of 1672, entitled “The Glory of
the Sun Tavern, behind the Exchange.”[702] From this ballad it is
evident that the tavern was splendidly furnished, and offered comforts
not generally to be met with at that time.
“There every chamber has an aquaeduct,
As if the sun had fire for water truckt,
Water as’t were exhal’d up to heavens sprouds,
To cool your cups and glasses in the clouds.”
Pepys was a frequent visitor at this house, and, in fact, all the
pleasure-seekers of that mad reign patronised it; the profligate Duke of
Buckingham, in particular, was a constant customer. Simon Wadloe, the
landlord, had made his fortune at the Devil in St Dunstan’s, whereupon
he went to live in the country, and spent his money in a couple of
years. He then “choused” Nick Colbourn out of the Sun, and Nick, who had
amassed a handsome competence in the house, was easily persuaded to
retire, and left it “to live like a prince in the country,” says Pepys.
During the reign of Charles II., the house appears to have had an
excellent custom, and was from morning till night full of the best
company. The Sun Tavern, in Clare Street, was one of the haunts of the
witty Joe Miller, and is often given as the locality of his jokes:--
“Joe Miller, sitting one day in the window of the Sun Tavern, Clare
Street, a fish woman and her maid passing by, the woman cried: ‘Buy my
soals, buy my maids!’ ‘Ah! you wicked old creature,’ cry’d honest Joe,
‘what, are you not content to sell your own soul, but you must sell
your maid’s too?’”
A stereotype joke of the publican connected with the Sun is the motto,
“the best liquor [generally beer] under the Sun,” which, of course, must
be believed, for _Solem quis dicere falsum audeat?_ Sometimes the sign
is called the SUN IN SPLENDOUR, as at Nottinghill, the “splendour”
having reference simply to the golden beams or rays usually drawn by the
painter. There is still a carved stone sign of the Sun, now gilt, dating
from the seventeenth century, walled in the front of a house in the
Poultry.
The GOLDEN SUN was the sign of Ulrich Gering, in the Rue St Jacques,
Paris, printer of the first Bible in France, in 1475. At the end of the
volume the Bible thus addresses the reader:--
“Jam tribus undecimus lustris Francos Ludovicus
Rexerat; Ulricus, Martinus, itemque Michael
Orti Teutonia, hanc mihi composuere figuram
Parisii arte sua; me correctam vigilanter
Venalem in vico Jacobi _Sol Aureus_ offert.”[703]
Their successor, Berthold Rumbold, on removing the business to another
house in the same street, opposite the Rue Fromentel, kept the same
sign, and there it continued as late as 1689, having constantly been in
the hands of booksellers. Not improbably the first printers, both in
England and abroad, adopted the sign of the Sun, as an emblem of the new
era opened to the world by the invention of printing, which, when they
reflected on their discovery, they saw would, at no distant period,
spread an intellectual light over the world, as brilliant and as
vivifying as that of the radiant sun.[704]
The sign of the Sun occurs in endless combinations, often capricious,
without any other reason than a whim, and an alliteration, as the SUN
AND SAWYERS; the SUN AND SWORD; the SUN AND SPORTSMAN; or quartered with
other signs, as the SUN AND ANCHOR; DIAL; FALCON; LAST; HORSESHOE, &c.
All these, and innumerable others of the same sort, occur among the
London public-house signs of the present day. The SUN AND HARE is a
stone carved sign, walled up in the façade of a house in the High
Street, Southwark. Were it not for the initials H. N. A., it might be
taken for a rebus on the name Harrison; as it is, it may be a jocular
corruption of the Sun and Hart, the badge of Richard II. (See p. 109.)
The RISING SUN is nearly as common as the sun in his meridian; perhaps
on account of the favourable omen it presents for a man commencing
business. In 1726 it was the sign of a noted tavern in Islington, where
some merry doings went on occasionally:--
“ON TUESDAY NEXT, being Shrove Tuesday, will be a fine hog barbygu’d
whole at the house of Peter Brett, at the _Rising Sun_, in Islington
Road, with other diversions. It is the house where the ox was roasted
whole at Christmas last.”--_Mist’s Journal_, February 9, 1726.
To barbecue a hog, was a West Indian term for roasting a whole pig,
stuffed with spice, and basted with Madeira wine.
The RISING SUN AND SEVEN STARS was the very appropriate sign, at which
was printed a work on “Astrological Optics;” but better still, it was
printed for R. _Moon_, whose shop was “in Paul’s Churchyarde, in the New
Building, between the two North Doors. 1655.” An old jest-book says that
an Irishman, seeing the sign of the Rising Sun was kept by A(nthony)
Moon, accused the said Moon of having made a bull, for saying that the
Sun was kept by the Moon.
One of the learned questions propounded by Hudibras to that cunning man,
Sidrophel, the Rosicrucian, was:--
“Tell me but what’s the natural cause
Why on a sign no painter draws
The _full moon_ ever, but the _half_.”--_Hudibras_, part iii., c. 3.
This might be true in Butler’s time, but is no longer so; at Leicester,
for instance, there are two signs of the FULL MOON, and it occurs in
many other places. The Crescent, or HALF-MOON, was the emblem of the
temporal power, as the Sun was the distinction of the spiritual.
Ben Jonson once desiring a glass of sack, went to the Half-Moon Tavern,
in Aldersgate Street, but found it closed, so he adjourned to the Sun
Tavern, in Long Lane, and wrote this epigram:--
“Since the Half Moon is so unkind,
To make me go about,
The Sun my money now shall have,
And the Moon shall go without.”
The Half-Moon, Upper Holloway, was famous in the last century for
excellent cheesecakes, which were hawked about the streets of London, by
a man on horseback, and formed one of the London cries. This
circumstance is noticed in a poem in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for
1743, entitled “A Journey to Nottingham.” In April 1747, the following
advertisement appeared in the same magazine:--
“HALF-MOON TAVERN, Cheapside, April 13. His Royal Highness the _Duke
of Cumberland_ having restored peace to Britain, by the ever memorable
Battle of Culloden, fought on the 16th of April 1745, the _choice
spirits_ have agreed to celebrate that day annually by A GRAND JUBILEE
in the MOON, of which the Stars are hereby acquainted and summoned to
shine with their brightest Lustre by 6 o’clock on Thursday next in the
Evening.”
The CRESCENT AND ANCHOR is a sign at Norton-in-Hales, near Market
Drayton; the HALF-MOON AND SEVEN STARS at Aston Clinton, near Tring; and
the SUN, MOON, AND SEVEN STARS at Blisworth, in Northampton. These SEVEN
STARS have always been great favourites; they seem to be the same pleiad
which is used as a Masonic emblem--a circle of six stars, with one in
the centre; but to tell to ears profane, what this emblem means, would
be disclosing the sacred arcana. The SEVEN STARS was the sign of Richard
Moone, before he was so ambitious as to place the whole firmament on his
sign: in 1653 he printed--
“The first addresses to his Excellence the Lord General, &c., by John
Spittlehouse, a late Member of the Army, and a servant to the Saints
of the Most High God, &c. London, printed by J. C., for himself and
Richard Moon, at the Seven Stars, in Paul’s Churchyard, near the great
North Door. 1653.”
As a change upon the Seven Stars, a publican at Counterslip, Bristol,
has put up the FOURTEEN STARS.
We have seen (p. 492) that the sign of the STAR was “calculated for
every lewd purpose;” a great change certainly from mediæval times, when
a star was the emblem of the Holy Virgin, who was thus styled _Maris
Stella_ (star of the sea)--the signification of the name Miriam in
Hebrew--or _Stella Jacobi_, (star of Jacob,) _Stella Matutina_, (morning
star,) _Stella non erratica_, (fixed star, unerring star,) &c.; a star
being always painted either on her right shoulder, or on her veil, as
may be readily observed in the works of the early Italian masters in our
National Gallery. A star of sixteen rays is the crest of the Innholders’
Company. Oliver Cromwell used to meet some of his party at the Star in
Coleman Street, as was deposed by one of the witnesses in the trial of
Hugh Peters:--
“_Gunter._ My Lord, I was servant at the Star in Coleman Street, with
one Hildesley. That house was a house where Oliver Cromwell and
several of that party did use to meet in consultation.”
John Bunyan died in 1682 at the Star, on Snowhill, in the house of his
friend, Mr Strudwick, a grocer.
The POLE STAR is now a not uncommon sign. To make this device more
intelligible, tavern-keepers ought to attach to it the motto it bore in
the middle ages, when it was a symbol of the Church: “_qui me non
aspicit errat_.” (He who does not look at me goes astray.) The STAR AND
CROWN was the sign of a haberdasher in Princes Street, Coventry Street,
1785, who, among other things, sold “dress and undress hoops.”
The signs of the zodiac appear occasionally to have been adopted by
conjurors and astrologers. Ned Ward describes them as figuring, in his
time, on the door of “a star-peeper,” in Prescot Street.[705]
The TWO TWINS, or NAKED BOYS, was the sign of a quack in Moorfields,
“near the steps going out of the Lower Field into the Middle Field.
There is a door above the steps, and another below the steps, with the
Twins, and the name Langham on both doors;--keep the bill to prevent
mistaking the house or being sent to a wrong place.”[706] To such
lengthy explanations our ancestors were compelled to resort in the
absence of numbers on their houses. Either this quack had adopted the
Two Twins on account of his obstetrical pretensions, or he was an
astrologer as well as a quack, for Moorfields was the head-quarters of
“Augurs and soothsayers, astrologers,
Diviners, and interpreters of dreams.”
In the last case he might have chosen it as being the ascendant of the
city of London, which “stands in a benign and temperate climate, in the
latitude of 52° and longitude of 19° 15´,--having (as artists reckon)
the _celestial twins_, the house of Mercury, patron of merchandise and
ingenious arts, for her ascendant.”[707]
The RAINBOW, in Fleet Street, opposite Chancery Lane, is the oldest
coffee-house in London:--
“I find it recorded that one James Farr, a barber, who kept the
coffee-house, which is now the Rainbow, by the Inner Temple gate, (one
of the first in England,) was, in the year 1657, presented by the
inquest of St Dunstan’s in the West, for making and selling a sort of
liquor called Coffee, as a great nuisance and prejudice to the
neighboorhood, &c., and who would have thought London would ever have
had near three thousand such nuisances, and that coffee would have
been (as now) so much drank by the best of quality and
physicians.”[708]
The presentation here alluded to is still preserved among the records of
St Sepulchre’s Church. It says:--
“We present James Farr, Barber, for making and selling a drink called
coffee, whereby, in making the same, he annoyeth his neighboors by
evill smells, and for keeping of fire the most part night and day,
whereby his chimney and chamber has been set on fire, to the great
danger and affreightment of his neighboors.”
This danger of fire was so much the greater, as a bookseller, Samuel
Speedal, had his shop in the same house. In 1682, the Phœnix Fire
Office, one of the first in this country, was established at this place.
The THUNDER STORM is the sign of a public-house at Framwellgate Moor,
Durham; and the HAILSTONE, at Knowle, Staffordshire; both these houses
may have taken their names from a severe storm, which visited the
neighbourhood at or about the time of their opening, just as the
HAYLIFT, at Wansforth, Northampton, is said to owe its origin to the
fact of a man floating a long way down the river on a haycock, during an
inundation, and landing near that place.
As for the WILD SEA, the sign of John Horton, over against Parson’s
Brewhouse, Croydon,[709] in 1718, no more plausible explanation occurs
to us than that John Horton might have been a sailor in his younger
days.
The HOLE-IN-THE-WALL is believed to have originated from the hole made
in the wall of the debtors’ or other prison, through which the poor
prisoners received the money, broken meat, or other donations of the
charitably inclined. The old sign of the Hole-in-the-Wall (see our
illustrations) shows such an opening in a square piece of brickwork.
Generally, it is believed to refer to some snug corner, perhaps near the
town walls; but at the old public-house in Chancery Lane the legend is
as we have given it. Hard by, in Cursitor Street, prisoners for debt
found a temporary lodging up to a very recent date. Trades tokens are
extant of this house, which, about 1820, was kept by Jack Randall,
_alias_ Nonpareil, a famous member of the P.R.; on one occasion some
verses were made containing the following lines:--
“Then blame me not, swells, kids, or lads of the fancy,
For opening a lush crib in _Chancery_ Lane,
An appropriate spot ’tis, you doubtless all can see,
Since _heads_ I’ve oft placed there, and let out again.”
The poet, Thomas Moore, in the fast days when George IV. was king, and
when pugilism and gin drinking were fashionable accomplishments, used to
visit Mr Randall’s parlour. It was here that he picked up his materials
for those rhyming satires on the politics and general topics of his
time:--“Tom Crib’s Memorials to Congress, by one of the Fancy;”
“Randall’s Diary of Proceedings at the House of Call for Genius;” “A Few
Selections from Jack Randall’s Scrap Book, with Poems on the late Fight
for the Championship.”
At the Hole-in-the-Wall in Chandos Street, Claude Duval the highwayman
was taken prisoner; whilst the Hole-in-the-Wall in Baldwin’s Gardens was
the citadel in which Tom Brown used to intrench himself from duns and
bailiffs, with Henry Purcell the musician, as his companion in revelry
and merriment. Tom Brown’s introductory verses, prefixed to Playford’s
“Musical Companion,” 1698, are dated “from Mr Stewart’s at the
Hole-in-the-Wall, in Baldwin’s Gardens.” Another Hole-in-the-Wall still
exists in Kirby Street, Hatton Garden. It is a curious fact that the
refreshment-room, or liquor-bar, attached to the House of
Representatives at Washington, is known to most thirsty American
politicians as _The Hole-in-the-Wall_.
Anciently, instead of being a painted board, the object of the sign was
carved and hung within a hoop, hence (as we had occasion to remark on a
former page) nearly all the ancient signs are called the “---- ON THE
HOOP.” In the Clause Roll, 43 Edward III., we find the GEORGE ON THE
HOOP; 26 Henry VI., the HART ON THE HOOP; 30 Henry VI., the SWAN, the
COCK, and the HEN ON THE HOOP. Besides these we find mentioned the CROWN
ON THE HOOP, the BUNCH OF GRAPES ON THE HOOP, the MITRE ON THE HOOP, the
ANGEL ON THE HOOP, the FALCON ON THE HOOP, &c. In 1795, two of these
signs were still extant, for a periodical of the time says:--“A sign of
this nature is still preserved in Newport Street, and is a carved
representation of a Bunch of Grapes within a Hoop. The COCK ON THE HOOP
may be seen also in Holborn, painted on a board, to which, perhaps, it
was transferred on the removal of the sign-posts.”[710] These hoops seem
to have originated in the highly ornamented bush or crown, which
latterly was made of hoops, covered with evergreens. In France, the HOOP
(_le Cerceau_) was used as a sign. Jacques Androuet, a celebrated
architect, and author of a work entitled “Les plus excellents Batiments
de France,” lived at the sign of the Hoop, whence he adopted the
surnames of Jacques Androuet du Cerceau. In 1570 he published a book on
metal-work, containing several designs for ornamental iron frames and
posts to suspend signboards from. That names in this country also were
occasionally derived from signboards, has been stated in our
introduction. Of this practice, Sir Peter Lely, the portrait painter,
was an illustrious example. He belonged to a Dutch family named Van der
Vaas. His grandfather was a perfumer, and lived at the sign of the Lily,
(perhaps a _vase_ of lilies, with a pun on his name.) When his son
entered the English army he discarded his Dutch name, and from the
paternal sign, adopted the more euphonious one of Lilly or Lely; and
this name he and his children afterwards retained. The famous Rothschild
family is another case in point. From the RED SHIELD (the _roth schild_)
above the door of an honest old Hebrew, in the Juden-gasse, (or Jews’
Alley,) at Frankfort, has been derived the name of the richest family in
the world.
The HOOP AND BUNCH OF GRAPES was the sign of a public-house, in St
Albans Street, (now part of Waterloo Place,) kept at the beginning of
the present century, by the famous Matthew Skeggs, who obtained his
renown from playing, in the character of Signor Bumbasto, a concerto on
a broomstick, at the Haymarket Theatre, adjoining. His portrait was
painted by King, a friend of Hogarth, engraved by Houston, and published
by Skeggs himself. The HOOP AND GRIFFIN was a coffee-house in
Leadenhall Street, _circa_ 1700;[711] and the HOOP AND TOY is a
public-house in Thurloe Place, Brompton. Here the original meaning of
the hoop seems entirely lost, as its combination with the toy seems to
allude to the hoop trundled by children.
The TOY at Hampton used to be a favourite resort with the Londoners till
1857, when it was pulled down to make room for private houses. Trades
tokens of this house of the seventeenth century are extant. “In the
survey of 1653 (in the Augmentation office) mention is made of a piece
of pasture ground near the river, called the _Toying_ place, the site,
probably, of a well-known inn near the bridge now called the Toy.”[712]
Cardmakers usually took a card for their sign, as the QUEEN OF HEARTS
AND KING’S ARMS, which was the sign of a cardmaker in Jermyn Street in
1803.[713] One of the Bagford Bills has: “At the OLD KNAVE OF CLUBS at
the Bridgefoot, in Southwark, liveth Edward Butling, who maketh and
selleth all sorts of hangings for rooms,” &c.[714] Possibly he sold also
playing-cards. These knaves, however, seem at one time to have been a
badge, for at the creation of seventeen knights of the Bath by Richard
III., the Duke of Buckingham was “richely appareled, and his horse
trapped in blue velvet embroudered with the _knaves of cartes_ burnyng
of golde, which trapper was borne by foteman from the grounde.”[715] The
QUEEN OF TRUMPS is a public-house sign at West Walton, near Wisbeach.
The HEART AND TRUMPET is a somewhat curious sign at Pentre-wern near
Oswestry, perhaps a corruption of Hearts and Trumps. Other games have
produced the sign of the GOLDEN QUOIT, in Whitehaven, and the CORNER
PIN, which is so common that it figures in a Seven Dials ballad, a
parody on the Low-back Car:--
“When first I saw Miss Bailey,
’Twas on a Saturday,
At the _Corner Pin_ she was drinking gin,
And smoking a yard of clay,” &c.
All bowlers know that the corner pins are the most difficult to strike,
and that from their fall with the rest depends whether the throw counts
double or not.
Formerly the merriest day of the year in “Merry England” was certainly
the first of May, but of its many festivities scarcely a trace is left
except the dance of the sweeps and the sign of the MAYPOLE. Stubbe, with
puritanical horror, thus describes the Maypole:--
“They have twenty or fourtie yoke of oxen, every one having a sweet
nosegay of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen
draw home this Maie pole (this stinckyng Idoll rather) which is
couered all ouer with flowers and hearbes bounde rounde aboute with
stringes, from the toppe to the bottome, and sometyme painted with
variable colours with two or three hundred men, women, and children
following it with great devotion. And thus being reared up with
handkerchiefs and flagges streaming on the toppe they strawe the
ground aboute, binde green boughes aboute it, sett up sommer houses,
Bowers, and Arbours hard by it. And then fall they to banquet and
feast, to leape and daunce aboute it, as the Heathen people did at the
dedication of their Idolles, whereof this is a perfect pattern, or
rather the thing itself.”[716]
The same author also reports that it was customary for lads and lasses
to go the night before May-day to the hills and woodlands to gather
branches and flowers to deck the houses with on that day, and that they
used to “spende all the night in pastymes” to the great detriment of
female virtue; Featherstone, another sulky puritan, scandalised the fair
sex by the assertion that “of tenne maydens which went to fetch May,
nine of them came home with childe.”[717] The consequence of all this
grumbling was that the Maypole was abolished in the godly times of the
Commonwealth, and as a matter of course, revived at the Restoration--but
its prestige was gone. At present it is only commemorated by hundreds of
signboards. There is one on the outskirts of Hainault Forest,
immortalised in “Barnaby Rudge,” which has all the regulations of the
house laid down in rhyme; part of these have been quoted on p. 449.
There is on the stable door:--
“Whosoever smokes tobacco here
Shall forfeit sixpence to spend in beer.
Your pipes lay by, when you come here,
Or fire to me may prove severe.”
An old, and not uncommon sign, is the WHEEL OF FORTUNE, which may be
seen at Alpington, Norwich, and in other places. This wheel is sometimes
represented with four kings, one on each quadrant. In the middle ages
it was a very common symbol, as well in England as on the continent,
being frequently painted in churches; there is one still to be seen
among the half obliterated frescoes of Catfield church in Norfolk. Other
instances occur in the church of St Etienne, at Beauvais; in St Martin,
at Basle; in San Zeno, at Verona; and in the beautiful pavement of the
Duomo, at Sienna. Not only in those countries, but all over Europe, this
device occurs as a sign. Peacham thus accounts for the wheel being
chosen as the emblem of Fortune:--
“For like ourselves, the spoke that was on high
Is to the bottom in a moment cast,
As fast the lowest riseth by and by,
All human things thus find a change at last.”
_Peacham’s Minerva Brittana_, p. 76.
The MONSTER, at one period an inn of some resort in Willow Walk,
Chelsea, now a starting-point for the Pimlico omnibuses, is perhaps a
corruption of the Monastery. Robert de Heyle in 1368 leased the whole of
the manor of Chelsea to the abbot and convent of Westminster for the
term of his own life, for which they were to allow him a certain house
within the convent for his residence, to pay him the sum of £20 per
annum, to provide him every day two white loaves, two flagons of convent
ale, and once a year a robe of esquire’s silk. At this period, or
shortly after, the sign of the Monastery may have been set up, to be
handed down from generation to generation, until the meaning and proper
pronunciation were forgotten, and it became “the Monster.” In still
older times, viz., during the Norman rule, Chelsea appears to have been
one of the manors of Westminster, so that the connexion between the
village of Chelsea and the monastery of Westminster had been of very old
standing. This tavern, we believe, is the only one with such a sign. Ned
Ward mentions a GREEN MONSTER tavern in Prescott Street, but that may
have been one of Ned’s jokes on the very common Green Dragon. The tavern
in question was a very unlucky house, and not less than three or four
landlords had failed in it, which was not to be wondered at, for the
street appears at that time to have been one of the soberest in London.
According to Ned, one “would walk by forty or fifty houses and not an
alehouse.”[718]
The MILLION GARDENS, Strutton Ground, Westminster, was the singular
name of the house where tickets might be obtained for a lottery of plate
in 1718.[719] The name in reality refers to the “Melon Gardens,” which
fruit was pronounced after the signboard orthography in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries.
Pepys, on the 3d of August 1660, informs us that he dined at an ordinary
called the QUAKER, a somewhat unusual godfather for a sinful tavern.
This house was situated in the Great Sanctuary, Westminster, and was
only pulled down in the beginning of the present century to make way for
a market-place, which in its turn has made room for a new
sessions-house. Tull, the last landlord, opened a new public-house in
Thieving Lane, and adorned the doorway of this house with twisted
pillars decorated with vine-leaves, brought from the old Quaker tavern.
J. T. Smith presents us with a view of this house in the additional
plates to his “Antiquities of Westminster.”
The PILGRIM has been mentioned incidentally (on p. 434) as a sign at
Coventry. There is another public-house of this name in Kew Lane. In
1833 a figure of a pilgrim was placed upon the roof of this house, which
by concealed machinery moved to and fro like the Wandering Jew, doomed
to wander up and down until the end of the world; it was, however, of
contemptible workmanship, and very soon got out of order.
The GIPSY’S TENT occurs at Hagley, Stourbridge; the GIPSY QUEEN at
Highbury and other places; and the QUEEN OF THE GIPSIES was the sign of
the so-called gipsy house near Norwood. The queen alluded to was
Margaret Finch, who died at the great age of 109 years; Norwood was her
residence during the last years of her life, and there she told fortunes
to the credulous. She was buried October 24, 1760, in a deep square box,
as from her constant habit of sitting with her chin resting on her
knees, her muscles had become so contracted that she could not at last
alter her position. This woman, when a girl of seventeen, may have been
one of the dusky gang pretty Mrs Pepys and her companions went to
consult, August 11, 1668, which her lord duly chronicled in the evening:
“This afternoon my wife and Mercer and Deb went with Pelling to see the
gypsies at Lambeth, and have their fortunes told, but what they did I
did not enquire.” A granddaughter of Margaret Finch, also a so-styled
queen, was living in an adjoining cottage in the year 1800.
The TRUE LOVER’S KNOT is a sign at Uxbridge, the only example of it we
have met with. In the North of England and in Scotland it is still the
custom with betrothed lovers of the lower class to present each other
with a curious kind of knot called “a true lover’s knot.” Brand says the
word is not derived from true love, but from trulofa, Danish for _fidem
do_. It was formerly a common present between lovers of all stations of
life in England.
The FOLLY is not unusual; it is generally applied to a very ambitious,
extravagantly furnished, or highly ornamented house; in such a sense it
was already used in Queen Elizabeth’s reign:--
“Kirby Castle and _Fisher’s Folly_
Spinola’s Pleasure and Megse’s Glory.”
One of the most notorious “Follies” was an edifice of timber divided
into sundry rooms, with a platform and balustrade on the top, which in
the reign of Charles II. floated in the Thames above London Bridge. At
first it was very well frequented, and the beauty and fashion of the
period (Pepys amongst them, April 13, 1668,) used to go there on summer
evenings, partake of refreshments on the platform, and enjoy the breeze
on the river (then guiltless of the modern sewers and filth.). On one
occasion Queen Mary honoured it with a visit, accompanied by some of her
courtiers. Gradually, however, it took to evil courses; loose and
disorderly females were admitted, and unrestrained drinking and dancing
soon gave it an unenviable notoriety. In this condition it was visited
by Tom Brown, who describes it with his usual coarse vigour: “This
whimsical piece of Architecture was designed as a musical Summer-house
for the entertainment of quality where they might meet and ogle one
another; but the Ladies of the Town finding it as convenient a
rendez-vous, overstock’d the place with such an inundation of harlotry,
that dashed the female quality out of countenance, and made them seek
some more retired conveniency.” He next describes the company in very
glowing colours, but found it such a confused scene of folly, madness,
and debauchery, that he--no very bashful person--was compelled to return
to his boat “_without drinking_!”[720] At length the place became so
scandalous that it had to be closed; it went to decay, and at last was
sold for firewood.
The sign of the BLUE-COAT BOY, usually chosen by toy-shops,
printsellers, and colourmen, was either in compliment to the scholars of
King Edward VI.’s foundation, Christ’s Hospital,--commonly called “the
Blue Coat School,” from the blue tunic of the lads, or was named after
the Bridewell Boys, _i.e._, foundlings and deserted children, who wore a
blue coat and trousers, with a white hat. Until the end of the last
century they used to attend at all the fires with the Bridewell engine,
but on the whole they were an unruly mischievous set. There was a BLUE
COAT coffee-house in Sweeting’s Alley, near the Exchange, in 1711.[721]
At present it is generally called the BLUE BOY, as at Old Swinford,
Stourbridge; Minchinhampton, Gloucester, and in a few other places. In
Islington there is still such a sign, and in Aldersgate Street, if we
remember rightly, there is an ironmonger with such a decoration.
A very strange sign occurs amongst the Banks Bills. On a shop-bill dated
1698, is the following inscription: “At the signe of the TARE lives one
Mr Grenier who makes all sorts of good rasors, lancets, sisers, very
well, and all other sorts of instruments for chirugeons.” The engraving
represents two angels holding a _tear_ by a string, surrounded by a
quantity of surgical instruments, after the true meat-axe type, and
vicious-looking enough to “draw tears of molten brass from the eyes of
Pluto himself.”
The WEARY TRAVELLER occurs at Sutton Road, Kidderminster; the
TRAVELLER’S REST in a great many places, sometimes accompanied by the
phrase REST AND BE THANKFUL, which last advice serves as a sign to two
public-houses at Whitehaven. Finally the FINISH was the sign of a
notorious night-house in Covent Garden, kept at the beginning of the
present century by a Mrs Butler. Here, according to “Tom Crib’s Memorial
to Congress,” the gentlemen of the road used to divide their spoil in
the gray dawn of the morning, when it was time for the night-birds to
fly to their roost. Crib (in reality Thomas Moore the poet, see p. 503)
says that the congress is:--
“Some place that’s like the _Finish_, lads,
Where all your high pedestrian pads
That have been _up_ and _out_ all night,
Running their rigs amongst the rattlers,[722]
At morning meet, and, honour bright,
Agree to share the blunt and tatlers.”
This house was originally named the Queen’s Head, but was nicknamed the
_Finish_ from its being the place where the fast men of the day
generally “finished off.” Ned Shuter was at one time a drawer in this
house, but, inspired by the neighbourhood of the theatres, he left the
pots and bottles and took to the stage. Down to a recent date it was a
gloomy disreputable coffee-house, kept by one Smith, and here, in
interdicted hours, beer and spirits could be obtained when all the
public-houses were closed. It was pulled down very recently. These last
four signs have in a measure been the expression of the authors’ minds:
who, weary of their long task, and fearful of having fatigued their
readers, will now betake themselves to _rest_, and _be thankful_ if they
have given a few hours’ entertainment upon the subject of signboards.
They now take their leave in the words of an old ballad:--
“Then faire fall all good tokens,
And well fare a good heart,
For by all _signs_ and _tokens_
’Tis time for to depart.”
[671] Burnet’s Own Times, vol. ii., p. 426, ed. 1823.
[672] Harl. MSS., 5931. Bagford Bills.
[673] See _Craftsman_, Sept. 30, 1738.
[674] Archæologia, xviii., p. 198.
[675] “To all true Christian people to whom this present writing shall
come: John Frenssh, eldest son of John Frenssh, gentleman, late citizen
and goldsmith of London, sends greeting in our Lord. Know ye that I have
given, granted, and by this my present writing confirmed to Joan
Frenssh, widow, my mother, all that tenement or inn, with its
appurtenances, called Savage’s Inn, otherwise called the Bell on the
Hoop, in the parish of St Bride, in Fleet Street, London, to have and to
hold the aforesaid tenement or inn, with its appurtenances, to the said
Joan, for the term of her life, without impeachment of waste. In witness
whereof,” &c. (here follow the names of six witnesses.) Dated at London
the 5th day of February, in the thirty-first year of the reign of King
Henry VI. after the conquest.
[676] Lambarde’s Perambulation of Kent. 1576.
[677] See Bosom’s or Blossoms Inn, under “Legendary and Biblical Signs,”
p. 297.
[678] Speciall Passages from Westminster, London, York, &c., June
26-July 5, 1642.
[679] Pamphlet in the Harleian Miscellany. Index, vol. x. This dreadful
storm is said to have caused more damage than the fire of 1666. Bishop
Kedder and his wife were killed in it by the fall of a house in which
they were sleeping. Admiral Beaumont was shipwrecked and lost with
nearly the whole of his ship’s company. The Eddystone lighthouse was
blown down and swallowed by the sea, with its architect, Mr Henry
Winstanley. A sermon is still yearly preached at Little Wild Street
Baptist Chapel, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, in memory of this fearful storm, a
Mr John Taylor, bookseller of Paternoster Row, having left £40 to it as
a thank-offering for his miraculous preservation at the time of the
occurrence.
[680] After having been for a long time one of the most secure
strongholds of the devil, a godly garrison was sent into Moorfields at
the end of the last century. The _Gazetteer_, 10th September 1790, has
the following paragraph:--“So numerous are become the _Gospel shops_ in
the vicinity of Moorfields, that like Monmouth Street, the proprietors
employ “pluckers in” on Sundays to inveigle customers. The cant phrase
at the door is, “Good sound doctrine here in perfection.””
[681] _Postboy_, Jan. 1, 1711-12.
[682] Advertisements in the _Weekly Journal_ for that year.
[683] Both named in the _Daily Courant_ for 1718.
[684] _London Gazette_, Nov. 18-21, 1700.
[685] Tour to London, vol i., p. 84. “A perfectly fair judge, and
writing in the true spirit of a philosopher,” says his translator.
Grosley remarks that the foreigners would be in the wrong to complain of
the rude insults of the lower classes, since even “the better sort of
Londoners” liberally show their hatred to the French whenever they can
find an opportunity.
[686] Banks Bills, dated 1787.
[687] “New View of London.” 1708, p. 9.
[688] Dr Lardner’s Arithmetic, p. 44.
[689] Allen’s History of Lambeth.
[690] Siege of Carlaeverock, c. 11:--
“--on li respont
De grosses pierres et _cornues_.”
[691] _London Gazette_, April 29-May 2, 1700.
[692] Printed in Nichols’s Illustrations of Manners and Expenses in
Ancient Times, 1797.
[693] Tom Brown’s Amusements for the Meridian of London, p. 71.
[694] _Country Journal or Craftsman_, Feb. 1, 1734-5.
[695] _Postman_, 1711.
[696] Aubrey, Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme. Lansdowne MSS., No.
231.
[697] _The Intelligencer_, Sept. 4, 1665.
[698] Spence’s Anecdotes, ed. by Singer, p. 337.
[699] “On the roads near large towns and in the country, you will not
find one house in twelve but it does exhibit the sign of the Sun or the
Moon. They all sell wine, each of them to his own neighbourhood.”
[700] Henry Peacham’s Art of Living in London, 1642.
[701] Taylor’s Pennylesse Pilgrimage, 1630.
[702] Luttrell Ballads, ii., fol. 92.
[703] “Already had Louis XI. reigned fifteen years over the French when
Ulrich and Martin [Crantz] and Michel [Friburger,] all natives of
Germany, produced me in this shape at Paris by their art; carefully
corrected, I am now offered for sale in the Rue St Jacques, at the
Golden Sun.”
[704] This idea is in a measure set forth in some lines on the titlepage
of “Gasparini Pergamensis Epistolarium opus per Joannem Lapidarium
Sorbonensis Scholæ Priorem multis vigiliis ex corrupto integrum affectum
ingeniosa arte impressoria in luce redactum,” 1470, beginning:--
“Ut sol lumen sic doctrinam fundis in Orbem.”
[705] _London Spy_, part xiii., p. 319, 1706.
[706] Handbill in Harleian Collection, p. 5964.
[707] A Compleat Description of London, Harl. MSS., 5953, vol. i.
[708] Hatton’s New View of London, 1708, p. 30.
[709] _Weekly Journal_, Sept. 27, 1718.
[710] _Looker-On_, Jan. 1795.
[711] _London Gazette_, Dec. 9-12, 1700.
[712] Lyson’s Historical Account of Parishes in Middlesex, p. 75.
[713] Banks Bills.
[714] Harleian MSS., 5962.
[715] Grafton’s prose continuation of John Harding’s Chronicle, p. 189.
[716] Stubbe’s Anatomy of Abuses, London, 1585, p. 94.
[717] Featherstone’s Dialogue against Light and Lascivious Dancing.
[718] _London Spy_, part xiii., p. 320, 1706.
[719] _Weekly Journal_, Jan. 18, 1718.
[720] Tom Brown’s Walk round London.
[721] _Daily Courant_, Jan. 27, 1711.
[722] Carriages.
APPENDIX.
BONNELL THORNTON’S SIGNBOARD EXHIBITION.
On the evening of Tuesday, 23d of March 1762, the ladies and gentlemen
of London were informed at their tea-tables, by means of the _St James’s
Chronicle_, of the following fact:--
“PROSCRIPT.”
INTELLIGENCE EXTRAORDINARY.
“_Strand._ The Society of Manufactures, Art, and Commerce, are
preparing for the annual Exhibition of Polite Arts, hoping by Degrees
to render this Nation as eminent in Taste as War; and that, by
bestowing Præmiums, and encouraging a generous Emulation, among the
Artists, the Productions of Painting, Sculpture, &c., may no longer be
considered as Exotics, but naturally flourish in the Soil of Great
Britain.”
Immediately under this notice was the following:--
“_Grand Exhibition._ The Society of Sign-painters are also preparing a
most magnificent Collection of Portraits, Landscapes, Fancy Pieces,
Flower Pieces, History Pieces, Night Pieces, Sea Pieces, Sculpture
Pieces, &c., &c., designed by the ablest Masters, and executed by the
best Hands in these kingdoms. The Virtuosi will have a new Opportunity
of displaying their Taste on this Occasion, by discovering the
different _Stile_ of the several Masters employed, and pointing out by
what _Hand_ each Piece is drawn. A remarkable _Cognoscente_ who has
attended at the Society’s great Room, _with his Glass_, for several
Mornings, has already piqued himself on discovering the famous Painter
of the _Rising Sun_, a modern _Claude Lorraine_, in an elegant
Night-piece of the _Man-in-the-Moon_. He is also convinced that no
other than the famous Artists who drew the _Red Lion at Brentford_,
can be equal to the bold figures in the _London ‘Prentice_, and that
the exquisite Colouring in the Piece called Pyramus and Thisbe must be
by the same hand as the _Hole-in-the-Wall_.”
Shortly after this advertisement, the Exhibition was opened. It was held
in Bonnell Thornton’s chambers in Bow Street: the hours were from nine
till four, admission one shilling. The tickets had a catalogue prefixed
to them. The names of the signboard-painters given in this catalogue
were those of the journeymen printers in Mr Baldwin’s office, where it
was printed. Hagarty alone was a transparent variation on the name of
Hogarth, who had largely contributed to the fun and humour of the
Exhibition.
[Illustration: PLATE XIX.
THREE NUNS.
(Banks’s Collection, 1814.)
ABEL DRUGGER.
(Banks’s Collection, 1780.)
WELSH TROOPER.
(From an old print, 1750.)
ELEPHANT AND CASTLE.
(Belle Sauvage Yard, circa 1668.)
BLACK PRINCE.
(Banks’s Collection, 1790.)]
The opening of the saloons was the signal for a perfect storm among the
newspapers. The artists and their friends were terribly ruffled, and
persisted in seeing in it a _persifflage_ of their exhibition just then
opened in the Strand. To this animosity, however, we owe all the
particulars of the signs exhibited. Catalogues, criticisms, and reviews
of the Exhibition were daily brought before the public, giving full
details. The most important of them we present to our readers:--
BY PERMISSION.
A CATALOGUE _of the Original Paintings, Busts, Carved Figures, &c.,
&c., &c., Now exhibiting by the Society of Sign-Painters, at the Large
Rooms, the Upper End of Bow Street, Covent Garden, nearly opposite the
Play-House Passage_.
_In the Large Passage Room._
[_N.B._--That the Merit of the Modern Masters may be fairly examined
into, it has been thought proper to place some admired Works of the
most eminent Old Masters in this Room, and along the Passage thro’ the
Yard.]
No.
1. [_Over the Door._] A Coach and Four, Supposed to be by _Stanhope_.
2. WINDSOR, or any other CASTLE. By _Mason_. The CENTINEL and GREAT
GUN by another Hand.
3. HAND and LOCK OF HAIR. Hand unknown.
4. A PANDOUR, or INDIAN PRINCE, uncertain which. _Stanhope’s_
undoubtedly.
5. A SHIP AND CASTLE. _Thomas Knife_ written under. But it is not
known whether this is the name of the Artist or the Publican.
6. A HEN AND CHICKENS. By _Lodge_.
7. THREE NUNS. The Drapery copied from a _Bas-Relief_ at Rome. By
_Soames_.
8. An original Whole-Length of GUY OF WARWICK. By _the same_.
9. A MAJOR WIG. By _Harrison_. [_N.B._--The Tails appear to have been
added.]
10. A BARGE, in Still-Life. By _Van der Trout_. [He cannot properly be
called an English artist; not being sufficiently encouraged in his own
Country, he left _Holland_ with William the Third, and was the first
artist who settled in _Harp Alley_.[723]]
11. The HERCULES PILLARS. The Architecture by _Young Soames_. THE
FIGURE (from the _Farnesian Hercules_) by the _Father_.
12. An HEROE’S HEAD, unknown. By _Moses White_. With the least
alteration, may serve for an Heroe past, present, or to come.
13. An original Three Quarters Length of KING CHARLES THE SECOND: a
striking Likeness. By _Ditto_.
_In the Passage through the Yard._
1. A FLYING SWAN,--by some supposed to be a Dying one. By _Goustry_.
2. An HALF-MOON. By _Masmore_.
3. An Original Half Length of CAMDEN, the great Historian and
Antiquary, in his Herald’s Coat. By _Van der Trout_. [As this Artist
was originally Colour Grinder to _Hans Holbein_, it is conjectured
there are some of the great Master’s Touches in this Piece.]
4. A BUTTOCK OF BEEF stuft. By _Lynne_.
5. An HAIR-CUTTER. By _the same_.
6. ADAM AND EVE. The first Attempt of that famous Artist, _Barnaby
Smith_.
7. A BLACK PRINCE. By _Hitchcock_.
8. [_Over the Entrance._] An HOLY LAMB; highly finished. By _the
same_.
GRAND ROOM.
[The Society of SIGN-PAINTERS take this Opportunity of refuting a most
malicious Suggestion, that their Exhibition is designed as a Ridicule
on the Exhibitions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c.,
and of the Artists. They intend theirs as only an Appendix, or (in the
Stile of Painters) a Companion to the others. There is nothing in
their Collection, which will be understood by any Candid Person as a
Reflection on any Body, or any Body of Men. They are not in the least
prompted by any mean Jealousy to depreciate the Merits of their
Brother Artists. Animated by the same Public Spirit, their sole View
is to convince Foreigners as well as their own blinded Countrymen,
that however inferior this Nation may be unjustly deemed in other
Branches of the Polite Arts, the Palm for SIGN-PAINTING must be
universally ceded to US, the _Dutch_ themselves not excepted.]
1. PORTRAIT of a justly celebrated PAINTER, though an Englishman and a
Modern.
2. A CROOKED BILLET, formed exactly in the _Line of Beauty_,[724] its
Companion. These by _Adams_.
3. The GOOD WOMAN. A Whole Length, but no Portrait. By _Sympson_.
[_N.B._--It is done from Invention, not being able to find one to sit
for it.]
4. A STAR. By * *
5. The LIGHT HEART. A Sign for a Vintner. By Hogarty. [_N.B._--This is
an elegant Invention of _Ben Jonson_, who in _The New Inn_ or _Light
Heart_, makes the Landlord say (speaking of his Sign:)--
_An Heart weighed with a Feather, and outweighed too:
A Brain-child of my own and I am proud on’t._]
6. The HOG IN ARMOUR. By _Thurmond_.
7. A BUTTOCK OF BEEF. By _Simmes_.
8. The VICAR OF BRAY. The Portrait of a Beneficed Clergyman, at _Full
Length_. By Allison.
9. The IRISH ARMS. By _Patrick O’Blaney_. [_N.B._--Captain _Terence
O’Cutter_ STOOD for them.]
10. The GENTLEMAN OF WALES. By _David Rice_.
11. BUTTER AND EGGS. By _Simmes_.
12. The SCOTCH FIDDLE. By _M^{c}Pharson_, done from HIMSELF.
13. The BARKING DOGS. A Landscape at Moonlight. The Moon somewhat
eclipsed by an Accident. _Whitaker._
14. THREE APOTHECARIES’ GALLIPOTS. _D’aeth’s_ first Attempt.
15. THREE COFFINS. Its Companion. Finished by _Shrowd_.
16. A MAN. By _Hagarty_.
17. The RISING SUN. A Landscape. Painted for _The Moon, alias_
THEOPHILUS MOON. By _Morris_.
18. The MAGPIE. By _Whitaker_.
19. NOBODY, _alias_ SOMEBODY. A Character.
20. SOMEBODY, _alias_ NOBODY. A Caricature. Its Companion. Both these
by _Hagarty_.
21. The WORLD’S END. By _Sympson_.
22. The STRUGGLERS. A Conversation. By _Ransbey_.
23. A FREEMASON’S LODGE, or the _Impenetrable Secret_. By a _Sworn
Brother_.
24. The BLACKAMOOR. By _Sympson_. [_N.B._--This is not intended as any
Reflection on the Gentlemen who have been lately Whitewashed.]
25. A MAN RUNNING AWAY WITH THE MONUMENT. By _Whitaker_.
26. DEVIL HUGGING THE WITCH. A Conversation. By _Ransbey_.
27. The SPIRIT OF CONTRADICTION. Ditto. By _Hagarty_.
28. The LOGGERHEADS. Ditto. By _Ditto_.
29. The MAN IN THE MOON DRINKS CLARET. By _Blackman_.
30. The DANCING BEARS. A Sign for N. Dukes, or A. Hart, or any other
Dancing-Master to Grown Gentlemen. By _Hagarty_.
31. MY A---- IN A BANDBOX. By _Sympson_.
32. A MAN STRUGGLING THROUGH THE WORLD. By _the same_.
33. ST JOHN’S HEAD in a Charger.
34. A DOG’S HEAD in the Porridge Pot. Its Companion. Both these by
_Blackman_.
35. A MAN IN HIS ELEMENT. A Sign for an Eating House.
36. A MAN OUT OF HIS ELEMENT. A Sign for a Publick House at Wapping,
Rotherhithe, or Deptford. Both these by _Stainsley_.
37. The BARLEY MOW. By _Whitaker_.
38. A BIRD IN THE HAND. A Landscape. By _Allison_.
39. ABSALOM HANGING. A Peruke-Maker’s Sign. By _Sclater_.
40. WELCOME CUCKOLDS TO HORN FAIR. By _Hagarty_.
41. The CAT O’ NINE TAILS. A Kit-Cat. By _Masmore_.
42. KING CHARLES IN THE OAK. A Land-schape. By _Allison_. The Face in
Miniature. By _Sclater_.
43. An OWL IN AN IVY BUSH. Its Companion. By _Allison_.
44. FOOTE in the Character of Mrs Cole. A Sign for a
_Boarding-School_. By _Stainsley_.
45. PEEPING-TOM. A Sign for a Shoemaker. By _the same_.
46.
47. A PAIR OF BREECHES.
48. A GREEN CANISTER. Its Companion. Both these by _Blackman_.
49. An HA! HA!
50. [_On a parallel line with the foregoing on the other side of the
chimney._] THE CURIOSITY. Its Companion. [These two by an unknown
Hand, the Exhibitors being favoured with them from an unknown
Quarter.] ⁂ Ladies and Gentlemen are requested not to finger them, as
Blue Curtains are hung on purpose to preserve them.
51. [_Over the Chimney._] A STAR of the first Magnitude.
52. The Renowned SEVEN CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM, from an entire New
Design. 1. St George for England. 2. St Andrew for Scotland. 3. St
Denis for France. 4. St Anthony for Italy. 5. St James for Spain. 6.
St David for Wales. 7. St Patrick for Ireland. This by _Bransley_.
53. An Original Portrait of the present EMPEROR OF RUSSIA.
54. Ditto of the Empress QUEEN OF HUNGARY. Its Antagonist. These by
_Sheerman_.
55. The SILENT WOMAN, or A GOOD RIDDANCE. A Family Piece. By
_Barnsley_.
56. The GHOST OF COCK LANE. By Miss _Fanny_ ----.[725]
57. THREE PORTRAITS IN ONE.
58. ALL THE WORLD AND HIS WIFE. By _Blackman_.
59. CAT AND BAGPIPES. By _Forster_.
60. A perspective view of BILLINGSGATE, or Lectures on Elocution.
61. The ROBIN HOOD SOCIETY, a Conversation; or Lectures on
Elocution.[726] Its Companion. These two by _Barnsley_.
62. AN AUTHOR IN THE PILLORY. By ----, Bookseller. First Attempt.[727]
63. _Liberty_ crowning _Britania_. By command of his Majesty.
64. View of the ROAD TO PADDINGTON, with a Presentation (_sic_) of the
Deadly Never-Green[728] that bears Fruit all the Year round. The Fruit
at full length. By _Hagarty_.
65. The SALUTATION, or French and English Manners. By _Blackman_.
66. GOOD COMPANY. A Conversation. Intended as a Sign for a
Tobacconist. By _Bransley_.
67. DEATH AND THE DOCTOR; in _Distemper_. By _Hagarty_.
68. HOGS NORTON.[729] A Sign for a Music Shop. By _Bransley_.
69. ST DUNSTAN AND THE DEVIL.
70. ST SQUINTUM[730] AND THE DEVIL. Its Companion. By ----.
71. SHAVE FOR A PENNY. LET BLOOD FOR NOTHING.
72. TEETH DRAWN WITH A TOUCH. A Caricature. Its Companion. These two
by _Bransley_.
73. A MAN LOADED WITH MISCHIEF. By _Sympson_.
74. ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND HORSE. A Landscape. By _Bransley_.
75. FIRST AND LAST. By _Blackman_.
76. The CONSTITUTION; Alderman Pitt’s Entire. By _Hagarty_.
BUSTS, CARVED FIGURES, &c., &c., &c.
1. A BLUE BOAR. By _Lester_.
2. TWO INDIAN KINGS. By _Taverner_.
3. A FLAMING SWORD of Paradise.
4. ST PETER’S KEY. Both these by _Carey_.
5. A BUNCH OF GRAPES from _Portugal_. By _Pendred_.
6. A DIVIDED CROWN. By _Ward_.
7. BIRMINGHAM CASE OF KNIVES AND FORKS. [See at the other end of this
a SHEFFIELD CASE. Its Companion.] Both these by _Asgill_.
8. A NAG’S HEAD, after the Manner of the Antient Bronzes. By
_Millwich_.
9. A BLOCK, done from the Life. By _Brown_.
10. An exact Representation of the famous RUNNING HORSE. _Black and
All Black._
11. Underneath, an Escutcheon, shewing his Pedigree, as warranted by
the Herald’s office. These by _Fishbourne_.
12. Bust of a celebrated Beauty. By _Edley_.
13. Head of the THOUGHTLESS PHILOSOPHER. By _Masmore_.
14. TAKE TIME BY THE FORELOCK. By _Clark_.
15. A DUMB BELL. By _the same_.
16. The BRITISH LION, and
17. UNICORN. [The Lion in excellent Condition.] By _Jones_.
18. A French _Fleur-de-Lys_ [tarnished.] By _Garthy_.
19. Two Bronzes. By _Millwich_.
20. A Gold Fish, considerably larger than the Life. By _Cook_.
21. A MITRE, and
22. CROWN. By _Hughes_.
23. A DOLPHIN, painted with the true _Verd Antique_. By _Quarterman_.
⁂ Several TOBACCO ROLLS, SUGAR LOAVES, HATS, WIGS, STOCKINGS, GLOVES,
&c., &c., &c., hung round the Room. By the above-mentioned Artists.
24. [_On the Left Hand of the Door, going out._] A Stand of Cheeses,
with a Bladder of Lard on the Top.
25. A _Westphalian_ Ham. These two by _Bricken_.
--_St James’s Chronicle_, Ap. 20-22. 1762.
The next number of the _St James’s Chronicle_ contained an article on
the Exhibition from another journal, written with great animosity:--
“As your paper is always ready to expose any Abuses on the Publick, I
beg you will give place to the following Observations:--
“I acknowledge myself to have been one of the Curious who went
yesterday morning to see the Grand Exhibition, as it is called, of the
Sign-Painters, from which I did not indeed expect any great
Entertainment; however, I did not imagine any Set of Gentlemen would
have been concerned in a senseless Attempt at Satire, and along with
it the most impudent and pickpocket Abuse that I ever knew offered to
the Publick.
“The Exhibition is really of Signs, and those, in general, worse
executed than any that are to be seen in the meanest streets. The
Busts, carved Figures, &c., are of corresponding Excellence, all of
them being the very worst of Signpost Work, and such as seem collected
for an Insult on the Human understanding.
“But that your Readers may _All_ save their Time, Money, and Credit,
by not falling into this Hum-trap, I shall give them an Account of
some of the choicest Articles of this Collection as a sample that must
damp their Curiosity for seeing the Whole.”
GRAND ROOM.
1. Mr Hogarth, or a wretched Figure done for him drawing his five
orders of Periwigs.
2. A CROOKED BILLET, hung under it, on which is written, _The Exact
Line of Beauty_.
3. THE GOOD WOMAN. The old stale Device of a Woman without a Head,
badly executed.
5. THE LIGHT HEART. A Feather weighing down a Heart in a pair of
Scales.
9. THE IRISH ARMS. A great clumsy pair of Legs.
10. The GENTLEMAN OF WALES. A Taffey with a great Leek in his Hat.
19. NOBODY. A man all Legs.
20. SOMEBODY. A man all Belly, with a Constable’s Staff.
23. A FREEMASON’S LODGE. A new Member blinded and befouling himself.
27. THE SPIRIT OF CONTRADICTION. Two Brewers bearing a cask. The Men
going different ways.
30. THE DANCING BEARS. Bears in Men’s cloaths, learning to dance, a
great one amongst them, with a gold Chain round his Neck; the Dancing
Master a Monkey, holding a Kitten on his Breast with one hand, and
pincing its tail with the other.
31. BAND-BOX. An Ass standing in a great Band-box.[731]
32. A MAN STRUGGLING THROUGH THE WORLD. The Sign of a Pasteboard
Terrestrial Globe, with a Man creeping through it, his Head being out
at one End, and his Heels at the other.
35. A MAN IN HIS ELEMENT. A man gluttonizing.[732]
36. A MAN OUT OF HIS ELEMENT. A Sailor fallen off his Horse.
44. FOOTE in the Character of Mrs Cole. The wit lies in the writing
under it, which is, _Young Ladies educated here_.
45. PEEPING TOM.[733] A Shoemaker trying on a Shoe on a Woman.
BUT THE CREAM OF THE WHOLE JEST IS (49 and 50) two Boards behind two
Curtains, (one on each side of the Chimney,) which, when the Curtains
are lifted up, show the written Laughs of HA HA HA and HE HE HE.
53 and 54 are two old Signs of a SARACEN’S HEAD and a QUEEN ANNE’S,
with their Tongues lolling out at one another, designed to represent
the Czar and the Queen of Hungary. Over them is a great wooden Bill,
with this inscription, _The present State of Europe_.
64. A view of the ROAD TO PADDINGTON, with a Representation of the
Deadly Never Green that bears Fruit all the year round. This is
Tyburn, with three felons hanging on it.
65. The SALUTATION, or French and English Manners, which shows a
Frenchman cringingly bowing, and an Englishman taking him by the Nose.
66. GOOD COMPANY. Three Men drunk, and burning one another’s Faces
with their Pipes.
69. ST DUNSTAN AND THE DEVIL. The Saint taking the Devil by the Nose
with a Pair of Tongs.
70. Its Companion. Doctor Squintum doing the same.
71. SHAVE FOR A PENNY, LET BLOOD FOR NOTHING. A man under the hands of
a barber surgeon, who shaves and lets blood at the same time, by
cutting at every stroke of his razor.
73. A MAN LOADED WITH MISCHIEF. A Fellow with a Woman, a Monkey, and a
Magpie on his Back.
74. ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND HORSE. A Woman and a Hay Mow.
75. FIRST AND LAST. A Cradle and a Coffin.
76. THE CONSTITUTION. Alderman Pitt’s Entire. A tall Grenadier and a
short Sailor.
“Such is the Entertainment that these wits have been able to prepare
for the curious, with all the assistance of the Virtuosi which they
have been long advertising to procure. If there is any Satyre in this
Design, it must be in humming their Customers. Wit or taste there is
certainly none; but there is a Magnitude of Imposition that is surely
deserving of Punishment.
It is well known that the Society for the Encouragement of Arts,
Manufactures, and Commerce, are at a great Expense for making their
elegant Exhibition, and give their Tickets all away. The Artists,
indeed, sell Catalogues there to those who chuse to buy them, and
dispose of the Money that is got by them to Charities.
The Body of Artists made their Catalogues Tickets to serve last year
for the whole Time of Exhibition in Spring Gardens, and sold them but
a shilling a-piece, the Profits of which were likewise distributed in
Charities.
The Society, as they call themselves, of Signpainters, or rather of
Bites who borrow that Name, have the Assurance to fix a Ticket to each
Catalogue, which they sell for their own Profit at a shilling; and, by
obliging the Ticket to be torn off at the Second Door, make the
Purchase of a New Catalogue absolutely necessary for a Second
Admission. It is true most Gentlemen do refuse to let their Catalogues
be torn; and many of those who had submitted to the tearing of them,
insisted upon their being exchanged for whole ones, resolving, like
Men of Spirit, not to be bubbled every Way.
In fine, this Mock Exhibition is a most impudent and scandalous Abuse
and Bubble. An Insult on Understanding, and a most pickpocket
Imposture. The best entertainment it can afford is that of standing in
the street, and observing with how much shame in their Faces People
come out of the House. Pity it will be, if all who are employed in the
carrying on this Cheat, are not seized and sent to serve the King. And
those who are Sharers in the Booty deserve likewise to be severely
chastised.
I am, SIR, yours, &c.,
A DESPISER OF ALL TRICKERY.”
“_The_ Signpainters _return their Thanks to the author of the above
most excellent Letter, which is seemingly abusive of their Design, but
is in Fact a most admirable Irony._
_The_ LEDGER _of this Morning, after having pillaged the_ CATALOGUE OF
SIGNPAINTING, _is candid enough to abuse it. But it is plain that the
author has not seen the Exhibition, or could not find out the Humour
of it._”
FROM THE GAZETTEER.--(_St James’ Chronicle_, Ap. 24-27, 1762.)--“The
Society of Signpainters, in their Catalogue, tell us they _take the
opportunity of refuting_ what they are pleased to call a _malicious
Suggestion_--viz., ‘Their Exhibition being designed as a Ridicule on
the Exhibition of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, etc., and
the Artists,’ and that they intend theirs only as an Appendix or (in
the Style of Painters) ‘Companion’ to the others. What is that but
ridiculing, or an attempt towards it? They say ‘there is nothing in
their Collection which will be understood by any candid person as a
Reflection on any Body or any Body of Men.’ They might have spared
this Assertion, for no Person, endued with the least Share of common
Sense, can imagine so impotent and futile an Attempt at Satire or
Ridicule on any Thing except the few Spectators who go there; which
would have been better understood had it opened on the First of April.
“They also say, ‘They are not in the least prompted by any mean
jealousy to depreciate the Merits of their Brother Artists.’ Which is
owing to their Inability, not want of Assurance; for an Attempt in
them to depreciate the Merit of the Professors of Painting and
Sculpture, whom they are impudently pleased to call their Brother
Artists, would be (to borrow a Simile from one of their own
Productions) like Dogs barking at the Moon.
“_Their sole View_, etc., etc.--‘Their sole View’ (without any Breach
of Charity) we may infer is that of filling their own Pockets by
duping the Publick; for no private Men would by an Advertisement
invite People to their House, and place a Porter at the Door to take a
Shilling of them, with a Pretence of being animated by a public
Spirit, for any other Motive.
“_Bow Street, Covent Garden, April 27._
“_The Society of_ SIGN-PAINTERS are obliged to the GAZETTEER for the
_above Remarks_.”
Articles and letters abusive of the Exhibition appeared in most of the
newspapers, and not a day passed but it was attacked in no very measured
terms. The committee, however, generally reprinted the articles in their
own organ, thanking the critics for so successfully advertising their
efforts, after which no more was heard from them. The following review,
having very similar annotations upon the signs to those in the letter
signed “_A Despiser of all Trickery_,” may have come from one of their
own pens. It appeared in a monthly sheet, entitled, “_The London
Register_,” for April:[734]--
“Humour is confessedly one of the chief characteristics of the English
nation. There is no Country that delights in it so much, exerts it on
such various occasions, or shows it in so many Shapes. In
conversation, in Books, on the Stage, we meet with it every Day; and
it has sometimes been introduced, not without success, even into the
Pulpit. To an Artist of our own Country, and of our own Times, we owe
the Practice of enriching Pictures with Humour, Character, Pleasantry,
and Satire. Such an Artist could not fail of Applause in such a Nation
as ours, and his Fame is equal to his Merit.