London Taverns. The history of signboards, from the Earliest Times to
the Present Day.
By Jacob Larwood and john Camden Hotten. (1866)
The earlier signs were frequently representations of the most important article
sold in the shops before which they hung. The stocking denoted the hosier, the
gridiron the ironmonger, and so on. The early booksellers, whose trade lay
chiefly in religious books, delighted in signs of saints, but at the Reformation
the Bible amongst those classes, to whom till then it had been a sealed book,
became in great request, and was sold in large numbers. Then the booksellers set
it up for their sign ; it became the popular symbol of the trade, and at the
present moment instances of its use still linger with us. There was one day in
the year, St Bartholomew's, the 24th of August, when their shops displayed
nothing but Bibles and Prayer-books. It is not impossible that this may have
been originally intended for a manifestation against Popery, since it was the
anniversary of the dreadful Protestant massacre in Paris in 1572. The following,
however, is the only allusion we have met with relating to this custom :- — "
Like a bookseller's shop on Bartholomew day at London, the stalls of which are
so adorned with Bibles and Prayer-books, that almost nothing is left within but
heathen knowledge."*
One of the last Bible signs was about twenty years ago, at a public-house in
Shire Lane, Temple Bar. It was an old established house of call for printers.
The Bible being such a common sign, booksellers had to " wear their rue with a
difference," as Ophelia says, and adopt different colours, amongst which the
Blue Bible was one of the most common. " Prynne's Histrio-Mastrix " was "
printed for Michael Sparke, and sold at the Blue Bible, in Green Arbour Court,
Little Old Bailey, 1632." This blue colour, so common on the signboard, was not
chosen without meaning, but on account of its symbolic virtue. Blue, from its
permanency, being an emblem of truth, hence Lydgate, speaking of Delilah,
Samson's mistress, in his translation from Boccacio, (MS. Harl. 2251,) says —
" Insteade of Mew, v;Mch steadfaste is and dene,
She weraed colours of many a diverse grene."
* New Essays and Characters, by John Stephens the younger, of Lincoln's Inn.
Gent. London, 1631, p. 221.
It also signified piety and sincerity. Handle Holme* says — " This colour, blew,
doth represent the sky on a clear, sun-shining day, when all clouds are exiled.
Job, speaking to the busy searchers of God's mysteries, saith (Job xi. 17,) '
That then shall the residue of their lives be as clear as the noonday.' Which to
the judgment of men (through the pureness of the air) is of azure colour or
light blew, and signifieth piety and sincerity."
Other booksellers chose the Three Bibles, which was a very common sign of the
trade on London Bridge in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries : of one of
them, Charles Tyne, trades tokens are extant, — great curiosities to the
numismatist, as booksellers were not in the habit of issuing them. The sign of
the Three Bibles seems to have originated from the stationers' arms, which are
arc/, on a chevron between three bibles, or. a falcon volant between two roses,
the Holy Ghost in chief. One bookseller, on account of his selling stationery,
also added three irtkbottles to the favourite three Bibles, as we see from an
advertisement, giving the price of playing cards in 1711 : —
" n OLD by Henry Parson, Stationer at the Three Bibles and Three Ink bottles,
near St Magnus' Church, on London Bridge, the best principal superfine Picket
Cards, at 2s. 6d. a dozen ; the best principal Ombro Cards, at 2s. 9d. a dozen ;
the best principal superfine Basset Cards, at 3s. 6d. a dozen ; with all other
Cards and Stationery Wares at Reasonable Rates." t
Combinations of the Bible with, other objects were very common, some of them
symbolic, as the Bible and Crown, which sign originated during the political
troubles in the reign of Charles I. It was at this time when the clergy and the
court party constantly tried to convince the people of the divine prerogative of
the Crown, that the " Bible and Crown ' ; became the standing toast of the
Cavaliers and those opposed to the Parliament leaders.
As a sign it has been used for a century and a half by the firm of Bivington the
publishers. The old wood carving, painted and gilt in the style of the early
signs, was taken down from over the shop in Paternoster Bow in 1853, when this
firm removed westward. It is still in their possession. Cobbett, the political
agitator and publisher, in the beginning of this century chose the sign of the
Bible, Crown, and Constitution ; but the general tenor of his life was such,
that his enemies said he put them up merely that he might afterwards be able to
say he had pulled them down. A Bible, Sceptee, and Crown, carved in wood, may
still be seen on the top of an ale-house of that name in High Holborn. The crown
and sceptre in this case are placed on two closed Bibles.
The Bible and Lamb, i.e., the Holy Lamb, we find mentioned in an advertisement
in the Publich Advertiser, March 1, 1759 —
" rp.O BE HAD at the Bible and Lamb, near Temple Bar, on the Strand
JL Side, the Skin for Pains in the Limbs, Price 2s."
Books also were sold here, for in those days booksellers and toyshops were the
usual repositories for quack medicines.
The Bible and Dove, i.e., the Holy Ghost, was the sign of John Penn, bookseller,
over against St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, 1718 ; and the Bible and Peacock,
the sign of Benjamin Crayle, bookseller, at the west end of St Paul's, in 1688.
If not a combination of two signs, the bird may have been added on account of
its being the type of the Resurrection, in which quality it is found represented
in the Catacombs, a symbolism arising from the supposed incorruptibility of its
flesh.* Various other combinations occur, as the Bible and Key. Rowland Hall, a
printer of the sixteenth century, had for his sign the Hale Eagle and Key, (see
Heraldic Signs,) of which the Bible and Key may be a free imitation. It was the
sign of B. Dod, bookseller, in Ave Maria Lane, 1761 ; whilst the Golden Key and
Bible was that of L. Stoke, a bookseller at Charing Cross, 1711. The " Bible and
Key " is also the name of a certain Coscinomanteia,
somewhat similar to the Sortes Virgilianse. This method of divination was
performed in two ways, in the first, (stated by Matthew of Paris to have been
frequently practised at the election of bishops,) the Bible was opened on the
altar, and the prediction taken from the chapter which first caught the eye on
opening the book; the other was by placing two written papers, one negative, the
other affirmative, of the matter in question, under the pall of the altar,
which, after solemn prayers, was believed would be decided by divine
judgment. Gregory of Tours mentions another method by the Psalms. t
* "Notandum quoq. eius (pavonis) carnem quod D. Augustinus quoq., lib. xxi. de
civitate Dei, cap. iii., et Isidorus, lib. xii., affirmant non putrescere." —
Camerarius, Centur., iii. 20, 1697. How to make this agree with Skelton's idea
it is not very easy to explain —
" Then sayd the Pecocke,
All ye well wot,
I sing not musycal,
For my breast is decay'd." — Skelton's Armony of Birds.
t See Fosbrooke's Encyclopaedia of Antiquities, vol. ii., p. 673.
At the present day " Bible and Key " divinations are often attempted by those
who believe in fortune-telling and vaticinations. The method adopted is as
follows : — A key is placed, with the bow or handle sticking out, between the
leaves of a Bible, on Ruth i. 16:
'' AND RUTH said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following
after thee : for whither thou goest, I will go ; and where thou lodgest, I will
lodge ; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."
The Bible is then firmly tied up, most effectually with a garter, and balanced
by the bow of the key on the fore-fingers of the right hands of two persons, the
one who wishes to consult the oracle, the other any person standing near. The
book is then addressed with these words — " Pray, Mr Bible, be good enough to
tell me if or not ?" If the question be answered in the affirmative the key will
swing round, turn off the finger, and the Bible fall down ; if in the negative,
it will remain steady in its position. Not only upon matrimonial, but upon all
sorts of questions, this oracle may be consulted.
Further combinations are the Bible and Sun. The Sun was the sign of Wynkyn de
Worde, and the printers that succeeded him in his house. It may, however, in
this combination have been an emblem of the Sun of Truth, or the Light of the
World. It was the sign of J. Newberry, in St Paul's Churchyard,, the publisher
of Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield;" also of C, Bates, near Pie Corner ; and of
Richard Reynolds, in the Poultry, both ballad printers in the times of Charles
II. and William III.
Then there is the Bible and Ball, a sign of a bookseller in Ave Maria Lane in
1761, who probably hung up a Globe to indicate the sale of globes and maps ; and
the Bible and Dial, over against St Dunstan's Church, Fleet Street, in 1720, was
the sign of the notorious Edmund Curll, who was pilloried at Charing Cross, and
pilloried in Pope's verses. The Dial was, in all likelihood, a sun-dial on the
front wall of his house.
Of the Apocryphal Books there is only one example among the signboards, viz.,
Bel and the Deagon, which was at one time not uncommon, more particularly with
apothecaries. It was represented by a Bell and a Dragon, as appears from the
Spectator, No. 28. "One Apocryphical Heathen God is also represented by this
figure [of a Bell], which, in conjunction with the Dragon, makes a very handsome
picture in several of our streets." Although at the first glance this sign seems
taken from the doubtful books of the Old Testament, still there is nothing in
the Apocryphal book which could in any way prompt the choice of it for a
signboard. After all, it may possibly be only a combination, or corruption, of
two other signs. There still remain a few public louses which employ it, — as in
Worship Street; at Cookham, Maidenhead; at Norton in the Moors, &c, whilst in
Boss Street, Sorsely Down, there is a variation in the form of the Bell and
jRiFFiisr. From a handbill of Topham, the Strong Man, we see hat it was vulgarly
called the King- Astyages Arms, for no better reason than because King Astyages
is the first name in the story : he incident related in the Book of Bel and the
Dragon having taken place after his death.
A very common sign of old, as well as at present, is the Adam and Eve. Our first
parents were constant dramatis personce in the mediaeval mysteries and pageants,
on which occasions, with the naivete of those times, Eve used to come on the
stage exactly in the same costume as she appeared to Adam before the Fall.
The sign was adopted by various trades, including the publishers of books, as we
may see from the following quaint title : —
" A PROTESTANT Picture of Jesus Christ, drawn in Scripture colours, both
for light to sinners and delight to saints. By Tho. Sympson, M.A., Preacher of
the Word at London. Sold by Edvv. Thomas at the Adam and Eve, in Little Britain.
1662."
In Newgate Street there yet remains an old stone sign of the Adam and Eve, with
the date 1669. Eve is represented handing the apple to Adam, the fatal tree is
in the centre, round its stem the serpent winding. It was the arms of the
fruiterers' company.
There is still an Adam and Eve public-house in the High Street, Kensington,
where Sheridan, on his way to and from Holland House, used to refresh himself,
and in this way managed to run up rather a long bill, which Lord Holland had to
pay for him. A still older place of public entertainment was the Adam and Eve
Tea-gardens, in Tottenham Court Koad, part of which was the last remaining
vestige " of the once respectable, if not magnificent, manor-house appertaining
to the Lords of Tottenhall." Richardson, in 1819, said that the place had long
been celebrated as a tea-garden ; there was an organ in the long room, and the
company was generally respectable, till the end of last century, * For
particulars of Topham, the Strong Man, see under Historical Signs.
t This statement is made on the authority of Hone, in his "Ancient Mysteries."
Doubts, however, have been expressed as to the accuracy of his data upon this
particular subject.
when highwaymen, footpads, pickpockets, and low women, beginning to take a fancy
to it, the magistrates interfered. The organ was banished, and the gardens were
dug up for the foundation of Eden Street. In these gardens Lunardi came down
after his unsuccessful balloon ascent from the Artillery ground, May 16, 1783.
Hogarth has represented the Adam and Eve in the March of the Guards to Finchley.
Upon the signboard of the house is inscribed, " Tottenham Court Nursery," in
allusion to Broughton's Amphitheatre for Boxing, erected in this place. How
amusing is this advertisement of the great Professor's " Nursery : " —
" From the Gymnasium at Tottenham Court on Thursday next at Twelve o'clock will
begin : lecture on Manhood or Gymnastic Physiology, wherein the whole
Theory and Practice of the Art of Boxing will be fully explained by various
Operators on the animal (Economy and the Principles of Championism, illustrated
by proper Experiments on the Solids and Fluids of the Body ; together with the
True Method of investigating the Nature of all Blows, Stops, Cross Buttocks,
etc., incident to Combatants. The whole leading to the most successful Method of
beating a Man deaf, dumb, lame, and blind.
by Thomas Smallwood, A.M.,
Gymnasiast of St. Giles,
and
Thomas Dimmock, AM.,
Athleta of Southwark,
(Both fellows of the Athletic Society.)
'* The Syllabus or Compendium for the use of students in Athleticks, referring
to Matters explained in this Lecture, may be had of Mr Pro fessor Broughton at
the Crown in Market Lane, where proper instructions in the Art and Practice of
Boxing are delivered without Loss of Eye or Limb to the student."
The tree with the forbidden fruit, always represented in the sign of Adam and
Eve, leads directly to the Flaming Swoed, " which turned every way to keep the
way of the tree of life."
Being the first sword on record, it was not inappropriately a cutler's sign, and
as such we find it in the Banks Collection, on the shop-bill of a sword cutler
in Sweeting's Alley, Royal Exchange, 1780. It is less appropriate at the door of
a public-house in Nottingham, for the landlord evidently cannot desire to keep
anybody out, whether saint or sinner. The vessel by which the life of the first
planter of the vine was preserved, certainly well deserves to decorate the
tavern : hence Noah's Ark is not an uncommon public-house sign, though it looks
very like a sarcastic reflection on the mixed crowd that resort to the house, —
not to escape the " heavy wet," as the animals at the Deluge, but in order to
obtain some of it. Toy-shops also constantly use it, since Noah's Ark is
generally the favourite toy of children. Evelyn, in 1644, mentions a shop near
the Palais de Justice in Paris :
" Here is a shop called Noah's Ark, where are sold all curiosities, natural or
artificial, Indian or European, for luxury or use, as cabinets, shells, ivory,
porcelain, dried fishes, insects, birds, pictures, and a thousand exotic
extravagances."
The Deluge was one of the standard subjects of mediaeval dramatic plays. In the
third part of the Chester Whitsun plays, for instance, Noah and the Flood make a
considerable item ; and at a much later period the same subject was exhibited at
Bartholomew Fair. A bill of the time of Queen Annef informs us that —
"IT Crawley's Booth, over against the Crown Tavern in Smithfield, during
the time of Bartholomew Fair, will be presented a little Opera, called the Old
Creation of the World, yet newly revived, with the addition of Noah's Flood;
also several fountains playing water during the time of the play. The last scene
presents Noah and his family coming out of the Ark, with all the beasts, two by
two, and all the fowls of the air, seen in a prospect, sitting upon trees.
Likewise over the Ark is seen the sun rising in a most glorious manner :
moreover, a multitude of angels will be seen, in a double rank, which presents a
double prospect — one for the sun, the other for a palace, where will be seen 6
angels ringing of bells, etc."
The Deluge was the mystery performed at Whitsuntide by the company of dyers in
London, and from this their sign of the Dove and Rainbow might have originated,
unless it were adopted by them on account of the various colours of the rainbow.
On the bill of John Edwards, a silk-dyer in Aldersgate Street, the Dove, with an
olive branch in her mouth, is represented flying underneath the Rainbow, over a
landscape, with villages, fenced fields, and a gentleman in the costume of the
reign of Charles II. Besides this there are various other dyers' bills with the
sign of the Dove and Rainbow, both among the Bagford and Banks Collections. A
few public-houses at the present day still keep up the memory of the sign ;
there is one at Nottingham, and another in Leicester.
* Diary of John Evelyn, Feb. 3, 1684. f Bagford Collection, Bib. HarL, 5931.
"Abraham Offering his Son" was the sign of a shop in Norwich in 1750. A stone
bas-relief of the same subject (Le Sacrifice d' 'Abraham) is still remaining in
the front of a house in the Rue des Pretres, Lille, France. A Dutch
wood-merchant, in the seventeenth century, also put up this sign, and
illustrated its application by the following rhyme : —
" 'T Hout is gehakt, opdat men 't zou branden,
Daarom is dit in Abram's Offerhande. " *
Thus, though the wood of the sacrifice played a very insignificant part in the
story, yet the simple mention of it was enough to make it a fit subject for a
Dutchman's signboard. We have a similar instance in Jacob's Well, which is
common in London, as well as in the country. The allusion here is to the well at
which Christ met the woman of Samaria, who said to him :
" ART thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and
drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle ? Jesus answered and
said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again," (S. John
iv. 12.)
How cruelly these words apply to the gin-tap, at which generation after
generation drink, and after which they always thirst again. Not unlikely the
English use of this sign dates from the Puritan period. t Not always, however,
had the sign any direct relation to the trade of the inmate of the house which
it adorned ;
as, for example, Moses and Aaron", which occurs on a trades token of
Whitechapel. In allusion to this, or a similar sign, Tom Brown says, " Other
amusements presented themselves as thick as hops, as Moses pictured with horns,
to keep Cheapside in countenance." X Even the Dutch shopkeeper, whose
imagination was generally so fertile in finding a religious subject appropriate
as his trade sign, was at a loss what to do with Moses ; for a baker in
Amsterdam, in the seventeenth century, put up the sign of Moses, with this
inscription :
" Moses wierd gevist in het water,
Die hier waar haalt krygt vry gist, een Paaschbrood,
En op Korstyd een Deuvekater." §
* " The wood is cut in order to be burned. Therefore is this Abraham's
sacrifice."
+ Jacob's Inn is mentioned by Hatton, 1708, " on the east side of Red Cross
Street, near the middle."
% " Amusements for the Meridian of London," 1706.
§ " Moses was found in the water.
Whosoever purchases his bread here shall have yeast for nought,
Besides a currant-loaf at Easter, and a spice-cake at Christmas time."
In London, however, the use of this sign may at first have been suggested by the
statues of Moses and Aaron that used to stand above the balcony of the Old
Guildhall. Connected with the history of Moses, we find several other signs, one
in particular, mentioned by Ned Ward as the Old Pharaoh in the town of Barley,
in Cambridgeshire. It was so named, says he, " from a stout, elevating malt
liquor of the same name, for which this house had been long famous."* Why this
beer was called Pharaoh, Ned Ward does not seem to have known • but a story in
the county is current that it was so named because the beer, like the Egyptian
king of old, " would not let the people go !" It is now no longer drunk in
England, but a certain strong beer of the same name is still a favourite
beverage in Belgium. Next, in chronological order, connected with the history of
Moses, follows the Brazen Serpent, the sign of Reynold Wolfe, a bookseller and
printer in St Paul's Churchyard, 1544, and also of both his apprentices, Henry
Binneman and John Shepperde. It had probably been imported by the foreign
printers, for it was a favourite amongst the early French and German
booksellers. At the present day it is a public-house sign in Richardson Street,
Bermondsey. What led to the adoption of this emblem was not the historical
association, but the mystical meaning which it had in the middle ages : —
" A serpent torqued with a long cross ; others blazon Christ, supporting the
brazen serpent, because it was an anti-type of the passion and death of our
Saviour ; for as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son
of Man be lifted up, (Num. xxi. 8, 9; John iii. 14,) that all that behold him,
by a lively faith, may not perish, but have everlasting life. This is the
cognizance or crest of every true believer." f
The idea was no doubt borrowed from the Biblia Pauperum. The Balaam's Ass,
again, was one of the dramatis persona? in the Whitsuntide mystery of the
company of cappers, (cap-makers,) and this is the only reason we can imagine for
his having found his way to the signboard. It occurs in 1722 in a newspaper
paragraph, concerning a child born without a stomach, the details of which are
too nauseous to be introduced here.J
The Two Spies is the last sign belonging to the history of Moses; it represents
two of the spies that went into Canaan, " and cut down from thence a branch with
one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff," (Num. xiii.
23.) This bunch of grapes made it a favourite with publicans ; at many places it
may still be seen, as in Catherine Street, Strand, (a house of old standing :)
in Long Acre, &c. In Great Windmill Street, Leicester Square, it has been
corrupted into the Three Spies.
* " A Step to Stirbitch Pair," 1703. f Randle Holme, B. ii., ch. xviii.
J Weekly Journal, Augu6t 4, 1722.
After Moses there is a blank until we come to Samson, to whom our national
admiration for athletic sports and muscular strength has given a prominent place
on the signboard. Samson and the Lion occurs on the sign of various houses in
London in the seventeenth century, as appears from the trades tokens. It is
still of frequent occurrence in country towns, as at Dudley, Coventry, &c. It
was also used on the Continent. In Paris there is, or was, not many years ago, a
della Eobbia ware medallion sign in the Hue des Dragons, with the legend " le
Fort Samson* 1 representing the strong man tearing open the lion. To a sign of
Samson at Dordrecht, in the seventeenth century, the following satirical
inscription had been added :—
" Toen Samson door zyn kracht de leeuw belemmen kon,
De Philistynen sloeg, de vossen overwon.
Wiert hy nog door een Vrouw van zyn gezigt beroofd,
Gelooft geen vrouw dan of zy moet zyn zonder hoofd."*
This admiration of strong men, which procured the signboard honours to Samson,
also made Goliah, or Golias, a great favourite. In the Horse Market, Castle
Barnard, he is actually treated just like a duke, admiral, or any other
public-house hero, for there the sign is entitled the Goliah Head. Some doubts,
however, may be entertained whether by Golias or Goliah, (for the name is spelt
both ways,) the Philistine giant and champion was always intended. Towards the
end of the twelfth century there lived a man of wit, with the real or assumed
name of Golias, who wrote the " Apocalypsis Goliae," and other burlesque verses.
He was the leader of a jovial sect called Goliardois, of which Chaucer's Miller
was one. " He was a jangler and a goliardeis." Such a person might, therefore,
have been a very appropriate tutelary deity for an alehouse. t
Goliah' s conqueror, King David, liberally shared the honours with his victim,
and he still figures on various signboards.
There is a King David's inn in Bristol, and a David and Though Samson by his
strength could overcome the lion, Defeat the Philistines and master the foxes,
Yet a woman deprived him of his sight ;
Never, therefore, believe a woman unless she has no head." This alludes to the
Good Woman, described elsewhere in this work. Samson's history was not only
painted on the signboard, but also sung in ballads, "to the tune of the Spanish
Pavin." Amongst the Roxburgh ballads (vol. i. fol. 366) there is one entitled "A
most excellent and famous ditty of Sampson, judge of Israel, how hee wedded a
Philistyne's daughter, who at length forsooke him ; also how hee slew a lyon and
propounded a riddle, and after how hee was falsely betrayed by Dalila, and of
his
death."
t See Eibliographia Britannica, voce Golias, and Wright's History of Caricature.
Harp in Liniehouse; whilst in Paris, the Rue de la Harpe is said to owe its name
to a sign of King David playing on the harp. David's unfortunate son, Absalom,
was a peruke-maker's very expressive emblem, both in France and in England, to
show the utility of wigs. Thus a barber at a town in Northamptonshire used this
inscription :
" Absalom, liadst thou worn a perriwig, thou hadst not been hanged."
Which a brother peruke-maker versified, under a sign representing the death of
Absalom, with David weeping. He wrote up thus :
" Oh Absalom ! oh Absalom !
Oh Absalom ! my son,
If thou hadst worn a perriwig,
Thou hadst not been undone."
Psalm xlii. seems to be very profanely hinted at in the sign of the White Haet
and Fountain, Eoyal Mint Street, which, if not a combination of two well-known
signs, apparently alludes to the words, " As the hart panteth after the water
brooks, so pant eth my soul after thee, O God." The Panting Haet (het dorstige
Hert, or het Heigent Hert^) was formerly a very common beer-house sign in
Holland. In the seventeenth century there was one with the following inscription
at Amsterdam : —
" G-elyk het hert by frisch water sig komt te verblyden,
Komt also in myn huys om u van dorst te bevryden." *
Another one at Leyden had the following rhyme : —
" Gelyk een hart van jagen moe lust te drinken water rein,
Alyso verkoopt men hier tot versterking van de maag, toebak, bier en
Brandewyn." f
The wise king Solomon does not appear to have ever been honoured with a
signboard portrait, but his enthusiastic admirer, the Queen of Saba, figured
before the tavern kept by Dick Tarlton the jester, in Gracechurch Street. This
Queen of Saba, or Sheba, was a usual figure in pageants. There is a letter of
Secretary Barlow, in " Nugse Antiquse/' telling how the Queen of Sheba
fell down and upset her casket in the lap of the King of Denmark — when on his
drunken visit to James I. — who " got not
* " Like to the hart which comes to the water brook to refresh himself,
So you enter my house to quench your thirst."
t The first six words are literally the beginning of the psalm in the Dutch
version, —
" Like a hart the hunt escaped, wishes for the limpid water brooks,
So there is here tobacco, beer, and brandy for sale to strengthen the stomach."
a little defiled with the presents of the queen ; such as -wine;
cream, jelly, beverages, cakes, spices, and other good matters."
Douce, in his " Illustrations to Shakespeare," has a very ingenious explanation
for the sign of the Bell Savage, as derived from the Queen of Saba, which though
non e vero, ma ben trovato. He bases his argument on a poem of the fourteenth
century, the "Romaunce of Kyng Alisaundre," wherein the Queen of Saba is thus
mentioned : —
" In heore lond is a cite,
On of the noblest in Christiante,
Hit hotith Sabba in langage,
Thence cam Sibely Savage.
Of all the world the fairest queene,
To Jerusalem Salomon to seone.
For hire fair head and for hire love,
Salomon forsok his God above." *
Elisha's Baven, represented with a chop in his mouth, is the sign of a butcher
in the Borough, — a curious conceit, and certainly his own invention; at least
we do not remember any other instance of the sign. This tribute is certainly
very disinterested in the butcher, for if there were any such ravens now, it is
probable that they would sadly interfere with the trade.
Few signs have undergone so many changes as the well-known Salutation.
Originally it represented the angel saluting the Virgin Mary, in which shape it
was still occasionally seen in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as
appears from the tavern token
of Daniel Grey of Holborn. In the times of the Commonwealth, however, " sacrarum
ut humauarum rerum, heu ! vicissitudo est," the Puritans changed it into the
Soldier and Citizen, and in such a garb it continued long after, with this
modification, that it was represented by two citizens politely bowing to each
other. The Salutation Tavern in Billingsgate shows it thus on its trades token,
and so it was represented by the Salutation Tavern in Newgate Street, (an
engraving of which sign may still be seen in the parlour of that old established
house.) At present it is mostly rendered by two hands conjoined, as at the
Salutation Hotel, Perth, where a label is added with the words, " You 're
welcome to the city." That Salutation Tavern in Billingsgate was a famous place
in Ben Jonson's time ; it is named in " Bartholomew Fayre " as one of the houses
where there had been " Great sale and utterance of wine, Besides beere and ale,
and ipocras fine."
During the civil war there was a Salutation Tavern in Holborn, in which the
following ludicrous incident happened, — if we may-believe the Royalist papers :
—
"A hotte combat lately happened at the Salutation Taverne in Holburne, where
some of the Commonwealth vermin, called soldiers, had seized on an Amazonian
Virago, named Mrs Strosse, upon suspicion of being a loyalist, and selling the
Man in the Moon ; but shee, by applying beaten pepper to their eyes, disarmed
them, and with their own swordes forced them to aske her forgiveness ; and down
on their mary bones, and pledge a health to the king, and confusion to their
masters, and so honourablie dismissed them. Oh ! for twenty thousand such
gallant spirits ; when you see that one woman can beat two or three."*
At the end of the last century there was a Salutation Tavern in Tavistock Row,
called also " Mr Bunch's," which was one of the elegant haunts, patronised by "
the first gentleman of Europe," otherwise the Prince Regent. Lord Surrey and
Sheridan were generally his associates in these escapades. The trio went under
the pseudonyms of Blackstoek, G-reystock, and Thinstock, and disguised in bob
wigs and smockfrocks. The night's entertainment generally concluded with
thrashing the " Charlies," wrenching off knockers, breaking down signboards, and
not unfrequently with being taken to the roundhouse.
The Salutation in Newgate Street, some time called the Salutation and Cat, (a
combination of two signs,) was haunted by many of the great authors of the last
century. There is a poetical invitation extant to a social feast held at this
tavern, January 19, 173f-, issued by the two stewards, Edward Cave (of the
Gentleman's Magazine,) and William Bowyer, the antiquary and printer : —
" Saturday, January 17, 173f. "Sib,
You're desired on Monday next to meet,
At Salutation Tavern, Newgate Street,
Supper will be on table just at eight.
(Stewards) one of St John, [Bowyer,] t'other of St John's Gate, [Cave.]"
Richardson the novelist was one of the invites. He returned a poetical answer,
too long to quote at length : the following is part of it : —
"For me, I'm much concern'd I cannot meet
At Salutation Tavern, Newgate Street.
Your notice, like your verse, (so sweet and short !)
* A Royalist paper, entitled, "The Man in the Moon discovering a world of
wickedness nnder the Sun," July 4, 1349.
If longer I'd sincerely thank'd you for it.
Howev'r, receive my wishes, sons of verse !
May every man who meets your praise rehearse !
May mirth as plenty crown your cheerful board !
And every one part happy, as a lord !
That when at home by such sweet verses fir'd,
Your families may think you all inspir'd.
So wishes he, who, pre-engag'd can't know
The pleasures that would from your meeting flow."
In this tavern Coleridge the poet, in one of his melancholy moods, lived for
some time in seclusion, until found out by Southey, and persuaded by him to
return to his usual mode of life. Sir T. N. Talfourd, in his Life of Charles
Lamb, informs us that here Coleridge was in the habit of meeting Lamb when in
town on a visit from the University. Christ's Hospital, their old school, was
within a few paces of the place : —
"When Coleridge quitted the University and came to town, full of mantling hopes
and glorious schemes, Lamb became his admiring disciple. The scene of these
happy meetings was a little public-house called the Salutation and Cat, in the
neighbourhood of Smithfield, where they used to sup, and remain long after they
had ' heard the chimes of midnight.' There they discoursed of Bowles, who was
the god of Coleridge's poetical idolatry, and of Burns and Cowper, who of recent
poets — in that season of comparative barrenness — had made the deepest
impression on Lamb; there Coleridge talked of ' fate, free-will, foreknowledge
absolute,' to one who desired ' to find no end ' of the golden maze ; and there
he recited his early poems with that deep sweetness of intonation which sunk
into the heart of his hearers. To these meetings Lamb was accustomed, at all
periods of his life, to revert, as the season when his finer intellects were
quickened into action. Shortly after they had terminated, with Coleridge's
departure from London, he thus recalled them in a letter : — ' When I read in
your little volume your nineteenth effusion, or what you call " The Sigh," I
think I hear you again. I imagine to myself the little smoky room at the
Salutation and Cat, where we have sat together through the winter nights,
beguiling the cares of life with poesy.' This was early in 1769, and in 1818,
when dedicating his works — then first collected — to his earliest friend, he
thus spoke of the same meetings : — ' Some of the sonnets, which shall be
carelessly turned over by the general reader, may happily awaken in you
remembrances which I should be sorry should be ever totally extinct — the memory
" of summer days and of delightful years," even so fax-back as those old suppers
at our old inn — when life was fresh and topics exhaustless — and you first
kindled in me, if not the power, yet the love of poetry, and beauty, and
kindliness.' "
The Angel was derived from the Salutation, for that it originally represented
the angel appearing to the Holy Virgin at the Salutation or Annunciation, is
evident from the fact that, even as late as the seventeenth century, on nearly
all the trades tokens of houses with this sign, the Angel is represented with a
scroll
in his hands ; and this scroll we know, from the evidence of paintings and
prints, to contain the words addressed by the angel to the Holy Virgin : " Ave
Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum." Probably at the Eeformation it was
considered too Catholic a sign, and so the Holy Virgin was left out, and the
angel only retained. Among the famous houses with this sign, the well-known
starting-place of the Islington omnibuses stands foremost. It is said to have
been an established inn upwards of two hundred years. The old house was pulled
down in 1819; till that time it had preserved all the features of a large
country inn, a long front, overhanging tiled roof, with a square inn-yard having
double galleries supported by columns and carved pilasters, with caryatides and
other ornaments. It is more than probable that it had often been used as a place
for dramatic entertainments at the period when inn-yards were customarily
employed for such purposes. " Even so late as fifty years since it was customary
for travellers approaching London, to remain all night at the Angel Inn,
Islington, rather than venture after dark to prosecute their journey along ways
which were almost equally dangerous from their bad state, and their being so
greatly infested with thieves."* On the other hand, persons walking from the
city to Islington in the evening, waited near the end of John Street, in what is
now termed Northampton Street, (but was then a rural avenue planted with trees,)
until a sufficient party had collected, who were then escorted by an armed
patrol appointed for that purpose. Another old tavern with this sign is extant
in London, behind St Clement's Church in the Strand. To this house Bishop Hooper
was taken by the Guards, on his way to Gloucester, where he went to be burnt, in
January 1555. The house, until lately, preserved much of its ancient aspect : it
had a pointed gable, galleries, and a lattice in the passage. This inn is named
in the following curious advertisement : —
" T0 BE SOLD, a Black Girl, the property of J. B , eleven years of age, J_ who
is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and speaks French perfectly
well ; is of excellent temper and willing disposition. Inquire of W. Owen, at
the Angel Inn, behind St Clement's Church, in the Strand."— PuhlicJc Advertiser,
March 28, 1769.
Older than either of these is the Angel Inn, at Grantham.
This building was formerly in the possession of the Knights
* Cromwell's History of Clerkenwell, p. 32.
Templars, and still retains many remains of its former beauty, particularly the
gateway, with the heads of Edward III. and his queen Philippa of Hainault on
either side of the arch ; the soffits of the windows are elegantly groined, and
the parapet of the front is very beautiful. Kings have been entertained in this
house ; but it seemed to bring ill luck to them, for the reigns of those that
are recorded as having been guests in it, stand forth in history as disturbed by
violent storms — King John held his court in it on February 23, 1213 ; King
Richard III. on October 19, 1483 ; and King Charles I. visited it May 17, 1633.
Ben Jonson, it is said, used to visit a tavern with the sign of the Angel, at
Basingstoke, kept by a Mrs Hope, whose daughter's name was Prudence. On one of
his journeys, finding that the house had changed both sign and mistresses, Ben
wrote the following smart but not very elegant epigram : —
" When Hope and Prudence kept this house, the Angel kept the door,
Now Hope is dead, the Angel fled, and Prudence turned a w ."
The Angel was the sign of one of the first coffee-houses in England, for Anthony
Wood tells us that, "in 1650 Jacob, a Jew, opened a coffee-house at the Angel,
in the parish of St Peter, Oxon ; and there it [coffee] was by some, w T ho
delight in noveltie, drank'
Finally, there was an Angel Tavern in Smithfield, w T here the famous Joe
Miller, of joking fame — a comic actor by profession — used to play during
Bartholomew Fair time. A playbill of 1722 informs the public in large letters
that —
" Miller is not withPiNKETHMAN, but by himself, at the Angel Tavern, next door
to the King's Bench, who acts a new Droll, called the Faithful Couple or the
Royal Shepherdess, with a very pleasant entertainment between Old Hob and his
Wife, and the comical humours of Mopsy and Collin, with a variety of singing and
dancing.
The only Comedian now that dare,
Vie with the world and challenge the Fair."
In France, also, the sign of the Angel is and was at all times, very common. The
Hotel de VAnge, Kue de la Huchette, appears to have been the best hotel in Paris
in the sixteenth century. It was frequently visited by foreign ambassadors :
those sent by Emperor Maximilian to Louis XII. took up their abode here ; so did
the ambassadors from Angus, King of Achaia, who, in 1552, came to see France,
much in the same way as various ambassadors from all sorts of high and low
latitudes occasionally honour our Court with a visit. Chapelle, a French poet of
the seventeenth century, thus celebrates a tavern with this sign in Paris,
frequented by the wits of the period : —
'* Je n'ay pas vu vostre theatre
Qu'aussitot je ressors de la,
Pour un Ange que j'idolatre,
A cause du bon vin qu'il a." *
There being, then, such a profusion of Angels everywhere, it became necessary to
make some distinctions, and the usual means were adopted ; the Angel was gilded,
and called the Golden Angel ; this, for instance, was the sign of Ellis Gamble,
a goldsmith in Cranbourn Alley, Hogarth's master in the art of engraving on
silver; shop-bills engraved for this house by Hogarth are still in existence.
Another variety was the Guardian Angel, which is still the sign of an ale-house
at Yarmouth. This, too, was used in France, as we find V Ange Gardien, the sign
of Pierre Witte, a bookseller in the Rue St Jacques, Paris, in the seventeenth
century.
Very common, also, were the Theee Angels, which may have been intended for the
three angels that appeared to Abraham, or simply the favourite combination of
three, t so frequent on the signboard and in heraldry. That three angels were
thought to possess mysterious power, is evident from the following Devonshire
charm for a burn : —
* "As soon as I had seen your theatre I left it, to go to an Angel whom I adore
on account of his good wine."
f Even in the most remote periods of history three was considered a mystic
number, and regarded with reverence. The Assyrians had their triads. In Ancient
Egypt every town or district had its owu triad, which it worshipped, and which
was a union of certain attributes, the third member proceeding from the other
two. Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, in his "Ancient Egyptians," vol. iv., ch. xii., p.
230, mentions a stone with the words "one Bail, one Athor, one Akori, hail
father of the world, hail triformous God." Thorns, in his " Dissertation on
Ancient Chinese Vases," says :
— "The Chinese have a remarkable preference for the number three; they say one
produced two, two produced three, and three produced all things. There is some-
thing remarkable in this last phrase ; perhaps it conveys an indistinct idea of
the Trinity. The Buddhists, who are of modern date in China, use the term ' the
three
precious ones' — 'the Deity that has ruled, the ruling Deity, and the Deity that
shall rule.' The Taore sect have also their 'three pure ones.' The number three
has many associations, as the three bonds — a prince and minister, father and
son, husband, and wife; the three superintendents — the treasurer, judge, and
collector of customs; the three powers — heaven, earth, and man," &c. In the
Hindoo religion combinations of three are equally frequent: they have several
trimustis or t.inities; three principal deities, Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahadeva ;
another triad is Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, or matter, spirit, and destruction ;
there are three plaited locks on the head of Radha, representing a mystical
union of three principal rivers, Ganges, Yamuna, and Sarawati. Siva has three
eyes; the sun is called three-bodied; the triangle with the Hindoos is a
favourite type for the triune co-equality, hence the pentagram (a figure
composed of two equilateral triangles, placed with the apex of the one towards
the base of the other, and so forming six triangles by the intersections of
their sides) is in great favour with them; further, they use three mystic
letters to denote their deity; have 3x7 bells, (seven is also a mystic number
with them and other ancient races,) and many other combinations of three. The
same preference for this number is observable in the Greek and Roman mythology,
which mentions three theocraties, three graces, three fates, three harpies,
three syrens, three heads of Cerberus, three eggs of Leda, &c. And, taking 3 as
a unit, 3X3 muses, 3x4 principal gods, (Dii Majores,) 3X4 labours
of Hercules, &c.
" Three Angels came from the north, east, and west,
One brought fire, another ice,
And the third brought the Holy Ghost,
So out fire — and in frost —
In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."
The Three Angels was a very general linen-draper's sign, for which there seems
no reason other than that the long flowing garments in which they are generally
represented, suggest their having been good customers to the drapery business.
Angels appear in combination with various heterogenous objects, in many of
which, however, the so-called Angel is simply a Cupid. The Angel and Bible was a
sign in the Poultry in 1680.* The Angel and Crown was a not uncommon tavern
decoration. The following stanza from a pamphlet, entitled, " The Quack
Vintners," London, 1712, p. 18, shows the way in which this sign was represented
: —
" May Harry's Angel be a sign he draws
Angelick nectar, that deserves applause,
Such that may make the city love the Throne,
And, like his Angel, still support the Crown."
From this we learn it was a Cupid or Amorino supporting a crown ; the sign of
the house had doubtless originally been the Crown, and the Cupid, so common in
the Renaissance style, had been added by way of ornament, but was mistaken by
the public as a constituent of the sign. The verses probably applied to the
Angel and Crown, a famous tavern in Broad Street, behind the Royal Exchange.
There was another Angel and Crown in Islington, where convivial dinners were
held in the olden time. It was a common practice in the last and preceding
centuries for the natives of a county or parish to meet once a year and dine
together. The ceremony often commenced by a sermon, preached by a native, after
which the day was spent in pleasant conviviality, after-dinner speeches, and
mutual congratulations. The custom now has almost died out; but this is one of
the invitation
tickets :
* London Gazette, Nov. 8 to 11, 1680.
St Mary, Islington.
Sir,
You are desidered to meet many other Natives of this place on Tuesday ye 11th
day of April 1738 at Mrs Eliz. Grimstead's y- Angel and Crown,
in ye Upper Street, about y e hour of One ; Then and there w th Full Dishes,
Good Wine and Good Humour to improve and make lasting that Harmony and
Friendship which have so long reigned among us.
Walter Sebbon.
John Booth.
N.B. The Dinner will be on the table Bourchier Durrell.
peremptorily at Two. James Sebbon.
Pray pay the Bearer Five Shillings. Stewards.
That same year, another Angel and Crown Tavern in Shire Lane obtained an
unenviable notoriety, for it was there that a Mr Quarrington was murdered and
robbed by Thomas Carr, an attorney from the Temple, and Elisabeth Adams. They
were hanged at Tyburn, January 18, 1738.
The Angel and Gloves at first sight seems a whimsical combination, but is easily
explained when we advert to the woodcut above the shop-bill of Isaac Dalvy, in
Little Newport Street, Soho, who, in the reign of Queen Anne, sold gloves, &c,
under this sign, which simply represented two Cupids, each carrying a glove, —
in fact, exactly the same conceit as that of the Herculanese shoemaker, noticed
in a former chapter. It is more difficult to find a rational explanation for the
Angel and Stilliards. The Steelyard, or Stilliard, in Upper Thames Street, was
the place where the Hanse merchants exposed their goods for sale, and was so
called from the king's steelyard, or beam, there erected for weighing the
tonnage of goods imported into London.* Whether this sign represented a Cupid
with such a weighing machine, or a view of the hall of the Hanse merchants, with
a Fame flying over it, is now impossible to decide. It may be suggested that a
variation of the well-known figure of Justice, with steelyards in place of the
usual scales, was the origin. Be this as it may, the only mention we have found
of the sign is in the following advertisement : —
"TTTILLIAM DEVAL, at the Angel & Stilliards, in St Ann's Lane, near W Aldersgate,
London, maketh Castle (Castille), Marble, and white Sope as good as any
Marseilles Sope ; Tryed and Proved and sold at very Reasonable Rates." *f* —
Domestic Intelligencer, January 2d, 1679.
A few years later we find the Angel and Still noticed, as in the following
advertisement : —
" A WELL-SET ISTegeo, commonly called Sugar, aged about twenty ## years, teeth
broke before, and several scars in both his cheeks and forehead, having absented
from his Master, whosoever secures him and gives notice to Benjamin Maynard, at
the Angel and Still, at Beptford,
shall have a Guinea Reward and reasonable charges." — Weekly Journal, October
18, 1718.
* Cunningham's Handbook to London, p. 470.
+ Soap, wax, tallow, and similar articles were part of the merchandise in which
the Hanse merchants dealt.
In this case the still was simply added to intimate the sale of spirituous
liquors.
The Angel and Sun, apparently a combination of two signs, is named as a shop or
tavern near Strandbridge, in 1663, and is still the name of a public-house in
the Strand. The Angel and Woolpack, at Bolton, is the same sign which, near
London Bridge, is called the Naked Boy and Woolpack. A woolpack, with a negro
seated on it, was at one time very common ; for a change or distinction, this
negro underwent the reputed impossible process of being washed white, and thus
became a naked boy, which, in signboard phraseology, is equivalent to an angel.
The Virgin was unquestionably a very common sign before the Reformation, and it
may be met with even at the present day, as, for instance, at Ebury Hill,
Worcester, and in various other places. In France it was, and is still, much
more common than in England, as might be expected. Tallemant des Beaux tells of
a miraculous tavern sign of Notre Dame, on the bridge of that name, in Paris,
which was observed by the faithful to cry and shed tears, probably on account of
the bad company she had to harbour. It was taken down by order of the
archbishop. At the end of the seventeenth century there was, in the Rue de la
Seine, Paris, a quack doctor, who pretended to cure a great variety of
complaints. He put up a holy "Virgin for his sign, with the words, " Refugium
Peccatorum," which is one of the usual epithets of the holy Virgin in the Roman
Catholic Church service, very wittily, although profanely, applied in this
instance. The sign of the Virgin was also called Our Lady, as : " Newe Inne was
a guest Inne, the sign whereof was the picture of our Lady, and thereupon it was
also called Our Lachjs Inne."t Our Lady of Pity was the sign of Johan Redman, a
bookseller in Paternoster Row. in 1542. Johan Byddell, also a bookseller, had
introduced this sign in the beginning of that century. This Byddell, or Bedel,
(who lived in Fleet Street, next to Fleet Bridge,) had evidently borrowed it
from a nearly similar figure in Corio's History of Milan, 1505. He afterwards
lived at the Sun, in Fleet Street, the house formerly occupied by Wynkyn de
Worde.
* Kingdom's Intelligencer, April 6-13, 1663.
t Stow's Survey of London.
The prevalence of the Baptist's Head probably dated from the time when
pilgrimages across the sea were considered good works, and the head of St John
the Baptist at Amiens Cathedral came in for a large share of visits from English
worshippers. The old monkish writers say that in 448 after Christ, the head was
found in Jerusalem ; in 1206 it was transferred to Amiens, where it was kept in
a salver of gold, surrounded with a rim of pearls and precious stones.* Various
other reasons may be adduced for the prevalence of this sign, as the conspicuous
place occupied by St John in the Roman Catholic hagiology, and hence in
mediaeval plays and mysteries; the festivities of Midsummer, (a day of great
moment in London for setting the watch ;) and, finally, his being the patron
saint of the Knights of Jerusalem. It was doubtless in compliment to those
knights that the Baptist's Head in St John's Lane, Clerkenwell, was named. This
house seems to be the remainder of some noble mansion of Queen Elizabeth's time;
it contains many Elizabethan ornaments, particularly a chimney-piece, with the
coats of arms of the Radcliff and Forster families. When the house was adapted
to its present purpose, it was distinguished by the head of St John the Baptist
in a charger, now gone. Doctor Johnson is said to have been an occasional
visitor here, when returning from Edward Cave's, the editor of the Gentleman's
Magazine, whose office was close by at St John's Gate. Goldsmith is also
reported to have made frequent calls here, when business of a similar nature led
him to the same spot. In later years it became the house of call of the
prisoners on their way to the new prison in the parish — a circumstance
commemorated by Dodd in the " Old Bailey Registers."
Another St John's Head is mentioned by Stow in the following accident : —
"The 11th of July (1553) Gilbert Pot, drawer to Ninion Saunders, vintner,
dwelling at St John's Head within Ludgate, who was accused by the said Saunders,
his maister, was set on the pillory in Cheape, with both his ears nailed and
cleane cut off, for wordes speaking at the time of the proclamation of Lady Jane
; at which execution was a trumpet bloune and a herault in his coat of armes
redd his offence, in presence of William Garrard, one of the Sheriffes of
London. About 5 of the clocke the same day, in the afternoone, jSTinion
Saunders, master to the said Gilbert Pot, and John Owen, a gunmaker, both
gunners of the Tower, comming from the Tower of London by water in a whirrie and
shooting London Bridge, towards the Black Fryers, were drowned at S. Mary Loch *
and the whirryman saved by their oars."
* See a woodcut of an Amiens pilgrim's token in the Journal of Brit. Arch.
Assoc,
vol. i., Oct. 1848 ; also a detailed account of this venerable relic in
Coryatt's Crudities,
rol. i., p. 17.
To this same saint also refers the John of Jerusalem, a sign at the present day
in Rosoman Street, Clerkenwell, put up, like the Baptist Head, in remembrance of
the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, who formerly had their priory in this
locality.
In France this sign was equally common. Jean Carcain, one of the early Parisian
publishers and printers, (1487,) adopted it for his shop. One of his books has
the following quaint impress :— -
" Parisii Sancti Pons est Michaelis in TJrbe ;
Multae illic aedes ; notior una tamen ; .
Hauc cano, quae Sacri Baptistae f route notata est
Hie respondebit Bibliopola tibi ;
Vis impressoris nomen quoque nosse ? Joannis
Carcain nomen ei est. Ne pete plura, Vale." f
It was an old signboard jocularity in France to represent St John the Baptist by
a monkey with cambric (batiste) ruffles and wristbands, {singe en batiste.) From
the parables the sign of the Good Samaritan was borrowed, which, even at the
present day, may be seen in Turner Street, Whitechapel ; Grimshaw Park,
Blackburn, &c. When barbers combined with their trade the practice of letting
blood — otherwise than by " easy shaving," — of drawing teeth, and setting
bones, they frequently adopted this sign. In the seventeenth century, a
barber-surgeon at Leeu warden, in Holland, wrote under his device of the Good
Samaritan the following poetical effusion : —
" Gelyk den Wyn, fyn,
Dryft zorgen uit der herten
Zoo geneest Medicyn, pyn,
En ontlast van Smarten."
The Samaritan Woman (la Samaritaine) is the French version of our Jacob's Well,
and was a common sign in Paris ; everybody knows the Bains de la Samaritaine, in
which the luxurious Parisian indulges in a fresh water bath in his Seine, which
at that place is about as clear as the Thames at Blackwall. In the Rue
* Name of one of the arches of old London Bridge,
t " In the town of Paris there is a bridge named St Michael,
On which there are many houses ; but one of them is more known than the others.
That is the house I mean, which is known by the sign of the Baptist Head.
There the bookseller will answer you.
Would you also like to know the name of the printer ? John Carcain is his name.
Now, do not ask any more. Farewell."
X " Like wine, fine,
Driveth away care ;
So medicine cureth pain,
And delivers us from suffering."
Caquerel at Rouen there is a stone bas-relief of the Samaritan woman at the
well, with the date 1580. Jacques Dupuy, a bookseller in the Rue St Jacques,
also used the Samaritan woman as his sign, evidently because it was a subject in
which he could introduce a well, and so have the satisfaction of punning on his
name. This kind of pun was none the less relished for being far-fetched ; thus
there is a stone bas-relief in the Rue Froid, at Caen, of the Miraculous Draught
of Fishes, (la Peche Miraculeme,) which, in the early part of the seventeenth
century, was placed there by a bookseller of the name of Poisson, (Fish,) who,
being an " odd fish," adopted this sign as a pun on his own name. At the present
day, the house is still inhabited by a bookseller of the same name and family.
Christ's Passion does not seem to have suggested any signs in England, although
the great symbol of His death, the Cross, was comparatively common. In Paris
there was, in 1640, a bookseller, George Josse, in the Rue St Jacques, who had
the Crown of Thorns (la Couronne d'Epine) for his sign, probably on account of
the original Crown of Thorns being one of the relics kept at Paris. Coryatt's
remarks on this relic are rather amusing :—
" They report in Paris that the Thorny Crown, wherewith Christ was crowned on
the Crosse, is kept in the Palace, which vpon Corpus Christi Day, in the
afternoone, was publickly shewed, as some told me ; but it was not my chance to
see it. Truely, I wonder to see the contrarieties amongst the Papists, and most
ridiculous varieties concerning their reliques, hut especially about this of
Christ's Thorny Crowne. For whereas I was after that at the Citie of Vicenza in
Italy, it was told me that in the monastery of the Dominican Fryers of that
Citie, this Crowne was kept, which Sainib Lewes, King of France, bestowed upon
his brother Bartholomew, Bishop of Vicenza, and before one of the Dominican
family. Wherefore I went to the Dominican Monastery and made suit to see it, but
I had the repulse ; for they told me that it was kept vnder three or four lockes,
and neuer shewed to any by any favour whatsoeuer, but only upon Corpus Christi
Day. If this Crowne of Paris, whereof they so much bragge, be true, that of
Vicenza is false. Ho ! the truth and certainty of Papistical reliques."
Crosses of various colours were probably amongst the first signs put up by the
newly-converted Christians, (as soon as they could effect this with impunity,)
on account of the recommendation of the early fathers, and for their beneficial
influence. Father Lactantius, who lived in the fourth century, writes — " As
Christ, whilst He lived amongst men, put the devils to flight by His words, and
restored those to their senses whom these evil spirits had possessed ¦ so now
His followers in the name of their Master, and by the sign of His passion, even
exercise the same dominion over them." St Ephrem says — " Let us paint and
imprint on our doors the life-giving cross ; thus defended no evil will hurt
you."
St Chrysostom says the same — " Wherefore let us with earnestness impress this
cross on our houses, and on our walls, and our windows?' St Cyril of Alexandria
introduces the Emperor Julian the apostate saying, " You Christians adore the
wood of the cross, you engrave it on the porches of your houses," &c. Hence the
still prevalent custom in Eoman Catholic places of painting crosses on the walls
of houses, to drive away witches, as it is said ; and these crosses being
painted in different colours, might easily serve as a sign by which to designate
the house. At the Crusades the popularity of this emblem increased : a red cross
was the badge of the Crusader, and would be put up as a sign by men who had been
to the Holy Land, or wished to court the patronage of those on their way
thither. Finally, the different orders of knighthood settled each upon a
particular colour as their distinctive mark. Thus the knights of St John wore
white crosses, the Templars red crosses, the knights of St Lazarus green
crosses, the Teutonic knights black crosses, embroidered with gold, &c. But the
most common in England was the red cross, which was the cross of St George, and
also of the red cross knights, who acted as a sort of police on the : roads
between Europe and the Holy Land to protect pilgrims. This badge, therefore,
could not fail to be very popular.
In France it used to be, and in all probability is still, a common rebus to see
le signe de la croix represented by a swan with a cross on his back, (cygne de
la croix.)
Only very few signs of the cross are now remaining. The Golden Cross in the
Strand is one of these, and has been in that locality for centuries. It was one
of the first upon which the Puritans brooked their ill-humour and hatred of
popery ; for in 1643 it was taken down by order of a committee from the House of
Commons, as " superstitious and idolatrous." This was the precursor of the fall
of old Charing Cross itself. The sign, however, was put up again at the
Eestoration, and figures prominently in Canaletti's well-known view of Charing
Cross, in the Northumberland Collection. The tavern was probably pulled down at
the formation of Trafalgar Square.
At a point on the road between Dunchurch and Daventry, where three roads meet,
there was formerly an inn with the sign of the Three Crosses, in allusion to the
three roads. Swift, in one of his pedestrian excursions, happened to stop at
that inn. Not being very elegantly dressed, and rather importunate to be served,
the landlady told him that she could not leave her customers for " such as he,"
upon which the Dean, who was not the most modest, nor the most patient of men,
wrote the following epigram on one of the windows :—
"to the landlord.
There hang three crosses at thy door,
Hang up thy wife and she '11 make four."
The Resurrection was the sign of John Day, a bookseller, who, in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, dwelt in St Sepulchre's parish, a little above Holbourne
Conduit. It was a sort of conundrum or charade on his name, which was carried
out by his colophon, representing a man asleep, who is wakened by another with
the words, " Arise, for it is day." This, although somewhat profane, according
to our present notions of such things, was nothing strange in a time when the
people, though Protestants by name, were still strongly imbued with Roman
Catholic ideas. John Cawoode, also a printer and publisher of St Paul's
Churchyard in 1558, had a still more profane sign — viz., the Holy Ghost. And
this even continued till the beginning of the seventeenth century, for in 1602
we find this identical sign used by another printer, William Leake, who was
probably his successor, and published in that year Shakespeare's " Venus and
Adonis."
Worse still was the sign of another bookseller in St Paul's Churchyard in 1520,
which was the Trinity.* We must bear in mind, however, that in Roman Catholic
countries conversation upon matters of religion is not nearly so strict and
guarded as amongst believers in Protestant nations. An amusing instance of this
once occurred to the writer in Jerusalem, the great headquarters of
Christianity. Usually the pilgrims or travellers staying at the Latin convent
there, which serves as an hotel, dine all together in a kind of table-cThote
fashion ; but for some reason it so fell out that our party one day dined in
private. The holy brother who attended us happened to be a Spaniard, and as we
had visited that country, and were tolerably acquainted with. Valladolid, his
native town, worldly recollections began to overcome the sanctity of the good
monk, and he became inexhaustible in reminiscences of his younger days. Whilst
talking with him, and refreshing ourselves with a meal of salad, grown in the
garden of Gethsemane, we had indulged in two tumblers of a pithy white wine,
quite strong enough to justify our resisting the pressing invitations of the
reverend butler to take a third glass ; but the jovial monk was not to be
beaten, and finally convinced us with the following argument : " Oh come,
brother, you must take another glass, remember you are in Jerusalem, and so take
one for the Father, one for the Son, and one for the Holy Ghost !"
Although the English ale and refreshment houses continue to select fresh signs
from the notabilities of the hour, the Palmerston's Head and the Gladstone Arms
for instance, they rarely choose anything of a religious or devotional cast. One
instance, however, occurs to us, and that in the neighbourhood of London, v>Iiir«h
deserves mention. In Kentish Town, under the Hampstead hills, the noisiest and
most objectionable public-house in the district bears the significant sign of
the Gospel Oak. It is the favourite resort of navvies and quarrelsome
shoemakers, and took its name, not from any inclination to piety on the part of
the landlord, but from an old oak tree in the neighbourhood, near the boundary
line of Hampstead and St Pancras parishes, a relic of the once general custom of
reading a portion of the gospel under certain trees in the parish
perambulations, equivalent to " beating the bounds." " The boundaries and
township of the parish of Wolverhampton are," says Shaw, in his "History of
Staffordshire," (vol. ii., p. 165,) "in many points marked out by what are
called Gospel Trees; " and Herrick, in his " Hesperides," (Ed. 1859, p. 26,)
says:—
" Dearest, bury me
Under that holy oak, or gospel tree;
Where, though thou see'st not, thou may'st think upon
Me, when thou yeerly go'st procession."
The old Kentish Town Gospel Oak was removed a short time since, but not until it
had given a name to the surrounding fields, to a village, (Oak village,) and to
a chapel, as well as to the public-house alluded to.
* Randle Holme, " Academy of Armour and Blazon," p. 52. 1 Postman, Feb. 1-3,
1711.