CHAPTER XI.

THE HOUSE AND THE TABLE.

Instead of carved or painted signs hung above the doors, many shop and tavern keepers preferred to designate their houses after some external feature, such as the colour of the building--thus we find the Red house, the White house, the Blue house, the Dark house, &c. Others painted their door-posts a particular colour, whence the origin of the well-known BLUE POSTS. In still older times painted posts or poles in front of the houses seem occasionally to have served as signs; to some such distinction, at least Caxton’s RED POLES, as mentioned in one of his advertisements, seems to refer:--

“If it please ony man spirituel or temporel to bye our pyes of two or thre comemoracio’s of salisburi use, emprynted after the form of this prese’t letre whiche ben wel and truly correct, late hym come Westmonester into the almonestrye at the REED PALE, and he shal have them good and chepe:

Supplico stet cedula.”

Even in the seventeenth century such a distinction was still occasionally used, as the GREEN PALES in Peter Street, Westminster;[543]--and Stukeley[544] speaks of Mr Brown’s garden at the GREEN POLES, where an urn was dug up lined with lead and filled with earth and bones. In Etheredge’s play “She Would if she Could,” the BLACK POSTS in James Street are named, (Act i., sc. 1, 1703;) whilst the newspapers in the beginning of the eighteenth century contain advertisements stating that the mineral water from Hampstead Wells might be obtained, at the rate of 3d. a flask, from the lessee of the wells, who lived at the BLACK POSTS in King Street, near Guildhall.

GARDEN-HOUSES, or Summer-houses, attached to a building, were also used to designate shops and residences, as appears from a trades token “at the garden-house in Blackfriars,” and also from a newspaper advertisement of 1679, where the garden-house in King Street, St Giles, is mentioned. Frequent allusions to these garden-houses are found in the old plays; they appear to have been similar in all intents and purposes to the _petites maisons_ of the profligate French nobility in the times of the Régence. Stubbe, in his “Anatomy of Abuses,” severely attacks them:--

“In the suburbes of the citie they have gardens either paled or walled round about very high, with their harbers and bowers fit for the purpose; and lest they might be espied in those open places, they have their banqueting houses, with galleries, turrets, and what not, therein sumptuously erected, wherein they may, and doubtless do, many of them, play the filthy persons.”

The young Rake in Shakespeare’s spurious play of the “London Prodigal,” (1604,) says to the lady:--

“Now, God thank you, sweet lady, if you have any friend, or a garden-house where you may employ a poor gentleman as your friend, I am yours to command in all sweet service.”

And Corisca in Massinger’s “Bondsman,” (Act i., sc. 3):--

“And if need be I have a couch and banqueting-house in my orchard, where many a man of honour has not scorned to spend an afternoon.”

He also alludes to it in the “City Madam.” A remnant of this custom is still to be traced in a few country towns, (Sunderland for instance,) where the middle classes have little gardens, in the outskirts of the town, with bowers and wooden summer-houses for tea-drinkings. In Holland they still flourish; the family usually take tea in them, whilst paterfamilias placidly smokes his pipe and listens to the croaking of the frogs and the lowing of the cows in the flat meadows beyond.

The WELL AND BUCKET is a sign in Shoreditch, not badly chosen, as it intimates an inexhaustible supply; it is of very old standing in London, for it is mentioned in the “Paston Letters” in the year 1472.[545]

“I pray God send you all your desires and me my mewed goss-hawk in haste, or, rather than fail, a scar-hawk; there is a grocer dwelling right over against the WELL WITH TWO BUCKETS, a little from St Helen’s Church, hath ever hawks to sell.”

The anxiety about the bird, expressed in this letter, is most amusing:--“I ask no more good of you for all the services that I shall do you, while the world standeth, but a goss-hawk,” is the commencement of the letter, which concludes:--

“Now, think on me, good lord, for if I have not an hawk I shall wax fat for default of labour, and dead for default of company by my troth.”

In old times the ale-house windows were generally open, so that the company within might enjoy the fresh air, and see all that was going on in the street; but, as the scenes within were not always fit to be seen by the “profanum vulgus” that passed by, a trellis was put up in the open window. This trellis, or lattice, was generally painted red, to the intent, it has been jocularly suggested, that it might harmonise with the rich hue of the customers’ noses; which effect, at all events, was obtained by the choice of this colour. Thus Pistol says:--

“He called me even now by word through a red lattice, and I could see no part of his face from the window.”

The same idea is expressed in the “Last Will and Testament of Lawrence Lucifer,” 1604:--

“Watched sometimes ten hours together in an ale-house, ever and anon peeping forth and sampling thy nose with the red lattice.”

So common was this fixture, that no ale-house was without it:--

“A whole street is in some places but a continuous ale-house, not a shop to be seen between red lattice and red lattice.”--_Decker’s English Villanies Seven Times Pressed to Death._

At last it became synonymous with ale-house:--

“As well known by my wit as an ale-house by a _red lattice_.”[546]

“Trusty Rachel was drinking burnt brandy with a couple of tinder-box cryers at the next _red lattice_.”[547]

The lattices continued in use until the beginning of the eighteenth century, and after they disappeared from the windows were adopted as signs, and as such they continue to the present day. The GREEN LATTICE occurs on a trades token of Cock Lane, and still figures at the door of an ale-house in Billingsgate, whilst not many years ago there was one, in Brownlow Street, Holborn, which had been corrupted into the GREEN LETTUCE.

When balconies were newly introduced, they were also used in the place of signs. Lord Arundel was the inventor of them, and Covent Garden the first place where they became general. “Every house here has one of ’em,” says Richard Broome, in 1659. Trades tokens “of THE BELLCONEY,” in Bedford Street, are still extant, and also tokens of “John Williams, the king’s chairman, at y^{e} lower end of St Martin’s Lane, AT Y^{E} BALCONEY. 1667.” The first house that adopted a balcony was situated at the corner of Chandos Street, “which country people were wont much to gaze on;” soon, however, they became so common that further distinctions had to be added, as the IRON BALCONY, (St James’ Street, 1699,) the BLUE AND GILT BALCONY, (Hatton Street, 1673.) Lamps have also, for two or three centuries, frequently done duty as signs, and continue still to act as beacons to those who want the assistance of the doctor, the chemist, or the sweep. Ale and coffee-houses, too, are frequently decorated with gorgeous lamps: this was already the custom in Tom Brown’s time:--

“Every coffee-house is illuminated both without and within doors; without by a _fine Glass Lanthorn_, and within by a woman so light and splendid you may see through her without the help of a Perspective.”[548]

The Moorfield quacks had always lamps at their doors at night, with round glasses, having the same colours as the balls in their signs, and this custom has been handed down to our day by the chemists, who still have circular, red, green, and yellow bull’s-eye glasses in their lamps.

In Paris, in the sixteenth century, the pastry-cooks used at nights to place a kind of lamp in their windows, which acted as magic lanterns. They were made of transparent paper, covered with rudely-painted figures of men and animals. Regnier mentions them in his eleventh satire:--

“Ressemblait transparent une lanterne vive, Dont quelques patissiers amusent les enfants, Où des oysons bridez, guenuches, elefans, Chiens, chats, lièvres, renards, et mainte estrange beste Courent l’une après l’autre.”[549]

A Dutch grocer, in the seventeenth century, put up the sign of the BURNING LAMP, and wrote under it the following distich:--

“Myn lampje brant uyt den Orienten, Ik verkoop oly, vygen en krenten.”[550]

The BRASS KNOCKER in the Great Gardens, Bristol, is another sign taken from the exterior of the house; also the FLOWER-POT, which was very common in old London: one of the last remaining stood at the corner of Bishopsgate and Leadenhall Streets. It dated from an early period, and was, in the heyday of its fame, a celebrated coaching inn. The introduction of railroads, however, gave it a death-blow; for some time it continued to languish as a starting-point for omnibuses, and was finally demolished to make room for merchants’ offices in 1863. Trades tokens of this inn are extant in the Beaufoy collection. Mr Burn, the compiler of the catalogue of this collection, suggests that the Flower-pot was originally the vase of lilies, always represented in the old pictures of the Salutation or Annunciation; according to his theory the Angel and the Virgin were omitted at the Reformation, and nothing but the vase left. This, however, seems somewhat improbable. There is no apparent reason why it should not have been a real flower-pot, or rather vase, which our ancestors frequently had on the top of the pent-houses above their shops. In order to distinguish them from ordinary flower-pots, some painted theirs blue, thus the sign of the BLUE FLOWER-POT, as appears from the advertisement of Cornelius a Tilborgh, who styles himself “sworn chirurgeon in ordinary to King Charles II., to our late sovereign King William, as also to her present majesty Queen Anne.” This worthy lived in Great Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Holborn Row, and besides the Blue Flower-pot at his front door, his customers might recognise the house, by “a light at night over the door,” and a Blue Ball at the back-door. The TWO BLUE FLOWER-POTS used to be a sign in Dean Street, Soho; and the TWO FLOWER-POTS AND SUN DIAL in Parker’s Lane, near Drury Lane, (_London Gazette_, Sept. 16-19, 1700.)

Innumerable objects from the interior of the house were likewise adopted as signs, such as furniture of all kinds, and domestic utensils. The upholsterers, for instance, generally selected pieces of furniture. At the end of the last century THE ROYAL BED was a great favourite, as may be seen from engravings on several of the shop bills in the Banks collection; the bed in olden times was a very important article in a household, and was always particularly named in the will. Upholsterers in those days were also frequently called bed-joiners. Next we have the BOARD or Table, still a great favourite in the north--in Durham alone at least sixty public-houses with that sign could be named.

The mention of the Table affords an opportunity for particularising those good things which usually grace the festive board. First of all there is the SALT HORN, (at Bradford and Leeds,) which formerly at dinner marked the line of demarcation; for whether a guest was to be placed above or below the salt was a matter of etiquette strictly to be attended to. In Dudley we find a very substantial and tempting ROUND OF BEEF, with the following rhymes:--

“If you are hungry or a-dry, Or your stomach out of order, There’s sure relief at the Round of Beef, For both these two disorders.”

The roast beef of old England is further represented by THE RIBS OF BEEF, in Wensum Street, Norwich. THE FLANK OF BEEF at Spalding, the much less tempting COW ROAST at Hampstead, besides a couple of unpretending BEEF-STEAKS in Bath. Our bill of fare also contains plenty of mutton, sometimes _rehaussé_ with a poetic sauce, as one that was at Hackney in the last century, THE SHOULDER OF MUTTON AND CAT, having the following rhymes:--

“Pray Puss, don’t tear, For the Mutton is so dear; Pray Puss, don’t claw, For the Mutton yet is raw.”

The sign is still there, but the verses are gone. This suggested to another innkeeper on the common at Horsham, the sign of the DOG AND BACON. An epicurean publican at Yapton, Arundel, has a more gastronomic combination, viz.:--the SHOULDER OF MUTTON AND CUCUMBERS. It was at the SHOULDER OF MUTTON in Brecknock that Mrs Siddons, England’s greatest tragic actress, was born, July 14, 1755. “Fancy,” writes an enthusiastic biographer, “the English Melpomene behind the bar of such a place!” Legs of Mutton on the signboard do not appear to be so common as Shoulders. But by far the finest of all the dishes represented on the signboard was the BOAR’S HEAD, in Eastcheap, for the character of the famous inn patronised by Jack Falstaff makes the association of an excellent dish much more natural than any heraldic origin. The first mention of this inn occurs in the testament of William Warden, in the reign of Richard II., who gave “all that tenement called the Boar’s Head in Eastcheap,” to a college of priests, or chaplains, founded by Sir W. Walworth, the Lord Mayor, in the adjoining church of St Michael, Crooked Lane. The presence of “Prince Hal” in this house was no invention of Shakespeare; history records his pranks, how one night, with his two brothers, John and Thomas, he made such a riot that they had to be taken before the magistrate. No wonder, then, at the proud inscription on the sign, which still existed in Maitland’s time:--“_This is the chief tavern in London_.” At one time the portal was decorated with carved oak figures of Falstaff and Prince Henry; and in 1834 the former was in the possession of a brazier of Eastcheap, whose ancestors had lived in the shop he then occupied since the great fire. The last great Shakespearian dinner-party at the Boar’s Head took place about 1784, on which occasion Wilberforce and Pitt were present, and though there were many professed wits, Pitt was the most amusing of the company.

On the removal of a mound of rubbish at Whitechapel, brought there after the great fire, a carved boxwood bas-relief boar’s head was found, set in a circular frame formed by two boars’ tusks, mounted and united with silver. An inscription to the following effect was pricked in the back:--“Wm. Brooke, Landlord of the Bore’s Hedde, Estchepe, 1566.” This object, formerly in the possession of Mr Stamford, the celebrated publisher, was sold at Christie and Manson’s, on January 27, 1855, and was bought by Mr Halliwell.[551]

The original inn having been destroyed by the fire, was rebuilt and continued in existence until 1831, when it was finally demolished to make way for the streets leading to new London Bridge. Its site was between Small Alley and St Michael’s Lane. The ancient sign, carved in stone, with the initials I. T. and the date 1668, is now preserved in the City of London Library, Guildhall.

In the month of May 1718, one James Austin, “inventor of the Persian ink powder,” desiring to give his customers a substantial proof of his gratitude, invited them to the Boar’s Head to partake of an immense plum-pudding. This pudding weighed 1000 lbs.; a baked pudding of 1 foot square, and the best piece of an ox roasted: the principal dish was put in the copper on Monday, May 12, at the RED LION Inn, by the Mint in Southwark, and had to boil fourteen days. From there it was to be brought to the SWAN TAVERN, in Fish Street Hill, accompanied by a band of music playing--“What lumps of pudding my mother gave me;” one of the instruments was a drum in proportion to the pudding, being 18 feet 2 inches in length, and 4 feet diameter, which was drawn by “a device fixt on six asses.” Finally the monstrous pudding was to be divided in St George’s Fields, but apparently its smell was too much for the gluttony of the Londoners; the escort was routed, the pudding taken and devoured, and the whole ceremony brought to an end, before Mr Austin had a chance to regale his customers.

Puddings seem to have been the _forte_ of this Austin. Twelve or thirteen years before this last pudding, he had baked one for a wager, ten feet deep in the Thames, near Rotherhithe, by enclosing it in a great tin pan, and that in a sack of lime: it was taken up after about two hours and a half, and eaten with great relish, its only fault being that it was somewhat overdone. The bet was for more than £100. Austin was also noted for his fireworks.

The back windows of the Boar’s Head looked out upon the burial-ground of St Michael’s Church,[552] and there rested all that was mortal of one of the waiters of this tavern. His tomb, in Purbeck stone, had the following epitaph:--

“HERE LIETH THE BODYE of Robert Preston, late Drawer at the Boar’s Head Tavern, Great Eastcheap, who departed this Life, March 16, Anno Domini, 1730, aged 27 years.”

“Bacchus, to give the topeing world surprize, Produc’d one sober son, and here he lies. Tho’ nurs’d among full Hogsheads, he defy’d The charm of wine and ev’ry vice beside. O Reader, if to Justice thou ’rt inclin’d, Keep Honest Preston daily in thy Mind. He drew good wine, took care to fill his pots, Had sundry virtues that outweighed his fauts (sic) You that on Bacchus have the like dependance, Pray, copy Bob, in measure and attendance.”[553]

Amongst other Boar’s Head Inns, we may notice one in Southwark, the property of Sir John Falstolf of Caistor Castle, Norfolk, who died in 1460, and whose name Shakespeare adopted in the play. Then there was another one without Aldgate, as appears from the following curious document:--

“At St James’s the v daye of September, an. 1557.

“A letter to the Lord Mayor of London, to give order forthwith that some of his officers do forthwith repaire to the Boreshed w^{hout} Aldgate, where the Lordes are enformed a lewde Playe, called ‘A Sacke full of Newse,’ shall be plaied this daye, the Playeres whereof he is willed to apprehende and to comitt to safe warde, untill he shall heare further from hence, and to take their Playsbook from them, and to send the same hither.

“At West^{r} the vj daye of Sep. 1557.”[554]

At the beginning of this century there was a noted tavern in Bond Street, called THE BRAWN’S HEAD, and the general opinion was, that at one time it had a brawn or boar’s head for its sign; this, however, was a mistake; the house was named after the head of a noted cook whose name was Theophilus Brawn, formerly landlord of Rummer Tavern in Great Queen Street, and the article (as the letters THE were usually supposed to be) was simply an abbreviation of the man’s magnificent Christian name.

All these gastronomic signs, doubtless, originated in the old custom of landlords selling eatables:--

“You brave-minded and most joviall Sardanapalitans,” saith Taylor the Water poet, addressing the country tavern-keepers, “have power and prerogative (_cum privilegio_) to receive, lodge, feast, and feed, both man and beast. You have the happinesse to Boyle, Roast, Broyle, and Bake, Fish, Flesh, and Foule, whilst we in London have scarce the command of a _Gull_, a _widgeon_, or a _woodcock_.”

In a little volume of 1685, entitled “The Praise of Yorkshire ale,” we are told that Bacchus held a parliament in the SUN, behind the Exchange in York, to consider the adulteration of wine, the various drinking vessels, and other matters sold in alehouses, as:--

“Papers of sugar, with such like knacks, Biskets, Luke olives, Anchoves, Caveare, Neats’ tongues, Westphalia Hambs, and Such like cheat, Crabs, Lobsters, Collar Beef, Cold puddings, oysters, and such like stuff.”

Hence, then, the once common sign of the THREE NEATS’ TONGUES, one of which still exists in Spitalfields; another one in the eighteenth century was very appropriately situated in Bull and Mouth Street.[555] The HAM is the usual porkman’s sign, though at Walmyth, in Yorkshire, there is a public-house sign of the HAM AND FIRKIN. THE CRAB AND LOBSTER Inn occurs at Ventnor; the LOBSTER is a sign on trades tokens of a shop in Bearbinder (now St Swithin’s) Lane, and also near the Maypole in the Strand; the CRAWFISH at Thursford Guist, in Norfolk, and the BUTT AND OYSTER at Chelmondiston, Ipswich. Those eatables, all more or less salt, were sold as incitements to drink, and went by the cant term of shoeing horns, gloves, or pullers-on. They are often alluded to by ancient authors:--

“Then, sir, comes me up a service of _shoeing-horns_ of all sorts, salt cakes, red herrings, anchoves, and gammon of bacon, and abundance of such _pullers-on_.”--Bishop Hall’s _Mundus alter et idem_.

The PIE was a sign in very early times, and gave its name to Pie Corner, “a place so called from such a sign, sometimes a fair inn for receipt of travellers.”--_Stow_, p. 139. One of the most famous inns with that sign was the PIE in Aldgate.

“One ask’d a friend where Captain Shark did lye, Why, sir, quoth he, at Aldgate at the Pye. Away, quoth th’ other, he lies not there, I know’t. No, sayes the other, then he lies in ’s throat.”

_Wits’ Recreation_, p. 185, vol. ii.

De Foe, in his “History of the Plague,” tells of “a dreadful set of fellows” who used to revel and roar nightly in that inn during the time the plague was at its height, but within a fortnight all of them were buried. The COCK AND PIE was once common. At an inn in Ipswich there used to be a rude representation of a cock perched on a pie, which was discovered whilst the house was undergoing some repairs. It was also, about the middle of last century, the sign of a house famed for conviviality, which stood on the site of the present Rathbone Place, Oxford Street, and was the resort of the “fancy” of those days. A row of fine elms connected this house with another, noted for the manufacture of Bath buns and Tunbridge water-cakes, the latter a dainty now almost obsolete, but which then was so famous, that it was one of the London cries, being sold by a man on horseback. With regard to the origin of the sign COCK AND PIE, both the ancient Catholic oath, to swear by _Cock and Pie_, (by God and the Pie, or Roman Catholic service book,) and the fable of the magpie (Old English _pie_, or _pye_) and the peacocks, have each been duly considered by us; but the sign is probably only an abbreviation of the _Peacock and Pie_. In ancient times the peacock was a favourite dish, and was introduced on the table in a pie; the head, with gilt beak, being elevated above the crust, and the beautiful feathers of the tail expanded. As a dainty dish, then, it may have been put up, like the other good things of this world, just mentioned, as a trap to hungry or epicurean passers-by; at last the dish went out of fashion, the name even became a mystery, and was rendered by the sign-painters, according to their own understanding, by a COCK AND MAGPIE, which is still very common. There is a public-house with such a sign in Drury Lane, which was already in existence more than two centuries ago, when the rest of Drury Lane was still occupied by farms and gardens, and the mansions of the Drury family. Hither the youths and maidens of the metropolis, who, on May-day, danced round the Maypole in the Strand, were accustomed to resort for cakes and ale, and other refreshments. This ale-house gave its name to the _Cock and Pye_ Fields, between Drury Lane and St Giles’ Hospital. At Chatsworth, the original name was mutilated by a provincialism into the COCK AND PYNOT, (Derbyshire, for Magpie.) In this ale-house, still existing, the Revolution of 1688 was plotted, between Thomas Osborne Earl of Danby, William Cavendish Earl of Devonshire, and Mr John d’Arcy. They met by appointment on a heath adjoining the house, but a shower of rain coming on, they adjourned to the inn. The room is still shown in which the conspirators met. In Hone’s “Table Book” there is a woodcut of the inn, showing the wooden construction across the road, by which the signs in villages were generally suspended.

Lastly, we may mention the PICKLED EGG, in Clerkenwell. As the origin of this sign, it is said that Charles II. here once partook of the dish, which so flattered the landlord, that he adopted it as his sign, and so it has remained till this day. It has given its name to a lane called Pickled Egg Walk, in which there was a notorious cocking-house, frequently mentioned in advertisements _circa_ 1775.

We may very appropriately terminate the gastronomic signs with the CHESHIRE CHEESE, which is still very common; there is a famous tavern of this name in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, and numerous public-houses in the country have adopted it as their signs. And as we began with the _Salt Horn_ we will end with the MUSTARD-POT, which was the sign of a mustard shop in Holland, in the seventeenth century, with these rhymes:--

“Ik lever uyt Een zeldzaam kruyt Daar zyn der weinig in de stad Of ik heb ze by de neus gehad.”[556]

This reminds us of a rather indelicate sign of a mustard shop, formerly in the Rue du Chatel, at Beauvais, but now in the Musée d’Antiquités of that town, representing a fool stirring mustard in a barrel with a large stick, whilst a tall grinning monkey stands just opposite, assisting him in a way we need not describe.

Drinkables are not frequent as signs, if we except such as the RHENISH WINE HOUSE, and the CANARY HOUSE; two taverns of Old London, named after the wines they sold. BARLEY BROTH, BEE’S-WING, and YORKSHIRE STINGO, are at present all three common: the first applies either to whisky or beer; the second is the delicate crimson film left in bottles by old port wine, and Yorkshire stingo is the well-known name of a kind of ale. From a house with this name in the New Road, the first pair of London omnibuses were started, July 4, 1829, running to the Bank and back: they were constructed to carry twenty-two passengers, all inside; the fare was one shilling, or sixpence for half the distance, together with the luxury of a newspaper. A Mr J. Shillibeer was the owner of these carriages, and the first conductors were the two sons of a British naval officer.

Drinking vessels are very appropriate ale-house signs. Amongst the oldest certainly ranks the BLACK JACK, common even in the present day, although the vessel that it represented is long since fallen into disuse: it was a leather bottle, sometimes lined with silver or other metal, and perhaps took its name from a part of the soldiers’ armour. Sometimes it was ornamented with little silver bells “to ring peales of drunkeness,” in which case it was called a “gyngle boy.”[557] This primitive bottle has been celebrated in one of the Roxburghe Ballads, (vol. iii., fol. 433:)--

“God above that made all things, The heaven, and earth, and all therein, The ships that on the sea do swim For to keepe the enemies out that none come in, And let them all do what they can, It is for the use and pains of man; And I wish in heaven his soul may dwell, Who first devized the leather bottle.”

Its various good qualities are next explained, and finally:--

“Then when this bottle doth grow old, And will no longer good liquor hold, Out of its side you may take a clout, Will mend your shoes when they are worn out, Else take it and hang it upon a pin, It will serve to put odd trifles in, As hinges, awls, and candle ends, For young beginners must have such things.”

There is another ballad in the same collection, (vol i., fol. 107,) entitled “Time’s Alteration, or the Old Man’s Rehearsal,” which speaks of the black jack in the following terms:--

“Black jacks to euery man Were filled with wine and Beere, No pewter Pot nor Canne In those days did appeare:

* * * * *

We took not such delight In cups of silver fine; No pewter Pot nor Canne In those days did appeare:

* * * * *

None under the degree of a knight In Plate drunk Beere or Wine.”

But we may glean more full and complete particulars from Heywood’s “Philocothonista or Drunkard Opened, Dissected and Anatomized,” 1635, where we get a detailed inventory of all the various drinking vessels of the day:--

“Of drinking Cups divers and sundry sorts we have; some of elme, some of box, some of maple, some of holly, etc. Mazers, broad mouthed dishes, naggins, whiskins, piggins, creuzes, alebowles, wassel bowles, court dishes, tankards, kannes, from a pottle to a pint, from a pint to a gill. Other bottles we have of leather, but they are most used amongst the shepheards and harvest people of the countrey: small jacks wee have in many alehouses of the citie and suburbs lipt with silver: blackjacks and bombards at the Court; which when the Frenchmen first saw, they reported at their return into their countrey that the Englishmen used to drinke out of their bootes. We have besides cups made of hornes of beastes, of cockernuts,[558] of goords, of eggs of estriches; others made of the shells of divers fishes brought from the Indies and other places, and shining like mother of pearle. Come to plate, every taverne can afford you flat bowles, french bowles, prounet cups, beare bowles, beakers; and private householders in the citie, when they make a feaste to entertain their friends, can furnish their cupboards with flaggons, tankards, beere cups, wine bowles, some white, some percell guilt, some guilt all over, some with covers, others without, of sundry shapes and qualities.”

That they were of ancient use and high in price appears from an entry in the expenses of John, King of France, when prisoner in England after the battle of Poictiers, 1359-60:--

“Pour deux bouteilles de cuir achetées a Londres pour Monseigneur Philippe . . . . . . . . . . . . 9s. 8d.”

Though these vessels are now completely superseded by pewter and glass, yet their memory still lives on the signboard, and the LEATHER BOTTLE is anything but an uncommon ale-house emblem at the present day. There is one still to be seen, carved in wood, suspended in front of an old ale-house at the corner of Charles Street, Hatton Garden. In Germany, also, the leather bottle was once in use; drinking vessels of various materials, in the shape of a boot, are common in that country, usually with this inscription:--

“Wer sein Stiefel nit drinken kan, Der ist führwahr kein Teutscher Man.”

The _Black-jack_ Tavern, in Clare Market, still in existence, acquired some celebrity from being the favourite haunt of Joe Miller, the reputed author of the famous Jest Book. The house was also for a long time known by the cant name of the Jump, which it had received from the fact of Jack Sheppard one day escaping the clutches of Jonathan Wild’s emissaries by jumping from a window into the street, and so making his escape. From the Leather Bottle to the GOLDEN BOTTLE is not so great a step as would appear at first sight, the golden bottle being simply the leather bottle gilt, as may be seen above the door of Messrs Hoare the bankers, in Fleet Street, a firm established for centuries under the same sign, although not always occupying the same premises. In the “Little London Directory for 1677” we find:--“James Hore at the Golden Bottle in Cheapside,” one of the goldsmiths that kept “running cashes.” In 1693 we find Mr Richard Hoare, a goldsmith, “at the Golden Bottle” in Cheapside, but in 1718 the house in Cheapside seems to have had a second occupant:--

“DROPT or taken from a Ladies’ side on Tuesday, the 25^{th} of March, coming from the Spanish ambassadour’s at St James’ Square, a gold watch and chain, with a seal to it, a pendulum[559] on the outside; Windmill the maker. Whoever brings it to Mr Madding, Goldsmith at _the Golden Bottle_, the upper end of Cheapside, or to Jonathan Wilde, over against the _Duke of Grafton’s Head_ in the Old Bailey, shall have 8 Guineas and no questions asked.”--_Daily Courant_, April 5, 1718.

That the GOLDEN CAN was also an old sign may be concluded from a mention in the nursery rhyme:--

“Little Brown Betty lived at the _Golden Can_, Where she brewed good ale for gentlemen. And gentlemen came every day, Till little brown Betty she hopt away.”

Where the fact of little brown Betty brewing good ale points to a very old custom, when ale-wives flourished, and Eleanor Rumying and her gossips brewed their own ale. The GOLDEN CAN is still to be seen on two public-houses in Norwich. The GUILDED CUP in Houndsditch is mentioned in a quaint little pamphlet on the virtues of “Warme Beere,” 1641.

THE FLASK was the sign of an old-established tavern in Ebury Square, Pimlico. In the last century there were two famous _Flask_ taverns in Hampstead; the one called the _Lower Flask_ was an inn at the foot of the hill, and is mentioned in the following advertisement, printed on the cover of the original edition of the _Spectator_, No. 428:--

“This is to give notice that Hampstead Fair is to be kept upon the _Lower Flask_ Tavern Walk, on Friday, the first of August, and holds for four days.”

The UPPER FLASK was a place of public entertainment near the summit of Hampstead Hill, and is now a private residence. Here Richardson sends his Clarissa:--“The Hampstead coach, when the dear fugitive came to it, had but two passengers in it, but she made the fellow go off directly, paying for the vacant places. The two passengers directing the coachman to set them down at the _Upper Flask_, she bid them set her down there also.” The well-known Kit-Kat Club used to meet at this tavern in the summer months; and here, after it became a private abode, George Steevens, the celebrated critic and antiquary, lived and died.

Besides these, more homely vessels occur as publicans’ signs at the present day, which it requires no stretch of imagination to understand the meaning of, as the PITCHER AND GLASS, the BROWN JUG, the JUG AND GLASS, the BOTTLE AND GLASS, the FOAMING QUART, &c. At Newark the BOTTLE is accompanied by the following inscription:--

“From this Bottle I am sure You’ll get a glass both good and pure, In opposition to a many, I’m striving hard to get a penny.”

The PEWTER POT, an old sign, is thus alluded to by Randle Holme.[560]

“This should be looked upon by all good artists to be the most ignoble and dishonourable bearing; but as the custom takes away the sense of dislike, so the frequent use takes away the dishonour, which is seen by those multitudes that have it for their cognizance, in so much that it is painted over their doors by the wayside.”[561]

The _Pewter Pot_, in Leadenhall Street, was a famous carriers’ and coaching inn in 1681. There are also the SIX CANS, in High Holborn, (a sign evidently suggested by the THREE TUNS;) and, in the same locality, the SIX CANS AND PUNCHBOWL. This last object, the PUNCHBOWL, was introduced on the signboard at the end of the seventeenth century, when punch became the fashionable drink; in one instance, at Penalney Kea, near Truro, we have the PUNCHBOWL AND LADLE, but most generally it is found in combination with other very heterogeneous objects. The reason of this is that punch, like music, had a sort of political prestige, and was the Whig drink, whilst the Tories adhered to sack, claret, and canary, connected in their memory with bygone things and times. Hence it followed that the punchbowl was added as a kind of party-badge to many of the Whig tavern signs, and hence such combinations as the following, all of which still survive at the present day:--

The CROWN AND PUNCHBOWL, Somersham, St Ives.

The MAGPIE AND PUNCHBOWL, Bishopsgate Within.

The ROSE AND PUNCHBOWL, Redman’s Row, Stepney, and elsewhere.

The SHIP AND PUNCHBOWL, Wapping.

The RED LION AND PUNCHBOWL, St John’s Street, Clerkenwell.

The UNION FLAG AND PUNCHBOWL, High Street, Wapping.

The DOG AND PUNCHBOWL, Lymm, Warrington, Cheshire.

The HALFMOON AND PUNCHBOWL, Buckle Street, Whitechapel.

The PARROT AND PUNCHBOWL, Aldringham, Suffolk.

The FOX AND PUNCHBOWL, Old Windsor, (perhaps meant for the great statesman, who was not disinclined to the beverage.)

The TWO POTS is the sign of a public-house at Boxworth, St Ives, accompanied by the following verses, which are enough to set the teeth of a Bœotian on edge: how then must they shock the refined ears of the Cambridge dons?--

“Rest, traveller, rest; lo, Cooper’s hand Obedient brings two pots at thy command; Rest, traveller, rest; and banish thoughts of care, Drink to thy friends and recommend them here.”

Another Two Pots, at Leatherhead, can boast a most venerable antiquity, for it is believed to be the very ale-house where the notorious Eleanor Rumying tunned her “noppy ale,” and made

“thereof fast sale To travellers, to tinkers, To sweaters, to swinkers, And all good ale-drinkers.”

There was, at the end of the last century, a painted sign still remaining, which, under a coating of summer’s dust and winter’s sludge, faintly showed two pots of beer placed in the same position as they are on the title-page of the original edition of Skelton’s poem.

The sign of the Two Pots again gave rise to that of the THREE POTS, at Horseway Bridge, Chatteris, in the same county, and at Burbage, near Hinckley.

The RUMMER, another drinking vessel, is also common: there is one in Old Fish Street, and there are three _Rummer_ public-houses in Bristol alone. A tavern of that name was kept by Samuel Prior, uncle of Matthew Prior the poet. Uncle Sam took his nephew as an apprentice to learn the business, and be his successor. Prior alludes to this uncle and his little professional tricks in the following lines:--

“My uncle, rest his soul, when living, Might have contrived me ways of thriving; Taught me with cider to replenish My vats or ebbing tide of Rhenish; So, when for Hock I drew pricked white Wine, Swear ’t had the flavour and was right wine.”

To his stay in this tavern also alludes the bitter Whig satire in “State Poems,” (ii., p. 355,) beginning--

“A vintner’s boy the wretch was first preferr’d To wait at vice’s gates and pimp for bread; To hold the candle, and sometimes the door, Let in the drunkard, and let out the w----.”

In 1709 there was another Rummer tavern “over against Bow Lane, in Cheapside,” where “the surprizing Mr Higgins, the posture master, that lately performed at the Queen’s Theatre Royal in the Haymarket,” was to be seen every evening at six; admission 18d. and 1s.

This sign was also common in Holland two centuries ago; at that time there was one in Amsterdam with this inscription:--

“Als gy dees Roemer ziet, gy kunt ze pryzen of laken, Maar komt in, proeft zyn nat, dat zal u beeter smaaken.”[562]

And another one at the Hague had this same idea, but added a caution to it on a double-sided signboard:--

“Dees Roemer die gy ziet en kan u niet vermaken, Komt in en proeft het nat het zal u beter smaken Maar siet eens wat hier achter staat.”

On the other side:--

“Betaal eerst, eer je henen gaat Of anders hoed of mantel laat.”[563]

A near relative of the Rummer was the BUMPER, a tavern in St James’ Street, Covent Garden, kept by Estcourt the actor. His drawer was “his old servant Trusty Anthony, who has so often adorned both the theatres in England and Ireland; and as he is a person altogether unknown in the Wine Trade, it cannot be doubted but that he will deliver the wine in the same natural purity as he receives it from the said merchants,” (Brooke & Hillier.)--Estcourt’s advertisements on the last page of the original Edition of the _Spectator_, cclx., 1711. To this occupation of Estcourt, Parnell alludes in the beginning of his poems:--

“Gay Bacchus liking Estcourt’s wine, A noble meal bespoke us; And for the guests that were to dine Brought Comus, Love, and Jocus.”

This same Estcourt was sometime provedore of the Beefsteak Club.

Finally, we may conclude this notice of drinking vessels on the signboard with the TANKARD, which is still of frequent occurrence. There is a public-house at Ipswich with this sign, which was formerly part of the house of Sir Anthony Wingfield, one of the legal executors of Henry VIII.

The hanap or tankard was generally of silver, and was formerly one of the most valuable properties of an ale-house, for in the Act 13 Edw. I., it says that “if a tavern-keeper keep his house open after curfew he shall be put on his surety the first time by the _hanap_ of the tavern, or by some other good pledge therein found.”[564] Silver tankards were more or less common in all the London taverns. In some houses they were reserved for the more distinguished visitors; in others, as at the Bull’s Head in Leadenhall Street, “every poor mechanic drank in plate.” They were of different sizes, and experienced topers well knew for which name to call when ordering a tankard proportionate to their thirst. From a curious old tippler’s handbook, published in the reign of Queen Anne or George the First, entitled, “A Vade Mecum for Maltworms,” we gather that the names of the tankards at the SWEET APPLE, in Sweet Apple Yard, were “the Lamb,” “the Lion,” “the Peacock,” (in honour of the brewer,) “Sacheverell,” (in memory of the notorious divine of St Andrew’s, Holborn,) and “Nan Elton.” The same work also relates a curious instance of enthusiasm in a publican. His house, the Raven, in Fetter Lane, was famous for

“Massy tankards form’d of silver plate, That walk throughout his noted house in state; Ever since Eaglesfield in Anna’s reign, To compliment each fortunate campaign, Made one be hammer’d out for every town was ta’en.”

We may suppose each tankard named after a victory--the greater the victory, the greater the tankard; and can imagine the gratifying display of loyalty in emptying those tankards to the perdition of “Popery and wooden shoes.”

Besides the tankard for drinking beer or wine, there was also the WATER TANKARD. In Ben Jonson’s comedy of “Every Man in his Humour,” 1598, Cob, the water-carrier of the Old Jewry, says:--“I dwell, sir, at the sign of the WATER TANKARD, hard by the _Green Lattice_. I have paid scot and lot there many time this eighteen years.” These water-tankards were used for carrying water from the conduits to the houses, and were therefore a professional sign of the water-carriers. The measures held about three gallons, and were shaped like a truncated cone, with an iron handle and hoops like a pail, and were closed with a cork, bung, or stopple. In Wilkinson’s “Londina Illustrata,” there is an engraving of Westcheap as it appeared in the year 1585, copied from a drawing of the period, in which the Little Conduit is seen with a quantity of water-tankards ranged round it.

Amongst the other articles of furniture which are represented on the signboard we must first of all notice that useful article the LOOKING GLASS, which was the favourite sign of the booksellers on London Bridge. Thus, one of John Bunyan’s works, “The Saints’ Triumph, or the Glory of Saints with Jesus Christ discovered in a Divine Ejaculation by J. B.,” was printed by J. Millet for J. Blare, at the Looking Glass on London Bridge, in 1688. The French booksellers also used it: for instance, Nicholas Despréaux, or Dupré, a bookseller of the seventeenth century, who lived near the church of St Etienne du Mont, at Paris. Its origin was this:--Speculum, a looking-glass, was in the middle ages a common name for a certain class of books. We find, as early as 1332, a work entitled “Speculum Historiale in consuetudine Parisiensi;” then there is the “Grand Speculum Historiale,” the great historical work of Vincent of Beauvais, one of the most celebrated books of the Middle Ages; “Speculum Humanæ Salvationis;” “Speculum Humanæ Vitæ;” “Speculum Vitæ Christæ,” “a boke that is clepid the Myrrour of the blessed lyffe of our Lorde J’hu cryste;” the “Mirrour of Magistrates;” “Le miroir de l’ame pécheresse,” and innumerable other Speculums. These Speculums were amongst the first books that were printed; many of the early booksellers adopted the _Bible_ as their sign, whilst others chose the Speculum, which they translated and made more fit for the signboard under the name of the LOOKING GLASS.

A curious fact is connected with this so common title of the Speculum for early religious books. When the first pioneers in the art of printing were pondering over their new invention, during the transition period from block-printing to printing with detached letters, Guttenberg, in 1436, entered into an agreement with John Riffe, Anthony Heilman, and Andrew Dreizehn, in which speculation the three associates were to furnish the necessary funds, whilst Guttenberg was to pay them one half of any profits, the other half being for himself. After a certain time the association broke up, differences arose about the liquidation, and a lawsuit was the consequence. The documents of this lawsuit are still in existence; from them it appears that they kept their invention a secret, and called themselves “_Spiegelmachers_,” (makers of looking-glasses,) which looking-glasses, according to the evidence of witnesses, had found a very ready sale amongst the pilgrims who at that period congregated at Aix-la-Chapelle on the occasion of some religious festival. But as apparently no extra number of mirrors were sold on that occasion, and there does not appear to have been any new invention in the art of making them, it is evident that the looking-glasses sold were the _Speculum_ books, which undoubtedly would be readily purchased by the pilgrims to the holy shrine. This opinion is still more corroborated by the mention made in the evidence of a _Press_, which could scarcely be used in the manufacture of looking-glasses. It is therefore most probable that, as the art of printing was at this period still in its infancy, and the printed works were sold rather as an imitation or facsimile[565] of the written manuscripts, this art was still kept a secret; by so doing, its early practitioners were not only safe from competition, but also from the attacks and opposition by which the new invention would have been assailed by all those connected with the business of transcribing and illuminating.[566]

Other pieces of furniture are the CABINET, a common upholsterer’s sign in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the THREE CRICKETS, or little stools, which we gather from a trades token of the seventeenth century, was in Crooked Lane; and the CRADLE, a peculiar sign, occurs in Taylor’s “Carrier’s Cosmography,” 1637, where he gives a rather curious insight into the postal arrangements of that time:--

“Those that will send any letter to Edinbourgh, that so they may be conveyed to and fro to any parts of the kingdome of Scotland, the poste doth lodge at the signe of the _kings armes_ or the CRADLE at the upper end of Cheapside, from whence every Monday any that have occasion may send.”

Generally, however, it did not designate so respectable a business; the “Compleat Vintner,” 1720, explains the secret arcana of that sign:--

“The pregnant Madam drawn aside, By promise to be made a bride, If near her time and in distress For some obscure convenient place, Let her but take the pains to waddle About till she observes a _Cradle_ With the foot hanging towards the door, And there she may be made secure From all the parish plagues and terrors, That wait on poor weak woman’s errors. But if the head hang tow’rds the house, As very often we see it does, Avaunt, for she’s a cautious bawd Whose business only lies abroad.”

From the last interpretation of this sign to the Colt in the Cradle (see under Humorous Signs) is but a step.

The TRUNK was the sign of Caleb Swinock, a bookseller in St Paul’s Churchyard in 1684, for which it is difficult to find any rational explanation; almost equally incomprehensible is the sign of the GREEN BELLOWS, (_le soufflet vert_,) which was that of Johan Stoll and Peter Cesaris, booksellers and printers in the Rue St Jacques, Paris, in 1473.[567] This sign was also to be seen in other towns of France, as in Abbeville, where a stone bas-relief sign of the seventeenth century, with the inscription “_le vert soufflet_,” remains at the present day in the front of a house in the Rue des Jacobins. It may have been adopted in allusion to the occult sciences and alchemy, green being the emblematical colour of Hope.

The GOLDEN CANDLESTICK was the sign of a Marriage Insurance office in Newgate Street, in 1711, a time when there was a mania for insurance offices of every description; the THREE CANDLESTICKS occurs on a trades token of the Old Bailey in 1649. A publican in Tamworth, Staffordshire, has taken the COFFEE-POT for a sign, probably on the strength of the derivation of “lucus a non lucendo,” because he sells no coffee; the ROYAL COFFEE-MILL was the more appropriate sign of Paul Greenwood, in Clothfair, for he was a seller of “Coffee-powder.”[568] Then there is the SUGAR-LOAF, a common grocer’s sign of former times, the selection of which showed great disinterestedness on their part, the article being that on which the least profit was made. Campbell said, in 1757:--

“There is indeed one article which they [the Grocers] must sell to their loss, sugars. A custom has prevailed (but why?) amongst the Grocers, to sell sugar for the prime cost, and are out of pocket by the sale, with paper, packthread, and their labour in breaking and weighing it out. The expense of some shops in London, for the article of paper and packthread for sugars, amounts to £60 or £70 per annum; but this they lay upon the other articles. The customer had much better allow him a profit upon his sugars, than pay extravagant prices for tea and other comodities.”

At present, we understand, loaf-sugar is not sold exactly at cost price, but moist sugar is, whence many grocers refuse to sell that article to strangers unless something else be bought at the same time. At No. 44 Fenchurch Street, a very old established grocery firm still carries on business under the sign of the THREE SUGAR LOAVES. The house presents much the same appearance it had in the last century, with the gilt sugar-loaves above the doorway, and is one of the few places of business in London conducted in the ancient style. The small old-fashioned window panes, the complete absence of all show and decoration, the cleanliness of the interior, and the quiet order of the assistants in their long white aprons, betoken the respectable old tea-warehouse, and impress the passer-by with a complete conviction as to the genuineness of its articles. That the sugar-loaf was not always exclusively a grocer’s sign, nor the THREE BALLS a pawnbroker’s, appears from the following advertisement in the _Postman_, February 3-6, 1711:--

“THOMAS SETH at the Sugarloaf in Fore Street, Pawnbroker, is going to leave his house, and to leave off the said business: all persons concerned are desired to fetch away their Goods on or before the fourth of March next, else they will be disposed off and sold.”

Here is another curious advertisement:--

“A TANNY MORE [tawny Moor] with short bushy hair, very well shaped, in a grey livery lined with yellow, about 17 or 18 years of age, _with a silver collar about his neck_ with these directions:--‘Captain George Hastings’ Boy, Brigadier in the King’s Horse guards.’ Whosoever brings him to the Sugarloaf in the Pall Mall shall have forty shillings Reward.”--_London Gazette_, March 23, 1685.

The Sugar-loaf is also a public-house sign, though not a very appropriate one. The BLUE BOWL, suggestive of punch-making, occurs on three public-houses in Bristol; but much more significant for a resort of thirsty souls is that of the THREE FUNNELS, (_les Trois Entonnoirs_,) which in the time of Louis XIV. was the sign of a tavern in Paris, mostly patronised by the University people. An equally expressive sign, the SIEVE, was used by John Johnson, in Aldermansbury, 1669, and “Richard Harris in Trinity Minories.”

We now arrive at kitchen utensils: foremost amongst these ranks the GRIDIRON, which was very common in the sixteenth century, and may perhaps have been a jocular rendering of the _Portcullis_. The FRYING PAN is still a constant ironmonger’s sign--thus in Highcross Street, Leicester, there is a gigantic gilt specimen with the inscription “the Family Fry Pan.” There are trades tokens of “John Vere, at y^{e} _Frying Pan_ in Islington, Mealman,” which, considered in connexion with pancakes, one can understand; but it certainly looks out of place at the door of Samuel Wadsell, bookseller at the GOLDEN FRYING PAN, in Leadenhall Street, 1680. The COPPER POT (le Pot de Cuivre) at Dijon, in France, was the sign of one of the oldest inns in that country. It was opened in 1250 and continued till the middle of the seventeenth century. The society of the _Mère Folle_ held their meetings at this house.

The PEWTER PLATTER occurs both in France and in England; it was famous as a carriers’ inn in St John Street, Clerkenwell, in 1681. At this inn Curll’s translators, in pay, were lodged, and had to sleep three in a bed, and there “he and they were for ever at work to deceive the publick.”[569] In mediæval Paris it was a common sign, and gave its name to several streets. Two of the inns victimised by that incorrigible scamp Villon, bore this sign:--

“Le cas advint au Plat d’etain Emprès saint Pierre-des-Arsis.”[570]--_Repues Franches._

Probably it was a very early sign for eating-houses.

The PUMP is a common ale-house sign, and occurs as such on a token of Tooley Street, with the following lines:--

“The Pump runs cleer Wh. Ale and Beer.”

which, as Mr Burn (Beaufoy Tokens) observes, may be a travesty of a verse in Histrio-Mastrix, 1610:--

“Yet a verse may run cleare, That is tapt out of Beere.”

Another token belonging to Chick Lane, West Smithfield, represents a hand grasping the handle of a pump; and a publican in Old Swinford, who combines engineering with his trade, has a similar sign with the words, “Hands to the Pump.” In the reign of Charles I. there was a public-house, the BLUE PUMP, in Blackfriars, near the famous Hollands Leaguer. It represented a man, evidently a sailor, pumping with all his might, and the legend ran:--“Poor Tom’s last refuge.”[571] With the pump we may place the BUCKET, which was the sign of a shop in Aldersgate Street, of which there are trades tokens extant, and the TUB, the name of a tavern in Jermyn Street, in the reign of Charles II., as appears from a letter sent, (not written, for she could not write,) by Nell Gwynn, from Windsor in 1684, to her milliner and factotum, addressed “To Madam Jennings, over against the Tub tavern in Jermyn Street, London.” Another utensil, the DUST-PAN, is common with hardware shops. There is one in Islington, at a shop next to the house in which Charles Lamb lived; at night it is illuminated, and hence called the ILLUMINATED DUST-PAN. Lastly, there is the HOUR-GLASS, a colossal specimen carved in wood, in Upper Thames Street, near All Hallows Church, and the GOLDEN JAR, which was the sign of a china shop, as we see in the _Country Journal_, or _Craftsman_, for April 25, 1730, where Anne Cibber acquaints the public that she is removed from Charles Street to the _Golden Jar_ in Tavistock Street, carrying on two trades which now are rarely associated in London, viz., “All sorts of chinaware, and the best teas, coffees, chocolate,” &c. Now-a-days the _jars_, painted red and green, are the usual oilman’s sign, representing those vessels in which oil is kept in Eastern countries, and in which Ali Baba’s forty thieves came to such an untimely end. Formerly oil used to be imported in this country in similar jars, hence their adoption as trade emblems.

We may close this chapter, not inappropriately with the KEY, a sign once largely used, not only by locksmiths, as at present, but by all manners of shops; thus there was a celebrated tavern, at the corner of Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, _circa_ 1690, and many others that could be mentioned. The GOLDEN KEY is named in an old advertisement, speaking of some sports and pastimes which many English gentlemen are now attempting to revive:--

“RICHARD FENNEY, Esquire of Alaxton in Leicestershire, about a forthnight since, lost a lanner from that place; she has neither Bells nor Varvels; she is a white Hawk, and her long feathers and sarcels are both in the blood. If any one give tidings thereof to Mr Lambert at the GOLDEN KEY, in Fleet Street, they shall have 40 shillings for their pains.”--_Mercurius Publicus_, August 30 to September 6, 1660.

The LOCK AND KEY is a sign of a public-house in West Smithfield, and was, during the Commonwealth, that of a house in the parish of St Dunstan, belonging to Praise God Barebones, citizen and leather-seller of London. There is a MS. in the British Museum,[572] containing a petition of Barebones against Elisabeth and James Spight, the latter an infant under age, offered to the court of judicature for determination of differences touching houses burned or demolished by the fire of 1666. From that paper it appears that Elisabeth Spight paid £40 a year for the rent of the Lock and Key.

[543] _London Gazette_, August 28 to Sept. 1, 1679.

[544] “Itinerarium Curiosum,” 1776, p. 14.

[545] Letter of John Paston to Sir John Paston, Sept. 21, 1472.

[546] Marston’s Antonio and Mellida, 1633.

[547] Tom Brown’s Works, vol. iii, p. 243.

[548] Tom Brown’s Amusements for the Meridian of London, 1706.

[549] “It represented a burning lamp, such as some pastry-cooks have to amuse the children, on which geese, monkeys, elephants, dogs, cats, hares, foxes, and many strange animals are to be seen running after each other.”

[550]

“My lamp is kept burning by the produce of the East. Oil, figs, and currants sold here.”

[551] There is a drawing of this very curious relic in a number of the _Illustrated London News_, published shortly after the sale.

[552] Also demolished to make room for the streets leading to London Bridge.

[553] Lansdowne MSS. No. 889, art. 73.

[554] Harleian MSS No. 256.

[555] Bagford Bills, Harleian MSS.

[556] This loses much by translation:--

“I contain A curious kind of condiment-- There are not many people in this town Which I have not _had by the nose_.”

This is a pun in Dutch, on the sensation produced in the nose by mustard, the expression meaning, at the same time, “to take in.”

[557] Decker’s English Villanies Seven Times Pressed to Death.

[558] Cocoa-nuts. The word is still pronounced in that manner by the lower classes.

[559] A face or dial-plate, sometimes also called pendulum dial.

[560] Book iii., p. 294.

[561] What would old Randle Holme have said, had he seen the elegant (!) breast-pins displayed in the shop-windows of one of the principal West End jewellers, forming the tasteful device of a tobacco-pipe on a quart pot; another with a rebus for: “You are an art[a heart]ful card;” and a third with: “O my eye!” and similar _distingué_ ornaments.

[562]

“When you see this Rummer you may praise or blame it, But come in, and taste its liquor, you will like that better.”

[563]

“This Rummer which you see here cannot give you much pleasure. Come in, and taste its liquor, you will like that better, But first, see what is written on the other side.”

On the other side:--

“Pay before you go away, Otherwise you will have to leave your hat or your cloak.”

[564] Liber Albus, Book iii., Part ii.

[565] Even after the art got to be known, it continued to be still called _writing_. Thus, Gaspar Hedion (Paral. ad Chron. Conradi) calls it “novo _scribendi_ genere reperto,” and Fulgosus (Lib. viii., Dict. & Fact. Memor.) says that Guttenberg could “uno die imprimendo plura _scribere_ quam uno anno calamis.”

[566] See the whole of the documents of this law-suit in Count Leon de Laborde’s Débuts de l’Imprimerie à Strasbourg.

[567] This De Cesaris family seemed to have a predilection for puzzling signboards. When Peter de Cesaris, a bookseller and printer in the Rue St Jacques, circa 1480, had for a sign the SWAN AND SOLDIER, (_le cygne et soldat_,) in the absence of his colophon, we can only suppose that it was a representation of the legend of the Knight of the Swan, _i.e._, a knight in a boat drawn by a swan. The steel armour of the knight might easily have bestowed upon him the title of “the soldier.”

[568] _London Gazette_, Nov. 10-13, 1679.

[569] _Loyd’s Evening Post_, Jan 9-12, 1767.

[570]

“It happened at the Pewter Platter, Near Saint Pierre des Arsis.”

[571] Whether it would be just to conclude from this that sailors in that time went by the generic name of Tom instead of Jack, we leave to the reader to judge. That Tom was in former times a more common name than now, (owing, it is said, to the respect at one time paid to the great saint Thomas a-Becket,) appears from the many words to which it is an affix, and from many imaginary names, as:--Tomtit, Tomcat, Tomfoolery, Tomboy, Tommyshop, Tommy, (slang for bread,) double Tom, (a sort of plough,) Tom the Piper, (in the morris dance,) Tom Tiddler, Tom of Bedlam, Tom of Westminster, (a bell,) Tom and Jerry, Tom Telltruth, Tom Hickathrift, Tom, (the knave of Trumps,) Whipping Tom, an itinerant flogger of wandering maids, Tom Tapster, “Tib’s rush for Tom’s forefingers,” (all’s well that ends well.)

“Then every wanton may dance at her will, Both _Tomkin_ with _Tomlin_ and Jenkin with Gill.”

_Tusser’s Plowman’s Fasting Day_

[572] Additional MSS., 5079.