CHAPTER XII.

DRESS; PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL.

Of this class only a few signs are to be found; one of the most common is the HAT, the usual hatter’s sign, although it may also be found before taverns and public-houses, in which case, however, it is probable that it was the previous sign of the house, which the publican on entering left unaltered; or it may have been used to suggest “a house of call” to the trade. The age of each individual hat-sign may sometimes be gathered from its shape; thus there is one in Whitechapel, made out of tin, representing the cocked hat worn at the end of the last century; it is evidently a relic of that time. The continental hatters using this sign, occasionally indulged in a little humour. A hatter at Ghent in the sixteenth century added to it this distich:--

“Onder den Hoedt Schuylt quaedt & goet.”[573]

And a Dutch hatter made a still more unpleasant allusion to the brains of his customers:--

“Hier maakt men sterke hoeden om de hersens in te sluyten Opdat het los verstand daar niet mag vliegen buyten.”[574]

Dr Franklin used to tell an amusing story of a journeyman hatter, his companion when young, who on commencing business for himself, was anxious to get a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. This he composed himself as follows:--

+------------------------+ | JOHN THOMPSON, HATTER, | | MAKES AND SELLS HATS | | FOR READY MONEY | +------------------------+

Above the inscription was the ordinary figure of a hat. But he thought he would submit the composition to his friends for amendment. The first he showed it to thought the word “hatter” tautologous, because followed by the words “makes hats,” which showed he was a hatter; it was struck out. The next observed that the word “makes” might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats; if good, and to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck that out also. A third said he thought that the words “for ready money” were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit--every one who purchased expected to pay. These, too, were parted with, and the inscription then stood, “John Thompson sells Hats.” “_Sells_ Hats!” says his next friend; “why, who expects you to give them away? What, then, is the use of the word?” It was struck out, and HATS was all that remained attached to the name John Thompson. Even this inscription, brief as it was, was reduced ultimately to “John Thompson,” with the figure of the hat above it.

The HAT AND FEATHERS was almost equally common in those days, when no full-fledged gallant could be deemed complete without his fluttering ribbons and plume. The puritanical Philip Stubbe in his “Anatomie of Abuses,” 1585, is very hard upon this fashion:--

“Another sort, (as phantasticall as the rest,) are content with no kind of hat, without a great bunch of feathers of divers and sondrie colours, peaking on top of their heades, not unlike (I dare not saie) cockes combes, but as Sternes of Pride and ensignes of vanitie and these fluttering sailes and feathered flagges of defiaunce to virtue, (for so they are,) are so advanced in Ailgnia [Anglia] that euery child has thē in his Hatte or Cappe. Many get good living by deying and selling of them, and not a fewe proue themselues more than fooles in wearyng of them.”

Decker calls the “swell” of his day “our feathered ostrich,” and in his comedy of the “Sun’s Darling” he mentions “some alderman’s son wondrous giddy and light-headed, one that blew his patrimony away in _feathers_ and tobacco.” There is one sign of the HAT AND FEATHERS still in existence, a publican’s, at Grantchester, in Cambridgeshire.

Another old hatter’s sign is the HAT AND BEAVER, which at present may be seen at the door of a publican’s in Leicester. Shopbills of this once common sign occur amongst the Banks Collection, representing a beaver seated on the edge of a stream, with a hat above him. The relation between the two is evident, and about as gratifying to the beaver as it was to the widow of the hanged man to hear the gallows named. The beaver hats worn in England at the time of Edward III., and long after, were made in Flanders and Picardy. From the Privy Purse expenses of Henry VIII. we see that the king paid in 1532:--

“Item, the xxiij day [of October] for a hath and plume for the King in Boleyn, xv shillings.”

“On 27 May MDLV. (ij of Queen Mary) Sir William Cecil [afterwards Lord Burghley] being then at Callice [Calais] bought [as appears from his MS. Diary] three hats for his children at xxd each.”

The Protestant refugees, however, from Flanders and France, introduced the manufacture of these hats into England when they settled in Norwich; by a statute 5 and 6 Edw. VI., the manufacture of felt and thrummed hats was confined to Norwich and the corporate and market towns in that county.[575] As for the shapes of the hats worn at that period we must again refer to Stubbe’s satirical account:--

“Some tymes they use them sharpe on the crowne, pearking up like the speare or shaft of a steeple, standing a quarter of a yarde above the crowne of their heades, some more, some lesse, as pleases the fantasies of their inconstant mindes; othersome be flat and broad in the crowne like the battlements of a house. Another sort have round crownes, sometymes with one kinde of bande, sometymes with another, now blacke, now whyte, now russet, now red, now green, now yellowe, now this, now that, never content, with one colour or fashion two daies to an ende.”[576]

Felt hats for a long time were exclusively worn by the aristocracy. Stow tells us that “about the beginning of Henry VIII. began the making of Spanish feltes in England, by Spaniardes and Dutchmen, before which time, and long since the English used to ride, and goe winter and sommer in knitcapps, cloth hoods, and the best sort in silk throm’d Hatts.” These caps were enforced by a statute of 13th Queen Elizabeth, which gives, at the same time, a curious picture of the fashions of that period:--

“If any person above six yeares of age, (except _maidens_, _ladies_, _gentlewomen_, nobles, knights, gentlemen of twenty marks by year in lands, and their heirs, and such as have borne office of worship,) have not worn upon the Sundays and Holidays, (except it be in the time of his travell out of the citie, towne, or hamlet, where he dwelleth,) uppon his head one cap of wool knit, thicked, and dressed in England, and onely dressed and finished by some of the trade of cappers, shall be fined 3s. 4d. for each day’s transgression.”

These caps, termed statute caps, are frequently alluded to by the dramatists and authors of that period. Rosalind, for instance, in “Love’s Labour Lost,” taunts her lover with the words: “Well, better wits have worn plain statute caps.” The act was repealed in the year 1597. The sign of the CAP AND STOCKING, still in Leicester, commemorates the once-flourishing trade of that town in those articles. The quantity of workmen who found occupations in the manufacture of the above-named “statute caps,” (which came chiefly from Leicestershire and the surrounding districts,) was one of the principal reasons why it was so often protected by parliamentary statutes. Fuller enumerates not less than fifteen callings, “besides other exercises,” all employed in the trade of capmaking, beginning with the woolcarder, and ending with the bandmaker. The HAT AND STAR, which occurs on the bill of Master Bates in St Paul’s Churchyard, who sold all sorts of fine “caines, whippes, spurres,”[577] &c., if not a simple quartering of two signs, possibly originated in the clasp ornament of precious stones, formerly worn in the hat. The LEGHORN HAT, at the end of the last century, was generally a turner’s sign, because the members of that trade sold straw hats imported from Leghorn. In St John Street, Clerkenwell, there was an old established public-house, and place of resort, called the THREE HATS. It is mentioned by Bickerstaff in his comedy of “The Hypocrite,” where Mawworm thus alludes to it:--

“Till I went after him, [Dr Cantwell,] I was little better than the devil, my conscience was tanned with sin, like a piece of neat’s leather, and had no more feeling than the sole of my shoe; always a roving after fantastical delights; I used to go every Sunday evening to the Three Hats at Islington; it’s a public-house . . . mayhap your Ladyship may know it. I was a great lover of skittles, too, but now I cannot bear them.”

At this house the earliest prototypes of Astley used to perform in 1758. There was Thomas, an Irishman, surnamed Tartar; then came Johnson, Sampson, Price, and Cunningham. The great Dr Johnson went here to see his namesake.

“Such a man, sir, said he, should be encouraged; for his performance show the extent of human powers in one instance, and thus tend to raise our opinion of the faculties of man. He shows what may be obtained by persevering application; so that every man may hope, by giving as much application, although, perhaps, he may never ride three horses at a time, or dance upon a wire, yet he may be equally expert in whatever profession he has chosen to pursue.”

Royalty also visited the place: “Yesterday his Royal Highness the Duke of York was at the Three Hats, Islington, to see the extraordinary feats of horsemanship exhibited there. There were near five hundred spectators.”[578] Sampson’s wife was the first female equestrian.

HORSEMANSHIP

_At Mr Dingley’s, the Three Hats, Islington._

“MR SAMPSON begs leave to inform the public, that besides the usual feats which he exhibits, Mrs Sampson, to diversify the entertainment, and prove that the fair sex are by no means inferior to the male, either in Courage or Agility, will, this and every Evening during the Summer, perform various exercises in the same art, in which she hopes to acquit herself to the universal approbation of those Ladies and Gentlemen whose curiosity may induce them to honour her attempt with their company.”[579]

The Three Hats occurs amongst the trades tokens of the seventeenth century. There is one of the THREE HATS AND NAG’S HEAD in Southwark. In the seventeenth century the sign of the Three Hats at Leeuwarden, in Friesland, was accompanied by the following stanza:--

“Dit is in de drie Hoeden Om ’t hoofd te behoeden, Voor wind en koud. Tromp was stout, Voor der staten kroon, Hier maakt men hoeden schoon.”[580]

The LOCKS OF HAIR was the very appropriate sign of John Allen, a hairdresser on London Bridge in the last century, who sold “all sorts of hair, Curled or Uncurled; Bags, Roses, Cauls, Ribbons, Weaving Silk, Sewing Cards, and Blocks. With all Goods made use of by Peruke makers, at the lowest prices.”[581] The locks of hair were represented curled and tied. This sign appears to have been not unusual with the hairdressers of a former age. In 1649, there was one in St Dunstan’s-in-the-East, who had the LOCK AND SHEARS; which are represented on his trades token by a lock of hair between a pair of shears, intimating that the “unlovely lovelocks” were curtailed by him. What he would require the tokens for in his profession (they were used as farthings) it is difficult to guess, as apparently no such small change was needed. This sign was in accordance with the spirit of the times; short hair was the unmistakable mark of the godly puritan, just as the straggling love-lock hanging over the shoulder denoted the cavalier. For this reason, Decker advises the young cavalier Gull:--

“Thy hair, whose length before the rigorous edge of any puritanical pair of scissors should shorten the breadth of a finger, let the three house-wifely spinsters of Destiny rather curtail the thread of thy life. Oh, no! long hair is the only net that women spread abroad to entrap man in, and why should not men be as far above women in that comodity as they go far beyond them in others.”[582]

The PERIWIG was another common hairdresser’s sign. Even this had to submit to the favourite blue colour, for amongst the Banks bills there is one of John Thompson, in Brewer Street, Golden Square, who lived at the BLUE PERUKE AND STAR. The star evidently was the original sign, to which the wig had been added on account of the profession of the occupant of the house.

The WHITE PERUKE, in Maiden Lane, was the sign of the barber, at whose lodgings Voltaire lived when on a visit to London; some of his letters to Swift are dated from that place. A white periwig was a highly fashionable object:--“Now, I think he looks very humorous and agreeable; I vow, in a _white periwig_ he might do mischief; could he but talk and take snuff, there’s never a fop in town wou’d go beyond him.”--_Cibber’s Double Gallant_, 1707. So Shadwell, in “The Humorist,” 1671, describes Brisk, one of the _dramatis personæ_, as “a fellow that never wore a noble and polite garniture, or a _white periwig_.” Well might the barbers give the peruke the honour of this signboard, for the profits on that article must have been enormous. In Charles II.’s time, for instance, a fine peruke cost as much as £50; and hence the great respect Cibber paid to the one he wore in the character of Sir Fopling Flutter, which was brought on the stage in a sedan, and put on before the public. As the glory of Miltiades prevented Epaminondas from sleeping, so the beauty of this periwig disturbed the slumbers of Mr (afterwards Colonel) Brett, who in the end bought it from Cibber.[583] The thieves as well as the beaux knew the value of those wigs, and practised all manner of tricks to obtain them. Sometimes a boy, carried in a basket on the shoulders of a man, would snatch the “curly honour” off the head of the unsuspecting beau;[584] at other times they would cut holes in the leather backs of the coaches,[585] whilst the highwaymen were sure to include the periwig with the rest of the booty captured on the road. Though this article is now shorn of its honours, there is still a publican at Great Redisham, Suffolk, who carries on his trade under the sign of the WIG.

The French have a sign quite as absurd as our BLUE PERUKE--viz., The GOLDEN BEARD, (_la barbe d’or_,) which is carved in stone in the Rue des Bourdonnais, Paris, and also in the Marché aux Herbes, Amiens: both these signs date from the eighteenth century, but their origin is much older, as appears from the following:--

“The Duke of Lorraine, after the Battle of Nancy, wherein he killed Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, went in procession to visit the body, clothed in deep mourning, with a _golden beard_ fixed on, that reached down to his waist, (after the manner of the old heroes that were knighted for their prowess, who, on a signal victory over an enemy, were honoured with such a beard.)”--_Richardsoniana_, London, 1776, p. 47.

The ANODYNE NECKLACE was as notorious in the eighteenth century, as Holloway’s Pills and Rowland’s Macassar Oil are in our day. Advertisements concerning it were continually appearing in the papers:--

“THE Anodyne Necklace for children’s teeth, women in labour, and distempers of the head; price 5s. Recommended by Dr Chamberlain. Sold up one pair of stairs at the sign of the Anodyne Necklace, without Temple Bar; at the SPANISH LADY at the Royal Exchange, next Threadneedle Street; at the INDIAN HANDKERCHIEF, facing the New Stairs in Wapping,” &c.[586]

To attract attention, there was frequently some book of not very delicate character, advertised as “given away gratis” at this house. But as this kind of literature was sure to find a great many readers--more especially when the book could be had for nothing--a restriction was sometimes added that “this curious book will not be given away to any boys or girls, or any paultry person.” Such a pamphlet, for instance, was:--

“THE RABBIT-AFFAIR made clear in a full account of the whole matter, with the pictures engraved of the pretended rabbit-breeder herself, Mary Tofts, and of the rabbits, and of the persons who attended her during her pretended deliveries, showing who were and who were not deceived by her. ’Tis given gratis nowhere, but only up one pair of stairs at the sign of the Anodyne Necklace, recommended by Dr Chamberlain,” &c.--_Daily Courant_, Jan. 11, 1726.

This alluded to one of the most impudent frauds ever committed. A certain profligate woman, Mary Tofts by name, a native of Godalming, in Surrey, pretended to give birth to rabbits. The first delivery was a family of seventeen; she actually found people who believed her, and gave their attention to this phenomenon. Amongst them were Sir Richard Manningham, Dr St André, surgeon and anatomist to his Majesty, Dr Mowbray, &c. By these gentlemen she was brought to Lacy’s Bagnio, and the case was watched with intense interest; yet she succeeded in baffling and deluding their attention. At last the fraud came out by one of her accomplices informing upon her. Prints, books, and ballads were published upon the subject, Dr St André coming in for an extra share of ridicule; but whether the woman was in any way punished, is not on record. The last information respecting her was in the _Weekly Miscellany_, April 19, 1740:--“The celebrated rabbit-woman, of Godalmin’, in Surrey, was committed to Guilford gaol for receiving stolen goods.” She died in January 1763.

The PEARL OF VENICE is named in an advertisement of a watch lost, “made at Paris, not so broad as a shilling, in a case of black leather with gold nails.”[587] It was the sign of “Mr Leroy, in St James’ Street, Covent Garding.” The pearls of Venice were celebrated:--

“Is your pearl orient, sir? _Corv._ _Venice was never owner of the like._”

--BEN JONSON, _The Fox_, a. i., s. i.

At the same time that city was celebrated for its mock jewellery and glass imitations.

From the Bagford shopbills, it appears that the BLUE BODDICE was, in Queen Anne’s reign, a milliner’s shop in the Long Walk, near Christchurch Hospital. At the same period another member of the same _fraternity_ (there were men-milliners in those days) had the HOOD AND SCARF, articles of female apparel; this shop was in Cornhill, “over against Wills’ Coffee-house.”[588] At the present time there is in the North a public-house called the BLUE STOOPS; this also seems to refer to an ancient garment, worn in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and named by Ben Jonson--“Alchymist,” a. iv., s. ii.--“Your Spanish stoop is the best garment.”

The BONNY CRAVAT, at Woodchurch, Tenterden, to judge from the adjective, seems rather to have been suggested by the old song of “Jenny, come tie my bonny cravat,” than by the introduction of the cravat as an article of dress. The fashion is said to have been brought over from Germany, in the seventeenth century, by some of the young French nobility, who had served the emperor in the wars against the Turks, and had copied this garment from the _Croats_, whence the name.

The DOUBLET, formerly the HARROW AND DOUBLET,[589] is still the sign of an iron warehouse in Upper Thames Street; it bears the date 1720, and the letters T. C., the initials of one of the Crowley family, to whom this warehouse has belonged “time out of mind.” It is made of cast and painted iron, and is said to represent the leather doublet in which the founder of the firm came to London as a day-labourer. The doublet was a kind of vestment which originated from the gambason or pourpoint worn under the armour; sleeves were added when it was worn without armour, and so it became a universal garment.

There are trades tokens extant of the CHILD-COAT, in Whitecross Street, probably a shop where children’s apparel was sold. Randle Holme, in his heraldic _Omnium Gatherum_, b. iii., ch. i, p. 18, gives a representation of a child’s coat, which is very similar to the “Knickerbocker” suit of the present day, with a short kilt added to it. He adds the following explanation:--“A boy’s coat is the last coat used for boys, after which they are put into breeches. If it has hanging sleeves, they would term it a child’s coat.” In the same manner as the child’s coat, the MINISTER’S GOWN figured at the door of the shop where this article was sold. There is a shopbill of such a one in Booksellers’ Row, St Paul’s Churchyard, among the Bagford bills.

The TABARD was the well-known inn in Southwark whence Chaucer and the other pilgrims started on their way to Canterbury. Mr Edmund Ollier has recently contributed a very interesting paper on this old inn to _All the Year Round_, and several paragraphs have appeared in other journals upon the same subject. A very few words, therefore, will be sufficient for the present purpose. Originally, it was the property of the Abbot of Hyde, near Winchester, who had his town residence within the inn-yard. The earliest record relating to this property is in 33d Edw. I., (1304,) when the Abbot and convent of Hyde purchased of William of Lategareshall two houses in Southwark, held by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the annual rent of 5s. 1½d., and suit to his court in Southwark, and 1d. a year for a purpresture of one foot wide on the king’s highway; £4 per annum to John de Tymberhutts, and 3s. to the Prior and convent of St Mary Overie, in Southwark; value clear, 40s.

It is a fact on record that Henry Bayley, the hosteller of the Tabard, was one of the burgesses who represented the borough of Southwark in the Parliament held in Westminster in the 50th Edw. III., (1376;) and he was again returned to the Parliament held at Gloucester in the 2d Richard II., in 1378.[590] The tavern itself is named, at the very period when Chaucer’s poem is supposed to have been written, in one of the rolls of Parliament, where, 5th Richard II., (1381,) in a list of malefactors who had participated in the rebellion of Jack Cade, occurs the name of “Joh’es Brewersman, manens apud le Tabbard, London.” Stow thus notices the old inn:--

“From thence to London, on the same side, be many fair inns for receipt of travellers, by their signs--the SPURRE, CHRISTOPHER, BULL, QUEEN’S HEAD, TABARDE, GEORGE, HART, KING’S HEAD, &c. Amongst the which the most ancient is the Tabard; so called of the sign, which, as we now term it, is a jacket or sleeveless coat, whole before, open on both sides, with a square collar, winged at the shoulders, a stately garment of old time, commonly worn of noblemen and others, both at home and abroad in the wars, but then, (to wit, in the wars,) their arms embroidered or otherwise depict upon them, that any man by his coat of arms might be known from others; but now these tabardes are only worn by the heralds, and be called their coate of armes in service.”--_Stow_, p. 154.

Formerly there stood in the road, in front of the Tabard, a beam laid crosswise upon two uprights, upon which was the following inscription:--“This is the Inne where Sir Jeffrey Chaucer and the nine-and-twenty pilgrims lay in their journey to Canterbury, anno 1583.” Over this the sign was hung, but that disappeared with the rest of them in 1766. The writing of this inscription seemed ancient, yet Tyrwhitt is of opinion that it was not older than the seventeenth century, since Speght, who describes the Tabard in his edition of Chaucer 1602, does not mention it. Perhaps it was put up after the fire of 1676, when the Tabard changed its name into the TALBOT.

At the present day the inn is known by the name of the Talbot; and although the building is by no means the same that sheltered Chaucer and his merry pilgrims, yet it is full of traditionary lore concerning them. In the centre of the gallery there was a picture, said to be by Blake, and well painted, representing the Canterbury Pilgrimage, almost invisible from dirt, age, and smoke. Behind this picture was a door opening into a lofty passage, with rooms on either side, one of which, on the right hand, was still designated as the Pilgrims’ Room. The house was repaired in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and from that period, probably, dated the fireplace, carved oak panels, and other parts spared by the fire of 1676, which were still to be seen in the beginning of this century.

As leather breeches were much used for riding in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the occupations of breeches-maker and glover were frequently combined; hence the sign of the BREECHES AND GLOVE on old London Bridge, the shop of “Walter Watkins, Breeches-maker, Leather-seller, and Glover.” But what made a Cornish publican of the present day, (at Camelford,) choose the sign of the COTTON BREECHES, is more than we can pretend to explain.

STOCKINGS or LEGS are of constant occurrence in the seventeenth century trades tokens, as the signs of hosiers--frequently real, not painted, stockings were suspended at the door.

“On hosier’s poles depending stockings ty’d, Flag with the slacken’d gale from side to side.”--GAY’S _Trivia_.

Boots and shoes occur in greater variety and abundance than any other article of dress. The BOOT is a very common inn sign, either owing to the thirsty reputation of cobblers, or from the premises where they are found having been at one time occupied by shoemakers. The BOOT AND SLIPPER may be seen at Smethwick, near Birmingham; the GOLDEN SLIPPER at Goodrange, in West Riding; the HAND AND SLIPPERS was a sign in Long Lane, Smithfield, in 1750. THE SHOE AND SLAP occurs in the following handbill:--

“AT MR CROOME’S, at the sign of the Shoe and Slap, near the Hospital Gate, in West Smithfield, is to be seen THE WONDER OF NATURE,

A GIRL above Sixteen Years of Age, born in Cheshire, and not above Eighteen inches long, having shed her Teeth seven several Times, and not a perfect Bone in any Part of her, only the Head, yet she hath all her senses to Admiration, and Discourses, Reads very well, Sings, Whistles, and all very pleasant to hear.

“_Sept._ 4, 1667. ‘God save the King.’”

A slap was a kind of “ladies shoe, with a loose sole,”[591] the origin, probably, of the present word _slipper_. Another kind of shoe is also mentioned in an advertisement--the LACED SHOE in Chancery Lane.[592] “Laced shoes,” says Randle Holme, “have the over leathers and edges of the shoe laced in orderly courses with narrow galloon lace of any colour;” this places the use of laced boots much earlier than we would have been apt to imagine. The CLOG is often used as a shoemaker’s sign in Lancashire and the midland counties, and also in those parts of London where that article is worn. The FIVE CLOGS was, in 1718, the sign of William Wright, a quack, who lived over against Prescott Street, Goodman’s Fields.[593] Perhaps he occupied apartments at a clog-maker’s. Even the primitive WOODEN SHOE (_sabot_) of France has figured as a tavern sign in that country. In a farce of the fourteenth century, entitled, “Pernet qui va au Vin,” the husband names the following taverns:--

“Au _Sabot_ ou à la _Lanterne_ J’ai mis en oubli la taverne.”

Ronsard addressed some of his verses to the hostess of this tavern, which was situated in the Faubourg St Marcel:--

“Je ne suis point, ma guerrière Cassandre, Ni Mirmidon, ni Dolope soudard.”

“Il n’y a personne,” says Furretière in his _Roman Bourgeois_, “qui ne se figure qu’on parle d’une Pentasilée ou d’une Talestris; cepandant cette guerrière Cassandre n’était reellement qu’une grande hallebreda qui tenit le cabaret du Sabot dans le faubourg Saint Marcel.”[594]

This sign has given its name to a street in Paris.

The PATTEN, the quaint little contrivance in which our great-grandmothers tripped through the winter’s sludge, was the sign of a toy-shop in the Haymarket, “over against Great Suffolk Street, and by Pall Mall;”[595] at the present day it is still extant as a fishmonger’s shop in Whitecross Street, near the prison.

The very common sign of the STAR AND GARTER refers to the insignia of the Order of the Garter. Anciently it was simply called the GARTER, and thus it is designated by Shakespeare in his “Merry Wives of Windsor.” Charles I. added the star to the insignia, and his example was followed on the signboard. At that time the Garter was treated with a great deal more respect than at present, for Sandford, Lancaster Herald in 1686, complained that several coffee-houses had the sign of the Garter with coffee-pots, &c., painted inside, which he considered downright desecration; hence, order was given to those offenders, “to amend the same, or else they should be pulled down.”

The Garter Inn at Windsor, where Falstaff lived in such grand style, “as an emperor in his expense,” was not a creation of Shakespeare’s fancy, but did really exist, and most probably on the same site at present occupied by the Star and Garter.[596] The first Star and Garter at Richmond was built in 1738/9, on what was then a portion of the waste of Petersham Common; it was rented at 40s. a year. A drawing by Hearne, of the comparatively insignificant tenement then raised, is still preserved at the hotel.

It was also the sign of a famous ordinary in Pall Mall. Here the Duke of Ormond, in the reign of Queen Anne, gave a dinner to a few friends, and was charged £21, 6s. 8d. for the two courses, each of four dishes, without any wine or dessert, which, considering the value of money in those days, was certainly a considerable sum. In this house, in 1765, Lord Byron, the poet’s grandfather, killed Mr Chaworth in an irregular duel, the result of a dispute whether Mr Chaworth, who preserved his game, or Lord Byron, who did not, had more game on his estate. About the same time there was another Star and Garter tavern at the end of Burton Street, near the famous Five Fields in Chelsea, “a place where robbers lie in wait,”[597] the site now occupied by Eaton Square and Belgrave Square. At this tavern, Johnson the equestrian rode in July 1762, for the gratification of the Cherokee king, when on a visit in this country. The newspapers of the day describe the feats he performed:--“He rides three horses, and when in full speed, tosses his cap and catches it several times; he stands with both feet on the horse whilst it goes three times round the green in full speed,” and similar “astounding” acts, which would now be thought very little of.

The GLOVE is, in France, the common sign of the glove-makers; generally it is a colossal representation of a glove in tin painted red. This article of dress has had more honour conferred upon it than any other; anciently it was given, by way of delivery or investiture, in sales and conveyances of lands and goods; it was worn by magistrates on certain occasions, presented to them on others; it was the challenge and sacred pledge of a duel; the rural bridegroom in the time of Queen Elizabeth wore gloves on his hat as a sign of good husbandry; noblemen wore their ladies’ gloves in front of their hats; in some parts of England it used to be the custom to hang a pair of white gloves on the pew of unmarried villagers, who had died in the flower of their youth; it is used in marriage by proxy, and is connected with innumerable other customs and ceremonies.

The FAN, the CROWNED FAN, the TWO FANS, &c., were the ordinary signs of milliners who sold fans.

The PINCUSHION is the sign of a public-house at Wyberton, Boston, but why chosen it is difficult to say; and the PURSE occurs amongst the trades tokens of W. Smithfield, with the date 1669. This last object was also the sign of one of the taverns visited at Barnet by Drunken Barnaby, where he had the misfortune with the bears.

The RING was the sign of one of the booksellers in Little Britain, in the reign of Queen Anne; and the GOLDEN RING was, in 1723, the sign of G. Coniers on Ludgate Hill, who published a black letter edition of “The Merry Tales of the Mad Men of Gotam.” An old tradition that Guttenberg received the first idea of printing from the seal of his ring impressed in wax, may have led those booksellers to adopt that object for their sign.

“Respicit archetypos auri vestigia lustrans, Et secum tacitus talia verba refert: Quam belle pandit certas hæc orbita voces, Monstrat et exactis apta reperta libris.”[598]

A red or a bipartite UMBRELLA or PARASOL is the invariable sign of the umbrella-maker. This now indispensable article was brought into fashion by Hanway the philanthropist, towards the end of the eighteenth century. Before his time, a cloak was the only protection against a shower. Pepys writes in his Diary, “This day in the afternoon, stepping with the Duke of York into St James’ Park, it rained, and I was forced to lend the duke my cloak, which he wore through the park.” On another occasion Pepys was out with no less than four ladies, “and it rained all the way, it troubled us; but, however, my cloak kept us all dry.” Pepys sheltering the four ladies under his cloak of charity would make a very pretty picture. In the reign of Queen Anne, good housewives defied the winter’s shower, “underneath th’ umbrella’s oily shed,”[599] but Hanway was the first who, braving laughter and sarcasm, accustomed the Londoners to the sight of a man carrying that useful contrivance. John Pugh, who wrote Hanway’s life, says:--

“When it rained, a small _parapluie_ defended his face and wig; thus he was always prepared to enter into any company without impropriety or the appearance of negligence. And he was the first man who ventured to walk the streets of London with an umbrella over his head; after carrying one near thirty years he saw them come into general use.”

There is a small umbrella shop in Old Street, Shoreditch, called the _Umbrella Hospital_; two placards are in the window, one setting forth the analogy between a human being and an umbrella, the second giving a list of the prices charged for curing the several ills an umbrella is heir to, thus:--

_s._ _d._ RESTORING A BROKEN rib, 0 6 RESTORING a spine, 0 6 INSERTING a new spine, 1 0 RESUSCITATING the muscularia, 0 6 A NEW membranous attachment, 2 6 RESTORING a shattered constitution, 1 0 SETTING a dislocated neck, 0 6 RESTORING a broken neck, 0 9 A NEW set of nerves, 1 0 A NEW rib, 0 6 A NEW muscle, 0 3 A NEW motive power, 0 6 A CRENATED attachment, 0 6 RESTORING the muscular power, 1 6 FIXING on a new head, 0 3 SUPPLYING a new head, 1 0

[573]

“The hat Covers evil and good.”

[574]

“Strong hats made here to enclose the head, In order that the soft (loose) brains may be kept together.”

[575] J. S. Burn, History of Foreign Refugees, p. 257.

[576] Stubbe’s Anatomie of Abuses, p. 21.

[577] Bagford Bills.

[578] _British Chronicle_, July 17, 1766.

[579] _Publick Advertiser_, July 1767.

[580]

“This is in the Three Hats, Which are worn on the head, To keep it from cold and wind. Tromp was a brave man Who supported the crown of the states Hats cleaned here.”

[581] Shopbill, quoted in Thomson’s Chronicles of London Bridge, vol. ii., p. 277.

[582] Decker’s Gull’s Hornbook.

[583] Cibber’s Apology, p. 303.

[584] Gay’s Trivia, book iii.

[585] _Weekly Journal_, March 30, 1717.

[586] _Weekly Journal_. Jan. 4, 1718.

[587] _Mercurius Publicus_, Jan. 8 to 15, 1662.

[588] _London Gazette_, March 12 to 16, 1673. This was not the famous Will’s Coffee-house, which was situated in Bow Street, Covent Garden.

[589] Banks Bills.

[590] G. A. Corner, on the Inns of Southwark.

[591] Randle Holme, b. iii., ch. i., p. 14.

[592] _London Gazette_, July 31 to Aug. 4, 1679.

[593] _Weekly Journal_, Jan. 4, 1718.

[594]

“I am, my warlike Cassandra, Neither a Myrmidon nor a Dolopian warrior.”

“Everybody that reads those lines,” says Furretière in his _Roman Bourgeois_, “will certainly imagine that he alludes to some Pentasilea or Talestris; yet this warlike Cassandra was after all neither more nor less than a tall manly looking wench who kept the Wooden Shoe (_Sabot_) public-house in the Faubourg Saint Marcel.”

[595] Bagford Bills.

[596] See J. O. Halliwell’s folio Shakespeare, vol. ii., p. 468.

[597] The _Tatler_.

[598] “He looked intently at the seal, observing the impression left by the gold, and spoke these words to himself, ‘How beautifully and distinctly does this impression render the words,’ and he proved his useful discovery in exact books.”

[599] Gay’s Trivia, book i., p. 221.