the horse rarely or never occurs without a distinctive adjective to determine its colour, action, or other attribute. All natural colours of the horse, and some others, are found on the signboard—black, white, bay, sorrel, (rare,) pied, spotted, red, sometimes golden, and in one instance, at Grantham, a Blue Horse is met with. Frequently the sign of the Horse is accompanied by the following hippophile advice:—

Many years ago, at Greenwich, there was a public-house with the sign of a Horse. Behind the house was a large grass field, to which referred the following notice, painted under the sign:—“Good Grass for Horses. Long Tails three shillings and sixpence per week.” An inquisitive person passing that way, and not understanding the meaning of the notice, went in and questioned the landlord, who informed him that a difference was made for the bob-tailed horses; “for,” said he, “long-tailed horses can whisk off the flies, and eat at their leisure; but bob-tails have to shake their heads and run about from morning till night, and so do eat much less.”

The Red Horse is now almost extinct; it occurs as the sign of a house in Bond Street, in an advertisement about a spaniel lost by the Duke of Grafton.[234] By the term red was not meant vermilion; at that time it was the accepted word for what we now call roan. The Bay Horse is a great favourite in Yorkshire; in 1861 there were, in the West Riding alone, not less than seventy-seven inns, taverns, and public-houses, with such a sign, besides innumerable ale-houses. One would expect the Yorkshire Grey more indigenous to that county. The Dapple Grey is apparently a tribute of gratitude of the publicans to the “Dapple Grey” of the nursery rhyme—

Dappled grey, too, was the fashionable colour of horses in the last century; thus Pope’s mercenary Duchess—

Of the White Horse innumerable instances occur, and many are connected with names known in history. At the White Horse, near Burleigh-on-the-Hill, the noted Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, spent the last years of his life, and died.

“The Duke of Queensbury being present at his death, knowing the Duke to be a dissenter, and thinking he must be a Catholic, offered to send for a Catholic priest, to which the Duke answered, ‘No,’ said he, ‘those rascals eat God; but if you know of any set of fellows that eat the devil, I should be obliged to you if you would send for one of them!’”

All of a piece! So ended

At the White Horse in Kensington, Addison wrote several of his Spectators. His favourite dinner, when he stayed at this house, was fillet of veal and a bottle of claret. The old inn remained in its original state till about forty years ago, when it was pulled down, and the name changed to the Holland Arms; but the sign is still preserved in the parlour of the new establishment.

Edinburgh also has its famous White Horse; in a close in the Canongate, an inn dating from the time of Queen Mary Stuart, and which Scott has introduced in one of his novels, may still be seen. It was well-known to runaway couples, and hundreds have been made happy or unhappy for life “at a moment’s notice,” in its large room, in which, as well as in the White Hart in the Grassmarket, these impromptu marriages were as regularly performed as at Gretna Green. The White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, now a tame omnibus office, was for more than a century one of the bustling coaching inns for the West. “Some persons think the sublimest object in nature is a ship launched on the bosom of the ocean; but give me, for my private satisfaction, the mail coaches that pour down Piccadilly of an evening, tear up the pavement, and devour the way before them to the Land’s-End.”—Hazlitt. This place calls up pleasant fancies of travelling by the mail, through merry roads, with blooming hawthorn and chestnut trees, larks singing aloft, the village bells, and the blacksmith’s hammer tinkling in the distance; but another White Horse Inn shows the dark side of the picture—the unsafety of the roads, for the White Horse, corner of Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, was long a detached public-house, where travellers customarily stopped for refreshment, and to examine their firearms before crossing the fields to Lisson Green.[236] The last White Horse we shall mention was in Pope’s Head Alley, the sign of John Sudbury and George Humble, the first men that opened a printshop in London, in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Peacham, in his “Compleat Gentleman,” says that Goltzius’ engravings were commonly to be had in Pope’s Head Alley. There also, in 1611, the first edition of Speed’s “Great Britain” was published.

At a certain place in Warwickshire a fellow started a public-house near four others, with signs respectively of the Bear, the Angel, the Ship, and the Three Cups. Yet quite undaunted at his neighbours, he put up the White Horse as his sign, and under it wrote the following spirited and prophetic rhymes:—

And so it did; the lines pleased the people, the other houses soon lost their custom, and tradition says that the fellow made a considerable fortune.

The Running Horse or the Galloping Horse—perhaps originally the horse of Hanover—is also very common. In the London Gazette, Feb. 12-15, 1699, a horse race is advertised at Lilly Hoo, in Hertford; the advertisement concludes: “and on the same day a smock worth £3 will be run for, besides other encouragements for those that come in 2d. or 3d. Any woman may run gratis, that enters her name at the Running Horse, where articles may be seen,” &c. Races by women were not uncommon in those days, and instances may yet occasionally be heard of, particularly in the east end of London, where every great match generally concludes with a race among the free and easy ladies of the neighbourhood.

The combinations in which we meet with the Horse are all very plain, and require no explanation. The Horse and Groom, and the Horse and Jockey, are the most prevalent. Racing, from time immemorial, has been a favourite English sport. Fitzstephen mentions the races in the days of Henry II., and in the ballad of Syr Bevys of Hampton,[237] full details are given.

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth races were much in vogue, and betting carried to great excess. The famous George Earl of Cumberland is recorded to have wasted more money than any of his ancestors, chiefly by racing and tilting. In 1599, private matches by gentlemen who rode their own horses were of frequent occurrence. In the reign of James I. public races were celebrated at various places, under much the same regulations as now. The most celebrated were called Bellcourses. In the latter part of the reign of Charles I. there were races in Hyde Park as well as at Newmarket. Charles II. was very fond of this diversion, and appointed meetings at Datchet Mead when he resided at Windsor. Gradually, however, Newmarket became the principal place. The king, a constant attendant, established a house for his own accommodation, and entered horses in his royal name. Instead of bells, he gave a silver bowl or a cup, value 100 guineas, on which the exploit and pedigree of the winning horse were generally engraved. William III. and Queen Anne both added to the plate. George I., towards the end of his reign, discontinued the plate and gave 100 guineas instead; George II. made several racing regulations, about the age of horses, the weight of jockeys, &c. Already, in 1768, the horses had obtained great swiftness; for Misson, in his “Travels,” mentions one that ran 20 miles in 55 minutes upon uneven ground, which for those times was certainly a remarkable feat.

The Bell and Horse is an old and still frequent sign; it occurs on trades tokens; as John Harcourt at the Bell and Black Horse in Finsbury, 1668, and on various others; whilst at the present day it may be seen at many a roadside alehouse. Bells were a favourite addition to the trappings of horses in the middle ages. Chaucer’s abbot is described:—

In a MS. in the Cottonian Library[238] relating the journey of Margaret of England to Scotland, there to be married to King James, we find constant mention of these bells. The horse of Sir William Ikarguil, companion of Sir William Conyars, sheriff of Yorkshire, is described as “his Hors Harnays full of campanes [bells] of silver and gylt.” Whilst the master of the horse of the Duke of Northumberland was “monted apon a gentyll horse, and campanes of silver and gylt.” And a company of knights is introduced, “some of their hors harnes was full of campanes, sum of gold and sylver, and others of gold.” This led to the custom of giving a golden bell as the reward of a race. In Chester, such a bell was run for yearly on St George’s day; it was “dedicated to the kinge, being double gilt with the Kynges Armes upon it,” and was carried in the procession by a man on horseback “upon a septer in pompe, and before him a noise of trumpets in pompe.”[239] This custom of racing for a bell led to the adoption of the still common phrase, bearing off the BELL.

Names of celebrated race horses are found on signboards as well as human celebrities. Such are Bay Childers at Dronfield, Derby; Flying Childers at Melton Mowbray; Wild Dayrell, Oldham; Filho da Puta, Nottingham; and Filho tavern, Manchester. Blink Bonny is common in Northumberland; Flying Dutchman occurs in various places; and the Arabian Horse at Aberford, in Yorkshire, may perhaps represent the great Arabian Godolphin, the sire of all our famous racers.

The Horse and Tiger, at Rotherham, is said to refer to the accident in a travelling menagerie which took place many years ago, when the tiger broke loose and sprang upon the leaders of a passing mail coach, although visitors from London generally suppose the “tiger” to mean the spruce groom, or horse attendant, coming from the country to London in such numbers. Even that poor hack, the Manage Horse, is not forgotten, as he may be seen going through his paces before a public-house in Cottles Lane, Bath. In one of the turnings in Cannon Street, City, there is an old sign of the Horse and Dorsiter, which is simply an old rendering of the more common Pack Horse, formerly the usual sign of a posting inn. No doubt the Frighted Horse, which occurs in many places, belongs to this class of horses,—the expression “fright” being a corruption of freight. Some publicans who, with their trade combine the calling of farrier, set up the sign of the Horse and Farrier,—in Ireland rendered as the Bleeding Horse. A Dutch farrier in the village of Schagen, in the seventeenth century, put up the sign of the White Horse, and wrote under it the following very philosophical verse:—

The Horse and Stag, (Finningley, Nottinghamshire,) and the Horse and Gate, are both hunting signs; yet the last may have been suggested by the Bull and Gate. The Horse and Trumpet is a very common sign, illustrating the war horse; the Horse and Chaise (or shaze, as it is spelled) in the Broad Centry, (sanctuary,) Westminster, is named in an advertisement in the Postboy, Jan. 23-25, 1711; whilst the Chaise and Pair is still to be seen at Northill, Colchester.

The Nag’s Head—which only in one instance is varied by the Horse’s Head, namely, at Brampton in Cumberland—is a sign that has become famous in history; it is represented on the print of the entry of Queen Marie de’ Medici on her visit to her daughter Henriette Marie, Queen of Charles I., being the sign of a notorious tavern opposite the Cheapside Cross. It is suspended from a long square beam, at the end of which a large crown of evergreens is seen. As none of the other houses are decked with greens, this apparently represents the Bush.[241] This tavern was the fictitious scene of the consecration of the Protestant bishops at the accession of Queen Elizabeth in 1559. It was pretended by the adversaries of the Protestant faith, that a certain number of ecclesiastics, in a hurry to take possession of the vacant sees, assembled here; where they were to undergo the ceremony from Antony Kitchen, alias Dunstane, Bishop of Llandaff, a sort of occasional Nonconformist, who had taken the oath of supremacy to Elizabeth; Bonner, Bishop of London, (then confined in the Tower,) hearing of it, sent his chaplain to Kitchen, threatening him with excommunication in case he proceeded. On this the prelate refused to perform the ceremony; whereupon, according to Catholics, Parker and the other candidates, rather than defer possession of their dioceses, determined to consecrate one another, which they did, without any sort of scruple. Scorey began with Parker, who instantly rose Archbishop of Canterbury. The refutation of this tale may be read in Strype’s life of Archbishop Parker.[242]

A curious anecdote is told concerning the sign of a Gelding. Golden Square, it appears, was originally called Gelding Square, from the sign of a neighbouring inn; but the inhabitants, indignant at the vulgarity of the name, changed it to its present title.

Some publicans appear to be of opinion that the Grey Mare is the best horse for their signboards; in Lancashire, especially, this sign abounds. Others put up the Mare and Foal; but they are evidently not very well acquainted with the old ballad of the “Mare and Foal that went to church,” for there the Mare says:—

Besides the Mare and Foal, there is the Cow and Calf, which is very common. A still more happy mother, the Cow and Two Calves, was, in 1762, a sign near Chelsea Pond; whilst a touching picture of paternal bliss might have been seen on a sign in Islington in the last century, viz., the Bull and Three Calves; that animal, doubtless, was placed there in the company of his offspring, to illustrate the homely old proverb, “He that bulls the cow must keep the calf.” The Goat and Kid was a sign at Norwich in 1711;[243] the Sow and Pigs is common; and the Ewe and Lamb occurs on a trades token of Hatton Garden in 1668, and may still be seen in many places. A practical traveller in the coaching days, staying at the Ewe and Lamb in Worcester, wrote on a pane of glass in that inn the following very true remark:—

The Cat and Kittens was, about 1823, a sign near Eastcheap; it may have come from the publican’s slang expression, cat and kittens, as applied to the large and small pewter pots. In the police courts it is not uncommon to hear that such and such low persons have been “had up” for “cat and kitten sneaking,” i.e., stealing quart and pint pots.

So much for quadrupeds. Happy families of birds are equally abundant; there was the Sparrow’s Nest in Drury Lane, of which trades tokens are extant; the Throstle Nest, (a not inappropriate name for a free-and-easy singing club!) is the sign of a public-house at Buglawton, near Congleton; the Martin’s Nest, at Thornhill Bridge, Normanton; the Kite’s Nest, (an unpromising name for an inn, if there be anything in a name,) at Stretton, in Herefordshire; and finally, the Brood Hen, or Hen and Chickens, which latter is more common than any of the former. Not improbably it originated with the sign of the Pelican’s Nest, to which several of the above-named nests may be referred. Under the name of the “Brood Hen,” it occurs on a trades token of Battle Bridge, Southwark; as the “Hen and Chickens,” it was also known in the seventeenth century, for there are tokens of John Sell “at y^e Hen and Chickens on Hammond’s Key;” it is likewise mentioned in the following daily occurrence of the good old times:—

“Wednesday night last, Captain Lambert was stopt by three footpads near the Hen and Chickens, between Peckham and Camberwell, and robbed of a sum of money and his gold watch.”[244]

The prevalence of this sign may be accounted for by the kindred love for the barleycorn in the human and gallinaceous tribes. It was also used as a sign by Paulus Sessius, a bookseller of Prague, in 1606, who printed some of Kepler’s astronomical works; above his colophon, representing the hen and her offspring, is the motto: “GRANA DAT A FIMO SCRUTANS,” the application of which is not very obvious.

Speaking of birds’ nests figuring as signs, we may mention that, at the beginning of the present century, the small shops under the tree at the corner of Milk Street, City, used to describe themselves as “under the Crow’s Nest, Cheapside.” An old-fashioned snuff shop, still in existence, issued its tobacco papers in this way, and the small bookshop there at present advertises itself as “under the tree,” although it was only very recently that the crow ceased to visit and repair his nest here.

The Three Colts, in Bride Lane, 1652, is represented on a trades token by three colts running; such a sign gave its name to a street in Limehouse. The Horseshoe is a favourite in combination with other subjects. Aubrey, in his “Miscellanies,” p. 148, says:—

“It is a very common thing to nail horseshoes on the thresholds of doors, which is to hinder the power of witches that enter into the house. Most houses of the West End of London have the horseshoe on the threshold; it should be a horseshoe that one finds.”

Elsewhere he says:—

“Under the Porch of Staninfield Church in Suffolk, I saw a tile with a horseshoe upon it placed there for this purpose, though one would imagine that the holy water would have been sufficient.”

Concerning the same superstition Brand observes:—

“I am told there are many other similar instances. In Monmouth Street (probably the part alluded to by Aubrey) many horseshoes nailed to the threshold are still to be seen. In 1813 not less than 17 remained, nailed against the steps of doors. The bawds of Amsterdam believed in 1687, that a horseshoe which had either been found or stolen placed on the hearth would bring good luck to their houses.”[245]

The charm of the horseshoe lies in its being forked and presenting two points; thus Herrick says:—

Any forked object, therefore, has the power to drive witches away. Hence the children in Italy and Spain are generally seen with a piece of forked coral (coral is particularly efficacious) hung round their necks, whilst even the mules and other cattle are armed with a small crescent formed by two boars’ tusks, or else a forked piece of wood, to avert the spells of what Macbeth calls “the juggling fiends.” Even the two forefingers held out apart are thought sufficient to avert the evil eye, or prevent the machinations of the lord and master of the nether world. Great power also lies in the pentagram and Solomon’s seal, which, being composed of two triangles, present not less than six forked ends. Both these figures are much used by the Moors, with the same object in view as the horseshoe by western nations. In this country, at the present day, scarcely a stable can be seen where there is not a horseshoe nailed on the door or lintel; there is one very conspicuous at the gate of Meux’s brewery at the corner of Tottenham Court Road, and conspicuous on the horse trappings of this establishment the shoe in polished brass may be seen; in fact, it has become the trade-mark of the firm, the same as the red triangle which distinguishes the pale ale of the Burton brewers. The iron heels of workmen’s boots are also frequently seen fixed against the doorpost, or behind the door, of houses of the lower classes.

The Horseshoe, by itself, is comparatively a rare sign. There is a Horseshoe Tavern, mentioned by Aubrey in connexion with one of those reckless deeds of bloodshed so common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries:—

“Captain Carlo Fantom, a Croatian, spake 13 languages, was a captain under the Erle of Essex. He had a world of cuts about his body with swords and was very quarrelsome and a great ravisher. He met coming late at night out of the Horseshoe Tavern in Drury Lane with a lieutenant of Colonel Rossiter, who had great jingling spurs on. Said he, the noise of your spurrs doe offend me, you must come over the kennel and give me satisfaction. They drew and passed at each other, and the lieutenant was runne through and died in an hour or two, and it was not known who killed him.”[247]

This tavern was still in existence in 1692, as appears from the deposition of one of the witnesses in the murder of Mountfort the actor by Captain Hill, who, with his accomplice, Lord Mohun, whilst they were laying in wait for Mrs Bracegirdle, drank a bottle of canary which had been bought at the Horseshoe Tavern.

The Three Horseshoes are not uncommon; and the single shoe may be met with in many combinations, arising from the old belief in its lucky influences: thus the Horse and Horseshoe was the sign of William Warden, at Dover, in the seventeenth century, as appears from his token. The Sun and Horseshoe is still a public-house sign in Great Tichfield Street, and the Magpie and Horseshoe may be seen carved in wood in Fetterlane; the magpie is perched within the horseshoe, a bunch of grapes being suspended from it. The Horns and Horseshoe is represented on the token of William Grainge in Gutterlane, 1666,—a horseshoe within a pair of antlers. The Lion and Horseshoe appears in the following advertisement of a shooting match:—

“ON Friday the 16th of this instant, at two in the afternoon, will be a plate to be (sic) shot for, at twenty-five guineas value, in the Artillerie Ground near Moorfields. No gun to exceed four feet and a half in the barrel, the distance to be 200 yards, and but one shot a piece, the nearest the centre to win. No person that shoots to be less than one guinea, but as many more as he pleases to compleat the sum. The money to be put in the hands of Mr Jones, at the Lion and Horseshoe Tavern, or Mr Turog, gunsmith in the Minories. Note, that if any gentleman has a mind to shoot for the whole, there is a person will shoot with him for it, being left out by mistake in our last.”[248]

The Hoop and Horseshoe on Towerhill, was formerly called the Horseshoe. This, like every old tavern, has its murder to record:—

“The last week one Colonel John Scott took an occasion to kill one John Buttler, a hackney coachman, at the Horse Shoe Tavern on Tower Hill, without any other provocation ’tis said, but refusing to carry him and another gentleman pertaining to the law, from thence to Temple Bar for 1s. 6d. Amongst the many pranks that he hath played in other countries ’tis believed this is one of the very worst. He is a very great vindicator of the Salamanca Doctor. He is a lusty, tall man, squint eyed, thin faced, wears a peruke sometimes and has a very h—— look. All good people would do well if they can to apprehend him that he may be brought to justice.”[249]

The Horseshoe and Crown is named in the following handbill, which is too characteristic to curtail:—

“Daughter of a Seventh daughter.
Removed to the sign of the Horseshoe and Crown in Castle Street, near the 7 Dials in St Giles.

Liveth a Gentlewoman, the Daughter of a Seventh Daughter, who far exceeds all her sex, her business being very great amongst the quality, has now thought fit to make herself known to the benefit of the Publick.

She resolves these questions following:—As to Life whether happy or unhappy? the best time of it past or to come? Servants or lodgers if honest or not? To marry the person desir’d or who they shall marry and when? A Friend if real or not? a Woman with child or not, or ever likely to have any! A friend absent dead or alive, if alive when return? Journey by Land or voyages by Sea, the Success thereof. Lawsuits, which shall gain the better? She also Interprets Dreams. These and all other lawful questions which for brevity sake are omitted, she fully resolves.

Her hours are from 7 in the Morning till 12, and from 1 till 8 at Night.”[250]

These quack “gentlewomen” were as much the order of that day as the broken-down clergymen who advertise medicines for nervous and rheumatic complaints are in our own time. Heywood, in his play of “the Wise Woman of Hogsden,” enumerates the following occupations as their perquisites:—

“Let me see how many trades have I to live by: First, I am a wise woman and a fortuneteller, and under that I deale in physick and fore-speaking, in palmestry and things lost. Next I undertake to cure madd folks; Then I keepe gentlewomen lodgers, to furnish such chambers as I let out by the night; Then I am provided for bringing young wenches to bed; and for a need you see I can play the matchmaker.”

Generally they proclaimed themselves the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, a relationship that is still thought to be accompanied by powers not vouchsafed to ordinary mortals. This belief in the virtue of the number 7 doubtless originated from the Old Testament, where that number seems in greater favour than all others. The books of Moses are full of references to it; the creation of the world in 7 days, sevenfold vengeance on whosoever slayeth Cain; Noah had to take 7 males and females of every clean beast, 7 males and females of every fowl of the air, for in 7 days it would begin to rain; the ark rested in the 7th month, &c., &c. From this the middle ages borrowed their predilection for this number, and its cabalistic power.[251]

Horned cattle are just as common as horses on the signboards; the Bull, in particular, is a favourite with the nation, whether as a namesake—so much so, indeed, as to have given it a popular name abroad—or as the source of the favourite roast-beef, or from the ancient sport of bull-baiting, it is difficult to say. From Ben Jonson we gather that there was another reason which sometimes dictated the choice of this animal on the signboard. In the “Alchymist” he introduces a shopkeeper, who wishes the learned Doctor to provide him with a sign.

Newton dates a letter from “the Bull,” at Shoreditch, September 1693; it is addressed to Locke, and a curious letter it is, containing an apology for having wished Locke dead.

The Bull is generally represented in his natural colour, black, white, grey, pied, “spangled” (in Yorkshire,) and only rarely red and blue; yet these two last colours may simply imply the natural red, brown, and other common hues, for newspapers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often contain advertisements about blue dogs; and whatever shade that was intended for, it may certainly with as much justice be applied to a bull as to a dog. The Chained Bull at North Allerton, Leeds, and the Bull and Chain, Langworthgate, Lincoln, doubtless refer to the old cruel pastime of bull-baitings. Occasionally we meet also with a Wild Bull, as at Gisburn, near Skipton.

Leigh Hunt observes:—“London has a modern look to the inhabitants; but persons who come from the country find as odd and remote-looking things in it as the Londoners do in York and Chester; and among these are a variety of old inns with corridors running round the yard. They are well worth a glance from anybody who has a respect for old times.” Such a one is the Bull’s Inn in Bishopsgate Street, where formerly plays were acted by Burbadge, Shakespeare’s fellow-comedian, and Tarlton in good Queen Bess’s time amused our forefathers on summers’ afternoons with his quaint jokes and comic parts.[252] This inn is also celebrated as the London house of the famous Hobson, (Hobson’s choice,) the rich Cambridge carrier. Here a painted figure of him was to be seen in the eighteenth century, with a hundred pound bag under his arm, on which was the following inscription:—“The fruitful Mother of a Hundred More.”[253] At the Bull public-house on Towerhill, Thomas Otway, the play writer, died of want at the age of 33, on the 14th of April 1685, having retired to this house to escape his creditors.[254]

The Bull, at Ware, obtained a celebrity by its enormous bed. Taylor, the Water poet, in 1636 remarked, “Ware is a great thorowfare, and hath many fair innes, with very large bedding, and one high and mighty Bed called the Great Bed of Ware: a man may seeke all England over and not find a married couple that can fill it.” Nares, in his “Glossary,” quotes Chauncey’s, Hertfordshire; for a story of twelve married couple who, laid together in the bed, each pair being so placed at the top and bottom of the bed, that the head of one pair was at the feet of another. Shakespeare alludes to it in “Twelfth Night,” where Sir Toby Belch in his drunken humour advises Aguecheek to write: “as many lies as will lie in this sheet of paper, though the sheet were big enough for the Bed of Ware in England,” (a. iii. s. 2.) Where the “high and mighty Bed” was located, seems a mooted point; some say at the Bull, others at the Crown, and Clutterbuck places it at the Saracen’s Head, where there is or was a bed of some twelve feet square, in an Elizabethan style of carved oak, but with the date 1463 painted on the back. Tradition says that it was the bed of Warwick the king-maker, and was bought at a sale of furniture at Ware Park. Recently it has been sold, and Charles Dickens is now said to be its possessor.

The Bull Inn at Buckland, near Dover, deserves to be mentioned for its comical caution to the customers:

The famous Old Pied Bull Inn, Islington, was pulled down circa 1827, the house having existed from the time of Queen Elizabeth. The parlour retained its original character to the last. There was a chimney-piece containing Hope, Faith, and Charity, with a border of cherubims, fruit and foliage, whilst the ceiling in stucco represented the five senses. Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have been an inhabitant of this house.

“This conjecture is somewhat strengthened by the nature of the border [in a stained glass window,] which was composed of seahorses, mermaids, parrots, &c., forming a most appropriate allusion to the character of Raleigh, as a great navigator, and discoverer of unknown countries; and the bunch of green leaves [two seahorses supporting a bunch of green leaves,] has been generally asserted to represent the tobacco plant, of which he is said to have been the first importer into this country.”[255]

At what time the house was converted into an inn does not appear. The sign of the Pied Bull in stone relief, on the front towards the south, bore the date 1730, which was probably the year this addition was made to the building. That it was an inn in 1665, appears from the following episode of the Plague-time:

“I remember one citizen, who, having thus broken out of his house in Aldersgate Street, or there about, went along the road to Islington. He attempted to have gone in at the Angel Inn, and after that at the White Horse, two inns known still by the same signs, but was refused; after which he came to the Pied Bull, an inn also still continuing the same sign. He asked them for lodging for one night only, pretending to be going into Lincolnshire, and assuring them of his being very sound, and free from the infection, which also at that time had not reached much that way. They told him they had no lodging, that they could spare but one bed up in the garret, and that they could spare that bed but for one night, some drovers being expected the next day with cattle; so if he would accept of that lodging, he might have it, which he did; so a servant was sent up with a candle with him, to show him the room. He was very well dressed, and looked like a person not used to lie in a garret; and when he came to the room he fetched a deep sigh, and said to the servant, ‘I have seldom lain in such a lodging as this;’ however, the servant assured him again that they had no better. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘I must make shift; this is a dreadful time, but it is but for one night.’ So he sat down upon the bed-side, and bade the maid, I think it was, fetch him up a pint of warm ale. Accordingly the servant went for the ale; but some hurry in the house, which perhaps employed her otherwise, put it out of her head, and she went up no more to him. The next morning, seeing no appearance of the gentleman, somebody in the house asked the servant that had showed him up stairs, what was become of him. She started; ‘alas,’ said she, ‘I never thought more of him; he bade me carry him some warm ale, but I[185] forgot.’ Upon which, not the maid, but some other person was sent up to see after him, who coming into the room found him stark dead, and almost cold, stretched out across the bed. His clothes were pulled off, his jaw fallen, his eyes open in a most frightful posture, the rug of the bed being grasped hard in one of his hands; so that it was plain he died soon after the maid left him; and that it is probable, had she gone up with the ale, she had found him dead in a few minutes after he sat down upon the bed. The alarm was great in the house, as any one may suppose, they having been free from the distemper till that disaster; which bringing the infection to the house, spread it immediately to other houses round about it. I do not remember how many died in the house itself, but I think the maid-servant who went up first with him, fell presently ill by the fright, and several others; for whereas there died but two in Islington of the plague the week before, there died seventeen the week after, whereof fourteen were of the plague. This was in the week from the 11th of July to the 18th.”[256]

The Red Bull was the sign of another of the inn-playhouses in Shakespeare’s time; but, like the Fortune, mostly frequented by the meaner sorts of people. It was situated in Woodbridge Street,[257] Clerkenwell, (its site is still called Red Bull Yard,) and is supposed to have been erected in the early part of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. At all events, it was one of the seventeen playhouses that arose in London between that period and the reign of Charles I. Edward Alleyn the actor, founder of Dulwich College, says in a memorandum, Oct. 3, 1617, “went to the Red Bull and received for the ‘Younger Brother’ [a play], but £3-6-4.” Killigrew’s troop of the king’s players performed in it until the theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-fields opened. The place was then abandoned to exhibitions of gladiators and feats of strength. The names of the principal theatres at the time of the Commonwealth occur in the following puritanical curse:—

The Bull’s Head is often seen instead of the Bull; its origin may be from the butchers’ arms, which are azure two axes salterwise, arg. between two roses arg. as many bulls’ heads couped of the second attired or, &c.; in Holland a carved bull’s head is always a leather-seller’s sign. At the Bull’s Head, in Claremarket, the artists’ club used to meet, of which Hogarth was a member, and Dr Ratcliffe a constant visitor. The Bull’s Head was already used in signs three hundred years ago, as we may see from an entry in Machyn’s Diary, which does not say much for the morality of the period:—

“The xij day of June (1560) dyd ryd in a care[259] abowt London ij men and iij women; one man, for he was the bowd and to brynge women unto strangers; and on women was the wyff of the Bell in Gracyous Strett; and a-nodur the wyff of the Bull-hed besyd London Stone, and boyth were bawdes and hores and the thodur man and the woman were brodur and syster and wher taken nakyd together.”

As a variation, on the Bull’s Head there is the Cow’s Face:—

“GEORGE TURNIDGE, aged about 16, a short thickset Lad with a little dark brown Hair, a scar in his left cheek under his eye, wears a canvass jacket lined with red and canvass Breeches, with a red cap, run away from his Master the 7th instant. Whoever secures him and gives Notice to Mr Henry Davis, Waxchandler at the Cow’s Face in Miles Lane in Canon Street, shall have a Guinea Reward, and reasonable charges.”—London Gazette, Jan. 13-17, 1697.

The Bull’s Neck is a sign at Penny Hill, Holbeach, and the Buffalo Head is common in many places. The latter was the sign of one of the coffee-houses near the Exchange, during the South Sea bubble, and was hung up over the head quarters of a company for a grand dispensary, capital £3,000,000. The rage for joint-stock companies had come to such a pitch at that period, that an advertisement appeared stating:—

“THIS day the 8th instant at Sam’s Coffeehouse behind the Royal Exchange, at three in the afternoon, a book will be opened, for entering into a joint copartnership for carrying on a thing that will turn to the advantage of those concerned.”

Not less than £28,000,000 were asked for at that period to enter upon various speculations. At the Buffalo Head Tavern, Charing Cross, Duncan Campbell, the deaf and dumb fortune-teller, used at one time to deliver his oracles. He is immortalised in the Spectator, No. 474, where, in answer to the letter of a lady inquiring about Duncan’s address, a note is entered, “That the Inspector I employ about Wonders, inquire at the Golden Lyon, opposite the Halfmoon Tavern, Drury Lane, into the merit of this silent sage.”[260]

Among the combinations in which the Bull is met with on signboards, the Bull and Dog is one of the most common, derived, like the Bull and Chain, from the favourite sport of bull-baiting, which amusement is described at full length and in brilliant colours by Misson, in his “Travels.” A comical variation of this is the Bull and Bitch at Husborn Crawley, Woburn. In the sign of the Bull and Butcher,[261] the bull is placed in still worse company; this was very forcibly expressed on the sign of a butcher in Amsterdam, who was represented with a glass of wine in his hand, standing between two calves, and pledging them with the cruel words,—