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. 112d., 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.

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:—

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

“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 17389, 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.

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:—

CHAPTER XIII.
GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY.

Foremost in this division stands the Globe,—“the great Globe itself,” a trade emblem common to publicans, outfitters, and others, who rely upon cosmopolitan customers. One of the theatres, where Shakespeare used to perform, was called The Globe, from its sign representing Atlas supporting the world. It was accompanied by the motto, Totus Mundus agit Histrionem; upon which Ben Jonson made the following epigram:—

To which Shakespeare is said to have returned this answer:—

The house stood on the Bankside, Southwark, and was burnt down in June 1613, having been set on fire during one of the plays by a piece of wadding fired from a cannon falling on the thatched roof. It was rebuilt, but finally taken down in 1644 to make room for dwelling-houses.

One of the most famous Globe taverns stood, till the beginning of this century, in Fleet Street. It had been one of the favourite haunts of Oliver Goldsmith, who, it appears, was never tired of hearing a certain “tun of a man” sing “Nottingham Ale.” Goldsmith’s face was so well known here that a wealthy pork-butcher, another habitué of the house, used to drink to him in the familiar words, “Come, Noll, old boy, here’s my service to you.” Several actors, also, “used” the house,—amongst others, the centenarian Macklin, Tom King, and Dunstall. Many amusing anecdotes concerning the place have been preserved in the “Fruits of Experience,” a delightful book of city gossip, written in his eightieth year by Joseph Brasbridge, a silversmith in Fleet Street. Brasbridge was a constant visitor at this tavern.

At Aldborough, near Boroughbridge, there is a Globe public-house, in which a tessellated pavement, part of a Roman villa, may be seen. The publican informs passers-by of this by the following inscription on his signboard:—

And the absence of the apostrophe certainly makes it so. Finally, John Partridge, the almanac-making shoemaker, so amusingly ridiculed in the Tatler, lived at the Globe in Salisbury Street. From the pursuits of that great man, we may surmise his globe to have been a celestial one.

Sometimes the Globe was gilt, “for a difference.” Thus the Golden Globe was the sign of William Herbert, printseller, and editor of Joseph Ames’s well-known work on “Typographical Antiquities.” This shop was under the Piazza on London Bridge, where he continued till 1758, when the house was taken down.

Of all the signs which may be termed “Geographical,” those referring to our own island are, of course, the most common in this country. Britannia is very general. Hone, in his “Every-day Book,” mentions a public-house in the country where London porter was sold, and the figure of Britannia was represented in a languishing, reclining posture, with the motto,

“PRAY, SUP-PORTER.”

The first inhabitants are commemorated by the sign of the Ancient Briton; but this is not one of the “Cærulei Britanni,” though true blue for all that, but refers simply to a true patriot in the best sense of the word. Thus Boswell uses the expression in one of his letters to Dr Johnson:—

“I trust that you will be liberal enough to make allowance for my differing from you on two points, [the Middlesex election and the American war,] when my general principles of government are according to your own heart, and when, at a crisis of doubtful event, I stand forth with honest zeal as an ancient and faithful Briton.”

That this is the meaning attached to the word is evident from other signs of the same family, as True Briton, Generous Briton, &c., all common signatures to political letters in the newspapers of the Junius period. The modern John Bull, and the still later Old English Gentleman, descend from the same stock, and are all equally common.

England, Scotland, and Ireland was, in 1673, the sign of John Thornton, in the Minories, hydrographer to the Hon. East India Company. As he also sold maps, he had probably a map of the United Kingdom as his sign. Formerly signs representing buildings or localities in London were common, though generally they bore very little resemblance to the places intended. Among the trades tokens we find the Exchange, a tavern in the Poultry in 1651; the East India House, in Leadenhall Street, like most of this description of signs, prompted by the vicinity of the building represented; Charing Cross, the sign of a shop in that locality where they sold canaries in 1699, and also a sign at Norwich in 1750; The Old Prison, in Whitechapel—this Old Prison was intended for King’s Cross; Camden House, in Maiden Lane, 1668,—this must have been in honour of Baptist Hicks, the opulent mercer, at the White Bear, in Cheapside, who died as Viscount Camden in 1628. He built Hicks Hall on Clerkenwell Green, and presented it to the county magistrates as their session-house.

Further, there was the Temple, the sign of Mr Buck, bookseller, near the Inner Temple Gate, in Fleet Street, in 1700; and at the same period, Hyde Park, a shop or tavern in Gray’s Inn Lane. A public-house in Bridge Row, Chelsea, mentioned before 1750, and still in existence, bears the name of the Chelsea Waterworks. The Waterworks, after which it was named, were constructed circa 1724; a canal was dug from the Thames, near Ranelagh, to Pimlico, where an engine was placed for the purpose of raising the water into pipes, which conveyed it to Chelsea, Westminster, and various parts of western London. The reservoirs in Hyde and Green Park were supplied by pipes from the Chelsea Waterworks, which, in 1767, yielded daily 1740 tons.

The Lancashire Witch, a sign of an exhibition of shell-work and petrifactions in Shoreditch, 1754, was doubtless named after our old friend, Mother Shipton, born near the Petrifying Well at Knaresborough.

Even on the Continent we meet with a London sign,—viz., at Verona, where, in 1825, the Tower of London was one of the inns which recommended itself to English travellers in the following grand circular:—

“Circulatory.—The old inn of London’s Tower, placed among the more agreeable situation of Verona’s Course, belonging at Sir Theodosius Ziguoni, restored by the decorum most indulgent to good things, of life’s eases, which are favoured from every art at same inn, with all object that is concern’d, conveniency of stage-coaches, proper horses, and good foragers, and coach-house; do offers at innkeeper the constant hope to be honoured from a great concourse, where politeness, good genius of meats to delight of nations, round table, [table d’hôte,] coffee-house, hackney-coach, men servant of place, swiftness of service, and moderacion of prices, shall arrive to accomplish in him all satisfaction, and at Sir’s who will do the favour honouring him a very assur’d kindness.”

York figures more frequently on the signboard than any other place in England. From the trades tokens we see that the City of York was a sign in Middle Row, Holborn, in the seventeenth century. The York Minster is one of the few cathedrals ever seen represented out of its own city, probably for no other reason than because it stands in the capital of the county from whence the Yorkshire stingo comes. York, however, seems to have been a right merry city, second only to the city of London, for one of the oldest Roxburghe ballads, dated 1584, says:—

The Castle being such a general sign, many traders adopted some particular castle. Dover Castle, or Walmer Castle, is amongst the most frequent. The first is mentioned in the following amusing advertisement:—

“For Female Satisfaction.

“WHEREAS the mystery of Freemasonry has been kept a profound secret for several Ages, till at length some Men assembled themselves at the Dover Castle, in the parish of Lambeth, under pretence of knowing the secret, and likewise in opposition to some gentlemen that are real Freemasons, and hold a Lodge at the same house; therefore, to prove that they are no more than pretenders, and as the Ladies have sometimes been desirous of gaining knowledge of the noble art, (sic,) several regular-made Masons, (both ancient and modern,) members of constituted Lodges in this metropolis, have thought proper to unite into a select Body at Beau Silvester’s, the sign of the Angel, Bull Stairs, Southwark, and stile themselves Unions, think it highly expedient, and in justice to the fair sex, to initiate them therein, provided they are women of undeniable character; for tho’ no Lodge as yet (except the Free Union Masons) have thought proper to admit Women into the Fraternity, we, well knowing they have as much Right to attain to the secrets as those Castle Humbugs, have thought proper so to do, not doubting but they will prove an honour to the Craft; and as we have had the honour to inculcate several worthy Sisters therein, those that are desirous, and think themselves capable of having the secret conferred on them, by proper Application, will be admitted, and the charges will not exceed the Expences of our Lodge.”—Publick Advertiser, March 7, 1759.

The sign of the Angel at Beau Silvester’s was certainly well chosen by those gallant soi-disant Masons; but would not the Silent Woman have been still more appropriate? Be that as it may, Lodges for ladies there were—witness the following advertisement, a good specimen of “Stratford-le-Bow” French:—

“C. Loge C.

“AVERTISSEMENT AUX DAMES, etc. Pour vincre que les Francs Massons ne sont pas telles que le public les a representées en particulier la sexe Feminine, cet Loge juge a propos de recevoir des Femmes aussi bien que des Hommes.

[418]

“N.B.—Les Dames seront introduits dans la Loge avec la Ceremonie accoutumée ou le Serment ordinaire et le reel Secret leur seront administrées. On commencera a recevoir des Dames Jeudy 11 de Mars 1762, at Mrs Maynard’s, next door to the Lying-in Hospital, Brownlow Street, Longacre. La Porte sera ouverte a 6 Heures du Soir. Les Dames et Messieurs sont priées de ne pas venir après sept. Le prix est £1, 1s.”—(Newspaper, 1762.)

How the ladies were initiated—or, as the worthy secretary of Beau Silvester’s Lodge calls it, “inculcated,”—we are not informed; but certainly some modification must have been made in the usual ceremony attending the initiation of novices.

Llangollen Castle is painted on a sign in Deansgate, Manchester: under it is the following rhyme:—

Many other castles occur, such as Jersey Castle, on the token of Philip Crosse in Finch Lane, in the seventeenth century; Rochester Castle, Mitford Castle, Hereford Castle, Warwick Castle, Edinburgh Castle, &c.

Towns are often adopted for signs as a point de ralliement for the natives of such places, the birthplace of the landlord being generally the town which has the honour of his selection. The City of Norwich was the sign of a house in Bishopsgate Street in the seventeenth century, either for the reason just alleged, or because “the fall of Niniveh with Norwich built in an hour,” was one of the penny sights at that period. Coventry Cross was the sign of a mercer in New Bond Street at the end of the last century, evidently chosen on account of the silk ribbons manufactured in that town; and the Chiltern Hundred, a public-house at Boxley, near Maidstone, doubtless refers to the well-known range of hills extending from Henley-on-Thames to Tring in Herts. In old times these hills were covered with forests, and infested by numerous bands of thieves. To protect the people in the neighbourhood, an officer was appointed by the Crown, called the steward of the Chiltern Hundreds, and although the duties have long ceased the office still exists, and is made use of to afford members of the House of Commons an opportunity of resigning their seats when they desire it. Being a Government appointment, though without either duties or salary, the acceptance of it disqualifies a member from retaining his seat.

The Wiltshire Shepherd was a sign in St Martin’s Lane in the seventeenth century. The Wiltshire downs were famous for their flocks of sheep. Aubrey, himself a Wiltshireman, says that the innocent lives of those shepherds “doe give us a resemblance of the golden age.” He also states that their sight inspired Sir Philip Sidney in charming pastorals, which on those very downs he sketched from nature, as some of his old relations well remembered. “’Twas about these purlieus,” says he, “that the muses were wont to appeare to Sir Philip Sidney, and where he wrote down their dictates in his table-book, though on horseback.” Many of the customs of these shepherds Aubrey traces down from the Romans.[600] The Gentle Shepherd of Salisbury Plain is the name given to Farmer Peek’s house, on the road from Cape Town to Simon’s Bay, Cape of Good Hope. On his signboard is the following mosaic inscription:—