Z was formerly a grocer’s sign in this country, and was said to stand for Zinzibar, (ginger,) but this Z after all was perhaps only a corruption of the figure 4 which, we are informed, is or was a constant grocer’s sign in some parts of Scotland, as for instance in Stirling, implying that their provisions came from the four quarters of the world. Number IV is still the sign of an ale-house at 74 Hope Street, Salford, Manchester. Number Three is to be seen at Great Layton, near Blackpool. In 1633 it was the sign of a bookseller, Jean Brunet, in the Rue Neuve S. Louis, Paris. He says on the imprints of his books, au Trois de chiffres, in contradistinction to the Roman numerals, which at that time were not named chiffres but nombres; chiffres applied only to the Arab numerals. The latter were introduced by Pope Silvester II. (999-1003) who, having studied at Seville, acquired them from the Moors.

The Bell is one of the commonest signs in England, and was used as early as the fourteenth century, for Chaucer says that the “gentil hostelrie that heighte the Tabard,” was “faste by the Belle.” Most probably bells were set up as signs on account of our national fondness for bell-ringing, which procured for our island the name of the “ringing island,” and made Handel say, that the bell was our national musical instrument; and long may it be so! We confess to have derived infinitely more pleasurable feelings from hearing the melodious bells on a summer afternoon ringing through the clear air and sending their sweet sounds over corn-field and meadow, over brook and stream, than from any cavatina or cantata, sung by the dearest paid Italians in crowded operas, and at over-heated concerts. Paul Hentzner, a German traveller, who visited this country in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, says, “the English are vastly fond of noises that fill the air, such as firing of cannon, beating of drums, and ringing of bells; so that it is common for a number of them to go up into some belfry, and ring bells for hours together for the sake of exercise.” Aubrey makes a similar remark; and, for further reference, we may go to Sir Symonds D’Ewes, who writes in his “Memoirs,” that, in 1618, he was ringing the large bell of St John’s College, Cambridge, for exercise, when the great comet was in the heavens; the consequence was, that he got entangled in the ropes, and nearly fractured his skull, whereupon he wisely resolved not to ring so long as the mischievous comet was to be seen. Generally, for a merry peal, the different toned octave bells are rung in succession; then changes are introduced, which, by continually altering, the succession of the bells produces a most pleasing effect. A peal of bells usually consists of eight, hence the frequency of the Eight Bells; besides these, there are the Four Bells, the Five Bells, the Six Bells, the Ten Bells; the Eight Ringers, (Norwich and elsewhere,) the Old Ring o’ Bells, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, &c. Three Swans and Peal, Walsall, Staffordshire; the Nelson and Peal, also in Warwickshire, and many others mentioned in a previous chapter. In some old belfries, the rules and fines of the ringers are painted in rhymes on the walls; as for instance, in St John’s Church, Chester, (dated 1687,) in All Saints’ Church, Hastings, (dated 1756,) &c. One of the oldest Bell taverns in Middlesex stood in King Street, Westminster; it is named in the expenses of Sir John Howard, (Jockey of Norfolk,) in 1466. Pepys dined at this house, July 1, 1660, invited by purser Washington; but came away greatly disgusted, for, says he, “the rogue had no more manners than to invite me, and let me pay my club.” In November of the same year, he was there again, “to see the 7 flanders mares that my Lord has bought lately.” In Queen Anne’s reign, the October club, consisting of about one hundred and fifty county members of Parliament, all unmitigated Tories, used to meet at this tavern. The Bell, in Warwick Lane, Newgate Street, is another example of the old London coaching inns, still in its original condition, the galleries being propped up to prevent their falling down: everything about the place has a seventeenth century look,—the country carts, the chickens here in the very heart of the city, the inn kitchen with its old black clock, its settles and white benches, the very smell of the cookery going on seems more homely and old English than the hot greasy vapours emanating from the areas of modern taverns. Coming into this yard from the adjacent crowded streets, is like entering a latter-day Pompeii. It was at this inn that Archbishop Leighton, the honest, steady advocate of peace and forbearance, died in 1684.

“He often used to say that if he were to choose a place to die in, it should be an Inn; it looks like a pilgrim’s going home, to whom this world was all as an Inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion in it. He added, that the officious tenderness and care of friends was an entanglement to a dying man; and that the unconcerned attendance of those that could be procured in such a place would give less disturbance. And he obtained what he desired.”[671]

At the Bell, in the Poultry, lived, in the reign of King William and Queen Anne, Nathaniel Crouch, the famous bookseller, who was the first to condense great and learned works into a small and popular form. He generally wrote under the name of “John Burton.” His “Historical Rarities in London and Westminster,” was one of the books Dr Johnson, in his old age, desired to read again in remembrance of the pleasure derived from their teaching in the days of his youth.

At Finedon, three miles from Wellingborough, there is an old inn, called the Bell, having for a sign the portrait of a female with the following lines beneath:—

The Bell Inn, kept by John Good, at Oxford, has:—

There was a Golden Bell, in St Bride’s Lane, Fleet Street, in the reign of Queen Anne, next door to which lived Lydia Burcraft, a female hairdresser, who, as appears from her bill,[672] sold an infallible pomatum to make the hair grow long and curly. The Black Bell is mentioned by Stowe, p. 81:—

“Above this lane’s [Crooked Lane] end upon Fish Hill Street, is one great house, for the most part built of stone, which pertained some time to Edward the Black Prince, son to Edward III., who was in his lifetime lodged there. It is now altered to a common hostelry, having the Black Bell for a sign.”

The Monument now stands on the site of this house.

The Bell occurs in innumerable combinations, most of which seem to have no particular meaning, but simply to arise from the old custom of quartering signs. Among them, we may mention the Bell and Anchor, Hammersmith, which was much visited by the fashion in the beginning of the reign of George III. Representations of the place and its visitors may be seen in several of the caricatures of that period, published by Bowles and Carver, of St Paul’s Churchyard. It is still in existence, but its days of glory are past, for, instead of youth and beauty, and “names known to chivalry,” its customers now mostly consist of the Irish labourers who live in the lanes and back slums of North End. Further, we meet with the Bell and Lion, Crew, Cheshire; the Bell and Bullock, Netherem, Penrith, probably united on account of the alliteration; the Bell and Cuckoo, Erdington, near Birmingham; and the Bell and Candlestick, also in Birmingham.

The Bell and Crown is very common, and withal is a reasonable combination, for the bell has, from time immemorial, been rung to express the loyalty of the nation on royal entries, whether into the world or into a town, on occasion of royal marriages or deaths, at times of great victories and declarations of peace, and other loyal celebrations. Hence many bells are inscribed with the words, “Fear God, honour the King,” which, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, seems also to have been a common inscription on the sign of the Bell.[673] This sentiment was thus versified by a sign-painter, who evidently had more loyalty than poetical genius:—

Few signs have so often been wrongly explained as the Bell Savage, on Ludgate Hill. Stow, generally so accurate, says it received its name from one Isabella Savage, who had given the house to the company of cutlers. Where he gathered that information we do not know, but he was “burning,” as the children say, and was certainly much nearer the truth than the Spectator, who states that it was called after a French play of “la Belle Sauvage.” The “Antiquarian Repertory,” following Stow, asserts that the inn was once the property of the Lady Arabella Savage, familiarly called “Bell Savage,” which name was represented in a rebus by a wild man and a bell, and so it was always drawn on the panels of the coaches that used to run to and from it, until the railways changed our style of travelling. The true origin of the name is manifest from a document in the Clause Roll, 31 Henry VI.[674]

“D. Script, irrot. Frenssh.

Omnib; Xpi fidelib; ad quos p’sens Scriptum p’ven. Joh’nes Frenssh, filius primogenitus Joh’is Frenssh, Gentilman, quondam civis et aurifabri London’ salutem in Domino. Sciatis me dedisse, concessisse, et hoc p’senti scripto meo confirmasse, Johanne Frenssh, vidue, matri mee, totum teñ sive hospicium, cum suis p’ten’, vocat’ Savagesynne, alias vocat’ le Belle on the Hope, in parochia S’ce Brigide in Fletestreet, London’, h’end et tenend, totum p.’dc̃m ten’ sive hospicium, cum suis p’t’ in p’fat’ Johanne ad t’minū vite sue, absq’ impeticõe vasti. In cugis rei testimoniū, &c.”[675]

In the sixteenth century, the Belle Savage appears to have been a place of amusement. “Those who go to Paris garden, the Bel Savage, or theatre, to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence play, must not account of any pleasant spectacle unless they first pay one penny at the gate, another at the entry of the scaffold, and a third for quiet standing.”[676] One of the attractions about that period was Banks’s wonderful horse, Marocco, which here performed his tricks before a half-admiring, half-awe-stricken audience, many of whom doubtless considered the animal a witch, if not a devil. “To mine host of the Bel Sauage and all his honest guests,” was dedicated the satirical tract of “Marocco Extaticus,” in which this horse is introduced.[677] During the civil wars we find this inn mentioned as apparently a Royalist house: “Upon search at Bell Savage (by order of Parliament) great quantities of plate were found, intended for York, but stayed by order.”[678] A very odd accident happened in this inn during the terrific storm of November 26, 1703. A Mr Hempson, we are told, was blown in his sleep out of an upper room window, and knew nothing of the storm nor of his aerial voyage, till awaking, he found himself lying in his bed on Ludgate hill. No doubt the good wine of mine host must have had something to do with this miraculous flight.[679] Having been for centuries a coaching inn, its name spread to the provinces, and some inn-keepers copied its sign, whence we meet with La Belle Sauvage, Macclesfield, and in one or two other places.

Balls were extremely common in former times, frequently in combination with other objects; this arose from the custom of the silk mercers in hanging out a Golden Ball. Constantine the Great adopted a golden globe (termed Hesa) as the emblem of his imperial dignity, on which, after he embraced Christianity, he placed a cross, and with this addition it continues as one of the insignia of royalty at the present day. The early silk-mercers adopted this golden globe, or ball, as their sign, because in the middle ages, all silk was brought from the East, and more particularly from Byzantium and the imperial manufactories there, whence it was called serica Constantinopolitana, pannus imperialis, Basilica, de Basilicio, ρηγικον, &c. The Golden Ball continued as a silk-mercer’s sign until the end of the last century, when it gradually fell to the Berlin wool shops, and with them it continues at the present day.

Balls of various colours were invariably the signs of quacks and fortune-tellers in the eighteenth century; the Bagford Bills are full of Red, Blue, Black, White, and Green Balls, all signs of those gentry who profess to cure all the evils flesh is heir to. How they came to choose this sign is hard to say, for we can scarcely imagine that they were intended to represent magnified pills. Moorfields[680] was the head-quarters of this trade:—

The Golden Ball was the sign of J. Osborne, bookseller in Paternoster Row, circa 1740, who printed one of the earliest “London Directories;” also of Doctor Forman in Lambeth Marsh, who was deeply implicated in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury in 1613. The Two Golden Balls at the upper end of Bow Street, Covent Garden, was a place famous for concerts, balls, and other amusements, in the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. Prince Eugene once attended a concert at this house. The Two White Balls, in Marylebone Street, was the sign of a school in 1712, where Latin, French, mathematics, &c., were taught; in the same house there also lived a clergyman who taught “to write well in three days.”[681]

The balls of the silk mercers and the quacks, suspended from an iron above the door, were generally added (in name at least) to the painted sign, when the house possessed one; as, for instance, the Ball and Cap, Hatton Garden, 1668; the Ball And Raven, Spitalfields, in the seventeenth century, (both on trades tokens;) the Red Ball and Acorn, Queen Street, Cheapside, “a [quack] gentlewoman, daughter of an eminent physician in 1722;”[682] the Plough and Ball, at Nuneaton; the Salmon and Ball, several in London; the Bible and Ball, a bookseller’s in Ave Maria Lane, 1761; the Heart and Ball, a silk-mercer’s in Little Britain, 1710; the Green Man and Ball, on a trades token of Charter House Lane, where the man is represented throwing a ball; and thus innumerable other combinations with the Ball might be mentioned.

The Three Blue Balls, generally a pawnbroker’s sign, was also in old times used for taverns and other houses, while pawnbrokers used at pleasure such signs as the Blackamoor’s Head, the Black Dog and Still, &c.[683] On 26th March 1668, Pepys tells us that, coming from the theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, he and his party went to the Blue Balls tavern in the same locality, where they met some of their friends, including Mrs Knipp;

“And after much difficulty in getting of musick, we to dancing and then to a supper of French dishes, which yet did not please me, and then to dance and sing, and mighty merry we were till about eleven or twelve at night, with mighty great content in all my company, and I did, as I love to do, enjoy myself. My wife extraordinary fine to-day, in her flower tabby suit, bought a year and more ago, before my mother’s death put her into mourning, and so not worn till this day, and everybody in love with it, and, indeed, she is very fine and handsome in it. I having paid the reckoning, which came to almost £4, we parted.”

What a delightful flow of animal spirits that old Secretary of the Admiralty enjoyed! Alas, for the awful dignity of his modern successors!

There is still a public-house sign of the Blue Balls, at Newport, I.W.

The Ring and Ball, Fenchurch Street, 1700, seems suggested by the game of pall mall, recently revived under the name of croquet, in which a ball was struck by a mallet through an iron ring. This sign is mentioned in an advertisement of some valuable trinkets which had been lost:—

“A gold watch in a plain case, made by Thompson, with the hours of the day only; a gold chain, pear fashion, two lengths, with a gold watch-hook of Filegrin Indian work, and hung on it a diamond locket, large diamonds with hair in the middle and death at length on a tombstone; another diamond locket, less diamonds, with a cypher in hair; a red cornelian set in gold engraved with a head; a plain locket with A. K. in golden letters; a civet-box with a white stone, and engraved on it outwards a small head and a camel [cameo?] Whosoever stops them if offered to be pawned or valued, and gives notice to Mr Hankey at the Ring and Ball in Fenchurch Street, shall have 5 guineas for the whole, or proportionable for any part.”[684] A small inducement to honesty!

The Bat and Ball is a common sign for public-houses frequented by cricketers; also the Cricketers’ Arms, the Five Cricketers, and many others. The Wrestlers obtain their name from a sport formerly in great favour in this country, and still cultivated in some parts. At Yarmouth an inn of that name is more celebrated for the jeu d’esprit of the immortal Nelson than anything else. When the fleet was riding in the Yarmouth roads, the landlord, desirous of the patronage of the blue-jackets, requested permission to call his house the Nelson Arms. His lordship gave him full power to do so, but at the same time reminded him that his arms were only in the singular number.

says Velleius Paterculus, and the truth of the assertion is exemplified in the old national antipathy betwixt this country and our neighbours across the channel, whence the Antigallican (the name assumed by a London association in the middle of the last century) could not fail to be a favourite sign. At present this feeling exists to only a very small extent in the minds of our lower orders; but formerly a Frenchman could not pass through the streets of London with impunity. Stephen Perlin, a French ecclesiastic, who wrote in 1558 a description of England, Scotland, and Ireland, says:—

“The people of this country have a mortal hatred for the French as their ancient enemies, and in common call us France chenesve [French knave], France dogue, which is to say, French rascals and French dogs. They also call us or son.”

Grosley[685] devotes a whole chapter to this subject, and tells us that the French were ridiculed on the stage, and insulted and ill-treated in the streets. Even at the present day, when the penny romances are in want of a melodramatic villain, a Frenchman is sure to have the honour of personating him.

At the beginning of this century there was a tavern of this name in Shire Lane, Temple Bar, kept by Harry Lee, of sporting notoriety, and father of Alexander Lee, the first and “original tiger,” in which capacity he was produced by the notorious Lord Barrymore. This tavern was much frequented by his lordship and other gentlemen fond of low life, pugilism, and so-called sport. The nicknames of the brothers Barrymore will give a tolerably good idea of their amiable qualities; the eldest was called Hellgate; the second Cripplegate, (he was lame,) and the third Newgate, so styled, because, though an honourable and a reverend, he had been in almost every gaol in England except Newgate. This interesting family circle was completed by a sister, called Billingsgate, on account of the forcible and flowery language she made use of. The Antigallican is still in vogue, as there are three public-houses with that sign in London, besides some in the country, and an Antigallican Arms at New Charlton, Kent.

On the 29th of September 1783, the first balloon—or air-balloon as it was then called—was let off at Versailles, in the presence of Louis XVI. and the Royal Family. A sheep was the first aeronaut, and with this freight, in a cage, the balloon rose to a height of about 200 yards, floated over a part of Paris, and came down in the Carrefour Maréchal. The novelty was at once taken hold of by caricaturists, ballad-mongers, writers of comic articles, and also by the sign-painters. One of the first balloon-signs in London was that of the Balloon Fruit-shop, in Oxford Street, near Soho Square.[686] As those primitive balloons were, in the opinion of the vulgar, filled with smoke, the tobacconists considered them as within their province, and thus it became a favourite device with this class of shops. Several of their tobacco papers are preserved in the Banks collection. One has the following legend:—“The best Virginia under the Balloon.” Another, “Smoke the best balloon.” A third, “The best air-balloon tobacco,” &c. Some of these balloon-cuts will be found in our illustrations. One of them represents a balloon ascending, and two smokers standing beneath; one says, “I wish them a good voyage;” the other, “Smoak the balloon.” As a sign, the Balloon, or Air-balloon, is still not uncommon, and may be seen at Kingston, Hants, Birdlip, Gloucester, &c.

The Black Doll, hung at the doors of rag and marine store-dealers, probably originated in these shops buying old clothes and finery, which was sold to the buccaneers and coasting-traders, who exchanged them with the natives of Africa and America, for gold, ivory, furs, &c.; just as we see at the present day, Mr Abraham, or Mr Isaacs, constantly advertising in the Times for our “Left-off clothes for Australia and the Colonies.” The popular legend, however, has spread a halo of romance around the black doll. Once upon a time, an ancient dame came to a rag-shop in Norton Folgate, with a bundle of old clothes, which she desired to sell, but having no time to spare, she left them with the man to examine, promising to call for the money next day. The rag-merchant opened the bundle and found amongst the clothes a pair of diamond ear-rings, and a black doll. Anxious to restore the diamonds, (as may be imagined,) he expected the old woman to call day after day, but in vain; at last, thinking that she might have forgotten the house, he hung up the black doll at the door, but the old woman never came, and the doll hung until it rotted away, when it was replaced by a new one. The novelty of the object attracted many customers to the house, other ragmen imitated it, and so it finally became a sign, one which is now fast dying away, and being supplanted by coarse coloured prints, with absurd rhymes.

At the castles of the nobility the weary traveller formerly found food, shelter, and good “herborow;” the lower hall was always open to the adventurer, the tramp, the minstrel, and the pilgrim; the upper hall to the nobleman, the squire, the wealthy abbot, and the fair ladies. It was natural, then, that the Castle should at an early period have been adopted as a sign of “good entertainment for man and beast.” Such a sign became historical in the Wars of the Roses; for the Duke of Somerset, who had been warned to “shun castles,” was killed by Richard Plantagenet, at an ale-house, the sign of the Castle.

According to Hatton,[687] in 1708, the Castle Tavern in Fleet Street had the largest sign in London; next to it came the White Hart Inn, on the east side of the Borough, in Southwark.

In the reign of George I., the Castle, near Covent Garden, was a famous eating-house, kept by John Pierce, the Soyer of his day. Here the gallant feat was performed of a young blood taking one of the shoes from the foot of a noted toast, filling it with wine, and drinking her health, after which it was consigned to the cook, who prepared from it an excellent ragout, which was eaten with great relish by the lady’s admirers.

The Castle and Falcon (probably a combination of two signs, as there is a Falcon Court close by,) is the sign of an inn in Aldersgate, which house, or one on its site, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was occupied by John Day, the most considerable printer and publisher of his time. In after years the house became a famous coaching inn, and its reputation spread to all parts of England, whence we meet, at present, with Castles and Falcons in various towns, as at Birmingham, Chester, &c. Although we incline to the opinion that the sign arose from a combination, still it is worthy of remark, that the crest of Queen Catherine Parr was a crowned falcon, perched on a castle, and of course represented as large as the castle.

The Three Old Castles occurs at Mandeville, near Somerton; the Castle and Banner at Hunny Hill, Carisbrooke, originating in the banner floating from the castle turret, when the Lord of the Manor was residing there. Castles in the Air is to be seen at Lower Quay, Fareham; the origin seems to be an allusion to the ordinary sign swinging in mid-air—a piece of humour on the part of the landlord. The Castle and Wheelbarrow, at Rouse Lench, was, doubtless, another innkeeper’s notion of suggestive humour—but he was a dull wit.

Perhaps the most patriarchal of all signs is the Chequers, which may be seen even on houses in exhumed Pompeii. On that of Hercules, for instance, at the corner of the Strada Fullonica, they are painted lozenge-wise, red, white, and yellow, and on various other houses in that ancient city, similar decorations may still be observed. Originally it is said to have indicated that draughts and backgammon were played within. Brand, in his “Popular Antiquities,” ignorant of any existence of the sign in so remote a period as that mentioned, says that it represented the coat of arms of the Earls of Warenne and Surrey, who bore checqui or and azure, and in the reign of Edward IV., possessed the privilege of licensing ale-houses. A more plausible explanation, and one which is not set aside by the existence of the sign in Pompeii, is that given by Dr Lardner:—

“During the middle ages, it was usual for merchants, accountants, and judges, who arranged matters of revenue, to appear on a covered banc, so called from an old Saxon word, meaning a seat, (hence our Bank.) Before them was placed a flat surface, divided by parallel white lines, into perpendicular columns; these again divided transversely by lines crossing the former, so as to separate each column into squares. This table was called an Exchequer, from its resemblance to a chess-board, and the calculations were made by counters placed on its several divisions, (something after the manner of the Roman abacus.) A money-changer’s office was generally indicated by a sign of the chequered board suspended. This sign afterwards came to indicate an inn or house of entertainment, probably from the circumstance of the innkeeper also following the trade of money-changer—a coincidence still very common in seaport towns.”[688]

Chaucer’s Merry Pilgrims put up in Canterbury, at the sign of the “Checker of the Hope,” (i.e. the Chequers on the Hoop.)

This inn (says Mr Wright, in his edition of the above work) is still pointed out in Canterbury, at the corner of High Street and Mercery Lane, and is often mentioned in the Corporation Reports, under the title of the Chequer. It is situated in the immediate vicinity of the Cathedral, and was therefore appropriate for the reception of the pilgrims.

When the inn had another sign besides the Chequers, these last were invariably painted on the door-post; an example of this may still be seen at the Swiss Cottage, Chelsea. In or near Calcots Alley, Lambeth, was formerly situated an inn or house of entertainment called the Chequers. In the year 1454 a licence was granted to its landlord, John Calcot, to have an oratory in the house and a chaplain for the use of his family and guests, as long as his house should continue orderly and respectable, and adapted to the celebration of divine service.[689] The Black Chequers in Cowgate, Norwich, is so called on account of the chequers being black and white, whilst others are red and white, blue and white, or in such other contrast as may be fancied by the publican.

The Crooked Billet is a sign, for which we have not been able to discover any likely origin; it may have been originally a ragged staff, or a pastoral staff, or a baton cornu—the ancient name for a battle-axe.[690] It is also the name for a part of the tankard. Frequently the sign is represented by an untrimmed stick suspended above the door, as at Wold Newton, near Bridlington, where it is accompanied by the following poetical effusion on one side of the signboard:—

On the other side:—

Though a very rustic sign, it was also used in towns; thus it occurs among the trades tokens of Montague Close, and was the sign of Andrew Sowle, a bookseller in Holloway Lane, Shoreditch, in 1683.

The Golden Head appears to have been a favourite with artists, probably a classic or modern bust gilded. It was the sign of Hogarth’s master and of himself.

At this sign in 1735 Hogarth published the “Harlot’s Progress,” and several other engravings. Sir Robert Strange the engraver (1721-92) lived at the Golden Head, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden; and in 1762 the portrait of Cunneshote, one of the Cherokee chiefs, then on a visit to this country, was for sale at the Golden Head in Queen Square, Ormond Street; it was engraved after a painting by Francis Parsons. In 1700 it was the sign of a Monsieur Desert, “almost over against the King’s Bagnio in Long Acre, who sold guitars from 30 gs. to 30 sh. a piece.”[691] Thomas Carte the historian (1686 to 1754) lived at Mr Ker’s at the Golden Head, Newport Street, Long Acre. This sign also occurs in a most amusing advertisement:—

“An Exceeding Small Lap Spaniel.

ANY ONE THAT has (to dispose of) such a one, either dog or bitch, and of any colour or colours, that is very, very small, with a very short round snub nose, and good ears, if they will bring it to Mrs Smith, at a coachmaker’s over against the Golden Head in Great Queen Street, near Lincoln’s Inn Fields, they shall (if approved of) have a very good purchaser. And to prevent any further trouble, if it is not exceeding small, and has anything of a longish peaked nose, it will not at all do. And nevertheless after this advertisement is published no more, if any person should have a little creature that answers the character of the advertisement, if they will please but to remember the direction and bring it to Mrs Smith; the person is not so provided but that such a one will still at any time be hereafter purchased.”—Daily Advertiser, Nov. 1744.

The Two Heads was the sign of a dentist in Coventry Street in 1760. One head probably represented the mouth as possessing a fine set of teeth; the other doubtless showed how unfortunate is their absence. The advertisements of this man are gems in their way:—

Taylor the Water poet (1632) mentions two taverns with the sign of the Mouth, the one without Bishopsgate, the other within Aldersgate. Trades tokens of the first house are extant, representing a human head with a huge mouth wide open. An inventory is still extant of the stock in trade of this house in the year 1612,[692] which is not uninteresting. From it we gather that the wines drunk at that period in taverns were white wine, Vin de Grave, (a small white Burgundy wine,) Orleans wine, Malaga, sherry, sack, Malmsey, (Malvasia, a wine from the coast of Morea, sweet and white,) Alicante, (also sweet,) claret, &c. Beer seems to have been but little asked for by those that frequented this house; for whilst some of the wines were kept in such large quantities as seven hogsheads, there were only two dozen and eight bottles of ale. The names of the rooms in the house were “the Pomegranate,” “the Portcullis,” “Three Tuns,” “Cross Keys,” “Vine,” “King’s Head,” “Crown,” “Dolphin,” and “Bell,” all of them favourite tavern signs, and (as remarked on page 280) the usual names for tavern rooms. Among the utensils may be remarked fifteen silver bowls.

The Merry Mouth is still a sign at Fifield, Chipping Norton.

The Hand was the sign of a victualler near the Marshalsea in Southwark, in 1680. Hands occur in many combinations, owing to the custom of draughtsmen and sign-painters representing a hand issuing from the clouds to perform some action or hold some object; thus a hand holding a coffee-pot was a very general coffee-house sign. The “Hand” seems to have been a bad or evil sign:—

“I’ll go back to the country of the coffee-houses, [Fleet Street,] where being arrived I’m in a wood, there are so many of them I know not which to enter; stay, let me see, where the sign is painted with a woman’s hand in it, ’tis a bawdy house, where a man’s it has another qualification; but where it has a star in the sign ’tis calculated for every lewd purpose.”[693]

Though this is a sweeping denunciation, yet we find the Hand and Star occurring as the sign of a very respectable bookseller, Richard Tothill in Fleet Street, within Temple Bar, who in 1553 printed the “Dialogue of Comfort,” by Sir Thomas More. Not unlikely Tothill had adopted this sign from the watermarks in paper, for one of the most ancient of them is a hand, either in the position of giving benediction, or in that position called the upright hand, with a star above it. Messrs Butterworth, the law-publishers, who now occupy Tothill’s premises, possess all the leases and documents from the time of that old printer down to the present day.

Quacks, also, were very fond of a hand in their sign, pointing to an eye or an ear, to intimate that the great doctor cured the blind or the deaf. Thus, in the Harleian collection (5931) there is a handbill of S. Ketelby, sworn physician, who lived at the Hand and Ear, in Exeter Street near the Strand, and who professed to cure deafness, lameness, &c.

“He is capable now, not only of curing those incurable by others, but even those he could not cure himself six months ago! Note: He resolves all persons deaf from external causes, whether curable or not, in two minutes, in the dark as well as at noonday, which no other pretender can do,” &c.

The Hand and Face was the sign of another quack, who lived in Water Lane, Blackfriars, near Apothecaries’ Hall, in 1735.[694]

A few combinations of the hand refer to games, as the Hand and Ball, Barking, (trades token,) 1650, which seems to be derived from some of the innumerable games at ball in which our ancestors delighted, such as handball, tennis, balloon or windball, stoolball, hurling, football, stowball, pallmall, clubball, trapball, northen-spell, cricket, bowling, &c. The Hand and Tennis, Whitcombe Street, Haymarket, is so called from the adjoining Tennis Court, erected in 1678. The Old Hand and Tankard is a public-house sign at Wheatly, near Halifax. The Hand and Tench seems to point to a connexion with the followers of Isaac Walton; it was a mug-house in Seven Dials in 1717. The mugs in those days used to be suspended above the door, or on the sign-iron, not only in this, but in all the mug-houses, for the mug might be considered as much a badge of King George’s friends, as the white cockade was the badge of the Jacobites.

The Hand and Heart was, in 1711, the very appropriate sign of a marriage insurance office in East Harding Street, Shoe Lane.[695] Two right hands holding a heart was a very old symbol of concord. Aubrey gives quotations from Tacitus, by which he derives it from the Romans, and adds:—

“I have seen some rings made for sweethearts with a heart enamelled held between two hands. See an Epigrame of G. Buchanan, on two rings that were made by Q. Elisabeth’s appointment, which, being laid one upon the other, shewed the like figure. The heart was two diamonds, w^ch joyned, made the Heart. Q. Elisabeth kept one moietie, and sent y^e other as a token of her constant friendship to Mary Q. of Scotts; but she cutt off her head for all that.”[696]

The Heart in Hand is still a common ale-house sign. A similar meaning is conveyed by the equally common Hand in Hand or Cross Hands; at Turnditch, Derby, this sign is called the Cross o’ the Hands, and a corruption of this again is the Cross in Hand, at Waldron, Sussex. The Hand in Hand was also one of the usual signs of the marriage-mongers in Fleet Street. Pennant says:—

“In walking along the streets in my youth, on the side next this prison, (the Fleet,) I have often been tempted by the question, ’Sir, will you be pleased to walk in and be married.’ Along this most lawless space was most frequently hung up the sign of a male and female hand conjoined, with ‘Marriages performed within’ written beneath. A dirty fellow invited you in; the parson was seen walking before his shop, a squalid, profligate figure, clad in a tattered plaid nightgown, with a fiery face, and ready to couple you for a dram of gin or a roll of tobacco.”

The two hands conjoined is also common in France—where it is called à la bonne Foi. In 1624 it was the sign of Pierre Billaine, bookseller and printer in the Rue St Jacques, Paris.

The Leg used formerly to be at the door of every hosier. It was also the sign of a tavern in King Street, Westminster, frequented by Pepys. Trades tokens are extant of the Leg and Star, kept by Richard Finch, in Aldersgate, in the seventeenth century. It may have represented a leg with the garter round it, and the star of that order; but more probably it was a combination of two signs.

The Old Man, Market Place, Westminster, was probably intended for Old Parr, who was celebrated in ballads as “The Olde, Olde, Very Olde Manne.” The token represents a bearded bust in profile, with a bare head. In the reign of James I. it was the name of a tavern in the Strand, otherwise called the Hercules Tavern, and in the eighteenth century there were two coffee-houses, the one called the Old Man’s, the other the Young Man’s Coffee-house.

The Fountain was a favourite sign with the Londoners before the Reformation, perhaps on account of its connexion with the martyrdom of St Paul, whose head, says the legend, on being struck off, rebounded three times, when a fountain gushed up at each spot where the sacred head had touched the ground. Hence there is a church near Rome, in the midst of the desolate Campagna, called San Paolo delle Tre Fontane, where altars are raised over each of those three fountains. There is also a fountain connected with the martyrdom of St Alban, the English protomartyr, and Saints’ Wells may be met with all over the kingdom.

During the Plague of 1665, the following advertisement used to figure constantly in the papers:—

“MONSIEUR Augier’s famous Remedies for stopping and preventing the plague having not only been recommended by several certificates from Lyons, Paris, Thoulouse, &c., but likewise experimented here by the special directions of the Lords of his Majesty’s most honourable Privy Council, and proved by Witnesses upon oath, and several Tryals, to be of singular virtue and effect, are to be had at Mr Drinkwater’s, at the Fountain, in Fleet Street, &c.”[697]

Mr Drinkwater had evidently intended a pun by selecting a fountain as his sign.

The Fountain Tavern in the Strand was famous as the meeting-place of the ultra-loyal party in 1685, who here talked over public affairs before the meeting of Parliament. Roger Lestrange, who had been recently knighted by the king, took a leading part in these consultations. But “the fate of things lies always in the dark;” in the reign of George II. this same house became a great resort for the Whigs, who sometimes used to meet here as many as two hundred at a time, making speeches and passing resolutions.

For this reason it was proposed that Master Jephson the landlord should write under his sign:—