The present Dirty Dick is a small public-house, or rather a tap of a wholesale wine and spirit business in Bishopsgate Street Without. It has all the appearance of one of those establishments that started up in the wake of the army at Varna and Balaclava, or at newly-discovered gold-diggings. A warehouse or barn without floorboards; a low ceiling, with cobweb festoons dangling from the black rafters; a pewter bar battered and dirty, floating with beer; numberless gas-pipes, tied anyhow along the struts and posts, to conduct the spirits from the barrels to the taps; sample phials and labelled bottles of wine and spirits on shelves,—everything covered with virgin dust and cobweb,—indeed, a place that would set the whole Dutch nation frantic.

Yet, though it has been observed that cleanliness of the body is conducive to cleanliness of the soul, and vice versa, the regulations of this dirty establishment, (hung up in a conspicuous place,) are more moral than those of the cleaner gin-palaces,—as, for instance:—“No man can be served twice.”[110] “No person to be served if in the least intoxicated.” “No improper language permitted.” “No smoking permitted;” whilst the last request, for fear of this charming place tempting customers to lounge about, says, “Our shop being small, difficulty occasionally arises in supplying the customers, who will greatly oblige by bearing in mind the good old maxim:—

By a trades token we see that Old Parr’s Head was already in the seventeenth century the sign of a house in Chancery Lane. Circa 1825, a publican in Aldersgate put up the old patriarch, with the following medical advice:—

Thomas Parr was born in 1483, and dying November 15, 1635, at the age of 152, had lived in the reigns of ten several princes,—viz., Edward IV., Edward V., Richard III., Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. He was not the only one of the family who attained to a great age, for the London Evening Post, August 24, 1757, has the following note:—“Last week died at Kanne, in Shropshire, Robert Parr, aged 124. He was great-grandson of old Thomas Parr, who died in the reign of King Charles I., and lies buried in Westminster Abbey. What is very remarkable is, that the father of Robert was 109; the grandfather 113; and the great-grandfather, the said Thomas, is well known to have died at the age of 152.” Signs of old Parr are still remaining at Gravesend and at Rochester.

Thomas Hobson, (Hobson’s Choice,) the benevolent old carrier, is the sign of two public-houses in Cambridge,—the one called Old Hobson, the other Hobson’s House. His own inn in London was the Bull Inn in Bishopsgate Street, where he was represented in fresco, having a £100 bag under his arm, with the words, “The fruitful mother of an hundred more.” There is an engraving of him by John Payne, his contemporary, which also represents him holding a bag of money. Under it are these lines:—

The print also informs us that he died at the age of eighty-six, in the year 1630. Milton, who wrote two epitaphs upon him, says, that “he sickened in the time of his vacancy, being forbid to go to London by reason of the plague.”

Among this class of minor celebrities we may also place those who put up their own head for signs. Taylor, the water poet, (see Mourning Crown, pp. 49,) was one of the first. Next to him followed Pasqua Rosee; according to his handbill, “the first who made and publicly sold coffee-drink in England.” His establishment was “in St Michael’s Alley, in Cornhill, at the sign of his own head.” This handbill largely enters into the virtues of the “coffee-drink,” gives the natural history of the plant, prescribes how to make the drink, and advises that “it is to be drunk, fasting an hour before, and not eating an hour after, and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured; the which will never fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise any blisters by reason of that heat.” The next enters upon a glowing description of all the evils cured by that drink, as fumes, headaches, defluxions of rhumes, dropsy, gout, scurvy, king’s-evil, spleen, hypochondriac, winds, stone, &c. This coffee-house was opened in 1652.

Lebeck’s Head was another instance of the owner setting up his own head as a sign; and though his name has not filled the trumpet of fame, yet had he many times bravely stood the fire, and filled the mouths of his contemporaries, for he kept an ordinary (about 1690) at the north-west corner of Half-moon Passage, (since called Bradford Street.) The sign seems to have found imitators at the time, and is even yet kept up by tradition. There is Lebeck’s Head in Shadwell, High Street; a Lebeck’s Inn and Lebeck’s Tavern in Bristol; and a Lebeck and Chaff-cutter at a village in Gloucestershire.

A still more famous house was the Pontack’s Head, formerly called the White Bear, in Christ Church Passage, (leading from Newgate Street to Christ Church.) This tavern having been destroyed by fire, Pontack, the son of a president of the parliament of Bordeaux, opened a new establishment on its site, and assuming his father’s portrait as its sign, called it the Pontack’s Head. It was the first fashionable eating-house in London, was opened soon after the Restoration, and continued in favour until about the year 1780, when it was pulled down to make room for the building of the vestry hall of Christ Church. De Foe describes it as “a constant ordinary for all comers at very reasonable prices, where you may bespeak a dinner from four or five shillings a head to a guinea, or what sum you please.”[111] In the beginning of the eighteenth century the dinners had become proverbially extravagant:—

This Guinea ordinary was:—

The waiter, however, gives the menu, which contains—Bird’s nest soup from China; a ragout of fatted snails; bantam pig, but one day old, stuffed with hard row and ambergris; French peas stewed in gravy, with cheese and garlick; an incomparable tart of frogs and forced meat; cod, with shrimp sauce; chickens en surprise, (they had not been two hours from the shell,) and similar dainties.[112] Pontack contributed much towards bringing the French wines in fashion, being proprietor of some of the Bordeaux vineyards which bore his name.

About the same time another tavern flourished, with its master’s head for sign; this was Caveac’s,[113] celebrated for wine; of him Amhurst sang:—

Though it cannot be said that Don Saltero put up his portrait for a sign, yet his coffee-house was named after him, and is still extant under the same denomination in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. This house was opened in 1695 by a certain Salter, who had been servant to Sir Hans Sloane, and had accompanied him on his travels. Chelsea at that time was a village, full of the suburban residences of the aristocracy, and the pleasant situation of Salter’s house soon made it the resort of merry companions, on their way to or from friends’ villas, or Vauxhall, Jenny Whin’s, and other places of public resort in the neighbourhood. Vice-Admiral Mundy, on his return from the coast of Spain, amused with the pedantic dignity of Salter, christened him Don Saltero, and under that name the house has continued till this day.

From his connexion with the great Sir Hans Sloane, and the tradition of a descent from the Tradescants, Salter was of course in duty bound to have a museum of curiosities, which, by gifts from Sir Hans and certain aristocratic customers in the army and navy, soon became sufficiently interesting to constitute one of the London sights. It existed more than a century, and was at last sold by auction in the summer of 1798. From his catalogue[114] (headed with the words, “O Rare!”) we gather that the curiosities fully deserved that name, for amongst them we find: “a piece of St Catherine’s skin;” “a painted ribbon from Jerusalem, with which our Saviour was tied to the pillar when scourged, with a motto;”[115] “a very curious young mermaid-fish;” “manna from Canaan, it drops from the clouds twice a year, in May and June, one day in each month;” “a piece of nun’s skin;” “a necklace made of Job’s tears;” “the skeleton (sic) of a man’s finger;” “petrified rain;” “a petrified lamb, or a stone of that animal;” “a starved cat in the act of catching two mice, found between the walls of Westminster Abbey when repairing;” “Queen Elizabeth’s chambermaid’s hat,” &c.[116]

A most amusing paper in the Tatler, No. 34, gives a full-length portrait of Salter, who appears to have been an “original.” Music was his besetting sin, and with very little excuse for it. In that paper the museum, too, is taken to task. Richard Cromwell used to be a visitor to this house, where Pennant’s father, when a child, saw him, “a very neat old man, with a placid countenance.” Franklin also, when a printer’s apprentice, “one day made a party to go by water to Chelsea in order to see the college, and Don Saltero’s curiosities.”

There is a rather amusing advertisement of the Don’s in the Weekly Journal for June 23, 1723:—

At the end of his catalogue a list of the donors is added, most of whom, doubtless, also frequented his house. Amongst them the following names appear:—the Duke of Buccleuch, the Earl of Sutherland, Sir John Balchen, Sir Rob. Cotton, Bart., Sir John Cope, Bart., Sir Thomas de Veil, Sir Francis Drake, Lady Humphrey, Sir Thomas Littleton, Sir John Molesworth, the Hon. Capt. William Montague, Sir Yelverton Peyton, George Selwyn, the Hon. Mr Verney, Sir Francis Windham, &c., besides numbers of naval and military officers.

The Mother Redcap is a sign that occurs in various places, as in Upper Holloway, in the High Street, Camden Town, in Blackburn, Lancashire, in Edmund’s Lowland, Lincolnshire, &c.: whilst there is a Father Redcap at Camberwell Green, but he is merely a creature of the publican’s fancy. From the way in which Brathwaite mentions this sign in his “Whimsies of a new Cast of Characters,” 1631, it would seem to have been not uncommon at that time. “He [the painter] bestows his pencile on an aged piece of decayed canvas, in a sooty alehouse where Mother Redcap must be set out in her colours.” Who the original Mother Redcap was, is believed to be unknown, but not unlikely it is an impersonification of Skelton’s famous “Ellinor Rumming,” the alewife.

The Mother Redcap at Holloway is named by Drunken Barnaby in his travels. Formerly the following verses accompanied this sign:—

At one time the Mother Redcap, in Kentish Town, was kept by an old crone, from her amiable temper surnamed Mother Damnable.[117] This was probably the same person we find elsewhere alluded to under the name of Mother Huff, as in Baker’s “Comedy of Hampstead Heath,” 1706, a. ii. s. 1. “Arabella.—Well, this Hampstead’s a charming place, to dance all night at the Wells, and be treated at Mother Huff’s.”

Only a few more celebrities now remain to be disposed of; but they are of such a varied character, and so heterogeneous, that they can scarcely be ranged under any of the former divisions: thus we meet with the stern reformer, Melancthon’s Head, as the sign of an orthodox publican, in Park Street, Derby. Pretty Nell Gwynn occurs on several London public-houses: one in Chelsea, where she must have been well known, since her mother resided in that neighbourhood, and popular tradition allows Nell to have been one of the principal promoters of the erection of the famous hospital there. Another house, named after Charles II.’s favourite mistress, may be observed in Drury Lane, in which street she lived, and where Pepys, on May-day, 1667, saw her “standing at her lodgings door, in her smock sleeves and boddice,” and thought her “a mighty pretty creature.”

The Sir John Oldcastle was a tavern, in Coldbathfields, in the beginning of the last century; near this house, Bagford and a Mr Conyers, an antiquarian apothecary of Fleet Street, discovered the skeleton of an elephant in a gravel pit.[118] This house is also named in the following bill:—[119]

“All gentlemen, who are lovers of the ancient and noble exercise of archery, are hereby invited, by the stewards of the annual feast for the Clerkenwell Archers, to dine with them at Mrs Mary Barton’s, at the sign of Sir John Oldcastle, upon Friday, the 18th day of July 1707, at one of the clock, and to pay the bearer, Thomas Beaumont, Master of the Regiment of Archers, two shillings and sixpence, and to take a sealed ticket, that the certain number may be known, and provision made accordingly.

Nathaniel Axtell, Esq. Edward Bromwick, Gent. } Stewards.”

Opposite this house stood the Lord Cobham’s Head, as appears from the Daily Advertiser for August 9, 1742, which contains an advertisement puff of this place, praising its beer at 3d. a tankard, and mentioning the concert and illuminations. The correspondent concludes his letter by saying: “Note.—In seeing this great preparation, I thought it a duty incumbent upon me to inform my fellow-citizens and others, that they may distinguish this place from any pretended concerts, which are nothing but noise and nonsense, in particular, one that is rightly-styled the Hog-concert,” &c.

Both these houses were named after “the Good Lord Cobham,”—Sir John Oldcastle, who married the heiress of the Cobham family—the first author, as well as the first martyr of noble family in England. Being one of the Lollards, he was accused of rebellion, hanged in chains, and burned alive at St Giles in the Fields, in December 1417. Lord Cobham’s estates were close to the site of these two public-houses, which were supposed to comprise a part of the ancient mansion of that nobleman.

The Sir Paul Pindar public-house, in Bishopsgate Street Without, is all that remains of the splendid mansion of the rich merchant of that name, who had here a beautiful park, well stocked with game. The house continues almost in its original state, in the Cinque Cento style of ornament; the best part of it is the façade. In “Londiniana,” ii. p. 137, is an engraving of a lodge, standing in Half-Moon Alley, ornamented with figures, which tradition says was the keeper’s lodge of Sir Paul Pindar’s Park. Mulberry trees, and other park-like vestiges, were still within memory in 1829. In Pennant’s time it was already a public-house, having for a sign, “a head, called that of the original owner.” Sir Paul was a contemporary of Gresham, the founder of the Exchange. He travelled much, and by that means acquired many languages, which, at that time, was a sure way to advancement. James I. sent him as ambassador to the Sultan, from whom he obtained valuable concessions for the English trade throughout the Turkish dominions. After his return, he was appointed farmer of the customs, and frequently advanced money to King James, and afterwards to Charles I. In 1639 he was esteemed worth £236,000, exclusive of bad debts. He expended £19,000 in repairing St Paul’s Cathedral, and contributed large sums to various charities, yet, strange to say, died insolvent, Aug. 22, 1650, the year after his royal master had been beheaded. His executor, William Toomes, was so shocked at the hopeless state of Sir Paul’s affairs, that he committed suicide, and was buried with all the degrading ceremonies of a felo-de-se.

The Welch Head was the sign of a low public-house in Dyot Street, St Giles. In the last century there was a mendicants’ club held here, the origin of which dated as far back as 1660, at which time they used to hold their meetings at the Three Crowns in the Poultry. Saunders Welch was one of the justices of the peace for Westminster, and kept a regular office for the police of that district, in which he succeeded Fielding. He died Oct. 31, 1784, and lies buried in the church of St George’s, Bloomsbury. He was a very popular magistrate: a story is told that in 1766 he went unattended into Cranbourne Alley, to quell the riotous meetings of the journeymen shoemakers there, who had struck for an advance of wages. One of the crowd soon recognised him, when they at once mounted him on a beer barrel, and patiently listened to all that he had to say. He quieted the rioters, and prevailed upon the master shoemakers to grant an additional allowance to the workmen. This little incident, joined to his well-known benevolence, and skill in capturing malefactors, gave him that popularity which rewards by a signboard fame.

The Bedford Head, Covent Garden, represented the head of one of the Dukes of Bedford, ground landlords of that district. Pope twice alludes to this tavern, as a place where to obtain a delicate dinner. This house Mr Cunningham[120] suspects to have occupied the north-east corner of the Piazza, and there it appears in a view of old Covent Garden, about 1780, preserved in the “Crowle Pennant,” (vii. p. 25.) There was another Bedford Head in Southampton Street, which was kept by Wildman, the brother-in-law of Horne Tooke. A Liberal club used to meet at this house, of which Wilkes was a member, for several years. There is still a Bedford Head in Maiden Lane, hard by, at which the Reunion Literary Club is held.

Under the historical signs may be ranged a class of more modern signs, referring to local celebrities,—“mighty hunters before the Lord” probably—such as Captain Harmer, White Horse Plain, Yarmouth; Captain Ross on Clinker, at Natland, a village in Westmoreland; Captain Digby (the name of a vessel wrecked), at St Peter’s, Margate; Colonel Linskill, Charlotte Street, North Shields, &c.

The Don Cossack, so frequently seen, dates from the celebrity acquired by those troops in the extermination of the unfortunate half-starved and frozen soldiers, on their retreat from Moscow; though a more intimate acquaintance with the formidable Cossacks, during the Crimean campaign, considerably damaged their ancient reputation. The signs of the Druid, the Druid’s Head, the Druid and Oak, and the Royal Arch Druid, are more to be attributed to various kinds of masonic brotherhoods, than as a mark of respect paid to our aboriginal clergy. The Union originated with the union of Ireland with this kingdom; the Jubilee dates from the centenary of the revolution of 1688, held with considerable pomp and national rejoicing, in 1788. The Hero of Switzerland, Loughborough Road, Brixton, and in a few other places, refers to William Tell; and the Spanish Patriot, (Lambeth Lower Marsh and White Conduit Street,) dates from the excitement of our proposed intervention in the Spanish Succession question, in 1833. The Spanish Galleon, Church Street, Greenwich, simply owes its origin to the pictures of our naval victories in the Greenwich Hospital.

These, then, are some of the principal and most curious historic signs. From the perusal of this catalogue, we can draw one conclusion—namely, that only a few of what we have termed “historical signs,” outlive the century which gave them birth. If the term of their duration extends over this period, there is some chance that they will remain in popular favour for a long time. Thus, in the case of most heroes of the last century, few publicans certainly will know anything about the Marquis of Granby, Admiral Rodney, or the Duke of Cumberland, yet their names are almost as familiar as the Red Lion, or the Green Dragon, and have indeed become public-household words. Once that stage past, they have a last chance of continuing another century or two—namely, when those heroes are so completely forgotten, that the very mystery of their names becomes their recommendation; such as the Grave Morris, the Will Sommers, the Jack of Newbury, &c.

CHAPTER III.
HERALDIC AND EMBLEMATIC SIGNS.

Royalty stands prominently at the head of the heraldic signs in its triple hieroglyphic of the Crown, (no coronets ever occur,) the King’s or Queen’s Arms, and the various royal badges.

The Crown seems to be one of the oldest of English signs. We read of it as early as 1467, when a certain Walter Walters, who kept the Crown in Cheapside, made an innocent Cockney pun, saying he would make his son heir to the Crown, which so displeased his gracious majesty, King Edward IV., that he ordered the man to be put to death for high treason.

The Crown Inn at Oxford was kept by Davenant, (Sir William Davenant’s father.) Shakespeare, on his frequent journeys between London and his native place, generally put up at this inn, and the malicious world said that young Davenant (the future Sir William) was somewhat nearer related to him than as a godson only. One day, when Shakespeare was just arrived, and the boy sent for from school to see him, a master of one of the colleges, pretty well acquainted with the affairs of the family, asked the boy why he was going home in so much haste, who answered, that he was going to see his godfather Shakespeare. “Fie, child,” said the old gentleman, “why are you so superfluous? Have you not learnt yet that you should not use the name of God in vain?”

On the site occupied by the present Bank of England there used to stand four taverns; one of them bore the sign of the Crown, and was certainly in a good line of business, for, according to Sir John Hawkins,[121] it was not unusual in those toping days to draw a butt (120 gallons) of mountain in half-pints in the course of a single morning.

About the same period there was another Crown Tavern in Duck Lane, W. Smithfield. One of the rooms in that house was decorated by Isaac Fuller (ob. 1672) with pictures of the Muses, Pallas, Mars, Ajax, Ulysses, &c. Ned Ward praises them highly in his “London Spy.” “The dead figures appeared with such lively majesty that they begot reverence in the spectators towards the awful shadows!” Such painted rooms in taverns were not uncommon at that period.

The origin of the sign of the Three Crowns is thus accounted for by Bagford:[122]—“The mercers trading with Collen (Cologne) set vp ther singes ouer ther dores of ther Houses the three kinges of Collen, with the Armes of that Citye, which was the Three Crouens of the former kinges, in memory of them, and by those singes the people knew in what wares they deld in.” Afterwards, like all other signs, it was used promiscuously, and thus it gave a name to a good old-fashioned inn in Lichfield, the property of Dr Johnson, and the very next house to that in which the doctor was born.

Frequently the Royal Crown is combined with other objects, to amplify the meaning, or to express some particular prerogative; such are the Crown and Cushion, being the Crown as it is carried before the king in coronation, and other ceremonies. We even meet with the Two Crowns and Cushions; that is, the Crown for the King and for the Queen, which was the sign of a Mr Arne, an upholsterer in Covent Garden, the hero of several Tatlers and Spectators, and father of the celebrated musician and composer, Dr Arne. This political upholsterer also figures in a farce by Murphy, entitled “The Upholsterer; or what news?” The four Indian princes referred to in Tatler, No. 155, who came to England in the reign of Queen Anne, to implore the help of the British Government against the encroachments of the French in Canada, seem to have lodged in this man’s house,—a circumstance frequently alluded to in the papers of the Tatler and other periodicals of the time.

The Crown and Glove refers to the well-known ceremony of the Royal Champion at the Coronation. It occurs as a sign at Stannington, Sheffield, Eastgate Row, South Chester, &c. The Royal Champion himself figures in George Street, Oxford. In the Gazetteer for August 20, 1784, we find an anecdote recorded concerning the Royal Champion, which is almost too good to be true:—“At the coronation of King William and Queen Mary, the Champion of England dressed in armour of complete and glittering steel; his horse richly caparisoned, and himself, and beaver finely capped with plumes of feathers, entered Westminster Hall while the King and Queen were at dinner. And, at giving the usual challenge to any one that disputed their majesties’ right to the crown of England, (when he has the honour to drink the Sovereign’s health out of a golden cup, always his fee,) after he had flung down his gauntlet on the pavement, an old woman, who entered the hall on crutches, (which she left behind her,) took it up, and made off with great celerity, leaving her own glove, with a challenge in it to meet her the next day at an appointed hour in Hyde Park. This occasioned some mirth at the lower end of the hall: and it was remarkable that every one was too well engaged to pursue her. A person in the same dress appeared the next day at the place appointed, though it was generally supposed to be a good swordsman in that disguise. However, the Champion of England politely declined any contest of that nature with the fair sex, and never made his appearance.”

The Crown and Sceptre, another of the royal insignia, is named by Misson[123] in the following incident:—“Butler, the keeper of the Crown and Sceptre tavern, in St Martin’s Lane, told me that there was a tun of red port drunk at his wife’s burial, besides mulled white wine. Note.—No men ever goe to women’s burials, nor the women to the men’s; so that there were none but women at the drinking of Butler’s wine. Such women in England will hold it out with the men, when they have a bottle before them, as well as upon th’ other occasion, and tattle infinitely better than they.”

The Crown and Mitre, indicative of royalty and the church, is the sign of a High Church publican at Taunton; and the Bible and Crown has for more than a century and a half been the sign of Rivingtons the publishers. (See under Religious Signs.) The King and Parliament are represented by the well-known Crown and Woolpack, which at Gedney Holbeach, in Lincolnshire, has been corrupted into the Crown and Woodpecker. The Crown and Tower, at Taunton, may refer to the regalia kept in the Tower, or to the king being “a tower of strength.” A similar symbol seems to be intended in the Crown and Column, Ker Street, Devonport, perhaps implying the strength of royalty when supported by a powerful and united nation.

The Crown and Anchor, the well-known badge of the Navy, is a great favourite. One of the most famous taverns with this sign was in the Strand, where Dr Johnson often used to “make a night of it.” “Soon afterwards,” says Boswell, “in 1768, he supped at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, with a company whom I collected to meet him. There were Dr Percy, now bishop of Dromore; Dr Douglas, now bishop of Salisbury; Mr Langton; Dr Robertson, the historian; Dr Hugh Blair, and Mr Thomas Davis.” On this occasion the great doctor was unusually colloquial, and according to his amiable custom “tossed and gored several persons.”

The famous “Crown and Anchor Association” against so-called Republicans and Levellers—as the reformers were styled by the ministerial party in 1792—owed its name to this tavern. Its rise and progress is rather curious: it was undertaken at the instance of Pitt and Dundas, by John Reeves, a barrister. Reeves, at first, could get no one to join him, but, to meet the wishes of his employers, used to go to the Crown and Anchor, draw up some resolutions, pass them nem. con., and sign them John Reeves, chairman: thus being in his own person, meeting, chairman, and secretary. In this way they were inserted in all the papers of the three kingdoms, the expense being no object to the persons concerned. Meetings of the counties were advertised, but the first, second, and third consisted of Reeves alone, and it was not till the fourth meeting that he had any coadjutors. The political effervescence created by this society, its imitations and branches, form part of the history of the nation.

In the year 1800 the Farming Society proposed to have an experimental dinner in order to ascertain the relative qualities of the various breeds of cattle in the kingdom; the dinner was planned and patronised by Sir John Sinclair, and the execution intrusted to Mr Simpkins, landlord of the Crown and Anchor, who sent a tender of the most Brobdignagian dinner probably ever heard of. Twelve kinds of oxen and sheep of the most famous breed, eight kinds of pork, and various specimens of poultry, were to bleed as victims in this holocaust to the devil of gluttony; the fish was only to be from fresh waters, such as were “entitled to the attention of British farmers;” there were various kinds of vegetables, nine sorts of bread, besides veal, lamb, hams, poultry, tarts and puddings, all of which were to be washed down by a variety of strong and mild ales, stout, cider, Perry, and “British” spirits. Tickets one guinea each.[124]

The Anchor and Crown was also the sign of the great booth at Greenwich fair; it was 323 feet long, and 60 feet wide, was used for dancing, and could easily accommodate 2000 persons at a time. The other booths also had signs; amongst them were the Royal Standard, the Lads of the Village, the Black Boy and Cat, the Moonrakers, and others.

The Crown and Dove, Bridewell Street, Bristol, may refer to the order of the Holy Ghost, or may have been suggested by the Three Pigeons and Sceptre.

Objects of various trades, with a crown above them, were very common: the Crown and Fan was an ordinary fan-maker’s sign.[125] The Crown and Rasp, belonging to snuff-makers, occurs as the sign of Fribourg and Treyer, tobacconists, at the upper end of Pall Mall, near the Haymarket, in 1781: it is still to be seen on the façade of the house. The oldest form of taking snuff was to scrape it with a rasp from the dry root of the tobacco plant; the powder was then placed on the back of the hand and so snuffed up; hence the name of râpé (rasped) for a kind of snuff, and the common tobacconist’s sign of LA CAROTTE D’OR, (the golden root,) in France. The rasps for this purpose were carried in the waistcoat pocket, and soon became articles of luxury, being carved in ivory and variously enriched. Some of them, in ivory and inlaid wood, may be seen at the Hôtel Cluny in Paris, and an engraving of such an object occurs in “Archæologia,” vol. xiii. One of the first snuff-boxes was the so-called râpé, or grivoise box, at the back of which was a little space for a piece of the root, whilst a small iron rasp was contained in the middle. When a pinch was wanted, the root was drawn a few times over the iron rasp, and so the snuff was produced and could be offered to a friend with much more grace than under the above-mentioned process with the pocket grater.

The Crown and Last originated with shoemakers, but the gentle craft having the reputation of being thirsty souls, it was also adopted as an alehouse sign: we find it as such in 1718:—

“ON Easter Monday, at the Crown and Last at Primlico (sic) in Chelsea road, a silver watch, value 30 sh., is to be bowled for; three bowls for six pence, to begin at Eight of the clock in the morning and continues till Eight in the evening. N.B.—They that win the watch may have it or 30s.”[126]

The Crown and Halbert was, in 1790, the sign of a cutler in St Martin’s Churchyard;[127] the Crown and Can occurs in St John Street; and the Crown and Trumpet at Broadway, Worcester: this last may either allude to the trumpet of the royal herald, or simply signify a crowned trumpet.

Of the King’s Arms, and the Queen’s Arms, there are innumerable instances; they are to be found in almost every town or village. The story is told that a simple clodhopper once walked ever so many miles to see King George IV. on one of his journeys, and came home mightily disgusted, for the king had arms like any other man, while he had always understood that his majesty’s right arm was a lion and his left arm a unicorn.

Grinling Gibbons, the celebrated carver and sculptor, lived at the sign of the King’s Arms in Bow Street, from 1678 until 1721, when he died. This house is alluded to in the Postman, January 24, 1701-2:—

“On Thursday, the house of Mr Gibbons, the carver in Bow Street, fell down, but by special providence none of the family were killed; but, ’tis said, a young girl which was playing in the court being missed, is supposed to be buried in the rubbish.”

At the Haymarket, corner of Pall Mall, stood the Queen’s Arms tavern, in the reign of Queen Anne. At the accession of George I. it was called the King’s Arms, and there, in 1734, the Whig party used to meet to plan opposition to Sir Robert Walpole. This club went by the name of the Rump-steak Club.

Faulkner[128] says that at the King’s Arms, in the High Street, Fulham, the Great Fire of London was annually commemorated on the 1st of September, and had been continued without interruption until his time. It was said to have taken its rise from a number of Londoners who had been burnt out, and who, having no employment, strolled out to Fulham, on their way collecting a quantity of hazel nuts, from the hedges, with which they resorted to this house. A capital picture of the great conflagration used to be exhibited on that day.

In 1568 the prizes of the first lottery held in England were exhibited at the Queen’s Arms in Cheapside, the house of Mr Dericke, goldsmith to Queen Elizabeth. There were no blanks, and the prizes consisted of ready money, and “certain sorts of merchandises having been valued and prized.” It had 400,000 lots of 10s. each, and the profits were to go towards repairing the havens of the kingdom. The drawing was at first intended to have taken place at Dericke’s house, but finally was done at the west door of St Paul’s. The programme of this lottery, printed by Binneman, was exhibited to the Antiquarian Society by Dr Rawlinson in 1748. The next lottery was in 1612. It was drawn on the same plan, and granted by King James, as a special favour, for the establishment of English colonies in Virginia. Thomas Sharpley, a tailor, had the chief prize, which consisted of £4000 of “fair plate.”

“On Friday, April 6,” (1781) says Boswell,[129] “Dr Johnson carried me to dine at a club, which, at his desire, had been lately formed at the Queen’s Arms in St Paul’s Churchyard. He told Mr Hoole that he wished to have a City-club, and asked him to collect one; but, said he, don’t let them be patriots. The company were that day very sensible well-behaved men.” This same tavern was also patronised by Garrick. “Garrick kept up an interest in the city by appearing about twice in a winter at Tom’s coffeehouse in Cornhill, the usual rendezvous of young merchants at Changetimes; and frequented a club established for the sake of his company at the Queen’s Arms Tavern in St Paul’s Churchyard, where were used to assemble Mr Samuel Sharpe, the surgeon; Mr Paterson, the City solicitor; Mr Draper, the bookseller; Mr Clutterbuck, a mercer; and a few others: they were none of them drinkers, and in order to make a reckoning, called only for French wines. These were his standing counsel in theatrical affairs.”[130]

Sometimes we meet with the King’s or Queen’s Arms in very odd combinations; thus in the reign of Queen Anne there was a Queen’s Arms and Corncutter[131] in King Street, Westminster; the sign of Thomas Smith, who, according to his handbill, (in the Bagford collection,) had, “by experience and ingenuity learnt the art of taking out and curing all manner of corns without any pain;” he also sold “the famoustest ware in all England, which never fails curing the toothache in half an hour.” It was customary with those who were “sworn servants to his Majesty,”—i.e., who had the lord chamberlain’s diploma, to set up the royal arms beside their sign. The said Thomas, however, does not appear to have had this honour, for not a word about it is mentioned in his bill, so that he must have set up the Queen’s Arms merely to blind the public. The name of the person who filled the important office of corncutter to Queen Anne, I am afraid is lost to posterity, but, en revanche, we know who drew King Charles II.’s teeth, for the Rev. John Ward has recorded in his Diary.[132] “Upon a sign about Fleetbridge this is written,—‘Here lives Peter de la Roch and George Goslin, both which, and no others, are sworn operators to the king’s teeth.’”

Royal badges, and the supporters of the arms of various kings, were in former times largely used as signs. The following is a list of the supporters:—

• Richard II., Two Angels, (blowing trumpets.)
• Henry IV., Swan and Antelope.
• Henry V., Lion and Antelope.
• Henry VI., Two Antelopes.
• Edward IV., Lion and Bull.
• Edward V., Lion and Hind.
• Richard III., Two Boars.
• Henry VII., Dragon and Greyhound.
• Henry VIII., Lion and Dragon.
• Edward VI., Lion and Dragon.
• Mary, Eagle and Lion.
• Elizabeth, Lion and Dragon.
• James I., Lion and Unicorn, which have continued ever since.

Of early royal badges an interesting list occurs in Harl. MS., 304, f. 12:—

“King Edward the first after the Conquest, sonne to Henry the third, gave a Rose gold, the stalke vert.

“King Edward the iij gave a lyon in his proper coulor, armed azure langued or. The oustrich fether gold, the pen gold, and a faucon in his proper coulor and the Sonne Rising.

“The prince of Wales the ostrich fether pen and all arg.

[109]

“Queen Philipe, wyff of Edward the iij^d. gave the whyte hynd.

“Edmond, Duk of York, sonne of Edward the iij, gave the Faucon arg. and the Fetterlock or.

“Richard the second gave the White hart, armed, horned, crowned or, and the golden son.

“Henry, sonne to the Erl of Derby, first Duk of Lancaster, gave the red rose uncrowned, and his ancestors gave the Fox tayle in his prop. coulor and the ostrich fether ar. the pen ermyn.

“Henry the iiij gave the Swan ar. and the antelope.

“Henry the v gave the Antelope or, armed, crowned, spotted (?) and horned gold and the Red Rose oncrowned and the Swan silver, crown and collar gold, by the Erldom of Herford.

“Henry the vi gave the same that his father gave.

“Edward the iiij gave the Whyte Lyon and the Whyte Rose and the Blak Bull uncrowned.

“Richard the iij gave the Whyte Boar and the Whyte Rose, the clayes gold.

“Henry the seventh gave the hawthorn tree vert and the Porte Cullys and the Red Rose and the Whyte Crowned.

“The Ostrych fether silver, the pen gobone sylver and azur, is the Duk of Somerset’s bage.

“The Shypmast with the tope and sayle down is the bage of . . .

“The Cresset and burnyng fyer is the bage of the Admyraltye.

“The Egle Russet with a maydenshead, abowt her neke a Crowne gold, is the bage of the mannor of Conysborow.

“The Duk of York’s bage is the Faucon and the Fetterlock.

“The Whyte Rose by the Castell of Clyfford.

“The Black Dragon by the Erldom of Ulster.

“The Black Bull horned and clayed gold by the honor of Clare.

“The Whyte Hynd by the fayre mayden of Kent.

“The Whyte Lyon by the Erldom of Marche.

“The ostrych fether silver and pen gold ys the kinges.

“The ostrych fether pen and all sylver ys the Prynces.

“The ostrych fether sylver, pen ermyn is the Duke of Lancasters.

“The ostrych fether sylver and pen gobone is the Duke of Somersets.”

Many of these badges, as will be seen afterwards, have come down on signboards even to the present day. Equally common are the Stuart badges, which were:—

The red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York frequently placed on sunbeams; sometimes the red rose charged with the white.