Chapter VIII (2)

Dii, Deæque, lamentate cuncti, Simonis Vadloe funera defuncti, Sub signo malo bene vixit, mirabile! Si ad cœlum recessit gratias Diaboli.

These lines may be thus rendered:—

Apollo and the Muses nine, Bacchus the god of grapes and wine, Ceres the friend of “cakes and ale,” Assembled, list to my sad tale.

Gods, goddesses, lament ye all, At Simon Wadlow’s funeral, He lived right well tho’ his sign was evil, If heaven he won, ’tis thanks to ‘the Devil.’

Our illustration depicts two innkeepers, who were probably Sim Wadlow’s contemporaries. {209}

During the last century The Devil Tavern was the resort of the wits and literary men of the day. Addison and Dr. Garth often dined here; and Dr. Johnson here once presided at a supper that lasted till dawn peeped in at the windows. The inn was pulled down in the year 1788.

Nearly opposite to the Devil stood the Cock Tavern, for centuries, and until a few months ago, when it was closed for alterations, frequented by the Templars. We hope that it was not for this reason that its internal arrangements were spoken of by the Laureate as—

The haunts of _hungry sinners_, Old boxes, larded with the steam Of thirty thousand dinners.

This Tavern, once known as the Cock and Bottle, and subsequently as the Cock Alehouse, was a noted house in the seventeenth century. The effigy of the Cock, which until recently used to stand over the door, was reputed to have been carved by the great Grinling Gibbons. At the time of the Plague of London the following advertisement appeared in the _Intelligencer_:—“This is to certify that the Master of the Cock and Bottle, commonly called the Cock Alehouse, hath dismissed his servants, and shut up his house for this long vacation, intending (God willing) to return at Michaelmass next, so that all persons who have any accounts {210} or farthings belonging to the said house are desired to repair thither before the 8th of this instant July, and they shall receive satisfaction.” The Cock, however, seems to have soon resumed its hospitality, for we read that Pepys shortly afterwards went “by water to the Temple, and then to the Cock Alehouse, and drank, and ate a lobster, and sang, and mighty merry. So almost night, I carried Mrs. Pierce home; and then Knipp and I to the Temple again, and took boat, it being darkish, and to Foxhall, it being now night, and a bonfire burning at Lambeth for the King’s coronation day.”

A waiter at this house is commemorated in the well-known lines of Will Waterproof’s Monologue:—

O plump head waiter at the Cock
To which I most resort,
How goes the time? ’tis five o’clock,
Go fetch a pint of port.

The old Cock alehouse is now no more; but the sign which for two hundred years has looked down upon the bustling Fleet Street crowds, together with the “old boxes” and carved oak over-mantel, have found a resting-place at “The Temple Bar,” on the other side of the way.

The Mitre was the sign of several celebrated London Taverns, the most famous of all being that situated in Mitre Court, Fleet Street, where Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith, Boswell, and other lesser lights used to meet. It was here that Boswell first made acquaintance with the great Doctor. “He agreed to meet me in the evening at the Mitre. I called on him, and we went thither at nine. We had a good supper and port wine, of which he then sometimes drank a bottle. The orthodox, High Church sound of the Mitre,—the figure and manner of the celebrated Samuel Johnson—the extraordinary power and precision of his conversation, and the pride from finding myself admitted as his companion, produced a variety of sensations and a pleasing elevation of mind beyond what I had ever experienced.” The great name of Shakspere is also connected by tradition with this house.

The old Globe Tavern in Fleet Street survived down to about the beginning of the present century. It was the favourite resort of Oliver Goldsmith, who took great delight in hearing a certain “tun of a man,” who frequented the house, sing the song entitled _Nottingham Ale_, in which Bacchus himself is said to have sprung from a barrel of that famous liquor:— {211}

Fair Venus, the Goddess of beauty and love, Arose from the froth that swam on the sea, Minerva leap’d out of the cranium of Jove, A coy sullen slut, as most authors agree; Bold Bacchus they tell us, the prince of good fellows, Was his natural son, but attend to my tale, For they that thus chatter mistake quite the matter, He sprang from a barrel of Nottingham Ale, Nottingham Ale, boys; Nottingham Ale; no liquor on earth is like Nottingham Ale.

This song was a great favourite in the eighteenth century, and was sung to the tune of “Lilabolero.”

The Crown and Anchor in the Strand was one of the most famous houses in London during the first part of the present century. A tragic story is related of how one Thomas Simpkin, the first landlord after the rebuilding of the house in 1790, on the occasion of an inaugural dinner, in leaning over a balcony to look into the street, broke the balustrade and, falling to the ground, was killed on the spot. Here were held the famous Westminster political meetings, and here the birthday of Fox was celebrated in 1794, when two thousand persons sat down to dinner. Many another tavern in this region so famous for houses of entertainment, brings back memories of the past, but space forbids us to linger over the recital.

John Taylor, the Water Poet (poeta Aquaticus, as he was fond of calling himself), who was the author of many whimsical works in prose as well as verse, was a Thames waterman, and the keeper of an alehouse in Phœnix Alley, Long Acre. It is related of him that on the death of Charles I. he changed his sign, which had formerly been the Crown, into the Mourning Bush, as expressing his grief and loyalty. He was, however, soon compelled to take this sign down, and he then substituted the Poet’s Head, his own portrait, with this inscription:—

There is many a head hangs for a sign; Then, gentle reader, why not mine?

At the same time he issued the following poetical advertisement:—

My signe was once a Crowne, but now it is Changed by a sudden metamorphosis. The Crowne was taken downe, and in the stead Is placed John Taylor’s, or the Poet’s Head. {212} A painter did my picture gratis make, And (for a signe) I hanged it for his sake. Now if my picture’s drawing can prevayle, ’Twill draw my friends to me, and I’ll draw ale. Two strings are better to a bow than one; And poeting does me small good alone. So ale alone yields but small good to me, Except it have some spice of poesie. The fruits of ale are unto drunkards such, To make ’em sweare and lye that drink too much. But my ale, being drunk with moderation, Will quench thirst and make merry recreation. My booke and signe were published for two ends, T’ invite my honest, civill, sober friends. From such as are not such I kindly pray, Till I send for ’em, let ’em keep away. From Phœnix Alley, the Globe Taverne neare The Middle of Long Acre, I dwell there.

An old dodge of some of the London tavern-keepers was to hang up in a conspicuous place in the taproom, a notice to the effect that no one could have more than one glass at a sitting. The result of this notable device was the very opposite to what one might expect; it is thus quaintly told by old Decker, in his _Seven Deadly Sins, seven times pressed to death_: “Then you have another brewing called Huff’s ale, at which, because no man must have but a pot at a sitting, and so be gone, the restraint makes them more eager to come in, so that by this policie one may huffe it four or five times a day.”

Last century was pre-eminently the century for Clubs, some literary some political, and some purely social, many partaking of all these characters. The October Club, which was so called on account of the quantities of October ale which the members drank, used to meet at the Bell Tavern, King Street, Westminster, and drink confusion to the Whigs. Swift was a member. “We are plagued here,” he writes to Stella, “with an October Club; that is a set of above a hundred Parliament men of the country, who drink October beer at home, and meet every evening at a tavern near the Parliament, to consult affairs and drive matters to extremes against the Whigs, to call the old Ministry to account, and get off five or six heads.”

The Mug Houses, famous early in the last century, were distinguished {213} by the rows of pewter mugs placed in the window, or hung up outside as in the illustration, which is taken from the _Book of Days_. In _A Journey through England_ (1722) the original Mug-house is thus described: “But the most diverting and amusing of all is the Mug-house Club in Long Acre. They have a grave old gentleman, in his own gray hairs, now within a few months of ninety years old, who is their President, and sits in an arm’d chair some steps higher than the rest of the company, to keep the whole room in order. A harp plays all the time at the lower end of the room; and every now and then one or other of the company rises and entertains the rest with a song, and (by-the-by) some are good masters. Here is nothing drunk but ale, and every gentleman hath his separate Mug, which he chalks on the table where he sits as it is brought in; and everyone retires when he pleases as from a Coffee House. The Room is always so diverted with songs, and drinking from one table to another to one another’s healths, that there is no room for Politicks, or anything that can sow’r conversation. One must be there by seven to get Room, and after ten the Company are for the most part gone. This is a Winter’s amusement, that is agreeable enough to a Stranger for once or twice, and he is well diverted with the different Humours, when the Mugs overflow.”

{214}

A few years earlier, however, “Politicks” had much troubled this House and others of which it was the parent. “On King George’s accession,” says the _Mirror_, “the Tories had so much the better of the friends to the Protestant succession, that they gained the mobs on all public days to their side. This induced a set of gentlemen to establish Mug-houses in all the corners of this great city, for well affected tradesmen to meet and keep up the spirit of loylty to the Protestant succession, and to be ready, upon all tumults, to join their forces to put down the Tory mobs.” The frequenters of these houses formed themselves into Mug-house Clubs after the fashion of their prototype, and discussed their Whig sentiments—

“While ale inspires and lends its kindly aid
The thought perplexing labour to pursue.”

Whenever Tory mobs assembled, these disorderly champions of order would sally forth and attack them with sticks and staves and divers other offensive weapons. “So many were the riots,” continues the _Mirror_, “that the police was obliged, by Act of Parliament, to put an end of this City strife, which had this good effect, that upon pulling down of the Mug-house in Salisbury Court, for which some boys were hanged on this Act, the City has not been troubled with them since.”

A still earlier Club, more renowned than any for its marvellous powers of suction, was the Everlasting Club, instituted during the Parliamentary wars; it was so called because it sat night and day, one set of members relieving another. It is recorded of them early in the eighteenth century that “since their first institution they have smoked fifty tons of tobacco, drank thirty thousand butts of ale, one thousand hogsheads of red port, two hundred barrels of brandy, and _one kilderkine of small beer_. They sang old catches at all hours to encourage one another to moisten their clay, and grow immortal by drinking.”

No work on the Curiosities of Ale and Beer would be complete without some notice of signboards. Their connection with taverns and alehouses is so ancient and intimate, and many of them are in themselves so exceedingly curious, that they may be said to constitute some of the chief curiosities of the subject. The history of signboards has been so exhaustively written by Mr. Larwood and Mr. Hotten that it would be superfluous, even if space did not forbid, to present to our readers anything but a slight sketch of so voluminous a subject. {215}

Signboards at the present day may be said to inspire their historian with something of a melancholy feeling. A history of them is a history of a bygone art, which has long passed its zenith, which has served its purpose, and which is destined to decay more and more before the advance of modern education. Truly the glory of signboards is departed! Though one sees here and there a barber’s pole, a golden fleece, and a few other signs of divers trades, innkeepers and alehouse-keepers are the only persons who as a class keep to their old distinctive marks. Formerly, when persons who could read and write were few, every craft and occupation had its own peculiar sign, for the huge letters and notice-boards, now so common, would at that time have been of little use.

There seems to be no doubt that we derived the signboard from the Romans; the old Latin proverb _Vino vendibili suspensa hedera non opus est_ finds its counterpart in the English _Good wine needs no bush_, and the common sign of the Bush is the lineal descendant of the old Roman bunch of ivy. In the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii many examples have been brought to light of signs appropriate to various trades: thus, a goat is the sign of a dairy; a mule driving a mill is the sign of a miller or baker; and two men carrying a large amphora of wine is the sign of the vintner, and brings to mind the well-known English sign of the _Two Jolly Brewers_ carrying a barrel of ale strung on a long pole.

The ale-stake, which was a long pole either attached to the front of the house or standing in the road before the door, seems to have been the first sign in use with English ale-sellers. In early times every person who brewed ale for sale was, as has been already mentioned, compelled by law to exhibit the ale-stake as a signal to the local ale-conner that his services were required. Very early mention is to be found of these signs. In 1393 Florence North, a Chelsea ale-wife, was presented for neglecting to put up an ale-stake in front of her house. Similar allusions are to be found in many early writers. Chaucer’s Pardoner when asked to begin his tale—

“It shall be donn,” quod he, “and that anoon.
But first,” quod he, “here at this ale-stake,
I will both drynke and byten on a cake.”

The accompanying cut is taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century. The figures are doubtless an ale-wife and a pilgrim. {216}

“The ale-pole doth but signifie that there is good ale in the house where the ale-pole standeth,” writes an old author, “and will tell him that he muste go near the house and there he shall find the drinke, and not stand sucking the ale-pole in vayne.” And again:—

For lyke as the jolly ale-house
Is always knowen by the good _ale-stake_,
So are proude jelots sone perceaved, to,
By their proude folly, and wanton gate.

Skelton, writing of the fame of Elynour Rummynge’s “noppy ale,” alludes to the ale-pole thus:—

Another brought her bedes Of jet or of cole, To offer to the _ale-pole_.

In process of time it became usual for the publican to affix some further distinctive mark to his ale-stake. At first a mere bush or bunch of ivy seems to have been used, and in Scotland a wisp of straw long served the same purpose. In Chaucer’s time the bush had developed into an ale-garland of considerable size, as we are informed by the lines:—

A garlond hadde he sette uhede As grete as it wer for an ale-stake.

The signboard and bush shown above are taken from a print of Cheapside in 1638. {217}

Porter’s _Angry Woman_ shows that a mere bush was still frequently used at that period (1599) by the passage: “I might have had a pumpe set up with as good Marche beere as this was and nere set up an ale-bush for the matter,” and the _Country Carbonadoed_ (1632) shows that the bush had not yet become specialised to the use of the wine-seller. Referring to alehouses, it is stated that “if these houses have a boxe-bush, or an old post, it is enough to show their profession, but if they be graced with a signe compleat, it is a signe of good custome.” Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the ivy-bush, the sacred emblem of Bacchus, came to denote that wine as well as ale was sold within. In _Poor Robin’s Perambulation from Saffron Walden to London_ (1678) the author mentions that—

Some ale-houses upon the road I saw, And some with bushes, showing they wine did draw.

The following illustrations represent an ancient road-side alehouse and a hostel by night. The former is taken from a manuscript of the early part of the fifteenth century. The latter is from an illumination in the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ in the Hunterian Library at Glasgow, and is of about the same date. In one a conventional bush appears above the door; while in the other there is both bush and sign. The absence of any night attire other than night-caps—the usual custom of the period—and the number of persons sleeping in one room, are noticeable. Night-caps were no doubt very necessary in an age when glass windows were little used.

The next step in the historical development of the signboard was the addition of a carved and painted effigy of a Swan, a Cock, a Hen, or some other bird or beast. The effigy was fixed in a hoop and hung from the end of the ale-pole, and it is suggested that the term “cock-a-hoop,” signifying a rather offensively jubilant demeanour, may be traced to the attitude of Chanticleer upon the ale-house hoop. Hazlitt gives a different origin to the phrase. Quoting from Blount’s Dictionary (1681), he says: “The Cock was the tap and being taken out {218} and laid on the hoop of the vessel, they used to drink up the ale as it ran out without intermission (in Staffordshire now called stunning a barrel of ale) and then they were _cock-on-hoop_ (_i.e._, at the height of mirth and jolity).” Old Heywood seems to support the latter derivation in the lines:—

He maketh havok and setteth the cock on hoope; He is so lavies, the stooke beginneth to droope.

From the painted effigy to the painted signboard was an easy step, and then began the signboard’s palmy days. If mine host were a man of small imagination, he might still be content with a bush or with the arms of some local magnate, but if he were a man of fancy, his imagination, in quest of a worthy sign, might revel unrestrained through the highways and byways of history ancient and modern, political and natural. The sign was and is usually painted on a board and suspended from the front of the house, or from a sign-post set up in the street in front of the door. In country places signboard ambition went so far as to erect a kind of triumphal arch in front of the house, from the centre of which the signboard swung.

A good example of a signboard stretching across a street may be seen in the illustration of the Black Boy Inn, Chelmsford, which is taken from a print by Ryland of the date 1770. {219}

Even as early as the reign of Henry V. the eagerness of the ale-house keepers to outstrip one another in the size of their signboards had become obnoxious to the authorities. The _Liber Albus_ contains a direction to the Wardmotes of the City of London, to make inquiry whether the ale-stake of any tavern “is longer or extends further than ordinary,” and the Common Council ordained that “whereas the ale-stakes projecting in front of taverns in Chepe, and elsewhere in the said City, extend too far over the King’s highways, to the impeding of riders and others, and by reason of their excessive weight, to the great deterioration of the houses to which they are fixed,” therefore the taverners are ordered that on pain of 40s. fine they shall not have a stake, bearing a sign or leaves extending over the King’s highway, of greater length than seven feet at most.

The restriction on the length of the projecting signboards seems to have been little regarded. Charles I., in his Charter to the City of London, granted on his accession to the throne, permits the use of suspended signs, and the Charter contains no mention of any restriction {220} as to size. The nuisance caused by the extravagant size of signboards at length became very great, and in the reign of Charles II. it was ordained that “in all the streets no signboard shall hang across, but that the sign shall be fixed against the balconies or some convenient part of the side of the house.” Even this specific regulation seems to have been generally disregarded, as we learn from an account written in 1719, by Misson, a French traveller. Speaking of the signs, he says: “At London, they are commonly very large, and jut out so far, that in some narrow streets they touch one another; nay, and run across almost quite to the other side. They are generally adorned with carving and gilding; and there are several that, with the branches of iron which support them, cost above a hundred guineas. . . . . Out of London, and particularly in villages, the signs of inns are suspended in the middle of a great wooden portal, which may be looked upon as a kind of triumphal arch to the honour of Bacchus.”

About the middle of last century various Acts of Parliament were passed, the result of which was that London signboards have from that time been fixed to the face of the house, and are no longer allowed to project over the street.

We must go to the country districts, and best of all to one of our old cathedral towns, to see really old-fashioned signs. In some cases a signboard may still be seen hanging beneath beautifully scrolled iron work, from which in more artistic days the “ale-house painted signs” depended. Even in such a stronghold of conservative and antiquarian feeling as a cathedral city, these relics of the past are yearly becoming more and more scarce, though in those out-of-the-world places, where a change in the situation of the parochial pump must be preceded by about a proportionate amount of discussion as would attend the proposal to make a new underground railway for London, the removal of an old signboard is usually a matter causing grave public agitation. The authors of the _History of Signboards_ have given an account of the demolition of the time-honoured sign of Sir John Falstaff, which for many a generation had gladdened the hearts of the good citizens of Canterbury. However, as a matter of fact, the signboard was only removed to be repainted, and in spite of the orders of Local Boards and City Authorities, in spite of law suits and various other disagreeable attempts at persuasion, the owner of the house has persisted in maintaining in its place this fine old sign with its elaborate iron-work, and there to this day may the gallant knight be seen, with sword and buckler, ready to make instant assault on those men in buckram, or on any other foes. {221}

The close connection that existed between the profession of host and the signboard, may be judged from the fact that the publican who was deprived of his licence also had his sign removed by the minions of the law. _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_ illustrates this fact in the lines—

For this gross fault I here do damn thy licence, Forbidding thee ever to tap or draw; For instantly I will in mine own person Command the constables to pull down thy sign.

In 1629 one Price was forbidden to open a certain house in Leadenhall Street as a tavern, “whiche house was heretofore never used for a taverne, and standeth unfitly for that purpose, being neare unto the Church and two auncient tavernes already neere unto the same in the same streete.” Price, however, persisted, and accordingly the Common Council issued orders for the closing of his doors and the taking down of his bush.

Probably the most elaborate signboard that ever existed, a marvel even in the palmy days of signs, was hung before The White Hart at Scole, in Norfolk. Sir Thomas Brown mentions it in the year 1663. “About three miles further,” he says, “I came to Scoale, where there is a very handsome inne, and the noblest signnepost in England, about and upon which are carved a great many stories as of Charon and Cerberus, Actæon and Diana, and many others; the signe itself is a White Hart, which hanges downe carved in a stately wreath.” This king of signboards was built in the year 1655 by James Peck, a merchant of Norwich, and is said to have cost over £1,000. It was in existence up till the end of the last century.

Goldsmith, in making some comments on the influence of signs, relates how “an alehouse keeper, near Islington, who had long lived at the sign of the French King, upon the commencement of the last war, pulled down his old sign and put up that of the Queen of Hungary. Under the influence of her red face and golden sceptre, he continued to sell ale, till she was no longer the favourite of his customers; he changed her, therefore, some time ago, for the King of Prussia, who may probably be changed in turn for the next great man that shall be set up for vulgar admiration.”

An anecdote is related which illustrates the danger incurred by altering a sign. It seems that the landlord of the Magpie and Crown in Aldgate, a house famous for its ale, was minded to discard {222} the Magpie and to have his house known by the sign of the Crown only. He did so, and the results were disastrous, for the customers fancied that the Crown ale did not taste as good as that formerly sent out from the Magpie and Crown, and the custom fell off. The landlord died, and the business came into the hands of a waiter of the house, one Renton, who restored the Magpie to his old place on the signboard, and with such good effect that on his death the ex-waiter left behind him an estate worth some £600,000, chiefly the produce of the Magpie and Crown ale.

Space only permits that we should mention a very few of the more curious signs in use. The Pig and Whistle is said to be a corruption of the old sign the Peg and Wassail, alluding to the peg-tankards introduced in Saxon times. The Goose and Gridiron is a whimsical variation on the Swan and Harp, which was once common, the inartistic execution of the latter sign no doubt affording the suggestion. The Tumbling Down Dick is supposed to be a derisive sign commemorating the fall of Richard Cromwell.

Then Dick, being lame, rode holding the pummel,
Not having the wit to get hold of the rein;
But the jade did so snort at the sight of a Cromwell,
That poor Dick and his kindred turn’d footmen again.

The Crooked Billet is a sign for which it is difficult to suggest an explanation. It is generally represented by a rough untrimmed stick hanging before the door. Near Bridlington is one such, to which are appended the following lines:—

When this comical stick grew in the wood Our ale was fresh and very good; Step in and taste, O do make haste, For if you don’t ’twill surely waste.

On the other side is the verse:—

When you have viewed the other side, Come read this too before you ride, And now to end we’ll let it pass; Step in, kind friends, and take a glass.

The Bull and Mouth, a favourite London sign in former days, and one still to be found, is represented by a huge gaping mouth and a small black bull just within its verge. This sign dates from the time of {223} Henry VIII., and celebrates his capture of Boulogne Harbour, or Boulogne Mouth. The Beetle and Wedge at first sight seems a very strange association, but when we remember Shakspere’s line,

Filip me with a three-man beetle,

the matter is clear enough. The “three-man beetle” was a hammer or mallet wielded by three men and used for pile driving. The three Lubberheads is a corruption of the three Libbards’ Heads, “libbard” being a popular form of the word leopard; Falstaff is “invited to dinner at the Libbard’s Head in Lumbert Street to Master Smooth’s the silkman.” The Two Pots was the sign under which the far-famed ale-wife, Eleanor Rumyng, brewed her “noppy ale” at Leatherhead, where, according to Skelton, she made

thereof fast sale,
To travellers, to tinkers,
To sweaters, to swinkers,
And all good ale drinkers.

The Stewponey Inn, between Kinver and Stourbridge, might suggest to some that the Parisian Hippophagic Society was not much of a novelty after all. It is therefore rather disappointing to find that the name is a popular version of the Stourponte Inn, so called from a bridge over the Stour hard by.

The Four Alls, though probably once the sign of a house frequented by the fraternity of Cobblers, now generally presents itself in the following lines with suitable illustrations:—

The Ploughman works for All, The Parson prays for All, The Soldier fights for All, And the Farmer pays for All.

It seems sad to think that in some places a pessimistic Publican has added a fifth “All,” the picture representing the Prince of Darkness, rampant, and looking anything but “a gentleman,” with the grim legend writ beneath that he “takes All.” Old Pick-my-Toe would seem to be a popular perversion of the Roman fable of the faithful slave who carried his message before he stooped to remove the thorn which was all the while in his foot. The Shoe and Slap was an old sign, the “Slap” being a lady’s shoe with a loose sole. {224}

A poetical landlord or a poetical customer has frequently produced verses, more or less appropriate, for a signboard. We give a selection of these effusions. At an inn at Norwich, known as the Waterman, kept by a barber, this couplet is written under the sign:—

Roam not from pole to pole, but step in here, Where nought excels the shaving but the beer.

At an Inn at Collins’ End, where the unfortunate King Charles, while a prisoner at Caversham, is said to have played at bowls, are these lines:—

Stop, traveller, stop; in yonder peaceful glade, His favourite game the royal martyr played; Here stripped of honours, children, freedom, rank, Drank from the bowl and bowled for what he drank; Sought in a cheerful glass his cares to drown, And changed his guinea ere he lost his crown.

The Robin Hood and Little John is not an uncommon sign in that part of the country which was the scene of their exploits, and where their fame still lingers. The sign is frequently accompanied with a rhyme, of which the following is a specimen:—

To Gentlemen and Yeomen good, Come in and drink with Robin Hood, If Robin Hood is not at home, Come in and drink with Little John.

A tale is told of how a poor author, who was once staying at the sign of the White Horse on the Old Bath Road, after partaking rather heartily of the good cheer provided, found that he could not discharge the _shot_. In recompense to his host for letting him off, he wrote beneath his signboard the lines:—

My White Horse shall beat the Bear,
And make the Angel fly;
Shall turn the Ship quite bottom up,
And drink the Three Cups dry.

In consequence, it is alleged, of this facetious praise of his own house at the expense of his rivals, mine host got a good deal of their custom. On one of the windows of the same White Horse was written:— {225}

His liquor’s good, his pot is just, The Landlord’s poor, and cannot trust; For he has trusted to his sorrow, So pay to-day, he’ll trust to-morrow.

These lines occur on the signboard of the Waggon and Horses, Brighton:—

Long have I travelled far and near, On purpose to find out good beer, And at last I’ve found it here.

The couplet, written on a signboard at Chadderton, near Manchester, seems, at any rate from the outside of the Inn, to be what a logician might call a _non sequitur_:—

Although the engine’s smoke be black, If you walk in I’ve ale like sack.

The following doggerel inscription is said in the _Year Book_ to have been written over the door of an ale house between Sutton and Potton, in Bedfordshire:—

Butte Beere, Solde Hear, by Timothy Dear. Cum. tak. a. mugg of mye. trinker. cum trink. Thin. a. ful. Kart. of mye. verry. stron. drink Harter, that. trye. a. cann. of mye. titter, cum. tatter And. wynde. hup. withe, mye. sivinty-tymes weaker, thin, water.

At Creggin, Montgomeryshire, the Rodney Pillar Inn is distinguished by a double signboard, on one side of which is the following verse:—

Under these trees, in sunny weather, Just try a cup of ale, however; And if in tempest, or in storm, A couple then to make you warm: But when the day is very cold. Then taste a mug a twelvemonth old.

On the reverse are these lines:—

Rest and regale yourself, ’tis pleasant, Enough is all the present need, That’s the due of the hardy peasant, Who toils all sorts of men to feed. {226} Then muzzle not the ox when he treads out the corn, Nor grudge honest labour its pipe and its horn.

Another queer old inscription is the following:—

John Uff Sells good ale and that’s enough; A mistake here, Sells foreign spirits as well as beer.

At a public-house in Devonshire the landlord has painted outside his door, “Good beer sold here, but don’t take my word for it;” and at the Bell Inn, Oxford, kept by John Good, are these lines:—

My name, likewise my ale, is Good, Walk in and taste my own home brew’d, For all that know John Good can tell That like my sign it bears the Bell.

One more example of Boniface’s wit must conclude this notice of Signboard poesy. At a public-house in Sussex, the sign of which is the White Horse, there is painted under the figure of that animal the couplet:—

To the roadsters who enter a welcome he snorts, While they fill up his quarters and empty his quarts.

In addition to signboard verses, inscriptions within the alehouse are by no means uncommon. Burns, who was fond of this style of composition, inscribed these lines on the window of the Globe Tavern at Dumfries:—

The grey-beard, old wisdom, may boast of his treasures,
Give me with gay folly to live;
I grant him his calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures,
But Folly has raptures to give.

Dowie’s Tavern, in Libberton’s Wynd, Edinburgh, was the favourite resort of Burns, and is said by the able recorder of the _Traditions of Edinburgh_ “to have been formerly as dark and plain an old-fashioned house as any drunken lawyer of the last century could have wished to nestle in.” {227}

Dowie’s was much resorted to by the Lords of Session for “Meridians,” as well as in the evening for its Edinburgh ale. The ale was Younger’s. That brewer, together with his friends, instituted a Club there, which they sportively called the “College of Doway.” Johnnie Dowie is described as having been the sleekest and kindest of landlords. Nothing could equal the benignity of his smile when he brought in a bottle of “the Ale” to a company of well-known and friendly customers. It was a perfect treat to see his formality in drawing the cork, his precision in filling the glasses, his regularity in drinking the healths of all present in the first glass (which he always did, and at every successive bottle), and then his douce civility in withdrawing. Johnnie always wore a cocked hat, and buckles at knees and shoes, as well as a crutched cane.[52] Not so polished as Burns’ verses, but perhaps more suited to the Genius loci, are the lines written up in a certain old tap-room:—

He that doath upon the table sit, A pot of porter shall for-fe-it.

[52] Hone’s Year Book.

The following additional specimens of tap-room verse are typical of their kind, and may be said to contain the be-all and end-all of the host’s proverbial philosophy. The first is taken from an Inn at Sittingbourne, where it hangs framed and glazed over the door:—

Call frequently, Drink moderately, Pay honourably, Be good company, Part friendly, Go home quietly.

The second is longer, but perhaps not quite so comprehensive:—

All you that bring tobacco here, Must pay for pipes as well as beer; And you that stand before the fire, I pray sit down by good desire; {228} That other folks as well as you, May see the fire and feel it too. Since man to man is so unjust, I cannot tell what man to trust: My Liquor’s good, ’tis no man’s sorrow, Pay to-day. I’ll trust to-morrow.

It may not be amiss to devote a few lines to the signboard artists. The following passage in _Whimzies: or a New Cast of Characters_ (1631) gives an early example of the way in which many a village signboard has been painted. “He (a painter) bestowes his Pencile on an aged piece of decayed canvas in a sooty ale-house, when _Mother Redcap_ must be set out in her Colours. Here hee and his barmy Hostess drew both together, but not in like nature; she in _Ale_, he in _Oyle_, but her commoditie goes better downe, which he meanes to have his full share of, when his worke is done. If she aspire to the Conceite of a Signe, and desire to have her Birch-pole pulled downe, he will supply her with one.”

It seems that in the last century, the palmy days of signboards, the best signs were produced by the coach-painters, who derived their skill from the custom amongst the wealthy of having their coach panels decorated with a variety of subjects.

Artists of renown have lent their genius to this branch of art. Hogarth painted a sign called the Man loaded with Mischief, and this sign is still in existence in an alehouse in Oxford Street; it represents a man bearing on his back and shoulders a woman, a magpie and an ape. A similar painting may be seen before an inn on the road to Madingley, about a mile from Cambridge. Richard Wilson, R.A., painted a sign called The Loggerheads, which has given its name to a village near Mold, in North Wales. The Royal Oak, by David Cox, which is the sign of an inn at Bettws-y-Coed, is well known to all lovers of North Wales, and was a few years ago the subject of a law-suit. At Wargrave, a pretty Thames-side village near Henley, is an inn called the George and Dragon. One side of its sign was painted by Mr. G. D. Leslie, R.A., who has chosen the battle with the dragon for his subject. The other side was painted by Mr. Hodgson, A.R.A., and is a representation of St. George refreshing himself with a pot of beer after the mighty encounter.

Not often, however, has the signboard been so fortunate as to obtain the attention of such masters of the limner’s art. {229}

In the vast majority of cases the village sign-painter has been a person of limited ideas and but small skill, painting and re-painting the old familiar patterns. The following tale is related illustrative of this conservative bent of the sign-painter’s mind.

A pious old couple, who had taken a Public wherein they hoped peacefully to end their days, determined that they would not have any of your common wordly signs, such as the Crown, the Blue Boar, and the like, but something of a quite uncommon and even of a quasi-religious nature, and after much cogitation their choice fell upon the title of the Angel and Trumpet. The village sign-painter was summoned to the conclave, and the case was solemnly opened to him.

Landlord: “Well, John, me and my missis have been thinking about this sign, and we hear as you’re up to painting amost anythink.”

Sign Painter (with proper professional pride): “Yes, mister, I can do you pretty well what you like; the Red Lion, and so as that.”

L.: “No, John, that a’n’t quite what we wants. Me and my missis has been a-thinking as we’d like to have the Angel and Trumpet. Now, can you do it?”

S. P. (doubtfully): “Well, mister, I can do un; but you’d better by half have the Red Lion; it’s a dell a thirstier sign.”

L. (with decision): “No, John, we must have the Angel and Trumpet, so if you can’t do un, say so, and we must get some un as can.”

S. P. (driven to bay): “All right; I’ll paint the Angel and Trumpet, but (aside) I specs it’ll be a good dell like the Red Lion.”

Unfortunately the history breaks off at this point, and we are left in doubt as to the result. The troubles of the unfortunate sign-painter may be imagined; the unwilling hands striving to depict the benign features of the angel; the fierce and truculent visage of the lion making its appearance, whether the artist would or not.

The unskilfulness of the signboard painter has even been considered of sufficient importance to form the subject of a Royal Proclamation. Our good Queen Bess, with that vigour of language which endeared her to the hearts of her faithful subjects, and proved her to be her father’s daughter, issued an order, “that portraits of herself, made by unskilful and common painters, should be knocked in pieces, and cast into the fire.” The reasons for this summary treatment, and also a promised remedy for the woes of her faithful subjects, thus deprived of the counterfeit presentment of her most gracious Majesty, are set forth in a proclamation shortly afterwards issued. “Forasmuch” said this weighty {230} document, “as thrugh the natural desire that all sorts of subjects and people, both noble and mean, have to procure the portrait and picture of the Queen’s Majestie, great nomber of Paynters, and some Printers, and Gravers, have already, and doe daily, attempt to make in divers manners portraictures of hir Majestie, in paynting, graving and prynting, wherein is evidently shown, that hytherto none have sufficiently expressed the naturall representation of hir Majestie’s person, favor, and grace . . . . “Therfor”—after much more to the same effect—“hir Majestie being as it were overcome with the contynuall requests of hir Nobility and Lords, whom she can not well deny, is pleased that for their contentations, some coning persons, mete therefore, shall shortly make a pourtraict of hir person or visage,” and, in short, that her loving subjects shall be enabled to take copies thereof, but in the meantime shall perpetrate no further libellous “pourtraicts,” under pains and penalties.

The phrase “to grin like a Cheshire cat” is said to have originated from the well-meant but inartistic attempts of a sign-painter of that county to depict a Lion Rampant.

This chapter may be appropriately concluded with one of the best examples of the alehouse catch of former days: _Bryng us in good Ale_, contained in the Ipswich Song Book (Sloane Collection of MSS.). Our readers will be better able to comprehend the verses, if they bear in mind that ys as a termination is used where we should now use es, s, se or ce.

BRYNG US IN GOOD ALE.

Bryng us in good ale, and bryng us in good ale,
For our blyssyd lady sak, bryng us in good ale

Bryng us in no browne bred, for that is mad of brane, Nor bryng us in no whyt bred, for therein is no game. But bryng us in good ale, etc.

Bryng us in no befe, for ther is many bonys, But bryng us in good ale, for that goth downe at onys. And bryng us in, etc.

Bryng us in no bacon, for that is passyng fate, But bryng us in good ale, and give us i-nough of that. But bryng us in, etc. {231}

Bryng us in no mutton, for that is often lene, Nor bryng us in no trypes, for they be syldom clene. But bryng us in, etc.

Bryng us in no eggys, for ther ar many shelles, But bryng us in good ale, and give us nothing ellys. But bryng us in, etc.

Bryng us in no butter, for therin are many herys, Nor bryng us in no pygge’s flesch, for that will make us borys. But bryng us in, etc.

Bryng us in no podynges, for therein is al Gode’s good, Nor bryng us in no venesen, for that is not for our blod. But bryng us in, etc.

Bryng us in no capon’s flesch for that is ofte der,
Nor bryng us in no doke’s flesch for thei slober in mer (mire).
But bryng us in good ale, and bryng us in good ale,
For our blyssyd lady sak, bryng us in good ale.

{232}