Chapter IV: Signs of Animals and Monsters (3)

For some unknown reason, the BLACK DOG seems the greatest favourite; perhaps the English terrier is meant by it, a dog who “once had its day,” as the Scotch terrier appears to have it now. In the seventeenth century, there was a Black Dog Tavern near Newgate; a house of old standing, of which trades tokens are yet extant.

Mr Akerman, in his work on “Trades Tokens issued between 1648-1672,” makes a mistake in surmising that Luke Hutton’s “Black Dog of Newgate” had anything to do with this tavern. That poem is simply against “coney-catchers,” _i.e._, roguish detectives or informers of the Jonathan Wild stamp, and even worse. Such a one is impersonificated under the name of the Black Dog of Newgate, because the coney-catchers used to hunt people down threatening them with Newgate. This Black Dog may have derived its name from the canine spectre that still frightens the ignorant and fearful in our rural districts, just as the terrible Dun Cow, and the Lambton Worm were the terror of the people in old times. Near Lyme Regis, Dorset, there is an alehouse which has this black fiend in all his ancient ugliness painted over the door. Its adoption there arose from a legend that the spectral black dog used to haunt at nights the kitchen fire of a neighbouring farm-house, formerly a Royalist mansion, destroyed by Cromwell’s troops. The dog would sit opposite the farmer; but one night, a little extra liquor gave the man additional courage, and he struck at the dog, intending to rid himself of the horrid thing. Away, however, flew the dog and the farmer after him, from one room to another, until it sprang through the roof, and was seen no more that night. In mending the hole, a lot of money fell down, which, of course, was connected in some way or other with the dog’s strange visit. Near the house is a lane still called Dog Lane, which is now the favourite walk of the black dog, and to this _genius loci_ the sign is dedicated.

There was another notorious Black Dog next door to the Devil Tavern, the shop of Abel Roper, who printed and distributed the majority of the pamphlets and ballads that paved the way for the Revolution of 1688. He was the original printer of the famous ballad of “Lillibulero.” Whatever pleased the public, whether good or bad, he was always ready to provide and send into the world; he was also the editor of the newspaper called the _Postman_. In the beginning of the reign of Charles II. he lived “at the Sun, over against St Dunstan’s Church, in Fleet Street.”[272]

Tokens are extant of the PIED DOG in Seething Lane, 1667, a sign still frequently to be seen at the present day.

We very rarely meet with the BLUE DOG; but there is an example in Grantham, and the sign occurs in a few other places.

Sometimes a peculiar breed is chosen, as the SETTER DOG at Redford, Notts; the POINTER at Peckfield, Milford Junction; the BEAGLE at Shute, Axminster, and the MERRY HARRIERS, common in hunting counties. Equally common is the GREYHOUND, particularly in the North country, where coursing has long been a favourite sport. In the seventeenth century, it was the sign of a fashionable tavern in London, for in a sprightly ballad in the Roxburgh collection,[273] a young gallant is introduced who is going to forsake his evil courses and turn over a new leaf. He gives a last farewell to all his _doxies_:

“Farewell unto black patches,
And farewell powder’d locks;”

and remembers all those delightfully wicked places he used to haunt formerly, and amongst them:

“Farewell unto the GREYHOUND,
And farewell to the Bell,
And farewell to my landlady,
Whom I do love so well.”

This was probably the same Greyhound mentioned by Machyn, which seems to have been situated in Fleet Street, where the gaudily dressed Spanish ambassador took his stirrup-cup before leaving London. The same author mentions the sign elsewhere, apparently in Westminster; and the little picture of manners which accompanies it is rather curious:--

“The viij day of January (1557) dyd ryd in a care in Westmynster the
wyff of the Grayhound, and the Abbot’s servand was wypyd [whipped]
becawse that he toke her owt of the car, at the care h--e, [the back
of the cart.]”

--another example that the course of true love never does run smooth, even though it runs upon wheels.

The WHITE GREYHOUND was the sign of John Harrison, in St Paul’s Churchyard, a bookseller who published some of Shakespeare’s early works, as “The Rape of Lucrece,” “Venus and Adonis,” &c. White greyhounds, or rather silver greyhounds, were, until eighty years ago, the badges worn on the arm by king’s messengers.

The sign of the BLACK GREYHOUND is also of frequent occurrence, and at Grantham there is a BLUE GREYHOUND. Indeed, although Lincoln was formerly famous for green, it seems also to have taken a great fancy to blue, for there we find the BLUE BULL and the BLUE COW, the BLUE DOG, the BLUE FOX, (all in Colsterworth,) besides the BLUE PIG, the BLUE RAM, in Grantham, which town can also boast of the unique sign of the BLUE MAN.

The TALBOT--old and now almost obsolete term for a large kind of hunting dog--has acquired a literary celebrity from having been substituted for the old sign of the Tabard Inn in Southwark, whence the pilgrims started on their merry journey to Canterbury. In 1606, we find the Talbot the sign of Thomas Man, bookseller in Paternoster Row, which, however, at that time, was not such a book market as now, being occupied by “eminent mercers, silkmen, and lacemen; and their shops were so resorted unto by the nobility and gentry in their coaches, that ofttimes the street was so stopped up, that there was no passage for foot passengers.”[274] So it continued until the fire; and it was only in the middle of the last century that the booksellers began to make their appearance in it.

A Talbot Inn in the Strand is mentioned in the following very quaint advertisement:--

“TO BE SOLD, a fine Grey Mare, full fifteen hands high, gone after the
hounds many times, rising six years and no more; moves as well as most
creatures upon earth, as good a road mare as any in 10 counties and 10
to that; trots at a confounded pace; is from the country, and her
owner will sell her for nine guineas; if some folks had her she would
fetch near three times the money. I have no acquaintance, and money I
want, and a service in a shop to carry parcels or to be in a
gentleman’s service. My father gave me the mare to get rid of me, and
to try my fortune in London, and I am just come from Shropshire, and I
can be recommended, as I suppose nobody takes servants without, and
have a voucher for my mare. Enquire for me at the Talbot Inn near the
New Church at the Strand.

“A. R.”[275]

At the foot of Burdley’s Hill, Gloucester, there is a Talbot Inn, which has a sign painted with two inscriptions; at the side where the road is level, it says:--

“Before you do this hill go up,
Stop and drink a cheerful cup.”

On the side of the hill it says:

“You’re down the hill, all danger’s past,
Stop and drink a cheerful glass.”

A publican at Odell has chosen the MAD DOG for a sign, evidently his _beau ideal_ of a “jolly fellow,” one having a great horror for water; another at Pidley, Hunts, not to be behindhand with the Mad Dog, has put up the MAD CAT. We have as odd and apparently as unmeaning a sign in Tabernacle Walk, namely, the BARKING DOGS.

All the combinations of the sign of the Dog point towards sports, as the DOG AND BEAR, which was very common in the seventeenth century, when bear-baiting was in fashion, and kings and queens countenanced it by their presence. The DOG AND DUCK refers to another barbarous pastime, when ducks were hunted in a pond by spaniels. The pleasure consisted in seeing the duck make her escape from the dog’s mouth by diving. It was much practised in the neighbourhood of London till the beginning of this century, when it went out of fashion, as most of the ponds were gradually built over. One of the most notorious DOG AND DUCK Taverns stood in St George’s Fields, where Bethlem Hospital now stands; it had a long room with tables and benches, and an organ[276] at the upper end. In its last days it was frequented only by thieves, prostitutes, and other low characters. After a long and wicked existence it was at length put down by the magistrates. In the seventeenth century it was famous for springs, but already in Garrick’s time its reputation was very equivocal:

“St George’s Fields, with taste and fashion struck,
Display Arcadia at the _Dog and Duck_,
And Drury Misses, here in tawdry pride,
Are there “Pastoras” by the fountain side;
To frowsy bowers they reel through midnight damps,
With Fauns half drunk and Dryads breaking lamps.”[277]

In an unpublished paper from the MS. collection of William Hone, we have a mention of it:--

“It was a very small public-house till Hedger’s mother took it, who
had been a barmaid to a tavern-keeper in London, who left this house
to her at his death. Her son Hedger then was a postboy to a yard I
believe at Epsom, and came to be master there. After making a good
deal of money he left the house to his nephew, one Miles, (though it
still went in Hedger’s name,) who was to allow him £1000 per annum out
of the profits, and it was he that allowed the house to acquire so
bad a character that the licence was taken away. I have this from one
William Nelson who was servant to old Mrs Hedger, and remembers the
house before he had it. He is now [1826] in the employ of the Lamb
Street Water Works Company, and has been for thirty years. In
particular, there never was any duck hunting since he knew the
Gardens. Therefore, if ever, it must have been in a very early time
indeed. Hedger, I am told, was the first person who sold the mineral
water, (whence the St George’s Spa.) In 1787, when Hedger applied for
a renewal of his licence, the magistrates of Surrey refused, and the
Lord Mayor came into Southwark and held a court and granted the
licence, in despite of the magistrates, which occasioned a great
disturbance and litigation in the law courts.”

The old stone sign is still preserved, embedded in the brick wall of the garden of Bethlehem Hospital, visible from the road, and representing a dog squatted on his haunches, with a duck in his mouth, and the date 1617.

Another famous Dog and Duck inn formerly stood on the site of Hertford Street, in the now aristocratic precincts of May Fair. It was an old-fashioned wooden public-house, extensively patronised by the butchers and other rough characters during May Fair time. The pond in which the cruel sport took place was situated behind the house, and for the benefit of the spectators was boarded round to the height of the knee, to preserve the over-excited spectators from involuntary immersions. The pond was surrounded by a gravel walk shaded with willow trees.

THE DOG AND BADGER, Kingswood, Gloucester, refers to the now obsolete sport of badger-baiting. More genial sports, however, are called to mind by the DOG AND GUN, DOG AND PARTRIDGE, DOG AND PHEASANT, all of which are very common.

“As I was going through a street of London, where I never had been till then, I felt a general clamp and faintness all over me, which I could not tell how to account for, till I chanced to cast my eyes upwards and found that I was passing under a signpost on which the picture of a _cat_ was hung.” This little incident of the cat-hater, told in No. 538 of the _Spectator_, is a proof of the presence of cats on the signboard, where, indeed, they are still to be met with, but very rarely. There is a sign of the CAT at Egremont, in Cumberland, a BLACK CAT at St Leonard’s Gate, Lancaster, and a RED CAT at Birkenhead. There is also a sign of the Red Cat in the Hague, Holland, and “thereby hangs a tale.” It was put up by a certain Bertrand, a Frenchman, who had left his native country, having been mixed up in some conspiracy against Mazarin. Arrived at the Hague, he opened a cutler’s shop, and put up a double sign, representing on the one side a red cat, on the other a portrait of his Eminence Cardinal Mazarin in his red gown, and with his bristling moustache; underneath he wrote “_aux deux méchantes bêtes_” (the two obnoxious animals.) Holland, however, was at peace with France at that time, and so the Burgomaster, afraid of offending the French ambassador, requested Bertrand to alter his sign. Mazarin’s face was then painted out and another red cat put in its place. Gradually as the first sign was forgotten, the name became unmeaning, and was finally altered into the Red Cat, and in this shape it has come down to the present day, still the sign of a cutler, and a descendant of Bertrand.[278]

The CAT AND LION, which we meet with sometimes, as at Stockport, was probably at one time the Tiger and Lion. It is occasionally accompanied by the following elegant distich:--

“The lion is strong, the cat is vicious,
My ale is strong, and so is my liquors.”

The CAT AND PARROT was, in 1612, the sign of Thomas Pauer, a bookseller, dwelling near the Royal Exchange. At Santry, near Dublin, and in some other places, we meet with the CAT AND CAGE, which is represented by a cat trying to pull a bird out of a cage; but its origin may be found in the CAT IN THE BASKET, a favourite sign of the booths on the Thames when that river was frozen over in 1739/40. The sign was a living one, a basket hanging outside the booth, with a cat in it. It was revived when the river was again frozen in 1789, and seems to have had many imitators, for on a print[279] representing a view of the river at Rotherithe during the frost, there is a booth with a merry company within, whose sign, inscribed the _Original_ CAT IN THE CAGE, represents poor Tabby in a basket. This sign of the Cat in the Basket, or in the Cage, doubtless originated from the cruel game, once practised by our ancestors, of shooting at a cat in a basket. Brand, in his “Popular Superstitions,” gives a quotation, from which it appears that a similar cruel sport was still practised at Kelso in 1789; but instead of shooting at the cat, it was placed in a barrel, the bottom of which had to be beaten out. The same game is still practised in Holland, and generally, if not always, on the ice.

[196] J. Bossewell, Workes of Armourie, London, 1597, p. 97.

[197] “Allectorius is a stone similar to a dark crystal, which is taken from the stomach of a capon when it is four years old. Its utmost size is that of a bean. Gladiators take it in their mouths in order to be invincible, and not to suffer from thirst.”--_Tractatus de Animalibus et Lapidibus_, 4to, _circa_ 1465-75.

[198] Guillim’s Display of Heraldry. The same is also related in the Latin Bestiarium. Harl. MSS. 4751; and by Albertus Magnus, Camerarius, &c.

[199] “Boyne’s and Akerman’s Trades Tokens of the 17th Century,” in England, Ireland, and Wales.

[200] Steward’s Accounts of Sir John Howard.

[201] See Cunningham’s London Past and Present, p. 41.

[202] Burnet’s History of the Reformation, Lib. ii., vol. ii., p. 14. It is possible also that the White Bear was set up in compliment to Anne, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, queen to Richard III., who, as a difference from her father’s bear and ragged staff, had adopted the White Bear as a badge.

[203] Timbs’s Flyleaves.

[204] Bagford, who was present at the excavations, relates this story in a letter prefixed to Leland’s Collectanea, p. lxiii., 1770. See also Sir John Oldcastle.

[205] “Lambspring, das ist ein herzlichen Teutscher Tractat von Philosophischen Steine, welchen für Jahren ein adelicher Teutscher Philosophus, Lampert Spring geheissen mit schöne Figuren beschrieben hat. _Frankfort am Main_, 1625.”

[206] “This is a great wonder, and very strange: the dragon contains the greatest medicament.”

[207] “Mercury rightly precipitated or sublimated in its own water dissolved and again coagulated.”

[208] “There is a dragon lives in the forest who has no want of poison: when he sees the sun or fire he spits venom, which flies about fearfully. No living animal can be cured of it; even the basilisk does not equal him. He who can properly kill this serpent has overcome all his danger. His colours increase in death; physic is produced from his poison, which he entirely consumes, and eats his own venomous tail. This must be accomplished by him in order to produce the noblest balm. Such great virtue as will point out herein that all the learned shall rejoice.”

[209] Bossewell, Workes of Armourie, p. 61.

[210] Allusions to the unicorn occur frequently in the Old Testament, and commentators inform us that these references were typical of the coming Saviour.

[211] “It is reported that the unicorn’s horn sweats when it comes in the presence of poison, and that for this reason it is laid on the tables of the great, and made into knife-handles, which, when placed on the tables, show the presence of poison. But this is not sufficiently proved.”--Albertus Magnus, De Animalibus, lib. xxv.

[212] Bib. Harl. 5953, vol. i., p. 403.

[213] Relation of the Island of England, published by the Camden Society.

[214] See Bib. Harl. 5953, vol. i., p. 407.

[215] Hentzner’s Travels, p. 54.

[216] Henry Peacham’s Compleat Gentleman.

[217] Fuller’s Worthies, _voce_ Middlesex.

[218] “It is rather peculiar that the same superstitious notions should be found in India in connexion with the horn of the rhinoceros, whom some consider as the fabled unicorn divested of his romantic garb. His horn, too, was thought useful in diseases, and for the purpose of discovering poisons.”--_Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible._ “The fine shavings were supposed to cure convulsions and spasms in children. Goblets made of these would discover a poisonous draught that was poured into them, by making the liquor ferment till it ran quite out of the goblet.”--_Thunberg’s Journey to Caffraria._

[219] _Daily Courant_, February 2, 1711.

[220] “This is the Civet, as you may see; but enter. Perfumes sold here for men and women.”

[221] The reason why the hedgehog was generally represented with apples stuck on his quills, appears from the following words in Bossewell, (p. 61,)--“He clymeth upon a vine or an apple-tree and biteth off their braunches and twigges, and when they [the apples] be fallen downe, he waloweth on them, and so they sticke on his prickes, and he beareth them unto a hollow tree or some other hole.” The early naturalists also said that if, when he was so loaded, one of the apples happened to drop off, he would throw all the others down in anger and return to the tree for a new load.

[222] Harl. MSS. 353, fol. 145.

[223] _London Gazette_, No. 368.

[224] _London Gazette_, Sept. 18-21, 1682. I am confident the newspapers made a misprint, and that the man’s name was Haase, Dutch or German, for the Hare he represented on his sign.

[225] Hone’s Every-Day Book, Oct. 17, fol. 1.

[226] Rev. J. Richardson, LL.B., Recollections of the Last Half Century. See also under STUNNING JOE BANKS in the Slang Dictionary, recently issued by the publisher of this work.

[227] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, March 1842.

[228] _See_ under RELIGIOUS SIGNS.

[229] _London Gazette_, Oct. 2-6, 1673.

[230] Childe Harold, canto I. lxx.

[231] Hone’s Every Day Book, Jan. 17, vol. ii.

[232]

“I wear horns, which everybody sees,
But many a one wears horns and does not know it.”

[233] Bagford Bills. Bib. Harl. 5962.

[234] _Postman_, February 1-3, 1711.

[235] Richardsoniana, p. 168.

[236] Timbs, Curiosities of London, p. 402.

[237] As quoted by Strutt in “Gliggam,” &c.

[238] Printed in Leland’s Collectanea, pp. 270, 272.

[239] A MS. of the sixteenth century, Bib. Harl. 2150, fol. 356, gives full particulars of this _fête_ and procession.

[240]

“At the White Horse, horses are shod with iron,
Pity the same cannot be done to men, for then they would need no
shoes.”

[241] Crowns exactly similar to this, made of box, tinsel, and coloured paper, are yearly hung out by the fishmongers in Holland on the first arrival of the salt herring after the summer fishery.

[242] Pennant’s Account of London, p. 423.

[243] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, March 1842; and _London Gazette_, Dec. 30, 1718.

[244] Lloyd’s _Evening Post_, Jan. 16-19, 1761.

[245] Brand’s Popular Superstitions.

[246] Robert Herrick, Hesperides, p. 234.

[247] Aubrey, Anecdotes and Traditions, p. 3.

[248] _Postman_, June 1703.

[249] _Intelligencer_, May 30, 1681.

[250] Bagford Bills. Bib. Harl. 5964.

[251] Hence we have 7 ages, 7 churches, 7 champions, 7 penitential psalms, 7 sleepers of Ephesus, 7 years’ apprenticeship, 7 cardinal virtues and deadly sins, 7 make a gallows-ful, boots of 7 leagues, 7 liberal arts, and innumerable other instances.

[252] Collier’s Annals, vol. iii. p. 271, and Halliwell’s Introduction to Tarlton’s Jests, p. 16.

[253] _Spectator_, No. 509.

[254] “He went about almost naked in the rage of hunger,” says Dr Johnson, “and finding a gentleman in a neighbouring coffeehouse asked him for a shilling; and Otway going away bought a roll and was choked with the first mouthful.”

[255] Lewis’s Islington, p. 160.

[256] The History of the Plague, by Defoe.

[257] There is still a BULL’S HEAD public-house in this street, built on the site of the house of Thomas Britton, the Musical Small-Coal Man, where he gave his celebrated concerts for a period of 36 years, powdered duchesses and fastidious ladies of the Court tripping through his coal repository, and climbing up a ladder to assist at these famous meetings.

[258] Randolph’s Muses’ Looking-Glass.

[259] This riding in a cart was a very ancient punishment, probably introduced by the Normans; in the romance of Lancelot du Lac the cart is mentioned with the following remarks:--“At that time a cart was considered so vile that nobody ever went into it, but those who had lost all honour and good name; and when a person was to be degraded, he was made to ride in a cart, for a cart served at that time for the same purpose as the pillory now-a-days, and each town had only one of them.” In the old English laws it was called the _Tumbrill_; thus Edward I. in 1240 enacted a law by which millers stealing corn were to be chastised by the Tumbrill.--See _Fabian’s Chronicles_, 2 Edw. I.

[260] For the chequered life of this strange individual, see Caulfield’s Memoirs of Remarkable Persons, vol. ii. From the _Original Weekly Journal_, Sept. 13, 1718, we gather the information that, “Last week _Dr_ Campbell, the famous dumb fortune-teller, was married to a gentlewoman of considerable fortune in Shadwell.”

[261] A curious story of _Bulleyn Butchered_, the sign said to have been put up in commemoration of Henry VIII.’s unfortunate queen, and its corrupted form of _Bull and Butcher_ will be found in the first division of this work. _Vide_ HISTORICAL SIGNS.

[262] “Be happy while you live.”

[263] M. Misson’s Memoirs and Observations on his Travels in England, 1719.

[264] Tom Brown’s Amusements for the Meridian of London, 1700.

[265] From a MS., entitled “Medycine Boke” of one Samson Jones, doctor of Bettws, Monmouthshire, 1650-90; a note on the flyleaf says, “I had this book from Mr Owen of Bettws, Monmouth. He assured me he knew for a fact it was the receipt booke of Samson Jones, a good doctor of that parish, a hundred and fifty years agone.” It contains some extraordinary prescriptions. Surely if Master Samson Jones made use of them, the earth must very quickly have hidden his blunders.

[266] _London Gazette_, Nov. 10-13, 1673.

[267] _Idem_, March 24-28, 1761.

[268] _Public Advertiser_, March 4, 1759.

[269] _Postman_, Feb. 13, 1711.

[270] See under HUMOROUS SIGNS, further on.

[271] See under HUMOROUS SIGNS, further on.

[272] _Kingdom’s Intelligencer_, March 30 to April 6, 1683.

[273] The Merry Man’s Resolution, or his last farewell to his former acquaintance. Rox Ball. iii. f. 242.

[274] Strype, B. iii. p. 195.

[275] _Public Advertiser_, March 1759.

[276] Organs were first introduced in taverns during the Commonwealth. When the liturgy and the use of organs in Divine service were abolished, these instruments being removed from churches, were set up in inns and taverns. Hence a pamphlet of 1659 has these words:--“They have translated the organs out of their churches and set them up in taverns, chaunting their dithyrambics and bestial Bacchanalias to the tune of those instruments which were wonted to assist them in the celebration of God’s praises.”

[277] Garrick’s Prologue to the Maid of the Oaks, 1774.

[278] La Haye, par de Fonseca. 1853.

[279] Crowle Pennant, vol. viii.