FISHES AND INSECTS.

THE MERMAID, as a sign, must have had great attractions for our forefathers. Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other dramatists, notice this taste for strange fishes. The ancient chronicles teem with captures of mermen, mermaids, and similar creatures. Old Hollinshed gives a detailed account of a merman caught at Orford, in Suffolk, in the reign of King John. He was kept alive on raw meal and fish for six months, but at last "fledde secretelye to the sea, and was neuer after seene nor heard off." Another chronicler says, "About this time [1202] fishes of strange shapes were taken, armed with helmets and shields like armed men, only they were much bigger." And Gervase of Tilbury roundly asserts that mermen and mermaids live in the British Ocean. Even in more modern times, every now and then a mermaid (the mermen seem to have been more scarce) made her appearance. In an advertisement at the beginning of the seventeenth century, we find :

"IN

N BELL YARD, on Ludgate Hill, is to be seen, at any hour of the day, a living Mermaid, from the waist upwards of a party colour, from thence downwards is very strange and wonderful.

Mulier formosa superne
Desinit in piscem."

After which follows a most promising and tempting little bit of information in French: "Son corps est de divers couleurs avec beaucoup d'autres curiosités qu'on ne peut exprimer." Again, in 1747:

"We hear from the north of Scotland, that some time this month a sea creature, known by the name of Mermaid, which has the shape of a human body from the trunk upwards, but below is wholly fish, was carried some miles up the water of Devron."*

In 1824, a mermaid or merman (for the sex was discreetly left in dubio) made its appearance before "an enlightened public," when, as the papers inform us, "upwards of 150 distinguished fashionables" went to see it. At Bartholomew Fair, in 1830, a stuffed mermaid was exhibited; but if once she had been such a "mulier formosa" as captivated the ancient mariners, she was certainly much altered. A very different specimen had been exhibited in Fleet Street in 1822; but she disappeared all at

* General Magazine, Jan. 1747.

It was sketched by George Cruikshank; and a wood-cut of it may be seen in Morley's "Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair," p. 488.

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once most mysteriously, not, however, without a rumour of her being under the protection of the Lord Chancellor, which, as she was a comely maiden with flaxen hair, "mulier superne et inferne,” lies within the range of possibilities. The sea-serpent has now almost done away with the mermaid; yet, as late as 1857, there appeared an article in the Shipping Gazette, under the intelligence of 4th June, signed by some Scotch sailors, and describing an object seen off the North British coast, "in the shape of a woman, with full breast, dark complexion, comely face," and the rest.

At one time it appears to have been a very common sign, if we may judge from the way in which it is mentioned by Brathwait in his New Cast of Characters, (1631) :—

"If she [the hostess] aspire to the conceit of a sine and device, her birch pole pull'd downe, he will supply her with one, which he performes so poorely as none that sees it, but would take it for a sign he was drunk when he made it. A long consultation is had before they can agree what sign must be reared. A meere-mayde,' says she, for she will sing catches to the youths of the parish.' 'A lyon,' says he, 'for that is the onely sign he can make; and this he formes so artlessly, as it requires his expression, this is a lyon. Which old Ellenor Rumming, his tapdame, denies, saying it should have been a meere-mayde."

Among the most celebrated of the Mermaid taverns in London, that in Bread Street stands foremost. As early as the fifteenth century, it was one of the haunts of the pleasure-seeking Sir John Howard, whose trusty steward records, anno 1464 :—“ Paid for wyn at the Mermayd in Bred Stret, for my mastyr and Syr Nicholas Latimer, x d. ob." In 1603, Sir Walter Raleigh established a literary club in this house, doubtless the first in England. Amongst its members were Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Selden, Carew, Martin, Donne, Cotton, &c. It is frequently alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher in their comedies, but best known is that quotation from a letter of Beaumont to Ben Jonson :

"What things have we seen

Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame,

As if that any one from whence they came

Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,

And had resolved to live a fool the rest

Of his dull life; then when there hath been thrown

Wit able enough to justify the town

For three days past; wit that might warrant be
For the whole city to talk foolishly,

Till that were cancell'd; and when that was gone,
We left an air behind us, which alone

Was able to make the two next companies

(Right witty, though but downright fools) more wise."

There was another Mermaid in Cheapside, frequented by Jasper Mayne, and in the next reign by the poet laureate, John Dryden. Mayne mentions it in "The City Match," (1638 :)

"I had made an ordinary,

Perchance at the Mermaid."

At one time the landlord's name was Dun, which is told us in a somewhat amusing anecdote :-" When Dun, that kept the Meremaid Tavern in Cornhill, being himself in a room with some witty gallants, one of them (which, it seems, knew his wife) too boldly cryd out in a fantastick humour, 'I'll lay five pound there's a cuckhold in this company.' "Tis Dun,' says another."* In 1681, there was a Mermaid in Carter Lane, which had a great deal of traffic as a carriers' inn.†

The sign was also used by printers. John Rastall, for instance, brother-in-law of Sir Thomas More, "emprynted in the Cheapesyde at the sygne of the Meremayde; next to Poulysgate in 1527;" and in 1576 a translation of the History of Lazarillo de Tormes, dedicated to Sir Thomas Gresham, was printed by Henry Binnemann, the queen's printer, in Knight-rider Street, at the sign of the Mermaid. A representation of this fabulous creature was generally prefixed to his books.

The SEAHORSE may be seen in Birmingham, York, and various other places. Bossewell, in his peculiar mixture of English and Latin, gives a quaint description of this animal:

"This waterhorse of the sea is called an hyppotame, for that he is like an horse in back, mayne, and neying: rostro resupinato a primis dentibus: cauda tortuosa, ungulis binis. He abideth in the waters on the day, and eateth corn by night et hunc Nilus gignit.” ‡

The DOLPHIN is another sign of very old standing. One of the first instances of its use was probably the following inn :

"The other side of this High Street, from Bishopsgate and Houndsditch, the first building is a large inn for the receipt of travellers, and is called the Dolphin, of such a sign. In the year 1513, Margaret Ricroft, widow, gave this house, with the gardens and appurtenances, unto William Gam, R. Clye, their wives, her daughters, and to their heirs, with condition they yearly do give to the warders or govornors of the Greyfriars' Church, within Newgate, 40 shillings, to find a student of divinity in the university for ever." §

"Coffeehouse Jests," 1688, p. 128.

Delaune's "Present State of London." 1681.

Bossewell's "Works of Armourie," 1589, p. 65.

Stow, p. 6? A striking instance of the depreciation of money within the last three