And again in “Paradiso," canto ii. 49, speaking of the moon, he asks "Ma detemi, che sono i segni bui Di questi corpo, che laggiuso in terra And the annotators of Dante say that Cain was placed in the moon with a bundle of thorns on his back, similar to those be had placed on the altar when he offered to the Lord his unwelcome sacrifice. This Man in the Moon, whether Cain, Jacob, or the Sabbath-breaker, has been celebrated by innumerable songs. Alex. Neckham (recently edited by Mr T. Wright) refers to him from a very ancient ballad, and one of the oldest songs is in the Harl. MSS., 2253, beginning: "Mon in the mone stond and streit, On is bot-forke is burthen he bereth, Hit is muche wonder that he na doun slyt For doute lest he valle he shoddreth and skereth. The thornes beth kene is hattren to-tereth N'is no wytht in the world that wot when he syt Ne, bote hit bee the hegge, whot wedes he wereth." For all this, his life seems to be very merry, for one of the Roxburghe Ballads (i. f., 298) informs us that— "Our Man in the Moon drinks Clarret, From whence they obtained the information it is difficult to say, but it was a well-established fact with the old tobacconists that he could enjoy his pipe. Thus he is represented on some of the tobacconists' papers in the Banks Collection puffing like a steam-engine, and underneath the words, "Who'll smoake with y Man in y Moon?" If these frequent allusions in songs and plays were not enough to remind the Londoners that there was such a being, they could see him daily amongst the figures of old St Paul's "The Great Dial is your last monument; where bestow some half of the three score minutes to observe the sauciness of the Jacks + that are above the Man in the Moon there; the strangeness of their motion will quit your labour."-DECKER'S Gull's Hornbook. "But tell me, what are the dark spots On that body, which makes them down there on earth Talk of Cain and the bundle of thorns!" + Paul's Jacks were the little automaton figures that struck the hours in old St Paul's Similar puppets, or figures, were also on other London churches. CHAPTER X. DIGNITIES, TRADES, AND PROFESSIONS. TOOLS and utensils, as emblems of trade, were certainly placed outside houses at an early period, to inform the illiterate public the particular trade or occupation carried on within. Centuries ago the practice, as a general rule, fell into disuse, although a few trades still adhere to it with laudable perseverance: thus a broom informs us where to find a sweep; a gilt arm wielding a hammer tells us where the gold-beater lives; and a last or gilt shoe where to order a pair of boots. Those houses of refreshment and general resort, which sought the custom of particular trades and professions, also very frequently adopted the tools and emblems of those trades as their distinguishing signs. At other houses, again, signs were set up as tributes of respect to certain dignities and functions. Amongst the latter, the KING'S HEAD and QUEEN'S HEAD stand foremost, and none were more prominent types than Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth, even for more than two centuries after their decease. Only fifty or sixty years ago, there still remained a well-painted, half-length portrait of bluff Harry, as a sign of the King's Head, before a public-house in Southwark. His personal appearance, doubtless, more than his character as a king, were at the bottom of this popular favour. He looked the personification of jollity and good cheer, and when the evil passions, expressed by his face, were lost under the clumsy brush of the sign-painter, there remained nothing but a merry, "beery-looking" Bacchus, eminently adapted for a publichouse sign. A very respectable folio might be filled with anecdotes connected with the various KING'S HEAD inns and taverns up and down the country and in London-some connected with royalty, others with remarkable persons. Thus, for instance, when the Princess (afterwards Queen) Elizabeth came forth from her confinement in the Tower, November 17, 1558, she went into the church of All Hallows, Staining, the first church she found open, to return thanks for her deliverance from prison. As soon as this pious duty was performed, the princess and her attendants went to the King's Head in Fenchurch Street to take some refreshment, and there her Royal Highness dined on pork and peas. A monument U of this visit is still preserved at the above house in an engraving of the princess, from a picture by Hans Holbein, hung up in the coffee-room; and the dish from which she ate her dinner still remains, it is said, affixed to the kitchen dresser there. There is a tradition that the bells of All Hallows were rung on this occasion with such energy, that the queen presented the ringers with silken ropes. A more painful association is connected with another King's Head: "In a secluded part of the Oxfordshire hills, at a place called Collins End, situated between Hardwicke House and Goring Heath, is a neat little rustic inn, having for its sign a well-executed portrait of Charles I. There is a tradition that this unfortunate monarch, while residing as a prisoner at Caversham, rode one day, attended by an escort, into this part of the country, and hearing that there was a bowling-green at this inn, frequented by the neighbouring gentry, struck down to the house, and endeavoured to forget his sorrows for a while in a game at bowls. This circumstance is alluded to in the following lines, written beneath the signboard : "Stop, traveller, stop, in yonder peaceful glade, Here, stripp'd of honours, children, freedom, rank, And changed his guinea ere he lost his crown." * The sign, which seems to be a copy from Vandyke, though much faded from exposure to the weather, evidently displayed an amount of artistic skill not usually met with on the signboard; but the only information the people of the house could give was, that they believed it to have been painted in London. His son, Charles II., is also connected in an anecdote with a King's Head Tavern, in the Poultry, for it is reported that he stopped at this inn on the day of his entry at the Restoration, at the request of the landlady, who happened just then to be in labour, and wished to salute his majesty. Mrs King, the lady so honoured, was aunt to William Bowyer, "the learned printer of the eighteenth century." In Ben Jonson's time there was a famous King's Head Tavern in New Fish Street, "where roysters did range." It is this tavern, probably, that is alluded to in the ballad of "The Ranting Wh--'s Resolution :" "I love a young Heir Whose fortune is fair, And frollick in Fish Street dinners, *Notes and Queries Who boldly does call, And in private paies all, These boyes are the noble beginners."* At the King's Head, the corner of Chancery Lane, Cowley the poet was born in 1618; it was then a grocer's shop kept by his father. Subsequently it became a famous tavern, of which tokens are extant. It was at this house that Titus Oates's party met, and trumped up their infamous story against the Roman Catholics, trying to implicate the Duke of York in the murder of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey. In the reign of William III., it was a violent Whig club. The distinction adopted by the members was a green ribbon worn in the hat. When these ribbons were shown, it was a sign that mischief was on foot, and that there were secret meetings to be held. North gives an amusing and lively description of this club : "The house was double balconied in front, as may be yet seen, for the clubsters to issue forth, in fresco, with hats and no perruques, pipes in their mouths, merry faces and diluted throat for vocal encouragement of the canaglia below, at bonfires, on unusual and usual occasions." Here the Pope-burning manifestations were got up, the Earl of Shaftesbury being president. In opposition to this Green Ribbon Club, the Tories wore in their hat a scarlet ribbon, with the words, Rex et Haeredes. Ned Ward, with his usual humour, describes a breakfast given in 1706 by the master of this house to his customers, consisting of an ox of 415 lb., roasted whole, and at the same time embraces the opportunity of praising the landlord as "the honestest vintner in London, at whose house the best wine in England is to be drunk." This was probably Ned's way of settling an old score. Another King's Head is mentioned by Pepys, 26th March 1663 "Thence walked through the ducking-pond fields, but they are so altered since my father used to carry us to Islington, to the old man's at the Kingshead, to eat cakes and ale (his name was Pitts,) that I did not know which was the ducking-pond, nor where I was." It was a very different "ducking" in which the landlady of the QUEEN'S HEAD ale-house was concerned, as shown by the following newspaper paragraph: "Last week, a woman that keeps the Queen's Head ale-house at Kingston, in Surrey, was ordered by the Court to be ducked for scolding, and was * Roxburghe Ballads, iii., fol. 252 accordingly placed in the chair and ducked in the river Thames, under Kingston Bridge, in the presence of 2000 or 3000 people."-London Evening Post, Ap. 27, 1745. Full particulars of such an operation are given by Misson: "They fasten an arm-chair to the end of two strong beams, twelve or fifteen feet long, and parallel to each other. The chair hangs upon a sort of axle, on which it plays freely, so as to remain in the horizontal position. The scold being well fastened in her chair, the two beams are then placed as near to the centre as possible, across a post on the water side, and being lifted up behind, the chair of course drops into the cold element. The ducking is repeated according to the degree of shrewdness possessed by the patient, and generally has the effect of cooling her immoderate heat, at least for a time." At the King's Head, Strutton, near Ipswich, about ten years ago, there was the following inscription : "Good people, stop, and pray walk in, Old Nat had lived for a period of eighty years under the shadow of the King's Head. Combinations with the King's Head are not very frequent. The KING'S HEAD AND LAMB, an ale-house in Upper Thames Street, is evidently a quartering of two signs. The Two KINGS AND STILL, sign of Henry Francis in Newmarket, 1667,* representing a still between two kings crowned, holding their sceptres, may have originated from the distillers' arms, the two wild men, serving as supporters, being refined into two kings, the garlands on their heads into crowns, and their clubs into sceptres. That Queen Elizabeth was for more than two centuries the almost unvarying type of the QUEEN'S HEAD need not be wondered at when we consider her well-deserved popularity. A striking instance of the veneration and esteem in which she was held, even through all the tribulations and changes of the Commonwealth, is exhibited in the fact of the bells ringing on her birthday, as late as the reign of Charles II. : "The Earl of Dorset coming to court, one Queen Elisabeth's birthday, the king [Charles II.] asked him what the bells rung for? which having answered, the king farther asked him, 'how it came to pass that her holiday was still kept, whilst those of his father and grandfather were no more thought of than William the Conqueror's?' 'Because,' said the frank peer * Akerman's Trades Tokens. |