seriously vain of it, for his mind was wonderfully prone to such impressions. Come, come,' said Garrick, 'talk no more of that, you are perhaps the worst-eh, eh.' Goldsmith was eagerly attempting to interrupt him, when Garrick went on, laughing ironically, 'Nay, you will always look like a gentleman, but I am talking of being well or ill drest.' 'Well, let me tell you,' said Goldsmith, when my tailor brought home my bloomcoloured coat, he said, "Sir, I have a favour to beg of you. When anybody asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention, John Filby, at the Harrow in Water Lane." JOHNSON. Why, sir, that was because he knew the strange colour would attract crowds to gaze at it, and then they might hear of him, and see how well he could make a coat even of so absurd a colour."

Near Bagshot there is a public-house called the JOLLY FARMER, a corruption of the GOLDEN FARMER, a nickname obtained by one of the former possessors on account of his wealth, and his custom of paying his rent always in guineas, which—so says the legend -he obtained as a footpad on Bagshot Heath. That some such thing happened is evident from the Weekly Journal, March 29, 1718, where allusion is made to "Bagshot Heath, near the Gibbet where the Golden Farmer hanged in chains." The use of this word Jolly, on the signboard, formerly so common in our "Merry England," is now gradually dying away. Whatever be the opinion of our workmen upon the subject of national good humour, they no longer desire to be advertised as Jolly; it is vulgar, and they prefer Arms like their betters-hence those heraldic anomalies of the GRAZIERS' ARMS, the FARMERS' ARMS, the CHAFF-CUTTERS' ARMS, the PUDDLERS' ARMS, the PAVIORS' ARMS, and so forth.

The SHEPHERD AND SHEPHERDESS is one of those signs reminding us of

"The tea-cup days of hoop and hood

And when the patch was worn."

calling up pictures of rouged shepherdesses with jaunty straw hats on the top of powdered hair a foot high, short quilted petticoats and high-heeled boots, courted in madrigals by shepherds dressed in the height of the elegance of the New Exchange gallants, with ribboned crooks and flowered-satin waistcoats. It was the sign of a pleasure resort in the City Road, Islington, much frequented in the eighteenth century for amusement, and by invalids for the pure, healthy, country air of Islington, which was then a charming village, more rural in the midst of its mea

Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. ii., p. 63.

dows and rivulets than Richmond is now. Cakes, cream, and furmity were its great attractions :

"To the Shepherd and Shepherdess then they go
To tea with their wives for a constant rule,
And next cross the road to the Fountain also,
And there they sit so pleasant and cool,
And see in and out

The folks walk about,

And gentlemen angling in Peerless Pool."

More business-like is the sign of the SHEPHERD AND DOG; he, too, wears patches, but not on his face; so with the SHEPHERD AND CROOK, and the CROOK AND SHEARS. All these may be found in most villages, and refer to the inferior farm-labourer, to whom the care of the flock is intrusted, and not the elegant Corydon or Alexis.

The merry, thirsty time of haymaking is commemorated in the usual signs of a LOAD OF HAY and the CROSS SCYTHES. There is a LOAD OF HAY tavern on Haverstock Hill, a favourite place for Sunday afternoon excursionists in the summer time. Many years ago the eccentricity of Davies the landlord was one of the attractions of the place. Lately the house has been re-built, and it is now only a suburban gin-palace. The MATTOCK AND SPADE, and the SPADE AND BECKET, refer to field labour; the first is very general, the second less so; but an example occurs at Chatteris, Cambridgeshire. The PEAT SPADE, Longstock, Hants, tells its own tale. The DAIRY MAID was in great favour with the London cheesemongers of the seventeenth century. Akerman gives a trades token of such a sign in Catherine Street, in 1653, which is an amusing specimen of the liberties the token engravers took with the king's English, the country Phillis being transformed into a 66 Deary Made." The Dutch in the seventeenth century used the sign for a rather heterogenous trade: it seems that the process of sucking or inhaling the tobacco smoke carried back their ideas to tender years of innocence and milk diet, and so the Dairy Maid became the sign, par excellence, of tobacco shops. Even at the present day that idea is not quite forgotten; tobacco boxes or other smoking implements are sometimes seen amongst that nation, with the words, Troost for Zuigelingen," "consolation for sucklings." The inscriptions under these signs were occasionally very curious :—

* Formerly a dangerous pond in Old Street Road, in which a number of people were drowned, whence it obtained its name of perilous Pond. In 173 it was walled in by one Kemp, who on that occasion altered its name into Peerless Pool, by a similar process as the Pontus aevos, inhospitable, was called eŬğevos, hospitable, by the Greeks. Z

"Toebak that edel kruyt soveel daarvan getuygen
Al die lang zyn gespeent beginnez weer te zuygen.”
On the GOUDSCHE MELKMEID in Amsterdam :-
"Goede Waar en goed bescheid

Krygt gy hier in de GOUDSCHE MELKMEID
Puyk van Verinas en Virginia Tabac
Kunt gy hier rooken op uw gemak." †

Another had :—

"Leckere Neusen, eele baasen,

Die by 't klinken van de glaasen
Tot het smooken zyt bereyt;
Zoekje't beste van den acker

Puyk verynis komt dan wacker

By de walsse mellik-meid."‡

HARVEST-HOME, the pleasant time of congratulation and feasting, must be an alluring sign for the villagers, calling up recollections of all the festivities yearly celebrated on that grand occasion, when

"the harvest treasures all

Are gather'd in beyond the rage of storms,
Sure to the swain."-Thomson.

One of the misfortunes of the "nimium fortunati sua si bona norint" is pictured in the CART OVERTHROWN, which is a public-house sign at Lower Edmonton; though how it came to be such is difficult to guess. On Highgate Hill there is an old` roadside inn, the Fox and Crown, which displays on its front a fine gilt coat of arms with the following inscription under neath :

"Tobacco is a noble weed, as many can testify.

Numbers of people who were long since weaned begin to suck again."

"Here at the Milkmaid of Gouda

You will receive good articles and civil treatment.

Here you may smoke at your ease

Tip-top Varinas and Virginia tobacco."

"Dainty noses, noble masters,

Who, by the jingling of the glasses,

Are prepared for a 'smoke;'

If

you look for the finest growth,

The best Varinas? Come then at once

To the Walloon Milkmaid," &c.