The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-02 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The History of Signboards. By Jacob Larwood
and John Camden Rotten. One Vol., pp. 536.
Hotten : Piccadilly.

A delightfully amusing volume has here been
compiled by two congenial lovers of fun and archaeo-
logy. It relates all that one could possibly wish to
know about Signboards from the earliest times to
nowadays. It is illustrated with one hundred em-

bellishments by Jacob Larwood, Mr. Ilotten's coad

jutor in the compilation of the particulars here com-
pacted together in the letterpress. It is inscribed to
Thomas 'Wright, M.A., F.S.A., as " the accom-
plished interpreter of English popular antiquities."
It delineates with pen and pencil signs of all ima-
ginable descriptions—not only Tavern Signs, but
what has very nearly dropped long ago into
the obsolete, Trade Signs or Shop Signs, or by
whatever name those particular signs may be spoken
of generically. It pourtrays for us in successive
chapters (crammed full, each of them, with enter-
taining anecdotes) Signs " Historic and Com-
memorative"—Signs " Heraldic and Emblematic"
—Signs of " Animals and Monsters," of " Birds
and Fowls," of " Fishes and Insects "—Signs
" Biblical and Religious "—Signs of " Saints and
Martyrs"—Signs of " Herbs, Trees, Flowers," and
the like—Signs of " Dignities, of Trades, and of
Professions." It is for the bookshelves en per-
manence what Bonnell Thornton's collection was
for the time being as an Exhibition--that is to
say, a most entertaining, a singularly curious
as well as a thoroughly reliable and authentic re-
pertory of information upon the general sub-
ject of Signboards. Turning over the leaves of
the volume, and dipping into their contents almost
at random, we hardly know which to regard
as . of greater attraction, the information
afforded to us in reference to the most familiar
street signs, or that having reference to
signs the most eccentric and whimsical.
Turning to the former, that is to the most familiar
and hacknied trade-signs or inn-signs with which
we are all of us perfectly well familiar, we learn for
example about The Barber's Pole, with its

spiral stripes of blue, red and white, that it was

wont formerly to be grasped by the patients
in blood-letting when barbers were also phle-
botomists—about The Chequers, that it is perhaps
the most ancient of all signs, having been disin-

terred even in Pompeii, as indicative possibly of chess
or draughts being played indoors—about The Black
Doll hanging over rag and bottle shops or marine-
store dealers, that they probably originated in the
fact that of old those traders bought cast off clothes
to sell afterwards to buccaneers, who exchanged
them on the Gold Coasts with the natives for the
precious metal itself, for ivory, furs and the like—
about The Golden Fleece displayed of yore by
drapers being a semi-classic memento at once of
Jason and the wool-trade. Turning, on the other
hand, to the mere oddities in the way of
signboards, who has not at some time or another
had a curiosity as to the source of such bewildering
whimsicalities as—The Green Alan and Still, a
sign which is to be found to this very day
in Whitecross-street—The Swan with Two Necks,

in Milk-street, City The Magpie and Stump
yet to be found in Cheyne-walk, Chelsea The
Goose and Gridiron, in St. Paul's Churchyard
--The Cat and Bagpipes—The Ass in the Bandbox,
and other preposterous imaginings, among which
which we are surprised to find no note here taken
by either Mr. Larwood or Mr. Hotten, of as odd a
sign as any of them—a sign discoverable even now as
near at hand as in Drury-lane, meaning the utterly
ridiculous sign (illustrated, too !) of The Whistling
Oyster. One solitary omission, however, can be no
matter of marvel in a work so complex of its kind,
as is this volume, in which, let us say, by way of ex-
ample not only is mention made of The Crown as a
sign in itself, pure and simple, but (under that one
head alone) of The Crown in combination with other
things, such as the Crown and Anchor, the Crown
and Can, and Column, and Cushion, and Dove, and
Fan, and Glove, and Halbert, and Harp, and Leek,
and Last, and Mitre, and Punchbowl, and Rasp, and
Rolls, and Sceptre, and Tower, and Trumpet, and
Woolpack, and Woodpecker! A single colour,
again, such as Blue, for instance, will necessitate
reference one after another to Blue Anchor, Bal-
cony, Ball, Bible, Boar, Bowl, Boy, Bull, Cock,
Cow, Dog, Flowerpot, Fox, Garland, Greyhound,
Helmet, Horse, Lion, Man, Peruke and Star, Pig,
Posts, Pump, Ram, and Stoops. Now we stumble
across such outrageous blendings as Bible and Three
Legs, or such another as Sugarloaf and Three
Coffins. Now we find literature contributing its
quota to the embellishment of Tavern Sign-
boards, as instanced by our authors at pp. 80 and
81, in The Complete Angler, and Sir Roger de
Coverley, and Dandie Dinmont, and Tam o'Shanter,
and (literature, forsooth !) Jim Crow (!) and Uncle
Toni, and Pickwick, which last mentioned is a sign
in Newcastle—Messrs. Larwood and Hotten might
have added to this list, by the way, the latest tribute
of all, after this fashion, to the genius of Charles
Dickens, the sign of the road-side tavern called
Our Mutual Friend, almost confronting the build-
ings of the Guild of Literature, Science, and Art,
down in Hertfordshire, a little way out of Stevenage,
on the road to Lord Lytton's estate, at Knebw orth.
The devise emblazoned on the back of this goodly
volume of antiquarian information is the old
familiar sign of the Bull and Mouth—the mouth
in the act of swallowing the bull ! On the side of 1
the book, again, we have, in like manner emblazoned
in gold, that quaint old notion of The Good Woman
—with her head off her shoulders ! Only—by
rights, or we are much mistaken—her decapitated
head ought to have been shown neatly tucked under
one of her arms placed akimbo! As the frontispiece—
" Drawn by Experience," saith the old print, and
" Engraved by Sorrow"—we have a brilliantly co-
loured facsimile of the well-known picture of A Man
Loaded with Mischief, or Matrimony, as " the true
Emblem of Strife," the man having on his back his
wife, and on his shoulders, here a monkey, there a
magpie ! The Cock and Bottle is the vignette on
the title-page. There is a Preface, fully
explan-
tory. There are plenty of apposite footnotes.
There are abundant indices, alphabetically arranged.
The whole book, in fact, is as complete in its
general 'arrangements as, in its contents, it is
thoroughly readable and entertaining.

Saint Crispin and other Quaint Conceits and Merry
Rhapsodies. By W. T. Evelyn Ingram. One
Vol., pp. 215. William Freeman.

Those who care for verbal fun and frolic, " quips
and cranks and wanton wiles," applied jusqu'
l'absurdite to subjects the most profoundly serious,
will probably delight in these effusions. There are
such, as the popularity of some among the greatest
wits and humorists who have ever lived has long
since pretty plainly indicated—Clericals too most
of them—Rabelais to wit, and Sterne, and Swift,
and Thomas Barham, meaning by the last men-
tioned Tom Ingoldsby. One of Lord Byron's most
hilariously extravagant effusions was precisely of
this description—" The Vision of Judgment"—a
poem that when read in a court of law shortly after
its original publication (upon the arraingment of
its printer there on a distinct charge of profanity,
for inasmuch as he had given it to the world) fairly
convulsed the occupants of that court of law
with laughter, including amongst them both bar
and bench ! Delightful as wit and humour of every
imaginable description is to ourselves, wit and
humour thus applied, we must not only confess,
but we would here most strenuously protest, is
alien to us. We recoil from it : and if we are
ever provoked into laughter by it, it is in spite of
ourselves. It is thus under all circumstances,
even when the sentiments and opinions, the
prejudices and predilections, of the writer are
consonant with our own convictions. When,
as in the present instance, however, we are diame-
trically opposed to them, our antagonism, naturally
enough, becomes only confirmed and intensified.
Exception, however, might be taken, quite
apart from the argument here set forth by
the writer of these rhyming oddities—reso-
lute exception, lilac apart from all that, we say,
might be taken to the author's dallying with the
most serious themes of religious controversy in a
facetious spirit--yet while violating thus all the pro-
prieties at a point where ethics and light literature
are brought into, as it always seems to us, most
incongruous combination, the writer of these Quaint
Conceits does so in the train of no less noble a com-
pany of wits than Rabelais, Byron, Swift, Sterne,
and Ingoldsby,