Formerly there used to be a sign of the Three Foxes in Clement’s Lane, Lombard Street, carved in stone, representing three foxes sitting in a row. But a few years ago the house came into the possession of a legal firm, who, no doubt afraid of the jokes to which the sign might lead, thought it advisable to do away with the carving by covering it over with plaster.
One of the most favourite combinations is the Fox and Goose, represented by a fox currant, with the neck of the goose in his mouth and the body cast over his back. It seems suggested by an incident in the old tale of “Reynard the Fox,” and was a subject which mediæval artists were never tired of representing; it occurs in stall carvings, as in Gloucester Cathedral; in the border of the Bayeux tapestry, and in endless MS. illuminations. It is, or was, a coat of arms borne by the families of Foxwist and Foxfeld. Derived from this sign are the Fox and Duck, (two in Sheffield,) and the Fox and Hen, of which there is an example at Long Itchington. Reynard’s predatory habits are further illustrated by the Fox and Lamb, in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle, in Allendale, &c., and the Fox and Grapes, borrowed from the fable. From the same well-known source also arose the sign of the Fox and Crane. But we see the punishment of all Reynard’s misdemeanours in the Fox and Hounds, a sign of old standing, as there is one in Putney on a house which professes to have been “established above three hundred years.” The Fox and Owl at Nottingham, seems to owe its origin to a curious qui pro quo in language. A bunch of ivy, or ivy tod, was generally considered the favourite haunt of an owl; but a tod also signifies a fox; and so the owl’s nest, owls-tod, may have led to the owl and tod, the fox and owl. The [Owl’s Nest] is still a sign at St Helen’s, Lancashire. See under [Bird Signs].
In the sign of the Fox and Bull, at Knightsbridge, the bull has been added of late years. About fifty years ago a magistrate used to sit once a week at this public-house to settle the small disputes of the neighbouring inhabitants. At that period Knightsbridge was still in such a benighted condition that neither a butcher’s nor draper’s shop was to be found between Hyde Park Corner and Sloane Street; and the whole locality could only boast of one stationer where note-paper and newspapers could be obtained. The voyage to London in those days was performed in a sort of lumbering stagecoach, over an ill-paved and dimly-lighted road. To this Fox Inn, by a very old wooden gate at the back, the bodies of the drowned in the Serpentine used to be conveyed, to the care of the Royal Humane Society, who had a receiving-house here. Among the many unhappy young and fair ones who were carried through that “Lasciate-ogni-speranza” gate, was Harriet Westbrook, the first wife of Shelley the poet, who had drowned herself in the Serpentine upon hearing that her husband had run off to Italy with Mary, the daughter of William Godwin, bookseller and philosopher of Snow Hill. The ancient inn remained much in its Elizabethan condition till the year 1799, when certain alterations cleared away the old-fashioned fire-places, chimney-pieces, and dog-irons, by which had sat the weather-beaten soldiers of Cromwell, the highwaymen lying in ambush for the mail coaches, and the fair London ladies out on a sly trip.
Some other combinations are not so easily explained, such as the Fox and Cap, Long Lane, Smithfield: but when we see the bill of this shop[233] the mystery is explained; it was the sign of Tho. Tronsdale, a capmaker, and represented a fox running, with a cap painted above him, to intimate the man’s business. The Fox and Crown, Nottingham and Newark, is evidently a combination of two signs. The Fox and Knot, Snow Hill, seems to be of old standing, as it has given its name to a court close by. Its origin, doubtless, is exactly similar to that of the Fox and Cap; the knot or top-knot being a head-dress worn by ladies in the last century. The Flying Fox at Colchester, may either allude to some kind of bat or flying squirrel (?) thus denominated, or is a landlord’s caprice.
It is certainly somewhat strange that in this sporting country the sign of the Brush or the Fox’s Tail should be so rare; in fact, no instance of its use is now to be found, although, beside the interest attached to it in the hunting field, it had the honour of being one of the badges of the Lancaster family. What is still more surprising is, that the Fox’s Tail should have been the sign of a Parisian bookseller, Jean Ruelle, in 1540; but what prompted him to choose this sign is now rather difficult to guess.
DOMESTIC ANIMALS.
Notwithstanding the ballad of the “Vicar and Moses,” which says,
“At the sign of the Horse old Spintext of course
Each night took his pipe and his pot,”
the horse rarely or never occurs without a distinctive adjective to determine its colour, action, or other attribute. All natural colours of the horse, and some others, are found on the signboard—black, white, bay, sorrel, (rare,) pied, spotted, red, sometimes golden, and in one instance, at Grantham, a Blue Horse is met with. Frequently the sign of the Horse is accompanied by the following hippophile advice:—
“Up hill hurry me not;
Down hill trot me not;
On level ground spare me not;
And in the stable I’m not forgot.”