“ART thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.” (S. John iv. 12.)
How cruelly these words apply to the gin-tap, at which generation after generation drink, and after which they always thirst again. Not unlikely the English use of this sign dates from the Puritan period.[376] Not always, however, had the sign any direct relation to the trade of the inmate of the house which it adorned; as, for example, Moses and Aaron, which occurs on a trades token of Whitechapel. In allusion to this, or a similar sign, Tom Brown says, “Other amusements presented themselves as thick as hops, as Moses pictured with horns, to keep Cheapside in countenance.”[377] Even the Dutch shopkeeper, whose imagination was generally so fertile in finding a religious subject appropriate as his trade sign, was at a loss what to do with Moses; for a baker in Amsterdam, in the seventeenth century, put up the sign of Moses, with this inscription:
“Moses wierd gevist in het water,
Die hier waar haalt krygt vry gist, een Paaschbrood,
En op Korstyd een Deuvekater.”[378]
In London, however, the use of this sign may at first have been suggested by the statues of Moses and Aaron that used to stand above the balcony of the Old Guildhall. Connected with the history of Moses, we find several other signs, one in particular, mentioned by Ned Ward as the Old Pharaoh in the town of Barley, in Cambridgeshire. It was so named, says he, “from a stout, elevating malt liquor of the same name, for which this house had been long famous.”[379] Why this beer was called Pharaoh, Ned Ward does not seem to have known; but a story in the county is current that it was so named because the beer, like the Egyptian king of old, “would not let the people go!” It is now no longer drunk in England, but a certain strong beer of the same name is still a favourite beverage in Belgium. Next, in chronological order, connected with the history of Moses, follows the [Brazen Serpent], the sign of Reynold Wolfe, a bookseller and printer in St Paul’s Churchyard, 1544, and also of both his apprentices, Henry Binneman and John Shepperde. It had probably been imported by the foreign printers, for it was a favourite amongst the early French and German booksellers. At the present day it is a public-house sign in Richardson Street, Bermondsey. What led to the adoption of this emblem was not the historical association, but the mystical meaning which it had in the middle ages:—
“A serpent torqued with a long cross; others blazon Christ, supporting the brazen serpent, because it was an anti-type of the passion and death of our Saviour; for as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, (Num. xxi. 8, 9; John iii. 14,) that all that behold him, by a lively faith, may not perish, but have everlasting life. This is the cognizance or crest of every true believer.”[380]
The idea was no doubt borrowed from the Biblia Pauperum. The Balaam’s Ass, again, was one of the dramatis personæ in the Whitsuntide mystery of the company of cappers, (cap-makers,) and this is the only reason we can imagine for his having found his way to the signboard. It occurs in 1722 in a newspaper paragraph, concerning a child born without a stomach, the details of which are too nauseous to be introduced here.[381]
The [Two Spies] is the last sign belonging to the history of Moses; it represents two of the spies that went into Canaan, “and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff,” (Num. xiii. 23.) This bunch of grapes made it a favourite with publicans; at many places it may still be seen, as in Catherine Street, Strand, (a house of old standing;) in Long Acre, &c. In Great Windmill Street, Leicester Square, it has been corrupted into the Three Spies.
After Moses there is a blank until we come to Samson, to whom our national admiration for athletic sports and muscular strength has given a prominent place on the signboard. Samson and the Lion occurs on the sign of various houses in London in the seventeenth century, as appears from the trades tokens. It is still of frequent occurrence in country towns, as at Dudley, Coventry, &c. It was also used on the Continent. In Paris there is, or was, not many years ago, a della Robbia ware medallion sign in the Rue des Dragons, with the legend “le Fort Samson,” representing the strong man tearing open the lion. To a sign of Samson at Dordrecht, in the seventeenth century, the following satirical inscription had been added:—
“Toen Samson door zyn kracht de leeuw belemmen kon,
De Philistynen sloeg, de vossen overwon.
Wiert hy nog door een Vrouw van zyn gezigt beroofd,
Gelooft geen vrouw dan of zy moet zyn zonder hoofd.”[382]