The Devil’s House was the name of a favourite Sunday resort in the last century, in the Hornsey Road, Islington. It is said to have been the retreat of Claude Duval (unde Duval’s house, Devil’s house,) the elegant highwayman in the reign of Charles II., who infested the lanes about Islington; but from a survey taken in 1611, it appears that the house bore already at that time the name of “Devil’s House.” From its general appearance it seemed to date from Queen Elizabeth’s reign. It was surrounded by a moat filled with water, and passed by a wooden bridge. Its attractions are held forth in the following laudatory epistle, an example of the florid and poetical advertising in vogue when Richardson wrote novels of six volumes all in letters—compositions too painfully pathetic for our matter-of-fact age:—
“To the Printer of the Publick Advertiser.
“Sir,—Returning yesterday from a rural excursion to Hornsey, I casually stopped for a little refreshment at an house, commonly known by the name of Devil’s House, situated within two fields of Holloway-Turnpike. I own that I was vastly surprised at so charming and delightful a place, so near town, and at the great improvements lately made there. The garden is well laid out, encompassed with a beautiful moat, and a good canal in the orchard. On inquiry, I found the landlord (remarkable for his civil and obliging behaviour) had stocked the same with plenty of tench, carp, and other fish, with free liberty for his customers to angle therein. Tea and hot loaves are ready at a moment’s notice, and new milk from the cows grazing in the pleasant meadows adjoining, with a good larder, and the best wines, &c. In short, I know not a more agreeable place, where persons of both sexes of genteel taste may enjoy a more innocent and delightful amusement. But what surprised me most, was that the landlord, by a peculiar turn of invention, had changed the Devil’s House to the Summer House,—a name I find it is for the future to be distinguished by. I wish, Mr Printer, your readers as much pleasure as myself, and am, sir, your constant reader,
“H. G.
“May 25, 1767.”
At Royston, Herts, there is a public-house known as the Devil’s Head. There is no signboard, but a carved representation of his satanic majesty’s head projects from the building, the name being underneath.
St Patrick is exclusively an Irish sign. He is generally represented in the costume of a bishop, driving a flock of snakes, toads, and other vermin before him, which he is said to have banished from Ireland. His life is more replete with miracles than any of the other saints.
“St Patrick was a gentleman,
And came of dacent people,”
for his father was a noble Roman, who lived at Kirkpatrick, in Scotland. The saint’s life was very active; he founded 365 churches, ordained 365 bishops, and 3000 priests, converted 12,000 persons in one district, baptized seven kings at once, established a purgatory, and with his staff expelled every reptile that stung or croaked. This last feat, however, has been performed by a great many saints in different parts of the world. Not so the feat he performed at his death, when, having been beheaded, he coolly took his head under his arm, (or, according to the best authorities, in his mouth,) and swam over the Shannon. In such cases as the Bishop of Narbonne said about St Denis, (who walked from Montmartre to St Denis with his head under his arm,) “il n’y a que le premier pas qui coute.”[426]
In many instances, no doubt, before the Reformation, the shopkeeper would choose his patron saint for his sign, to act as a sort of lares and penates to his house. An example of this occurs on the following imprint:—“Manual of Prayers, 1539. Imprynted in Bottol [St Botolph’s] Lane, at the sygne of the Whyt Beare, by me, Jhon Mayler, for John Waylande, and be to sell in Powles Churchyarde, by Andrew Hester, at the Whyt Horse, and also by Mychel Lobley, at the sygne of the Saint Mychel;” this last bookseller, therefore, had chosen his own patron saint for his sign. For the same reason another bookseller adopted, in the early part of the sixteenth century, Saint John the Evangelist—“The Doctrynall of Good Servauntes. Imprynted at London, in Flete Strete, at the sygne of Saynt Johan Evangelyste, by me, Johan Butler.” This Butler was a judge of the Common Pleas, as well as a bookseller. About the same period the Evangelist was also the sign of another man of the same profession—“Robert Wyce, dwellinge at the sygne of Seynt Johan Euāgelyst, in Seynt Martyns parysshe, in the filde besyde Charynge Crosse, in the bysshop of Norwytche rentys.” He was the printer of the well-known “Pronostycacion for ever of Erra Pater; a Jewe borne in Jewry, a doctor in Astronomye and Physicke,” which was continued for ages after him. Robert Wyce must have been about the first bookseller and printer in this neighbourhood, as in Queen Elizabeth’s reign the parish contained less than one hundred people liable to be rated.[427] We find the same as one of the oldest printer’s signs in France, on an edition of Merlin’s Prophecies, printed at Paris in 1438, by Abraham Verard, dwelling near the church of Notre Dame, at the sign of St John the Evangelist.
Other saints, again, have a local reputation, and are perpetuated on the signboards in certain localities only, as for instance St Thomas of Canterbury; St Edmund’s Head, at Bury St Edmunds; and St Cuthbert, at Monk’s house, near Sunderland. This saint was the first bishop of Northumberland.
“But fain St Hilda’s nuns would learn,
If on a rock by Lindisfarne,
[297] St Cuthbert sits and toils to frame
The seaborn weeds which bear his name,”
says Sir Walter Scott, alluding to the stalks of the Encrinites, which are called St Cuthbert’s Beads, the saint, as the story goes, amusing himself by stringing them together.