Next Boat by Paul’s, in Upper Thames Street, may be seen on the trades token of an ale-house, evidently kept by a waterman, who used to ply with his boat near St Paul’s. The token of this house represents a boat containing three men, over it the legend, “Next Boat.” “Next Oars” was the cry of the watermen waiting for a fare. Tom Brown in his walk round London, says, “I steered him down Blackfryars towards the Thames side till coming near the stairs, up started such a noisy multitude of grizly old Tritons, hollowing and hooting out Next Oars and scullers, &c. And with that I bawled out as loud as a speaking trumpet, ‘Next Oars,’ and away ran Captain Caron, and hollowed to his man Ben to bring the boat near.” “Next Boat,” was also the sign of a public-house of note adjoining Holland’s Leaguer in Blackfriars, where Holland Street is now.
The Law is very badly represented—the Judge’s Head seems to be the only sign in honour of this branch of the Commonwealth. It was the sign of Charles King, a bookseller in Westminster Hall in 1718,[493] and may be readily accounted for in that locality. It was also the first sign of Jacob Tonson, the well-known bookseller and secretary of the Kit-Kat Club, when he lived near Inner Temple gate, Fleet Street. In 1697 when he removed to Gray’s Inn gate, he adopted the Shakespeare’s Head, under which he became famous. After 1712, he took a shop in the Strand, opposite Catherine Street, but without altering his sign, and there he died in March 1736 possessed of a splendid fortune. This was that famous Tonson who published the works of the most celebrated authors and poets of the day. Dryden was one of them. Liberality in those days was a word not to be found in the dictionary of a publisher, as Dryden often experienced; in one of his ill tempers, when Tonson had been putting on the screw rather too much, the incensed poet began a satire upon him:—
“With leering look, bullfac’d, and freckled fair,
With two left legs, with Judas-colour’d hair,
And frowsy pores that taint the ambient air.”
These three lines he sent as a sample of his savoir faire to the publisher, with the gentle addition: “Tell the dog that he who wrote this can write more.” Tonson did not wish to see more, however, and Dryden obtained what he desired. About the year 1720, Jacob Tonson left the business to his nephew, Jacob Tonson, jun., son of his brother Richard, who, through the patronage of the Duke of Newcastle, became stationer, bookbinder, and printer to the Public Board, and this lucrative appointment was enjoyed by the Tonson family, or their assignees, till the month of January 1800.
Lot Goodal, Beadle of St Martin-in-the-Fields, in 1680, had, like other celebrities, taken his own goodly person for the sign of his house in Rupert Street, as appears from his advertisement, in which, like a true Dogberry, the public are informed that he had taken a silver watch with a studded case “in custody.” The Brown Bill was another constable’s sign:—
“Which is the constable’s house
At the sign of the Brown Bill?”
Blurt, Master Constable or the Spaniard’s Nightwalk. Tho. Middleton. 1602.
This brown bill was a kind of battle-axe, or hatchet affixed to a long staff, used by constables. The name was transferred from the weapon to the men who carried it:—
“Const. Come, my brown bills, we’ll roar,
“Const. Bounce loud at the tavern door.”—Ibid.
They were also called Billmen:—