“Watched sometimes ten hours together in an ale-house, ever and anon peeping forth and sampling thy nose with the red lattice.”
So common was this fixture, that no ale-house was without it:—
“A whole street is in some places but a continuous ale-house, not a shop to be seen between red lattice and red lattice.”—Decker’s English Villanies Seven Times Pressed to Death.
At last it became synonymous with ale-house:—
“As well known by my wit as an ale-house by a red lattice.”[546]
“Trusty Rachel was drinking burnt brandy with a couple of tinder-box cryers at the next red lattice.”[547]
The lattices continued in use until the beginning of the eighteenth century, and after they disappeared from the windows were adopted as signs, and as such they continue to the present day. The Green Lattice occurs on a trades token of Cock Lane, and still figures at the door of an ale-house in Billingsgate, whilst not many years ago there was one, in Brownlow Street, Holborn, which had been corrupted into the Green Lettuce.
When balconies were newly introduced, they were also used in the place of signs. Lord Arundel was the inventor of them, and Covent Garden the first place where they became general. “Every house here has one of ’em,” says Richard Broome, in 1659. Trades tokens “of the Bellconey,” in Bedford Street, are still extant, and also tokens of “John Williams, the king’s chairman, at ye lower end of St Martin’s Lane, at ye Balconey. 1667.” The first house that adopted a balcony was situated at the corner of Chandos Street, “which country people were wont much to gaze on;” soon, however, they became so common that further distinctions had to be added, as the Iron Balcony, (St James’ Street, 1699,) the Blue and Gilt Balcony, (Hatton Street, 1673.) Lamps have also, for two or three centuries, frequently done duty as signs, and continue still to act as beacons to those who want the assistance of the doctor, the chemist, or the sweep. Ale and coffee-houses, too, are frequently decorated with gorgeous lamps: this was already the custom in Tom Brown’s time:—
“Every coffee-house is illuminated both without and within doors; without by a fine Glass Lanthorn, and within by a woman so light and splendid you may see through her without the help of a Perspective.”[548]
The Moorfield quacks had always lamps at their doors at night, with round glasses, having the same colours as the balls in their signs, and this custom has been handed down to our day by the chemists, who still have circular, red, green, and yellow bull’s-eye glasses in their lamps.