Though these vessels are now completely superseded by pewter and glass, yet their memory still lives on the signboard, and the Leather Bottle is anything but an uncommon ale-house emblem at the present day. There is one still to be seen, carved in wood, suspended in front of an old ale-house at the corner of Charles Street, Hatton Garden. In Germany, also, the leather bottle was once in use; drinking vessels of various materials, in the shape of a boot, are common in that country, usually with this inscription:—
“Wer sein Stiefel nit drinken kan,
Der ist führwahr kein Teutscher Man.”
The Black-jack Tavern, in Clare Market, still in existence, acquired some celebrity from being the favourite haunt of Joe Miller, the reputed author of the famous Jest Book. The house was also for a long time known by the cant name of the Jump, which it had received from the fact of Jack Sheppard one day escaping the clutches of Jonathan Wild’s emissaries by jumping from a window into the street, and so making his escape. From the Leather Bottle to the Golden Bottle is not so great a step as would appear at first sight, the golden bottle being simply the leather bottle gilt, as may be seen above the door of Messrs Hoare the bankers, in Fleet Street, a firm established for centuries under the same sign, although not always occupying the same premises. In the “Little London Directory for 1677” we find:—“James Hore at the Golden Bottle in Cheapside,” one of the goldsmiths that kept “running cashes.” In 1693 we find Mr Richard Hoare, a goldsmith, “at the Golden Bottle” in Cheapside, but in 1718 the house in Cheapside seems to have had a second occupant:—
“DROPT or taken from a Ladies’ side on Tuesday, the 25th of March, coming from the Spanish ambassadour’s at St James’ Square, a gold watch and chain, with a seal to it, a pendulum[559] on the outside; Windmill the maker. Whoever brings it to Mr Madding, Goldsmith at the Golden Bottle, the upper end of Cheapside, or to Jonathan Wilde, over against the Duke of Grafton’s Head in the Old Bailey, shall have 8 Guineas and no questions asked.”—Daily Courant, April 5, 1718.
That the Golden Can was also an old sign may be concluded from a mention in the nursery rhyme:—
“Little Brown Betty lived at the Golden Can,
Where she brewed good ale for gentlemen.
And gentlemen came every day,
Till little brown Betty she hopt away.”
Where the fact of little brown Betty brewing good ale points to a very old custom, when ale-wives flourished, and Eleanor Rumying and her gossips brewed their own ale. The Golden Can is still to be seen on two public-houses in Norwich. The Guilded Cup in Houndsditch is mentioned in a quaint little pamphlet on the virtues of “Warme Beere,” 1641.
The Flask was the sign of an old-established tavern in Ebury Square, Pimlico. In the last century there were two famous Flask taverns in Hampstead; the one called the Lower Flask was an inn at the foot of the hill, and is mentioned in the following advertisement, printed on the cover of the original edition of the Spectator, No. 428:—
“THIS IS TO GIVE NOTICE that Hampstead Fair is to be kept upon the Lower Flask Tavern Walk, on Friday, the first of August, and holds for four days.”
The Upper Flask was a place of public entertainment near the summit of Hampstead Hill, and is now a private residence. Here Richardson sends his Clarissa:—“The Hampstead coach, when the dear fugitive came to it, had but two passengers in it, but she made the fellow go off directly, paying for the vacant places. The two passengers directing the coachman to set them down at the Upper Flask, she bid them set her down there also.” The well-known Kit-Kat Club used to meet at this tavern in the summer months; and here, after it became a private abode, George Steevens, the celebrated critic and antiquary, lived and died.