[565] Even after the art got to be known, it continued to be still called writing. Thus, Gaspar Hedion (Paral. ad Chron. Conradi) calls it “novo scribendi genere reperto,” and Fulgosus (Lib. viii., Dict. & Fact. Memor.) says that Guttenberg could “uno die imprimendo plura scribere quam uno anno calamis.”
[566] See the whole of the documents of this law-suit in Count Leon de Laborde’s Débuts de l’Imprimerie à Strasbourg.
[567] This De Cesaris family seemed to have a predilection for puzzling signboards. When Peter de Cesaris, a bookseller and printer in the Rue St Jacques, circa 1480, had for a sign the Swan and Soldier, (le cygne et soldat,) in the absence of his colophon, we can only suppose that it was a representation of the legend of the Knight of the Swan, i.e., a knight in a boat drawn by a swan. The steel armour of the knight might easily have bestowed upon him the title of “the soldier.”
[568] London Gazette, Nov. 10-13, 1679.
[569] Loyd’s Evening Post, Jan 9-12, 1767.
“It happened at the Pewter Platter,
Near Saint Pierre des Arsis.”
[571] Whether it would be just to conclude from this that sailors in that time went by the generic name of Tom instead of Jack, we leave to the reader to judge. That Tom was in former times a more common name than now, (owing, it is said, to the respect at one time paid to the great saint Thomas a-Becket,) appears from the many words to which it is an affix, and from many imaginary names, as:—Tomtit, Tomcat, Tomfoolery, Tomboy, Tommyshop, Tommy, (slang for bread,) double Tom, (a sort of plough,) Tom the Piper, (in the morris dance,) Tom Tiddler, Tom of Bedlam, Tom of Westminster, (a bell,) Tom and Jerry, Tom Telltruth, Tom Hickathrift, Tom, (the knave of Trumps,) Whipping Tom, an itinerant flogger of wandering maids, Tom Tapster, “Tib’s rush for Tom’s forefingers,” (all’s well that ends well.)
“Then every wanton may dance at her will,
Both Tomkin with Tomlin and Jenkin with Gill.”
Tusser’s Plowman’s Fasting Day