“Dit is de gelaarsde haan
Christus is naar ’t kruys gegaan,
Met een doornenkroon op ’t hoofd.
Hy slacht Thomas die ’t niet gelooft.”[636]

The Jackass in Boots (de gelaarsde ezel) was the sign of a publican, with this inscription:—

“In den gelaarsden ezel zeer kloek,
Verkoopt men toebak, brandewyn, en knapkoek.”[637]

The Dog also appears dressed, as the Dog in Doublet, a sign which may be seen at Pyebridge, Derby, at Northbank, Cambridge, and a few other out-of-the-way places. Dr Johnson did this sign the honour of applying it as a metaphor. Speaking of an old idea newly expressed, he said: “It is an old coat with a new facing.” Then (laughing heartily) “it is the old dog in a new doublet!”[638]

The Dog occurs in various other humorous combinations. Ned Ward mentions a famous inn, in Petty Cury, Cambridge—

“the sign of the Devil’s Lapdog, kept by an old grizly curmudgeon, corniferously wedded to a plump, young, gay, brisk, black, beautiful, good landlady, who I afterwards heard had so great a kindness for the University, that she had rather see two or three gowns’ men come into her house, than a c—— crew of aldermen in all their pontificalibusses.”[639]

The [Dog’s Head in the Pot] is mentioned on the Pardoner’s Roll in “Cocke Lorell’s Bote:”—

“Also Annys Angry with the croked buttocke
That dwelled at ye sygne of ye Dogges hede in ye Pot,
By her crafte a brechemaker.”

It seems originally to have been a mock sign to indicate a dirty, slovenly housewife. A woodcut above the second part of the Roxburghe ballad of “The Coaches’ Overthrow” represents various dirty practices. From the upper windows of one of the houses a woman is emptying the unsavoury contents of a domestic vase almost on the heads of the people underneath, and the sign of that house is the Dog’s head in the Pot, representing a dog licking out a pot. A coarse woodcut sheet of the commencement of the last century—evidently copied from a much older original—to judge by the costumes, represents two ancient beldames with high-crowned hats, starched ruffs and collars, and high-heeled boots, in a very disorderly room or kitchen; one of the women wipes a plate with the bushy tail of a large dog, whose head is completely buried in a capacious pot, which he is licking clean; under it:—