Besides rebuses, and puns on names, the French have another class of punning signs, for which we have only very few equivalents, namely, rebus signboards. One of the most common is the Bœuf à la Mode, which some twenty or thirty years ago was thus Englished in golden letters on a low boarding-house at Brussels:—
“The Board House of the Fashionable Beef.”
It is the usual sign for eating-houses, being the standard dish of the French bourgeoisie. The picture represents an ox dressed up in the height of female elegance, with bonnet, shawl, &c. A good repartee is told, originating in this method of representing the sign: a citizen’s wife, of aldermanic proportions, was coming out of a magasin de nouveautés in Paris, just as two “social evils” were going in; “Dis-donc, Pelagie,” said one of the girls to her companion, “look at that Bœuf-à-la-Mode who is going out.” “Yes,” replied the indignant matron, who had overheard the remark, “and now game is coming in!”
Other French punning signs, such as St Jean Baptiste, Au Juste Prix, Le Bout du Monde, Le Signe de la Croix, and many more, have been noticed in former chapters, and need not, therefore, be again mentioned here.
[666] In the old sermons and religious treatises of the seventeenth century, however, we occasionally find punning resorted to by the preachers of the time.
[667] He was a printer who kept his shop at the sign of the Swan in St Paul’s Churchyard in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This Garatt D’Ewes was grandfather of the celebrated antiquary, Sir Symond D’Ewes; he amassed a handsome fortune, which enabled him to purchase the manor of Gains near Upminster, Essex, and thus laid the foundation of the future greatness of his family. D’Ewes was of Dutch origin, being a native of the province of Gelderland. Some of the letters of this early printer are preserved in the Harl. MS., No. 381.
[668] Camden’s Remains, p. 140, et seq. 1629.
[669] Taylor’s Pennylesse Pilgrimage, 1630.
[670] Postman, January 25-27, 1711.