CHAPTER XVI.
MISCELLANEOUS SIGNS.
Signs which could not well be classed under any of the former divisions will find their place in this chapter, and hence a motley gathering may be expected. As in all inquiries it is proper to begin with the a. b. c., we shall do so here. The A. B. C. was the sign of Richard Fawkes, a bookseller, as the imprint of his works says:—
“In the suburbss of the famous Cytye of Lōdon, withoute Templebarre dwellynge in Durresme rentes [part of Durham House, where now the Adelphi stands] or else in Powles churche-yerde at the sygne of the A. B. C. The year of our Lorde MCCCCCXXX.”
This, we must admit, was a very reasonable sign for a “man of letters.” Continental booksellers also employed it; amongst others, Jacob Pietersz Paetsy, of Amsterdam, in 1597; in the Hague such a sign gave its name to a street. About 1825 there was a public-house in Clare Market called the A. B. C., where the alphabet from A to Z was painted over the door. Even at the present day many public-houses are called the Letters; thus there are two in Shrewsbury, two in Carlisle, one in Oldham, and others in various places. Grand A is a public-house near East Dereham, Norfolk. Little A was the sign of a tobacconist in Leadenhall Street, circa 1780; his tobacco-papers, preserved among the Banks bills, were adorned with a portrait of “Sir Jeffrey Dunstan, or Old Wigs,” one of the mayors of Garrat, styled “Old Wigs” from his practice of buying those articles, by which he made an honourable living before ambition flamed his soul and he entered upon a political career. Grand B may be seen at Long Framlington, Morpeth; Q Inn at Staleybridge; and Q in the Corner in Sheffield. Rhyming alphabets and nursery rhymes present us with the first and last, but the second we confess is somewhat mysterious: the Crowned Q, (au Q Courronne,) which was an old sign in the Rue de la Ferronière, Paris, is easy enough to understand, and one of those broad Rabelaisian strokes of humour which the public delighted in a century or two ago; indeed the sign continued in its old quarters until 1828. The Y was formerly a mercer’s sign in France, and may have originated from the custom of tying ribbons up in festoons, when they would assume somewhat the shape of that letter. It was also the sign of Nicholas Duchemin, a bookseller in Paris, 1541-1576. He, however, took a Pythagorean view of this letter, and considered it, as the freemasons do, an emblem of the double path of life, the broad way leading to destruction, the narrow way unto life; hence the top of the left hand branch terminated in flames, the right hand in a crown. The idea was evidently borrowed from Matt. vii. 13, unless it be from Persius, who says—
“Et tibi quæ Samios deduxit litera ramos,
Surgentem dextro monstravit limite callem.”
Z was formerly a grocer’s sign in this country, and was said to stand for Zinzibar, (ginger,) but this Z after all was perhaps only a corruption of the figure 4 which, we are informed, is or was a constant grocer’s sign in some parts of Scotland, as for instance in Stirling, implying that their provisions came from the four quarters of the world. Number IV is still the sign of an ale-house at 74 Hope Street, Salford, Manchester. Number Three is to be seen at Great Layton, near Blackpool. In 1633 it was the sign of a bookseller, Jean Brunet, in the Rue Neuve S. Louis, Paris. He says on the imprints of his books, au Trois de chiffres, in contradistinction to the Roman numerals, which at that time were not named chiffres but nombres; chiffres applied only to the Arab numerals. The latter were introduced by Pope Silvester II. (999-1003) who, having studied at Seville, acquired them from the Moors.