“Sur les chemins des grands villes et champs,
Ne trouverez de douze maisons l’une,
Qui n’ait enseigne d’un soleil, d’une lune.
Tous vendant vin, chascun à son quartier.”[699]
Like the Star, (see [p. 501],) the Sun did not enjoy a good reputation. Henry Peacham thus cautions young men from the country:—
“Let a monyed man or gentleman especially beware in the city, ab istis calidis et callidis solis filiabus as Lipsius: these overhot and crafty daughters of the Sunne, your silken and gold laced harlots, everywhere (especially in the suburbs) to be found.”[700]
The reason of this sign having been especially adopted by that description of houses, we are unable to state, unless it be the one Tom D’Urfey gives in “Collin’s Walk through London,” where, speaking of a frail and fair one, he says:—
“And like the Sun, was understood
To all mankind a common good.”
But as the sun shines alike over good and evil, so respectable as well as disreputable persons have used him for a sign; thus Wynkyn de Worde, in Fleet Street, and Anthony Kytson, another early printer, and the publisher of some works of Master John Skelton, poet laureate, carried on business under this device. Taylor the Water poet mentions three Sun taverns: being compelled one day on his “pennylesse pilgrimage,” to dine à la belle étoile, he says:—“I made virtue of necessity, and went to breakefast in the Sunne: I have fared better at three Sunnes many a time before now: in Aldersgate Street, Criplegate, and New Fish Street; but here is the oddss: at those Sunnes they will come vpon a man with a tauerne bill as sharp cutting as a taylor’s bill of items: a watchman’s bill or a watch hooke falls not halfe so heauy vpon a man.”[701] The Sun on Fish Street Hill is also named by Pepys:—
“Dec. 22, 1660.—Went to the Sun Tavern on Fish Street Hill, to a dinner of Captain Teddimans, where was my Lord Inchequin, (who seems to be a very fine person,) Sir W. Penn, Captain Cuttance, and Mr Laurence, (a fine gentleman now going to Algiers,) and other good company, where we had a very good dinner, good music, and a great deal of wine. I very merry—went to bed, my head aching all night.”
But the finest of all the Sun Taverns did not exist in Taylor’s time; it was built after the fire of 1666, behind the Exchange.
“Behind? I’ll ne’er believe it; you may as soon
Persuade me that the sun stands behind noon.”