Pepys, on the 3d of August 1660, informs us that he dined at an ordinary called the Quaker, a somewhat unusual godfather for a sinful tavern. This house was situated in the Great Sanctuary, Westminster, and was only pulled down in the beginning of the present century to make way for a market-place, which in its turn has made room for a new sessions-house. Tull, the last landlord, opened a new public-house in Thieving Lane, and adorned the doorway of this house with twisted pillars decorated with vine-leaves, brought from the old Quaker tavern. J. T. Smith presents us with a view of this house in the additional plates to his “Antiquities of Westminster.”
The Pilgrim has been mentioned incidentally (on [p. 434]) as a sign at Coventry. There is another public-house of this name in Kew Lane. In 1833 a figure of a pilgrim was placed upon the roof of this house, which by concealed machinery moved to and fro like the Wandering Jew, doomed to wander up and down until the end of the world; it was, however, of contemptible workmanship, and very soon got out of order.
The Gipsy’s Tent occurs at Hagley, Stourbridge; the Gipsy Queen at Highbury and other places; and the Queen of the Gipsies was the sign of the so-called gipsy house near Norwood. The queen alluded to was Margaret Finch, who died at the great age of 109 years; Norwood was her residence during the last years of her life, and there she told fortunes to the credulous. She was buried October 24, 1760, in a deep square box, as from her constant habit of sitting with her chin resting on her knees, her muscles had become so contracted that she could not at last alter her position. This woman, when a girl of seventeen, may have been one of the dusky gang pretty Mrs Pepys and her companions went to consult, August 11, 1668, which her lord duly chronicled in the evening: “This afternoon my wife and Mercer and Deb went with Pelling to see the gypsies at Lambeth, and have their fortunes told, but what they did I did not enquire.” A granddaughter of Margaret Finch, also a so-styled queen, was living in an adjoining cottage in the year 1800.
The True Lover’s Knot is a sign at Uxbridge, the only example of it we have met with. In the North of England and in Scotland it is still the custom with betrothed lovers of the lower class to present each other with a curious kind of knot called “a true lover’s knot.” Brand says the word is not derived from true love, but from trulofa, Danish for fidem do. It was formerly a common present between lovers of all stations of life in England.
The Folly is not unusual; it is generally applied to a very ambitious, extravagantly furnished, or highly ornamented house; in such a sense it was already used in Queen Elizabeth’s reign:—
“Kirby Castle and Fisher’s Folly
Spinola’s Pleasure and Megse’s Glory.”
One of the most notorious “Follies” was an edifice of timber divided into sundry rooms, with a platform and balustrade on the top, which in the reign of Charles II. floated in the Thames above London Bridge. At first it was very well frequented, and the beauty and fashion of the period (Pepys amongst them, April 13, 1668,) used to go there on summer evenings, partake of refreshments on the platform, and enjoy the breeze on the river (then guiltless of the modern sewers and filth.). On one occasion Queen Mary honoured it with a visit, accompanied by some of her courtiers. Gradually, however, it took to evil courses; loose and disorderly females were admitted, and unrestrained drinking and dancing soon gave it an unenviable notoriety. In this condition it was visited by Tom Brown, who describes it with his usual coarse vigour: “This whimsical piece of Architecture was designed as a musical Summer-house for the entertainment of quality where they might meet and ogle one another; but the Ladies of the Town finding it as convenient a rendez-vous, overstock’d the place with such an inundation of harlotry, that dashed the female quality out of countenance, and made them seek some more retired conveniency.” He next describes the company in very glowing colours, but found it such a confused scene of folly, madness, and debauchery, that he—no very bashful person—was compelled to return to his boat “without drinking!”[720] At length the place became so scandalous that it had to be closed; it went to decay, and at last was sold for firewood.
The sign of the Blue-Coat Boy, usually chosen by toy-shops, printsellers, and colourmen, was either in compliment to the scholars of King Edward VI.’s foundation, Christ’s Hospital,—commonly called “the Blue Coat School,” from the blue tunic of the lads, or was named after the Bridewell Boys, i.e., foundlings and deserted children, who wore a blue coat and trousers, with a white hat. Until the end of the last century they used to attend at all the fires with the Bridewell engine, but on the whole they were an unruly mischievous set. There was a Blue Coat coffee-house in Sweeting’s Alley, near the Exchange, in 1711.[721] At present it is generally called the Blue Boy, as at Old Swinford, Stourbridge; Minchinhampton, Gloucester, and in a few other places. In Islington there is still such a sign, and in Aldersgate Street, if we remember rightly, there is an ironmonger with such a decoration.
A very strange sign occurs amongst the Banks Bills. On a shop-bill dated 1698, is the following inscription: “At the signe of the Tare lives one Mr Grenier who makes all sorts of good rasors, lancets, sisers, very well, and all other sorts of instruments for chirugeons.” The engraving represents two angels holding a tear by a string, surrounded by a quantity of surgical instruments, after the true meat-axe type, and vicious-looking enough to “draw tears of molten brass from the eyes of Pluto himself.”