Darby and John, a corruption of Darby and Joan, and borrowed from an old nursery fable, is a sign at Crowle, in Lincolnshire; and Hob in the Well, with a similar origin, at Little Port Street, Lynn; whilst Sir John Barleycorn is the hero of a ballad allegorical of the art of brewing, &c.
A favourite ballad of our ancestors originated the sign of the [London Apprentice], of which there are still numerous examples. How they were represented appears from the Spectator, No. 428, viz., “with a lion’s heart in each hand.” The ballad informs us that the apprentice came off with flying colours, after endless adventures, one of which was that like Richard Cœur-de-Lion—he “robbed the lion of his heart.” The ballad is entitled “The Honour of an Apprentice of London, wherein he declared his matchless manhood and brave adventures done by him in Turkey, and by what means he married the king’s daughter of that same country.”
The Essex Serpent is a sign in King Street, Covent Garden, and in Charles Street, Westminster, perhaps in allusion to a fabulous monster recorded in a catalogue of wonders and awful prognostications contained in a broadside of 1704,[100] from which we learn that, “Before Henry the Second died, a dragon of marvellous bigness was discovered at St Osyph, in Essex.” Had we any evidence that it is an old sign, we might almost be inclined to consider it as dating from the civil war, and hung up with reference to Essex, the Parliamentary general; for though we have searched the chroniclers fondest of relating wonders and monstrous apparitions, we have not succeeded in finding any authority for the St Osyph Dragon, other than the above-mentioned broadside.
Literature of a somewhat higher class than street ballads, has likewise contributed material to the signboards. One of the oldest instances is the Lucrece, the chaste felo-de-se of Roman history, who, in the sixteenth century, was much in fashion among the poets, and was even sung by Shakespeare. We find that “Thomas Berthelet, prynter unto the kynges mooste noble grace, dwellynge at the sygne of the Lucrece, in Fletestrete, in the year of our Lorde 1536.” In 1557, it was the sign of Leonard Axtell, in St Paul’s Churchyard; and in the reign of Charles I., of Thomas Purfoot, in New Rents, Newgate Market, both booksellers and printers. The [Complete Angler] was the usual sign of fish-tackle sellers in the last century, and the essays of the Spectator made the character of [Sir Roger de Coverley] very popular with tobacconists. Doctor Syntax hangs at the door of many public-houses, as at Preston, Oldham, Newcastle, Gateshead, &c.; the Lady of the Lake at Lowestoft; Dandie Dinmont at West Linton, Carlisle; Pickwick in Newcastle; the Red Rover, Barton Street, Gloucester;[101] Tam o’ Shanter, Laurence Street, York, and various other towns; Robin Adair, Benwell, Newcastle. Popular songs also belong to this class, as the Lass o’ Gowrie, Sunderland and Durham; Auld Lang Syne, Preston Street, Liverpool; Tulloch-Gorum and Loch-na-Gar, both in Manchester; Rob Roy, Titheburn Street, Liverpool; Flowers of the Forest, Blackfriars Road. On the whole, however, this class of names is much more prevalent in the northerly than in the southerly districts of England. In the south, if we except The Old English Gentleman, who occurs everywhere, the great Jim Crow is almost the only instance of the hero of a song promoted to the signboard. Robinson Crusoe is common to all the seaports of the kingdom, whilst Uncle Tom, or Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is to be found everywhere, not only in England, but also on the Continent. Any little underground place of refreshment or beer-house difficult of access, is considered as fittingly named by Mrs Beecher Stowe’s novel.
A very appropriate, and not uncommon public-house sign is the Toby Philpott. That he well deserves this honour, appears from the following obituary notice, (in the Gent. Mag., Dec. 1810:)—
“At the Ewes farm-house, Yorkshire, aged 76, Mr Paul Parnell, farmer, grazier, and maltster, who, during his lifetime, drank out of one silver pint cup upwards of £2000 sterling worth of Yorkshire Stingo, being remarkably attached to Stingo tipple of the home-brewed best quality. The calculation is taken at 2d. per cupful. He was the bon-vivant whom O’Keefe celebrated in more than one of his Bacchanalian songs under the appellation of Toby Philpott.”
Between St Albans and Harpenden, there was, some years ago, and perhaps there is still, a public-house called the Old Roson. This name also appears to be borrowed from the well-known song, “Old Rosin the Beau,” beginning thus:—
“I have travell’d this wide world over,
And now to another I’ll go,
[82] I know that good quarters are waiting
To welcome old Rosin the Beau (ter.)
When I am dead and laid out on the counter,
A voice you will hear from below,
Singing out brandy and water
To drink to old Rosin the Beau (ter.)
You must get some dozen good fellows,
And stand them all round in a row,
And drink out of half-gallon bottles,
To the name of old Rosin the Beau,” &c.