Spiller’s Head was the sign of an inn in Clare Market, where one of the most famous tavern clubs was held. This meeting of artists, wits, humorists, and actors originated with the performances at Lincoln’s Inn, about the year 1697. They counted many men of note amongst their members. Colley Cibber was one of the founders, and their best president, not even excepting Tom d’Urfey. James Spiller, it should be stated, was a celebrated actor circa 1700. His greatest character was “Mat o’ the Mint,” in the Beggar’s Opera. He was an immense favourite with the butchers of Clare Market, one of whom was so charmed with his performances, that he took down his sign of the Bull and Butcher, and put up Spiller’s Head. At Spiller’s death, (Feb. 7, 1729,) the following elegiac verse was made by one of the butchers in that locality:—
“Down with your marrow-bones and cleavers all,
And on your marrow-bones ye butchers fall!
For prayers from you who never pray’d before,
[85] Perhaps poor Jimmie may to life restore.
‘What have we done?’ the wretched bailiffs cry,
‘That th’ only man by whom we lived should die!’
Enraged they gnaw their wax and tear their writs,
While butchers’ wives fall in hysteric fits;
For, sure as they’re alive, poor Spiller’s dead.
But, thanks to Jack Legar! we’ve got his head.
He was an inoffensive, merry fellow,
When sober, hipp’d, blythe as a bird when mellow.”
A ticket for one of his benefit representations, engraved by Hogarth, is still a morceau recherché amongst print collectors, as much as £12 having been paid for one. “Spiller’s Life and Jests” is the title of a little book published at that time.
Garrick’s Head was set up as a sign in his lifetime, and in 1768 it hung at the door of W. Griffiths, a bookseller of Catherine Street, Strand. It is still common in the neighbourhood of theatres. There is one in Leman Street, Whitechapel, not far from the place of his first successes, where, in 1742, he played at the theatre in Goodman’s Fields, and “the town ran horn-mad after him,” so that there were “a dozen dukes of a night at Goodman’s Fields sometimes.”[104]
Roxellana was, in the seventeenth century, the sign of Thomas Lacy, of Cateaton Street, (now Gresham Street,) City. It was the name of the principal female character in “The Siege of Rhodes,” and was originally the favourite part of the handsome Elizabeth Davenport, whose sham marriage to the Earl of Oxford, (who deceived her by disguising a trumpeter of his troop as a priest,) is told in De Grammont’s Memoirs. After she had found out the Earl’s deception, she continued under his protection, and is occasionally mentioned, (always under the name of Roxellana,) with a few words of encomium on her good looks by that entertaining gossip, Pepys.
Formerly there was a sign of Joey Grimaldi at a public-house nearly opposite Sadler’s Wells Theatre; not only had it the name, but addidit vultum verbis, in the shape of a clown with a goose under his arm, and a string of sausages issuing from his pocket. Joey’s name being less familiar to the public of the present day, the house is now called the Clown. This, we think, is the last instance of an actor being elevated to signboard honours.
[Abel Drugger] is one of the dramatis personæ in Ben Jonson’s comedy of the Alchymist, and from the character given him by his friend Captain Face, we get some curious information concerning the mysteries of the tobacco trade of that day:—
“This is my friend Abel, an honest fellow,
He lets me have good tobacco, and he does not
Sophisticate it with sack lees or oil,
Nor washes it with muscadel and grains,
Nor buries it in gravel underground,
Wrapp’d up in greasy leather or p—— clouts,
But keeps it in fine lily pots, that open’d
Smell like conserve of roses, or French beans.
He has his maple block, his silver tongs,
Winchester pipes, and fire of juniper.
A neat, spruce, honest fellow, and no goldsmith.”
This worthy was, in the end of the last century, the sign of Peter Cockburn, a tobacconist in Fenchurch Street, formerly shopman at the Sir Roger de Coverley, as he informs the public on his tobacco paper.[105] According to the custom of the times, and one which has yet lingered in old-fashioned neighbourhoods, this wrapper is adorned with some curious rhymes:—
“At Drugger’s Head, without a puff,
You’ll ever find the best of snuff,
Believe me, I’m not joking;
Tobacco, too, of every kind,
The very best you’ll always find,
For chewing or for smoaking.
Tho’ Abel, when the Humour’s in,
At Drury Lane to make you grin,
May sometimes take his station;
At number Hundred-Forty-Six,
In Fenchurch Street he now does fix
His present Habitation.
His best respects he therefore sends,
And thus acquaints his generous Friends,
From Limehouse up to Holborn,
That his rare snuffs are sold by none,
Except in Fenchurch Street alone,
And there by Peter Cockburn.”