Among heraldic signs referring to towns are the Bible and Three Crowns, the coat of arms of Oxford, which was not uncommon with the booksellers in former times. To one of them, probably, belonged the carved stone specimen walled up in a house at the corner of Little Distaff Lane and St Paul’s Churchyard. Such a sign is also mentioned in a rather curious advertisement in the Postboy, September 27, 1711:—
“THIS IS to give notice That ten Shillings over and above the Market price will be given for the Ticket in the £1,500,000 Lottery, No. 132, by Nath. Cliff at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside.”
The Spectator in his 191st number took occasion from this advertisement to write a very amusing paper on the various lottery superstitions with regard to numbers.
There is also an Oxford Arms Inn in Warwick Lane, Newgate Street; a fine, old, galleried inn, with exterior staircases leading to the bed-rooms. This was already a carriers’ inn before the fire, as appears from the following advertisement:—
“THESE ARE to give notice that Edward Barlet, Oxford Carrier, hath removed his Inn in London from the Swan at Holborn Bridge, to the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, where he did inne before the fire. His coaches and waggons going forth on their usual days, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. He hath also a hearse with all things convenient to carry a corps to any part of England.”[157]
The Buck in the Park, Curzon Street, Derby, is the vernacular rendering of the arms of that town, which are—a hart cumbant on a mount, in a park paled, all proper. The Three Legs was the sign of a bookseller named Thomas Cockerill, over against Grocer’s Hall, in the Poultry, about 1700. Sometimes his house is designated on his publications as the Three Legs and Bible. These three legs were the Manx arms. It is still a not uncommon alehouse sign. There is one, for instance, in Call Lane, Leeds, which is known to the lower classes under the jocular denomination of “the kettle with three spouts.”
County arms also are sometimes represented on the signboards; as the Fifteen Balls, (which refer to the Cornish arms, fifteen roundles arranged in triangular form) at Union Street, Bodmin, Cornwall; One and All, the motto of the county of Cornwall, occurs at Cheapside, St Heliers, Jersey; and in Market Jew Street, Penzance. This motto has, besides the advantage of being a hearty appeal to all the thirsty sons of Bacchus, and will call to the mind of a thoughtful toper, the relative position of one and many, or all, as explained by the al-fresco artists, who decorate the pavement in Piccadilly—“Many can help one, one cannot help many.” The Staffordshire Knot is common in the pottery districts; besides these almost every county is represented by its own arms, such as the Northumberland Arms, &c., but about these nothing need be said.
The Three Balls of the pawnbrokers are taken from the lower part of the coat of arms of the Dukes of Medici, from whose states, and from Lombardy, nearly all the early bankers came. These capitalists also advanced money on valuable goods, and hence gradually became pawnbrokers. The arms of the Medici family were five bezants azure, whence the balls formerly were blue, and only within the last half century have assumed a golden exterior, evidently to gild the pill for those who have dealings with “my uncle;” as for the position in which they are placed, the popular explanation is that there are two chances to one that whatever is brought there will not be redeemed.
The Lion and Castle, of which there are a few instances, (Cherry Garden Stairs, Rotherhithe, for example,) need not be derived from royal marriage alliances with Spain, as it may simply have been borrowed from the brand of the Spanish arms on the sherry casks, and have been put up by the landlord to indicate the sale of genuine Spanish wines, such as sack, canary, mountain.
The Flower de Luce was a frequent English sign in old times, either taken from the quartering of the French arms with the English, or set up as a compliment to private families who bear this charge in their arms or as crest. The preface of “Edyth, the lying widow,” ends with these words:—