In Dudley, Lord North’s ‘Forest of Varieties,’ p. 175, occur the following lines:
‘Jockey and his horse were by their masters sent,
To put in for the bell—
They are to run, and cannot miss the bell.’
A sign which has disappeared and left no trace was the bas-relief of a Bible and Crown, formerly at the corner of Little Distaff (now Distaff) Lane, within the precincts of St. Paul’s; it disappeared some time after the year 1856. Larwood thinks that this sign came into fashion among the Royalists during the political troubles of Charles I.’s reign. A more probable suggestion seems to be, that forming part of the arms of Oxford University, it indicated one of the presses licensed to sell the Authorized Edition of the Bible. A wooden carving of a Bible and Crown, painted and gilt, was, till 1853, let into the string course above a window of the house of Messrs. Rivington and Co., in Paternoster Row. It then moved westward to Waterloo Place, and is now in the possession of Messrs. Longmans, whose sign was the Ship and Black Swan, and who have absorbed the older firm. Messrs. Rivington were originally established in St. Paul’s Churchyard in the year 1711, when, on the death of Richard Chiswell the elder, his house and business passed into their hands. He has been called the ‘metropolitan bookseller of England,’ and published many important works, of which a list is given in the Gentleman’s Magazine. His sign—the Rose and Crown—was changed by Charles Rivington, his successor, into the Bible and Crown. Messrs. Longmans date, it is said, from 1725.
On a level with the fourth-floor windows of a shop at the corner of Canon Alley and No. 63, St. Paul’s Churchyard, is a sculptured sign of the Prince of Wales’s feathers, with the motto ‘Ich Dien,’ and date 1670; being a handsome work of art, we give it as an illustration. The property belonged to the Dean and Chapter, but is now vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. An advertisement in the Kingdom’s Intelligencer, No. 11, March 10, 1661-2, shows that there was a Feathers Tavern in St. Paul’s Churchyard. This, however, was at the west end; a seventeenth-century trade-token was issued from it. The heraldic origin of the feather badge, and its connection with Edward the Black Prince, has been fully traced by various authorities; the motto is usually pronounced to be low German, or old Flemish, as well as the word ‘Houmout,’ meaning high mood or courage, which the Prince also wrote in a letter. His crest or badge was sometimes three feathers, sometimes one, argent. They are placed separately on his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. An ostrich feather was one of the badges of King Edward III., and John of Gaunt used three or one. The old belief—that this crest was won by Edward the Black Prince from the blind King John of Bohemia, at the battle of Cressy, is contradicted by modern research; for King John’s crest was not a plume of ostrich feathers, but a vulture’s wing expanded. It has been thought probable that the Prince assumed it out of deference to his mother, Queen Philippa of Hainault.
The carved sign of a Helmet was to be seen, not long since, over the entrance to Helmet Court, which was on the south side of London Wall, between Basinghall and Coleman Streets, and close to the Armourers’ and Braziers’ Hall, in whose arms the helmet is a charge. The date on it was 1686, with initials h m. In the seventeenth century there was a Helmet Inn not far off. Messrs. Larwood and Hotten quote lines from Ned Ward, who says that the trainbands, after practising in Moorfields, long
‘For Beer from the Helmet in Bishopsgate,
And why from the Helmet? Because that sign
Makes the liquor as welcome t’ a soldier as wine.’
In 1550, a helmet was the sign of Humphrey Joy, bookseller in St. Paul’s Churchyard.
On each side of the spot where Bishopsgate once stood, are stone bas-reliefs of mitres, with inscriptions recording the fact. I learn that the gate was sold by the Commissioner of City Lands, on Wednesday, December 10, 1760, for immediate demolition. It had been rebuilt in 1731, at the expense of the City; when almost finished, the arch fell down, but luckily no one was hurt. The rooms in the ancient gatehouse were appropriated to one of the Lord Mayor’s carvers; he afterwards had a money allowance in lieu thereof.