In the town of Tonbridge in Kent, south of the bridge over the Medway, on the western side of the street, stands (or did recently) a public-house, the sign of which I have long believed to illustrate the passage before us. When first I observed the sign, from forty-five to fifty years ago, and for long afterwards, one side, if not both, presented two grotesque heads, the painting being not modern, so far as my (rather vivid) recollection serves, with the legend "We three Loggerheads be." The sign having been renovated, the old painting is obliterated: but whatever may have replaced it, the old name, the Loggerheads, most probably is still used; and inasmuch as the aspect of the house was venerable when I first remember it, we may, without a violent stretch of imagination, carry back the use of the above-described conceit of the three loggerheads, as an alehouse sign, at least a considerable portion of the period intervening between our time and that of Shakspeare. Whether more examples, besides that at Tonbridge, of this sign may still exist, is unknown, but I do not recollect seeing a second in any part of the kingdom. Possibly others might be discovered, though they cannot be common; and perhaps the suggestion will be admitted, that the above-mentioned little public-house is not altogether unworthy of consideration, as assisting, in however slight a degree, in illustrating the language of our great national dramatist.
ARTHUR HUSSEY.
Rottingdean.
[1] [Had our correspondent had the opportunity of consulting Malone's own edition, he would have found that after what is here quoted Malone proceeds: "I believe Shakspeare had in his thoughts a common sign, in which two wooden heads are exhibited, with the inscription under it, 'We three Loggerheads be:' the spectator or reader is supposed to make the third." Our correspondent therefore agrees with Malone, and confirms his note.]
COWLEY'S PROSE WORKS.
As Cowley's name has been brought before the public in the disquisition on his monument by MR. H. CAMPKIN ("N. & Q." Vol. v., pp. 267-8.), may I be allowed, now that his character and merits are revived, to direct attention to his prose works in preference to his poetical; although, as MR. CAMPKIN remarks, "his beautiful lyrics in praise of a country life will always keep his name before us."
Miss Mitford, in her recent publication, Recollections of a Literary Life, has done good service to Cowley's character, and her criticisms will doubtless direct attention, as they have done to the septuagenarian who is now writing, to a re-perusal of his prose works. With my school-fellow Charles Lamb, and his sister, Cowley's prose essays were always especial favourites, and were esteemed by them as some of the best specimens of the "well of English undefiled." A tyro in literature could not, I am persuaded, form a better style of composition, than by taking Cowley's prose essays for his model. I consider the prose writings both of Cowley and Dryden master-pieces. "Praised in his day as a great poet, the head of the school of poets called metaphysical, Cowley will now be chiefly known," says Miss Mitford, "by those prose essays, all too short and all too few, which, whether for thought or for expression, have rarely been excelled by any writer in any language. They are eminently distinguished for the grace, the finish, and the clearness which his verse too often wants." "His thoughts," also says Dr. Johnson, "are natural; and his style has a smooth and placid equability, which has never yet obtained its due commendation."
As the columns of "N. & Q." do not admit of long quotations, I would respectfully direct attention to the beautiful essays, "Of Obscurity," "The Garden," "Of Solitude," and "Of Liberty." Southey and Cobbett, as writers of pure English, are, in my opinion, the only two modern authors who can be compared with Cowley.
J. M. G.
Worcester.